So, Hal Hartley's follow-up to Henry Fool. Hmmm. He completely reinvents Henry, to the extent that one probably couldn't watch the original film in the same way again (and that's almost certainly not a good thing). I consider that film to be Hartley's best, and doubt that Hartley had the plot twists of Fay Grim in mind at the time.
Even so, it's pretty good fun, with Hartley having something of a return to form. His trademark humour is in there, along with his oblique dialogue, only this time there's a whole lot of 21st century international intrigue added to the mix. Whether one can follow the twists and turns of the plot is one thing - indeed I half suspect that one of the points of the film is that it's not important who's doing what to whom and why. Henry Fool has been transformed from self-proclaimed (and self-deluded) literary "genius" into an international spy-cum-terrorist with a finger in every pie from Chile to the Middle East via Nicaragua. The Pope apparently once "threw a chair at him." His memoirs are no longer a disastrous attempt at a literary masterpiece, but rather a masterfully coded message. (No, I didn't swallow it either, but somehow that didn't matter.)
Fay Grim (Parker Posey) takes central stage in excellent manner as she chases Henry's trail across continents, hoping to find him before the CIA, or the Israelis, or the Russians, or the French do. Hartley has enormous fun along the way, among other things having religious men of various persuasions carefully view pictures of an orgy in order to decode a message on the wall behind the heaving bodies.
It's no masterpiece, but it's the first decent film from Hartley since Henry Fool, and coming after the quite unbelievably bad The Girl From Monday, that surely can't be a bad thing.
Even so, it's pretty good fun, with Hartley having something of a return to form. His trademark humour is in there, along with his oblique dialogue, only this time there's a whole lot of 21st century international intrigue added to the mix. Whether one can follow the twists and turns of the plot is one thing - indeed I half suspect that one of the points of the film is that it's not important who's doing what to whom and why. Henry Fool has been transformed from self-proclaimed (and self-deluded) literary "genius" into an international spy-cum-terrorist with a finger in every pie from Chile to the Middle East via Nicaragua. The Pope apparently once "threw a chair at him." His memoirs are no longer a disastrous attempt at a literary masterpiece, but rather a masterfully coded message. (No, I didn't swallow it either, but somehow that didn't matter.)
Fay Grim (Parker Posey) takes central stage in excellent manner as she chases Henry's trail across continents, hoping to find him before the CIA, or the Israelis, or the Russians, or the French do. Hartley has enormous fun along the way, among other things having religious men of various persuasions carefully view pictures of an orgy in order to decode a message on the wall behind the heaving bodies.
It's no masterpiece, but it's the first decent film from Hartley since Henry Fool, and coming after the quite unbelievably bad The Girl From Monday, that surely can't be a bad thing.
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