One of the taglines that has been used to advertise this movie goes as follows: “A partially true story about lies told, virtue lost and love found.” I would suggest, rather, that this movie could be viewed as a debauched fairy tale at best, and at worst, a propaganda film glamorizing the pleasures of endless fornication and adultery. Any truth in the movie is minimal.
The film opens with a mother leaving her son because she is running away with a man that she wants to have a sexual relationship with. Raising her son is not a priority. The boy is devastated. The goodbye is quick and without ceremony. It is understood that the mother is hot blooded and is ruled by her lusts. Immediately, the child is then shown to us as the adult that we know is Casanova, as played by Heath Ledger. Casanova has once again gotten himself in trouble and his advocates in high places conspire to allow him to slip away and continue his sex-addicted lifestyle. This theme comes up over and over again in the movie. Casanova has many friends or shall we say enablers who romanticize his “life’s work.”
The plot is one of mistaken and stolen identities, a woman who dresses up like a man, a cross gender nom de plume, and marriages of conveniences. It is all just crazy madcap “good fun” until someone gets hurt, and no one ever does in this film. No one is ever shown to suffer for any length of time for anything that Casanova does or causes, no matter how terrible, illegal, immoral, or self-centered his choices are.
Casanova, who can reportedly have any woman that he wants, finds that there could possibly be one lady who could resist him, and it whets his appetite. Though flagrant lying, misleading innocents, cheating people, and breaking promises that he has make, he sidles up to her, closer and closer, like a snake in the garden of Eden.
The setting is Venice and the actual city is used in the filming. It is very sumptuous in an aged old world way, and that adds a unique feeling to the story. The soundtrack is classical and lush with instruments and compositions that sound appropriate to the time period. The cinematography is beautiful as you would expect from the director of Chocolat.
This movie is a sweet iced bon-bon hiding a dangerous and deceptive message inside. The movie wants us to believe that Casanova was a great lover of women, a romantic, a philosopher, an all around sweet guy who is just bringing a lot of joy to everyone around him-especially bored women. The actual historical reality could not be more different: Casanova was a destroyer of women.
Women at the time had very few choices, although in Venice, where the movie is set, they were more fortunate as many of them had some education that was given at home. However, without a marriage or wealth, women had no chance to choose or improve their lives or the lives of their children. When Casanova breezed in for the night, the woman could contact one or more of his numerous venereal diseases, and pass it on to their husband and any children that they bore from that time on. And if there was any trust inside her marriage, it would be destroyed, perhaps leading to estrangement or separation. There could have been domestic violence incited against the woman. If the woman was engaged or betrothed, she might have lost her chance with her fiancé and any others who had high moral standards. If a child resulted from the tryst with Casanova, it might be illegitimate if the woman was unmarried. If conceived within a legal wedlock, it might be rejected by one or both of the spouses, or at the very least, feel somehow different from the other family members and alienated in some way.
Casanova, in truth, was a thief of virtue, fidelity, health, and security. He was a bringer of misery and disease and unhappiness to all he encountered. But as the movie states at one point, it is all worth it as one night with him is a fair exchange for an et
Answered by
KHURSHEED
, an ibibo Master,
at
1:18 PM on July 04, 2008
