If Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet
was Hamlet zoomed all the way out,
Peter Brooks’ Hamlet zoomed all the
way in. Hamlet already has an almost unrelenting focus on Hamlet himself;
in the uncut text, he has around forty percent of the lines, and most of the
remaining lines are spoken either to or about him. This Hamlet
was even more focused in on him, with almost everything else trimmed away. It felt almost like a one-man show at times. Sure, there were other actors, but they were
back-up singers, really just support for the leading man. In a production so tightly focused on and
dominated by one character, you need a very special actor to play him. Fortunately, Adrian Lester was more than up
to the task, making for one of the most compelling and fascinating Hamlet films I’ve seen.
The text was extremely heavily cut, and what remained was
often heavily re-arranged. It opened
with Hamlet’s “oh that this too, too sullied flesh” soliloquy, then moved
straight into Hamlet’s encounter with the Ghost. After that was his opening scene with
Claudius and Gertrude, which cast his barbs at Claudius in a very different
light, since in this version he already knew that Claudius was a murderer at
that point. The rest of the film was
similarly re-arranged, and I thought for the most part, it worked well. While some of the soliloquies and scenes were
in very different contexts than they originally appear, the effect didn’t feel
misleading. Instead, I felt as if I was
being asked to take another look at each scene and read each line and
interaction in a new light. It felt
simultaneously fresh and familiar, respectfully riffing off a beloved
classic. It had none of Almereyda’s
embarrassing attempts to be cool and new, and was instead thoughtfully edited
and rearranged in a way that actually was both cool and new. In a way, it felt like seeing Hamlet for the first time again, and it
put me back on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what would happen next.
The cuts were heavy, but I rarely found myself feeling as if
I was missing anything. It was so
captivating and beautifully executed that it felt complete as it was. Only one cut seemed really problematic to
me, and that was the fact that Laertes was edited out from the beginning of the
story. The effect of this was that when
he showed up in the fourth act, he seemed both completely random and way too
convenient. Despite my familiarity with
the play, he felt like a Deus ex Machina.
The fact that the actor playing Laertes also played Gildenstern only
added to the strangeness. That aside, I
didn’t feel a sense of loss from most of the cuts, since what remained was so
beautifully done.
It was filmed in the Theatre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris,
with a beautifully minimalist set. The
actual set consisted of just a couple of cushions on the ground and the plaster
walls painted a gorgeous rusty color.
That was it. The costumes were
similarly simple, and props were also cut to a minimum. The swordfight was done with painted sticks,
and the grave was constructed out of pillows arranged in a rectangle. In the hands of less captivating actors, the
technical simplicity would have been off-putting, but in the hands of Adrian
Lester, the minimalism seemed to serve only to shift attention to where it
belonged: on him.
The soundtrack consisted of several different
Eastern-sounding stringed instruments and drums, and it worked well with the
look of the stage: both were striking but minimal, and served to disassociate from
any clearly defined setting or political background. The set and music coupled with the extremely
international cast to make it a play set both everywhere and nowhere. It could have been any time and any place,
completely universal and part of its own unique world.
Adrian Lester was the heart and soul of this Hamlet, and his portrayal of Hamlet was
completely captivating. He was
brilliantly clever, unpredictable and occasionally ruthless, making for a
powerful, compelling and not altogether likeable character. You couldn’t stop watching him, but you also
were kind of glad you didn’t know him in real life. He was completely sane throughout, with a
probing mind, constantly examining and asking questions. This thoughtful philosopher blended
beautifully with the brutal murderer, making a Hamlet who was both dangerous
and thoughtful. Despite the heavily cut
text, he seemed to embody every different facet of Hamlet with subtlety and
nuance. His delivery of the soliloquies
was particularly striking; he didn’t seem to be giving a speech, just thinking
aloud. He made every emotion and every
thought clear without ever seeming to be acting at all; it really seemed like
he simply was Hamlet.
Hamlet’s brutal side came out especially strongly in his
performance. During the “play upon this pipe” speech, he smiled and advanced
slowly towards Gildenstern, with his tone mild throughout. On the last line, he shifted his grip on the
pipe to a fist, as if he was about to stab him with it. The slow advance and quiet smile were all it
took for him to be completely intimidating.
His coldness at the murder of Polonius was even more chilling, and it
cemented what had been clear about him from the beginning: despite being brilliant and thoughtful, he
had no qualms about casual violence.
Even Horatio seemed slightly nervous around him at times.
Despite this power and violence, he was remarkably
vulnerable. During his first encounter
with the Ghost, he hugged him hard as if to keep him from leaving, but the
Ghost pushed him away. For just a
moment, he seemed like every little kid who’s ever felt rejected by their
parents. At the end of the closet scene,
Gertrude reached out to put her hand on his leg and he leapt up as if he
couldn’t bear for her to touch him, only to turn back a few seconds later and
embrace her. Little details like this
throughout added to the complex characterization, and each small move like this
spoke volumes about who he was and what his relationships to the other
characters were.
While he was the undisputed center of the story, he also had
very good support from the rest of the cast.
Jeffrey Kissoon was both the Ghost and Claudius, and he
couldn’t have been more different in the two roles. The Ghost was stern and commanding; Claudius
was sly and smiling, sugar sweet on the outside and ice cold beneath. He had power and ruthlessness to match
Hamlet, but couldn’t hope to keep up with him in intelligence.
Yoshi Oida was a powerful Player King, and he, interestingly,
delivered his Priam speech in Ancient Greek.
While the decision sounds strange on paper, it was surprisingly
effective in practice, because it shifted the attention away from the words and
onto the act of acting itself. It didn’t
matter that we didn’t know what he was saying because he managed to make it
captivating anyway. Even more
interesting than his delivery of the speech was Adrian Lester’s reaction to
hearing it. He was completely entranced
by the Player King, and his excitement was almost palpable. Because Oida’s delivery of the speech forced
the audience to think about the effects and power of acting, the “rogue and
peasant slave” soliloquy felt especially grounded, and Hamlet’s intense
reaction to seeing the Player King act was very real.
As Gertrude, Natasha Parry was somewhat bland, but her
relationship with Hamlet was strong. One
really got the sense that they were mother and child, despite the brokenness of
their relationship. Her horror at
Polonius’s death was grounding in contrast to Hamlet’s callousness, and though
she didn’t particularly stand out as a character, she did her job as supporting
actor for Adrian Lester.
Shantala Shivalingappa was a very strong Ophelia, both
vulnerable and very real. She was very
graceful and delicate, but she had enough courage to stand up to Hamlet during
the nunnery scene, even when he was angry with her. Despite her inner strength, her insanity
didn’t feel at all random, and she did an effective job of laying the seeds of
it earlier in the film. Her mad scenes
had real power to them because she felt so real in everything she did, despite
the fact that her story was heavily cut.
Bruce Myers doubled as Polonius and the Gravedigger. It was a novel and creative double-casting,
and I thought it worked fantastically.
There’s something deliciously macabre about seeing a dead man come back
to life to joke about digging a grave for his own daughter. While the Gravedigger’s part was sadly cut
very short, he did a good job of it, and his Polonius was also quite solid. He wasn’t played merely as a joke, and he
worked well against Lester during their scenes together.
My last review could be read as story of the difference
between concept and execution; Almereyda had a decent concept that he failed to
execute. This film tells almost the
opposite story: a potentially problematic and strange concept that was executed
to perfection.
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