THE LOVER(1992)
The story of a young girl(15 1/2, played by Jane March,
who was actually 19) who falls for and ends up
in an affair with an "older" man(32), from the point
of view from the girl! Quite a risky movie to be
made, and quite a risque movie on top of that!!
Really a very sad movie, all things considered!! A
A review from IMDb.com:
I continue to be amazed at what works in this huge
experiment in the social imagination we call film.
One thing that really impresses me is how one image
will stick in your mind. One image around which it
seems the whole rest of the project revolves and
supports. I usually write IMDb comments very soon
after seeing or reseeing a film.
In this case, I was so struck by that one image I
resolved to wait three months before commenting.
It stuck.
That image is the one which is used in the promotion
and presumably is what the filmmaker considers its
essence: the 15 year old girl in defiantly non-school
clothes with an incongruous man's hat on the ferry.
She is observing and consciously observed. It is we
who observe her and enjoy her sensuality then and
later just as the Chinese observer does. He is our
surrogate, defining the strange situation of a being
in the wrong place: Chinese being then more of a
'minority' in Vietnam than Europeans.
Exotic ordinariness. Emerging awarenesses as
justification for being. No, more: revelling in
existence. Transition as destination.
It is odd how charged this one image is, and how
competently it justifies the whole project. Just
as the lover is left puzzling why, so are we. So
are we, and the fact that no easy answer appears
is why this sticks so.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth
watching. - tedg (tedg@filmsfolded.com)