bix171
05-14-2003, 05:05 PM
Todd Haynes combines the swooning melodrama of Douglas Sirk’s Fifties CineamaScope “women’s pictures” with issues that were sublimated then and the result is a fascinating and powerful indictment of a repressed Eisenhower-era society that has an unfortunate direct connection to our own. Although it’s ripe for parody, Haynes treats the source material with dignity and finds ample opportunity to employ Sirk’s highly stylized technique to provide a shocking immediacy that speaks to his contemporary themes. Julianne Moore (in a performance far subtler than in “The Hours”) portrays a suburban housewife whose picture-perfect world begins to crumble when she uncovers her advertising executive husband’s homosexual tendencies (her husband is played by Dennis Quaid, excellent as always) and becomes involved with her black gardener (a sensitive, endearing Dennis Haysbert) at the height of segregation. Collaborating with ace cinematographer Edward Lachman, art director Peter Rogness and costumer Sandy Powell, Haynes creates an iridescent world of spectacular neon greens, blues and reds that lushly define the period and provide texture and commentary even through the intentionally stilted perspective. It gives the appearance of being a closed, distant environment yet the mirror Haynes holds up forces us to acknowledge a troubled bond that refuses to entirely break. A superior example of a film made with a cineaste’s love and care.