SIN / IL PECCATO (2019)

Andrey Konchalovskiy’s messy bio-pic on Renaissance master Michelangelo Buonarroti is less THE Anti-AGONY AND THE ECSTACY/’65 than contrary view/continuation.*  Dirty and scrubby, it largely picks up the story where the earlier film stopped: finishing the Sistine Chapel and the death of Pope Julius II.  Here, drama comes as a tale of two cities (Florence & the Vatican in Rome); two powerhouse families (Medici & Della Rovere); even two marble quarries.  Not much noble on view in this Michelangelo, a scruffy, unwashed fellow (Alberto Testone’s peasant face not far off the Michelangelo portraits he snuck into his famous frescos*), whereas Charlton Heston in the earlier film more fit as a subject for sculpting than self-portrait.  Tiresome at times with unvaried ranting & raving from Michelangelo; when does he work?  But his obvious genius, accepted, understood, fully appreciated even then, is grudgingly indulged by his patrons.  (At times a scorecard might help keep track of principals, projects & locations.)  Was he really this impossible?  But Konchalovskiy, who was partner/co-scripter on that greatest of all artist bio-pics, ANDREI RUBLEV/’66, knows when he has to deliver and damned if he doesn’t find an analogous set piece to RUBLEV’s overwhelming Casting of the Bell finale.  Here, it’s at the end of the second act, a quarry extraction of a mighty block of pure white marble.  This remarkable sequence feels like we’ve entered a time machine and are watching the event happen.  Period techniques, real weight, real danger; a gobsmacking full reel of material (in Academy Ratio, BTW) that makes up for many patchy moments elsewhere.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *That big, clunky, unexpectedly entertaining ‘60s bio-pic on same: THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY.  Put together with this, you might even find something of the man.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/06/agony-and-ecstasy-1965.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Amusingly, and it’s the only amusing thing in the pic, from some angles, Testone’s Michelangelo looks a lot like Hugh Griffith in his role as Sheik Ilderim in BEN-HUR/’59 which he played opposite Chuck Heston.