Under the Volcano (1984)

Too much of everything

Such a frustrating disappointment

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Towards the end of his career, John Huston adapted Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano", depicting a day in the life of an alcoholic British consul in Mexico on the Day of the Dead in 1938. I haven't read the novel but now I'd like to. Albert Finney plays the consul as a man who wants to be able to do the right thing but his alcoholism prevents it, even with the Nazis trying to infiltrate Mexico. I thought that the consul's wife (Jacqueline Bisset) wasn't as developed as extensively as she could've been, but I still liked Bisset's performance. With this movie Huston made clear that he had not lost his touch. I recommend it.PS: Hugo Stiglitz (Sinarquista) was known for various horror flicks. He and John Huston co-starred in "The Bermuda Triangle" in 1978. Quentin Tarantino named Til Schweiger's character in "Inglourious Basterds" Hugo Stiglitz in reference to him.

This movie version of 'Under the Volcano' is for me a godsend. The reason for this somewhat indulgent gratitude is because this is a book I have been struggling with for a number of years, the exact number I refuse to divulge because it would make me sound like an idiot. When I choose to read it, it sends me to sleep; when I am awake it drives me crazy. I ignore it, and feel guilty. I start to read it again and go through the entire process over; it isn't a lot of fun. To make a leap of off-topic logic, I have no intention of comparing the book to the film. I feel embarrassed to say that this a reasonably successful attempt at adapting a notoriously difficult work of fiction. The movie version of 'Under the Volcano' is something that can stand on its own, as well as encourage more interested members of the audience to return to the source material, or at least give it a try, which is what I've been trying to do for years. Albert Finney gives a tour de force performance as Geoffrey Firmin, a diplomat living in Mexico who appears to have finally succumbed to the ravages of alcoholism. His wastrel half-brother is trying to assist, but it seems no use. His ex-wife who has left him returns perhaps for not the most altruistic of reasons, but seems unaware of how dangerously close he is to complete oblivion and an unmourned death. This does not sound like terribly exciting stuff. Director John Huston and writer Guy Gallo make a valiant attempt to insert some of Lowry's symbolism into the narrative, without making it too obscure for the audience to follow, at least for those who have been previously acquainted with the book. There are many performances in the filmic canon of men coping with a substance abuse problem and I think that Albert Finney is phenomenal playing a drunk; he is in fact drunk throughout the entire film, and I don't know if that's ever been done before. The audience is expected to forget that he is actually, constantly drunk, and the performance works beautifully. Jacqueline Bisset is impressive as Yvonne, a mature role for an actress who knows her business and acquits herself admirably. Anthony Andrews as Hugh seems to have had some of his part cut out of the movie, but he is frank and fresh faced and gives an intelligent performance. I give 'Under the Volcano' high marks. As an adaptation of a novel which was thought to be unfilmable, it makes a good account of itself. I should also mention the location shooting which lends a nice authenticity, the casting of many locals as extras (such as the old lady playing dominoes with a chicken) and lovely photography and set design. 'Under the Volcano' is a profound version of its complex and brilliant source material, which to me is a good reason to recommend it.

I don't know why our reviewers are so down on novel author Malcolm Lowry, screen writer Guy Gallo and director Walter Houston's gripping story, of a man with much on his conscience, who is put out to pasture as Consul in sleepy Cuernavaca as a grateful Empire's reward for his terrible experience in WW-I when someone on the ship he commands tosses 6 or so German prisoners alive into the coal-burner's fire box, turns to drinks to salve his soul, loses his wife to a torrid affair with his half brother, in his misery gets drunk and contracts syphilis in the Farolito, a rough bar/whorehouse perched on a shelf above a chasm in the shadow of Mexico's renown volcano, Popocatapetl, and, when his wife unexpectedly comes back him and indicates her desire to renew a life of intimacy, has nowhere to go but back to the Faralito and his death under the volcano.Lowry, of course, had to obscure his seamy plot with reams of reflective language, else he would never have been published. He says as much in opening paragraph where in its second sentence he unnecessarily describes the locale as being south of the Tropic of Cancer. But John Huston, bless his iconoclastic soul, didn't pull any punches. The clues are there from git go to the very end. Vide Doctor Virgil, the specialist in venereal diseases.I was also amused that Huston used virtually the same opening as he did in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: Bogart, the drunk cadging handouts, and Finney, the drunk cadging drinks. Reminded me of the basically identical structures of the Jack and Bobby Kennedy assassinations where the victim is diverted into a killing field and a deadly crossfire.This is truly a great movie that did total justice to Lowry's celebrated work. And no, I'm not a professor. I saw the movie on DVD, was sufficiently intrigued to read the book. Just once. Read IMDM's comments and couldn't believe the paucity of comment and the plenitude of misunderstanding. So decided to see the movie again before shooting off my mouth.

This film is to Leaving Las Vegas as The Howling is to Little Red Riding Hood. Under The Volcano is the most grindingly real portrayal of the true devastation of alcoholism ever put on film (I've seen them all from Lost Weekend forward). This is no romantic movie where a guy decides he will go to Vegas and drink himself to death in 6 weeks then meets a devastatingly gorgeous chick who takes care of him the rest of the way. In this film the real horrors of alcohol are convincingly portrayed as the main character loses all track of reality and cannot tell whether his wife is really her or a hallucination. And because of that intermittent fading out and in, he loses the one chance he might have had at redemption. There is no romance here. There is no fabulous girl to have sex with while he's dying. This guy lives in a world so much more terrifying than Nic Cage's world in LLV as to be about two entirely different human experiences.Not everyone will be able to stand this. It's almost unremittingly awful. But for anyone who is an alcoholic, recovering or otherwise, or who has lived under its shadow as someone related to or in love with an alcoholic, this is textbook stuff. Malcolm Lowery was an alcoholic and died of the disease. He put all he had into this book. No punches are pulled. The benchmark of the genre.