Jane Eyre

As a viewer and reader who has always somehow avoided Jane Eyre, I couldn't have chosen a better version for our first meeting. However, this satisfied realization was born quite heavily. After half an hour of the main heroine's suffering almost in the style of Oliver Twist, I was shaking my head at the dysfunctionality of the events on the screen and the contradictory atmosphere that wouldn't let me properly engage in the story. But as soon as Michael Fassbender enters, the 19th century image takes on completely different colors. Whether it's the colorful reflections of twisted romance and captivating small dialogues or the darker shades in suggestive scenes of the castle's mystery. And when I reached the point and the perfectly fitting ending, I felt relieved. The heart's melody plays loudly enough, Fassbender slowly conquers the wide Hollywood scene, and there is a new (and very resonating) piece of complex historical romance in the world. (04/08/2011)

A triumph of classicism, filmmaking and romantic proprieties. If I didn't know the actors, I'd have trouble dating the movie. Anyway, it's because of the actors and some wonderful romanticizing compositions that Jane Eyre is worth it. I'm just a little sorry that Fukunaga didn't keep it for his retirement and boldly did not go back to where he left off with Sin Nombre. (28/07/2011)

Why "only" three stars? The problem is with the actors, specifically the central couple. I didn't believe in Michael Fassbender's Rochester one bit. I don't know, maybe he's too much of a "pretty boy" for the role, maybe it's something else, but he wasn't nearly as cold and inhuman as I imagined him to be and as portrayed in the book, and I got the impression he got the role mainly because of his current popularity and not based on any casting. I kept thinking about Ralph Fiennes and what he did in The Duchess. That's kind of how I imagine Rochester. And then there's Mia Wasikowska - she's suitable for the role of Jana and plays it well, but I don't think she and the aforementioned M.F. go together at all and I felt minimal (no) emotion from their scenes together. That’s really too bad. Otherwise, the film is well shot, especially the "preconceived" camera makes beautiful pictures, but it didn't save me from boredom. Even Dario Marianelli didn't do much this time. (05/02/2012)

- I dream. - Awaken then. Jane Eyre is a mature synthesis of two “women’s genres”: melodrama and gothic horror. The narrative complies with the intentions of feminist discourse, taking into account the numerous restrictions that 19th-century women had to overcome, while not hyperbolising them to such an extent that the film would become another hopeless story of female suffering. The protagonist is self-confident and conscious of her abilities, and her calm dialogues with her “master” do not correspond to the traditionally depicted relationship between superiority and subordination. Cautiously being in love without fully giving herself over to her partner blunts the sentimental edges of the melodramatic level and makes it impossible to watch Jane Eyre as a straightforward tear-jerker. Fukunaga’s adaptation uses the classic novel to pose topical questions without doggedly striving for modernity in any other aspects of the film – cinematography, production design, the characters’ vocabulary. In other words, the film’s creators interpret the original novel as people instructed by developments in thinking about the social position of women, and as such logically project into it what Brontë could only consider to be a utopia in her time. Thanks to that, the film achieves an extraordinary balance between the modern and the classic. 85% (01/08/2016)

An exquisite Victorian romance, perfectly in tune with the current formal and aesthetic trends of modern filmmaking. Raw cinematography, zero pathos and spare dialogue passages, where everything is focused on editing, the actors' facial expressions and overwhelmingly unspoken emotions. Very modern yet period-accurate and full of the traditional values we love so much in these tales of fate from yesteryear. You'd almost want to say that these cinematic affairs were left in the dust somewhere in the late nineties, but thankfully that's not true, they're still around today, they're just far fewer and of a good quality. (08/09/2015)