The Purple Rose of Cairo

Is there any American filmmaker with a literary sense as strong as Woody Allen's? His films are dense novellas: The running times are short, the concepts are exuberantly creative, the narratives are parables, the jokes are sharp enough for the New Yorker. And Allen was never sharper than in "The Purple Rose of Cairo", out now via limited edition Blu-ray from Twilight Time. This tragicomedy - at once subtextually dense, raucously funny, and visually lush - may be the filmmaker's greatest work.

Remember the scene in "Hannah and Her Sisters," where Allen claims that the only reason not to commit suicide - the only justification for the misery wrought by existence itself - is escapist entertainments, like Marx brothers movies? "Purple Rose" stretches that same idea out to feature length. Mia Farrow plays a Depression-era depressed housewife, constantly abused verbally and physically by her drunken husband (Danny Aiello.) She finds her only solace on the screen of her town's movie palace. She's watching a movie there one day when a side character - a fearless adventurer (Jeff Daniels) - breaks directly through the screen. He was so taken with Farrow's enthusiasm that he was willing to literally break the fourth wall to have her.

Twilight Time's release of "Purple Rose" accentuates its strongest quality: the cinematography. The film was shot by the legendary Gordon Willis (who also lensed "Manhattan" for Allen, and films like "The Godfather" for others,) who brings with him his celebrated eye for muted colors and shadowy sets. There's a weathered quality to the locations he and Allen select: Half-empty movie palaces, completely empty theme parks, cramped apartments marked by dingy wallpaper. Yet the "movie" that Daniels' adventurer emerges from actively rebukes the visual style of the "real world." Willis recreates the appearance of 30s-era cinema masterfully, right down to the dissolves and editing tricks. No matter what "world" you're in, the palette of the disc's visual transfer never appears artificially vibrant. The low-lights illuminating each faded color are rendered stunningly tactile. (If Twilight Time's prior release of a Willis-shot Allen movie -- "Broadway Danny Rose" -- looks as good as this one, you should consider them both must-own discs.)

Farrow's character is predictably torn by film's end: In one corner, Daniel's fictional beau, in the other, her real-world partner (with more suitors to come.) Allen's reckoning with the way sentimental, comforting films tell us lies - and why it's so necessary. His finale doesn't fault the cinema for feeding us slop, but instead celebrates it for giving us the kind of artifice we need to survive through life's indignities (for once, an Allen film that doesn't default to pessimism!) But such interpretations are sure to make the film sound much stuffier than it actually is. Take, for instance, the fact that Allen spends a significant amount of this 80-minute film crafting comic sequences concerning the characters Daniels has left stranded up on the movie screen. They drink, play cards, and even insult audience members; Allen's sharp wit emphasizing the absurdity of the scenario at every turn. Even in his tightest, most emotional films, he's wise enough to leave a screw loose.

"The Purple Rose of Cairo"
Blu-ray
Screenarchives.com
$29.95