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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Light My Fire, 14 February 2004
10/10
Author: Prof_Lostiswitz from Cyberia

Hot diggity dog, is this a great movie! I'm surprised that so few people have heard of it, neither would I if I hadn't found it going cheap.

The story deals with your usual southern redneck town full of repressed and frustrated people, typical Williams territory. In this it does a great deal better than such Hollywood formula fare as Mississippi Boring, I mean Burning.

Vanessa Redgrave isn't too convincing as an Italian-American, she's just Vanessa Redgrave; but what the hey, that's just right here. She plays (what else) an abused and unhappy grocer trapped in a loveless marriage. Her invalid husband is incapable of loving her; we might be tempted to feel sorry for him, but we know (which she doesn't) that he was responsible for burning her father to death many years before. The image of fire recurs throughout the movie, both as a symbol of sexual passion and as a harbinger of fearsome cruelty. If we recall that Orpheus descended into Hades, this ashcan of a town is effectively hell.

Kevin Anderson is very convincing as a southern drifter who conceals a kind heart. Not only that, he does a great job of howling out those Delta blues to his trusty ol' guitar, almost operatic in quality. You just know that something is going to happen to him.

Williams combines his usual erotic concerns with a story that involves the Klan, lynching and redneck hypocrisy - and it makes for a more compelling story. I've seen Streetcar and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and I reckon that this is a better movie. The only problem is that the title is too abstract, its relation to the story is too tenuous; something more direct would attract more viewers.

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Are Vanessa Redgrave and Meryl Streep Actually One and the Same?, 23 September 1999
Author: Alice Copeland Brown (alicecbrown@yahoo.com) from Boston

Vanessa, an Italian in lower Slobovia, I mean Lousiana or Mississippi.....what a background to play against. This Tennessee Williams classic has great allusions to 'crossing the river', so read up on your Greek mythology before watching this movie. All of us with Southern accents cringe at the dead-on representation of the hypocritical upright citizenry of this pitiful town. The dying husband/Klansman who had burned out his wife's father many years before (and burned her father, as well, we find out) comes to life in the finale as he applies the torch to the hero. The hero, a young man in a snakeskin jacket, gives new life to three downtrodden women. One of them, driven crazy by the town's abuse, shows acute intelligence warped beyond redemption by her suffering.

This one is not a light excursion into escapist fare. The fact that most of Tennessee Williams' plays pull back the mask from Society's hypocritical face is certainly emphasized here. We make our compromises with what we learned in Sunday School and one day, we join a gang that strips and sets fire to those who are 'different' among us. When they in turn go berserk, as in Columbine, we blame the movies !!(?). Who is truly insane here?

Right on characterizations by the four townswomen, each one familiar to us. The artist who escapes into religious visions after facing lynchings and chain gangs, supervised by the brutality of her sheriff husband, fills the screen with her plain soul-beauty. We were taught of 'Southern Schizophrenia' in Sociology: the cleaving in two of our brains in order to co-exist with going to church three times a week and twice on Sunday.... and our savage mistreatment of the 'different', usually black, Jewish or Catholic. That was then and now is now......are we any different?

See it. Find yourself in it. Not an easy trip, because the 'Orpheus descending' is you and me.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Nothing too special as a *film*, but a great film of a play., 17 March 2006
7/10
Author: S.C. Skafte from Nova Scotia, Canada

Peter Hall has proved his talent on stage time and time again, but didn't always get the best showcase for his talent on the screen. With the classic play of "Orpheus Descending", Hall takes brilliant command of his performers. Kevin Anderson plays the 'stranger in a strange land', a rebel by the name of Val Xavier. His attitude and relationship with Lady Torrance rings with true feeling.

The issues of racism, adultery, and murder give this film a sort of forbidden feeling. This is not in part due to the fact that a part of most characters portrayed contain a part of ourselves. Every event, every bit of dialogue, builds up to a shocker of an ending that is sure to surprise and disgust.

7.4 out of 10

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