almost a masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (22 March 2008)

I saw this film for the first time, part of the Kubrick retrospective on the ARTE TV channel, and I was fascinated. This classical 18th century story written by a 19th century English writer is being brought to screen by Kubrick with an imagery and a style hard to equal. The story may be a moralistic one - a young Irish makes his way through cheats and lies to the higher positions in the British society, but is unable to live the live of his rank and survive at the pick, falling back mainly due to his own flaws of character. Kubrick films the story in a completely unemotional manner, no social or moral judgment is made, we are just brought a full world, or better say we enter a full world and we have to judge by ourselves.
The quality of the visuals is one of the best in any movie I have ever seen. Kubrick seems to have spent a long time watching the paintings of the masters of the epoch, and his exterior landscapes as well as the interior scenes and the sitting and attitudes of his characters seem to be driven from some of these paintings, or even better said, create new ones. I also loved the way the music drives and paces the rhythm of the story, Kubrick used the same technique in 'Eyes Wide Shut' where music, image and actors seem to be part of a broader, more complex orchestration.
The almost single weaker part of the story is Ryan O'Neal's acting, this immensely popular actor in the 70s is not up to this film, he seems too young all along, and almost nothing he does throws any light on the motivations of his character. Yet, these may have been Kubrick's directing indications, and he does not spoil the film either, it would have been hard to do it.