Neil Marshall’s Centurion: it came, we saw, it conquered!

11 August 2010

Gerard Wood

You know there’s something rotten with the state of distribution when instantly forgettable movies like Clash of the Titans and Shrek Forever After swamp our cinemas and quality movies such as Valhalla Rising, Solomon Kane and Centurion barely get any time on the big screen.

It’s perhaps understandable that Nicholas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising might not appeal to a mainstream appetite: the movie is too brutal to digest easily along with a tub of popcorn, and its mind-bending symbolic meaning demands to be thought about and interpreted. Together these things rarely translate well to the mainstream.

But what of Michael J. Bassett’s Solomon Kane and Neil Marshall’s Centurion? These are the very stuff of quality mainstream entertainment, with well-written stories told exceptionally well, and their failure to achieve commercial success is entirely the consequence of poor promotion and abysmal distribution. When quality movies fail to secure wide cinematic distribution and we’re left with risk free, bland and immediately forgettable cinema, we all lose: good filmmakers are robbed of an audience and audiences are cheated of a great cinematic experience.

Which is a crying shame. Marshall’s movie about the lost Roman legion which passed out of history and into legend under mysterious circumstances deserves to be experienced on the big screen: the scenes of battle are fast and furious and filmed on a truly epic scale, and the sweeping wintry landscapes under steel-grey skies are captured superbly by cinematographer Sam McCurdy and crew, evoking a world of hostile beauty which can only properly be appreciated on a grand scale.

I'm bemused by Hopscotch Films' failure to promote this movie adequately and secure wide cinematic distribution for it. Centurion is great entertainment and if properly promoted would appeal to much the same audience that flocked to see Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood. Hopscotch's failure is all the more disappointing because Centurion is in fact a far more satisfying movie than Robin Hood.

For reasons I've argued elsewhere, I really do think Scott blew his opportunity to give us the definitive Robin Hood on film. He almost succeeded. He brought to the legend that gritty historical realism he has so perfected in the past, but then allowed political correctness to get in the way. I won't repeat the argument here except to say that this triumph of political correctness over the integrity of historical realism is most obvious in the portrayal of Marian as some sort of Medieval warrior woman. The issue is not that she is depicted as an expert fighter, but that Scott provides no credible justification for why a woman in this time would be an expert fighter.

Political correctness is not a charge that can be levelled at Neil Marshall, writer and director of several critically acclaimed and very gory cult classics. Centurionis Marshall’s fifth film at the helm and the seventh that he’s written and it is by far his most accomplished movie to date. He avoids the pitfalls of political correctness by natural inclination I suspect, but also because he is a consummate story-teller with a deep commitment to the integrity of the story he seeks to tell.

Which means what exactly? Well, if Marshall had directed Robin Hood, his Marian would have been dragged kicking and screaming into Hell and come out the other side with a few scars, possibly an eye-patch and the right to wield a broadsword with lethal determination having learned to kick arse in order to stay alive. If you’re in any doubt about this, compare Scott’s Marian to Marshall’s Etain in Centurion.

Etain is a formidable Pictish warrior whom Marshall has described as "kind of revenge incarnate. Her family was butchered by the Romans, she had her tongue cut out by the Romans, she’s had a hell of a time and she’s out for Roman blood... She’s quite furious because one sense is not there — she can’t speak — all the others are more developed. She sees very well and hears very well: she is an animal!”.  When Etain charges into battle or takes on a hardened Roman General in single combat it’s credible because Marshall provides a believable context for it. Unlike Scott who attempted to bring historical realism to his retelling of legend and failed to do either satisfactorily, Marshall limits himself to telling a compelling story. The irony is that in being true to the story rather than concerning himself with historical truth, Marshall’s Centurion feels more authentic.

In his story (and not history), General Virilus (Dominic West) and his Ninth Legion are ordered to travel into the untamed north to vanquish the troublesome Picts once and for all and to kill their leader Gorlacon. The Legion is joined by Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender), a survivor from a Roman frontier fort raided by the Picts, and is guided by Etain (Olga Kurylenko), a Pictish prisoner and warrior woman, who leads them into a trap in which all but seven are massacred. The story follows the remaining men, led by Quintus Dias, as they attempt to return home.

The combat is by far the most convincing close-quarter fighting I’ve seen on film, the camera work and editing quite remarkable. Marshall’s signature brutality and gore are unmistakable but the violence is not stylised (as it is in 300) or glorified (as it is in Gladiator) nor is it gratuitous (as it is, perhaps, in Marshall’s own Doomsday). Violence is an integral part of the story and fully justified in context. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Centurion sets a new benchmark for realistic close-quarter combat.

The screenplay is Marshall’s most polished piece of writing to date, with credible characters engaging in believable and often quite humorous dialogue, all of which breathes life into the camaraderie of the Roman soldiers. The story, which follows Quintus Dias, a man of honour employed by a dishonourable political machine, is compelling and timeless. Fassbender gave some idea of his character's journey in an interview with Empire, “I guess you can always make modern-day parallels, to the occupation of Iraq. But it's the idea of someone who believes in an ethos, becomes disillusioned and comes to his own sort of beliefs. So there are parallels, and it's interesting when you take it out of our timeframe and stick it back 2,000 years."

If any more evidence were needed of Marshall’s commitment to the integrity of the story above all else, it’s in his presentation of the Picts. There’s little doubt that the natives are justified in all they do in their fight against the occupying Roman forces, but even so there’s very little sympathy generated for them. This is a Roman soldier’s story, a story about a man of honour who believes in Rome’s mission until his eyes are forced open, and while Marshall could have romanticised the Picts, especially Etain, he allows the story to retain its integrity: Etain is a brutalised woman who deserves our sympathy but she is also a brutal and vicious killer, an empty vessel that can only be filled with the blood of others. She has become a monster of legend, at least from the Roman perspective.

Great stuff. Highly recommended.

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