Thursday, April 19, 2012

Movie review - "Darling" (1965) **1/2

This swinging 60s classic impressed a lot at the time, winning several Oscars and confirming Julie Christie as a star, but it didn't do much for me. There's plenty of jump cuts, zooms, non-synchronous sound, first person voice over, tricky visuals, man-in-the-street interviews, pastiche commercials and TV shows, and elegant unhappiness - maybe it's been copied too much but I just couldn't care. For all its hipness and it's heart this is an old fashioned star vehicle for Christie - who it must be said is particularly beautiful and beguiling, frequently wearing low cut gowns and lingere, showing her bare back (and backside, in one scene - this was a shock).

She plays a young model who has a series of adventures: shacking up with married TV presenter Dirk Bogarde, a fumbling acting career, an abortion, a fling with lecherous Larry Harvey (who, if I'm not mistaken, goes down on her in one scene), trips to Paris and Italy, an affair with a count, has a gay best friend (a photographer), marries an Italian because no one loves her then gets upset when he's too busy.

It's all very decadent: rich women with jewels gamble at fundraising for starving Africans; a party in Italy results in guests swapping clothes/taking them off and passing in the corner; advertising men chuckle over photographs; commercial shoots in Italy; the rich and beautiful hang out on yachts along the Mediterranean coast; lying on the beach in a bikini surrounded by cute boys in shorts, changing for tan according to the sun; disrobing while crying in an empty Italian mansion. But are they really happy? For most of the time they seem to be.

Bogarde was never that convincing as a straight man and looks bored here - you never get the sense he really likes Christie so when their relationship busts up he doesn't seem to care. Harvey is better as the ruthless opportunist, presumably because it was closer to his real character.

The whole point is Christie is shallow and her world and friends so ultimately the piece isn't involving. It also lacks a strong narrative, and isn't in colour. The Yanks liked it though - all that sex.

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