Look Again: Re-Review of Anna and the King

ANNA AND THE KING
Costume Drama, 1999
US, 147 minutes
Directed by Andy Tennant
With Jodie Foster, Chow Yun-Fat, Bai Ling

3 specs out of 5

Headline: PALACE COUPLE

Anna and the King’s opening credits claim it is based on the writings of real-life Anna Leonowens, elegantly waltzing around the royal issue of primogeniture. Everyone knows this film’s a pretender to the throne, a remake of beloved classic The King and I, indelibly starring bald Yul Brynner as the eponymous potentate.
This actually signals an important, politically correct shift in the script. In hindsight, there’s something a little less charming and more than a tad awkward about an imperious British schoolmarm taking an Asian ruler to task over how to be more “civilized” - given colonialism’s barbaric legacy.
In this revisionary version, Anna’s relationship with the man she works and falls for - King Mongkut (Yun-Fat) - is put in context, and she appears in the unflattering glow of the British East-India Company - a transimperial corporation to make Empire-mad Kipling proud.
Fortunately, the story’s heart stays intact, since desire and duty are forces that have not changed much since the 19th century. A prim and by-the-book English teacher, recently widowed, arrives in Siam to tutor for the King, and they soon are in a love that cannot (because of the time’s social and racial barriers) be consummated in more than a formal, albeit passionate, dance.
The romance is believable, and the “cry now” subliminal messages pop up several times to teary effect, especially during well-choreographed death scenes. The Romeo/Juliet sub-plot involving concubine Tuptim (feline Bai Ling) and her pining monk lover, is unexpectedly powerful. Surprisingly, there is an even more riveting sub-sub-plot with megalomaniacal General Alak (Randall Duk Kim) nearly worthy of Ran. Duk Kim’s gnarled face and veteran’s growl makes him the most fun villain in ages.
The lead actors are less successful in their roles. Jodie Foster’s pinched features and strained British accent are more mannerism than from the manor born. Chow Yun-Fat, marvelous in his hard-boiled roles in the Jon Woo actioners that inspired Tarantino, is not a fluent English-speaker (hardly his fault) and so is often unintelligible. Still, the on-screen chemistry experiment works (nature abhors a vacuum) and their acting strengths soon sweep aside such quibbles.
The film’s generally high quality - costumes, location and cinematography are all first-rate - is marred by the insipid child actor Tom Felton, whose constant cheerio-pip-pip demeanor is like five fingernails scraping Anna’s schoolroom chalkboard. Further undermining the cinematic class act is a childish climax (with Bedknobs and Broomsticks flare) whose resolution makes "The Charge of the Light Brigade" seem like brilliant military strategy. When Anna and the King teaches us adult lessons about life, it is superb; when it stoops to conquer the kids with jolly-good-fun, it is poor - a pauper where once was a king.

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise...

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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