Far From the Madding Crowd: Review

Far From the Madding Crowd is almost a perfect example of the Period genre's pornographic sensibilities. It's an idyllic recreation of rural Wessex in the 1800s. The springs are all lush, sun-soaked fields, the winters all virginal white hills. Carey Mulligan is positively radiant as the worlds cleanest farm owner. And as usual the costume and set design are done to near perfection. All of which serves to make the whole endeavour feel just a little bit unreal,undercutting much of the drama and character relationship.

At the time the hiring of The Hunt director Thomas Vinterberg, co-founder of Dogme '95, must have seemed like a radical choice for an adaptation of a Thomas Hardy novel. Which makes it sad then that the result is so conventional. A well-acted, beautifully shot work that look just too nice to feel authentic and a stark contrast to the 1967 version.

The good news is that the nuts and bolts of Hardy's classic novel are still intact. In Mulligan's hands Bathsheba Everdene is a much more tempered creature. Still independent and defiant but more out of uncertainty than the belief that she don't need no  man. It even comes across subtly in scenes in which her strength is called upon. When she takes control of Everdene farm her doubt can be heard in Mulligan's voice and yet when she declares her intention 'to astound you all.' she really means it.

As inciting incidents go it really says something when a film can convey utter horror and tragedy at the death of a flock of sheep as befalls Bathsheba's first suitor Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts). With smouldering eyes Oak is a decent man but also one coloured by the conventions of the time, thinking he can woo Bathsheba with the promise of comfort and a good income. When he receives his humbling at the death of his livelihood Schoenaerts really sells his sad frustration becomes a picture of nobility in poverty.

Suitor number two comes in the form of wealthy widower William Boldwood (Michael Sheen). This is a role that would seem every bit as arrogant as Oak in the hands of a lesser actor but Sheen vrings real vulnerability to the role. Of all Bathsheba's suitors his is the most sympathetic with an earnestness to his desire to protect her.

Suitor number three is Tom Sturridge's powerhouse of testosterone Sargent Troy. A soldier who manages to woo Bathsheba into a foolish marriage of passion with his fancy swordsmanship (no, not a euphemism). He is perhaps the weakest of the three but speaks to the folly that exists within Bathsheba despite all her resolve.

The conflict between these three men is mostly understated but builds to an intense climax. Mulligan all the while seems to constantly be ruminating on the nature of love and marriage. Having succumbed to her heart with Troy and wishing to follow her head with Boldwood. All the while building a fond friendship with Oak. By the end you see the relationship which has the most value because it has been built over the years not won with money or showmanship.

This for me is what separates Bathsheba from the likes of Lizzy Bennett and Jane Eyre who seem to be simply waiting for circumstances to permit them to marry. Bathsheba on the other hand genuinely develops a strong friendship with her eventual partner. She's not waiting for equality of position (indeed she is of higher status than him for most of the film) but instead equality of affection.

It's a shame then that such timeless storytelling have to live with such a clean, flat production. Everything's been lovingly crafted to perfection but in such a way that leaves the film feeling passionless. Britain still loves it's Period Porn, if we can call it that, but the genre is so overdone that it's in desperate need of a shake-up. This unfortunately isn't it.

What goes on Under the Skin?

In case you were wondering Under the Skin is a film about how individuals are integrated into the collective mass of a species or social structure. Confused? Okay here's how it works; Scarlett Johansson and Paul Brannigan play what are implicitly aliens whose creation process is represented by a pinprick of light against a black background. Eventually the light disappears and the black mass is revealed to be a viscous sludge that is slowly surrounded by white, forming what resembles the human eye.

Throughout the first half the image of people entering and emerging from the all-encompassing blackness recurs. A dimly lit shot of a motorcyclist dressed all in black. The dark field from which Branigan retrieves the body that serves as Johansson's template. Most notably of course is the environment which Johansson's alien seductress takes a series of victims back to. Always male, always young.They all sink into the darkened pool from which she first emerged and now glides across like Christ on the Sea of Galilee.

In fact while she does not sink she is still amalgamated into the darkness of the shadows until her victims disappear and she can walk back into the light seemingly never breaking stride...until she can't.   Like everything else in the film it's never made explicitly clear what happens but one encounter with a pitiable deformed man detaches her from the whole. Forced to look at herself as an individual for the first time she lets him go.

In deviating from the programme she detaches from the mass. The image then becomes an all encompassing white, in the form of either fog or snow. And yet she can never fully integrate with it as she did with the black. Eventually she is taken in by a good Samaritan (A cliched sequence that forms the films weakest act) who offers some respite. But when the time comes to consummate their relationship, they can't. Presumably it is a function her artificial body lacks.

Unable to connect to the only person she has left she wanders into the woods, alone. And there she dreams of a connection to this world. In the films most beautiful shot she is superimposed onto the landscape of the forest, intimately bound to nature. Then she is brutally pulled out of it by a sexual predator. A reminder that while sex can connect us to humanity it can also tear us away. They fight and in the struggle her true form is revealed. A black skelatal arrangement of stiff, coarse limbs. 

In horror her attacker pours kerosene over her lights it. She stumbles forward and collapses into the snow. Finally given the one universal link to all creatures, death.

So is the film good? Well that depends on your tolerance for extraneous artistic indulgence as the film is loaded with abstract, sometimes non sequitar imagery. 

The premise at least brings intrigue delivered in a meaner both hypnotic and suspenseful as you see a predator becoming more and more adept at luring its prey. All of which has a suitably grisly payoff. However the story suffers from falling into the regressive archetype of the femme fatale using sexuality as a weapon. Plus the white knight coming to her aid feels overly romanticised, especially given the way in which it falls apart. all of which suggest that director Jonathan Glazer doesn't know how to explore the concept to its fulfillment.

In a way unique to the role Johansson is perfectly cast. Her doll-like beauty and imperfect accent all work to suggest a rough approximation of a human being. Which goes along way to remaining onside with the character as the film get progressively slower. Johansson imbues the character with enough inhuman mannerisms the suggest her actions are our of programming as opposed to malice. Ironically her inhumanity is what makes her second act development empathetic.

At the end of the day Under the Skin is food for the mind but not the soul. Yes it's all very interesting to think about how we integrate as an entire species but there's usually some emotion to anchor that integration. Emotion that the film consistently lacks when really it should be about discovering it. .