The title reeks of romance and had I not to see the erstwhile James Bond listed as part of the cast, I will have skipped it in its entirety. However, The Name of The Rose doesn't live up to what its title implies and not even once pretends to be a lovey-dovey production. On the contrary, it has a whole bag of thrills in its script - with a tolerable assortment of gore - and it takes care to empty the contents of that bag at a pace that's just right for your senses.
Sean Connery stars as the monk who investigates some really nasty murders that occur when a debate between the Vatican clergy and the Franciscan monks is about to begin. Based on a novel of the same name by Umberto Eco, the film ventures into the same territory that the not-so-recent The Da Vinci Code frolicked in: The Catholic religion and the attempt to conceal the truth.
In this case, the bone of scandal is a certain book - Book Two of Aristotle's The Poetics - that is the crux of the matter. The book in question theorizes how to teach comedy and apparently, doesn't quite mind using Biblical characters in a rather brusque manner to make its point.
Naturally then, the wise old denizens decide that this is no instrument for the layman and bury it amidst several similar books in a forbidden library in a forbidden tower.
Needless to say but say I must, forbidden fruit always invites attention. One of the monks - a Greek translator - comes across this book and then the bodies start piling up in the hallways and kitchens of the monastery.
The year was 1986 when this 1327 AD thriller was shot. So you cannot complain about production values. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is marvellous: It fuses chants into a sweeping haunting score and sends a thin ice-cold thread of a shiver down your spine.
Director Jean-Jacques Annaud shoots this just as it has to be: as a period piece with the requisite amount of Gothic suspense. The pace is just right and never goes too slow (to enhance the eerie aura) or too fast (to ram down an overdose of chill thrills).
Of the cast:
Talking of all things supernatural, the film never makes it its duty to emphasize the mystical elements in the plot. Instead, it pretends to be an observer of the proceedings and dutifully records every moment without the slightest exaggeration.
The camerawork is adequate and lets you see what you have to at angles that are by now the standard for such thrillers. The lighting isn't all that gloomy either: At least it ensures the scenes are bright enough. And that applies for the dialogues as well: Connery infuses his lines with just the right spark that you find in a nonconformist monk. And the rest of the cast don't get carried away into needless melodramatic enunciations either.
With its running time a little more than two hours, The Name of The Rose wraps up its saga elegantly and does not involve bombastic sermons about what's right or wrong in the end. Instead, it decides to end quietly just when it knows there's no more to what it has to say.
Watch this one if you like your thrillers to not preach on Mount Sinai but be mixed with religious orders and shaken with a concoction of ancient legends and a subtle dash of class.
Sean Connery stars as the monk who investigates some really nasty murders that occur when a debate between the Vatican clergy and the Franciscan monks is about to begin. Based on a novel of the same name by Umberto Eco, the film ventures into the same territory that the not-so-recent The Da Vinci Code frolicked in: The Catholic religion and the attempt to conceal the truth.
In this case, the bone of scandal is a certain book - Book Two of Aristotle's The Poetics - that is the crux of the matter. The book in question theorizes how to teach comedy and apparently, doesn't quite mind using Biblical characters in a rather brusque manner to make its point.
Naturally then, the wise old denizens decide that this is no instrument for the layman and bury it amidst several similar books in a forbidden library in a forbidden tower.
Needless to say but say I must, forbidden fruit always invites attention. One of the monks - a Greek translator - comes across this book and then the bodies start piling up in the hallways and kitchens of the monastery.
The year was 1986 when this 1327 AD thriller was shot. So you cannot complain about production values. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is marvellous: It fuses chants into a sweeping haunting score and sends a thin ice-cold thread of a shiver down your spine.
Director Jean-Jacques Annaud shoots this just as it has to be: as a period piece with the requisite amount of Gothic suspense. The pace is just right and never goes too slow (to enhance the eerie aura) or too fast (to ram down an overdose of chill thrills).
Of the cast:
- Connery acts with clockwork precision. He dons the role with remarkable ease as if he were destined to portray William of Baskerville.
- Christian Slater - as Connery's sidekick - may have had much to do but he ends up making it all look as if he were given just a one-line briefing: Keep your mouth open and appear bewildered.
- Feodor Chaliapin, Jr. etches the feelings of an oldschool monk for a stern religious life with a vigour that's remarkable for his age. Watch him argue, persist in and hover around his point as Connery tries to make him realize that a little laughter does not a Satan call. It's a little surprising no one cast him again in some other Hollywoodian adventure.
Talking of all things supernatural, the film never makes it its duty to emphasize the mystical elements in the plot. Instead, it pretends to be an observer of the proceedings and dutifully records every moment without the slightest exaggeration.
The camerawork is adequate and lets you see what you have to at angles that are by now the standard for such thrillers. The lighting isn't all that gloomy either: At least it ensures the scenes are bright enough. And that applies for the dialogues as well: Connery infuses his lines with just the right spark that you find in a nonconformist monk. And the rest of the cast don't get carried away into needless melodramatic enunciations either.
With its running time a little more than two hours, The Name of The Rose wraps up its saga elegantly and does not involve bombastic sermons about what's right or wrong in the end. Instead, it decides to end quietly just when it knows there's no more to what it has to say.
Watch this one if you like your thrillers to not preach on Mount Sinai but be mixed with religious orders and shaken with a concoction of ancient legends and a subtle dash of class.
Comments
Anyways, I have tagged you in my latest blog. i hope you will take it.
Not seeing you online these days. I guess will have to start emailing you again. :) see u soon.