The Tragedy of Macbeth

Black-and-white shadow play, where every contrast is even sharper than in Ingmar Bergman at his best. It's hard to believe that it's not the fulfillment of lifelong creative dreams, just a combination of fortunate coincidences in which Joel Coen found himself. It just needed to delve deeper into the character, because the transformation of the main protagonist is quite direct and, at one point, even hectic, considering that all  desires and thoughts are spoken out loud. (02/03/2022)

I don't watch films to watch theatre. Nice sets, nice play of lights and shadows, but that's about it. (01/15/2022)

A spectacularly unspectacular melding of theatrical and cinematic traditions in a story that is... sort of incidental. Shakespeare wrote timeless works that, like ancient tragedies, have long since become archetypes rather than full-blooded plots, and Joel Coen understands this. And he adapts everything to it – the time-space of the film is officially described as Scotland in the 11th century, but in reality it functions as an arbitrary fictional world with fantasy elements. This is Shakespeare, not a history book, so the casting of black actors simply isn't and can't be a problem. The setting is lit and staged in such a way that it truly resembles a stage, but perfected by thoughtfully chosen cinematic techniques. The expressionist inspiration is often obvious, at other times merely suggestive – the film may look like a product of an older era in its 4:3 black-and-white format and scenes that don't abound in dynamic movement, but the direction is otherwise modern and doesn't lack any of the classic standards like shot/counter-shot or frequent cuts to close-ups. And it all looks very beautiful, although the coldness of the stone walls and the misty moors, where you can't see further than your nose, affect the narrative. So once again it is “just” a respectful shower of poetic and archaic monologues, in which character development disappears and almost everything happens in a terribly mechanical way. That is, except for a few beautifully staged scenes in which the dramatic effect suddenly awakens. It's certainly a focused and good film, I just found the finale too rushed and lackadaisical. Anyway, both Denzel and Frances rock and Joel Coen shows that he understands his medium and can apply it to pure theatrical substance. 75 % (01/17/2022)