Macbeth

Director: Justin Kurzel/Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Paddy Considine and David Thewlis

Australian director Justin Kurzel, who helmed the visceral and deeply disturbing The Snowtown Murders, returns with his much-anticipated film adaptation of Macbeth. Film versions of Shakespeare's play stretch to infinity and it is likely more will come, so what distinguishes Kurzel's from other interpretations? For one, Kurzel's version features the magnificently intense Michael Fassbender in the lead role. Stunning visuals are yet another attribute. It is certainly something to look at but how do the drama and more importantly; the dialogue, fare?

One problem I've had with Shakespearean film-adaptations in the past is mumbled or inaudible dialogue. It's a problem I have with Kurzel's film too. Aside from the play's characters, who stand as some of the most famous in theater; Shakespeare's words, for me, are what really make him master of all playwrights. Whenever I see any production of Shakespeare, I want to hear the dialogue clearly expressed. In Kurzel's film, much of the dialogue, including soliloquies, is robbed of its power and poetry.
Any character or play should be open to creative interpretation and performed accordingly; an artistic edict both Michael Fassbender (Macbeth) and Marion Cotillard (Lady Macbeth) embrace fully. But famous, key scenes suffer from either said unintelligible muttering or weakly-conveyed meaning. The famous Is this a dagger I see? soliloquy is expertly expressed but one has to strain to hear the words, whose clarity waxes and wanes. The monologue is key to understanding Macbeth's manic ambition but its impact is severely diminished if one has to strain to hear the words. It wouldn't have hurt to provide subtitles.

In another famous scene, Lady Macbeth's Out damned spot fails to capture the madness and guilt gripping her mind. The words are spoken in a curiously reserved manner. The choice to make the dialogue sound more natural rather than stagy is a nice touch but in accomplishing that goal much of Shakespeare's dialogue is unheard, leaving those familiar with the play to fill in what fails to find our ears.

Aside from Fassbender's charismatic fury, another of the film's strong attributes are the film locations. The stark beauty of the British and Scottish landscapes; majestic mountains and vast, grassy plains, make excellent, dramatic settings.

The visual aesthetics: the bleak, gray gloom and the eerie fog from which the witches emerge are stylized touches that nicely serve the story's moody forebodings.

One may notice the costumes in the film for their naturalistic, spare look. We never see regal finery or any garments adorned with vivid colors. Even Macbeth's crown is a drab headdress.

Though I found Michael Fassbender to be an awe-inspiring Macbeth, I thought Marion Cotillard to be a disappointingly mild Lady Macbeth. I think Cotillard is an excellent actress and is one of my contemporary favorites but I never got the sense she was the cunning and conniving force behind her husband's rise to power. Her Lady Macbeth seems passive and though she isn't meek, she comes across as a wife who has little influence on her husband's diabolical designs for the crown. Other characters, such as Paddy Considine's excellent Banquo and David Thewlis' Duncan, are played with distinction.

It is apparent Kurzel's aim was naturalism; an aesthetic I admire. He wanted us to feel the blood and dirt of the tragedy rather than showing us gaudily-costumed characters strutting about, chewing Shakespeare's words to death. His approach succeeds handsomely but the film fails miserably where it should be strong. Shakespeare's words are everything. Without the dialogue's poetic brilliance, we would merely have an interesting story about a man with Machiavellian ambitions. Kurzel understands poetry in all its visual expressions but he hamstrings the words and that, my few and dear readers, is what keeps the film from achieving a level of greatness it nevertheless strives for.

Two Days, One Night (Deux Jours, Une Nuit)

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne/Starring: Marion Cotillard and Fabrizio Rongione

The Dardenne brothers' approach to film-making is unmistakably their own; unsentimental but heartfelt; cinematic but cinema verite'; fictional but so stubbornly and powerfully realistic. Their stories depict the struggles of the common man to survive in a world that is mostly unsympathetic to human need. For the Dardennes', if the struggles aren't always ennobling, characters at least manage to retain their dignity or achieve a redemptive end without fully freeing themselves from their condition or predicaments.

Dardenne plots are deceptively simple. Marion Cotillard plays Sandra, a wife and mother of two who has taken a leave of absence from her job due to her depression. Hoping to return to work, she learns her boss has offered her co-workers the opportunity to vote on what should be a sensitive issue: either accept a 1500 euro bonus ($1771.86 in American currency, to be precise), or sacrifice said sum so Sandra can keep her job. Though the bonus is the near-unanimous choice (only two of sixteen support her keeping her job), Sandra believes the boss has unfairly influenced her co-workers to vote against her. She then decides to spend her weekend making personal contact with her colleagues to persuade each to reconsider.

She and her husband Manu (Fabrizio Rongione), like most, face seriously diminished finances if she loses her job. The unappealing alternative is life on the dole; a ignominious and stultifying prospect Sandra wishes to avoid.

The straightforward, almost high-concept plot is a Dardenne Brothers specialty. But their narrative is hardly high-concept, for it is countered by the intricacies of human behavior, which become poignantly evident when Sandra approaches her co-workers.

As she struggles to locate the whereabouts of some fellow-employees, she is greeted by others at their front door. And as we might expect, their responses make for a fascinating and touching drama. We see that most are no better off financially than Sandra and are forced to work second jobs to maintain a modest way of life. Many count on the bonus to relieve their financial troubles. The wife of one co-worker informs her that 1500 euros pays for a year's worth of power and gas. While some reject her plea sympathetically, others dismiss her request un-equanimously. Some react unpredictably; in extremes that might leave one feeling amazed or horrified.

As Sandra's pessimism mounts, she begins to see how a favorable outcome might actually be a kind of defeat. She realizes that if the vote allows her to keep her job, her co-workers might resent her for being denied a windfall.

The stress and the disappointment, coupled with her pre-existing depression, prompt her own volatile behavior, which the Dardenne brothers dramatize without the crutch of melodrama.

I've always felt the Dardenne brothers could have been honorary Dogma 95 filmmakers. Not a shred of the unnatural finds its way into their aesthetic. You always get the sense they stumbled upon the action filming in a street or someone's home. Their unfestooned visuals, which compliment the raw, unromantic appearances of the characters, depict an indifferent, often pitiless world where the smallest, compassionate act seems like an event. And Sandra, ever the realist in her optimistic quest, always seems surprised and relieved to encounter empathy in some co-workers.

One can't help but feel sympathy for her co-workers, whose reasons for wanting to keep their bonuses are as valid as Sandra's desire to keep her job. Nothing is simple and every decision is fraught with consequences that aren't always beneficial to Sandra or her co-workers.

I probably don't really need to tout Marion Cotillard's performance. She is an actress with amazing depth and range and here--as French actors are wont to do--she expresses so much with her eyes; pain, despair and joy without broad, physical articulation. The Dardennes' always coax terrific, naturalistic performances from supporting actors and here is no exception.

I won't divulge the ending but defeat and victory manage to share dramatic space.

Two Days, One Night, zeroes in on the zeitgeist, making us feel an array of powerful emotions. In 90 minutes, the Dardennes' make us feel anguish for a woman whose monumental goal is merely to have a job. How that seemingly simple goal impacts her family and co-workers enriches the story and disabuses us of the notion that unemployment only victimizes individuals. The story should strike a universal chord but it probably carries a more visceral wallop in Europe, where stratospheric unemployment eclipses America's.

In Sandra's plight, we see a character display more heroism than all the clowns who take up screen space in the latest Hobbit movie, and one that is certainly more human. We also see how one weekend can have a devastating impact on one's life. A struggle that most newspapers might relegate to a paragraph on a back page is epic material for the Dardennes'. The World of Cinema should count itself lucky it has the singular perspectives of two very talented men.