There is a lot of talking in this film, as you might anticipate from the title, the pretentious trailer, and the leading man. For better or worse, John Malkovich dominates the film. There is barely a scene in which he is not philosophising and using 100 words to say what could have been captured just as easily in a single sentence. You might call it “Mansplaining, The Movie”. If you like listening to men drone on and on about what interests them and few other people, this may be your film.
Seneca, the film, aspires to be a not entirely serious look at the Roman Empire, poised on self-destruction. But do we really need another film like that, after we have already reached the Platonic ideal of this concept with Carry on Cleo? There are many high-faluting sentences uttered here, but none is able to capture the times with one tenth of the panache as “Infamy, Infamy. They’ve all got it infamy.”
And here’s the problem. For all its pretensions towards light-heartedness, this is a film which takes itself way too seriously. In several scenes we see people in anachronistic dress, or with overhead power cables in the background. In the end, Rome is metaphorically buried with JCB tractors. It’s all a joke of course, and I know that it’s all a joke, as it spends so much time giving us stage winks and nudging us in the ribs to make sure that we get the fairly laboured joke.
There are those who get excited at the idea of John Malkovich chewing the scenery, and, to be honest, for a few minutes at the end of Being John Malkovich it was kinda fun. Extending this to nearly 2 hours does get a bit wearisome. Most of the film consists of Malkovich earnestly demoting to the back row of the audience, and looking a little too pleased with himself. This might be a comedy, but where are the jokes?
When Seneca, the film, stops trying too hard to impress us, there are some memorable scenes, not least during the suicide pact where Seneca’s cohorts find it difficult to open any of his wizened veins while Paulina’s white dress becomes increasingly crimson. Saying the scene is memorable doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s good – this depends on how you react to the way in which Seneca is too vainglorious to even notice his wife’s demise.
All of this can be justified by making Seneca the butt of the joke – he is obviously a self-obsessed popinjay who is too interested in hearing the sound of his own voice, and whom we should find ridiculous. Well yes, but – and not for the first time when considering the film – I just found myself asking “what’s the point?” The humour is just not cutting enough, and if there are and hidden life lessons, they are buried beneath a stack of self-regard.
This is a film which reminds me of the worst works by Joseph Beuys, an artist who many love but I find largely insufferable. It seems to be saying “I am saying something deep and profound, but you are obviously too dumb to know what it is. So come and ask me about my modest brilliance”. I do not trust any work of art which tries to impress us by being cleverer than it things we are. It might be, it might not, but honestly, what’s the point?
Having said this, the film looks astounding and is spectacularly shot. There has obviously been a great deal of thought and effort put into the backlighting, scenery and costumes. While I don’t think that this excuses a lacklustre plot it at least means that if you stop listening to the verbiage and look at the pretty pictures, your time won’t be fully wasted. I can anticipate an audience who would love this sort of thing – it’s just a shame that I’m not really part of this audience.
CinePhil 