We Few, We Happy Few: Kenneth Branagh’s The Magic Flute in Teeny Tiny US Theatrical Release

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We saw one of only eightNYC screenings of Kenneth Branagh’s film of The Magic Flute this week.  Emerging pictures has arranged an ultra limited 2 day single showing run at four locations in NYC and elsewhere around the country (including Des Moines, IA amazingly) and it will be available via various video on demand providers on Tuesday, June 11th.

Branagh’s Magic Flute independently financed by The Peter Moore Foundation was completed in 2006, played in a few festivals, was released overseas but received no US distribution.  Nor was there a US DVD or cable deal.  I found this strange in light of Branagh’s celebrity and even more so in light of his helming of the $180+ million domestic box office grossing Thor for Marvel in 2011 and his upcoming re-launch of the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan series for Paramount. 

The English libretto for Branagh’s Magic Flute film is written by writer, Oscar nominated actor, atheist, comedian, documentarian, gay rights activist and all around awesome person Stephen Fry.  Fry was recently named curator at ROP Deloitte Ignite festival this year.  Branagh’s Magic Flute also features Rene Pape as Sarastro and Lyubov Petrova as The Queen of the Night.  So what exactly is the problem with the movie that it could not get picked up for even a US cable deal?  US cable will play virtually anything.  (Turn on Cinemax at 230am if you don’t believe me.)  The Magic Flute must be terrible no?  But like Emanuel Schikaneder’s libretto things are not so simple.

Elizabeth- As the Magic Flute opens, we are in the middle of a battlefield.  Trenches and barbed wire surround fields as men climb out of trenches to attack the enemy.  So far so good.  I was excited at the prospect of a Magic Flute set in a certain period…but then they seemed to lose the thread, at least for me.

Nurses/angels come flying in to save Tamino and alternately flirt with him.  Confusing, as it didn’t clearly explain who these women were in the story for me.

Also, the way it was set up, I thought the whole movie was going to be a dream Tamino was having.  Especially given the surreal dream-like scenarios later in the movie with Papageno and his Technicolor fields and flirty bird girls.

I did like the bright white castle set which nicely contrasted with the dark battlefield, but still contained the drab colors of the battlefield, especially in the clothing of the refugees.  Inside the brightness of the castle we meet Rene Pape who was excellent.  His stage presence translates beautifully to film. 

Papageno plays too much the fool and goes in and out of a Southern drawl.   It was distracting to have singers with differing accents.

 

One of the main problems with the movie and any movie with opera or singing is that for some of the characters it was just too obvious that they were lip-syncing.  Opera singing takes a great deal of effort and some of the singers were clearly not singing (or at least not at the level that the music later came across as) when they filmed.  I’m thinking of the Queen of the Night. 

Film wise, some of the choices were odd.  During the Queen of the Night’s aria, it was neat to see her zipping around the sky, but that was the moment I wanted to really see her face, expression, singing.  Not later when we had a close up of just her mouth as we travelled across the land towards the castle.  Also, some of the special effects came across as cheap and ended up making the film look bad.  I would have cut them instead of using them to the detriment of the film overall.

I now see why more operas aren’t converted to film, though I do applaud Branagh for doing so.  Making operas into movies isn’t easy, but with the Met doing its HD broadcasts on TV and in theaters, I do think movies will eventually succeed.  And even with the miniscule promotion for this one-day showing, the theater had a surprising, if elderly, turnout.

Shawn-  The small older crowd in the Chelsea theatre needed help with the ticket printing machines.  The young usher, with “The Lone Ranger” printed on his red shirt, seemed to enjoy saying, “We’re not letting in for the opera yet.” As he said it at least four times in the exact same way.  It sounded both foreign and excited and may have been the first time the word opera had ever been on his lips.  That and the general enthusiasm of the older crowd waiting to get in got me excited as well.  I was still confused by the complex details of the distribution deal and lack of previous release in the US.  Especially as “From the director of Thor” is prominently listed at the top of The Magic Flute one sheet.  If the nearly half a billion dollar worldwide grosses of Thor were not enough to get the film even a DVD release in this country what could be wrong with it?

Nothing particularly, although I found it a very mixed bag.  The first third worked very well.  The use of tendrils of mustard gas to represent the snake was great, for example, and gave me great hope for the rest of the film.  But then the locations and set failed to expand to fully meet the, albeit bizarre, needs of the story.  The Trials of Water and Fire felt inflicted on the film as opposed to part of the narrative.  The 27-35 million dollar budget was supplied by The Peter Moore foundation but even at that none too shabby level the limitations of the budget can be felt.  The CGI feels especially flat.  Although CGI in an opera movie is a good innovation.  Magic Flute could lend itself especially to this.  The sets too are too static with the same ill defined castle interior used for a variety of sequences.  The locations and set feel too small, the CGI too large and flat.  They don’t gel. I did enjoy some aspects of the setting however.  The Queen of the Night’s first appearance riding a tank out of the fog, for example. 

And the majority of performances were strong.  Rene Pape particularly is striking both vocally and physically onscreen.  He could have a second career as a Bond villain I think.  Lyubov Petrova as the Queen of the Night has a harder time and is not served by Branagh’s extreme close ups of her mouth during the more difficult vocal passages.  I also found myself wondering why Branagh didn’t get Diana Damrau for the Queen of the Night, as she is the current reigning queen of the Queens.  

James Conlon and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe performed admirably and Conlon himself is said to have worked for over two years on the project.  But the real star of the show for me was Stephen Fry’s libretto.  Many critics in 2006 didn’t like it at all but it worked for me beautifully even with its incessant rhyming. 

Overall the film left me very interested in seeing the production sketches and behind the scenes material on the DVD release to perhaps get an idea of what could have been. 

–Elizabeth Frayer and Shawn E Milnes

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