Sumurun (1920)

Posted on January 27, 2010 by badblokebob

aka One Arabian Night

2010 #7
Ernst Lubitsch | 104 mins | DVD | PG

Sumurun seems completely different to any film yet seen in the Berlin box set, yet this is more in line with the style of film that would ultimately lead Lubitsch to Hollywood.

As the alternate title would suggest, this is primarily an Arabian Nights-style drama… but, while on the surface this looks entirely at odds with Lubitsch’s previous comedy work, it actually concerns itself with the same topic: romance, and the various entanglements and complications that lead to it. What’s different here is that instead of being wholly comic it’s often deadly serious (literally, as it turns out), and instead of one simple girl-meets-boy trajectory (as in the preceding three films) there’s two girls and four boys between them, in various combinations. It’s a many-stranded, relatively complex narrative: there’s a group of travelling minstrels, an old sheikh, a young sheikh, a cloth merchant, a bevy of harem girls — all of whom are connected and interact in varying ways with varying objectives, though most are related to love — or lust.

The change in style is no bad thing. Lubitsch was clearly versatile, turning his hand well to this type of storytelling. His comedies are all based around romance, one way or another, and so treating the subject with a little more seriousness seems no great leap. He keeps control of the plot, despite the numerous strands and complexities, and his comedy background allows the tropes of farce to be employed in furthering the story. His previous use of fantastical realms, like the dolls’ world of Die Puppe, aids a succinct establishment of Lubitsch’s version of Arabia and its specific rules. Indeed, with its fantastical setting and shortage of character names (only Sumurun, Nur al Din and his two slaves — Muffti and Puffti — are known by more than their title, job description or physical impairment), Sumurun may be as much of a parable as some of the comedies.

And still, comedy creeps in round the edges. Lubitsch is arguably showing restraint by not letting every sequence descend into it, but there is a fair amount of wit and humour lurking throughout. It’s mostly applied wisely though, furthering character, story or both: the ugly hunchback who smiles at a child only to make him cry; the harem girls giving their eunuch guardians the runaround (multiple times); the two wannabe-thieves accidentally stealing a pretend-dead body and desperately trying to hide or dispose of it — the last a subplot which ultimately plays a key part in the climax.

What’s a little unclear is why it should be called Sumurun. Perhaps it’s no more than a vestige from the source, because while the titular harem girl is quite significant, she’s no more so than several other characters. Pola Negri’s namless dancer in particular seems more central to the narrative — indeed, she connects most of the disparate groups and plot strands; certainly more of them (and more significantly) than anyone else. But then, Sumurun survives to the end, and — along with her man, Nur al Din the cloth merchant — is the purest, most righteous, most deserving of all the main characters. Conversely, all the ‘bad’ (and, as noted, nameless) characters meet their end: the sheikhs are both fickle, and the old sheikh clearly a nasty piece of work; the dancer is flirty and adulterous; the hunchback, however, is devoted to her, and his tragedy effectively balances the “and they all lived happily ever after” of the freed harem girls and Sumurun and Nur al Din finally getting each other. If this is a parable, there’s quite a clear message about fidelity.

Sumurun may lack the straightforward fun of Lubitsch’s comedies, but by creating a complex and engrossing Arabian epic he entertainingly demonstrates that there was more to him than just the talented comedian.

Read more reviews from Lubitsch in Berlin here.

Culloden (1964)

Posted on December 31, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #48
Peter Watkins | 69 mins | TV | 12

Culloden tells the story of the 1746 battle — famously, the last fought on British soil — and the events that followed it, as if it were covered by a modern TV news report (albeit a feature-length one).

This adopted style — a first — makes for an effective presentation. As a form it obviously foreshadows the docudrama, a method of presenting history which is so popular today, though not quite in this way. Writer/director Peter Watkins gratifyingly refuses to break from his premise: the whole film is very much like an extended news piece, featuring interviews, facts, and the famous BBC objectivity — at no point does the narration inform us who is good and bad, right and wrong, yet leaves us with little doubt about Watkins’ opinions (which are pretty low of just about everyone).

In fact, the film is fuelled by much youthful righteous indignation from Watkins, in his late 20s when Culloden was made. That said, his (perhaps unrealistic) idealism is still in evidence in every interview I’ve seen with him from decades later (though in those cases applied to what TV is and should be). But he allows it to dominate proceedings here, too often focusing on the awful conditions of the poor or the wrongs committed against them by Nasty Rich Folk. Should we be cross about this? It is 1746 after all — of course life was awful for common folk and the upper classes were rich twits who rode roughshod over them. That’s how things were in The Past, for thousands of years before it and hundreds of years after. With our modern developed sense of morality it all looks Nasty and Wrong, but we can’t go back and change it so why get so upset about it? Surely such vitriol is better directed at places where this is still the case?

While Watkins’ righteousness is clearly present before and during the battle, it’s really let loose in the aftermath, as English soldiers commit all sorts of atrocities to the Highlanders. Perhaps this was genuinely shocking and deserved in ’64, and it’s still true that the actions taken were unforgivably horrid, but it’s no longer shocking — not because we’re desensitized to violence at this point, but because we’re now very aware that we have done horrendous things throughout our history even while painting ourselves as the good guys (as we still do today, of course). Early on he describes the workings of the clan system, ostensibly factually but with a clear undercurrent of its unfairness; yet at the end bemoans its destruction by the English. Maybe this is why Watkins struggles to find anyone likeable in the film: they’re all as bad as each other.

Even if his overly moral stance falters, Watkins’ filmmaking techniques rarely do. The use of ordinary people as actors works fine most of the time, though occasional performances or scenes show off the cast’s unprofessional roots. Watkins’ theories about how TV should be run and the involvement of the public in the way he did here may be romanticised and impractical, but it’s hard to deny that his application of them worked wonders. Performances frequently aid the documentary effect by seeming just like those in genuine interviews or news footage, whereas even the best professional actors trying to emulate such reality are usually mannered enough for the viewer to realise they’re acting.

Best of all, however, is the titular battle. These scenes are extraordinary, creating a believability even the largest Hollywood budget has often failed to challenge. It’s epic but also involving, disorientating but clearly told, brutal without needing expensive prosthetic effects or an 18 certificate. It’s a brilliant example of camerawork, sound design and editing combining under inspired direction to create a flawless extended sequence.

Culloden was a bold experiment in filmmaking — indeed, the notion of a distant historical event being presented as if covered by news cameras still sounds innovative — and Watkins mostly pulls it off, with stunning battle sequences, effective performances and a high concept that is never betrayed. A few minor weak points aside, the only serious flaw is that Watkins lets his overdeveloped morality run unchecked. His application of a modern outrage to what seems a typical historical situation grates quite quickly but never abates, ultimately reclaiming a star from what is nonetheless an exemplary effort.

Culloden placed 8th on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2009, which can be read in full here.

The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

Posted on June 24, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #30
Randall Wallace | 132 mins | download | 12 / PG-13

From the off it’s clear that The Man in the Iron Mask is not going to go well. It’s an adaptation of a tale of the Three Musketeers, so naturally is set in historical Paris… where everyone has a different accent and very few of them are French. It is, to be blunt, a horrid mishmash — much like the whole film.

Wordy political intrigue tries to coexist with broad comedy which is squashed against swashbuckling adventure. The latter two could co-exist, but the film feels like it wants to be the former and so suffers for it. The comedy jars too much to be effective, while instances of unintentional comedy unfortunately provoke more frequent laughs. It should at least be able to swash buckles effectively — these are the Three Musketeers after all — but entirely fails to achieve this until the climax. The plot, semi-faithfully adapted from one of Alexandre Dumas’ original novels, offers a level of complexity to which the film clearly aspires, but the adaptation and acting struggle to match it.

The majority of performances are marred by overacting — John Malkovich, especially, is woefully miscast, while Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t appear to give a particularly good performance as either Louis or Philippe. In DiCaprio’s defence I suspect this is actually the script’s fault, because he manages to clearly differentiate the two when they are silent or pretending to be the other — it’s when they open their mouths that it all goes wrong. Gérard Depardieu is fine as the comic relief, though that relief is tonally misplaced, while Gabriel Byrne makes an interesting d’Artagnan — there’s nothing at all wrong with him, and yet he doesn’t feel quite right. Which leaves just Jeremy Irons among the main cast. He fares the best of the lot, even getting the occasional scene or speech that is genuinely quite good, though it’s clear he is far better than the material. To be fair, the same is also true of everyone else.

For all this, The Man in the Iron Mask is more disappointing then bad. The Bastille-set climax is occasionally brilliant and never less than entertaining, delivering on the film’s swashbuckling promise in a copious fashion. Throughout, there’s the occasional good scene — or even just a decent line of dialogue — and you can briefly understand what inspired such quality actors to sign on.

Something went wrong somewhere though, and the obvious culprit must be writer/director Randall Wallace. The story’s good, but that’s Dumas’, while the adaptation’s weak — and that’s Wallace’s. The actor’s are good, but battle the poor script — and that, obviously, is Wallace’s. They don’t seem to have been given any significant direction, they’re not helped by an uneven tone, and even the cinematography falls short, failing to make the spectacular locations and costumes look suitably beautiful on screen — and we know who’s ultimately in charge of all that too.

The Man in the Iron Mask desperately wants to be better than it is — it’s a great tale, packed with politics and swashbuckling, and this particular version has the high calibre cast to pull it off. But both are left floundering by a writer/director who isn’t up to either task — poor dialogue, a gyratingly uneven tone and lacklustre direction abound. A missed opportunity, and all the more disappointing for it.

Glory (1989)

Posted on June 18, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #28
Edward Zwick | 117 mins | DVD | 15 / R

Ed Zwick seems to like war. More accurately, Zwick likes making films about war, but clearly isn’t a fan of the act itself. Since gaining attention with multi Oscar-winner Glory, about the first black regiment during the American Civil War, he’s directed a number of films concerned with wars and those that fight them: Courage Under Fire (“Army officer investigates female chopper commander’s worthiness for the Medal of Honor”), The Siege (“a wave of terrorist attacks in New York lead to the declaration of martial law”), The Last Samurai (“American military advisor embraces the Samurai culture he was hired to destroy”), Blood Diamond (a group of people battle for a diamond during the war in Sierra Leone), and most recently Defiance (“Jewish brothers in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe escape into the forests”). Whatever the reasons for Zwick’s preoccupation, he certainly has a talent for it.

In Glory, Zwick is helped by a story that’s definitely worth telling, one which I imagine seemed even more pertinent on its original release, when Nelson Mandela was still in prison and the state of race relations in the US would contribute to riots in Los Angeles inside of 18 months. Still, it would be easy to slide into Issue of the Week melodrama in handling such a tale, but Zwick manages it without undue sentiment — there’s an appropriate realisation of the importance of events, perhaps even occasional reverence, but time is taken to show doubts and prejudices. It may get too sentimental for some tastes toward the end, but considering the importance of the story I don’t think it’s unwarranted or overplayed.

Similarly, most of the hero characters are less than perfect, with Matthew Broderick’s Colonel of particular note as a conflicted and initially cowardly commanding officer, more concerned with propriety than what is right — until he’s led to a change of heart, of course. His is just one of several excellent performances: Morgan Freeman does what Morgan Freeman does best as the Authoritative Elder, while Denzel Washington’s angry young man justifiably earnt him his first Oscar. The wider supporting cast hold their own against these leads, particularly Andre Braugher as the idealistic but ultimately unsuited volunteer Thomas Searles.

The handful of battle sequences are effectively staged, suitably tense and brutal, though these are really ancillary — the regiment only engaged in conflict a couple of times and so, appropriately, actual fighting makes up a relatively slender portion of the film. The unfamiliarity of the story helps keep things tense both in and out of battle — for obvious reasons, the majority of battles depicted on film are famous ones, often because of their outcome, so it makes for an agreeable change to not know where events will lead.

These elements all blend to create a film that is, at the very least, the sum of its parts: a significant historical story with strong performances and a convincing depiction of war, which negotiates the thin lines that surround sentiment and reverence. Zwick may not be a fan of war, but he certainly knows how to put its stories on film.

Russian Ark (2002)

Posted on December 31, 2008 by badblokebob

aka Russkiy Kovcheg

2008 #98
Alexander Sokurov | 96 mins | DVD | U

Russian Ark has received boundless praise from some quarters, and not just for being shot in a recording-smashing single take — to cite one review in particular, “anyone with an eye for beauty, a yearning for the past or a passion for pure cinema is going to be spellbound.”

Apparently some sort of artistic documentary on the history of Russia, told via a fantastical time-travelling-ish tour of a Russian museum, Russian Ark is certainly ‘artistic’. Unfortunately, it doesn’t teach you much and is at no point clear about what it’s covering. Perhaps a more detailed knowledge of Russian history would lend some meaning to the tableaus that are half-glimpsed as the Steadicam drifts by, though it spends as much time meandering down empty corridors in search of something to film as it does actually showing anything. When it does alight on something, the staging is occasionally spectacular, especially considering the self-imposed technical restrictions, but I gained little from this alone.

I freely admit this may say more about me than the film itself, but the most interesting parts were when the character whose point-of-view we inhabit and the French historian he encounters begin to discuss something that almost (almost) resembles a plot — how did they get there, how can the Frenchman speak Russian, can others see them, and so on. Sokurov merrily raises all these questions, in the process throwing a sci-fi dimension into his artistic-documentary-fantasy, but are there any answers offered? No, of course not — that’s not the point. Which does rather make you wonder why they’re vocalised at all…

Watching Russian Ark is a little like doing what the nominal lead characters do: wander aimlessly around an unfamiliar museum without any guide to what they see. Undoubtedly impressive, and worth seeing for the audacity of the single take, but I, unlike others, was far from spellbound.

(Originally posted on 30th January 2009.)

The Fountain (2006)

Posted on June 8, 2008 by badblokebob

2008 #37
Darren Aronofsky | 93 mins | DVD | 12 / PG-13

The Fountain was one of the more critically divisive films of recent years, eliciting genuine “love it or hate it” reviews all round. I find myself leaning more towards the former. While I can’t claim to fully understand (let alone explain) much of what it means, and while I usually dislike things that can pretentiously be described as “film as poetry” (or similar), there’s something in the qualities of The Fountain that engaged me.

For one thing it looks gorgeous. While the whole film is beautifully shot, it’s hard not to single out the future segments, in which Aronofsky chose to create space with “micro-photography of chemical reactions” rather than the usual CGI. However it was achieved, the important thing is it looks great. Clint Mansell’s score is equally beautiful, both dramatically exciting and romantically tender — sometimes at the same time. Performance-wise, Hugh Jackman is undoubtedly at the centre and is as likeable as ever. It’s only the present-day segments where he really has much to do, in the arguably-clichéd story of a scientist so desperate to find a cure for his wife’s disease he misses out on spending time with her. Rachel Weisz is good as ever as the wife, even if her American accent is occasionally distracting.

Meanwhile, the past segments are essentially an historical adventure movie with some of the plot scenes cut, and the future segments offer near-2001 levels of silent obscurity. By a similar token, the film has an apparently ambiguous finale that, unusually, I’m quite happy to let wash over me. I’m sure there are multiple conclusions a viewer can reach for what it’s ‘about’ — the eternity of love, the repetition of life, or simply a sci-fi/fantasy quest for immortality — but I find myself happy to accept that it may mean one, all, or none of those things and just leave it be. It’s an odd way to feel at the end of a film — not caring about what it meant, but in a good way.

I can only apologise that, a bit like the film, this review is relatively brief, a tad dreamy, and somewhat inconclusive. I can see why some dislike this film, and I think I’d normally be one of them, but in this case something about it captured me. I look forward to seeing it again and, maybe, getting a better idea what it was.

Throne of Blood (1957)

Posted on May 29, 2008 by badblokebob

aka Kumonosu jô

2008 #33
Akira Kurosawa | 105 mins | DVD | PG or 12

Kurosawa moves Macbeth from Scotland to 16th Century Japan in this retelling of Shakespeare’s infamous Scottish Play. I’ve heard this described as a loose adaptation — perhaps those reviewers have never read the play. Kurosawa sticks very closely to the structure of Shakespeare’s version of the story (though based on real events, Shakespeare changed key details), often choosing to adapt it scene-for-scene. It works well in the new setting, with some of the themes — honour, respect, betrayal — perhaps becoming more understandable when placed in samurai culture. Kurosawa changes other elements too — character names are understandably localised, there’s only one witch, there’s no version of the famous “Is this a dagger which I see before me?” monologue, and so on. It’s not all omissions however, as Kurosawa adds imagery and symbolism of his own. Again this helps to place the story in its new context, but also covers the loss of Shakespeare’s original language (a major sticking point for some critics).

Beyond the Shakespearean similarities (or lack of), there’s much to see in Throne of Blood — literally, thanks to the atmospheric cinematography. Most of the exteriors are doused in fog, and while this is sometimes over-done (an extended sequence of Washizu and Miki riding in and out of it goes on too long) it also makes for some amazing moments, such as when the trees of Cobweb Forest drift menacingly forward. The interior of the forest is suitably oppressive and scary too, the perfect location for encountering a witch. Kurosawa was inspired by Japanese Noh theatre in his construction of the film, so there are a lot of longer shots that allow the characters to be blocked as if on stage. It’s not overly theatrical, thankfully, and works suitably.

Cinematic techniques are not entirely abandoned however. The most memorable is the banquet scene, in which Washizu sees Miki’s ghost: we see Miki’s empty seat, the camera tracks forward to a shocked Washizu, then back to reveal the ghost of Miki sat at his place, before tracking and panning around the room to follow Mifune’s brilliant performance. It’s an infinitely more effective reveal than any amount of jiggery pokery with dissolves or CGI could provide. Similarly, Washizu’s iconic death scene — in which hundreds of arrows puncture him and the surrounding walls — is impressively achieved (using real arrows), including one seamless shot when an arrow pierces his neck.

Macbeth is my favourite Shakespeare play — it’s a great story, with great themes, imagery and language. Throne of Blood obviously loses some of this, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest — Kurosawa has constructed an excellent and well-conceived retelling with a few of his own flourishes.

A note on the classification: the UK DVD from the BFI is rated PG, classified in 1991. A few months after the DVD’s release in 2001, the film was re-submitted to the BBFC and received a 12. Quite way the rating was raised isn’t explained, and copies of the DVD still bear a PG on the cover.

Henry V (1989)

Posted on May 18, 2008 by badblokebob

2008 #29
Kenneth Branagh | 132 mins | DVD | PG / PG-13

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, as I delve into a second version of Henry V in as many (viewing) days. (I dread to think how many reviews of this film began with a similar quote-based pun.) Inevitably, having watched them so close together, this is as much a comment on the relative merits of Branagh’s and Olivier’s interpretations of Henry V as it is a review of Branagh’s film in its own right.

Branagh’s version opens with almost a direct homage to Olivier’s, though with an important difference. Olivier opened with the Chorus’ narration on a stage ; Branagh opens with the Chorus’ narration on a film set. Rather than wasting half an hour with this conceit (as Olivier did), Branagh pushes into the ‘reality’ of the story before another actor has even entered. And his reality is much more real. The film looks as if it’s lit by candles and daylight, the castles and tavern are rough and dark, the battlefields muddy and grimy; everyone gets dirty and bloodied by the fights. On the whole it’s a grittier and more realistic version. Yet there’s room for more than that. The story still seems concluded at the Battle of Agincourt, but the proposal scene no longer feels tacked on. In fact it’s now laugh-out-loud hilarious, with Branagh and Emma Thompson demonstrating the undeniable chemistry that would help make Much Ado About Nothing so good a few years later. Unlike Olivier’s fluffy limp to the credits, this is an entertaining round-off to the plot.

The fact I’d never seen a version of Henry V before Olivier’s ostensibly gives Branagh’s the benefit of a better understanding on my part. Practically, it matters little that I saw Olivier’s first, as the more modern and film-friendly performances in Branagh’s version mean that, while Olivier’s allowed me to broadly follow the majority of what was happening, Branagh’s gives more access to the nuances of both plot and character. He’s aided in the latter by the inclusion of scenes deemed inappropriate for a World War 2 propaganda film: in one, Henry and co confront three traitors; in another, he hangs an old friend in order to make an example. Other scenes are played differently too, so that Branagh’s Henry is a more complex and morally debatable figure, unlike Olivier’s bright-eyed hero. Whatever your opinions on the two actors on the whole, these changes make for a better character and therefore a better film.

It would be remiss not to mention the rest of the cast. Brian Blessed is positively restrained as Exeter, one of Henry’s key associates — you’d never imagine he could turn in such a performance if you’d only seen his recent go at hosting Have I Got News For You. Paul Schofield, as the aging French King, and Michael Maloney, as the contemptible Dauphin, help flesh out the French side more than Olivier’s version managed, as does Christopher Ravenscroft’s Mountjoy, the French herald who all but switches his allegiance. The English ranks are swelled by Bilbo Baggins, Hagrid, and the current incarnations of ‘M’ and Batman (don’t worry, the French have Miss Marple); not to mention the recognisable faces of Richard Briers, Danny Webb, Simon Shepherd and John Sessions (and no doubt others I’ve accidentally missed). Of course, a starry and recognisable cast does not necessarily a good film make, but this is a dependable lot and there are good performances all round — even if Ian Holm’s Welsh accent is somewhat dubious (though it’s a lunar leap on from the one in Olivier’s version).

And deserving of a paragraph unto himself is Derek Jacobi’s masterful Chorus, who, with just a handful of narrational lines and a big black coat, is somehow one of the coolest characters I’ve seen of late.

There’s no contest here for me. Olivier’s version is an over-stylised, propaganda-inspired, outdated version of Shakespeare, whereas Branagh’s is a comprehensible, realistic, textured and, perhaps most importantly, genuinely enjoyable interpretation.

Henry V (1944)

Posted on May 16, 2008 by badblokebob

2008 #28
Laurence Olivier | 131 mins | VHS | U

Or The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France, as the title card (and therefore IMDb) would have it.

The works of Shakespeare tend to be a love-it-or-hate-it experience for most people, often based on one’s social class and/or experiences at school (obviously not exclusively). Just to be awkward, I’m going to say I have mixed feelings about his plays: on the one hand, I consistently enjoy Macbeth and find Much Ado About Nothing a diverting enough rom-com; on the other, I was bored by Richard III, even when played by Sir Ian McKellen, and never got on with A Midsummer Night’s Dream (to pick just two examples for each side). I imagine most people have their likes and dislikes of course, but I often feel I fall between the the dislike Normal people have for Shakespeare and the love that Cultured people have for him.

This may seem beside the point, but it does lead to Olivier’s Henry V. Simply put, I didn’t much care for it. It failed to engage me, and I’d put this down to Olivier’s infamous staging (literally) of it. The first half hour is a recreation of the play’s first performance in 1600, complete with fluffed sound cues and heckles from the crowd. The goings-on backstage and performer/crowd interactions heavily distract from the actual text being performed, as much as anything because they’re more entertaining. Then, cued by one of the Chorus’s lines, the film moves to showing the story in ‘reality’ — except this is a reality made of painted scenery, primary-coloured landscapes, and cardboard fairy castles. It’s a deliberate effect, designed to emulate pre-Renaissance painting, but it didn’t work for me — it’s over-stylised and distracting, and if you’re not familiar with the play (as I wasn’t) getting distracted is a problem. The concept of transition from performance to reality has potential (as would the idea of presenting the whole thing on stage with crowd interactions, actually, considering I missed them when they went), but I personally feel Olivier executed it poorly. For one thing, it spends too long bedding in the feel of the stage performance before it gets round to the shift to reality.

Stylised productions can work, and excellently, but here the direction and acting are sometimes as flat as the castles. Actors arbitrarily shout some lines, hush others, and put in emphasis of dubious relevance — it’s like Shakespeare-by-numbers, the sort of production that reveres the text so much it doesn’t bother to think about it. It hampers any understanding of what they’re saying, especially for newcomers. Perhaps more fairly, the performance style is incredibly stagey. My degree-related reading suggests this is one of the earliest proper Shakespeare films (previous adaptations being silent or even less complete), so perhaps the idea of a more subdued, screen-acting style had yet to permeate such productions. Things do pick up as the film goes on: the battles are effective, and the proposal scene is more comfortably performed than the pre-war politics. That said, the story seems to be over once Agincourt is won, so by modern structural standards the hasty single-scene romance that follows feels pointlessly tacked on.

Olivier’s Henry V has received plenty of praise in its time, as well as derision, largely for its conception as World War 2 propaganda. The latter is hard to ignore, with grand speeches delivered in a way reminiscent of Churchill’s and scenes removed so that Henry’s character becomes unquestionably good — both aspects that are distinctly less relevant to today’s more complex, war-dubious world. Even leaving the propaganda aside, the performances are outdated, the design several stylised steps too far, and on the whole the production failed to engage or hold my interest. However good it may once have seemed, I think this version has had its day.

Next I’ll be reviewing Kenneth Branagh’s all-star 1989 version of Henry V, here.

Beowulf: Director’s Cut (2007)

Posted on April 19, 2008 by badblokebob

2008 #19
Robert Zemeckis | 110 mins | DVD | 12

Back to catching up on last year’s films that I missed, this time with Beowulf in its Director’s Cut form — which, much to my amusement at the time, prominently featured a BBFC 18 icon on its initial cover art but only received a 12 when classified. Clearly the BBFC didn’t feel the “bolder, never-before-seen images” were any more unsuitable for kiddies than the originals. Personally, I’m not so sure. This version of the film is bloody violent (literally); more so than Lord of the Rings, which is the comparison the BBFC make. I’m not a parent and I’m not pro-censorship (far from it), but this feels more like a 15 to me.

Anyway, that’s not the point. What of the film itself? Well, let’s stick with the violence for a moment. It’s bloody and brutal… and completely undermined by the quality of the animation. I like animated films; I have absolutely no problem with animated films for adults; but the issue here is that most of the characters (especially the ‘extras’) seem of about the same quality as humans in Shrek. So while the battle scenes are often very violent, it becomes hard to take them seriously because it’s all too cartoony. Perhaps this is where classifying became problematic. But it’s not just the violence — the animation is awkward throughout. It’s not lifelike enough to be confused with reality, but not ‘animated’ enough to accept on that level. The characters move stiffly, are mostly too smooth (things do improve with aged characters in the final act), and are ‘dead behind the eyes’. The creatures are largely less realistic CGI than you’d see in a live action film. There are even times when things aren’t far above the graphics from a high-end computer game.

It’s not all bad. Anthony Hopkins is entertaining (and sounding more Welsh than ever), and I enjoyed Alan Silvestri’s score. The screenplay plays fast and loose with the original poem, but Gaiman and Avery have justified this and it’s mostly pretty good. While the third act initially slows the film’s pace to a crawl, the tiredness of an older Beowulf and an exciting duel with a dragon make it the best bit, despite the occasional lack of internal logic (why doesn’t the dragon’s fire burn his heart?) It goes someway to making up for the Beowulf-Grendel battle earlier on. In a rare attempt at genuine faithfulness, Beowulf strips naked for the fight so as to be on equal terms with Grendel. Understandably, the filmmakers don’t want his CGI manhood flying around, so he’s always shot with something helpfully blocking his groin. Problem is, the lengths and tricks involved in achieving this are too reminiscent of similar bits in Austin Powers, turning what should be a big heroic action sequence into a comedic exercise (though, it must be said, not an especially amusing one).

I wanted to like Beowulf. All those people on IMDb who whined that it was animated and you couldn’t do an animated action movie for adults annoyed me something rotten, and I really wanted them to be proved wrong. Plus I like many of Zemeckis’ other films, I like the poem, and there’s a lot of potential for a good adaptation. But the weak CGI, sometimes leaden dialogue (I forgot to mention the 300-wannabe “I am Beowulf” and comedically repetitive “I’ve come to kill your monster”), and uncertain level of violence all get in the way. For the majority of its running time, Beowulf left me with a sadly inescapable feeling of disappointment.

There seem to be a couple of conflicting reports on how different the two cuts are. A comparison lists 90 seconds of new material, but shows the running times to be four-and-a-half minutes different (without credits). On the other hand, the BBFC list the director’s cut as being just 30 seconds longer. However much is completely new, there’s definitely added blood in existing scenes and some shots have been replaced with more graphic versions.

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