THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
I wasn’t keen to see this film because I hate the thought of someone being ridiculed or mistreated simply because of the way they look (so no, I have no intention of ever seeing 'The Elephant Man'). I also feared that this 1939 adaptation of a classic novel of Gothic romanticism might be rather heavy going and sentimental, especially given the pathos inherent in the relationship between Quasimodo and Esmeralda (or so I assumed). So I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining and dynamic this film is, and by how little running time is taken up by Quasimodo and Esmeralda. However when they are together there is one moment that genuinely moved me, when Esmeralda gives him water after he has been flogged in the market square. The source novel runs to over 900 pages, so there is no shortage of characters and plot machinations to keep the viewer intrigued and entertained, including a murder which quite took me by surprise. In order to bring medieval Paris to life no...