Combined with Jed Kurzel’s unnerving score, this deliberate bleakness creates the sense of morbid inevitability inherent to classical tragedy. The film’s grey, near-monochromatic palette is disrupted by flashes of gold – the flutter of the candles illuminating Lady Macbeth’s church, the flames that immolate Macbeth’s victims, the dull shine of the precious metal itself – or the fevered red haze that consumes the film in its final war-torn minutes. Kurzel’s careful use of colour contributes to this distancing aesthetic. After committing the unforgivable, he is fundamentally and forever alone. When Macbeth paces his dining room, shouting at a ghost only he can see, the shocked silence of his guests emphasises the existential loneliness that has engulfed him. Macbeth ascends from the battlefield to the stark opulence of the royal castle, but the camera assumes a cautious distance from its increasingly deranged protagonist. Again and again, Kurzel – with the aid of cinematographer Adam Arkapaw – frames Macbeth at the centre of an empty frame. Power corrupts, yes, but power also isolates. The film’s most memorable image is Fassbender standing solitary in a shallow body of water in an empty expanse (and not just because of his impressive physique). Having achieved his dark ambitions, he is consumed by madness – a mind “full of scorpions” – dispatching enemies both real and perceived with a relentless bloodlust that presages his demise. Impelled by the prophecies and hallucinations of three ‘weird sisters’ and his wife’s (Cotillard’s) ambition, Macbeth (Fassbender) assassinates King Duncan (David Thewlis) and claims his throne. Set – and filmed – amidst the miasmic moors of Scotland, Macbeth follows its eponymous protagonist’s rise from successful military leader to tyrannical King. Screenwriters Jacob Koskoff, Michael Leslie and Todd Louiso’s interpretation of the classic tragedy retains Shakespeare’s core storyline. Kurzel has described his take on Macbeth as a Western rather than a tragedy, but his description of its setting as “ an environment that has borne tragic people because it's completely corrupted by violence” unmistakably recalls his portentous approach to Snowtown. It can be a touch slow and can be hard to follow, but if you are willing to give it an attempt, your eyes will thank you for letting them gaze upon this gorgeous piece of eye candy.Tonally, Macbeth has much in common with its director’s debut, Snowtown, a grim, unsettling recreation of Snowtown’s infamous bodies-in-barrels murders. As a whole, Macbeth is a fantastic piece of film.

For example, the battle sequences are brilliant and as hectic as they are, they pack a certain beauty and elegance. The direction from Justin Kurzel is fantastic and really gets your heart racing at times. Though the Shakespearean English being spoken through Scottish accents can prove to be a challenge at times, it is a challenge worth undertaking due to the brilliance of the film as a whole. This brilliance is accented by fantastic performances from Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, and Sean Harris. Sporting gorgeous cinematography, brilliant lighting, great staging, and fantastic costumes, Macbeth is technically brilliant. Macbeth is one of the year's most beautiful films.

Macbeth michael fassbender