john-hurley-2

I haven't read the novel so I can't judge how good an adaptation this was but some of the dialogue in this film is very weak and the actions of characters inexplicably stupid. The costumes in Fosca's flashback scenes are so bad that you wonder why he has suddenly been transported into an amateur dramatics production of "A tale of two cities" or "Up Pompeii". I hope Stephen Rea doesn't get dragging into many more like this one. The multinational cast makes for some dodgy accents and sound dubbing.

For long periods of this play/film. Krapp (John Hurt) is saying nothing but his voice is heard nonetheless coming from the old reel-to-reel tapes that he plays back on his tape recorder. At times he seems incapable of remembering properly the events recounted by his younger voice on the tape, highlighting the relationship between memory and recording media.

Krapp at times takes pleasure and almost relives the memories on tape and at other times looses his temper as he disagrees with his former self or becomes impatient with the pace of his musings.

He sometimes seems surprised or extremely interested at the recordings but one is never sure whether his fascination is with a story that he no longer remembers or with his former telling of that story, which he might no longer see in the same way.

As a piece of theatre the contrast between live speech and recorded speech is more pronounced. On film it is a contrivance between the voice recorded on film and the voice recorded on tape recorded on film.

Great stuff none-the-less!

When I saw this film, I was aware that it was a retelling of a Dostoyevky story but not one I had read it. I still found it a very enjoyable film, which held my attention the whole way.

The self-defeating, somewhat neurotic protagonist manages to mess up every opportunity of improving his life that comes his way but manages to do so from a position of either moral or intellectual superiority. He justifies logically all his disastrous decisions and questions the sanity of anything he does that is motivated by emotion. He can't see the point.

He vacillates constantly between rejecting everyone around him and craving their love, friendship or forgiveness. Having met the "hooker with a heart of gold" who tidies his flat and, uniquely in the film, shows him respect and love, he drives her away with brutality and insults. In a momentary spell of remorse, he searches for her in the rain-soaked streets and looking back on this act in his video diary asks: "Why did I look for her? If I had found her, I would just have got back with her and tormented her again"

The acting is excellent, the photography tight and claustrophobic, which suits the protagonists tiny world. The editing cuts between his direct contributions to video diary, historical narrative and his flights of fancy at various points. It DID make me want to read the book but I think the film a work that stands up well on its own.