Topsy Turvidom

On Tuesday, after nearly a decade out of print, "Topsy Turvy" got the Criterion treatment, with the noted Collection releasing a superlative two-disc issue of the film.

It would seem like a match made in purgatory – Mike Leigh, the infinitely brilliant director of such grisly portraits of modernity as "Naked" and "High Hopes," directing a film about light opera titans W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, chronicling the creative and personal conflicts of the men with a touch worthy of Fosse and a lushness indicative of Ophuls, as they struggle to reconcile their considerable talents (and egos) in the creation of "The Mikado," their most famous and lasting work.

What's missing from that rather glib comparison, though, is Leigh's true intentions in making "Topsy Turvy" — "I'm not given to making films about filmmakers or artists," Leigh says in an essay accompanying the Criterion DVD, "But I decided that it would be good to make a film about what we do, what we all go through" – and "Topsy Turvy" is, if anything, a love letter to artistic creation, a detailed examination of genius and the fickle, schizophrenic bitch that is creativity.

And indeed, Leigh may have very well created the ultimate document of the creative process, keenly showing its joys, sorrows, and humility ("There's something inherently disappointing about success," Jim Broadbent's Gilbert remarks, after the premiere of "The Mikado" at the film's close). "Topsy Turvy," in fact, is one of the main reasons for my rather devastating dislike for "Black Swan." Sure, "Black Swan" featured many admirable qualities, paramount among them a tortured performance from Natalie Portman and the graceful, meticulously choreographed cinematography during the dancing sequences. However, the actual creative process, or, the exhaustive series of events in which performing genius resides, is all but ignored in Aronofsky's film, which would rather focus on backstage drama bordering on exploitation.

By contrast, EVERYTHING is examined in "Topsy Turvy": the creation of the words and music; the costumes and sets; the exhaustive rehearsals of the actors and singers; and the dry test runs of the show, as every last detail is ironed out. Hell, Leigh is so committed to his purpose that he'll devote a full six minutes of screen time to showing how the famed "Three Little Maids" sequence came to accurately reflect the "Japanese" style – that's six minutes for what amounts to a roughly 90-second song. Where is that patience in "Black Swan"? Hell, where is that patience in ANY American film?

I suppose my true reason for loving "Topsy Turvy" as I do – aside from the gorgeous camerawork of Dick Pope, the exquisite sets, unbelievably compelling performances (Broadbent threatens the swallow the movie whole, such is his charisma), or the film's script, which borders on supernatural with its delectable wit and impeccable composition – is how decidedly un-American a film it truly is. Not un-American in its attitudes or rhetoric, of course, but un-American in how just about every nuance of the film is removed from everything we Yanks seem to expect out of a modern motion picture. And that sense of discovery, the realization that there is a world outside of the American cinema, is breathtaking.