The White Countess (2005)

Why so much hype?

Excellent but underrated film

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

After watching "Maid of Manhattan" recently with Natasha Richardson(RIP) and Ralph Fiennes, I decided to give this film a go. I thought the film was so so good. However I don't understand why Fiennes had to put an American accent onto this because he can't do a Amercian accent!! I always thought as the blind English Diplomat not American at all! They either should've got someone better or written the character off if they weren't going to get the character development right among the actors! Anyways moving in, I loved how himself and Richardson's relationship developed throughout the whole film. The story- line was sad because it was set in near World War 2 and the fact people running for their lives to Japan (I think)in order to be safe from the soldiers. Omg one scene that even more frightened me as well was, when Fiennes character met with the soldiers face to face. I really thought they were gonna shot him right on the spot but thank god, he made it out alive and let him go without hesitant!I really liked this film, it really shows the history of China and it had a good cast to entertain us with their fine acting. I give this movie 8/10!

Compared to the Japanese takeover of Shanghai as seen in the earlier film Empire of the Sun, this was something of a low-budget, one-or-two camera, plodding disappointment. Contemporary reviews from 2005 are apt only in terms of words of appreciation for Merchant-Ivory production values and a cast of very good (though not in this film "great") actors. While the script and characters are somewhat compelling, my interest in the story itself waned once the climax seemed foreordained.What disturbed me most, however (and I admit it is more applicable to trivia than to a critique), was the presence in a 1936 or 1937 plot of a 1941 Packard, a 1942 Dodge, and a 1948 Ford. The Packard and the Dodge are perhaps forgivable, but not the Ford.As noted, the 1987 Empire of the Sun had most such details right, even if the characters were insufferable, unlike those of the White Countess.

The White Countess is a film directed by James Ivory that features Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson together with Vanessa Redgrave,Hiroyuki Sanada,Lynn Redgrave,Allan Corduner and Madeleine Potter. The screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro focuses on a disparate group of displaced persons attempting to survive in Shanghai in the late 1930's.Todd Jackson is an American expatriate living in Shanghai. While Jackson was once an American diplomat who came to Shanghai with great optimism about China's future, the bitter political squabbling and military violence that are a part of daily life in China caused him to become bitterly disillusioned. Jackson also lost most of his sight, and he has retreated into Shanghai's decadent underworld of bars and brothels rather than face the world. When a wager on a horse race wins Jackson a small fortune, he decides to indulge a long-time fancy and build the perfect Shanghai bar, one that would ideally reflect that corrupt beauty of the city, and he is joined in his project by Matsuda, a Japanese man with a mysterious past and an appreciation for Shanghai's underbelly. While assembling his pet project, Jackson meets Sofia, a Russian countess who fled her home during the revolution and now lives in Shanghai, supporting her family as a dance-hall girl and occasional prostitute. In Sofia, Jackson discovers a fusion of beauty and tragedy that fascinates him, and he asks her to become the hostess at his new bar. As Jackson becomes closer to Sofia, his cynicism begins to wear away and he develops a deep concern for Sofia and her family.This is a beautiful and moving film.But sadly,it falls short of being a great one because it never allows us into the hearts of its primary protagonists.Its high production values and fine performances should be credited but its lifeless story will fail to engage the viewer.

Warning! This review contains spoilers. It will reveal the end of the movie. If you don't want to know the end of the movie, don't read this review."White Countess"' advertising is misleading. The poster depicts the very handsome Ralph Fiennes passionately kissing the very beautiful Natasha Richardson. "Echoes of Casablanca!" a review is quoted.Well ... no. This ain't "Casablanca," and it is not, primarily, a passionate love story."White Countess" is also not a deep or important movie. It's not saying big things in an aesthetically successful way.Really what it is is a chilly, stodgy, art class exercise. Script writer Kazuo Ishiguro has received highbrow critical acclaim, and he's trying to be smart and important here, and he fails.Basic story: exiled Russian countess Sofia (Natasha Richardson), in the post-Revolutionary, pre-WW II era, does taxi dancing, and perhaps also prostitution, in Shanghai. She thereby supports her miserable, scheming, whining, unattractive, lazy, parasitic family. Two members of the family are played by Richardson's real life family, Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave.Blind American Todd Jackson, (Ralph Fiennes) opens a new nightclub, and hires Sofia to be his hostess.Eventually, the Japanese invade, and Todd, Sofia, her daughter, her Jewish neighbor and his daughter, escape on a boat.And that's it. Why does this story take over two hours to tell, and to tell coldly, leaving most viewers and critics surprisingly unmoved? Because it's all a big metaphor. Todd Jackson, blind American, who connives to get Japanese, Chinese, thugs, socialites, in his bar, is a symbol of America. He's always smiling, and he seems like a nice guy, but he keeps messing with foreign affairs.It is revealed, through flashbacks, that he used to be a diplomat, and was involved with the League of Nations. He befriends Matsuda, a Japanese man and, what do you know, the Japanese invade Shanghai. Those d*** Americans, scriptwriter Ishiguro implies; if only they didn't mess with things, the Japanese wouldn't have committed all those atrocities in China.Yeah, it is that silly. And pseudo-deep.Also, Jackson is attracted to Sofia, as he states in so many words, because she is a beautiful woman with a tragic past. That arch, intellectual distance from any spontaneous human emotion, any real human contact, is the tone of the entire film. It's like an abstract painting, pushing the viewer away from any involvement with the characters.Given what an art class exercise and mind game this movie is, it was utterly dishonest of the filmmakers to advertise it as a romance for the ages.Fiennes and Richardson kiss once, and it is awkward and unpleasant. "Casablanca"? I don't think so.The sets are lovely, though. They do convey a sense of Shanghai in a perilous moment.And the performances, for what they are, are great. Natasha Richardson does a very nice Russian accent. She plays her part -- that of a stupid, bullied, and thereby unappealing Russian countess, well.Fiennes is a phenomenon. I don't know if his performance here should be praised or dissected. His American accent is very good, and his phony smile never fades. But his performance is in service of a cypher, not a real part, not a real human being, and a plot that is didactic and pretentious rather than in service to telling a human story.