The movie Ask the Dust is a film noir, adapted from a John Fonte novel and directed by Robert Towne. Although the original story rests on a love triangle, the movie is made as a falling-in-love story of two people with subplots of prejudice, racism, poverty, and struggle to survive.
Set during the 1930's Los Angeles, the movie begins with the writer Arturo Bandini (Colin Farrell) arriving at Los Angeles with the hope of overcoming his writer's block. There, he meets a spirited and headstrong waitress Camila (Salma Hayek) of Mexican origin. The entire movie depicts Bandini as an angry, bad-tempered young man. Even so, Bandini shows his soft side when he bonds with the disfigured and insecure Vera Rivkin (Idina Menzel).
Colin Farrell's craft in creating Bandini is highly laudable; however, Salma Hayek steals the entire movie with her energetic acting. Also, the supporting actors and actresses in the movie seem to be comfortable in their roles, and Donald Sutherland plays Bandini's old quirky neighbor exceptionally well.
Ask the Dust--the novel--is half autobiographical; its writer John Fonte was a young struggling writer in Los Angeles during the depression era. The movie was shot in Cape Town, South Africa, since that town was deemed highly reminiscent of the thirties' Los Angeles. To portray the times properly, the cinematographer Caleb Deschanel used muted colors, which added to the mood of the story.
The movie runs in color and wide screen for one hour forty-five minutes with soundtracks of English Dolby Digital 5.1 and English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo surround. It is rated R for some sexuality, nudity and foul language, in the category of drama. At the end of the movie are commentaries by the director and the cinematographer with a fourteen-minute segment on the making of the film.
Robert B. Towne is an Oscar winning screenwriter and director. Among his successes are : Chinatown, The Two Jakes, Shampoo and The Last Detail. He has also contributed to Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan. Besides an Oscar for the best screenplay in 1975, he won other Oscar nominations, and he also has BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Edgar awards.
The full cast for Ask the Dust consists of: Eileen Atkins, Dion Basco, Jeremy Crutchley, Colin Farrell, Ronald France, Wayne Harrison, Salma Hayek, Justin Kirk, Idina Menzel, and Donald Sutherland.
Maybe because I had read the novel before, I felt the movie lacked in comparison to it. The movie did not, could not address the inner life of Bandini; therefore, the central idea of the story was damaged. Then, the movie concentrated on the two lovers' manipulation of each other with each wanting his or her way, and the falling in love scenes between them were marred with ridiculous verbal insults. Also, most scenes lacked smooth passages between them.
Even so, the movie is worth seeing, if not for anything but for its preservation of the prejudices of the thirties.
Joy Cagil is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers Her portfolio can be found at http://www.Writing.Com/authors/joycag
