Anazapta

I felt I was watching something from the 70s. It has strong adult themes and language and well-known actors, but I thought they all acted badly; it's as if everyone had been asked to do a poor job, editing, acting, directing, etc. Shame, for a film made in 2002, it all looks pretty dated.

Lena Headey is the perfect jewel for this mesmerizing film. She is surrounded by a great cast whose menacing and troubled characters make you shiver as if from the winter's cold. The film is bleak, brutal and thanks to Headey's seductive allure, utterly compelling. Both she and the film are more than worth the price of a ticket.

Story about amoral revenge, cold, dark, seductive, cruel and brutal, splendid reflection of Middle Age atmosphere, mixture of tension and strange romance, tale about price of gestures and powerful force of past errors, about values and trust, about ghosts and crime as projection of community's soul.

In same aspects, a love story and, in fact, subtle exploration of existence significance.

A debate-film, with some aspects from Shakespeare or Marlowe, with flavor from Dostoevki and taste of Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" but, very personal as structure and construction of end.

Film about old moral debt, about cruelty of a bleak era," Anazapta" is a mirror, with Greek tragedy as mat, image of human instincts, desires and secret fears, notion of justice and faith, greed, poltroonery and black angels. It is lucid introspection in the loops of deep reality beyond the words.

The acting, the dialogs, the lights and location are bones of a social corpse, without coffin, funeral or grave.

The innocence or the mercy are only illusions for a character in which single limb is memory beyond facts, illusions or regrets.

A destiny's butcher and his way.

And a very interesting presence of Lena Headey in magnificent role who transforms,in delicate and subtle manner, the nuances of atmosphere and the respiration of action.

5/22/18. I only watched this because Headey was in it. Other than that the sets and costumes were nice, but the plot was not that great. Could have been better.

I was curious about this movie, since the Brazilian DVD has a great mistake on the cover: makes reference to the year 1838 and the black plague. Being a fan and collector of movies, I decided to watch this movie of a story in the Middle Ages. And I found a surprisingly good, amoral and violent movie. The story actually takes place in 1328, and the first positive point to call my attention was the image of the Middle Ages town and inhabitants: poor and ignorant people, with dirty clothes, spoiled teeth, living in a dirty and muddy village. Therefore, a vision totally different from those showed in Hollywood movies, with fancy castles and villages with beautiful people. Second, it is a story of lust and revenge, very amoral and violent. The script presents the story in such a way that the viewer becomes aware of the situation at the same time as Matilda (Lena Headley), the main character. Indeed a good movie and fans of movies of Middle Ages will not be disappointed. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Anazapta"