‘My God, a whole moment of
happiness! Is that too little for the whole of man’s life?’
I’ve re-read Dostoevsky’s ‘White
Nights’ prior to watching this adaptation and even in second read it seems one of the most beautiful and
sentimental love story about two drifted souls where sweet and wishful dreams
of four nights punctured with reality’s break of dawn. The nameless dreamer of
the story is a solitary young man lives in his own world of whims and fancies.
This pensive man meets a sympathetic girl waiting for her lover night after
night at canal railing on night. What follows are nights where two lonely
hearts encounters each other and share their gloomy past to each other and
becomes almost as desirable lovers. It ends with anguish for one and bliss for
another…the romantic dreamy nights of rain, snow fall ends with break of dawn
that shatters this fine romantic dream in the climax.
Luchino Visconti’s screen adaptation
of the story is almost faithful and honest to the original one with minor changes
of cinematic translation. The expressionistic B&W camera work so beautifully captured the setting of streets, the bridge, the mist, the night lights, the rain and the snow fall, Dostoyevsky’s regular setting of St. Petersburg here recreated with fantasy and reality hand in hand like an opera by Visconti and Nino Rota’s slow evocative score pushes it
forward. Marcello Mastroianni as dreamer is as perfect and as effortlessly
natural as always. The film is brilliant one compared to poor Bollywood
adaptation ‘Saawariya’ made by Sanjay Leela Bhanshali; and I wonder whether
he’s inspired from this film or the original story because it seems that he’s
inspired from the first but credited the story in his version.
Visconti’s adaptation keeps the
spirit of the story alive but still there’s no alternative to the original
story as the philosophical underpinnings of the dreamer is missing in this
screen version.
Ratings-7.5/10
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