Anton Chekov’s The Duel
Directed by: Dover Koshashvili
Written by: Mary Bing (screenplay), Anton Chekhov (book)
Starring: Andrew Scott, Fiona Glascott, Tobias Menzies and Michelle Fairley
Films of a certain nature achieve a literary quality; ones with a large cast of complex characters or with a sweeping narrative arc that transforms a main character to either a tragic or heroic end. Almost by default, a film like The Duel achieves this.
Clumsily titled with the novel’s original author at the beginning, Anton Chekov’s The Duel is a film rich with complex character motivations and difficult psychological questions. If you are one of the presumably few who would enjoy a movie that falls under the category “Darwinian melodrama,” then boy are you in for a treat. For the rest (and most) of you, sadly, there is not much here outside a sometimes-stirring philosophical musing set against gorgeous scenery.
CyniCritics 