Year in and year out, our regular festival section The Great 5 features a key selection of films from the five greatest European cinemas – France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom and Spain. This year the selection includes the British adaptation of Shakespeare’s drama Macbeth, directed by Australian director Justin Kurzel, shown in this year’s Cannes Film Festival competition.
Following in the footsteps of great filmmakers like Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa and Roman Polanski, Justin Kurzel, known for his brutal crime debut The Snowtown Murders, also took up the adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest plays. Critics agree that this is the most violent adaptation so far, in the best possible sense, alongside the colossal performances of Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard in the roles of the unrelentingly ambitious Macbeth couple.
Anyone who is familiar with Kurzel’s debut The Snowtown Murders, a film essay on the destructiveness of masculinity in a crisis, will not be surprised by the fact that he decided to penetrate the film mainstream precisely by bringing to life this unforgettable literary study of the destructive male ego.
It is a tale of a fearless warrior and charismatic leader in war-torn medieval Scotland, who embarks on the road of madness together with his life companion, led by the insatiable and greedy desire for power.
Kurzel introduces in his version of the literary classic a brilliant note of modern disposition, a touch or horror movie, brutal violence, and the issue of class conflict. All these are the reasons why this adaptation will surely win the broader audience much easier than its previous versions.
Check out the trailer.