Review of The White Countess (2005) by Markb. — 07 Feb 2006

Before a preview of Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino once asked an audience who among them had seen and liked the Ismail Merchant-James Ivory production The Remains of the Day, and then famously (or infamously) invited all those who responded affirmatively to get lost immediately.

In addition to revealing his own tastes (as if you couldn't have guessed) Tarantino was strongly suggesting that those who loved one film will hate the other. Well, I'm a big fan of both The Remains of the Day AND Pulp Fiction, and as such I think Tarantino's blanket dismissal by implication of the entire Merchant-Ivory catalog displays as narrowminded and simplistic a view as that expressed by those who refuse to even consider watching Switchblade Sisters, Master of the Flying Guillotine or any of the other genre and/or exploitation films QT salivates over.

Sadly, though, producer Merchant's and director Ivory's final effort (Merchant died last year) gives Tarantino's generalizations about their work undue credence; it's good-looking but overlong, unfocused, diffuse and a far cry from the glory days of Remains, A Room With a View and Howards End.

Like Remains (based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote this film's screenplay), The White Countess deals with the gathering forces that would lead to World War II (Remains poignantly concerned itself with the Nazi influence; Countess with the Japanese presence in China).

..and, more specifically, with the prickly, would-be romance between its male and female leads that's continually thwarted both by historical obstacles and by the man's own reticence. Ralph Fiennes plays a blind ex-diplomat (Ooooh! Obvious symbolism, kids!) who enters into a business relationship with an impoverished Russian countess (Natasha Richardson); both go in on an elaborate nightclub.

Movies about the ramblings of self-pitying bar owners are risky propositions: when done right you get Casablanca, when less so, the result is a film like this that eventuaslly becomes as tedious as listening to a drunk for several hours.

The poorly timed, staged and edited final half hour, when the shoe drops and the invaders attack, doesn't help matters much; if there's a director you DON'T want to entrust action sequences to, it's Ivory! At the end of the day, I suppose there are far worse things you could be doing with your moviegoing time than watch the almost unbearably beautiful Richardson in a variety of clingy evening gowns, even if both she and Fiennes are noticeably stuggling with their accents while she's wearing them.

On the other hand, Vanessa Redgrave (Natasha's real-life mom) and Lynn Redgrave (her aunt) as ungrateful family members represent stunt casting at its least effective; I hope they enjoyed the experience of filming together but on this evidence would suggest that future family reunions stay out of camera range.