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1492: Conquest of Paradise Movie Review

1492: Conquest of Paradise is a 1992 epic historical drama film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Gerard Depardieu in the main role. It’s a messy, but engaging and underrated movie.

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“Paradise and hell both can be earthly“

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The film is about Christopher Columbus‘ discovery of the Americas and the effect this has on the indigenous people. The movie was released in a year that celebrated the 500^th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage and discovery, so 1992 ended up witnessing quite a lot of these Columbo movies, none of them being great with this one faring as the best one. It’s a film that has a very bad reputation from audiences and critics alike, but I find it to be nowhere near as bad as it’s been made out to be.

Much has been made about Scott’s depiction of Columbus himself, but I would pose a better question myself – what kind of depiction of this historical figure would even be right for a feature film? This is the problem with this story and this figure in a nutshell – it’s almost impossible to make a movie out of this event without it seeming either morally wrong or thematically ambiguous or historically inaccurate. This is why we never really got a great Columbus movie and we will never get one in the future probably.

Columbus here is portrayed as a great person. Scott clearly glorifies this man to the point that he stripped him of any morally objectionable motifs. He isn’t in it for the money or the glory and he isn’t bad to the natives, quite the opposite. My prime issue with this characterization is that it led to that frustrating decision to put the blame and villainy on just one person. Moxica as Columbus’ archenemy was an archetypal, one-note villain that made no sense.

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But Gerard Depardieu was so strong as Columbus. Americans criticize the film for employing French actors, but it’s better to have French than British actors playing Spaniards and Italians. Their criticism of these actors’ accents just goes to show how xenophobic and ignorant they can be. Depardieu delivered a tremendous performance that is emotionally layered and potent. It’s a shame that all the other characters felt inferior and/or totally forgettable.

1492 is a polarizing movie for me. It’s nowhere near as bad as most would make you believe, but it’s not great either. The first half is actually terrific and it is baffling to me that Ridley Scott failed to realize that a much better and less problematic move would have been to just focus on the voyage and the adventure of the discovery. Here, those scenes are there and they are great, but they were ultimately rushed. The dialogue-heavy drama before the voyage was also intriguing, though the anti-Christianity theme was once again heavy-handed.

But the third act ruined the movie for me and I am not just talking about the historical inaccuracy behind it all. The gory violence was also a huge issue as it was needless and repulsive more than anything else. The ending itself trying to find purpose to the story and to Columbus himself felt hollow and problematically one-note. The first arrival to the island was amazing, but everything that came afterward was a total mess.

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1492 is still worth seeing for the audio-visuals alone. The Vangelis score is incredible. It isn’t quite fitting the historical period of course, but it doesn’t matter as this is iconic music right here. The central theme is particularly gorgeous and just timeless. The cinematography is also phenomenal as is the impressive production design, fantastic costumes and as always Scott’s immaculate attention to detail. It just lacked a heart and a clearly driven narrative.