Not Very Edenesque
Did you ever watch a movie and get the feeling that you're supposed to think it's a masterpiece, yet you found yourself disappointed by it? Somehow, when this happens it makes me feel guilty or that I'm missing the genius of the filmmaker.
Martin Eden (Luca Marinelli) is a sailor on various ships. His life is unremarkable and we learn very little about his personality until he sees Arturo (Giustianiano Alpi), a young man being beaten up by a larger, older man. Martin intercedes on Arturo's behalf and knocks down the older man. To thank Martin, Arturo invites him to his home for dinner.
At Arturo's parents' home, Martin meets Arturo's sister, Elena (Jessica Cressy), a beautiful, educated, sweet, and refined young woman. Martin and Elena are in love seemingly within moments. Meeting her causes Martin to want to become educated. He never even finished elementary school, but in order to win her, he plows into learning, while returning to sailing, which greatly pleases Elena's parents because they don't even want him around.
His primary drive is to become a famous writer, partially for himself and partially to win Elena's heart. He also wants to highlight in his stories life among the lower classes from whence he grew up. At first, he is met with failure after failure in his attempt to get published. His writing is full of anger, which displeases Elena, who believes that that is holding him back.
Eventually, success comes to Martin, specifically because of his angry writing. Elena is displeased by this. Martin keeps getting angrier and becomes involved in the politics surrounding socialism. He enters a course where he becomes more obnoxious by the day, until you can't stand the guy.
There's a whole bunch of chatter about the merits and shortcomings of socialism and how society should function in order to lend some depth to a story that is simply about a man trying to win the heart of a woman, before he becomes a total jerk.
There's also countless scenes meant to be artistic, including flashbacks and extremely odd scenes that I suppose are deep. If not, who knows why they are in the film?
The overwhelming impression I took from "Martin Eden" is that he's an ass and that the film is over two hours too long, even though it is only slightly over two hours in length. I now know that some critics loved it, but this was a waste of time to me.
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