Portrait

i don’t get what the big fuss is about. before i watched alexander at the majestic cinema about four days ago, i was constantly told by everyone i know who had already watched it that it was horrible. i had read a number of reviews of the film that stated it was bland, and horribly miscast, and that no one should attempt to mke a movie out of an epic without russel crowe. every friend i asked point blank refused to come with me to watch it, claiming they’d already seen it. now my friends and i have a record of having gone to the cinema to see the lord of the rings 6 times. so i suggested they come and watch it with me again. they vehemently refused, saying it was just too awful to sit through all over again.

finally nuksh and i trudged along to watch it, bracing ourselves for a long and bad movie. now i’m no movie critic, so i’m not going to go into a long and detailed analysis of alexander. what shoocked me, though, was that at the end of it, i relaized i had quite liked it. i hadn’t LOVED it, like i loved pulp fiction, or moulin rouge. but i decided that my opinion on alexander remains what it was that day i watched it : it was ok. it wasn’t brilliant. it wasn’t mind blowing, or breath taking, but it most certianly was not as bad as everyone had made it sound.

firstly, everyone said colin farrel was miscast in the role of alexander the great, around whom the film revolves. the movie centralizes around alexander, his life, his loves, and his travels. maybe it could have been made better if the story was not being narrated to the audience, forty years after alexander’s demise. anthony hopkins, is, as usual, graceful on - screen. he’s one who makes his presence felt. i feel that the narration makes the story of our hero more a history lesson than anything else. i might’ve FELT the movie more if it wasn’t played out that way. however, i’d like to say that i quite agreed with whatever made the movie makers cast colin farrel in this role. staying true to this particular film’s interpretation of alexander, colin farrel plays it with a subtle, effeminate, sensitive quality that makes one sympathize with him in times when he is just another scared, worried, confused human, and not the great flawless warrior that most of hirtory makes him out to be.

now i’m also no history expert, but i have a feeling that the huge fuss being made aboout how bad alexander is and why, has a lot in common with the time that there was a huge hoo haa made about the relase of andrew lloyd webber’s jesus christ superstar. everyone had something to say about that right? for once in the entire history of movies and motion pictures, someone dared to interpret the story of the final hours of jesus’ life as something more human than we had ever been taught. they dared to interpret jesus as a man with feelings, scared with the responsibility he had to human kind, nervous, tired, a little uncertain of what he was doing, what he had been doing for the world. they dared to interpret judas as someone different to the heartless, backstabbing villain that he had been interpreted as forever. they made him a tragic hero, he cared for jesus and worried about how it would for them. he worried about what jesus had begun to preach, about how far jesus’ enemies would go to flatten him. they dared to interpret mary magdalene not as a whore, but as a woman fatefully in love with jesus, with devotion to him, someone who was afraid of what she was feeling for this man, a fatal attraction she could do nothing about.

i think the problem people have with alexander is this. all the history freaks are mad that this movie turned alexander into someone OTHER than the notorious, powerful man with no fears, the man who once owned nearly three quarter of the known world. it portrays him as a homosexual, a mama’s boy, a man with little will over his mother’s orders, a confused, power hungry man who exceeded the limits of his fellowmen’s patience. a human, with flaws, and worries, and emotional baggage.

angelina jolie is nothing short of stunning. she gives us a fabulous performance as olympias. the relationship between her and alexander is intimate, yet as he matures, suitably strained.

i see nothing terribly wrong with this film, of course there might’ve been ways it could have been better. it wasn’t perfect. niether was troy.