Reviewed by James Whittington
Stars Sarah Miles, Kris Kristofferson, Jonathan Osborne, Margo Cunningham, Earl Rhodes, Paul Tropea,
Gary Lock, Stephen Black, Peter Clapham | Written by Lewis John Carlino from the novel by Yukio Mishima
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £17.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 100 minutes | Directed by Lewis John Carlino
With its long winded title, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea is one of those movies from the 1970’s that sounds as pretentious as the era that spawned it. And you’d be right as it’s a slow yet bombastic dissection of adolescent sexual awakening, trauma and the realisation that death really means the end.
A young boy named Jonathan (Osborne) lives with his mother Anna (Miles), who became a widow early into her marriage. They live in a large house on the coast of England. Jonathan belongs to a gang of precocious boys who have formed their own secret sect and pour over soft porn pictures and bleat about how horrible adults are. But Jonathan has a dark secret; he is spying on his mother’s nocturnal activities via a peephole in his bedroom and getting more than just a kick out them. But the arrival of a rugged sailor named Jim (Kristofferson) confuses Jonathan. Should he hate him or like him. One thing is for sure, he likes to watch what Jim does to his mother, well ... until he gets caught.
Slightly troubling and pretty weird in places, the film is how David Cronenberg might approach a family movie. There’s all sorts going on and apart from the Oedipus style storyline it’s a complex and emotional metaphor about the whole of life’s meaning. It’s just a shame that it doesn’t quite gel together. Characters are distorted, almost characature at times and not given the room to organically fuse. Director Lewis John Carlino focuses on Anna, a lost soul who gives her all if only to feel loved again. Unfortunately the dark subjects are left two dimensional due to the leads giving quite stilted performances. Jonathan Osborne is too stiff (no pun intended) to deliver a believable turn as a disturbed and hurt child whilst Miles and Kristofferson really don’t work as a couple. The other youngsters just seem to only need a good kick up the arse to put them back on the right track. The often talked about sex scenes are tame by today’s standards but the image of seeing Sarah Miles masturbate will stay with me for a long time. The cinematography is one of the movie’s high points and encapsulates the emotions being felt by the players on screen.
Though I’ve not read the original novel, this adaptation is supposed to follow the source text very closely, but I won’t be rushing down to the library to hunt out a copy. By the way the author, Yukio Mishima went on to form his own right-wing army and commit ritual suicide.
EXTRAS * Only a couple of trailers for forthcoming DVD releases — which is a shame, as a commentary would have been made very welcome here.