very good movie
Added 11/13/2009
the is a very good movie. i happen to be a fan of harry potter and seening 3 of my favitor people appear in the last september made the movie even better.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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The Ascendancy descends
Added 3/23/2008
Although the British have famously enjoyed an eight-hundred year presence in Ireland, in the early twentieth century the feudal British-Irish lost land, home and position as the wave proclaiming the Republic of Ireland swept over and under them. Elizabeth Bowen's 1928 novel profiling the demise of Ireland's Ascendancy, caught the attention of producer Neil Jordan, director Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw, who plays Marda Norton in the film The Last September. First released in Ireland in early 1999, the movie is rarely found on rental shelves, nine years later. Along with Ms. Shaw, the stellar cast includes England's Maggie Smith (Lady Naylor), Keeley Hawes (Lois Farquar), Michael Gambon (Sir Richard Naylor), Jane Birkin (Francie Montmorency), and Lambert Wilson (Hugo Montmorency).
Guesting at the Naylor's Cork home of Danielstown is a proper stiff-upper lip crowd who act British, but claim to be Irish. They seem oblivious to the mercurial republican violence swirling in the background. An IRA man kills a Black and Tan with barely a raised eyebrow from the Naylors and houseguests, one of whom is niece Lois, marvelously played by Hawes. The explosive violence smoldering in the IRA killer, played by Gary Lydon, arouses her and she initiates a tryst with him. "Oh, it was you that killed the Black and Tan, wasn't it?" she coyly inquires. A tragic British soldier (David Tennant) fawns over Lois and she encourages his entreaties by not discouraging them. When told by Lady Myra (Maggie Smith) that Lois will never be his, the soldier inquires why not. She replies, "You don't have any money, do you?"
Marda Norton (Fiona Shaw) dishes up considerable empathy for Lois's burgeoning sexuality and independence. "You so remind me of myself when I was young," she muses. Marda is camped at the Naylors Big House to find out if the dormant flame between her and the married Hugo Montmorency might be rekindled before she accepts a second-best marriage proposal. A "vamp" she calls herself.
The Last September remains fairly true to Bowen's work, but the novel's sense of impending doom gets somewhat lost in the film. Give cinematographer Slawomir Idziak high marks for fine framing of the Irish countryside.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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This is the end, my beautiful friend, this is the end, my only friend
Added 2/8/2008
This is a bit of a gem really if you are familiar with the British class system and have a modicum of knowledge of the struggles engulfing Britain around the turn of the twentieth century. In the film, the concern is primarily for the struggle for Irish independence but there are unspoken undertones of the struggles of women.
At first blush this is Doctor Who meets Harry Potter as the main players come on the scene. Seriously though, it is hard towatch this for a while given the proximity of the stars of the movie similar to that of the Potter movies. A bit of a distraction.
Maggie Smith has made this sort of role her own and in this I am strongly reminded of her portrayal in Private Function, a film which has many parallels here.
It is easy to mistake the setting for rural England, which to me is a deliberate perspective of the Director. There is a powerful impetus to assume that the central charcters are, in fact, English, but as the plot unfolds, the underlying sypathies are exposed as an identity, and a greater connection to the historical roots.
Of course, the romance involving an English officer (and thus gentleman) in direct contrast to the Fenian freedom fighter (Irish gentry) is very symbolic. The traditional roles are inverted and twisted but eventually, the officer is killed by his republican rival metaphorically representing the separation of the two lands and the division of the heart of the object of their affection.
The problem is, appreciation of the full scope of the film is limited to those who have read the book and who have a different perception of the story and those who have some rudimentary knowledge of history, politics and class. That is not to say that the regular viewer is left completely in the dark, but merely, that the richness of colour and tone is lost to that person.
For that reason I can only countenance four stars.
4 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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The end of something
Added 11/14/2006
The fine stage director Deborah Warner chose for her first (and so far only) major film to adapt Elizabeth Bowen's brilliant 1929 novel THE LAST SEPTEMBER, an account of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy frittering away their time with tennis parties and flirtations just after the First World War while the Irish Revolutionary War flared around them. Warner assembled a magnificent cast, with Michael Gambon and Maggie Smith as the assured and controlling Sir Richard and Lady Myra Naylor, the charming Keely Hawes as their lovely ward Lois, David Tennant as her awkward smitten middle-class suitor Gerald (an officer in the Britsh police army during the Irish Revolution) and Jane Birkin doing splendid work as the silly insecure Francie. And the film looks gorgeous, with its beautiful-shabby country house interiors in pinks and browns contrasting with the rich leafy greens of the countryside. But the screenwriter, the novelist John Banville, seems to have thought that Bowen's ironic portrait of emotional violence stifled inside the country manners of the landed gentry (mirroring the political violence outside, only occasionally mentioned in the novel) would not be enough to sustain audiences' interests, and he adds a new wrinkle to Bowen's original scenario of Lois's relationship with Gerald: now Lois is, unbelievably, the carnal partner of the local revolutionary outlaw Gerald hunts. The melodramatic result jars tremendously with Bowen's infinitely subtler vision. Before the revolutionary (Gary Lydon) appears, the film is terrific, like a much more finely nuanced version of THE SHOOTING PARTY; afterwards everything goes astray. With two fine actors vividly miscast: the gifted Fiona Shaw, Warner's frequent artistic collaborator, radiant and warm but much too old to play Marda Nolan; and the magnetic Richard Roxburgh using a very distracting accent in a Byronic turn as Captain Daventry.
5 out of 6 people found this helpful.
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A beautiful period piece
Added 9/14/2006
"The Last September" is beautiful period piece, set in Ireland after the Revolution when the "Anglo-Irish"--or Brits--were hanging on for dear life to the nostalgia of which they were such a part. As "Lois," Keeley Hawes is lovely in the lead; and she is as refreshing and tantalizing as an Irish spring.
Of course, Maggie Smith is her Academy Award-winning self, as terrific in this film as she is in every other movie that she chooses to be a part of. She is a gift, a worldwide treasure. Michael Gambon is brilliant as always too, and he shines brightly in this film.
Exquisitely photographed by Slawomir Idziak, with splendid acting that puts American acting to shame, it is a film to remember. A cinemagraphic work of art, unlike the tripe that Hollywood puts out. In the final analysis, Keeley Hawes controls this film and makes it. What a very lovely woman and seemingly special human being.
Fiona Shaw is splendid as "Marda." And last but not least, Deborah Warner is superb in her directorial debut in films; however, regrettably, it appears that she has not made another film since this one. Its domestic gross was $478,053, which may have been a factor, although it certainly deserved better than this.
3 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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very good movie
Added 11/13/2009
the is a very good movie. i happen to be a fan of harry potter and seening 3 of my favitor people appear in the last september made the movie even better.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
The Ascendancy descends
Added 3/23/2008
Although the British have famously enjoyed an eight-hundred year presence in Ireland, in the early twentieth century the feudal British-Irish lost land, home and position as the wave proclaiming the Republic of Ireland swept over and under them. Elizabeth Bowen's 1928 novel profiling the demise of Ireland's Ascendancy, caught the attention of producer Neil Jordan, director Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw, who plays Marda Norton in the film The Last September. First released in Ireland in early 1999, the movie is rarely found on rental shelves, nine years later. Along with Ms. Shaw, the stellar cast includes England's Maggie Smith (Lady Naylor), Keeley Hawes (Lois Farquar), Michael Gambon (Sir Richard Naylor), Jane Birkin (Francie Montmorency), and Lambert Wilson (Hugo Montmorency).
Guesting at the Naylor's Cork home of Danielstown is a proper stiff-upper lip crowd who act British, but claim to be Irish. They seem oblivious to the mercurial republican violence swirling in the background. An IRA man kills a Black and Tan with barely a raised eyebrow from the Naylors and houseguests, one of whom is niece Lois, marvelously played by Hawes. The explosive violence smoldering in the IRA killer, played by Gary Lydon, arouses her and she initiates a tryst with him. "Oh, it was you that killed the Black and Tan, wasn't it?" she coyly inquires. A tragic British soldier (David Tennant) fawns over Lois and she encourages his entreaties by not discouraging them. When told by Lady Myra (Maggie Smith) that Lois will never be his, the soldier inquires why not. She replies, "You don't have any money, do you?"
Marda Norton (Fiona Shaw) dishes up considerable empathy for Lois's burgeoning sexuality and independence. "You so remind me of myself when I was young," she muses. Marda is camped at the Naylors Big House to find out if the dormant flame between her and the married Hugo Montmorency might be rekindled before she accepts a second-best marriage proposal. A "vamp" she calls herself.
The Last September remains fairly true to Bowen's work, but the novel's sense of impending doom gets somewhat lost in the film. Give cinematographer Slawomir Idziak high marks for fine framing of the Irish countryside.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
This is the end, my beautiful friend, this is the end, my only friend
Added 2/8/2008
This is a bit of a gem really if you are familiar with the British class system and have a modicum of knowledge of the struggles engulfing Britain around the turn of the twentieth century. In the film, the concern is primarily for the struggle for Irish independence but there are unspoken undertones of the struggles of women.
At first blush this is Doctor Who meets Harry Potter as the main players come on the scene. Seriously though, it is hard towatch this for a while given the proximity of the stars of the movie similar to that of the Potter movies. A bit of a distraction.
Maggie Smith has made this sort of role her own and in this I am strongly reminded of her portrayal in Private Function, a film which has many parallels here.
It is easy to mistake the setting for rural England, which to me is a deliberate perspective of the Director. There is a powerful impetus to assume that the central charcters are, in fact, English, but as the plot unfolds, the underlying sypathies are exposed as an identity, and a greater connection to the historical roots.
Of course, the romance involving an English officer (and thus gentleman) in direct contrast to the Fenian freedom fighter (Irish gentry) is very symbolic. The traditional roles are inverted and twisted but eventually, the officer is killed by his republican rival metaphorically representing the separation of the two lands and the division of the heart of the object of their affection.
The problem is, appreciation of the full scope of the film is limited to those who have read the book and who have a different perception of the story and those who have some rudimentary knowledge of history, politics and class. That is not to say that the regular viewer is left completely in the dark, but merely, that the richness of colour and tone is lost to that person.
For that reason I can only countenance four stars.
4 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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