THE CHAMBERMAID ON THE TITANIC
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: In a harsh steel mill town in France
of 1912 a man's romantic fantasies transform his
life and the lives of the people around him. This
is a Spanish film about how human nature will
choose a pleasant lie over a brutal truth and the
power of the right fantasy to transfigure the
listener. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), +2 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 9 positive, 0 negative, 2 mixed
If I were to look for a film to double-feature with THE CHAMBERMAID ON THE TITANIC, it would probably be last year's misunderstood and under-appreciated THE POSTMAN. Both films are about unpleasant societies and the transforming and inspiring power of just the right lie. In each film the public is more than anxious to be fooled by the lie that fills a need.
THE CHAMBERMAID ON THE TITANIC opens in a steel mill town somewhere in France. One gets a feel for how harsh life is in the credit sequence where the pouring of molten steel looks like the core of a volcano. Fun in this town is the annual race in which the runners, sopping wet, carry large sandbags on their backs through puddles of standing water. Each then has to climb a hill of cinders to retrieve a baton only to return to the run. The winner this time, as it has been the previous two, is young and handsome Horty (Olivier Martinez). This year there is to be a special prize. The winner gets a trip to Southampton, England to see the embarkation of the steamship Titanic. Actually the prize was to have been two tickets, but the manager of the mill wants to use the opportunity to attempt to seduce Horty's wife Zoe (Romane Bohringer). Unaware of what is happening at home, Horty goes to Southampton.
In his hotel Horty meets a beautiful damsel in distress. Marie (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) is to be a chambermaid on the departing ship in the morning, but she cannot find a room for the night and asks Horty if she may have his room. He reluctantly agrees and spends a frustrating but chaste night in the same bed with the comely woman. Marie is gone before he arises and as he watches the Titanic set sail, he notices that a local photographer captured her picture. He purchases the picture and fantasizes about what might have been.
On his return, Horty's friends hint to him that his wife may have been seeing the manager. Jealous of his wife, he retreats to the bar to enjoy his memories and his photograph of Marie. When his friends start pressing him for details, he brags of his romantic adventures, telling his fantasies as if they were true. What begins as the locker-room sort of boasting evolves into a sort of romantic soft-core pornography. Ever-increasing crowds of both genders gather each night to escape their problems and hear the story of the romantic interlude.
The deceptively simple story touches on not just the mystique of womanhood, but the will to believe and to a certain extent commercialization of the arts. We have a story of the duality of legend and reality and the will to believe. THE CHAMBERMAID ON THE TITANIC, which takes place in Northern France and England, is actually a Spanish film. Jose Juan Bigas Luna wrote and directed. In keeping with Spanish film, his visuals are not impressive exercises in effects. His film is more about people than visual images. Luna's special effects are sufficient to let the viewer know that it is supposed to be the Titanic in the background of a scene, but he does not let the spectacle run away with what is actually a simple story. Bigas Luna, a filmmaker and a painter, has a string of interesting films to his name, few of which are seen in the US. Perhaps the best known here is the sly comedy JAMON, JAMON. Following his 1996 BAMBOLA, this is the second of three films he intends to make on the mystique of women. Olivier Martinez is probably most familiar to American audiences for the 1994 THE HORSEMAN ON THE ROOF. The enigmatic beauty of the chambermaid Marie is provided by Aitana Sanchez-Gijon who is popular in Spain but best known in this country for A WALK IN THE CLOUDS.
The middle film in a trilogy is frequently the least of the three films, but because of the current popularity of romantic stories involving the Titanic, this one is getting much wider play here. And certainly the film deserves to be seen. I would rate it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews