Review of Tess

Tess (1979)
8/10
Comparison of scenes from "Tess" & "The Third Man"
12 January 2006
Warning: Spoilers
This is a delicious film - a cinematic strawberry-sundae - with entrancing Nastassja Kinski as the succulent cherry on top.

Don't miss the opening scene, in which the village maidens, all dressed in white with flowers in hair, skip along behind musicians as they slowly make their way up an old farming roadway towards camera & then past... In my opinion, this scene is as subtly magnificent as that classic scene from "The Third Man": 'Anna', coming from the grave site, making that seeming-to-take-forever walk along the road towards where 'Holly Martin' stands awaiting her, & then, she walks straight past, ignoring him...and from a pocket of his rumpled overcoat, he digs-out a pack of ciggies & lights one up...The End.

Both are magical, time-suspending scenes, created by visual virtuosos who also knew that sometimes a modicum of music can be far more effective than a deluge of dialog.

TB - a staff member of Prospect Point Productions, Inc
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