clanciai

For those who love the mountains this is an invaluable film of natural beauty and splendour, as the frame of a great human drama. Isabelle is a mature professional mountaineer, who has collected many prizes during her career as a mountain climber, and who now returns to her homestead to be present at her father's funeral, who was also a legendary mountaineer which overwhelms her with memories. She has a sister Kenza who is also a climber, and they agree on fulfilling together their father's last great ambition to climb the impossible north face of a very challenging mountain of about 4400 meters and chart a path of how to get at it. But Isabelle suffers from a mortal wasting disease, she might not live very long, nevertheless her will is imperative, and when her relatives try to stop her she goes for it alone. Her sister and Antoine, a close friend of the family, professional mountain climber and former lover, realize the dangerous hazard of the effort and start climbing up after her. I will not commit any spoiler, but Isabelle actually fulfills her and her father's ultimate ambition and spread her father's ashes from the top. There is much more to it than this, but the ending is actually serenely happy in spite opf all.

There were many films made on this the best novel of Dumas (which he confessed himself), but this version of 1948 is still the best one, while the others became worse the more modern they were. This version was also the first one to adapt the whole novel for the screen, and in spite of necessary abbreviations it is successful, mainly because of all the actors finding themselves perfectly in their parts. Gene Kelly is the best d'Artagnan ever, Athos is the best Athos ever, Porthos comes slightly in the background, while Robert Coote as Aramis is also perfect. They could hardly have found a better Mylady ever than Lana Turner, she is all poison all the way and perfectly convincing, while the one female part you'll never forget from here is June Allyson as Constance. Vincent Price makes a perfectly awesome Richelieu, and the music of Tchaikovsky (from "Romeo and Juliet" and "Manfred") is well chosen and fits perfectly into the highly strung adventure melodrama. There are inconsistencies in the novel, and it is unavoidable that the films also would contain inconsistencies, but you forgive it all because of the marvellous good humour and imagination. Not only d'Artagnan but also Athos, Porthos and Aramis did exist in real life, d'Artagnan actually ended up as lieutenent of the musketeers under Louis XIV, but went down in a battle. We don't know from where Dumas got the fascinating vampire character of Mylady, but Cardinal Richelieu was imposingly historical indeed, even if Dumas' story somewhat darkened his character. In brief, this is the classical film version of Alexander Dumas' best novel, and may it always find new audiences, which it deserves.

Francesco Rosi was famous for his implicit uncompromising realism, and this film of the famous opera confirms his consistence in this. This was not his only bullfight film, but it is probably one of the best bullfight films ever made if not the very best. This is no glamorous Carmen playing on her sex appeal, so many interpretations of Carmen being so twistedly overdone, but this Carmen is a very ordinary commonplace cigarette girl of some gipsy charatcter and nothing else, and a very common woman, and there was never a better Carmen. Placido Domingo is also ideal as perhaps the best Don José ever, and Ruggero Raimondi as Escamillo is equally perfect. It is all filmed on location, enhancing the dazzling realism, showing the back strets of Seville under the scorching sun in all its bareness. This is a film version of Carmen that you will never forget for its blunt and extremely straight-forward visual eloquence.