Film is a visual form of expression...but rarely treated as such. Girl With A Pearl Earring makes the cut. It's beauty not only dazzles the eye, it touches the soul as a true work of art does. Based on the Tracey Chevalier novel, the film has been made selectively, focusing on the main elements of Vermeer's household maid and his relationship to her...and to the crass appetites of his patron. Peter Webber directed this work with the sensibility of a poet...and chose Eduardo Serra to create the cinematography with the eye of an artist.
Colin Firth as Vermeer, a dedicated painter with a perfectionistic sense of art as a transcendant medium, brings to the role an intensity, a sensuality in his artfully subtle facial expressions. Dialogue is kept to a minimum. The director realized that more can be said in small gestures, in a look than in a volume of words. Scarlet Johansen, certainly the primary player, as Griet, the housemaid with an innate understanding of art's value, creates an amazingly mature portrayal of the character. This is a young actress of enormous talent.
The images of this film have stayed with me with a haunting quality... they move and stir with their color, their changes in shadowed light...the way great music lifts beyond the interpretative constrictions of the mind. If you're open to a rare and stunning art film experience...Girl With a Pearl Earring won't disappoint.
Colin Firth as Vermeer, a dedicated painter with a perfectionistic sense of art as a transcendant medium, brings to the role an intensity, a sensuality in his artfully subtle facial expressions. Dialogue is kept to a minimum. The director realized that more can be said in small gestures, in a look than in a volume of words. Scarlet Johansen, certainly the primary player, as Griet, the housemaid with an innate understanding of art's value, creates an amazingly mature portrayal of the character. This is a young actress of enormous talent.
The images of this film have stayed with me with a haunting quality... they move and stir with their color, their changes in shadowed light...the way great music lifts beyond the interpretative constrictions of the mind. If you're open to a rare and stunning art film experience...Girl With a Pearl Earring won't disappoint.