The Count of Monte-Cristo 4K 2024

For people whose childhood passed in the pre-internet era, Dumas' novel “The Count of Monte Cristo” was perhaps one of the most memorable events, when, having started reading, it was impossible to tear oneself away from the exciting adventures of Edmond Dantes until the very morning, and then with regret to put the book aside to go to school. And if you are 10 or 12 years old, you look at the story of Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo through his eyes - no one should go unpunished for the crimes and atrocities committed and revel in the intricacies of plot twists and turns and rejoice at the next defeated villain.

The new French movie, filmed in the best traditions of historical adventure cinema in the most beautiful and picturesque places, with young, not washed out eyes, wonderful actors in luxurious costumes, follows all the laws of genre and plot of Dumas' novel, at the same time, if it introduces a detached, then unobtrusive enough, especially if you do not know the novel by heart. The screenwriters create new characters, which combine several original characters from the book to fit into the allotted timing, following the author's intonation in a vengeful outburst, but at the same time one idea is constantly breaking through, which one of the negative characters says in a swaggering tone and obviously with condemnation - “Mercy is in fashion nowadays”.

And this message about “mercy for the fallen”, which in my childhood went unnoticed, for some reason now especially hooks me.

Pierre Ninet, who plays the lead role, being an experienced performer of various reflective characters, here changes masks and costumes, intonations and mannerisms, and clearly enjoys the role of a manipulator and vertexter of human destinies. The role sits on him like a mold, and even a sword thrust into his stomach to the hilt cannot shake his desire to remain a judge of others.

Okamenev, a former prisoner of the castle of If, finds the meaning of life only in the pursuit of people who betrayed him twenty years ago, completely missing the point that with each new repaid account of revenge, he is humanized and disembodied, above all, himself, and if Dantes had his own “portrait of Dorin Gray”, he would have long looked on it ugly old man. He is now a traitor only to his savior, Abbot Faria, for he has broken everything he swore to do by shamelessly using his knowledge and Spud's fortune to settle scores.

And what is very pleasing this time is that the movie does not flirt with any fashionable trends, but simply continues the eternal question of humanism and wonderfully contrasts the old, old grudges and vindictive ideas of Monte Cristo's fixes with a fresh and passionate desire for a normal life, They are touching, naive and very sincere, you believe in them and sympathize with them, and all that remains for Monte Cristo is to take refuge from this new world, no longer relevant for revenge, at the edge of the earth, at sea, where a true sailor, who has always been Edmond Dantes, will always find solace in his eternal wanderlust.