Le Petit Hamlet

It's really difficult to make a mess out of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" or even create a bad thing about it but the great Jerzy Skolimowski almost did it. "Little Hamlet" takes bits and pieces from the classic story and brings it to a more current era. It is staged on an abandoned building and with sung poems describing characters and situations from the play. There are no dialogues, it's just music and one voice singing. There are slightly humorous sequences such as Hamlet almost tripping inside Ophelia's bathub while she's there all peacefully enjoying her bath; or more classical ones such as Hamlet holding the jester skull. Plenty of characters are absent but that's the idea, to stay focused on the young prince's inner drama of avenging his father's death. It was a curious piece but quite jumpy and confusing. Manageable in several ways but like many of Skolimowski's earliest films most of its quality lies on the style rather than the substance. 6/10.