Movie Review: Far from Heaven is Heavenly Technicolor
08/09/2006 09:51 AM by Gretchen Schauffler
Far from Heaven is a 2002, Academy Award-nominated film written and directed by Todd Haynes and starring Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Ryan Ward, Dennis Haysbert, and Patricia Clarkson.
My family loves movies! We see a movie every week. For “District B-13,” an action-packed French movie, we even read subtitles. (No, it was not painful.) The story is a cross between “Escape from New York” and “16 Blocks.”
I love movies for how they tell a story through human expression and color. My favorites films range from “When Harry met Sally,” to “Kill Bill” (Vol 1&2) and “Spinal Tap.” Right now, I think that “Little Miss Sunshine” should get nominated for everything next year.
When I first saw the movie “Far From Heaven,” made in 2002, I was visually in shock. It’s a tale of a marriage and a town falling apart as a result of prejudice and homosexuality in the 1950s. The story is like a bitter pill coated in Technicolor.
It lets you understand how so many issues could be swept under the rug (shag, of course).
My favorite scene happens in a museum. A white, socially-prominent woman runs into her black gardener. As they walk around, she realizes that he is not just a gardener. They are surrounded by “new” contemporary paintings that thrive on color experimentation. (Kandinsky is credited with painting the first modern abstract works which were valued for capturing the immutable, intrinsic qualities of an object rather than its external appearance).
The new art is in sharp contrast to the harsh reality of the 1950s, when it was taboo for couples to divorce or for people of different races to fall in love.
In the film, aquas, silky greens, nubby burnt oranges, golden mustards and chocolates spread across walls, onto dresses, and through beautiful gardens, making you feel like you are seeing such colors for the first time in combinations that leave you amazed.
Bright cherry lips, mahogany hair, cool wooly blues against crisp fall leaves are only a few of the images that glorify the magic of color—how you wear it, live it, and feel it, inside and out. Each scene is worth a pause, just to see how colors set the mood. It is all part of a color-drenched tale that leaves you mesmerized. There is compassion for the human need to love freely. It reminds me that it is worth seeing your life as a colorful canvas full of possibilities.
If you have any movie recommendations (particularly for those that are colorfully stunning), let me know. My eyes are always up for it.
Gretchen Schauffler
Artist and Founder of Devine Color®
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You must see Great Expectations, if you haven’t already. The use of color in the movie is so intentional,vibrant in rich scenes, subdued in darker ones. If you ever open a store in Charlotte, NC please call me! I adore color, and the mood it can create (or heal) in a residential or commercial environment. I love your vision, and your color palette IS Devine!
— Jennifer B 08/14/2006 05:49 PM #
The film hero (martial arts with jet li) relies heavily on color, not only to create visual effects but to convey the mood (and truth!) of the parts of the story. Perhaps worth checking out for that.
— ronan 08/15/2006 03:23 AM #
Hi Gretchen,
You should check out the movie “Big Fish”, not only is it visually appealing, it is a wonderful story.
— Nancy Morgan 08/17/2006 11:17 AM #
Don’t forget the wonderful “What Dreams May Come”! Color is a strong metaphor in the whole movie, and you just have to love the scene with Robin Williams slipping and sliding in the paint of an Impressionist-style painting. It’s also an emotionally powerful movie, but I always think first of the vibrant colors in Heaven.
— Mari 09/07/2006 08:13 PM #
When I think color the first movie to come to mind is “Amelie”. The story is basically told in the colors red and green, yet the combination doesn’t evoke Christmas at all. Another film where the color is intrinsic is “The Piano”. This isn’t bright, beautiful color, but almost a lack of color. The whole film is filmed through a blue-grey filter. I saw the film twice in theaters and it wasn’t until the second time that it really hit me. It’s not a happy movie, it’s about a woman in a loveless arranged marriage whose only comfort is her daughter and her piano and the pacing of the movie is slow. The color of the film suits the mood perfectly. Another movie I would suggest is “Funny Face” with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire, if only for the Think Pink song and dance number.
— lsaspacey 09/08/2006 09:53 PM #
Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love is breathtakingly beautiful. It’s your basic boy-whose-girl-met-other-boys meets girl-whose-boy-met-other-girls story, but the look is flawless…all this neon of 1960s Hong Kong, and these spectacular cheongsam dresses. The depth and intensity of color is just mindblowing. Do not miss this.
— Eric 09/11/2006 12:24 AM #
I love Michael Howell’s wildly inventive set of bold colors used in Nanny McPhee. Although many disagree, the surreal color palate of the Brown family home and surrounding country side was a visual pleasure that made the fantasy magical for me.
— Karin 01/14/2007 02:02 PM #
Ratatouille! Wow- I remember seeing it for the first time on the big screen and WOW! I remember telling my husband how much I loved the movie- the story line and how the colors made me feel so great! Maybe I should watch the movie again and find similar colors in my Devine Paint samples for my in progress home color pallette! Voila!
— Lisa 02/09/2008 08:07 PM #
You probably would enjoy the movie Hotel Splendide. The story is told in dark greens with contrasting reds. It makes me want to buy every single outfit worn by lead actress Toni Collette.
— Gran 02/11/2008 04:42 PM #