Branagh is known best for his film adaptations of Shakespeare plays, so there is something touching about this small little film he did between bigger productions about a misfit production of Hamlet on Christmas Eve, a love letter to the Bard and to theatre itself. Filmed like a British Woody Allen film, Branagh mixes his visual style with the black & white esthetic and out of all that comes something unique and inspiring, about finding the joy in what we do.
Branagh wrestles with the tension between our passions and our business, the pressures and demands of the industries we build around what we pursue, but that's mostly an undercurrent. Honestly the film is about the sense of family and connection that comes from a production. Theatre people will recognize this, and perhaps the film is a bit too specific in its centre, but there is a universality to a story about people forced together to achieve a shared goal. And the heart of the story is how well he captures that overwhelming passion.
There is something wonderfully romantic about a production of Hamlet on Christmas Eve, and this madcap tale of such a thing is a little Christmas gift that always makes me smile.
A Midwinter's Tale/In The Bleak Midwinter
Starring: Michael Maloney, Richard Briers, Joan Collins, Jennifer Saunders, Julia Sawalha, John Sessions, Hetta Charnley, Nicholas Ferrell, Celia Imrie, Mark Hadfield, Gerald Horan
Writer/Director: Kenneth Branagh
No comments:
Post a Comment