A good movie

It has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely check it out again at some point. To be honest, I haven’t read the book this movie was based on but it sounds pretty good and maybe I will check it out at some point. Anyway, back in those days, Jean-Jacques Annaud was definitely one of the best French directors at work and certainly the only one who managed to have such a successful international career. Indeed, 5 years before, he had made the amazing ‘La guerre du feu’ and, now, he was coming back with another ambitious international production. Basically, the whole thing was a well made but still rather straightforward thriller but what made it really stand out was its interesting setting. Indeed, not only was it taking place in the Middle-Ages but also in an isolated abbey and, thanks to Annaud’s solid directing, this odd mix actually did work fine. Eventually, 20 years later, Hollywood launched another massive thriller, ‘The Da Vinci Code’, also with some religious undertones but it didn’t work very well. It worked here because Annaud managed to keep the scale as low as possible and even though you still could spot some Hollywood gimmicks, those were kept to the mininum. To conclude, even though I don’t think it is really a masterpiece, it is still a really original thriller and it is definitely worth a look.

7/10