Oscar and Lucinda

This is one of my favorite movies. Regular readers of my comments will wonder why I elevate it to my "must see" category

Part of the reason I want you to see it is because of how well it pairs with Cate's masterpiece, "Heaven." Now, that film can stand on its own as a transcendent cinematic experience. It easily shifts us from a "real" world into one more magical and over the course of the experience that distance increases.

It took Kieslowski's notion of cinematic distance and added the journey to that distance. It is one of the most important successful experiments in cinema and it owes much to the collaboration of Cate.

That reflects on this. A smaller project. A less ambitious director, but still with an affecting emotional directness. A pre-existing story that has literary strengths that become cinematic defects. And yet there is that same collaboration with the creating of an alternative magical reality fueled by obsession.

There is that same smooth slide from here to there. There is that same equating of wilderness (a Herzogian river) to the internal landscape. The same trigger of the gamble.

And also, there is the remarkable glass chapel. One shot has it moving down the river, but it seems as if it is floating through the trees. You are dead if that does not stick with you for years.

Alas, not much is made of a central image in the book — the tensed glass tears that explode when gently traced at their origin.

The major flaw is Fiennes. Both brothers have a sort of forehead acting style which unravels much of the subtleties of Cate's acting by breathing. But she is so breathtaking an actress in both these films, even though she is only the referent in the last part of this.

See the two films in one night. Any order.

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

England, mid-19th century. Lucinda is a wealthy Australian heiress with a love of glass, resulting in her buying a glass factory. Oscar is a young Anglican priest. Both have a gambling addiction, though Oscar has been very successful with this pastime. Lucinda builds a church made entirely of glass and transports it to Australia. On the ship she meets Oscar, setting off a dramatic chain of events.

Good, but not great. Had massive potential - it was compelling viewing for the first 60% or so of the movie. But then it takes a rather random turn, a turn which should have just been a minor detour but becomes the ultimate plot line.

Great performance from Ralph Fiennes and a good one from Cate Blanchett. Good support from Ciaran Hinds.

I wandered by it in the video-store a couple times before deciding to rent it. After seeing it, I wondered why this wonderful film wasn't in more places.

Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett are dazzling in their roles, as a aqua-phobic priest and a defiant glassworks business woman. The scenes with them together are simple radiant.

The church floating scenes are also brilliantly audacious and thrilling.

One of the ten best of 1997.

This beautifully made romance has an odd appeal. I only ranked it a seven, because it has some flaws - the complicated story is is not rendered clearly in all its details (I could not figure out what was going on with the Reverend Haslitt, for example) and the style tends towards a gothic/romantic manneredness in places.

All the same, I recommend it for anyone who can tolerate the genre. I love these two actors, Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett. They and the supporting cast, including the bit parts, fill out their roles with life, warmth and poignancy. There are numerous evocative touches in the details of the production - the mysterious moving church in the opening scene, for example, the music, the costumes, and the sets. The story is unique, original, character-based, and there are some unexpected flashes of insight into human nature.

The marketing for this film in America was absurd when compared to the real thing. I had seen the trailers, and as I am intrigued by anything with Ralph Fiennes, I took notice. However, the preview stressed an gambling-chance-obsessive fun aspect that I found less than compelling. Had the true soul and purpose of the movie come through in that two minute-long advert, I would have been hooked. As it was, I waited until it came out on video.

My expectations, coloured by this misleading trailer, were well exceeded. The film had to do with love and gambling, yes, but there were elements of faith, guilt, family, destiny and survival that were wholly ignored in the press. Ralph Fiennes is marvellous as a disheveled and uncertain faithful, with a boyish charm and utter purity that is difficult to portray without seeming slow-witted or unlikeable. Cate Blanchett, who has received a tremendous amount of notice for her recent portrayal of Elizabeth, is a fountain of strength, charm, capricious abandon, intelligence and sensuality. Like her minor role in _Paradise Road_, she steals scenes and breaks hearts with an undeniable charisma and resolve.

Set in Australia, the story is surprising, and ultimately shocking in its constrast of the ideal and the real. I was moved, and thoroughly impressed with this movie. This is a romance for those who are tired of the predictable, the trite and the overworked. The scenery is beautiful, and the direction is both soft and unflinching. A wonderful achievement.

--Salome