My women’s book group has recently been bypassing American pop novels (see, for instance, the enjoyable but thin Lessons in Chemistry) to focus on complex works by female authors like Maylis de Kerangal (from France) and Jenny Erpenbeck (from Germany). Of course we’re reading in translation, but the works of these women open up to us worlds we may never before have contemplated. I was particularly taken by Erpenbeck’s Visitation, an eerie recap of recent history, as seen from the perspective of a luxurious lakeside house deep in the German countryside. I had never previously heard of Erpenbeck, who’s considered a prime candidate for the Nobel Prize for literature. No question: her canon is worth exploring.
This past month, the book on our reading list was The Door, a newly translated 1987 short novel by veteran Hungarian author Magda Szabó. The narrator, a middle-aged Hungarian author much like Szabó herself, has moved to a small town, where she and her husband teach and pursue literary goals. In need of housekeeping help, the narrator approaches Emerence, an ageing woman who has accepted household chores for a number of neighbors, while also taking upon herself the thankless drudgery of sweeping snowy sidewalks with a broom. It’s soon crystal-clear that Emerence has a mind of her own, accepting only those clients who suit her and being quick to voice opinions (usually negative ones) about the neighbors’ life choices at every turn.
I bring all this up because in 2012 the internationally acclaimed novel was made into a film which I recently watched, just after reading the novel on which it was based. Though the director, the screenwriters, and the vast majority of cast members are Hungarian, the film was shot in English. Partly this was (I assume) to facilitate international distribution; partly it was also a way of accommodating its star, the formidable Helen Mirren. Mirren, whose father was Russian-born, seems to have a real affinity for eastern European roles (see such films as White Nights and The Last Station, in which she plays the wife of the ailing author Tolstoy). And surely it takes someone with Mirren’s charisma to hold down the role of a woman who is proudly cantankerous, as well as anti-intellectual and anti-social. The crux of the film is her give-and-take relationship with the narrator-figure, named Magda after the novel’s author. Magda, over the years, comes to appreciate the generosity behind Emerence’s tough exterior. She sees how much of herself Emerence gives to those in need, and appreciates in particular Emerence’s almost mystic bond with animals. Still, she can’t easily swallow Emerence’s unrelenting sense of her own rightness on every issue. She can’t bear dealing with a woman incapable of seeing herself in the wrong. Gradually, Magda comes to understand Emmerence’s inflexibility better and is able to see her forbidding nature as evolving out of the slings and errors of the history she’s endured. Still, the relationship remains a troubled one, even unto death.
The film version of The Door strips out some major plot details from the novel. And the key moment when Magda feels impelled to force open the door to an ailing Emerence’s flat doesn’t linger in the mind the way it does when we read about it. By way of compensation, the film makes many of the circumstances of Emerence’s past more compelling, especially those presented through vivid flashbacks. There’s also a small but key change at the film’s conclusion—the arrival of a long-sought visitor—that leaves us with poignancy but not anguish. The film’s worth recommending, though it’s not an easy journey.
A one-day-early salute to my former boss and biography subject, the ageless Roger Corman, on his 98th birthday.
No comments:
Post a Comment