Victory

What I liked the most about this movie is that it was subtle. Nothing was pushed too far, the realistic acting and minimal melodrama made this movie very plausible, watchable and actually made you more in tune to the story, setting and characters in their feelings, where as some movies pour it on too much.

This could have been something really fine. Dafoe, Jacob, and Neil are wasted.

The script seems like a half-hearted attempt to "do" a Joseph Conrad. The director seems lost. Odd, considering he wrote the screenplay--somehow, you would have expected more. It feels more like a project for his resume.

Read the book instead--it's wonderful.

This seems to have been a European-financed project. I don't remember hearing of it back in 1995. Was it even released in North America? I discovered it through an IMDB search.

The film starts off with a hint of sultry islands and sultry nights in the South Seas and I was planning on liking it, but about one third of the way through most of the characters became unintelligible. If I could only make out what they said, it might have been a good movie. I ran the volume all the way up and all I got was British mumbles even when I rolled the tape back to try to catch what they were saying.

My wife and I finally got around to watching this R1 purchase we made a couple of years back of an ambitious film that sank without trace in both cinemas and on DVD.

Has anyone seen it? It really is worth seeking out. My better half thought it was excellent, and while I'm just too much of a fan of Conrad in general and this novel in particular to share her view, I definitely enjoyed it.

Willem Dafoe and Irene Jacob are actors who always leave me cold, but Sam Neill and Rufus Sewell (whom I cannot abide normally) are both great as the villains. The production detail is flawless in conveying Indonesia just before the First World War, and the scenery and photography is beautiful. particularly effective is the island where Dafoe's character lives as a recluse with its tropical villa and abandoned wharf and coal mine. The score, too, is very strong.

There's rather too much narration (from the always excellent Bill Paterson, though) and Simon Callow gives a performance that is hammy even by his standards, but, mercifully, is hardly in it.

Richard Lester and Harold Pinter were developing a version of this in the 1980s, which was never made.

In the early 1900's in Sourabaya, Java, a man (Dafoe) rescues a beautiful violinist (Jacob) from indentured servitude, taking her to his desolate island home while being followed by larceny, treachery, and madness. "Victory" is a middle-of-the-marquee film which takes on the challenging elements of love, intrigue, suspense, betrayal, murder, etc. in an exotic location shoot but, in spite of good work from a good cast, never seems to be all it could have been. Hampered by ordinary cinematography, a superficial melodramatic execution, and less than sterling direction, "Victory", appears destined to die a slow death among the cable channels. (C+)