The Bear Bitch’s Project

The story of Tristan & Yseult (my preferred spelling) has been my favorite of the Arthurian legends since high school so I was positively thrilled when I found out that a movie of it (Tristan + Isolde) was to be released in January of 2006. It was just a month away but the wait seemed like forever. Sadly, the movie was a bit of a flop so the theaters only screened it for what seemed like a week and it was gone before I was able to see it. My disappointment, to say the least, was acute.

The wait for the release of the DVD was torturous, but when I finally had it in my hands, I was suddenly hesitant. The movie was, after all, a box-office flop, and the reviews on Amazon aren’t that great (though I easily dismissed the contributors as ignorant fools who don’t know their classical literature). What if, after all that waiting, I didn’t like it?

With trepidation I slid the disc into the player and sat back.

So what did I think of it?

I must admit that I wasn’t too happy about the artistic liberties they took by changing the ending. < SPOILER ALERT >

In all the versions that I’ve read, both Tristan & Yseult die of a broken heart at the end. Well, Tristan is first wounded in battle, but then loses the will to live when he thinks that Yseult has not come to him (even though she has) and when she sees Tristan dead, Yseult too dies. In the movie, Tristan dies, simply, of the battle wound with Isolde by his side and she just disappears after burying him. That’s it. End of story.

Where’s the romance in that???

Just like Romeo & Juliet, perhaps even more so, losing the will to live because of the death of the lover is the essence of the story: it’s the whole point of it! Removing that turned the legend of Tristan & Isolde into your regular, run of the mill love story wherein it should be about an all consuming passion, a love so intertwined with the very lives of the couple that they’re indistinguishable. That love alone sustains them; gives them the strength to survive anything & everything. And because that love is so entwined with their life, the loss of it kills them. That, to me at least, is the soul of the legend of Tristan & Yseult. As Marianne says in Sense & Sensibility: “What could be more glorious than to die for love?”

But other than that, I quite enjoyed the movie. There was no miscasting, the scenery was breathtaking, the costumes looked authentic, and there weren’t too many cliché lines about love as there’s wont to be in any romantic movie. And of course there’s the fact that Tristan was played by cutie James Franco (the quarter, or so, of the movie with him shirtless is already well worth the $20 I shelled out for the DVD. Hee hee!). I’m certain that my opinion of the movie would be drastically different if an un-facially-blessed actor played that role and same thing goes for the role of Isolde. I mean, she is, after all, named “Yseult the Fair” to distinguish her from “Yseult of the White Hands”. It would be horrid if she wasn’t pretty.

So, my overall rating of the movie? I’d say 4 stars out of 5. Not the greatest movie the world has ever seen, but definitely in my personal top 10.