Carrington

Photo from Wiki's
Carrington

Carrington first appeared to me in the writings by and about D. H. Lawrence. She was a friend and fellow artist of Dorothy Brett, the painter who followed the Lawrences to New Mexico. She was also one of the people who fell into the orbit of Garsington and Lady Ottoline Morrell, the Hermine of Women In Love.

There she met Lytton Strachey, the love of her life. The film Carrington lovingly details their Bloomsbury-like relationship, including a menage-a-trois with handsome R. Partridge as well as numerous homosexual couplings. The sex is always secondary to the psychic bond, the kind of spiritual relationship that Lawrence was always mocking, but also always having.

The film portrays the wit, the talent, and the energy that ignited them both, from Lytton Strachy's absurd dancing to Carrington's pure adoration and her final determination to die when he did. The secondary loves all come to life as well, fully and beautifully realized. No one is left two dimensional, even the jealous and obsessed artist and early lover of Carrington, Mark Gertler.

Emma Thompson inhabits Carrington. I wish the film were 4 hours longer, giving us her interaction with Virginia Wolf, and David Garnett and Duncan Grant. Hell, whoever made this film should have done a 13-part study of the whole damn Bloomsbury group. Someone really must, someday.

'Til then, here's a taste:




Jameson