The Burnt Orange Heresy was released in early March, 2020, just as the world (including movie theaters) was shutting down.
I recently saw it in a second-tier theater on their first day open since the lockdown, with and an enforced 25% occupancy rule which was hardly needed, since I was literally the only one in the theater.
I was greeted at the door with a girl wearing a face mask squirting my hands with sanitizer. The entire building suffered a brief power failure during the previews. Such was the weirdness of that world.
The film suffered from none of THAT weirdness, but it was spooky and ethereal, nonetheless.
Mick Jagger (yes, THAT one) plays Joseph Cassidy, a wealthy art collector who recruits cynical, bitter, pill-popping art critic James Figueras, played by Danish actor/musician Claes Bang, to come to his palatial estate on Lake Como in Italy to perform an enviable task - to interview a hermit-like, elderly artist, Jerome Debney (played with class by Donald Sutherland) a reclusive painter who hasn't been seen much in recent decades. For that matter, nor has Sutherland, himself. He has another task for him, as well, which he performs at first with reluctance, then with efficiency.
Bang brings his latest fling, Duluth school teacher Bernice Hollis (Paris-born Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki) with him to the Cassidy estate, and she first charms the millionaire and then the artist.
Conversations between the characters about art and its value are rich and meaningful, with the exquisite background of the Italian countryside providing a lavish visual backdrop for the excellent script.
Talks between the critic and his lover, and his lover and the elder artist, may seem to drag a bit, but it all adds to an understanding of what is going on, and gives significance to what's about to happen.
The story is adapted from a 1971 novel by Charles Willeford, an American mystery writer who originally set the story in Florida's Everglades. The story as adapted here seems pastoral and calm until the final act, when it turns into a thriller, with characters seeming to act of out character. But are they, really, acting so oddly, or was it, in hindsight, inevitable?
The opening scene shows Figueras giving a lecture to tourists demonstrating his belief that all art is a lie, and is built on lies. He later tells his new lover that she really doesn't know him.
That's truly an understatement, as both the critic and the millionaire collector have ulterior motives that, when revealed, have dire consequences. The ending is positively Poe-like in its overtones.
See this when the theaters open up again, or rent and stream it. It's beautifully filmed, acted and scripted.
Note that this is a film for mature adults (it's rated R) with adult themes and sex scenes. The kids won't know who Jagger or Sutherland are, anyway, so leave them home.
