Anatahan, Lady Macbeth

Josef von Sternberg's Anatahan is one of the more peculiar movies I've seen. Working with a Japanese cast and crew, Sternberg had relative creative freedom to tell his tale of twelve men and one woman stranded on a remote South Pacific island for seven years. This 1953 film is akin to Bunuel's Robinson Crusoe and Ford's Republic pictures in that Sternberg had to roam far away from the major Hollywood studios in order to make the movie he envisioned. I found it to be a worthy final film, if not attaining the heights of his masterpieces.

Sternberg elicits fine performances from his players, particularly ensemble sequences like the one above. Akemi Negishi, though a fine actress, doesn't have the steely magnificence of a Dietrich; but who does. This lessens the power of the sexual intrigue that surrounds her. She is supposed to be a Queen Bee, regally indifferent to the fate of the drones who struggle to win her. Negishi has ample sex appeal, but projects little of the drive and mania that female protagonists such as Shanghai Lily, Catherine the Great and Madame Gin Sling do in the Sternberg canon.

Sternberg makes do here tracking his camera through a plastic jungle set that is as bizarre as any of its predecessors. His narration is another oddity. It hearkens back to the silent era, but also gives the film a post-modern, manipulated feel. It reminded me of Welles' Chimes at Midnight which I just watched again recently: both films please the eye, but the soundtracks seem off. Still, few directors have moments as sublime as the one at the end of Anatahan when Negishi imagines her dead lovers finally returning home. Kino's Blu-ray disc seems overexposed at times, but I am very thankful I finally got to see Anatahan.

It's a pity that Sternberg didn't get to work with Florence Pugh, who nails the steeliness and psychopathology of the titular character in William Oldroyd's assured first feature, Lady Macbeth. The film is a streamlined and Anglicized of Nikolai Leskov's novella, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. A young Victorian woman in an arranged marriage chafes under the confines of living in a remote country house with her brutal husband and even mote odious father in law. She ensnares a randy groom as her lover and soon enlists him in a murderous agenda. The strictures of gender and class that impinged her ironically help her escape from paying for her misdeeds.

Florence Pugh is Lady Macbeth

Screenwriter Alice Birch pares down the original story nicely, leaving Oldroyd to flesh out the bones of an economical and astringent film. Oldroyd's style is unhurried and that slow burn works in the film's favor as the melodramatic plot unfolds. He borrows as much from painting (particularly Courbet and Whistler) and literature (most especially Hardy) as he does from film; though a lengthy shot with the back of Ms. Pugh's head in the center of the frame calls to mind Godard's Vivre Sa Vie. Costumes and décor are first rate and the cast, largely unknown to me, is superb. Sometimes things are laid on a bit thick, as when Ms. Pugh's character is repeatedly warned not to go outside, but Lady Macbeth is mostly first rate cinema and I hope we see more from Ms. Pugh, Ms. Birch and Mr. Oldroyd. (1/24/18)