Hidalgo

[aleathiel]

So I saw Hidalgo with cfeng

I realise I'm probably the last one to see it, but spoilers under the cut:




Before I start I want to remind you all that I love Viggo. I really do.

That said: Oh dear.

Perhaps my reaction to this film would be best summarised thus: Ouch ouch Viggo! ouch ouch Viggo! Horsey! Viggo! ouch ouch.

Okay, maybe that's a touch unfair. There were moments I liked. I thought that the use of light was very good although there were too many 'oh pretty sunset' shots. One would have been enough. The harsh light when Frank thought he was going to have to shoot Hidalgo was beautiful.

The end of the race was good. Aside from the fact that I adored the bareback riding, I did think that, even though I knew he'd win, the atmosphere and the playing on audience emotions for the closing few moments of the race was well done.

I'm glad he didn't get the girl because the ending was cheesy enough as it was. Okay, so the riding into the surf was actually quite pretty and I did smile at the guy with his hand made flag.

The very end, with the freeing of the wild horses? Well I spose seeing all the grassland was a nice artistic contrast with the sand dunes. And the freeing of Hidalgo? Maybe I can forgive the writer if only because it allowed us that one gorgeous shot of Frank in his hat with his eyes full of tears.

Yeah, I was amused by Hidalgo's jealousy whenever Frank was talking to a woman.

The scriptwriter should be shot: or at least exiled to outer Sibera with no computer, no typewriter, hell not even a pencil and paper. I firmly believe the two reasons they had so much use of other languages was because Viggo looks so gorgeous talking a language we don't understand (and how many of you thought "then I will die as one of them!" every time someone spoke to him in another language?) and also because the lines were so appallingly trite and cliche that no audience could have listened to them in English. Maybe they thought they'd get away with subtitles.

Which brings me to my second major complaint: the story itself. So you have this beautifully sympathetic portrayal of the Sioux - and I do think the massacre of Wounded Knee was done well - and then you have Frank's not very pleasant treatment of the slave boy and the goatherder?
ETA: CFeng thinks that is an unfair assessment. That Frank was nice to them. Maybe. I still don't think the arabs came very well out of the portrayal, but I will agree that it wasn't down to Frank's treatment so much as the filmmaker's. Considering Frank's comments about being equal and stuff.
Also I didn't think there was any need to have 'villains' in the story. Viggo tells it as a story about a man and his horse: so surely it should have been a story about survival? I realise that it wouldn't probably have sold so well without the whole sabotaging him plotline, but it felt a bit cheap to me.

Similarly, after Hidalgo was wounded there is no way he could have raced that speed at the end. If I'd written it I'd have had the point be that they finished the race at all, I'd have had Frank and Hidalgo arrive hours, if not days after the winner had raced to the end (although I did already admit I liked the close of the race). And I'd have had Frank walk Hidalgo across the finish line.

I thought the appealing to the ancestors was going to be worse than that. I knew he was going to sing 'Miyelo' and I was preparing to cringe. And okay I did, but at least they made it so that you could believe he was hallucinating because he was so close to death.

The gratuitous tying up Viggo? Yeah well I can see why they felt compelled to do that because I for one would have jumped him instantly. Which I suppose makes the fact that all the women threw themselves at him more realistic, but I didn't think it aided the plot much.

Oh, and the women? The whole relationship with Jazira was another reason the scriptwriter should be shot. Anyone writing those lines in fanfic would have been torn apart. And the Lady Whatever-her-face? I'd have had the scene where we discover she's in league with the raiders before the scene where you almost believe Frank will sleep with her. Simple complexity of plot surely, this way it was like "oh look he made the right decision because she's actually evil." Well done, Frank.(but then again I wouldn't have had the raiders at all so...)

Off the top of my head that's everything although I know there was far more while I was watching it. To be completely honest I'd rather have watched a simple two hours of Viggo and TJ. Who needs the rest of it?

I've heard Viggo talk about the film and I believe he was making a different film to the director and the producer. And he sure as hell wasn't on the same planet as the writer.
In an interview a while back Viggo said
"It comes down to the fact that you supply the blue, and they supply the other colors and mix them with your blue, and maybe there's some blue left in the painting and maybe there isn't. Maybe there wasn't supposed to be any there in the first place. So have some fun and make a good blue and walk away."

Well, Vig hon, there ain't much blue in 'Hidalgo'






I shall have nice Viggo-dreams tonight.

ETA2: As I've just been reminded: it's a Disney movie. I should get off my high horse and admit I enjoyed it, even though I didn't think it was a good film. And I did: after all how can you not enjoy a film where Viggo's on-screen so much?

Comments

[aleathiel.livejournal.com]

If you're willing to watch it purely because Viggo is on screen 95% of the time then it's fine. My review to my sister about whether she should go was: Pretty Viggo. Pretty Horse. Pity about the film.