Film Review
Twenty years after he made the definitive screen adaptation of D.H.
Lawrence's
Women in Love (1969),
maverick director Ken Russell finally got round to adapting the novel that
preceded it, although in doing so he threw out most of the content and
focussed on the final segment, which dealt with the romantic
entanglements of Ursula Brangwen - an act of sacrilege, some would argue.
The Rainbow has precious little of the
artistic and dramatic flair of Russell's previous
Lawrencean fling and is a pretty lacklustre affair - passionless,
plodding and mired in the heavy symbolism that now makes much of
Lawrence's work such a challenge to read whilst sober.
The excellence of the performances of the supporting cast is not matched by those of the
leads who are frankly disappointing. The most convincing performance
is provided by Glenda Jackson, who plays the
mother of the character she played in
Women in Love.
Throughout the film Paul McGann looks as if
he is dying a slow death from acute boredom and Sammi
Davis has neither the talent nor the charisma to carry off the part of
Ursula with any conviction. The sequences where this
ill-matched duo frolic in their birthday suits in a pretty pastoral setting
are neither artistic nor erotic, just an ugly exhibition
of pointless self-indulgence carried to ludicrous extremes.
For a director who is renowned for his artistic excesses,
The Rainbow
is a disappointingly tame work, but what makes it so unbearable to watch is that
it seems to completely miss the point of Lawrence's great novel.
© James Travers 2011
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
In the late 1800s, Ursula Brangwen is determined to lead her own life,
in defiance of the conventions of the time and her parents'
expectations. For a while, she pursues a lesbian love affair with
her schoolteacher and then decides that she too wants to become a
schoolmistress. She falls in love with a handsome Polish
soldier Anton Skrebensky but, after a torrid affair, the passion soon
burns itself out...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.