"Proof" (1991) - Movie Review

“Proof” deals the trust issues a blind man has starting as early as a child. His life a beckoned solitude and we do not quite really know what he is doing for living. Because there is nothing to attribute to his behaviour by what he does I believe that director Jocelyn Moorhouse negated that detail on purpose. The film immensely describes about Martin (Hugo Weaving) with a strange cruel relationship with his housekeeper Celia (Genevieve Picot) and his new friend, a young man Andy (Russell Crowe).

Martin is a neatly dressed man, thin and walks with his tall stature and a guiding stick all his life. “Seeing is to believe” is a saying which of course does not apply to Martin but he substitutes that with a strange habit, taking photographs. That is his record of a particular moment or a thing or a person captured and put on a hard paper for his long future reference. Later he finds some one to describe it, may be even after years. He believes there is a verification system in it, many may not lie. While some may not say exactly what it is, the truth is in the picture and that makes him satisfying.

His house-keeper Celia has been taking care of him for more than three years and her love towards Martin have been turned into a cruel torment that she has started to hate him to grab his attention. Martin on his part has his own philosophy for shunning away the people. He does not want to trust. She has turned much of a devious and cunning maid to find new methods to make Martin notice her. She is a loner too buried among the photographs of Martin. She believes that both being the loners are the perfect couple to complete each other’s miserable detached existence. Martin has used Celia to deal with his self pity. He believes that the only woman whom he continuously negates has a tendency to not leave him and that makes him to pity her, giving him the ultimate control.

Celia is shocked and threatened by Martin’s new friend in a nearby restaurant. Andy a happy go lucky youth has the open honesty and terseness Martin wants to describe his photographs. They instantly bond. Director Jocelyn Moorhouse provides wittiness in an unpredictable smart manner. Andy is curious and Martin opens up as he is at a point to trust a stranger. Andy methodically explains each photograph with veracity, candidness and clear. Martin loves it since he believes that his Mother (Heather Mitchell) has supplied him with false images to jail him in his thoughts and inside four walls.

This is a film with a dark value of love, trust and hate. Celia by Picot is unbelievably cruel. Her hate is questioned and condemned but she takes Martin to a theater for an experience he will not forget. At the same time, she black mails with a photo she took of him half naked to go out with him. Picot expresses the deep love she had and has to Martin by the degree of machinations she places over him on regular basis. She keeps objects in the middle of the room while she is leaving. And we understand her anger, because she has been humiliated and ignored blatantly for such a long time that the love she has transformed into reeking spite of bitterness. Picot is terrifying and cold who can be compared next to nurse Ratched played by Louise Fletcher in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.

It is a complicated emotional work on three characters messing around with each other. More than love it is the trust which is shared and not shared by Martin in between these two people. Andy is the innocent being who gets beaten around by Celia to eliminate him out of the picture. The movie while taking the consideration of the blind man deals with an emotion not dealt before.

Weaving gives a clean and neat performance with an onscreen chemistry with a much younger Crowe at that time. The film has blurry dull tone with cold actions and comedic moments with equal magnitude for the story. It is neither an overly emotional nor a complete dark behaviour of personalities. We feel for all the three characters. We indeed do feel a strong distress for Celia and empathize with Martin and sympathize for Andy. Moorhouse with three characters with a back ground of emotions and not their work they do for living provides a drama and comedy of a revelation of emotions in a man deprived of sight and trust.