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| The ethereally beautiful poster for Henning Carlsen's Memories of My Melancholy Whores |
We follow our old, nearly 90 year-old protagonist, who wants to spoil himself with a visit to an old, familiar brothel and to a virgin. But close to the young woman, his will freezes, - and then a murder is committed. (Or something.)
Great Danish filmmaker Henning Carlsen's (Hunger/Sult (1966)) last film is a very little-engaging offering, an adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez' (Love in the Time of Cholera/El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera (1985)) 2004 novella of the same title by Jean-Claude Carrière (The Monk/Le Moine (1972)) and Carlsen.
The film feels fabulating and distant. It is not without interest but a far cry from successful as a film.
Carlsen passed away in 2014, and this is his last film. R.I.P.
Related posts:
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Watch the trailer for the film here - unfortunately, it doesn't have English subtitles
Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[The production met considerable difficulties, as women's groups in Latin America fought against it on the ground that it supposedly glosses over prostitution and mistreatment of women. The film lost what seems like a large part of its budget on this back in 2009 and had to scramble to pick itself together again for a later than scheduled shooting. Carlsen was nearly 84 when the film premiered in his native Denmark. With the few commercial numbers publicized, the film looks like a big flop: It made 148k $ in Russia, 104k $ in Mexico and 28k $ in Poland, the three biggest markets, according to the information I have been able to find.]
What do you think of Memories of My Melancholy Whores?
I had a personal conflict because of the essay that I wrote on this novel in my Spanish class (300 something level) in Fullerton University in California - around 2004. So, this novel is memorable to me, let alone the fact that I strongly feel about many issues of the plot. I think it was the last Spanish class I took after 9 years of studying Spanish. So yes, I have my own "memorias" about this literary work. They are not necessarily negative since I shared the experiences in my own stories in Russian language. My own stories, especially in Russian language, are written with humor.
ReplyDeletezoiaeliseyeva2.com
December 31, 2020
AZ, USA