atrolleynatrain

together with jeremy brett's sherlock holmes and the burlesque of allô allô, this was a landmark for a very young admirer of brit-fashioned TV productions. i saw this for the very first time on the telly and i suppose this was but the movie of the series. today i know this movie is a fair piece of artwork that moulded my life: i teach English. the characters are so exquisite and the scenario is state-of-the-art tasteful paintings. the Gothic side of the movie is also an allurement to it. when mole leaves in search of badger, part of the tone of the movie is clear: there's true darkness in those woods. that darkness is also stressed through the gory mole's fingernails. there's much violence, too, for those who like a pinch of tavern-like brawl. it's a sweet translation into moving pictures of a great story for parents to read their kids when they misbehave and have problems with the increasing, and at times puzzling, importance of friendships in their lives. there's the hilarious water-dancing of the ducks in the river and the truly tiresome teenager frog. beautiful. beautiful.

okay. so it isn't that bad. it has all a lover of Gothic sightseeing can long for: the colours, the indie-looking actress, the support act is not exceedingly hilarious and milicevic is stunning. but it's bad. bad in a sense you can't ever get any sort of genuine like for any of the characters, not even harker. madsen's voice is state-of-the-art and ever creepy but you can't put a film together based on some good pretty details. vincent perez is worse than the overall movie. he couldn't be phonier and more inappropriate in the incarnation of "his first". all the missing bits aren't a justification for some considerably wrong choices of clichés: the hooded perez, the sick librarian (it could be any other middle-aged female for that matter) throwing up while some nasty lines are jerked unskillfully and the yucky matchmaker nanny. despite what's read before, i need to point out the best thing in this movies lies beneath the intriguing character of the priest. i only hope the sequel keeps track of that sort of exquisite type of idea.

i saw this film for the first time when i was a child and i still remember my stomach aching and a sense of sickness i was not accustomed to when digesting an animation film. i would be lying if i told you i liked the film the very first time i saw it, but i strangely didn't dislike it either. strangely because all i got to see was rather far from amusement or merry and naive fine pets: instead, i came across quite inadvertently one of the most scaring and mind-blowing films i had ever watched; only the Spanish series on Don Quijote could be a matchable rival. but it wasn't. cruelty depicted in such scenery would make the very difference in one's mind at that age (7,8,or even 9). now that i'm 31 i couldn't avoid a more indifferent feeling towards boxer and his doom since i knew what boxer stood for: the resilient populace, the tender brute making everything possible and believing above anything in the ideals of a beautiful society. i wasn't able to pity boxer as i did yore, but i got closer to his friend the donkey or the magnificent napoleon character, who is definitely a great animated character. sometimes i feel like engaging on a revolution but all my fellow pigs won't let me. not in my lifetime, no.

part two is undoubtedly the best half. not just for the entrancing colour scenes that flash before our eyes as a most generous gift, but also because the eerier ivan never gives in to the monster he seems to have become. ivan is depicted like a forgiving evil spirit and these opposite natures make the character the puzzling critique to despots and other scum of the sort it is. one of the works of art that has haunted me since i was a teenager and hasn't lost its spell. furthermore, the invocation of the tsar's childhood offers one of the best acting performances of both movies (part 1 and 2): ivan, the young orphan. in a way, we're eventually disarmed through the strange beauty of the boy, already the tsar, already the god-like figure. the love and care deprived angel grows into the grey bearded nocturnal predator with his thugs in black hoods only to concede damnation to his aunt, conceding her a bit of well-deserved distorted muliebrity in the lush portrait of the demented pietá. but both young and adult ivans are truly and deeply the depiction of righteousness, no matter what kingdom, no matter what purposes, and revenge itself takes the frame of sacrificial salvation with the Shakespearian counter-plot against his foes. to sum up, cherkassov's strabismus and thick eyelashes are just superficial baits to a huge masterpiece of film-making.