A diferencia del dosmildiez, este año fué rico en propuestas y calidad. Tuvimos esperados regresos (Kaurismäki, Malick, los Dardenne, Anderson, Almodóvar, Tarr), confirmación del talento de noveles directores (Mills, Alfredson, McQueen, Reichardt, Lanthimos) y excelentes propuestas en 3D (a cargo de sui generis auteurs como Wenders, Herzog y Scorsese). A continuación mis favoritas del 2011 (en orden aleatorio).

1. The Turin Horse / Béla Tarr / Hungría

El húngaro Béla Tarr anuncia su retiro de la producción cinematográfica. Tras una modesta trayectoria (en número de filmes no en contenidos, que abarca poco menos de una decena de largometrajes), presenta su trabajo final: una críptica y simbólica película, a manera de epitafio, llamada The Turin Horse. Conformada por solo 30 largas tomas e inspirado en un relato sobre un colapso nervioso sucedido al filosofo alemán Friedrich Nietzsche, Tarr nos presenta una reflexión sobre la lenta, monótona y dolorosa existencia humana mediante la relación de un hombre y su caballo. Dejando más dudas que respuestas e invitando a la instrospección, tenemos uno de los trabajos más complejos y enigmáticos del húngaro realizador. Hasta siempre Béla Tarr.

2. Melancholia / Lars von Trier / Dinamarca

3. Shame / Steve McQueen / Inglaterra

4. Drive / Nicolas Winding Refn / USA

Ver entrada 35.

5. Jane Eyre / Cary Fukunaga / UK

Ver entrada 36. 

6. Le Havre /  Aki Kaurismäki / Finlandia

Especialista en historias agridulces, el finlandés Kaurismäki transporta su narrativa al puerto francés del mismo nombre y junto con la geografía transporta el ánimo: aquí encontramos las constantes de su cine, personajes afables, de buen corazón, dispuestos a ayudar y en el camino ser ayudados, la extravagancia, porque no, también se encuentra presente. La fábula de un joven inmigrante africano buscando suerte en el viejo continente se convierte así en un catálogo de personajes entrañables, y de situaciones esperanzadoras. La cereza en el pastel: siguiendo la tradición de este año de tributar al cine francés clásico, tenemos dos maravillosos cameos,  Jean-Pierre Léaud (el inolvidable héroe juvenil de Truffaut) y el siempre bienvenido Pierre Étaix.

7. The Tree of Life /  Terrence Malick / USA

Tal vez uno de los mejores directores de las últimas décadas, Terrence Malick ha creado todo un mito alrededor de su persona. Su último filme, ha sido alabado y criticado hasta el cansancio y nos regaló algunas de las imágenes más inolvidables no solo de este año, sino de las últimas décadas. Trascendiendo juicios tradicionales (si es una buena o mala película) The Tree of Life es una experiencia visual y por que no, sensitiva. Un filme que se experimenta y busca crear un nexo interactivo con el espectador. Malick, como siempre, habita su propio universo, con un peculiar lenguaje tanto sonoro como visual, invita al diálogo y al cuestionamiento.

8. Beginners /  Mike Mills / USA

Ver entrada 39.

9. The Artist /  Michel Hazanavicius / Francia

Curiosamente este fué un año de tributo al cine francés clásico. Cameos inolvidables (Le Havre, Aki Kaurismäki), historias de añoranza (Hugo, Martin Scorsese) e incluso un divertido y colorido (a pesar de ser a blanco y negro) experimento llamado The Artist. Un elegante filme mudo acerca de la entrada del sonido al mundo del cine a finales de los años veinte. Influenciada por los grandes directores de antaño: Wilder, Lubitsch, Ford o Hitchcock, The Artist es un agridulce relato sobre la difícil adaptación de una estrella de cine a los drásticos cambios de la industria y la tecnología. El filme ha sido aplaudido por doquier y su cosecha de galardones ha sido apreciable.

10. Pina /  Wim Wenders / Alemania

La idea de realizar un filme en 3D tal vez nos resultaría poco común para un director serio, mas aún alguien como Wim Wenders. Poseedor de un estilo poético y reflexivo, con un ojo clínico para diseccionar situaciones y plasmar ciudades. Sus trabajos documentales sobre Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo-Ga, 1985) o sobre la música folclórica cubana (Buena Vista Social Club, 1999) son sobresalientes por decir lo menos. Ahora vuelca su lente sobre Pina Bausch, coreógrafa y bailarina alemana, pilar de la danza contemporánea y con quien Wenders planeó durante años co-dirigir un filme. El inclemente paso del tiempo se llevó a la Bausch en 1999 pero no a su legado, y esta historia se convierte en el pretexto perfecto para crear no solamente un magnífico tributo al arte de la danza sino una obra maestra de textura, espacio, ritmo y movimiento.

Mia Wasikowska makes a very believable Jane. Jane, as detailed by Charlotte Bronte, is not very good looking, but of great moral character.  Previous film adaptations have chosen fairly good looking actresses to play the role; we’re talking about the likes of Virginia Bruce and Joan Fontaine. Mia Wasikowska is neither pretty nor ugly, preventing the Gothic romance from turning into a fairy tale or appearing to be mere wish fulfillment fantasy. She also internalizes Jane’s inner strength and keen intelligence that makes Rochester’s regard for her credible and worthwhile. Rochester, that dark, brooding, Byronic hero, is played by Michael Fassbender (who seems to be everywhere this year). He may be far too handsome, but certainly does credit to the role.

Jane Eyre, the novel, was an intricate study of class dynamics, gender constructs and feminism while also being a timeless story of epiphanic love. Wasikowska, in her stiffly starched aprons and a strangely emotive and mobile face, does well to enact these themes, bringing to convincing life Jane’s chafing against the implicit glass ceiling that restrains her; while being well-educated and born of a good family, her poverty and her estrangement from her living relations prevent her from doing anything more ambitious than being a governess. She is trapped in an unrequited, she thinks initially, love affair, which tears from her Jane’s famous lament – “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you, –and full as much heart!” and in this scene, Wasikowska is quite remarkable.

The movie is shot mostly in natural light, and this allows for beautiful cinematography, by turns somber and moody, as in the scene where Jane meets Rochester for the first time, or brightly lit and picturesque, as in the scene where Jane and Adele play a game of old-fashioned badminton. Each image is lovingly crafted, and gives the movie a rich and intense tone and ambience. Layers play an important part in the montage of the film, and the placement of actors in the mise-en-scene is an intelligent use of space to demonstrate their relative personalities.

The movie has the right amount of respect for the original story, but manages to bring it alive for a contemporary audience who may or may not have read the book, on the strength of Mia Wasikowska’s surprising performance. She is the undoubted star of the film, aided ably by the delicate and elegant foil of its cinematography. This “Alice” has grown up.

My Rating: 4/5 (for Wasikowska and the cinematography, but only Bronte fans will sit through to the end)

#2: Do you believe in ghosts?

What is a ghost?

Is it a spirit? Is it a spirit that seems to be caught in bed sheet? And it hacks in the night and often is sort of hovering?

A ghost can be many things. For example when you have a mentally-unstable wife that you chain up in your attic. Chain her up non-sexually I mean. Chain her up so you can kind of go downstairs and forget about her. When you chain her up, chain her real good so she won’t get away and maybe set the house on fire. That is sort of like a ghost.

When you have someone you do not love. When you suspect there is someone who loves you and you think you should love them. But you are always thinking, “She has kind of a little rat face.” And so you do not love them or envision them sexually. Sometimes you imagine a rat face on Fergie’s body but that is more hilarious than anything. But there is a lot of pressure riding on your love. When there is so much pressure and your friends are often trying to get both of you to the same party but you keep saying you have the flu. That is sort of like a ghost.

When someone loves you. When they love you but they are blind so they cannot see your beautiful face. They are deprived of your beauty and so that love is so sad and dependent on smell. And they have a gangly beard or overgrown eyebrows because it is now too dangerous to shave with an actual sharp edge. That is sort of like a ghost.

When you are in love. When you love a man but they do not live in the same city. They live in a different city from where they write letters. They write letters saying they are setting aside money so as visit soon. So every night they just sprawl out in bed and imagine your body. They imagine they have not just one penis but five to match your equally-magical five vaginas. And when you have sex it is like a puzzle piece being penetrated on all sides – a perfect alignment. They are saving and soon they will be flying and checking into a nearby hotel room. But there are so many bills that get in their way. Like last month they were getting behind on paying the installments for their dog’s chemotherapy. But it is worth it. He is looking better all the time, old Rex, he is a fighter. But then another setback. Last week Rex escaped from the backyard and got raped. And now he is traumatized. Now there are psychotherapy bills to pay. But still, little by little, they are getting closer to the cost of the plane and the hotel suite. A suite! So do not betray their love! That is sort of like a ghost.

Cary Fukunaga believes in ghosts. Moira Buffini believes in ghosts. Mia Wasikowska believes in ghosts. Michael Fassbender believes in ghosts . . . $13

If you heart Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre:

Recommendations by Li’l Fatass
John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt
Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love
Pedro Almodovar’s Hable Con Ella

Michael Fassbender & Mia Wasikowska

Michael Fassbender & Imogen Poots

Michael Fassbender & Mia Wasikowska

Michael Fassbender & Mia Wasikowska

Michael Fassbender & Mia Wasikowska

Jamie Bell

Michael Fassbender & Imogen Poots

Michael Fassbender & Mia Wasikowska

Mia Wasikowska

Director Cary Fukunaga

Cary Fukunaga & Michael Fassbender

I couldn’t watch every adaptation, of course; some were just not obtainable. But I did my best. So, presented for your consideration, the seven major Jane Eyres.

Jane Eyre 1934

Jane: Virginia Bruce

Rochester: Colin Clive

Directed by: Christy Cabanne

Everything you need to know about this version of Jane Eyre can be summed up in one sentence: Jane is blonde. As a little girl she wears her hair in sausage curls which are cut off her head when she gets to the Lowood School, because, as well all know, curled hair is a sign of vanity! When Jane finds herself at Thornfield, she does not let being the governess stop her from dressing in big, bustled gowns. This is all par for the course for the 1930s. They wanted actresses to be blonde and glamorous (Dorothy Gale almost was). So much for literature’s greatest Plain Jane.

None of the other characters really work either. Rochester’s ladyfriend Blanche Ingram looks ready to retire. She’s supposed to be youthful and beautiful and glamorous, not a washed-up old hag. Adele, Rochester’s ward, in the grand tradition of movie kids, is routinely annoying, but 1934’s Adele is gifted in this arena. She falls into a giant vase and screams, feet waving. She is practically developmentally delayed. And Bertha! The crazed wife in the attic! In this version, there is no wedding for a spurned brother to ruin—they never get there. Instead, Bertha is discovered when she just kind of wanders into the room, singing and wide-eyed, more in the broken-mind Ophelia camp of crazy than the psychotic camp.

The movie cuts out a great deal of the story—again, par for the course when your average movie run time is 85 minutes—but it does an all right job of condensing the material. The film cuts out the entire “Jane lives with the Rivers family sequence,” and, after she leaves Thornfield, she goes to work in a poorhouse instead. She returns to Thornfield after hearing of Bertha’s fate from a Thornfield servant.

The worst of this version is what is done to the main characters’ personalities. Jane’s blonde hair is the tip of the iceberg. She struts around, flirting, singing, full of smiles and brimming with confidence. She does not seem to carry a lifetime of privation on her shoulders, which is so crucial to Jane’s character. Rochester is worse. He is polite and moons over Jane almost immediately. He is gentle with his young ward, Adele. He has no anger, no bitterness, no sharpness. When Jane leaves him, she writes a note to him on Adele’s school slate. By this point I was so tired of his milquetoast behavior I was chanting “Smash it! Smash it!” He sets it down carefully.

Verdict: Jane = Bad, Rochester = Bad, Romance = Adequate, Gothicism = Nonexistent, Overall = SKIP

Jane Eyre 1943

Jane: Joan Fontaine

Rochester: Orson Welles

Directed by: Robert Stevenson

Other notables: Margaret O’Brien as Adele, Agnes Moorehead as Mrs. Reed, Elizabeth Taylor as Helen Burns

A big Hollywood production, starring Joan Fontaine, who had won an Oscar the year before (for Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion) and Orson Welles. Watching this film, I face an immediate problem: I hate Joan Fontaine. There are very few actors and actresses that I hate from the classic era, but they do exist: Van Johnson, Fred Astaire, Carole Lombard. And Joan Fontaine. She always played (at least every role I’ve ever seen her in) timid and skittish, and she had a strange, crooked mouth that made her appear to be almost constantly nauseated. This actually worked to her benefit in Suspicion, and in her other most famous role, as Mrs. De Winter in Rebecca. Both those characters suffer from the belief that someone in their household is trying to kill them. The character of Jane Eyre, on the other hand, while timid, is not skittish; she is measured and calm, to an extent that makes her (according to Mr. Rochester in the book) almost other-worldly. He likes that he can’t rattle her like he does everybody else. There’s a moment from the book that is revisited in most movie versions where Mrs. Ingram—the mother of Jane’s rival for Mr. Rochester’s affections—makes a speech about how awful governesses are, either not realizing or not caring that Jane is in the room. Some cinematic Janes straighten their spines at this moment because Jane, regardless of class distinctions, is better than Mrs. Ingram and she knows it. Fontaine’s Jane responds to this slight by dashing out of the room and crying. She looks like someone punched a bunny.

On the other hand, you’ve got Orson Welles, who is a more-than-adequate Rochester. He was still relatively young and thin here, and not afraid to be a villain. (I just saw The Stranger, where he is a Nazi sympathizer hiding out in New England. He also plays the villain to excellent effect in The Third Man.) As Rochester, Welles growls; he lashes out with Rochester’s bitter rage. Taking a walk with his betrothed, Blanche Ingram, he lays her flat with his honesty: he knows she is only marrying him for his money, and he is OK with it. She is mortally insulted, of course; he says not to be coy. They break it off, which was his ultimate goal the whole time: Jane has been made adequately jealous and so he can kick Blanche to the curb now. (YES. He is Rochester. He behaves badly. OFTEN.)

Another excellent feature of the 1943 film is the Gothicism. I am a lover of the dark and brooding, and the book has plenty of that, but most movie versions set it entirely aside. This one is dark, there’s mist. Thornfield has spires and disturbing statuary and any number of unexplored corners. Importantly, there’s the climactic thunderstorm and the tree struck by lightning that foretells Jane and Rochester’s parting.

Funnily enough, the biggest star in this movie is not even credited for the role she plays. For about ten minutes at the beginning, while Jane is still a child and going to Lowood, her best friend is Helen Burns—a truly underrated character, who is beatific in the face of death and thus, teaches young Jane how to let go of bitterness and forgive. She lays out the entire moral framework for adult Jane. In this version she is played by an 11-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, who does a great job.

Verdict: Jane = Bad, Rochester = Great, Romance = Adequate, Gothicism = Great, Overall = SEE

Ahead: Janes from 1983, 1996, 1997, 2006, and 2011

Jane Eyre 1983

Jane: Zelah Clarke

Rochester: Timothy Dalton

Directed by: Julian Amyes

So this Jane Eyre is the weirdest of the ones I watched. According to Netflix reviews (it streams there, for any interested parties), it is the favorite of many of the book’s fans and I am somewhat baffled by this popularity. It is NOT GOOD.

Let’s get my initial bias out of the way. Look, it can’t help that it was produced in the 1980s. The BBC was in high gear back then putting all of its classic literature to film, and I’ve seen the Austens and the Dickenses and everybody’s hair is bad and everybody’s clothes are bad and the film quality is poor and that was the ‘80s. The decade and its limitations is likewise to blame for Jane Eyre ‘83’s reliance on cheap, plastery interior sets, and for it being recorded on videotape instead of on film. The lighting and the musical cues were probably meant to invoke (in Britain) a respectable filmed stage play, but its bad luck is that it looks and feels exactly like the cheapest and hackiest of American soap operas.

Now an unfair bias: this Jane is awful. And the reviewers love her, too! I don’t get it. She is about four foot seven, to begin with, and I know that Jane is described as being pixieish and slight and everything, but she looks ridiculous standing next to Rochester. (According to the internet, which knows everything, Timothy Dalton, as Rochester, is about 6’2”.) She’s already young enough to be his daughter—that’s scripted by Brontë herself—does she also need to look like it? She is not particularly pretty—especially compared to Dalton, in his prime—and, not helped by the oversized bonnets and the miserable tentlike dresses in which she is garbed, which made me look her up on IMDb to see if she was, in fact, eight months pregnant when the miniseries was filmed (she was not); she looks like nothing so much as an elderly little girl. Needless to say, when things get romantic between the two it is emphatically Not Hot.

But then, they don’t seem to be aiming for hot, and neither do they aim for passionate or dramatic or Gothic or anything that dips beneath the veneer of British reserve. It’s an incredibly academic Eyre.

There are eleven episodes, each 30 minutes long. To its credit, this version’s writers adapted the story excellently to that format, ending each episode on a important moment or change of fortune to draw us back in for the next. With that much time to spare, they were also able to include just about every setpiece from the book—the game of charades, the fortune teller bit, the ripping of the veil (my personal favorite of the usually-skipped scenes), and even the drawn-out process of Jane and Rochester’s reunion. In the book, Jane doesn’t just come back, kiss him, and everything is decided! Love, again! There is this strange, lengthy emotional negotiation, and this adaptation covers it. It’s compelling in the book. On film, unfortunately, it seems extremely anticlimactic.

Maybe this is why the booky crowd is so taken with this version; they want to watch the one which is most like reading the book. As for me, someone who is equally enamored with movies as I am with books, I want an adaptation that uses the sight and sound of film to do something new. Not something different, necessarily, but something that justifies the adaptation process. This miniseries was not a filmmaker’s endeavor; it was the result of somebody saying, “There are no faithful adaptations of Jane Eyre,” and making being faithful to the book top priority—top over visual interest, watchability, narrative pacing, etc. If I wanted it to be exactly like the book, I would just reread the book.

Verdict: Jane = Bad, Rochester = Adequate, Romance = Bad, Gothicism = Nonexistent, Overall = SKIP

Jane Eyre 1996

Jane: Charlotte Gainsbourg

Rochester: William Hurt

Directed by: Franco Zeffirelli

Other notables: Joan Plowright as Mrs. Fairfax, Anna Paquin as Young Jane

This would have been the first adaptation of Jane Eyre that I saw; it came out about two years after I read the book for the first time, and so for awhile I had an unearned attachment to it. It was an awards-baiting period piece from the mid-90s, directed by an Italian auteur (Franco Zeffirelli, who did the preeminent film version of Romeo and Juliet in 1968), but like many of the awards-baiting period pieces in the 1990s (not a good decade for them) it came off as a bit stodgy and airless.

Charlotte Gainsbourg, as adult Jane, looks like the Jane of my imagination, more than any of the other actresses I saw. I assume this is a function of her resemblance to the lady on the cover of my first edition of the book. That’s basically the extent of the usefulness of her performance; she does nothing special, does not seem especially compelling or loveable. Jane is meant to be shy and unassuming, but Jane of the book does have a sharp intellect and an ironic sense of humor. This is one of the main draws for Rochester, at first—they have great conversations where she seems to innately understand the way he communicates. This Jane and Rochester do not seem to talk much, and, if the movie’s music can be trusted, they are basically in love with each other immediately.

Rochester is played by William Hurt, not one of my favorite actors anyway and super miscast here. Even all scruffed up he’s still a bit too much of a pretty boy to play a character who is meant to look like a bulldog, and he’s not fierce enough; not as bad as 1934 Rochester but still not good.

The worst thing this version does is mess with the chronology of events. Specifically, scrunching up all the important events to happen within about 10 minutes of each other. After the abandoned wedding, when Jane leaves, the fire at Thornfield begins immediately. Like, as she’s running away from the house. I find it unlikely that at such an emotional moment Rochester would still risk his life to save Bertha from the fire. The co-mingling of those two events leaves them both a bit cold.

One pro: This version cares about Jane’s childhood, which most versions basically gloss over (even the 2006 miniseries, which at a run time of 4 hours has a few minutes to spare). The book devotes its first ten chapters to Jane’s tribulations at the Reeds’ and at Lowood School, and this movie takes that bit seriously. Ten to twenty minutes of screen time and—more importantly—a name actress playing young Jane, in this case, Anna Paquin, who at thirteen was already an Oscar winner.

Verdict: Jane = Adequate, Rochester = Bad, Romance = Bad, Gothicism = Nonexistent, Overall = SKIP

Jane Eyre 1997

Jane: Samantha Morton

Rochester: Ciaran Hinds

Directed by: Robert Young

I said about 1996 that Charlotte Gainsbourg was my exact visual image of Jane. The 1997 TV movie gave me my exact visual image of Rochester, with Ciaran Hinds. One of the few movie Rochesters who actually seem old enough (Rochester is supposed to be around forty) and ugly enough (Rochester is explicitly not handsome). No offense to Hinds, who is a fine actor. (I especially liked him in Munich.)

He is exceedingly yelly here; one of the gruffest, angriest Rochesters you’re going to see. Sometimes almost to a fault; when Jane goes to leave him, for example, he tries to browbeat her into staying. Like he’s going to send her to her room without supper if she doesn’t obey. (It’s so interesting how—with the sameness of so many scenes in this story, told across multiple films—the parting scene is always played completely differently. See what I say about 2006 and 2011’s versions, below.) Hinds’ performance here is not a thing of subtlety, really, but then none of the movie is. Bertha, the madwoman in the attic, is basically a cavewoman, with this mop of wild hair, and when the wedding party enters her chamber she is like, pacing and banging herself into walls. The confession of love scene is passionate and affecting until they go to kiss and suddenly turn into aliens trying to swallow each others’ tonsils. Ew. Stop it.

Samantha Morton is a lovely Jane, the first chronologically (of the ones I’ve seen) to not be afraid to give Jane a little bit of backbone. At their first meeting, she responds to Rochester’s rudeness (which is pronounced) with sort of icy detachment, as if to say, You may be my boss, sir, and it may be your inclination to call me names, but I’m not going to pretend I deserve it. And she manages quite well to marry that strength with—let’s call it a susceptibility to Rochester. He’s not exactly charming, and he’s not her knight in shining armor, either—he’s got skeletons in the closet. The scene where he tells her about Adele’s mother is great; they are sitting together on a bench in the yard and as he makes it clear to her that he fathered the child without being married to her mother, Jane gets sort of queasy-looking and then, barely perceptibly, inches herself away from Rochester on the bench. A good little Christian girl, she thinks promiscuity is catching. BUT. They are also two lonely, lonely people, something Morton brings kind of endearingly to the character. When Rochester goes to help Richard Mason and wraps Jane in his coat to keep her warm while she waits, she nestles against it and inhales its scent. She’s barely ever been touched by another person before. She’s bound to fall in love with him.

I know that, back in ’97, after the Zeffirelli version, I found this one to be adequate. Unfortunately, with several better choices out there now, it’s really not got a lot going for it. At a running time of about 100 minutes, it has to cut out enormous bits of the story—basically Jane’s entire sojourn with the Rivers family, for example. The result of this is that Jane is apart from Rochester for about four minutes of movie time before she returns to him, giving us in the audience very little time to really feel their longing for each other. Gothicism is also at a low ebb. For Brontë completists (or Samantha Morton fanatics, if they exist), I would say give it a try. It is only 100 minutes long. Otherwise, aim for better.

Verdict: Jane = Good, Rochester = Adequate, Romance = Adequate, Gothicism = Nonexistent, Overall = SKIP

Jane Eyre 2006

Jane: Ruth Wilson

Rochester: Toby Stephens

Directed by: Susanna White

One of my personal favorites, this is another BBC adaptation that aired in America on PBS in 2006. It’s made up of two 2-hour episodes, so the length allows for more setting of scene and building of character. Ruth Wilson, as Jane, gets to slow play the character, starting her work at Thornfield with timid wistfulness and slowly blooming as she gets to know Rochester. She doesn’t really live until she knows him, she doesn’t know herself until she knows him. That’s all text, that’s straight from Brontë’s pen, and Wilson’s careful performance makes it subtly visible. (I like Wilson a lot—she now plays a decidedly un-Jane like character, a modern-day physicist slash sociopath, on the BBC series, Luther.)

Toby Stephens, meanwhile, is Rochester from the word go. Or, more accurately, from the words, “Get away from me—witch!” which is his first line of dialogue when Jane, walking down the lane, spooks hs horse, causing it to throw him. He’s angry and harsh, but he likes Jane almost immediately after speaking with her because she’s different, and he manages to convey both those things at the same time. I continue to think that Stephens was too young and too handsome to really be Rochester—also, he has emo hair—but his performance makes up for that.

Things go off the rails slightly when Jane leaves Thornfield; she collapses on the moors, hallucinates dead childhood friend Helen Burns, yells “Helen, wait for me!” and passes out. St. John Rivers appears over the ridge like Superman to carry her home. Jane struggled on her own, but she wasn’t suicidal. It seems out of character, although it does set up the gratitude she feels for the Riverses and especially St. John. But her gratitude would be pretty well understood anyway, wouldn’t it? They just let her live there for ages, recovering, and when she’s well St. John gives her a job.

The parting from Rochester happens later, in flashback once she’s been settled with the Riverses (or is it a fantasy?). This film treats the scene unlike any other I’ve ever seen. Instead of being angry or commanding, Stephens as Rochester tries to seduce her into staying, laying her out on her bed and kissing her and being all, “You don’t really want to leave, do you?” It’s titillating and all (and you know they wanted that shot for the promos!) but again: out of character for Jane, who would never let herself be put in that position, figuratively or literally.

But then Jane declares to St. John that knows she loves Rochester and not him because, “I’ve always known myself, but he was the first to recognize me and love what he saw.” (Jane’s relationship with Rochester is so much about her journey to self-identity and no one every acknowledges that! So I love this.) And in the final moments, the story flashes forward a few years to Rochester, Jane, and their two children, posing in front of the house for a portrait being painted. This is a sweet little visual nod to the short final chapter of the book (“Reader, I married him”) which assures us that it all turned out fine.

Because nothing is perfect, here are some more cons: watching it again this time, I was struck by the cheap appearance of the film. Unlike Jane 1983, this one is recorded on film, but there was either some bad digital retouching or the cinematography was poor. The land around Thornfield looks flat, without depth. Maybe they went super old-fashioned with matte paintings, although I don’t think so. They did look like they were actually outside. The interior sets are not perfect either—Thornfield looks underdressed, as though they couldn’t afford luxurious-enough props. (Not a problem with the 1996’s Hollywood edition.) Lowood School looks like a modern-day public rec center disguised with old-fashioned desks and Christian art on the walls. The absolute worst indication of cheapness is the final shot. The movie ruins that ending I just described liking by taking the freeze frame of the portrait and overlaying a cheap digital frame around it. Remember how on old sitcoms they used to do that? They’d frame the whole cast in red and green and be like, “Merry Christmas from the cast and crew of Home Improvement!” But it’s a rare misstep in a very solid production.

Verdict: Jane = Great, Rochester = Great, Romance = Great, Gothicism = Adequate, Overall = SEE

Jane Eyre 2011

Jane: Mia Wasikowska

Rochester: Michael Fassbender

Directed by: Cary Fukunaga

Other notables: Jamie Bell as St. John Rivers, Sally Hawkins as Mrs. Reed, Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax

There was a lot I really enjoyed about this adaptation of Jane Eyre, and nothing that I disliked, short of my initial indifference to Mia W., whom I found to be a major weak link in The Kids Are All Right but who won me over here. 2011’s Newly Minted Superstar Michael Fassbender is perhaps my favorite Rochester ever. He’s odd-looking enough to be Rochester but striking enough to be hot. He manages to be both intensely instinctual but also calculating and clever and direct. The movie takes its time with Jane and Rochester’s courtship, allowing them to converse about class and philosophy and mythology and their pasts. Book Jane is always accusing Rochester of talking nonsense and I’ve never seen it illustrated so well as here. In their first interview, he teases her that is a gypsy or a fairy, both because he is impertinent and because he is testing her—he’s smirking, he’s seeing if she’s game, if she has any wit. She responds in kind, getting philosophically playful with him, not bothering to stick to respectable topics like weather and county news if he’s not going to. He admires her frankness and honesty, and finds he likes verbally sparring with her; she seems to like it too, though I think she mostly likes being talked to like she’s a human being. Rochester is, through some irony, the kindest man she’s ever known.

The capper on the scene is a cut at the end to Mrs. Fairfax, who sits in the room with them, with her knitting or whatever, and full-on bafflement on her face as to what they are talking about. That is SO Mrs. Fairfax! And I thought Dame Judi was too intelligent and dignified to play batty old Fairfax, but she’s perfect: a servant who respects herself but knows her place, who loves and respects her master, though she openly fears things she doesn’t understand, which includes him.

My favorite scene was the one where Jane leaves. Instead of having her just kind of wander away like some of the adaptations do (ahem, Zeffirelli), she takes her leave of Rochester. She does what an emotionally mature person does and tells him, face to face, that she’s leaving. He lays on the floor outside her bedroom door so as not to miss her (that’s straight from the book, by the way) and they retire to the library to talk. It’s very dark (it’s night) except for a fire burning. It looks warm and intimate and the break-up, such as it is, is intense. She thinks she has to leave because she’s not going to be anybody’s mistress. He doesn’t want to hear that. You can tell that he both a. truly loves her but b. has something to prove. He thinks he’s better than religion, than convention, than the institution of marriage. He’s been burned, and he’s going to show everybody that, through force of will, he can still be happy. It’s one of the more complex hang-ups plaguing the character of Rochester and Fassbender portrays it excellently.

Of course, Charlotte Brontë was a good girl, a clergyman’s daughter. She wasn’t going to write that book. Rochester is meant to learn that he’s wrong about all of that, and Jane leaving is meant to teach it to him. And Mia W. plays that excellently, too, because for all of Jane’s quiet dignity and integrity—and she’s got loads of both—she is, by this point, truly in love with Rochester, and she’s been pretty badly used by life, too. She too could fall, she could easily fall. She really, really wants to stay, but she can’t and she won’t and she doesn’t. She physically drags herself away. There are wrenching sobs. There is unconsummated lust. There is grief for the relationship that is being forced to die. It is agonizing in the most enjoyable way. It’s also the emotional climax of the movie, because her homecoming is reserved and quiet and over in an instant.

Besides the characterizations, which are basically top-notch, the storytelling is really good, too: well-structured, well-paced. The movie opens as Jane is walking away from Thornfield; she collapses on the moors, and recovers at the Rivers place, going over her whole life story in fever-induced flashbacks. The movie spends just enough time at Lowood and at the Reeds’. And there’s Gothicism to burn! Jane tells Adele a scary story about a mythical beast and Adele responds by telling Jane about Thornfield’s ghost (which is Bertha, of course). The entire Thornfield experience is full of first-rate creepy moments made of music and atmosphere. And one of the deleted scenes is my favorite Eyre scene, the ripping of the veil! My notes say “terrifying!”

In short, yay Mia, yay Fassbender! Yay Cary Fukunaga! Yay dark corners and candlelight! Yay quiet passion!

Verdict: Jane = Good, Rochester = Great, Romance = Great, Gothicism = Great, Overall = SEE

25. JANE EYRE (Dir. Cary Fukunaga)

Jane Eyre is a shocking inclusion for an open hater of the period drama. This international adaptation from director Cary Fukunaga stars Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska. Why it was impressive was simply because it strayed away from the well-travelled tropes of the genre. The acting and direction were subtle which makes the eventual romantic dénouement easier to swallow in contrast to the typical mawkish sentiments of the genre. Better than that though is the ghostly appearance and colour palette of the film with its faded greens and greys which loaned a genuinely spooky aura to this much travelled literary adaptation. Not once did the film get bogged down in nice hats and classism.

24. TRUE GRIT (Dir. The Coen Brothers)

The last time the Coen Brothers were in high-profile remake territory they came out with The Ladykillers. This time around there are firing from the top of their game with one of their straightest films to date, that borrows from their serious and farcical work and the result is a rip-roaring western that thrills in a way that few westerns can. This film was carried by the criminally ignored Hailee Steinfeld who outshone an incomprehensible Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon. The Coen’s are back on form.

23. SUBMARINE (Dir. Richard Ayoade)

Submarine is a fantastic coming of age story by first time director Richard Ayoade, better known as the black guy with the afro from the IT crowd. The coming of age of Oliver Tate was a touching depiction of growing up in a small town as one of the outsiders. Ayoade included some of the snappiest fourth wall breaking of the year. The facetious performance from Craig Roberts and one of the wordiest scripts of the year (only film I know of to ever include the word atavistic), make it a unique proposition. In Submarine we get a confident début from Ayoade and one of the funniest films of the year.

22. RANGO (Dir. Gore Verbinski)

Gore Verbinski and his working relationship with Johnny Depp started with some level of success in the first pirates of the Caribbean series, after that it the became convoluted beyond all recognition. In moving away, Verbinski recharged his batteries and made his best film in Rango. If you judge this as a kid’s film which most people do in the west, then it was a catastrophic failure. Animation is more varied than that and Rango is too, playing out like a straight western with animals and an art style that is beautifully ugly. The sense of humour was bang on the money too with a chase scene soundtracked by a bluegrass version of Ride of the Valkyries and an unexpected reference to one of Johnny Depp’s earlier films. Rango is a gloriously bonkers animated film that you rarely see the likes of.

21. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (Dir. Woody Allen)

In late 2011 Woody Allen recaptured his mojo with Midnight in Paris, a romantic comedy of boy meets city. Although the view of Paris in this film is charmingly limited to the tourists eye view, it’s in the premise that Midnight in Paris shines. By travelling back to the early 20^th Century Gill (Owen Wilson) falls in love with Paris and the fascinating characters he meets, with Ernest Hemmingway and Salvador Dali earning top honours. Light and fluffy with a pertinent point to make about nostalgia, Midnight in Paris is absolutely intoxicating in expressing its love for both the city and the epoch which Gill disappears into during the night.

20. CAPTAIN AMERICA THE FIRST AVENGER (Dir. Joe Johnston)

The final avengers’ film before Joss Whedon’s centrpiece is the best, something that I never expected to say back when it was first announced. Joe Johnston’s film marries together a cornucopia of references and cultural beats in his development of a living breathing 1940s America. An America which includes one of the best original songs of the year in “the star spangled man”. The combination of silliness and self-effacing humour that made Thor a return to form is perfected here. The references of many classic films framed within a superhero film that is centred on a real and believable person as opposed to his excessively self-loathing peers stands him in great stead. I can’t wait to see Chris Evans reprise his role in the forthcoming Avengers and future Captain America movies.

19. TUCKER AND DALE VERSUS EVIL (dir. Eli Craig)

The slasher has become ten a penny in the contemporary horror environment and one of the more commonly travelled types is the psychotic hillbilly archetype which Tucker & Dale versus Evil homages perfectly. It could be called the Black Dynamite of the year in the way that Eli Craig’s debut film makes fun of the rules and expectations that you get in these sub-genre features while still working under these rules. Playing wholly on a misunderstanding between some college students and the titular hillbillies might make Tucker and Dale vs. Evil a one joke film, but this joke is without doubt the funniest of the year. A laugh riot that will be adored horror fans.

18. THE AWAKENING (Dir. Nick Murphy)

This under seen and by extension underappreciated British horror film is chilling in all the right ways. This is thanks to that ever increasingly rarity in modern horror – atmosphere, without the aid of an intrusive soundtrack telling you what to feel and when. With great performances by Rebecca Hall, Dominic West and Imelda Staunton, Nick Murphy’s debut film makes full use of their class and decorum in this period ghost story using the period after the First World War as the age of ghosts. While the awakening may not evade the problems with the genre as a whole, instead of falling to pieces post-exposition it becomes something more impressive – an emotional horror film, one that feels similar to the classics of the 1940s.

17. WARRIOR (Dir. Gavin O’ Connor)

Evoking a great tradition of emotional sports movies, the warrior focuses its gaze on the brothers and mixed martial artists Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton and their relationship with estranged alcoholic father Nick Nolte. The film might be leading towards an end game of a huge martial arts event, but the real story is about rebuilding relationships and bridges in the family which is where the great moments of emotion come from. The martial arts might play second fiddle, but that’s not to say they lack weight or thrills. Hardy bullies everyone in these scenes to the point where you believe that he could pull he door from a tank with Edgerton being more of a endurance fighter, al a Rocky. Another under appreciated film and one that made me an instant fan of Tom Hardy.

16. THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN – THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN (dir. Stephen Spielberg)

As the guardian and other serious film critics illustrated Steven Spielberg’s return to the director’s chair is very much a love/hate film. In my opinion this is exactly the sort of thing, Spielberg does best – the big exciting adventure movie. An exciting movie with brilliant set pieces and rip roaring comedy from the writing team of Steve Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. It was also the best use of motion capture technology to date. Being a mo-cap film Andy Serkis is present and as is the case with any of these films he owns the screen.

15. RED STATE (Dir. Kevin Smith)

Kevin Smith has his fair share of haters which was only exaggerated with Red State, a film he refused to put press screenings on for instead deciding to take it on tour around America for everyone to see. This was a bold change from his typical output, taking more of a genre approach converging together horror, thriller, suspense and his typical comedy. Many argued that it lacked definition, my opinion however is that it develops organically around the centre piece which is never less than terrifying thanks to pastor Abin Cooper in a powerhouse of a performance by Michael Parks. What I loved most about it though is the farcical ending which is fantastical yet shot with an intensity that is never anything less than absorbing. Red State is one of the many films of these lists to divide audiences’ right down the middle.

14. THE SKIN I LIVE IN (Dir. Pedro Almodóvar)

The Spanish king of melodrama returned to his roots in 2011 with a challenging film in the skin I live in. While the issues were there, namely the leopard scene and the readiness for rape made it hard to take the film with the seriousness it deserved. To its credit this is one of the most contemporary and shocking re-imaginations of Frankenstein’s monster taking all the gothic imagery and tropes and replacing it with an incredibly visual flair with beautiful cinematography from José Luis Alcaine. The film is sold on the back of its central performances from Elena Anaya and Antonio Banderas who showed he can do more than Puss in Boots and Spy Kids, by playing a disgusting, deeply nuanced man.

13. SNOWTOWN (Dir. Justin Kurzel)

A recurring theme of this year’s list is the inclusion of many dark, depressing and brutal films, however they all feel like upbeat comedies in comparison to Justin Kurzel’s masterpiece of morbid. Kurzel’s debut is a biopic on Australia’s most controversial serial killer, John Bunting who is played with a frightening simplicity by Daniel Henshall. Any film can show a serial killer being blood thirsty, in Snowtown the serial killer is a respectable enough guy, dare I say likeable. It’s through the mundane and every day that we see John Bunting mutate into a monster. Violence is shown without fanfare, observing the modus operandi of Bunting’s murders means that all you need to hear is a tape recording to understand what’s happening. Snowtown is not a film you’ll want to return to but it’s a horror film of the highest order, one of social significance and heightened reality without lowering itself to the tricks of found footage.

12. 50/50 (Dir. Jonathan Levine)

It could be called crass and insensitive but 50/50 is about as accurate a depiction of a 20-something getting cancer without being over-sentimental and manipulative. Based on the real life experiences of Will Reiser, a cancer survivor helped through it by Seth Rogen. It’s no surprise then that Rogen is on the best form of his life as Kyle, playing a character that is loud and obnoxious but shows a clear love for his best friend. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Adam, the sufferer of cancer and seeing his character fail to cope with the disease and his support network is one of the most moving moments of the year. Maybe it’s because I saw a lot of myself in Adam as a fellow 20-something who works in radio that elevated this film so high. But, there can be nothing more said about 50/50 than it balances the divide between sadness and comedy with consummate ease.

11. SENNA (Dir. Asif Kapadia)

The first documentary to hit the list and the one with the highest profile is Asif Kapadia biography of Ayton Senna. Making use of hundreds if not thousands of hours of TV footage, Senna shows what can be achieved with editing by elevating the documentary subject and constructing it in a way that easily appeals to those weaned only on narrative cinema. The championship footage is about as exciting as it comes in 2011. It has been said many times by people much more eloquent than me; Senna takes something of niche and specialist interest like formula 1 and presents it in an accessible way. That is the mark of a great documentary. Senna is a pitch perfect portrait of a brilliant man and one of those most charismatic and enigmatic sports men who ever lived.

Desde que se publicara en 1847, la novela Jane Eyre de la escritora inglesa Charlotte Brontë ha servido para una multitud de adaptaciones : teatro, musicales, novelas, y una treintena de películas para cine y televisión. La razón es simple, la columna vertebral de la trama se centra en el romance clásico: la lucha del bien y el mal, las clases sociales, los amores imposibles, y los dilemas morales. Si a esto aderezamos el drama de madurez personal, el crecimiento desde el punto de vista infantil, el conflicto existencial entre Dios y el ser, una fuerte crítica social, un punto de vista adelantado a su tiempo (que se pudiera considerar proto-feminista) y una narrativa emparentada con la ficción gótica muy en boga en la última mitad del siglo XVIII y principios del XIX, el éxito es casi inmediato. Desgraciadamente la gran mayoría de estas adaptaciones se han centrado en el romance telenovelero, alejándose del verdadero  significado que la Brontë quiso otorgarle a la novela, despojándola de cualquier aire oscuro, revolucionario o polémico y peor aún convirtiendo a su individualista, independiente, deseosa de vivir y con una alta moral protagonista en una boba princesa de cuento. 

La redención vino por casualidad. Por una lado la BBC de Londres trabajaba en la pre-producción de otra adaptación más, pero por desgracia (o gracia) se quedó sin director y staff. Por el otro lado, Cary Fukunaga, director norteamericano, se encontraba en tierras británicas promocionando su ópera prima, Sin Nombre, una interesante co-producción México – Estados Unidos sobre la pandilla centroamericana Mara Salvatrucha. Así la casualidad jugó sus cartas, un novel director buscaba involucrarse en nuevos proyectos y una productora buscaba a un novel director.

Lo interesante aquí fueron las decisiones de Fukunaga: primero, la narrativa se desarrollaría por flashbacks anecdóticos y defragmentados que más que buscar contar una historia se enfocarían en delinear y dibujar a los personajes. Segundo, se rescata el aire de novela gótica con toques oscuros e incluso fantasmagóricos que en más de una ocasión nos harían sentir en una novela de Allan Poe y no en un drama romántico de época. Tercero, las locaciones, vestuario y diseño de arte en general, fueron cuidados al extremo y, aunque hermosos y suntuosos, nunca pretenden opacar a los personajes o distraer al espectador de la historia. Por último la elección del casting, la jovensísima Mia Wasikowska como una jovensísima Jane Eyre, y Michael Fassbender como el maduro y estricto Edward Fairfax Rochester, remarcando la diferencia de edades y personalidades presente en la novela original y olvidada por fines comerciales en las posteriores adaptaciones.

Fukunaga, así, logra un maduro y preciosista filme, que remarca las virtudes de la novela original y convierte a una novela clásica en un romance contemporáneo. La señora Brontë estaría muy satisfecha.

The new Jane Eyre directed by Cary Fukunaga is a fantastic rendition of a classic novel for a contemporary audience.

Normally when I watch movies that are traditional depictions of the 1800s or anywhere beyond that, I am lost in their sense and use of language. However, I did not encounter this when I watched Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre. Though it was decorous and accurate of its time, the language and conventions associated with the 1800s were quite easy to assimilate.

With a befitting dosage of taciturnity expressed through body language, music, and scene, Fukunaga transports us to a world we can hardly understand in our present time. A world where women are mere pieces of flesh for bartering and getting things done, and apparently were you can lock your wife in the attic for fifteen years and not get arrested. Romanticism is at its height. And Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre) negotiates the screen like a true veteran. Through her simplicity and restrained speech and emotion she carries the movie from its darkest to lightest hours, though of the latter there are not much.

But, don’t think that this is just some archaic tale of feminism. The movie has more to offer than that. Cary Fukunaga’s filming is magnificent and the tale of Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester are no less than enduring.

As well, Fukunaga films the movie brilliantly. Rich colors and wide scenic shots fill the movie and add to its grand gesture of what the culture and history of our past used to look like.

Although the movie may not be able to hold to everything the book accomplishes, what movie can?

Do yourself a favor, rent this movie and watch a spectacular film about the fate of a young woman driven into servitude.

Jane Eyre

Lush, beautiful, beguiling, stunning!  I am out of words of praise for this film and I love it so dearly.  I’m kinda am biased here because I am a sucker for this kinds of films, but can you really blame me, it really was very well made.  If I have one comment though, I think that the chemistry of the two leads needed more oomph.  That said however, the two leads gave superb performances, but I am leaning towards Mia Wasikowska’s work.  A

A film still from Jem Cohen's New York Night Scene.

The Chinatown Film Project tackled the evocative neighborhood’s reputation–true and stereotyped–by creating unique stories for the audience to engage with. The project began by asking ten of New York’s most exciting filmmakers to present a new take on a global icon. Contributors included Miguel Arteta, Patty Chang, Jem Cohen, Cary Fukunaga, Bradley Rust Gray, So Yong Kim, Amir Naderi, Sam Pollard, Shelly Silver, Rose Troche, Wayne Wang and Richard Wong.

More information can be found here, and copies are available for sale in the Museum Shop.

Marjorie and I have been labouring away on far less than the bas-ic wage, taking our vita-mins and almost going beresk - despairing that we would ever see a decent fill -um  again.
Well thanks to the recommendation of my first-born Maximillian - no slouch with a camera himself – the cinematic drought was finally broken in the Batcave last-nite.
Believe it or not it was the latest version of Charlotte Brontes miserable tale ‘Jane Eyre’ that lifted us out of the doldrums and well and truly above the clouds of bad art.
Directed by Cary Fukunaga it is beautifully shot – carefully composed scenes confining themselves to the telling of the story – and carries a sense of realism often lost behind the elaborate costumery of period dramas. The costuming in fact plays a big part in the films restraint and authenticity.
The skillful restructuring of the original story achieved in the script relieves the tale of much of its customary melodrama. 
The story and the inner emotion of such well-known characters is beautifully rendered by understated performances of an exceptional calibre.
The youthful lead actress (Mia Wasikowska) transmits the suppressed feelings and frustrated emotional fury of Jane Eyre more than any other I have seen in the role – and there have already been some excellent renditions including Charlotte Gainsbourg directed by Franco Zeffirelli. 
Michael Fassbender’s Mr. Rochester is not so much full of cruelty and malice but conflicted by the caprice of his position and tormented by emotion for his spirited governess when cold calculation would serve him best.
Previous Jane’s have been signified by their austerity and duty over emotion – this Jane is alive with tenderness and oceanic love and will let down her conventional defences for nothing less in return- a lively minded dreamer despite the many cages she has lived in.
A wonderful and moving film of love surviving the obstacles of pride and convention.
Four stars and bouquet of roses.
Marjorie is still swooning.

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”  -JANE EYRE

I surprised myself of how I am taking this stretching-my-short-span-of-interest self-dare, I found myself digging for more of this costume drama movies. Talk about something new.

I have no knowledge of the plot nor I haven’t read the book before my viewing, so I can’t say much about comparisons. Technically, I like how the movie started. It gave a connection between the character and the audience, making them (the audience) wonder about her (Jane Eyre) past. The entire viewing, I found myself laughing, horrified and anticipating of what might happen at the same time. I’m okay with the dark tone.  But there was a moment that some scenes gave me the creeps I even went, “No, this can’t be a horror movie. No Sadaku or something will appear on the screen, please..no.” But that’s just my coward taking over me.

Of why I stick ’till the end of the film, it’s probably about Jane’s  journey to womanhood had me love her as a character. Mia Wasikowska was good as Jane Eyre, i could say. She has this somewhat power by the way she gazes blankly or by they way she wears her blunt face that makes her charming. Jamie Bell as St. John Rivers is nevertheless good. As to Mr. Fassbender, I’m not quite convince of  him as Mr. Rochester nor I do not ship him with Ms. Wasikowska.

I was confused with the ending though. The 2011 adaptation gave me the “That was it?” reaction. I researched for earlier adaptions and it seemed like the recent (2011 adaptation) has cut to short leading the audience a lack of emotional bond with the characters . All in all…despite flaws, I loved it.

Jane Eyre (2011)

Rendering a classic text onto film is risky, more so if said text has already been turned into a film before. Comparisons are bound to follow, in one , long, whiny trail of what’s-better-in-this-one and what’s-worse. I myself have been a disgruntled participant in this procession on many occasions, and had been looking forward to the new cinematic version of Jane Eyre, with expectations kept willfully low, when it pulled a Bertha Mason and surprised me.

It was a sincere, beautiful rendition of the eldest Bronte’s claim-to-fame novel. And here is why:

• The atmosphere. It is deliciously chilling, in perfect keeping with the Gothic spirit of the book, and is so tangible at points that it gives you goosebumps like few new thriller flicks do. From the opening sequence, Cary Fukunaga keeps you on tenterhooks. Those shots of the vast, hostile wilderness with the lone figure of Jane positioned variously in them, and the resemblance they bear to the dark, Romantic paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, and those tragic strains of a violin or piano accompanying the swellings in the story do the trick. Rochester’s ominous secret, the madwoman-in-the-attic bit, is also used well for atmospheric bonus. As in the novel, the filmmakers feed the audience’s terror by playing on the unseen, giving us little helpings of muffled laughter and mysterious creakings until we’re full with a typically Bronte-ish repast.

Jane Eyre (2011)

'Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon'. Caspar David Friedrich. 1833

'Moonrise by the Sea'. Caspar David Friedrich. 1822

• The chemistry. After very long have I seen the kind of romantic oomph that Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender provide. Their ages are just right. Rochester was a lot older than Jane, and – this is important – neither of them was described in the novel as stunningly beautiful. Each had an elusive attractiveness, so thank HEAVENS they refrained from dolling up Wasikowska too much, or turning Fassbender into some Adonis. Toned down and mysterious, both act superbly, all the while channeling an energy that is more powerful because it is kept latent for the better part of the film.

Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender as Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester

• The supporting cast. Judi Dench just adds a gold star to any film she’s in, doesn’t she? Having seen this paragon decked out regally as Queen Elizabeth or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, you can hardly envision her as the housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax. But she pulls off the role as if it had descended to earth, custom-made with an apron, just for her. And that one line (‘How very French!’), the only haughty delivery from her throughout, is definitely worth watching for all of us who love her deep-set, British curtness. Dench having been duly eulogized, an honourable mention should also be made of actor Jamie Bell, who plays a nice, staid St. John Rivers.

Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax

how romantic can it possibly be, you may ask? i think the director’s words on love may provide us with some clue:

so according to new york magazine’s vulture blog, they asked mr. fukunaga what the craziest thing he had ever done for love was. (see: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/10/cary_fukunaga_romance.html)

and he replied,

“That’s hard to figure out. What defines crazy? Let me think about that for a second…I’ve scoured for mourning jewelry, put pieces together that have matched from around the world; I’ve given lost lockets as gifts. I’ve written immense love letters that are supposed to be opened over days at a time. I used to always make art for girls. That was the thing I did for girls to like me. I did portraits, drawings, letters that formed outlines of significant things in our relationship. Art. I just used art in general. It usually worked.”

O.M.G. Swoony!

Don’t you love her little brooch? Holliday Grainger.

I love this shot because she’s talking about being trapped and not only is she framed in a window, but the window panes act as a prison cell. Mia Wasikowska.

Mia Wasikowska.

Mia Wasikowska.

Here are some great collar and cuff combos.  Why don’t people make a nice, lacy or embroidered cuff anymore?  It’s perfect for winter, wear it under your fave solid wool/cashmere sweater.  It adds a splash of femininity to something otherwise unisex.

OMG how fun is this cuff?  Double layered and belled! Tamzin Merchant.

Mia Wasikowska and Judi Dench.

The sleeve details, tight, pleated, layered in contrast to the full skirts give you a sense of how restrained all the women in this period are.

Mia Wasikowska.

Mia Wasikowska.

The layered sleeves make me want to make fitted wool blazers or pea coats.

Scalloped sleeve (ok she is wearing a necklace with this collar, but it’s so fab). Tamzin Merchant.

Young Jane’s school uni made me think of Helmut Lang in the mid 90′s.  Imagine it in black over a white shirt.  So cool.

Amelia Clarkson.

Amelia Clarkson.

Jane’s shoes are the last vestige of her privileged upbringing.  And they’re adorable!

Crafty oxfords, please someone make these. Amelia Clarkson.

Grey mesh gloves, gimme! Mia Wasikowska.

As for the the men, Mr. Rochester is a dandy when the mood suits him, but St. John, played by a grown up Jamie Bell, is always dressed in stark black and white.  I love the contrast of the soft, white, thin cravat with the bulky, black and stiff vest, coat and overcoat.

Jamie Bell.

Check out the nice, wide collar from the back.  If it were a waxed cotton, it would be selling out in an All Saints shop.

Jamie Bell.

All in all, this version surprised me by how stunning it was visually and aurally.  Mr. Rochester always stuns me… Hello?  Sexual harassment!  But it is a classic tome, sure to be remade again, and again, but probably won’t look as cool.  Tremendous job, Michael O’Connor.

http://focusfeatures.com/jane_eyre

Jane Eyre poster. From IMDB.

This most recent version, directed by Cary Fukunaga, is told primarily through a series of flashbacks. Fukunaga also decided to highlight some of the more gothic elements of the book, creating a dark but hauntingly beautiful film. It starts out a bit slow, but increases in pace towards the middle to end of the story.

“You transfix me quite!”

Jane is faced with some tough decisions throughout the film and, for the most part, she handles them well. She has a difficult childhood and doesn’t behave very well toward her aunt and cousins, but several hard years at school refine her into a much more sensible young lady. When, later in life, she’s asked by her aunt to forgive her, Jane willing does so and tells her aunt to rest in peace.

By far the most difficult choice, however, comes when she falls in love. And I will warn you now that the next paragraph or so will probably contain SPOILERS.

Jane is employed by a wealthy and apparently unmarried gentleman, Mr. Rochester, to be a governess to his young ward. Jane and Mr. Rochester begin to fall in love and eventually decide to get married. At the wedding, however, a man comes forward with the shocking news that Mr. Rochester is already married and thus this wedding cannot go on. Mr. Rochester doesn’t believe this previous marriage is a lawful impediment, as his old wife has gone mad. Jane doesn’t see it in this light though and leaves Mr. Rochester’s house in the night.

Her choice in this case is good, and upholds the sanctity of marriage as defined by the Bible. However, a later choice may be perceived as wrong, if the viewer hasn’t read the book. I’ll deal with that in the next section.
*END OF SPOILERS – FOR NOW*

“Keep him at a distance”

The camera lingers on a nude painting twice and there are also several kisses between unmarried people. Toward the beginning of the film, there are also a couple of instances of violence toward a child.

*HERE THERE BE SPOILERS*
One of the main plot points involves marital infidelity and deception. One character knowingly attempts to marry a woman while he is already married, claiming that his first wife is insane and thus the marriage is no longer valid.

Jane makes the right decision and flees this potentially illicit relationship. As time passes though, she begins to wonder how Mr. Rochester is doing and eventually goes to find out. This is where the trouble starts. In the film, Jane is depicted as suddenly running back to Mr. Rochester, which would imply that she changed her mind and decided to go against her previous convictions. Readers of the book (and, I suppose, of this review) will know that this is not exactly how the story goes. Jane goes to find out how Mr. Rochester is doing, but she does not seek to find him until – well, to avoid major spoilers, let’s just say she doesn’t go to him until she knows it is safe and proper to do so.

While this isn’t clearly portrayed in the film, I do think it’s worth noting that the book does continue to uphold the sanctity of marriage throughout the entirety of the story.
*END OF SPOILERS*

Conclusion

In short, the film contains mature themes and parents should definitely preview it before letting their older children see it. On the whole, however, I do think it has some positive messages and is, at the very least an interesting catalyst for a discussion on the Biblical view marriage and what constitutes a human life. It is also a beautiful film and is – at the moment – my favorite rendition of Charlotte Bronte’s timeless classic.

Despite there being several adaptations of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, this one still manages some new angles. The visual imagery brings to life the book as most of us might have imagined. The premise is simple: a plain governess with a cruel childhood charms her employer who seems to be hiding a dark secret.

One of the newness was in the non-linear storytelling – the movie opens with Jane fleeing from her Thornfield residence, and is told in flashbacks as she ruminates about her past. Mia Wasikowska is cast perfectly as the title character of Jane Eyre. Her plain looks with minimal makeup made her look as realistically close to Jane as would be possible. Her chemistry with Michael Fassbender, as Rochester brings out the age and class differences between their characters. A big actress like Judi Dench playing the housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax, sums up the subtle tone of the film. The only downside was Jamie Bell as St. John Rivers, he seemed slightly miscast as he fails to project the image of a pious Christian missionary.

The movie focuses more on the intricacies of the relationship between Jane and Rochester, and the initial scenes of Jane’s painful childhood in the rigid school are merely glossed over. The best aspect was undoubtedly the feast for the eyes by the breathtaking landscapes. 6.5/10