El Cid (Two Disc Deluxe Edition) [Blu-ray]

Before this film the history of El Cid was virtually unknown outside Spain where he is a national hero.This, surely, was the film made for Charlton Heston as Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar (Vivar in the song or poem of the Cid). From his first scene shot to the last you get this sense of his great presence that other actors don’t seem to have. It was said that Charlton Heston was unhappy with the script that he was presented with and so did his own research into the character, in order get into the soul of the man he had to play in to eleventh century Spain. A true professional. The skill of all these actors have in an era before CGI is nothing short of superb. CGI of this era would have been painstakingly painted on each frame!The film itself draws mainly from the Poem of the Cid which is very long and from the Historia Roderici.From the opening scene in which we see Rodrigo clearing the cross of Christ of arrows at the end of a battle in which he captured four Muslim Emirs, and was asked to give them up for execution, but instead Rodrigo lets them go, after assurances, with one of the Emirs Lord Moutamin announcing ‘...in my culture a man with the wisdom and courage to do what you are about to do we call Al-sied’ (El Cid) we knew we were in for a real treat! A must see film! The sword fights and battle scenes are so well choreographed that you believe they are real. The atmosphere produced, at times, by the battle drumming and sheer numbers of the Moorish enemy is electric. In one scene The Cid fought off thirteen others in order to release their prisoner Alfonso to which Alfonso declares ‘...what kind of a man are you?’ but remember this man by this time is the Kings champion and history records him as having never lost a battle - unequalled across Europe at the time, and probably now. Now to the end battle and ‘...the gates of history into legend’ – well, I’m not going to spoil it for you, you will just have to see the film. However, history records that it might be, in part, true. Only Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops in Spain would know when they desecrated his (El Cid) tomb.This film truly is - the best epic ever screened!The only down side is that although it is on Blu-ray in wide screen format, unlike previous versions, it is a German import and auto starts the film in German. The way out is to press ‘disk menu’ button, or equivalent – this gets you to the main menu in German. There are three options choose the third (extreme right of screen) – then choose the second option (this looks like English) press OK. There is no acknowledgement – press back to main menu (still in German) – restart film. Now in English.

There is no doubt that this is a good film: the acting, the plot, and the themes are strong, the sets and props are wonderful. You can imagine you are in medieval Spain, with its jousts, wars with the Moors, and wily courtiers. It is also a good place to spark an interest in history, not because it is factual but in order to understand the truth behind the myth. It is a good portrait of a reluctant leader, thrust into greatness and growing into the role. Finally, the values in it - tolerance of diversity, seeking the truth, and doing the right thing regardless of the personal price that must be paid - are laudable and worth discussing.However, it lacks subtlety of character: the heros and those redeemed do not even seem all that human, when compared to, say, the personal struggle for faith by Ben Hur. Moreover, the dialogue is laden with platitudes - "honor", "God-given king", "glory", etc. - and is flat and utterly lacking in the poetry of language that it is the stuff of great writing. In short, instead of suspending my disbelief and becoming engrossed in the story, it seemed such a blatant product of "Hollywood", even though it was filmed in fascist Spain. When the glitz and highfalutin verbiage are brushed aside, this is a standard potboiler.The film seeks to create a myth about the Cid, a medieval knight who shows mercy to moslem forces and gains their loyalty. Based as it is largely on Racine's play, he kills his future father in law in a matter of honor and thereby is estranged from his fiancee until his pure heart and loyalty to what is right win her back over. In the meantime, as an exile he engages in civil war against a sleazy king and then against invading North Africans. As a martyr in the end, he transforms his ancient adversaries into better men and enshrines himself in legend. This largely works, but expecting anything beyond what is basically a romantic melodrama is too big a stretch for me.As a bluray, the images are spectacular. However, I found the sound too loud, particularly the blaring trumpets of the heavy musical score. The extras are also predominantly the publicist fluff one expects in these things, but there was an interesting documentary on the producer that is critical and honest; I learned that he was more or less a con man, unable to manage money or relationships, but capable of extraordinary networking, and indeed successful with this film, at least, which is rightly regarded as a classic epic. It does have one laughable extra feature, a kind of lecture by John Bevere, who is a fundamentalist spewing the crudest patriotism and twisting the values of the film to his "vision"; for example, he says he bars his kids from watching most PG films (I suppose like Home Alone) because they would teach them "to disrespect their parents", but thinks El Cid is his kinda film.Recommended as good fun. Just don't expect it to be art and leave your worldly cynicism behind.