AppsScraps Movie Reviews

Sep 14, 2008

Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles

Release date: 17 September 1998 (Toronto International Film Festival)

Long before director Jennifer Baichwal made herself famous filming Manufactured Landscapes, she visited the mysterious expat American musician and author, Paul Bowles, as he lay dying on his bed in Morocco, his home of more than 50 years and a central aspect of many of his great works, including Let it Come Down and The Sheltering Sky. Both great reads, I may add. We see a man who talks but truly says nothing about his life, his marriage to the playwright Jane Bowles, his association with the 'beat' generation writers or his homosexual life. We see an enigmatic man as unfathomable and as intriguing as the sands of the Sahara itself.

For the tiny glimpse Baichwal gives us of this pillar of American literature my rating 7 out of 10.

No comments: