Coriolanus. Directed by Ralph Fiennes. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave.
Rating: 9 (out of 10)
So, you think Seth Rogen can act? No disrespect to Mr. Rogen, but sometimes it takes a movie like Coriolanus to remind us that there are classically trained actors out there who can really do this thing: actors to whom reams of film canter to keep up, rather than performers who just whittle away at film stock.
All the more amazing, as we watch Ralph Fiennes master one of Shakespeare's more complex plays and spit out (sometimes literally) great tracts of difficult dialogue, is the fact that he directs the film, his freshman effort. Fiennes updates the tale of a fifth-century Roman general run afoul of the people to today's world of TV discussion panels and a multicultural populace.
The people are revolting because of a food crisis and the suspension of civil liberties in Rome. Caius Martius (Fiennes) has been away at war, fighting the Volscian people and his arch-rival Aufidius (Gerard Butler). "If ever again I meet him beard to beard, he is mine, or I am his," vows Aufidius.
While his wife (Jessica Chastain) prays for his safe return; his mother Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave) longs for the glory of his name. Martius is a man who was weaned on war, but his mother has grander aspirations for him: after Martius is given the honourary title of Coriolanus, she wants him to take the position of consul of Rome, and ingratiate himself with the masses.
Martius is not a man not of the people, which his detractors use to their advantage. "You speak of the people as if you were a god to punish, not a man of their infirmity," says tribune Brutus (Paul Jesson), goading Martius into making a serious mistake in front of the masses. Martius goes from hated to favoured one, and back again, in the space of an afternoon, and the war hero finds himself defending himself and his life on live television.
Banished, Martius goes to his enemies and offers to help them lead another assault on Rome. Even his longtime friends are unable to dissuade him: "there is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger," declares Menenius (Brian Cox) after a meeting with the general.
Battles sequences keep the early action moving and provide insight into Martius' true nature. (A bald, bloody, battle-scarred Fiennes is a sight to behold, and is even scarier than his Voldemort in the Harry Potter films.) The film was shot in Serbia and Montenegro, in shelled cities and on eerily abandoned highways.
Coriolanus presents a nice parallel to today's politics, with Martius and his cronies playing the one per cent while the 99 per cent protest. "What is the city, but the people?" asks tribune Sicinius (James Nesbitt). But replace "city" with "government", "country", "university" and any number of entities and you see that Shakespeare's play has always been relatable to the political and social unrest of any given year. (It was banned as late as the 1930s in France because of its fascist themes.)
Fiennes' performance is marvellous, in the true sense of the word, Redgrave's equally great. The film boasts excellent and interesting supporting performances, while real and "newsreel" footage lends a contemporary feel designed in part to lure reluctant Shakespeare fans. True, as viewers we do have to stretch ourselves and attune our ears to the bard's tricky language, but we are the better for it.
