The Cherry Orchard
at the Phoenix February 2000

Set at the turn of last century, Chekhov's play presents the juxtapostion between past and present, tradition and progress, stagnation and change. Michael Cacoyannis gives us a cinematic interpretaion of the original that deals thoughtfully with these universal themes.
Anja (Tushka Bergen) travels to Paris to collect her mother, Madame Lyubov Ranevsky (Charlotte Rampling), who has decided to return to the family estate in Russia after a disastrous love affair. She arrives home to find the famous cherry orchard in full bloom, but the finances of the estate on the verge of ruin. Thus Lyubov and her brother Gaev (Alan Bates) find themselves scrabbling to retain a vision of gentility amidst a climate of huge social and economic transition. Almost childlike in their unwavering belief that what has always been can never change, they are trusting and generous but completely ill-equipped for reality. Meanwhile the younger generation must break out of the claustrophobic grip of this nostalgia, to build a future far away from the delapidated house and estate. The blossoming cherry orchard itself comes to symbolise their predicament, a place of stifling and transient beauty where Trofimov (Andrew Howard), the young tutor, gets caught in the branches and the heady heavy scent lulls the family into a false sense of security.
From a visual perspective, the film captures the setting for the drama perfectly. The crumbling wooden mansion, a haven of decaying wealth where the lustre of rich furnishings has long disappeared, and where the servants struggle to retain the facade of order while everything around them disintegrates. The cherry orchard is a beautiful flurry of white, yet the cameras also convey that crucial sense of claustrophobia, the ominous tranquillity of the orchard and the cruelty of the branches beneath the blossoms. The dresses of Lyubov, once splendid, are depressingly off-white and the fur trimmings moth-eaten and bedraggled. Even Yasha (Gerard Butler), the self-proclaimed valet, manages to create a more convincing veneer of elegance in his cheap suits.
Charlotte Rampling is a fragile Lyobov, and her particular talent for melodrama fits the character's stylised reactions perfectly. Alan Bates is a deeply impractical, eccentric and kindly Gaev, obsessed with billiard angles and existing in an unreal world of philosophy and dreams. Meanwhile the rest of the family and the servants circulate around these two, caught in the spell while it lasts. Melanie Lynskey is a flirtatious Dynyasha the maid, while Frances De La Tour gives an idiosycratic and rather creepy performance as the governess Charlotta. Mention too, must be made of Michael Gough as Feers, the deaf servant who mutters his way through the film, a bent old man who, we realise, is a true relic of a nobler and more elegant time.
The director Michael Cacoyannis is keen to state that his film is not 'filmed theatre'. I would disagree, as there is hardly a way to avoid the theatrical roots of the story. The plot rests on the tension between the characters, and the moral, spiritual and psychological conflicts behind the dialogues. Once the setting is established, it is the backdrop for all the action - the nature of the plot is such that we cannot get away from the orchard and the estate. As a result the film, while skilfully produced and masterfully acted, becomes inevitably lengthy and claustrophobic. The level of involvement with the same characters is almost unbroken and subsequently requires the kind of concentration usually allocated to the theatre. Having said all that, the ending of the film is effective enough to regain any attention that might have been lapsing.
As a thought provoking piece of drama, this film is well-worth a watch, but take supplies...

Jane Labous
04/02/2000