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Seen at...
Eisenstein in Guanajuato
- Director: Peter Greenaway
- Writer: Peter Greenaway
- Producer: Karin S. de Boer; Bruno Felix
CGiii Comment
Peter Greenaway does films about sex and death...not everyone's cup of tea.
But...for those who prefer a Lapsang Souchong to a PG Tip...will, undoubtedly, be rewarded with a verbose kaleidoscope from a fruitful mind.
Does Greenaway do Eisenstein a disservice? Quite possibly.
Let's face it, Greenaway doesn't do commercial...so, anyone going to see a Greenaway film about Eisenstein will know something about Greenaway and Eisenstein...let the festivities begin...
For those poor souls who - know nothing about either filmmaker - stumble into Guanajuato...well, their senses and sensibilities are about to be assaulted. And, they'll learn practically nothing about Eisenstein...apart from his predilections for nudity, bum-fucking and ceaseless chattering...
Eisenstein was not an attractive man and neither is the remarkably similar Elmer Back, think a grizzly Eraserhead...but, he does bring the man to life...it is a sparkling, unrestrained performance.
There are too many gimmicks (those split-screen tryptychs) and too many words (he really does babble). As expected, the cinematography is bold and lush...show, Peter, don't tell!
We Lapsangers loved it...the Tipplers won't. It's all just down to taste.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
In 1931 the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein travels to Guanajuato to direct his film Que viva Mexico. There he encounters a new culture and its dealings with death; he also discovers another revolution - and his own body. Peter Greenaway depicts Eisenstein as an eccentric artist who travels to Mexico filled with the hubris of being an internationally celebrated star director. Once there, he gets into difficulties with his American financier, the novelist Upton Sinclair.
At the same time he begins, in the simultaneously joyful and threatening foreign land, to re-evaluate his homeland and the Stalinist regime. And, in doing so, he undergoes the transition from a conceptual filmmaker into an artist fascinated by the human condition. Under his gaze, the signs, impressions, religious and pagan symbols of Mexican culture assemble themselves anew.Making use of extreme close-ups, splitscreens and a dramatic montage - all to enact the transformation of a hero who presents himself as a tragic clown - Greenaway deliberately quotes and modifies Eisenstein's own cinematic tools. Scene by scene the film gets closer to Eisenstein the man, who finds himself surprised by an unexpected desire.
Cast & Characters
Stelio Savante as Hunter S. Kimbrough;
Lisa Owen as Mary Sinclair;
Elmer Back as Sergei Eisenstein;
Maya Zapata as Concepcion Canedo;
Luis Alberti as Palomino Canedo;
Jakob Ohrman as Edouard Tisse;
Alan Del Castillo;
Raino Ranta as Meierhold;
Rasmus Slatis as Grisha Alexandrov