Alatriste (2006)

                I finally got to see one of my great white whales.  “Alatriste” (also known as “Alatriste:  The Spanish Musketeer”) is a Spanish film based on the literary character Captain Diego Alatriste.  He is the main character in an ongoing series of novels by Arturo Perez-Reverte.  the author began the series after being appalled that his daughter’s history textbook had very little about Spain during its Golden Age of the 16^th and 17^th Century.  That is surprising since that period was the last time Spain was a consequential power.  I would have thought those centuries would have gotten a lot of coverage and the textbook would have ended with them.  Perez-Reverte decided not to go with the other obvious choice – a conquistador.  Instead, Alatriste is a musketeer fighting in the Dutch War of Independence (or the Eighty Years’ War, as the movie calls it).  The movie was directed by Agustin Diaz Yanes.  Yanes and Perez-Reverte co-wrote the screenplay and they must have been told there would be no sequel because they included incidents from the first five novels in the series and foreshadowed events from future novels.  The movie was the second most expensive movie in Spanish cinema history.  It underperformed at the box office.

                “Alatriste” is set in the 17^th Century.  Spain is powerful.  King Philip IV rules a large empire that is supposed to include the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.  The Dutch have been in revolt since 1568.  Diego Alatriste is a Spanish soldier fighting in Flanders in 1622.  He and his men are wading in a river with their muskets over their heads.  Diego blows on his match occasionally to keep it glowing.  They are conducting a camisado which is a tactic involving a night attack on a hopefully sleepy enemy position.  In this case, they are attacking a fort to spike the cannons.  The ensuing melee is intense with stabbings and musket fire.  It’s a great opening.  Very atmospheric.  Who are these guys?  What are they fighting about?  It turns out that Diego is a mercenary/assassin/soldier.  And an adventurer and ladies’ man.  And he wears the coolest hat in war movie history.

                “Alatriste” follows several arcs.  Diego is a father-figure for young Inigo.  Their relationship evolves into that of comrades-in-arms.  Diego has a romantic relationship with an actress named Maria.  It’s a roller coaster ride.  Inigo has his own romance with a femme fatale named Angelica.  And there is something going on between Diego and a man in black.  Malatesta is a Sicilian hit man (like every other Sicilian male in cinema).  He and Diego remind of Tuco and Blondie in “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”.   Another arc gets Diego entangled in political machinations.  The Inquisition makes an appearance.  Diego and Malatesta are sent to assassinate the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Buckingham.  Diego is sometimes a pawn, but he’s a dashing hero.  Actually, he’s an anti-hero, but with a conscience.

                The movie is episodic.  As the arcs play out, we get set pieces like the siege of Breda and the Battle of Rocroi.  There is also an intense scene involving robbing gold from a ship.  The action is graphic.  The movie has more stabbing than a slasher film.   Breda and Rocroi are rare movie coverage of the Thirty Years’ War.  At Breda, Diego endures the rain and mud in the trenches (they had them back then!).  And snipers!  He and his men are sent into a tunnel that reminds of “The Great Escape” without the rollers.  You don’t see medieval-style mining much.  The movie finishes strong with Rocroi.  We get to see the Spanish tercio (similar to a Greek phalanx) in action.  Pikemen and musketeers, plus a dose of cavalry.  Diego and Inigo use swords, of course. 

                “Alatriste” is an epic.  It even has the Hans Zimmer type music.  The sets are grand and two scenes are staged to resemble Velasquez paintings.  Nice touch!  Velasquez is mentioned in the movie.  And one of the characters is the poet Francisco de Quevedo.  This cat deserves a biopic of his own.   Look him up.  Alatriste deserved his, too.  And Viggo Mortensen was perfectly cast as him.  He is outstanding as the war and political weary protagonist.  The rest of the cast is average and the facial hair will make you wish they had hired the make-up artist from “Gettysburg”.  In fact, a little more facial hair variety might have helped in identifying the characters.  The ones that I could identify by face were well-developed.  Malatesta, for instance, is intriguing.  It was hard to tell whether I was supposed to hiss every time he hit the screen.  The two lead females are not prim.

 

                “Alatriste” is slow moving at times and the action scenes are high quality, but low quantity.  The movie tries to cover too much ground.  At one point it jumps ten years.  Overall, Diego goes from a swashbuckling lothario to a grizzled geezer.  His hat wears better than he does.  You’d age too if you had to deal with the Inquisition and regular Spanish politics.  Those politics involve dueling, naturally.  The sword play is realistic, not showy.  Hell, Diego even loses one.  The wounds and deaths are appropriately gritty.  The two battle scenes give the history fan a taste of what 17^th Century warfare must have been like.  Where else are you going to see a rendition of the Battle of Rocroi?  That battle is recognized as one of the most important in history.  It marked the end of the dominance of the Spanish tercio and coincidentally the greatness of Spain.  While not a particularly accurate depiction, kudos for bringing it to the silver screen.

                The closest equivalent to “Alatriste” is “Barry Lyndon”.  Both are epics that mix sexual and political antics with a war scenario.  “Alatriste” is much better entertainment.  Both are too long, but it has some dynamic action scenes along with a more appealing main character.  Plus, Alatriste would kick Lyndon’s ass any day of the week.

GRADE  =  B+    

BATTLE OF ROCROI