Dir. James Ivory, 2005, UK/China/Ger, 135 mins
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Lynn Redgrave, John Wood
Review by Ivan Waterman
For over four decades – in which they made more than 30 films – the names of director James Ivory and his producer Ismail Merchant have been synonymous with the very best in movie making. They made mini-epics with a dreamy quality such as Heat and Dust and A Room With a View. They chronicled history, the world of art through Surviving Picasso and the British aristocracy in Howard’s End. They were star makers. Greta Scacchi was one of their most sensuous creations as a frustrated Raj wife in Heat and Dust while Thandie Newton as a future US president’s teenaged bedroom slave in Jefferon in Paris.
Everyone has their own favourite Merchant Ivory production. Daniel Day-Lewis, Hugh Grant and Helena Bonham-Carter. The cream of British acting have all sailed into glorious sunsets through their work, often early in their careers.
But now the independent partnership which won them a place in the Guinness Book of Records for its longevity is no more. Merchant tragically died after a short illness in May last year just before completing work on The White Countess. Ironically, he had broken an ankle in Shanghai where the film is set. Perhaps that on-set accident was an omen.
But their last film drama is an almost flawless testament to their genius. Have they saved their very best until last? Many will see this story, based on Japanese novelist Kazuo Ishiguro’s original screenplay, as their piece de resistance. It certainly ranks up there with Remains of the Day, an Ishiguro novel adapted by Merchant Ivory’s favourite collaborator Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
Their latest and last foray took them to China (the first Western film to be shot entirely on location there) to re-create the tensions and political intrigue in Shanghai of the mid to late 1930’s shortly before the ruthless Japanese invasion of the territory.
Opulence and excitement in the foreign quarters was tainted by the abject poverty of the locals. Corruption was rife. And the city – filled by fleeing European immigrants – was always in danger of boiling over.
In the epicentre of the maelstrom was a beautiful Russian countess reduced by circumstances to supporting her family as a bar girl (Richardson) and a blind former diplomat (Fiennes) devastated by the loss of his family in a previous armed assault on the city.
The story revolves around their stop-start love affair, her family’s plight and the elegant nightclub he creates in her honour to shut out the chaos and the tragedy of his past life.
Fiennes is right at the top of his game as the handicapped American diplomat Jackson bringing genuine subtlety to one of the most difficult characters he has had to handle. Richardson is at her most captivating as the Russian countess Sofia Belinsky, with her real-life mother, Vanessa Redgrave, and aunt Lynn Redgrave, at close quarters. Not only does she deal with a Russian accent superbly, she is naturally alluring even with a precocious daughter in close proximity. And what a delight it was to see the Redgrave clan ‘delivering’ the goods in unison.
The difficulties in making the film in China, re-constructing pre-war Shanghai, were similar to those Merchant faced in many of their Indian exploits, a multiplicity of languages, entrenched customs and multi-tiered bureaucracies, but with his partner Ivory behind him at every step, Merchant brought Ishiguro’s story to life.
The sumptuous outcome is something of a miracle.
