Michael Neumann It may be nothing more than highbrow cotton candy, but watching Timothy Hutton fall in and out of love with two beautiful women (while at the same time falling in and out of his vague Middle European accent) is an experience not without some incidental pleasure, silly as it is. Jerzy Skolimowski directed the multi-national (i.e. badly dubbed) cast, led by Hutton as a 19th century Russian aristocrat who (talk about bad luck) loves and loses both Valeria Golino and Nastassia Kinski. One is passionate and beautiful, the other is beautiful and passionate, and it's difficult to feel sorry for Hutton's mortal anguish in choosing between them The film abruptly ends just when the plot is beginning to thicken, but who needs narrative integrity with such romantic coffee table scenery, of ruined abbeys at dusk or horse drawn carriages gliding through misty tree-lined boulevards? The purple title and lush period setting make the film (based on an Ivan Turgenev story) a near perfect guilty pleasure, and it should be approached as such.

MARIO GAUCI Stately period piece in the meticulous style of BARRY LYNDON (1975) - down to frequent shooting by candlelight - if done on a more intimate scale; actually the plot, adapted from a novel by Ivan Turgenev, is quite reminiscent of THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (1993). Still, it's not all solemnity and Skolimowski (who even appears, uncredited, in a brief but plum role) manages to insert his trademark irony and the odd visual touch on occasion! Timothy Hutton and Nastassja Kinski may not look Russian, but they aren't too bad under the circumstances - she being especially radiant as the cold-hearted but irresistible temptress; ingénue Valeria Golino, then, is the final component of the romantic triangle. Despite the obvious Russian setting, the film was mainly shot in Italy (being an Italian/French co-production) - to where it actually relocates for the melancholy finale, which takes place against the colorful backdrop of the Venice Carnival.The color utilized is generally muted and bathed in warm hues, with great care given to the lighting (most effective during a love scene inside a barn, set at dusk) - making the film's look and its overall period sense feel completely authentic. Though not usually linked with this type of film, Stanley Myers contributes a lovely score.

Carl S Lau Warning: spoilers follow"Torrents of Spring" is an HBO European, horse and carriage, costume drama from the late 1980's. Bought off of e-Bay for less than $7, it is an ex-rental VHS tape that immediately says something about the movie: the initial scenes show tape wear, indicating that the movie was watched for a few minutes and then quickly taken out of the VHS recorder/player and dumped back into its box. The entire movie is told in flashback in which the heart of the movie depicts a young nobleman, Timothy Hutton, in conflict over two women: Valeria Golino, in the role of a bakery shop owner's pretty daughter, and Nastassja Kinski, as a rich married woman who can buy anything."Torrents of Spring" has a running time of 102 minutes and neatly breaks into two parts. It would be charitable to characterize the first part of the movie as awful because descriptive phrases come to mind: stiff as a board, stuffed shirt, trite dialogue, awful framing, amateur hour, cardboard characters. Hutton has the look of Pierce Brosnan, trying to do the right thing. Very early on, he falls in love with Valeria Golino's character and after a series of events proposes marriage that he will finance by selling his estate and giving his serfs their freedom - thus drastically cutting the proceeds of the sale. Somewhere around the twenty minute mark, Nastassja Kinski appears in a dreadful looking wig. She takes a fancy to Hutton and through a telescope watches his courting of the pretty shop owner's daughter in a tethered balloon. It is difficult to suppress the thought that Nastassja has just escaped from a villainous role from "The Three Musketeers." Empty chatter and strained moments fill the first sixty minutes of the film, leading one to wonder how much worse "Torrents of Spring" can get. Some way or other, Nastassja finds out about Hutton's marriage and the necessity to sell his estate. But she is after him and sets a trap for him by offering to buy it. At this point, "Torrents of Spring" has risen to the top of the heap as potentially Nastassja's worst movie, ever.There is a very clear break in continuity in which "Torrents of Spring" shifts from its lackluster veneer into a completely different phase that holds out the potential of vitality. Without her wig, Nastassja loses her hat while chasing Hutton on horseback through a forest. This is a transforming moment that leads into Nastassja's seduction of Hutton. From that moment in the forest, one sees and experiences what Nastassja can do on screen. She takes control of it and never lets it go. It would be very unfair to reveal how the movie ends. It is too bad that the same vision and energy was not invested in the first sixty minutes of the movie. "Torrents of Spring" has its problems or perhaps Nastassja can't act while wearing a wig?This film looks a lot better on the DVD transfer because it is in widescreen format and gives a much needed added dimension compared to the restrictive full screen version on VHS tape.

Lanwench This is an extremely amateurish, ham-handed film, with lousy accents, stilted dialogue, and a waste of the unconvincing Timothy Hutton as a disillusioned Russian nobleman (!!!)Valeria Golino is beautiful, but her character awfully two dimensional - and nobody could possibly believe Nastassja Kinski's hardboiled seductress. The entire film has that cheesy pan-European soft-focus quality found usually on late-night premium cable channels, but with a little less gratuitous nudity.However, there is a lovely scene wherein Nastassja and Timothy go to visit a Gypsy camp and dance around with ever-increasing attraction to one another. The music is fabulous, and there isn't much of the aforementioned crappy dialogue. If I could find just that scene on DVD, I'd buy it. Otherwise, give this one a pass.