Cassandra’s Dream (2007)-Christopher Mulrooney
Cassandra’s Dream (2007)
By Christopher Mulrooney
The whole story of globalization and its peculiar attractions and its rather odd mission. The basis of the anecdotal construction is a variant of such a useful theme as elegantly deployed in a Columbo called “Double Shock” (twin brothers kill uncle, one conservative and the other not). In this London tale, uncle is a plastic surgeon living in Los Angeles with ties to Switzerland and Hollywood, his new clinic in China is a great success but a witness to his practices in business and foundation has to be eliminated lest he testify. Fortunately, two nephews have a need for help, one to escape loan sharks and the other to become a Los Angeles hotelier. The garage mechanic knows about zip guns but is reluctant. The murder is done, his conscience assails him.
The descriptive labors of Match Point and Scoop have reaped a benefit in simple formulation and direct expression. The tortured mind of the recalcitrant nephew gives him no peace, he must be eliminated in turn yet this does not come off. His brother berates him for spoiling the crime with talk of confessing, the two wrestle, one falls dead. Instead of going to the police, the unfortunate perpetrator kills himself.
The direction is perfect, the performances no less so. The drama is laid in London settings as an elaborate artifice amid verisimilitude. The city of traffic jams and riparian entertainments has its pomp and circumstance, a view of Tower Bridge leading farcically to the Gherkin, a shot or two of umbrageous timeless dockside London where, under all the gaiety of the New Economy, bodies is buried as ever.
Zsigmond’s cinematography gets arching clouds over water and subtle, luminous landscapes on outings in the country or aboard the boys’ small craft, named for a greyhound that wins at sixty to one, the title. Glass finds his adjunct to film composition in Bernard Herrmann and writes a perfect score.
The slight stutter and mixed purpose of various scenes are so lifelike that they accomplish a unity of droll foreground action and well-observed city background. The incredible scenery requires no explanation, the café-theater and industrial wrap-party are taken for what they are without heightening of effect. The would-be hotelier’s mistress is a would-be starlet, the mechanic has a down-to-earth blonde very concerned about his mental health toward the end, he wakes from nightmares out of Deliverance, evidently.
A trip to Brighton, last seen in Stardust Memories or first seen there. The beautiful camerawork finishes a movement in an extraordinarily precise cadential view, as at Lord Eisley’s garden party or outside a pub overlooking the Thames (where a perfect vertical on the right sets off the dockside view described).
Action is taken with a furtherance of the understanding evolved in Match Point that it must be filmed with dry verisimilitude. The zip guns are tested at the garage, the sound doesn’t ring but flatly conveys instant death, the tussle on the boat ends with a crash just as plain. Without dramatic artifice the effect each time produces a stunned, quizzical and above all even reflection.
The plastic surgeon has tacitly committed a perfect crime, police have the bodies and the boat, the girls are out shopping. “Life is nothing if not totally ironic,” the strange unity works out as divide et impera.
Copyright C. 2008 Christopher Mulrooney