Product: Ryan's Daughter (Two-Disc Special Edition) (2006)
Rating: 5.0
A late classic
David Lean created this version of 'Madame Bovary' on Irish terrain late in his carreer, and he may have done his best job, if not for 'Brief Encounter' -my other Lean favorite-.This film has it all. There's not a subject that can't be picked by the absortion of it, since society v. the individual are depicted honestly and naturally.This is a great work, of the kind of masterpieces of other genres: painting (Irish west coast); literature (with the eternal characters that compound the human canvas, as in another Shakespeare plot); music (Maurice Jarre's score fits perfectly).But to me the most important thing about it is that, continually, the movie was reminding me of different scenes from the New Testament. So this is a 'real-as-life' movie. The Pharisees (politicians and their idolaters) one the one hand, and the individual or victim (Christ, the adulterous woman, the innocent child...) on the other.History repeats itself. But Christ not only will judge the individual, but also the nations, according to what they have done the His Son. You could talk of so many subjects after watching this beautiful film that you'd never end. You have from pride, treason, sexual lust, ignorance, cruelty etc. to sacrifice, forgiveness, God's creation of nature, spirituality, duty, devotion, humbleness, innocence, kindness, love.The most perfect moment: when the village idiot receives a goodbye kiss from the adulterous wife.