Great cinema, great Shakespeare!

Rating: 9/10 (15 January 2016)

2015 has been a very good year for movies, and Macbeth was one of the top two, along with Chi-Raq. Both are visual and aural stunning master works.
If you can, see Macbeth on the big screen with a good sound system. Your DVD/Netflix/TV won't capture the phenomenal film-making. But if you have to watch it at home, pipe the sound through your best speakers.
What so impressed me about Macbeth, was they took it out from the stage and threw it like a witches's brew into the dank winds, slush and fogs of the surreal Scottish highlands.
That location - a mixture of red shadows and heavy clouds was integral to the cinematic experience. In a cinema age where special effects are so dominant, this felt natural while at the same time - consuming.
Remember, this movie is done by Australians, and they seem to exalt the environment and find the mysterious forces within it to advance the story.
Also fantastic for the live cinema experience was the sound-scape of the highland winds, feet tromping through dirt and sod, the supernatural spirits, the hollow states room.
The acting and the pacing were terse and unrelenting. The aspirations, plots, folly, madness and murder! made sense. (Although I confess to reading the French subtitles when I got lost in the Scottish bough).
This is one of Shakespeare's most read or staged plays, and perhaps one of the best modern cinema renditions.