Empire UK

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Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth:

Fair is foul...

Letters To Max

★★★

OUT OCTOBER 2 / CERT. TBC / 103 MINS.

DIRECTOR Eric Baudelaire

CAST Maxim Gvinjia

➞ Combining perceptive travelogue

imagery with Eric Baudelaire’s written

missives and ex-Abkhazian foreign

minister Maxim Gvinjia’s tape-recorded

replies this is an intriguing insight into

a region awaiting global recognition.

However as so many questions invite

evasion it lacks genuine trenchancy.DP

By Our Selves

★★★★

OUT OCTOBER 2 / CERT. 15 / 83 MINS.

DIRECTOR Andrew Kötting CAST Toby

Jones Freddie Jones Iain Sinclair

➞ With an impressionistic soundtrack

blending natural noise prose lyrics and

verse this is a meandering monochrome

meditation on poet John Clare’s four-day

80-mile odyssey from an Epping Forest

asylum to his Northampton home in

1841. Mesmerising challenging and
      defiantly unique. DP

The Black Panthers:

Vanguard Of The

Revolution

★★★

OUT OCTOBER 23 / CERT. TBC / 114 MINS.

DIRECTOR Stanley Nelson

CAST Jamal Joseph Kathleen Cleaver

➞ Exploring activism’s role in the ’60s

struggle for civil rights this is a powerful

look at a contentiously iconic movement.

But while strong on establishment

prejudice the coverage of clashing egos

and agendas isn’t always incisive. DP

Macbeth

★★★★★
OUT OCTOBER 2 / CERT. 15 / 113 MINS.

DIRECTOR Justin Kurzel
CAST Michael Fassbender Marion
Cotillard Paddy Considine Sean
Harris Jack Reynor Elizabeth
Debicki David Thewlis

PLOT “By the pricking of my thumbs
something wicked this way comes.”
Three weird women prophesy victorious
warrior Macbeth (Fassbender) will be
king of Scotland sowing the seeds of
treachery murder and madness in the
ambitious noble and his lady (Cotillard).

RAVEHEART MEETS

the Bard for a blood-

soaked game of thrones

in Justin Kurzel’s lean

mean and absolutely

sensational adaptation

of the terrifying tale of

Macbeth. It’s the only Shakespearean play

that is entirely about evil its protagonist

the only of his who is damned beyond

any redemption. We’ve seen a lot of

Macbeths (Welles Kurosawa Polanksi

for starters). Really a lot. But you have

never shed tears for Macbeth or his

ferocious co-conspirator the decidedly

unhinged Lady Macbeth. Not until now.

Australian Kurzel — whose

Snowtown promised good things but

hardly something this astonishing —

working with a screenplay credited to

the unlikely quartet of Jacob Koskoff

Michael Leslie Todd Louiso and William

Shakespeare pares down dialogue (and

witchcraft) looking for the humanity in

the Macbeths. The couple are first seen

paralysed with grief at the funeral pyre

of a little boy and everything that follows

may be seen if not pardoned as a frantic

power-grabbing bid to fill the void in their

lives. Their impulse to hasten prediction

along by murdering the king Duncan

(David Thewlis) with scant consideration

to morality or consequences is

catastrophic for them bloody deeds

begetting ever bloodier ones.

Fassbender is ideal. He looks like a

warrior and leader of men and he has the

resources to mesmerise with Macbeth’s

darkly poetic introspection his flickers

of conscience and increasingly desperate

tyranny. It’s as if he is daring heaven

Earth and all comers to bring him to his

knees and he’s not having it. Marion

Cotillard is magnificent (and not too

obviously French) carried away by

ambition power and glory but unable

to keep her despair at bay. She cuts a

pitiable tragic figure her disintegration

beautifully quietly calibrated. Instead of

raging with hysterical madness she fades

away consumed by grief and guilt.

It’s shot exquisitely ( by DP

Adam Arkapaw) as a mediaeval piece

in Scotland — mists in the gloaming

austere castles red skies and smoky

battlefields. It’s also rigorously controlled

from soliloquy and intimacies to big

battle action and boldly brutal set-pieces

(a vindictive Macbeth personally

murders Lady Macduff and the little

Macduffs in a shocking gut-twisting

deviation from the text). Twists from the

original text yield ingenious invention

like the stunning surprise of Birnam

Wood coming to Dunsinane proving

that an unconventional take on a classic

can still bring it to new breathtakingly

cinematic life. ANGIE ERRIGO

VERDICT Inspired innovative stunning

with unforgettable performances and

images this is up there with the great

screen Shakespeares. The playwright

surely would be thrilled with it in its

full-blooded vigour.