The Duellists
Dir: Ridley Scott
1977
*****
Joseph Conrad's 'The Duellists' has been somewhat stripped down by Ridley Scott for what maybe one of the boldest and most accomplished debuts a director has ever had. It is quite a simplistic story of the complexities of man's obsessiveness and the ridiculous and futile notion of honour, the basic narration only heightening the issue it is addressing. Apart from a couple of unfortunate French accents, it is an astonishingly powerful film with a rewarding and spectacular climax. The visuals are an impressive array of rich compositions, many looking like early William Turner paintings and the production in general is as authentic and realistic as you can get. It's probably my joint second favourite Ridley Scott film along with Alien (Blade Runner still being his best so far in my opinion) but it's on par with Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.