I watched this film last night called “Miss Julie”. I was lured into buying it from the grocery store’s clearance rack by two things:
1) The description.
Saffron Burrows (Deep Blue Sea) and Peter Mullan (Trainspotting) deliver riveting performances (Newsday) in this tale of desire, passion and betrayal that pits upper class against lower class in a ‘superbly staged battle between the sexes (Detour). With a script basedon August Strindberg’s famous play and written for the screen by Helen Cooper, Miss Julie director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) presents a taut and intimate story, holding you with the intensity of his vision and his mastery of nuance (Los Angeles Times) from beginning to end. On a late 19th-century estate, a celebration of wine and beer lets loose inhibitions and innerpassions. Jean (Mullan), the Count’s footman, takes the advances of the Count’s daughter (Burrows) too far with a scandalous encounter in the kitchen. And over one night, it becomes clear that these two lost souls desperately need each other in order to escape the confinesand trappingsof their lives. But can a servant support a noblewoman, who, without her father’s money, is no more privileged than he?
Ooo. A love affair between a upper class woman and a footman? I’m so there.
2) The back cover showed the upper class woman in a gorgeous Victorian gown.
I was falsely seduced by the advertising, folks. Don’t rent this movie unless you’re the sort of person that reason #2 is enough of a reason for you, because otherwise you’re going to feel really, really let down.
However, me being a reason #2 sort of girl, I felt my $4 was justifiably spent.
Search as I might on Google images, I can’t discover a really good picture of this dress, but it combines two of my favorite things: stripes and floral embroidery! (And the back is a gorgeous bustle!) Her boots are also stunning, with a zillion tiny buttons that go all the way up to her knee (at one point she throws her foot in the footman’s lap and demands that he kiss her shoe. I might have been cringing from the sheer non-sexiness of that scene, had I luckily not been so distracted by her boots).
The color is embroidered on sheer fabric, and seems to be some sort of blouse, or partlet.
In my internet-seeking after Miss Julie pictures, I also found this site:
http://periodmovies.blogspot.com/
Miss Julie doesn’t rate a mention on it, but plenty of other (worthier) films do. I have to properly explore it, but it seems a fabulous resourse.
So hey. Lucky bonus.
