Harlequin 4K 1980

A rich, tense, atmospheric thriller. From the very beginning Simon Winser, the same one we know from 'Marlboro Cowboy and Harley Davidson', immerses us in the atmosphere of foreboding misfortune. Everything is done so accurately that after the first few minutes the viewer can't tear himself away from the screen - a successful politician, a bored wife, a dying child. Everything is so textbook and so clear that you expect everything to be clarified and the movie to cease to be interesting. But, alas, introducing a new - infernal character nicknamed 'Harlequin', Winser only begins to surprise ours. And when there will be a strange healing of the child, which so accurately echoes the story about Rasputin, there is no doubt - the picture is incredibly interesting. Besides, the actors are very skillfully chosen - David Hemmings accurately conveys the image of a politician-conformist, led by skillful puppeteers, and Robert Powell turns out to be the real center of the universe, which moves the whole matter of this cinematic work. Powell is simultaneously plastic, infernal, serious, and so much like Peter o'Toole. As he holds a child over a precipice and ponders life and death, inspiring him to fight his illness, you can't help but be energized by the authors' scope.

The second half of the tape, however, turns out to be blurred. The love affair between the child's mother and Harlequin is predictable, unimpressive and not at all interestingly presented. And the denouement, focusing attention on political intrigue looks alien at all. Only thanks to the atmospherics and acting skills the empty intrigue and inarticulate context are neutralized. And the impression remains that the movie claimed to be much more important, being an unobvious analog of Jerzy Skolimowski's 'Howl'. And in the context of the said atmospheric nature, a comparison with Kubrick's deliberate silence in 'The Shining' is very apt. The final fireworks were definitely lacking - the dull firefights are only a crisis of the genre.