Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU This play is magic in Shakespeare because it deals with fairies and other supernatural magical beings, which was slightly difficult in those days under Queen Elizabeth I, though she had gotten rid of and had alleviated the worst legislation against witches and other follies of that type that her father Henry VIII and her sister Mary I had instated. That explains the great carefulness with which Shakespeare introduces these fairies and other Puck and Company. Yet he makes the reconciliation of Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of that underworld one of the four couples that get united or in that case re-united at the end of the play.This gives away the essential architecture of the play. It is a total hymn to marriage and Hymen, an unspecified God that appears at the end of As You Like It to bless four marriages there too, could have come and paid a visit. But no Hymen here since one of the four couples is supernatural. But the architecture is there and at the same time three human couples and something must be awry since we are in Shakespeare and three is the signal of trouble, and here trouble is expressed in two ways. The play in the play couple of lovers, Thisbe and Pyramus, that are doomed to die in the good old Romeo and Juliet style: Pyramus believing Thisbe is dead and killing himself and then Thisbe coming by finds Pyramus dead so she kills herself in her turn.And of course it is the epilogue by Puck announcing that during the night the real world is taken over from under the carpets and under the table by the supernatural underworld. Something is really awry in this simple real world when we are sleeping.But that would not make a good play by Shakespeare. He adds a lot more and particularly one elopement that will not succeed but will not be needed any more on the following day. A full night in the forest for two couples, two young men and two young women who are at the center of the plot. And Puck will play or tinker about with charms and philters and create havoc with the two men loving the same woman who was rejected by both at the beginning. But Oberon will sort things out and solve the human problem of the forced marriage that the father of one of the girls wanted to impose.Note here that we are one century before Molière under Louis XIV in France deals with the same subject in some of his plays at the end of the 17th century. England has always been ahead of times.Puck will definitely create worse havoc with the craftsmen who want to be actors and the poor Nick Bottom, a name Puck mixes with asshole, or rather just ass, two meanings intended, Puck turns that poor Nick Bottom into an ass, one meaning, that of donkey, intended here, and Titania falls in love with that ass she sees when she opens her eyes. That's a change since she was infatuated with a young, very young indeed Indian boy before. Who spoke of Pedrophilia? Could that one repeat because I did not get it very clearly.It will take more charms and philters from Oberon to sort that mess out and all will be end that ends well.The last remark we can make is about the play in the play, a trick often used by Shakespeare in tragedies as well as in comedies, generally to create a hiatus between reality and fiction that reveals reality, some hidden secret dark side of reality, like in Hamlet. The French and the snobs in Los Angeles and Hollywood would say it is a "mise en abîme", which is a metaphor for that confrontation of two elements that reveal a third one deep under the surface. Here it is a tragic love affair that is caused by the simple existence of a wall between the two lovers and in fact it reveals to Theseus and Hyppolita that their marriage is the only sane solution to clear up the horizon of Athens and the Amazons and establish some peace, or at least one little piece of peace in that ancient Greece.As if things had not changed a lot concerning that country. They are living on credit and sooner or later their credit card is forfeited and they start getting up in arms, as if it were going to change anything. Better get settled in good husbandry and a stable economical if not niggardly marital situation and try to live with the means you have and not the means other people have more or less on your request.Shakespeare made it a comedy, but apparently the two dead ones are actors, hence fake, but the pregnant woman who got burned to death in Athens was not a pregnant actress. I am telling you… these Mediterraneans! Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Fraser Rew Let me say first of all that this is easily my favourite of all Shakespeare's plays. The way that it interweaves the fantastical and the real is exceptional. But this production did not do it the credit that it deserves.There were a lot of good things here. All Shakespearean productions seem to have at least one actor who doesn't seem at home with the language. It looked for a while as if this one would get away from that. Unfortunately, Puck's entrance kind of spoiled this for me, and as he is a major player it was doubly disappointing. He was totally miscast, and some of his better known lines were almost painful.Having Titania's bed chamber looking like a Rubens painting was a great touch - to say nothing of Titania herself, who, played by Helen Mirren, was outstanding. Making her attendants so numerous and so young was also excellent - in theory. But again, none of them (in their, admittedly few, speaking parts) seemed in any way comfortable with the language. I realise that Shakespeare can't be easy for 10-year-olds, but surely they could have done a little better.The sets were also a disappointment, the forests clearly being indoors and the puddles therein being miraculously free of mud. I don't know what would have been wrong with just shooting that part outdoors.It must be a tough production to get right. There were certainly some good things there, but some unnecessarily bad ones as well. I enjoyed it, but the Hollywood version from 1999 is better, and probably easier to source.

tonstant viewer There is a ferocity about this production that is off-putting. Titania and Oberon are not ethereally at odds, but grimly at war. Puck has vampire fangs and looks like a hustler who'd offer to sell you club drugs. The rustics are not funny ever. In sum, the playfulness and magic we expect in this play are absent.That said, it's pretty to look at, as director Elijah Moshinsky continues his progress through the catalog of Old Masters paintings, usually but not always in consonance with the text.Helen Mirren is an iron-willed professional as Titania, even when the changeling child cries in her arms during a major speech. Peter McEnery's cold Oberon shows violent rage at the lovers' confusion, and in punishment holds Puck's head underwater a bit too long for comedy.Cherith Mellor is particularly good as Helena, in her only appearance in the BBC Shakespeare series. Nigel Davenport is a pleasure to listen to as Duke Theseus, in his only appearance, other than the 1978 "Much Ado" with Anthony Andrews, Michael York and Penelope Keith that was supposed to inaugurate the series but was buried. Otherwise there is little delightful about this Dream, which all too often verges on Nightmare.The slapstick dispute among the four lovers uses thickly overlapping dialog, which speeds things up but renders it unusable in the classroom. The rude mechanicals are gentrified here, killing Shakespeare's pointed class distinction and most of the humor with it. Geoffrey Palmer is ineffective as Peter Quince. Brian Glover gives his all as Bottom, but is Liliputian compared to the awe-inspiring Paul Rogers in the Peter Hall film.In fact, that delightful Peter Hall film from 1968 is superior in every major aspect except the technical ones. There Ian Richardson and Judi Dench make magic as the Fairies' Rulers, Helen Mirren, Diana Rigg, David Warner and Michael Jayston are the lovers, Paul Rogers is Bottom and Ian Holm plays Puck as Oberon's faithful dog, tongue hanging out in eagerness for mischief - all shot outdoors in a wondrous twilight wood. Now that's one bewitching Dream!

Bex Cook (rjanecook1) I thought this was fantastic, from beginning to end. There was nothing significant I could criticise or find fault with, there were a few dull moments, but the majority of the action was excellent. This seems to not be very well known, there is a video, it may be rather hard to get hold of though, and there is no DVD to my knowledge. Helen Mirren sparkled as Titania, I also enjoyed the way Phil Daniels brought Puck to life. I also was delighted by Cherith Mellor as Helena, she brought the comedy and the life to this production.On the whole, this made a great impression on me, and I recommend it for the comedy brought out in the talented acting and the superb setting.