Mona Lisa

[hazelk]

Coming downstairs after getting the boys to sleep last night I found Neil Jordan's 1986 film Mona Lisa on the TV. Now that's a retelling of 'Beauty and the Beast' I really can appreciate.

According to Jordan the original idea for the movie was to show the gap of understanding between a man and a woman but the screenplay got completely rewritten once Bob Hoskins came on board and his character, brutal and pitifully simple but with a beautiful heart, became central. The film begins and ends to the strains of Nat King Cole singing the title song, although it's only at the end that you realize how closely the story has followed the lyric.

Bob Hoskins plays George, a British mob flunky, recently released from prison, where he'd served a term to cover up for his gangster boss, Mortwell (Michael Caine). Still willing to be everyone's doormat, George agrees to act as chauffeur for Simone (Cathy Tyson), a haughty, high-priced call girl. Initially it appears that she is the 'Beauty' playing Pygmalion to George's simple beast, showing him how to dress, how to behave. As the film progresses and George's fascination with her, part protective, part romantic increases, the viewer begins to empathise with him and wonder just how beautiful Simone's intentions are. It's a journey of discovery for George, repeatedly he admits that he doesn't understand. His attempts to do so by making up neo-noire detective stories with his friend Thomas (Robbie Coltrane) punctuate the movie as does his tentative reconciliation with his teenage daughter. Slowly, layer by layer the plot unfolds and the London setting grows ever more dreamlike. A bad dream, populated with the dammed and their tormenters, in particular the ever more Mephistophelean figure of Mortwell. In the denouement the beast in George is re-awakened but his shocking brutality is more than matched by Simone's gun crazy revenge on her demons and the realization that she would have killed him too. The final scene, however, recalls Dorothy's realization that there's no place like home. George, his daughter and Thomas link arms and set off down the yellow brick road putting fantasy and tragically unattainable femme fatales safely behind them.

Comments

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

I saw it in a theatre at the time (I can't believe it was almost 20 years ago!)during the Movies Day (a festival the Minister of Culture created then...we could see every movie for just 10 Francs during that day, so basically for one ticket you could see 4 or 5 films) and I have few memories of the film, except that I recall singing over and over the eponymous song afterwards. I also seems to remember scarves and diaphanous outfits (Simone's I guess).

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Me too, I think it premiered at the Edinburgh festival that year and I remember coming out of the cinema quite blown away. I imagine it must be quite difficult for non-Brits with all the accents. But the performances are all so good. Hoskins is brilliant as he should be, Michael Caine is perfectly cast and very, very nasty, Tyson gives her character just enough heart without becoming a tart with one and Robbie Coltrane. I lust after Robbie Coltrane for some reason although he's really not my type...