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Saturday, April 14, 2012
MOVIE REVIEW
Applause (Applaus)
Anatomy Of A Life Lived And Acted, Amidst Alcohol
Paprika Steen as Thea/Martha in Martin Pieter Zandvliet's drama "Applause".
World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Saturday,
April 14,
2012
In the 2009 Danish
drama "Applause" (Applaus) Paprika Steen gives one of the great screen
performances of recent years as Thea, a divorcee and recovering alcoholic
seeking more quality time with and custody of her two sons from her ex-husband
Christian (Michael Falch). Thea is also a stage actress, which may be the
one thing keeping her from completely disintegrating. She is hurting
inside. Thea is fully aware that in order to stay afloat and reconnect
with her children she must clean up her volatile act. It won't be easy.
"Applause" opened yesterday in several U.S. cities (Berkeley, San Francisco,
Seattle).
"Applause", Martin Pieter Zandvliet's feature-directing debut, is a classic
chronicle of life and art colliding and blurring until both are
indistinguishable. The film is dipped in a grainy, drab home video-like
atmosphere, alternately under-lit and overexposed, with sometimes monochromatic
backdrops. "Applause" splits its time between Thea's off-stage exploits,
marked by solo appearances in bars and blunt remarks to hollow, no-hoping men
who convene there, and her life on stage playing Martha, the agonized, volcanic
boozy character in Edward Albee's 1960s play "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?"
(The footage is actually from Ms. Steen's stage work in the play from 2008.)
Mr. Albee's play forms the allegorical backbone of Mr. Zandvliet's film, in
which Thea, a charismatic yet intemperate sort, seeks any method of manipulation
to get her two angelic sons back.
Ms. Steen brings earthiness, pain and raw, unvarnished humanity to Thea, a woman
crying out to be whole again as she attempts a reconciliation with her sons.
Thea's been far from a mother to them. Though estranged from Thea the sons
don't necessarily see the mannered, maiden-like Maiken (Sara-Marie Maltha), a
psychotherapist and Christian's current wife, as their stepmother.
Christian, a cautious, amiable fellow, has boundless anger towards Thea, which
is barely concealed until things are taken too far.
Some of the harsh exchanges between Thea and Christian are vicious and
bone-chilling, something you might expect from Mamet or Bergman. That
said, those two legends hardly corner the market on such dialogue, and Mr.
Zandvliet and Anders Frithiof August's screenplay is full of acerbic rejoinders,
bluster and acutely truthful episodes, none of which feel heavy-handed.
"Applause" details the turbulence of life and the complex currents of change,
accident and happenstance that hurl human beings into places they may not have
ever expected to find themselves but are compelled to escape.
At all points Thea knows exactly who she is as a person. Whether alcohol
sugar coats that reality or not, Thea has total awareness and is a formidable
being, admirable as she bravely fights through her own maelstrom. What Ms.
Steen does so well is effortlessly celebrate the vitality and urgency of a
voluble figure on a journey of adversity, without exalting or placing her in the
soothing spotlight of audience pity, be that audience the stage audience we hear
or the one watching Mr. Zandvliet's film.
In some of the film's best scenes, a reflective Thea speaks to her young makeup
and wardrobe assistant, who gamely coexists with the troubled star. The
assistant could easily be Thea's daughter, and there's a soothing clarity in
their exchanges. Ms. Steen strips herself of vanity to create an honest,
startling and resonant character. Thea is nothing if not proud and
righteous. She won't be everyone's cup of tea but that matters not: Thea
is almost always true to herself and her goals. Both she and the film find
truth in that specific underlying reality.
As the relentless Thea, Ms. Steen's performance is grittier than (yet recalls
somewhat the energy and spirit of) Gena Rowlands' work in John Cassavetes'
"Opening Night", a film and director that Mr. Zandvliet was likely influenced
by. "Applause", an authentic, affecting emotional story of regaining
equilibrium and self-control, is also about the theater of life and the
realization that one does not really exist without the other. "All the
world's a stage," a Shakespeare character once declared, "and all the men and
women on it merely players." Mr. Zandvliet's clever "Applause" shouts
"amen" to Jacques.
With: Shanti Roney, Malou Reymann, Uffe Rørbaek, Otto Leonardo Steen Rieks, Noel
Koch-Søfeldt.
"Applause" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America
for language. The film is in the Danish language with English subtitles. The film's
running time is one hour and 24 minutes.
COPYRIGHT 2012. POPCORNREEL.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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