Moviola > Films > The White Countess

The White Countess   (PG)   138 mins

Ismail Merchant died in May last year, so this is his last collaboration with James Ivory.  Between them they brought us a string of terrific films including Room with a View, Howard’s End and The Remains of the Day.  Like Remains of the Day, this one is based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, who also wrote the screenplay.  Set in Shanghai, beginning in 1936, it tells the story of Todd Jackson (Ralph Fiennes), an American ex-diplomat once considered the great hope of the League of Nations.  Blinded in a traumatic accident, he has turned his back on politics, and now dreams of creating his own “perfect bar” where he can shut out the world outside.    In one of the disreputable clubs he frequents, he is befriended by Sofia (Natasha Richardson), an exiled Russian countess who works as a taxi dancer to support her young daughter and a clutch of ungrateful in-laws (two of whom are beautifully played by Vanessa and Lynne Redgrave).  While she is out earning a precarious living for them all, they sit at home bitching about her morals and dreaming of regaining their social status by escaping to Hong Kong.  After a win at the races, Jackson gets his bar and instals Sofia as its centrepiece.  But what is his enigmatic Japanese friend Mr Matsuda doing in Shanghai?And for how long can Jackson remain blind to the events in the world outside?  As you would expect from Merchant-Ivory, this is a long, slow film, but beautifully designed and full of atmosphere.

“Poignant, patient, moving.”  Roger Ebert

www.sonypictures.com/classics/whitecountess

Last modified: 06-Mar-2009

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