The End of Alexander and the Ramones

What determines whether a film will bomb often has nothing at all to do with said film. Take for example Alexander. We’re not calling it film of the year, yet it’s far from a poorly written excuse for mythology like Troy.
Oliver Stone was somewhat of a counter culture hero after the blaze of such films as Platoon, Salvador and JFK, but that was over a decade ago and his last film, the hyperactive and under-appreciated Any Given Sunday came out five years ago. That’s like a century in Internet time.
Alexander is a brooding morass of ideas produced in exotic settings and featuring strong technical work in all departments in support of a stellar cast. The score by Vangelis was especially welcome. Many of the threads that weave through the film would seem relevant to today’s headlines: An obsession with one-world unity; multi-cultural marriage and political loyalty. Since Alexander makes repeated mention of Babylon the parallels to the current situation in Iraq require no second-guessing. Most rags pounded every ounce of sexual innuendo out of the impossibly handsome cast while the film was in pre-production and as such it’s doubtful they would devote the same amount of ink delineating, say, what is historically known about Alexander the Great’s sexual and political conquests.
Baz Lurhmann also has an Alexander project starring Leo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman (as his mom), fully scripted and scouted, presumably financed (The producer is Dino De Laurentiis.) that was pushed back to 2006. Maybe the heat was on with two competing Alexander projects, maybe Baz wanted to spend more time directing stage operas, more likely it’s the typical Hollywood way of spending money and time on dream projects that fail to materialize.
Alexander was a dream project for Stone and while there’s a banquet of food for thought the film seems to wash over you rather than blow you away. Despite battles scenes appropriately huge and executed with the precision of a Kurosawa film, Oliver Stone makes his best films when grounded in the politics of the modern day.
At the start of Alexander, Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins as an aged statesman who walks with a Yoda stride) recalls the life of Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell). Hopkins, basically acting as the narrator in scenes that bracket the movie, dictates his version of Alexander’s life to a scribe in the world’s first great library. Only at the end Ptolemy tells his listener to tear everything up for he has decided to rewrite history. He wants to leave out the part where he plots to kill Alexander and all that, ah, conspiracy stuff. Alexander died at age 32 and when he exited stage left he had conquered the known world.
Stone has also made documentaries on Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat in the last couple of years. He actually re-shot the Castro docu at the insistence of HBO (the producers) after Castro executed some rebels. How appropriate that Alexander makes an issue of changing facts for the sake of the historical record.
In Alexander, Stone directs in a classical yesteryear film mode. The titles blend Roman with Cyrillic alphabet. Stone chooses to play it straight here, dumping the flashy style he toyed with in films like U-Turn and NBK. Frankly, even director of photography Rodrigo Prieto, the cutting edge shooter of Amores Perros and 21 Grams, has never shot such graceful scenes. Only at the end does the film start to saturate its colors in the style of today’s filmmaking.
In this Babylonian era, Alexander’s view of sex can best be described as Aristotelean (Christopher Plummer) in nature and the God one prays to can depend on the type of prayer one evokes. That is to say that sometimes it can be a good thing to exclaim “By Dionysus!” or even “Great Zeus!” to really make a direct point.
Angelina Jolie as Alexander’s mother Olympias gets the best lines. Jolie can dominate a movie, and early on in Alexander she blasts forth with a primal release of emotion that sets the bar for the rest of the film. She also handles snakes throughout the whole affair, and at one point you realize that these slithering creatures are purring like kitty cats wrapped around her arms.
Farrell pulls off his part without a hitch in his skirt, but his shining moments are the ones filled with indecision and uncertainty. We can feel his confusion battling inside as he finally takes a wife (Rosario Dawson) from a conquered tribe despite his obvious affection for fellow officer Hephaistion (Jared Leto).
This dichotomy works for the film. Hollywood’s dichotomy is that they spend as much money and time promoting and slamming the high falutin as the umpteenth sequel to American Pie. If you prefer a film that requires no thought but provides a very enjoyable two hours of popcorn infused fun see National Treasure. It also plays with cultural myths but in a non-threatening way.