Eugene weekly., March 23, 2017, Image 20

MOVIES
B Y M O L LY T E M P L E T O N
LOVE AND EMPIRE
Forbidden romance and imperial intrigue
collide in Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom
T
here shouldn’t be anything more enjoyable than
watching David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike
making their way through a biopic deftly directed
by Amma Asante (Belle). Oyelowo has played
compelling leaders before, with his should-have-
been-Oscar-nominated performance as Martin Luther King
Jr. in Selma; Pike’s last role was an unexpected breakout,
after a decade of work, as the scheming Amy Dunne in
Gone Girl.
Pike’s role here is nothing like Amy, and it’s some-
what strange to watch her be so contained, her face set in a
VISUAL ARTS
constant expression of surprise. She plays Ruth Williams,
who in 1947 London falls in love with Oyelowo’s Seretse
Khama, a law student with a nearly preternatural sense of
calm about him. (Pike almost seems to flutter around him,
and she is no flutterer.)
Their relationship suffers some sadly unsurprising
bumps — racist yobs in the street, her father’s disapproval
— but the real challenge is something else: Seretse is the
prince of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), and international
forces would prefer the two stay apart.
When we first meet Seretse, he’s talking about the impe-
rialist mind, which is key to the film. It’s a romance, sure,
but Asante and screenwriter Guy Hibbert rush through
the courtship and marriage, eager to get to the meat of the
story: Seretse’s conflict with his regent uncle and gradual
understanding of what his marriage means on the interna-
tional stage.
If Hibbert skimps a bit on character, he does a solid job
setting out the players (which include Tom Felton, look-
ing like a lost Indiana Jones villain) and unspooling the
intrigue that leads, inevitably, back to British interests. Ser-
etse’s uncle disapproves of his marriage, but so does the
British government — and their reach is vast.
Asante’s film is a study in contrasts: grey, rainy London
and sunny Bechuanaland; Seretse’s meetings with prim of-
ficials in the UK and the large gathering of his people back
home; the genuine hurt and anger of his sister and the fussy
disapproval of the British officials’ wives.
Ruth, pale and sheltered, has no idea what she’s getting
into; Seretse has some, but underestimates the British need
for control (and the power of neighboring South Africa).
Reminders of colonialism are constant: You can’t look at
what the people of Bechuanaland are wearing and not see
a British hand.
A United Kingdom rests lightly on its stars’ shoulders.
Oyelowo in particular is utterly at ease, a man born to lead-
ing roles. The film makes nothing of the fact that its prin-
cipals are notably older than the people they were playing
(Seretse was around 27 when he met Ruth; Oyelowo is 40),
and it’s a genuine treat to see a romance bloom on screen
between two people long out of their 20s.
Still, despite all the pieces being in place, the film never
quite achieves liftoff, instead staying a steady, earthbound
reminder of how people — even royalty — live under the
boot of empire. (Bijou Art Cinemas)
BY ESTER BARKAI
A LARGER WORLD
A change of art at the White Lotus Gallery: Japanese hanging scrolls
T
he White Lotus Gallery has put up a new
show, replacing an exhibit of contempo-
rary art with Japanese paintings from the
19th and 20th centuries. The beautiful
paintings will be up until April 1, and then
they will come down, about 20 works altogether,
and another group of artworks will replace them.
Switching artworks on the walls is expected in
galleries but not so much in private homes. The
only person I’ve known who changed art on the
walls at home was an art collector. He routinely
switched his art so that he could enjoy it all.
Everyone else I know, though, has just the amount
of artwork that corresponds to their wall space.
Hue-Ping Lin, owner of the White Lotus, says
the idea of changing what we have on the wall is
foreign to Western culture. That was certainly true
in the house in which I was raised. Once a framed
picture went up on the wall, it stayed there.
That is not the case in traditional Japanese
culture. Hanging scrolls, or kakejiku, such as
those currently on view at the White Lotus, are
designed to be easily rolled up for storage. They
are made to be displayed temporarily depending
on the season, special occasion or, in some cases,
even the month.
A painting on one of the scrolls by Nakamura
Fusetsu (1866-1943) features a set of mountains
in the background. In the foreground are trees
and rocks and a house by the water. Closest to the
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March 23, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
viewer, but relatively small in size, is a person on
a boat. On the upper left of the scroll this phrase
is written in Japanese: The Pleasure of Fishing in
the Spring. The painting, meant to be displayed in
spring, has the immediate feel of a drawing. The
brush strokes are bold and inspired by Chinese
calligraphy. The marks have a “newness,” is the
way gallery manager Claudia Ponton described it
when she showed me the scroll at the gallery.
Fusetsu was a multifaceted artist: a calligrapher,
painter, book designer and illustrator. He studied
calligraphy in China and Western-style painting
in Paris. To celebrate 150th anniversary of his
birth last year, the Nakamuraya Salon Museum of
Art held a solo exhibit of his work.
Another scroll, signed Shugetsu, has its
human subject practically filling the page. She
is central to the composition with the landscape
entirely in the background. The gallery doesn’t
know much about the artist, but the subject and
style reference Ukiyo-e, a genre associated with
woodblock prints and with beautiful women as
subjects. Shapes are outlined precisely, filled in
and built up with value and color.
The paintings on scrolls at White Lotus Gallery
are by different artists and done in different styles,
but the intention for their use reminds us that
arranging things differently at home can energize
and renew, keeping us aware that there’s a larger
world out there that’s always changing.