King of Hearts
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Movie Reviews of King of Hearts
Movie Review: High energy, garish chromatics, an autonomous world almost to the end.
Summary: 5 Stars
I practically found it necessary to get my hands on a copy of this film after acquaintances kept referring to it whenever a discussion of all-time "guilty cinematic pleasures" arose. For much of the film's first half, I confess I was impressed by little else than the kaleidoscopic, richly-saturated colors and non-stop energy in virtually every scene. In describing the film to a newbie, comparisons seem only natural, and yet the film is sufficiently unique to resist them. Think of "Strangelove" as directed by Fellini in glorious technicolor with lots of help from the Monty Python crew. It's still only a start. The closest parallel is Lewis Caroll: "But I don't want to go among mad people," said Alice. "Oh, you can't help that," said the cat. "We're all mad here."
The strength of this film is that it creates a world as autonomous, as sui generis, as unrelated to anything but itself as "Alice in Wonderland"--far too removed from any familiar historical reality to qualify as what we normally think of as "satire." And yet we know that at some level this gala spectacle with all of its manic narcissism and theatrical self-indulgence is connected with the serious business of war, and perhaps the most tragic and devastating world war of them all--a war with machines capable of destroying millions but without the medicine to alleviate the pain of a mere few.
The only letdown comes when, following the ceremonious mutual destruction of two armies, one of the "lunatics" asks, "Don't you think this acting is a bit over the top?" By this time we've accepted such outrageous and bizarre behavior as our norm, and being told that it's sane when compared to a world at war is not a little didactic and gratuitous. More satisfying is a lunatic's final pronouncement that murder and mayhem are best seen "through a window"--or, as the film enables us to discover, on a movie screen and in the company of fellow spectators capable of joining us in a theater of the imagination--or, if you prefer the story's metaphor, an asylum with like-minded lunatics.
The present DVD copy retains all of the color of some of the better technicolor prints of the '50s (many '60s and '70s films show their age due to fading or iridescent chromatics); the images are quite sharp; the monophonic soundtrack is sufficiently resonant and festive. The aspect ratio is somewhat of a disappointment: 3 of the ratios are distorted or poorly fitted to a 16:9 screen; the "right" one uses only half of the total screen space. It's a neat little film, but much of its success goes beyond plot, offering in its place an alternative cinematic world for the spectator to find a place in. It's due for a resized, remastered Blu Ray edition--if it could be so fortunate as to find present-day applicants for the asylum.
Movie Review: Escape to insanity!
Summary: 5 Stars
Somehow this film stroke the conscious of how so many people, because of the essential dramatic nucleus is fully inserted in poetical language. Think it very carefully. A group of inmates, will become an Officer "The king of hearts". Beneath this madness process there is a certain doses of "magic realism" , this King would work out as the visionary newcomer, their expected Army salvation.
This Officer has been assigned for a delicate and hazardous mission: to try to find out a born that supposedly can exploit at any moment.
This metaphorical picture is profoundly touching, intriguing, chilling and haunting. This plot will approach you to the fine boundary between sanity and insanity. When you are still breathing the ashes of a bloody War, may you define with absolute accuracy what is right and what is wrong? What does it mean to be sane after Five years in War?
Previously Samuel Fuller had used the acid metaphor in Shock Corridor with chilling results, and then Stanley Kubrick with the delirious unhinged Dr. Strangelove. Mental institutions work out as lucid metaphors for the world outside. If you analyze briefly, if Robert Wiene `s Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was the most remarkable predecessor, there were interesting variants: Metropolis proves that many times, the lucidity may be a question of majorities, having anticipated the 1932 Germany, but then House of Wax confirmed too that the dreams of the reason produce monsters, the literature had given us striking examples, as Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (superb literary creations product of writers from England the First World Empire at those Ages, irony, febrile precognition or casualty?). The catatonics, schizoids, Josephines and Napoleons are the sanes, while the outer world would conform the real crazy world. In this sense the process of increasing madness of King Lear would establish the final stage of an initial step when he decided to finish his own bloody World having built his coveted Empire.
Go for this Cult Movie from its immediate release that nourished and inflamed still more the ferocious peaceful conscious of Hippies and 1968 French May (Forbidden to forbid) at that historical moment.
Movie Review: Enchanting fantasy; topical allegory; classic movie
Summary: 5 Stars
A fairy tale set in a French town caught between the opposing armies of the First World War, "King of Hearts" has lost none of its beguiling charm in the 35 years since its original release, nor has its message grown stale. Alan Bates shines as Charles Plumpick, a simple private in a Scottish regiment and perhaps the only sane man in the abandoned town. But is his world of war and brutality really any saner than the make-believe world conjured up by the escaped inmates of the town lunatic asylum, the only residents Private Plumpick encounters during his reconaissance? It is a point of view that depends entirely on one's perspective. This whimsical, gentle tale challenges the watcher to reexamine what constitutes true madness, just as the asylum characters force Pvt. Plumpick, having been to his initial discomfort acclaimed as the King of Hearts, to choose which role he prefers: king of the fools or fool for King George V? Broca directs his own screenplay with a deft touch and using a stellar cast of mostly French actors. A very young Genevieve Bujold makes one of her earliest appearances in a major picture. The English subtitles aren't the best I've seen (and unlike the VHS version, are distractingly present even during English dialogue), but far better than the awful English-dubbed version of "King of Hearts" that is sometimes broadcast or sold. (The best subtitles I have ever seen were on a print that circulated around theatres during the 1970s and 1980s, but I've never seen this version used for home video.) The score by Georges Delerue is one of his best. Quelle Surprise! This DVD version has, without fanfare, at least two entirely new scenes in the film that I have never seen before (and I first saw this in 1977). The first is a lengthier "homily" by Monseigneur Marguerite (aka Bishop Daisy) in the church before Charles' coronation. But the real grabber is an added scene at the very end of the movie that offers a parting glance at the primary players and a final bittersweet twist. Where on earth did this footage come from, and why has it been missing from this film for so long? Does this DVD version offer a "better" ending than the familiar one? It's debateable. But it's certainly intriguing.
Movie Review: "We Have Decided To Be Happy, And There Is No Stopping Us"
Summary: 5 Stars
"We have decided to be happy, and there is no stopping us." So says Bishop Daisy.
When Alan Bates tells an impossibly young Genevieve Bujold, (divine sylph in yellow ballerina finery), that they have only three minutes to live, her response is, "That's great! Such a long time."
King Of Hearts has a whimsical way of tossing cherished assumptions into a cocked hat that succeeds brilliantly. This treasure has only gotten better with time; it delights the eye, the ear, the mind, the funny bone, and the heart.
One could easily enjoy KOH with the sound off, no small French village has ever looked more picturesque, or been populated by more visually appealing citizens. Fellini admirers will find the surrealistic parades familiar; they dance on the surface of reality like bubbles in the sun. Director Philippe de Broca created these film paintings without irony; their fragile magic is simply superimposed on top of the dumb, grim, WWI setting.
Factoring in the superb Georges Delerue score gives you a long succession of movie moments that are poignant at least, and sometimes truly haunting in their beauty. Alan Bates carries the film with a seemingly effortless performance; he makes the familiar look ludicrous and the bizarre seem totally reasonable. On many levels this is a very silly movie that never could work without such a reasoned, level performance.
KOH has really been damaged by over-analysis. It is an enchanting, light-hearted comedy that casts a very particular spell. It is not a daring, bare-knuckled indictment of war, (although it would be hard to miss its anti-war position). It is also not a manifesto proclaiming the wisdom inherent in mental illness. This said, KOH does invite viewers to ask - Who is more crazy, people who shoot each other or people who dress up and play pretend?
In the real world, mental illness isn't adorable. There aren't costumes and parades. There is only pain. In the real world, war is not always moronic and pointless; there is also nobility and valor. But that's the real world; KOH is a movie, an exquisite movie.
Movie Review: Biting and witty satire
Summary: 5 Stars
I have to admit that for someone who is normally not much of a movie enthusiast this is one of my all time favorite films. The film is a darkly satiric comedy that pokes fun at the absurdity and futility of war. When a group of inmates from a local insane asylum escape during the chaos and confusion into the abandoned French town, the stage is set to ironically contrast the insanity of war brought by supposedly sane people with the harmless behavior of the supposedly insane inmates who are acting out the roles of normal town citizens. And yet it is the innocuous and inoffensive inmates who are caged and ostensibly sane people are making war and running around free.
The inmates wander into the town and assume various roles, from the barber to the mayor. The inmates do this so convincingly that the young corporal who is sent to warn them of the approaching Germans at first can't tell the difference, which becomes a metaphor for the real question in the move, which is, who is really crazier: the inmates, or the "normal" people and soldiers fighting the war?
Unfortunately, the young corporal is unable to avert the confrontation between the British and German companies who march into town, and when the other British troops arrive, the inmates realize it's time for them to go back to their former home in the asylum.
I didn't know most of the cast, except for Adolpho Celi (I recognized him as the heavy from an early Jame Bond movie), Alan Bates and Genevieve Bujold, but I thought all the performances were superb, especially Jean-Claude Brialy, who played the mayer, Pierre Brasseur, who played General Geranium, and the barber (unfortunately I don't recall his real name. Overall, a great movie and a brilliantly witty satire and stinging indictment of the futility and absurdity of war.