Friday, August 19, 2011

victoriana

Two upcoming films that I'm excited to see are both set in Victorian times. One, a ghost story starring Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, and Janet McTeer, The Woman in Black, looks super creepy and wonderful:


It's a Hammer film — the studio seems to be getting back to its Hammer Horror movie roots with this film and last year's impressive Let Me In.


The other, Hysteria, starring Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Price, Maggie Gyllenhal, and Rupert Everett, looks to take a comic twist on what was once a serious subject  the malady of "hysteria," a female complaint, which could encompass anything from mental illness to loneliness to, according to this film, just needing a good and practiced "hand":



According to The Guardian, the film mixes both the historical and hysterical, by having the plot center on the invention of the vibrator, by telling "... the story of the accidental discovery of motorised sex aids in Victorian England. ... There are humorous elements, for sure, but ultimately it's a film about female emancipation and liberation. ... This so-called disorder (hysteria) was diagnosed when women exhibited symptoms such as anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, nervousness, fluid retention, insomnia and erotic fantasy."

I'm not so sure how much of a feminist twist the film will actually be taking, but it still looks like fun. I've like both of the young leading actors for quite a while — Radcliffe since Harry rode the dragon in Goblet of Fire and Dancy since The Jane Austen Book Club. The Woman in Black is currently scheduled to come out in February 2012. Hysteria doesn't have a release date as yet, but will be shown next month at the Toronto Film Festival.
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