The Last September
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.30 You Save: $7.68 (51%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $4.68 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Last September
Movie Review: Well Done But Some May Find Slow Moving
Summary: 4 Stars
How well you like this movie will probably depend on how wryly you can view the central group at risk in the film: the prosperous people of English descent, born in Ireland or whose children were born in Ireland circa 1916. I liked the contrast between these English-Irish and the real Irish locals. The central action takes place at one of these English-Irish estates in Ireland, where the privileged inhabitants carry on as usual while Ireland erupts in violence over British rule. The IRA takes fervent action in their region, while these people play lawn tennis, plot marriages and cut flowers. However, a young woman, the niece of the estate owner, becomes involved with both a British soldier and an IRA activist, which brings the two worlds somewhat together. Ultimately, wherever the British move, whether it be Ireland, Africa or India, it is amazing how little they are assimilated into the local culture of those regions. They might as well be in London or Yorkshire and it is only by watching the terrain and the locals that you know that they are not in England. It gradually becomes clear that there will be no place in post WWI Ireland for these people of English descent to fit in any longer. They will be forced to move on. For most of them, this means moving to Canada where they will not be as prosperous or privileged. While this is a good film, it is also much like a drawing room period piece and thus moves rather slowly. Some viewers may find it sluggish but that is also the point of the film. The people at risk are too slow moving as well for the dark events which overtake them and force them out of Ireland. There are also some good DVD interview extras on this disc.Movie Review: A beautiful period piece
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Last September" is beautiful period piece, set in Ireland after the Revolution when the "Anglo-Irish"--or Brits--were hanging on for dear life to the nostalgia of which they were such a part. As "Lois," Keeley Hawes is lovely in the lead; and she is as refreshing and tantalizing as an Irish spring.
Of course, Maggie Smith is her Academy Award-winning self, as terrific in this film as she is in every other movie that she chooses to be a part of. She is a gift, a worldwide treasure. Michael Gambon is brilliant as always too, and he shines brightly in this film.
Exquisitely photographed by Slawomir Idziak, with splendid acting that puts American acting to shame, it is a film to remember. A cinemagraphic work of art, unlike the tripe that Hollywood puts out. In the final analysis, Keeley Hawes controls this film and makes it. What a very lovely woman and seemingly special human being.
Fiona Shaw is splendid as "Marda." And last but not least, Deborah Warner is superb in her directorial debut in films; however, regrettably, it appears that she has not made another film since this one. Its domestic gross was $478,053, which may have been a factor, although it certainly deserved better than this.
Movie Review: The Last September
Summary: 3 Stars
In 1914, the English revoked the "Home Rule Bill", which had been designed to give Ireland a modicum of autonomy. As you might expect., the Irish were not pleased. Various radical and separatist groups were motivated to action, including Sinn Fein ("we ourselves", founded in 1905), a group which is still known today as the political arm of the IRA.The Easter Rebellion, in the spring of 1916, marked the beginning of a new era in Irish-English relations. On the day after Easter, the Republicans claimed various government buildings in Dublin, and declared a provisional government of the new Irish Republic. This didn't sit well with the English, who sent in troops the next day, established martial law, rounded up the insurgents and sent the leaders to the firing squad without even any pre-execution crumpets.
I don't know if they thought that this would strike fear into the hearts of the rebels, and quell the insurgency, but if they thought that they were plumb loco, as we say in Texas. Shooting some Irish patriots is like shooting Jason in those Friday 13th movies. It just makes them madder. Britain's forceful suppression of the revolt actually strengthened the will of the rebel groups.
Sinn Fein was reorganized under Eamon De Valera, and set up an alternate assembly which claimed to be the legitimate ruling body of Ireland. The British and Irish fought for five or six years, and if you have seen the movie Michael Collins, with Liam Neeson, you're probably familiar with what happened in that time.
The fighting continued until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. Collins himself was nominated to head up the team which represented the Republicans in the negotiations with Lloyd George. This treaty incorporated 26 of Ireland's 32 counties. I believe you know pretty much what has happened to the other six counties over the years. Actually, the 26 to the South weren't so tranquil, either, in those days. Even patriotic Irish leaders were split over the proper nature of the Anglo-Irish relationship, and the Free State treaty had opponents from every extreme of the political spectrum.
OK, enough background. The point is that there was a bloc of English-Irish creoles, people of English descent who were born in Ireland or whose children were born in Ireland, and who considered themselves both Irish and good subjects of the Crown. Many of them had gone there originally to be government administrators. When Ireland became a battleground in the teens and twenties, these people found themselves at the September of their era, with the end clearly in sight.
They were not able to continue in their former glory, and they had no viable alliances to forge a new life. Irish Republicans certainly didn't want them in the new free Ireland, and yet their divided loyalty made them suspect by the British as well.
So they wondered desperately what to do, tried to stay alive, and cried a lot as they planned to leave their great estates and move to two-room flats in Toronto.
This movie chronicles the lives of those people, the Anglo-Irish, in that time, the 1920's.
Needless to say, for the purpose of dramatic contrast, the lovely young Anglo-Irish daughter is flirting with a British soldier (who is unacceptable to her family because of his social status), and an Irish radical (who is a violent outlaw, and therefore even more unacceptable). Her relationships with the two men leave her walking a dangerous tightrope in a netless society.
The movie is marked by beautiful cinematography. You may not have heard of Slavomir Idziak, but he was Kieslowski's cinematographer, and he's in his element here, working with a director who idolizes Kieslowski, and a composer who scored many of Kieslowski's films. If you had told me, "Oh, yeah, it's a rare English language film from Kieslowski", I would have believed you until I looked at the 1999 date. (Kieslowski died a few years ago).
Oh, well, I guess you can already figure whether you'd like it or not. I have to say that I did not. I found it too middle brow and historical-romance-novelish to be a great movie, and too damned slow and boring to be a good entertainment. I thought it was pretty much of a stuffy snoozefest with some very strong atmospheric touches.
Keeley Hawes was topless during her rendezvous with the Irish Republican. These are taken from VHS.The love scene in this movie was done quite well, too well to rely on VHS images. Hawes was afraid of the guy, somewhat repulsed by him, but attracted to him as well, and the scene was charged with a subtle erotica.
Movie Review: The Ascendancy descends
Summary: 3 Stars
Although the British have famously enjoyed an eight-hundred year presence in Ireland, in the early twentieth century the feudal British-Irish lost land, home and position as the wave proclaiming the Republic of Ireland swept over and under them. Elizabeth Bowen's 1928 novel profiling the demise of Ireland's Ascendancy, caught the attention of producer Neil Jordan, director Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw, who plays Marda Norton in the film The Last September. First released in Ireland in early 1999, the movie is rarely found on rental shelves, nine years later. Along with Ms. Shaw, the stellar cast includes England's Maggie Smith (Lady Naylor), Keeley Hawes (Lois Farquar), Michael Gambon (Sir Richard Naylor), Jane Birkin (Francie Montmorency), and Lambert Wilson (Hugo Montmorency).
Guesting at the Naylor's Cork home of Danielstown is a proper stiff-upper lip crowd who act British, but claim to be Irish. They seem oblivious to the mercurial republican violence swirling in the background. An IRA man kills a Black and Tan with barely a raised eyebrow from the Naylors and houseguests, one of whom is niece Lois, marvelously played by Hawes. The explosive violence smoldering in the IRA killer, played by Gary Lydon, arouses her and she initiates a tryst with him. "Oh, it was you that killed the Black and Tan, wasn't it?" she coyly inquires. A tragic British soldier (David Tennant) fawns over Lois and she encourages his entreaties by not discouraging them. When told by Lady Myra (Maggie Smith) that Lois will never be his, the soldier inquires why not. She replies, "You don't have any money, do you?"
Marda Norton (Fiona Shaw) dishes up considerable empathy for Lois's burgeoning sexuality and independence. "You so remind me of myself when I was young," she muses. Marda is camped at the Naylors Big House to find out if the dormant flame between her and the married Hugo Montmorency might be rekindled before she accepts a second-best marriage proposal. A "vamp" she calls herself.
The Last September remains fairly true to Bowen's work, but the novel's sense of impending doom gets somewhat lost in the film. Give cinematographer Slawomir Idziak high marks for fine framing of the Irish countryside.
Movie Review: The end of something
Summary: 3 Stars
The fine stage director Deborah Warner chose for her first (and so far only) major film to adapt Elizabeth Bowen's brilliant 1929 novel THE LAST SEPTEMBER, an account of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy frittering away their time with tennis parties and flirtations just after the First World War while the Irish Revolutionary War flared around them. Warner assembled a magnificent cast, with Michael Gambon and Maggie Smith as the assured and controlling Sir Richard and Lady Myra Naylor, the charming Keely Hawes as their lovely ward Lois, David Tennant as her awkward smitten middle-class suitor Gerald (an officer in the Britsh police army during the Irish Revolution) and Jane Birkin doing splendid work as the silly insecure Francie. And the film looks gorgeous, with its beautiful-shabby country house interiors in pinks and browns contrasting with the rich leafy greens of the countryside. But the screenwriter, the novelist John Banville, seems to have thought that Bowen's ironic portrait of emotional violence stifled inside the country manners of the landed gentry (mirroring the political violence outside, only occasionally mentioned in the novel) would not be enough to sustain audiences' interests, and he adds a new wrinkle to Bowen's original scenario of Lois's relationship with Gerald: now Lois is, unbelievably, the carnal partner of the local revolutionary outlaw Gerald hunts. The melodramatic result jars tremendously with Bowen's infinitely subtler vision. Before the revolutionary (Gary Lydon) appears, the film is terrific, like a much more finely nuanced version of THE SHOOTING PARTY; afterwards everything goes astray. With two fine actors vividly miscast: the gifted Fiona Shaw, Warner's frequent artistic collaborator, radiant and warm but much too old to play Marda Nolan; and the magnetic Richard Roxburgh using a very distracting accent in a Byronic turn as Captain Daventry.