having never actually seen anything by this beloved of the luvvies, let alone a production of merchant of venice, i cant comment on how faithful it is to previous adaptations of the play so i will treat it as just another movie that tries to be more than novocaine for the eye MoV is an instantly gripping movie about a young lover bassanio (fiennes) and his merchant friend antonio (irons) and a Jewish money lender shylock (pacino)<br /><br />plot summary<br /><br />bassiano is broke and needs money to woo the lovely portia (collins), he goes to his friend antonio, who sypathises with his friends predicament, so borrows some money off shylock<br /><br />now antonio does not like jews in general and shylock in particular and shylock bitter and twisted from the abuse he has suffered from antonio in particular and christians in general agrees to lend antonio the money on condition that if antonio does not repay the loan by the agreed deadline, shylock will cut a pound of flesh from antonios body <br /><br />comment<br /><br />the movie is breathtakingly beautiful and acted and spoken in such a way as to force you to think about what each line means, this in turn causes the viewer to gain insights into the characters and their motivations<br /><br />it seems to me to be a movie about the choices that shylock makes, and how making wrong choices leads to shylocks ruin<br /><br />from the moment shylock demands his pound of flesh he is doomed, for rest of the world is against him and connives to bring about his downfall<br /><br />this disturbed me greatly, normally in a movie when a victim gets a chance of revenge against those who have harmed him either the victim succeeds or makes the villain see the error of his ways leading to a big hug<br /><br />not in MoV the victim quickly becomes seen as the villain and is stripped of his fortune and faith<br /><br />this movie is a powerful and subtle portrayal of casual anti semitism which shows how a whole society can turn on a minority and make it seem like the victim is really the offender<br /><br />i was blown away by this movie 10/10