Ask the dust

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Movie
German title Written in the dust
Original title Ask the dust
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2006
length 112 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Robert Towne
script Robert Towne
production Tom Cruise , Jonas McCord , Paula Wagner , Don Granger
music Ramin Djawadi , Heitor Pereira
camera Caleb Deschanel
cut Robert K. Lambert
occupation

Ask the Dust (German title: Written in the dust ) is an American drama directed by Robert Towne from 2006 . Robert Towne wrote the screenplay based on the novel of the same name by John Fante from 1939.

action

Los Angeles in August 1932. Arturo Bandini ( Colin Farrell ), a young, penniless writer of Italian descent, sits in Los Angeles in a modest hotel in which other stranded fortune seekers like old Hellfrick ( Donald Sutherland ) also live. Arturo moved from Boulder, Colorado five months earlier to create a sensation with a novel (The Road to Los Angeles), which he has yet to write. In a corner bar he meets the waitress Camilla López ( Salma Hayek ), a young Mexican woman who dreams of marrying a wealthy American, thereby taking on an English-speaking name and losing the status of a discriminated immigrant.

A love relationship develops in which Arturo repeatedly humiliates Camilla, but reacts with unbroken pride. A check for $ 175 (from the editor of the literary magazine The American Mercury, Henry L. Mencken ) unexpectedly helps Arturo to improve his standard of living in the short term. Camilla's addiction to the bartender and aspiring writer Sammy White ( Justin Kirk ) keeps him at a distance from her.

Vera Rivkin ( Idina Menzel ) visits him in the hotel , a young woman who has left her husband and works as a housekeeper in Long Beach. In contrast to the illiterate Camilla, she has read Arthuro's only printed short story so far and feels mentally related to him. As a Jew, she too feels marginalized; as an educated woman from the east of the USA, she wants recognition and a better life. Arturo visits her in Long Beach. After the intimate encounter that strengthens Arturo's ability to love, she dies in the Long Beach earthquake (March 10, 1933). Arturo decides to erect a literary monument to her and begins to write a story in which Vera (and later also Camilla) appears.

In order to gain peace and distance from city life, he rents a house on the beach in Laguna. He lives and writes there for a long time, together with Camilla, who has sought refuge with him after she was mistreated by Sammy. He teaches her to read and prepares her for the exam that awaits her if she wants to be naturalized in the United States. It becomes clear (for the audience, not yet for Arturo) that she (like Sammy) has tuberculosis. After a joint visit to the cinema, during which Camilla believes she realizes that Arturo does not stand by her in public, she leaves him.

He later finds her terminally ill in a wooden hut in the desert, to which she moved with Sammy, whom she has meanwhile chased away. Arturo and Camilla confess their love to each other. Arturo promises to marry her. She dies, he buries her not far from the hut. Years later, when the hut has crumbled, he returns to the place in a better car and in elegant clothes. He reads a text from his - apparently recently published - book Ask the Dust, in which he addresses his origins as a discriminated immigrant, and adds words of self-accusation to the late Camilla. He throws the book into the landscape. The last shot of the film shows the handwritten dedication on the flyleaf: For Camilla Lopez with love Arturo Bandini.

Reviews

James Berardinelli wrote on ReelViews that the film was less of a love story and more about Los Angeles in 1933, including the racial prejudices of the time. Some supporting characters like Hellfrick and Vera Rivkin are "interesting" but "too little developed". The portrayal of Salma Hayek is "excellent", but that of Colin Farrell is "somewhat bland" ("somewhat bland"). The sex scene seems "erotic".

Kevin Crust wrote in the Los Angeles Times on March 10, 2006 that the film had aroused great expectations that were not being met. He "clings" too much to the novel. The film, however, is "great beauty". Salma Hayek plays with "intense passion". Crust also praised the portrayals of Donald Sutherland and Idina Menzel.

Awards

Robert Towne was nominated for a prize at the Moscow International Film Festival in 2006. In addition, Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek were honored for the most beautiful sex scene from the website MrSkin.com .

background

The film was shot in Los Angeles and South Africa. It grossed US $ 742.6 thousand in cinemas in the United States.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Review by James Berardinelli
  2. ↑ Review by Kevin Crust
  3. ↑ MrSkin as of November 16, 2008
  4. ↑ Filming locations for Ask the Dust
  5. ^ Business Data for Ask the Dust

Web links