(Ein Engel an meiner Tafel [de])
New Zealand / Australia / UK 1990
d: Jane Campion
Artificial Eye Film Company (Region 0 uk)
sc: Laura Jones (from the autobiographies "To the Is-Land", "An Angel at My Table" and "The Envoy from Mirror City" by Janet Frame)
c: Stuart Dryburgh (16mm, Color)
e: Veronika Jenet
pd: Grant Major
m: Don McGlashan; Non-Original Music: Franz Schubert, Pjotr I. Cajkovsij
p: Bridget Ikin (Australian Broadcasting Corporation / Hibiscus Films / New Zealand Film Commission / Television New Zealand)
w: Kerry Fox, Alexia Keogh, Karen Fergusson, Iris Churn, Jessie Mune, Kevin J. Wilson, Francesca Collins, Melina Bernecker, Mark Morrison, Katherine Murray-Cowper, Mark Thomson, Brenda Kendall, Paul Moffat, Blair Hutchison, David McAuslan
pr: 20 Sep 1990
aw: Independent Spirit Awards 1992 Best Foreign Film • New Zealand Film and TV Awards 1990 Best Cinematography; Best Director; Best Film; Best Performance in a Supporting Role Martyn Sanderson; Best Performance, Female Kerry Fox; Best Screenplay Laura Jones • Toronto International Film Festival 1990 International Critics' Award (FIPRESCI) • Valladolid International Film Festival 1990 Won Best Actress Kerry Fox • Venice Film Festival 1990 Grand Special Jury Prize; OCIC Award
rt: 151:15 (+4%PAL= 158) min
dvd-rl: 18 Nov 2002
ar: 1.66:1 (16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen)
sd: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
st: --
supp: • Theatrical Trailer (1:40 min)
• Making of documentary (10:23 min)
• 6 deleted scenes that were in the original mini-series
• Biographies
• Photo and poster gallery
Though adapted for television from three volumes of autobiography by New Zealand writer Janet Frame, Campion's film is both wholly cinematic and true to her own preoccupations. Her subject is the privations and anxieties of childhood and adolescence, the weird absurdity of ordinary life, and the disconcertingly thin line between normality and madness, all depicted with an unsentimental honesty that veers abruptly (but never jarringly) between naturalism and surrealism, comedy and tragedy. As the introverted Frame - a plain, bubble-haired redhead born into a poor, close-knit family in 1924 - progresses through school, college and erroneously diagnosed schizophrenia towards final liberation as a respected writer, Campion deploys a wealth of economically observed details to explore her heroine's passionate, deceptively placid perceptions of the world. There are none of the usual artist-biopic clichés here. Frame, as embodied by three uncannily-matched actresses, is bright but intensely, awkwardly passive, and inhabits a chaotic, arbitrary universe. Watching her hard, slow struggle for self-respect, happiness and peace becomes a profoundly moving, strangely affirmative experience.
— GA, Time Out Film Guide
