The Servant

Wonderful black and white cinematography, that brings memories of ze German expressionism to mind, ensures that the lovely mansion looks anything but cozy. Bogarde especially delivers a great performance and the plot is interesting. Especially the last third shows some interesting development in the balance of power between the two leeds. But I'll be damned if I gave a shit about any of it.

Superbly unpleasant and quitely decadent. There's no one to root for and the films all the better for it. Actually, it might be the best film of human parasitic behavior and pure hatred, class difference or nay. The emotional equivelant of 50 italian gore films put into a blender.

The Servant in many ways is a frenzied narrative masterpiece. The film proceeds in such a fashion that it keeps you guessing at every turn, even when you think you have all the answers, you find yourself abruptly in a state of necessary re-evaluation. The atmosphere of the film is a thoroughly engaging one, the musical score and directing techniques wonderfully complement the mood required. The amount of effort that went into meticulous details is well noted. My only gripe is underused elements.

I do enjoy Dirk Bogarde [James Fox leaves no positive impression] but the importance of this is completely lost on me. It's not that I don't see the themes played with, it's that they're too plainly in view.

This film slipped my mind almost immediately after watching. More like a chore to endure and then move on.

Absolutely brilliant, right up to the end where I felt just a little let down. It's never quite clear throughout the film why things are happening in a specific sense, but the general reasons couldn't be more clear and the mix of scathing social commentary with flashes of absurdity works well. The plot is continually intriguing, the acting quite good, especially Bogarde, and the photography magnificent. I loved the use of shadows and mirrors. The ending's not clear cut but fits thematically.

Dirk Bogarde is incredible in this, malignant and corrupting by degrees, and Sarah Miles compliments him well as his tarty partner in crime. James Fox is so damn young looking in this, it's disturbing. I especially like the bizarre little asides in the movie whenever the film strays from the three lead characters, like the two priests having breakfast.

Bogarde is excellent and naturalistic, as is the other fellow's girlfriend from the beginning of the movie. With everyone else the acting seemed stilted to me, if not weak. It's still a fantastic movie, though, and it would fit right in alongside the many Hand-That-Rocks-the-Cradle-style thrillers that were made in the 1990's. This film gets *really* interesting, though, when it finishes up that plot and then surprisingly keeps going. As a side note, the main character needs more records.

The film that made me love films. This complex psychological drama draws you into the characters and their surroundings with sharp cinematography, stellar acting and a story that's kept me raving about this film for years. The song that winds it's way through the house throughout the film twists and turns as the characters do, changing it's meaning, drawing out subtext.

Brandy, shadows on the walls, mini-skirt and "extra effort". Losey's extravaganza really comes all the way in the bizarre last 30 minutes or so, but this is by all means a pretty studied British society portrait through class games -- sometimes erotic, seductive or just silly. You can easily feel its echoes in contemporary cinema in Parasite and Phantom Thread. Weird, somber and comic.

An engaging, well-cast, sophisticated psychological drama, which kind of takes off on the Hegelian master-slave dialectic. Its biggest flaw is that it is a bit overboiled and over-long.

I think I liked certain moments and scenes here better than the whole deal - the scene in where the two protagonists/antagonists throw a tennis ball at each other is just awesome, captured from far above in a exciting shot loaded with something stormily unfixed; the scene in which the water crane creates tension is also brilliant, just to take another example. It's when the images and editing talks and the characters shut up this is good, good, good shit.

Unpleasant (in the best possible way) deep psychological drama with a great performance from Bogarde that sometimes plays like a thriller. There's so much happening here about class and power and maybe addiction/dependency. Definitely something I'll revisit at some point.

The cinematography is gorgeous, it easily let's you know who's in power.

Whoa, I shouldn't like this. Way too classical for me. Or is it? I liked the story, the cinematography, the soundtrack (not something I frequently say about a 60's movie)... and I never even heard of the director before!

Viewed August 14, 2021.

# 349

Kind of ironic that this well made assault on the class system features a demonic subaltern subverting the innocence of a hapless aristocrat. Are we the bad guys?

All I can say is striking!

Holy shit

359

Sports an impeccable script that might be described as a 'cultivated tastelessness'. It's morbid tone recalls the kind of gleeful malice of children tormenting animals, but the subtext is much cooler than the delivery, offering a fascinating reversal of class roles. Especially noteworthy is the sumptuous black and white, beautifully shot by Slocombe and Dirk Bogarde's wicked performance. Deeelicious.

Too long since I saw this. May deserve a higher score.

Interesting idea for a film, and intriguing gay subtext, but I was pretty nonplussed. Maybe I'm just too American to fully appreciate this

too rigid and stiff, then too scattered and boorish, and the folly lies in thinking a happy medium can exist in a world where power is everything. soon comes the summer of love, when your little hierarchies will be upturned in bacchanalian ecstasy, and you'll lick your wounds a while before rising up in return, and on it goes. losey does not pass overt judgement on anybody because, as the restaurant scene indicates, the whole human race performs this grotesque dance in his concave mirror.

i'm with JooJoo here. i liked some of the more dynamic scenes but i dunno, my go-to servant-fucking-shit-up movie is still The Handmaid

Psychological horror from a British bachelor and his servant. Somehow it stays gripping even when it collapses into the absurd. There's a lot of innuendo here -- something I'm generally not fond of -- such that it tends to be completely obscure at times.

watched: 2013, 2022

a thought: the parasitic analysis is more bunuel and obviously bong joon-ho but the class struggle here is not that buglike but more of a nietzchean bdsm servility, the fetish to serve is arousing

The proletariat uprising against the bourgeoisie, on a small scale. There's a very Bunuellian flavor to the class warfare, sly subversive wit, slightly surreal narrative, and sensuality. It always managed to surprise me. This is all augmented by some fine cinematography, a hep jazzy score, and a very good performance from Bogarde. Complaints: enough with the mirrors. I'm bored with mirrors. There was one, maybe two, good uses of them here, the rest was just showing off.

Hoje é o centenário do grande, enorme, magnânimo Dirk Bogarde. Pois então. Quem conhece os livros do Wodehouse sobre Jeeves e Wooster vai perceber que isso aqui é uma versão thriller queer marxista da relação entre Bertie e Reginald elevada às raias da loucura. Losey não está só nessa empreitada, contou com a ajuda de dois outros gênios ao dar o tom de obra-prima: Slocombe e Pinter, Box Versátil O Cinema de Joseph Losey.

Very good.

Develops wonderfully and Bogarde's performance is poignant.

Excellent poncho discussion. Bloody spiffing!

Harold Pinter's adaptation of Robin Maugham's novella strips it down to it's barest fundamentals which really enhances the metaphorical power. It becomes a really primal depiction of a ruling class who's day has long passed subsisting solely through the efforts of those that do all the work for them. I find the third act to be a little bit weaker than the rest of the film, but it's a ferocious film enhanced by powerful performances from Fox and Bogarde and a compellingly strange visual scheme.

390

Mubi'de son gün gösteriminde yakalayarak tanıştım bu inanılmaz filmle. Oscar ödüllü Parasite filminin esin kaynağı olduğunu düşünüyorum.

Parasite in jazz era but more stunning and delicate

Visually accomplished picture from Losey. The class struggle is real, with chaos on the horizon as a result of drunken licentiousness and a general irresponsibility toward the things that matter in life. British aristocratic guilt only enhances the downfall.

Repetitive, grating, and significantly too long. Losey offers a few inspired shots and the cinematography is memorably good, but otherwise this film provided nothing of interest to me.

Riveting. I loved both of the leads.

Losey's dark, crowded compositions provide the perfect setting for the class war's Pyrrhic victory.

Though I was a bit dissapointed by this classic thriller, it still delivers some greatness when it comes to atmosphere and story progression.

#411