treeroland

I have watched a great many Sherlock Holmes movies, but I have always been disgusted to see the front door on Baker Street emblazoned with the title "221-B." As anyone with half a brain would understand (this apparently excludes movie producers), the house on Baker Street is number 221. There are obviously at least two flats, and Mr. Holmes inhabits flat B. So to see "221-B" proudly chiseled in stone above the front door is ludicrous. The present movie offers a refreshing relief from that gaff.

Of course, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had nothing to do with the story besides naming the characters - it is all a new invention, which seems to bother some reviewers. Jonathan Pryce is excellent as Holmes, reminiscent of the great Basil Rathbone. Watson, the police inspectors, Irene Adler, and the irregulars all present reasonably good interpretations of their roles. The plot is adequate, although the device of the spoons is rather hackneyed. I watched the hour and fifty-two minutes version, and I can't imagine how it could be reasonably condensed to 57 minutes.

In a remote location in the mountains of Argentina, a Catholic monastery maintains a home for abandoned and orphaned boys. The movie takes advantage of all the usual cinematic opportunities - sexually frustrated and repressed adolescent boys, plenty of nudity, boys masturbating, etc. When the priests take the boys on a camping trip to a bucolic valley in the mountains, the boys discover a patch of psilocybin mushrooms, so, of course, all the boys eagerly eat lots of mushrooms. When the priests discover what is going on, they decide to take some of the mushrooms also. Everyone has a wonderful trip, spacing out peacefully, admiring the astonishing beauty of the flowers and the cows. No problem at all. There were several scenes where the boys were apparently smoking cannabis. At one point they put a joint between the lips of a statue of Jesus; all in good fun. There is more plot going on, some of it pretty dark. One clue is when the false priest preaches a sermon, saying, "When someone hits you, don't turn the other cheek - hit them back harder !"

I am a great fan of Alexandre Dumas, and I have seen most of the serious adaptations of this great work, and, in my opinion, the French version with Gerard Depardieu is way out in front. Other reviewers have charged it with three flaws ~ the scandalously abbreviated beginning, the obesity of M. Depardieu, and the frivolous "Walt Disney" ending. These are all quite valid criticisms. The body of Dantes, after 18 years languishing in a dungeon, living upon thin soup, supplemented with the occasional rat with which he might be able to augment his diet, should leave him with a body gaunt and emaciated, a pale ghost freshy risen from a tomb, as Dumas describes him, not the well fed body of a gourmand like Depardieu (who is otherwise a perfectly brilliant Monte Cristo). And of course, the ending is stupid ~ there is no way that Edmond Dantes can live happily ever after with his lost Mercedes.

The disappointingly brief introduction is also regrettable, but, in the effort to bring an epic of this magnitude and depth to life, choices must be made ~ you have to pick your battles. First off, we dismiss all efforts to present this tale for some hour and a half's amusement ~ it can't be done. The 1975 version is perhaps the best of a bad lot, but it ends up somewhere between Cliff's Notes and the Classic Comic of Monte Cristo. The only other serious version to consider for the top spot is the very excellent BBC version of 1964. The BBC version is really good, and it succeeds in presenting the back story of Dantes the sailor, his betrothed Mercedes, the conspirators Mondego, Danglars, and Caderousse, the Chateau d'If, and the Abbe Faria, but I kept wondering how they were going to cover the rest of the story after spending so much of their temporal capital upon this material. The answer, of course, is that the remainder of the plot was woefully abridged and condensed, with many sub-plots entirely omitted.

The directors of the French version of 1998, on the other hand, chose to sacrifice the cinematic potential of the early material in order to focus on the principle plot elements of Monte Cristo's reemergence from his premature grave. In fact, nice as the BBC treatment of the early material was, it didn't substantially affect the later plot elements. The French version, by foreshortening this early material, was able to display a richness of detail and color that none of the other versions could match. For example, the appearances of the Abbe Busoni and Lord Wilmore served essential plot functions, entirely omitted in the other versions. Then there is the amusing character of Bertuccio, always fastidious in the preparation of food, taken directly from the pages of Dumas, who was a famous gourmet and gourmand, author of The Grand Dictionary of Cuisine. And the way Monte Cristo destroys Caderousse by giving him a diamond worth 50,000 crowns is brilliant.

Then there is the cursory treatment of M. Morrel and son in most other versions. Perhaps most viewers (and reviewers) salivate over Monte Cristo as a tale of revenge, which it certainly is, but Dumas was very careful to include the reward of the virtuous as well as the punishment of the wicked. We hear how old Morrel supported the elder Dantes, the father of Edmond, after the natural support of the son was taken away. We even find that when a purse filled with money is miraculously given to Morrel just in time to avert bankruptcy, he recognizes the purse as the one in which he used to send money to old Dantes. This scene never fails to move me to tears.

Then, while Monte Cristo is roasting the wicked de Villefort over the coals with great satisfaction, all his plans are thrown into confusion by the love of the younger Morrel and Valentine de Villefort. He finally relents from his implacable vengeance and blesses their union, as he earlier spared the life of Albert de Morcerf, son of Mercedes and Fernand Mondego.

To understand why The Count of Monte Cristo is widely considered one of the greatest novels in all of literature, it is necessary, of course, to read the book. No brief adaptation for the screen could possible do justice to the genius of Alexandre Dumas, but this French version of 1998 is easily the best attempt. If anyone wishes to improve upon it, they had better be prepared to devote about sixteen hours of screen time to the effort.