Better In Your Head?--THE GIRL IN A SWING

 

Spoiler Alert: wollen und brauchen sind gleich.

THE BOOK-Written by Richard Adams, released 1980

THE MOVIE-Directed & written by Gordon Hessler, released 1988

THE STORY-Käthe Geutner is a beauty beyond refusal. An accidental angel, a simple complication. A minute in her presence'll do most men in, and ceramics dealer Alan Desland is no outlier. The prim mummy's boy is transformed from virtual aromantic to loverboy nonpareil in less time than it takes for Philadelphia sports fans to turn on their teams. The ecstasy turns eerie, as the couple are visited in short order by sinister, secret-hoarding spooks intent on assailing their senses. The phrase "You break it, you bought it" has never held such portent.

MIND THE GAP-The gap between novel and film here belongs on the I-81 sign in Hagerstown. A fluid troubadour weary of the merry tune, blowing smoke into haze on one end. A sweat-spotted, pimple-dotted, in any game of tag they are not it warbler on another end. 

Rupert Frazier tries hard as Alan, and that's the start of the problem. Alan in the book is smart and sympathetic, a decent man bewitched by forces beyond his ken. Alan in the film is a wimp, any positive or negative features suffocated underneath a mound of nervous ambivalence. Meg Tilly is sexy, sure, mesmerizing in bursts, mysterious for the hell of it, und ihr akzent ist glanzlos. There are actors in the cast as well. All hail the employed!

On the list of things that draw me to a work of fiction like beagle to bunny, "spiritual meanderings" run a close second to "father-daughter relationships."

How to explain the unknown to those whose lives depend on ignoring the unknown? How fragile and precious we are. Finite beings hould eschew religion, prescriptive ruination of all. Instead, love and be loved. Relevance absent is reverence present.

Thanks to a libel suit, "Käthe Geutner" became "Karin Foster," and later, "Karin Wasserman," in subsequent pressings of the novel. Guess who inherited a first edition copy and sold it for five bucks at a yard sale?

BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-Wirklich?

"Her tale was heard yet it was not told." That sentence from the book alone demolishes the best scene in the movie. Whatever, you know, that is.

Okay, I watched the film on a rainy day, in a too-small room, recovering from the worst asthma attack I've endured in over two years. Had I watched it right after recovering from a manuscript request, I'd be no less unforgiving of its flaws.

A worthy adaptation of The Girl In A Swing must be extraordinarily pretentious. Establishing shots must be plentiful and ponderous. The line readings, overwrought and onerous. Enough strings in the soundtrack to circle Jupiter twice. Gratuitous boob shots and brief glimpses of pasty dude butt. Christ, I wish The Girl In A Swing was pretentious! I wish a French-German auteur got their mischievous feelers on Adams's grim gem. Those "unfilmable" moments? Film them! Fifty takes each! Need more transitions? Film more fucking! Gordon Hessler is British, however, and thus ill-suited for the tawdry task. 

The book is written in first-person, and Alan's perspective is sorely missed. He's a self-absorbed but sensitive sort, intelligent and instinctive, more intriguing than he thinks, and more resonant than he knows. His is a stark and sticky story, and is enjoyable only on the page.