George Cukor/Joseph Strick 1969 USA
Starring: Anouk Aimée, Michael York, Dirk Bogarde, John Vernon, Anna Karina, Philippe Noiret, Jack Albertson
A few days ago I wrote about the current lack of cinematic creativity as I see it and the lessening frequency of projects featuring unusual bases and wide and sometimes ill-fitting combination of actors and crew. George Cukor and Joseph Strick's Justine is just such a film, an aimless, slightly sleazy adaptation of Lawrence Durrell's novel of the same name set in 1930's Alexandria, co-directed by a man primarily known for his wonderful screwball comedies and starring a leading light of the French New Wave era, an actress synonymous with Italian neo-realism, a former matinee idol, the decent but bland Michael York (who despite getting his arse out is hardly a convincing romantic lead) and someone rather pleasingly called Amapola Del Vando. Really that description of York is the best way to describe the film as a whole - it's serviceable but certainly nothing special. Still, perhaps the most striking thing about it is that even after sitting through the entire two hours I'm not at all sure what it's actually about. As with most of Cukor's work the script is full of flowing dialogue and scathing retorts but it's not consistently funny enough to function as a comedy and isn't affecting or thrilling enough to be a successful drama. At one point it appears to be veer into murder mystery territory but we're immediately shown who both the killer and the victim are before it's largely forgotten about altogether. Likewise politics and religion figure in a small way but again Cukor and Strick's actual intent is illusive. It's difficult even to understand why it's named after Aimée's Justine as at times she is little more than a player in the main character's story. For the first twenty minutes or so she doesn't even appear, instead we're shown belly-dancer Melissa (Anna Karina, losing most of her wonder in trying to do an American accent) as she has her drink spiked with Spanish Fly and runs screaming through the streets being laughed at and mocked by everyone she encounters, most of them children, until York scoops her up and, after she's been diagnosed with and apparently cured of "malnutrition, hysteria, alcoholism, hashish and TB", starts a love affair with her. Sadly she all but disappears soon after Justine arrives and isn't glimpsed again for about an hour. Dirk Bogarde turns up later as a man known only as Pursewarden (named for his main utility in his associates' eyes perhaps), gets all the best lines and steals the film with ease but ends up being of very little consequence. Aimée makes an effort and is mostly believable as a unflinching seductress but overall struggles beneath the sheer strangeness of the plot. I've got to admit that I haven't read Durrell's novel to clarify how close a rendering this is but I get the impression that it's just one of those cases where the written word doesn't transfer to the cinema, at least I hope so because if it isn't I'm never reading the bloody book.
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