Dean Spanley

Peter O'Toole gives a scorching performance as misanthropic curmudgeon, Horatio Fisk, in this wonderfully eccentric comedy-drama. Set just after the turn of the twentieth century and based on the novel by Baron Dunsany, it's full of peculiarly English quirks and ticks. To relieve the tedium of their regular outings, distanced father and son, Horatio and Henslowe (O'Toole and Jeremy Northam) attend a lecture on the Transmigration of Souls by a visiting Hindu Swami. There, they meet Dean Spanley (Sam Neill), with whom, after a series of chance encounters, Henslowe strikes up a bizarre friendship.

At dinner he plies the Dean with a rare Hungarian wine, the Imperial Tokay, secured from colonial rogue trader, Wrather (Bryan Brown). In return, Spanley hales forth trance-like reminiscences of a highly unexpected former life. A pre-existence that may just hold the key to the family heartbreak that Horatio is trying to keep repressed. Dean Spanley is a special film in that uses the wildest imaginings to reveal common emotional truths; warmly presenting them to us so that we can laugh, and perhaps cry, at ourselves.
Helen de Witt