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Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
****
Cinema
Review - December 31, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12A. USA/New
Zealand. 201 minutes. Directed by Peter Jackson. Produced by Peter Jackson,
Barrie M. Osborne, Fran Walsh. Written by Phillipa Boyens, Peter Jackson,
Fran Walsh; based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. Starring Elijah Wood, Ian
McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Dominic
Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Miranda Otto, Bernard Hill, Andy Serkis, John Noble,
Liv Tyler.
Gollum was a hobbit, and then he took hold of
the ring, and its power made it feel so precious that he let his soul and
skin wither away for that one overriding obsession. He sometimes looks at
his reflection in pools of water, and his good side talks to his bad, and
the bad side always takes over. He dreams of getting the ring back, he flashes
a chilling eager smile. He relishes his evil desire. It is his loneliest
place, but so be it -- nothing but this can wish away his
hunger.
In his voice there is such anguish, longing, need.
It is determined past the point of emotion and into some other unknowable
place. Through it, we understand the power of the ring, the importance of
it and the feeling it causes, the hellish, painful, irresistible glory. The
voice-over performance of Andy Serkis could be described as just weirdo and
raspy on the surface, but it seems to incorporate a cauldron of feeling that
cannot be put into words.
"Lord of the Rings: The Return of the
King" opens with Gollum, and tells some of his backstory. We see
the first time he got his hands on the ring, we see the first friend he killed
to keep it with him. It's the first few minutes of the movie, and I'm on
the brink of tears; it's making me start to feel this series like
never I have before. I liked the first two parts, but I've not been one of
the fanboys. "Fellowship of the Ring" was ambitious as the opening of a saga,
but it was better at flashiness than communication, and I thought its first
hour was too cutesy and dopey to make us care about the Hobbits and their
shire. "The Two Towers" was engaging as a spectacle, but damned if I could
tell what the hell was going on.
And now, in "Return of the King", I can feel the
weight of the world. Not only is this movie better than the other two, it's
as if the other two did not need to be made: Through them all, everyone has
been rushing around battling for thrones or trying to get the ring, while
Sam and Frodo have been travelling to Mordor to throw it in a pit of fire,
but ultimately this journey has been about the endgame, and now that we're
here, we get a shattering sense of all that is at stake. A lot of my complaints
are made irrelevant: Yeah, it feels like the movie is rushing around characters
without getting to know them. Elijah Wood has a melodramatic look of sad
eyes, and Sean Astin seems feeble and desperate as his sidekick. Everything
is solemn and portentous to the point of being over-the-top. And all of this
is appropriate -- nothing is being set up any more, it's a three-and-a-half-hour
last stand.
There is the noble leadership of Aragorn and Gandalf,
shown in the strong, straightforward performances of Viggo Mortensen and
Ian McKellen. There is Pippin (Billy Boyd), who I've always thought of as
a silly comic side character, but now has to make complicated judgements,
and demonstrate selfless courage. There is the sad personal descent of Denethor
(John Noble), who was supposed to guard Aragorn's throne, but now goes crazy
as he weeps for his dead son, and throws away his other duties and insists
on keeping the kingdom, despite his better judgement and the fact that this
is no time for squabbling.
There is a lot more, of course, and no, I couldn't
follow it all. I still have problems with the movie -- I wasn't always quite
sure what armies were fighting who or why, and with scene after scene feeling
important and emphasised, we get drained, and our full attention can sort
of drift. I don't think it matters: It's clear that the ring is about to
be destroyed, Sam and Frodo are shattered by their journey, Gollum poses
devastating threats, and meanwhile evil armies have to be defended against
and Aragorn must claim his title. It feels less like a movie about mythical
politics, funny names and convoluted fantasy history than one about intense
decisions at the eleventh hour; it's involving for the general emotional
sweep. Even the ending at the shire got to me; at the beginning of "Fellowship",
it was cloying, but after the violent intensity of the journeys in "Towers"
and "King", one gets the feeling that this place of solace really is some
kind of heaven, and these characters deserve its fluffy peace.
For all their imperfections, their lack of clarity,
their occasional pomposity, their moments where the dialogue sounds like
Bible text being read backwards, these movies represent some kind of masterful
achievement for Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and all the rest. People have gone
too gaga over the style; the movies look gorgeous, but they're less a
mythological landmark in themselves than a good way of capturing our collective
unconscious of what fantastical dwarves-and-swords-and-sorcerers-like
Medieval-type mythology should look like. But, but, but… that is hard
to do. Hard to do as professionally as this, anyway. It's been exaggerated,
but it is beautiful craftsmanship, a trilogy of such commanding scope that
Jackson has managed to get mass audiences to sit and fall in love with a
series of multi-hour epics that they don't even fully understand. In "Return
of the King" I didn't just notice and appreciate it, I felt it rattling me.
When it works, it works about as well as movies can.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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