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The ServantRating:
Release Date: 18 December, 2001 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $17.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Complete Cast (7 total) |
The Servant Reviews
"He may be a servant, but he's still a human being."
When upper class gent Tony (James Fox) returns to London from Africa, he acquires a house, and he also advertises for a manservant. Hugo Bennett (Dirk Bogarde) applies and is speedily employed. At first, he is the perfect servant. He's quiet, obsequious and efficient. Tony's girlfriend Susan (Wendy Craig), however finds Hugo sneaky and suspicious, and she considers the entire notion of having a manservant archaic.
"The Servant", directed by Joseph Losey, is based on a Harold Pinter play and is a perfect example of the Hegel theory of the master-slave relationship. Hegel's theory is that both the master and slave are inevitably corrupted by the unhealthy mutual need in this relationship. The relationship between Tony and Hugo is the main focus of the film, and Pinter's screenplay is a scathing metaphor for the class war. The relationship between Tony and Hugo swings wildly from cutting, humiliating, gratuitous comments, to fumbled attempts at friendship. But with such inequities in position alone, any attempt at some sort of equality is ludicrous. The roles of exploiter and the exploited switch back and forth between Tony and Hugo as the power base in the household moves.
Dirk Bogarde is phenomenal as Hugo. The role of the servant was made for his incredible acting ability. Hugo is, at first, a dreadful toady, but is soon revealed as opportunistic, sly and depraved. His role is in complete contrast to Tony, played by James Fox--who is effete, helpless and malleable. The two main female roles are also in contrast to one another. Vera (Sarah Miles) is the seductive, giggly working class girl whose free sexuality is the opposite of the ice maiden, Susan, who doles out favours as they are merited. The film, a three British Academy Award winner, is a little dated, but it still packs a powerful punch with its unsettling storyline--displacedhuman
stick with it
Losey's "The Servant" is a film you really have to stick with in order to get to the meat and potatoes. It's almost like two movies in one. It opens up innocently enough, with Dirk Bogarde (Hugo) coming to playboy Tony's (James Fox in a performance that oscillates between being mind numbingly annoying to heart rendingly pitiable) house, offering to be his servant. From there it will take the viewer awhile to understand just how sinister and depraved Bogarde's Hugo is--for a good part of the film he just seems to be a confused, buffoonish servant trying to do his job. From there things get really, really sick.
Co-dependency, class struggle, loneliness, alcoholism and finally madness dominate the house as Bogarde accomplishes a slick mastery of Tony's psyche and then his life. He gets the weak minded and wealthy playboy to cheat on his fiancee, and then takes advantage of the ruins his life is left in afterward. By the end of the film you know everything is screwed in a royal (no pun intended) way. Sickness and betrayal crawl from every frame of the last half an hour, and the transformation the film undergoes is unbelievably well done.
You really don't know who to sympathize with, since the only character with a single intent and purpose is Tony's fiancee who quickly flees when the situation essentially becomes an orgy of broken minds and hearts. This as good and creepily understated a film as Alfred Hitchcock ever made. A must see.
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