The Shadow of the Sword
The movie received poor to mediocre viewer reviews, so I was braced for awfulness. But it wasn’t so bad; just a little predictable and not as action-packed as viewers might want.
Set in Northern Europe during the 1500s, the movie follows two friends, Martin and Georg, who are separated as children in their orphanage but reunite 15 years later, Martin a captain in the Imperial Army and Georg a prior at the abbey. Martin falls in love with the executioner’s daughter, Anne, as Georg struggles between his own tolerance for the Anabaptists and his archbishop’s desire that they be obliterated as heretics. Because executioners and their families were outcasts from society, Georg cannot marry Martin and Anne; instead, the couple turns to the Anabaptists to be married. Between this religious tension between the two friends and the resentment of the former executioner’s crippled apprentice, who loses the position of town executioner to Martin, you just know that things are going to go sour rapidly. And they do.
The movie’s strengths are in its beautiful setting and re-creation of a 16th century medieval town, in all its sordid, ragged glory. It’s a lovely visual resource. The acting is good, too, solid and believable. Martin’s darn good-looking, and the contrast between his rough-and-ready soldier features and the softer clerical features of his friend Georg struck me in several scenes as nicely done. The costuming was very good, especially the clerical robes, which I seldom see look so realistic and wearable in a movie.
There’s some nice scandal and corruption, and the town’s treatment of the executioner rings true according to the extensive reading I’ve done — the historical executioner was an interesting combination of pariah and hero, regarded with distaste day-to-day but cheered when he killed a particularly nasty piece of work, especially when he did so neatly and professionally.
Parts that worried me were a brief bit in which Martin is talking to an anatomist about his work, because of course I have Corbin Rook working closely with the university anatomist Professor Vale in my novel. But this wasn’t explored nearly as thoroughly as I thought it might be, so that’s OK. There’s also a pretty whore in the movie named Margaretha, which is perilously close to Rook’s love interest in my novel, the somewhat whorish but much more politically successful Margarette. I’d hate to have to change her name, but I’d also hate for anyone to think this movie influenced me, when in fact KM has existed for years.
The biggest flaw in the movie, really, is that it’s trying to pack too much into under two hours. Heaven knows I appreciate a short movie nowadays, but too many characters are introduced then glossed over: the secretive anatomist, the wealthy whore, the perfidious monk. Each had a story that wasn’t investigated, or even much discussed; heck, I thought Margaretha was a burgher’s wife until she was called a whore late in the movie! And why did Anna and Martin name their child Jakob and have him wear earlocks? The film has too many time-collapse edits, so it feels choppy, and I don’t think it’s a self-referential nod to being a film about a headsman!
So: worth a watch for historical reference, and not bad as a story itself, but not perfect, either.
And the darn DVD is stuck in my laptop. I’ve tried everything I can to get it out, but … I may owe Netflix for a replacement if our ISS guy can’t get it out with tweezers or something!
drupagliassotti @ June 27, 2007