The Fourth Voyage of Sinbad
Posted by David N. Guy | June 3, 2010 | Comments Off
Production year: 2010
Country: US
Language: English
Cert (UK): 18
Runtime: 162 mins
Director: Ted Vaaaak
Cast: Naveen Andrews, Faye Dunaway, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Chelsea Charms, Maggie Cheung, Isabelle Huppert, Elina Löwensohn, Bridget Fonda, Uma Thurman
The first live action outing for the mythical Arabian hero in over 20 years, The Fourth Voyage of Sinbad is short on computer generated monsters and fantastical vistas, instead concentrating more on the psychological horror and the slow degradation of morality that a lifetime of adventuring can cause.
Taking Sinbad’s (Naveen Andrews in his first role since his split from wife Barbara Hershey) little known fourth voyage as the basis for its somewhat slight story, the opening scene, seemingly plagiarised directly from Pixar’s Up, follows the marriage of Sinbad to his childhood sweetheart, and her eventual untimely death. In a stunningly claustrophobic funeral scene, Sinbad is imprisoned in the community’s communal tomb with the decomposing body of his wife. As the stone doors closed above him and the screen descended into darkness my breathing stopped entirely for almost a complete minute. The utter silence in the cinema suggested my colleagues were all similarly afflicted.
Slowly succumbing to hunger in the darkness, plagued by troubling visions, Sinbad must confront the very things that make a man a hero and reconfigure them around him. When the corpse of another village member is thrown into the pit along with his beautiful wife (Maggie Cheung), desperation forces Sinbad’s hands around her neck and his teeth to eat her flesh. From here things only descend into greater depravity.
Over the course of this film’s extensive running time an increasing number of widows are thrown in to the pit with him. Will Sinbad be able to maintain his single minded devotion to his task for long enough to build a ladder form their corpse and escape, or will his humanity re-exert itself before he can reach salvation?
Director Ted Vaaak has spoken of his wish to show that Hollywood still has a place for women and their talents, regardless of their age. With roles for some of cinema’s greatest female talents, this powerful near-masterpiece, with its extended metaphoric uncertainty and its uncomfortable eroticism, will hopefully be the box office success that will prove him correct.
Peter Bradshaw is still away. We hope to bring him back soon.