Ennui in June
 Forget April: In Seattle, June is often the cruelest month. While everyone else in the country is enjoying their first taste of spring and summer, June here is often foul and overcast, teasing us with the occasional glimpse of sun and wasting the long hours of daylight behind layers of gray. Not this year, though. So far, it’s been a five-star month, with clear skies, warm temperatures and no humidity. It’s so preternaturally beautiful that it makes getting down to business nearly impossible, and makes daily contemplation of the ugly matters of war and politics stilted and artificial. So, until I reconnect with my passion for the Big Issues, it will probably be fairly light going around here.
Over the last couple of nights, I’ve been re-watching one of my favorite movies, Henry and June (1990, dir: Philip Kauffman), an arty film about the love triangle between the writer Henry Miller (brilliantly played by Fred Ward), his wife June (Uma Thurman, pictured), and diarist Anais Nin (Maria de Medeiros) set in 1930s Paris. On first viewing, many people find it overlong, full of opaque scenes, dreamy dialogue and characters who come and go without much sense or reason (look for a young Kevin Spacey in one of these atmospheric but basically pointless roles). More than a few folks skip ahead to the steamy sex scenes, which are tastefully shot and quite erotic – especially, it seems, to women. Boys take note: this is a good “date” movie if you can sit through it all.
Beneath its surface flaws, however, it’s an exceptionally deep and well-observed meditation on the nature of love and lust. Young Anais, married to conventional husband Hugo (Richard E. Grant), is drawn to the earthy masculinity of Miller and entranced by his beguiling wife June. Miller is torn between the canny, experienced yet somehow innocent June and the apparently-innocent but in fact cruelly sophisticated Anais. June is the muse and inspiration to both her husband and his lover, but resists the passivity that this role imposes. She manipulates everyone with an irresistible, over-the-top sensuality because it’s the only means at her disposal to survive in a shark-tank of egotistical artists determined to impose their vision on her.
The key relationship in the film, however, is between Anais and Hugo. Hugo is set up as a stiff: a young earnest banker who occasionally plays at being the creative type, and usually comes across as a laughable dilettante. But at heart, he’s kind, likeable and unquestioningly supportive of his young wife’s insatiable quest for experience, even in the arms of other men. Anais craves the excitement of lust and desire: she can’t live without it. But at the same time, she truly loves Hugo and the stability he represents. One gets the impression that she couldn’t live without that, either. Hugo, beneath his plain surface, understands the complexity of love in a much deeper way than the sensualists, and somehow has the inner calm to transcend society’s (and perhaps his own) expectations of a married relationship to express his unique love for a person with unique needs.
It’s an interesting reversal. Henry Miller and Anais Nin are both cultish literary figures, invested ex officio with audience sympathy by dint of their notoriety and the quality of their work. Both benefit from charismatic and complex performances (though some people find De Madeiros’s accent annoying) and plenty of screen time, and the film is based on Nin’s own writings. Yet in the end, both come across as shallow and unsavory. Miller, beneath his bonhomie, is a loudmouth parasite driven by sexual insecurity. Nin’s behavior reveals that she is no ingénue, but someone who has no problem lying, manipulating, and inflicting shocking cruelty when she chooses. Neither is good enough for June, and Anais is only redeemed through the unearned grace of her Zen-calm husband.
Miller and Nin both had long and fruitful careers as writers, working out their issues on the printed page and acting as the agents of sexual liberation for several generations of young bohemians. In a film like Henry and June, it would have been easy to make a name-dropping period piece pandering to the prejudices of that crowd and endorsing the facile “if it feels good, do it” ethic embraced by many of Miller and Nin’s fans. Indeed, that’s how the film comes across on first viewing. But beneath the surface, director Philip Kaufman offers a rich and satisfying look at the complexities and consequences of sexual exploration – one that shows how the full expression of human love requires a balance between the turbulent desire of the ego and the selfless quality of sacrifice and support.
8:48:41 AM 
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