OK I think there is something wrong with me as I must be the only one who has been MISERABLE watching Les Miserables, the movie/ was that Victor Hugo's original intentions?
The musical arrangements are good (although most movie actors aren't singers) KUDOS to both set and costume designers. There is just too much to try to watch and we don't get to see it with all the close ups ... the French accents are off, that dang elephant really bothered me and this is a big AND for me - Les Miserables is just too dang DEPRESSING. I was informed by Natureman who was sobbing, yes sobbing, that it was 'uplifting. '
Sure a redeemed convict dedicates his life to doing 'good' in the face of adversity, adopts an impoverished child and saves her future husband BUT come on this was a time of economic hardship and a cholera epidemic ... beyond awful. The movie makers went to great extremes to let the viewer see how bad the people's poverty conditions were whether it was lack of bathing water/ food and adding a cat's tail to the ground meat. The sewer scene had me gagging. The women scrubbing the blood from the streets made me queasy, not to mention swords skewering people and muskets doing their jobs as they wait - break into song. Painful.
And let me not forget the historical inaccuracy as the 1832 student uprising at the time of King Louis- Philippe was triggered by the cholera death of LaMarque, a 'man of the people, 'one of the King's political opponents. But this is not the 1789 French Revolution. Come on if we are going to get millions of people to listen to show tunes, could we at least help them get history straight?
IN the end the child, Cosette, has been saved from poverty, falls in love with a weak wealthy revolutionary who sings about love while his friends die fighting for the cause. Come on. Love doesn't conquer all - it's their wealthy status that helps those two live happily ever after. Uplifting?
I was so glad when the final score played and I could get back to the End of the Rainbow Valley so I could google that White elephant. Here's the link : Elephant of the Bastille
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