PASSION (R). (Beyond Films/REP) Director: Peter Duncan Stars: Richard Roxburgh, Barbara Hershey, Emily Woof, Claudia Karvan, Simon Burke, Lynda Cropper, Jamie Croft Running time: 102 minutes.
"Passion can destroy a genius if it is not contained."
There's probably a great film yet to be made about the life and excesses of legendary, eccentric Australian pianist Percy Grainger, who dominated the world stages long before David Helfgott. Unfortunately Peter Duncan's ambitious but rather dull biopic is not it.
Passion only begins to scratch the surface of Grainger's genius, and assumes that audiences will have some prior knowledge of his life and his accomplishments. Passion will be, largely unfavourably, compared with the recent Shine, as it lacks that film's dramatic heights and accessibility.
Written by Don Watson and based on an earlier screenplay from Roy George and Peter Goldsworthy, Passion concentrates on the few years that Grainger spent in London immediately before the outbreak of the Great War, at the expense of far more intimate and potentially interesting biographical detail.
Passion primarily explores the complex relationship he shared with his domineering mother Rose (beautifully played by Barbara Hershey), and his relationship with the beautiful Danish musician Karen (Emily Woof). The film also explores the contempt he had for the staid musical establishment of the time.
However, most of the controversy surrounds Duncan's delving into his insatiable sex drive, which scandalised the rather conservative circles in which he lived. The most confronting element of the film comes from Duncan's depiction of Grainger's kinky sexual habits, in particular his predilection for flagellation and a bit of s & m, which has earned the film an unjustified R rating from the censors. However, these brief sequences are tastefully handled by Duncan, and presented without any hint of sensationalism or exploitation. (It would indeed be interesting to compare Duncan's restraint with the verve and excess that Ken Russell would have brought to his undoubtedly colourful treatment of this aspect of Grainger's life.)
For all that though, Duncan's film ultimately lacks any real passion or insights into the character, and falls short of other brilliant biopics about other famous and deeply troubled musical geniuses, like Amadeus, Scott Hicks' Shine, or even the recent Hilary And Jackie. Duncan, whose previous films include Children Of The Revolution and the awful A Little Bit Of Soul, is a director with a lot of ideas, but not necessarily the wherewithal to bring them to the screen in a cogent and coherent fashion.
On the positive side, though, Passion is exquisitely filmed and looks gorgeous. Duncan has a meticulous eye for the period detail of pre-war London, and some lavish cinematography from Martin McGrath enriches the film's look.
The lead performances are also particularly strong. Richard Roxburgh, who apparently bears a resemblance to the younger Grainger, brings energy and enthusiasm to his performance that brings the character to life and allows his personality to almost leap of the screen. Hershey is terrific as the tragic, syphilitic Rose, and she makes the most of this complex and fascinating character and her mood swings.
For all its visual style and superb performances though, Passion is a vaguely unsatisfying biopic about an eccentric genius. There is, ironically, a sense of real passion missing!
** greg king http://www.netau.com.au/gregking
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