My offical review of the film Don Juan DeMarco
Any film with Johnny Depp in it has, by now, created an expectation as to what kind of film it is, just by seeing his name on the movie-poster. He rarely acts in "normal" films. He always plays characters that are eccentric, mysterious, slightly dangerous but in a playful way. He is almost like a cartoon-version of Jack Nicholson these days - odd, but in a likeable way, and a lot better-looking than Jack.
When this film came out in the mid-1990's, Depp was still pretty new in films. The big star in this film (and I mean "big" in several ways) was Marlon Brando. By this time, near the end of his life (though he lived another 10 years) Brando had single-handedly re-invented the art of acting, and he had created a mystique in his life that Depp still has a long way to match, for good or bad. It will be a long time before the likes of Brando are ever seen in film again, both in terms of his acting skills and in his very bizarre personal life. Brando is one of my favorite actors, ever, and I was looking forward to seeing him in his later years in this film.
But in this film, Brando's skill is wasted. He was not needed in this film at all, and his character could have easily been played by someone else. Brando was immensely overweight by this time in his life, easily weighing over 160 kilos. It was embarassing looking at him, the same person who famously acted in "A Streetcar Named Desire", "On the Waterfront", and "Last Tango in Paris". He was physically attractive in these earlier films, and his acting in those films was intense. I always remember what Jack Nicholson once said about Brando's effect on the art of acting: "We are all Brando's children". But by the mid 1990's Brando was simply a fat old man who was long past his prime.
I really wanted to like Brando in this film, but I just felt sorry for him. He should have remained retired, so people could remember him from his earlier glory-days. But now I will have this image of him as a lumbering old man, although he was only 70 in this film, younger than other older actors who still remained attractive as they aged, like Sean Connery or Clint Eastwood. Brando wasn't so lucky. So, I was disappointed in Brando, despite my better instincts.
However, I love Depp in this film. This film was very well written. The poetic, seductive words that come from Depp's mouth in this film are worth reading on paper, and he speaks them with conviction. Some of it sounds almost overly-sentimental, but it comes across as passionate and with conviction.
Some of my favorite lines spoken by Depp in this film are these:
"There are only four questions of value in life:
- What is sacred?
- Of what is the spirit made?
- What is worth living for?
- What is worth dying for?
The answer to each question is the same: Love."
"I see women for how they truly are: glorious, radiant, spectacular, and perfect, because, I am not limited by my eyesight. Women react to me the way that they do because they sense that I search out the beauty that dwells within, until it overwhelms everything else. And then they cannot avoid their desire, to release that beauty, and envelope me in it."
"What do you know of great love? Have you ever loved a woman until milk leaked from her as though she had just given birth to love itself, and now must feed it or burst? Have you ever tasted a woman until she believed that she could be satisfied only by consuming the tongue that had devoured her? Have you ever loved a woman so completely that the sound of your voice in her ear could cause her body to shudder and explode with such intense pleasure that only weeping could bring her full release?"
"Every true lover knows that the moment of greatest satisfaction comes when ecstasy is long over and he beholds before him the flower which has blossomed beneath his touch."
This film is about the power of seduction through poetry. I have always believed that the most direct path to a woman's heart is through words. Spoken words or written words, the word is a lover's most powerful tool, and can stir a woman's soul like nothing else.
Johnny Deep's character in this film is portrayed as probably being mentally ill, but it's an illness that stirs passion in every woman that meets him, and perhaps he shouldn't be cured of it. And Brando's character isn't convinced that his patient should be "cured", and he instead applies some of what Depp says to his own marriage, which he says at one point "has been long-since overtaken by the momentum of mediocrity."
I want to see this film again, and write down more of what Depp's character says on a pad of paper. He looks a bit silly walking around the modern world in a cape and a mask, carrying a sword, and his Spanish accent is obviously fake. But I found the life story he tells (which is partly fantasy) to be compelling, moving, and poetic. This movie is entirely fiction, but I think everyone should pay close attention to how Depp talks, and try to learn a little of the power that a word can have.