Customer Reviews

Notes From Underground

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am so pleased this film is being released on DVD. I believe it is truly one of a kind, but it has unfortunately been ignored for the past several years, being very difficult to find. Gary Walkow has brilliantly adapted Dostoevsky's novel, remaining faithful to the author's original vision for his characters, but placing them in a contemporary setting which, we find, is not-so-very different from the society in which the original work was written.

The Underground Man (played masterfully by Henry Czerny) is one who has been effectively paralyzed by his own awareness and self-consciousness; human relations, for him, are painful acts of domination and submission in which love and compassion are unfamiliar, uncomfortable emotions. His life is entirely structured around the mechanisms that allow him to defend his ego from the barrage of attacks he sees others imposing upon him in his "underground" world. His shame in his miserable condition compels him to look for relief in a videotaped "confession"; he reveals the acts of which he is most ashamed and for which he feels the most haunting guilt to an invisible "audience". But still, he is aware of the potential inauthenticity of such a confession, as he cannot accept the notion that he must look to others for a compassionate response. Walkow and Czerny make a stunning team; in their version of Dostoevsky's Underground Man, we see a reflection of the alienating, paralyzing effects of a society structured on conformity and maintenance of obedience through fear and self-consciousness.

I have also found the website where you can read more about the film and the DVD, which is to be released on September 21. (Look for it here: www.notesfromundergroundmovie.com) The DVD looks like it is going to contain an audio-commentary by Joseph Frank, one of the foremost Dostoevsky scholars alive. Also, the website contains part of an excellent essay on Dostoevsky's novel and the film adaptation by Deborah Martinsen, professor of Slavic literature at Columbia. This site is really worth a look.

I was very surprised to see this in my video store. After I saw it, I was more surprised that it never reached theaters (at least not here) and never got any press. "Notes From Underground" remains faithful to the original text which is hard considering the first half of the novella is just one man's rants on paper.

"Notes From Underground" for those who don't know it is the story of "A sick man, a spiteful man" who spends his better days in solitude and reflects with bitter sarcasm and confrontal truth the past events in his life. From dinner with old school friends who hate him to his love-hate relationship with a prostitute. Many of the scenes as they were when I read the original book are hard to watch because of it's emotional honesty.

This film version takes the novella to today's world. Instead of writing down his notes, the main character tells his confessions to a camera. The set up reminds me of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. The film does a good job at being creataive but good and faithful to the text.

I would recommend reading Dostoyevsky's book first then see this movie because there are certain in the novella that cannot be done on the screen. Still I enjoyed this film and thought it well worth your time. Good job Gary Walkow.

When I first heard of an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground (Zapiski iz Pod Polya) to modern day US, I thought no way! But you have to see this. The true feel of Russian literature captured by amazing acting and a gripping adaptation. Strongly recommended if you like literature, film or thinking!

I was very disappointed by this film. As an avid Dostoyevsky admirer, I was hoping for a cerebral, much more thought provoking film. Instead, I was dealt with a film that felt liked dumbed down Dostoyevsky. The filmmakers should have known that a film like this would have had only a limited audience, and should have done a full blown Dostoyevsky adaptation, with all the despair and grief and joy that accompanies his novels and short stories. They played it way too safe. The ending of the film is rather pretentious as well. On the plus side, Henry Czerny is very good as the title character. He is an intense, brooding actor that fits in well with Dostoyevsky's machinations. Sheryl Lee is good as the prostitute who the underground man "saves", then abandons. The rest of the film has awkward fantasy sequences and bland performances. Read the novella instead.

This film version is an interesting update of the written story and would be good as a contrast/discussion point to Dostoyevsky's orginal written version. The narrator in the film lacks the urgent and powerful sense of alienation and angst that the literary narrator struggles with; however, the film narrator confronts his inner desperation in later scenes with other characters, although at some times he falls to just being an angry young man; in that sense, the film is uneven. However, it is interesting and somewhat logical for the director to choose to have him self-record and self-confess to the camera to reach a modern, visual audience.

Worthy reinterpretation of Dostoevsky's disturbing psychological portrait of where selfish-rationalism eventually leads. Perhaps a bit over-sexualized, but the point comes across nonetheless.

This movie explores the intricate mind of a building inspector (Henry Czerny) who has few friends and a sour disposition. He resents his circle of "friends" and feels that they only use him for their personal gain. He doesn't seem to attract women and eventually has an encouter with a prositute(Sheryl Lee) with whom he tries to help out. He is torn between his need for love and disgust for her profession; his feelings of isolation do not facilitate for a healthy relationship. This film takes a look at the darker sides of one's personality. Most can relate to this flim on one level or another....whether it be social dysfunction, isolation from the opposite sex, or simply feeling used by others. The movie is mulit-texutred with amusement, irony,and sadness. I highly recommend this film.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Nineteenth century novella "Notes from Underground" and the plot of this twenty first century movie carry identical messages. The movie is an eloquent cinematic adaptation of the novel that gives Dostoevsky's central character a new breath of life from the modern day perspective.

The movie attempts to survey the convoluted mind of a building inspector through a video-taped self confession. The psychological similarities between the character in Dostoevsky's novel and the building supervisor in the movie are uncanny. Both characters share a state of mind that is the epitome of a human condition where miserable anti hero attitude reigns through a heightened level consciousness and the rationality of everyday living through action is put to rest. The character in the movie who identifies himself as a "sick man, a spiteful man" lives his life in isolation by the drowning himself into the puddle of his own conflicting thoughts. He despises his friends and at the same time he seems eager to improve his relationship with them.

The character in the movie voluntarily creates unpleasant scenarios that trigger his eventual self demise. He often finds himself confined within the conflicting walls of his consciousness. He falls in love with a prostitute but at the same time he is utterly disgusted by her profession and tries to dominate her. By escalating the level of his thought process well above the habitual human awareness, the central character of the movie isolates himself from the crowd that Dostoevsky's narrator identifies as the "Men of Action". The building supervisor is paralyzed by the own consciousness just like the narrator in Dostoevsky's novel.

Dostoevsky's novel and the movie helps us realize that the collective standard of self-consciousness that the society forces us to adapt through a methodical process of uniformity and conformity, has a negative side effect that is strong enough to paralyze our lives and inflict a profound sense of alienation in our minds.

Mainly for men & I am a woman. Excellent acting.
Opened an avenue for me to examine my past relationships with men--how I was used-- but did not answer WHY. Thought-provoking DVD.
Gorky is relevant for today!

This is a real rarity--a cinematic adaptation of a literary work that is just as good as the original novella from which the film came. Filmmaker Gary Walkow (he co-wrote the screenplay, executive produced, and directed the film) has created a real gem in this brilliant translation of the best known short work by Dostoevsky into film.

The casting is pitch perfect. Henry Czerny--perhaps best known for his portrayal of the weaselly Fed in the Harrison Ford blockbuster Clear and Present Danger--is the right choice to play the underground man, someone who despises himself so much that almost every interaction he has with another human being is full of rancor, bitterness, cynicism, and/or outright loathing. Sheryl Lee is the prostitute whom he "befriends" and ultimately and violently rejects from his life. Jon Favreau is the pompous rich guy who humiliates the underground man and merely laughs when the latter tries to humiliate him back.

The alternation of present (shown, effectively, with a blue filter as the underground man video records himself) with the past (shown in full color--signifying time gone by including a fantasy of what could have been) is also extremely effective.

The extras included on the disk are superior. There are not one but two commentaries--one by Walkow and Czerny, and the other by Professor Joseph Frank of Princeton University. Professor Frank also provides a commentary independent of the film itself which is accompanied by stills from the film; this is an abridged version of the full-length commentary. There is also a full-length essay by Professor Deborah Martin of Columbia University, analyzing the film sequence by sequence.

This makes for a truly rewarding cinematic experience and one, I am sure, that is a good fit for university instruction in Dostoevsky. It's fitting, perhaps, that the last sequence of the film pulls back from the blue-lensed perspective of the underground man filming himself so that we see a group of students watching him on several monitors. This is a very clever cinematic trick by Walkow, but is not done just to be clever; it provides an insightful view of the theme of the work itself--egoism and how it traps us inside ourselves. By offering a view from outside, the filmmaker is indicating, perhaps, that we can view someone caught up in his own egoism and maybe learn from his experience.

On the other hand, it could mean that since here we are, students--and by extension, viewers at home--watching the underground man rant about his own shortcomings--we're essentially caught in the same egoistic trap he's in. The difference is--he rants about it. We just sit and watch him.

Highly recommended.