Bovie Movie

In 1984, in Kiev, the communist teacher Andrej Romanovic Evilenko is dismissed from his position after a pedophilic act against a student. On 15 May 1984, the pedophile Evilenko begins to rape children, and then slashing the victims in pieces and eating them. The magistrate family man Vadim Timurouvic Lesiev is assigned to catch the serial killer and almost eight years later he finally captures the monster that killed fifty-five persons, most of them children and young women. On 22 May 1992, Evilenko goes to the court and on 14 February 1994 he is finally executed.

It was a thankless task, putting Vladimir Nabokov’s notorious 1955 novel on the screen. But after Stanley Kubrick’s valiant, inventive and funny attempt in 1961 (which Nabokov himself scripted), why try again? To be fair, this 1997 version isn’t as sacrilegious as it might have been, with the flashy, superficial Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal) at the helm. However, it is Lyne’s bid for artistic “respectability” (the artful shots, the fidelity to the book) that is also the film’s undoing. It looks good, but lacks danger. Despite a compelling, tortured turn from Jeremy Irons as Humbert — and a seductive one from Dominique Swain as Lolita — it’s all a little too cosmetic and soft-focused. Although some might say that makes it even more insidiously controversial. 

Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, but accorded a mixed critical reception, this is a studied, elegant and, ultimately, very moving historical drama set in 18th-century South America. There’s no denying the longueurs in Robert Bolt’s script, a certain flabbiness in Roland Joffé’s direction and a distinctly detached performance from a curiously cast Robert De Niro. However, Jeremy Irons more than makes amends with a performance of great sincerity as the head of a Jesuit mission under threat from the greed of Iberian slavers and the whim of Ray McAnally’s cardinal. Chris Menges’s Oscar-winning photography is glorious and Ennio Morricone’s haunting score sends shivers down the spine.