After the media scope office was inundated with entries to our Junior Dublin Film Festival film-reviewing competition, there were no prizes for guessing the favourite recent movie of many of our readers - nor for figuring out that a certain play was on the Junior Cert last year. Two of our three big winners reviewed William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, as did roughly half the entrants. All three winners earned class tickets to a workshop at the Junior Dublin Film Festival, which started this week and runs until Friday, December 5th, at Dublin venues including the Irish Film Centre, Temple Bar, the Virgin Cinemas in Parnell Street, Bray Cineplex and the UCI cinemas in Tallaght, Coolock and Blanchardstown. Thanks to everyone who entered, and particularly to the enthusiastic classes at Davis College, Mallow, Co Cork, and St Mary's Diocesan School, Drogheda, Co Louth, who gave us plenty of excellent reading material!
Jessica Regan, Loreto Secondary School, Clonmel, Co Tipperary
FRIAR LAWRENCE the high priest of hip? Mercutio a drag queen? Has the Bard gone bonkers? No, it's gone Baz Luhrmann - for it is, an Australian director of marvellous vision who, with a Nineties approach, has breathed cinematic life into and set the screen alight with Shakespeare's tragedy.
From its bold prologue, the film blasts across the screen in an explosion of sound and colour. Despite transporting the play across a few centuries, the story remains the same: Romeo and Juliet fall hopelessly in love but are doomed from the word go.
The modifications include Verona becoming Verona Beach and the Montague boys sporting Hawaiian shirts and jeans. Sword is still the preferred weapon, only now it is the brand name of a handgun. But, English teachers, fear not: the text is almost completely retained, as is its tricky dialect - the innovative changes only enhance the film by making it 500-year-old writings applicable to our present-day lives.
The frenetic-paced editing never lets the inconsistencies of Shakespeare's flawed masterpiece become too apparent. The film is extraordinary in its technical brilliance, set pieces and design, but what saves it from becoming mere wallpaper are the performances - in particular, the leads. Iambic pentameter rolls off their tongues with the greatest of ease.
Claire Danes's sensitive portrayal of Juliet is not the simpering innocent of old, but a strong, decisive and heroic young woman determined to be master of her fate. Leonardo Di Caprio proves once again he is not just a pretty face but one of the most brilliant actors of this or any generation. In their scenes together they illuminate the screen with their chemistry and white-hot talent.
Sometimes the film is a little too selfaware of how darn clever it is; the many homages and in-jokes prove a distraction. However, the true spirit of the story, in which love cannot exist in a violent society, has never been so stunningly captured.
Hie thee hence to thy local video rental shop, now, and don't watch it, experience it.
Catherine Daly, Hartstown Community School, Clonsilla, Dublin
BAZ LUHRMANN'S breathtakingly original version of Romeo and Juliet is the most powerful and suspenseful yet. It is the greatest love story ever told, but also the saddest love story of all.
The film is set in Verona Beach in modern times, where Romeo's heart is heavy. His unrequited love for Rosaline has changed his personality and made him deeply depressed. When he hears, on television, the news of a great party at the home of his family's greatest enemies, the Capulets, he decides to go along to see Rosaline. His witty, outgoing friend Mercutio gives him some drugs to cheer him up, but at the party he has a "bad trip" and so goes out to cool down. This is where he sees Juliet and they fall in love, oblivious to the fact that they have to face the obstacle of their feuding families. Luhrmann's alterations are wonderfully creative. The Capulet ball is the best scene, in my opinion, both exciting and humorous. The music really adds to the atmosphere and fun, especially Kim Mazelle's Young Hearts Run Free. The director makes one startling improvement to the text towards the end: for a few brief seconds, Luhrmann gives us a glimmer of hope that the tragedy may be averted, when Juliet begins to stir before Romeo takes the poison. But the Prologue's gloomy prediction is maintained and Romeo's anguish deepened because he dies knowing that Juliet is still alive. Leonardo Di Caprio is superb as Romeo. In the scene when Mercutio is killed by Tybalt, his expressions portray his hurt and guilt turning to hate and rage when he, in turn, slays Tybalt. Claire Danes is satisfactory as Juliet: in the opening scenes she is unconvincing, but in later scenes she seems more relaxed and confident. Overall, Luhrmann paints a weaker portrait of Juliet in contrast to the independent, headstrong and brave Juliet whom we admire in Shakespeare's text.
Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet is definitely a work of genius; it is unusual, bold and clever. He makes the language seem natural in a modern setting. The film is full of humour, suspense and romance. It is also full of Leonardo Di Caprio. What more could one want?
Conor Lavelle, St Patrick's Classical School, Navan, Co Meath
DUE TO seismic activity aided by a subway system and Hollywood's current appetite for natural disasters, a large volcano makes its presence felt in downtown LA, leaving Tommy Lee Jones the task of stopping a creeping flow of lava and eruptions in densely populated areas. Jones plays the man from the Office of Emergency Management, who finds himself away from his desk and in the thick of the action; Anne Heche plays the seismologist who fills us in on finer points of volcanic activity with the aid of her various gadgets. Nothing strange there, but what is unusual is that the actors are not, as is the case with most blockbusters, eclipsed by the special effects. The effects and computer images are brilliant in most cases, but the cast seem to be able to keep up and put in some excellent performances, not least from the unusual source of Jones.
We are used to seeing blockbusters during the summer, yet Volcano was released in September in the States and October here. It seems this quiet period before Christmas has finally been exploited, since Hollywood realised we don't just go the cinema when it's hot or when it's snowing.
At first sight, Volcano looks like the type of film where the trailer is better than the movie itself - Golden Eye is a good example - but it has something special that separates it from your average run-of-the-mill boxoffice smash. Sure, it has shameless corporate deals, excellent special effects, a hero who is a divorced father and saves his teenage daughter, a sickening and fairly laughable attempt at a moral about how a disaster brings us closer together (but why wait for a disaster?) and its over-explained details. Volcano, however, has a little bit more: some believable acting for one and some clever psychological tricks.
Volcano has the limits of an action movie - it won't appear as a classic in 30 years' time on The Last Picture Show - but if you look at it for what it is, Volcano is extremely entertaining and well worth seeing.
