Bright Star/directed Jane Campion

With a magnified needle piercing a piece of muslin.  we are instantly drawn into this sensuous movie.  I remember Campion's ability to startle all of my senses in The Piano, and with sudden twists of plot.  Here she is telling a story of love experienced by a great poet, John Keats.

I loved the clothes, the little girl with the cloud of red hair who played Fanny's little sister named Toots, the actor who played Browne, a perfect dog in the manger, the cat, the flowers, the butterflies, the way we get a taste of daily life in the early nineteenth century through the deliberate pacing of scenes, and finally I love the way the film sends you home to read Keats (or the letters of Fanny Brawne which prove that the film is very well sourced).