Macbeth Gives You A Bright Day

Release Date：Mar/04/2016
Genre：Drama/War
Director：Justin Kurzel
Cast：Michael Fassbender、Marion Cotillard

Viola's Rating：7.4

Half year before Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary, British-French-American feature film “Macbeth” was released on Dec., 11, 2015. It was selected as one of the Competition section films at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.

Adapted from Shakespeare’s play of the same name, “Macbeth” is the shortest and one of the most popular tragedies of his. As one of the Great Tragedies, along with “Hamlet”, “King Lear” and “Othello”, “Macbeth” is considered to be the darkest play of Shakespeare’s, and the bloody scenes and evil side of human beings make it R-rated.
Macbeth (Michael Fassbender), the Thane of Glamis, receives prophecies from the Three Witches that he will become King of Scotland one day. Later consumed by ambition and Lady Macbeth’s (Marion Cotillard) spurring to action, Macbeth murders his king, Duncan (David Thewlis) and takes the throne for himself.

Lady Macbeth is one of the most difficult women character to portray, and with Oscar winning French actress, Marion Cotillard, the audience can feel the guilty and struggle this role faces. Besides Cotillard, the entire leading cast is not only impressive but also diverse. The title character Macbeth was played by Oscar nominated German actor Michael Fassbender, and acting as the king who’s killed early in the motion picture doesn’t decrease the charisma British actor David Thewlis has at all.

The first part of the movie, which is the first two acts of the play, is rather plain, but after Macbeth goes into the dilemma between morality and power, it becomes eventful and exciting. 

Although it’s a war picture, Australian director Justin Kurzel didn’t make it into an action movie, the epic ambience and poetic vibe of the play stay. Also, instead of heroic score, throughout “Macbeth”, there is suspense music that echoes back to the theme of the feature film.

Since prophecies play an important role in “Macbeth”, it’s interesting to observe the scenes when Macbeth talks to the Three Witches and how the self-fulfilling prophesy works in the play as it is in “Oedipus the King”. 

Of course this has to do with Shakespeare’s writing, but the film itself did get critically acclaimed for the leading cast’s acting and the adapted writing turning the play into a script. 

Even if “Macbeth” is not a motion picture that will take your breath away, it can definitely give you a bright day despite its dark attribute, and if you happen to be a Shakespeare fan, this is a movie that you don’t want to miss.