Vince_In_Milan

This must be one of the worst films to come out of 2005.

It's a bog standard superhero flick, but with characters that are impossible to really feel for or even care about, action that peters out fairly quickly, and a plot that you've seen a thousand times before. It seems pretty obvious that the Studio was convinced that all you really need to make a superhero flick is wafer thin characters a lot of garish colours.

What I find incredible is that the Studio had hundreds of ppl looking at this film as they made it, and nobody seems to have realized that it was rubbish. And it isn't as if there weren't some decent superhero films to cop ideas off. Spiderman, for example, was a much better film.

Even if you have nothing better to watch, don't bother with this film. Paint the kitchen, go for a walk. Telephone your grandmother, maybe. You'll be doing yourself a favour.

This story is about the romantic triangle between a nth. African male prostitute, a French transsexual prostitute (Stephanie) and a Russian waiter who speaks no French and never seems to shave.

As a film it is dull, dreary and depressing, shot either on foggy, overcast winter days or in badly lit interiors, where everyone is bathed in a weird blue luminescence. And yes, I know, it's because the white balance was out. Everyone is pale and downcast and looks haggard, shabby and dirty. Bodies are bony and shot in such closeup that they look quite ugly and unappealing. Moles, greasy hair. Yuk. Bad news in a film where people spend a lot of time either naked or having sex.

And the story? Well, Stephanie's mother is dying. All three characters go back to Stephanie's home village where, through a bunch of flashbacks to desolate countryside and predictably dingy interiors, we see a bit of Stephanie's childhood as a boy called Pierre. The mother dies. Well... and that's about it, really. Character development is kept to a minimum, as is the denouement of the story.

I suppose the storyline is not linear (it would explain a lot of non sequiteurs) but really, after paying my seven euros I don't feel like having to construct the film myself: that's what the director takes my money for. To expect me to join the story telling process and get my hands dirty, so to speak, is asking way too much.

This film is a heap of pretentious rubbish made, above all, from a desire to epater les bourgeois (ie shock the straights). I can see how it was a shoo-in for the Berlin Film Festival, and I can see why it got nowhere.

Awwwwww... so this film doesn't have people in togas. Oh, well. Sorry to shock the purists, but neither did the original Shakespeare representations. Stop nitpicking and let's get on with things.

What's this film about?

It's about Titus Andronicus, successful and revered Roman general who returning to Rome in triumph offers the son of the conquered queen of the Goths as sacrifice. That's tradition and he HAS to do it to appease the gods into letting his own sons into heaven. Not unreasonably, the queen of the Goths bears a grudge over this.

On the death of the reigning Emperor, Titus Andronicus is hailed as Emperor but he is not interested in politics. He is a simple general. So he asks that the leader of one of Rome's warring factions be appointed emperor in his stead. Bad call! To say that things go downhill from there on is a bit of an understatement.

The tragedy lies in the fact that Titus Andronicus expected everyone to be as honest and decent as himself and fails to see that Rome is a proper snake pit.

This film is dark, gory and rather gruesome. On the other hand, one really feels for the characters and their predicament so the violence and gore are most definitely NOT gratuitous.

The production:

It's stunning.

If you liked Romeo and Juliet, you'll probably like this. The sets are rather art-deco, with lots of references to Italy's fascist era (the senators for example, wear those white three piece suits with high collars associated with Mussolini) there are vespas and video arcades and newspapers and swords and horse drawn chariots all in the same film. This can be slightly jarring, but it does give the story a sort of timelessness which stops the viewer from dumping the film into the "period piece" bin or thinking "how clever".

The language:

Well, it's Shakespearean English (otherwise it wouldn't be Titus Andronicus, would it?) Some bits are harder to understand than others but because the action is matched to the word you get used to it very quickly. It certainly shouldn't put you off.

it's pretty good, really. The only thing I didn't like is that Alan Cumming (who becomes emperor in Titus Andronicus' place) looks far too evil right from from the start. You can't help but wonder how Titus could have picked HIM to be emperor, he looks like trouble from the very beginning.

All in all a fantastic movie but because of the gore and general darkness I'm not sure I'd watch it THAT often :o)