Genres

Visitors Review

2012-05-18 01:52:25

mixed response

This review is from: The Bridge of San Luis Rey (DVD) I loved Thornton Wilder's delicate and moving novel and approached this movie accordingly. By the time I watched it through, I reached a point of exasperation, feeling that so much of it was good or even excellent, yet the pacing suffered and the editing failed to drive the watcher securely along the road to the end. Gabriel Byrne, Harvey Keitel and F. Murray Abraham performed excellently, Byrne in particular. Byrne's ongoing narration does its best to bind the tale together, and his quality of voice enriches this movie, giving it a beauty that persists in my memory. I could only have wished that towards the end he had given us a little more hint of the gathering horror that Brother Juniper must feel at his situation. A horror that will never be allowed a voice. However, Robert DeNiro was horribly miscast. I am a DeNiro admirer; I have particularly loved his roles in such movies as Awakenings and The Deer Hunter and The Mission. But not here. Whether it is due to the director's reading of the character or his own, he lacked the necessary gravitas to persuade me that he believed in his own identity. He came across as light voiced, dismayingly colloquial, and, perhaps due to the shape of his moustache, perilously close to comical.Even his asking for Brother Juniper's death gave him no depth. John Lynch and Geraldine Chapman fill out their characters amazingly for the shortness of their actual time on screen. Katherine Bates disappointed me a little -- I wanted more heart. Given the nature of the Marquesa, I wanted sloppiness, more piggishness and self-pity from her in the beginning. When Byrne in his overvoice speaks of the tyranny that informs her maternal love, we have only really seen the generosity of that love.Perhaps a little more time to watch her reactions, more time to see her ideas developing on her face, would have aided the realization of the character in full. Despite that last comment where I am asking for more rather than less, I wonder if more severe cutting might have helped this film. In visual terms it is beautiful and the details are extremely well realized. I must watch this movie again; I feel that it could have been a truly great film and I feel personally disappointed that it is not.

rbarber-3 2012-05-17 14:28:55

an excellent, but unorthodox, American movie

Great story, great evocation of Peru in the 16th century, and probablythe best Inquistion movie ever made. This movie is unusual in that thelives of these five souls are given meaning and context by the bridgeaccident and no vice versa. The acting and directing is very good, butthe moral question Thornton Wilder posed dominates everything. Onemeasure of the films excellence is that people who see it are stilltalking about it a week or a month after they see it. Compared to theregular fare of movies whose names are hard to remember as you walk outof the theater, that is high praise. Folks who didn't like the actingor the plot per se should, a year after the saw the film, askthemselves if they had forgotten what the this film is about. I don'tusually go to the movies to get a sermon about the meaning of life, butthis enriched my appreciation of the our struggle and inability tounderstand God's will. I thank folks who made this movie, but I wasdeeply offended that some hack screenwriter who did not contribute oneidea to the film claimed credit equal to Wilder's authorship. Themovies in the movie business make wonderful movies, but acts like thisclaim embarrass us all.

aznaturebliss-1 2012-05-17 00:27:53

Haunted me...

I loved this movie. I did have to watch it twice in order to follow allthe names and details. I had a hard time believing Kathy Bates as aSpanish Dona, and found Robert DeNiro's role as a Spanish archbishopalso very odd. But that didn't keep me from enjoying it. It left mewith a strange sense of awareness at how our lives are all intertwinedin one way or another. The music to it stuck with me for days. Therewas also something about the time and period that grabbed me and stuckin my heart, 'though I don't know why. Call me wimpy or whatever, but Isat there and thought about it for a long time after it was over, andthen I cried. I'd watch it again and again if I had the DVD (I rentedit).

brenda-117 2012-05-16 10:58:45

Movie intrigued me enough to want to read the book...

The movie intrigued me. I would like to read the book so I found outmore about the novel. Thornton Wilder wrote the novel to explore thequestion of "Is there a direction and meaning in lives beyond theindividual's own will?". The priest searches for this answer by writingthe book about the lives of the five who died on the bridge. As alwaysthe Archbishop calls the book heresy because it questions God's will.You as the observer of these lives must decide the answer yourself. Iwould have liked the movie to show more of the questioning of thepriest by the Archbishop. How the lives of the five people crossedpaths before the accident had convinced me that it was a real story.

2012-05-11 21:38:06

Read the book instead

I read the book many years ago, and thank goodness, because this film is confusing and incoherent. Without knowing the basic story ahead of time, it's not always clear what is happening or why. Even when you do grasp the meaning, you never really care about any of the characters or understand what is going on in their lives. All in all, a sloppy, uninvolving version of what should be a gripping, moving tale. Buy a copy of the book and read that instead. You'll get much more out of it.

2012-05-11 08:38:55

Wonderful

I read the book years and years ago, so I can't say if this was a faithful adaptation or not. It was wonderfully filmed and acted. Kathy Bates is at her absolute best. For me, one of the saddest parts of the whole movie was the story of the twins who talked to no one except each other (though I don't think they say anything in the movie), and were so dependent on each other. When one dies, the other tries to commit suicide. The story tells the lives of the five people who died when the bridge collapses.

2012-05-07 09:19:31

Shoulda been a mini series.

Take Name of The Rose, A Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel and put it in soap opera format and this what you get. There was entirely too many characters in this movie, and too much going on to really get into this movie. Also, I found many of the charaters to be flat stock characters who really had no backstory what so ever. The script was stiff and the acting was strange, especially at times coming from F. Murray Abraham who generally in such a genuis of an actor. Would the viceroy of Peru really break down into a fit of tears? Another actor I just could not understand in the movie was Robert Deneiro. I just couldn't Goodfellas and Analyze This out of my head to get used to him as a 18th Century Archbishop of Lima. They might as well cast Al Pacino. Another actor that I was a bit disappointed by was Gabriel Bryne, he is so passionateless in this movie, when he is generally a genius of an actor. One of the only good parts of this movie is the costumes/settings, but beyond that, I just couldn't get in to it.

2012-05-06 14:50:24

silly

this movie was silly, boring and poorly done. The only saving graces were the excellent performance by Robert Deniro playing himself pretending to be Spanish and how admirably it performed as a cure for insomnia. I managed to stay awake through out the entirety of my viewing but only barely. My companions were not as unlucky as I was and dozed periodically only to rouse themselves intermittently to wonder if anything had happened. That's rather a big problem trying to adapt this book; it's not especially action-packed. Honestly, the book is so much better. I'm not sure it's possible to capture its essence to display on screen. It's probably futile to try.

2012-05-02 03:17:17

Very mixed bag

Please note that I saw this movie on HBO so I can't comment on the quality of the video transfer or its features.This movie, based on the Pulitzer winning novel by Thornton Wilder, has its moments, and also its share of problems. I'll try to detail them here fairly enough so that you can decide if it's really for you or not.First of all, the movie's greatest strengths are the wonderful sound track, the exquisite costumes, and the very authentic looking sets and interiors. The music, with its distinctive South American flutes and pipes often getting full play in many of the scenes, perfectly sets the tone of the movie. The second major strength is the amazing period costumes and wardrobe, which seem very complete and accurate to the time. Third, the architecture and the building interiors also seem very authentic, possibly true to the Spanish colonial style itself, although I'm not an expert on this period of architecture. I would have liked to know where it was shot.Now comes the mixed part. The casting, despite the stellar cast, is very uneven, ranging from excellent to wildly miscast. John Lynch as the military captain and Geraldine Chaplin as the mother superior are both superb although they have relatively small supporting roles. Pilar Lopez de Ayala is also quite convincing in her role as the actress, La Perichole. I'm big admirers of the next three actors, but they're just not well cast in their roles. Harvey Keitel, as the uncle and go-fer for the court of the Peruvian Viceroy, is actually okay, but I think historical movies just aren't his venue. The same goes for Kathy Bates as the Marquesa. But Robert de Niro, as much as I admire his work in general, is just miscast as the Archbishop who prosecutes Gabriel Byrne's case. Byrne himself, though, is excellent in his role as father Juniper. And F. Murray Abraham is very convincing in his role, and here he has a part not that different from the role of Antonio Salieri which he played in Amadeus or the Grand Inquisitor from In the Name of the Rose. If there's anyone who can project aristocratic hauteur better than he I'd like to see it.The pacing of the movie is quite stately, although certainly not glacial, requiring some patience from the viewer. However, the movie timeline might be a source of confusion to some people, which involves the use of flashbacks, although it's actually done well here. But if you don't know the original story it could be difficult to follow, or to understand why the main characters get the coverage they do, since that's not really revealed until the very end. The movie progresses by this series of flashback-like vignettes or substories, until we reach the very final scene in the courtroom where it all finally comes together.The dialogue comes off as stilted at times but that isn't the fault of the movie since the dialog in the book was highly stylized also as per the period. The over-arching theme of the book--how love can be a two edged sword in people's lives--either transforming it for good or for evil--makes an interesting idea around which to build the story. That part at least comes off well in the movie.So there you have it--a very mixed bag of a movie with uneven casting, a complicated, possibly hard to follow story, the slow pace--but based on an interesting idea and with a strong sound track, costumes, and settings. Whether you decide to see it or not depends on how you weigh the good and bad points I discuss here. Whichever way you decide, good luck!

charlytully 2012-05-01 14:06:41

Chronicle of some deaths foretold could have dispensed with some foretelling

Sometimes a novel made into a movie really disappoints (for instance,director Roland Joffe's 1987 misfire THE SCARLET LETTER starring DemiMoore). Sometimes tweaking the story actually heightens the suspense(Richard Brooks' 1965 rendering of LORD JIM starring Peter O'Toole).Sometimes it's justified to carry a book's foreshadowing over into themovie adaptation (as in director Francesco Rosi's 1987 film CHRONICLEOF A DEATH FORETOLD). But, unfortunately, Thornton Wilder's novel THEBRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY is somewhat off-putting in book form. It is astory which needs to have a cinematic presentation of a more linearformat with much less doom-and-gloom to get empathy for the charactersfrom the audience (held captive for two hours, unlike readers who canput down the novel for a while whenever the pall it casts grows toothick). In other words, LORD JIM's Brooks made a 10-of-10 movie from anovel rating an "8" at best. Director Victor Fleming made a "10" movieout of a "7" book in 1939 of (take your pick) THE WIZARD OF OZ or GONEWITH THE WIND. So it's too bad BRIDGE director Mary McGuckian wound upwith an "8" film from the "9" book by not being daring enough in hertranslation of the novel to the screen.

aatx1154 2012-04-29 09:52:47

Love is the bridge between life and death...

The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a film that held a minor theatrical releasein 2005, spotlights an all star cast including Kathy Bates, F. MurrayAbraham, Roberto DeNiro and Gabriel Byrne. Based on the novel byThornton Wilder, it is the philosophical quest to find out whether ornot our lives are decided by fate or by accident. The story takes placeduring the Colonial period of Spanish rule in Peru and this allows forgrand scenery, art, and costume design that gives the film a veryattractive look. The story is not so much based on plot and pace butrather a honest, timed look at the lives of the characters and theirrelationships with others. It reveals love in its many aspects. FromKathy Bates' Marquesa character seeking the love of her daughter, andHarvey Keitel parental love and affection for the actress "LaPerichola" to the fraternal love of silent twin Indian brothers, andthe love committed to God and society as portrayed by the nuns in thefilm. This is not a action, period piece but rather a sure handedviewing into the lives of the characters within an exquisite setting.This is a film that may not be accessible to most viewers. All in all asolid film with some lovely performances.Grade: B

rparisious 2012-04-28 16:49:48

Breaking Links in the Chain

None of the reviewers at this site or elsewhere have noted that thereare four, not three, filmed versions of this unique and hauntingnovel.The fourth appeared on American television betweenOctober,l957,and January,l958. It was probably a Hallmark production,obviously has never replayed,and is not listed in this data base.This is all the more disconcerting as it is the only dramatizedversion(The silent version is unobtainable and exists in only one knowncopy)which in any way remained faithful to the spirit and much of thetext of the original.Wilder's book calls to be read aloud and the threeleading actresses in this particular production did everything possiblewith the essential sound values.The key role of the Marquesa was taken by Judith Anderson(of "Medea"and "Hamlet" fame) and she literally almost breached the savingboundary between make believe and reality.Unlike the recent versionthere is nothing funny about this woman.Her daughter certainly does notvisit her in Latin America.Like King Lear ,she has been exiled fromSpain at her daughter's request.And not without good reason.TheMarquesa is a terrifying and vicious old drunk who is positivelyguaranteed to disrupt any social occasion which she attends. On theother hand,in exile,and smashing bottles in the audience's collectiveface,she,the most terrifying of mothers,writes epistles on hergenuinely frustrated love which will go down in the history of Spanishliterature.Finally she meets a teenager who isemotionally abused,and, as emotionally abusive, as the great ladyherself;and so the pair scream and claw till they eventually reach a trulyloving accord.It seems both women now,for the only time in theirlives,will have something to live for.But that entails first crossingthe Bridge of San Luis Rey.If we have any present day American actress,aside from Julie Harris,whocould have recreated this part it is Kathy Bates.She must have jumpedat the chance to do it.Unfortunately the incredibly uncomprehendingadaptation defeats her.As it does the wonderfully gifted Polishbrothers.They are literally left speechless.Similarly the fifties version ended with a great hymn to love from theMother Superior(played by Eva LaGallienne) to the broken actress(Vivica Lindfors)who has lost(half-driven) mentor,lover, and child tothe abyss.The new version gives us anti-Catholic propaganda with thewoefully miscast DeNiro and Byrne struggling with materials they werenot born to enunciate.Our catastrophe ridden neo-Babylonian society could use a good newproduction of "The Bridge" right now.Too bad that it didn't get it.Ifthe fifties version still exists, may be this letter will be anincentive for someone to dig it from the archives. Lindfors,LaGallienne,Judith Anderson,you should be living at this hour.

siderite 2012-04-23 05:12:28

Really , really, boring. Nice visuals, though.

No, it's not an action movie full of special effects, but it does looknice. All the costumes and the way people talk and the nice scenery andeverything really immerse you into the atmosphere of those times. Theproblem with the times is that they are utterly boring!The cast: great people make out the cast, but DeNiro has a really smallpart, while Gabriel Byrne is merely a speaker. He is judged as doingthe work of the devil and we all know that to be true in End of Days,but in this case the only bad thing he has done is question the plan ofGod.The story: the story has a very nice concept. Five people die suddenlyin an accident. Since the place is relatively isolated and the people'slives rather public, one can investigate why God chose their death byusing scientific methods. A bad part of the plan is that it'sInquisition time. OK, enough chit-chat. The idea is completely lost in a biography of allthe characters that died in that accident and ends with absolutely noconclusion. It would have been hard to actually have a conclusion, butwho in the right mind has the time in this time and age to watch twohours of biographical data without getting something in return?Conclusion: really boring. Just choose something else.

lejane-1 2012-04-22 13:27:34

Brilliant Movie

I thought the movie was brilliant. I got it right from the word go - itwas outstanding in how they brought the message of whether God has ahand in everything or whether our own actions, not only on our behalfbut in our reactions towards other people and free will set things inmotion that then lead to tragedy (and if we change in our behaviour,could we save or is it destiny and God's Will that overrides whateverwe do?)I think it helps to be Catholic with a keen interest in Church history.I can understand that otherwise one would perhaps struggle and end upplaying a bit of catch up whilst watching the movie and that could leadto losing one or two important items of information. A betterexplanation in the beginning in some form would've helped I think.The actors were brilliant. Kathy Bates irritated me in just the rightamount and yet one felt compassion for her. Harvey Keitel outstandingand Robert de Niro played the consummate political leading clergymanperfectly. Geraldine Chaplin hit a perfect note.As for the actual death scene, even though I knew how was going to die,it was still an immensely poignant moment and captured just everythingperfectly. Gabriel Byrne's lilted narrative was just right. Nojudgement, nothing of that sort, but just a note of sadness. He wasn'tburnt at the stake because he queried, he was burnt because he hadfound out too much (that's a personal opinion).I am out to find the book soonest.

Jay Harris 2012-04-22 02:47:07

3rd version & they still have not done it right,

I remember seeing the black & white version in 1944 or so, & found itvery boring, There also was a silent version that went nowhere as well.The current version in beautiful color & filmed in a beautiful mountainarea is still boring & hard to understand what is going on.This is based on a famous novel by Thornton Wilder, (one of our morerenowned authors of the 1920's).Five people perish when a rickety rope bridge collapses, & the filmstells how come these people were there. Kathy Bates is as usualterrific, F.Murray Abraham, Robert DeNiro, Gabriel Byrne are also veryeffective,.With this good cast & excellent production values, you would think itwould be a more memorable & involving story, sorry to say it is not.Also, can someone tell me what this is all about, very confusing attimes.rating **1/2 out of 4-- 68 points out of 100-- IMDb 5 out of 10

Joel GAzis-SAx 2012-04-21 23:04:22

Disappointing Adaptation

This was a disappointing adaptation of a very fine book. Robert deNiroseemed out of place as the Archbishop, a character which I don't recallfrom the book. There were many fine performances such as that of HarveyKeitel, Kathy Bates, and F. Murray Abraham, but what ruined the filmfor me was the addition of an Inquisition that did not occur in thebook.The whole point of the book is that we cannot tell why bad thingshappen to good people. With the simple-minded Catholic bashing that wasappended to this film, that message became distorted. (It is not, asthe film suggests, heresy for Catholics to hold this view.) Betterediting and a truer-to-the-book script could have saved this film, evenwith Robert deNiro as an archbishop. They managed to save the fineopening and ending of the book by putting them into the mouths of someof the characters (such as when the archbishop delivered the eulogy forthe dead at the beginning of the film). But the addition of a biasedperspective against Catholicism at the beginning of the film ruinedthis for me. When they burned the monk at the end, I reached to thefloor and felt a distinct vibration: Thornton Wilder was spinning inhis grave.

2012-04-13 21:00:47

Recommended!

The film is out of the ordinary. It needs a lot of concentration or watch it at least twice. The essential in this film is the discussion. First, the film shows a time in history: The Inquisition, adapted brilliantly to the 1700's. Second, 5 different lives that could exist in the pass, present of future. And third, the thoughts of Brother Juniper about divine intervention vs. arbitrary probability in the bloody disaster. The film is a philosophic analysis of the live sense.

O Fowler 2012-04-13 07:12:59

A fate worse than death?

Falling like a stone to your death from a rickety rope bridge suspendedhigh over a merciless gorge is not a lot of fun. Neither is watchingThe Bridge of San Luis Rey. If I had to make a choice between the twofates I would almost certainly take the rope bridge over sitting in atheatre subjecting myself to this film. Hurtling to your death is allover quickly, the other option is tortuously dragged out to the tune ofmelodramatic, in your face music and fluffy actors fed only ham for 6months.Where this film really falls down though is the flaccid script housingthe muddled and confused story, if I can call it that. At no point wasI really sure what was happening, as characters seemed to appear anddisappear amidst the aforementioned self-important rousing music.Someone lost the plot, if it was ever there. Traces were left behind,but not enough to make sense. I felt no empathy for any of theaforementioned characters, save for perhaps F.Murray Abraham, who wasmildly entertaining.After the first 30 minutes I gave up trying to follow what wasunfolding and tried to concentrate on the camera-work, costumes andscenery, which were extremely beautiful. This only heightened thetragedy. This film could have been a great film. Peru, the Spanishempire, vanity, religion and intrigue - all of these ingredients areextremely potent and framed in a great story and script could have beenthe stuff of a classic. That opportunity was passed up. Shame.It is obvious that the director has a great talent for visual scenariosand imagery, perhaps working in tandem with a 'story strong' executiveproducer would be the recipe for their future success. Otherwise, Ithink it's time to search for another career. The biscuit was finallytaken at the 'burning' scene. This drew several bursts of laughter fromaround around the cinema. It was truly laughable.I don't want to dwell too long on Robert De Niro's role in this film,which I think was the professional equivalent of risking all traversingalong a rickety rope bridge suspended high over a merciless gorge andfalling 300 feet down the deep hole into a dark lagoon. Good for him hecan walk on water.Everything else in this film drowns, and if the makers are lucky,without a trace.

2012-04-07 06:57:01

Dishonesty? No reference to earlier Hollywood Film of Same Name and Origin

I am shocked that the current film's producers ignore the fact thatHollywood made a film called the Bridge of San Luis Rey. It came out in1944 and is now available in video and DVD. Movie description listedfor the film: "Five people are killed in a freak accident when a loftyrope bridge collapses. Film details a priest's journey to discover ifthere was a divine reason for the bloody disaster. Set in Lima, Peruduring the 18th century. Based on the Thornton Wilder novel." Credits:Producer: Benedict E. Bogeaus Cast: Akim Tamiroff, Blanche Yurka,Donald Woods, Emma Dunn, Francis Lederer, Joan Lorring, Louis Calhern,Lynn Bari,Nazimova. I suggest a boycott on grounds of dishonesty.

lewwarden 2012-04-06 20:40:48

True love in 17th century Peru.

I was somewhat in doubt whether the movie was intended to be tragedy orcomedy, historical or philosophical. Whatever, the actors obviously hadfun dressing up and "play acting." In any event, although I napped every now and then, this nicely filmedand acted, and very unusual film did have interesting moments, and Ithink I will watch it again. But my first response was to be intriguedby the name "Perichole." My Spanish dictionary drew a blank on "chole"so I suppose Wikipedia's article quoted in part below suggesting it isa derivative of "cholo" is accurate. The film does have the actressboasting that she was, at least in part, of Spanish blood. However, I don't buy Wikipedia's claim that "perri" derives from"perro," although it might also fit the character. My Spanishdictionary has a slew of words beginning with "peri" but I thought themost applicable was the first entry which says:"1. A beautiful andbeneficent fairy in Persian mythology." Wikipedia suggests that Thornton Wilder lifted the basic charactersfrom Micaela Villegas' tale: "La Périchole's title character is based on Micaela Villegas(1748-1819), a beloved Peruvian entertainer and the famous mistress ofManuel de Amat y Juniet, Viceroy of Peru from 1761 to 1776. The name"La Périchole" is a French adaptation of a Spanish-language epithet bywhich Amat referred to Villegas: "La Perricholi" (the word derives fromeither perro, "dog," or perra, "bitch," and cholo, "of mixed blood")."And the Tag line in IBMD's article on the 1944 film simply equates"perichole" with "Beautiful . . . Bewitching." Which convinces me thatsuch was Villegas' intent. Puns are so interesting when one is namingcharacters.