Besieged (1998) on Netflix
A dictator in Africa imprisons Shandurai's husband, so she goes into exile in Rome. She studies medicine and keeps house for Mr. Kinsky, an English pianist who falls in love with her.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb6.8/105,448 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes75%
Plot summary
Shandurai watches police take a school teacher away in an unnamed African town, and her husband is imprisoned by a dictator. She has gone into exile in Rome, where she attends medical school and works as a housemaid in Jason Kinsky's palazzo. Kinsky, an English composer and pianist, sends gifts down to her room by the dumbwaiter, and one of them is a ring. When he proposes marriage, she turns him down. He asks what he could do to win her love, and she demands that he get her husband out of prison. Until that moment Kinsky had no idea she was married.
Cast
- John C. Ojwangas Singer
- Paul Osulas Piano Buyer
- Gian Franco Mazzonias Piano Buyer (as Gianfranco Mazzoni)
- Maria Mazetti Di Pietralataas Piano Buyer
- Andrea Querciaas Child pianist at concert
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Besieged (1998)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The 2002 film City of God drew inspiration from Besieged: director Fernando Meirelles liked how Bertolucci used the Roman villa's physical space to show Shandurai's early dislocation and her eventual sense of place.
- Besieged stayed a low-budget film shot with a small crew at a brisk pace of 20 to 25 scenes a day, roughly four times faster than Bernardo Bertolucci normally worked.
- The short story behind Besieged differed from the screenplay in three ways: it was set in London rather than Rome, its heroine came from Latin America rather than Africa, and Kinsky was fat and much older than in the film.
- Most of Besieged was filmed at a villa at 8 vicolo del Bottino in Rome, which now runs as Il Palazzetto, a boutique hotel operated by the nearby Hotel Hassler.
- Bertolucci shot the Rome street scenes with a hidden camera so the actors could interact with passersby, and about half of Besieged's shots were hand-held.
- The African scenes that open Besieged were shot last, over four days in Naivasha, Kenya, with an aerial shot of Lake Turkana; after seeing that footage Bertolucci re-cut the film's first half-hour.
- Besieged was Bernardo Bertolucci's first love story, and his wife Clare Peploe suggested the adaptation and served as screenwriter and informally as co-director.
