Film I don’t quite know were to begin. Now and then there are films that are so overwhelming, so able to consume my emotions that I’m scarcely able to comment beyond superlatives. The last time this happened was ‘The Matrix’ and before that ‘The Red Violin’. This is a film feeling as old as time itself, yet relevant and shiny new. Ancient, yet modern. If I even began to start a proper review I’d be here for days. So I won’t. I’ll leave you to see it and feel as dumb-struck as I do now. Believe me when I say this – in forty years your great-grand-kids are going to look up at up at you in amazement when you tell the story of the first time you saw ‘The Lord of the Rings’ that film they watch on digi-pic every Christmas. So treat it with the kind of occasion you afford a birth or a marriage. Yes, it’s that important.
If I had to select one aspect which makes me wonder if anyone else will bother making any other fantasy films now, it’s the scale. Such quest films, even featuring a group of characters who travel from one end of a land to another, are always rooted in a locale. ‘Conan’ had it’s deserts. ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ is mostly set in yes, dungeons. Even ‘Shrek’ finds himself lost in forests and fields. In ‘The Rings’ we gat all of these and many more. Instead of wondering why these people are still in same place even though they’ve walked a hundred miles, we get a sense that they have travelled. Whenever they take a rest we are happy to rest with them and feel just as annoyed as they are when they’re disturbed by some invading army or other horror.
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