We saw Neil Jordan’s “Ondine” last year at the Toronto International Film Festival and we’ll admit, we’re rather enchanted by it, despite its third act flaws and twists.
The picture centers on a recovering alcoholic fisherman (Colin Farrell, not playing his role without a sense of ironic self-awareness) who comes across a mysterious beautiful woman who may or may not be a sea nymph (gorgeous Polish actress Alicja Bachleda; Stephen Rea also stars) that ends up caught in his fishing net. From there the picture is essentially a love story and a mystery, but we don’t wanna say too much more.
Though we will say that Bachleda is so beautiful we’re not surprised that Farrell quickly made her his baby mama (and we shed a small tear for you, the audience, that won’t be able to see the full sex scene that played out at TIFF — vavava vooom!)
It’s a blatant fairytale and comes with an aesthetic that you might expect for that milieu: dreamy and romantically intoxicating atmospheres that include the sumptuous (and sometimes raw) photography of longtime Wong Kar-Wai cinematographer Christopher Doyle and the lush elegiac score composed by Sigur Rós’ keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson.
It’s an imperfect film with an enamoring lens that we were taken by. It’s probably not a film for everyone — critics at TIFF seemed to have mixed feelings — but its sensualist tenor and illusory quality we unapologetically dug. Read the rest of our review from the TIFF ’09 film festival.
Wow — there was a cut sex scene? I was wondering how many times she was going to be in her underwear as it was! I loved the cinematography but the movie overall didn't blow me away like I'd hoped.