Our
inimitable man from England, Tony Heyesreviews a book and a film in this issue
Elf Child by David M. Pierce
"Le Fate Ignoranti" (2001) DVD (The Ignorant Fairies) Dir: Ferzan Özpetek
 Elf Child by David M. Pierce Southern Tier Editions, Harrington Park Press, 2003 ISBN 1-56023-428-8 “There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy...” Besides being drop-dead gorgeous and having a name to conjure with, Russell Hezekiah Lincoln has a secret: he is an elf child. A spontaneous genetic mutation in one of his ancestors means that he is immortal, barring accidents. He will never age and he has the ability to alter his appearance at will. He is also gay. Most of us would kill to be in this position. Imagine looking not only stunningly handsome but also eternally young without ending up with surgically induced wind tunnel face syndrome. He is a modern Dorian Gray without the vice. Unfortunately, this situation has its drawbacks. Russ is 48 but looks 23. He can never have a long-term relationship with anyone because they will age as he stays young. He has to change his appearance for short periods from time to time otherwise it will alter spontaneously. His own mother’s tragic history, which forms one of the sub-plots, has impressed upon him the need for secrecy. The result is a profound loneliness which he tries to relieve with a never-ending series of one night stands. Then, one morning at the beach, he meets Eric Taylor, a young man in his early twenties. They fall in love. He cannot believe his luck. Despite the warnings of his mother, another elf child, they set up house together. One day, by accident, Eric discovers another of Russ’s attributes. He can charm plants. Eric sees Russ communing with a Swedish ivy which turns its leaves towards him and reaches out its tendril to comfort him. Bewildered by what he has seen and already puzzled by some of Russ’s seemingly eccentric habits, he begins to question his situation and realises how little he knows about Russ. He goes rummaging among Russ’s effects in the loft and discovers that he is much older than he assumed (Russ has never lied to him, simply been economical with the actualité). Russ, who is psychically sensitive to mood, realises something is up and returns home to find Eric packing to leave. Desperate to keep Eric, he confesses all and gives him a demonstration of his shape-shifting abilities. Although at first repelled and appalled, Eric is won over and decides to stay. However, the story doesn’t end here. Complications inevitably ensue. Their widowed mothers in their various ways become involved. Eric is subjected to a vicious bout of gay-bashing that almost kills him. Russ, Eric’s best friend Kevin and both mothers are instrumental in saving him and Russ wreaks vengeance/justice. Mr. Pierce’s story is extremely well-written. His story more than adequately meets the criteria, set out by Wilkie Collins’s, of the good novel – “make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry and make ‘em wait”. I read the book in a day because I was desperate to know what happened next. Both the main characters are ingratiating and have the reader rooting for them. Neither is perfect and each grapples with a reality that has been thrust upon him to salvage his relationship with the other. This is not all. Elf Child is an allegory or a parable. It points up how so-called Western liberal democracies pay lip service to individual freedom and liberty but come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who wishes to exercise that freedom. Those in power can never resist telling the rest of us how to live. One is reminded of John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids in which every home has a text on the wall that says “Beware the Mutant”. We are all of us mutants, deviants from the norm in one way or another. It ill behoves the rest of humanity to hold us to account because of it, blaming us (in the words of the song) for being what we are. Mr. Pierce’s story functions on several levels - parable, allegory, fantasy, love story and rattling good yarn. Anyone willing to suspend disbelief and settle down for a good read will not be disappointed by it. |
 Le
Fate Ignoranti (2001)DVD (The Ignorant Fairies) Dir: Ferzan Özpetek Known in America as His Secret Life, Le Fate Ignoranti has received a lot of ignorant criticism in the press, chiefly on account of what it isn’t. One wouldn’t criticise Pride and Prejudice for not being Anna Karenina and it seems perverse to accuse a tragicomedy of not being a tragedy. This is a thoroughly enjoyable film in its own terms and should be approached as such. The story is as follows: Massimo is married to Antonia. They live in a splendid bourgeois house outside Rome. One day Massimo is killed in a car accident. Antonia is devastated. Massimo’s personal effects are sent home from his office and among them is a print of a painting with an inscription on the back which refers to the seven years the writer and Massimo have loved each other. Antonia is devastated, never having for a moment suspected that he had been unfaithful. She determines to track this mistress down. She traces the painting to an address down by the gasworks on the banks of the Tiber. (Having recently watched a re-run of a Perry Mason film set in Paris which had the actors apparently rounding a corner on the Rue de Rivoli to encounter the Eiffel Tower, which is at the other side of the city, I was relieved to see that the director resisted the temptation to use the monuments of Rome as a distracting backdrop. The story is the subject, not the scenery.) After trying to keep the truth from her, the young man whose flat she has visited admits that he sent the picture to Massimo. He was the lover, not some mysterious woman. This, to Antonia’s mind, is adding insult to injury. However, she can’t keep away. She wants to know more of what went on in order to understand the husband whom she now feels she never knew. She realises that the moments he snatched with Michele were in many ways far richer than the life they had together. Slowly she is drawn into Michele’s circle of outcasts, just as Massimo was, and acquires a surrogate family. Michele’s is the shoulder on which a wide circle of friends lean. She is attracted by his kindness as Massimo must have been, albeit in a different way. She, in her turn, proves her value to Michele, saving the life of Ernesto who has AIDS and whom Michele has been nursing. The end of the story comes as a surprise and is left open-ended. Nothing is resolved but we feel optimistic. There are several reasons for watching this film other than wishing to know how the plot unfolds. The camera work is beautiful, as one would expect from an Italian film; the incidental music is movingly atmospheric; the dialogue is delivered passionately and eloquently; the acting is superb and all of the actors are attractive in one way or another. Margherita Buy (Antonia) and Stefano Accorsi (Michele) turn in excellent performances as Massimo’s posthumous rival lovers whilst the actress who plays Antonia’s worldly-wise mother provides drolly comic relief. This is a film to be enjoyed more than once. |