Tirante el Blanco

This film is unwatchable. I tried twice. I love stories like this, so was willing to give it a look. The costumes are spectacular. The acting is truly horrible across the board. It begins with the hero we see, who when he finally speaks has the squeaky high pitched voice of an obnoxious child. This is followed by a meeting with the king, and he is dressed to the nines. Immaculate and awesome king clothes. The actor stuffed inside of them must have been a relative of the director or an investor. His acting is that of one who has no idea, no idea at all. Given the spectacular sets and costumes, somebody had some money. Sometimes a film is just to bad to coherently review. The work that went into the sets and costumes makes the poor direction and acting confusing. You keep wanting to give it a chance because it looks delicious. I couldn't.

Magnificent costumes, dramatic locations, stirring music and elaborate sets for a tale of bravery and treachery, sex romps and romance among the lost splendours of Byzantium, under attack from the Turks in the 1400s.

The handsome and gallant knight Tirant (Casper Zafer), placed in charge of the armies of the Emperor (Giancarlo Giannini), hopes also to win his lovely daughter Carmesina (Esther Nubiola), who is willing in theory but hesitant in practice. The ladies of the court are full of wiles, both political and sexual, and a faction want to give her to the Turkish sultan (Rafael Amargo).

So the scene is set for battles under arms, battles of plot and counter-plot and many amorous battles around and in beds, involving lots of nudity and lively sex. Even the sardonic Empress (Jane Asher, who must have been pushing pension age but still looks lovely) strips off and seduces a handsome young squire (Sid Mitchell), muttering to her mirror that he could be her grandson.

Why isn't everybody entranced by the lush spectacle and adventurous story? I think the main reason is that to the ears of English speakers both the actual dialogue and the delivery of the dubbed speech often does not convince. Sometimes it is mock-medieval, which is very dangerous to write unless one's touch is perfect, and sometimes just uninspired. Ironically, it might work better in Spanish with subtitles.

Of course it's not the book, but what screen adaptation ever is? There's no way a work of over 800 pages and full of digressions can be adequately condensed into a two-hour film. As some people have said in the Message Boards section, we should be grateful that the film will make this neglected masterpiece known to a wider audience.

So Aranda does what so many other screenwriters have done in the circumstances: chooses one incident or aspect out of a multitude, elaborates on that and tries to remain faithful to the spirit of the book. But does he remain faithful? That's the trouble. Certainly there's a love story with sensuality in the Tirant and not the platonic stuff of other mediaeval romances, but Aranda piles on the sex until it becomes a bawdy romp. It's a pity that people will get the impression the whole book is like that.

That said, the acting is good, the hero is handsome, the heroine is delicious dressed and undressed, Yvonne Blake's costume designs are truly gorgeous, and the film has humour - in fact it could be classed as a romantic comedy. I especially liked the ending, but no spoilers! You can also learn a bit of romanticised history about the Turks and the end of the Byzantine Empire. (Tirant goes to Constantinople to defend it, but truth is that Constantinople had already fallen before the book was written.)

A special tribute to the dubbers is in order. I saw the version in Valencian, and the dubbing was so perfect that it could well have been the original.

Well, the story is based on the book "Tirant lo Blanc", written by Joanot Martorell in XIV century. Tirant is the best knight of Aragon Kingdom and must go to Constantinople to help the Emperor to fight against the Turkeys. There, he will fall in love with little princess Carmesina and will fight in the war. Unfortunately, things will not happen as our lovers like, as politics are between them. The movie is well done, the task of clothes and photography is very good, as the choice of actors and their acting. Unfortunately, as the movie focuses only in the bed aspects of court's live, the vision of the story is very partial (the story is not bad, but I think the director could have taken more profit of it), and, in addition, the war scenes are horrible. This is possibly due to lack of money, but, used to see Hollywood wars, the effect is terrible and disgusting. The material (the main book) is good, as the director, but the result could have been much better. I expected more of the director Vicente Aranda.

I have looked for a long time for this movie. But a great disappointment. Story has nothing with historical facts. Acting is terrible. During war scenes it is not possible to understand what is happening. Beauty of Esther Nubiola doesn't help to much. OK, costumes are very nice but not according to the tradition of that time.This movie can be much shorter then 122 minutes. I accept that a movie is not a history book, facts can be changed according to the point of the director but there should be a respect to the history. Or at the beginning it should be clearly indicated that the facts have nothing to do with the history. Movie is based on a story of 15th century but it is shot in 21th century. The director has forgotten this .