Play for three Whether Shakespeare was or was not, whether he wrote all his plays or not, is one of the major historical mysteries, and the painting Anonymous demonstrates a very interesting theory on this subject. The film does not so much begin to disassemble all the arguments for and against, intending to present evidence with evidence or vice versa to refute known facts, as in the free flight of fantasy combines history and conjecture, and after all, who knows, suddenly it was so in fact. And if an even more global myth was unraveled and exposed in the Da Vinci Code through a thriller, the genre of Anonymous came out as a biographical and historical drama.
I want to note the fact that loving to destroy cities by aliens and Godzillas, and continents and countries by natural phenomena, director Roland Emerich, although he moved away from the historical biopeak, in fact still offers the viewer a kind of disaster film, only decorated more subtly and in some other sense. He is still gracefully and pompously engaged in the destruction, but this time the destruction of the prevailing opinion, historical events, the consciousness of generations and the audience, confident in the personality of William Shakespeare and the life of that era, and at the same time shows the personal tragedy-catastrophe of another writer Ben Johnson, who became the mediator between Shakespeare the true and Shakespeare false, despite personal ambitions, aspirations and talent.
Here is a play for three, suitable quite as another Shakespearean tragedy, came out rich and emotional. The real author of works, the character of William Shakespeare and the writer-mediator, caught between them by the will of fate. The plot covers over time more and more characters, thickening colors and with each screen gesture more clearly decorating and honing types in popular templates. Palace intrigues and treason, incest and secret bastards of the nobility, cunning and evil brunette adviser, brave knights, the struggle for power, the struggle for justice.
But to unfold all this plot splendor is absolutely impossible with a completely children's rating PG-13, leaving in the end only a beautiful plot and available scenery with landscapes. Bed scenes are cut off at the very beginning, shooting from cannons is removed to tears not expressively and weakly, but interrupted at the most interesting place, the medieval fun of pitting a bear and hungry dogs is completely upset, so this time it is completely without spectacles? Absolutely modestly filmed, but at the same time absolutely not a children's story, which does not deserve such a censorship rating and endless cessation of scenes in the most interesting place.
We must give the film credit that even with such censorship, it still captures and looks with interest. And just the same story of Shakespeare and the whole banter around the authorship of plays looks much fainter than the numerous conspiracies and brilliantly played “chess games” intrigues of power and relations between the heroes. The interchange stores a rather powerful set of spectacular turns, layering one on top of another, without ceasing to shake. And in the end, left in amazement, such a film is really applauded, despite the untapped visual potential of the content. The plot is well thought out!
On the other hand, it may be more interesting to observe, not that a certain author signs Shakespeare’s name, but that these famous plays were written by several different personalities at all, but it was much more interesting for Emerych to reveal the figure of Earl of Oxford than to dive directly into the secrets of creating classical plays. It is a pity that the finale absolutely nothing is said about “The Tempest” – the last play, in the plot of which the old wizard “retires”, as in fact after it left the dramaturgy and Shakespeare himself, regardless of whether he wrote or signed his works under strangers given to him for production in the theater.
There are absolutely no complaints about acting and the embodiment of images. Rhys Ivans with his key role coped wonderfully, conveying the bright features of his character in a very spectacular presentation. Sebastian Fernandez-Armesto, already experienced in not too large historical roles (“Tudors”, “Palace”, “Marie Antoinette”, “Virgin Queen” “Ancient Rome”), here is almost the main character of this story, laying out a huge range of emotions and feelings in all its manifestations. The spectacular villain was Edward Hogg, a kind of Grima from The Lord of the Rings. Well, and played directly William Shakespeare Rafe Spall makes his character such Jack Sparrow that literally every word and gesture causes either laughter or delight.
Beautiful casting in this famously twisted story (thank God Klozer to the script of this picture of Emerych has nothing to do!) gives a beautiful performance, and the abundance of intrigue allow you to watch the film with interest. And although almost all the shooting took place against the background of a green screen, the painted landscapes and scenery look very naturalistic, as well as the extra and everything else. Very talented graphic work and pleasant musical accompaniment (here Kloser has already put his hand) perfectly design the screen action of the historical work.
“Anonymous” not only leaves a pleasant aftertaste and impression of a successful picture, it also causes a desire to reconsider something else on the topic of the historical era shown, for example, the same “Tudors”, whose family is regularly mentioned here in dialogues, only without the gloss of censorship, but in a full immersion in palace connections, secrets and conspiracies. “Anonymous” can be safely considered one of the best films of Emerych, despite its seemingly strong differences from the rest of his films, and at the same time a successful experiment in special effects, when it is naturalistic to draw literally everything around, without turning the picture into a cartoon or a screensaver of a video game, it turns out really flawless and very beautiful. And who Shakespeare really was, against the background of everything else, is not so important.
7 out of 10
Original