Yes (2004/I)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Sally Potter

Writer:

Sally Potter (written by)

Release Date:

5 August 2005 (Turkey)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

In this film, told almost entirely in iambic pentameter, She is a scientist in a loveless marriage to Anthony...

Plot Keywords:

Beach | Scientist | Blues Music | Cook | Swimming Pool

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Shirley Henderson	...	Cleaner
Joan Allen	...	She
Sam Neill	...	Anthony
Simon Abkarian	...	He
Wil Johnson	...	Virgil
Gary Lewis	...	Billy
Raymond Waring	...	Whizzer
Stephanie Leonidas	...	Grace
Barbara Oxley	...	Cleaner in Swimming Pool
Samantha Bond	...	Kate
Kev Orkian	...	Waiter
George Yiasoumi	...	Kitchen Boss
Beryl Scott	...	Cleaner in Laboratory
Sheila Hancock	...	Aunt
Lol Coxhill	...	Father Christmas
Father Charles Owen	...	Priest
Mandy Coombes	...	Nun
Beti Owen	...	Nun
Dot Bond	...	Cleaner in Nursing Home
Dorca Reyes Sanchez	...	Woman in Cuban Apartment
Antoine Agoudjian	...	Friend in Beirut
Christina Galstian	...	Friend in Beirut

Directed by
Sally Potter

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Sally Potter		written by

Produced by
Juan Basanta	....	local producer: Dominican Republic
Frank Cabrera	....	executive producer
Andrew Fierberg	....	producer
Diane Gelon	....	associate producer
Cedric Jeanson	....	executive producer
Nick Laws	....	line producer
John Penotti	....	executive producer
Frank Cavreta Rode	....	executive producer: Cuba
Christopher Sheppard	....	producer
Fisher Stevens	....	executive producer
Paul Trijbits	....	executive producer
Lucie Wenigerová	....	associate producer

Original Music by
Sally Potter

Cinematography by
Aleksei Rodionov

Film Editing by
Daniel Goddard

Casting by
Irene Lamb

Production Design by
Carlos Conti

Art Direction by
Claire Spooner

Costume Design by
Jacqueline Durran

Makeup Department
Magaly Batista	....	makeup artist: Cuba
Chantal Leothier	....	key makeup artist (as Chantal Léothier)

Production Management
Olivier Chiavassa	....	post-production manager: Laboratoire Eclair
Jonathan Haren	....	post-production supervisor
Michael Manzi	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Adam Coop	....	third assistant director
Nick Laws	....	first assistant director
Olivia Peniston-Bird	....	second assistant director

Art Department
Joshua Hartnett	....	art department assistant

Sound Department
Robert Brazier	....	foley editor
Anne Delacour	....	dialogue editor
Anthony Faust	....	adr mixer
Anthony Faust	....	foley mixer
Anthony Faust	....	foley supervisor
George Hapig	....	foley artist
Jean-Paul Mugel	....	sound mixer
Richard Street	....	assistant sound re-recording mixer
Joakim Sundström	....	sound effects editor
Pierre Tucat	....	boom operator
Vincent Tulli	....	sound re-recording mixer

Visual Effects by
Claire Coutelle	....	digital color grader
François Dupuy	....	head of technology
Olivier Poujaud	....	visual effects supervisor

Stunts
Andreas Petrides	....	fight coordinator
Andreas Petrides	....	stunt coordinator

Camera and Electrical Department
Héctor Alfaro	....	grip: Cuba
Eric Bialas	....	Steadicam operator
Anna Carrington	....	clapper loader trainee
Mark Clayton	....	gaffer
Sara Deane	....	clapper loader
Gautier Deblonde	....	still photographer
Nicola Dove	....	still photographer
Humberto Figueroa	....	gaffer: Cuba
Denis Garnier	....	first assistant camera
Ben Kerr	....	electrician
Ariel Leyva	....	electrician: Cuba
Dan Mudford	....	videographer
Daniel Núñez Pérez	....	electrician: Cuba (as Daniel Pérez)
Barnaby Sweet	....	gaffer

Casting Department
Emily Craig	....	casting assistant
Alina Pombo	....	casting: Cuba

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Camille Benda	....	set costumer
Elbia Rondón	....	wardrobe: Cuba

Editorial Department
Lalit Goyal	....	assistant editor: avid
Tom Kinnersly	....	assistant editor
Sean Lyons	....	assistant editor
Bruno Patin	....	digital grader
Toby Ridgway	....	post-production
Anja Siemens	....	assistant editor
Jason Wheeler	....	negative cutter

Music Department
Samy Bardet	....	music recording engineer
Philip Glass	....	composer: song "Paru River" from "Aguas de Amazonia"
Franck Lebon	....	music recording supervisor

Transportation Department
Ian Lisi	....	unit driver

Other crew
Scott Bassett	....	production coordinator
Hester Campbell	....	production assistant
Vicki Cherkas	....	head of business and legal affairs: Greenestreet Films
Mike Clark-Hall	....	floor runner
Carlos de la Huerta	....	location manager: Cuba
Walter Donohue	....	story editor
Peter Eardley	....	production accountant
Penny Eyles	....	script supervisor
Nial Fulton	....	location coordinator
Ben Gladstone	....	location manager
Jared Goldman	....	production department manager
Dean Hagan	....	production coordinator: Belfast
Sam Haveland	....	assistant location manager
Brian Kornreich	....	business affairs consultant
Mary Lawless	....	manager of business affairs: GreeneStreet Films
Lori Lazar	....	assistant: John Penotti
Jorge García Lorenzo	....	production assistant: Cuba
Stephen Masters	....	title designer
Fernando E. Medina	....	location manager: Dominican Republic
Fiona Morham	....	head of physical production
Poll Moussoulides	....	dialogue coach
Freya Pinsent	....	production accountant
Pam Plummer	....	assistant: Joan Allen
Vivian Pombo	....	accountant: Cuba
David Purchas	....	production assistant
Amos Field Reid	....	assistant to director
Joan Washington	....	dialogue coach
Tim Williams	....	production executive

Thanks
Tom Waits	....	thanks

Production Companies

• Adventure Pictures
• GreeneStreet Films
• Studio Fierberg
• UK Film Council

Distributors

• Filmcoopi Zürich (2005) (Switzerland) (theatrical)
• Filmhouse (2006) (Mexico) (theatrical)
• GAGA (2005) (Japan) (theatrical)
• RCV Film Distribution (2005) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
• Sony Pictures Classics (2005) (USA) (theatrical)
• GreeneStreet Films International (2004) (worldwide) (all media)
• Madman Entertainment (2006) (Australia) (all media)
• Madman Entertainment (2006) (New Zealand) (all media)

Other Companies

• AFM Lighting  lighting
• Angels the Costumiers  costume
• Carlo Manzi Rentals  costume
• Jason Wheeler Film Services  negative cutting
• Mad Dog Casting  extras casting
• Mayflower Recording  adr and foley recording
• Shepperton Studios  sound re-recorded at
• Studios Merijthur  music recorded at

MPAA:

Rated R for language and some sexual content.

Runtime:

100 min | Argentina:100 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival)

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Netherlands:12 | Sweden:Btl | Switzerland:14 (canton of Zurich) | Germany:12 | Argentina:13 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Canada:14A (Ontario) | Australia:M | Singapore:NC-16 | USA:R | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Cuba

Company:

Adventure Pictures

Trivia:

Joan Allen couldn't join the crew in Cuba because of the regulations making it difficult for Americans from visiting the country. Her scenes were shot in the nearby Dominican Republic and cut into the Cuban footage.

Goofs:

Continuity: As "He" is chopping celery and talking to his crew, the knife in his hands changes from shot to shot. One shot has pieces of celery stuck to the knife while the other shows a clean blade.

Quotes:

Cleaner: And, in the end, it simply isn't worth / Your while to try and clean your life away. / You can't. For, everything you do or say / Is there, forever. It leaves evidence. / In fact it's really only common sense; / There's no such thing as nothing, not at all. / It may be really very, very small / But it's still there. In fact I think I'd guess / That "no" does not exist. There's only "yes".

Soundtrack:

Waltz in A Flat Major

And the microbes lived happily ever after

I was tempted to do this comment in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets, but somebody from the "New Yorker" has already done it, and of course I would have run the risk of doing an even worse job than Sally Potter has.

Not that this is such a bad film – it's different from the normal run of romantic comedies. At times it becomes quite didactic as "He" asserts the Muslim philosophical position and "She" replies for the secular West. The dying Ulster communist Aunt's story is also an unusual ingredient. Even the more conventional elements – the alienated husband (Sam Neil), the empty affluence, the troubled teenager (Stephanie Leonidas), are deftly handled. I say "romantic comedy" because the film ends like one, but it could have equally ended as tragedy. "He" and "She" are both missing something, and find it in each other, only to discover that love does not always conquer all. One could blow one's brains out. But then one can always high-tail it to Cuba instead.

This is a very artful piece of film-making with some very clever camera-work and adroit use of music, but we still have a very ordinary story. Joan Allen as "she" does manage to transcend the material and make us care about her character, which is quite an achievement as the character is a beautiful middle-class Irish-American ice princess scientist stuck in a dead marriage whose only real passion is in what's at the other end of her microscope. It's interesting how she manages to appear so radiant, 10 years younger in fact, after her first roll in the hay with "He".

"He", the French-Armenian actor Simon Abkarian, comes across to start with as a bit of a cliché, the handsome charming feckless foreigner. He is not helped by the aforesaid iambic pentameter, which was not designed for foreigners speaking English. He has to utter one of the most insincere-sounding pick-up lines I have ever heard: "If I was your husband I would be so jealous of your beauty I would not leave your side". As we see more of him, a serious side emerges, an educated Muslim who sees a lot wrong with the West and not much with his own society, despite its inability to live in peace. This he blames on the West. However, the dialectic is sidelined by the plot line, which as suggested above, winds up on a Cuban beach.

The novel "Orlando" by Virginia Woolf was a pretty weird property, and Sally Potter produced a weird and wonderful movie from it. Her "Tango Lesson" was semi-autobiographical, well produced and absorbing. This movie is ambitious – "let's see if we can make a romantic comedy about the clash of civilizations and the meaning of life" and although visually fascinating it not surprisingly doesn't quite make it. It has its moments though – Maid Shirley Henderson's disquisitions on the nature of dirt to the camera, Sam Neil's guitar miming to an Eric Clapton number and the restaurant orgasm to name a few. Sally Potter still has the ability to find a different angle on existence.