Hey folks, Harry here with a look at Harvey Keitel's latest... DREAMING OF JULIA by first time director Juan Gerard. From the sound of the film, it seems to be a real showcase for Keitel. Now this was a rough assembly print... meaning that the film will probably be ready for something like SUNDANCE or one of the other festivals, if Artisan decides to head in that direction with the film. And certainly it sounds like the sort of film that the Festival circuit would love and embrace. Here's your first look at how it has turned out so far.... SOUNDS VERY VERY GOOD...
I was working at Runway's when I managed to catch a screening of a rough assembly of a new movie with Harvey Keitel. Although it is set in Cuba during the Castro revolution in the fifties, it's not an action flic! It co-stars the blonde from HIGH FIDELITY and MIFUNE. Harvey plays a very convincing powerful cubano in a small town in Cuba, and she plays an American woman living in the town who befriends Harvey's grandson. It's sort of remembrance by the little kid as a grown man, like a John Ford's HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY.
This is Harvey's best performance since the double header of THE PIANO and THE BAD LIEUTENANT. Don't be surprised if it brings an Oscar nomination to Keitel, although everyone in the cast was super, in particular the actress who plays Harvey's wife, a mexican actress by the name of Diana Bracho.
The film has only those two names, since the rest of the cast is all Latino, mostly from Cuba and Mexico, therefore total unknowns in the US. I recognized the young actor from LOVE IS A BITCH! who is in a terrific chase sequence.
I know the music is been composed in Cuba by a guy named Edesio Alejandro (and one of his songs that I heard in the cut was superb!).
The film is in English, and although the cut I saw ran about 2 1/2 hours, it grabbed you from beginning to end.
It's supposed to come out next year, and is an Artisan release in the states. I get that after the success of BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB, they were looking for a similar Cuban-theme movie. It has also something to do with an old Doris Day film from the fifties, entitled JULIE. The film is DREAMING OF JULIA, and there were no credits on the film, although I heard the writer-directors are latinos and first timers.
FLOYD THURSBY
