Full of flaw, yes. But in the end, I have to say I can hardly remember how long haven't i been so excited after a film and I wanna thank somebody for having made this film.
As a moviebug in average watching films at least once in the cinema and two more on other screens every week, I am neither niggling nor a snob. I love movies cuz i wanna be entertained. I love Kongfu Panda and Wall-E, I applause for TDK, I appreciate 300 evry much. However, there're some films, it's not only about entertaining, or to share some moving emotion, some wisdom or brillian thinking, some delicate spark of the film art. Oliver Stone is that kind of director, it is his heart, not his art performance that brings you the thing, it's never a fine model classy, but a rough, raw, flawed but true and honest expression, that you can hear him screaming on the other side of the screen , he screams with heart and soul to express something even so naive, so simple, like in Alexander, but making you really touched, and warm-blooded.
Yes, thank you Oliver Stone. Alexander's mobilization appealing is never comparable with that of the King Theodon in LOTR; scenes of the two wars are totally messy, neither powerful nor grand, not at all smart; most of the characters are fussy, maybe even worse than the muscle show in Troy, and main characters Alexander, Olympias and Philip are controversial -- I bet that people who approve the performance of Colin Farrel and those who hate it are 50/50 --; the storyline is confusing, unbalanced, and seems like never ending. No bother that the most criticised point: there are too many lines and all full of nuts: GODs of Greeks, mysteries...
Stone saved the film from a total disaster only since the last 30 minutes, since the scene Alexander was shot. I love the slow screen when the horse met the elephant, i love the idea of the all-red scene afterwards, i love the background music, so exicting and epic-styling. It seems that from that moment, the Stone Great waked up. Since that moment, i decide to take a different attitude to the work. It's surely not a masterpiece nor great at all, but it worth a whole afternoon to know such a story, even no matter it is false about the Alexander in the history.
Yes, Stone is famous for expressing his own political opinions in the films, not the truth, btw those nuts are his brand. But this time he explained Alexander much simpler: He get lost cuz of his mother, he feels lonely forever, he don 't know what to believe in, what to live for, who to love(except Heph)and trust. He loves his father but after all those years slandering from his mother, he can't stop feeling a distance from him, after he died he felt only empty, the empty that nothing could fill in. He want to escape, he want to rule the world, control the world, build a beautiful whole new world to his wish. He cannot stop. He himself is a tragedy. He cannot escape from his mother. Only the existance of a virtual dream gives him the reason to live. He is great, he knows, not only but also he is NOBLE, his mind, his wisdom,so he love Heph spiritially, he doesn't listen to the homesick of soldiers cuz he knows he is the only one that may can accomplish the great job. He want to be responsible, be great than anything as great as his father has hoped and his mother claims. So he cannot be himself. He killed Cleitus because as a great Majesty he knows he should not forgive him, as a great Majesty, he should not be slandered, he as a human being, as himself, he don't want to do it, but he is acting a great Majesty. He can anyway not control his life any more.He killed Cleitus because as a great Majesty he knows he should not forgive him, as a great Majesty, he should not be slandered, he as a human being, as himself, he don't want to do it, but he is acting a great Majesty. He can anyway not control his life any more.He killed Cleitus because as a great Majesty he knows he should not forgive him, as a great Majesty, he should not be slandered, he as a human being, as himself, he don't want to do it, but he is acting a great Majesty. He can anyway not control his life any more.
That's how Stone tried to read the the Alexander Great. People may criticise Stone didn't dig deep into anything, he wasted a bunch of good topics, the war, the whole world fearing Alexander, the homo thing, the whold film is just screening around Colin Farrel, with no attention to organise something, but only that stupid "dream chasing". Since when Stone became so naive, so superficial, well, maybe he is.
Other than a epic and biography, I love this film for a potential complex tragic destruction of the Alexander Great. I even love the nuts about the Greek mythos (as a fan of the forever Greek and Rome). What i love the most is the cliche "dream" thing. Stone pushes the theme to the end that i cannot help being moved. In all, I fell in love with the background story and the inner attribute of each character that how the story was told or who performed the characters doesn't 't matter any more...though i do like the performance of Jolie (i hate her as much as Alexander) and Jared Leto (he is a vase but beautiful enough) and the image of Babylon, fussy, but enough for me. And the great time of Greek, i like the scene in Macedonia, such a golden time.
Still, as an epic and biography film, Alexander cannot even get 59, but still, it's not nonsense.
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