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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Intelligent Adaptation, March 8, 2003
This review is from: Victory (DVD)
Victory (the novel) is hardly one of Conrad's masterpieces, and is his most melodramatic piece of fiction. These melodramatic elements lend themselves very well, however, when it comes to translating Conrad to film (which hasn't been done very well to this stage, apart from Coppola's loose adaptation of Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now). Director Mark Peploe, a sometime collaborator with Bernardo Bertolluci, has fashioned a script that comes close to the spirit of Conrad's novel. The changes that have been made have to do with the book's ending, yet they don't hinder the artistic flow of the film in any manner.
The story is a classic good vs. evil allegory, with Heyst (Willem Dafoe) representing a fallen Adam trying to make his way back to paradise. Just for reinforcement of the concept, Heyst's father stares down in glaring disapproval from a painting Heyst has had delivered from his old digs in San Francisco. He's now living in a paradisical setting (the Javanese vistas the camera captures are beautiful indeed), yet is living in isolation. His loneliness is cured when he rescues a young, French violinist playing in a travelling all-female orchestra which is performing at Herr Schomberg's hotel. Schomberg, who hates Heyst, is in the process of purchasing Lena (who we learn is actually named Alma) from San Giacimo, the oily impresario who conducts the orchestra and who, along with his iron-fisted wife, has absolute control over the female orchestra members. After Heyst has rescued Alma and hidden her away on his island retreat, Schomberg receives a trio of unwelcome guests at his hotel. These are the Satanic duo of the mysterious Mr. Jones and his "secretary," Ricardo. A swarthy henchman named Pedro also acts a criminal aide-de-camp to Ricardo. In order to get rid of the trio and to exact his revenge on Heyst, Schomberg tells them that Heyst has swindled a former partner and had him killed, and that he then cashed in a huge insurance policy, the proceeds of which Heyst has secreted away somewhere on his island. In the meantime, Heyst, who had been a reluctant benfactor at first, has fallen in love with Alma, who appears to have fallen for him as well. Suddenly, the trio appear at Heyst's dock in an open boat, and they look to have suffered from water deprivation and exposure. Heyst is suspicious of them from the outset, but acts the samaritan and gives them food, drink and shelter. Plot description beyond this stage would involve spoilers. This movie is extremely well directed and well cast. Dafoe fits the bill for the Conradian westerner isolating himself in the far east. Sam Neil captures the "please allow me to introduce myself" quality of Jones and Sewell is a perfect Ricardo. Irene Jacob, who slept-walked like Lady Macbeth in her role of Desdemona in the 1995 Othello, is a convincing Alma. Ho Yi, Simon Callow, and Jean Yanne as Schomberg round out an excellent ensemble. Yet the major credit goes to Peploe for an intelligent script and assured direction. It's not easy adapting psychological novelists to the screen, which is why there are so few efforts at it. Nostromo, Conrad's masterpiece, for instance, reads almost like cinema, yet it hasn't been atttempted in a screen version, save for a rather weak BBC television adaptation. The Peter O'Toole Lord Jim was nothing like the novel. This neglected version of Victory may not be perfect, but it's as close as a filmmaker has come thus far. BEK
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tell Tale Heart, September 27, 2008
This review is from: Victory (DVD)
Axel Heyst (here played by Dafoe), like many of Conrad's outcasts, is a wounded creature who has beaten a retreat from the mainstream of life. But even in the far-flung colonies, the imperial heart of darkness still beats.
Written in 1913, Victory went to press just as WWI erupted and so Conrad considered changing the title of the book so as not to mislead readers into thinking this was a war novel. But he opted to keep the title anyway. The title "victory" refers to the protagonist's victory not so much over historical circumstance (which can never be transcended) but despite the crushing effects of historical circumstances. Arguably, its not much of a victory at all. Its not a happy book by any stretch of the imagination, its a deeply philosophical book about man's alienation from himself. The dense impenetrable tropic setting, as always in Conrad, serves as a symbol of man's dark impenetrable heart. In this book that heart is especially dark and the densely philosophical prose damn near impenetrable.
Although Victory is considered to be the best of Conrad's late period, the achievements of his late period, interesting though they may be, are nowhere near as rich as those "victories" of his middle period ("Nigger of Narcissus," "Heart of Darkness," Lord Jim, Nostromo).
No matter how you approach it, Victory is an awkward novel. What makes it a particularly difficult read is that Conrad does not fully explain what shaped his main character until very late in the book which means that for much of the book Heyst is simply an angst-ridden enigma to us and to himself. The film is, for the most part, faithful to the book and so the film has the same strengths and weaknesses as the book. In Conrad existential brooding and inaction is usually tempered by (and momentarily assuaged by) moments of intense action. But the action all comes pretty late in Victory. Love is supposed to be a kind of clarifying force as well as a salvation from self, but this theme is weakened by Conrad's inability to create a female character. In Lord Jim the female that won the protaganist's heart was an island girl and freedom fighter, but since so much was going on the fact that she rarely spoke did not really seem to matter. Here, the love interest (Irene Jacob) is a European but since so little is going on for most of the novel, the weakness of this character is readily apparent. But whats strong here is very strong. Peploe captures the novel's brooding beauty and the villains (Sam Neill & Rufus Sewell) are top-notch. Arguably, most viewers will feel that too little happens too late, but for Conrad fans and fans of island and/or colonial narratives this is well worth your time.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Modest Drama of the Exotic Far East, October 2, 2009
This review is from: Victory (DVD)
This is a respectable adaptation of a Joseph Conrad tale which should provide a diverting experience for most.There is sufficient tension to drive your curiosity while there is a low-keyed romance to spice the relationship of the two lead characters. William Dafoe and Irčne Jacob are good as a loveless recluse and the woman with no hope whom he saves from the fate worth than death. This lends to their affair a proper romantic tone. Poor Sam Neill is forced almost to buffoonery to make something out of a poorly conceived character. Overall, this is a film with ambitions that the creative staff never quite were able to realize. Nevertheless one can recommend it to those looking for a satisfactory though not memorable evening.
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