This is not really an easy film to watch. Time needs to be invested to tune into to what’s happening before your eyes. Andrea Arnold utilises her naturalistic style to tell this classic tale. It is said that the mark of a great film director is that you can watch a random portion of one of their films and know by the style and feel who has directed it. This is certainly true here as you can see the technique she’s honed making Wasp, Red Road and Fish Tank.
In making the character Heathcliffe black as well has given something new to this well-known story of obsessional love and the filthiest of tempers. This is partially explained by Heathcliffe’s ethnicity and the reaction and racism to this that shapes his character. These reasons, as well as a bleak and inhospitable landscape, would make most people look at life in the least optimistic of ways.
His is the tale of an immigrant taken in by one who shows him kindness, but who insists on Heathcliffe’s baptism, which he resists. As is a recurrent theme the benefactor dies leaving Heathcliffe adrift and at the mercies of those less tolerant people who inherited the house. This gives Heathcliffe and entrepreneurial spirit, which enables him to succeed in the future.
I love the way Arnold as well portrayed the young Heathcliffe and Cathy. They show their touching playfulness by playing and rolling together in the mud and scratching their names on the walls. When they didn’t have a care in the world they were able to express their true emotions to one another before the realities of the grown up world impinged on them.
In contrast to most costume dramas Arnold’s vision has little or no music; there are no great speeches in the film. There is just an intensity of character and the actions of the characters being portrayed in a naturalistic manner. We are not given the normal clues of how we should feel about the events; we have to work it out for ourselves, which makes the rewards greater at the end of it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment