Director: Michael Mackenzie
Country: Canada
Year: 2002
Runtime: 95 minutes
Language: English
Director Michael Mackenzie will be in attendance for a
post-film discussion.
In 1888, photography and electric lights are new innovations,
the Eiffel Tower is rising to the heavens, and Impressionist painters
scandalize the decadent Parisian aristocracy. Into this milieu steps
the Baroness, an American heiress, wife of a dissolute British nobleman
and enthusiastic adopter of all the latest modern technological
marvels. When her ambitious plans for starting a sophisticated salon
fail and Parisian high society rejects her, she switches the focus of
her formidable energy to her new maid, Emily, an enfant sauvage, raised
by pigs. Firm in her belief that “culture should be for everyone,” the
Baroness undertakes Emily’s education, only to discover dangerous gaps
in her own. Michael Mackenzie adapts this provocative examination of
perception, art, technology and society from his own play, using as a
recurring leitmotiv the then newly invented silver-backed mirror that
fascinates the Baroness and Emily even as it alters their insights into
the world around them. Shot in high-definition digital video, and
transferred to 35mm film the medium echoes this evocative drama’s
themes as it reflects back on how our own era’s technological advances
constantly challenge our perceptions. (Synopsis by the San Francisco
International Film Festival)
Principal Cast: Patricia Clarkson, Colm Feore, Caroline
Dhavernas, Bernard Hepton, Louise Marleau
Writer: Michael Mackenzie
Producer: Daniel Langlois
Cinematographer: Eric Cayla
Film Editor: Denis Papillon
Official Website: http://www.baronessandthepig.com/
