I had once logged into MS wanting to write a review on this, but I didnt find the topic and was too lazy to add it in mouthpad. This time, I persisted:-)
I have this thing for names and the name Meneer Chrome sounds soo cool, I love it. But I love the movie for something else too, it takes us on a ride through a spectrum of human emotions, all the way from sin, temptation, lust and incest to trust, triumph, bliss and purity..and its a ride with few bumps, if any. Cant say with surety if everyone will enjoy it, but I for one loved the trip.
Set in a period timing, the movie shows us a young Dutch landscape artist named Meneer Chrome commissioned by a vain and wealthy landlord Smithers to convert his messy lawns into a masterpiece of gardnery - a ’triumph of man over nature’. He wants to create the garden as legacy to his grandeur.
What Smithers doesnt realise is that Chrome has been hired by his wife Julianna’s cousin Fitzmaurice who wants the haughty Smithers to go bankrupt spending beyond his means for the garden. Fitzmaurice’s plans take a setback when Julianna, played by the lovely Greta Scacchi, whom he lusts after, instead turns her attention on Chrome. And unlike me, its not his name alone that attracts her to him. Painfully oblivious to all this, Smithers is all-so-busy obsessed with his garden. His only other concern is his daughter Thea.
Thea loves the unorderly woods in her lawn, its feeds her soul and her mind. The thought of having it all cut down and replaced by symmetrical and mechanical growth is beyond her. Meneer is the only one who can see through her placid and confused exteriors to know how disturbed and pained her feelings really are and he feels sorry for her. The feeling draws him to her, and keeps him from succumbing to her mother’s advances.
But he realises that he needs to continue playing the role for which he has been selected. The garden gets created. Thea feels violated..she laid her mind bare before Chrome and he raped her soul...Chrome is torn between the sweet taste of accomplishment at having the garden set and the pain of having violated Thea. Fitzmaurice is more concerned now with the new development between Julianna and Chrome. And Smithers is blissfully oblivious of anything else in his world.
But mother nature has other plans. A tempest, as if churned out from the inners of sorrowing Thea rampages across the plains, taking with it the fresh garden and leaving behind a trail of chaos.
Bad news continues as Smithers factory workers go on strike and he leaves to the city to take care of business. Chrome at last, decides to take hold of his own life, perhaps realising that intangible beauty of the goodness he alone saw in Thea is more that the crumbled beauty of his own garden artifacts. He leaves the place, with Thea by his side. Julianna, for once realises the unconditional and pure love that Smithers has for her, deciding to be with him at his time of trouble and from what we can guess, for the rest of her life. Alls well that ends well. And for Fitzmaurice...when has sins not been punished in a world where goodness rules?
It was an almost perfect casting for this movie. Greta is seduction personified. She can make u get goosebumps with a fall of her hanky. If you ever believed that seduction was scantily-clad hour-glass-figure girls gyrating themselves until u got vertigo or making oomphy faces, leaving nothing to imagination then you gotta see Greta scacchi in this. Welcome to the old school of seduction!
Richard Grant as the conniving Fitzmaurice has once again justified why I like him. Malice and evil rules his actions. and he dies a death fit for it. He is barely able to conceal his lust for Julianne whenever she falls under his vision or the hatred he has for Smithers. And THAT is a difficult ask for any actor. You can enact lust but when u have to enact having lust hidden inside a shell of oozing nobility, its a tough ask. But then I dont like Richard Grant for nothing.
Pete Postlethwaite is the vain Smithers. At first you think of him to be a turkey cock, vain and arrogant. But as the movie proceeds you see deeper inside him, how much he loves Julianna.. hes not all that stupid not to note that the garden budget is rocketing above his means, and hes not that vain to spend so much for a demeaning cause like leaving his legacy behind.. rather he does it because he loves Julianna and he is always on his toes trying to impress her. He knows he has lesser charisma and charms than many others around like Fitzmaurice. So he tries to do best with what he has - money.
Cant help feeling for him. The concern and care he has for Thea makes him an endearing father.Im glad Julianna goes back to him in the end.
Carmen Chaplin as the mercurial Thea puts in a dreamy performance as does Ewan McGregor as Meneer Chrome.
The way the movie takes each character and gets us to look deeper into them is done masterfully. Character development is evenly paced and well handled. Philippe Rousselot has done a good job.
The serpents kiss is not a movie that changes our mood after watching it. Rather its one in which we need to change our mood before watching. Like an opera..u dont run down to watch one after a game of soccer..
So dont watch this movie after a busy day from office. Rather wake up after a lazy sunday afternoon nap, take a walk through some sleepy alleyways, come home and watch this movie... u will like it.