Referring to someone as “the worst” is a pretty strong indictment. That’s the phrase Arthur Conan Doyle used to describe Charles Augustus Howell, an actual 19th century art dealer and blackmailer, whom he dubbed the worst man in London. It also serves as the title of Rodrigo Areias’ new film, which competed in IFFR’s Big Screen Competition and tells us more about this individual.
The Worst Man in London is set in Victorian-era London, showing us the Pre-Raphaelite environment where Howell moves among figures such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lizzie Siddal or John Ruskin, among others. Through the different gatherings that take place in spaces of luxury and nocturnal decadence but never too far from blackmails or tricks, Areias presents us with a balanced blend of light and darkness revolving around revealed or unrevealed information; truthful or untruthful conversations; deals made within the art “game”.
Howell is presented here mainly as a middle man an alleged pawn moving through different parts of the game’s “board”: artists vs. collectors. Thus we get to see every deal, talk or twist happening throughout this movie. But those intentions of personal gain for Howell and others both clear and unclear begin to emerge while so much more has already been set into motion: was this actually the worst man?
Howell is portrayed here as a prism with many faces. “What a bunch of vampires”, Dante whispers to his wife Lizzie Sidall in one of their first scenes together it’s actually quite an accurate description for all dynamics at play here. The director doesn’t shy away from depicting Howell (whose some misdeeds are shown on screen) as real-life villain he was playing wicked games but also somebody who reflects upon his environment: bad sides sometimes good ones always talks maybe arts too (in nutshell?). Besides great performance by Albano Jerónimo there are some really well-crafted costume elements worn by this character, which draw us naturally towards him.
In terms of narrative structure, the story usually follows Howell’s journey. Nevertheless, there were some attempts made to steer away from it and shed more light on lives of other historical figures one them being Lizzie Sidall (played by Victória Guerra). In a period film that overall worked quite effectively for me personally as viewer, I find it fittingly with Sidall an artist whose life ended tragically we get treated to happiest moment within feature. Art meets body meets cinema, real-life painted immortalized Ophelia meets in very transparent truthful cinematic way. But beyond this scene her essence naturally exudes throughout thanks poetic performance delivered Guerra.
Despite having a cinematic space for Sidall and other characters, the combination of these elements and stories sometimes left some threads untied. In this portrait that can be too detailed in parts, some areas are overdone with paint while others are left dry. But even just skating across this surface, with knots to be unwound and gaps to fill in, one can still get a sense of what the art world used to be and perhaps still is.
The Worst Man in London is a Portugal’s Leopardo Filmes production in association with APM Produções, Alfama Films Production and Viva Devagar. Its international sales are handled by Alfama Films as well.
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