Besieged

REVIEW
In a dictatorship, teachers are subversive by definition. Shandurai (Newton), a young African woman who has just left work at a hospital ward filled with unending civilian casualties suffering war wounds, watches as her husband is dragged out of his classroom and loaded into military transport. We see her next in Rome, continuing her medical education while housekeeper for Jason (Thewlis), a reclusive pianist/composer. Believing her husband gone forever, she attempts to reestablish her life, battling the harsh memories that come to her in nightmares, and the unwelcome advances of the initially creepy, stalking Jason. But Jason proves to be easily handled, perhaps preoccupied by the circumstances that require him to divest himself of the inherited possessions that fill his home. The house is gradually stripped to the bare walls, as the self-involved Jason gradually opens up to the world that surrounds him. Director Bertolucci, already an established master of the medium, seems to have added yet another wrinkle to his arsenal of cinematic tricks: a fluid camera jumps and glides; layerings of image and sound overlap, compressing and expanding time and space. A personal tale of erotic obsession, told against a backdrop political madness. (In English and Italian with English subtitles)