IMDb user comments for
The Designated Mourner (1997)

advertisement

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 2:

[1] [2]

Index

16 comments in total

---

8 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Pretentious? Yes. Sparse and visually dull? Yes. Fascinating? Yes., 25 November 2004

Author: Sam (samjappy@yahoo.com) from Edinburgh, Scotland

"The Designated Mourner" is obviously not a cinema film in any meaningful sense. It is a play staged for cinema recording. Three characters and a table; that is the amount of it. None of the characters interact, instead directly addressing the camera. Perhaps this is boring, if visual stimulation is a requirement of cinema, but yet it seemed utterly compelling to me.

The performances from all three of the cast are riveting, but it is Nichols who raises this above the usual public-subsidised arty nonsense. He is quite simply revelatory. As a man whom most know for his directorial work, the depth of the performance is a great surprise. Very possibly his almost "non-acting" style could be attributed to the fact that he is not a professional *film* actor, but the naturalistic style he employs lends his character such a gravity. It is almost documentary in it's sincerity. Jack is a deeply flawed man, in many ways a reprehensible man, who merely assumes the intellectual values of those around him while in fact cultivating considerable distaste for his high-brow friends. He is, though, often a very funny man and it never becomes impossible to understand or empathise with him. His epiphany at the climax of the film, surrounded by cheap magazines and pornography, is completely heart-breaking. As the title of the film begins to make a terrible, Orwellian sense, we are left with nothing but this broken man, lamenting unavoidable actions in which he seems almost complicit.

This is certainly an important piece of work, if perhaps not an important *film*, if nothing else, it will give people who may never have the chance to see the play staged the opportunity to see it performed.

---

7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Yes, it's all talk, but what talk!, 22 September 1999

Author: grunin from New York, NY

Three characters sit at table, taking turns speaking directly to the camera, talking of courage and cowardice in a time of repression, in an unspecified yet intuitively recognizable place and time not far from our own.

Shawn's virtuoso writing (far more nuanced than a short summary can convey) meditates on the hairsplitting liberal in us all, as 'the last people who really understand John Donne' are casually wiped out in the interest of 'fighting terrorism'.

As for the lack of action: yes, maybe it's really a radio play, but every actor or actress should *see* Mike Nichols, who gives an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind performance. Particularly, he breaks all the rules of "actor's diction," so he sounds just like a *real* person (say, being interviewed for a documentary). Not an effect you can use just anywhere, but brilliant here.

---

5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
original, moving film., 5 June 2000
Author: Zardok (zaur@exit.de) from NYC

What does it mean to be an intellectual? is it a facade comprised of book-learned knowledge, some peripheral understanding of poetry, art, and literature that are ultimately the persona known to others as one's self? Or is it the inner core of a person who possesses not simply a mere knowledge, but rather engages in communal understanding with the work of art, living and experiencing it? These are some of the many questions that this film raises. What these three actors -- who sit at a table, talking into the camera -- manage to accomplish is beyond my comprehension. If you like writers like Joyce or Kafka, if you enjoy poetry and intellectual stimulation in general, you will most likely appreciate this picture.

---

3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Donne That, 3 July 2002
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Spoilers herein.

Shawn is in the tradition of playwrights who concern themselves with what it means to be a playwright and gives the audience reflection on what it means to be an audience. Often touched by Mamet and Stoppard, this notion has entered the mainstream popular film suitably watered down.

All three of those writers wrap their self-referential, layered works in unusual language. In Mamet's case, it is a studied cadence of vernacular; in Stoppard's a rhythm of tossing the narrative among characters. Shawn's use of language is at once more poetic -- there are lots of memorable one-liners here -- and at the same time constantly meandering among levels. At one point, the narrative concerns some `real world' act like a shooting, but then it slips into observation of the act of observing, and then to wondering about what that metaobserving means. And what the benefits are, and whether we find value in it, and whether it destroys us, even makes us brutal.

Does the existence of Howard create the thugs of the world? Does `lowbrow' exist only because someone has extracted `highbrow.' Do regrets form a sort of appreciation? Can anyone love and be aware?

I personally love this stuff, especially when it goes through a Woody Allen filter as in `Sweet Hereafter.' But this film/play is not of the caliber of `Dinner with Andre' which truly sang, and `Vanya on 42nd St' which with much practice and refinement mastered the shifting of metalevels more deftly.

There is, however, a delicious metatext in Nichols' performance. Here is an intelligent man himself: a master of dramatic humor, a precise director, a writer. Watch what he does, He is not acting the character -- he is acting as Wallace Shawn acting the character.

---

5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Must own this film., 19 August 2004
Author: thesilentpurple from N.Ireland

Accidentally watched this film at 2am in the morning on BBC 4 at a time when I wasn't feeling very sure as to who I was or what I meant to the world.

This film took me through 94 minutes of pure investigation into such ideas and ultimately established that the self seems non existent.

This is a film I am pursuing to own, and a film I am keen to watch again.

~~~

After making this quite short point about the film, I have tried to submit my viewpoint, only to be told I have to have more than ten lines written.

How incredibly limiting that seems to those people who only want to express a quick, clear and concise message about a film they very much liked and want other people to know about it.

Aww well, I suppose given the fact I have waffled on about something completely subset from the film now this message will never be posted.

But if it is, I assure you 'the designated mourner' is a very interesting film.

---

2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Talking it over, 4 September 2005

Author: paul2001sw-1 (paul2001sw@yahoo.co.uk) from Saffron Walden, UK

'The Designated Mourner', a play by Wallace Shawn, is above all else an exercise in writing. Three people (in this adaptation by David Hare, sat statically throughout in one of two locations, one of which appears to be a television news desk, the other a table in a small café), discuss their relationship. But although they respond to each other in tone, they rarely directly address the subject material that the others refer to; and the wider backdrop to their personal story, a crypto-fascist coup, is mentioned only elliptically by all three participants, just as it might be in real conversation where certain things would be taken as known. But there's little that's naturalistic or conventionally conversational about these carefully constructed interlaced monologues; they better represent the inner voices of self-justification (or alternatively, the voices of published autobiography). In spite of the artifice, one does develop a sophisticated sense for the nuances of the trio's characters; everyone has an agenda, and deciphering the three unreliable narrators is exactly the point. Thi particular film of the play is well acted, and it's probably sensible that Hare has chosen to add very little to the basic script (having made this decision, almost his only work as director is to choose when to cut between alternative close-ups). But while theatre has to work within certain intrinsic limitations (and offers you the benefits of live performance as a compensation), cinema does not and in this sense, this seems a strange work to put on screen. Nonetheless, it's still an interesting experiment, and worth watching if you like your drama wordy and cerebral.

---

2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
A late night surprise feast, 3 September 2005

Author: scott1946uk from London, U.K.

I happened by complete accident on this film late last night on BBC 2; and although I had to arise early the next morning, there was NO WAY I could do anything but watch it to the end. I'll have to watch it again - maybe more than once - to discover all the nuances in the wonderful dialogue, but for me the performance of Mike Nichols (whom I remember as half of the wildly funny Nichols and May) was amazing and totally riveting. For that alone - and the complex and all-too-human nature of the character he plays - it was well worth viewing and re-viewing (and reviewing!). This is not to denigrate the other actors' contributions; It's just that Nichols' was so memorable. So September's license fee is already justified . . .

---

1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
a haunting myth that anyone can connect with on some level, 3 September 2005

Author: Riel41 from United Kingdom

I stumbled across this film late one night, as if i had stumbled into a dream, one i couldn't draw myself from.

The lack of set puts all emphasis on the long monologues, which are delivered with such riveting feeling that the character's words fail not to touch you in someway.The script seems split between drawing from reality's loneliness and hurt, and poetry's cutting imagery and sentiment, which altogether creates some haunting myth.The entire cast (numbering but three and including a fabulous Miranda Richardson)are thoroughly engaging-Mike Nickols carries the film admirably-their characters seem locked in the retelling of the story, utterly lost in the memories and who can help but reflect the feelings of identity and loneliness upon themselves.

---

1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Absurdist Mockery, 2 September 2005

Author: tombal from United Kingdom

This is a very funny film, especially for anyone who has been to a University party with self congratulatory, self aggrandising pretentious smart alecs. The whole film is done in the same 'high-brow' style whether it is the weepy self pity and anguish of Judy or the prurient, ignorant, though arguably more accessible filth of Jack. This is VERY trying, it is what turns most people off the film but is also entirely the point. This film would have been better served if it had been a lot shorter as it would have made the same points and been more accessible at the same time. The main benefit of it's length is the increased time to include the snappy one liners that helped to lighten the mood of the monotony.

---

A first-rate, must see, individual movie., 8 December 2007

Author: vdemon96 from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

There are a lot of negative comments about this film, but I have to say that I found it truly riveting and loved every second of it. I thought it was really interesting and the descriptions made it so easy to visualise the situations. Miranda Richardsons performance was amazing, one of her best, as were Mike Nichols and David De Keyser. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. I was quite surprised that I enjoyed so much, since the basic plot is three people sat around a table for an hour and a half, but when they talk about events they really transport you to another world, another time. The lighting was very atmospheric and aided the story telling, I use the words story telling simply because I cannot think of any better expression. In all honesty, it was more like watching a painting move than watching a film, it was so beautiful. I gave this piece 10 out of 10.

---

---

Page 1 of 2:

[1] [2]

Add another comment

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Plot synopsis	Ratings
Newsgroup reviews	External reviews	Official site
Plot keywords	Main details	Your user comments
Your vote history