Caesar Must Die

I saw this at the Palm Springs Film Festival and was blown away! As soon as the movie began, I could tell it was a movie that I should pay attention.

The plot is a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by a group of real-life prisoners in an Italian prison. I loved how the prisoners could relate to the play by seeing the parallels in their own lives--the power lust, deceit and betrayal. The more the prisoners understood the play, the more they became immersed in their roles.

There have been many attempts to make Shakespeare palatable to the modern audience. This was my favorite iteration because it showed the actors trying to understand it, just as an audience might try to find the relevance. As a high school student, I found Shakespeare and Roman History boring. It wasn't until I hit my 40s did I realize this history was more violent than the Sopranos.

I don't know if this movie has ever been widely released. I highly recommend seeing it if it ever comes to your town.

Perhaps its the beautiful rolling sound of the Italian dialogue telling the story of Julius Cesar that made this enjoyable at least to the auditory sense. Perhaps it was that the language was sometimes amended to be more modern and meaningful. Perhaps it was the explained parallels of some of the prisoners experiences that helped to make the context more understandable. No matter, it was a thoroughly great way to start the Sydney Film Festival. The fact that this was a script within a script set in a prison using some real life prisoners didn't detract from anything in this film for me - I go to the cinema generally looking for a story, a fabrication, an unreality dressed in reality. I liked the gritty black and white, the sub-line of the prison life and setting. Yes, perhaps a prisoner saying he now felt caged etc didn't have to be said because it was obvious, but all in all a very enjoyable watch. I was engaged and participating from beginning to end. For me, one of the better versions of Julius/Shakespeare and a nice twist on an old but everlasting story.

After attending the premiere of "Cesare Deve Morire", I was not so sure about the movie. It was a good movie, but somehow essayist, rather loose, not catchy. The outstanding performance of Salvatore Striano (Brutus) was striking and rewarded by the audience. The beautiful composition of black and white pictures was of high aesthetic value. It is a very calm movie, the music is nearly minimalistic.

So how come it had a huge impact on me - later? In contrast to most other movies I had seen in Berlin, it was important. Other movies dealt with existentialistic, superficially more important topics than with some prisoners rehearsing a Shakespeare play. Yet "Cesare Deve Morire" had more to say and thus it deserved the Golden Bear. The questions it poses are the same ones as in the Shakespeare play in interrelation with the real destiny of the imprisoned play actors. Even though it is not a particularly spectacular movie, it has the tenor of what makes a strong movie: Importance. The filmmaking is of minor importance, the idea is in the foreground, which is the right decision. The play continues in our minds after the final curtain. Impressive.

The concept is very original, giving criminal prisoners the opportunity to produce a Shakespearer play in prison, the plsy being "Julius Caesar", and each prisoner allowed to speak in his own dialect. The result is a very stylistic and primitive alternative Shakespeare, mainly shown by rehearsals, and especially Brutus makes a very good performance. The text is considerably mutilated, only the action scenes are mainly presented, and there is not one woman in the whole performance. Still, it's an interesting representation, like all the films of the brothers Taviani are, and the main credit is the original angle. Most of the film is in black and white, to which the colour sections present a great efficient contrast. The theatre performance turns into a tremendous success, in spite of some arguments among the prisoners.

Unable to snap up a ticket for this during Berlinale Film Festival (where it also won the grand prize), I've been itching to see Caesar Must Die (Cesare deve morire) for quite some time now. The latest from veteran Italian duo, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Padre Padrone, Kaos), it's a documentary-fiction hybrid observing the rehearsals and final performance of William Shakespeare's Roman masterpiece 'Julius Caesar'. What makes this movie noteworthy is it's idiosyncratic formalities: the play is being performed from Rome's high security Rebibbia Prison, and the players are it's incarcerated residents: an ensemble cast of murderers, drug dealers and thieves.

The brothers waste no time with needless exposition on the inmates' backstories or crimes. Instead, the pair focus, with brutal proximity, how these criminals connect with the words of "The Bard". Aside from the final, veracious performance, it's all shot in stylised black and white, as we see the production being set up, the rehearsals in the prison courtyard, and the delicate moments these wrongdoers spend behind cell bars. As is often the case with the Taviani's back-catalogue, there's moments filmed in tender close-ups; loading objects such as an empty chair or a wooden sword an implausible subtext.

That meta-narrative carries over to the inmates themselves, and ends up confusing us. Not only are they performers in the Shakespearean sense, it quickly becomes clear that they are being presented as poetical cyphers of their real life criminal selves. It's a shameful attempt at allegory – expressing how the elder words of Shakespeare relate to contemporary penal society, and in doing so removes any sense of empathy we would have otherwise had for the inmates.

Although the "play-within-a-film" gimmick is a good one, it's hardly original (Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York and Canadian filmmaker John Greyson's Lillies are both really worth a look). It's also not the best part of Caesar Must Die. With such astounding performances and beautiful adaptation of Shakespeare's words, one wishes that the Tatvianis abandoned the ostentatious stunts and luscious monochrome display, and instead focused plainly on documenting these ostracised people. An extraordinary, grotesque bunch, who find happiness, solidarity and hope in creative expression.

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