Hamlet macht Geschäfte (1987)

Hamlet macht Geschäfte: Directed by Aki Kaurismäki. With Pirkka-Pekka Petelius, Esko Salminen, Kati Outinen, Elina Salo. A bizarre black-and-white film noir reworking of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’. After the death of his father, young Hamlet inherits a seat on the board of a company controlled by his uncle that decides to move into the rubber duck market. But Hamlet is suspicious of the circumstances surrounding his father’s death…

“i saw this about a year after it first came out.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt has become notorious for being somewhat flippant about itu0026#39;s source material (Shakespeareu0026#39;s Hamlet).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eActually, I donu0026#39;t remember finding this very humorous at all. In fact, a darker version of the Hamlet narrative could hardly be imagined.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis film represents an important historical turning point; although theatrical directors had been toying with the notion of u0026quot;updatingu0026quot; Shakespeare, ever since Orson Welles produced a Broadway version of Macbeth with African Americans in the cast back in the late 1930s (When he made his own film version of MacBeth, he chickened out on this, unfortunately). But if the reader has seen the updated version of Romeo and Juliet out of Australia, or the Ethan Hawke Hamlet of 2000, or the recent u0026quot;Ou0026quot; version of Othello (at last with black actors playing black roles, after all these centuries, for heavenu0026#39;s sake!), it all starts here.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eUnfortunately, as I say, this film is so incredibly dark, youu0026#39;ll want to know why Hamlet didnu0026#39;t just cut his throat – u0026quot;To be, or not to be – oh, the hell with it!u0026quot; Not for every taste, to say the least.”