Farinelli
|
Our Price: $115.75 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $52.63 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Farinelli
Movie Review: Very Important Period Piece
Summary: 5 Stars
Although highly inaccurate in the portrayal of the world's most famous castrato, Farinelli is a good introduction to the magical world of Baroque Opera and a visually beautiful film with great costumes and sets.
The sets and costumes of the actual representations are great, in good form to the period and one wishes they could have been longer and shown more of the opera productions. The music is absolutely superb and I recommend getting the CD to hear the complete arias. There are plenty of extremely talented countertenors now reviving the part of the castratos all over the world: David Daniels, Dominique Vise and Andreas Scholl to name just a few that come to mind. Derek Lee Ragin was also excellent so I really do not see the need for the voice mix with a soprano, the ONLY choice for a mix, if any, should have been Ewa Podles, a great alto singer that is also a great baroque technician.
The whole plot around Farinelli and Handel is silly. The opera he "steals" from him was a very early opera of Handel,(Rinaldo) which was published by then and he could have bought it at the local music shop. Still, it is interesting from "the what if" point of view. Handel was and remains, one of the world's greatest and most talented composers. His operas are particularly beautiful and they have been coming back to the repertory since the 1920's but much more strongly in the past 20 years. "Xerxes" "Agripina", "Semele", "Flavio", "Alcina". "Partenope" and "Orlando" have all been revived at the NYCO in recent seasons with excellent productions and sold out houses. Even the stodgy, retrograde MET has staged his "Rinaldo" "Julius Caesar" and "Rodelinda". His stature as one of the finest opera composers of all time is finally been recognized and secured for future generations.
Strongly recommended for those interested in the Baroque period, particularly music.
Movie Review: A Breathtaking and Complex Film
Summary: 5 Stars
This is possibly my favorite movie, and I was shocked to see bad customer reviews of it on Amazon.com. To set matters right: The film is amazing, both as a look at 18th-century attitudes towards music, and as a story about the many different incarnations love takes. The film's sex scenes are probably some of the most beautiful around, and those that feel they are unnecessary to the film are probably looking at the past through puritanical filters. (The twentieth century did not, in fact, invent good sex...) Castrati were, in fact, very much sex symbols in their time and farinelli, when in the service of the spanish king, was summoned ot him "most nights to sing until one or two o'clock in the morning," interptet it as you will. For more information on Castrati, see "Eunuchs and Castrati, a Cultural History" and also The chapter on castrati in "Singers of Italian Opera".
As far as authenticity is concerned, the film portrays baroque audiences, with theior liveliness and level of involvement, beautifully, and I find the director's portrayal of Farinelli quite satisfactory. The machinery and decadence of the opera of the time is conveyed to perfection, and much research has obviously gone into the film.
Handel's music, of course, speaks for itself. It can be easy to get lost in a Handel opera sometimes, among Da Capo arias, but this movie reminds us that this is, in fact, some of the most beautiful music ever written.
Movie Review: A grand example of excellence.
Summary: 5 Stars
The Baroque era was definitely a strange one! Yet for all it's "Baroque-ness", it still finds in the modern audience a sense of understanding and connectedness that continues to echo through the centuries. Perhaps this is why this vivid tale of the castrato and his yearning to reconnect with his humanity touches us so deeply. And while it is true that there are fictionalised portions of this film, Gerard Corbiau has achieved a wonderful balance between the actual events and the practicalities of story-telling, to deliver a sumptuous drama imbued with all the depth and soul that such a tale demands.
The performances are quite stunning. Criticisms of Dionisi's lip-synching have been overrated - by a criterion of how affected one's enjoyment of the film is by it, it barely rates a mention. He really did a wonderful job, and given that we longer have access to the castrato voice in its eighteenth century prime, the technology behind creating its other-worldly quality is actually rather remarkable. I give this film a solid 5 out of 5, for what is a grand example of excellence.
Movie Review: An unusual film!
Summary: 5 Stars
Once more the life owns by far, much more imagination than we ever know. The reality overpasses the fiction.
This is the awful portrait about the last frontier the human being can reach in search of the petulant narcissist; and when this happens, ambition joined to the indolence and triviality can result a dangerous cocktail with unthinkable results for the physique, the emotional wounds and disastrous change in the sexual behavior spouted as the merciless decision of beings that hardly may be classified of humans.
This is the story about a talented child owner of a promising voice; to whom simply with the only purpose of keep this vocal coloratura much longer, is castrated. So this criminal fact, masked behind the perpetual search of the preservation of the artistic future will shock your sensibility, and will be motive of your concern through this intense drama.
Belgium may be proud of his lavish son.
It's useless to affirm we are before the most original and striking film of 1994 and one remarkable movies in the decade.
Movie Review: Farinelli-Great movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this movie in the theartre when it was new. It's such a beautiful film to look at, and the music is so incredible you forget that it's in Flemmish and you're reading subtitles.If you like this movie I would also reccomend reading "Cry to Heaven" by Anne Rice. It's a story of the castrati and gives you an understanding of that time in history. It's a great compliment to the movie. As one has nothing to do with the other it's just a very fortunate coincidence.
It's sad that there are no recordings of these beautiful voice as this custom was stopped and those who had performed had died before machanical recordings were popular. I beleive there was one who was actually recorded by Thomas edison on his new invention.
It's something anyone alaive today will never be able to hear.