This is a well-crafted film. The screenplay portrays complex interactions among the characters with subtlety. The acting is flawless; it is well shot and well edited. I think the score is too intrusive, but otherwise, what's to complain about? What? Hmm?
It depends on whether you think your artistic judgment can be walled off from your moral and rational evaluation of the assumptions underlying the work.
The case of the DVD declares this to be a "bold examination of lesbian love." Well, it is bold compared with ignoring its existence. However, what do we now say to a "bold" look at the psychological tragedy of women afflicted by lesbianism, whose sexual growth is immature and thwarted, who can be deemed as cured only when they can experience fulfillment through vaginal orgasm with a man? That was the bold Freudian view a century ago, and it is pretty much what we see in the film. Also, that a woman's "No" always means "Yes".
Here is the story viewed through the ideological goggles which it seems that the screenplay intends us to wear. (The screenwriters may plead they were only following the orders of D. H, Lawrence.) School crushmates Jill Banford (Dennis) and Ellen March (Heywood), stuck at a juvenile stage, are playing house on a farmstead in rural Ontario, possibly in the 1930's, sharing a bed like girls. Banford, the more pre-sexual of the two, cheerfully plays the wife, while March plays the husband and does the heavy chores. She broods, because her own sexuality is awakening and she has no outlet for it; she is aroused by Banford's touch but doesn't act on it. She plays the male role but can't actually use a shotgun on a male fox.
Paul Renfield arrives, a true Man, a sailor, gun-wielder, and tree-chopper. Banford sees him as a new playmate, but March fears him - the neurotic always fears the cure. But she wants to protectively distract Renfield from Banford. She succeeds beyond expectation; Renfield senses her blooming sexuality and must take her and master her. He abruptly proposes marriage and forces her assent by refusing to let go of her wrists until she gives him a yes. March tries to equivocate and stall, but Renfield won't have it; he proves his superiority by solving the fox problem, and then initiates her into the ecstasy of womanhood, without much in the way of the technicalities of consent.
Banford sees her juvenile play-couplehood coming to its end. With Renfield on a trip, she uses her neediness and newfound sexual wiles to suck March back into the dream. March writes Renfield that she and Banford are happy and tells him not to come back, but we already know how much weight he is going to give to her words. He knows what she needs and wants much better than she. This isn't ironic, he really does.
In short throughout the movie I was rooting for the women's relationship and booing down Renfield's macho-man tyrannical approach, but the writers were apparently on the other side. Well, how much of this are we willing to put up with for the sake of admittedly good movie-making? Yes, I've heard the response that it's a good thing if it starts conversations, but how far does that argument go?
To be fair, there is another way to interpret the whole movie: it may be a tragic naturalistic portrayal. The characters are living in an ignorant age. The women have never learned a moral framework from which to oppose Renfield's entitlement-based actions, much less understand their own sexualities. And March may be only bi-curious at best, unintentionally leading Banford on to disaster. And maybe she is a natural sub and she and Renfield will get on as well as he expects. It's just three people in a particular setting, not a manifesto! some will say. Others will respond that the personal is the political. In this case, anyway. And I see no real evidence that the writers meant it this way, especially Lawrence.
It depends on whether you think your artistic judgment can be walled off from your moral and rational evaluation of the assumptions underlying the work.
The case of the DVD declares this to be a "bold examination of lesbian love." Well, it is bold compared with ignoring its existence. However, what do we now say to a "bold" look at the psychological tragedy of women afflicted by lesbianism, whose sexual growth is immature and thwarted, who can be deemed as cured only when they can experience fulfillment through vaginal orgasm with a man? That was the bold Freudian view a century ago, and it is pretty much what we see in the film. Also, that a woman's "No" always means "Yes".
Here is the story viewed through the ideological goggles which it seems that the screenplay intends us to wear. (The screenwriters may plead they were only following the orders of D. H, Lawrence.) School crushmates Jill Banford (Dennis) and Ellen March (Heywood), stuck at a juvenile stage, are playing house on a farmstead in rural Ontario, possibly in the 1930's, sharing a bed like girls. Banford, the more pre-sexual of the two, cheerfully plays the wife, while March plays the husband and does the heavy chores. She broods, because her own sexuality is awakening and she has no outlet for it; she is aroused by Banford's touch but doesn't act on it. She plays the male role but can't actually use a shotgun on a male fox.
Paul Renfield arrives, a true Man, a sailor, gun-wielder, and tree-chopper. Banford sees him as a new playmate, but March fears him - the neurotic always fears the cure. But she wants to protectively distract Renfield from Banford. She succeeds beyond expectation; Renfield senses her blooming sexuality and must take her and master her. He abruptly proposes marriage and forces her assent by refusing to let go of her wrists until she gives him a yes. March tries to equivocate and stall, but Renfield won't have it; he proves his superiority by solving the fox problem, and then initiates her into the ecstasy of womanhood, without much in the way of the technicalities of consent.
Banford sees her juvenile play-couplehood coming to its end. With Renfield on a trip, she uses her neediness and newfound sexual wiles to suck March back into the dream. March writes Renfield that she and Banford are happy and tells him not to come back, but we already know how much weight he is going to give to her words. He knows what she needs and wants much better than she. This isn't ironic, he really does.
In short throughout the movie I was rooting for the women's relationship and booing down Renfield's macho-man tyrannical approach, but the writers were apparently on the other side. Well, how much of this are we willing to put up with for the sake of admittedly good movie-making? Yes, I've heard the response that it's a good thing if it starts conversations, but how far does that argument go?
To be fair, there is another way to interpret the whole movie: it may be a tragic naturalistic portrayal. The characters are living in an ignorant age. The women have never learned a moral framework from which to oppose Renfield's entitlement-based actions, much less understand their own sexualities. And March may be only bi-curious at best, unintentionally leading Banford on to disaster. And maybe she is a natural sub and she and Renfield will get on as well as he expects. It's just three people in a particular setting, not a manifesto! some will say. Others will respond that the personal is the political. In this case, anyway. And I see no real evidence that the writers meant it this way, especially Lawrence.