Saturday, March 25, 2017

Review: To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters



I just watched To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters, the new drama about the lives of the Brontes that will be aired on Masterpiece Sunday night; PBS sent me a DVD for review. Really, I can only echo the excellent and accurate review in the Guardian:

 https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/dec/30/to-walk-invisible-review-a-bleak-and-brilliant-portrayal-of-the-bronte-family

It's a remarkable, fine film and I enjoyed it very much. Its realism and the psychologically devastating view of a family in the torturous throes of living with an alcoholic, are brilliantly convincing. The bleak remote setting (the film was shot in and around Haworth) has never been used before to convey so effectively the confines of the mid-Victorian narrowness of existence and the pressures that made the creativity of the three authors bloom and burst out of their desperation. Writer and director Sally Wainwright does not construct a typical pretty and romantic costume drama. She draws heavily on Charlotte Bronte's letters, which gives the film its utter verisimilitude; this may occasionally result in moments when those not well acquainted with the authors' biographies may be slightly at a loss, but it's a rich treasure for those who appreciate seeing an approach that portrays the unsparing truth with a passionate energy and attention worthy of the Brontes themselves. It's not a repeat of familiar tropes; it's a scholarly reconstruction of truth whose felt intensity is released to new heights.

The Haworth parsonage is seen here with such evocative perfection, you feel as if you are really sharing the sisters' daily lives and know the harsh almost primitive beauty of their world: the effect is almost a window into a particular past. Against this setting, the fine casting and vigorous performances shine forth. Jonathan Pryce is a pained and loving Patrick Bronte, whose daughters are visibly anguished at not being able to protect him from the horrific shocking depredations of his uncontrollable son, Branwell, devastatingly played by the fiery Adam Nagaitis. All the emotions roused in the wake of his painful self-destruction are evident on the quiet faces of his family: pity, anger, helplessness, grief. In a time when there was no help for such a problem, the Brontes struggle quietly and endure their inescapable pain. We are made to see the connection between the tragedy of Branwell's alcoholism and his and his sisters' deaths; destruction as well as genius all springing from the same source.

The casting of the three sisters, and the intense, passionate yet contained portrayals with their individual interpretations of character, is stunning. Without makeup, the plain, unadorned faces, the threadbare but ladylike clothing, the girls seem to have stepped out of the famous portrait by Branwell where his own face is painted out. Finn Atkins as Charlotte, a small and square fireplug of a woman, evinces a determination and ambition that could be the film's center were it not for the fact that every other family member's characterization is depicted with equal power. Chloe Pirrie as Emily, with her darting desperate eyes, reveals a kindness and compassion alongside her very wildness. And Anne, gentle and consoling, completes the tryptych with her understanding.

No, it's not a conventional narrative or a romance. But it's a riveting, fresh and unforgettable revisit that takes you to the heart of the Bronte story.

8 comments:

lroff said...

Lovely to see you back, Diana. If I can, I will get myself to a tv set to watch this. Your passionate review stirred up my desire for good programs like this one. Cheers, Lindley

Victoria Hinshaw said...

I am watching it now and finding it dreary and depressing -- though quite accurate and the acting is fine. Just a dreadful setting and time for those talented but repressed people. When it is over and I have some reflection on it, I may find it "insightful" etc. but now please get it over with!!

Ellen said...

I had a very different reaction from Diana's and record it in response. Hers seems more like others on the listservs I'm on.

No doubt it's a powerful film. It made strong use of the TV screen which is still different from cinema: the emblematic nature of the disposition of the people in the scenes, the stillness -- reminiscent of a painter who influenced the 1995 Sense and Sensibility too. I agree what was best about the film was the filming on location, the actual house, the countryside. Since I doubt now I'll ever get there I am glad to have seen the inside of the house -- or a simulacrum.

I thought it was about Branwell: it opened and closed with him, and he was made the weak scapegoat of the piece to the point that we are told Emily caught a chill at his funeral and died 3 months later, and since he had TB we can connect Ann's death to his -- one of the last images was of the pathos of the rejection of his manuscript book by his sisters at the table. For the record there is an edition of Branwell's poems that is 266 pages exclusive of notes. I recall Gaskell defended him and attacked the Robinson family -- I note the woman whom he may have had an affair with was downright demonized as flagrantly promiscuous - one sexed-up shot. From DuMaurier I remember he had a menial job for a while: like Emily, he just couldn't network and in his case as a man it was unforgivable. He wasn't manly. I feel for him. It was probably a relief when he died, but we don't know how much his wretched presence towards the end was anything but someone to nurse or put to bed. Delirium tremens was more common than we understand as alcoholism was. Alcoholism seems to be one of those areas it's still socially acceptable to anathematize.

A very softened picture of the father: we've come a long way from Gaskell on the father too. I like Jonathan Pryce but maybe Patrick Stewart would have been more to the point

I note Mr Heger was omitted and so Nicholls. These were important men in Charlotte's life. Her meeting with Thackeray -- humiliating for her, distressing -- suggesting why Emily refused to go out. Southey is only heard from in his letter. These are the interactions over literature and life with men that mattered -- and George Smith, yes. They had not learned how to do social life -- which is odd considering in a way the culture of Patrick the father. But it was the isolated village existence. I really did expect more of them and more of Charlotte's relationship with Ann -- she traveled with Ann trying to make her last months have some joy in them.

A lot of the dialogues about ambition were so explicit as to be anachronistic.

I was startled to find commercials in the middle of the program and twice.That's a new thin edge f wedge. It's not so thin. In the first case it was two commercials in a row. This can only grow. Had the commercials continued to a third or fourth I would have stopped watching.

This is not to say I regretted watching it. It did justice to the courage of the three women, their austere lives, the repression they felt and gave the usual portraits of Emily, Charlotte and Ann. I was glad to see a little of Ellen Nussy. The three actresses were very good, the supporting cast. The bleak realities of living where they did.

It renewed my desire to read about these people once more -- now years later as an older woman. More secondary works, more of their poetry. It did justice to Emily's poetry. Claire Harman and at long last I'd like to try Barker. But first reread Gaskell.









They lent a light tone by showing the place as a tourist site nowadays

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مروة محمد said...


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فنحن شركة المهندس افضل شركة مكافحة حشرات بالخبر
وذلك مع وجود طاقم كامل من الفنيين و المتخصصين في رش المبيدات الحشرية و ذلك مع تفادي أضرارها بالنسبة للبشر
فشركتنا شركة مكافحة حشرات بالاحساء
كما نعتمد على خبراء في الكشف عن أسباب وجود الحشرات في المنزل لمنع عودتها مجددا .
فشركة المهندس تقدم ايضا خدمة مكافحة حشرات بالجبيل


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