SOLOMON AND GAENOR A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): *** 1/2
Writer/director Paul Morrisson's SOLOMON AND GAENOR, an Academy Award nominee for best foreign film, is a beautiful retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story. Set in Wales in 1911 at a time of strikes and economic stagnation, the movie concerns two lovers in their early twenties who come from rigid and quite different religious societies.
Solomon (Ioan Gruffudd, costar of the upcoming 102 DALMATIANS) belongs to an Orthodox Jewish family. Although he was born in Wales, his family is English, and they speak Yiddish at home. He makes his living as a "pacman," which means he sells "cotton," i.e., cloth, door to door.
On one of his rounds, he is instantly smitten by Gaenor (Nia Roberts), a member of a Christian community even stricter than Solomon's Jewish one, but, like his, their home and school language isn't English -- in their case, it's Welsh. Figuring that she'll never date a Jew, he tells her that his name is Sam Livingston, and that, no, he's not related to the famous Dr. Livingston. The clothes in the tiny Welsh hamlet where they live are various shades of dull, dark blues and blacks, but he makes a cheerful, country-style dress of red cloth for her. Soon after this, they begin secretly seeing each other in the shadows. Eventually, her family invites him to their home for tea and questions, which he fends off skillfully. He refuses her a reciprocal visit to his parents by making various excuses.
Gruffudd and Roberts give poignant and endearing performances. His awkwardness with the entire situation is palpable. Her nervous excitement is in evidence in her small, slightly shaking gestures. Both are completely believable as two innocent, young lovers. And nicely, it is the woman, not the man, who leads them to the hayloft for the first of their series of trysts. Their times together, whether they are talking, kissing or just holding each other's naked bodies, possess a naturalness of which most films only dream. About the only thing that I would like to have seen changed about the film would be for them to have spent more time alone together. Their giddy innocence and genuine love is such a contrast to most American films that cheapen relationships and sex with trash-talking, wrestling-match sex and sheets to cover bodies as if nudity were something to be ashamed of.
Nina Kellgren's incredible cinematography, using dark, somber blues and grays with the occasional patches of green, adds considerably to the story's intensity. The bleak Welsh settings of rain and mist are so realistically rendered that you'll need a jacket in the theater to ward off hypothermia. Couple these images with Ilona Sekacz's haunting score, and the result is a touching and poignant movie that draws your heart to it, even if you worry that it may break.
The tragic storyline follows a predictable arc, although the journey itself contains several surprises. But expecting that you know the outcome doesn't necessarily diminish the experience. After all, everyone knew exactly what was going to happen in TITANIC, but that didn't keep it from being a critical and commercial success.
One thing that is certain is that each of these closed-religious conclaves do not want their members dating someone from the distrusted other side. In one of the film's most effective moments, Solomon joins Gaenor and her family in quoting the Old Testament verbatim. The two groups act like they worship different Gods, and yet they share such a large common text.
The director does a marvelous job of showing the enormous physical and emotional hardships that the two lovers endure. A big fight scene, for example, leaves quite realistic scars. Usually cinematic fights are made to look glamorous and macho, but leave little lasting effect. In short, they are usually lies. But not in SOLOMON AND GAENOR, a movie with very much the same tone and approach as Michael Winterbottom's JUDE from several years back.
A movie of tremendous sorrow and pathos, SOLOMON AND GAENOR does eventually break our hearts, but not without purpose. We come to love Solomon and Gaenor, just as they love each other. Maybe their happy times don't last forever, but does anything? Regardless of the racial prejudice, misunderstanding, and hatred around them, they have each other's love, even if it doesn't last as long as they would have wished.
SOLOMON AND GAENOR runs 1:42. The film is in English, Welsh and Yiddish with English subtitles for the latter two. It is rated R for sexuality, nudity and a scene of violence and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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