dir. Robert Zemeckis, USA, 2007, 109'
The film by Robert Zemeckis is based on the old Anglo-Saxon poem about the hero Beowulf. This valiant warrior sets off to help king Hrotgard by ridding him and his country of the feared monster called Grendel. Even with victory over the monster, however, neither the kingdom nor Beowulf himself finds peace...
Three years after The Polar Express, the first film in which Robert Zemeckis used the technology known as Performance Capture (reading not only actors' movements but also all of their mimicry), the famous director and innovator of film speech started for the battle field again. His rival is not only perfectionism, to put into the computer a creature's life in the most compelling way, but also the defence that this method of animation has its "right to life". Beowulf did not divide audience and critics because of its violence and the adaptation of a significant piece of literature, but because of perplexity on the question of whether we can still speak about it as an animated film. Whether we agree or not we cannot deny Zemeckis his courage.
Lukáš Gregor
11 Dec 5:30 p.m. Metropol Cinema
— BEOWULF — Robert Zemeckis — USA — 2007 — 109' — Motion Capture
