Tulse Luper 3:from sark to finish by Peter Greenaway
In the third film of the Tulse Luper Suitcases, Luper, writer, collector and archivist, continues his adventures as a professional prisoner during the later years of the Second World War and its aftermath, the Cold War. Luper is shipwrecked on the Paradise Island of Sark and spends three months in self-imposed imprisonment on an idyllic beach until betrayed to the Germans by the Contumelys, a trio of jealous sisters. Pursued by a bounty-hunting jailer, Luper escapes to Barcelona to support and protect the lesbian marriage between the widow Mathilda Figura, of one murdered jailer, and Madame Plens, the mistress of another.
Luper becomes a prisoner in Turin, in a travelling elevator, a coerced liftboy privy to the lives and secrets of Italian Fascist-beleaguered citizens, including Primo Levi, taking his clients to the top of the Mole Antonelliana, a symbol of freedom in the sky.
Luper is in Venice where he drowns his jailer Zeloty in a canal, and in Rome where he finally becomes the lover of his arch Mormon American jailer, Lephrenic, who is dying of uranium poisoning. Luper then escapes north to Budapest to assist two mortuary attendants, Boule and Daude, in their self-imposed task of dragging Jewish corpses from the Danube, where he meets Raoul Wallenberg, the saviour of jews from Hungarian fascists. And then in his sixteenth adventure in these three films, he is imprisoned on a checkpoint-post bridge on the East-West German border in 1963, blackmailed for his freedom by a ferocious chess-playing Russian Colonel Kotcheff and his wife Alazarin who demands stories that, Scherherazade-like, Luper supplies, before escaping, when he has completed a new collection of tales for The 1001 European Nights.
Paralleling his adventures, Luper’s reputation as a writer and as a collector, has never stopped growing, and the 92 suitcases associated with his life are finally presented in a grand exhibition that culminates in the official unpacking of his 92nd. The contents of this suitcase present evidence that reveal an elaborate hoax that implies that Luper may never have had the existence he is supposed to have had, but may have been killed in a childhood accident when he was ten years old, when the garden wall he climbed in the Newport children’s game, collapsed around him. His long life indeed could have been an elaborate fiction created in love and guilt by his childhood friend, Martino Knockavelli.
2004, 123 Mins
World Premiere: Venice International Film Festival, Italy
Festivals & Markets 2004
Black Nights Film Festival, Estonia
Facets – Chicago, USA
Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Greece
Festivals & Markets 2005
Cambridge Film Festival
European Media Art Festival Osnabrück, Germany
Istanbul International Film Festival, Turkey
Mexico Contemporary International Film Festival. Mexico
Tribeca Film Festival New York, USA
Credits
Directed by
Peter Greenaway
Writing Credits
Peter Greenaway
Cast (in credits order)
Roger ReesTulse Luper
Stephen BillingtonTulse Luper
Jordi Mollà Hypolite / Gaudí
Ana TorrentCharlotte des Arbres
Ornella MutiMathilde Figura
Iori HuguesMartino Knockavelli
Anna GalienaMadame Plens
Itziar CastroFrances Cotumely
Esther GómezLesley Cotumely
Flora ÁlvarezJeanne Cotumely
Joan-Francesc AinaudDoctor Hospital
Rest of cast listed alphabetically
Jennifer Belander - Carrie
Giovanni Capalbo - Heinkel
Valentina Cervi - Cissie Colpitts
Roberto Citran - Raoul Wallenberg
Renata Litvinova - Constance Bulitsky
Drew Mulligan - Martino Knockavelli
Christina Orbakaite - as Kristina Orbakaite
Jochum ten Haaf - Bouillard
David Vinau - Naked soldier in hospital
JJ Feild - Tulse Luper
Produced by
Wouter Barendrecht - executive producer
Eva Baró - co-producer
Jet Christiaanse- line producer
Carlo Dusie - xecutive producer
Kees Kasander - producer
Edmon Rochdele - gate producer
Antoni Solé - co-producer
Sándor Söth- co-producer
Esther Thedinga - assistant line producer
Michael J. Werner- executive producer
Juan Álvarez- assistant producer
Music by
Sandra Chechik
Cinematography by
Reinier van Brummelen
Film Editing by
Elmer Leupen
Chris Wyatt
Casting By
Pep Armengol
Peter Wooldridge
Production Design by
Billy Lelieveld
Márton Ágh
Art Direction by
Diana van de Vossenberg
Costume Design by
Andrea Flesch
Marrit van der Burgt
Makeup Department
Sara Meermanhair stylist / key makeup artist
Production Management
Éva Kovács - unit manager
Iván Mas - production manager
Miguel Puertas - production manager
Lionel Strutt - post-production supervisor
Jochem van Rijs - post-production supervisor
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Xavier Bernabeu - first assistant director
Mónica Sánchez - second assistant director
Art Department
Delia Adroer - property master
Istvan Kolnhofer - assistant to the art director
Sound Department
János Köporosy -sound
Ranko Paukovic - supervising sound editor
James Seddon - dolby consultant
Szabolcs Stella - boom operator
Aad Wirtz - sound re-recording mixer
Special Effects by
Sara Meerman - special effects makeup
Visual Effects by
Ilenia De Santiscolorist
Francesco Pagliadigital compositor
Mauro Vicentinidigital compositor
Raymond Viveendigital compositor
Camera and Electrical Department
Ruzbeh Babol - camera operator
Mathias Beier - electrician
Sven O. Heinze - electrician
Kike Martínez - electrician
Laura Martínez - grip
Szilvia Ruszev - video assist operator: Germany
Sascha Wolfram - gaffer: Germany
Casting Department
Krassimir Ivanov - casting assistant
Costume and Wardrobe Department
Imre Béres - costume assistant: military supervisor
Editorial Department
Jaap Praamstra - additional editor
Other crew
Deborah Abesser - production coordinator
Pauline Burt - risk manager
Susanne Fischer - assistant line producer: Budapest
Zoltán A. Kerényi - managing director: Focusfilm Kft.
Éva Kovács - key unit manager
Elly Verduyckt - continuity
Allard van der Werff - assistant: Peter Greenaway
Thanks
Antonio Llorens