(no subject)
May. 12th, 2018 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretMurder on the Orient Express dir. Kenneth Branagh
I watched it motzei Shabbos for the perverse reason that I couldn't comprehend a reason for remaking a story whose primary attraction is a resolution to the murder so unique that it can't be repeated. I was curious what a remake could possibly add.
The answer? Not very much. I watched the film with the attentive eye that one gives to that so-important second watch of Fight Club, say, and didn't really get much out of it. All the acting performances are very fine, the emotional story does work, but a lot of life is drained out of the movie by knowing its very famous outcome.
I will say that I found one thing strange- Poirot's emotional journey in the film. There's nothing wrong with it, it's perfectly reasonable in a detective story that ends the way this one does to rest the detective's moral struggle on the question of whether delivering the truth to the criminal justice system is truly a just end, but it's certainly not Poirot's moral question in the book. On the contrary, it is a repeated pattern in Christie's novels and a repeated, fundamental element of her version of Poirot's character, that he does not believe that the criminal justice system is the inevitable deliverer of a just resolution. In Styles, he manipulates the legal system to repair a marriage. In Pigeon, he shows a certain discretion with regard to the information held by blackmailers. In Curtain, he himself kills! Does he hesitate before doing these things? Yes, he seeks to be sure he is acting justly, but ultimately he is not weighed down in the aftermath by the moral cost of these choices simply because he acted extralegally.
And so as I watched, at the critical moment, and saw Poirot struggling with which story to tell the police, the true one or the just one, I was struck by how very different this Poirot was from the one I grew up with. There's nothing wrong with that, it's a valid set of storytelling choices, though it's not the arc that most interests me when I seek out a Poirot story.
I watched it motzei Shabbos for the perverse reason that I couldn't comprehend a reason for remaking a story whose primary attraction is a resolution to the murder so unique that it can't be repeated. I was curious what a remake could possibly add.
The answer? Not very much. I watched the film with the attentive eye that one gives to that so-important second watch of Fight Club, say, and didn't really get much out of it. All the acting performances are very fine, the emotional story does work, but a lot of life is drained out of the movie by knowing its very famous outcome.
I will say that I found one thing strange- Poirot's emotional journey in the film. There's nothing wrong with it, it's perfectly reasonable in a detective story that ends the way this one does to rest the detective's moral struggle on the question of whether delivering the truth to the criminal justice system is truly a just end, but it's certainly not Poirot's moral question in the book. On the contrary, it is a repeated pattern in Christie's novels and a repeated, fundamental element of her version of Poirot's character, that he does not believe that the criminal justice system is the inevitable deliverer of a just resolution. In Styles, he manipulates the legal system to repair a marriage. In Pigeon, he shows a certain discretion with regard to the information held by blackmailers. In Curtain, he himself kills! Does he hesitate before doing these things? Yes, he seeks to be sure he is acting justly, but ultimately he is not weighed down in the aftermath by the moral cost of these choices simply because he acted extralegally.
And so as I watched, at the critical moment, and saw Poirot struggling with which story to tell the police, the true one or the just one, I was struck by how very different this Poirot was from the one I grew up with. There's nothing wrong with that, it's a valid set of storytelling choices, though it's not the arc that most interests me when I seek out a Poirot story.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-13 07:08 am (UTC)Apparently the Suchet adaptation goes one step further and has Poirot emotionally devastated and despondent at being unable to bring the killers to justice. Much like what you said above, I don't really subscribe to that interpretation.
On the whole, I thought the movie was very beautiful - the scenery, and also the train set was lovely. The only part I found directly irritating was Poirot talking to the photo of "Katherine", which didn't even seem to add anything to the film for new viewers. But it was just... fine. Coherent. Decent performances. Probably not worth $55M.
One final, petty gripe: pulling Poirot away to Egypt to investigate a murder on the Nile would be a terrible setup to Death on the Nile, as so much of that novel requires Poirot to be there from the start of the journey!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-13 01:43 pm (UTC)It's not just that they're all lying- that's okay in a mystery if they're all lying for different reasons- but they're all telling the same lie, with the same motivation.
One final, petty gripe: pulling Poirot away to Egypt to investigate a murder on the Nile would be a terrible setup to Death on the Nile, as so much of that novel requires Poirot to be there from the start of the journey!
True! (And also, isn't Death on the Nile another one where Poirot deliberately doesn't deliver the killer to the criminal justice system? They can't have him wring his hands over that every time, can they?)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-13 11:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-05-13 11:52 pm (UTC)