Simon Magus

This is a fairy tale about Jews and Christians in an Eastern European shtetl of the XIX century - a world that completely disappeared, which adds to the movie's sentimental value. A fairy tale about a "holy fool" that is generally charming, sometimes scary, brilliantly filmed, and visually arresting.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite do it for me - didn't fully step the line from reality into visual absurdity, but stayed at the threshold, which was somewhat irritating because I am generally not a fan of watching fairy tales on screen. Despite that, it left the best impression on me.

I've just watched the last 15 minutes of SIMON MAGUS for about the fourth time-- Sundance shows it all the time, and maybe that channel's programer intends to give it the exposure it should have had, years ago. One imagines Director Hopkins is a spell-binder-- to have coaxed the exceptional cast onto an under-financed backwoods Welsh location, and then gotten them on the same wavelength despite trepidations about looking silly in shtetl-garb and forelocks. Ordinarily I am deeply aversive to holy-fool fictions-- yet this one made me privy to an ethnic communal memory; the end-credits express thanks to Isaac Bashevis Singer, and one imagines him loving it (a 1972 documentary on him had the same mixture of tomfoolery and elegy). A tone-deaf earlier commentator decried the sound-track-- will bet you'll sit all the way through the scroll of names, listening to the last variations on a score that, like everything else about this film, is a lovingly precise devotional.

This is the sort of film a mature, healthy British film industry needs to produce if it is to be remembered for anything more than gangster movies and low brow comedies. I don't know anything about producer-writer Ben Hopkins, but he's clearly an outstanding talent. The story is a simple and almost predictable one, but the world in which it takes place--Silesia, 1890, perhaps? --is one we aren't used to seeing on film. I'm not doing the film sufficient justice by describing it as a Jewish folk tale told in the best traditions of Hammer films, but Nicholas Knowland's magnificent cinematography is reminiscent of Bray's best efforts. Noah Taylor is superb in the title role and is ably supported by a host of fine television actors. Strongly recommended.

I'd read about this film at the Noah Taylor website, but I don't believe it ever opened in the U.S. (or at least it didn't get wide release). The Sundance Channel recently showed it, however, and those good people should be heartily thanked for giving us the opportunity to view a minor masterpiece. The story involves the holy fool (Noah Taylor, in another remarkable performance) of a dying European village and the people whose lives he affects. The supporting cast, including Ian Holm and Rutger Hauer, who once again reminds us that he is indeed a good yet neglected actor, are all superb, and the story is alternatingly funny and tragic, in the best tradition of Eastern European literature. Strongest kudos must go to cinematographer Nicholas D. Knowland, who uses light and shadow to create a finely textured world, and whose often startling imagery (the Jews on the night train, the young girl waving goodbye to Simon) will stay with the viewer long after the film ends. If you get the chance, catch the director's commentary on the making of the film. I'm not at all sure that he realizes just how good a film he's made!

In the beginning of railway era a milkman belonging to the small Jewish community decides to build a railroad station to advance a local trade but he's not the only one having this idea so the competition begins and the other side is capable to use any dirty means in achieving their goal. Mentally distorted Simon, who thinks that he is a kind of magus following Satan's will, gets himself caught amidst this struggle and is turned into a cat's paw by the wicked side. Film is highly grotesque and laden with subtle reminiscences to the New Testament, greediness and avarice turn religion into its weapon. Period drama Simon Magus is more of a stylish fable than a historical movie.