Dutch filmmaker Peter Delpeut, who inventively embroidered found footage into his own narratives in "Lyrical Nitrate" and "The Forbidden Quest," uses hand-tinted photographs from the late 19th century to evoke a tine and place in "Felice...Felice..." Shot entirely in an Amsterdam studio, the somber romantic drama's rather cold formalism may shut out some fest audiences, but those that stick around long enough for it to kick in on an emotional level will find much to admire. Pic was warmly received as the official opener of this year's Rotterdam Film Festival.
Delpeut's tragic love story about the cultural chasm between East and West was inspired by the pictures taken by turn-of-the-century Japanese photographers Hikoma Uenoand Renjo Shimooka and Western visitors of the time such as Baron von Stilfried and Felice Beato. The latter is the protagonist of this fictionalized "Madame Butterfly" variant; his hopeless quest to reconjure a lost love is narrated via a letter to his brother back in Holland.
Six years after abandoning his bought bride O-Kiku (Kumi Nakamura) in Nagasaki, photographer and explorer Beato (Johan Leysen) returns to Japan and attempts to track the woman, who has retreated further sand further into his memory. Finding their former home empty he continues on to places they once lived in or visited, traveling across a country now increasingly remote and unfathomable to him. The journey is punctuated by encounters with people who knew them, but the reticence and immovability of the Japanese only adds to Felice's frustration.
The restraint and lethargic pacing of Delpeut's direction allow attention to drift to the film's craftsmanship rather than its drama. Working with actors for the first time, Delpeut elicits intense highly focused performances, most notably from solemn lead Leysen, and from Proett and veteran Yoshi Oida ("The Pillow Book") as O-Kiku's troubled father. Similar in some ways to Tran Anh Hung's "The Scent of Green Papaya," which also created an Asian environment in a European studio, the film's artifice is very much part of its spell. Editor Menno Boerema's work is especially fine in giving a non-static life to the subtly colored photographs that trace Felice's journey and link the studio scenes.
-- Variety, February 23 - March 1, 1998
Director: Peter Delpeut
Screenplay: Peter Delpeut
Production Company: Pieter van Huystee Films/Ariel Film
Producers: Pieter van Huystee/Suzanne van Voorst
Line producer: Hetty Krapels
Photography: Walther Vanden Ende
Musical score: Loek Dikker
Editor: Menno Boerema
Art director: Vincent de Pater
Costumes: Jany Temime
CAST
Johan Leysen: Felice Beato
Toshie Ogura: Ume
Rina Yasima: O-Take
Noriko Sasaki: Hana
Kimu Nakamura: O-Kiku
Yoshi Oida: Matsukichi
Noriko Proett: O-Koma
Netherlands, 1:1.66, colour
(Drama, 1998, color, 99 min)
5 reels, Dolby SR
2850 metres, 25 f/p/s
http://www.pvhfilm.nl
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The Pillow Book - movie - part 1 of 11by IslandClips42,179 views
I want to watch this one. ^^
CammyBeoulve 2 years ago