I think that Kenneth Branagh understood something important about Agatha Christie when he started the series of films with Hercule Poirot as the hero, in which ‘Death on the Nile‘ (a much delayed 2022 release) is the second film. Agatha Christie was never a realistic writer. Her novels are detective mysteries, exercises in logic, dramas that take place in closed spaces that delimit not only the place but also the social categories of the characters. Most of her books have a unity of time and space reminiscent of Greek tragedies, but they are ultimately books aimed at the entertainment of certain categories of readers. It is not an imaginary world, but a world parallel to ours, from which she draws her characters and situations by selection. We are dealing with detective fantasies. ‘Death on the Nile‘ is such a fantasy, a story that takes place in a precise historical moment and in well-defined places, but which has no ambition to say anything dramatic or critical about that time and those places. Much of the filming took place on location in Aswan in Egypt, but the decision appears to have been primarily aesthetic, not a search for authenticity. The focus is on the characters, on the relationships between them, on the crimes that are a bit late to happen, but when they are triggered they do continue in chain. And, of course, the character of Hercule Poirot, who takes on new and surprising dimensions in this film.
The opening scene takes place in 1914 and is reminiscent of WWI trench films. In ‘Death on the Nile‘ we learn many new things about Poirot, about the origin of some of his whims, and even about his physical appearance. It may be that Branagh along with screenwriter Michael Green have the intention of making a film about the young Poirot one day. It would be based largely on their imagination and not on an Agatha Christie novel that she never wrote. It would be very interesting. Ultimately Poirot’s own method consists of using a few visible events and information to construct the solution to the most complicated puzzles. The character of Hercule Poirot would be one of them. Next we jump in time to the year 1937, and from dark and humid London we arrive in the sun-scorched Egypt. Agatha Christie and Kenneth Branagh‘s characters live in a fantasy bubble that has little in common with the real world. There is violence and stress but these are not the contradictions and violence that predicted World War II, but the internal conflicts of a privileged class and its various servants. Without much effort the action could have taken place a century earlier or perhaps a century later. The mystery is well built, the characters are introduced gradually and we know them well enough when the bodies start to pile to have the feeling that they can – almost all – be both criminals and victims.
‘Death on the Nile‘ is superbly filmed and the name of the cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos who collaborated with excellent results on all the latest Kenneth Branagh‘s films must be mentioned. Aesthetics derive from logic in his visual conception, for the universe the viewer sees on the screen is an extension of Poirot’s mania for symmetry and wholeness, one of the external oddities that build his complex personality. Watch the ensemble scenes and count how many of them are architecturally designed, like works of art or classical monuments. The cast includes some of the successful actors of the younger generations. It was the choice of some of the actors that I found less inspired. Armie Hammer and Gal Gadot may radiate wealth but not love, and this feeling is accentuated by Emma Mackey‘s hot performance as the disappointed rival. An inspired and interesting addition to the cast is the pair of mother-daughter musicians, played by Sophie Okonedo and Letitia Wright. They provide the pretext to build a soundtrack that I really enjoyed, combining blues with big band jazz of the era, and gives us the opportunity to know the sentimental side of Poirot. ‘Death on the Nile‘ is a visual and musical detective fantasy and quality entertainment. Those who will try to watch and judge it from a different perspective will do so at their own risk and they have good chances of being disappointed. I loved the movie.