Rating: NR
Genre:
Theater [nf]
Release Date: 06/11/2002
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 88 Minutes
Flags: Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: Image Entertainment
Oedipus Rex looks just like what it was: a photographed stage play. Any cinematic deficiencies are, however, quickly forgotten as the "magic" of the
Sophocles tragedy (translated by
William Butler Yeats) takes hold. Staged by Sir
Tyrone Guthrie at the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare festival, the film spotlights such formidable Canadian-based talents as
Douglas Campbell (Oedipus Rex) and
Douglas Rain (Messenger). The story, of course, concerns Oedipus' detective work in locating the murderer of his father, and his nonplused (to say the least) reaction when he discovers that, not only is hehimself the guilty party, but his wife Jocasta is actually his own mother. When Douglas Rain comes on screen, see if you can pin down his voice. That's right: Rain was the dispassionate voice of homicidal computer Hal 9000 in
Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (Douglas Campbell was later in the McKenzie Brothers' slapstick comedy
Strange Brew, but that's hardly in the same category as
2001).
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
;)
