Nov 05, 2001 01:12 PM
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(Updated Nov 06, 2001 12:30 AM)
Original Sin is based on the novel 'Waltz into Darkness' by Cornell Woolrich. A kind of a film noir with underlying currents of violence and crime but with a beautiful exterior of love, passion and lust, obsession,...murder!
Anjelina Jolie, an ''imposter'' comes into the life of the Cuban tycoon Antonio Banderas when he advertises for a homely, kind, young woman...She explains it away by telling him that she had to send him a plain jane photograph to ensure he does not marry her just for her beauty...Shaken by her beauty and her confession, he in turn explains to her that he too had taken precautions against the lady marrying him for his money ...He is in reality a tycoon and not a mere clerk...Jolie who comes into his life as Julia Russell is quick to counter that since both had their deceptions there was one thing in common between them..''both cannot be trusted ''!
Thus Banderas' married life begins with deception...Banderas is kind, trusting, loving....Jolie is deceptive, scheming, passionate, cruel and pragmatic...Banderas finds himself shocked, and swayed and confused by her unpredictable behavior.
There is an interesting piece of dialogue between him and his elderly friend who asks him if his attachment for his wife is ''love or lust''...because whereas Love is giving and giving more, Lust is taking and taking more... Banderas explains ''I want to give everything and also take everything'' This oneliner explains his allconsuming obsession for the sultry beauty on whom he lavishes his all and chases her ''to kill her'' even after she makes a clean sweep of his money and vanishes...
When he finds her he confesses to her that he loves her and her alone inspite of her not being the real Julia Russell and with all her deceptions, affairs and shameful deeds...he even stoops to murder and suffers in silence when he realizes that even the''murder'' was indeed a deception planned by Jolie and the victim/lover of hers.
BUT TRUE LOVE TRIUMPHS AND WARMS UP THE COLD, CRIMINAL HEART OF JOLIE....towards the end.
The film opens with Jolie imprisoned and about to be executed...The entire film is a flashback of Jolie's confession of her life to the Priest, of how she met Banderas,....
Banderas is powerful in his role of a deceived, tortured but besotted lover...Jolie is very distracting yet disgustingly so, especially with those highly accentuated, sinful lips...which the camera highlights all the time. The photography and the Mexican setting is interesting...Its an OK film, nothing to rave about unless you enjoy watching Banderas and Jolie. They are delectable.
The End of the film is STARTLING !
