We were shown a well-tailored and tightly sewn historical drama.
It's the best tradition. There are ' good' Irish rebels, there are ' evil' British imperials. They do evil, and we pay for evil with justice. Long live freedom! That would be fine, that's all. . .
Attention, spoiler's coming. But the spoiler is not for this wonderful film, but for the events on which it is based. As you remember, the events 'Michael Collins' begin with the suppression of the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916.
Wait a minute! It's 1916! What's going on in the world? The world is in the middle of the First World War. In the fields of Europe hell. The most terrible meat grinder of the battle for Verdun is raging in full swing, an equally ferocious battle on the Somme is about to begin. And both of these battles in their significance and in their fury are comparable to the battles for Stalingrad and Kursk.
And Britain does not stand by. Thousands upon thousands of young soldiers are loaded on steamships sailing across the strait to France, determined to save the world from the cannibal hordes of Kaiser Wilhelm.
And in this most tense moment, when the fate of both Empire and civilization is being decided, Britain is stabbed in the back. The blow is vile, painful, treacherous - the Irish committed a massacre! Just when every bayonet that is so needed there on the Somme counts, Britain must withdraw some of its troops and send them to suppress this next insurgency. And yet, for a moment - somehow interesting it turns out that the weapons of the Irish militants are entirely German-made.
What should every humble Englishman think when he escorts his son into the army? Hit them, Tommy! Don't lie, son.
Who is now ' Bad' Guys and Who is ' Good'? I don't have an answer. Think. Watch the movie. Look at it and think again.
PS. In May 1945, one of the main characters of this film, Eamon de Valera, a former hero of the anti-British struggle, and now the President of the Irish Republic, expressed official condolences to the people of Germany in connection with the death of Adolf Hitler.
“The ability to self-deception is our great panacea for survival.” — Michael Collins
Neil Jordan along with Jim Sheridan can rightfully be considered the best Irish directors of recent years. Speaking for Jordan, it is worth noting that he was never afraid to move from one genre of his films to a completely different one, and these can be mutually exclusive genres. For example, in 1988, Jordan shoots the comedy fantasy “Spirituality”, and the next year he works on the criminal melodrama “We are not angels”, in 1994, perhaps Jordan’s most famous work is the mystical drama “Interview with the Vampire”, and two years later he puts a political biography “Michael Collins”, which, in fact, will be discussed in this review. For the film, Jordan enlists the support of a strong acting ensemble: from Liam Neeson and Julie Roberts to the episodic appearance of Jonathan Rees-Myers. The operator is the two-cast Oscar winner Chris Menges ("The Field of Death, Mission), and the music is written by the future winner of the competition Elliot Goldenthal ("Frida).
The script for Michael Collins is written by Neil Jordan. Although on his own, he bases it on real facts from the biography of a fighter for freedom from the occupation of Ireland by England, who, in fact, is called Michael Collins (played by Liam Neeson). Neil Jordan provides this man as a true patriot of his native island, as his biographers say, and at the same time a talented politician, orator and a true national hero who had his own views on the struggle that freedom-loving Irish fought with England. Yes, nothing human Michael Collins is not alien, he also knows how to love (his beloved Kitty is played by Julia Roberts), but only his importance in society, influence on the formation of the then history of the relationship between the two neighboring countries and his political activities will lead to tragic consequences, but still dying Michael Collins will not give up his patriotic creed and can be called William Wallace of Irish origin of the early 20th century.
You can understand that for the Irish, their country is something that always lives inside them and let someone else have a different citizenship written in their passport. As proof, Jim Sheridan filmed his famous drama In the Name of the Father in 1993 with outstanding roles from Daniel Day-Lewis and Pete Postlethwaite. Neil Jordan was only three years late and reminded everyone, including the British, of the history of his country and its leader, showing the British in a rather unsightly light. Scenes on the streets of Dublin or in the stadium, where there is a rugby game, make you horrified and assume that the English are not a very tolerant nation. I don’t know, maybe the scenes were created to give drama and a special attitude to the struggle of the protagonist, so that he was even more heroic, but still something suggests that not everything is fiction. Well, how the performances at the rallies are shown, how powerful energy they possess is the merit of Chris Menges, nominated for an Oscar for the third time.
But of course, creating a good panoramic picture is one thing, and making your figure, or rather the image of the hero being played, is quite another. Of course, Liam Neeson just got used to his image, becoming for a while the reincarnation of Michael Collins. Neeson played as if all the action is not happening on the set, but in fact, he is about to lead people to seek their deserved freedom. The Volpi Cup in Venice and the Golden Globe nomination is the work Liam Neeson has earned. But at the same time, they did not want to be in the shadow of the actor of his colleague in Michael Collins. He once again proved how versatile an actor Alan Rickman can be. His character is ambiguous opinion, but in any case, Rickman plays more than perfectly. Not lost are Aidan Quinn and Stephen Rea (his wife is a former member of the IRA, and Ri began with a troupe that was banned by Margaret Thatcher after the ban on Sinn Féin, a nationalist organization of Ireland). And a very successful role was noted by Julia Roberts in the image of the lady of the heart of the patriotic hero, and the love storyline is highlighted in the film and the feeling that only for the sake of Julia herself.
The name of Michael Collins is little known to our man, yet we are too far from island Ireland and what happened there and what is happening to us least of all, as in that famous joke about Honduras. But the thirsty viewer can get acquainted with the film “Michael Collins”, which, although staged in the genre of political biography, but let it not be frightening, because it is wonderfully staged by the director of “Interview with the Vampire” Neil Jordan, and also because all the actors here gave their best, especially in this case succeeded Liam Neeson.
8 out of 10
Life is a struggle. Some struggle with death, overcoming disease, others with poverty, some give half their lives for unrequited love, in the end, achieving their own. But there are those who have a place among the greats in human history. They have a different fate, books, monuments, films.
Of course, judging a person from a movie is difficult. Sometimes, living with a person long enough, you may not really recognize him. And who knows us except the Lord and us? So this film is just a reflection of a person, like an animated photograph, which still conveys the picture and sound, but nothing more. Thank you for that.
The film intriguingly conveys the entourage of time, flipping through the known facts of history, at least I want to believe that it was so. Therefore, you can try to understand the main character, his thoughts, actions, feelings. And that's a great thing. Especially for me, a person is lazy enough for historical books. Thanks for a good movie. Thank you for being there and enlightening.
Irish "Lenin" on a bicycle, or a guy from their city
The film tells the story of Michael John Collins, a fighter for the independence of Ireland in the early XX century. Ireland had a difficult fate: the British shed a lot of blood there for seven centuries, they did a lot of harm. It was only in the early 1920s that the next round of struggle ended in favor of Ireland, and after passing through terror and a small civil war, she finally gained independence (albeit partially, at first). And it was Michael Collins who played a big role in this.
The film is good, and looks good, the plot is dynamic. A good political fighter against the background of the biography of the main character. The English are not demonized at all, as, for example, in the film “The Wind That Swings the Heather”, where they still slightly overstepped the stick. Liam Neeson and Alan Rickman play great, even Julia Roberts, who already has a supporting role, generally managed to accidentally push quite somewhere “on the back” of the film.
Interestingly, the film does not leave a sense of political order or agitation, although the British, I think, still did not like it very much.
A crumpled movie. It started with a firefight, no prelude, the Irish against the British - good, but why did all these people led by the president of the (!!!) unrecognized Irish Republic fight right in Dublin against British soldiers? What were they fighting for? Why do they hate the British so much? For us, the Irish-British story is shrouded in fog and gloom, perhaps the film was made for those who know all these nuances. But then there were such logical inconsistencies that it remains only to open hands. Michael Collins is always dressed with a needle, they have no problem than to eat and where to sleep. The huge hotel rooms in which Collins sleeps have made a strange impression - it turns out, it's not bad to be a revolutionary! More than once it is emphasized that the English do not know Collins’ face, while he moves completely freely around Dublin, does not hide from anyone, dines in restaurants, and freely discusses political affairs, without being shy of prying ears. And that's with the vaunted British intelligence! In addition to the initial firefight, Collins until the end of the film did not take the weapon in his hands, and all the uprisings sat in a safe place, asking random messengers '. Is that a hero? The President of the Republic of Ireland de Valera is generally an episodic character (Rickman has the role of 10 minutes), almost irrelevant. The plot rushes forward, overgrown with inconsistencies every minute, important events are either silenced or spoken casually. Collins's visit to London demanding recognition of the Republic is not shown at all, and its results are presented to us in a ready-made form. De Valera's reaction to the results of this visit is ridiculous, there is no motivation for behavior. The ending of the crumpled, like the whole film: De Valera just wept for the deceased assistant, then his men kill Collins, and finally we are given complimentary words de Valera about Collins, said in the 60s. What's the point? What was Collins fighting for? Why were his arrangements with England taken to bayonets? What did de Valera want, sending him to London and knowing that the British would not recognize the Republic? Why did Collins get killed by their own? Why on earth did de Valera, 40 years after the events described, write a man who was killed without his knowledge? Nothing's clear. Oh, yeah, I should have left time for Julia Roberts.
God has been missing for 7 days. Happy comes back. The angels immediately ask:
- Where have you been?
- Created a new planet, called Earth. Everything was balanced and contrasting. You see North America? Rich people will live there. And the South is poor. In Europe people will be white and in Africa they will be black.
- What is this little green island in the north?
- Oh, this is Ireland! A place where cheerful, cheerful people, great writers and musicians will be born. They will travel a lot and brew the divine dark drink Guinness.
- What about balance and contrast?
- You don’t know what kind of bastards I’m going to settle on a neighboring island.
Anecdote.
There is a feeling that Ireland and Great Britain are separated not only by the waters of the Irish Sea, but also by some blank wall that is not visible to the eye. Peoples are similar, but there have always been cultural and political differences. The narrator's introductory monologue in "Michael Collins" says that there were always Irish uprisings, but each time they were suppressed by the powerful troops of the British Empire. All this was before the title character.
Despite the fact that “Michael Collins” absolutely everyone, including the title, is positioned as a biographical drama, the film itself is closer to, say, a political thriller based on real events. These very events in Collins develop at times too rapidly: sometimes the course of the film resembles a series of historical anecdotes (in the most not funny sense of the word) hung on the plot tape. And kind of glad that the film quite cheerfully alternates scenes and scenery, but the narrative at times seems well, very ragged and there is a feeling that the creators wanted to fit too much in too short timekeeping.
Of course, films about national heroes are never complete without a certain amount of “knuckle-throwing” and “flagging”, without historical pathos and annalistic degree. No exception to Michael Collins. However, in Jordan’s film, events are also presented with a degree of irony to what is happening, despite the overall seriousness and even tragic events. In a sense, this is similar to “Michael Collins” with Spielberg’s “Lincoln”: the perception of the main historical character does not give the “young Ilyich” – rather, on the contrary: Collins acts in the film as a figure close to “one of us”. This is the irony of what a revolutionary leader riding around Dublin on a bicycle is worth. That's what he was, Michael Collins: life always writes expressive characters. This irony and “tangibility” of the main characters, and Collins in particular, is certainly good for the film. Also, Liam Neeson seems to be created to perform such roles: he is Michael Collins, Oscar Schindler, Jean Valjean (this is generally from the previous century), then Qui-Gon J... No, it's from another opera.
Collins' bicycle (at first associatively, and then quite analytically) suggests a similarity with George Roy Hill's film Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kidd, also biographical. Parallels, intentional or accidental, in many ways: the storyline of Collins' love and friendship, the same bike, but most of all, total "romanticization" Michael Collins as a character. Of the Hill film's title pair, Michael Collins is Butch and Sundance in one bottle, only much more significant and monumental.
Of course, this significance is due to the historical basis of Collins and the careful attitude of the Irish creators to their national hero. The fact that Collins is a heroic figure is beyond doubt from the first frames, when he protests in front of caps flying into the air, and this thesis is confirmed by the tragic fate of Collins both historical and cinematic. Jordan sometimes speeds things up too quickly, thereby reducing the historical power and adding a “thriller”, but still, the film cannot be taken outside the cultural context. After all, by and large, it was Collins who contributed to the present modern “isolation” of Irish culture. He practically separated Guinness from tea, pointed out where U2 would end and Oasis would begin, swapped the stiff British cylinder for a proletarian cap and a red beard. And so the original Irish culture Collins and his associates designed in an even half of a very picturesque island. This explains the fact that some scenes can be conditionally described as “a leprechaun collecting a shamrock”, but what kind of patriotic film will do without, in fact, patriotism?
It is no secret that relations between the parties to the Strait of St. George are far from the warmest: terror has remained terror, Ireland wants its North, but England also needs the Irish North. The unspoken war continues, which means that Collins has died and his business with him is not about any world. However, Collins, as a historical figure, did too much for the Emerald Island to bury his deeds with him: this is confirmed by the futuristic ending of the film, somewhat reminiscent of Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List”. No, Collins hasn't died and someday the Irish people will be fine. Those who invented Jameson just can't be bad.