Long Time Since
Remember Lindsay Crouse in House of Games? Or Greta Scacchi in The
Player? Coldly beautiful, castratingly aloof, Paulina Porizkova in Long
Time Since makes them look like a couple of surfer chicks. In ex-Bostonian
Jay Anania's second feature, the ex-supermodel plays Diane Thwaite, a woman
haunted by a violent event that occurred on New Year's Eve 24 years ago. Now a
successful artist (but a repressed, uptight one who draws botanical specimens
for scientific journals), Diane becomes increasingly distracted as sensory
fragments of that night begin to coalesce. She leaves messages on someone's
(boyfriend's? therapist's?) voicemail describing dreams full of symbols; she
ponders whether that horrific night in 1972 was merely a dream she had. But
Diane's search (including an unconvincing session with a hypnotherapist) leads
her to the brooding, solitary man (Julian Sands, less affected -- and thereby
handsomer -- than usual) whose wife and infant daughter disappeared that
night.
Anania's command of image and sound is impressive, with lilting a
cappella strains of "Auld Lang Syne" punctuating Diane's dreams and
snippets of memory. His clean, simple, often arresting mise en scéne
conjures Mapplethorpe or Derek Jarman and sometimes resembles what a bloodless,
sexless David Lynch might see. But the acting, perhaps intentionally, is
excruciatingly soulless -- which makes this film about memory one that is
memorable for the wrong reasons.
At the Harvard Film Archive this Saturday, December 12. Jay Anania and, her schedule permitting, Paulina Porizkova will be
present at the screenings.
-- Peg Aloi
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