Girl With A Pearl Earring

[petronia]

(Given - she says thoughtfully - that I don't actually ship TezuRyo, it'd be a bit silly to call "Here To Stay" for the pairing, wouldn't it? ...Yeah.)

Went to see Girl With A Pearl Earring, which accomplishes the Herculean feat of injecting Vermeer with eroticism - and by this I don't even mean that Vermeer turns out to be Mr. Darcy tromping around all angstily creative and disheveled. XD It's the eroticism of masterful restraint, imagery and narrative both; words unsaid and loaded gestures, none of this silly bodice-ripping melodrama. (Even if there is, technically, a bit of bodice-ripping and a whole lot of repressed desire to do so.) The camera's gaze constantly centres on Scarlet Johanssen, capped with white and shawled head to toe in fresh-faced Dutch Protestant modesty, until a ribbon or a pearl begins to strike the eye as a feast of decadence. And it looks like the paintings. This point cannot be made too much of. If you're a graphic artist or an art history major, you owe it to yourself to go see this film in the theatre (says one who nearly had the wind knocked out of her, when Griet opens the shutters in the studio for the first time and one recognises - not just the room! - but the quality of light in the room...).

Notes on tea-drinking tomorrow, methinks. It's about time for an update on the status quo. XD

Comments

[serendip.livejournal.com]

I've heard that the lighthing is phenomenal. People complain about the plot, but well, they haven't read the book. XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about tracking down the book, see if it's any good. (But I've got this whole big illustrated tome to read on Rembrandt first... XD;;)

The plot was all right. It could've been silly but they played it subtle and realistically-minded.

[serendip.livejournal.com]

It always seemed like the book would make a better movie than a book, and even then, not really plot-heavy. The book is okay, not faboo, knock you over.

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

I thought the book was faboo! Or, more accurately, it catered to my lowbrow tastes. No critters, but massive amounts of UST whilst Girl Discovers Sex Art. The ear-piercing scene, for instance, is even worse in the book than the film--you sit there screaming AUGH, PENETRATION!! and beating your head against the page. Or I did. The book also lets you get much more inside Griet's head, which makes her less of a subject and more of an agent. I thought Johanssen did an excellent performance as far as she could, but short of voiceover there's no way in film to transmit all that internal narration, especially when your character is a maid whose job is to be dutiful and not heard. The novel's a quick read, in any case.

Can't agree more about the lighting in the film--not just that, but the color palette, everything about the cinematography. Really fantastic.