La peste

I'm just going to cut to the chase...a film based on a story written by Albert Camus is going to be far from a crowd pleaser! After all, his absurdist/existentialist works are not enjoyable for the average person. I've never read "The Plague" but have read other novels like "The Stranger" and I did not enjoy them. They are books that college professors enjoy assigning to their poor students but are not the types of stories most folks would choose to read. So, even if "La Peste" is well made (which it isn't), it would not be a film I could like.

The story is set in Oran, Algeria. The city has been closed off by soldiers and no one is allowed to leave until the plague has run its course. The story centers on folks such as a ridiculously cast American (William Hurt) who plays a French doctor, some reporters and some plague victims.

I found the story very detached considering the subject matter...which isn't surprising for Camus. I also thought the sound quality and story were both choppy. All in all, I wish I'd just watched something else as plague stories by absurdist/existentialist authors are pretty awful when it comes to entertainment!

imperfect only because mr. hurt takes his traum-welt sleepwalking characterization too far, and mr. puenzo drops the emotional anvil one time too many, this is nevertheless the most artistic political commentary i have seen. i compare it to CLOSETLAND. camus set the novel in his home of algiers, and mr. puenzo reprises with the buenos aires location that is his home. like post-war camus, mr. puenzo has much to say about his country's recently fallen dictatorship. camus would certainly have approved. the timing, in the face of the literal plague of aids, adds to the momentousness of this film.

sandrine bonnaire, robert duvall, and jean-marc barr are essential to the movie, and the sheer pulchritude of buenos aires shows, even though the city is cast as hapless, plague-stricken oran. it is the tragedy of argentina that makes it a perfect oran. and it is the beauty of its capital federal that makes it a perfect setting for camus' triumph of humanity over inhumanity.

the movie is complex, with explicit visual reference to the holocaust, and even a fair treatment of the complicity of the medical doctor (whose responsibility? remember, camus was above all an existentialist author). but the movie is not about a public health disaster, or oran, or the insanity and subsequent tragedy of civil resignation in germany's 1930's. oran could be anywhere at any time, and mr. puenzo has understood camus well on this point.

A fine example of the whole being less than the sum of its parts, this film might be more favorably received if we had been given more hints of its surreality. I certainly enjoyed it as a portrait of a city under stress; its residents not thinking clearly about what was really happening. Certainly I shared their struggle. And who knows, any of our cities may someday suffer as Oran did.

People seem awfully hard on this movie, and I don't quite understand why.

It must suffer in comparison with the book. Granted no filmmaker could possibly match Camus brilliance, but this is a pretty solid movie. One thing that disappointed me was the descision to remove the story from the time period. The time setting is integral to the allegory. All in all, though, a good reconstruction.

Don't even think of watching this without first reading the book. And if you have read the book don't put yourself through this mockery of one of the most outstanding novels ever. This movie takes from one of the greatest works ever crafted by man and somehow screws it all up. It takes way too many liberties with the story and replaces almost all of the themes and metaphors with simplistic and uninspired doppelgangers. Although the book was exemplary this movie only takes from it slightly. The screen writers probably didn't even read the book. The themes are inane. The dialogue is downright horrible(except when taken from Camus exactly). The Actors while well meaning do not hit the mark with their characters. And serious flaws in the story line are plentiful like weeds. Also plentiful is female nudity, but it's not erotic or even meaningful it's just obnoxious and quite frankly sickening.

Unless you want to see a version of the Plague that puts Oran in South America in 199..., changes the Rambert character to a woman who fingers herself in a cafe while checking for Buboes, changes Tarrou and Grand into giggling novelties, and replaces the enlightening separation theme from the second part of the novel and changes it so that the characters and merely horny, than this is for you.

This "Plague" is an insult and owners of the rights to Camus' works should be shot for letting this mockery manifest itself. Don't bother with this awful movie. Bullets are cheaper and provide the same feeling when put into heart.

If you are at all interested in renting or buying this awful movie, don't! Read the book! It is one of the best you will ever read I guarantee. Plus it turns this movie into a comedy as you laugh at the possible thoughts of the producer, screenwriter, actors, director, grips, cinematographer, etc... It's apparently impossible to give no stars with a review. So now the makers of this film owe me one.

However bad the movie was the book made up for it in spades. If you enjoyed the movie (shame on you) read the book and be amazed at how good it could have been.