"Figures in a Landscape" had plenty of chance to develop and become a great film but it fails to become so due to its insistence in making the
audience having to figure everything for themselves. This is a movie where nothing is answered and when we have to fill in the blanks about who are the
characters, where they are and why they are running from a mysterious black helicopter that follows them the duo Robert Shaw and Malcolm McDowell while
crossing the desert of an unspecified country. The source novel establishes they're soldiers on a South American nation but writer Robert Shaw left
everything for us to solve and in a movie as simplistic as this one such idea doesn't work at all, less mystery would benefit more the story and it would
help director Joseph Losey's direction.
I was intrigued and fascinated by both characters even though they barely speak and spend the majority of the film hancuffed and running all the time while surviving in the wilderness, amazingly photographed by Henri Alekan, Guy Tabary and Peter Suschitzky. You'll be mesmerized by the locations and also the way the helicopter sequences were filmed. Shaw plays the smart and dangerous one while McDowell plays the introspective and timid prisoner, and for reasons unknown they were the ones who escaped prison and are on the run against a persistent helicopter that follows through long distances.
The settings coming from a sort of "The Defiant Ones" retelling works for quite some time but as the movie progresses the more it finds itself lost in emptiness, lack of a higher purpose and meaning and after a certain time we are bored, restless and far from being helpful of seeing a good movie. It's not the worst, it has plenty of qualities (the acting is fairly good and there are inspired moments) but it's weak and undeserving of its talents. You can skip "Figures in a Landscape" without reservations. 5/10.
I was intrigued and fascinated by both characters even though they barely speak and spend the majority of the film hancuffed and running all the time while surviving in the wilderness, amazingly photographed by Henri Alekan, Guy Tabary and Peter Suschitzky. You'll be mesmerized by the locations and also the way the helicopter sequences were filmed. Shaw plays the smart and dangerous one while McDowell plays the introspective and timid prisoner, and for reasons unknown they were the ones who escaped prison and are on the run against a persistent helicopter that follows through long distances.
The settings coming from a sort of "The Defiant Ones" retelling works for quite some time but as the movie progresses the more it finds itself lost in emptiness, lack of a higher purpose and meaning and after a certain time we are bored, restless and far from being helpful of seeing a good movie. It's not the worst, it has plenty of qualities (the acting is fairly good and there are inspired moments) but it's weak and undeserving of its talents. You can skip "Figures in a Landscape" without reservations. 5/10.