L'Île de Pascali

Wonderfully made, deeply involving

Sometimes you just take a punt on watching a randomly selected movie, maybe because of the cast or the setting or the image on the poster. You go into the cinema (or switch on the tv) with no expectations and almost no knowledge about what you're going to see. Perhaps this is the perfect way to begin watching a movie, letting you set out on a journey of discovery with no more idea of what the characters are in for than they themselves have.

This was the case for my viewing of this. With no preconceptions, I was receptive in turn to the political, historical, philosophical, romantic and tragic strands that are woven into this marvelous Turkish carpet of a movie.

The performances of the main cast and the layered depths of their characterisations are magnificent. While the photography, music and art direction are all impeccable, convincing and skilled, they all support the story.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the low rating out of ten on the website, but it's a pity if it prevents people from discovering this rare and buried artistic masterwork from long ago...

Beautifully acted, wonderfully realized, full of sensual details & the sort of behavioral, moral, political, historical nuances you'll never ever find in american films. Gorgeous to view & review again & again.

Many people are comparing this to an Agatha Christie story. There are many similarities between the two in the setting and characters. However the mood of the film is more "film noir". It's very watchable, there are beautiful views, lots of eye candy from Helen Mirren and Charles Dance, and Ben Kingsley is fascinating as usual. The portrayal of all that was going on in the Greek domains of the failing Ottoman Empire seems very accurate. But prepare yourself for the ending, there is sadness. Overall it's fun to watch, but I'm not sure I would watch it last thing in the evening. Might have some strange dreams.

The writer responsible for the schlock-shocker 'Fatal Attraction' takes an altogether different approach for his own turn as director, in an old-fashioned, anachronistic bit of foreign intrigue set on a small Aegean island during the last desperate days of the Ottoman Empire. Among the film's many virtues is one neglected in recent years: it actually tells a story, with a rich sense of time and place to help bring it vividly to life. Ben Kingsley is superb in the title role, playing a petty informer on an inconsequential outpost in the Sultan's crumbling empire, who becomes caught in the plots of various foreigners seeking adventure and opportunity during the heady, treacherous years just prior to World War One. The expatriates involved in his inevitable downfall (a metaphor, perhaps, for colonial politics at he time) include a beautiful Viennese aristocrat and a roving English archaeologist out to swindle the local Pasha. The story is simple, subdues and potent, with some unusually literate skullduggery making it a modest but memorable drama of trust and betrayal.

In a finely-crafted and beautifully filmed story, three people meet who are engaged in deceptions of different sorts. Each one is acting in secret, yet all three find themselves thrust into the very center of their deceptions by ironic twists. Each fences with the other romantically, yet the most cynical actually fall in love. Excellent performances by Kingsley, Charles Dance and Helen Mirren, three of England's most talented and versatile actors. Exotic scenery sets the stage for a variety of passions, schemes and deceits. Mirren and Dance are spectacular, in the love scenes especially, but Ben Kingsley dominates this film. His dark eyes mirror dwindling hope in his sultan's dying world and his hopeless love for an untouchable, unreachable foreigner.