A Great Film on Alex

Rating: 10/10 (4 February 2005)

It is very disappointing that such a marvelous film has been so poorly received in the States. At present Stone's 'Alexander' is doing rip-roaring business around Europe and the cynical comment to be heard in most theaters there is:'Americans don't understand history.' I think that is a shame...and yet perhaps it's nearer to the truth than most Americans would care to admit. Does it matter anymore to the fast food generation that Alexander really existed and took western civilization as far as to the Punjab in India? Does it matter that the places where he conquered were never to be the same again, retaining their western cast of mind through all the changes of successive centuries? Can Alexander's ferocious Macedonian brigades still speak down all the centuries to the flabby McD brigades of today, who take the car out of the garage in order to just go up the road? They can and westerners should listen.
Firstly, it should be said that this is a very historically accurate film, based as it is on the advice of Robin Lane Fox, the Alexander expert from Oxford, England, whose book on the Macedonian conqueror originally inspired Stone to make the movie. However, Stone doesn't just tell dry history. He makes a cinematic drama of Alexander's achievements, by interweaving obsessive tendencies in his character with successes and failures in his military and personal life. The narrative related by Alexander's old general, Ptolemy, now crowned Pharaoh of Egypt, is an imaginative touch which adds an extra dimension to the movie. The battle scenes are appropriately epic in scale and the surreal quality of Macedonians battling with spears against elephants in the tropical forests of the Western Punjab, give the audience a rough indication of just how far Alexander's army has traveled. Farrell submerges himself in his dynamic role and the idea of making all the Macedonians speak in an English dialect (Irish), is a highly dramatic touch, which emphasises the fact that the other Greeks thought of the Macedonians as being semi barbaric. Angelina Jolie's forced and guttural accent in her role as Queen Olimpias is a minor blemish on a wonderfully dramatic movie.
The fact that this magnificent film will not be winning any Oscars for its director and major players, is a comment on the current redundancy of the awards system itself.