One of the history's greatest ironies lies in fact that one of its most controversial figures had very little historical importance. Michael de Notre Dame a.k.a. Nostradamus (1503 1566) didn't command great armies, win important battles, found great religions, preside over the rise and fall of empires, create timeless works of art, make important scientific discoveries or inspire profound social changes. The only reason why he is still remembered today is in his claim that he could have seen the future. In that he wasn't alone, but, unlike most of other would-be prophets, at least one of his prophecies - violent death of French king Henry II - turned out to be correct. Because of that, Nostradamus, like few other historical figures, divides people in two opposing camps - those who think of him of charlatan who got lucky and those who, utterly convinced of his precognitive abilities, try to find some hidden meaning in his book of cryptic prophecies. His prophecies aroused people's imagination for last four and half centuries, so it isn't surprising to see filmmakers showing same kind of interest. Yet, among films that dealt with his prophecies, few dealt with his life. Nostradamus, 1994 biographic film directed by Roger Christian, is one of them.
Plot deals with the life and times of young Michel de Notre Dame (played by Tcheky Karyo), descendant of French Jewish family that converted to Catholicism in order to evade Inquisition and other forms of religious persecution. Young Nostradamus begins his career of physician, often challenging established authority and employing new methods in battle with plague and other diseases that wreaked havoc in Renaissance Europe. Yet, he is soon plagued by chaotic visions of apocalyptic future, as well as tragedies in personal life. Only when he accepts his gift and starts recording his visions, he begins to find some peace.
Roger Christian, director and co-writer of this film, was faced with a huge problem in this biopic. Life of Nostradamus, apart from brouhaha created by his prophecies, was rather boring, insignificant and thus seemingly unworthy of feature film. Some more experienced movi emaker could have solved this problem, but not Roger Christian. So, screenplay took great liberties with the historical facts of Nostradamus' life, inventing various bizarre characters (which allowd for entertaining but short episode with Rutger Hauer playing mad monk) and giving too much emphasis on Nostradamus' sex life (which resulted in mishandled sex scene between Tcheky Karyo and Julia Ormond in the role of Nostradamus' first wife). But yet it wasn't enough to fill time, so poor Nostradamus is forced to endure spectacular yet pointless hallucination scenes in which he witnesses various evils of 20th Century - industrial pollution, Wehrmacht soldiers in street battles and modern-day SWAT teams in action. Yet, all of those visions and prophecies mean very little to the audience, at least those who don't like to escape "deja vu" feelings in films. Tcheky Karyo tries very hard to give some dimension to the character tortured by schizophrenic script, but his efforts, as well as good production design, can't find one sad truth that is very apparent to the viewers. Authors of Nostradamus, unlike the prophet himself, lacked vision.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on August 21st 2002)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/48485-nostradamus?language=en-US
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