Tuesday 14 September 2010

CENTURION

When this hit cinemas back in April, I was spectacularly uninterested. Yes my Fassbender obsession was well under way, but as a rule I tend to steer clear of Classics related films due to how much they always anger me with their gross inaccuracies and stereotyping. Yes I sound pedantic in my picking at the seemingly minor details, but I see no reason at all for a film to be made if the writers can't even look up a date. If you're so afraid of books, or even the fucking internet, I have to question why you're a writer in the first place.
Anyway, I recently bothered to find out that Olga Kurylenko, Imogen Poots, Riz Ahmed and Noel Clarke also starred, and suddenly I was a bit more keen to see the film - I'm a sucker for a good looking, multi-ethnic cast. And this particular penchant will be the death of me. Or at least the death of my well-honed taste in film. (Insert pretentious snort here.)
The film falls victim to pretty much every cliché associated with films representing antiquity there is. Michael Fassbender manages to look amazing despite being bloodied and whatnot, but his Queen's English narration (because you know, Romans DEFINITELY were all posh pricks) is very confused with his natural Irish accent which he eventually resigns himself to within the narrative itself. Olga Kurylenko is possibly the best I've ever seen her, mostly because she never has to utter a line of dialogue thanks to Etain's (her character) loss of a tongue at the hands of those brutal Romans. This is in itself a feature of the plot which confuses everything. Who are we supposed to sympathise with? The Romans? The Picts who are hunting the Romans down? This isn't done in an interesting way where the viewer is supposed to be impartial. More in a "oops we shouldn't have added in that element because now you won't want Michael Fassbender and his chronies to make it". Oops indeed.
What really annoyed me, though, was the inclusion of Agricola in the film. Largely because they decided he was going to be one of the "bad Romans". I spent a good few months of my life studying the man and the biography of him by Tacitus, (obviously written from a different viewpoint but hey) and I therefore find it difficult to view him as a conspiring fiend who would try to kill Michael Fassbender. Additionally, the film clearly states at the beginning that it is set in A.D 117 when Agricola actually died in A.D. 93. That's not even taking into consideration the fact he returned to Rome from governing Britain in A.D. 62. Why, then, did the writers not just set the film when he was actually alive if they were so keen to sully Agricola's good name? Your guess is as good as mine. Great job at not even being bothered to look on Wikipedia there.
Essentially, then, the film misses the mark on a coherent narrative, coherent development of characters (English/Irish Fassbender + the Romans vs. Picts aside, the 'love' affair between The Fass and Imogen Poots is entirely rushed and entirely unbelievable) and any shred of historical awareness. Riz Ahmed was probably the best thing about the film, and he's criminally killed within 10 minutes of him appearing.

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