O Capitão Corelli

Ok, it's a given that you cannot make a good movie from a good book. (Unless you make it a trilogy :-) But comparing the book Corelli's Mandolin to this movie it's clear how much has to be cut to fit a screenplay. The book is very funny in places, romantic (of course), dramatic. What's left of it in the film is inexplicable romance -- as other reviewers have remarked, it's unclear why she falls in love with the italian while her betrothed is still around, and I have no idea why this was changed from the book -- and some gratuitous gunning and bombing scenes, more than in the book which derives its power from not hammering on the obvious points. Whole characters are cut: Carlo has maybe 10 seconds screen time, while in the book he has a whole story line that runs several chapters.

Unlike many, I have not read the book and so I watched this purely as a film in its own right. I'm not especially keen on romance dramas, and I expected this to be a bit slushy and/or operatic so I was rather hesitant about going to see it in the first place...

But I'm glad I did, because it was good. Beautiful, "feel good" scenery and with a light touch of humour that made it rather more endearing than a straight drama would have been. The romance was gentle, inoffensive and sufficiently interwoven with enough "proper" story-telling to keep my interest, and the score was not too obtrusively operatic.

Overall, the film takes a satisfying circular route from start to finish, inducing a range of emotions as it progresses. It's about 2 hours long, but I didn't find myself fidgeting or looking at my watch once - and that's quite a feat for me!! Very enjoyable.

The main problem with 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' is that it focuses primarily on the romance between Corelli and Pelagia and that too is half-baked. What is it that draws Pelagia towards him is too unclear. Is it just his musical talent or his zest? The film is set against the backdrop of a war between the Germans and Italians in a Greek island but the war is given less significance and what we see appears very sketchy. The entire film appears too sketchy, melodramatic and clichéd. Much of it is also historically inaccurate.

On the technical front it is well executed. The cinematography of the beautiful exotic locations is breathtaking. The score is terrific. Where acting is concerned, Penelope Cruz can't seem to lose her Spanish accent (she's playing a Greek character) but her performance is otherwise wonderful. John Hurt and Christian Bale are equally marvelous. Nicolas Cage is a miscast. His Italian accent, energetic personality, overdone non-verbal gestures all yield to a caricature rather than a character.

Perhaps director John Madden was pressured to fit the entire novel into a two hour period and he chose to focus on the romance more to draw a larger crowd. I can't shake the feeling that perhaps someone like Anthony Mingella would have made a better and more complete film of it.

As is often the case when you attempt to take a 400 plus page book and cram it into a two hour film, a lot is lost. Here director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) takes on an extremely ambitious project and almost pulls it off. What we get is a charming and emotionally compelling film that seems somehow incomplete.

There is much about this film that is wonderful and fantastic. The cinematography by John Toll (Cinematographer for Braveheart and Legends of the Fall, winning Oscars for both) is splendid. Working with Madden, the choices for locations on the Greek island of Kefallonia are superb and the visual images that come from photographing these majestic locations in varying light are lush and beautiful. Madden also uses numerous Greek actors as the townspeople, giving the town an authentic feel. The soundtrack is also terrific and the mandolin passages and vocals by the Italian soldiers are marvelous.

Madden does an excellent job of bringing us the Italian occupation and the romance, which take up the greater part of the film. There are numerous sweet and funny moments throughout this segment. However, by the time the serious battle drama is ready to unfold, there isn't much film left in the reel and this component is extremely rushed and abbreviated. While the battle scenes are well done, subsequent to the battle it is obvious that increasingly greater compromises are being made to keep the film from running too long. By the time we reach the post war scenes, the treatment is merely skeletal. Another negative is that the DVD is particularly sparse on features.

Nicholas Cage is charming in the romantic lead as the sentimental Captain who seems to have joined the army to sing rather than fight. When fight he must, Cage switches gears seamlessly into a man of fierce principle and resolve and somehow remains believable in both personas.

Penelope Cruz, whom the camera loves, gives an uninspired performance as Pelagia. In part this is because Cage so dominates the screen, but Cruz just seems too placid in a part that should be emotionally torrential and dynamic. She allows the character to be objectified as Corelli's love interest rather than establishing her as a powerful character in her own right.

John Hurt gives a fantastic performance as the wise old doctor, who knows as much about human nature as medicine. However, Christian Bale seems a bit overwrought and stiff as Pelagia's fiancé.

I rated this film an 8/10. Despite some drawbacks, this is a touching film that is well worth seeing. The photography alone is worth the price of admission.

I should have seen this movie earlier but seeing it at this late date after release did in no way diminish the tremendous enjoyment of the film. I admit it-I love non-American films-even if those films are American products. But this was so totally non-Hollywood in texture, locations and substance that I can easily forgive the intrusion of Hollywood personalities.

The script, the acting and the remarkably beautiful cinematography were so engrossing that the minor problems of plot simply were drowned in beautiful images. John Toll's brilliant camera work immediately impresses the viewer-so good that this viewer will rent the video more just to appreciate the beautiful play of light and dark in the screens images. I honestly felt that those images were three dimensional-that they could be lifted from the theatre and carried away.

Early on in his career, I watched Cage in what I thought was a dog of a film-something about angels in white robes standing on California beaches and subsequently dismissed him but after watching Corelli I must reassess his work-I thought the casting of him as the semi-professorial Corelli was a master stroke.

To make any comment on the events that occurred on Corelli's island is to trivialize those events because somebody sitting in Fremantle looking back can never appreciate the monstrousness of what happened. Hindsight is not an aide in this case but I do believe that movie magic was laid before viewers of this film.