Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 22, No. 36, Ed. 1 Friday, January 20, 2006 Page: 38 of 68
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Of F color
Even with Richardson's radiant acting,
Ivory's swan song is a lacquered dud
SSb jFvT
By Steve Warren Contributing Film Critic
If you think the Kuomintang is something
astronauts drink, you're going to have a hard
time following "The White Countess," director
James Ivory's final film with his late partner,
producer Ismail Merchant.
On the plus side, it involves a bit of
20th-century history that hasn't been
done to death in the movies: the begin-
ning of the second Chinese-Japanese J
War in 1937. But Kazuo Isbiguro's
screenplay assumes viewers will be as
familiar with the background events
as they are with what was happening
simultaneously in Europe: Ishiguro
treats those events with unbecoming
subtlety.
In Shanghai in 1936, we meet
two people just before their lives intersect. Todd
Jackson (Ralph Eiennes) is a blind former
American diplomat who lets a business keep him
on their payroll because they feel sorry for him.
He's admired for having been present at the birth
of the League of Nations, albeit as hardly more
than an observer. What he really wants to do is
open "the bar of my dreams" in Shanghai. A con-
noisseur of nightlife, he knows how he wants to
do it, including hiring women
who have the right balance
between "the erotic and the trag-
ic."
Countess Sofia Belinsky
(Natasha Richardson) is one of
many refugees from the Russian
Revolution who have settled in
China but fallen on hard times. Widowed, she is
the sole support for her Aunt Sara (Vanessa
Redgrave), Uncle Peter (John Wood), mother-in-
law Olga (Lynn Redgrave), sister-in-law
Greshenka (Madeleine Potter) and 10-year-old
daughter Katya (Madeleine Daly), most of
whom are unappreciative. They're embarrassed
because she earns their keep any way she can.
There's a bit of a Cinderella vibe here,
Out on the town one night, Jackson is admon-
ished by a young man from his company (Lee
Pace, who played Calpurnia Addams in "A
Soldier's Girl"), befriended by a mysterious
Japanese man (Hiroyuki Sanada) and finally
saved from being robbed by Sofia. He only has
to hear her voice to know she's the one he wants
for the centerpiece of his bar.
#
PRIVATE DANCER: Sofia (Natasha Richardson) is a Russian countess
reduced to working dance halls to support her disdainful family.
THE WHITE COUNTESS
C+
Director: James Ivory
Cast: Ralph Fiennes,
Natasha Richardson and
Vanessa Redgrave
Opens today at Landmark's Inwood Theatre
2 hr. 18 rnin. PG-13
One year later Jackson has opened the bar,
'The White Countess," and Sofia indeed works
there. But their relationship is strictly business,
and they don't get involved in each other's lives
on the outside. The White Countess has heavy
doors to keep the world out, but Jackson wants
more of a mixed clientele so there will be some
"political tension" inside. What he really needs is
Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli — to be sure no one
misses the parallels to "Cabaret."
As the Japanese invasion
becomes imminent, people start
scrambling to get out of
Shanghai. The Belinskys have a
chance to go to Hong Kong —
for a price. In the film's final half-
hour, we finally get some specta-
cle and pyrotechnics as the Japanese attack and
the population tries to evacuate the city. It may be
too little too late for those viewers who have
been bored or confused for the first 105 minutes.
Like most of Ivory's films, "The White
Countess' ' is slow but not everyone's idea of dull.
It's not in a league with his best work but far
from his worst. Cinematographer Christopher
Doyle is competent but not spectacularly good as
in his films with Wong Kar-wai. The varied
music in the bars is an interesting mix of
American jazz and swing, Russian folk songs
and American pop sung in Chinese.
The acting is fine, with Richardson especial-
ly radiant, but the film too rarely catches fire. You
might say the problem is "The White Countess"
is too beige.
IVORY SAYS STRESS KILLED MERCHANT
After a 44-year partnership that produced "A Room with a
View," "Maurice" and other fastidiously costumed and decorat-
ed fiims, the team of director James Ivory and producer Ismail
Merchant, pictured, was broken up by death. Merchant died
last May, during post-production on "The White Countess." He
was 68. While Ivory delivers the project to movie screens with-
out his partner, the director blames Merchant's death on stress
ulcers, according to a recent interview with ContactMusic.com
Ivory said that Merchant's stress level peaked when
investors refused to sign appropriate papers for the
project, and that was what ultimately killed
him.
"it was a horrible strain on Ismail, that's
for sure. And then he broke his ankle. Then
he had a bleeding ulcer, which he'd suf-
fered from before," Ivory said.
38 I dallasvoice.com I 01.20.06
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Vercher, Dennis. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 22, No. 36, Ed. 1 Friday, January 20, 2006, newspaper, January 20, 2006; Dallas, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth238892/m1/38/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.