Alexander


Artykuł pochodzi z pisma "Guardian"

Alexander


Cert 15

Peter Bradshaw
Friday December 31, 2004
The Guardian

The soldier's masculine brotherhood and its closed world of secret fears and private affections has long been a favourite theme for Oliver Stone. This chest-beating hunk of a movie gives him the broadest possible shoulders on which to carry it. Our hero absolutely outclasses those wimpy beta-males of military history: Achilles, Caesar, Napoleon - or indeed Sherman, Patton and Schwarzkopf. Macedonia's Alexander the Great had conquered most of the known world by the time he was 25; at the time of his death at the age of 32 in 323 BC, he presided over a vast empire stretching across Central Asia. If anyone is allowed to have dyed blond hair, snowy white tunics, intense relationships with other men, and a simply impossible mother - well, it is this highly-strung hombre.
Unlike the mealy-mouthed Troy, Stone's movie does at least tackle the nature of male love, and has the child Alexander with his boisterous fellows being taught by Aristotle that these relationships are acceptable when their intimacy transmits and promotes noble ideals. Alexander imbibes these verities from Aristotle at the same time as he hears his vision of a Hellenic army encircling the known world. There is no contradiction between these two attributes of manhood: warlike and tender.
Alexander grows to be a sensitive, but fiercely ambitious, visionary youth; Colin Farrell plays him with his natural Irish accent rather than all-American or Bardspeak Brit. Very oddly, however, to cover any anomaly, Stone gets Val Kilmer playing his father King Philip to speak with an Irish accent as well, and Jared Leto has to do the same thing playing Alexander's friend Hephaistion. Interestingly, his formidable mother Olympia, played by Angelina Jolie, speaks as if she runs an Italian restaurant. This is one of the most scary performances currently to be seen in the cinema: she is like Anthony Perkins' mom in Psycho. With a mommie dearest like Angie, you too would rather hazard everything in battle rather than come in for your tea.
Everything's narrated in languid flashback by Ptolemy as a worldly, sun-weathered old man played by Anthony Hopkins, dictating his memoirs in the Mediterranean sun and brooding on the lost glories of youth and victory. The feel of these flashback-linked scenes reminded me a little of the classic BBC TV version of I, Claudius. Stone establishes the trauma of Alexander's early boyhood, having the poison of conspiratorial politics poured into his ear by his scheming mother, and then leapfrogs Philip's death to Alexander's own eminence as the young king and makes the great cavalry charge at Gaugamela and the defeat of the Persian army the big and very long setpiece for the movie's opening act.
But the movie only achieves power and narrative muscle tone once Alexander's armies have ventured further east, become more afraid and careworn, finally getting bogged down in the forests of India where Alexander looks like the classical world's answer to Conrad's Mr Kurtz. It is here that Stone unveils his big storytelling flourish: with Alexander stranded on his eastern expedition, he loops the narrative back to Alexander's beardless youth and tells the story of Philip's assassination, Alexander's agonised acceptance of his own fate and his realisation that his mother was almost certainly behind a murder designed to ensure his succession.
Alexander petulantly quarrels with Jolie, who is forever knowingly allowing snakes to slither over her arms, and letting those great sensuously chapped lips pout with Machiavellian malice. It sounds like a never-ending lover's tiff and these scenes ignite a flame of silliness and absurdity in the film which never seems to go out. When Alexander finally marries his Asian queen (a dull and perfunctorily exotic role here for Rosario Dawson) there is a truly ridiculous wedding night scene in which he must coax and subdue her with his warrior-lover's passion. In the marital bed, Farrell hisses and bears his fangs like a jungle cat. Did he improve these touches? I didn't know where to look.
The blood and glory of the battle scenes always look happier than the cockpit of personal passion. Stone contrives a watchable debacle for Alexander in the far eastern forests in which mounted on his steed he challenges an Indian warrior atop an elephant. The battle concludes with a terrific tableau depicting a fateful asymmetry: Alexander's horse rearing up in profile, vainly challenging the vast trumpeting beast. He is borne away from the field of battle on his shield, wounded but not vanquished.
It's a contrast to the cringe-making final speech that a tearful Alexander must give at the bedside of his gravely ill friend Hephaistion, defiantly proclaiming his vision of a noble empire in which conquered peoples are brought together and educated in Hellenic values. If there is a message here for modern audiences doubting the Pax Americana in the Persian Gulf, it is annulled by an awful clunk of bathos. The camera looks back at Hephaistion's face, immobile in death, glassy-eyed and faintly slack-jawed as if someone had snuck in and hit him over the head with a frying pan. Alexander orders the doctor to be executed. The acting coach seems to get off lightly.
Stone's Alexander has got plenty of oomph in its battle scenes and a strong, ambitious sense of geo-political sweep. Fortune favours the bold, as the movie never ceases to remind us, and fortune has favoured Stone with some success here. But the intimate story of Alexander the man is fumbled. Farrell's king is not allowed to mature or develop; his devastation at not begetting a son - surely a vital part of his human make-up - is glossed over, lost in the clash of swords, the pounding of hooves, the thunder of martial glory. With a soldier's misplaced loyalty, Stone protects Alexander from the character-building experiences of failure.


affection- uczucie
assassination- morderstwo, zabójstwo
bathos- nieszczery patos
beget- spłodzić
bog down- utknąć
boisterous- porywczy, hałaśliwy
brood- rozmyślać nad
brotherhood- braterstwo
chap- zarysowywać
clunk- stuk, łomot, huk
coax- nakłaniać
cockpit- kabina, kokpit
contradiction- sprzeczność, zaprzeczenie
contrive- wykoncypować, wpaść na pomysł
cringe- kulić się, odsuwać się
debacle- fiasko, nieudane przedsięwzięcie
defiantly- opornie
depict- przedstawiać, ilustrować
eminence- wybitna osobowość, sława
fang- kieł
fateful- brzemienny w skutkach
flourish- kwitnąć, rozkwitać
formidable- ogromny, budzący grozę
fumble- czuć się niepewnie
gloss over- tuszować, pomniejszać
hazard- ryzykować
hombre- mężczyzna
hunk- kawał
ignite- zapalać się
imbibe- nasiąkać, wchłaniać
languid- powolny, leniwy
leapfrog- przeskakiwać
malice- złośliwość
masculine- męski
mealy-mouthed- mówiący półsłówkami
memoirs- dzienniki
outclass- deklasować
perfunctorily- od niechcenia, niedbale
petulantly- drażliwie
pour- nalewać, sączyć
pout- wydymać (wargi)
rear up- stawać dęba
sensuously- zmysłowo
setpiece- przemyślana i zaplanowana mowa
slither- pełzać
snuck (sneak, snuck, snuck)- podkradać się, zakradać, wykradać
strand- być opuszczonym
stretch- rozciągać się
subdue- ujarzmiać
succession- sukcesja
tiff- sprzeczka
unveil- ujawniać
vanquish- pokonywać, przezwyciężać
venture- ryzykować, wyruszać
visionary- wizjonerski, marzycielski
wimpy- słaby, mięczakowaty

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