When I was younger, I rooted for Barry to triumph. Now I cringe at
his rise, and am less appalled at his fate and those who deliver it.
What really fascinates, though, is the detailed portrait of the
times. Kubrick re-creates the late 1700s in a manner that gets at
the details of everyday life and the physical reality of the world
his characters in habit. Usually, such attention to a "foreign"
world is the sole province of science fiction, where the camera
spends time showing off the spectacular other worlds the filmmaker
has created. It is rare and arresting to see the same kind of wonder
showered on a historical setting -- and ultimately, it is the
recreation of a whole society at a particular point in history that
makes this film fascinating, rather than any particular fondness or
identification we might have for the protagonist, who serves mostly
as our vehicle through the world Kubrick has recreated.
