Maria’s Lovers (1984)
MGM DVD (region 1)
d. Andrei Konchalovsky; pr. Lawrence Taylor-Mortoff; scr. Gerard Brach, Andrei Konchalovski, Paul Zindel, Marhorie David; ph. Juan Ruiz Anchia; m. Gary Malkin; ed. Humphrey Dixon; cast. Nastassja Kinski, John Savage, Robert Mitchm, Keith Carradine, Bud Cort, John Goodman (109 mins)
Andrei Konchalovsky is an intriguing case within American film.
An accomplished Russian director he managed to leave the Soviet Union in the early 1980s and work (or worm) his way into Hollywood filmmaking, apparently at the invitation of noted actor Jon Voight. Although there may be many that lamented the eventual dissipation of his directorial talents on such fare as the Sylvester Stallone / Kurt Russell vehicle Tango & Cash, for a while in the 1980s Konchalovsky was one of the most dynamic filmmakers in America, thanks to such stunning initial works as Maria’s Lovers and Runaway Train, the latter finally uniting him with Voight. The delicate analysis of complex human emotions in Maria’s Lovers was all the more unusual in that it was produced and distributed through the auspices of Cannon studios, a production house most associated with violent exploitation but apparently striving for arty respectability. Although this bid would eventually fail, Maria’s Lovers remains one of the American screen’s finest studies of a genuinely rare topic – psychological impotence and its consequences on a supposedly “ideal” marriage. Drawing on resonances from such cinematic works as The Deer Hunter and such respected literary classics as Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Konchalovsky’s film is a thematically rich but sadly neglected work, hopefully destined for re-discovery through its unheralded DVD release.
John Savage plays a veteran returning home from World War Two, where he spent much time as a prisoner of war. He now lives with his father (Robert Mitchum) and seeks to renew his relationship with his childhood sweetheart Maria (Nastassja Kinski).
Kinski, however, is involved with another soldier (Vincent Spano) who understandably sees Savage as a rival. Mitchum says that Kinski is too good for his own son and seeks to set Savage up with another woman. Nevertheless, Savage is obsessed with Kinski, confessing to the other woman that it is the thought of being with Kinski that sustained him during his tortuous time in captivity. When Spano proves to have a roaming eye, Savage proposes marriage to Kinski and she accepts, longing for sexual consummation and children. However, Savage soon proves to be impotent with her and becomes increasingly disillusioned as her frustration in turn grows. As he retreats to another woman (with whom he can function sexually) she is increasingly drawn to a drifter (Keith Carradine). Finally Savage feels overwhelmed and hops a train, seeking escape in another town, leaving Kinski to contemplate infidelity with the willing chauvinist Carradine. This has life-changing repercussions, even though it may allow her a fulfillment otherwise denied her. Eventually she finds out where Savage is working and he is now faced with the prospect of returning to her.
Although the plight of the returning veteran is a long established subgenre in American cinema, Maria’s Lovers takes a most fascinating departure. It is clear that Savage has long idealized Kinski, equating her with hope and thus both his survival and his utmost happiness. However, when faced with the reality of living with her, he cannot adjust.
Although sex with her would be his ideal joy, he cannot separate the once sustaining ideal from the now fully attainable real and ultimately chooses the ideal alone. To sexually consummate his love for her would be to break the illusion of all she represented for him and he cannot do this; hence his impotence with her. When faced with the prospect of a dream becoming true he chooses to sustain an illusory ideal rather than see it through into reality. Kinski is thus faced with the burden that she cannot live up to his ideal and although she loves him, her own sexual needs begin to frustrate and torment her. She, however, is aware of his dilemma, and tellingly remarks to him “you should love me less”, cementing the film’s examination of the unusual predicament of a man who so loves a woman that he cannot physically consummate that love for fear of sullying what it has come to mean to him: he needs the dream more than the reality, the film charting his conflict between the real and the ideal woman before him. Hence, Savage seems to have separated love and sex.
In its examination of this dilemma, Maria’s Lovers is a delicate and fascinating story of the causes and repercussions of psychological impotence as ironically arising out of a long coveted sexual obsession. Savage slowly realizes that he is trapped and is too weak-willed to resolve the gulf, choosing instead to escape.
In deserting the woman he loves he perhaps seeks to deny both the real and the ideal, driven to madness by his awareness of her own sexual and emotional needs and his pitiful failure to fulfill them – he knows that he needs the ideal to be unattainable in order to sustain himself, a belief that makes her a casualty of sorts, finally putting her own needs above all, although she never forsakes her love. Thus, the film balances Savage’s story with that of Kinski’s as the virginal woman who realizes that her husband cannot make love with her but who still longs for the promise of womanhood offered by sexuality and motherhood. Its treatment of her sexuality is never exploitative and indeed the entire film is fully realizing of the role that sex plays in marriage, contentment, fulfillment and happiness. Yet what is central to the film is the inter-relationship between love (as an ideal) and sex (as the real), finding the source of psycho-sexual dysfunction in the inability to reconcile the two. Few films have examined this issue with such understanding, compassion and tenderness as is evidenced in this neglected work.
DVD DETAILS:
Vision
The anamorphic widescreen transfer captures the evocative cinematography of a film noted for its atmospheric visualization of a small Pennsylvania mining township. Opening in black and white, with footage from John Huston’s Let There Be Light, the film then captures the earthen, naturally muted and somber colors of its landscape, rich in texture. Authenticity in costume and set design adds to the striking period sense. Lighting effects are stunning; especially in the way light alternately distinguishes human figures and places them in their environment. Interiors seem often stark and there is an atmosphere of social desolation in location and setting (shadowy wooden buildings with sparse interior design) that enhances the desired comfort in interpersonal contact – hence the many scenes of human interaction in contrast to the isolation both Savage and Kinski grow to feel. The use of alternating sharp and soft focus deliberately suggests these emotional conflicts. There are some beautiful mist effects, and the landscape seems oddly European, the film in context also concerned with immigrant American experience. Photographic subtleties abound, especially in the way light increases as sexual tension mounts, the contrast of hot and cold and light and shadow starker at these moments before it returns to a cold and graying look. Amusingly, effective use is made of the way a rat signifies Savage’s worst memories of captivity.
Sound
The sound transfer is a competent Dolby Digital stereo. It really does not need more than that as it emphasizes quiet, crisp but small details for a cumulative authenticity surrounding the voices. It is vivid, both stark and gentle in sound design, using the absence of a score to favor naturally occurring sounds. The emphasis is on the way these characters relate, of the response of varied men to Kinski and her sense of Innocence yearning for Experience but ironically thwarted by the man she loves: the sexual desperation in her voice and moans is subtly but effectively used, nicely suggesting the dominance of sexual need in the human condition. Traditional European music is used to suggest an immigrant community holding onto its roots and fine use is made of Carradine as a traveling musician and scoundrel: the song he sings to Kinski was co-written by Konchalovsky (music) and Carradine (lyrics) and functions most ironically in the course of the narrative, reminding a despairing Savage of the beauty (both outer and inner) that exists in the woman he has deserted and thus of what he has lost. There are effective bursts of sound that disrupt the often meditative quiet, most notably the rush of a freight train capturing the sense of escape that Savage finds when he hops aboard on impulse. Towards the end, the minimal score gets briefly expressionistic, although is throughout cued to notions of instability.
Special Features
The only relevant special feature is an original theatrical trailer. There are, however, three other previews included, for When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride and Fiddler on the Roof, seemingly chosen at random for such inclusion.
ADDITIONAL READING
No Limits column:
Inter-Personal Communication and Impossible Ideals
