LOVING - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2016 - Bland TV-movie approach deflates history

Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton as interracial Loving couple.

Loving (2016)
Dir. Jeff Nichols
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Marton Csokas, Nick Kroll, Michael Shannon

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The story of Richard and Mildred Loving (Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga) deserves better than an earnest, plodding, vaguely pretentious made-for-television-styled movie like Loving. Thankfully Nancy Buirski's fine 2011 HBO feature documentary The Loving Story, upon which this dramatic rendering by Jeff Nichols is based, has already delivered the cinematic goods this important story deserves.

Alas, the legal case involving an interracial marriage which challenged the grotesque anti-miscegenation laws of the backward State of Virginia is dramatically rendered here with all the artistic panache of a connect-the-dots colouring book puzzle. The promise writer-director Jeff Nichols displayed in his 2007 Arkansas-cracker family feud drama Shotgun Stories and the extraordinary 2011 survivalism end-of-days psycho-drama Take Shelter has subsequently and sadly dwindled.




Like so many laws of diminishing returns, his output increasingly underwhelms. His Dullsville 2012 contemporary Huckleberry Finn-like Mud and this year's ludicrous science fiction drama Midnight Special maintained his quiet, measured voice, but served up stories unbecoming of his earlier work.

Loving is the worst of the lot. He retains his voice almost to a fault, but does so within the trappings of something that might be more suited to an episode of the Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Marton Czokas as scumbag racist Virginia cop.

Nichols's film introduces us to working-class Caucasian drag-racing aficianado Richard Loving who, with longtime African-American girlfriend Mildred, decides to flout the moronic Virginia law against interracial relations. They visit Washington D.C. to get married in a civil union after they discover she's pregnant with their first child. Upon returning, their home is raided by cracker-barrel cops led by the systemically, virulently racist Sheriff R. Garnett Brooks (Marton Czokas). Rather than face a year in prison, the couple cop a plea and agree to leaving their home in Caroline County, Virginia and promise never to return to the state together.

Life in the big city proves untenable and the couple "illegally" returns home to the rural idyll they've known their entire lives. They're subsequently arrested and the film continues to detail their long legal battle (with the assistance of dogged ACLU lawyers) to have the Virginia law eventually overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States.




There's nothing especially wrong with the film in that it's nicely acted and extremely competent on a craft level, but there's nothing all too right with it either. The "competence" factor is especially egregious and renders a movie that feels like it's been made rather inconsequentially for the small screen rather than the ordinarily high stakes needed for big screen theatrical product. There's nothing wrong with a quiet, subtle approach, but it's employed here to the point where our emotional investment is ultimately more rooted in the basic facts of the case rather than anything imparted dramatically.

Nichols probably thought he was being oh-so clever by focusing upon the "normal" and "mundane" details of the couple's life, but he tries to have his cake and eat it to by framing his approach within an otherwise conventional, by-rote structure.

For one of the most important events in American History to be handled with competence and precious pretence, inadvertently deflates the whole thing. If the movie was dreadful, one could at least say it was shameful. That it's strictly middle of the road is even worse. It's just one big pile of nothing.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two-Stars

Loving was a TIFF 2016 Gala Presentation.

A QUIET PASSION - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2016 - Davies Does Dickinson Delectably

CYNTHIA NIXON and KEITH CARRADINE

A Quiet Passion (2016)
Dir. Terence Davies
Starring: Cynthia Nixon, Emma Bell, Keith Carradine,
Jennifer Ehle, Joanna Bacon, Duncan Duff, Jodhi May

Review By Greg Klymkiw

THERE is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man.
It hurls its barbed syllables,—
At once is mute again,
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted brother
Gave his breath away. - Emily Dickinson

We trust, in plumed procession
For such, the Angels go -
Rank after Rank, with even feet -
And Uniforms of snow.

There is war in this exquisite dramatic biography of poet Emily Dickinson. There is violence and there are battles. It is all, however, like all of the greatest films by Terence Davies, very, very quiet.

The war waged in A Quiet Passion is one against patriarchal propriety - both societal and religious. Davies presents us with the life of Dickinson from her adolescence (Emma Bell) through adulthood (Cynthia Nixon) and to her sad, painful death at age 55 from Bright's (kidney) Disease. The story is told via the trademarks of Davies - stately, gorgeously-composed tableaux with an accent on measured delivery of dialogue that is rooted exquisitely in the period with which the film is set (in Amherst, Massachusetts from about 1846 to 1866).

There is considerable emphasis placed on Dickinson's relationships with her family and how this inspires and informs her gifts as a poet. Her mother (Joanna Bacon) lives a lonely life and indeed Emily comments, "You always seem so sad." Her mother responds, "My life has passed as if in a dream." And damned if Emily will float gently into the good night. She rages on paper.




Terence Davies has always displayed a special gift for extolling the virtues and servitude of mothers, but he has also been acutely sensitive to portraying patriarchal rule in all its violence and unfairness. Here, Emily's relationship with her father (Keith Carradine) is especially replete with conflict and love. Her father clearly values Emily's individuality, but displays considerable conflict within himself and the demands society places on him. He is on one hand, proud and accepting, yet on the other, prone to anger and frustration over Emily's refusal to be an individual, but to also "play the games" required of a woman.

Terence Davies (Distant Voices Still Lives, The Long Day Closes) is unquestionably the greatest living filmmaker in the UK and amongst the world's best filmmakers - ever. I can think of no better filmmaker to tackle the challenge of biographically portraying this great woman of letters. His indelible use of music has always been unique and all his own. Film after film he delivers the most beautiful, heartbreakingly beautiful montages set to music - always evocative of narrative, character and tone.

Though A Quiet Passion has its fair share of such musical montages, Davies is not one to rest idly on his laurels. Given that his film is about one of the greatest poets of all time, he utilizes his poetic approach to cinema by using what might be the greatest music of all - the music of poetry - Dickinson's, of course.

Though there are far too many of these great sequences to catalogue, there are two which occur back-to-back which are not only great examples of what a magnificent screenplay Davies has wrought, but proof positive of his consummate artistry as a filmmaker. Davies etches a particularly harrowing verbal joust between Emily and her father and in its aftermath, he focuses upon the conflicting feelings of anger and sorrow on her father's face as we get an offscreen reading of Dickinson's Love poem XLIV "THERE is a word Which bears a sword". As if this isn't enough to set one's tears into squirt-overdrive, Davies brilliantly follows up the scene with a montage to place the argument-scene in a historical/thematic context by delivering a series of Civil War images set to Dickinson's "To fight around is very brave".

Prepare to lose it emotionally during these two montages. God knows, I did.




As per usual, Davies inspires his entire cast to render superlative performances. Cynthia Nixon knocks the wind out of you as Dickinson (her off-screen readings of the poetry are deeply moving) and an almost unrecognizable Keith Carradine chills to the bone as Emily's father.

What might be the films's greatest triumph is that one could go into it knowing nothing about Emily Dickinson and emerge with both an edifying cinematic experience and a reason to get to know her. This is indeed triumphant - oh-so delicate and oh-so quiet.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

A Quiet Passion is a PNP (Pacific Northwest Pictures) release and plays in the TIFF 2016 Masters series.

THE BIRTH OF A NATION - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2016 - Biopic pillories Nat Turner

Nat Turner at the pillory,
though it's director/star Nate Parker
who deserves to be pilloried.

The Birth of a Nation (2016)
Dir. Nate Parker
Starring: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley,
Penelope Ann Miller, Gabrielle Union, Esther Scott

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Nate Parker shoehorns two rapes into his abysmal big-screen biopic of the legendary African American freedom fighter Nat Turner. That one of them involves the character of Turner's wife, who appears (by all historical accounts) to have never been raped, manages to offer up a mighty rank fish-smell wafting from Parker's fetid onscreen world.

That the other rape in the film involves a character who doesn't have a single line of dialogue, seems more than enough to charge the picture with bearing a strong streak of sexism, if not downright misogyny. Both rapes are indicative of a myriad of poor storytelling choices on Nate Parker's part in this horrid, poorly written and incompetently directed attempt to render a stirring picture about one of America's greatest heroes.

Nate Parker in diapers. Fetishize THAT!

The Birth of a Nation is so awful, it's disheartening that it exists as the first major feature drama to tell such an important story about the history of African-Americans. Nat Turner (played in the film by director Parker) led a major slave uprising in 1831 Virginia. The rebellion resulted in the deaths of about 60 white people who "benefitted" from being slavers. The aftermath saw many of Turner's followers captured and killed. Turner himself eventually suffered the same fate. In spite of a flurry of official measures by Whitey to place further restraints upon African-Americans, the rebellion is an important event which provided hope to slaves and contributed to the anti-slavery sentiments amongst America's liberal class.

Parker's film places considerable emphasis upon Turner's literacy and abilities to preach the words of God. That his financially-strapped owner (Armie Hammer) sells his slave's services to other plantation owners (who hope to quell sentiments of rebellion), is a story element that certainly offers the potential of a very interesting relationship - a kind of bro-mance miscegenation-style, but Parker is such an incompetent film storyteller, it remains firmly lodged up the smelly butthole of potentiality.

The film also spends inordinately saccharine amounts of time on Turner's relationship with his wife, rooted (so to speak) in the director's considerable exertions to bolster his delusional belief in the yummy sex appeal he seems to think he has. This is about as offensive as the aforementioned rapey stuff, but might actually be more bile-inducing.

And so, the movie plods along, rife with cliches and historical inaccuracies and directed with all the aplomb of a made-for-TV movie. Once the "action" begins, Parker's meagre directorial abilities extend to an inability to offer up coverage commensurate with the sort of flair that could have, at the very least, kept an audience awake and sufficiently charged to have something resembling an emotional response to the pallid proceedings.

"Who stole my diapers?"

Given that Parker has attempted to "reclaim" the film's title from D.W. Griffith's racist, but undeniably groundbreaking 1915 feature, he might have attempted to study the film's astonishing mise-en-scene for a few pointers on how to make a movie.

Aside from his film's overall failure to deliver any goods at all, The Birth of a Nation is plagued with two especially egregious elements. First of all, the entire dichotomy between the Old and New Testaments (the former preaching revenge, the latter extolling the virtues of turning the other cheek) is never adequately addressed within the context of character, theme and drama. Secondly, a running dream-motif exploring Turner's belief in his destiny as a "warrior" is handled with all the subtlety of a jackhammer.

Parker even blows these dream sequences in which he appears as Turner, adorned in what appear to be the swaddling attire of cloth diapers, inspiring a whack of unintentional guffaws amongst audiences desperate for something (ANYTHING!!!). But here's the rub (sans tug). By not even bothering to mine the fetishistic possibilities inherent in the film's star (himself, 'natch), dolled up in this sexy attire, Turner seems to add considerable insult to injury. Then again, given the "primitive" context of the dream sequences, it seems unlikely Nat Turner would have been clothed at all. Perhaps Parker decided he didn't quite have the "equipment" to let it all hang out.

On both counts, ultimately, a real filmmaker might have been needed.




Of course we must not ignore the film's rapey "qualities", which seem somewhat curious given that Parker, in real life, was acquitted of rape several years earlier and that his accuser eventually committed suicide. That said, I don't believe it's ever fair to condemn a film based upon anything its maker may or may not have done in his private life. The movie must live or die by its quality as art. It is here, however, that The Birth of a Nation dies a miserable death, simply and solely by virtue of the fact that it's a dreadful picture.

The Film Corner Rating: * (One-Star)

The Birth of a Nation is a Special Presentation at TIFF 2016. It will be released theatrically by Fox-Searchlight.

THE NEW WORLD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Malick's Last Real Movie on Criterion Blu-Ray

Terrence Malick's last real movie.

The New World (2005)
Dir. Terrence Malick
Starring: Colin Farrell, Q'orianka Kilcher, Christopher Plummer, Christian Bale,
August Schellenberg, Wes Studi, David Thewlis, Yorick van Wageningen, John Savage

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The New World is the last real movie made by Terrence Malick prior to descending into his "I Talk To The Trees" cinematic dementia which began with the pretentious The Tree of Life and followed by the risible To The Wonder, Knight of Cups (Malick's nadir) and Voyage of Time (it has two versions, both awful, though happily the IMAX edition is very short). For this reason, one must be truly thankful to the Criterion Collection for issuing the gobsmackingly gorgeous "Director-Approved Special Edition" (3-Disc Blu-Ray, 4-Disc DVD) of Malick's haunting and moving take on the Pocahontas story. (This edition includes a terrific documentary by Austin Jack Lynch, especially illuminating in the sections devoted to training the indigenous Native actors in period body language.)

The New World has had a curious release pattern with no less than three different versions of the film. There is a 150-minute cut which played briefly in America to qualify for Oscars (and long available on an Italian DVD), then the contractually-obligated 135-minute cut which was the only one most of us saw for awhile and finally, a 172-minute extended cut that has never been theatrically released.

Luckily, this lovely box set (with gorgeous new cover artwork by Robert Hunt) has all three cuts. I like them all, frankly. The shortest version was all I knew for awhile and it's the sleekest of the lot, while the slightly longer version expands on both poetic qualities and sharpens narrative clarity. The longest is a real treat. Though it has far more early hints of Malick's tree-staring and soulful voiceovers, they are all in service to a compelling narrative.

Pocahontas: Lost in Love.

Many of us are familiar with the historically-rooted story of Native Princess Pocahontas via any number of literary and film renderings (the most horrendous being the animated Disney musical), but Malick has definitely delivered the most vital and successful dramatic look at this fascinating figure.

After some lovely underwater nude swimming shots of the gorgeous Pocahontas, we're introduced to the dashing figure of military man John Smith (Colin Farrell) who arrives, in chains, with a boatload of various rough-and-tumble types from England, all selected to establish the colony of Jamestown, Virginia and to set up a tobacco trade on the rich, fertile expanse of land in America. Smith is about to be executed for insubordination, but saved by the kindly (and in his own way, equally dashing) Captain Newport (Christopher Plummer).

To the dismay of Wingfield (David Thewlis), a snooty bureaucratic martinet with a major hate-on for our hero, Smith is promoted in rank and charged with overseeing the colony. As the new settlers are beleagured with a lack of food supplies, Smith journeys deep into the wilderness to establish positive relations and trade with the Algonquian "naturals".

Enter Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher), Princess and favourite daughter of the tribe's Chief Powhatan (August Schellenberg). She not only saves Smith's life, but engages in much cavorting through nature with him as they fall madly in love. This allows Malick plenty of opportunity for shots of nature, sky and trees.

There's a whole lotta voice-over goin' on, too.

As Smith "goes Native" and learns the ways of the "naturals", there's a whack o' delicious romance and humour in the proceedings.

There is portent, too.

Powhatan warns Pocahontas to never take sides with the colonists, not even Smith. He fears they are all wolves in sheep's clothing (which, uh, they ultimately are). Smith, though, seems true to his commitment to the "naturals" and between he and Pocahontas, both sides are well served.

Until, there is war.

The dashing Captain John Smith.

Smith is eventually charged with leaving on a long, perilous expedition. The glories of exploration are dangled before him by kindly Cappy Newport and he takes the bait. Smith feels, in his heart of hearts, that his destiny is greater than his happiness. Knowing he'll never return, he asks a trusted associate to eventually lie to Pocahontas that he has died at sea so she can move on without him.

When she is informed of his death, she plunges into a grief that borders on madness. She's "rescued" by the ladies of Fort James who begin a process of colonization in earnest and she's transformed into a "proper" Englishwoman. She eventually meets John Rolfe (Christian Bale), a sweet, gentle and oh-so handsome tobacco plantation magnate. He's smitten with her, but she's still pining for the "dead" Captain John Smith. Eventually she acquiesces to Rolfe's marriage proposal.

When Rolfe and his "Indian Princess" bride are invited to England in order to meet royalty and high society, they journey across the pond. Accompanied by her Uncle Opechancanough (Wes Studi), they become the toast of Dear Old Blighty. Whilst gambolling on manicured British lawns, an old flame from her past materializes. John Smith, it seems, is not dead. Will the peace and love she's come to know with Rolfe now crash and burn?

Malick's screenplay, for all the film's poetic meanderings, carries a surprisingly solid romantic narrative arc and the whole experience of watching the film is filled with genuine wonder. The political implications of colonization and indeed, the gradual assimilation forced upon Pocahontas are always present, even though Malick's approach is never political.

He is clearly at the peak of his powers here as a Master Filmmaker and he's smart enough not to let politics get in the way of spiritual rumination on the beauty of nature, the power of love and creating a world that is richly steeped in history. All of this is bathed in cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's stunning work (he paints with what appears to mostly be natural light), ace production designer Jack Fisk's muscular work creating both the colonial and old world settings of the early 17th Century and James Horner's lushly romantic score (nicely supplemented with plenty of Wagner and Mozart).

The greatness of The New World is paralleled only by the greatness of Malick's best work. It soars with a most remarkable spirit and it's dappled with more than its fair share of pure passion.

And yeah, the picture gives us an amazing opportunity at the end to squirt copious tears, ever-so Old-Faithful-like upon the screen. When he made real movies, Malick sure knew how to move us.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

The New World is available on a sumptuous Criterion Collection 3-Disc DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION Blu-Ray with a new 4K digital restoration of the 172-minute extended cut of the film, supervised by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and director Terrence Malick and featuring material not released in theaters, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-rays. Included are high-definition digital transfers of the 135-minute theatrical cut and the 150-minute first cut of the film, supervised by Lubezki, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks on the Blu-rays. PLUS: new interviews with actors Colin Farrell and Q’orianka Kilcher, new program about the making of the film, featuring interviews with producer Sarah Green, production designer Jack Fisk, and costume designer Jacqueline West, Making “The New World,” a documentary shot during the production of the film in 2004, directed and edited by Austin Jack Lynch (this is especially illuminating in the sections devoted to training the indigenous Native actors in period body language), a new program about the process of cutting The New World and its various versions, featuring interviews with editors Hank Corwin, Saar Klein, and Mark Yoshikawa, Trailers, A book featuring an essay by film scholar Tom Gunning, a 2006 interview with Lubezki from American Cinematographer, and a selection of materials that inspired the production.

STRANGER (Zhat) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Oscar Hopeful ***TIFF 2015 TOP PICK***

Stranger aka Zhat (2015)
Dir. Yermek Tursunov
Starring: Yerzhan Nurymbet

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When you're watching a picture and it occasionally reminds you of Sydney Pollack's Jeremiah Johnson, Akira Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala, Serhiy Paradjanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors AND does so with its own unique stylistic and narrative approach, then you know you're watching something very special indeed. Yermek Tursunov's Stranger (Zhat) has the kind of "thinking man's" epic sweep one expects, but never really gets from many overblown extravaganzas touted as such. Tursunov, however, delivers the goods in spades by focusing upon the solitary life of Ilyas (Yerzhan Nurymbet, in an astonishingly hypnotic performance) from childhood through to his solitary death.

Probably the most fascinating aspect of Tursunov's terrific film is that Ilyas's life is charted against the backdrop of Totalitarian rule under the Soviet Union's very own version of Hitler, the evil butcher Joseph Stalin. Beginning with the early days of farm collectivization (a polite way of saying slavery), through the various periods of forced-starvation genocides and purges, World War II, post-war "prosperity" and finally, Stalin's death in 1953, Tursanov presents a sad portrait of a young man forced into a life of solitude by a reign of political terror which sees him orphaned as a boy when his father is secreted away by Stalinist goons for "collaboration".

Luckily for Ilyas, when a local yokel steals his father's horse to butcher and feed to the nearby village, the yearling is left behind and our young hero, having been taught wilderness survival tactics by his father, takes off with the young horse into the forests and mountains amidst the mighty Kazakh steppe. Adopting and raising a pack of orphaned wolves, he lives amongst them in a cave dwelling for most of his adult life, missing out on all the changes and strife in the greater world of his fellow countrymen.

Still, the pull of society is strong and amongst such genuine desires as making his unrequited love for a childhood sweetheart a reality and the very basic need for companionship, Ilyas is a man without a country, especially since he eschews the notions of Soviet politics and nationhood. The few locals who might want to be his friend, ultimately spurn him on the shaky moral ground of Ilyas's disregard for the trappings as dictated by the evil Communist Party. For his part, Ilyas is completely left behind as the world becomes ever-modern.

Though Tursonov might feel the urgings of sentiment, he merely flirts with them. Even so, his film is replete with sequences so moving and powerful, that melodrama is not a requirement here. The number of memorable moments are incalculable, but so many of them are linked to the mighty work of actor Yerzhan Nurymbet and Tursonov's natural desire to capture the deep pain in the eyes of his central character. Whether, Nurymbet looks longingly at the woman he loves but will never have as his wife or into the eyes of his beloved old horse with the tell-tale signs of cancer-imposed malnutrition forcing him to let the beast go off into the woods to meet his maker, Tursonov gives us a film that inspires deep emotion within us.

The film has been chosen by Kazakhstan as its official entry into the Foreign-Language Oscar sweepstakes. TIFF has long been a bell-weather for Oscar hopefuls, but with Stranger, this is one time I find myself in a film's corner for such an accolade. This picture deserves to be seen and acclaimed by as wide an audience as possible.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Stranger (Zhat( receives its World Premiere in the TIFF Contemporary World Cinema program at TIFF 2015. For dates, times and tix, visit the TIFF website HERE.

THE LEOPARD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Magnificent, Heart-Achingly Romantic Visconti Epic @ TIFF Bell Lightbox Summer in Italy series & a gorgeous Criterion Collection BluRay

The Leopard (1963)
Dir. Luchino Visconti
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Christ Almighty, I love Luchino Visconti! Then again, what's not to love? The guy knocked us on our butts with one of the earliest forays into Italian Neo-realism, 1943's still-provocative Ossessione, his debut feature being the very first film adaptation of James. M. Cain's immortal crime melodrama "The Postman Always Rings Twice". With each subsequent picture, he progressively ladled on the most gorgeous, sumptuous compositions in service to increasingly melodramatic narratives.

Still, he almost never forgot his roots in the tradition that became far more synonymous with Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. In spite of his penchant for the melodrama driving his epic of politics, war and romance, The Leopard (and so many subsequent films), neo-realism continued to be pervasive within Visconti's unflagging attention to detail, especially during both the battle scenes and lavish rituals of Sicily's ruling class which take breathtaking command of this stunningly great picture.

Based upon the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Visconti and his raft of screenwriters including himself, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Enrico Medioli, Massimo Franciosa and Suso Cecchi d'Amico, craft the compelling tale of Don Fabrizio Corbera (Burt Lancaster), the powerful, respected and beloved Prince of Salina. Whilst many of his family members, neighbours and the estate's personal Catholic priest all fear the recent uprisings to unify Sicily and Italy, led by the savvy military genius General Garibaldi and his 1000 "redshirts", Don Fabrizio harbours a romantic kinship with the rebels. He even finances them and offers his unconditional blessings to his favourite nephew, the dashing, handsome Tancredi (Alain Delon) to join the "redshirts'" cause.

Don Fabrizio is more than happy to share his beliefs with those who will listen: the uprisings will ultimately mean everything and nothing. Yes, they will further unify Italy, but in fact, the "changes" are necessary to maintain the "status quo". Essentially, nothing will really change (at least in the immediate future) for Italy's aristocracy.

His relationship with Tancredi is especially close. The lad takes the place of the son he's always wanted. His love for Tancredi is such that he pooh-poohs the notion of his own daughter marrying the gorgeous swashbuckler since he's well aware of the fact that such a young man (his estate squandered by Fabrizio's brother) will require a wife of considerable wealth. Fabrizio has dowries to offer, of course, but with seven daughters, none of them will come close to adding up collectively to what he feels Tancredi will need for both himself and to solidify the power of the Corbrera Dynasty. Fabrizio is as politically and financially astute as he is a romantic.

In addition to the astonishing battle sequence involving the fall of Palermo to the "redshirts", Visconti continues to soar as a filmmaker with two key set pieces in the 3-hour-long film. One involves the family's journey to their country palace in Donnafugata and the other, a grand ball involving the presentation, or "coming-out" (if you will) of Tancredi's wife-to-be, the drop-dead gorgeous and mega-wealthy Angelica (Claudia Cardinale).

Though the pace of the film is as stately as the lives led by these Italian aristocrats, there is never a dull moment in the proceedings thanks to Visconti's eye for beauty and his knack for detail. (The astounding cinematography of the great Giuseppe Rotunno and the grand orchestral Nino Rota musical score are no slouches, either.)

From a luscious picnic on the way to Donnafugata, through to the traditional processions and celebrations in the town (if anyone wonders where both Scorsese and Coppola received considerable inspiration and cinematic tutelage, they need look no further) and finally the fascinatingly complex negotiations twixt Fabrizio and the somewhat vulgar landowner seeking "legitimacy" by marrying his daughter off to Tancredi, Visconti dazzles our hearts, minds and eyes with drama and images that are simply unforgettable.

One of the magnificent directorial touches is the subtle, almost heart-aching manner in which Visconti captures Fabrizio's passionate, though unrequited love for the stunning Angelica. Handled with looks and glances, along with Burt Lancaster's soulful performance, we feel the ultimate consummation of his desires within the vicarious thrills he enjoys through that of his dashing nephew. As Fabrizio's love flourishes, Tancredi's virtually explodes, and then during one of cinema's greatest ballroom dance sequences, Visconti allows us to bear witness to one of the most wildly romantic scenes in all of cinema history.

Angelica catches one of Fabrizio's glances and in a stunning moment of cinematic glory, we're witness to a sense of her looking into the handsome, distinguished visage of what she herself will grow old with once she marries Tancredi. She asks Fabrizio for a dance. He agrees, but only if the orchestra plays a waltz.

And then, as if the Heavens have parted to grant them their wish, a waltz strikes up and we feel the gooseflesh and tears rise within us as this grand, old Prince takes the stunning princess-to-be for a spin on the glorious dance floor under the majestic chandeliers of the palace and the admiring eyes of all who surround them.

As the film winds down, as the grand ball comes to a fitting end, Visconti allows us to follow the departing Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina as he slowly walks into the night air, disappearing into the darkness as a new generation takes command of the light.

As The Leopard so beautifully proves, things never really change. The cycles of life and love continue, long after we're gone - not forever, but swallowed by our eternal memories and those which supplant our own and create memories anew.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

The Leopard is part of TIFF's 2015 Summer in Italy series and also available on a gorgeous Criterion Collection Blu-Ray which includes a new high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Giuseppe Rotunno and presented in the original Super Technirama aspect ratio of 2.21:1, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition, the 161-minute American release, with English-language dialogue, including Burt Lancaster’s own voice, an audio commentary by film scholar Peter Cowie, A Dying Breed: The Making of The Leopard, a terrific hour-long documentary featuring interviews with Claudia Cardinale, screenwriter Suso Ceccho D’Amico, Rotunno, filmmaker Sydney Pollack, and many others, video interviews with producer Goffredo Lombardo and professor Millicent Marcus on the history behind The Leopard, original theatrical trailers and newsreels, a stills gallery of rare behind-the-scenes production photos and a lovely booklet featuring a new essay by film historian Michael Wood.

KINGS OF THE SUN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Chakiris/Brynner: Foes Become Friends

Kings of the Sun (1963)
Dir. J. Lee Thompson
Starring: George Chakiris, Yul Brynner,
Richard Basehart, Shirley Anne Field, Leo Gordon

Review By Greg Klymkiw

How do like your cheese? Ripe, runny and mouldy or a nice solid brick of good, old fashioned Wisconsin Cheddar? Well, though there is much to be said for the rich, flavourful qualities of the former, sometimes the latter is just what the doctor ordered. Kings of the Sun is clearly of the Wisconsin variety, though happily, it's an old white cheddar and as such, a mite more savoury than your garden variety slab of straight-up orange-coloured curd.

This delightfully melodramatic action-adventure epic of manly men and exotic women is set of 1000 years-ago when a nation of wooden-sworded Mayans on the Yucatán are besieged by a much powerful rival tribe who use metal swords. The wooden-sworded nation are led by the brave young King Balam (George Chakiris, the handsome Greek-American dancer who copped the 1961 Supporting Actor Oscar in the role of the Puerto Rican leader of the Sharks in West Side Story). Balam decides to flee from the nasty take-no-prisoners-lest-they're-women-to-be-raped metal-swordsman King Hunac Ceel (Leo Gordon, the stalwart veteran of numerous TV westerns and one of director Don Siegel's favourite bad guys).

Balam, betrothed to the comely Ixchel (Shirley Anne Field), leads his people through a secret tunnel in their majestic Mayan Pyramid, loads them into boats and sets sail for the mysterious lands far north (Tex-Mex country) to bolster their resources and create a new kingdom - maybe to even someday reclaim their ancestral lands.

Once Balam and his people land up in Tex-Mex territory, they put their ingenuity to good use and build a powerful fort, new abodes and begin a whole new Pyramid so they can start sacrificing humans to the Gods as soon as possible.

Ah, but hiding in the woods and observing the Mayans is an indigenous Native American tribe led by Chief Black Eagle (Yul Brynner) and he's royally fuming (like only Brynner can, flaring those sexy nostrils). He plans to battle these oddly costumed intruders, but unfortunately he's wounded and captured by the Mayans, then held hostage to keep the Injuns at bay.

The real power amongst the Mayans is their wacky blood-thirsty, blood-sacrifice-endorsing Witch Doctor Ah Min (played, I kid you not, by the whiter-than-white Richard Basehart, star of TV's Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea). Adorned in a ridiculous wig and flowing robes, Ah-Min looks like he should be an emcee at an octogenarian drag performance club in Slovenija, and as such, he's able to convince Balam and all the others that they must nurse Black Eagle to health so he may be their first official sacrifice when the Pyramid is finished.

A love rivalry twixt Ixchel, Black Eagle and Balam begins to brew and as these lovebirds begin smouldering, little do they know that the crazy Hunac Ceel has loaded up his boats with thousands of warriors to wipe out Balam for good and they're just around the corner.

If the Mayans sacrifice Black Eagle, they'll not be able to count on the necessary allegiance with the Natives to fight Hunac. Hmmmm. Dilemmas-dillemmas. I doubt it's going to come as a surprise to anyone, but get to a rousing final battle sequence, we must submit to a whole water-tower full of roiling melodrama.

I can't actually say that any of this is especially well-acted, but it is exuberantly over-acted and where the picture really succeeds is in its gorgeous cinematography by the legendary Joseph (My Darling Clementine, Viva Zapata, Niagara, Pickup on South Street) McDonald, a rousing orchestral score by Elmer Bernstein, stunning sets and costumes, a cast of thousands and some of the most beautifully directed battle scenes ever committed to film by the stalwart J. Lee Thompson (Taras Bulba, Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear).

So if you're in the mood for some solid cheese, feel free to whack off a few hunks of this Kings of the Sun brand. It'll bind you, bind you real good.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

Kings of the Sun is available on a gorgeous Kino-Lorber Blu-Ray.

THE CONFORMIST - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Bertolucci Dazzles: Deluxe KinoLorber BluRay

Emptiness
Interruptus

The Conformist (1970)
Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda

Review By Greg Klymkiw

You're never going to see a more gorgeous movie about fascism than Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist.

He was only in his late 20s when he made this 1970 adaptation of Alberto Moravia's novel and the picture still crackles with urgency, dread and horror. It's furthermore infused with a winning combination of political/historical smarts, deeply considered intellectual rigour and an eye for heart-aching, stunning and dazzling visual artistry.

Working with ace cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now), there isn't a single composition, lighting scheme or camera move in the entire photoplay that's anything less than gorgeous. The sheer physical beauty in interior decor, architecture and the natural world is an effective and complex juxtaposition within the story of a man driven by pure ambition.

Ambitious or not, though, the main character Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) seems completely without a bone of real genuine passion in his body and is certainly bereft of such in his soul. His notions of passion seem rooted in a false construct of what he believes to be truly rapturous. He believes he must marry and "love" Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) because she herself is a lovely, politically clueless member of his "class" and as such, is going to be an ideal appendage to him as he attempts to scale the heights within the government of Italian totalitarian leader Benito Mussolini.

Working as a secret field operative for the secret police, Marcello's ambition is the kind of petty, small-minded desire for advancement that would plague any loathsomely tweedy bureaucrat in public or private life and bravely, That said, Jean-Louis Trintignant is Jean-Louis Trintignant, and as such, is always cool, no matter how big a scumbag he's playing and Bertolucci's screenplay and direction, by way of Moravia's novel, works overtime to transform Trintignant into a character who is totally and pathetically bereft of an inner life. The first big job Marcello happily accepts is to ingratiate himself upon a former university philosophy professor, one whom he was especially fond of as a youth, and set the old anti-fascist up for a political assassination.

Adding insult to injury (in terms of presenting a character seemingly bereft of any positive warmth or humanity), we learn that Marcello is a young man who comes from considerable money and breeding, yet his impetus always seems to hover at the lowest rung of the ladder of the bourgeoisie. That both Bertolucci and Trintignant manage to create a character that we're always on the verge of wanting to admire and/or root for is a testament to both men's gifts as director and actor respectively since Marcello is a preeminent symbol of shallow desires.

Bertolucci structures the story so that timelines are often blended twixt flashbacks, flash forwards and a current perspective. None of this is flashy, trick-pony nonsense, nor even confusing, but is, in fact, a canny way to keep us on our toes in terms of both the advancement of narrative as well as the slow, almost creepy crawly dread that infiltrates our own perspective upon Marcello's gradual descent which, is the very thing that reaches a nadir even within Marcello so that he begins to question both his motives and the morality of his actions.

The trappings of class masking the horrors of Fascism

It is, in fact, love - real passion - which consumes Marcello. He doesn't even appear to have much passion for fascism, all that drives him is petty ambition, something he eventually realizes when he begins to fall madly in love with his old professor's wife, Anna (Dominique Sanda of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis fame), a stunningly ethereal beauty. Granted, it's her gossamer physical seductiveness that first attracts him rather than her intellect and inner life, which is virtually parallel to the aesthetically sumptuous trappings of upper class Italian society masking the evils of fascism.

Anna's beauty masks her inner life

Class, or at least the perceptions of class, clearly affect the carefully planted flashback of a much younger Marcello killing a family chauffeur who attempts to rape him. We even begin to doubt the perceived sexual exploitation between domestic "help" and the young man of means. It seems real enough, and perhaps even Marcello's murderous actions are justified, but Bertolucci plants enough doubt in our minds so that we respond to Marcello as someone swayed, if not exploited by class and perceptions of class, as opposed to any malevolence inherent in the chauffeur's attraction to him.

Even more powerful is the strange sense of redemption the film appears to work its way towards. When events converge to a point in the narrative when all seems dire, deeply sickening and outright horrific during the film's harrowing climax, it's finally not love which affects Marcello, but rather, recognizing a deep, real and eternal love within two other people. This is finally so profoundly moving that one can't help but shudder over a reality that could, given the circumstances, overtake any of us.

The Conformist finally leaves you completely winded. A film that presents a central figure who allows fascism to suck him dry of humanity is indeed the true horror Bertolucci lays bare for us to contemplate and feel. It's also what contributes to the picture's inherent qualities as a genuine masterpiece. Its exploration of fascism is ultimately as deeply felt and relevant today as it was when Bertolucci first made the film. We connect as individuals living in our own version of a totalitarian state masked as democracy and what finally moves us is following the inevitability of character who could well be any of us - No! Is us! Now and forever.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

The Conformist is available on a gorgeously transferred Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber (Raro Video) which includes Adriano Aprá's illuminating one-hour documentary In the Shade of the Conformist. In Canada, VSC (Video Services Corp.) distributes this Kino Lorber/ Raro Video title.

TARAS BULBA (1962) - Blu-Ray Review By Greg Klymkiw - Glory Be to Kino: BULBA on BRD!

On BRD at last! Thanks to
KINO-LORBER

Taras Bulba (1962)
dir. J. Lee Thompson
Starring: Yul Brynner, Tony Curtis
Review By Greg Klymkiw

“Do not put your faith in a Pole.
Put your faith in your sword
and your sword in the Pole!”
Thus spake Taras Bulba – Cossack Chief!(Played by Yul Brynner 1962)

These days, there are so few truly momentous events for lovers of fine cinema and, frankly, even fewer such momentous events for those of the Ukrainian persuasion. However, film lovers and Ukrainians both have something to celebrate. Especially Ukrainians.

THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH - Review by Greg Klymkiw - The Bard of Avon gets a delectable Roman Polanski bloodbath via this gorgeous Criterion Collection Blu-Ray!

Macbeth (1971)
Dir. Roman Polanski
Scr. Kenneth Tynan & Polanski

Stars: Jon Finch, Francesca Annis

MY MOM, MRS. RAPPAPORT, MACBETH and ME
a personal memoir & review by Greg Klymkiw

My late mother taught me to read by the age of 5. She did it with comic books. Not just ANY comic books, mind you, but via the wonderful Classics Illustrated series which adapted great literature in comic book form. At the end of every issue were the words: "Now that you've read the comic, read the original."

When Mom signed up a couple of years later for the Doubleday Book-of-the-Month Club - not for her, but for me - one of the "free" (of four) introductory titles she selected was "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare". (The other three were Pierre Boulle's "Monkey Planet", AKA "Planet of the Apes", "The Collected Works of Robert Louis Stevenson" and "The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe".) Being a sick puppy even at the tender age of 7, I chose to read "Macbeth" first. Of all the Shakespeare plays represented in those comics, it was the one story that ferociously consumed me. As a child, I was Regan in "The Exorcist" and the devil himself was the Thane of Cawdor.

My sweet, darling mother painstakingly read the play with me, both of us taking turns reading aloud to each other and often alternating roles. Through this process we oft-referred to the Classics Illustrated adaptation and Mom even bought a "Coles Notes" book (AKA "Cliff's Notes") to address stuff she herself didn't "get", just so she could make sure I did.

At the ripe old age of 14 I first saw Roman Polanski's film version of The Tragedy of Macbeth which my Mom took me to see when it opened first-run in Winnipeg at the Park Theatre on November 30, 1973, a good two years after it opened in the United States. As a kid, I'd been chomping at the bit to see it. Released in many markets as simply, Macbeth, I was well aware of the picture's existence as I'd started reading the show business trade bible "Variety" at the age of 10 and now, oh happy day, the movie was finally playing in our midwestern Winter City.

There were a whole whack of cool films playing in the 'Peg that weekend. It was the opening day of two amazing drive-in double features. In the west end of the city, A.I.P.'s The Little Cigars Mob featuring Angel Tompkins robbing banks with a gang of armed midgets and the jaw-dropping Ray Milland-Rosie Grier=grafted-together horror-comedy The Thing With Two Heads (both of which Dad took me to see on the Saturday night) and in the north end, Gimme Shelter and Monterey Pop were unspooling, but neither parent would take me to see those movies since the only music they enjoyed were Ukrainian Liturgies, Ukrainian Folk Songs, Nana Mouskouri, Mantovani and the Percy Fsith Orchestra. (The closest they ever got to Heavy Metal was Harry Belafonte.) That weekend in Winnipeg was ALSO opening night of Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye with Elliot Gould, but as I'd already ear-marked it to see alone during my usual Saturday afternoon movie forays downtown, I asked Mom if she could drive me all the way to the south-end Friday night and take me to watch the movie I'd so desperately wanted to see. She agreed.

Let's place this in perspective, folks. My Mother, a nice, polite, North End Winnipeg Ukrainian girl drove her son across town to sit with him and watch The Tragedy of Macbeth, Roman Polanski's blood-soaked, ultra-violent adaptation with, I might add, Lady Macbeth parading about in the nude whilst delivering her madness monologue. I don't know a lot of Moms who would do this for their progeny, but MY MOM DID!!!

By my teen years, I had occasion to read "Macbeth" again - this time within the context of a North End Winnipeg public school English class under the divine tutelage of Mrs. Elaine Rappaport. She was the best English teacher I ever had until my post-secondary years, and even then, she held her own with the best of them. The wife of noted Rabbi Sidney Rappaport from the Rosh Pina Synagogue in Winnipeg (he passed away in 2009), she was one classy, snappy, sharp-witted lady.

That said, and not wishing to toot my own horn, but she soon found herself face-to-face with the Macbeth-like madness lodged within the heart and soul of a teenage movie freak. After the astoundingly brave act of showing a bunch of kids a 16mm print of Polanski's film, I immediately dove in on the picture's violence, linking it to the despair and guilt Polanski must have been feeling over the murder of his beloved wife Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson Clan. Years later I discovered that every Tom, Dick and Harry had made this same cliched, unoriginal and condescendingly simplistic observation.

So shoot me. I was a teenager. Besides, not a bad observation for a kid.

Though she tried to take issue with my comment, I knew Mrs. Rappaport was always ahead of the curve and I suspected, even at the time, that she mildly and politely disputed my precocious assertion so she could take our discussion away from a sickening murder that many kids in those days, even in high school, had been sheltered from.

I plunged ahead, though, and began recalling the specific date and explicit DETAILS of Sharon Tate's murder, in addition to the approximate dates as to WHEN the writing of the script and subsequent PRODUCTION of the film would have occurred. I then insisted that based upon the aforementioned findings, my point could not be disputed.

I'll never forget the sparkles in Mrs. Rappaport's eyes as she then launched into a brief elaboration of my point and then moved us on ever-so gracefully (and graciously) to discuss the differences between the film and play.

One week after my Mother took her final breath of life after a long battle with stomach cancer, I was reminded of her dedication to a precocious son's desire to read and obsess over all things "Macbeth" and, of course, the movies. I'm eternally grateful to her. My love for cinema, theatre and literature was both encouraged and indeed nurtured by her. She might well have been seen by the world as "only" a mother, housewife and part-time bank teller, but even as a kid I knew how she'd studied violin at the Conservatory of Music and eventually gave up a professional life as a musician to be a loving Mother and dutiful Wife. She had the soul of an artist which she saw in me also and did everything in her power to arm me with the means to never give up on my own desires and talents as she had done in the days when many women felt forced by societal pressures to do so. In the words of the old Russian-Jewish folk song, popularized by the Welsh songstress Mary Hopkins, "Those were the days, my friend".

Indeed they were.

In fact, the thought that we'll ever again see a Shakespeare film adaptation as truly great as Polanski's (and in fairness, I tend to include and acknowledge those elements Francis Ford Coppola borrowed for Godfathers I & II), is not something I take solace in. What I do accept wholeheartedly is that Polanski's The Tragedy of Macbeth is so "modern", so forward-thinking, so ideally faithful and intelligently interpreted that we do, in fact, have a film for the ages.

Polanski so wisely centres his film firmly and fiercely within Lady Macbeth's successful exertions of influence and then secondarily, that of the witch hags Macbeth encounters on the way home after his victories in war to fling himself into the loving arms of his wife. The good Lady's wifely influence provea to be too successful. Her ambitious husband's subsequent actions of lying, cheating, stealing, traitorously conspiring and committing murder in the coldest of blood is the stuff which all our dreams are made on. (Personally, I've always been aware of my own roiling needs, rooted as they were, and still are, in a kind of selfish know-it-all "quality" so that ultimately, the only possible influence I have to exert them, comes from me and me alone.)

At the beginning of the film, we learn that Macbeth (Jon Finch) has done magnificently in battle. The manner in which Polanski sets this up is simply masterful. Who will ever forget the murky skies overlooking the bodies and blood upon the muck, the poor flailing sod being ball and chained to death and the kind of mad horror in actor Jon Finch's eyes as Macbeth's otherwise poker-face surveys the damage/victory he's wrought.

This is the horror Polanski thrusts us immediately into and it's impossible to unglue one's eyeballs from the proceedings. This tragedy of Shakespeare's is indeed a work of horror and Polanski seems to understand this better than any other filmmaker who tackled the play (including, I might add, the rich, evocative, but fatally flawed Orson Welles version). When Macbeth has been named Thane of Cawdor by King Duncan for leading a successful decimation of the enemy (and capturing the rebel leader who previously bore the title), we get the tiniest glimmer of pride - perhaps even a smidgen of happiness - in Macbeth, this newly honoured young warrior.

Fate has other plans for him though. Encountering a gaggle of horrendous hags - witches of the most odious order - Macbeth hears and is infected with their prophecy that he will be King. Though he attempts to eschew thoughts of such glory, he won't have a chance against the most powerful witch of all, the extremely mortal, but bewitchingly concupiscent, mind-alteringly ravishing Lady Macbeth (Francesca Annis).

Polanski's first triumph was in casting these two actors. Finch, many of whom will remember as the strangely unlikeable loser protagonist Richard Blaney in Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy, is such an astonishing Macbeth I suspect I'll never be able to imagine the face of the character with any other visage. Finch so brilliantly captures the various shades of Macbeth's intensity as it percolates slowly whilst his alluringly magnetic Lady places thoughts of being King in his mind - almost taunting, shaming him into desiring as quick an ascension to the throne as possible - one in which only murder can pave the way to.

Annis, of course, is the ultimate Lady Macbeth. She is not only stunning in every camera-loves-her respect, but she delivers her desires with the deftness of a fox and increasingly with viper-like stings which soon latch unshakeably onto Macbeth's manly psyche.

If murder be the only way, so be it.

Polanski continues to focus upon their relationship throughout until the narrative shifts into Shakespeare's astonishingly wrought parallel descents into derangement of the most fevered order. As Macbeth becomes more tyrannical, Lady Macbeth begins to slip into madness. They both lose their souls - in fact, Polanski emphasizes that it's their deep love, their bottomless pit of passion which is the unholy instrument which undoes both of them. Lady Macbeth's madness causes her to erupt into guilt so appallingly, deeply, debilitatingly and destructively molten whilst the crown-thieving maniac Macbeth fills his dwindling spiritual reserves as his soul pours out paranoia which is as catastrophic in its decimation of his humanity as the guilt is so ruinous to his lady.

When I first saw The Tragedy of Macbeth as a kid, I still remembering how I chuckled out loud, receiving odd stares from both my Mother and audience members. I soon kept my guffaw-bursts in check, but later revealed to my mother in the drive home after the screening that every single time Macbeth looked upon a potential enemy (i.e. murder victim), it reminded me of those fantasy sequences in the Fleischer Popeye cartoons when a starving Wimpy would look at virtually any living thing and imagine them to be a pig, a cow, a chicken - anything he could slaughter and eat. Seeing the movie again on the Criterion Blu-Ray I got the same thoughts. I'm convinced that Polanski intentionally staged, shot and cut Finch's glares at his eventual victims - not in homage to the Fleischer cartoons, but certainly with the same mad, darkly hilarious undercurrent which Fleischer imbued his own films with.

Not only are we tantalized with one blood spattering grotesquerie after another, but Polanski wisely has Lady Macbeth wander buck naked throughout the castle as she delivers her madness monologue. Let's not make the mistake here of downplaying Polanski's genius as a showman - he's the ultimate showman. He dazzles us with both prurience and a veritable rampage of brutality. Shakespeare was a showman, too. Let's not forget that. If anything, Polanski's delectably and suitably exploitative indulgences allow us one HELL OF A GOOD SHOW whilst at the same time, shove our faces in the sheer horror of Macbeth and his Lady's respective madness.

Seeing The Tragedy of Macbeth during one of the most emotionally draining periods of my life was exactly what the doctor ordered. Running parallel to this sentient drainage in my own life were also feelings of sentiment and nostalgia - I couldn't help but do the math as I faced so much of what I loved in a place that reminded me how these things of beauty were either gone or about to go and would soon be relegated, and in fact were actually being consigned to the hallowed place of memory.

The Tragedy of Macbeth as deftly rendered by Polanski did what any great work of art should do. Here I was, watching a work written over 400 years ago and interpreted in a version from over forty years ago and it touched me on a very personal level.

I thought, with the indelible sharpness of crystal that SOME women, like my Mother and English teacher, inspire the sun, moon and stars of the mind, while others, as scribed by Shakespeare, inspired pure NAKED ambition.

Luckily the ambition inspired by the two great women in MY early life was fully clothed.

THE FILM CORNER RATING for Film and Blu-Ray: ***** 5-Stars

The Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of The Tragedy of Macbeth is yet another example for me of the genuine art of creating home entertainment for as rich an experience as possible. The 4K transfer was personally approved by director Roman Polanski and as such, both sound and picture are as mind blowing as one could imagine.

The extra features are a pure goldmine of information, insight and education. An all-new one hour documentary entitled Toil and Trouble: Making “Macbeth” includes wonderful contemporary interviews with Roman Polanski which provide a marvellous retrospective glimpse into his film from the position of having to discuss it over forty years after it was made. The doc is fleshed out with appearances by production executives and actors (including Annis herself).

The 1971 Frank Simon documentary Polanski Meets Macbeth delivers a historical look at the making of the film and includes footage of the cast and crew on set. It's thoroughly fascinating.

Two other extra features are so wonderful, they could have been the ONLY value added elements and I doubt anyone would have been disappointed. The first is Polanski's co-screenwriter Kenneth Tynan being interviewed by the great Dick Cavett in 1971. The piece not only allows us the privilege of meeting with the brilliant Tynan to hear his perspective on the process, but as per usual, we get yet another example of just what a great interviewer Cavett was.

Secondly, and perhaps the most vital document is Two Macbeths from the wonderful 1972 British TV series Aquarius. This is must-see viewing for anyone who loves film and theatre as we are blessed with a conversation about "Macbeth" between Polanski and the noted theater director Peter Coe.

In addition to the supply of trailers and a Terrence Rafferty essay within a lovely booklet, this Criterion Blu-Ray is yet again adorned with a stunning cover design from Sarah Habibi whose work is so consistently amazing that I almost wish she could just design every Blu-Ray and DVD cover for every movie I love.

Needless to say, this Criterion Blu-Ray is a keeper folks.

TARAS BULBA (2009) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Sub-Par Russian Version of classic Ukrainian tale of revolt is little more than a pallid made-for-tv-miniseries-styled slab of propaganda that might stir the loins of Putin-lovers-and-apologists, but it doesn’t come close to mining the stirring potential of Gogol's great story.

Taras Bulba (2009) **
dir. Wolodymyr Bortko
Starring: Bohdan Stupka, Ihor Petrenko, Vladimir Vdovichenkov, Magdalena Mielcarz, Sergei Dryden

Review By By Greg Klymkiw

In light of the recent events in Ukraine, it seems appropriate to turn our attention to one of the more egregious displays of cinematic propaganda I have seen in a long time. The charge of disinformation is, for once, not levelled against Hollywood, but Russia. This is not the Russia of the butcher Joseph Stalin, but that of contemporary Russia, a country rife with the sad, evil remnants of Stalin in the guise of its leader Vladimir Putin who, in his previous career was a nasty little KGB spy who specialized in rooting out those who opposed the supposed glories of Communism and prior to that, when he, as a teacher and academic, disgracefully used his position to carry out surveillance on students.

The film on view is Taras Bulba, a relatively recent and expensive (by Russian standards) screen adaptation of the legendary Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol’s great novella of the same name and a film that chooses to use Gogol’s pro-Russian version as its base rather than his original manuscript. Gogol bowed to the will of Czarist Russia and delivered a revised product more in keeping with the country’s own version of Manifest Destiny throughout Eastern Europe.

Propaganda in the cinema is nothing new. In fact, many knee-jerkers will look for any excuse to trash Hollywood for this very thing. Since its very beginnings, a common charge against Uncle Sam’s cinema has been the preponderance of propagandistic elements to extol the virtues of truth, glory and the capitalistic American way in terms of cultural/political superiority and to defend the country’s constant need to engage in warfare. One cannot disagree with this common assertion; however, America ALONE has not propagated the myths of their “superiority” using the most powerful medium of artistic expression – the cinema.

The most common example of this would be the vicious work of Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, who utilized cinema to spread anti-Semitism with The Eternal Jew, a foul “documentary” that goes so far as to trace and equate the spread of Judaism with that of rats and the spread of the Black Plague. Of course, no mention of Nazi propaganda would be complete without referring to the work of the brilliant Leni Riefenstahl – a truly great artist who delivered one of the most stunning, yet reviled works of the 20th century, her stirring document of the Nuremburg Rallies, The Triumph of the Will.

Strangely, the work of Russian propagandists has not seen the same kind of vitriolic bile heaped upon it and yet, Sergei Eisenstein, (surely as brilliant a filmmaker as Leni Riefenstahl) was happy enough to wear extremely comfortable knee-pads as he knelt before the dictatorial powers of Russia to continually afford him the opportunities to make movies. Eisenstein delivered one film after another that not only propagated the myth of Communism and the notion of Russian superiority, but eventually even extolled the virtues of an even bigger butcher than Hitler, Joseph Stalin. (For more on this, see my review of the Kino DVD release of Battleship Potemkin by visiting HERE.)

This new version of Taras Bulba received a substantial portion of its financing from the Russian Ministry of Culture and while it may bear the trademarks of typical old-Soviet-style propaganda, it is hardly a work that bears the hallmarks of superior filmmaking. At least Eisenstein, Riefenstahl and any number of American directors who generated similar propaganda (Steven Spielberg with Saving Private Ryan is a good example) are great artists who created landmarks of cinema that expanded the boundaries of the medium. The mediocre, though clearly competent television director Wolodymyr Bortko (who prefers the Russian transliteration “Vladimir” in spite of his Ukrainian heritage) serves up some sumptuous production value, elicits some fine performances and seasons his celluloid broth of borscht with all the clichés of epic cinema, but none of the depth one might find in the work of masters of the elephantine genre like David Lean. Bortko’s screenplay adaptation unimaginatively catalogues, almost by rote, the events of Gogol’s Russified version of the novella, but somehow manages to completely miss the spirit of the original writing.

Telling the classical tale of a Cossack Chief, Taras Bulba (majestically portrayed by the great Ukrainian actor Bohdan Stupka) who sends his beloved sons Andriy (Ihor Petrenko) and Ostap (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) to the Polish-ruled university in Ukraine’s capitol city Kyiv to not only get a well rounded education, but to acquaint them with the “enemy”. He eventually takes his sons to the legendary Cossack “Sich” (fortress) of Zaporozhia to train them in the skill of Cossack barbarism.

Bulba’s hatred for Poland flares even more intensely when he learns that his farm has been destroyed and his wife is murdered by the Poles. He manages to get the Cossack nation to march against Poland and soon the Ukrainians are wreaking havoc and decimating their Polish rulers. Things come to a head when Bulba and the Cossacks attack the Ukrainian city of Dubno which is under Polish rule. Unbeknownst to our title character, when Bulba’s most beloved son Andriy was at school in Kyiv, he fell in love with Elzhbeta (the eye-poppingly stunning Magdalena Mielcarz) a member of Polish royalty. As bad luck would have it, her father is now the governor of Dubno and Andriy realizes that he is laying siege to the city of his beloved. Love, it would seem, becomes the ultimate enemy as Andriy betrays his country and father to be with her.

It’s a great story! One of its biggest fans was Ernest Hemingway who proclaimed its genius whenever he could. Too bad, then, that this film version is so by-the-numbers. That said, even a mediocre rendering such as this one is no match for the power of Gogol’s literary prowess and for this we are dealt some tender mercies. Finally though, the movie is a bit of a slog – plodding along its way, but without any of the spark of the original writer. In fact, the tone of the movie is resolutely dour. This is no surprise since screenwriter-director Bortko has chosen to amplify the Russified version of the novella. Without that glorious spark of Gogol’s wonderful sense of boys’ adventure and his delightfully, deliciously and resolutely Ukrainian sense of humour (so beautifully captured in J. Lee Thompson's 1964 Hollywood version), the movie has all the spark of a funeral dirge.

By over-emphasizing the Russification of the original text what we have is a brutal glorification of Russian superiority. This grotesque mockery of a story that, in actuality is a rousing depiction of Ukraine’s never-ending fight for freedom from subjugation leaves us with a very foul taste in our mouths. We are handed one ultra-violent set piece after another – all in the service of boosting Russia’s own notion of might as right. By appropriating this very Ukrainian story by one of its great writers and turning it into grotesque Russian propaganda to try and suggest that the Cossacks and in turn, the Ukrainians, consider themselves little more than barbarians doing the bidding of those who would subjugate, exploit and even perpetrate genocide against them (as Stalin did) is thoroughly reprehensible.

Historically, even the occasional guarded loyalty the Zaporozhian Cossacks paid to the Russian Empire was betrayed by both Czar Peter I and Catherine the Great, the former forcing them to scatter or face death, the latter ordering a full-on genocide of the Zaporozhian Sich. None of this would have been lost on Gogol - especially with his first, but suppressed edition of the novel and even within the Russified version, this healthy distrust of the Empire boils just below the novel's surface.

Bortko’s mediocrity as a director reaches its nadir, however, in his lame handling of the fighting, action and battle scenes which is, in a word, dull. With fabulous locations, thousands of extras and impeccable production and costume design, he cannot direct action. His shooting style is cudgel-like, but it never has the thrilling and freewheeling quality the action needs. Bortko appears to have everything that money can buy – everything that is, except the genuinely distinctive artistic voice that would allow him to rise above his own mediocrity.

I do reiterate, though, that such propagandistic shenanigans would ultimately not be as problematic if this was actually a good movie, but it isn’t. Saddled with a clumsy flashback structure, a lazy use of prose narration from the novel and a dull television-mini-series mise-en-scene, Taras Bulba might stir the loins of Putin-lovers-and-apologists, but it doesn’t come close to mining the stirring potential of the story.

Let’s not forget that Gogol came from Cossack stock and that he was inspired by the very moving Ukrainian nationalist “dumy” (folk ballads) of the Cossacks themselves. Also, one of Hohol/Gogol’s chief literary inspirations was the great Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott and that “Taras Bulba” was conceived as a Ukrainian version of those swashbuckling tales of Scottish Highlanders battling their British oppressors/occupiers (especially notable in "Rob Roy"). A cool historical footnote is that Cossacks themselves might have had some roots in Scotland at a much earlier historical juncture. Another interesting correlation between Scott and Gogol is that both portrayed strong, sympathetic Jewish characters in their respective swashbucklers - Scott created Rebecca in "Ivanhoe" and Gogol gave us Yankel in "Taras Bulba". (The latter character seems to fit the fact that Catherine the Great effected a genocide upon the Ukrainian Cossacks whose administrative power was actually presided over by Ukrainian-Jews - all the record-keeping discovered in archeological digs at the Sich was found to be written in Hebrew.)

Not surprisingly, the best film version of Taras Bulba is the fabulous aforementioned J. Lee Thompson epic from Hollywood in the 1960s. It captures the derring-do, the humour and the stirring, romantic nationalism of the story by adhering the book’s Ukrainian roots as opposed to Bortko’s ill-conceived attempt to please Vladimir Putin. The American treatment of the character of Andriy, the son who betrays father and country is far closer, I think to the spirit of what Gogol intended. Ihor Petrenko’s portrayal of Andriy is so dull and serious. It especially lacks the boyish charm that Tony Curtis with his swarthy Hungarian-Jewish looks and magnificent sense of humour brought to the role.

The other idiotic attempt to Russify this story is how Bortko has commissioned a musical score so lacking in any spirit whatsoever. At least in the Hollywood version, legendary composer Franz Waxman based his entire score on traditional Ukrainian music and delivered a score that was cited by even Bernard Herrman as one of the great scores of all time. (For my full review of the Hollywood version, feel free to visit HERE.)

In fairness to Bortko, however, his screenplay, unlike the Hollywood version restores the odd symbiotic friendship from Gogol’s novella between Bulba and the Jewish money lender Yankel (yielding a stellar performance by Sergei Dryden) and, most importantly, he includes the whole aftermath involving the capture, torture and execution of Ostap at the hands of the Poles and Bulba’s revenge and final noble sacrifice. These are all stirring story beats and while I am grateful for their inclusion, I am less grateful that they are present almost solely to provide Russian propaganda.

This version of Taras Bulba no doubt has poor Gogol spinning in his grave. I’m sure he never would have imagined that so many generations later his work would be bastardized as a piece of propaganda for the country that even now seeks to consume his Motherland whole and tries continually to repress its spirit, culture, language and people.

Worse yet, that it should be a version that reeks of Made-for-TV miniseries mediocrity.

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