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Well, if this is Campion's best (or the shorts on this set are among her best), then I'm all over this release. An Angel at My Table knocked my socks off. And this one will better even that?

Yes, Sweetie is Campions best film and it will knock your socks off so far that you will never be able to locate them.

Michael wrote:

Well, if this is Campion's best (or the shorts on this set are among her best), then I'm all over this release. An Angel at My Table knocked my socks off. And this one will better even that?

Yes, Sweetie is Campions best film and it will knock your socks off so far that you will never be able to locate them.

Well, I think A Girl's Own Story is her best film, but still, everyone's happy!

Well, I think A Girl's Own Story is her best film, but still, everyone's happy!

I've not seen any of Campions pre-Sweetie works so I'm really thrilled about Criterion making some of her short films available. I happen to love Sweetie a lot more than her post-Sweetie works. It sticks to me the most..still after more than ten years.

Michael wrote:

Well, if this is Campion's best (or the shorts on this set are among her best), then I'm all over this release. An Angel at My Table knocked my socks off. And this one will better even that?

Yes, Sweetie is Campions best film and it will knock your socks off so far that you will never be able to locate them.

I guess that spells only one thing: blind buy.

Michael wrote:I've not seen any of Campions pre-Sweetie works so I'm really thrilled about Criterion making some of her short films available. I happen to love Sweetie a lot more than her post-Sweetie works. It sticks to me the most..still after more than ten years.

Well, you should love the shorts. I actually think that Campion has steadily lost a large degree of her individuality as a filmmaker as she's progressed, so the shorts, Two Friends and Sweetie are my favourites. After that, her films are by turns fine, interesting, flawed or deeply flawed (Holy Smoke, anybody?), but never quite as unexpected and fresh as those early works.

As for that inane blurb about Sweetie being a breakthrough film, it was more of a career-threatening flop, with former Cannes darling Campion returning to the festival and having her feature slammed. The critical appreciation of the film was much slower to build, and I don't think it ever became an international hit. Angel's success at Venice was seen as a comeback at the time, and The Piano's Cannes triumph was kiss-and-make-up after the extremely hostile reception for Sweetie.

After that, her films are by turns fine, interesting, flawed or deeply flawed (Holy Smoke, anybody?), but never quite as unexpected and fresh as those early works.

Couldn't agree more. zedz, what is your take on The Piano? I liked The Piano but the ending ruined it for me. If it ended with Ada floating inside the ocean (like the boy in Ratcatcher), then it would work better for me... call me cynical, hopeless...but the silver finger attachment and Ada learning to speak threw me out of the film. I don't know why.

Very funny, davidhare. I can understand how annoying The Piano can be to some folks. It is very pretty to look at.. especially the opening with the crashing waves and the jungles. Lovely costumes. New Zealand really makes this film. What I don't like about the film: the ending; Harvey Keitel..how cool and awesome it would be if Ada comes down on one of the natives; everything about that whiny pain-in-the-ass who won the Supporting Actress Oscar.

Michael wrote:Couldn't agree more. zedz, what is your take on The Piano? I liked The Piano but the ending ruined it for me. If it ended with Ada floating inside the ocean (like the boy in Ratcatcher), then it would work better for me... call me cynical, hopeless...but the silver finger attachment and Ada learning to speak threw me out of the film. I don't know why.

When I first saw it (secret screening 9am on a Sunday morning just after the Cannes win, so I was slightly dazzled by the specialness of it all) I thought it was patchy and far less interesting than Campion's previous work. As with David, it struck me as a studious attempt to make a capital A Art Film. Nice photography (but Karekare is phenomenally photogenic), but there's far too much about the film that strikes me as pandering to Arthouse (and Kiwi Gothic) expectations, where her previous works had been far more idiosyncratic.

And that ending does it no favours. The story about it in the industry was that Campion couldn't decide how to end the film and so shot two diametrically opposed alternative endings - but ended up using them both. I've seen the film twice since, and each time I find less to like. Sam Neill is earnestly dull (which is at least in character), and Keitel seems wildly miscast. Hunter is probably the best thing about it, but the flip-flops of the final reel pretty much demolish the character.

I think Portrait of a Lady is an unsuccessful film, but a much more interesting failure.

Another positive review.

Has anyone compared the Criterion release to the French Coffret Jane Campion? I have the latter and very much like it, but was a bit disappointed in the transfer of Peel, where the colour scheme is very important to the success of the film yet the transfer didn't match my recollection from the theatre. I would double-dip if there was good reason to, but I don't want to do it on spec.

I too have the french set, but I'm interested nonetheless because of the commentaries. Has anyone heard the one for An Angel at My Table? How's that?

i didn't particularly like Sweetie, I liked the quikiness but ultimately couldn't relate with the characters and found them really annoying, and the (chuckling) commentary track was also very annoying.

I actually quite enjoyed the loose, laid-back commentary. It was nice to hear that two early influences on Campion's work were David Lynch (she singles out Blue Velvet) and Jim Jarmusch (?!). You can tell that all three participants seem to be good friends by the way they laugh and joke with each other, esp. their good-natured ribbing of Gerard Lee! Heh. But I never felt that the commentary got too informal. There was still plenty of good analysis of character motivations, themes, etc.

Arn777 wrote:i didn't particularly like Sweetie, I liked the quikiness but ultimately couldn't relate with the characters and found them really annoying, and the (chuckling) commentary track was also very annoying.

I'm glad you said it! I too had a difficult time relating with the characters and I met some strange people down the road. "An Angel..." really got my hopes high for this one - might have been better if watched in reverse order.

hammock wrote:

Arn777 wrote:i didn't particularly like Sweetie, I liked the quikiness but ultimately couldn't relate with the characters and found them really annoying.

I'm glad you said it! I too had a difficult time relating with the characters and I met some strange people down the road.

I know exactly what you mean (and it doesn't really bother me), but I know Australians who consider the characters and family dynamics documentary-precise and almost too close to home! This reminds me of Fellini's story of the lady with the silver nose.

(This is not intended as a slur on Australians, by the way!)

zedz wrote: A Girl's Own Story is her best film, but still, everyone's happy!

Having watched it this morning, I'm inclined to agree with you. This short alone was worth the money I paid for the disc. I'm still on the fence about the feature. I'm going to give the commentary a spin and think about it some more.

I was just curious. I have not seen this nor An Angel at My Table but I've got kind of an interest in these two titles. I hated The Piano, so I'm hoping based upon my extreme hatred of The Piano if anyone can say these are worth my consideration.
Thanks

oldsheperd wrote:I was just curious. I have not seen this nor An Angel at My Table but I've got kind of an interest in these two titles. I hated The Piano, so I'm hoping based upon my extreme hatred of The Piano if anyone can say these are worth my consideration.
Thanks

Absolutely. I didn't like The Piano at all, but I found Sweetie and, especially, An Angel at my Table to be vastly superior and absolutely worthwhile. Everything about both titles is far more unique and insightful than anything The Piano even hinted at. An Angel at my Table is one of the best portraits of an artist I've ever seen, and one of my personal favorite movies. It may still depend on your taste, but don't give up on them based on The Piano. The Criterion editions are particularly flattering of the films, too, so it's even better if you can go that route.

I agree. I really don't like The Piano, but I do like all of Campion's earlier work. To me, Nyman's tinkly score for the Oscar-buster represents the sound of an interesting directorial voice being stifled, and she's never really bounced back (though some of her later work is, at least, more idiosyncratic).

Probably the wrong thread, but those starting to pick up on Campion, take a look (or another) at In the Cut. Critically panned on release, sinking without trace and audience, it still reverberates around this head, along with at least two others I know. Meg Ryan's Last Tango, Klute and Contempt all rolled into one (who knew?), it's genre filmmaking as personal expression at it's finest. Where Campion can or will go after it I have no idea.

devlinnn wrote:Probably the wrong thread, but those starting to pick up on Campion, take a look (or another) at In the Cut. Critically panned on release, sinking without trace and audience, it still reverberates around this head, along with at least two others I know. Meg Ryan's Last Tango, Klute and Contempt all rolled into one (who knew?), it's genre filmmaking as personal expression at it's finest. Where Campion can or will go after it I have no idea.

Boy, I don't know about "In the Cut". It did reverberate for me too, but only in the sense that the "erotic thriller" genre becomes a code word for "vile movie".

Strangely enough, I find that Campion's similarly panned "Portrait of a Lady" sort of works as a period erotic thriller. Of course, we don't get to see ALL of Meg Ryan in that one, but when fading stars and fading directors have to go full frontal to get some attention; then their 15 minutes is up.

Anybody know where to find J. Rosenbaum's reviews (if he indeed wrote any for them) of Sweetie and An Angel at my Table online? I can't seem to find them anywhere, which is strange given how he placed the two of them so highly on his lists of top ten movies for their respective years. I think he also had a falling out with her work over The Piano, if I remember correctly (not positive, though). He seemed to think even Angel was a denial of her initial talent (again, if I recall correctly), so I guess he just has a thing for goth Australian woman-children, not New Zealand carrot-toppers and the like.

Here are his capsule reviews for them. It could simply be he never wrote anything longer.

Sweetie

An Angel at My Table