I have never liked Hamlet. There must be some fundamental difference between men and women that makes men all shaken to the core by the thought of his father being murdered by his mother (yes I said that), who did so in collaboration with and then marrying a younger man, thereby destroying the fantasy of his own private omnipotent, infallible god. In order to exorcize this fear about his mother, he has to render his lover weak and powerless and, finally, dead.
It came as a shock and a delight that I was not alone in this sentiment. In Aki Kaurismaki's distinctive adaptation, Hamlet is portrayed as a psychopathic little shit. I won't spoil the ending, which is a real kicker.
Besides the beautiful and repressive black-and-white cinematography, the Aki-brand absurdities did not disappoint. The rubber duck joke is sure to stick in my mind forever. The duel between Hamlet and Lauri (Laertes) is incredible. The Finnish Polonius would never be as chatty as the English one, but his cigar more than makes up for the lack of words. His "neither a borrower nor a lender be" speech is revised to a more poignant truth --- Don't rush to repay your debt, because the lender may keel over first. And then there's the chicken. Also the first line "Ham! Let me." (What is it in Finnish though?)
True to the film noir tradition, Kaurismaki infused the movie with a sense of existential melancholy, in which the ending shots of a factory devoid of people goes perfectly with his critique of capitalism and Hamlet's last line in the play ("The rest is silence").
A few years ago I had a dream, in which I was watching a stage adaptation of Hamlet and realized that the most famous soliloquy was deleted. I joked with a friend of mine that such a production would have been the most appalling and impressive one. Guess what? Kaurismaki did just that.
It might not be the best Hamlet adaptation, but it's certainly my favorite.
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