Modern wonder

Rating: 9/10 (15 December 2019)

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, released on November 1, 1996 by 20th Century Fox, is an American romantic crime tragedy directed and co-produced by Baz Luhrmann and Gabriella Martinelli. It is a modernization of William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The film includes Hollywood stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the title roles. The story is about Romeo and Juliet who fall in love with each other but cannot publicly show that, because they are members of feuding families. The film shows how blind and addictive love can be and what chaos and tragedy such wonderful feeling can bring. Despite the bad rating on sites like Cinema , this film won prizes such as the Silver Bear for Best Actor. This gives you a first hint about the quality of this production.
Romeo and Juliet is not Shakespeare's best play, but it has been his best poetry. It is about language, about the difference between real dilemmas and how they are described through language. This makes it so hard to film. But that's not all; the story itself is one of the most fundamental ones in the history of theatre and filmmaking up to now. It is so strong one can make a film just through the story without even trying to implement the old-fashioned language. In fact, it can be too strong and there is the fear of losing the connection to the language. But Luhrmann accepts the challenge and produces a modernized version of Romeo and Juliet with some unconventional choices, compared to earlier movies such as Zeffirelli's released in 1968. So, I had been worried that Luhrman would either destroy the play's beauty by setting it in modern times, or slaughter Shakespeare's eloquent words by modernizing it. But I was wrong. While watching the movie, I found almost everything about it incredible.
Luhrman did an excellent job casting Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio as the title roles. Both shine in their unique way and each character has an individual development throughout the story.
Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo was a brilliant decision. Even though some of his monologues were a bit too dramatically spoken, his performance throughout the film was stunning. DiCaprio's strengths like his huge impulsiveness or his, at that age, strong facial expressions adapt perfectly to the way Shakespeare intended Romeo to act, which leads up to the lover's tragic fate. When the story begins, Romeo is a hopeless romantic who frantically fantasises of love, and seems to linger more in his dreams than in the real world on earth. He is overthinking love without having any real clue what true love is. This changes the moment he gets to meet Juliet and where he begins to understand the true depth and passion of love. DiCaprio is one of the best, if not the best actor, when it comes to tragic romantic scenes. With his acting skills, one can really feel the development Romeo experienced. Leonardo DiCaprio is just the top romantic tragedy actor as he proves one year later in the movie Titanic (1997).
Then there is Claire Danes who was equally impressive. She has an innocent face, looks really young and more importantly acts almost flawlessly throughout the entire movie. You can see the depth of this character's development by focusing on behaviour this innocent kid shows off. There is a big contrast between the beginning of the film with her naive mindset and at the end where she brutally suicides herself. She plays a believable naive girl who has not yet experienced true love. Even though she is someone I have not seen in too many movies she proves her quality in this film.

Lastly, there is the Nurse, played by Miriam Margolyes, who does an excellent job. Despite the fact that she plays a flat character without any progression in terms of development, she acts those parts very authentic. You get the impression that she sees Juliet as a daughter, because of the language and the way she performs her role.
My favourite scene of the movie is perhaps the most iconic scene in the film, when Romeo opens the door to the church see Juliet's dead body. This scene is filled with lots of details so you have to watch it multiple times to comprehend its depth and beauty. For one there is the atmosphere this scene presents. With the low angle shots and body frames you get the view that you are present in the actual scene. Combined with the crazy number of white candles and blue crosses, it creates a heart-breaking mood without even knowing the plot. After that, the scene continues with the reaction Romeo has on Juliet's death. This reaction proves that this is the best Romeo adaption you can find out there. You can feel the anger and sadness he expresses when kissing and crying to Juliet's "dead body". At that time, Juliet wakes up and witnesses Romeo taking the poison. That makes everything even more devastating. After that you see how Juliet changes her mood from loving to sadness in a way, it really goes into your heart as well as under your skin. To end it all perfectly, she notices the gun laying in her coffin and decides to pull the trigger while aiming the gun towards her head. In my eyes this is probably the most affecting death you can get at that point. The decision to swap out the dagger and instead using a gun, to end the story, makes it more relatable and puts the cherry on top. By and large this end has memorable images followed with remarkable language.

The soundtrack of the movie "Young Hearts Run Free" and "Kissing You", both released on the Capitol Records label, did an excellent job underlining the powerful scenes, and emphasizing the feeling you experience. Though I think it lacked background vocals; in the last scene they could have implemented a choir's vocal style underlining the immortality/mortality contrast dilemma in that scene. Both costumes and special effects, such as the aquarium scene, the TV that introduces and closes the movie, or the gang outfits, create refreshing scenarios so the viewer nonstop enjoys the movie. Also, the camera is restless. There are times when the rapid cuts combined with the soundtrack cause confusion to the viewer, which leads to more attention given. But one critical point with the special effects is the consistent and extreme use of colours, which end up in a negative way. It is easy to lose the common thread in the story when there is too much happening on screen. Some scenes suffer from exactly that, like the "LSD trip" the Montagues have. Overall the production value is pretty high standard and well produced, and can compete with films released nowadays!
In conclusion Romeo and Juliet (1996) is in my opinion a very underrated modernization of Shakespeare play. What surprised me was that it was set in present day and still matched almost perfectly. It contained its original dialogue which brings the language back and shows how old but still relevant Shakespeare's plays are. I highly recommend you see it as soon as possible. If you are a fan of Shakespeare like me, you are almost guaranteed to enjoy this movie even with the implementation of modern world and society.