Featured Movies
Partners
An Angel at My TableOriginally a mini-series for New Zealand TV, this intense and moving adaptation of Janet Frame's autobiography effectively launched the career of Kerry Fox. Though grand in scope it demonstrates a poet's eye for detail and not once does Fox sound a wrong note.
Divided into three chapters, it follows Frame from her childhood in 20s New Zealand, through her adolescence and subsequent treatment for a mental illness she didn't have. ("Two hundred applications of electro-shock treatment," runs Frame's narration. "Each one equivalent in fear to an execution.") Yet through all of this she continues to write, and after her release from hospital she tours Europe's bohemian salons, eventually finding success as an author.
In many respects the story is startlingly bleak. Even without her eight-year internment Frame's vulnerability leaves her ill-equipped to deal with everyday life. But Fox conveys her anguish with immense skill and the film's great strength is the way it captures those tiny moments of hope that sustain her. Neither melodramatic nor sentimental, this is a powerful portrayal of a woman who believes above all in the power and importance of her art - a value which Campion honours throughout.
Verdict Visually, emotionally and intellectually this is stirring stuff. Campion balances detail with broad bush strokes, intense tragedy is tempered with wry comedy, and Fox is absolutely compelling as the delicate, poetic misfit.
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