EVA (director: Joseph Losey; screenwriters: Hugo Butler /Evan Jones/from book by James Hadley Chase; cinematographer: Gianni Di Venanzo; editors: Reginald Beck/Franca Silvi; cast: Jeanne Moreau (Eva), Stanley Baker (Tyvian Jones), Virna Lisi (Francesca), Giorgio Albertazzi (Braneo Maloni), James Villiers (Arthur McCormick); Runtime: 115; Kino Films, 1963-France/Italy)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A moody psychological drama about the heartaches and alienation of a troubled Welsh man, Tyvian Jones (Stanley Baker), who can't handle his rise from humble beginnings to his sudden fame as a writer of an autobiography about himself as a miner, as he seeks solace in an impossible romance. This very bitter film, a retread of "The Blue Angel," might appeal to fans of the great French actress Jeanne Moreau, in one of her best performances ever, who plays Eva with a true intensity. She is the soul of the film, making this dark and improbable story have some teeth to bite into.
Joseph Losey is the American director living in England in self-exile as a result of the McCarthy witch hunt. This b/w film is set in wintertime Venice. It is filmed in a coldly sweeping baroque style. The jazzy musical score is by Michel Legrand, and the great Billie Holiday song "Weep for me," is most appropriate for the down mood the film idles on from beginning to end. The principal characters were simply not only not likable, lovable, or even cordial, they are personifications of a destructive God, willing to take not only themselves down, but anyone else who gets in their way.
The story itself is the film's problem, because it is so unsettling and foolishly perverse, that it never promises any sunlight, so what is seen in the film's first fifteen minutes is exactly what you get by the finale, in a film that drags on for too long, coming to no point but trying its best to bring you down with its sour look at life.
Ty is engaged to marry someone he doesn't love, Francesca (Virna Lisi), a screenwriter working on the film they are making from his popular book. She is madly in love with him, even though she realizes that he is a scoundrel and a womanizer.
On the weekend of their marriage, a beautiful kept woman, Eva, and her rich sugar daddy, get stranded in a rainstorm and seek shelter in his house. He becomes obsessed with her, even though she plainly tells him not to fall in love with her, that she's a whore and expects to receive cash for her time. But he's so twisted, that he's not seeking love but chasing something more eerie and elusive, and is so venal, that he runs away with her to Venice, staying at its best hotel and paying for her gambling and other whims. This drunken weekend of carnal pleasure will cost him $30,000 and possibly the loss of his future wife.
While in a drunken stupor, he confesses to her that he didn't write the book, but stole it from his dying brother, now dead, who gave him permission to steal it and use his name on it. His brother worked all his life as a miner, but he, worked as a miner for only six weeks. Eva is not consoling, but is nevertheless understanding of what he did, considering him a loser, as she gets under his skin, rejecting him and his love. The only kind thing that can be said about the femme fatale, is that she's upfront with him.
He rushes back to marry Francesca, telling her he's no good, that he spent the weekend with a woman. She reluctantly forgives him and they marry. On their honeymoon, after a few days of bliss, he sneaks away from her and visits Eva in Rome. When Francesca learns of this, she becomes so heartbroken that she commits suicide.
Meanwhile, he is rejected by Eva, who is seen with other men who take care of her materially. He is so obsessed with her and humiliated by her, that he plans to kill her, but when he sees her last, as she is sailing to Greece with another one of her lovers, he can't kill her. He is reduced to begging her for a chance to see her again, which she vaguely promises she might do if she ever comes back to Rome again.
This scathing romance, which abstains from love, instead it favors romance as being something that darkly possesses you, as the flawed protagonist leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth. He is reminded by Francesca's studio boss (Giorgio) that he never even placed a wreath on her grave and that she has been dead for two years.
It's film that basically is asking two unanswerable questions: How do you explain a woman's love for a guy who is no good? How do you explain a guy's love for a woman who is no good? Losey lets the pessimistic mood of the story prevail as his answer... paralleling it to a displaced world bereft of Eden.
REVIEWED ON 10/20/2000 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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