yusufpiskin

David Holmes is among those we feel we know without truly knowing. In truth, all stunt doubles inhabit this paradox. They are the ones in our favorite films, executing the awe-inspiring scenes we adore, yet we lavish praise on actors who may not even have been on set-artists who expended none of the effort. This is why David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived is both a vital and masterfully crafted work, illuminating its subject with unflinching clarity.

Watching David Holmes grapple with his circumstances-his defiance, acceptance, self-reproach, and self-compassion-alternately shatters your heart and mends it.

And then there's Daniel Radcliffe... Over the past two decades, as the internet's ubiquity has laid bare the monstrous flaws of countless idols, our faith in celebrities has eroded. Yet Radcliffe, at just eight years old, vowed, "I'll never become one of those famous people." This documentary reveals a man who has kept that promise. Radcliffe is, unequivocally, one of the good ones.

This play arrived in my life during one of its most desolate chapters. Years later, I still returned to the theater three times to relive it. While Jonny Donahoe cast a spell over New York audiences with his singular brilliance, the production in my country was anchored by Bora Akkas - an actor of extraordinary depth. A haunting symmetry binds their stories: his performance, too, unfolded under a personal shadow, serendipitously aligned with the loss of a dear friend.

From the play's indelible list, Item 45 remains pinned above my desk: "45. Hugging."

I once exchanged letters with Duncan Macmillan, the playwright - a man so analog, he eschews email entirely. Our correspondence unfolded through his British publisher, a relic of an older literary world.

It wasn't until years later that I learned HBO had resurrected the New York iteration. Discovering it on Max felt like unearthing a forgotten photograph, its edges still sharp with meaning.

Certain works - like certain souls - emerge precisely when the universe demands witness. This play is such a creation. Even its soundtrack hums with the same uncanny resonance.

A 1997 Norwegian film.

Skjoldbjærg's 1997 entry, which snagged a Golden Camera nomination at Cannes, boasts a screenplay penned by Nikolaj Frobenius and Skjoldbjærg, with a score by Geir Jenssen.

Here's a detail that makes this film noteworthy:

Once the movie hit theaters and started making the rounds at festivals, American producers got the itch to do a remake and knocked on Steven Soderbergh's door. Initially, Jonathan Demme was eyed to direct, and they were looking at Harrison Ford for the Will Dormer role. But Soderbergh had another play in mind. He told the studio he'd found a very young director for them, and after catching Memento (2000), he knew he'd found the perfect helmer for the job.

Christopher Nolan was hip to the original Norwegian film even before his directorial debut, Following, dropped, and after a few more viewings, he signed on to the project - even though it wasn't really his usual bag.

Anyway, let's get to the movie itself.

Erik Skjoldbjærg, whom I later encountered with Prozac Nation (2001), a film he'd make for American audiences, is a singular filmmaker. In fact, watching the opening scene of this movie, it's hard not to think that Se7en might have cribbed a few things from it.

Skjoldbjærg's greatest strength lies in his camerawork; and as a Nolan fan, I gotta admit, Nolan's take looks bush league next to this.

And it's not just me saying this; the late Roger Ebert, over at the Chicago Sun-Times, drew a line between the film and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Can't really argue with that.

The way Skjoldbjærg flips the script on film noir conventions is pretty impressive and confident. Instead of burying the terrifying cat-and-mouse chase in darkness, he has his protagonists stumble through fog and the shimmering twilight of the midnight sun, which really pulls the viewer into the thick of it.

Skjoldbjærg's version is so layered, unpretentious, cold, and rich in both its visuals and the psychology of its characters that after dissecting this thriller, you'll be scratching your head for a long time trying to figure out why a remake was even necessary. But then again, Americans do this kind of thing all the time, even going so far as to have Michael Haneke direct a shot-for-shot redo of his own film once.

Christopher Nolan, despite being half-English, leans heavily into his American DNA and copies numerous scenes verbatim in his film, which can't even touch the atmospheric intensity of the Norwegian original. While Nolan's film devolves into a clichéd Hollywood showdown towards the end, the original's closest companion is silence... and this deafening silence gives the film an epic feel.

By the way, it would be a major oversight not to mention Stellan Skarsgård, who is a phenomenal actor. Just one viewing of this version is enough to see what Al Pacino couldn't quite pull off in the remake.