Henry V

I caught Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of William Shakespeare's Henry V last week on TV. To be quite honest I wasn't particularly interested in watching it -I was just bored. I had never read any Shakespeare plays or, indeed, even heard of this film and I didn't expect much from it. I half expected it to be fairly boring and tedious.
However, I found myself amazingly surprised by how much I was drawn into the film. I was in complete awe of the dialogue, language and speeches given in the film -obviously down to the plays' infamous author. But, as most people will know, it's very easy to be bored by an often murderous and horrific performance of even such amazing dialogue as William Shakespeare's. Yet, the skill of such actors like Kenneth Branagh himself, Brian Blessed, Derek Jacobi, Judi Dench, Ian Holm (and even a very young Christian Bale) really pull you into the story and make you believe in the emotions of each character.
I have to say that without a doubt I found the King Henry's speech, before the climactic battle of Agincourt, to be one of the finest moments in cinema I've seen to date. The inspirational atmosphere created by Branagh's performance, perfectly contributing score and mesmerising dialogue -I found all to be a work of pure perfection. In this one scene I see exactly what I wish to get out of a film when I see it.
So caught up in the spirit and story of the film, I found in myself a new-found respect for the English nation (in as much as a Patriotic Scot can) .
I could almost see Henry V as an English version of Braveheart -an English Patriot's film. But In truth, it is very easy to get swept away by the characters and story so that, where and when it's set matters very little.
The dialogue (all being in Shakespearian style) you would think might get confusing. Yet, the interesting thing I found when watching the film was that, even if I didn't understand the meaning of the sentences being spoken I could still follow the emotion and narrative -based on the actors' performances. Besides, it's not exactly that hard to understand ant the worst of times anyway.

The only major negative I found in the film was in fact not that much of a negative at all, when you consider the type of film it is. At the battle scene of Agincourt there very few, if any, wide/ establishing shots. It is fairly noticeable that they structured their shots around their budget. The battle is done predominantly in close hand-held chaotic styles. This certainly doesn't mean it is a poorly filmed scene (far from it), It simply adds a more personal feel to it. However Branagh redeems himself by using an extremely long establishing shot in the battle's aftermath, which lasts for well over a minute I believe.
But the film (and play) Henry V was never designed to be a huge action epic, its' strengths and genre lie elsewhere, in the more personal areas of character, dialogue, relationships and brotherhood.