There Are No Walls in the House of Jearl - Mystery DVD #119
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Mystery DVD #119
Fay Grim
Hal Hartley refers to this film as the "Empire Strikes Back" to Henry Fool's "Star Wars." (Episode IV, pedants.) It's apt - Fay Grim is much more complicated and action-filled and covers a lot more space. And Fay gets a bionic hand at the end. Okay, no, but she does get the most awesome outfit for clambering over the roofs of Paris since Maggie Cheung in Irma Vep.
Okay, believe some of his lies.
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In my last entry, I forgot to mention how comical and even slapstick this series is - Henry and Fay don't get to hold onto much dignity. In this one Fay starts off still beleaguered and overwhelmed - her brother is in prison for obstruction of justice, her son with Henry, who disappeared from their lives seven years ago, is getting into trouble at school, and hey, Jeff Goldblum has suddenly appeared to to tell her that Henry is dead and that she has to go to France to negotiate for the return of part of Henry's Confession. See, Henry Fool was a bombastic criminal but he wasn't entirely a liar. He was wrapped up in a tangle of international criminal and terrorist networks, and his notebooks hold not a terrible, self-indulgent 'novel of ideas' but are a coded memoir embarrassing to several nations. And they are scattered, in eight parts, with numerous spies hunting them, because a single Maguffin is no challenge.
Jeff Goldblum is great at rattling off complicated Hal Hartleyisms. Fantastic dialogue. Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) is great in the opposite direction, saying as few words as possible, timed perfectly. I'm not usually this conscious of the directorness of films, but Hartley is very present in the way everyone moves and stands. It makes the comic timings work better somehow. If there's a weakness it's that the spy plot threads come together neatly and abruptly, and I feel like I missed something in there.
Back to the story! Fay agrees to fly off to France in a fabulous coat to fetch the notebooks, and rather quickly transforms into a saint of chaos, dodging bullets and treating the wounded on every side. Surrounded by spies and thieves and misunderstood flight attendants, she becomes the one clear thread of sanity and strength. You have to have seen Henry Fool to appreciate the enormity of this growth. Her exhausted 'okay' to each ridiculous new twist becomes a benediction. Parker Posey can sigh 'okay' and shake her head, and convey so much. It hurts me. Fay starts the film off saying she doesn't want to see Henry again, wishes she'd never met him. She becomes very canny in leveraging her power over everyone who wants the Confessions, but she gets in too deep, and starts caring about them all, and somehow this comes back around to Henry, who is always just out of reach. In the end all she wants is to rejoin him in some safe place, and forget their old lives. It almost works out. She gets in too deep. She tries to save too many people.
The end was devastating. I think I will have to write another entry for it, behind a spoiler cut, if anyone wants to talk about it.
Tags: dvd review
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![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/17374034/1357325) | | From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) elklad |
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| Date: | November 27th, 2007 06:15 pm (UTC) |
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| | Always good to see your reviews on LJ | (Link) |
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Looks like I've got two movies to rent.
If this is Hartley's "Empire", is there a "Jedi"?
| | From: | jearl |
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| Date: | November 28th, 2007 12:51 am (UTC) |
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| | Re: Always good to see your reviews on LJ | (Link) |
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I'm assuming so. The ending left a great deal open. Might be another ten years off though.
I think this is your best review yet as well as being the best review of the Grim Fool saga I've seen in print. (I think the first part is actually the higher praise.) Thanks for these.
I'm curious to find out what you think of Girl from Monday if it ever comes out in a form you can actually see. It's equally fraught but the scifi conceit seems to make it easier to both swallow and dismiss. It doesn't stick in the throat in the same way that even the spy stuff in Fay seems built to do. OTOH it has no Parker Posey. OTOOH, I think I saw Parker Posey at a sidewalk table a few months ago. Smoking, alone, giving commands on a cell phone -- seemed pissed off. I want to believe it was her.
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