The Movie
Julien Temple, director of "The Filth and the Fury" and "Absolute Beginners" takes you behind treason, beyond madness and into the depths of the human mind in this esoteric production from Universal M&V starring John Hannah (The Mummy Returns), Linus Roach and supported by Emily Woof and 2000 Academy Award Nominee Samantha Morton.

The movie takes you visually into the poems created by the two celebrities of their time, putting to film aspects of love and creativity. The core of the story is the relationship between William Wordsworth (John Hannah), a fledgling poet concerned with society and the life of England's estuary fishermen and his mentor Samuel Coleridge (Linus Roach), poet, magical thinker and political activist who strives in his writing to go the the outer limits of the imagination where few others dare to go. Searching for liberty of the mind, he hopes, by accomplishing this, he can change the thinking of society to end the war in France and slavery. Taking historical liberties for dramatic purposes, the mid lives of the two poets are explored and their struggles with creativity, their marriages, politics and drugs during the period of political upheaval of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon.

Slowly succumbing to a drug, Coleridge ponders over his work, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," to the point of insanity and sparking the creation of "Kubla Kahn." Unfortunately, due in part to his addiction to Opium, the relationship decays as William achieves creative brilliance while Samuel falls into the depths of despair and hopelessness ending in near destruction of his artistic mind.

But, the movie takes unexpected liberties with history. The genius of Wordsworth is shown as repressed, and portrays his sister Dorothy as an unexpected visionary finding symbolisms in the works that he, himself, did not purposely create. She falls in love with Coleridge which makes William jealous to the point of being unable to compose without the presence of her beside him while becoming the inspiration to Coleridge to create poetry he could have never done alone. When her brother decides to marry is it more than Dorothy can bear and she, as well, falls into the clutches of Opium, due in part to her suggested incestuous relationship with him. In addition, it is awash with contemporary images of jet trails, cell phones and oil spills that snap you back to reality. It's unclear if these are depictions of future events or parallels of what was happening then to current events. Even the end credits are very odd, depicting a studdered Coleridge in a music video version of Olivia Newton-John's "Xanadu", the expressionist setting for his work Kubla Kahn.

But besides these oddities, it is a interesting tale where the villain is ultimately exposed and the victim saved by the mostly unlikely of sources.

DVD
Full screen 1.66:1 widescreen, Region 1, Closed Captioned, 125 minutes.

Menus
Full motion (Play Movie, Scene Index[18 chapters], Trailer, Trailer Gallery, Setup, Featurette)

Trailer - Theatrical Trailer for this movie.
Trailer Gallery - Trailers for "Late Marriage", "In The Mood for Love" and "Vidocq"
Setup - English 2.0 Dolby stereo, French 2.0 Dolby stereo.
Featurette - Clips from the movie with commentary by producer Nick O'Hagan, Samantha Morton, Linus Roach, Julien Temple and others in the cast.