Something of a disappointment when it came out (tough to follow as unlikely a phenom as semiotics professor Umberto Eco’s wickedly entertaining/scholarly international bestseller), Jean-Jacques Annaud’s courtly adaptation of what’s basically a meticulously accurate* 14th Century murder-in-the-abbey Sherlock Holmes pastiche (Friar William von Baskerville?) has only improved with age. The astonishing physical production (cinematography Tonino Delli Colli; design Dante Ferretti) & near flawless casting (second-billed F. Murray Abraham a dead loss, but a small role) help put it over, but the script on this intellectual puzzle also plays fair, character & clues allowing gruesome murders & convoluted explanations to really add up, and with much of the mischievous fun & malevolence they had on the page. (Though you do need to give it time to get into gear and find its tone.) Sean Connery, beginning his late great period (UNTOUCHABLES, INDIANA JONES and RUSSIA HOUSE soon follow), brings wit & command, and a very young Christian Slater is innocence itself by his side. A kick just seeing everything fall into place; or perhaps, one of those rare mysteries that play better when you know (or at least half-remember) how it all turns out.
DOUBLE-BILL: Annaud can be a hard director to get behind. But his Seige-of-Stalingrad pic, ENEMY AT THE GATES/’01, deserves a second look. (So too ROSE to judge by previous, less than enthusiastic mentions here!)
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Accuracy personally confirmed by a chance encounter with a member of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study (the place they built for Einstein to work in) who knocked Barbara Tuchman’s acclaimed 14th Century novelistic treatment in A DISTANT MIRROR in comparison to Eco’s pop masterpiece.
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