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Michael Brooke revels in Slovak director Juraj Herz’s fantastical and surreal phantasmagoria of dark desires and splintered minds, in this deliriously florid costume melodrama based on a story by Alexander Grin (the 'Russian Poe').

If The Cremator strongly hinted that Slovak director Juraj Herz has a sensibility far closer to Ken Russell than Ken Loach, Morgiana confirms it beyond any possible doubt. A deliriously florid costume melodrama based on a story by Alexander Grin (Russia's Edgar Allan Poe), it fuses Gainsborough-style wicked-lady shenanigans with a splendidly Gothic/Romantic sensibility. Iva Janžurová plays the dual role of yin-and-yang sisters Viktoria and Klára, the latter being poisoned by the former in such a slow and careful way as to avoid detection, though not without causing Klára to hallucinate wildly whenever she glimpses anything in orange. However, Viktoria has problems of her own, what with her drug supplier threatening to expose her and the possibility that she might have to commit another murder or two to keep her evil plan on track.

Virtuoso cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera (Daisies, Diamonds of the Night) was clearly encouraged to go berserk with extreme wide-angle lenses and bizarre colour effects, occasionally combining the two via repeated cuts to the viewpoint of Morgiana, Viktoria's inscrutable Siamese cat.

 

Michael Brooke on 26th August 2010
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