Might have worked better with a different denouement

JamesHitchcock

Anna Leonowens is best-known today as the character played by Deborah Kerr in "The King and I", but she was a real person, not a fictional one, and her story was also told in the film "Anna and the King of Siam" from 1946 (which I have never seen). "Anna and the King" is Hollywood's second non-musical version of her story.

Anna was a widowed British schoolteacher who travelled to Siam, as Thailand was then known, to become tutor to the many children and wives of King Mongkut. In reality she seems to have had little contact with the King himself, but her diaries suggested otherwise, and Westerners have long been fascinated by the supposed friendship which grew up between them. Some of the elements of this film will be recognisable to anyone familiar with "The King and I". Both films mention Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and feature a doomed romance between Lady Tuptim, one of the King's concubines, and a commoner. There are, of course, lots of outrageously cute children running about everywhere. The fictitious subplot in which Anna helps the King foil a military coup by a treacherous general, however, appears to be an invention by the scriptwriters for this film.

Like "The King and I" the film was banned in Thailand on account of its allegedly disrespectful portrayal of King Mongkut; it would appear that the country's lèse-majesté laws protect not only the current monarch but also his predecessors. This rather heavy-handed censorship seems strange in a country which claims (or did until the recent military coup) to be a democracy; imagine the storm of protest which would have been unleashed had the British government, for example, attempted to censor "Mrs Brown" because of the way it depicted Queen Victoria. The film could not, of course, be shot in Thailand itself, and filming took place in Malaysia. The casting of Chow Yun-fat rather than a European like Yul Brynner as Mongkut seems to have been an attempt by the film-makers to placate local concerns, but does not seem to have succeeded in this aim. Racial sensitivities in the Far East are not always the same as Western ones- the casting of three Chinese actresses as Japanese characters in "Memoirs of a Geisha" gave rise to protests in both China and Japan- and to Thais the casting of a Chinese actor as one of their country's most revered monarchs may have seemed just as insensitive as the casting of a Westerner.

Chow's interpretation of the role is rather different from Brynner's- more sensitive and less autocratic and self-assured. One thing which may have offended the Thais is the depiction of the relationship between Anna and the King. With Kerr and Brynner, it was clear that their relationship was based upon friendship and mutual respect, but the question of whether they had actually fallen in love was left discreetly unanswered. With Chow and Jodie Foster it is all too clear that they are in love, if not lovers in the sexual sense, and the historical accuracy of this is (to say the least) doubtful.

The emphasis of the story has shifted somewhat since the days of "The King and I". That film was made in the mid-fifties, a period when many regions of the globe were still under European colonial rule, something subtly reflected in the script. The Siam ruled by King Yul was a charmingly backward country which needed to be dragged kicking and screaming into the nineteenth century, a task which would have been undertaken by the colonial powers had its own ruler not resolved to do it himself. Here Anna arrives in Siam inwardly convinced of the superiority of Western culture and that her role will be to play a part in the enlightenment of a barbarian nation. As the story progresses, however, she realises that the real situation is far more complex and that the West has as much to learn from the East as vice versa. The teacher is taught.

The film is visually attractive and beautifully photographed, and features an excellent performance from Foster, possibly the most accomplished Hollywood actress of the nineties. She also copes well with her character's British accent, something which cannot be said of all American actors called upon to play British characters. (Foster's gift for accents is one of a number of characteristics she shares with Meryl Streep, possibly the most accomplished Hollywood actress of the eighties). The film does, however, suffer at times from a lack of plausibility, particularly in the subplot involving the rebel general, something inserted to turn it into a standard thriller with an identifiable villain. Were Siamese soldiers of this period really so badly trained that they would have mistaken the sound of fireworks for that of gunfire? "Anna and the King" makes for enjoyable viewing, but it might have worked better with a different denouement. 7/10

Some goofs. The story takes place during the early 1860s when King Mongkut would have been in his sixties, far older than the character played by Chow Yun-Fat. Reference is made to the "King of France", even though at this period France was ruled by Emperor Napoleon III. Admittedly, the distinction might have seemed academic to the Siamese, but no French diplomat would have committed the solecism of referring to his monarch as "le Roi" rather than "l'Empereur". And the royal children sing the song "Daisy, Daisy", which was not written until the 1890s, possibly as a satirical comment on Daisy Countess of Warwick, mistress of the Prince of Wales.

score 7/10

JamesHitchcock 30 May 2014

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3025450/