The Song of Names, written by Jeffrey Caine, based on the novel by Norman Lebrecht - 8.6 out of 10

The Song of Names, written by Jeffrey Caine, based on the novel by Norman Lebrecht

8.6 out of 10

This is a short note on the film based on the novel by Norman Lebrecht…

The Song of Names is a very compelling drama that has met though with mostly justified criticism, having a rather poor average score that signals the fact that though the themes could not be more powerful, there is a certain sense of quite a few elements missing in the unfolding of the drama…perhaps the length of the motion picture could be one aspect, maybe it would have helped is the feature were shorter, the dramatic effect may be lacking, or to the extent that the story of Jewish boy that simply disappears, just as his first solo concert is about to be performed and thus the conductor has to announce the public that the performance is canceled…perhaps to be rescheduled for…thirty five years later would have suggested.

Tim Roth has the leading role of Martin and he has a solid appearance, though it might lack the sparkle, effervescence vitality of previous roles – Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs belong to the Olympus of Cinema and as such, the parts there belong to another world – but we can think of Lucky Numbers http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/08/note-on-lucky-numbers-with-john.html -perhaps Hoodlum - http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/08/note-on-hoodlum-with-laurence-fishburne.html or the more recent Luce http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/10/luce-by-jc-lee-based-on-his-play-nine.html or the radiant Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, based on a florid, marvelous play by Tom Stoppard - http://realini.blogspot.com/2015/01/rosencrantz-and-guildenstern-are-dead.html

Clive Owen is also one of the greatest actors of our time and one of the titans already, but his quite late appearance does not transform this interesting, at times inspirational movie into a candidate for the Academy Awards, though given the crisis we all face, who knows if there would be a ceremony next year and a population to celebrate it with…this is just trying to downplay the meager news – my business partner has just called to say that with our activity stopped, there is some money for next month, but after that maybe “Le Deluge” as the Sun King would say it…”après moi, le deluge” which we could relate to the calamity that has wiped out people and foreseeable income…but, we will get through it

Insha’Allah!

Which is quite the message of this film that deals with the much more calamitous- if we can say that – tragedy of World War II, when millions have been sent to the death camps by the Nazis, other millions had already been exterminated in famines by one of the other mass killers of the last century, Stalin – a recent extraordinary motion picture, Mr. Jones, tells that story - http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/03/mr-jones-by-andrea-chalupa-95-out-of-10.html - and he would be at it again, surpassing Hitler, just like the other mad man, Mao, would do in his communist China, the land of the ‘free’…