Spoonixel Amateur movie with Big budget

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

jbirks106 I don't think I have ever seen a movie quite as deliberately and aggressively depressing as "Under the Volcano." In fact, I can hardly even imagine a more unpleasant film. It should be required viewing at AA meetings, as the central character could almost be said to be the tequila and mescal that Geoffrey, the nominal lead, guzzles from beginning to end. There is no plot to this movie. But there is Albert Finney, and that's just enough. It is a performance that saves "Under the Volcano" from director John Huston's almost sadistically morose tale. If there has ever been a better celluloid depiction of raging alcoholism, I haven't seen it. Finney is by turns funny, morbid, loving and spiteful. Did I mention that he drinks? Yes, he drinks. He drinks in bars, at home, at bullfights and even on carnival rides. His drinking isn't excessive, it's superhuman. Joining Finney in Mexico is his estranged wife, Yvonne, played by Jacqueline Bisset. Hers is an even more incomprehensible character: bright, beautiful and seemingly sane, Yvonne returns to Mexico in hopes of salvaging a marriage that I for one can't believe ever took place. There is no chemistry between Finney and Bisset. The other principal character, Geoffrey's half-brother Hugh, has also just arrived in Mexico from Spain, where he claims to have fought in the civil war. He and Yvonne had an affair once, but it's clear that neither intends on rekindling it for fear of sending Geoffrey even further into besotted self-pity and self-loathing. Bisset and Anthony Andrews, who plays Hugh, are fine actors, but their characters are preposterous and superfluous. Geoffrey doesn't deserve either of their affection, and the harder they try, the harder he resists.I am not a fan of the "feel good" movies of redemption that so often fill theaters these days. But "Under the Volcano" is the ultimate "feel bad" film. If not for Finney's truly amazing performance, I wouldn't recommend this film to friend or foe. But Finney takes one of the hoariest clichés in cinema and inhabits it convincingly, refreshingly, heart-breakingly. Because of him, you will not easily forget "Under the Volcano," however much you wish you could.

ennyman "The novel explores the Consul's past and present, relates his private doom to the tragic fatalism of the Mexican scene…" ~ Stephen Spender Under the Volcano was a novel written by critically acclaimed Malcolm Lowry. The book eventually became a film starring Albert Finney and Jacqueline Bisset, directed by critically acclaimed John Huston. Both the film and the book failed to reach a wider public despite the brash, braying praise of critics.Like Lowry, I lived in Mexico for a time, from fall 1980 till late 1981. During that time we traveled to a number of places including two trips to Cuernavaca. I loved Cuernavaca, the city where this story primarily occurs, the Land of Eternal Springtime where Cortez established his winter palace. Like Lowry and the tragic hero of his novel I, too, was present in Tepotzlan on a holy day when the dark-faced peasants in loose white clothes and wide hats brought out Christ and the Virgin from the shadows of monasteries, parading, holding high large displays and brightly colored pillars, burned incense, celebrating intently the blended religion of the peoples.This story covers 24 hours in the life of an alcoholic, his last 24 hours, with his singular preoccupation on where he will get his next drink, simultaneously immersing the reader into his internal despondency, hopeless self-wreckage, introspection and hallucination. It is a tragic life culminating in a tragic end, perhaps intended to be the mirror of a forlorn culture shrouded in apparitions of death.I originally took an interest in the book because I'd read that it was supposedly structured like the Cabala, the chapters being a series of steps toward enlightenment. My first effort to read it in the late 80's left me flat, however, and I placed it back on the shelf for a couple years. I was not convinced that the effort would yield a sufficient reward. The second attempt ended about a fourth of the way through with the same frustration. A couple more years past, and upon beginning the story I was transported inward to the heart of the characters, the culture, and the bleak futility of the hero's quest.John Huston took this very complicated bundle of soiled images and attempted to iron it out into its essential story. The film, inadequate to the task, did capture the book's essence. There is no way it could capture the spinning surrealistic writing, compelling inner monologues, and painfulness of Lowry's heartfelt bloodletting.Malcolm Lowry wrote the first draft in Mexico while living in Cuernavaca in 1938. Director Huston does an outstanding job of giving the feel of Mexico during this time frame. And the film brings to life many vivid memories of our time there… Despite its shortcomings, I found myself still moved by the film. This is the second time I've watched it and this time I enjoyed the performances of Finney and Bisset, whom a few here have been especially critical of. Finney is nearly perfect throughout in his portrayal of a wrecked man. Bisset is equal to the task she must perform, confused, frightened, compassionate, pained.There are two scenes especially perfect. The one of Finney as Geoffrey Firmin searching desperately for a bottle, a search that leads him into the garden where he immerses himself in the object of his quest. This scene is a summing up of the man's lost life. And the last scene revealing that his own self-destruction hurts more than himself... hurts all who are around him.The weakness of the film for me was perhaps the feeling that it was put together by a nostalgic older director who could have done more with the music, the camera work, the edits. Great films often grab you from the opening images, credits and soundtrack. Despite what a few have written here, I found myself having to overlook what I considered a weak appetizer that insufficiently lured me into the depths of our hero's heart, mind, soul, struggle.Huston could have done more with the film, but did not. Perhaps it is because of the era. He did not feel it necessary? I can't say. The grandeur of his foreign setting is hollow. I cannot blame the actors for this. Finney was remarkable throughout, almost over the top. Bisset's broken heart shone through with clarity.It's a good film based on a rich, but difficult, book. If it is too depressing or too convoluted and enigmatic, you're under no obligation to finish either.If you find yourself stimulated by old Mexico, the companion documentary based on this film is wholly worthwhile. Watch the film first, though."Time is a fake healer anyhow. How can anyone presume to tell me about you? You cannot know the sadness of my life…. Alas, what has happened to the love and understanding we once had?" ~ Geoffrey Firmin, Under the Volcano

wvdc I have just received and watched the newly released PAL version of the DVD. The DVD comes with no context, just the movie and the option to select a chapter, no subtitles, no documentation, which is a bit disappointing. However, watching the movie again was a wonderful experience. I had seen Under the Volcano in the mid eighties without having read the book. I was impressed and it has been one of these films that somehow always stayed with me. I was particularly impressed by Finney's performance, who superbly plays an alcoholic and disillusioned British ex-consul.I agree with some points made by posters here that if you have read and appreciate the novel, the film can be a disappointment from a literary point of view. Adapting a literary master piece is quite a challenge, and there are only very few films that can actually match the original book. But the acting is so well that the movie can be appreciated entirely on itself, without knowing the book.

MisterWhiplash Under the Volcano could have made as just another 'Lost Weekend' film if not for the attention to a simple narrative (though one that has a lot underneath the surface), and a performance to compellingly take us through the unbalanced emotional state of its protagonist. From what I've read about what the novel became by this adaptation, Huston took out the big poetic bits that made it such an unclassifiable (and as many claimed unadaptable) work and made it into a tale of a man's downfall from grace and good times. The story is as such: Geoffrey Firmin (Finney) is a recently retired consul in Mexico who has that big, admirable personality that comes with those who have lived- or boasted to live- quite a life, and have taken now to mass consumptions of alcohol. It's not even about the enjoyment of it, but a compulsion for 'balance' to drink just to get sober, as it might be. He's also divorced, recently, but his wife (Bisset) comes to him again, wanting once more to patch things up.This is set in the backdrop of the 'Day of the Dead' festival, and on the brink of world war 2, but these things are, however brilliantly and as a kind of delicate lining around, a backdrop for the emotional and mental and, it should be noted, spiritual struggle of Firmin. Huston never preaches about this man's rotting addiction, and there's no easy sympathy either. We see his emotional state rock from happy and hopeful to the pits of despair following the bullfight his half-brother Hugh (Andrews) takes part in, where he can't basically grasp his own reality anymore. Underneath this surface of the film though, where we're given this proud, unstable character, there's chaos riling about, attached in a way to the mood around, with rumored Nazi collaborators in the midst of things, a near-murdered body on the side of the road, the matter-of-fact metaphors of the symbols of death that (as Huston makes in one of the most Gothic openings to a movie I've ever seen) opens the film with marionette skeletons to an eerie Alex North score.But lest to say that all credit should go to Huston for his storytelling. It's an interesting film for the first three quarters, though in a way feels like it has to be building for something; here and there, even as we're with these character wandering in a state of mind of disarray (will Firmin and Yvonne stay together, split apart, who will run away are the basic questions, as well as how Andrews might have something to do with it on either side), it starts to feel like it could become meandering. In that last quarter, however, Huston lays on a feeling of dread, maybe not entirely with coincidence, that hasn't been seen since Treasure of the Sierra Madre- something bad just HAS to happen, and it will come out through the worst devils of the protagonist's nature. There is that for Huston, the power of that brothel sequence, the terror and even the dark humor.The best reason above all else, even as it's one of Huston's most challenging films, is that Finney is so terrific in the role. It's a startling work of an actor taking down his guard, making himself vulnerable and naked, so to speak, to the discord booze has brought to his mind. He gets depth to a guy that should be just another Hemingway figure, of the sorrow that really lies in every little moment and gesture and inflection. It also goes without saying he's one of the top three or four convincing drinkers in modern film. And at the same time it's not easy to peg what he'll do next as an actor, which step he might cross or double-back on. While his co-stars are very good in their parts, he dares to overshadow them with a tour-de-force. Under the Volcano pits its character into hell, and Huston brings us, without going overboard with stylistic flourishes, right along with him.