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Reviews
Campanadas a medianoche (1965)
Very cinematic, but a gross perversion of the Plays
This movie, which is very nicely filmed, very cinematic, as we'd expect from it's director, has one very big problem with it. Falstaff, in the Shakespeare plays, is no hero. In the plays he symbolizes everything wrong with England. He is an adulterous, corrupt, criminal, even stooping so low as to become a common thief, he is a congenital liar and manipulator. In the plays, while we have a certain amount of fun with him for a while, in the end he is acknowledged for what he is: evil. The director of this film had a different idea, he had a strange romantic vision of the age of chivalry, and felt that this was somehow embodied in the character of Falstaff. Film buffs can read the interviews. This interpretation is at logger-heads with Shakespeare's Fallstaff. The director, of course, felt that you can play Shakespeare any number of different ways, and all will be well and good. But you can't turn the criminal, the embodiment of evil, into the good-guy. That's a little too "Hollywood", in the worst possible way. Personally, I don't feel any sympathy for Hal's rejection of Falstaff. He got what was coming to him. The Prince grew up, developed a sense of moral character when it was needed of him. He rose to the occasion and met that which was demanded of him for the good of his country. The sad coward Falstaff could never change. The director, self-confessedly, is on Falstaffs side. Makes you wonder about his view of life in general and understanding of Shakespeare in particular.
Very disappointing.
Hamlet (2009)
Very enjoyable "modern" Shakespeare, where the "modern" isn't a dirty word
If you can't stand the idea of a Shakespeare play being staged outside of it's historical context, then perhaps this is the exception that proves the rule. It's mostly down to the sets, and presumably the lack of acquaintance for most audiences anywhere with the country in which it is supposed to take place, in the time it is supposed to take place, but mostly just the very beautiful sets, which place it in a strange, elegant landscape of the internal workings of the characters, but it's not abstract, it's not in limbo, and it works very, very well. Though I suppose the nature of the play helps just a little bit.
It isn't without any historical specificity at all, it seems to have a World War One feel to it, as a point of reference. David Tennant is very watchable. Occasionally it becomes a little too modern, some of the CCTV shots are annoying (though the idea is is used very nicely on the whole), and the business with the home-movie camera is a little jarring. The interpretation of the dialogue and content is excellent; nothing in any way pretentious or forced about it.
Surprising, riveting, very enjoyable, proper full on Shakespeare.
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
The self-absorbed nature of the artist
(Contains spoilers) A middle-aged theater director watches his life fall apart and documents it on stage, in a single play that remains in rehearsal for decades, i.e. metaphor for the artist working his life out through his work, but it never gets anywhere, he never finds any answers, everything is dissatisfying. As he ages the truth begins to slip through, and his fantasy of why his wife left him, and how much he misses his daughter is replaced by the reality that he had a homosexual affair, that the responsibility is his, and his daughter will never forgive him for abandoning her. Eventually he realizes he is a nobody, becomes tired, and dies. It starts of realistically, with fantasy segments clearly differentiated, then fantasy and reality become indistinguishable, the audience is initially left confused, but with enough confidence in the film to let it play out and deliver the pay off, and it remains engaging till the end. As a metaphor for the egotism and narcissism of a career artist, it would work just fine, but the final song playing out over the end credits rather suggests that this metaphor is supposed to apply to everyone, as if we were all so egotistically engrossed in our own selves, and an atheist to boot. Thankfully, not everyone lives in that kind of world.