Jane Campion’s great international breakthrough came with The Piano in 1993, but this film opened eyes three years earlier. At that time, she was primarily known in her native New Zealand for her work in television, even though she had made a feature film. This was an adaptation of the controversial author Janet Frame’s account of her turbulent first 40 years in life, a three-hour long miniseries that made such an impact in New Zealand that it was turned into a movie for international audiences: only twenty minutes were cut from the original. Audiences abroad were simply expected to swallow a two hour and forty minute long biopic about a writer they likely had never heard of.
A difficult childhood
Janet Frame is born outside Dunedin in the south-east of New Zealand in 1924. Her working-class childhood is difficult from the start, and hardly helped by a feeling of isolation as well as tousled, bright-orange hair that makes her stand out from everybody else. As a child she suffers through the loss of her sister Myrtle who drowns in an accident, and the epileptic seizures that plague her brother George. Later, she begins training as a teacher while she’s taking other courses at a university, but develops mental problems that lead to a suicide attempt.
After simply walking out on her class one day, her career as a teacher-in-training ends and she faces worse challenges as a psychiatric patient…
True to Frame’s style
The story of Frame is that of a remarkable woman – but it’s also a condemnation of a health care system that was simply not functioning well in the 1940s and ’50s. Frame was originally diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia, a mistake which led to hundreds of painful electroshock treatments as well as very nearly a lobotomy. The film, portraying doctors and nurses as virtually faceless and shockingly uncaring actors in this charade, shows how Frame was bundled together at the ward with much sicker patients, with no regard to any individual’s mental history. Writing became her rescue – literally, because finally being published saved her from that lobotomy. Suddenly, she was no longer bonkers, just simply an eccentric artist. This film helped introduce Frame to many new readers, and it is largely true to her style, evoking the author’s poetry and filmed in a way that seems true to her realistic portrayals of New Zealand after World War II. One might have wanted to see some of her magic realism in the movie, but Campion and her team settle for a down-to-earth but occasionally lyrical depiction of the writer and her journeys.
This is an often fascinating, unsentimental film with a particularly strong performance by Fox. At its most appealing, the movie emphasizes how vital writing is to Janet, and how important it is to leave someone like her alone and not force her into the formula most people live by.
The film introduced Campion (and Fox) to the world and received plenty of attention at festivals. In fact, it became so well-known internationally that if you’re looking for the original miniseries on VHS or DVD, you may have to track down some New Zealander who taped it back in 1990. The movie has simply replaced it. In any case, there isn’t much of a difference, so just accept it.
An Angel at My Table 1990-New Zealand. 158 min. Color. Produced by Bridget Ikin. Directed by Jane Campion. Screenplay: Laura Jones. Novels: Janet Frame (“To the Is-Land”, “An Angel at My Table”, “The Envoy from Mirror City”). Cinematography: Stuart Dryburgh. Music: Don McGlashan. Cast: Kerry Fox (Janet Frame), Alexia Keogh (Janet Frame as a teenager), Karen Fergusson (Janet Frame as a child), Iris Churn, K.J. Wilson, Martyn Sanderson.
Venice: Grand Special Jury Prize.
