The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
March 2004 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Based on a novella by Japanese author Yukio Mishima, this macabre little movie stands the test of time very well. The scare and horror quotients arise at having horrible acts committed by persons we would not think capable of performing them. In this case, it is children, and the young boys in this movie join the ranks of those in Lord of the Flies as innocents gone bad.

The action shifts from Japan to the English seacoast, and Sarah Miles stars as Anne Osborne, a young widow living in a huge house on a cliff with her only son, Jonathan. The fatherless, rudderless boy has become part of a secret society led by a quixotic and innately evil boy who controls all the others by making them feel stupid and backward. They are called by numbers instead of names. Jonathan starts as "Number Three," but is demoted to "Number Five" when the leader denounces him as weak. The group believes that there is a natural order of things about which adults have no viable concept. Adults are the enemy, the ones who muck up the order and twist it around to their own needs.

An American sailor, played honestly but awkwardly by Kris Kristofferson, arrives in the port on the Belle, a ship out of Boston. He and Anne immediately fall in love and proceed to prove it in lovemaking scenes that were exceptionally steamy back in the ‘70s but now appear merely erotic and sensual. The sailor leaves, but his letters indicate that he might come back. He does, and that upsets the order of things and presents the secret society of boys with a challenge. The sailor must be returned to the sea, where he belongs.

To see these cherubic children sporting visages like choirboys but plotting like adults is a grim sight. At one point, they capture a cat, drug it, and perform an autopsy on its living body. Cat lovers, perhaps children lovers, might look away. It is an oddly beautiful yet terrifying scene.

The cast, with the exception of Kristofferson, performs well, with the children balancing innocence and knowledge with singular perfection. Douglas Slocombe, the cinematographer, used the full width of a 2.35 image, shooting some splendid scenes of the ocean and port that could grace any travel brochure and attract customers. He also shoots close ups of important objects and faces that move the story along and reveal hidden meanings.

The video transfer on this DVD is excellent, fully honoring Slocombe’s art, and a print has been secured that is rich in color and shows little serious damage. The monaural sound is surprisingly rich and full, doing justice to John Mandel’s score and allowing every morsel of delicious dialogue to be heard clearly.

There are no extras on this disc, not even a trailer. It would have been good to have a comparison of the original novella and screenplay, and something from the director on working with a juvenile cast -- perhaps in the 30th-anniversary edition. But the film is such a little jewel and the transfer so handsome that I am going to recommend it nonetheless. It also has an ending that ranks with The Wicker Man, and Suddenly Last Summer, in making a bizarre impact. You will not forget it. Nor are you likely to look at an innocent child’s face again without wondering what is going on behind the mask.

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