Alatriste (2006)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Agustín Díaz Yanes

Writers:

Arturo Pérez-Reverte (novels)
Agustín Díaz Yanes (written by)

Release Date:

1 September 2006 (Spain)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Biography | History | Thriller | War

Plot:

Viggo Mortensen plays the Spanish soldier-turned-mercenary Captain Alatriste, a heroic figure from the country's 17th century imperial wars.

Plot Keywords:

Army | Spain | Madrid | 17th Century | King

Awards:

4 wins & 20 nominations

Cast

Viggo Mortensen	...	Diego Alatriste
Elena Anaya	...	Angélica de Alquézar
Unax Ugalde	...	Íñigo Balboa
Eduard Fernández	...	Sebastián Copons
Eduardo Noriega	...	Conde de Guadalmedina
Ariadna Gil	...	María de Castro
Juan Echanove	...	Francisco de Quevedo
Javier Cámara	...	Conde Duque de Olivares
Antonio Dechent	...	Curro Garrote
Blanca Portillo	...	Fray Emilio Bocanegra
Francesc Garrido	...	Martín Saldaña
Pilar López de Ayala	...	Mujer de Malatesta
Jesús Castejón	...	Luis de Alquézar
Cristina Marcos	...	Joyera
Luis Zahera	...	Pereira

Also Known As:

Alatriste de Arturo Pérez-Reverte (Spain) (closing credits title)
Capitaine Alatriste (France) [fr]
Captain Alatriste (Thailand: English title) (DVD box title) [en]
Captain Alatriste (Sweden) [sv]
Il destino di un guerriero - Alatriste (Italy) [it]
Kapteeni Alatriste (Finland) [fi]
Kapten Alatriste (Greece) [el]

Runtime:

145 min

Country:

Spain

Language:

Spanish | Flemish | Latin | Portuguese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Spain:7 | Finland:K-15 | Netherlands:16 | Argentina:13 | Germany:16 | Portugal:M/12 | Australia:MA (2008) | Japan:R-15 | Brazil:16

Filming Locations:

Baeza, Jaén, Andalucía, Spain

Company:

Estudios Picasso

Trivia:

Several years before the film was almost made with Antonio Banderas set to direct and star with a script by Enrique Urbizu.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When the group walks back from their white flag meeting with the French commander at the battle of Rocroi, the movie focuses on how few Spanish soldiers are left. In the foreground a few casualties can be seen. On the left a man in brown clothes lying on his back, his spear in his right hand. A little to the right in this same shot exactly the same casualty in exactly the same pose can be seen, except for a few details regarding the shadows on the ground.

Quotes:

Conde Duque de Olivares: Without Flandes, there's nothing... Captain.

Intrigue, love and loyalty: a big-budget portrait of a 17th century Spanish mercenary

It's big-budget, it boasts extras by the planeload, and a broad historical panorama: it's all about intrigue, loyalty, love, and loads of a real man doing what a real man's gotta do. This is the Spanish film industry's most serious attempt yet to break into the mainstream international market, and Viggo Mortensen's brooding, laconic Alatriste makes a convincing bid for the job. A heroic figure despite himself, Alatriste is the poor bloody footsoldier whose unquestioning courage provided the flesh and blood foundations of the Siglo de Oro, the golden age of the early 17th Century when the Spanish crown laid claim to half of western Europe.

In scuffed boots and floppy fedora, Mortensen cuts an attractive figure in an amoral, down-at-heel sort of way: women are prepared to leave their husbands for him, men fight for the privilege of dying at his side. We are led, or perhaps bullied, on an epic sweep through the muck and bullets of Spain's military meddling in its neighbours' affairs, seen through the jaundiced eyes of Alatriste and his fellow hired hands. Death is a constant presence; if you're not torn apart by a cannonball on the battlefield, or knifed in a dark alley, it may well come for you in the shape of the Inquisition – and in which case, you might be better off cutting your own throat.

We cut frantically and frequently back to the Spanish court, where the grandees plot and connive, and we just know that someone inconvenient is about to get dispatched to the colonies at the very least. Here, Alatriste's glint-eyed soldier's determination gives way to the quizzical gaze of a hard man out of his depth, as matters of State are signed and sealed on oaken desks. Watch your back -- you get the impression that the most blood-sodden battlefield is a far safer place to be.

The film covers a massive swathe of turbulent European history, some three decades of a long Spanish Catholic struggle against the Protestant heretics of the Low Countries. And this, perhaps, is the film's greatest flaw – the screenplay is a pull-together of some of the most dramatic episodes from a clutch of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste books, and the joins show badly. Sub-plots come and go in a tangle, and the film develops its undoubted dynamism from a regular dripfeed of another bit of swashbuckling, or whispered courtly dirty deeds, rather than the convincing development of any interplay between the characters themselves. For such a valiant warrior, poor Alatriste doesn't seem to have much say in his destiny.

That said, the film looks fabulous, from the opening misty waterlogged shots off the Flanders coast, to the final crunching battle of Rocroi. Director of Photography Paco Femenia -- responsible for the similarly atmospheric Carmen and Juana la Loca -- takes his inspiration from the contemporary canvases of Velásquez to evoke an atmosphere painted in rich earthy tones; the camera conveys the glittering sterility of the Spanish court as tangibly as the dirt that Alatriste and his ever-dwindling band of chums are forced to eat – so often without pay -- to enable their lordships to live in the appropriate style.

The film, at two hours and 20 minutes, rattles along well, but is too long. If only director Augustín Díaz Yanes had the faith in the attraction and bankability of his lead character to take a deep breath, and slice the action up into more manageable chunks: a trilogy, even. Why not? Everybody else seems to be doing it, and so often with inferior material to this.