Les Possédés

The director's strong personality emanates from each shot of the film and he knows how to choose his actors well and explain to them what he expects from them. The camera work, editing, and especially the music deserve praise. Likewise, the length is fully justified considering the scope of the book it is based on. I have no problem with Andrzej Wajda and I don't think it's possible to make a better adaptation of Dostoevsky's "The Possessed." Perhaps the director could have distanced himself a bit from the source material and made his characters more relatable and accessible to today's audience. The problem lies in the novel itself, where Dostoevsky deals with his demons from the past. It can be a bit intellectually verbose, and some dialogues seem unbelievable and overly dramatic, but above all, the character of Peter is too negative, and even though it corresponds to the book, I don't fully believe in the extent of his cynical openness. Villains usually don't call themselves villains. Overall impression: 75%. (11/07/2008)