THE MUSIC OF CHANCE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1993 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: This is a very unusual allegory about
two modern men trapped by fate in a feudal world. Where they
are forced to build a wall for two unearthly old men who seem
to have supernatural powers. The story is full of ambiguity
and uncertainty, and is always riveting. Rating +2 (-4 to
+4).
The rise of feudalism, power of money, and considerably more are the subject of an odd, allegorical film of two people caught up in a very weird vortex of circumstance. This little film has a "Twilight Zone" surrealism, but definitely keeps the viewer on edge as to what is going to happen next. THE MUSIC OF CHANCE is a strange film about about two men who virtually become serfs in modern day Pennsylvania. Jim Nashe (played by Mandy Patinkin) picks up on a road a stranger who calls himself Jack Pozzi (played by James Spader) and is pulled into Pozzi's scheme to win large sums of money playing poker with two old multi-millionaires named Stone and Flower (played by Joel Gray and Charles Durning). Stone and Flower have an immense fortune built on top of a lottery win and have used it to insulate themselves from the real world and replace it with a perfectly functioning model world. They even have a little dollhouse model of their ideal world and are recreating it in real life. Pozzi has played poker with the two old men before and thinks that they will be easy marks if he takes them up on their invitation and play them again. Nashe stakes him to the money he will need, but things go wrong and Nashe and Pozzi find themselves owing the old men. To pay off he debt they must build a wall on the vast estate of Flower and Stone. This task is placed under the supervision of a particularly insensitive functionary played by M. Emmet Walsh.
There is a lot that is strange but compelling about this story. There is a hypnotic quality to Flower telling with absolute lack of self-doubt how they built their fortune and authoritatively philosophizing about the world. There is almost a supernatural quality about how the two men--dressed entirely in white--control the world around them, much of it modeled in miniature in their scale model. They are reminiscent of the gods on Olympus in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS who control the lives of humans, manipulating them with little models.
This is a story that has a very literary feel. It is based on a novel by Paul Auster and clearly has a very literary sensibility. In some ways it is a sort of fantasy akin to the writings of Franz Kafka. Ambiguity and uncertainty as to what is actually molding the fate of Nashe and Pozzi abound. Does the model world affect what is happening to our characters? Once they are limited to receiving their information from their overseer, how much of what he tells them can be believed? Perhaps the only false move in this compelling story is the very last scene which is a little cliched. However, THE MUSIC OF CHANCE is a compelling allegory and a genuine pleasure in its originality. My rating would be a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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