Coriolanus – Savoy Theatre Hamburg 10.03.2014

This was the screening at a cinema of the original London play that took place at the Donmar Warehouse for a couple of weeks. I was quite excited for it since my best friend and I decided we’d go to see it together, because it would probably be the only time I’d ever get this close to a Hollywood Actor. Sad, I know. Plus, it had Tom Hiddleston in it. Now,  I have never been a huge fan of him; I adored his acting in the “Thor” movies and, especially, in “The Avengers”, but that was about it. But after seeing that play on the screen, my opinion has definitely changed, because, hands down – he was amazing as Caius Martius Coriolanus.

And sadly…that is all I can say about it.

As some of you know, I am not a native english speaker, I’m from Germany and english is definitely not my native language. And even in german, I have difficulties to understand the language in theatre plays of Shakespeare (a lot of people have that problem, right? Please, somebody say yes so I feel less stupid.). The language used in them is so….exhausting. My best friend and I decided that therefor, it would be easier to watch the “Coriolanus” movie first, to at least get a bit of the storyline that we hadn’t already read online somewhere. Fact is, that movie was exhausting, too. Maybe I am just not a Shakespeare person, or no, I definitely am not. If I watch something, I need to understand it to enjoy it. And that movie left me even more confused than I was before, and I just hoped that the screening in my favourite language AND my favourite accent would turn things around for me.

It didn’t.

I am not scared to admit (and yes, highly am ashamed of myself, to be fair), that during the 2nd half, I slightly fell asleep during the last conversation Coriolanus (Tom Hiddleston) has with his mother (Deborah Finlay) before he wants to go to “war” with Aufidius (Hadley Fraser). Partly the problem was that the cinema seat was way too comfortable: there was a square leather stool infront of my feet and I could stretch back in my seat and I would lay back, as if I am lying in a very leathery and soft lawn chair. The other problem was, that now, listening to Shakespeare in english, and more, in british english, that it was the first time I was seriously overwhelmed with my favourite language. At the first few minutes I felt like “Alright, this is going well, I understand it better than the weird movie language.”, but soon I realized I was wrong. Shakespeare-y language all along, and I am honest: if I wouldn’t have watched the movie first, I would’ve understood jack squad. Hell, even WITH the movie, I only understood things because they sounded familiar from it (like in the scene when Coriolanus and Aufidius meet again in the 2nd half and Aufidius welcomes him like a long lost lover – hilarious). And that is pretty sad, because I would’ve loved to fully get it. I feel stupid not getting it, not understanding it. Because I feel like I couldn’t fully appreciate the actors the way they deserved.

Because the Cast was absolutely wonderful. I couldn’t stop staring at Tom, his talent, and everything about him, he was flawless. He even had these tiny moments when he was hilarious without intending to be. Hadley Fraser…I totally understand why he is so popular and why he was cast in “Les Misérables”. When I saw Alfred Enoch (Titus Lartius), I stared at him every single second (that I was not staring at Tom, of course) because he looked so familiar…until I finally realized he was Dean Thomas from the “Harry Potter” movie series. How small the world can be.
I won’t even start on Deborah Findlay (Volumnia) – she was amazing. The way she acted – wow. She was so emotional and convincing in playing the desperate mother who wants her son back on the right track after somehow having pushed him onto the wrong one before.

But my star was definitely Tom. I have barely seen someone so convincing on a theatre stage, let alone, in a movie. Every time the camera zoomed in on his face and you could see the tears watering in his beautiful eyes….you just wanted to go over and hug him, because it looked so real! And it touched me deep inside, I have to admit. He makes you forgive him for his arrogance, his reckless and brutal behaviour in the first two and a half hours in his last 10 minutes in that role. He played it out perfectly, and the way he died was certainly quite brutal – but with me not having any problem with too much blood on a stage or a screen, I was at least fine with that (even if not with Tom dying, I even had tears in my eyes, myself, soft me).

So my resumé: I am glad I did this experience, that I got to see “Coriolanus” and that I saw Tom Hiddleston after I had heard so much praise for him for that role – which he most definitely deserves. But I have come to the conclusion that I won’t put myself in the same position of watching a Shakespeare play in english again, because for me as a native german it is just too exhausting, and I would hate to miss out on such an amazing Cast and set once again because I fall asleep or simply just can’t enjoy it because I have to focus too much on understanding it. The actors deserve more acknowledgement from me, more appreciation, and I couldn’t live with myself if I couldn’t give them that.

Top 5 Movies Of All Times

What makes a movie the best movie by definition? Well, for me it’s the right mixture of suspense, emotion, wit – and just pure entertainment to the edge of “I need to see that one again right now!” These are the characteristics that all of the 5 following movies contain for me – if you agree or not, that’s absolutely up to you, I always welcome different opinions.

1. Inception (2010)

This one is for me by far the best movie that has ever been released in the history of movies, although I know it slides sharply along the fine line of lovers and haters of it and is therefor definitely one of the most controversal movies out there. I know – and I can’t exclude myself from that, – that a lot of people just don’t understand that movie, with all its layers of dreams and plot twists and just generally that sickening end where the audience is left with the thought: “What? That’s…that’s it?” I agree, in some way, that end, as Christopher Nolan presented it, was not 100% satisfying. You’re never told if Dom Cobb’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) spintop, his totem, that tells him if he’s just dreaming or experiencing things in real life, collapses or not.
But for me, personally, I absolutely love that ending, because it’s just…perfect. Yes, I am going so far as to call it that. Because it is. I love that feeling when I come out of a cinema and can’t stop thinking about a movie, when I keep going back to it, trying to make sense of it, even if it drives me insane; it shows me that a movie has really touched me deep inside, which should be what all directors out there should be aiming for: leaving the audience in complete awe. The end of “Inception” does that, without any doubt. There are so many possibilities how everything has played out and would play out if the end wouldn’t have been the end, which in my opinion will never make people stop talking about it – in a  good or bad way.
And just to mention it: yes, Leonardo DiCaprio probably was the reason I loved that movie even more. Nobody would’ve been better for the role of Dom Cobb, at least not for me. He was breathtaking in every way, and I still ask myself why he never got an Academy Award for his acting. He displays the role of the delusional, desperate, heartbroken father like no one else, and there’s nothing he could’ve done better. Plus, the puns between Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Eames (Tom Hardy) are just totally priceless and give that movie the last little spice it needs.

2. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Yes, there’s a Tarantino Movie in that list. And for me, rightly so. I don’t even know where to start: from the perfectly cast roles (Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Melanie Laurent, etc.) over the highly entertaining storyline itself to the twists, the list seems endless.
What is the most compelling thing about the movie, you ask? Well…the beginning, with no doubt. The beginning, where Christoph Waltz as the cruel, murderous Nazi-Captain Hans Landa walks into a french farmer’s house, looking for hidden jews and for 17 minutes straight, just sits at the farmer’s table, first talking to him in french (with an absolute flawless french accent that makes me, personally, melt to the ground!), then in german (in a quiet and somewhat menacing kind of way that makes the viewer’s skin just crawl), before he kills off almost an entire jewish family that is hidden beneath the floorboards…just WHOA. I am not gonna let anyone tell me anything else, it is the best beginning of a movie that has ever been made. Christoph Waltz is breathtaking in every way, and he definitely owns that movie whenever he shows up. The scene in the french café, when he sits down with Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), the only survivor of the killing in the french farmer’s house at the beginning, who seeks revenge for the extinction of her entire family, is played just absolutely flawlessly by both sides.
A movie where a villain is just so scaring and menacing that you actually feel  your own heart jumping when he gets closer to the screen, just when he shows up…this is something that has not happened to me very often. And therefor, every praise and award Tarantino or the actors got for “Inglourious Basterds” is more than justified.

3. The Pianist (2002)

Yet another movie about the time during the terror regime in the Third Reich, but nothing could be more different to “Inglourious Basterds”. What makes this movie so mindblowing possibly is the outstanding acting performance of Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman, a jewish pianist who one day has to face the drastic change of his successful life when his family is banished into a concentration camp on polish soil (and being murdered) and he himself first manages to get into compulsory labor and then is hidden right infront of the eyes of the Nazi Regime in an abandoned house, directly in the middle of the war, only able to survive due to the selfless help of a befriended couple – and a german soldier (Thomas Kretzschmann).
This is also one of the few movies that makes me lost for words with its entire scenery. The director, Roman Polanski, is probably the most controversed discussed directors of all times, but there’s no doubt that he knows how to put up a story and set it right into the middle of things – brutally honest and excruciatingly merciless, without any try of sugarcoating (in one scene, the german soldiers are breaking into a jewish home, arresting its residents and just throwing one of them, an old men who is sitting in a wheelchair, out of the window without a blink of an eye). It seems as if Polanski knows exactly which buttons he has to press to leave his audience absolutely speechless and at the same time, gasping for air due to astonishment and admiration for such a brave way to display the horrors of the Third Reich – which in my opinion makes this movie one of the ones that is very hard to reach; it has set the bar for any following movie about this history subject pretty high.

4. Dead Man Walking (1995)

I watched that movie in school, in 7th or 8th grade, while we were discussing the subject of the death penalty in religion class – wow. As long as I can think back, that was the first movie that made me speechless and really had me swallowing hard whenever I thought about it. Surely the subject itself is a tough one – death penalty is a long discussed and very controversal thing, – but what really got me was the main character, Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn). He is one of the very few movie characters that you instantly click with, the one you like, despite what he might’ve have done. Throughout the entire movie, you hope, you wish, you pray that everything will work out for him, and just when you think it really might….it doesn’t. His death scene is one of the hardest and cruelest things I have ever watched in my entire life.
And Sean Penn is just mindblowingly flawless. You see the emotions on his face, hear his voice catching when he talks on the phone to his mom, when he begs Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon), the nun who accompanies him during his last days on earth, to help him, to save his life at the very end (although throughout most of the movie he just is indifferent about what he has done), and you feel just so much sympathy for him that it breaks your heart – that’s at least what it did to me.
What I love about that movie the most is how it leaves the audience to make up their own minds about the death penalty. Its message is not “Death Penalty is wrong” or “Death Penalty is right”. It allows the viewer to make up his/her own mind, and it does it in one of the deepest, most meaningful ways any movie has ever done.

5. What’s In A Name (Le Prénom) (2012)

Who would think that a little joke, a little everyday situation can lead to a huge blow-up, resulting in a messed-up dinner, a bloody nose and a cleft family environment? Before I was forced to watch this movie during a bus travel of 5 hours to my best friend, I definitely didn’t. I had never heard of this movie before – mostly due to the fact that I just don’t like french movies. At all. Fair to say I despise them.
But this one changed everything. It’s possibly the funniest and most entertaining movie I have ever had the pleasure to watch; the actors are amazing, the story is cleverly invented and the tagline absolutely priceless. And just when you think that one problem is sorted out, that normal life can continue again, one of the family members makes a little comment, so small that everybody else would just let it go – and the situation blows up once more. I, personally, love this twist that Alexandre de la Patellière & Mathieu Delaporte, the directors, present us with, to a point where I never get tired to watch this movie over and over again.
And  even if I know this is just my personal opinion, I’d advise anybody who reads this blog to go and watch it. I promise you, you won’t regret it.

There are plenty more movies that somehow belong in here, and it kind of feels unfair to leave them unmentioned – but these are the five that inspired me the most, that left me in complete awe, in love or excitement and just pure joy. For me, they are the picture perfect examples of what movies should be like. For me, they are THE stuff that movies are and should be made of.