|
THE RED DWARF Send This Review to a Friend
The off-putting memory I carry from "The Red Dwarf," a first feature by Belgian writer-director Yvan LeMoine, is the seduction scene between the pint-sized Lucien (Jean-Yves Thual) and the opera star Paola, played by the once beautiful Anita Ekberg, now a whale of a woman. The pairing borders on the grotesque. Still, if this were a film of any real substance, one might appreciate the oddity and perhaps even be moved. But the situation smacks of exploitation.
Does Ekberg need the money and exposure that much? What a contrast with the tender sequence of Fellini's "Intervista," in which she and Marcello Mastroianni reunite to watch the Trevi Fountain scene from "La Dolce Vita." Still, the plot holds possibility.
Lucien is employed by a law firm to fake compromising letters that can be used unscrupulously in divorce cases. He's good at it, and that sparks the action that brings him into contact with Paola. The situation reminds me of the old joke about the midget who marries the circus fat lady and on their wedding night is observed through a keyhole running up and down on her body exclaiming, "Acres and acres and it's all mine." Lucien may be small but he's a man of action.
Complications take Lucien on a strange journey. We're meant to both admire him and sympathize with him, but it is hard to do much of either. The film turns precious when he joins a circus and becomes idolized by a 12-year-old acrobat, Isis (Dyna Gauzy). The effort to mix the earthy with the ethereal doesn’t really work, and in the end "The Red Dwarf" is an interesting idea that fails. A Goldwyn Films release.
|