Reviews

Simply ridicolous, here he goes again... to nowhere to do nothing about his alleged mission. Just about to fight to the death with the Marshall because the mandalorian costume but hey, giant worm appears and then is time for speak and negotiate. Before: I will rip off your helmet; after: hem no, Could you give it to me if I kill the beast? Good deal. And the conversation with the tusken people based on snorts and roars is completely delusional

I know, I know: The Kramer & Tracy original has become a true classic, but...I prefer THIS little masterpiece. There is a lot of little great points that makes this TV release much more than that: a) The characters performance. Not only Kirk Douglas (he really fit his character), not only Robards (so often a secondary actor), but also Jean Simmons, Darren McGavin and the Judge, even the little Rachel Brown or Kyle Secor. We can guess a master hand behind all these. b) The characters are very very well developed: Mathew Brady has much more power than Fredric March in 60s version (even we can intimate a little with him in moments as his speech at church), Robards owes nothing to the great Tracy. The journalist is here more interesting (more heavy, more cynical, more aged-atheist) than Gene Kelly. It's a good point the youthfulness and artlessness of both the teacher and fiancée c) The director, thought obviously more limited by budget, is capable to offer an equilibrated narration and some great moments (such as the confronted reception of Brady and Drummond)

Sometimes we were more impressed by the version the first saw, if this is good. Maybe this is also the case (I saw first the Green film).

Great history, great characters... Almost all the people knows the immortal Plato's dialogue "symposium". But, adittionaly, the Ferreri's aproach is sometimes original sometimes very close to greek original. The ambience, costumes, landscapes are very well done, and some litle audiovisual resources (image mixing, delicate background sound) are very cheap and effective. The tempo is apropiate for the differents scenes (Glaucón narration, Diotima discours, Socrate parlament, Alcibiades, and final sunrise...). A little disturbing the actor choosed for Socrates, physically not similar to historic Socrate, but good acting in general (great Irene Papas as Diotime, and the comic Aristophane, even the Socrate...)

An enjoyable surprise