*minor spoilers*
TIS PITY, SHE'S A WHORE presents a seamy tale of incestuous love between a brother and sister from an affluent family. The resulting pregnancy becomes grounds for church intervention, and the girl is appointed a husband to become the child's name father. When these truths are ultimately revealed within the marriage, the sordid situation gives rise to a calamitous "Thyestian Feast".
Lavish production of Ford's classic is a visual dream, every shot is absolutely stunning. The sets and costumes are beautifully appointed, endowing a willowy softness to the film which belies the tawdry goings-on and punctuates the bloody final curtain. This Elizabethan-era penned love tragedy could very easily have been given a literate, button-down presentation, yet the film is quite lurid, replete with unexpectedly graphic violence. Despite being a (somewhat)faithful adaption, some litterateurs may find the dissident stagecrafting a calumny of sorts against the classical source material. I suspect viewer reaction to be polarized, though it could have surprising appeal to those generally adverse to historical romance films due to its schismatic/semi-exploitive handling.
7/10...a curiously divergent, though not entirely successful European offering, with earnest performances from Charlotte Rampling and Oliver Tobias in the beauty of their youth.
TIS PITY, SHE'S A WHORE presents a seamy tale of incestuous love between a brother and sister from an affluent family. The resulting pregnancy becomes grounds for church intervention, and the girl is appointed a husband to become the child's name father. When these truths are ultimately revealed within the marriage, the sordid situation gives rise to a calamitous "Thyestian Feast".
Lavish production of Ford's classic is a visual dream, every shot is absolutely stunning. The sets and costumes are beautifully appointed, endowing a willowy softness to the film which belies the tawdry goings-on and punctuates the bloody final curtain. This Elizabethan-era penned love tragedy could very easily have been given a literate, button-down presentation, yet the film is quite lurid, replete with unexpectedly graphic violence. Despite being a (somewhat)faithful adaption, some litterateurs may find the dissident stagecrafting a calumny of sorts against the classical source material. I suspect viewer reaction to be polarized, though it could have surprising appeal to those generally adverse to historical romance films due to its schismatic/semi-exploitive handling.
7/10...a curiously divergent, though not entirely successful European offering, with earnest performances from Charlotte Rampling and Oliver Tobias in the beauty of their youth.