Till Human Voices Wake Us (2002):

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" - by T.S. Eliot

In order to honor his father's last request, a young psychiatrist takes his father's body to be buried in the small Australian town where he grew up.  While he is there, he encounters and saves the life of a mysterious woman who has lost her memory. Meanwhile, as happens to so many of us in similar circumstances, everyone and everything in his small town cause him to relive some memories about his first sweetheart. The past and present stories advance in parallel, each of them moving in chronological order, each of them driven by something hidden from the audience. As we follow the childhood story, we can see that the two likeable adolescents are deeply and innocently in love, and we wonder what ever happened to that beautiful love. In the adult story, we want to know the identity of the strange woman. We suspect strongly that the two stories may be closely related, and that the girl in the past may be the same person as the unidentified woman, but we can't see exactly how it will play out.

For about 30 minutes, I was completely enthralled by this movie: the music, the photography, the mysteries, and the understated acting were all blended perfectly to hold a consistent tone. That particular tone was a bit dreary and morose for my usual taste, and the presentation was a bit effete and lofty, but the story had enough mystery to pull me in.

And then it failed me. It was obvious enough that the two women were the same, and certain other details were also obvious (e.g., so many different references to drowning, including the film's title), so the film needed to derive its power not from what it revealed, but from how it revealed those things. Sadly, it failed. About 70 minutes into the film, I caught myself shouting at the screen, "Will you get on with it?" The film just didn't have enough exposition for its 100 minutes of running time, so it got stuck into a stasis mode where it simply lingered upon the psychiatrist's not-quite-imminent realization of what was by then completely obvious. The pace of the film didn't just slow down. It literally stopped completely. Complete conversations from the childhood scenes were repeated in the adult scenes. A long word association game was replicated, in which the adult woman gives the same creative and quick-witted responses as her childhood alter ego. A VERY long word game.

Is it because this kind of gimmicky Rod Serling story can't possibly be extended for 100 minutes? No, I don't think that could be the whole answer because Shyamalan made a good full-length movie out of The Sixth Sense, although he started with nothing but the a trick ending and worked backward. Adrian Lyne's ghost story, Jacob's Ladder, managed to hold me entranced through two consecutive sittings - the second one after I knew all the secrets. Those films simply work better than this film. Their details are more interesting, and their clues are subtler and more complicated. I think the real problem with Till Human Voices Wake Us is that the present-day portion of the exposition is just too boring, especially when it keeps presenting explicit parallels to the childhood section long after we "get it." I found myself dozing off during the present-day scenes in the second half of the movie, but I came back to life every time the film switched back to the childhood portion, in which the two kids did a marvelous job.

I can't recall when I have been so disappointed by a film which initially seemed so intriguing. In fact, I hated typing those words, because to do so seemed very much like betraying or bad-mouthing someone once dearly loved. Damn, this should have been a great movie. I wish I could keep the first 30 minutes and get a do-over on the rest. Just as if it were a former lover, I don't regret the love I once had for this film, and I'm glad I watched it. In fact, I'm glad to see that it overcame harsh reviews to achieve a respectable IMDb score and to acquire some fervent supporters, because it deserves to find the people who will love it as it is, and not want to change it.

 

Helena Bonham Carter

 

Other Crap:

Love is a Splendid Illusion (1969):

Love is a Splendid Illusion seems to be a cautionary tale about the dangers of free love. Simon Brent is loving with Lisa Collings and their son, spends most evenings with his dollybird, Maxine Casson, and, it is inferred, samples anything in skirts that appeals to him. In fact, his interior design business is failing because he spends so much time chasing skirts. To win an important contract, he takes Collings for a holiday to Italy, where he hopes to revive his failing relationship with her, and meet the man who is to award the contract. The piece of the puzzle he is missing is that Collings has been screwing the man every afternoon for months.

While on holiday, he is pursued by the hotel hooker, Anna Matisse, and has a fling with Andree Flamand, wife of another guest. This nearly destroys his relationship with Collings, which he realizes is the one that is important to him.

Maxine Casson does full frontal. Andree Flamand does breasts and buns. Anna Matisse and Lisa Collings show breasts. This appears to be a forgotten film, with only 11 votes at IMDb, and no reviews. That is probably as it should be. There was nothing special here. Musical beds sometimes works as a comedy, and can even toss in a moral for redeeming social content, but this was told straight. I suppose if I could have found sympathy for any of the characters, I may have felt differently, but I was totally uninterested in who slept with whom, and the nudity and sex was way too tame by modern standards to be of interest. This one should have remained lost in obscurity. D+.

 

Andree Flamand

Anna Matisse

Lisa Collings

Maxine Casson

Mark Anthony distracts himself with a topless swordfight between two girls, an unknown one and Cynhia (Francesca Berrettini) in 1 clip. Lucius Vorenus patches things up with his wife Niobe (Indira Varma), as you can see in this clip. Then there is still this young, attractive and svelte woman people go to to make a wish. I wish the young, atttractive and svelte part of my previous sentence would become true. But duty calls for our heros Lucius and Titus when Mark Anthony sends his army to Caesar's rescue in Greece. On their way over there the boats end up in a heavy storm and they seem in big touble. Will they survive? Tune in next week.

Closed To Take Stock - Giant mega-churches have often been criticized for
putting secular comforts ahead of religion, but this takes the prize:
several mega-churches across America announced that they will be closed on Christmas, even though it falls on a Sunday. One theology professor said
it showed a "consumer mentality;' that they were afraid to make church in
any way inconvenient.  But the pastors are expecting low attendance while
members are off opening gifts and having big dinners, so they plan to
worship in preceding days and take Christmas off as a "family day."

*  They figured, "What Would Jesus Do?  He'd take the day off to unwrap His
birthday presents!"

 

What Kinda Job You Want? - The Schulz & Co. bordello in Berlin, Germany, is
right next door to the unemployment office, so they have started bringing
in customers on slow nights by offering a discount rate of less than $20
for jobless men.  One jobless man said he could only have his fun every
couple of months, but now he goes twice a month for a rock-bottom price,
and the quality of service is the same.  Not quite, though: an employee
named Gina said they don't get "the long talks that we usually do to get a
client going. At that price we can't afford to waste that much time."

*  But how can men enjoy visiting a hooker if there's no foreplay?!

*  Luckily, the government health service now provides free Viagra.

*  It's nice of her to empathize with the jobless, considering she'll never
be unemployed.



 

That's What Christmas Is All About, Charlie Brown - A group of Druids
recreated an ancient blessing ceremony for mistletoe in Tenbury Wells,
England, which grows much of the mistletoe used for Christmas parties.  The
Druids also revealed the little-known reason why mistletoe is associated
with kissing.  It's because it blooms in the dark womb of wintertime, and
it was considered to be "the semen of the gods and of the forest," because
the berries are filled with a juice that resembles semen.

*  I'll bet you don't want to kiss under it now, do you?

*  This must be why Bill Clinton always hangs a sprig on his belt buckle. 

*  I don't think I want to hear the Druid explanation of "the Yule log." 

*  If that's how Druids think, no wonder they're always sporting wood.