The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2005)

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a drama featuring an ensemble cast led by F. Murray Abraham,Kathy Bates,Gabriel Byrne,Geraldine Chaplin,Robert De Niro,Harvey Keitel,Pilar López de Ayala,Geraldine Chaplin, John Lynch, and brothers Mark Polish and Michael Polish.Thornton Wilder's award- winning novel is given a lavish screen adaptation in this historical drama from writer and director Mary McGuckian.In Peru in 1714, a rickety bridge collapsed as five people were attempting to cross, forcing them to plunge to their deaths. Brother Fray Juniper is a Franciscan monk who has been given the duty of looking into the tragedy by the archbishop of Lima, and to learn what he can about the victims. It is Fray's belief that these particular people died for some reason, and that it is his duty to determine why God chose these five people to perish, while others in the vicinity survived. After five years, Juniper delivers his findings to the archbishop as well as the viceroy of Peru, as the Fray tells them of the lives of the troubled Dona Maria, the nun Pepita, warm-hearted Uncle Pio, street kid- turned-actress La Perichola, and others involved in the tragedy.The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a beautiful movie. The film's shooting locations are exquisite. The sets are stunning. The costumes are gorgeous. The actors are superlative.It is an intense philosophical undertaking that examines questions of faith, fate and chance.

Books can be tough to film unless they are straightforward stories, as "The Godfather" or "Lonesome Dove". "The Bridge of San Luis Rey", besides being written in a gorgeous, simple, lyrical style, has an inner faucet of irony that drips nearly all the way through. We are looking into a world that we are allowed to feel above, but that we are gradually drawn into by the sufferings and humanity of the characters, till quiet thunder explodes in perhaps the most memorable closing lines in American Literature. That would not be easy to film. The first question a director must ask, narrative or no narrative?. To add narrative allows that overview that is irony but can detract from reality of the scenes reducing their emotional impact. To go without forces a more linear stream that loses that overview and is tricky, requiring balance and intuition to arrive at the ending with impact. I'm afraid the director lacked either quality, or was so intimidated by the star laden cast that she bowed to their wishes. At any rate the movie isn't much short of travesty, telling neither a fathomable story or creating a mythic quality that might have replaced it. It is splashy, disjointed, and incoherent. If you haven't read the book please don't judge it by this movie. "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is one of the finest works in the language. The movie, for all its good intentions, fails in just about every way of expressing what the book is about.

I was somewhat in doubt whether the movie was intended to be tragedy or comedy, historical or philosophical. Whatever, the actors obviously had fun dressing up and "play acting." In any event, although I napped every now and then, this nicely filmed and acted, and very unusual film did have interesting moments, and I think I will watch it again. But my first response was to be intrigued by the name "Perichole." My Spanish dictionary drew a blank on "chole" so I suppose Wikipedia's article quoted in part below suggesting it is a derivative of "cholo" is accurate. The film does have the actress boasting that she was, at least in part, of Spanish blood. However, I don't buy Wikipedia's claim that "perri" derives from "perro," although it might also fit the character. My Spanish dictionary has a slew of words beginning with "peri" but I thought the most applicable was the first entry which says:"1. A beautiful and beneficent fairy in Persian mythology." Wikipedia suggests that Thornton Wilder lifted the basic characters from Micaela Villegas' tale: "La Périchole's title character is based on Micaela Villegas (1748-1819), a beloved Peruvian entertainer and the famous mistress of Manuel de Amat y Juniet, Viceroy of Peru from 1761 to 1776. The name "La Périchole" is a French adaptation of a Spanish-language epithet by which Amat referred to Villegas: "La Perricholi" (the word derives from either perro, "dog," or perra, "bitch," and cholo, "of mixed blood")."And the Tag line in IBMD's article on the 1944 film simply equates "perichole" with "Beautiful . . . Bewitching." Which convinces me that such was Villegas' intent. Puns are so interesting when one is naming characters.

This is a great story, a beautiful movie, with great stars, a good direction, good photography, but a BAD edition. There are two reasons why I think the movie don't work as well as I wish. First: Language. I don't understand why a movie which is fully related to a Spanish/South American history wasn't recorded in Spanish!!! It is terrible to walk by lost regions of Peru without listening to any single word in Spanish. And second: Edition. The story is a philosophical discussion of faith. It has lots of different characters, with its specific stories told in parallel, with enough material for STRONG and UNFORGETTABLE 3 hours of artistic and contemplative (reflexive) art movie. But the director made an option for fast cutting and edition of the story to a "compact" and commercial format. The result is poor. And most important of all: The soundtrack is one of the most beautiful I've seen in a movie for the last 10 years (at minimum). Lalo Schifrin is a great composer, an this is probably one of his best works. Does anyone knows if this soundtrack is available on CDs?