jonathanmelia

Great stuff this. I kept going back to see "Empire" as much for this short as for the film itself. (Tony Vogel's kids went to my school: I even remember having cello lessons with his daughter Anna...) Loads of fog, castles, an ethereal maiden and a bizarre "grim reaper" type figure watching over her. "Spare the child!!! Take my life instead!!!" Can't wait to see it again. It also had good music, trying to emulate "gothic" style voices, the kind you associate with the Hyperion music label. I was 12 and a half years old, and simply couldn't get it out of my mind. Even Excalibur, which came out exactly one year later, just seemed gratuitous and silly by comparison. I really hope the master is found so a DVD transfer can be made: let me know when it happens....

I too first saw this in London when it came out May 1983, at the Screen on the Hill. It was my O-level year, and I was a skinny, awkward 15-year-old, desperately trying to get into my first 18-rated film. It worked. But was it worth it? The film has an extraordinary opening section, as Gene Hackman finds the gold under the snow-encrusted earth, culminating in a spectacular, slow-motion explosion of rock and snow. Set to extracts of Wagner's DAS RHEINGOLD, it's unforgettable, thrilling cinema, and had my jaw dropping into my cappuccino. We also have the sight of a dying, half-frozen man blowing his brains out again and again, bringing to mind the disjointed, hallucinatory quality one recognises from the director of THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH and DON'T LOOK NOW. Stunning, disturbing stuff.

Unfortunately the momentum quickly slackens as we cut forwards in time to a rather dull, plodding melodrama about a Kane-like man who in his anguish says, "Once I had it all...now I only have everything." (Coming after the prologue, this also applies to the film itself.) There's some nasty scenes involving voodoo and Rutger Hauer doing something rather strange with a python, some gut-wrenching violence involving a blow-torch and the contents of a pillow, and a soap-opera court-room finale that feels as if it's wandered in from an entirely different film altogether. There are rumours of a different film lurking in this exuberant mess: one of the film's stars has hinted that it was not Roeg's final version that we saw. But I couldn't call this a success. Roeg fans should check it out as an oddity, but be warned: after the brilliant beginning, it's downhill all the way.