Providence

This is one of the strangest movies I know. French intellectual aesthete meets contemporary British playwright - this should be the title of Providence. When two completely different cultures meet for a common project, the risk of failure is enormous. But in this case something interestingly and uniquely hilarious was created. Providence is a feverish dream that was successfully created for the screen.

The dream sequences of an old, dying writer, played by John Gielgud are absurd in a very British way. John Gielguds's upper class "king's English" voice-over adds effectively to its strangeness. As usual in contemporary British plays, sex and bowel movements are of the utmost importance . no, the script as a whole is neither very original nor particularly funny. I liked the incongruous, illogical situations though. Every now and then, in the most impossible situations, a strange, sickly looking football player (he seems to have fallen off Monty Python's Flying Circus) jogs limply past.

Director Alain Resnais is responsible for the dreamscapes, and they make Providence worth watching. Real settings are artfully distorted into haunting, surreal spatial sequences. Foreground and background, light and darkness, different textures and beautiful color arrangements are expertly arranged into a world of its own that is never too far from reality. One is sometimes reminded of Magritte's surrealistic paintings. Strange sounds add to the almost psychedelic effect the dream scenes have.

The acting is remarkable, especially Dirk Bogarde as the writer's slick, cynical «dream son» gives an outstanding performance.

A dying artist, beautifully acted by Fainsilber, struggles to complete one last book before he dies - the plot of which becomes confused with his own troubled life as he thinks and dreams his way through the night. This was the first film in English for master film-maker Alain Resnais, and also happens to be one of his best. Using a variety of surreal cinematic techniques, Resnais is able to capture the characters of everyone in the film perfectly and his style - combined with excellent scripting - makes for an experience that will not be forgotten. Although the first half of the film will probably be spent in confusion, before you actually realise what is going on - I had to see this film several times before I was satisfied - it is worth struggling to understand this complex and thoroughly entertaining artistic movie.

Don't be put off by what people (including lovers of the film) say about its initially being confusing. Even the first time through, it is madly enjoyable second by second, and it needn't take long to figure out what is going on. In fact, once you know that we are into a dying man's dreams/fantasies/wishes regarding his own family, you have all you need to make sense of virtually everything straight off. By the end, everything has locked into place in a most satisfying way. The contrast between the man's dreams about his family and what you see when they appear in person near the end is one of the most delicious things in the whole of art.

In Providence, his only film in English Language, Resnais again approaches the most recurrent subject in his career: the memory. Here, he explores how one's feelings can affect it: the life of the writer reflects directly on his view of his son and the wife of this one, and their respective (supposed) lovers, which actually are a representation of the writer's alienation, guilt and self-depreciation. It shows how memory can be more painful than any pain of the flesh, and even worse than reality itself. Like everything i've seen from Resnais so far (Night and Fog, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Mon Oncle D'Amérique and one of my favorite films, Last Year in Marienbad), this one is a very deep and original masterpiece.

How often do we awake from our dreams in a sweat, not knowing what is real and what is illusion? Especially if we are feverish, our dreams can turn close friends or family members into ogres and hateful creatures (or possibly werewolves) who are bent on our destruction. Such is the case with novelist Clive Langham (John Gielgud), a dying 78 year-old writer who is working on his final novel in the playfully bizarre 1977 English language film, Providence, by Alain Resnais (Hiroshima Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad, Muriel). The film depicts how physical and mental anguish can distort our view of reality. A poetic screenplay by playwright David Mercer and powerful performances by John Gielgud, Ellen Burstyn, Dirk Bogarde, Elaine Strich, and David Warner provide strong support.

Clive does not go gentle into that good night. During one horrific night, all the pain of his life and disturbing family relationships boil to the surface. In the novel being played out in the author's mind, his family members, sons Claude (Dirk Bogarde) and Kevin (David Warner), and Claude's wife Sonia (Ellen Burstyn), mysteriously become the main protagonists, assuming roles as prosecutors and defendants, feuding spouses, and extra-marital lovers. As Clive goes deeper into the maelstrom, images become more and more hallucinatory. The denouement is witty, baffling, irritating, and then finally transcendent. To say that the ending is a surprise is a major understatement.

Providence may exasperate you but, if you have patience, it can be a richly rewarding experience. As with all thought provoking and multi-layered films, multiple viewing may be required for full appreciation. Providence was voted the greatest film of the '70s by an international jury of critics and, at Telluride, Norman Mailer called it "the greatest film ever made on the creative process".