Elizabeth: The Golden Age / Золотой век (2007)

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age / Золотой век (2007)

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Two faiths, two empires, two rulers - colliding in 1588. Papist Spain wants to bring down the heretic Elizabeth. Philip is building an armada but needs a rationale to attack. With covert intrigue, Spain sets a trap for the Queen and her principal secretary, Walsingham, using as a pawn Elizabeth's cousin Mary Stuart, who's under house arrest in the North. The trap springs, and the armada sets sail, to rendezvous with French ground forces and to attack. During these months, the Virgin Queen falls in love with Walter Raleigh, keeping him close to court and away from the sea and America. Is treachery or heroism at his heart? Does loneliness await her passionate majesty?

1585 год. В мире господствует католическая Испания во главе с королем Филиппом. Ей в состоянии противостоять только Англия с королевой-протестанткой Елизаветой. Но в самой Англии нет единства. Половина населения превозносит Марию Стюарт, и мечтает видеть ее на английском троне, считая Елизавету незаконнорожденной дочерью Генриха VIII. Испанский король, воспользовавшись сложной ситуацией при английском дворе, готовит заговор. В результате он направляет мощную армаду кораблей к берегам Англии…

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age / Золотой век (2007)

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As I also mentioned in my review of Elizabeth, the Catholic League went on record decrying the alleged anti-Catholic stance of both films. While director Shekhar Kapur averred that he was really anti-extremist (of any ilk), as in the first film, the Catholics are the bad guys in this outing, led by Elizabeth's half-sister Mary's widower, King Philip II of Spain (Jordi Molla). Philip actually made advances to Elizabeth once she gained the throne, but she rebuffed him. Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned, but in this twist of a venerable adage, Philip is out to teach that upstart Elizabeth a lesson, based not only on her refusal of his proposal, but her troubling rejection of Catholicism and the Pope's supremacy. Philip has a convoluted design involving both his daughter Isabella and the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, which slowly unfolds as the film progresses. Playing out against this international intrigue is the burgeoning friendship between Elizabeth and Raleigh (Clive Owen), obviously meant to take the part of Elizabeth's romance with Joseph Fiennes' Dudley in the first film. The problem here is that this is obviously a platonic relationship, if one fraught with sexual tension, and Raleigh actually has his eyes on one of Elizabeth's courtiers anyway.

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age / Золотой век (2007)

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The first Elizabeth cast a perhaps more wide ranging condemnation on Catholic nefariousness than does this film, which focuses more exclusively on Philip's plotting than it does on cross cultural intrigue generally, though of course that very plotting does include a number of co-conspirators. Ironically, the first film is perhaps more completely subversive in its commentary about Catholicism in one of its most audacious, if extremely subtly handled, moments, when at the end of that film, Elizabeth casts her gaze on a statue of the Virgin Mary and wonders why the Catholics worship her so. Her longstanding confidante Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush, returning in this film as well) tells her it's because they haven't found anyone to replace her. Quick cut to Elizabeth shearing her hair and emerging as The Virgin Queen, an obvious allusion to Mary's chaste state. With Elizabeth's supposed virginity well ensconced by the time this film gets underway, there's no such audacity at hand, and instead the film plays out more as melodrama than the first outing, albeit melodrama with exceptionally pretty costumes and sets.

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age / Золотой век (2007)

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Without the allure of a semi-traditional romance to anchor the emotional content of the film, as in Elizabeth's case, instead we're thrust into political and religious machinations that cast all the players, on both the Catholic and Protestant sides of the aisle, in not very flattering light. Blanchett is nonetheless a force of nature in this role, erupting in fury one moment and then at least partially fragile in the next. If at times she seems to be channeling Glenda Jackson, at least vocally, she brings a very careful and nuanced approach to the role that allows the viewer to get glimpses of the human being hidden behind the caked makeup, huge wigs and gargantuan dresses. Owen is fine in the patently underwritten role of Raleigh, and Rush is superb, as he was in the first film, in his understated and magisterial interpretation of Elizabeth's chief confidante, Walsingham. Abbie Cornish is also excellent, even when she's forced to mouth some pretty ridiculous dialogue, as Bess Throckmorton, the Queen's lady in waiting who falls for Raleigh and bears a son by him.

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age / Золотой век (2007)

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Kapur invests more visual flash this time around, perhaps to cover up the fact that this film simply doesn't have the substance of the first. The Golden Age is a stylish but ultimately not extremely involving trip through one of the most epochal eras in Britain's history. Blanchett gives it her heart and soul, but a hackneyed script weights her down like the anchors which brought the Spanish fleet to their ultimate doom.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman (blu-ray.com)