Notes from a Determined Hermit

samedi 21 octobre 2006

Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001) - dir. John Madden; Nicholas Cage, Penelope Cruz, John Hurt, Christian Bale, Irene Papas Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a love story, set on the Greek island of Cephalonia during the overwhelming events of World War II. It is based on the novel Corelli's Mandolin, by Louis de Bernières, which is a novel of the war as it happened devastatingly on Cephalonia, told through the lives of several fictonal characters, but historically accurate in its depiction of the war and its effects. Every movie that attempts to portray a book, or bases itself on a book, especially a long and complex book, is the result of a struggle to deal with all the complexities and events of a much longer tale than a feature-length movie can tell. This is a superb movie, reflecting key events and characters of the novel, and showing and expressing much of what is there, and deepening some aspects, changing, collapsing or deleting whole story threads in order to make a feature-length movie. Captain Corelli's Mandolin does an excellent job of this, sifting and refining,and not losing its focus on the relationship between Pelagia (Penelope Cruz) and Corelli (Nicholas Cage), with Pelagia's father (John Hurt), her fiance Mandras (Christian Bale), and Mandras's mother (Irene Papas) as major supporting players. Both book and movie keep you wondering if Pelagia and Corelli will find a way to get together. Fittingly enough, given their different emphases, the movie answers one way, and the book another. Go see this fine movie.
10:52:46 AM