Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979) - Peter Brook

Rating: 6.6/10

Runtime: 108

Language: English

Country: UK

Color: Color

IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079542/

Book-to-Film adaptations are notoriously problematic and frequently contentious. Not only is it exceedingly difficult to translate the often internal quality of a book's narrative structure using dramatic devices, but the end result--no matter how artfully done--often provokes apples-to-oranges comparisons that almost invariably favor the apples... which is to say: the books.

The difficulties are even greater when the book in question is allegorical. 'Meetings With Remarkable Men' provides a good case in point. Ostensibly the autobiography of the great spiritual teacher/rogue sage G.I. Gurdjieff (1866-1949), the book seems, on the surface, like a very colorful, picaresque travelogue. It is supposed to portray the events in Gurdjieff's search for deeper knowledge among certain esoteric spiritual schools.

Students of Gurdjieff and his teaching, however, tend to agree that this simple form (all of Gurdjieff's other writings tend towards mind-numbing complexity of expression) belies a profound metaphor for the search for meaning in our lives.

Now the film of 'Meetings With Remarkable Men' seems to take a very straight-forward, very literal-minded approach to portraying Gurdjieff's search--which basically follows his growth from a rascally and inquisitive schoolboy, to an intense young man consumed by a hunger for the knowledge of life's meaning.

I think that the above-mentioned literal-mindedness is one of two factors that cripple the film and keep it from being what it might have been.

For example, one of the episodes in the book has young Gurdjieff and a group of fellow seekers caught in a violent sandstorm in the middle of the desert. They each climb to the upper rungs of some very tall stilts, effectively rising above the sandstorm. To most readers of average perspicacity, this little episode might represent something psychologically symbolic, or it might be a kind of litmus test, separating those who readily take whatever they read at face value from those with more independence of thought. But one thing it's not likely to represent is a bunch of guys walking across the desert on huge stilts. And yet, when we see exactly that in the film, it tends to strain credulity even more than reading it in the book. In fact, it seems downright silly.

The other problematic factor in this film is the acting, which is stilted in the extreme. There seems to be a mingling of well-known, competent actors (Terrence Stamp, Athol Fugard, Warren Mitchell, Bruce Meyers), and perhaps less experienced performers (Dragan Maksimovic, in the title role, may be an experienced performer in his native country, but was hampered by the fact that he knew no English until just before filming; the actor who plays Gurdjieff as a boy fares less well). Regardless of actorly competence, the delivery of dialogue is so stiff it's almost painful to watch.

The film is directed by Peter Brook, who has done much more work in theater than in film. In fact, each of the few films of Brook's that I've seen--from 'Marat-Sade' to 'The Mahabarata'--has a distinctly "theatrical" or stagey quality. This isn't to say he isn't a capable director (his 'Lord Of The Flies' stands as one of the preeminent book-to-film adaptations), but one wonders how comfortable he is with the subtleties of cinematic language.

That said, there is one very good reason to see 'Meetings:' the film closes with a 10 minute sequence of "sacred dances"--what Gurdjieff refered to as "Movements." It's during a viewing of these movements that one feels the call of something deeper; that "something" which no doubt Gurdjieff sought and found, and which formed the subject of his books.

Alas, if only the rest of Peter Brook's film had something of the quality of the final ten minutes...

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