Simon Magus

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!

SIMON MAGUS is about appreciation of poetry and words…about the impossible being magically possible…about the change of fate…about God having a hand in it all without humans knowing it before hand…about encountering love, courting love, the action of taking the time to give and willing to receive love. (There is no Hollywood syrupy love or sentimentality. It's more in a subliminal order of things.)

I especially like one of the camera approaches director Hopkins and cinematographer Nicholas Knowland used. When there are segments completely without dialogs, and the camera is just panning from face to face to face, quietly stops at scenes: in front of Sarah's window, outside of the Squire's house…the lens spending moments with each of the characters. It intimately lets us 'see' into their inner worlds…their struggles and delights. It is atmospheric (with subtle complementary score in the background).

The fate element somehow reminds me of ("Winter Sleepers" and "Run Lola Run") Tom Tykwer's stories/films, where fate is front and center. Here, Ben Hopkins (using a costumed drama setting of the late 19th Century vs. Tom's present day environment) has let fate weaves its way around this web of human feelings among the village inhabitants - our five central characters. Dovid (Stuart Townsend) the young dairy farmer courting widow Leah (Embeth Davidtz) the baker. Sarah (Amanda Ryan) the young woman, who recently returned to the village from the city, is scholarly literate and a match to Rutger Hauer the Squire, who values words and literature over materialistic ends. Of course, ("Flirting" and "Shine") Noah Taylor's Simon, who appears absolutely unpleasant, untidy, unclean and eccentric in every way, yet he, too, has a heart and core within (so we are reminded through the course of this fable that appearance is not everything). The folks around were unable to 'see' the Simon within - except for the priest, someone outside of the Jewish community, who patiently helps Simon to disentangle his soul and mind - what a divine slate of hand opposite the Devil (portrayed briefly by Ian Holm in a Rutger Hauer's Blind Samurai garb in wide-brimmed straw hat) and the villainous Maximillian (Sean McGinley as the greedy, scheming business man of wealth lost in immorality).

"Simon Magus" may not be for everyone (NFE). It just might need some patience and faith in the unfolding of the story - certainly not without suspense (when evil treachery lurks). As the Squire observed that people are so busy with business and means that appreciation of the affairs of the heart is compromised, take some time away from the flurries of things and sit back and open your heart to the wonderful ensemble cast and the talented production that realized Ben Hopkin's tale.

P.S. The railway issue briefly reminded me of Michael Winterbottom's "The Claim," and the mostly low-light cinematography reminded me of master Roger Deakins' photography in the Coen brothers' "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

I stumbled upon this film on late night British TV during Xmas 2002, having never heard of it. After watching the main titles, it was obvious i would watch it all, and i'm glad i did.

The story, for what its worth, centres around a small Jewish community in the 19th century, vying for control of a new train station so that enough people will visit their village so as to allow them to continue praying together. However, the more illustrious local Christians want the station for themselves and begin to put into motion a course of events which will sway the squire (Rutger Hauer) to give them the rights to the land.

This is merely a part of the film. Its real focus is on the many characters it establishes and develops in a very short amount of time. Central is poor beggar and sometime magician Simon who is losing his faith due to the hatred shown him by his fellow Jews. Then there is Dovid, played with gentle grace by Stuart Townsend - ostensibly the star - who heads up the plans for the station and agrees to read and comment on the squire's poetry to curry favour with him. His relationship with the squire, his bride to be (Embeth Davitz, magnificent as always) and a beautiful, learned girl are the heart of the film.

What makes the film so memorable, however, is in Simon's journey away from his people into the arms of the Christians, only to be used as a weapon against the faith he has run from. Highlights include his conversations with the Satan-like Ian Holm - who convinces Simon of Jews' inherent evil - and his journeys along the railroad, of which he has no understanding and which he believes to be the means by which souls travel to the afterlife. These sequences are so visually poetic that any pretension therein is forgiveable.

Yet while writer/director Ben Hopkins is obviously concerned with issues of education, tolerance, spirituality and all forms of love and forgiveness, there is room for quiet moments of humour. Simon's early introductory scenes are witty and warm, making his subsequent actions all the more cruel on the part of the other characters. The local barman, whose idea of God is a beer glass which never empties, has few scenes but creates a sympathetic rounded character, as do many of the minor performers.

Inexplicably critically reviled by some British journalists, this film would appeal to anyone with a taste for off-beat European cinema or anyone looking for a character piece or something a little different. It seemed at first to be many separate things - at first i thought it to be a literary costume drama, then a period version of Finding Forrester, but of course, with all films of quality it is not one thing nor the other, but a combination of many elements woven together masterfully. Ben Hopkins is, on the basis of this, an interesting talent and all involved should be applauded for their excellent work.

You can bet if this film were in French or Polish, critics would lavish praise upon it.

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.