SAAZISH
I guess we’re supposed to be on the edge of our seats as Dharmendra attempts to outfox Hantomas (A Bollywood copy of Fantomas, going by the name of Mr. Han) by pretending to be on the side of evil, but it’s hard to get into the spirit of things when it’s so obvious Dharmendra is a secret Interpol guy. Eventually everyone winds up on board a cruise ship that also happens to be full of smuggler’s gold, reminding you that you’ve gone for most of the movie without even knowing what the hell Hantomas and his gang are even trying to do. I guess they were trying to smuggle gold, or possibly steal it, but their entire scheme seems to have absolutely no point at all. Nothing they do seems to have any connection to anything else they do. It’s completely baffling to the point that I started to think this was less a criminal gang and more a dada-ist performance art troupe. Every time you ask them a question, they respond with a dance or by miming a tennis match. What are you trying to tell me, Hantomas! I don’t understand!!!
#1 by El Santo on November 20, 2008 - 3:08 pm
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Re: Fantomas, it is my belief that the Driven Outsider is France’s greatest and most distinctive contribution to genre fiction and film. Beyond the examples you gave yourself, I include in that category Captain Nemo, Robur, the Phantom of the Opera, Cheri-Bibi, Gwynplaine, and a host of others. Specifically with regard to the movie serials of the 1910’s, I think Fantomas is best looked at in tandem with two other characters, Judex (from the 1917 serial of the same name) and Irma Vep (from The Vampires). Between the three of them, you get the entire spectrum– Judex the hero, Fantomas the anti-hero, and Irma the flat-out villainess– but in all cases, you have someone who for whatever reason has deliberately withdrawn from normal society to live completely according to their own rules in pursuit of their private obsessions.