It is not until a good few minutes into the film Coriolanus, when a character utters the unfamiliar word '"famish", that you remember that you are watching an adaptation of one of Shakespeare's plays, complete with Shakespearean English. Before that, the grainy images of civil unrest and the rolling news footage seemed firmly part of the 21st century, not the 17th.
Ralph Fiennes, in his first film as director, keeps the gritty, modern and indeed violent feel throughout the film. The action of Coriolanus is set in an Eastern European country (filmed in Serbia), but some of the images could easily have come from any urban conflict of the past.decade, right up to the Arab Spring and even the London riots. The use of shaky (sometimes very shaky) hand-held cameras and the ubiquitous sight of people trying to capture events on their mobile phones, grounds Coriolanus in an atmosphere of aggressive confusion.
The Plot of Coriolanus
Ralph Fiennes plays Caius Martius Coriolanus, a brilliant but brutal Roman general who refuses to hide his contempt for the common people. His arch enemy is Tullus Aufidius, leader of the Volscian people, whose territory lies close to Rome.
After defeating the Volsces once again at the battle of Corioles (for which he is granted the surname Coriolanus), Caius Martius expects to be a shoo-in for consul, the equivalent of Prime Minister. However, populist politicians persuade the common people to reject him and banish him from Rome, because of his contempt for them. Furious at having his service to Rome disregarded, but unable to sweet-talk the people because of his principles (his main 'principle' being extreme arrogance), Coriolanus instead turns to Tullus Aufidius and suggests that they attack Rome together. Aufidius is delighted to accept.
Understanding the Events
Coriolanus isn't one of Shakespeare's better known plays, and the language is difficult to understand. Even for people who are used to Shakespeare, the dialogue goes so fast that at times it is difficult to grasp even the gist.
The clever and effective way that Fiennes gets around this problem is by having new reports with headlines and updates, and political pundits talking about the characters' actions. In a stroke of brilliance, the newsreader who guides the viewer through the events is real-life newsreader Jon Snow.
In-between the rapid action of the graphic, bloody battles and the confusing political wrangling, Fiennes has added moments of stillness. These moments deepen the characters and relationships, such as when Coriolanus' wife walks in on his mother bandaging his wounds, a moment of greater intimacy than any her husband shares with her. Or they allow the viewer to catch up with the significance of events, letting the film draw breath. Some of the best moments in the film are these dialogue-free pauses.
Power, Ambition and Envy
Coriolanus is really a film about relationships, and especially about power. The power of Coriolanus' mother over this hard man is quite startling, and disturbing,considering how cheaply she values his life.
Coriolanus has power in war but his ambition to hold political office is thwarted by the people's lack of love for him. Aufidius, on the other hand, is well-loved by his people, but had lost every battle against Coriolanus. The two men are enemies, but they are also explicitly envious of one another, which makes for a fascinating relationship when they find their interests suddenly align.
Tullus Aufidius' line, "Our virtues lie in the interpretation of the time", is the key to the whole story, as the characters weigh themselves and each other up, and come to very different conclusions. It's a line that brings the film into focus for our time, too, and justifies the present-day setting. How we will later reinterpret the virtue of the many recent conflicts we have been involved in, which Coriolanus references, is something we can now only guess at - and hope.
Coriolanus is released in the UK on 20th January 2012, certificate 15.
