Quo vadis? (2001)

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Movie
Original title Quo vadis?
Country of production Poland
original language Polish
Publishing year 2001
length 170 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Jerzy Kawalerowicz
script Jerzy Kawalerowicz
production Mirosław Słowiński,
Jerzy Kajetan Frykowski
music Jan Kaczmarek
camera Andrzej Jaroszewicz
cut Cezary Grzesiuk
occupation

Quo vadis? is a Polish monumental and historical film from 2001 by Jerzy Kawalerowicz , based on the historical novel of the same name by Henryk Sienkiewicz . The film is a US $ 18 million co-production between Telewizja Polska , Kredyt Bank , HBO and the Kadr film studio .

At the center of the plot is the developing love of a Roman patrician for a Christian virgin from the Lygian people (area of ​​later Poland), who leads to internal conversion and baptism in the context of the cruel persecution of Christians under Emperor Nero .

Quo vadis? was proposed for the Oscar awards in 2002 as a Polish entry in the category Best Foreign Language Film , but was not nominated.

action

Rome, 64 AD: Lygia Kalina ( kalina , Polish snowball), king's daughter of the Lygians (area of ​​today's Poland ) is hostage in Rome and is targeted by the patrician Marcus Vinicius when he returns from Asia Minor. Vinicius is madly in love with Lygia and desperately wants her to be a concubine . On arrival at home, he asks his uncle Petronius , Chancellor of the Roman Empire, for support and introduces him to Lygia in the garden of Aulus Plautius (in the film the garden is shown as the Garden of Eden because of Lygia, the Christian virgin ). In conversation with Vinicius, Lygia silently draws a fish symbol in the ground, which Vinicius does not understand. He does not know that she is thereby identifying herself as a Christian . Since only the Roman emperor may decide on Roman hostages and he gave Lygia into Plautius' care, Petronius obtained from Emperor Nero that this Lygia gave away to Vinicius. With the greatest power and worldly authority, Vinicius returns to the Plautius house to pick up his concubine and rages when she can no longer be found there. Angry, he searches for her with the help of the charlatan Chilon Chilonides and discovers that Lygia is hiding with Ursus and the apostles Peter and Paul .

When Vinicius tried to kidnap Lygia head over heels during one night, he was seriously injured and so fell into the care of the Christians who, at Lygia’s request, would nurse him back to health. The true love of Christians transforms Vinicius. He learns that he cannot get lygia through power and violence, but only through sincere devotion, sincerity, and maintaining a pure heart. He repents and converts to Christianity.

On the night of July 19, 64 AD, Rome burns down and an uprising against the emperor breaks out. He accuses Christians of arson and orders cruel persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire . At the public spectacle of suffering in the Colosseum , he lets the lion throw them to eat, crucify them or burn them alive. Lygia now also faces this fate on the back of a bull. After Ursus has freed her and when the masses pardon Lygias life in the Colosseum, Vinicius flees with her from the Christian adversaries to Sicily. In a delusional state, Nero orders his friend Petronius to be murdered, because as Chancellor of the Coliseum he was the first to vote for Lygia and is now seen as a Christian in Rome. Having finally become insane, manipulated and completely overwhelmed, Emperor Nero soon has to flee from his powerful Praetorians himself and evades his responsibility by suicide in 68 AD.

publication

The German dubbing of the film appeared in 2010 in a drastically shortened version of the original miniseries, which showed less than half of the Polish TV version and was hardly known in Germany. MIG Film GmbH also released the film with a DVD cover that does not contain a single reference to Sienkiewicz's historical novel and suggests to the buyer that the film shows predominantly exciting, brutal and spectacular battle scenes from historical Roman battles. A new release of the German synchronization is planned for August 15, 2014 at Edel Germany , but under the title Nero, the tyrant of Rome .

criticism

The epic made Henryk Sienkiewicz a Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1905 . A Polish film adaptation was therefore “very close”. The result is a "great film with extensive filming and a cast of thousands of actors". kino.de spoke of "remarkable equipment, blatant kill scenes in the arena and good-looking, but not very charismatic leading actors". Cinema found that the “powerful, spiritually charged passages reveal the mastery of the old master despite a loveless, sometimes involuntarily funny synchronization”.

literature

  • Ruth Scodel, Anja Bettenworth: Whither Quo Vadis? Sienkiewicz's Novel in Film and Television . Wiley, New York 2008, ISBN 978-1-405-18385-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Version view of the new publication by Edel Germany . Online film database . Last accessed: July 28, 2014.
  2. ↑ a b Quo vadis? G + J Entertainment Media (kino.de), accessed on July 30, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: "A splendid film with elaborate sets and a cast of thousands ..."
  4. ↑ Quo Vadis? Cinema , accessed July 30, 2014 (referring to Jerzy Kawalerowicz).