Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Harry Lennix, Colm Feore, Osheen Jones
Director: Julie Taymor

From Peter Greenaway’s ‘Prospero’s Books’ to Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, there has been a rich tradition of loose interpretation in recent Shakespearian adaptations. New York avant garde theatre director Julie Taymor’s surreal take on ‘Titus Andronicus’, perhaps his least performed and least loved play, may prove to be one of the finest films we have had in the Shakespearian genre in some time.

The film opens with a young boy (Jones) at a kitchen table, growing increasingly manic as he gives up on dinner and squirts tomato sauce all over his toy soldiers. Suddenly, the window blasts in, flames rip through the house, and a hulk of a man dressed all in black runs through, grabs the boy, and heads out the front door… into a Roman coliseum. Marching by their thousands, in beautiful, robotic synchronicity, Roman soldiers are returning from war. One face, caked in mud, stands tall above the rest, and the boy goes to be near him. The great general Titus Andronicus (Hopkins) has returned from war against the Goths, glorious in victory. Accompanied by tanks, motorbikes and horses, he claims victory for Rome and has the queen of the Goths, Tamora (Lange) to prove it.

Taymor’s world is one in which coliseums and Pepsi cans exist side by side, truly a place of anytime. The young Goths may have a penchant for industrial music, but this is indeed an ancient time, and much of the action takes place in what now remains of once-grand Roman buildings. Although jarring for the first few minutes, it helps to create a truly unique space for Taymor to play our her vision of ‘Titus’, and as we wander through the story with the unspeaking boy, there are many delights to uncover.

This is without a doubt Shakespeare’s bloodiest play, obsessed as it is with amputation and body parts. As Titus returns from war, he must sacrifice one of his prisoners in celebration and devotion to Rome. Despite the tearful pleas of Tamora, he slays her eldest son before her eyes. As Tamora later plots revenge from within the ranks of Rome where she has become the wife of weaselly emperor Saturninus (Cumming), unspeakable horrors unfold. Along with her mischievous Moor lover, Aaron (Lennix), they hatch a plan to strip Titus of his children, and of his mind. Several rapes, murders and severed limbs later, Titus a broken man and his children a shadow of the people they once were. Avenging his own injustices, in what is probably Shakespeare’s most gruesome moment in all that he wrote, revenge is a dish best served piping hot, with a fine red to accompany.

Hopkins is of course wonderful as Titus, having no problems breezing through a role straight out of the Shakespearian top-shelf. This is no surprise, and Alan Cumming is also fine as the snivelling and selfish, although ultimately well-meaning, Saturninus. Unfortunately Lange delivers her lines as though she has no idea what they mean, in the finest tradition of year ten students everywhere. It’s not that hard to understand, kids.

Despite a few ill-advised surreal montage sequences, Taymor does a fine job of creating a visually inventive and in many ways innovative bit of Bard-work. ‘Titus’ was savaged on US release, by critics who had heard that it wasn’t a very good play to begin with, which is by no means true. ‘Titus Andronicus’ is Shakespeare at his darkest and most brutal, and certainly requires a strong stomach — Taymor does not shy away from the most gruesome aspects — and makes for compelling, fresh viewing.