Hamnet
„To be or not to be“ never once before have I understood and felt those words more (not even reading Hamlet)
An drama that does not apply to its genre whatsoever. Drama in Hamnet is not used in an narrative and loud but in an realistic and quiet way. Everything from the characters to the visuals is not cinematic or theatrical it’s naturalistic.
Chloé Zhao shows that the human nature is not scripted, not build, not played but lived. And sometimes we ourselves don’t have control of how grief, happiness, sadness or joy come to us. In life there are moments where we have no control of how we feel or how something touches us.
This naturalistic display of human emotion is mirrored by the use of nature as an symbol for life and emotion.
Shakespeare and Agnes both have no control of how there loss affectes them or how they can portrait/communicate those feelings. They themselves don’t understand. This duality of feeling, which separates them, is broken by Shakespeares attempt to not only show the world but more importantly Agnes how he feels through „Hamlet“.
What I also loved visually about „Hamnet“ was just how realistic and rough it portrait the time period. Nothing felt out of place everything felt real and again naturalistic. As an little history nerd I ofc love it when time periods are displayed so well.
I can’t really name my Favorit actor as they all where on top of their game, Jacobi Jupe‘s and Olivia Lynes performances suprised me sooo much ( I mean how do you even find actors this young and this talented).
But I’ll have to say Jessie Buckleys performance and in general her role as Agnes were the emotional guidance trough this tragedy.
Because by putting Shakespeare into the „emotional-background“ Chloé Zhao manged to create an original narrative thread and mirror it with the already existing of „Hamlet“.
Personally watching „Hamnet“ this movie put me trough the message it conveyed. While I was watching it I was hit by different emotions and couldn’t tell why and I didn’t want to understand why, all I wanted was to feel and live those emotions.
And doing so I sure cried but not the loud and shocking tears you have with most drama but silent tears that came out without even knowing why.
Ps: on the nature of the daylight is the best film music ever created and leavers every scene it’s used in by an factor of atleast 100…