Touches You

Simply Perfect

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Anita Morris was born the year before me.. and unbelievably she's been gone for almost a quarter century now. I'll never forget seeing her in a play on Broadway. And I have absolutely no idea what the name of the production was.. but I will never forget her, at one point sitting on the edge of the stage, performing in one of the many dance numbers. She was an incendiary personality, just like the color of that magnificent head of hair. For young men (and boys) to be seeing her for the first time, there was just this instant attraction. She left the world oh too soon, as many dynamic and enthralling personalities through the years have a proclivity to do. But now, here she is being remembered by one of her longtime admiring fans. Seriously, name another that has in fact even come close to replacing her.

Nastassja Kinski evokes something in the viewer. In Maria's Lovers, she is able to transform from an adolescent sexual lolita to a captivating experienced woman. I viewed the film in a foreign language so I just examined the characters, pacing, lighting, and what I witnessed was an obscure treasure from the 1980's. Nastassja Kinski was in her prime in 1984. She was an eccentric actor to the American audience, ravishing, spell binding, odd. Maria's Lovers is beautiful and lyrical, a film that lingers in the mind, asking questions and relating to moments of lovers. A fascinating study. The directing and cinematography are graceful. I love when we see Maria for the first time. She is so captivating and yet, something else...not sure what...something cool and refreshing. A Film for the Registry.

Maria's Lovers casts Natassia Kinski and John Savage as a pair of young Slavic second generation Americans in Western Pennsylvania who get married after World War II and presumably like most will live the American dream happily ever after.Not quite so happily though because Savage has some real issues and who wouldn't after surviving a Japanese prison camp. In fact his well meaning but quite fatuous father Robert Mitchum asks Savage why didn't he try and escape. This was obviously a man who had seen too many American gangster flicks where Cagney/Bogart/Raft are always crashing out of the big house.Mitchum is fatuous about that, but he does say to Savage not to rush into things. As well he shouldn't with his issues. Wedding night comes and he can't do the deed. Which leaves Kinski looking for a little love in all the wrong places. And charming itinerant entertainer Keith Carradine picks up on it.The issue of impotence and its infinite number of causes was dealt with a lot better in the British classic film, The Family Way. It's not as simple as it is made out here where Savage's very manhood is called into question and it's a do or divorce situation. Best in the film is Keith Carradine who is really quite amoral. Makes his character from Nashville look like an Eagle Scout. And of course Robert Mitchum always adds something to any film he's in.I have to say though I was left as unfulfilled as Natassia on her wedding night.

Beautifully shot – almost too beautifully given the mundane storyline – and unevenly acted, the film deserves kudos for an intelligent rendering of an adult problem: the post-traumatic stress of a returning WW2 vet, and the miseries it puts him and his wife through.The dramatic thrust of the film – erroneously labeled European by some viewers – is hampered, not by its slow unfolding, but by passive characters. John Savage is sometimes strong and sometimes not in his portrayal, but he's been stymied by a script that has him only desultorily going after various goals. Maria, a far better if still uneven performance by Nastassja Kinski (whose talent is strong; the inconsistency is clearly the director's fault), also only gradually commits to her husband. That's fine and real but with only minor characters (Vincent Spano, Keith Caradine) strongly after an objective, the movie is moribund at its center for much of its running time. (Robert Mitchum's character and performance are both dismal.) The film gathers some tension once Nastassja is mit Kind, and Savage's predicament reaches the breaking point. The resolution is somewhat satisfying though not entirely credible (Savage feels more like a life-long alcoholic at this point) and comes about through his chance meeting with Caradine's philanderer. More literary than filmic in its construction, the movie's best feature is Nastassja's performance. But because her life, like her husband's, feels more acted upon than really lived, the movie just lumbers.