S-l--o---w, a very long 107 minutes!
Written: Sep 02 '00 (Updated Sep 02 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: quiet (nearly inaudible) heroism of unusual couple, fine performances and cinematography
Cons: no conflict, not much happens
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| Stephen_Murray's Full Review: Celeste |
Raised as a child on Bergman and Antonioni films, I am usually able to appreciate slow, plotless, beautifully-filmed movies. Plus I am having my own private "New German" film festival, and not much happens in most of these films. Moreover, I am an ardent Proustophile. It is hard to imagine many people more poised to be sympathetic to such a film. Nevertheless, I found it hard to sit still and watch Percy Adlon's first film (from 1981, before he discovered Marianne Sagerbrecht and introduced her to the world in "Sugarbabies," "Baghdad Cafe", and "Rosalie Goes Shopping," a trio of films that is the highpoint of both their careers).
Based on the memoir Celèste Albaret of being housekeeper (apartment-keeper?) to Marcel Proust during the last nine years of his life, this is about as character-driven (rather than plot-driven) a work as there is. Watching Celèste Albaret wait for the bell that tells her to take the coffee and boiled milk into the cork-lined bedchamber will do as a substitute for watching paint dry. (Indeed, there are some people's paint, for instance Wayne Thiebaud’s recent work, that I'd rather watch dry). Watching "Monsieur" die is also painful. It is again the heroic artist struggling to get it all down, to finish his vast work who is the subject of the film (as in "Time regained" and "110 Boulevard Haussman," the last being in my opinion the best Proust film — with Alan Bates playing Proust).
Adlon attempted to emulate involuntary memories, except that they are Celèste’s rather than Marcel’s. In all but one case they are from her nine years of service to this very finicky master (the other provides a glimpse of the farm with rock walls where she grew up, accompanying her telling Proust about it, i.e., it is not an involuntary flash from the past). Mostly darkly, the film is beautifully photographed, not entirely but mostly of interiors.
Little insight is provided into what Celèste felt, other than devotion. Beginning as a cook and maid by her tact and sympathy she becomes a combination of secretary, mother, and to some degree confidante of the sickly author. It is she who begins to paste together the scraps of paper on which he writes during the night into "accordions" so that they are in the right order for the typist (not that they look easily legible!)
In the film Celèste has no other life than service to the whimsical genius. He treats her well and, given his generosity, presumably provided for her in his will, but other than writing the memoir on which the film is based, the viewer of the film has no idea what became of her after the nine years of this mission (and practically none of her earlier life). In the lead roles, Evat Matties and Jürgen Arndt are totally convincing,
(Plot Summary?)
but nothing happens. OK, that's not quite true. Marcel Proust dies. But that has been imminent from the beginning of the film. He is subsisting on café au lait (with lots of lait). The new servant's responsibilities grow to the point that she is de facto the wife of the invalid, telling those trying to deliver the first postwar (WWI) Prix Goncourt that they have arrived too early for "Monsieur"—at 5 p.m. Can they return at 10 or 11? (Now I've given away the funniest moment in the film, but revealing what has happens is what plot summaries do, right?).
Monsieur says that after he writes "the end," they will travel south (earlier they traveled north to the Normandy coast). But after he writes "the end" he continues to make lengthy changes in the manuscript on his deathbed until the very end, so that Celèste has a final gathering of leaves for one last "accordion." She has certainly learned that writing is hard work, especially for someone who says he has no imagination, so must observe everything very carefully before combining observed elements into À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time).
A final, stray note on language
I find it interesting that none of the four Proust films I know of none were directed by a French director: "Time Regained" is in French, though directed by a Chilean, the directors of "Swann's Way" and "Celèste" are German, and the director of "110 Boulevard Hausmann" is English. Perhaps the French know better than to try to film Proust? (Though I think the Marcel/Albertine relationship is far more obviously filmable than "Time Regained". . .)
I found it very strange to keep hearing "Monsieur" in otherwise German dialogue — not that there is all that much dialogue. I'd estimate that there is dialogue in less than a quarter of the film (see above about paint drying!).
P.S. On "Time Regained," the most recent Proust film, see my epinion at:
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-4CB6-10981636-3973EA8F-prod2
Recommended:
No
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