Bathory (2008) Reviews

• A visual experience that takes its time

  l-vrtis2008-07-16

  Fields stained with Turkish blood. Villages and witches burned. High castles and deep catacombs. Bleak life full of vivid imagination. Such is the world Bathory, The Bloody Lady of Cachtice. Elizabeth Bathory lets you see the film through the eyes of a mother, lover and ruler rather than the legendary serial killer. Throughout the film she strives to protect her children, love and land while ignoring her tainted reputation. The intrigues escalate. Blood is spilled. And a false myth is born. Although there is a complex epic plot, the film feels more like a series of still pictures. There is a lot of symbolism and the plot slows down so that you can fully enjoy it. Apart from the story, the Bathory also takes some time to explain how myths are created and abused to serve one’s needs. The acting is outstanding but does not stand out as much as the Hungarian costumes that make the film look fresh. Unfortunately the movie is significantly flawed by repetitive comic relief in which two monks use various inventions to spy on the countess. They seem to have come from another movie and make you question the taste of the writers. Should there be a version without those comedians a 9/10 rating would be appropriate.

• Damn you, Redbox!

  JoeB1312012-09-05

  Redbox got rights to this 2008 reject from Czech TV, and melted it down into a 3 hour movie that they tried to pass off with a horror sub-title, "Countess of Blood". Instead, what you get is a Hungarian History lesson that is about as clear as Goolash. They take the notorious Blood Countess of Hungary, Erzabet Bathory, who was one of the influences for Dracula, and actually try to spin her in a positive light (Namely, that if she was brutal at all, she was brutal for the time she lived in.) A tighter, shorter movie would have worked better, without the unneeded characters like the two monks who come up with wacky steam-punk inventions. I think the movie looks great and puts you in that time period pretty well... and it quickly touches on the politics of feudal Austria-Hungary. But it's really just too long and unfocused.

• Messy Screenplay, Fine Art Direction

  claudio_carvalho2010-04-10

  "Bathory" is a long film divided in three Parts (Ferenc, Darvulia and Thurzo) based on the story and legend of an Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory that lived in the Upper Hungary Sixteenth Century in the period of the Turkish invasion and got the fame of bathing in blood of virgin maids to keep her beauty. The art direction and the music score are classy and wonderful and the lead actress is very beautiful despite the weird wig she wears. Unfortunately after 141 minutes running time I am not sure whether she was an innocent victim of a conspiracy, bathing on herbs to remain beautiful; or whether she was a criminal logged in the Guinness Book as the remark in the very end since the messy and never clear screenplay shows her as an ambiguous character. In some moments she seems to be sadistic and in other moments she seems to be very pure. The subplots with the Italian painter and the two spy-monks are quite unnecessary and ridiculous. In the end, director Juraj Jakubisko wastes a great budget and a story with a good potential with a confused tale of greed and treason. My vote is four. Title (Brazil): "Condessa de Sangue" ("Countess of Blood")

• So much potential, but a crushing disappointment

  rick-4632009-07-01

  If you are a fan of the Bathory legend, Gothic period films or Anna Friel, this is worth a watch, mostly for Anna Friel's performance and the high quality technical aspects of the film (the cinematography, set design and costume design are fantastic and help the film come off as quite epic at times). I also really liked the twist on the Bathory tale, which I wont describe here to avoid spoilers but I will say it may be the best thing to come from the film. There were times I truly enjoyed watching Bathory and was enthralled by the story. But having said all these nice things and recommending a watch for certain people, I cannot emphasize enough how dreadful this film was. The dialog was horrible, many of the actors in important roles come off as amateur at best, and the worst crime here is the addition of the monks as poorly conceived vehicles for exposition and totally unnecessary comic relief. This element of the film is so terribly bad and inappropriate that whoever introduced it into this film needs to never, ever be involved in making another movie again because they are clearly incompetent. That may sound over the top, but I cannot stress enough how much it hurt this film. I saw the need for exposition, but it could have been done in a myriad of more appropriate ways, and the comic aspects were so completely out of place here it killed any mood the film created. It truly helped ruin what could have been a fantastic movie. That is the most obvious example of what makes Bathory so disappointing - seeing the potential of what could have been great constantly squandered by bad film making. They made a world class epic film with excellent technical work, a great re-imagining of the Bathory legend and a good performance by Ms. Friel, but regularly sabotaged it. The entire time I watched it the thought running through my mind was "It could have been so good!", so it was quite a frustrating experience. I gave Bathory a 4 which I think is fair. To explain - on one hand it may deserve a bit higher rating, but on the other hand I was originally going to give it a 2 or 3 simply because when the film was at it's best you see it could have been an 8 - 10 but they just kept ruining it. I went higher because I felt a score that low wouldn't give enough credit to the people who did a very good job in an otherwise bad film but anything over a 4 would be rewarding the incompetence as well. What a missed opportunity.

• Highly enjoyable and Mesmerising

  midnightsilvered-rose2011-06-09

  The great thing about this film is it's unique style, which has great flair, very like the best of Ken Russell. It doesn't try to be blandly mainstream, the director is too talented for that, he has too much vision to fit in with the prosaic , boring and anodyne rot usually filling our screens. This film entertains with gusto, flair, beauty and horror. One may quibble with any film and look for faults, but this film is fascinating and compelling, suitable for anyone interested in the drama of the life of Erzsebet Bathory. One soon comes to see through the eyes of the lead characters, their brutal and beautiful world lives and breathes again, shockingly, before our eyes. Erzsabet's story is told in a such a colourful, dynamic and thoroughly gripping way, that certainly had me looking forward to seeing more, like asking for a second helping of a surprisingly delicious pudding, I relished what I found to be so enjoyable after having heard such bad reviews. Erzsabet's life and times were brutal and this is shown graphically but not too eye wateringly. The performances are highly entertaining and extremely powerful especially the characters of Erzsabet, Caravaggio and Thurzo. Some have quibbled about the English accents of the actors but actually I thought Ezsabet's Hungarian accent rather convincing, the chill of steel to the edge of her voice. It is a very accessible story, so who would be so daft as to require the actors to speak Hungarian and so lose half the audience, who are either too dense or lazy to read subtitles. Frankly a ridiculous quibble, one does not notice anything but how fine the performances truly are. Visually stunning and beautiful, the script gives us a thumpingly good story and altogether it is a mesmerising piece of cinema. It is so powerful that twenty four hours after watching, it still haunts me and I look forward to seeing more from this director and creative team. I feel I've discovered, at last, a piece of English language cinema that isn't formulaic, that isn't dull and predictable, that isn't the same old same old, that isn't like every other pleasant enough but unimaginative 'product,' here is something unique and artistically brave and exciting. Altogether I think one would have to be in a very sour and unforgiving mood to find fault. If you want to be entertained and why else watch, everyone should enjoy this unfairly maligned but unusually fascinating film.