Maria’s Lovers

Maria’s Lovers is a weird jumble of a movie, with odds and ends sticking out every which way. Some of it is interesting, some of it is terrible, and all of it is great to look at.

I assume it’s great to look at because of the stunning pictorial eye of Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky, whose main claim to fame is the Russian epic, Siberiade. This is Konchalovsky’s first American effort and he and his cinematographer, Juan Ruiz Anchia, capture sharp landscapes and dark, moody interiors. Visually, the film is always attention-getting.

However, once you get past the surface, there are problems. Like the story, for instance, which leans so heavily on symbolism that it never establishes an independent life of its own. It’s a movie full of ideas that don’t quite take flight.

It begins with clips from John Huston’s World War II documentary, Let There Be Light, in which psychologically disturbed Army veterans are interviewed. Spliced in is a clip of the protagonist of Maria’s Lovers, Ivan (John Savage). The next thing we see is his return to his small home town where he greets his father (Robert Mitchum), a good-time gal (Anita Morris) and his childhood sweetheart (Nastassja Kinski), who has taken up with an officer (Vincent Spano).

Savage survived a horrible prisoner-of-war ordeal by concentrating his thoughts on Kinski and fantasizing about her. When he wins her back, however, he discovers a funny thing: He cannot respond sexually to her. Their relationship starts to collapse, just as a traveling minstrel (Keith Carradine, playing a guy named Clarence Butts, “no ifs, ands, ors”) arrives on the scene to declare his love – or at least his lust – for Kinski.

Much of the action revolves around the various beds in the film, and there’s a good bit of angst-ridden heavy breathing. And, for people who like their symbolism bald, there’s this chair on top of a hill that’s supposed to represent the innocent love of Kinski and Savage. There’s also a meaningful rat that scurries through Savage’s dreams. (This actor was tormented by rats in The Deer Hunter, too.)

However, once he eats the rat, he’s cured. I think.

That’s pretty strange. Stranger still is the way the movie picks up and leaves off its characters. Robert Mitchum seems on his way to giving a very intriguing performance when he basically disappears from the movie. And there are some characters who enter near the end of the film, played by good people such as Bud Cort and Tracy Nelson, whose purpose is enigmatic.

So, a lot of Maria’s Lovers comes off as stilted. But even at its worst, it’s often perversely fascinating to watch. The culture mix that gives the film its patchwork personality is the same mix that provides its interest. But that kind of sympathy for the film probably will be felt by a minority of viewers.

First published in The Herald, February 27, 1985

That last sentence – it is a sentence, isn’t it? – is a puzzle I can’t excuse. I don’t remember much about the film, but I recall reading that Konchalovsky had to show John Savage how to express the proper amount of ardor in a scene with Nastassja Kinski. The cast also includes John Goodman and Karen Young. Konchalovsky must have had an interesting life – brother of Nikita Mikhalkov, classmate and collaborator to Tarkovsky, director of Runaway Train and (oh yeah) Tango & Cash, married five times. He’s still working. This movie was produced by Cannon Films.