Kirpianuscus It is one of my favorit novels. because it remains the fundamental map for define the childhood, the dictatorship, the demons living in us, the temptation, the cold and hot, in same mesure, cruelty. and the adaptation of Peter Brook represents the inspired one. first, for the great cinematography . second - for lovely reflection of the essence of Wiiliam Golding masterpiece. not the last, for the performances. you feel each line of novel in this film, in its original sound and flavor and tension. you discover, again, the powerful message of the novelist. his fears. and his pesimistic perspective about the evil and its "freshness" of childre. entire universe of shadows and cruelty is reflected in the art of Peter Brook. and scene by scene I remind the period of high school when I was first time front to this magnificent book . it is an useful film. and this fact is only real important thing. for see the world from the right angle. for create, like me, a solid imafe about the demons inside us. and for become sincere. about yourself. about the others.

Vidfan Many have written of the stellar cast, the amazing cinematography, the brilliant direction, etc. And like any movie review, it's all subjective. This movie is remarkable. It is much of the above, and more. But it has its flaws.By necessity, the format of film requires a writer/director to abridge a book. If one were to film every "word" of the book, the result would be an incredibly long, and probably boring film. So of course, this film leaves much out. But what it does get, it gets right. It's stark, brutally direct and unforgiving.Having said that, I found parts of the direction lacking. Endlessly drawn-out shots of the sky, the beach, the jungle were distracting, as if the director was trying to slow down the story, and had me reaching for the fast-forward button. Some shots made little-to-no sense at all, while others were too quick, too short to truly grasp the situation.My biggest complaint was the score. I honestly couldn't figure out what Raymond Leppard was going for. Was he trying to evoke a feeling of loneliness? Isolation? Fear? Boredom? Whatever it was, it didn't work. Rather, it just annoyed. For example, throughout the movie the score kept returning to a single, tuneless melody played by a solo flute (or piccolo?). It wavered around, with no discernible rhythm or melody, as if someone was simply "making noise" on it. It was shrill and irritated in a nails-on-blackboard does.Overall, the movie shines as an example of honest filmmaking, despite its flaws. Next time, I'll just mute the sound and imagine the dialogue!

kijii After attempting to watch this movie from beginning to end several times, I finally saw it. I'm not sure whether Brook was brave or stupid to try to make a complete movie, based on the highly symbolic classical masterpiece by William Golding. Nevertheless, he did it well considering that the only speaking parts were done by those non-professional boys. (It must have been interesting to watch Brook directing those boys.) For me, the main feature that comes out in the movie is that if a group of boys, of that age, are left alone--without adult supervision--on a desert island they will eventually form their own factions, clichés, and hierarchies based on their particular skills and priorities. Leadership seems to be something that is hard to define. However, if a society is forced to start all over again, leaders will somehow emerge based on the ability to attract followers.However, if I recall correctly, in the book (which I read some 30 years ago), each of those boys were symbolic of some aspect of society. The task of capturing all of this in a movie was just too difficult to do well. My favorite character of the file is 'Piggy.' I noticed that there was one scene where he orally related a story to a group of boys. In a society without print media, this oral tradition of remembering the past is--and always had been--crucial.

Ordinary Review Simon: "Maybe there is a beast. What I mean is : maybe it's only us."Since I just finished reading the book last night, it felt natural for me to check out the movie. I decided with the older version as it is the one whose snapshots came up while I was searching for the cover of my book to feature in my book review.The movie starts with a series of black and white pictures over sound. We deduce from them that it is set in England, that a war, probably a nuclear war, has started and that kids are being evacuated by plane. We hear a crash. The next scene, we see two kids on a beach and they wonder if there are any adults left. They start by getting everyone's name. They find a shell in the sea, that the young boy who is only referred to as Piggy, informs them is a conch. In order to have everyone gather, Ralph blows the conch and they decide who should be the leader. While Ralph is soon elected leader, another boy, Jack, who lives only to hunt the wild pigs on the island, soon threatens the power of both the conch and Ralph.The film is a quite good adaptation. It is very faithful to the text and apart from two scenes, I couldn't really see many differences.I was annoyed by a few things however. First of all, I felt the music and sounds weren't fitting the atmosphere. I also think the scenes that lead up to a sort of communal frenzy among the boys were so frantic they lost all sense of realism. It simply didn't seem to fit. Last but not least, I think the acting was fairly poor. I understand that an ensemble cast of young boys is not the easiest thing to manage but a lot of overacting ensued which took away from the film's credibility.The movie, which was extensively cut, was a good telling of the book and I felt they did pick out the key scenes from it in order to form a compact, yet linear and understandable tale. When seeing a movie from a book you have read, it tends to be a great disappointment when some of your favorite scenes go missing or when you feel the movie isn't understandable as a whole because of some involvements cleared out in the book, but that didn't happen here.In many ways it reminded me of the French film La guerre des boutons (1962) but if had to recommend only one, I'd go with the French one. I think, even though Lord of the Flies' addresses far more serious cultural criticism than the, mostly, comedic relief of its French counterpart, the acting of the ensemble cast is far better in La guerre des boutons.I liked: Faithful to the book. The island. The Lord of the Flies scene.I disliked: The music and sounds. The acting.62/100 A good adaptation sadly stained by irritating (to me) quirks.Read more at: www.theordinaryreview.blogspot.com