Synopsis from Wikipedia: November 1993. Wood plays Martin, an American student at Oxford University who wants Arthur Seldom (Hurt) as his thesis director. In a public lecture, Seldom quotes Wittgenstein's Tractatus to deny the possibility of truth. Martin contests asserting his faith in the mathematics under reality. Later, Martin and Seldom coincide and find Martin's landlady (also a friend of Seldom's) murdered. Seldom declares to the police that he had received a note with his friend's address marked as "the first of a series". As Seldom is an authority on logical series, he suspects that a serial murderer is defying his intelligence. Martin, Seldom and Lorna (Leonor Watling), a Spanish nurse, will try to guess the following terms of the series as murders continue.Watch the English language trailer below:
Guillermo Martinez's next book available in English, The Book of Murder, will be on sale from 1 May.
It seems that this may be one of those films where there has been considerable fiddling with the plot for the sake of making a film.
ReplyDeleteHere is what I wrote in my database - may give people a better idea of what the book was about.
A young Argentinian mathematician comes to Oxford to study, and boards with an elderly landlady whose dead husband was a maths professor. A few weeks after his arrival his landlady is discovered murdered A mathematical symbol is discovered next to her body. A second murder follows and again a symbol is left by the murderer. Are these symbols part of a mathematical sequence? Will the murders continue until the sequence is exhausted?
Part of the attraction of the book is the mathematical puzzles that it poses, but at the same time readers complained that it was too mathematical for them.
It won the prestigious Planeta prize.
I've just seen this dreadful film (in Paris). I don't know the novel, but the film is wordy and excessively complicated in a completely unengaging way. What a shame.
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed this film which meticulously follows the book. Elijah Wood and John Hut were marvellous as expected, but Leonor was very convincing too. Thoroughly recommended.
ReplyDelete