cairnst-94911

'The Claim' is 'inspired' by 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' (1866) by Thomas Hardy. It transfers the action from Dorset, UK, to California, US, during the Gold Rush.

Screenwriter Frank Cottrell-Boyce removes much intricate plotting from the source-novel, that underpins the downward spiral of 'Michael Henchard' ('Dillon' in 'The Claim'). This makes 'Dillon' a somewhat remote figure, more like a symbol than the tragic human-being Hardy envisioned. The movie, however, is a powerful depiction of hubris and its collapse, set against natural cycles of growth, decay and death, in a forbidding wintry landscape.

There are very touching performances from Nastassja Kinski ('Elena') and Sarah Polley, whose character, 'Hope', nurses her hopelessly ill mother. The film is also blessed by a beautiful, neo-romantic soundtrack from Michael Nyman.

I saw this movie back in 2000, and found it slightly disappointing after Michael Winterbottom's brilliant 'Wonderland', 1999. Having just re-watched 'The Claim' twenty-five years (half my life!) later, I must say it was more moving than I remembered.

The script presents Rasputin as a horror villain. Christopher Lee is excellent, though, and the film comes to life in the scenes where he mesmerises 'Sonia' (Barbara Shelley).

It's unlikely that approximately six hours of TV are required to make a spin-off from a source-novel of less-than two-hundred pages. 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', like Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness', draws power from what's left unsaid. Whereas Joan Lindsay, in the original book, has the imagination to step-inside an earlier time-period, this adaptation simply superimposes twenty-first century mores onto a world where they don't belong. Nearly everyone has become 'pan-sexual'; and it's highly unlikely that a young aboriginal woman would have attended a posh girls' school in Australia c.1900 (no matter how politically correct this might be). The episodes are often terribly over-directed. Natalie Dormer seemed miscast as 'Mrs Appleyard'. 'Miranda', 'Irma' and 'Marion' are played by exquisitely beautiful actresses, but the characters come across as annoying and shallow. Lola Bessis really shines in an expanded characterization of 'Mademoiselle'.

In the 1967 book, the missing girls are kept in the background, becoming more-of an idea or enigmatic symbol. A large part of the novel consists of the author - a woman - writing about women being viewed by men (Michael, a young, upper-class Englishman, and his working-class Aussie friend, Albert). Bringing the senior-boarders right into the foreground distorts the story, producing diminishing returns. And 'Mrs Appleyard' has been disastrously rewritten. More is definitely less in this case.