Hamlet
(1964)
Overview
Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as the "stone prison" of the mind wherein Hamlet must confine himself in order to avenge his father's death. Hamlet himself is portrayed (by Innokenti Smoktunovsky) as the sole sensitive intellectual in a world made up of debauchers and revellers. Several of Kozintsev directorial choices seem deliberately calculated to inflame the purists: Hamlet's delivers his "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his back to the camera, allowing the audience to fill in its own interpretations.
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CinemaSerf
⭐ 8/10June 8, 2025
Now not being a Russian speaker I was a bit trepidatious about tackling this with just the subtitles. Well I needn’t have feared as a basic knowledge of the original Shakespearean tragedy is all that is required to underpin this experience as I sat back and savoured this exquisitely dark, brooding and melancholy story of betrayal, duplicity and madness - written as only the bard could and quite possibly delivered as only the Soviets could. We sta… read the rest.
Status
Released
Original Language
RU
Budget
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