Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

The Danish prince strikes again - this time residing in Russia. Apart from having some desperately needed cuts to the Lawrence Olivier's version, this film has an outstanding cinematography. Compared to this version, Olivier's rendering seems a bit stiff and stuffy - despite it's own qualities. Just as with Olivier, also this Hamlet seems quite a bit too old for the part. But he works with that beautifully. I guess that as a result, some of the love scenes were shortened - as far as I can remember. Despite the amazing work and the unchained camera in many scenes, the final sword fight cannot shake its stagy-ness.  But the memorable aspects of this movie for me were mostly the images of looming doom and despair. Black and white seems the perfect medium to tell this. Many images are shot out of dark hallways, into punctually lit courtyards. Fog is abundant and the camera seems to tiptop behind the actors as they stumble through this medieval labyrinth. Another spe...

An older upper-class man entices his wife's young lover to commit the perfect burglary. You can feel the theatre origin of the script extremely strongly throughout the script, with its crucial break of the first act right in the middle. It is highly interested in form as the second part of the film is basically mirroring the first one but with an unexpected twist. The characters turn out to be much more embittered by their situations than both of them let on. They are rendered as rather caricatured versions of very realistic persons. This over-the-top characters, but played very matter-of-factly by the two actors took me quite some time to get used to. But once suspension of disbelief set in, I thoroughly enjoyed the film. The camera work didn't look great on my screen, the interiors felt very theatrical, with too much pointed light and the exteriors on the other hand looked a little flat. I would have preferred the outside scenes also harsher in lighting, with strong s...