This weekend I saw Eastern Promises and Elizabeth, The Golden Age.
Eastern Promises was beyond violent. I thought I was accustomed to violence on the big screen. WRONG! I have never seen such graphic displays of violence…against men. And a baby came thisclose to being killed but she was saved at the last minute. I am not calling for violence against women in film, TV or any other sort of media BUT it is unrealistic to have no violence against women. I am obliged to mention that a rape involving several of the characters occurred before the actual film took place, but that doesn’t count in my eyes.
The acting was superb as usual with this bunch (Viggo et al.). But the film did play into the whole good girl/bad girl dynamic. Prostitute dies because she’s a prostitute. Blonde, virginal looking woman lives despite hanging out with the Russian mob. And the whole Virgin Birth idea plays out when the blonde gets to raise the dead prostitute’s baby. Oh how I love a happy Hollywood ending.
The audience during this film was oh so pleasant! There was a woman in the front row who kept chatting on her cell phone at top volume. Two other audience members actually got up out of their rows, walked down to her and told her to shut up. This happened two seperate times. Then there were the ladies behind me who cooed loudly whenever the baby was on screen. Like they’ve never seen a baby before.
And speaking of virgins…I saw Elizabeth, The Golden Age. Senior year of high school, I was obsessed with the first movie and Joseph Fiennes. I tortured my college roomates with a poster of Joseph Fiennes from the Elizabeth film, with the word
LOVER in huge capital letters, above or below his face. One of roomates said it bothered her. She later moved out of our room leaving our other roomate and I to our shenanigans.
Not the poster I had, but a pic none the less.
OK OFF TOPIC! I loved everything about this film except the ending which involved another baby. All the reviews said it was over the top, but wasn’t the first one? I also did feel as though the filmakers were trying to show a cautionary tale of what happens when one has too much power. Of course, our heroine does everything right in the end and atones for all of her prior mistakes. Cate Blanchett rocks!
We did have a lovely couple next to us and who spent the whole film mucning loudly on their popcorn. Halfway through the film, I thought about asking if I could have any but I didn’t. Because I’m polite like that.
r Ulrich also shared the panel with Deborah Siegel of Girl with Pen and Pamela Thompson who wrote Every Past Thing (Great video link here too.) It was a great talk that I really appreciated, having been out of academia for awhile. Also, I am reading Siegel’s book Sisterhood Interrupted. Such a resource! I wish I had this when I was writing my MA thesis about women’s history as an academic field and its relationship to women’s studies!
