FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Todd Haynes - Far From Heaven 

Todd Haynes Far From Heaven looks like a film from the 50s and deals with the themes of the 50s - only much bolder and much better than a real Hollywood film of the 50s would have been able to do! It all begins in the suburban idyll of Connecticut, where Mr. and Mrs. Magnatech act like a team. Like a marriage business. Until Mr Magnatech thinks the black gardener is the most beautiful (and desirable) person he has ever seen. In the same way, the Whitakers, Cathy and Frank (Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid), live in the perfect counterpart, the perfect street and the perfect home. In autumn, the leaves shine like pure gold and if their son utters a scolding expression in his mouth, he is reprimanded. The Whitakers are so perfect that even the local newspaper writes an article about how perfect they are. But then dark clouds gather. While Cathy is being interviewed by the paper, she sees the black gardener outside. The son of her late gardener. She enquires if he needs anything, reaches out. It will then be printed in the newspaper as follows: Cathy; "friend to Negroes". Then one day Cathy catches Frank kissing a man in the office. Far From Heaven plays exactly the values of the 50s, which is why Frank feels despicable after this incident. He desperately needs to get a grip on this problem. This is the key to Todd Haynes' film: he never pretends to be ironic. Never does he know more than a film from the 50s knew. Far From Heaven is indeed a work of that time, in which not only the clothes, the décor have been recreated, but simply everything. Right down to the mindset. Cathy and Frank don't have a sex life. She hardly knows what to say to him. At one point Cathy says to the gardener's son; "Mr. Whitaker and I support equal rights for the Negro.". People start talking in public about her being seen with the black gardener (who, by the way, has an academic degree). So they get the same frosty reception together in a "black" establishment as would probably have happened in a "white" establishment. Frank, the hypocrite, yells at them about what he wouldn't have done for the family's reputation. Of course, his homosexuality remains deeply hidden. And Cathy's feelings change.... Craft-wise, Haynes's film is as superbly made as an original Douglas Sirk melodrama. In Sirk's melodramas, one often had the impression that the plot had been scrambled - indeed, that the film was not sincere at all! Yet everything is filtered in Haynes' film. Every shot resembles the set design of the 50s, every feeling the zeitgeist of the 50s. At that time, the civil rights movement was already an issue, but not homosexual liberation. So the film is allowed to regret bittersweetly that Cathy's feelings will probably have no future. Frank's homosexuality, on the other hand, may not even be mentioned by name. Far From Heaven, as described, gets by without irony (unlike the original Douglas Sirk melodramas) - and seems all the more powerful for it! We care about Haynes' characters as if they were the audience of the 50s! We think like the 50s! So we regret that a white woman could never love a black man. And we don't even dare to imagine how Frank could live...