Search - Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Movie Collection - Set 4 on DVD

Welcome home, Hercule!

Never the Twain | 05/27/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I thought about writing an inflammatory review to complain about how there are ONLY two new movies in this set and curse those scoundrels at Acorn Media. That, however, would be silly. I can't help but think that many of the reviewers/commentators here wouldn't cut it as news-people, because they buried the lead (if not missed it outright). The real story in this case is the happy news that Dame Agatha's foremost sleuth is back home (or at least his American home) on PBS. I for one am too happy about this (and the return of the wonderful Zoe Wannamaker to the series) to disparage the folks at Acorn for something that almost certainly is beyond their control. The bottom line is that these new movies look to be solid additions to David Suchet's Poirot legacy, and it looks like Acorn has done another great job presenting them. That works for me.

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An unfortunate change of style

Carbonman | Sacramento | 08/28/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I have loved Suchet's Poirot and that wonderful characterization is still to be found in these stories.

I also loved the art direction and cinematic style of the earlier stories in which Suchet appeared and that is not so evident in these films.



First the art direction. As others have noted, the "deco" feeling has been almost entirely lost, but I also find that the sense that the events being seen are taking place in a particular place at a particular time has also gone missing. The Poirot's I most love and repeatedly watch are the ones that are clearly taking place in England roughly "between the wars". I have noticed the decline in the sense of place and time in some of the films released shortly before these, but it is virtually absent in these two. I believe this is mostly a matter of changed art direction and set decoration.



As to cinematic style. This appears to be a matter of both editing and directoral choice. I find the editing abrupt and constantly jarring. In this way these two films are very similar to the Miss Marple films starring Geraldine McEwan, which I have never been able to sit through. It is not that find fault with Ms. McEwan's Miss Marple. She is fine. But the editing is too abrupt, to quick, too modern for the period in which the stories are set.



And then there is direction. These two films are so "artificial". Poirot is definitely an eccentric, almost fanciful, character, but Suchet has consistently managed to make Poirot seem "real". In these two films the director has made choices that conflict with that hard won sense of reality. In "Mrs. McGinty" it seems that they stuck a diffusion filter on the lens and never took it off. As a result, even the scenes in which evidence is being gathered or Poirot's "little grey cells" are working with greatest clarity, have this dreamy, other-worldly quality. I do, however, wonder, given that we are all a bit vain... Mr. Suchet is now one of the producers did his perfectly understandable desire to mask the effects of age have something to do with all this diffusion?



In addition, in many scenes there is also atmospheric diffusion (aka fog). You can even see it in one of the stills on Amazon's Set 4 page (unless they've changed the still since I wrote this), which shows fog inside a room. I realize this technique is often used to show distance outdoors or to provide a sense of early morning or late afternoon brightness indoors, but here it is overdone and in combination with the lens diffusion the vagueness of the images is quite intrusive and at odds with the clear thinking that is integral to a mystery. Only at the end, during the dénouement scene does the diffusion filter finally come off and then, you have been looking at diffusion so long that, its sudden disappearance is also jarring.



The other problem I have is with the secondary characters. They so often irritable, loud, and ill-mannered (same as in the McEwan Marples). I first noticed this change in a few of the younger characters in "The Hollow", but in these stories it is as if everyone has completely forgotten their Edwardian and Georgian upbringing. Their nurses and nanny's would be most displeased.



I really do miss Miss Lemon, Chief Inspector Japp, and, especially, Hastings. I cannot recall if any of them appear in these particular novels, so this observation may be off point, but in general the presence of these three characters tended to humanize Poirot. In their presence he stopped being merely a great detective. He was less eccentric and more human because they were his friend and he theirs. The absence of that mutual affection and the occasional friendly jibe that affection engendered cuts Poirot off from the rest of human-kind and thus from us.



I confess that much of my criticism results from a comparison of the previous Poirots with the present crop. If the early ones had not been so excellent and so satisfying, these would be quite good enough and well above the standard set by U.S. television productions.









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