Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Louis Hunter, Bella Dayne, Joseph Mawle, David Threlfall, Christiaan Schoombie, Jonas Armstrong, David Avery, Carl Beukes, Garth Breytenbach, Alfred Enoch, Chris Fisher, David Gyasi, Johnny Harris, Lex King, Chloe Pirrie, Waldemar Schultz, Amy Louise Wilson, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Frances O’Connor, Tom Weston-Jones , Inge Beckmann, Shamilla Miller.
Legends never fail to capture the imagination, the myths of history founded in some truth, characters blessed with God like status or cursed with over-reaching human frailties, these are the text books of our understanding of what life was like when heroes fell and cities were razed, of the saying and words that have stood the test of time and still are used for analogies and metaphors today. This is how we see and reflect our own virtues, promises and downfalls, in the stories of Greek and Roman legends and how one city drew the brunt of two people’s folly, love and disgrace.
Troy: Fall of a City is that rare television experience that goes beyond the cinematic and the frustrations of built up fantasies, it is gritty, down to Earth and sensible re-telling of the story of Helen of Troy and her Trojan partner and the war that engulfed two opposing sides over a simple tale of doomed love, of over-reaching humanity and hatred.
Cinema has no choice but to build up any story, to shorten the time length of the narrative so that it becomes almost meaningless, squalid and a case of pretend steeped in myth; Troy: Fall of a City neatly avoids that trap to which a great historic setting can fall into, it relishes the holding onto the myth and the truth in equal measure, a near faithful adaptation of a classic work.
There are many ways in which to interpret the story of Helen, Alexander/Paris, Menelaus, Odysseus, Priam and Achilles, the fall of Troy by its own vanity and the saying, Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, and yet it has to be noted that none perhaps capture the tale with any conviction when you put them up against this particular showing.
For David Threlfall, Jonas Armstrong and in particular Joseph Mawle as Odysseus, this is an epic in which they excel with gravitas and passion in their chosen profession. The difficulty in making sure such a huge cast is catered mentally and directed with trust is immense, the pressure unforgiving, for the makers of Troy: Fall of a City, the result is precious, without doubt sublime and one in which it can only be hoped those behind the scenes decide to carry on with this gold standard of story-telling from the past and make a fair representation of The Odyssey in the near future.
Television, when done to the best of capability, can show cinema a thing or two about dispensing with the blonde haired glamour and instead providing the link between times and history as something substantial and worthy of placing before the viewer.
Ian D. Hall