All Hail, Kurzel! All Hail, Fassbender!

Rating: 9/10 (8 February 2016)

In this postmodern rendition of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Justin Kurzel excels as a dashing experimentalist and Michael Fassbender gives a performance of a lifetime claiming the tormented hero utterly his own.
The problem with adapting a Shakespearean drama is that it has probably been read, performed, interpreted, represented, and redefined a gazillion times before, and to think you can positively contribute to the huge, already existing Macbethian discourse is an extremely challenging endeavor. Moreover, your audience have the upper hand; they know the story and almost all the lines by heart and could academically lecture you on the tiniest of details. But this didn't seem to dishearten Australian director Justin Kurzel from adopting a f*ck-it-I'm-gonna-do-it-my-way-whether-you-like-it- or-not attitude to carry on with this risky business. Kurzel made some cinematic decisions that he knew he would most likely be crucified for (already many film critics didn't miss a chance to do so as soon as the film was released); nevertheless, his dark, bloody, visually overwhelming adaptation shocked me but with no doubt satisfied me on every possible level.
The visuals play the major part in setting the film's tone and ambiance, and you can call Kurzel's shots overtly pretentious and unrealistic all you like, but what's wrong with that? The film wears the badge of pretense proudly. Isn't Shakespeare's sophisticated language pretentious? Kurzel uses his images as a poet uses words and translates Shakespeare's poetic brilliance into emotionally engrossing visuals, almost to an orgasmic effect – I didn't want some of the long shots to go away because they were so consuming and beautiful to look at. Kurzel is not ashamed to use visual pastiche by borrowing elements from Frank Miller and Zack Snyder and, consequently, turning Macbeth into the most unlikely comic hero of our time.
However, if I ever choose to call the film a 'contemporary' adaptation of Macbeth, the visuals would not be the only reason. The screenplay adds something uncannily ominous to the Shakespearean melodrama that directly pertains to modern consciousness. The stress on meaningless violence, brutality and war brings to memory recent events of killings and decapitations. Also, how children are represented as agents of death and threat is a colossal point of departure from the original text. The film opens with a shot of a dead child and a few seconds later we realize it is Macbeth's son's funeral. The infamous three witches are accompanied by a preternaturally looking little girl. A boy who gets killed during war becomes the recurrent apparition that encourages Macbeth to kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth sees a waking vision of her dead child stained with blood. Banquo's son becomes the threat that lingers after the film ends. Children have always been the literary epitome of innocence and subverting this image to the extreme opposite to express fear, guilt and menace is a relatively modern concept. This kind of thematic distortion is reflected in the narrative's time line which disruptively keeps moving forwards and backwards to add to the overall sense of confusion and distortion.
Now let's talk acting.
Usually, playing Hamlet, Othello or Macbeth is any actor's dream opportunity to toot their horns for a while. Few are those who do away with the generic melodramatic performance and play those characters with regard to the unique perspective of the work in question. Those are the ones I call smart actors and Michael Fassbender is definitely one of them. This Irish-German talent has read the subtext of his role and fully understood Kurzel's vision that his Macbeth reveals a new dimension of the iconic tragic hero I have never seen before. Fassbender's Macbeth is a Macbeth of postmodern proportions; he is no longer the beloved noble hero with one tragic flaw that brings about his demise, but a hero with many opposites. He is attractive yet most of the time covered in dirt and blood (physically and figuratively). He is gentle but in a cruel, detached way. He aspires to build only to destroy. I got the feeling that this Macbeth is not driven by blind ambition but by vengeance and a lurking desire to ruin and deconstruct a universe that has betrayed him – the opening funeral scene gives us a glimpse of how he came to be like that.
Fassbender is very much in control of his emotions that not in one scene did I feel like something has been exaggerated or played down. The Macbeth I know goes through a journey of self-loathing and regret that leaves him a total wreck; on the other hand, Fassbender's Macbeth is already disillusioned and wrecked beyond repair. You can tell how dark his inside is from scene one, something which makes him all the more intimidating and incomprehensible. I left the cinema truly wondering what kind of pain and darkness Mr. Fassbender had to summon up from his soul to play that part (sounds melodramatic I know, but I really mean it).
Two other people who are equally stunning are Marion Cotillard and Sean Harris. Cotillard has both the innocence and the venom to play Lady Macbeth to perfection, and Harris, with enough maturity and experience up his sleeves, turns the nondescript Shakespearean Macduff into an emotionally and physically powerful character that stands out as Macbeth's antithesis.
One final player that invisibly contributes to this harmonious equation and should never go uncredited is the gripping music. Composed by Jed Kurzel (Yup, Justin's brother), the film's original score weaves the ominous atmosphere into existence and completes Macbeth's dark world. Just listen to the first 10 minutes of the soundtrack and you will feel that the music is literally mourning and wailing over Macbeth's eventual destiny.
By all means, go watch it and leave your prejudices at the movie theater's door.