STACK #132 Oct 2016

CINEMA

REVIEWS

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RELEASED: Oct 1 DIRECTOR: Justin Kurzel CAST: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Paddy Considine RATING: CTC

MACBETH

A film full of sound and fury, signifying a great Shakespeare adaptation.

M ichael Fassbender as director Justin Kurzel tackling Shakespeare’s great tragedy. If

Highlands; much of the action unfolds in a dreamlike landscape beneath a blood-red sky, filled with smoke, mist, witches, and soldiers being “unseamed from knave to chops”. In this kingdom, chaos and madness reigns. Shakespeare’s works ultimately live or die on the strength of the performances, and Michael Fassbender was born to play the former Thane of Glamis turned tyrant King of Scotland, whose ambition to ascend the throne leads to murder most foul, civil war and his ultimate downfall. Tormented, intense and mumbling into his ginger beard, he’s a charismatic and volatile despot. Marion Cotillard’s scheming Lady Macbeth is more subdued than expected but still as ruthless as her husband, and underplaying her anguished attempt to assuage her guilt (“Out damn spot!) works beautifully. A triumph in every department, "The Scottish Film" is bleak, brutal and brilliant. Scott Hocking

Macbeth. Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth. Snowtown

Macbeth isn’t already on your must- see list for these reasons, put it there, pronto. There’s nothing more satisfying for a moviegoer than going into a film with high expectations and having them met. Surrounded by positive buzz following its premiere at Cannes, Kurzel’s Macbeth is the best cinematic take of the Bard’s play to date – yes, even better than Roman Polanski’s 1971 version, which it will no doubt replace as the go-to film for students come exam time. Few would have expected Kurzel to follow Snowtown with Shakespeare, and the South Australian filmmaker has delivered another incredibly austere interpretation of material that demands a dark touch. Nobody does grim like this guy. Stark visuals and a moody minimalist score (from Kurzel’s brother Jed) create a sustained sense of doom and gloom which hangs over the film like the fog that shrouds the

FURTHER VIEWING: Macbeth (1971) , Coriolanus

OCTOBER 2015

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