Review: Besieged

There is a man who lives in a Roman villa. He plays the piano -- when he doesn't conduct lessons, he composes music. This villa, with its abundance of art and collectibles, is courtesy of a deceased aunt. He is shy. His name is Jason Kinsky (David Thewlis) and he is in love.

The woman he loves is named Shandurai (Beloved's Thandie Newton). She lives downstairs in his villa. She keeps his house -- her wages help put her through medical school. She is beautiful and a refugee, who has escaped her country's oppressive government. Her husband has remained behind, a prisoner of the military.

Day in and day out, Kinsky and Shandurai cross paths, holding each other at a distance. It is clear that he is enamored. Every night he leaves an object -- a musical sheet, blank save for a question mark, a breathtaking flower, a ring -- in the dumbwaiter that runs from his room to hers. She doesn't understand his actions or the music he constantly plays.

One day, angered by his latest gift, she confronts him. "I don't understand you," she says, refusing his present. "I'm in love with you," he reveals. "I'm absolutely in love with you." He proposes marriage, sobs his love, vows to do anything for her. To dissuade him, she comes up with the impossible: "You get my husband out of jail!" she screams then stands in the doorway in anguish.

He ceases to plead his love though it has not disappeared. Days pass and her feelings begin to mutate. They still treat each other with a wary delicacy but more trusting glances are held, more smiles exchanged. Then she notices that the paintings and collectibles are disappearing one by one. Yet Kinsky makes no mention of it or offer any explanation.

Besieged marks a return to the flavor that pervaded Bernardo Bertolucci's films in the Seventies. Adapted from James Lasdun's short story The Siege by Bertolucci and his wife Clare Peploe, herself a noted writer-director, Besieged can be seen as the flip side of Bertolucci's controversial Last Tango in Paris. In that film, it was a connection through sex -- the flirtation, the battle was physical, sexual. It is a more subtle tango that Kinsky and Shandurai engage in -- they barely touch and it is sensuality that permeates. He's seduced by her presence, by the foreignness of her -- his eyes linger on her arms, the hollow of her underarm, the rhythms of her music.

Music -- the piano is the third character, it is the one that first distances then connects the two. One well-executed sequence has Kinsky in the midst of writing a composition. He can't quite figure out how it should go. Then, inspired by Shandurai, he sits and plays. The music is infected with the rhythms of her own. It intrigues her. She stops her cleaning and is delighted by her own reaction. Her delight fuels his playing. It is a small, intimate piece, Besieged, but none of its intimacy has been lost in the transfer from the small screen (it originated as a television movie) to the big screen. If anything, it becomes more compact, more spontaneous and more epic in its emotions.

Bertolucci isn't failed by his actors. Thewlis, whose anarchic excellence in Naked made him such a magnet for directors who didn't know how to exploit his offbeat looks and demeanor, is a convincing fool for love. There's an easy, surprising charm in his manner but also a certain desperate stubbornness that doesn't make liking or loving him too easy.

Starring in Beloved seems to have unleashed a whole new Thandie Newton. She has always been a strong actress -- I viewed John Duigan's The Leading Man recently and found another sturdy performance from her -- but Beloved unearthed a ferocity that combined with her characteristic sublimeness. As Shandurai, she provides Besieged with its heartbeat and holds the camera's gaze with authority. From the pure joy she radiates on the rooftop -- where the fluttering white sheets seem to be an extension of her happiness -- to an orgasmic dream (which Bertolucci withholds), she is never less than searing.

An unusual and intoxicating film, Besieged ends on an ambiguous note. Is it a betrayal or a letting go? Whatever answer you choose to believe, the effect of those final minutes continues to shatter long after the darkness has been lifted and you are thrust back into the world.

Besieged

Directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci

Written by: Clare Peploe, Bernardo Bertolucci; based on the short story "The Siege" by James Lasdun

Starring: Thandie Newton, David Thewlis