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Customer Reviews

A Film That Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Would Be Proud Of. Kenneth Branagh Has Triumphed Once Again.
Based on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's final opera, "Die Zauberflote," renowned actor-writer-director Kenneth Branagh's film is a visual wonder and a musical triumph in every sense of the words.Sadly, this beautiful movie is not available in Region 1, but it should be seen everywhere, and appreciated. For me, it off-sets the semi-disappointment I feel of his remake of "Sleuth." The acting, cinematography and everything else was top-notch. I highly recommend this movie, and would rate it PG for mild violence, both war-related and comic. I have a feeling that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would be proud of this film version of one of his most popular operas.

Wonderful reimagining
The art direction and cinematography are great. But what's really exciting is the emotional depth(lacking in the original fairy-tale libretto) that's added by reimagining the setting as the battlefields of World War I. The libretto is translated (perfectly appropriate for Mozart, who authorized both Italian and German versions of Marriage of Figaro), and the new English lyrics revitalize the story without straying too far from the original. I'm not sure this would be a good introduction to the opera, but if you know it already, each new twist is a delight.
The singing is lovely. It's not world-class opera quality, but it's more than adequate for what this is, which is a great movie rather than a visual record of a great performance.

Branagh's Magic Flute
This is not the first time that the Magic Flute is delivered as a film. It is almost impossible to forget the great rendition of this opera by Bergman in 1975. Although the spirit of Bergman is present in Branagh's version of Mozart's opera, Branagh is far much darker in his approach. I do not think that this is a film for people who really know about opera. Firstly it is considered almost an obscene practice in the opera world to change the language in which the opera was originally conceived by the composer (Bergman does it too). Secondly, although the orchestra is quite good, most of the singers have a hard time trying to sing their parts. Lyubov Petrova as the Queen of the Night and Tom Randle as Monostatos are the only exceptions in the whole cast. They are really good. Joseph Kaiser as Tamino gets better towards the end but his start is pretty bad. The rest of the cast migth be good for a Broadway's musical but Mozart is a complete different story. Amy Carson, in the extremely important role of Pamina, is probably the worse of the whole cast. She has a very small and unidimensional voice that cannot be enhanced even with the audio magics. René Pape as Sarastro has an extremely uneven and shallow voice that does not correspond with the role. Benjamin Jay Davis is completely forgettable as Papageno too. I have the feeling that with a better cast this film would have worked much better, at least for an opera aficionado audience. In these days of Eurotrash productions of classical operas in almost every european stage, I do not think I should criticize Branagh's rather traditional interpretation of the original libretto. Moreover, I really like his fresh approach to a very well known subject. Apart from some common places that could have been avoided I really enjoyed that aspect of the film. Although I am not a big fan of this director I have to admit that he usually puts the best of himself in his projects. You can easily feel in this film the love and trust of the director for what he is doing.