VICTORY (1996: Dir. Mark Peploe)
It is a crime against the viewing public when a film remains undiscovered due to the ego of a producer. Such is the case with Mark Peploe's VICTORY, a literate and sweepingly romantic adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 1915 novel. Produced by Miramax Films, it was unceremoniously buried after company president Harvey Weinstein personally deemed it unsuitable for North American audiences. Years later it became available on DVD, where its exquisitely told tale of the South Seas could at last be appreciated. In a sympathetically sensitive performance, Willem Dafoe stars as Axel Heyst, a self-imposed American exile in the Dutch East Indies whose hermit-like isolation masks an aching loneliness of purpose. In a precious moment of courage he abandons his secluded existence when he chooses to harbour Alma (Irene Jacob), a comely fugitive fleeing the white slavery of an all-girl orchestra lorded over by its grotesquely omnivorous conductor (Simon Callow). With her innocent beauty, Alma quietly lays siege to her saviour's fortified heart, but their love is soon threatened with the ex-machina arrival of two criminals, the sleazy psychopath Mr. Jones (Sam Neill), and his bestial sidekick Martin (Rufus Sewell). These greedy interlopers are seeking an apocryphal treasure hidden somewhere on Heyst's forlorn plantation, thus igniting a tinder box of emotion that will consume all the characters in a fiery finale. Previously known for his screenwriting collaborations with Bertolucci (The Last Emperor) and Antonioini (The Passenger), VICTORY was filmmaker Mark Peploe's sophomore directorial effort after the cult success of his art-house horror film Afraid of the Dark (1991). As a Kenyan-born Brit, he was often drawn to exotic locales for his screenplays, including the Sahara Desert, and China's Forbidden City. His interest in foreign environments finds full flower here, where together with Bertrand Tavernier's former cinematographer Bruno De Keyzer, and Merchant Ivory production designer Luciana Arrighi, Peploe unerringly brings to life the fetid jungles and unencumbered lifestyle of a primordial Indonesian island. Dafoe and Neill would re-unite nearly two decades later on another Antipodean island story, The Hunter (2011). Set in Tasmania, and once again featuring Dafoe as the loner protagonist, that film would enjoy a modest though satisfying success, something tragically denied Peploe, who with the failure of his ironically titled masterpiece VICTORY, has never set foot behind the camera since. DVD REGION 1
