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Girl With A Pearl Earring
Girl with a Pearl Earring - Review
From Jürgen Fauth
The Movie Based On a Book Based On a Painting
Guide Rating - rating
Scarlett Johansson got her big break impersonating a drawing in Terry Zwigoff's "Ghost World," and now she's hoping to woo the mid-brow crowd playing a painting. Just when you thought movies based on video games were as derivative as it could get, along comes "Girl With a Pearl Earring": director Peter Webber adapts a novel by Tracy Chevalier based on the title-giving oil-on-canvas by Johannes Vermeer.
And so we find ourselves in Holland in 1665: canals and open markets, scruffy children and those strange white caps that hide the women's hair and seem like they belong on nuns. Griet (Johansson) is wearing one of them, and that's a shame because after all, wasn't it Gwyneth Paltrow's shining hair that made the similar period romance of creativity "Shakespeare in Love" such a success?
But Griet has to keep her hair under that cap because she's a maid, poor and downcast, beginning work at the Vermeer house when the film opens. Like Cinderella, she scours pans and silently takes abuse from the bratty children. Only occasionally, she has a good time with the butcher boy. When Vermeer, played by Colin Firth with daring Aragorn haircut, takes an interest in her, she begins to spend more and more time in his studio, where she finally sits for the painting in question.
Predictably, the art design and cinematography take their cues from Vermeer. The painterly compositions, period costumes, and mild light falling through thick glass windows look splendid. In its best moments, "Girl With a Pearl Earring" clue us in to the sense of the wonder that painting held in a world that wasn't awash in images. Yet I am reminded of the scene in "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" where Bugs and Daffy are being chased through the Louvre and run through famous paintings, adapting their look--except that "Girl With a Pearl Earring" isn't nearly as funny, or as exciting.
As good as Webber is with the images, the film aches for drama. The story behind the painting isn't all that thrilling. The tensions in the Vermeer house are interesting at first, but they lead up to a disappointing climax. Griet is never given a chance to act out, or even to speak out. "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" ends with a whimper, never having figured out how to let its hair down.
=====================================
Carole Collier's Viewpoint:
**********************************
I believe the film is mesmerising as it merges two foms of art, viz. painting and music! Two forms of Art that I thoroughly adore!
The painting itself is expressive and the photography in the film as well as the superb acting against the backdrop of the moving soundtrack accentuate the type of unforgettable experience every artist longs for.
No, a film of this nature would never be straightforward and I find the comment in the above review about it having to let 'its hair down' irrelevant as the whole objective of this work of Art is to keep one on one's toes. This is not akin to watching a light-hearted 'Cary On' film. This is a thrilling storyline that the consumer has to countenance with the aid of their own analytical tools.
From Jürgen Fauth
The Movie Based On a Book Based On a Painting
Guide Rating - rating
Scarlett Johansson got her big break impersonating a drawing in Terry Zwigoff's "Ghost World," and now she's hoping to woo the mid-brow crowd playing a painting. Just when you thought movies based on video games were as derivative as it could get, along comes "Girl With a Pearl Earring": director Peter Webber adapts a novel by Tracy Chevalier based on the title-giving oil-on-canvas by Johannes Vermeer.
And so we find ourselves in Holland in 1665: canals and open markets, scruffy children and those strange white caps that hide the women's hair and seem like they belong on nuns. Griet (Johansson) is wearing one of them, and that's a shame because after all, wasn't it Gwyneth Paltrow's shining hair that made the similar period romance of creativity "Shakespeare in Love" such a success?
But Griet has to keep her hair under that cap because she's a maid, poor and downcast, beginning work at the Vermeer house when the film opens. Like Cinderella, she scours pans and silently takes abuse from the bratty children. Only occasionally, she has a good time with the butcher boy. When Vermeer, played by Colin Firth with daring Aragorn haircut, takes an interest in her, she begins to spend more and more time in his studio, where she finally sits for the painting in question.
Predictably, the art design and cinematography take their cues from Vermeer. The painterly compositions, period costumes, and mild light falling through thick glass windows look splendid. In its best moments, "Girl With a Pearl Earring" clue us in to the sense of the wonder that painting held in a world that wasn't awash in images. Yet I am reminded of the scene in "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" where Bugs and Daffy are being chased through the Louvre and run through famous paintings, adapting their look--except that "Girl With a Pearl Earring" isn't nearly as funny, or as exciting.
As good as Webber is with the images, the film aches for drama. The story behind the painting isn't all that thrilling. The tensions in the Vermeer house are interesting at first, but they lead up to a disappointing climax. Griet is never given a chance to act out, or even to speak out. "The Girl with a Pearl Earring" ends with a whimper, never having figured out how to let its hair down.
=====================================
Carole Collier's Viewpoint:
**********************************
I believe the film is mesmerising as it merges two foms of art, viz. painting and music! Two forms of Art that I thoroughly adore!
The painting itself is expressive and the photography in the film as well as the superb acting against the backdrop of the moving soundtrack accentuate the type of unforgettable experience every artist longs for.
No, a film of this nature would never be straightforward and I find the comment in the above review about it having to let 'its hair down' irrelevant as the whole objective of this work of Art is to keep one on one's toes. This is not akin to watching a light-hearted 'Cary On' film. This is a thrilling storyline that the consumer has to countenance with the aid of their own analytical tools.
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