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THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY
Director: Giuseppe Capotondi Cast: Claes Bang, Elizabeth Debicki, Donald Sutherland, Mick Jagger MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:39 Release Date: 3/6/20 (limited); 8/7/20 (limited re-release) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 6, 2020 Based on Charles Willeford's novel, The Burnt Orange Heresy is a fascinating, searing character study of a man determined to further swell his already self-inflated ego. The trick of screenwriter Scott B. Smith and director Giuseppe Capotondi's film is how it tells that story without us quite realizing the goal—until it's far too late for everyone else involved. The surface level of the plot, which involves a mysterious woman and a wealthy art collector and extortion and a reclusive artist, serves as just enough of an intriguing distraction. These details are necessary, of course, but in the end, they're all in service of dissecting a character. As we watch how our increasingly terrible protagonist responds to these complications with mounting ruthlessness, the film's real purpose solidifies, and it becomes a troubling, haunting depiction of how pettiness easily can transform into much darker thoughts and deeds. In Milan, art critic James Figueras (Claes Bang) has a couple of good gigs going. There's his regular column for a local newspaper, which has afforded him a certain reputation—although the actual nature of that standing depends on whom one asks. He certainly thinks highly of himself, and that's what primarily matters here. His other gig is offering lectures about criticism to tourists, who eat up his ever-evolving story of a certain painting. The film begins with intercutting of James practicing his speech and presenting it to a library filled with curious visitors. A rough painting, which the audience initially dismisses as worthless, receives some new context. It was painted, James says, by a survivor of the Holocaust, who refused to use brushes again after the shame of painting concentration camp guards—an act that resulted in his survival, while his sister was killed. The listeners are suddenly quite interested in the painting, as James points out various details about the artist's technique, inspiration, and symbolism. The gag is that all of what he has said is a lie. James says that he painted this piece. Context matters. Context is what a good critic can provide. He is, obviously, a good critic, otherwise they wouldn't have been fooled. Therefore, he matters. So much of this film's success is how it plays a similar trick as James does in this opening scene. We get all of the information we need about this man in this introduction—his occupation, his ego, his need to have it validated. There's even something slightly admirable in how succinctly and pointedly he makes the argument for his occupation, and before we can quite begin to question the actual ethical concerns of his, at best, hypocritical sham, the film throws in a new person and story element to consider. She's Berenice Hollis (Elizabeth Debicki), a tourist from the United States who has come to Italy for uncertain reasons. The two chat after James' lecture, and almost immediately, they're in bed at his apartment. Before James can really start to question who this woman is and what she wants and why she has traveled to Milan, he's inviting her to accompany him to the summer home of Joseph Cassidy (Mick Jagger), who has a proposition for the art critic. One of Joseph's neighbors is Jerome Debney (Donald Sutherland), a once-famous artist who seemingly disappeared after a pair of fires destroyed all of his work. Joseph wants James to meet Jerome and steal one of the artist's paintings for the collector. Otherwise, it would be a shame if a recent article, which Joseph is convinced was written to falsely authenticate a forgery that the collector bought, was called into question. There is, obviously, a good amount of plot here, but in retrospect, almost all of it revolves around some facet of James' questionable character. He is the kind of man whose reputation, as important as it is to him, is always one probing question from being completely undone, because the answer almost certainly will condemn him (James came to Milan after "borrowing" money from an art gallery he operated). He is suspicious to the point of paranoia, and he begins to believe that Berenice is somehow connected to Joseph's plan against both him and Jerome—but mostly him, because he, of course, is the only person who matters. He is cunning in getting the artist and his companion alone (where we, but not James, learn the truth about Berenice's story), so that he can figure out a way to get out of Jerome's cabin with a painting. He is, above all else, a liar—not exactly a competent one, but a dedicated one—whose deception-oriented lecture turns out to be an even bigger deception, who has to juggle multiple tales to keep anyone from learning his plan, and whose crimes become progressively difficult to excuse, rationalize, or even comprehend. Capotondi consistently stages all of this James' perspective (except for those scenes between Berenice and Jerome, which help to illuminate the full, awful extent of what happens later). That approach is, perhaps, the craftiest way in which the filmmakers play with notion of the context of this story defining our expectations for it. It's admirably diabolical. The Burnt Orange Heresy seems like a noir-esque mystery, featuring a protagonist of questionable character who gets in deeper and deeper over his head. We know, though, exactly what kind of person James is from the very start of the film. Those initial suspicions are confirmed by the end of this story—and then some, and then some, and then some. Copyright © 2020 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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