The Saragossa Manuscript (Wojciech Has, Poland, 1965)
Two soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars stumble into an old abandoned inn as battle rages around them. There they discover a huge ancient book, filled with enigmatic pictures. It's the tale of a Captain of the Walloon Guard (a title he pompously brings up whenever possible) traveling across the mountains of Spain to Madrid. He gets lost in a rocky wasteland and stops at another old abandoned inn. Staying at the inn are two Tunisian princesses, who claim to have never seen a man before and beg the flabbergasted Captain to marry them both. The princesses force him to drink from a chalice made of a human skull; he awakes the next morning under a gallows where two convicted thieves are hanging. The poor Captain then wanders unwillingly through some kind of purgatory, one where everyone he meets wants to either kill him or tell him stories. Yet no matter how many stories he hears, the Captain always ends up back at the gallows, underneath the corpses of the thieving Zoto brothers.
I've often heard The Saragossa Manuscript compared to a Russian nesting doll, which is as good a description as any. Like a Matryoshka doll, The Saragossa Manuscript is made of stories within stories within stories. "Let me tell you my story," is how it always begins, but within the story that one character is narrating, a different character they meet will start telling their own tale. There are monks and sheiks, noblemen and women, bandits and phantoms, cabalists and Inquisitors; their stories involve duels, affairs, hauntings and supernatural trials. Getting lost within The Saragossa Manuscript is the point. Over a runtime of three hours, it dives deeper into layers upon layers of digressions, then unexpectedly will work backwards and re-emerge into a story begun an hour earlier in the film. There are many subterranean connections between the stories, as occurrences in one story will impact another, characters reappear in different guises, and similar events reoccur in a circuitous fashion. The Saragossa Manuscript has a similar impact on the viewer as the befuddled Captain - it is dizzying and disorienting, and though already lengthy it feels as if it could spin on for an eternity, ever weaving tales that are both new and always the same.
Thankfully, it's not as difficult as it sounds. Despite all its macabre imagery, The Saragossa Manuscript is playful and knowingly absurd. It fluidly dances between horror and melodrama and slapstick, always with a sense of delight at the infinite possibilities of storytelling. Though its rambling structure requires patience, The Saragossa Manuscript always pays it off with satisfying "a-ha!" moments of sudden clarity - only to pull the rug out from under your feet again with a wink. And I was thrilled to get lost in the rich world it created. Every image is busy - packed with bones and skulls, animals and people, talismans and esoteric knick-knacks, each suggesting stories of their own. At the end of its wild three hours, I was dazed but delighted.
Two soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars stumble into an old abandoned inn as battle rages around them. There they discover a huge ancient book, filled with enigmatic pictures. It's the tale of a Captain of the Walloon Guard (a title he pompously brings up whenever possible) traveling across the mountains of Spain to Madrid. He gets lost in a rocky wasteland and stops at another old abandoned inn. Staying at the inn are two Tunisian princesses, who claim to have never seen a man before and beg the flabbergasted Captain to marry them both. The princesses force him to drink from a chalice made of a human skull; he awakes the next morning under a gallows where two convicted thieves are hanging. The poor Captain then wanders unwillingly through some kind of purgatory, one where everyone he meets wants to either kill him or tell him stories. Yet no matter how many stories he hears, the Captain always ends up back at the gallows, underneath the corpses of the thieving Zoto brothers.
I've often heard The Saragossa Manuscript compared to a Russian nesting doll, which is as good a description as any. Like a Matryoshka doll, The Saragossa Manuscript is made of stories within stories within stories. "Let me tell you my story," is how it always begins, but within the story that one character is narrating, a different character they meet will start telling their own tale. There are monks and sheiks, noblemen and women, bandits and phantoms, cabalists and Inquisitors; their stories involve duels, affairs, hauntings and supernatural trials. Getting lost within The Saragossa Manuscript is the point. Over a runtime of three hours, it dives deeper into layers upon layers of digressions, then unexpectedly will work backwards and re-emerge into a story begun an hour earlier in the film. There are many subterranean connections between the stories, as occurrences in one story will impact another, characters reappear in different guises, and similar events reoccur in a circuitous fashion. The Saragossa Manuscript has a similar impact on the viewer as the befuddled Captain - it is dizzying and disorienting, and though already lengthy it feels as if it could spin on for an eternity, ever weaving tales that are both new and always the same.
Thankfully, it's not as difficult as it sounds. Despite all its macabre imagery, The Saragossa Manuscript is playful and knowingly absurd. It fluidly dances between horror and melodrama and slapstick, always with a sense of delight at the infinite possibilities of storytelling. Though its rambling structure requires patience, The Saragossa Manuscript always pays it off with satisfying "a-ha!" moments of sudden clarity - only to pull the rug out from under your feet again with a wink. And I was thrilled to get lost in the rich world it created. Every image is busy - packed with bones and skulls, animals and people, talismans and esoteric knick-knacks, each suggesting stories of their own. At the end of its wild three hours, I was dazed but delighted.
Pride & Prejudice (Joe Wright, United Kingdom, 2005)
Period piece adaptations of British literature are often the stiffest and stuffiest movies around. Even many good ones feel theatrical instead of cinematic, with great actors in dress-up, their period-appropriate dresses and suits looking like they've just been taken out of shrink wrapping. From its first shot, this 2005 adaptation of Jane Austen's classic is notable for its liveliness and its immersive, detailed sense of a certain place and time. The dresses look worn, the houses look lived-in. People talk over and around each other like in real life, not like actors waiting for their cue. Joe Wright's camera is always on the move, circling through the rooms of the Bennett household, weaving through dancing and gossiping crowds in ballrooms. Stunning long takes are an earthier successor to the fluid camerawork of Max Ophuls's films.
As an adaptation of Austen's masterpiece it's quite good. Joe Wright is a very romantic and sensual filmmaker, and his Pride & Prejudice is more swooningly romantic than the book, or at least my reading of it. His Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy seem destined to be together from the start, despite their misunderstandings. In one fantastic flourish, as they dance together everyone else in the ballroom fades away. Mr. Darcy's disastrous first proposal is re-envisioned in the pouring rain, where the romantic longing and sexual tension are just as vivid as the angry, haughty words spoken. In the novel, the proposal scene is hilariously pathetic and sad; it never feels guaranteed that Elizabeth and Darcy will grow to love each other, let alone tolerate each other. This makes it all the more delightfully surprising when Elizabeth's tender feelings grow against her will, and all the funnier when these two very intelligent, very decent people are rudely awakened to how stubbornly wrong they can be.
But I don't mean to sound negative. Joe Wright's more romanticized vision is still a valid interpretation of the book, and it works well in the context of the movie. Partially because of how beautiful it is. The cinematography and Jean-Yves Thibaudet's score are exceedingly lovely, and the images of the English countryside are breathtaking. A well-cast ensemble brings life to Austen's characters - I think this is Keira Knightley's finest moment as an actress, she embodies Elizabeth Bennett's fierce intelligence, and her quietly passionate, decent sensibility. Pride & Prejudice is also director Joe Wright's best film by a significant margin, and among the finest Austen adaptations I've seen.
Period piece adaptations of British literature are often the stiffest and stuffiest movies around. Even many good ones feel theatrical instead of cinematic, with great actors in dress-up, their period-appropriate dresses and suits looking like they've just been taken out of shrink wrapping. From its first shot, this 2005 adaptation of Jane Austen's classic is notable for its liveliness and its immersive, detailed sense of a certain place and time. The dresses look worn, the houses look lived-in. People talk over and around each other like in real life, not like actors waiting for their cue. Joe Wright's camera is always on the move, circling through the rooms of the Bennett household, weaving through dancing and gossiping crowds in ballrooms. Stunning long takes are an earthier successor to the fluid camerawork of Max Ophuls's films.
As an adaptation of Austen's masterpiece it's quite good. Joe Wright is a very romantic and sensual filmmaker, and his Pride & Prejudice is more swooningly romantic than the book, or at least my reading of it. His Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy seem destined to be together from the start, despite their misunderstandings. In one fantastic flourish, as they dance together everyone else in the ballroom fades away. Mr. Darcy's disastrous first proposal is re-envisioned in the pouring rain, where the romantic longing and sexual tension are just as vivid as the angry, haughty words spoken. In the novel, the proposal scene is hilariously pathetic and sad; it never feels guaranteed that Elizabeth and Darcy will grow to love each other, let alone tolerate each other. This makes it all the more delightfully surprising when Elizabeth's tender feelings grow against her will, and all the funnier when these two very intelligent, very decent people are rudely awakened to how stubbornly wrong they can be.
But I don't mean to sound negative. Joe Wright's more romanticized vision is still a valid interpretation of the book, and it works well in the context of the movie. Partially because of how beautiful it is. The cinematography and Jean-Yves Thibaudet's score are exceedingly lovely, and the images of the English countryside are breathtaking. A well-cast ensemble brings life to Austen's characters - I think this is Keira Knightley's finest moment as an actress, she embodies Elizabeth Bennett's fierce intelligence, and her quietly passionate, decent sensibility. Pride & Prejudice is also director Joe Wright's best film by a significant margin, and among the finest Austen adaptations I've seen.
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