https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Purple_Rose_of_Cairo
The Purple Rose of Cairo is a 1985 American romantic fantasy comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, and Danny Aiello.Inspired by Sherlock Jr., Hellzapoppin', and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, it is the tale of a film character named Tom Baxter who leaves a fictional film of the same name and enters the real world.
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This is a very un-American movie.
For an American movie, this film is odd because it's genre fantasy. It is *NOT* sci-fi because the extraordinary story presents no reasoning or logic/science basis for the events depicted. Not even "it was all a dream" (or something.)
Genre fantasy like this is rare in American movies outside of musicals. It is much more common for movies (particularly American movies) to go for 'realism'.
By
realism I mean a story that is meant to depict some event that is or
could be real. Musicals (think of The Wizard of Oz) have scenes with
'numbers' and sometimes dancing where the story moves on behind the
scene. This is not realistic in my view. Apart from musicals most
American movies are like Westerns or gangster films where the theme is
characters battling against society, struggling to survive or overcome
the 'bad guys' (think Star Wars or High Noon or Saving Private Ryan.)
The only other exception to this is cartoons... (think Tom and Jerry or The Road Runner).
Purple Rose contains no American exceptionalism, no imperialism, not even much capitalist gangster mojo. It succeeds on the basis of characters and performance. Those characters, performances and the events depicted are obviously false and fantastical but this serves the story rather than detracts from it. This movie is serious not funny but fantasy not reality. Very unusual.
The abusive relationship between Cecilia (Mia Farrow) and
Monk (Danny Aielo) is pushed hard as almost a one note, simplistic,
almost cartoonish fight. It feels uncomfortable given the real life domestic history of Mia and Woody. But it's clearly not meant to be punk-style, slapstick
funny or trivial. It serves to push Cecilia's character into the conflict of
accepting the fantasy since her 'reality' is untenable, unendurable. So does her crap, crap, crap job at the crummy diner.
There is quite a deal of delicious movie industry satire in the dialogue of the abandoned characters in the movie. Woody Allen alumni Dianne Wiest steals scenes as a grotesque prostitute. (She was great in Bullets Over Broadway too. "Hush, don't speak!)
There are parts of this movie that look like it was filmed in an abandoned factory or junkyard. The budget was pretty low I guess.
This movie is one of the best American movies of the 80's and most people haven't seen it.
ABM Rating 3/3
