| FILTH AND WISDOM | ||||
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| Filth
and Wisdom, a sprawling comedy, is a celebration of London’s
ethnic stew, and stars Eugene Hutz as a Ukrainian gypsy with an intensely
annoying habit of looking the camera in the eye and spouting gobbets
of wisdom that have as much relevance to real life as Chinese fortune
cookies. Hutz’s hero, Andriy, shares a dilapidated house with
a collection of similarly unlikely characters. Vicky McClure's Juliette
works in a chemist shop and steals medicine for African orphans. Holly
Weston is a ballerina (also named Holly) and a pole dancer at Beechman’s
Exotic Gentleman’s Club. Richard E. Grant is Flynn, a blind
professor with a shock of grey hair and rooms crammed with unread
books. Andriy, who dresses up as a neo-Nazi and spanks men for a living, is also the narrator on Madonna’s picaresque tour around the hopes and dreams of the cast. “Without filth there cannot be wisdom,” muses Andriy, tweaking his alarming moustache. “They are two sides of the same coin.” Madonna puts a little too much faith in her writing powers (she earns a co-credit for the script). Most of the filth is actually frothy, life-affirming comedy. The spectacle of Andriy riding a half-naked man around his living-room gives a whole new meaning to the words “horseplay”. What saves the film is its sheer exuberance, and, of course, the music. Andriy fronts a terrific, throbbing gypsy band (Gogol Bordello) when he’s not punishing grown-up school boys for not doing their homework, and Weston’s pole dancer gives Madonna plenty of tongue-in-cheek opportunities to plug some of her favourite songs. Inder Manocha’s weary Indian chemist has arguably the best moments of comedy. When he’s not ogling his shapely assistant (the beautiful and pure McClure), he is shouted at by his Indian wife. That said, there is some clunkingly awful acting and a string of scenes that are so stagey they would fall over if they weren’t propped up by the cinema screen. The sight of Grant flinging books off shelves, and then flinging himself onto his carpet weeping tears of frustration, is a collector’s item, and one of the most inadvertently humorous scenes witnessed in Berlin for many a year. Yet despite its many shortcomings and an ending so mushy and neat it would embarrass Richard Curtis, Madonna has done herself proud. Her film has an artistic ambition that has simply bypassed her husband, the film director Guy Ritchie. She captures that wonderfully accidental nature of luck when people’s lives intersect for a whole swathe of unlikely but cherishable reasons. Altmanesque would be stretching the compliment too far, but "Filth and Wisdom" shows Madonna has real potential as a film director. |
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| Source:
The Times by James Christopher at the Berlin Film Festival / Posted:
Feb 14, 2008 - 3:20 AM |
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| Source:
Berlinale.de by Deborah Cole Wed Feb 13, 10:10 AM ET |
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| Filming of "Filth and Wisdom" | ||||
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| Source: AFP | ||||
| Back to February 2008 Index | ||||
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Filth
And Wisdom Great Britain, 2008 Lenght: 81 min Format: 35 mm, 1:1:85 |
Premiere
Date February 13, 2008 at 58th Berlin International Film
Festival |
Written
by Madonna and Dan Cadan Director Madonna Studio Exposure/HSI Genre: Comedy / Drama / Music Plot the story features a Russian immigrant, ballet school, lap dancing, cultural revolution, poetry, night club, punk rock band, book writer, dominatrix and gypsy. |
Starring
Stephen Graham ... Harry Beechman Richard E. Grant ... Professor Flynn Eugene Hutz ... A.K. Vicky McClure ... Juliette Ade ... DJ Olegar Fedoro ... A.K.'s Father Gogol Bordello ... Themselves (also archive footage) Elena Buda ... Ballet Student Francesca Kingdon ... Francine Clare Wilkie ... Chloe Shobu Kapoor ... Sardeep's Wife Tim Wallers ... Mr. Frisk Elliot Levey ... Benjamin Goldfarb Holly Weston ... Holly Hannah Walters ... Mrs. Goldfarb Inder Manocha ... Sardeep George Keeler ... Frail Man |
Produced
by Nicola Doring Associate Producer: Angela Becker Cinematography: Tim Maurice-Jones Camera operator: Peter Wignall Edited: Simon Hayes Choreographies: Stephanie Roos, Tiffany Olson Production design: Gideon Ponte Art Director: Max Bellhouse Costumes by B Make up: Sinden Dean First assistant director: Tony Fernandes Casting: Dan Hubbard Production director: Sue Hiller Unit Production manager: Gavin Milligan |
Additional
Details Runtime: UK:81 min (PAL Version) Country: UK Language: English / Russian Color: Color Filming Locations: London, England |
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