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Conservative Central |
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Review: Girl with a Pearl Earring |
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by Andrew Stephens 15/4/04 |
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Girl with a Pearl Earring is a film about a painting: it imagines how a famous work by the seventeenth century Dutch painter, Jan Vermeer, came to be made. There is much to enjoy in the film. There's some beautiful scenery of Delft and the surrounding countryside, and the story has been written without the usual attempt to slay the past and its values from the standpoint of the present. Some critics have complained that we aren't given enough psychological insight into the characters, and I think this is true of the character of Jan Vermeer. We learn of some of his frustrations as an artist of having to rely on a wealthy patron, and of his commitment to painting as a craft. But we never really get the sense of the inner life that is expressed in Vermeer's paintings (or, if we do get it, it's through the Vermeer like quality in which the scenes are filmed - but this makes it seem as if Vermeer was merely painting realistically what he saw around him). We learn more about the character of the girl herself (Griet), but there is a jarring note late in the film when she suddenly lapses from the modesty that has been previously so important to her character. (On a minor note: it's also a pity that the film chose to highlight some of the clumsier paintings of Vermeer, rather than the handful of masterpieces.) Finally, if you do see the film, you might be interested in the following description of Vermeer's work by the Melbourne academic John Carroll. In his work Humanism: The Wreck of Western Culture he describes the spiritual quality of Vermeer's work as follows: "Vermeer paints the home as sacred ... The light filters in through lead-lighted windows from the outside, but the outside world is unimportant, unnecessary. Within the rooms it is women who impose a tranquillity and reverence, whether they hold a water jug, work at lace, or play musical instruments ... In this Puritan domain the state of grace of the individual within her sanctuary - the home not the church is the sacred ground - invests everything she touches with her higher conscience." Professor Carroll sees Vermeer's work as expressing a particular understanding of the spiritual life at a certain time in Western history. Girl with a Pearl Earring doesn't really give us a sense of the man who would express such a vision, but it is nonetheless an engaging film that I would recommend to anyone who is the least able to enjoy an arty film.
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