Film review: Elizabeth reloaded

Elizabeth: The golden age (2007):

The poster announced very good artists and a visual feast. At the end of the screening I liked more the poster than the film itself. Blanchett was good, Jeoffrey Rush as good as always, Clive Owen only good looks. In his case it could be the director’s fault, who diluted his character in such a way that Sir Walter Raleigh ends up being just an exotic adventurer inducing escapist moods rather than discovery drives; he doesn’t conquer the Queen through the power of words or a charming personality; he is not her companion or pseudo-lover, but an ephemeral character, showing off in history.

This time Shekhar Kapur comes with a fake& kitsch view upon a historic character whom he cinematographically ‘exploited’ in a much more interesting manner the first tine (Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, 1998).

I saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) as a melodrama getting closer to a soap-opera and a telenovella. The film begins with some witty lines, but then it drops out this style completely, offering in exchange a fake vision of the Queen: o rather kitsch combination of the warrior Jeanne D’Arc and an illuminated saint.

The dance episode between Bess Throckmorton and Walter Raleigh announced itself interesting from a psychological point of view, but it was treated without insight and finesse. As a result to this, Elizabeth emerged more like a Queen inclined towards vicarious experiences rather than wise introspection and dignified dedication.

When trying to explore Elizabeth’s humanity and femininity (‘dictated’ both by historical circumstances and her own free will), the director uses Hollywood clichés and transforms a historical figure full of personality into an unconvincing, incoherent character.

The images shot from above (from the ceiling of the cathedral, from behind arcades) come as an embodiment of the idea that Elizabeth is watched by a domineering presence (history, divinity) whose victim she is. But the process of transforming Elizabeth into a victim doesn’t stop here.

The Queen’s outburst when she finds out about Bess carrying Walter Raleigh’s child is s scene pertaining to a telenovella: we witness an Elizabeth without self-control, so much un-British in this respect. Raleigh’s line was definitely written for a different kind of film, one with macho men and hysterical women: “you’re not the Queen I want to serve” is a line without any trace of (not even the intention of) psychological depth.

Kate Blanchett with her hair at the back or with short hair does remind one of the femmes fatales of the 30s-40s; it seems to be an image of woman from another time, not one belonging to the 16th century. If the intention was to suggest Elizabeth’s modernity, the outcome is a superimposition of images of Elizabeth that only manage to make the film incoherent and without substance.

The image of the horse jumping from the ship and later swimming underwater, (a spectacular image, indeed) comes in rather unnatural; it is obviously placed there to bring some sort of depth and vision (a la Tarkovsky) into the movie and this makes it artificial; especially since it is inserted in a battle imagery reminding us of adventure movies for credulous pre-teenagers. The following scenes reinforce the same naïve atmosphere and cardboard-made settings: Clive Owen, hanging on the ship and then jumping valiantly into the water; Elizabeth with her hair undone, posted at the edge of the land (the view over the sea and the Spanish Armada is part of the décor).

On the whole, this is a movie that makes neither cinema nor history: the kitsch surfaces behind the flamboyant costumes and setting. You’re left not with a portrait of a powerful Queen, but with the image of her impeccable wig.