Nostradamus (1994)

That was an excellent one.

How sad is this?

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Michel de Nostredame, generally known as Nostradamus, was a sixteenth-century French physician, but is better known today as a reputed prophet and seer. His fame rests on a series of gnomic quatrains which, it has been claimed, contain predictions of future world events, including wars, political changes and natural disasters. The problem is that his quatrains are written in a language so obscure that they can be interpreted to mean virtually anything. Those who seek to interpret them generally do so with the benefit of hindsight, seeking to prove that Nostradamus predicted World War II, the atomic bomb, 9/11 or whatever; those seeking to use his works to foretell events which have not yet happened tend to come badly unstuck. Even when a particular quatrain can be "proven" to have predicted a particular event, this is normally done with the help of some creative rewriting or creative mistranslating of his words. (Anyone with any knowledge of the French of the period can find some spectacular examples of this on the internet, particularly those interpretations which try to prove that by "Hister"- a Classical name for the River Danube- Nostradamus meant "Hitler").The obscurity of Nostradamus' prophecies was quite deliberate; had he clearly and unambiguously foretold specific events which then failed to occur, his reputation as a seer would have been destroyed for ever. The film, however, would have us believe that he deliberately obscured his meaning in order to ward off the attentions of the Church, although in the sixteenth century attempts to foretell the future were not forbidden and, indeed, astrology was regarded as an intellectually respectable, and theologically permissible, science.As might be clear from my opening paragraph, I personally do not believe that Nostradamus possessed a supernatural power to foretell the future. (Indeed, I do not believe that any human being possesses or has possessed such a power). In the original French, his verses have a certain surrealist inventiveness, but I have never seen any reason to attribute any other significance to them. This film, however, is quite openly made on the assumption that its hero did indeed possess prophetic gifts; I was left with the definite feeling that Roger Christian was asking me to accept that Nostradamus really was a man tormented by horrifying visions of the future and whose prophecies were intended as warnings to mankind of the fate that awaited them.Now I normally leave my scepticism about the supernatural at the cinema door; I have never, for example, allowed the fact that I do not believe in witchcraft to prevent me from enjoying the Harry Potter films. Suspension of disbelief, however, is something I find easier to accomplish in the context of a wholly fictional story than in the context of a biography of a real individual. Neither J K Rowling nor the makers of the "Potter" films are, after all, asking me to accept that witchcraft has any existence outside the realm of fiction, but when a film-maker asks me to give credence to the writings of a sixteenth-century charlatan I find it difficult to take his film seriously."Nostradamus" has other weaknesses, quite apart from its flawed central premise. Unlike many period dramas, this one is not particularly visually attractive, with dull, muddy colours. The action is slow-moving and at times difficult to follow. I understand that Tchéky Karyo is a well-known and respected actor in France, indeed the winner of a Cesar Award, so I presume that he can act in his own language far better than he can in English. (I have never seen any of his French-language movies apart from "Le Retour de Martin Guerre", in which he only had a small part). In the leading role here he is absolutely horrible, dull and wooden without any convincing attempt to convey emotions. Some of the supporting cast are better, including Julia Ormond as Nostradamus' wife, although I was left with the feeling that F. Murray Abraham had come down a long way since "Amadeus" and Rutger Hauer equally far since "Blade Runner". This was the first of Roger Christian's films I have seen, and I cannot say that it has inspired me with any great desire to explore his work further. 4/10

I am frankly stunned by the generally positive responses to this dreadful film. 'Star' of the production, Tchéky Karyo does not even seem to be able to act in the conventional sense. He is completely expressionless throughout the film, and portrays Nostradamus as a rather dislikeable, arrogant person who seems to inexplicably attract the ladies at will. Why anyone would deign to talk to him, let alone screw him is a genuine mystery. At one point, Nostradamus is in a carriage, having visions of WWII, shouting 'Stop Stop!' over and over. I wonder if the real Nostradamus could indeed see the future, and if so, could have foreseen this horrible film and been suitably upset by it. Perhaps he was really shouting at the director and writer in this scene. There are some very clumsy moments, such as when our visionary shows a pal a symbol that has been perhaps tormenting him - difficult to tell with Karyo's complete lack of facial expression - which is of course a swastika. Cue ominous music etc.Each scene is also longer than it really needs to be, with lots of silence and blank expressions supposedly conveying - well, what exactly? The film has the feel and style of a made for TV movie, just made longer with these pregnant pauses. In fact, I think the film is so bad that any change made to it at all could only improve it.If I could take anything away from this film, it's that Nostradamus could not see the future at all, and was perhaps interested only in promoting himself at any price. A shoddy and pointless affair that in some ways trivialises Nazi atrocities by not even addressing them.

This is a real great movie about the Life of Nostradamus,if true or not, well that`s another question,but here you have some real great actors in very good roles first of all T.Karyo as Nosdradamus,he played the way as somebody who`ve lived all those things.In another role you have Rutger Hauer one of the best and underestimated actors in the Whole world in my opinion(have a look at Hitcher,Blade Runner,Soldier of Orange),he stars as the mystik monk only appears a few minutes but impresses a lot more.The Cast was filled up with F. Murray Abraham,A. Plummer and a lot more ofgreat actors,this all was mixed with some very good special effects(Nostradamus Visions)and good screenplay,wonderfull combine to an excellent picture by R.Christian(who also worked on Star Wars).A clear 10 out of 10 for me.

A good looking, well acted (the leading players are excellent)but dull and VERY disjointed biopic of the famous prophet that seems of though it was cut down from something much longer. Karyo is a good casting in the title role but he struggles in a fairly flat role. Director Christian, (who was art director for Ridley Scott's Alien), gives the film a handsome old world look but he just ambles through the script that rambles on and on and tells us nothing that we did not know about the future and nothing even about the Nostrodamus himself. The performances and occasional moments of interest keep one's eyes half open, but this is missed opportunity on such an interesting subject matter.