Review of Bille August’s film “The Kiss”

Danish director Bille August’s costume melodrama “The Kiss” is being released – a neat, respectfully filmed adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s novel “Impatience of the Heart.” The only liberty that the authors allowed themselves was to transfer the action from Austria-Hungary on the eve of the First World War to Denmark, but this, as I discovered Yulia Shagelman, not only did it not bring any new meanings to the picture, but also deprived it of several important aspects for the original source.

Oddly enough, the only completed novel by the classic of Austrian literature, first published in 1939, has never been transferred to the screen in his homeland. All of his adaptations were filmed abroad: the first was the film by British director Maurice Alvey “Beware of Pity” (1946), which was met without enthusiasm by the public and critics; then the Turkish “Pity” by Bilge Olgaç (1970) and the French two-part television film “Dangerous Pity” by Edouard Molinaro (1979). In 2013, “Impatience of the Heart” was filmed for Russian television – the action of the mini-series by Sergei Ashkenazy was transferred to the Russian Empire and stretched over four whole episodes.

Considering the Austro-Hungarian, imperial, pre-war specificity of some details of the novel, the idea of ​​transplanting it to foreign soil does not seem the most logical. However, Bille August, winner of two Palme d’Ors at the Cannes Film Festival (for the films Pelle the Conqueror, 1987, and Good Intentions, 1991) and an Oscar Award (all for the same Pelle- conqueror”). Both of these award-winning films are set in the past – at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, so August feels confident in the setting of bygone eras, and indeed, the production parts – landscapes, interiors, costumes and even the faces of the actors, beg to be old daguerreotypes—you can’t find fault with “The Kiss.” August also wrote the script for the film himself, in collaboration with Greg Lutter, with whom he had already worked three times before.

Unlike Zweig’s main character, the local cavalry lieutenant Anton (Esben Smed) comes from a family that is not just poor, but has slipped down the social ladder as a result of some unnamed scandal. Therefore, he joins the army not for government support, but to make amends for these long-standing sins that were not committed by him and to restore his family’s former respect. His service in a small town near Copenhagen goes well, and Anton shows his inclination to be a rescuer, which will later destroy him, from the very beginning: one day, during maneuvers, he, with the help of his colleagues, pulls out the car of a local rich man, Count Levenskeld (Lars Mikkelsen), stuck in the mud.

Having received an invitation to dinner in gratitude, he meets the Count’s niece Anna (Rosalind Munster), whom he is not averse to hitting on, and his daughter Edith (Clara Rosager), whom he invites to dance out of politeness, not knowing that the girl is paralyzed from the waist down. This mistake triggers a chain of events that forms a close, complex and not entirely psychologically healthy connection for all participants between Anton and the Levenskeld family, which ultimately ends in the most tragic way.

The creators of the film approached Zweig’s text as carefully as possible in principle and as they probably don’t do now. No deconstruction or new optics, only delicate adherence, if not to the spirit, then to the letter of the original source. The cinematography by Sebastian Blenkov, who specializes mainly in costume films and comedies, is also very traditional, quite in the spirit of the British production of Merchant and Ivory: completely transparent sunlight, light girlish dresses and reflections on the water under the gentle clanking of spoons on thin porcelain. Only closer to the end, the First World War bursts into action with its trench smoke: although Denmark maintained neutrality, the authors still found a way to send their Anton to the front.

As a result, the film seems comfortingly old-fashioned and at the same time solid, like a hand-sewn frock coat from a museum display case. True, the main emphasis here is on the love-melodramatic line, turned to the maximum, and social and class themes are outlined only in dotted lines (for example, the line with the Jewish origin of the imaginary aristocrats was completely lost – perhaps in Denmark of that era this issue was really irrelevant). So the lining of this coat turned out to be a little thin, and perhaps only viewers who have not read the novel and are getting acquainted with this story for the first time will be able to really grab the picture.