Pirates Of The Caribbean - At World’s End

Depp-reciating Returns

Pirates Of The Caribbean
At World’s End
USA 2007 Directed by Gore Verbinski
Disney Blu Ray Zone B

Wow... this is not a good movie. I’m kinda surprised this one got the box office it did after the second movie was not so great. You’d think it would be a case of once bitten, twice shy but, then again, in order to get good box office, Hollywood relies on repeat viewings of a film from the same audience... I just can’t imagine anyone wanting to watch this thing again after they’ve just had to sit through the interminably long (almost three hours) running time of Pirates Of The Caribbean - At Worlds End.

To be fair, there are one or two good moments in this but they all seem to be front loaded within the first half an hour. The film opens strongly with what can only be described as a musical number set to a hanging. The song a little boy sings before he is executed with various other pirates is a nice opening set piece from Hans Zimmer and it’s quite striking but, the reason for the song and the comments made by onlookers makes absolutely no sense and it’s only briefly touched upon later in the most vague and confusing way. In other words, it’s a completely pointless scene which, honestly, works very well as such but, for some reason, the filmmakers try to justify its inclusion into the narrative space of the film (you wouldn’t catch someone like Fellini trying to rationalise what he wanted to do like this) and this kind of dilutes the effectiveness of the scene to some extent. Throwing in a sense of logic where none is required (film is art and art doesn’t have to mirror reality, people!).

This is followed by another strong sequence of stealth followed by action as the various pirate crew members from the last movie team up with the newly resurrected Captain Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush) and go to Singapore, to the stronghold of infamous pirate villain Sao Feng (played by Asian superstar Chow Yun-Fat) to retrieve a map to a place in the afterlife. This is a pretty promising sequence which, maybe, loses something on home video but I remember it being quite a spectacle at the cinema. And then we get some assorted plot snippets thrown into the mix as Keira Knightley’s Elisabeth Swann and Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner, plus assorted regulars, go off to find Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow in order to bring him back from his own, personal space in Hell.

And, surprisingly, this is where this film suddenly falls flat. I find it ironic that the original, classic Pirates Of The Caribbean movie (reviewed here) only came alive once Johnny Depp made his memorable entrance but this time around, the whole first half an hour of the movie, which is Depp-less, is the strongest part of the film. Things really begin to flag by the time Jack Sparrow is introduced... in a curiously surreal but bewilderingly boring sequence with multiple versions of the character occupying the same space. I don’t know why the film never really recovers from here on out but I understand the script was still incomplete when filming commenced on this one so, yeah, maybe not the most ideal conditions to make a piece of movie art under, for sure.

Once again there are strange creatures at large (most of them seen in the last film, as the Flying Dutchman and its crew return to add drama to the proceedings) and big set pieces with cannons and crossed swords but, without really having any good filler for the calm moments to allow contrast and highlight the ferocity of the action sequences (not to mention the confusing editing in these scenes) the whole swashbuckling yarn seems a bit bland and... well... less swashing and more ‘let’s all go and have a sleep on the sofa until this monstrosity of a movie passes by’ it seemed to me.

The one ray of light in this film comes in the form of Hans Zimmer’s excellent score. Using the same musical language of the previous installments we have some cracking tunes that, while ultimately failing to break through the lethargy of the finished product, does at least support this bloated behemoth appropriately and, to boot, is an enjoyable stand alone listen away from the movie. Of special note, asides from the opening song (which is curiously truncated on the CD soundtrack) we have a stand out piece of score which Zimmer excerpts in his live concerts for the scene where Jack gets everyone to topple his ship upside down, called Up Is Down on the accompanying soundtrack album. It’s moments like this which, at least, had me tapping my feet along to the music while I tried to find something visually interesting on the director’s canvass.

And there you have it. An extremely short review for a movie that, as far as I’m concerned, joins its sequels in proving that the original film was a bit of a fluke in terms of being a truly great movie (although I also liked Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger, against all the odds, which I reviewed here). Honestly, though, I can’t really recommend any of these films to a movie lover barring the first one and, by this third go round, it really did seem like all involved were flogging a dead sea turtle, truth be told.

Isabella, Duchessa Dei Diavoli (aka Ms. Stiletto)

Blade In Full 

Isabella, Duchessa Dei Diavoli (aka Ms. Stiletto)
1969 Italy/ West Germany
Directed by Bruno Corbucci
WFF Productions DVD Region 0

A quick word to the wise: By a bizarre coincidence, the same day I had planned to watch this film, I discovered that there was also a so called “full version” of it posted on YouTube. I was surprised at this due to the nature and content of some of the scenes depicted on the back of the box and, sure enough, when I had a quick look at the YouTube version, it’s been censorially butchered by as much as ten minutes, with many sexy sequences gone, giving the film a completely different and, somewhat tame, feel. So my advice is... don’t watch the stupid version on You Tube and try to source a copy from somewhere else if you want to see this one. Oh... and I guess there’s kind of a spoiler in this review but, honestly, it’s not that kind of movie.

Well this is a bit of a fun romp!

Directed by Sergio Corbucci’s brother Bruno... Isabella, Duchessa Dei Diavoli is based on one of the first of the adult themed, erotic fumettis (Italian comics, not fotonovels... which is an English bastardisation of the term) from 1966 and onwards by Sandro Angiolini. Set in 17th Century France (think Dumas’ Musketeer kinda times), it tells of a young girl’s survival after seeing her family castle stormed and her parents and friends butchered, which all takes place in cracking pace before the swirling, “of their time”, psychedelic opening credits. The film then jumps to a grown up Isabella (played by the lovely Brigitte Skay) who has been living with her “new” family, a bunch of gypsies, by whom she has been trained, since that fateful day, to be able to handle herself in a fair fight. We know this much because the introduction of our fully grown protagonist shows Isabella beating her friend in a contest which involves her throwing two knives simultaneously and splitting apples with them... which have been propped up on the horns of an animal skull. All good stuff.

However, when nobility comes knocking, she leaves her new, good, honest, thieving family and starts living with her peers... using herself as bait to lure out the various assassins who have been sent to finish the job from all those years ago.

And that’s about it as far as the plot goes. The film is foremost an exploitation movie which is intent on giving you lots of sex, action, broad comedy and heaps of unnecessary but mostly appreciated nudity. Which, frankly, I am assuming reflects the original comic book rather well... can’t say for sure since I’ve never read an issue of this one but the film is suitably lurid enough to capture the essence of similar products I have read.

For example, Isabella tends to wear her swordfighting clothes (typical “three musketeers” style costuming) with quite a few of the top half buttons undone, which means her cute bosoms are threatening to burst out at every shot, of course. This means that shots of her running up and down castle ramparts and engaging in what can only be described as energetic swordfights with lots of lunging and thrusting, are all made even more spectacular by the anticipation of a costume malfunction at any moment and, being as this is a film which is happy to cater for popular tastes, her costume does exactly that on more than one occasion... with things popping out at opportune occasions.

The direction and camerawork are all quite beautiful and Bruno Corbucci obviously has as fine an eye for "the elegant shot" as his brother. Lots of shots are taken from low angles, which I found most interesting, and the screen does tend to get split up into vertical rectangles on occasions in terms of the placement of people against foreground or background objects.

The style of some of the camerawork is of particular note in that many times we will be moving around and following a character or group of characters with a handheld camera but, then, the shot will suddenly stop moving and we will find that we have been lead to a place where we can observe a static and nicely composed composition as the characters go into the shot and we are left behind observing. It’s a curious way of filming things but it works quite well and we are given the impression of following along and being lead to some observation point where we can step back and take a breather. Cracking stuff.

The handheld camera also comes into play during most of the sword fights, where we tend to get right in on the action with a few of the characters while the battle rages around us out of shot, before we cut to an establishing shot after each set of ferocious engagements.

Some of the dialogue writing is laughable and maybe that’s quite faithful, coming from a comic, but I similarly enjoyed it immensely. Some of the throwaway lines, such as when Isabella first parts ways with her makeshift family and says "I'll write you a letter as soon as I learn how.", were quite telling in terms of filling in the characters and their varied skill sets. And of course, amongst ripping lines of dialogue such as "The idea that she is still alive is anathema to me." and the nonsensical but wonderful "Don't worry child. We have secret medicines to revive the dead.", we are also reminded of the exploitational quality of the film at every turn, such as with the following exchange between the German bad guy Baron Von Nutter and a lady acquaintance which goes thusly...

Baron: "I assure you my dear, among the German nobility, the greatest art is the art of love."
Lady friend: "Your younger brother is altogether too artistic."

Just how much of an exploitational romp is this movie?

Well some of the wonderful, stand out moments in the film includes the following: a lesbian bath scene that turns into a murder attempt, the aforementioned swordfighting with Isabella’s breasts threatening to pop out of her shirt at every sword thrust which leads to a scene near the end where she gets into topless swordplay, a bizarre contest to sexually stimulate a man into moving for reward or penalty, a woman fresh out of her bath barrel wrestling a man naked in spilt flour, an aphrodisiac cream which, when rubbed into Isabellas bottom, produces white hot passion and desire in her and, of course, the obligatory topless whipping scene which seems to be a staple of eurotrash films dating from around this kind of period (honestly... not... complaining... here).

The film then resolves itself with a bizarre, extended love scene between Isabella and her leading man in slow motion just before a final scene where the wrong man is publicly beheaded, allowing the now “masked villain” Baron Von Nutter to escape and live for another film... a film which sadly, to this day, goes unmade. I say sadly because, seriously, I’d love to have seen a sequel to this one.

I hadn’t even heard of this movie before I picked it up from a stall at one of the major UK film fairs earlier this year but, as far as exploitation films go, it’s certainly one of the more entertaining and elegant breed of the species which I’ve had the pleasure to watch and I have to admit to thoroughly enjoying this one. A 500 piece limited edition of the score from the film was released, again coincidentally, on the day I watched this... so I’m looking forward to sampling Sante Maria Romitelli’s lush tones away from the movie and I just hope enough interest becomes apparent at some point for a proper, commercial release of this film sometime with a good looking transfer so I can see it under better conditions. One of the stronger of the comic book movies made in the 1960s as far as I’m concerned and I’d definitely recommend it to anybody who is interested in a little nudity mixed in with their swordplay. And with the gorgeous Brigitte Skay playing Isabella... well... she can swash my buckle anytime.