Title - Black Death (2011)
Director - Christopher Smith
Country - UK / Germany
It is 1348 and a medieval era England has been all but consumed by the infamous black plague. The powers that be do all they can do inhibit its spread by quickly gathering and burning the afflicted bodies but alas inexorably it keeps spreading its deadly fingers ever farther. A young monk fears for his life when the deadly disease besets his monastery, but it's not just for his life that he fears. For unknown to his fellow brothers the young monk Osmund (Eddie Redmayne) has fallen in love with a woman and out of fear he desperately desires to flee somewhere to safety with her. But though he is in love, he is still deeply devout and thus desperately troubled as to what to do, he prays to God for a sign.
Suddenly a knight named Ulric (Sean Bean) and his band of nefarious mercenaries approaches the monastery and pleads for a guide through the swamp lands as he needs to reach a village that though untouched by the plague, supposedly they have done so through supernatural means of a devilish nature. Young Osmund immediately takes this as the sign he's been looking for as his girlfriend is from the swamp country and has retreated there to wait for him. Osmund joins the group of truly frightening men, but he is warned by Ulric that the village they are going to is a place cursed by Satan and controlled by a powerful necromancer that supposedly can raise the dead. Their mission is to capture the necromancer and take them back to civilization for trial as a heretic.
Fantasy has always been a notoriously tricky subject to adapt to film. Much like horror, it has been traditionally maligned as the lowest kind of fiction and many attempts at bringing the genre to the screen have had underwhelming success mainly due to a lack of support from quality producers and directors. They usually arrive as either aloof, squeaky clean Arthurian tales or ultra low-budget schlocking, cheesy affairs full of bad acting and quite often even worse effects. There have been some success stories to make the tales more compelling and earthy such as Boorman's Excalibur and the advent of CG as well as the maturation of the fantasy fan base has led to the unqualified success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But despite these great films, the genre still struggles as the schlock and lack of care that goes into some of these types of films is surprisingly lacking.
Thankfully I found Black Death not to be lacking in any aspect and I'm happy to report that it's a truly great film that is very much worthy of your attention. Although initially possessing a plot that greatly resembled that of the much maligned Season of the Witch (a film from which they actually shared some crew as they were shooting around the same time in the same locations) thankfully the director Christopher Smith took creative hold and asked the writer to change the last act as he was not happy with the nature of the conflict. Although a self-confessed big fan of demon vs. man flicks, the director continues his strong interest in the extreme nature of man and the exploration of how people can change and fall into extremist behavior be it as a mob participant or a central figure around which people gather. The director also sensitive to how the extremes of early Christianity can become an easy and creatively lazy punching bag, instead focuses on the hows and whys of what drives the various men in his film and how it can greatly change them and those around them. The pagan aspects of the film are also handled with deft fingers avoiding the cliches of typical magic emboldened devil powered fantasy witches of medieval lore, and does so by shrouding the nature of their power in mystery and subverting the idea of what is actually going on by some very nice directorial misleads.
The atmosphere of Black Death is dense, harsh and full of brutality. Although there is plenty of violence, a lot of the most horrific actions occur just off screen or are slightly obscured by frame blocking. This might sound cheap but in reality it makes the violence seem all the more brutal as the shots are up close and personal and the sounds accompanying these acts let you know exactly what's going on. To add to this in your face approach, the director uses 16mm hand-held cameras in many of the scenes that involve fighting or just some extreme brutality. Although initially unnerving, this not only gives the feel that you are in the midst of the conflicts, but it puts you in so close to the action that it in effect deromanticizes the generally highly romanticized art of chivalrous combat and makes it feel as real and brutal as it no doubt was. Ulric's men are dirty, vicious, and highly skilled fighters who will take you out any way they can and this technique really pounds this point home.
Stepping away from the inherent brutality of the medieval ages, the film features some beautiful cinematography courtesy of the director and his cinematographer Sebastian Edschmid (The Last Station). The already beautiful locations are put to great use with some truly breath-taking shots in terms of grand scope and the mysterious undergrowth. These visually sumptuous locations are greatly heightened by liberal use of mist and smoke that seem to linger in almost every shot no matter how low or high. This smoke is analogous of not only the unrelenting and constant thread of the advancing plague, but also the very nature of the reality of what is exactly going on in the film and how it is being perceived.
On the whole I found the film to be disturbing, emotionally moving, and very well crafted. Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne are just flat out amazing in their roles and Eddie in particular is smashing as his character really goes through an intensely extreme change through the course of the film. The last act throws the viewer quite a few curve-balls in terms of the reality of the situation and the transformation of some of the characters, but not only did none of it seem cheap or contrived, all the revelations seem perfectly natural and perfectly balance out the study of man that is Black Death. It's not about what religion you are, it's about how people can take up the mantle of extreme fundamentalism and why it drives them. People aren't two dimensional, they commit horrors for a reason and I loved how the film flips around the viewers perceived alliances. A deep exploration of the extreme nature of man, Black Death is truly a fine film that deserves a wide audience.