BURKE & HARE

Edinburgh, early 1800s. William Burke and William Hare are two no-good ne'er-do-wells who make a living as they can, through theft and fraud. When Dr. Monroe of the University of Edinburgh dishonestly receives the privilege of obtaining all the "fresh" cadavers for his anatomy lessons, his rival Dr. Knox is forced to settle for the putrefied ones that grave robbers sell him. One day, however, Hare finds a dead client at his wife's inn and has the idea, together with Burke, to hide him and sell him to Knox. From that moment on, an agreement is born between the doctor and the two men: 5 pounds for every fresh cadaver. However, after an unsuccessful attempt to find cadavers in the city cemetery, Burke and Hare decide to obtain the material from the source and turn themselves into murderers. A caption opens the film that marks the long-awaited return of John Landis, "This story is inspired by real events," a phrase that opens hundreds of films and that emphasizes the truthful basis, otherwise unimaginable for some stories that seem shamelessly the product of fantasy. But the caption of "Burke & Hare" continues with "...except those that are not." Therefore, the film is inspired by events that actually occurred in nineteenth-century Britain, but from the start the director wants to inform us that the story is full of inventions. It seems like a paradox, a true story that is not entirely true, a game that expresses from the start the unruly and somewhat cheeky spirit of John Landis' cinema. Yes, because "Burke & Hare" proudly bears the signature of Landis, even if it is a 100% British comedy (Landis is American) and the screenwriters are the very English Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft, already authors of the two "St. Trinian's." "Burke & Hare" is therefore a comedy, as Landis himself insisted during the Rome press conference, it is not a horror film despite the themes, but a film to laugh at. Yes, this is true, but "Burke & Hare" to the viewer's eye is first a horror and then a comedy... the tone is that of the farce, very incorrect and with Monty Python-style gags, but we are still talking about two grave robbers who become serial killers, deal with putrefied cadavers and commit horrible deeds. A horror comedy that uses the themes of the first genre and the language of the second. But "Burke & Hare" is above all an anomalous film, proud of its anomaly, capable of making unpopular choices from start to finish. Landis asks us to side with two repulsive human beings and to laugh with them, two murderers who do horrible things but who have the funny and dreamy face of Simon Pegg ("Shaun of the Dead"; "Hot Fuzz") and the somewhat slimy and asymmetrical face of Andy Serkis ("King Kong"; "The Cottage"). Usually, death is a taboo subject in everyday life and in Western society, while cinema often uses it to tell the most varied stories. "Burke & Hare" seems to revel in this fact and wants to go further, using death as a joke to show us the art of getting by of two poor devils, the insensitive cynicism of the "powerful" and providing us with a series of gags that have decomposing bodies as protagonists rolling down the streets of Edinburgh, breaking due to rigor mortis, being cut into pieces, hung, desecrated and violated. Horrible things, but Landis laughs about them saying that love triumphs over everything, even if then he mockingly commits a massacre! The great themes around which "Burke & Hare" revolves are progress, technological and medical innovation, and the social emancipation characteristic of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. The spark of everything starts precisely with the progress that medicine of the time was about to undertake and here represented by two doctors professionally and intellectually opposed: Dr. Monroe (played by a hilarious Tim Curry), a bit dull and anchored to the old and brutal methods, and Dr. Knox (a composed and professional Tom Wilkinson), more level-headed and open to innovation. Both politically covered and therefore protected from the "crimes" they commit in the name of research and clearly constructed in such a way as to show the conceptual passing of the baton between the old (Monroe) and the new (Knox). And to win the victory in the medical field Knox uses the new technology, photography, an instrument and then a nascent art that allows him to positively surprise the medical congress. But in a landscape where it is progress that dominates, there is also room for a step forward in the structure of the social fabric. The film opens with the execution of an elderly woman accused of corruption and prostitution, in front of a cheering crowd that possesses hangings as the only form of entertainment. Then the character of Ginny (played by a good Isla Fisher) is introduced, a theater actress who wants to stage a Macbeth all-female, of which she is the director and lead actress. As you know, in Shakespearean times women were excluded from theatrical performances as actresses and female roles were played by men in disguise. "Burke & Hare" shows the exact opposite and thus places in Ginny and in her successful show the symbol and the desire for emancipation of the female universe. Ideals also represented by the other female protagonist, Jessica Hynes/Lucky, wife of Andy Serkis/William Hare, a drunk and rough innkeeper but at the same time a member of the couple that "wears the pants." "Burke & Hare" is this: a fresco of society that tells us how the same was changing. All this is masked by a macabre comedy with lots of laughs, a bit of blood and disgust and a couple of scares. The cast works, even if one could expect a more unbridled Simon Pegg (and instead in the couple it is Serkis who works better); Landis puts his unmistakable stamp by calling artists in cameo roles. In this case we can recognize at least Christopher Lee, Ray Harryhausen, Terry Gilliam and Michael Winner. Ah, the "true story" issue. Burke and Hare killed and sold at least 17 people in Edinburgh for dissection between November 1827 and October 1828. From this news event other films have already been made, among the most famous I remember "The Ghoul" with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi and "The Flesh and the Fiends" with Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence. All other truths are the product of fantasy.