thinkMovies

I'm thinking that the criteria of evaluating any work must be relevant to the context of the work. When I learned that Here is a 1-hour 40-minutes film shot from one static angle and one static lens, my first thought was "Theater", with the audience stuck in the auditorium in front of the stage. So, my first question was "why?" Obviously, it would be pointless for the Cinema to emulate the Theater, technically, so it must be something else. Not the "Theater" as in "such stuff as dreams are made of", but the "Stage" as in "the world is a stage".

Watching Here from that angle of context I was not expecting literature in the dialog. I was expecting the real world, flaws an'all kinds of imperfections, the real world, to be set right there in front of me, for me to observe. In that respect, Here delivered and then some.

The gang was all there: Zemeckis, Wright, Hanks and Silvestri, flanked by Bettany and Reilly. The CGI ageing and de-ageing of the actors was incredible and the music beautiful. If there was a message it was no more, or less than that our little life is rounded with a sleep while we, as actors, revel like spirits preparing to melt into thin air.

Both my wife and I loved this movie; we thought it was incredible. We must apologize for our impudence to all the wise folk who are trashing it. What do we know... Still, if one were to set one's compass to appropriate expectations in the context of this brilliant idea Zemeckis had, I don't see how Here can fail to please. It was real people, on that stage. Just like us.

A song comes to mind from the seventies with a chorus that would be good advice to the script writers of The Return: it goes like this: You don't tug on Superman's cape, You don't spit into the wind, You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger, And you don't mess around with Homer's verse.

(OK, the ending of the last line was mine not in the original ending)

There are three stars that hold this movie together: The incomparable Juliette Binoche. The unparalleled Ralph Fiennes. And Homer's immortal story even if we only get to watch the end of that story, at the end of Odysseas' ten-year Odyssey.

Uberto Pasolini, Luchino Visconti's nephew, wrote the screenplay and directed. In messing with the script, he proved unworthy of running into a bottega to buy Homer a pack of Italian cigarettes. He missed the entire point of the Odyssey, the conclusion of which he committed to film. The point of the real Epic Poem is that Ithaca is not the homecoming; Ithaca is the journey. It is what the traveler has collected along the way, the wisdom, the knowledge, the experience of life that make him worthy of returning, of finally arriving at Ithaca. Of going home. According to signor Pasolini, the Odysseas in his film is ridden with guilt, insecurity and sadness. And young Telemachus' relationship with his mom, Penelope, and his dad, Odysseas in this telling, belongs on a Brooklyn analyst's couch.

But the performances by Binoche and Fiennes are amazing. Mesmerizing. They save the day, the journey and the movie. When you have these two to tell a story, you don't need editing shots together to tell the story; you just point a standard lens to either actor's face and roll the film (or digital, whatever). Their facial muscles and their eyes tell the story in all its depth. Pasolini's direction must be given some credit for the performances, salvaging him from the Hades his screenplay condemns him to.

It was shot on location on the Greek island of Corfu and the Peloponnese, also some locations in Italy. The real Ithaca is a small island next to and east of the island of Cephalonia right between Corfu and the Peloponnese, so why not shoot "Ithaca", well... in Ithaca? They were right there. Almost. So close.

The cinematography is great, if only too wintery and gloomy to convey Greece, and its spirit, ancient or modern. Thankfully, at least there were olive trees. And I very much doubt that ancient Greeks lived in black Bedouin tents. Odysseas palace in the movie is reminiscent of a medieval fortress. Any set designer worth one's ambition in construction costs would know that the Trojan War took place probably in the 13th century BCE, the end of the Minoan period, so Odysseas' palace should look more like Knossos Palace and less like the prison of Edmond Dantes.

Yes, I know, it's an adaptation. OK, I'll chill. I'll just take away the rare performances that make the two protagonists look and feel like you are watching Penelope and Odysseas rather than Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes.

Victor Hugo's masterpiece that defined French culture and politics in the 19th century is respectfully presented in this Bille August retelling with Liam Neeson as Jean Valjean and Geoffrey Rush as Javert. Claire Danes is a very well-cast adult Cosette. Cinematography and editing do justice to the subject matter.

It's hard to overstate the place Victor Hugo holds in the Pantheon of French literature, and world literature at that, with works such as Les Miserables and also The Count of Monte Cristo, dealing always with social injustice, tragedy, and redemption.

This production does not provide an experience of cinematic creativity and art, but the perfect casting of Neeson and Rush and their strong performances do justice to the book, allowing its literary art and creativity to shine on the screen.

Has anybody noticed that the imdb Plot Summary states that the events take place "in the midst of the French Revolution"? Oh, dear, no, no, No! Les Miserables is set in the 1832 uprising in Paris against King Louis-Philippe. Not in the 1789 French Revolution against King Louis XVI. Has nobody noticed this bit of misinformation, to change it in the Summary? In Les Miserables it all started when Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread. Maybe the writer of the Plot Summary thought it was cake?