SIRENS
A film review by Craig Good
Copyright 1994 Craig Good
Okay, let's get this first part out of the way. Yes, Elle Macpherson appears nude in SIRENS. Starkers. Rumor has it that she gained a little weight for the part. Yes, she looks fabulous. There's much better news about this new film from Australia, however. Not the least of which is that Elle turns out to be a rather natural, unaffected actress. She may be one of the happy few fashion models to successfully make the transition to the big screen. I suppose we'll know after she gets some other parts to play.
SIRENS is the story of a young cleric and his wife on their way to an assignment in Australia who are asked by the Church to stop by the remote home of an artist. The artist's paintings of nudes, which range from the silly to the profane, have caused a bit of a stir, and the vicar has the task of convincing the painter to withdraw the more objectionable works and replace them with something more in line with the taste of the public and, of course, the Church.
I'm a bit of two minds on SIRENS, because the movie and I have wildly divergent ideas on what sort of things will strengthen or weaken a marriage. But there is so much good in the movie, I'll concentrate on that. The greatest strength is a cast of characters who all feel like real, thinking, feeling human beings. The story is subtle, but deftly told, and set with a good sense of place.
It would have been easy to take the cheap route in a movie which contains so much nudity, and it would have been easy to take cheap shots at religion by making the vicar a twit or a close-minded prude. Instead, we witness the rare treat of a lively, passionate discussion between him and the painter in which each make valid points, leaving us to feel that it is indeed possible for reasonable men to disagree.
SIRENS doesn't shy away from allegory, and the artist's Australian retreat is at once an Eden repleat with serpents, and a rocky shore awaiting the ships of sailors bewitched by the song of the Sirens. In an interesting turn, it is the vicar's wife, and not the vicar, who ends up with the most pronounced character arc. Perhaps, as so long ago in Eden, Eve leads the way to a new life, one fraught with perils but filled with new kinds of joy.
--Craig
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