“Seneca” review: John Malkovich shows determination as the eponymous Stoic philosopher

The directing career of the German director Robert Schwentke took different directions; He made fun of Hollywood actors flight schedule with Jodie Foster, the adaptation of the wife of the time traveler and a film that almost defines the idea of ​​a personal film based on his own testicular cancer diagnosis. He both wrote and directed Seneca – On the formation of earthquakes, an eccentric selection of the competition, even by the Berlinale’s inclusive standards – starring John Malkovich as the stoic philosopher of the same name. For two hours he delivers largely a monologue, which as a performance certainly has the power of determination. But as a movie Seneca is almost unsustainable.

Shot in and around an open pillared pavilion built in the Moroccan desert, Seneca based on the Roman historian Tacitus’ account of the great thinker’s involuntary suicide in AD 65. A celebrated public figure, Seneca is also on the payroll of the young but already completely insane Emperor Nero as a classic combination of speechwriter, life coach and spin doctor. It’s not really a job for life. While Nero (Tom Xander) balks at the idea of ​​making conciliatory speeches in favor of 24-7 debauchery, his mother Agrippina (Mary-Louise Parker) warns Seneca to retreat to his estate and keep a low profile.

Schwentke describes his approach to updating Tacitus as an “aggressive anachronism”. Nero, addressed as Mr. President, refers to his own stability as a leader, an opportunity for the audience to share a knowing giggle. Seneca describes his famous visitor Cecilia, a witchy Geraldine Chaplin, as “an opiate crisis for a woman”: Yes, even the ancients had their drug enemies. Famous for playing the violin while Rome burned, Nero plays heavy metal on a lyre crossed with a rocker’s axe. No opportunity is missed to draw on the parallels between Rome and our time.

The most emphasized of these is Seneca’s own obscure moral status as a Stoic philosopher who preaches reason, self-control, and the virtues of a simple life while getting rich by taking a tyrant’s shilling. This is a dilemma for any artist with rich patrons, or even any film director, who is about to make humiliating but profitable potboilers. This is the deputy expert’s predicament, advising a bad president while fooling herself into making a difference. Seneca is a sellout. We get it.

Not surprisingly, he’s not the kind of social person to forget either; his country retreat is no more tranquil than a vacation in the Hamptons. Thus we see him entertaining some wealthy guests with a satirical play – his version of the theater that uses real murders to better satirize the emperor’s brutality – followed by a dinner at what has been described as the most prestigious table in Rome.

Julian Sands, the British actor who disappeared while hiking in January, is one of the lazy rich who pay for such distractions. This Sybarite group is drinking wine and exchanging insults when a particularly dedicated (and no doubt hot) member of the Praetorian Guard (Andrew Koji) arrives to tell Seneca that Nero believes he is part of an assassination plot who he tries to kill only to be thwarted. . He has one night to commit suicide, or the guard will do it for him, Nero’s way. You don’t want that, he says.

Seneca accepts his fate. As long as he has scribes recording every statement he makes – up to and including his death rumor – and an audience witnessing the historic moment, he can almost enjoy his performative grandeur. But that point has already been made: he’s a terrible windsock. At the beginning of the film, we may feel a passing sympathy for the disgusted Nero as he barks at his mentor, “Is someone asking you to stop your stupid life lessons and shut up?” By the end, the press audience was screaming. him to do so, go ahead and die.

Malkovich really delivers on the importance of the character, but for an actor to be so obnoxious that the entire audience is willing to give him a double dose of hemlock is something of a goal in itself. Anyway, no spoilers here, but you can find out what happened next in the Annals of Tacitus. You are much more beautiful than that.