Thirty Days (Or Posts) Of Female Characters! Post 12

[pargoletta]

This is one of the questions I'm really excited about. I get to share not only one of my favorite characters, but one of my favorite movies ever with you.

Comments

[pargoletta]

Yes! Yes! Go find it! Not many people know about it, since it was mostly a Hungarian-Canadian co-production that only got limited arthouse release in the U.S. But it's entirely worth seeing. Its main advertising draw was that Ralph Fiennes was going to play three generations of the same family (Ignatz, Adam, and Ivan; you can tell them apart by their various facial hair), and he does a pretty good job at that -- all three men are different from each other, though you can tell they're related and have grown up under similar kinds of pressure. Because of this casting choice, the movie actually feels like a trilogy-in-one, with each generation of Ralph Fiennes having its own hour-long storyline defined by the Hungarian Political Event Of The Era (respectively: the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Holocaust, and Communism).

Valerie is pretty much the only character who goes with the audience through the whole movie -- it spans her entire life, from toddlerhood until her death. Because of that, she is as much the star of the film as her male relatives are; I think there's a reason that the trailer focuses so much on her. And, frankly, casting mother and daughter was a stroke of genius, because you really believe that, as Jennifer Ehle ages, she could end up looking like Rosemary Harris.