“Mrs Dalloway”‏

by richibi

if you’re not afraid of Virginia Woolf
you might enjoy “Mrs Dalloway“, the 
film version of one of her novels,
introspective, discreet ever, and 
only carefully and politely ever ardent,
existentially awash in civilities, with
feeble only attempts at philosophically
sounder, maybe, positions, all ultimately,
of course, inconclusive, an aristocratic
inversion of Van Gogh, but with statelier,
which is to say, more opulent, 
surroundings and, of course, corollary
attendant pretensions, all of it, incidentally, 
marvelously filmed  
 
the performances are all first rate, with
Vanessa Redgrave being, as usual,
resplendent
 
but Rupert Graves, as the shell-shocked
First-World-War veteran, turns in a
wrenching performance, one you’re not
likely to soon forget, one pointedly at
odds with the gentried airs of the rest of
the story, a terse, and damning, Woolfian
comment, who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf 
indeed, the institutionalization of
murderous insensitivities, and the
consequent blight of the blunting
of love  
 
nor did Virginia Woolf survive her own
condemnation, of course, famously
taking her own life in 1941   
 
 
all the other performances here are 
impeccable, up, admirably, each, to
the illustrious task  
 
I could’ve done without the two
time periods, however, Virginia Woolf,
the wordsmith, had it all going in her,
which is to say, Mrs Dalloway’s, 
sedentary head, leading up to her,
their, climactic party
 
 
may Septimus Warren Smith meanwhile,
and all others like him, rest ever in
ascendant, and proliferating, peace       
 
  
Richard