Starring: Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer
Director: Oliver Stone
Rated: MA15+
IN the wake of Gladiator and Troy comes Alexander, a spectacular epic of the Macedonian world conqueror who has long been called The Great.
Box office and critics have been initially unkind to the film. It is not an easy watch.
For the uninitiated and the uninterested in ancient history, it is a hard slog indeed.
That having been said, there is a great deal to admire about this film as well as to criticise.
All things considered, Alexander gives not only a portrait of the man and his exploits but gives a reasonable overview of the history and ethos of the period (although when you think the film must be nearing Alexander’s death, there is a caption, eight years earlier, and a long and significant flashback is inserted which would have been better appreciated if it had been included much earlier in its proper chronological place).
The framework of the film is Ptolemy (one of Alexander’s generals and his successor in Egypt) dictating his memoirs 40 years later.
This voice-over carries a lot of the narrative as well as giving explanations of who is who (which may still not be all that clear for audiences unfamiliar with the history).
The voice-over also involves quite a bit of myth making as well, interpreting Alexander as great and eulogising him.
This older Ptolemy is played by an erudite and articulate Anthony Hopkins.
Audiences will be wondering what Colin Farrell is like as Alexander.
He is a touch “diminutive” for a legend of such stature. Nevertheless he has a screen presence and quite skilfully portrays Alexander from age 19 to 32, convincingly young, morose, immature but with potential, through the triumphs, especially the battle of Gaugamala, the expeditions beyond Babylon and his ageing and the toll this takes on him.
He changes from ambitious boy to successful conqueror of the world (at 25) to a tragic figure whose flaws (his need for his father’s approval and his tendency to forget his more democratic hopes for a united world and lapsing into despotic exercises of power and violence) mean that he does not provide for his succession and leaves a divided empire with squabbling generals.
Angelina Jolie suggests a Lady Macbeth figure as she plots, dotes on her son and despises her husband – and she carries this off very well.
Val Kilmer (one eye gone and a boisterous lecher, moody with his son) is Philip of Macedon.
Jared Leto is too laid back as Hephaestion, the boyhood friend whom Alexander loves and trusts. Rosario Dawson has to be tempestuous as Roxane.
The battle sequences, one in the desert with a cast of thousands, the other with elephants in the jungles of India are impressively shot and edited with a score by Vangelis.
Since the film was co-written and directed by Oliver Stone, it is not a reticent production.
Stone has long been interested in war and in the exercise of power (Platoon, JFK, Nixon). He gives this film an aura of Shakespearean tragedy, the fall of a great man because of his hubris and flaws.
This means that Alexander is very ambitious, is crammed with incident and themes, which make it an unwieldy but thoughtful epic.
