(1993) Written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontė's 19th-century classic Jane Eyre, Jean Rys's popular novel of a doomed love affair begins in 1844 with Antoinette Cosway (Karina Lombard) narrating her childhood following the emancipation of the slaves in Jamaica, resulting in the ruin of her father's plantation and his life (drinking himself to death).

Only Christophene (Claudia Robinson), Antoinette's nurse, feared by others for her obeah, stayed on with the family at Colibri. After the Creole girl's mother, Annette Cosway (Rachel Ward), married a wealthy Englishman, Paul Mason (Michael York), who mistakenly made known his intention to replace the blacks with coolies, the old hatred the former slaves felt toward the "white cockroaches" ignited, setting the mansion aflame. In the blaze Antoinette's younger brother Pierre died; her mother went mad with grief, and her stepfather departed for England, never to return to them.

The exotic natural scenery is photographed sensuously in director John Duigan's sensual interpretation (with better casting than in the later BBC production, including Naomi Watts in a minor role as Fanny Grey) via Jan Sharp and Carole Angier's erotic screenplay. More dialogue in the second half with less attention to gratuitous sex might have provided better explication for the dissolution of the marriage.

In his will, Paul Mason leaves his properties to Antoinette under the condition that she marry a man she has never seen. As the second son of his father, exempted from inheritance of the family estate and title, Edward Rochester (Nathaniel Parker), taking over narrative duties, arrives after an arduous passage through the Sargasso Sea (aka "sailors' graveyard") to win Antoinette's approval ("You don't know anything about me"), having her stepbrother Richard Mason's recommendation. She has little choice, for while English law has freed slaves, women remain in bondage.

With the marriage, in addition to Antoinette, Edward receives £30,000 and "property at the edge of the world." On an island of secrets and pirate treasure where the sultry air is full of insects and the fragrance of tropical flowers, an Englishman unused to the climate can fall under a feverish spell.

She takes him up to her "honeymoon house," where she grew up during the summers away from the plantation. Here in her beloved residence Edward makes acquaintance with the black servants, including the acerbic Christophene and beautiful Amelie (Rowena King).

At first the couple revels in physical enjoyment of their flesh, though Antoinette is haunted by a fear (recalling the memory of her insane mother) of losing the dream granted her: "I'm not used to happiness."

Forebodingly a letter reaches Edward from Daniel Cosway, a black man, claiming he's Edward's wife's stepbrother through a different mother, sowing the seeds of destruction in Edward's thoughts of Antoinette's crazed mother locked away, her brother born an imbecile, and the likelihood of dementia descending upon Antoinette as well: "She will look you in the eye and tell you lies."

Though Edward disregards Daniel's attempt of blackmail - promising to keep his mouth shut for £500: "You're not the first to kiss her pretty face" - the news greatly upsets him, transforming his previously good character toward Antoinette. He suffers nightmares of being tangled underwater in seaweed and questions her about her mother's death, suspicious over her telling him that her mother died in the fire.

Edward goes into town alone without informing Antoinette to see Richard and socialize with other English persons. The couple cease to clearly communicate with each other. Bad blood brews between Antoinette and her young servant Amelie, of whom she says to Edward: "She's older than the devil and more cruel."

After Christophene departs the honeymoon house, feeling disquiet from Edward's animosity, she advises Antoinette (visiting her without telling Edward) to leave him; instead, Antoinette asks her to use her magic to bring Edward back to her. Taking Christophene's counsel to tell Edward honestly the circumstances of her mother's forced imprisonment (not so much mad as lonely) - to which he lashes out at her: "You lied!" - Antoinette unwittingly poisons her relationship with Edward.

Still under the influence of the potion in the morning that he drank the previous night, he ravishes Amelie outside the bedroom while Antoinette listens. Before he removes her to England, Edward makes attempts at recapturing the romance of their first days together, but she repulses his advances as efforts to further dominate and domesticate her feral feminine spirit: "Before I die I'll show you how much I hate you."

To Christophene Edward makes the unfortunate, regretful self-condemnation that he'd give his eyes never to have seen this abominable place.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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