A masterful non-Hollywood movie beautifully filmed.

Rating: Null/10 (3 January 2004)

I should have seen this movie earlier but seeing it at this late date after release did in no way diminish the tremendous enjoyment of the film. I admit it-I love non-American films-even if those films are American products. But this was so totally non-Hollywood in texture, locations and substance that I can easily forgive the intrusion of Hollywood personalities.
The script, the acting and the remarkably beautiful cinematography were so engrossing that the minor problems of plot simply were drowned in beautiful images. John Toll's brilliant camera work immediately impresses the viewer-so good that this viewer will rent the video more just to appreciate the beautiful play of light and dark in the screens images. I honestly felt that those images were three dimensional-that they could be lifted from the theatre and carried away.
Early on in his career, I watched Cage in what I thought was a dog of a film-something about angels in white robes standing on California beaches and subsequently dismissed him but after watching Corelli I must reassess his work-I thought the casting of him as the semi-professorial Corelli was a master stroke.
To make any comment on the events that occurred on Corelli's island is to trivialize those events because somebody sitting in Fremantle looking back can never appreciate the monstrousness of what happened. Hindsight is not an aide in this case but I do believe that movie magic was laid before viewers of this film.