Under the Volcano

Under the Volcano, USA, 1984
Direction: John Huston.
Starring Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Andrews. April Video.

Synopsis of the movie
Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1938. Geoffrey Firmin is a former British consul who becomes an alcoholic after separating from Yvonne Firmin and decides to remain living in Mexico, where he recalls his wife’s betrayal with his half-brother, Hugh Firmin. Geoffrey always awaits his wife’s return, and on New Year’s Day she suddenly returns, in order to put their marriage back together again. However, the scars of the separation were greater than she imagined.

Movie review

Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcan, one of the most beautiful and broken novels in the English language, is one of those disjointed books. It was a novice screenwriter who solved the problem, removed all flashbacks, streams of consciousness, multiple allusions and symbolism, and based the script on raw facts. Former British Consul in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Geoffrey Firmin (Finney) is an alcoholic. On the Day of the Dead in 1938, all their spirits – present, past and future – will meet. Finney is simply brilliant and Huston faithfully recreates the atmosphere of the original novel.

8.0 TOTAL SCORE

Under the Volcano, EUA, 1984

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Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1938. Geoffrey Firmin is a former British consul who becomes an alcoholic after separating from Yvonne Firmin and decides to remain living in Mexico, where he recalls his wife's betrayal with his half-brother, Hugh Firmin. Geoffrey always awaits his wife's return, and on New Year's Day she suddenly returns, in order to put their marriage back together again. However, the scars of the separation were greater than she imagined.

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Road map 7

Photography 9

Sceneries 9

Movie Costume 6

Actors and actresses 9

PROS

• Finney is brilliant.
• Huston recreates the atmosphere of the original novel.

CONS

• The visual effects and special effects and techniques that existed at the time are evident, they have aged a lot.