Jugu Abraham
What an underrated film!Symbols: a chair in an open field that survives years, the lure of eyes of a woman/wife, and a bleeding, pregnant rat!This is a film about love between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife--and how it lasts for ever.This is also a film about a dying father and son, of a mute elderly mother and a daughter.The chair, the eyes, and the rat are all essential to the film. The chair is repeatedly shown. Eyes are mentioned by Ivan's father about Ivan's dead mother. Eyes are essential to the song sung twice by Keith Carradine's character. Rats are symbolic of past, present and future of Ivan's sexual life.Into the film, perceptive viewers could compare and contrast the two different reactions of Ivan when two Maria's lovers taunt him. Yet the film is more about Maria and less about Ivan. Very Russian, very European, though the settings are American. The soul of Russian literary giants permeate through the film. A lovely shot towards the end is the silhouette of father (Mitchum) and son (Savage). You can get the feel of Tarkovsky's friend and colleague at work. It is sad the film has not been noticed/applauded better.
bkoganbing
Maria's Lovers casts Natassia Kinski and John Savage as a pair of young Slavic second generation Americans in Western Pennsylvania who get married after World War II and presumably like most will live the American dream happily ever after.Not quite so happily though because Savage has some real issues and who wouldn't after surviving a Japanese prison camp. In fact his well meaning but quite fatuous father Robert Mitchum asks Savage why didn't he try and escape. This was obviously a man who had seen too many American gangster flicks where Cagney/Bogart/Raft are always crashing out of the big house.Mitchum is fatuous about that, but he does say to Savage not to rush into things. As well he shouldn't with his issues. Wedding night comes and he can't do the deed. Which leaves Kinski looking for a little love in all the wrong places. And charming itinerant entertainer Keith Carradine picks up on it.The issue of impotence and its infinite number of causes was dealt with a lot better in the British classic film, The Family Way. It's not as simple as it is made out here where Savage's very manhood is called into question and it's a do or divorce situation. Best in the film is Keith Carradine who is really quite amoral. Makes his character from Nashville look like an Eagle Scout. And of course Robert Mitchum always adds something to any film he's in.I have to say though I was left as unfulfilled as Natassia on her wedding night.
davdecrane
Beautifully shot – almost too beautifully given the mundane storyline – and unevenly acted, the film deserves kudos for an intelligent rendering of an adult problem: the post-traumatic stress of a returning WW2 vet, and the miseries it puts him and his wife through.The dramatic thrust of the film – erroneously labeled European by some viewers – is hampered, not by its slow unfolding, but by passive characters. John Savage is sometimes strong and sometimes not in his portrayal, but he's been stymied by a script that has him only desultorily going after various goals. Maria, a far better if still uneven performance by Nastassja Kinski (whose talent is strong; the inconsistency is clearly the director's fault), also only gradually commits to her husband. That's fine and real but with only minor characters (Vincent Spano, Keith Caradine) strongly after an objective, the movie is moribund at its center for much of its running time. (Robert Mitchum's character and performance are both dismal.) The film gathers some tension once Nastassja is mit Kind, and Savage's predicament reaches the breaking point. The resolution is somewhat satisfying though not entirely credible (Savage feels more like a life-long alcoholic at this point) and comes about through his chance meeting with Caradine's philanderer. More literary than filmic in its construction, the movie's best feature is Nastassja's performance. But because her life, like her husband's, feels more acted upon than really lived, the movie just lumbers.
ipswich-2
A World War II soldier (Savage) returns to marry his old lover (Kinski) but his inability to father a child leads to the destruction of their marriage. The couple goes through a series of tribulations before coming together again. Savage gives a so-so performance as the tormented husband who loses the will to commit to the sanctity of the marriage bond. Kinski gives her most versatile and inspired performance ever as the anguished wife. If anything, watch her. The director, Andrei Konchalovsky, is actually Russian. The movie is a pastiche of styles from American and European film-making. Strong powerful storytelling through the chronology of time tinged with the emotional pathos that is typical of most European films. In the end, the mix is a bit jagged and mismatched, but this doesn't stray from an otherwise strong and moving movie.
AD
