Puccini - Tosca DVD

Advantages: Profound period drama with wonderful cinematography and soundtrack
Disadvantages: Dubbed singing voices. Little dialogue.

...The Man who Cried is a rather strange film which despite a number of shortcomings still managed to captivate me - I loved it! The film, made in 2000 and released on DVD in 2003, is a period drama with music intergral to its plot. As the title suggests, there is an emotional storyline however the title is a little misleading. There are two prominent male characters, both of whom do cry. But the film is in fact about a young girl, Fegel aka Suzie (who also cries) a Russian Jew deprived of her identity, her family and her culture with a talent for singing and her epic journey to rediscover herself and her roots. The film opens with Fegel, as a wide-eyed engaging child, happily playing hide and seek with her devoted father in a Jewish farming village in 1927 Russia. 5-year-old Claudia Lander-Duke, plays the young Fegel, with an awesome... Read review

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Advantages: Massenet's music; lively, earthy staging, wonderful costumes, wigs; evocative lighting; melodramatic intensity.
Disadvantages: Villazón's overwrought acting, constant forte/fortissimo; Dessay's vocal flaring at the top.

..., but his opponent Guillot accuses him of cheating, and summons the police, who arrest both Des Grieux and Manon. Des Grieux is bailed out by his father, while Manon is about to be sent away to New France via the port of Le Havre. Des Grieux, with Lescaut's help and some bribery, rescues Manon from the soldiers' grip, and the two sing their heartrending final scene together. In the end, Manon dies in the arms of her lover, delirious with happiness at recovering his love, while Des Grieux weeps inconsolably at her side. The end. Incidentally, Giacomo Puccini also wrote his own version of the opera, called 'Manon Lescaut' (with the final scene set in Louisiana, USA), although I'm less enamoured of his music than Massenet's. BEAUTIFULLY REALISED, LIVELY, EARTHY PRODUCTION, STAGING I really like the clever way in which time and place... Read review

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Advantages: everythign
Disadvantages: nothing

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