"The White Countess": Lost souls drift together in '30s Shanghai
With the death of Ismail Merchant, half of the famed Merchant-Ivory film partnership, last May, it's hard to see "The White Countess" as anything but an elegy, an homage to a way of life (and of moviemaking) long gone. And its central character, Sofia, can be seen as a metaphor for a Merchant-Ivory film: lovely, elegant, a bit mysterious, part of a breed that's quietly fading away.
Played by Natasha Richardson, Sofia is a Russian countess and young widow now living in poverty in 1930s Shanghai, supporting her extended family as a taxi dancer. In carefully artful makeup, a once-elegant but now threadbare gown and a jade-green coat, she takes a crowded streetcar to the nightclub where she works; a vivid blot of color among the indistinct, grayish crowd.
Though the India-born Merchant had been making films with American director James Ivory for more than 40 years, usually in collaboration with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, the movies for which they became famous began in the mid-'80s.
With a string of elegant literary adaptations — "The Bostonians," "A Room With a View," "Howards End," "The Remains of the Day" and others, interspersed among some less memorable contemporary films — they established themselves as masters of the period piece, making beautifully detailed films that emphasized story and performance over showy innovation.
And "The White Countess" would seem to fit nicely into that tradition — with one glaring difference. The film is not based upon a novel but on an original screenplay (by Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote the novel "The Remains of the Day"). And minus the efforts of Jhabvala, who made the work of adapting a complicated novel seem as simple as breathing, the movie lacks a certain precision. It's more of a mood piece than most Merchant-Ivory films, and it moves with a languid grace, but until a sudden rush of plot near the end, the story never quite gets going.
But "The White Countess" is never less than lovely to look at, and sometimes much more. Ralph Fiennes, as a blind American businessman who becomes infatuated with Sofia, has a flat voice and a touching, brash naiveté; his speech is always a little halting, as if he's learning a new language.
Richardson, whose throaty voice is redolent of whisky and history, has the regal bearing of the countess Sofia once was. As two lost souls trying to find a home in a strange city, they have a palpable chemistry: He adores her for the faded world she represents; her affection for him begins with pity but deepens into something infinitely more complicated.
As a team, Merchant and Ivory created a genre, and a dependable brand of quality highbrow entertainment. The audience for their brand still exists but goes less often to the theater, and movies like theirs, which find their thrill in literate conversation or a quiet look across a room, are increasingly rare.
Though not their greatest work, "The White Countess" is a worthy send-off. There's hope at the end of the film, in a child's pointed little face; likewise, let's hope for another era like the one Merchant and Ivory began.
Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com
"The White Countess," with Ralph Fiennes, Natasha Richardson, Vanessa Redgrave, Lynn Redgrave, Hiroyuki Sanada, Allan Corduner. Directed by James Ivory, from a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro. 135 minutes. Rated PG-13 for some violent images and thematic elements. Metro, Uptown.