Movies: The Beguiled

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - Hollywood like remakes. Even Alfred Hitchcock made a remake (of his own film "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934/1956). The great master explained that advances in film making (like color) allowed him to shoot a better version. Now we can see Sophia Coppola´s remake of the Southern Gothic psycho drama "The Beguiled" in US cinema theaters (imdb).

Similar to the original the movie is set in Virginia during the American Civil War. In the Coppola version a wounded & deserted soldier got shelter in a girl´s school deep in enemy country. The place is very isolated, there are just the females and the young man, which sets off a chain of natural and unfortunate events (this is a spoiler free blog. You can read a synopsis her wikipedia).

Ms. Coppola did a fine job. She weeded the plot, cleansed it from all the rank growth and focused on the relations between the male (hunk) & the females (here a synopsis for the first movie Beguiled and here is an interview with her about her intentions & inspirations film ). The director put her own spell into the story and created a kind of fairy-tale world. Some scenes reminded me faintly of Brothers Grimm`s original fairy tales,  like "Cinderella", "Little Red Riding Hood" & "The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats", which often are camouflaged tales of sex & violence. Are there fairies & witches? Cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd intensified these impressions with blurred & misty images which created a somewhat spooky scenery.

I also enjoyed the superb cast, especially Nicole Kidman. Her appearance reminded me of another Kidman movie, the ghost story "The Others". Even though "Beguiled" does not have paranormal elements, some of the settings where quite similar.

If you like good cinema for adult viewers, go and watch it!