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View Date: August 18th, 2001 Cast:
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Captain Corelli's Mandolin Don’t let the sweet, melodic sound of the title, and the soft, clichéd visuals of the trailer fool you, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is not just a sappy, lyrical love story with the war as a backdrop (the antithesis of Pearl Harbor). Director John Madden’s follow-up to his Oscar winning Shakespeare in Love deftly balances the tale of forbidden love, with the realistic depiction of the horrors and effects of war on the innocents of a small village. Similar to Enemy at The Gates, Mandolin gives a even visioned insight into it’s story, but fails slightly, because its leads generate little heat, and the storytelling is lethargic, bordering on boring, to the point of making it seem like it lasts a lot longer than it does. In the end, this pacing dilutes any power or emotion that the story could have had, and leaves a mildly sleeping, yet beautiful vision on our brains. There are two concurrent storylines at work here. The setting is a small Greek island village, inhabited by, amongst others, Cruz and her physician father. It is World War II, and the Greeks are under pressure from Italy, their close neighbors, who are members of the Axis powers with Hitler. In a show of force, Italian forces, demanding surrender, overrun the island. The mayor and townsfolk are resistant. Already angered by the invasion of their self-sufficient world by outsiders, they resist external influences with great vigor and spunk. In contrast, yet along side this is the love story. Pelagia (Cruz) is in love with a patriotic fisherman and soldier named Mandras (Bale) who ends up going off to fight for his country. During his absence, an Italian battalion who do more singing, dancing and cavorting, then actual fighting overrun the island. Cage is the leader of this group, and as expected, falls for Cruz. The dually running conflicts of emotions and politics must have worked better in the book, but the translation here isn’t as bad as it could have been. As Cruz struggles with her growing attraction to Cage, she, along with the citizens of her town, struggle with insurmountable forces and odds against them as the battles of the outside world spill into theirs. I enjoyed the way the two tales are given fairly equal screen time and importance, however the delivery of the story lags a bit, stealing some of the movies thunder. Unlike Pearl Harbor though, Madden figured out to weave a historical tragedy and romantic tragedy together, giving each their due. Unfortunately, the long languishing scenes and dialogue drag the movie along at a pace, which would make a snail, feel fleet footed. While the movie has a running time of around 140 minutes, average these days, it seems a lot longer because of the lingering scenes, mostly beautiful, but sometimes carried on to long. Also, the love story between Cruz and Cage lacks any heat really, except for yet another example of two beautiful people looking at each other, while we wait for the inevitable. Bale’s character is banished for a third of the movie, but is always compelling when onscreen because of his undying passion for his country, and ultimately Cruz’s happiness. The problem lies in the fact that neither Cage nor Cruz carry the combination of dramatic presence and romantic heat that their roles required. Fiennes and Paltrow showed a playful, touching spirit in Shakespeare, but this time around Madden cannot elicit the same type of thespian fire from these two stars. Another slight problem lies in the fact that, while I surprisingly had little problem with Cage playing an Italian, Cruz is Spanish, through and through, and has no business playing a Greek. Her accent is discernible in every sequence, and I almost waited for the scene where her father (an intense John Hurt) to tell her that he’d had an affair of some kind and that she wasn’t pure Greek. Outlandish, yes, but a very distracting bit of dramatic license that I couldn’t forgive. Ultimately, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is a stunning, but taxing look at the effects of conflict on several aspects of the human spirit and emotions. Our hearts and souls are constantly under the influence of external forces, and who we are is a formation of the result of these forces. We gain knowledge amidst heartache, and strength amidst the strife. I have a feeling that this was the intention of the novel, and Madden’s intentions as well. Visually, he has captured something stunning indeed, but the dialogue seems like he tried to cram too much into some scenes, and then linger on others for dramatic effect. His result is something admirable, for its balancing realism, but tiring in its delivery. ($$$ out of $$$$$)Agree? Disagree, Questions? Comments? |
