(The Dresser, The Pianist) (based on novel by Charles Dickens)
Music Score:
Rachel Portman
(Emma, Chocolat, Manchurian Candidate)
Cast:
Fagin: Ben Kingsley
Oliver: Barney Clark
Bill Sykes: Jamie Foreman
Artful Dodger: Harry Eden
Nancy: Leanne Rowe
Mr. Brownlow: Edward Hardwicke
Mr. Bumble: Jeremy Swift
Toby Crackit: Mark Strong
If you're familiar
with Roman Polanski's cinematic version of
Thomas Hardy's tragic novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles,
you'll be prepared for the sheer beauty of this very personal take on
Charles Dickens' masterpiece about childhood, crime and deprivation in 19th
Century London. Anyone else might be overwhelmed by its mixture of grit
and grandeur.
Said to be an autobiographical nod towards Polanski's own troubled youth,
after his mother died at Auschwitz and young Roman was forced to flee
Poland, the opening section of the movie is filled with the set-pieces we
know from the book - or the musical Oliver and other cinematic renditions.
The workhouse where Twist asks for more, the effortless cruelty of the adults
who plan the boy's life, his long walk to London and the falling in with
the Artful Dodger and his gang of thieves are all ticked off as we speed
into a dense web of crime - along with Oliver.
This is 11-year-old Barney Clark's first major role, and he is suitably
luminous as the innocent and entirely na•ve boy who merely wants to belong
to someone, somewhere.
Then the film really kicks into another gear when Oliver meets Fagin, the
godfather for this ragged bunch of junior criminals, who trains them and
holds them in his thrall. Ben Kingsley - who previously metamorphosed
into Gandhi, not to mention an evil gangster in Sexy Beast - gets a
firm grip on the moral dilemmas that suddenly challenge Fagin's criminal
certainty.
We can see him falter as his world collapses and he is in a terrible quandary
about his role in the fate of 'good characters' Oliver and Nancy (the
sympathetic Leanne Rowe) and is genuinely scared by the psychopathic
Bill Sykes (another riveting performance by Jamie Foreman).
Much of the credit for the storytelling must go to the collaboration between
Polanski and writer Ronald Harwood, as they expertly compress and
expand Dickens' original narrative to help the audience with the drama and
characterization.
Cinematographer Pawel Edelman makes the fabulous Prague sets look grimly
Victorian. In fact, a couple of the scenes are almost up there with the
landscapes of Turner and Constable, most notably when Nancy meets Brownlow on
a foggy London bridge and when Sykes and his loyal dog, Bull's Eye are in
hiding outside the city and stand in deserted countryside.
You may have to
avert your eyes when Bill deals with Nancy, and yes, there's the odd
chocolate box moment too - echoing Dickens' own mix of seediness and
sentiment - but the overall combination of the look, feel and main
performances is quite wonderful.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
