Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, interpretive duel in 'Diary of a scandal'.
A Cate Blanchett, which we will soon see together Alec Baldwin in 'Blue Jasmine', the latest from Woody Allen; We find her against the ropes in 'Diario de un escándalo', the film in our 'Cinema and education' cycle that we are discussing today, in which we find Judi Dench on the other side of the interpretive duel, thus forming a duo of women caught up in a drama of need and betrayal at the center of this psychological mystery.
'Diary of a Scandal' was directed by Richard Eyre in 2006 and its cast was headed by: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Bill Nighy, Andrew Simpson, Tom Georgeson, Michael Maloney, and Joanna Scanlan, among others. The script ran from Patrick Marber's account.
The twists and turns of the story are recorded in the bitter diary of Barbara, a despotic and lonely teacher who rules her classroom with an iron fist in a public secondary school located in London and that falls apart. With the exception of her cat, Portia, Barbara lives alone, without friends or confidants - but her world changes when she meets the school's new art teacher, Sheba Hart.
Sheba seems to be the soul mate and loyal friend that Barbara has always been looking for. But when you discover that Sheba has a torrid relationship with one of her young students, their nascent relationship takes an ominous turn. Then, when Barbara threatens to reveal Sheba's terrible secret to Sheba's husband and the entire world, Barbara's own secrets and sinister obsessions come to the fore with a bang, exposing the deceptions that lie at the core of Sheba's lives. women.
I have to admit that this film impacted me a lot, and in addition to its theme, the interpretive mastery shown by both Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, both superb (They were also nominated for an Oscar for their role). In the film we meet first of all two very human teachers. We discovered in 'Diary of a scandal', as in “Half nelson"(Of which we spoke recently) to teachers who are not the typical heroes to which we are accustomed to the genre of films of the role" teacher helps student. "Thus, we find two teachers, very human, whose loneliness suffocates them , and that they do not hesitate to seek "affection" or what they understand by affection, where necessary.
The affair that Blanchett stars in is the starting point for a web of problems, for her and for the student, and makes us pose a moral judgment about whether everything is as reprehensible as it might seem a priori. And what do you think?
