Bea Jose November 28, 2019

Literature: Movie Review 2SLPB

A Movie Review on Hamlet (1996)

The film begins as Horatio, Hamlet’s dear friend whom he met at university, and the guards
in charge of guarding the gate, see an apparition of the dead king in Elsinore Castle. Terrified,
they attempted to talk to the King’s ghost to find out why he has been haunting the nights.
Unfortunately, the ghost refuses to talk to them, so Horatio decides to search for Hamlet to see
for himself as the deceased King might prefer to talk to his son. Hamlet on the other hand is as
the wedding of his mother Gertrude and the newly crowned king his Uncle Claudius. In these
scene Hamlet does a monologue about how easily everyone seemed to have forgotten his father’s
death in such a short amount of time. After the celebration, Horatio tells Hamlet about the
occurrences of the previous nights. Upon meeting each other, the ghost tells the story of his
murder to Hamlet, asks Hamlet to seek for justice in his death, in the form of revenge. He tells
Hamlet that it was actually his brother Claudius that poisoned him and wooed his wife in order to
claim the throne. After this, everyone in the kingdom starts talking about Hamlet’s “transformation”
as a madman. Polonius, the father of Hamlet’s lover Ophelia, believes that it was because he
forbade his daughter to be involved with Hamlet. It didn’t seem to occur to them that maybe this
was his coping mechanism because his father just died. Hamlet then decides to host a play to
specifically make his uncle feel guilty for killing his father. His mother then proceeds to tell him off
for making his uncle upset. Polonius happens to be listening to their entire conversation behind
the curtain. Hamlet, thinking that it was his uncle eavesdropping on them, decides to stab the
man. Ophelia goes crazy after finding out of her father’s death and her brother Laertes is enraged
because of what has happened to his family. He then vows to kill Hamlet and plots this murder
with Claudius. They offer a duel between Laertes and Hamlet, however the blade the Laertes will
be using would be coated in poison. Things don’t go as planned, and everyone faces the same
unfortunate fate as the previous King.

Hamlet, although being painfully long, is actually one of Shakespeare’s most well-known
plays. Most likely because of the way it targets a lot of different themes such as self-contemplation,
justice, revenge and social order. It involves a lot of drama and a lot of self-realizations that keeps
the audience entertained throughout its duration. It mainly tackles Hamlet’s battle with his morals
and emotions. “To be or not to be”, finding the value of life if there is any.

These themes were tackled in a meaningful way with the use of the different elements in
the play. For example, the King’s ghost haunts him in both in real and figurative form. It is the
haunting of his father’s ghost that haunts his thoughts every single day, almost driving him
completely mad and into a state of depression. This was symbolized as well by the clothes that
he wears. Hamlet wears black throughout the film to represent his mourning.

Given this plays many adaptations, this movie was one of the most well-known, having
been nominated for numerous Oscars. Kenneth Branagh both directed and starred as Hamlet in
the film possibly allowing for his visions to be actualized more accurately as he played the main
role as well. He also attempted to include every line of the actual folio; hence it became a 4-hour
long movie. Due to this attempt, it made it quite difficult to understand the lines in the film even
with the subtitles. This shows how the director probably valued making it as close to the original
as possible rather than have people of the modern day fully understand and appreciate the story.
Nevertheless, the execution of the scenes were brilliantly done and helped create the dramatic
atmosphere. For example, after the wedding scene everyone left him in the great hall with confetti
all around him as is mocking him of the festivities everyone but him was enjoying. There was a
use of an empty and wide space to show how alone Hamlet must have felt. Moreover, during
Hamlet’s soliloquies the camera seems to be handheld as it follows him, allowing for the viewers
to feel as if they were watching it in a point of view of the crowd. Additionally, it was shot in a way
that didn’t make the viewers feel as if it was only Hamlet experiencing trouble but that other
characters were given their time to express their roles in the story.

Overall, the film evokes a lot of emotion to the audience, sometimes of laughter both due
to the lines in the script and the ridiculous occurrences in the film, sometimes of pity for the main
character, but mostly of peaceful and sympathetic sadness, knowing that the whole royal court
was doomed to face a tragedy. Through the multiple monologues of each of the characters, you
are able to sympathize with the troubles that they feel in every unfortunate event. It goes more
than to explain what was happening but also the emotions and confusion that each character felt,
the pain and the betrayal. It was entertaining enough to say that Branagh succeeded in creating
a brilliant adaptation of Hamlet.