A certain amount of false modesty seems to exist across this sonnet, even if it is presented as praise. The writer claims that although better poets will come along after his death and will be read for their great prose, his work will remain and be read thanks to the love within it – even if others are better. Of the various qualities of the sonnet, the one that seems to have been focused on by the film is that of death and of still being thought of afterwards. We join a woman who is sitting with a suitcase in front of the red cube sculpture on Broadway; she is, by all accounts, a crazy lady and accordingly we have people looking back at her as they pass. She sits with a suitcase which contains an old video camera, a photograph album and an old style telephone – which rings even though it is not attached to anything. Like I said, bit of a crazy.
What we get from her though is a very clear delivery of the sonnet to her hand-held camera. It doesn't all fit with the words but there is a very real sense of loss and that of a lover or family member who has passed away. In terms of having context to aid understanding it perhaps doesn't bring as much as I would have liked, but Delaurier's performance is what makes it work. She does convince in her role and yet also has that clarity of loss and pain, and this works with aspects of the words. I wasn't sure about the hand-held view being the one of choice for the whole delivery, but it does work reasonably well. The construction of the whole film has a nicely odd feel, befitting of the existence of the character and the red cube itself; it has a certain sci-fi feel to it at times.
Not one of my favorite of the series, and not one that totally works with the sonnet, but it is oddly engaging and the performance from Delaurier understands the character well and conveys a lot with small expressions.
What we get from her though is a very clear delivery of the sonnet to her hand-held camera. It doesn't all fit with the words but there is a very real sense of loss and that of a lover or family member who has passed away. In terms of having context to aid understanding it perhaps doesn't bring as much as I would have liked, but Delaurier's performance is what makes it work. She does convince in her role and yet also has that clarity of loss and pain, and this works with aspects of the words. I wasn't sure about the hand-held view being the one of choice for the whole delivery, but it does work reasonably well. The construction of the whole film has a nicely odd feel, befitting of the existence of the character and the red cube itself; it has a certain sci-fi feel to it at times.
Not one of my favorite of the series, and not one that totally works with the sonnet, but it is oddly engaging and the performance from Delaurier understands the character well and conveys a lot with small expressions.