Boogie Woogie
Boogie Woogie
Directed by Duncan Ward
[At the IFC Center ]
Runtime: 94 min.
An exposé of the London art world and the corrupt, pretentious people who run it, Boogie Woogie submits some good actorsGillian Anderson, Alan Cumming, Stellan Skarsgard, Amanda Seyfriedto some outrageous posturing. Open-mouthed laughter.
Lots of Darling! intonations. All this against a background of Damien Hirst pieces andunfortunately Hirsts grisly sense of the human condition. Hirst himself curated some of the art on view, including enlarged paintings of microscopic germs and a glass-encased tumor.
Director Duncan Ward laggardly paces Danny Moynihans script. This doesnt help what might well be an accurate portrayal of bourgeois decadence especially when Ward is given to lecherous emphasis while emphasizing his characters lechery. Centered around attempts to buy Piet Mondrians Broadway Boogie Woogie from a dying owner (Christopher Lee exclaiming: I got it from the master himself!), the movie attempts the examination of a scene like Robert Altman achieved in Pret-a-Porter.
But whereas Altman transcended cynicism, Ward lacks all of Mondrians beauty: The impressive lines of Broadway Boogie Woogieits structure, openness and sense of spacehave the moral order and energy this movie lacks.