Fassbender delivers a worthy Macbeth
Print Edition
WILLIAM Shakespeare’s Scottish play “Macbeth” gets a highly stylized, moody and occasionally mystifying update, courtesy of Justin Kurzel, the Australian director responsible for the haunting “Snowtown.”
For the poor souls who haven’t cracked “Macbeth” since high school (or those current students looking for an easy study guide), Kurzel’s adaptation isn’t going to do you any favors — the whispered line readings make the Bard’s verses all but incomprehensible and, at times, numbingly dull.
But for Shakespeare devotees who delight in debating the merits and flaws of previous big screen attempts from the likes of Orson Welles and Roman Polanski, Kurzel’s entry is an interesting one.
This version begins with an unsettling sight: Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) and his wife, Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard) witnessing the burial of their dead child atop a gusty, gray hill in the desolate Scottish Highlands. The mourning transitions into a stunningly violent and mystical battle sequence, clouded by fog and mist and slowed in parts with an almost video game-like vulgarity, where Macbeth hears the witches’ prophecy that he will be King.
It is in this war-weary and grief-stricken state that Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to murder King Duncan (David Thewlis). Ambition and greed fill their voids, and Macbeth becomes the executor of their future.
Malcolm (Jack Reynor), King Duncan’s heir, witnesses the murder and flees, adding an immediate tension to everything that happens after. More violence follows.
Once Macbeth assumes the throne, he begins his slow descent into madness. No one plays agony quite like Fassbender. The banquet scene where Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo (Paddy Considine) is a particular highlight. Overall, Fassbender delivers a performance on par with previous Macbeth actors.
Kurzel’s “Macbeth” is also stripped of unnecessary adornments in the script, story, and set design. You feel like a settler on an uninhabited, unforgiving land. The set design is spare, purposeful and authentic. The settings are small in contrast to the spectacular landscapes.
Indeed, death looms over everything here, and weighs increasingly heavily on this childless couple. This “Macbeth” brings war, post-traumatic stress disorder and grief to the fore in a more visceral way than others have been able to show, and, in this way, Kurzel has put his stamp on the canon of “Macbeth” film adaptations.
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