Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5825 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-10-20
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Formats: PAL, Special Edition
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 88 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Under Milk Woodn is an imaginative, cinematic rendering of Dylan Thomas's famous "play for voices," typically read on stage by a handful of actors expressing the dialogue of more than 50 characters living in a small, Welsh fishing village. Filmmaker Andrew Sinclair sets the story in a real seaside community and visually complements the text's lengthy, opening narration by enlisting Richard Burton both for his brooding voiceover and a mysterious, on-screen role as a drunken gadabout soaking in the very soul of the town Thomas' words describe. Once the narration ends, the film breathes freely with a succession of lively vignettes, some funny, some dramatic, but all rooted in the peculiar circumstances of characters who either feel trapped by or ensconced in their home. Peter O'Toole plays the wizened, blind Captain Cat, haunted by memories of drowned sailors but so attuned to the sounds of village life outside his window he can identify the children screaming in a park. Elizabeth Taylor (Burton's wife at the time) makes a brief appearance as Rosie Probert, and the other players include Glynis Johns, Vivien Merchant, and Victor Spinetti. --Tom Keogh

Synopsis
This ambitious film, based on a radio play by poet Dylan Thomas, tells of the lives of a number of colourful characters living in the small Welsh village of Llareggub (try saying it backwards). Throughout the movie, a background voice (that of native Welshman Richard Burton) narrates the day-in-the-life action.

Customer Reviews

starless and bible black and the sunny side of the street
Dylan Thomas's play/poem makes a surprisingly good film. It's not the kind of thing that could be done anywhere else but Wales and using predominantly Welsh actors. The cast is full of stars (Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Peter O'Toole) and future stars of especially the small screen (most notably David Jason).

To say it is delightful would be misleading, as this deep study of the underbelly of a small fishing village is about a peculiar kind of nationalism that is both celebratory and critical. What makes it such a great experience is how the language grabs you, and you have to listen to every word, so it is intense.

The linking of the text and the imagery is seamless, with the narrator (Burton), seemingly present in the town at the beginning of spring to have carnal knowledge of a former girlfriend, and his companion observing as outsiders and eavesdropping on the town over a twenty-four hour period, dipping into the thoughts, reminiscences and dreams of the townsfolk.

Like the narrator, a retired, blind sea captain (O'Toole) sits at his window, with acute hearing absorbing all the details that escape others with eyes and too busy to notice, divining the motivations of the people around him and living in deep nostalgia for his departed crew and lover, the former town prostitute (Taylor).

So the film is built around a series of vignettes, mostly interchanging between the two, and it flows beautifully, from night to day to night again.

Since Dylan Thomas died in 1953, and this was one of his later works, the world he describes is fifty years old and seems somewhat quaint today. But his rich language on occasions soars with the romance of feeling for the beauty of his nativeland (the vicar's morning address to the town, with nobody listening, is just wonderful), and love of its people.

Nevertheless, in relating the sexual dreams and activities of the town and the world of men and women a touch of gothic intrudes. There are oppositions at play between the open-hearted, sexually generous women and the close-minded wives, the ecstatic Organ Morgan the church organist and his petty wife, "a martyr for music", the mischievious butcher's subversions, numerous attractions and solicitations between adults and the budding sexuality of the young, the unrequited love of Sinbad the barman from the Sailor's Arms, and an unscrupulous postman and his nosey-parker wife.

The portrait Thomas paints of Milk Wood is tainted by his own world-view, resentful of the Church, the lack of ambition and other provincialities. There's an amazing amount of activity in the town, apart from its economy, lots of drinking, fornicating and song, but despite the evidence of bad-blood the community seems to thrive on love and an underlying generosity of heart that allows for the bounty that all life brings.

This may well be Burton's greatest artistic offering in his long career, thanks to the screenplay and direction of Andrew Sinclair.

It doesn't really work
If you know the voice-only versions of this play, this is disappointing. The viewer's imagination does it all so much better: I want to imagine Rosie Probert in any way I fancy, not to have an image of Elizabeth Taylor's acting in my head whenever I hear her words.

The film adds quite unnecessary extras to the original, in an attempt to give the text some sort of rational context. When listening to the play we can quite happily accept the narrators (First Voice and Second Voice) as disembodied observers. In the film there are awkward contrivances such as a coachload of sightseers and Burton meeting a girlfriend for a quick bonk in the afternoon to explain the narrators' presence. It's not just that those additions are instrusively out of context, but far worse they waste precious time which could be spent savouring the magnificent words of Dylan Thomas!

Of course, the basics are still there. No amount of sometimes clumsy images will destroy the glory of the original text, or the joy of listening to Burton and many of the other characters. If you love language, don't miss experiencing Under Milkwood in any and every way you can, even this version. But best of all sit back, close your eyes, listen to all the glorious, tumbling, entrancing words of one of the audio versions (both those of Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins are worth owning) and give your imagination free rein.

Fun and games in the village....
If you find yourself laughing when you view this filmed version of UNDER MILK WOOD then good on ya mate, 'cause that's the response Dylan Thomas was looking for. To be sure, under all the humourous ironies, core qualities of small town Welsh life show through, although the tour group who come to town can't see them from behind their pseudo-sophistication. This is no, "Quick trip Marge", kind of movie. The moving pictures are woven together with poetic imagery and a rich text which will entertain the viewer as much as a Shakespearian play could over a lifetime.the cast displays timeless class. See it. Enjoy it. Savor it.