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List Price: $24.98 | | Label: New Line Home Video
Salesrank: 29209
Released: December 9, 1999 |
| Our Price: $4.70 |
| Used Price: $4.50 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
From acclaimed director Bernardo Bertolucci (The Last Emperor Last Tango In Paris) comes a breathtaking film rich in passion desire and intrigue about a reclusive British pianist's infatuation with an African exile housemaid.Running Time: 95 min.System Requirements: Running Time 95 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 794043485923
Description of Besieged:
Two disparate worlds come together in thoroughly unexpected ways in this intriguing film directed by Academy Award winner Bernardo Bertolucci. The opening sequence, in an impoverished, unnamed African dictatorship, is painfully intense: we watch in horror as the movie's heroine, Shandurai (serenely beautiful Thandie Newton), witnesses the brutal arrest of her husband, a rebellious reformer. Then suddenly we are transported to Rome, where Shandurai is studying medicine and cleaning house for a reclusive, wealthy pianist, Mr. Kinsky (David Thewlis). Knowing nothing of her past, Kinsky falls hopelessly in love with Shandurai. She finds his clumsy courtship insulting, especially in contrast to the heavy load she's borne in her life. But it gradually becomes clear Shandurai has sorely underestimated Mr. Kinsky.
This is a film by a true master of moviemaking craft, who refuses to spell things out or bludgeon the audience with a message. The story builds almost imperceptibly, with an accumulation of details, striking visual imagery, and a haunting soundtrack, in which classical piano, African music, and silence are all used to powerful effect. A tantalizing erotic undercurrent bubbles to the surface as the narrative takes the story in directions both unpredictable and captivating. --Laura Mirsky
Besieged Reviews:
Provocative 
2009-06-28 - The question is answered in Bernardo Bertolucci's smart, adult (here meaning "mature," not "pornographic," and isn't it sad that I have to note the distinction? But anyway) 1998 film Beseiged.
Beseiged stars Thandie Newton (of Beloved and 2004's Crash) as Shandurai. She's a nurse in an unnamed African country, where her husband is a kind-hearted schoolteacher. One day as Shandurai pedals her bicycle home from the hospital where she works with children, she is passed on the road by two military trucks. In minutes, she will discover that these trucks are taking her husband away, perhaps for good. She screams and crumples to the ground in shock and outrage.
In the next scene, Shandurai wakes from a nightmare. She is in a different place. A sound has woken her- the sound, we learn, of a dumbwaiter being lowered into position. Bertolucci makes a point of showing, not telling, in this film, and the viewer must piece the story together like a puzzle. The dumbwaiter connects Shandurai to her upstairs neighbor, Mr. Kinsky (David Thewlis, who played a small role in the Coen Bros. classic The Big Lebowski, but is best known as Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter films).
What would you do if your corrupt government arrested your innocent spouse, and you weren't certain you would ever see him or her again?
We learn little about Mr. Kinsky, but we do know this: he lives in a grand old house in Rome, a house left to him by his departed (and presumably quite wealthy) aunt. He seems to do little all day except play the piano, occassionally giving lessons.
Shandurai lives in the basement, and sometimes ventures into the upper part of the house to volunteer her housecleaning services. As she cleans his part of the house, Mr. Kinsky is at first a floating presence, glimpsed out of the corner of her eye. Then, one night as Shandurai sleeps, she is again awakened by the sound of the dumbwaiter. Mr. Kinsky has sent her a single bright pink tropical bloom. She throws the flower in the trash bin, but later rescues it and puts it in water.
Shandurai has many things on her mind. She has come to Rome as a medical student, apparently on a student visa. Her application for residence is denied. She knows her husband is imprisoned back in Africa, but is powerless to help him. And now, she must deal with the affections of Mr. Kinsky. On another night, he sends her a gaudy old-fashioned gold and diamond ring.
The next morning, Shandurai confronts Mr. Kinsky. What does he want? she demands to know. Surely he knows that she cannot keep the ring. He answers that he loves her. He pursues her almost violently, catching her and repeating over and over, "Marry me."
"You're crazy," she responds.
He asks her what she wants, essentially promising her anything. "Get my husband out of jail," she shouts back. Mr. Kinsky is crushed. Yet he sets about doing just exactly that, selling off his aunt's artworks and antiques to try to buy Shandurai's husband's freedom. Shandurai finds the evidence of this- letters addressed to Mr. Kinsky, bearing the stamp of her native country's dictator- as she cleans.
Now Shandurai is torn. She longs to see her husband again, but it won't be possible without Mr. Kinsky. She feels gratitude toward Mr. Kinsky. Will she give in to his relentless pursuit of her? Will she honor her marriage vows, or allow herself to be beseiged by this stranger? The answer the film provides is provocative.
movie paced just right
2009-03-19 - This movie seemed to go very slow when I first watched it. However after five or more times I recognized the speed has the effect of thinking more about what is happening on screen. The dialogue is thin but the plot and location shootings is worth the five stars.
Steamy. 
2009-01-22 - Besieged starring Thandie Newton is an interesting forgein language film. I watched this movie for my film class in College a few years ago and I was surprised how good this little unknown film was. The directing is fantastic and so is the acting. I love the twist ending, I never saw it coming. Check this hidden gem out!
Thandie Newton is Very Good but David Thewlis is Great
2009-01-17 - This Bernardo Bertolucci film, almost by definition, was bound to have beautiful cinematography and an interesting story. Why the distributor felt the need to use an endorsement of the movie as "Erotic" by a USA Today film critic is mystifying. You will wonder if you watched the same movie. You may even wonder if he watched the movie at all or just assumed it would be erotic because Bertolucci's name is on the film.
Regardless, this is a very good movie about two people from two very different cultures with very different personalities and views of life who find common ground in very compelling circumstances. Thandie Newton, as Shandurai, shows quite a nice range as an African political exile in a role radically different from her role in "Crash." Her accent is impeccable and her carriage and manner are earthy and lush.
As a native of an unnamed African country she is in the main town while the country's new dictator's picture poster, dark glasses and military uniform, is being plastered on all of the local town's walls. She arrives at the school on the outskirts of town and must watch helplessly as her husband is arbitrarily arrested while teaching a class of children. The movie falters in its tempo after Newton's husband is arrested.
When we next see her after her husband's arrest she has made her way to Italy and it seems forever before there is a flashback explaining why she needed to flee the country. And what we see is still very little. She has made it into an medical school in Rome and subsists by being a live-in maid for an introverted English piano teacher. Her husband is remains confined in a military jail in Africa.
The introverted piano teacher is Jason Kinsky, brilliantly played by David Thewlis. In scene after scene Shandurai cleans and Kinsky plays classical music on his Steinway. He barely seems to take notice of her, except through clumsy attempts to show affection which Shandurai finds intrusive and unwelcome. Then one day Kinsky, from out of the blue, declares a mad, passionate, and irrational love for her. It is a wonderful scene since it is obvious that he has been so sheltered in the "palazzo" that he inherited from his aunt that he has no idea what love, or life for that matter, is.
When Shandurai screams at him that she is married and that if he wants love from her he should obtain her husband's freedom we are at the crux of the plot and the rest of the movie moves along smoothly and touchingly. Little by little each time she cleans the house it begins to dawn on Shandurai that there are fewer and fewer items in the once beautifully furnished house. Little by little we begin to understand what is happening.
Shandurai has no idea why beautiful carpets and statuettes are disappearing but she notices one day that Kinsky is receiving mail from the African country in which her husband is imprisoned; and that Kinsky is meeting with the local African minister at the African Catholic Church in Rome. The African music of the church choir is matchless and the music throughout, both African and classical, is one of the strongest and most enjoyable elements of the movie.
Having attended the church for reasons related to Shandurai's husband, Kinsky picks up on the difference in African music and his blend of it with the classical produces a wonderful moment. Music that Shandurai has declared as boring to Kinsky, when melded with an African rhythm, makes her involuntarily move to the music in a gorgeous scene.
Throughout the film Thewlis maintains his introverted, even embarrassed, and quirky nerdiness. All the while unknown to Shandurai he is meeting the challenge of love that she gave him in ways that Shandurai only discovers by seeing correspondence to him from Africa. Kinsky himself finds his pathway to true love through the sacrifices he makes to help Shandurai's husband.
David Thewlis's performance is an unrecognized award-winning performance if I have ever seen one. One goes from contempt for an utter out-of-touch clod at the beginning of the movie to a genuine admiration and affection for him by the end. It is a terrific performance by an actor whom I have never seen on screen before this picture.
This movie does not need USA Today's "eroticism" to be one fine viewing experience. But for the inadequate explanation of Shandurai's reason for emigrating to Rome (left on the cutting room floor?), this is a five-star movie.
Besieged DVD
2008-12-01 - The DVD titled Besieged is a great movie by a master filmmaker who turns a biblical quotation into a challenging parable. The DVD arrived in excellent condition and was in my mail box almost before I purchased it.
