SHAKESPEARE AT WAR
Actor Ralph Fiennes make his debut as a director with Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, and achieves the best of both worlds—the plotting, setting ("a place calling itself Rome," ) and language of the Bard’s play without the trappings of period drama. Some would say it’s a clever device, some would say it’s the easy (and cheaper) way out—but it works.
He places the story of power, loyalty and revenge in modern times, and without straining too much the audience gets the connections to recent history. If the battle scenes look frighteningly realistic, like The Hurt Locker, it’s probably because Coriolanus has the same cinematographer, Barry Ackroyd.
When a film boasts of Vanessa Redgrave and Ralph Fiennes in the cast, powerful performances are a given. Goes without saying that Shakespeare’s work can eerily fit into any time and context and still resonate with meaning, even though Coriolanus is not his best or most popular play. John Logan has done a remarkable job with the screenplay.
Apparently, Fiennes had played the role of Caius Martius Coriolanus in a stage version over a decade ago and returns to play the arrogant character in his film (haughtiness suits his aristocratic features). After a brutal battle with Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler—odd casting), Coriolanus returns home covered in glory. His mother Volumnia (also seen in military uniform) wants him to be consul, but he rubs the people the wrong way, by not playing the role of hero the way they want him to and treating the hungry populace with contempt, making it easy for his rivals to get them baying for his blood. His bald pate and cold eyes give him a Nazi meets Voldemort nastiness, not exactly endearing the character to the audience either—that self-destructive arrogance is his fatal flaw.
Vanessa Redgrave plays Coriolanus's tough and domineering mother, a contrast to his meek wife Virgilia (Jessica Chastain), and brings such cool majesty to the part that she makes the film her own. The story follows its set path—banishment, Coriolanus’s alliance with his enemy and the vengeance on Rome, bloodshed, tragedy. The film is likely to win awards and get a niche audience—maybe not Shakespeare purists, but most certainly those for whom language is still an important part of storytelling.
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