REVIEWS
BREAKINGNEWS For the latest film business news see
ScreenDaily.com
Sleeping Beauty REVIEWED BY FIONNUALA HALLIGAN
Passive, reckless, cunning: Lucy (Emily Brown- ing) doesn’t really care what happens to her. She has sex at the flip of a coin. She lets the stakes rise until she agrees to be drugged for money and spend the night with old men pawing her. She is told she won’t remember a thing. “You will wake feeling profoundly restored.” Novelist Julia Leigh’s arresting foray into fea-
ture film-making is a flawed modern-day take on ancient, disturbing fables involving sex and the subconscious — there can, of course, be “no pene- tration” in the sleeping chamber. But while Sleep- ing Beauty boasts a memorable aesthetic from a notable new film-maker and is an ambitiously pro- vocative piece, it is also an uneven work that will divide the critics. An Australian film with a distinctly European
aesthetic, Sleeping Beauty’s frank sexual politics feel as if they could not have come from anywhere else. It is wholly devoted to its central character – an inert, sullen beauty played by newcomer Browning — and notable for its domineering design married to static, score-less framing. Within this eerie combination, the film can be
haunting. But elsewhere, Leigh stumbles. This is a carefully controlled film, rich with symbolism and only enhanced by a crisp sound design. But it is airless, frequently lifeless. Secondary characters are clumsily captured, and “Lucy” really only works when she is forcing the audience to fill in her seductively blank face (the emotional scenes with troubled friend Birdmann are unsuccessful and involve a wildlife sequence that is baffling in its inclusion). Despite this, Sleeping Beauty should travel well. While it is likely to attract mixed reviews, it also
n 24 Screen International at the Cannes Film Festival May 13, 2011
COMPETITION
Aus. 2011. 101mins Director/screenplay Julia Leigh Production companies Screen Australia, Magic Films International sales eOne Films International, cmickie@entonegroup. com Producer Jessica Brentnall Executive producers Tim White, Alan Cardy, Jamie Hilton Cinematography Geoffrey Simpson Production design Annie Beauchamp Editor Nick Meyers Main cast Emily Browning, Rachael Blake, Ewen Leslie, Peter Carroll, Chris Haywood
looks set to gain a strong following in arthouse cir- cles and on the festival circuit with its literary and feminist overtones and involving sexual agenda. While wider audiences may remain elusive for this challenging piece, it is clear from her striking debut that Leigh does not need a ‘Jane Campion presents’ label to catch the audience’s eye. Known for her 1999 novel The Hunter, in which
a female character was also drawn to the healing qualities of drugged sleep, Leigh is economical with her brushstrokes, presenting student Lucy as a puzzle the audience is drawn to solve. The open- ing sequence depicts her gagging on a rubber bal- loon which has been inserted down her throat as part of a presumably paid-for medical experiment. She has two jobs yet does not pay her rent. She is probably unlikeable and responds recklessly to sexual situations. She is also escalating the stakes. This combination ultimately leads Lucy to Clara
(Blake), an ultra-lacquered mistress of fetishistic scenarios, who hires Lucy as a “silver service wait- ress” for $250 an hour. She will, however, be
required to perform her duties in provocative lin- gerie and lipstick the “colour of [her] labia” in a series of chilling tableaux which take place in Leigh’s dark, dark castle in the deep, deep woods. Soon Clara engages Lucy for the sleeping cham-
ber, where the men of the house take it in turns to visit her room. The first (Carroll) gives the film a narrative thrust, via clunkily delivered literary ref- erences to Ingeborg Bachmann’s The Thirtieth Year, while the second is a brutal sadist (Hay- wood). But is Sleeping Beauty about to wake up? Julia Leigh is navigating some choppy waters
between the controlled metaphors of her page and the need to let some life breathe in her cinema; while she may be asleep, her Beauty still needs some air. However, young actress Browning has gone the distance for her director and together, they have delivered something here that some- times catches your breath.
SCREEN SCORE ★★
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100