|
The LFF opens with a suitable prestigious premiere, Ang Lee's emotional, epic drama of the
American Civil War. Far from the battlefields of the Blue and the Gray, Lee turns a
thoughtful gaze on the vicious guerrilla war waged among neighbours (Union sympathisers and
the pro-southern "Bushwackers") on the Missouri-Kansas border.
As he did in Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm, the Taiwanese Lee shows
an astonishingly evocative grasp of another time, place and culture, sensitively centring
still all-too-relevant personal and social themes in magnificant landscapes and some
spectacular, brutal action. Playing the innocents getting wisdom through hardship and
horror, a superb young ensemble led by Skeet Ulrich, singing star Jewel and
Pleasantville's Tobey Maguire (above from left with Jeffrey Wright) cut a romantic
dash with touching conviction.
|
