Word: lena
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...invariably tempts writers to reduce it to black-and-white terms, to find a moral in its every predicament, a sermon in its every scene. Playwright Athol Fugard, 51, has won international acclaim by resisting the impulse to moralize. Such dramas as "Master Harold" . . . and the Boys, Boesman and Lena and A Lesson from Aloes do not preach against the evils of apartheid; they give institutionalized racism a human face, sometimes stolid, sometimes collapsing in laughter, tears or rage...
When we meet the two women 10 years later in Lyon, Madeline has remarried--this time to an unsuccessful actor and equally unsuccessful seller of dubious goods--Costa (Jean Pierre Bacri). In contrast to Madeline who has maintained her own artistic sphere, Lena has managed to turn her hurried marriage into a comfortable middle-class world of childcare with her husband Michel, a now-successful garage owner...
KURY SENSITIVELY describes the complex needs and pleasures that draw Lena and Madeline to each other. They seem to receive a warmth missing from each of their marriages, while at the same time the bond provides the support for both women to move outside their secure, almost static, worlds. For Madeline, it is to leave her bumbling husband, while for Lena, it is to feel capable of venturing outside of her house...
...France of the 1950s, the domestic world was the accepted, indeed expected, environment for women. Madeline and Lena function almost as a unit in helping each other to explore the world outside. Kury highlights the strength of the women's friendship by subtly contrasting it to the friendship that develops between Costa and Michel. While Michel and Costa vie for the attention of each others' wives on a joint family outing, Michel tells Madeline. "You only look at Lena, never at me." And while each husband tries to trick the other into phony business deals, Lena and Madeline remain loyal...
Kury's characters become the central focus of the film, while the background tends to reflect the mood or mindset of the principles. When Lena and Madeline spend a day exploring Lyon for a site to start their dress shop, Lyon looks like a muted painting with pastel buildings and pale skies, invoking the almost dreamlike quality of the day. When Lena's child gets left behind during the excursion, the audience is thrust back into the really of material responsibility as Lena and Madeline pace around the seemingly stark interior of Lena's home. Kury never diverts the audience...