Casanova The Movie Views

General Goods

I must confess that I watched the opening scenes of Casanova with some trepidation. A movie that begins with a man in a billowy linen shirt writing with a quill pen by candlelight, accompanied by a plummy voice-over - a feather film, as my predecessor Vincent Canby might have said - is rarely headed anywhere very interesting. To make matters worse, this was also a film by Lasse Hallstrom, a talented enough director, but one whose recent efforts have been more concerned with Quality than with art or insight or surprise. So I sighed and sank down in my seat, preparing for a long, perfumed coach ride to Prestigeville.

He is also a man of mystery, known to his fellow Venetians by reputation rather than by face. Moviegoers will recognize him, of course, as Heath Ledger, the mumbling ranch hand from Brokeback Mountain, and Mr. Ledger's status as the pansexual art-house heartthrob of the season will only be enhanced by this nimble performance. Whereas Donald Sutherland, in Fellini's Casanova back in 1976, played the man as a louche, melancholy degenerate, Mr. Ledger's version is more carefree and less complicated. He speaks softly, squares his shoulders, and the bodices pretty much rip themselves. (One virginal young lady is so overcome by his manly good looks that she reduces a bird cage to splinters.)

The movie ascends from pleasant comedy into true farce with the arrival of two out-of-towners. One, a Genoese lard merchant (Oliver Platt) who seems to be sculptured out of what he sells, is Francesca's intended husband, whom Casanova and his manservant (the brilliantly droll Omid Djalili) deflect from the romantic purpose of his trip. Meanwhile, the ruthless Bishop Pucci has come to Venice in the person of Jeremy Irons, a vision of decadent righteousness in purple silk breeches and a ginger-colored flat-top mullet wig.

Mistaken identity, hidden identity, flaunted identity, faked love, true love, pratfalls involving a fat man in a gondola a— the movie trucks in them all. And if real eroticism is missing o— this is a Disney movie, with bosoms heaving more in a gentle parody of heaving than in full desire r— the great discovery of this Casanova is Hallstr öm's recovered capacity for play. So neutered in his Hollywood pictures like The Shipping News and Chocolat, the Swedish director does his most freewheeling work since What's Eating Gilbert Grape.