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[personal profile] xiphias
So,. the other day, [livejournal.com profile] temima and I saw the Beowulf movie, in IMAX 3-D.

I'm sure most of you have seen Hal Duncan's review of the movie, and, the thing is, while I cannot find a single thing to disagree with him about, I somehow feel that I enjoyed the movie more than he did.

See, here's the thing: in the movie, everything that, in the poem, somebody else also saw, Beowulf does, more-or-less. Oh, there are changes: Wiglaf, far from being a young warrior in his first battle when he faces the dragon, is Beowulf's oldest friend and comrade-in-arms -- the very first time we see Beowulf, he and Wiglaf are talking. And the battle against the dragon is entirely different. When fighting Grendel, Beowulf manages to wrap a big ol' chain around the monster's arm, and get it around a post, giving him the leverage he needs to rip off the arm, but he DOES rip off the arm and it IS a superhuman feat of strength.

But, the things which nobody but Beowulf sees? Those may be entirely different . . .

Beowulf is always in the company of other warriors, except once -- when he goes in to fight Grendel's mother. So, who's to say that his account is accurate? And that whole bit of the movie is the bit which most people seem to hate most, but which, to me, works the best.

The movie uses the source material of Beowulf to tell a different story than the poem. The movie creates a story from which the poem could have possibly been created -- but it's not the same story. The idea is that the poem is the story that Beowulf is letting people believe -- but it's not, entirely, the true story.

And I find that kind of subversion a lot of fun.
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