The Name of the Rose (1986)-"R"

Run Time:130 minutes

3 and 1/2 stars out of 4

Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose (1986), based on the Italian book by Umberto Eco, is a film that shows a view of the little-seen world of medeival monks. This is an excellent historical film, and I am very glad to see that it doesn't stiffle the interesting story with its educational value, or vice-versa, for it provides an excellent setting and background for the characters, and helps you to see the life of the people of the time. The story takes place in an isolated and massive Dominican Abbey, run by monks of the Franciscan Order, that has had a recent questionable death of a resident monk. The abbott (Michael Lonsdale) invites the intelligent and sometimes rebellious Brother William of Baskerville (Sean Connery), along with his apprentice and our narrator, Adso (Christian Slater), first to look into the death, in hope of avoiding a painful Rome-led Holy Inquisition. William and Adso are present for several more murders, and the plot thickens. All of the clues point to a handwritten book that each of the men has died for, but that is hidden in the maze of the parchment library. The detective duo fails to find an explanation for the deaths and the abbott has no choice but to let the grisly Holy Inquisitioner, Bernardo Gui (F. Murray Abraham), take over. The story shows the dark side of monastery life, a life of sexual deprevation and literary censorship that brings out weird emotions in people. This story has several actual historical characters and itself is intensely realistic, and shows the drudgery, fear, and harsh religion of the European Dark Ages, in a way I haven't seen before in a film, but can imagine as happening everyday in the 11th or 12th century. This is easily a controversial film, what with its straighforward look at Catholicism, but the story and characters are interesting and intriguing. I think that the real value of the film, however, is in the historical representation of a time and age that most people know nothing about.