Reviewed by James Withers
(6/23/99)
Director:
Bernardo Bertolucci
Screenplay (based on a story by James Lasdun):
Bernardo Bertolucci and Clare Peploe
Cast:
Thandie Newton (Shandurai)
David Thewlis (Mr. Kinsky)
Let's get the obvious out of the way: in the parlance of some men, specifically older Black men (see Arsenio Hall in the movie Coming to America) an attractive woman is sometimes called a "biscuit." Thandie Newton, one of the main characters in Bernardo Bertolucci's new film Besieged, is a biscuit. Besieged follows the intricate relationship between Shandurai (Newton) and her employer Mr. Kinsky (Thewlis). Shandurai is a medical student in Rome. She is forced to leave her unnamed African country after her husband, a teacher, is arrested by the authorities. To support herself she cleans the home of Mr. Kinsky, a classical pianist. They are a study of opposites. He's an introvert (never plays in public, but does give lessons to children). She, even with a past that most of us can only imagine, is not. He is a student of the piano. She is a student of medicine. He is white. She is black. They are polar opposites, and they fall in love with each other.
Actually that is not true. Mr. Kinsky falls in love with Shandurai. He tells Shandurai nothing at first. He leaves her gifts (a blank music sheet with a question mark, a flower, his dead aunt's ring); however, he never leaves his voice. Mr. Kinsky says nothing in the first 15 minutes of the film, although it is clear that he is smitten with Shandurai. Shandurai, on her part, is perplexed by the attention her employer gives, but offers no opening. She accepts the gifts, even puts the flower in water, but does not, until the end of the film, return his love.
Besieged sounds like the a typical love story. Opposites attract, have problems, fall in love, yadda, yadda, yadda. Its deliverance, however, is atypical. Neither character spends much time discussing love. Mr. Kinsky tells Shandurai he loves her, but after he is rebuffed he simply does what she asks him to do prove his love. He proceeds to sell his possessions so he can get Shandurai's husband out of prison. As his house becomes barer and barer, when he decides to sell his possessions he listens to John Coltrane's My Favorite Things, Mr. Kinsky never tells Shandurai of his plan. Shandurai, as the house becomes easier to clean, never asks what is going on. Aside from the declaration of love, the most words they share is when he invites her to a concert he gives for his students. The silence between them seems to be filled with their music, or rather their competing music. His beloved classical (he writes a piece for her), and her giddy African pop.
This silence, with music, might infuriate some viewers, but is perfect for the film because Besieged ultimately deals with the inexplicable. Inexplicable politics and inexplicable love. How to put into words the fear of seeing your husband carted away by the unnamed state apparatus? Bertolucci uses no words for that. Instead he shows Shandurai on a dusty road, watching men take her husband away as she pees on herself. How to put into the words the feeling another human being gives you, a feeling that you admit you have never felt before? Silence also serves the characters. Neither Shandurai and Mr. Kinsky are self-pitying, although they both have a right to be. They accept their complicated emotions but expect nothing from the world.
The movie ends with Mr. Kinsky selling his piano, and the release of Shandurai's husband. The ending will frustrate people who enjoyed When Harry Met Sally because there is no pithy ending. Shandurai admits her love for Mr. Kinsky, in a simple worded note, but both characters realize that love is never free, and that silence might be their only expression.
