The Legend of the Holy Drinker

Rutger Hauer

Ermanno Olmi's The Legend of the Holy Drinker is a slice of magical realism that won the Golden Lion at the 45th Venice Film Festival, but has been relatively neglected in the US. The 1988 film is based on the 1939 novella by Austrian writer Joseph Roth. The protagonist Andreas (Rutger Hauer) is alcoholic bum wandering around the boulevards of Paris and sleeping under its bridges. He is a Polish national fearful that he will be deported. He encounters a mysterious benefactor (well played by Anthony Quayle) who gifts him two hundred francs on the condition that he repay his debt as an offering to St. Therese. One thing or another prevents Andreas from achieving this until the picture's conclusion. Friends from his past in Poland pop up and divert him. He has an affair with a dancer. An old flame reappears. St Therese herself appears in the guise of a ten year old girl. Alternately, these figures provide a boon to Andreas or rip him off. The action of the film is most likely the drunken reveries of Andreas as he spends his days in working class cafes drinking cheap red until he is comatose.

Andreas shares many traits with Roth, an emigre who lived in Paris from 1934 until his death on the eve of World War 2. Roth was a Jew who became fascinated with Catholicism and may have converted before his demise. He was also a committed drunkard and The Legend of the Holy Drinker, his final work, may be thought of as a prolonged suicide note. Olmi and co-screenwriter Tullio Kezich have made some minor changes to the book. The film is not set in 1934 as the book was, but exists out of time. The book is set in spring while the movie takes advantage of a dour Paris in winter, perhaps a more appropriate choice to film a downbeat tale such as this. What is important is how well Olmi nails the repetitive compulsion of an addict that is at the core of the material. Olmi is also able to picture something more difficult to conjure visually: the mixture of faith and existential despair that is at the crux of magical realism; especially as represented by artists who have a Catholic background. Each week at mass, Catholics have to contemplate a graven image of a crucified Lord, not a serene Buddha. Yet, the message of both faiths is the same, life is suffering.

Olmi is able to capture the duality of the preternatural existing within a cosmic void through a masterful use of image and sound. Sounds in the picture, such as a bottle rolling along cobblestones, create a palpable sense of a tangible reality. The score, consisting of extracts from Igor Stravinsky's compositions of the 1930s. hints at the spiritual, particularly Olmi's use of the despairing Symphony in C. Olmi himself edited The Legend of the Holy Drinker and the film is fruitfully wedded to its score. The cinematography of Dante Spinotti (Manhunter, L.A. Confidential), with its splashes of color and inky black chiaroscuro, paints a canvas of both degradation and sensual possibility. The continued use of mirrors in the film suggests that the memories and dreams visiting Andreas are portals to his past and not a true reflection of his present. Olmi usually favored non-professional actors and those present bring mixed results. Some of the actors seem to be speaking phonetically. Hauer's performance, however, is a triumph. Olmi saw the expressiveness of Hauer's face in stoic appearances in action films and utilizes it to galvanic effect. It is Hauer's most expansive and best performance.