Dir: Agustin Díaz Yanes. 2006.
Apparently the most expensive Spanish language film ever made (28 million USD), this 2½ hour spectacle features Viggo Mortensen as the dashing soldier, Capitan Alatriste. A veteran of the Spanish wars in Flanders and a sword for hire in the dark under belly of Madrid, circa mid 1600's.
I've begun reading the books by Arturo Réverte-Peres and so far I am only half way through the second one, but even with so little to go on, I can see this film has failed utterly to capture the dusty hot ambience of the books, or the wealth of detail Réverte-Peres invested in his novels. Its as if the film makers decided they were only going to get one chance and so they put all their eggs into one basket. Instead of concentrating on the story of the first book, which I believe could easily have made a decent 140 minute film, they taken all the books and lumped them together into one long rambling movie.
My friends and I watched this tonight with varying levels of confusion, detached curiosity and ironic sarcasm. No one thought much of the film, all agreed that the editting was ridiculous though the consensus was forgiving with regards to the visuals which were mostly good, especially the old corridors and buildings. The costumes were fantastic too. The battle scenes varied from good to down right terrible (think of dark shapes moving about the screen and grunting for five minutes) and there were some sword fights which bordered on the impressive but just failed to get there. The acting seemed okay, but given how disjointed the story was, it simply fell apart. There were too many characters who you knew were supposed to be important, but who's screen presence was so short lived, you never got to appreciate them. Viggo Mortensen was on the screen for most of the film and I'm guessing Díaz Yanes couldn't get enough of Mortensen's big screen aura, his PR department have certainly banked heavily on it. I got the feeling that much of this film was a chance for various Spanish actors to share the lime light.
On the whole, 'Alatriste' doesn't even come close to giving Réverte-Peres's novels the illustration they deserve. The film is long, confusing and difficult to invest attention in.
Next, I'd like to see the Italian film 'The Profession of Arms' from 2001, alas, to date it has not been released on DVD with English subtitles.
3 comments:
For once, I utterly agree with the Moif review, which is really sad as the film could have been excellent.
I'll read the books though.
It could have been REALLY excellent, I recognise a lot of myself in the Alatriste of the books and I like the story and style- though it is very Spanish and somewhat ... strange...
I would have given the film only one star, you are too generous.
Bettina would have slept had she not been polite, she got so sleeeeepy watching it that she went directly to bed to sleep when we got to her place :-(
Not a good film. And the characters too, were different from the books.
I wouldn't have minded in the least if Bettina had fallen asleep.
Our next film will be 'Mongol' by Sergei Bodrov.
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