The Magus (1968)
5/10
the project that was clearly dead even before the cameras began to roll
2 May 2017
This looks so good. Majorca, in the main, standing in for Greece. And it should have been good. The novel was a rite of passage for those of a certain age and this little picture is what we get. Pretty picture, pretty poor. I thought watching this and seeing nothing, not only not make sense, but not even be involving. Surely the director has some vision here because surely Fowles in adapting his own novel, will have some vision. But, no the more it goes on, the more it goes on. Poor Michael Caine looks lost wandering through this bland and meaningless landscape of pretentiousness. He is lost, as are we and the suspicions I had as I watched aghast was that maybe nobody knew what was going on or what they were doing. The plentiful extras supplied with the Blu-ray confirm this with the contribution of the director's son who apparently got to help with the filming, particularly helpful. Majorca was beautiful and largely unspoilt but nobody least of all Fowles seemed to know what they were doing there. So sad because we have a very pretty Anna Karina and Candice Bergen falling over themselves to look silly as Anthony Quinn prattles on, seemingly the only one who has any belief in the project that was clearly dead even before the cameras began to roll.
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