This Weekend’s Film Festival – Poetic Heart

This Weekend's Film Festival dedicates the lineup to poetic hearts, inspired by the release of BRIGHT STAR on DVD. The John Keats biopic is also a great romance. A young woman turns to poetry to heal heartache and finds more heartache. A documentary looks at one of the most savagely honest poets. A duel love story follows an affair between two Victorian poets and the scholars that love them. The Festival closes with a romantic comedy centering on the first production of the most famous tragic romance.

Jane Campion's BRIGHT STAR tells the romance between poor the poet, John Keats, played effortlessly by Ben Whishaw, and clothing designer Fanny Brawne, played with innocent charm by Abbie Cornish. They were an unlikely pair. Keats was a thinker and Brawne had never read poetry before. But they became infatuated in each other because Brawne was drawn to Keats' passion and intelligence and he was drawn to her beauty and eagerness to listen. As I said in my original review, "Campion's poetic flare comes out significantly in the scenes when the couple is apart. For them it’s a young head-first passionate love. A love of grand gestures." She captures first love in beautiful imagery using butterflies and simple white walls. The story respects the morals of the age these lovers lived in and thinks about love in those terms. Like so many poets Keats died poor and a failure in his own time, but his romance with Brawne inspired some the most beloved Romantic poems.

Karen Moncrieff's BLUE CAR tells the story of a high school student who turns to poetry as an outlet for her conflicted feelings. Meghan, played with great power by Agnes Bruckner, is a teenager whose mother Diane (Margaret Colin) is too caught up in balancing her life to be engaged in the lives of her children. Meghan is often forced to take care of her mentally disturbed, younger sister Lily (Regan Arnold).For school she writes a poem, her teacher Auster, subtly played by Oscar-nominee David Strathairn, encourages her to dig deeper into her emotions and enter her work in a poetry contest in Florida. When she makes it and her mother won't give her the money for the trip, Meghan starts engaging in illegal activities to gain some cash. As I said in my original review, "Buckner gives Meghan a tough persona, but a broken heart. Teens her age might see her as confident, but an adult would be wiser." This is where she finds herself being taken advantage of. This cautionary tale shows how adults will prey on sensitive young women using kindness as a weapon. Meghan encounters a great deal of tragedy, but she finds that her poetry can be her weapon.

John Dullaghan's BUKOWSKI: BORN INTO THIS is an unflinching documentary about poet/writer Charles Bukowski. Combining archival footage with new interviews with his admirers, friends and former lovers, the film delves into how his tough life influenced his need to write. The story moves from his days as a poor postal worker to his fame and fortune. Underneath his raw persona lies a wounded young boy who was brutalized by his father and rejected by women until he became rich. He was also a drunk who would lash out violently when his insecurities bubbled to the surface. But as I said in my original review, "His honesty to express his feelings no matter how it might make him look is what makes his art so powerful." In interviews, Bukowski honestly talks about his life from his first sexual experience with a 300-pound prostitute to his rise as one of the most respected and successful poets of his generation. The film closes with actor Harry Dean Stanton reading Bukowski's poem "Bluebird," which couldn't describe the artist more accurately.

Neil LaBute's POSSESSION tells two love stories set centuries apart. Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart) finds a love letter from Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash (Jeremy Northam) to fellow poet Christabel LaMotte (Jennifer Ehle), who was a progressive and lesbian. This rocks everything that Ash scholar Maud Bailey (Gwyneth Paltrow) thought of the poet, who has championed as a devoted husband. While investigating the controversy, Roland, who is emotionally distant, and Maud, who is emotionally cautious, find a common bond in poetic passion about love. Meanwhile, LaBute perfectly balances the affair between Ash and LaMotte, which highlights the dangerousness of finding true love after they are committed to someone else. As I said in my original review, "In their Victorian world, passion was simply on the page. If sex starts in the mind, then passion was locked away in the brain behind a chastity belt." What this film understands is that sex and then love starts in the mind.

John Madden's SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE won an Oscar for Best Picture for finding a charming romantic comedy through the creation of the most famous tragic romance. Will Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) is having writer's block. He is under great pressure to create a new hit comedy. Viola De Lesseps, played in an Oscar-winning performance by Gwyneth Paltrow, is however inspired by his work and becomes driven to pose as a man, named Thomas Kent, and try out for his new play. At a party Will is captivated by Viola's beauty and impressed by Kent's honest performance and writes a classic. At one moment Queen Elizabeth, played by Oscar-winner Judi Dench, doesn't believe that true love can be captured in plays. Will's poetic heart proves her wrong. As I said in my original review, "The best things that the film does are bring fresh light to the work of William Shakespeare, which is too often disregarded as some irrelevant dated play that 9th graders are forced to read, and makes us realize that a feeling, thinking and sometimes lustful man was behind those poetic, and truly heartfelt, words."

To add a little poetry to your weekend simply head to the videostore, update your Netflix queue, check out HelloMovies.com for streaming sites, visit Zap2It.com for TV listings, or support the site by buying the films on DVD at the links below.