Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

christopher-underwood This looks so good. Majorca, in the main, standing in for Greece. And it should have been good. The novel was a rite of passage for those of a certain age and this little picture is what we get. Pretty picture, pretty poor. I thought watching this and seeing nothing, not only not make sense, but not even be involving. Surely the director has some vision here because surely Fowles in adapting his own novel, will have some vision. But, no the more it goes on, the more it goes on. Poor Michael Caine looks lost wandering through this bland and meaningless landscape of pretentiousness. He is lost, as are we and the suspicions I had as I watched aghast was that maybe nobody knew what was going on or what they were doing. The plentiful extras supplied with the Blu-ray confirm this with the contribution of the director's son who apparently got to help with the filming, particularly helpful. Majorca was beautiful and largely unspoilt but nobody least of all Fowles seemed to know what they were doing there. So sad because we have a very pretty Anna Karina and Candice Bergen falling over themselves to look silly as Anthony Quinn prattles on, seemingly the only one who has any belief in the project that was clearly dead even before the cameras began to roll.

noitebras You may of course disagree but John Fowles sometimes "goes beyond the edge" and, in my view, after "The Magus" and "The French Lieutenant's Woman" he may have depleted his more interesting sources of literary creativity. As I look into "The Magus" I see in it a magnificent deconstructing of reality where symbologies & myth become the only identifiable elements in an unknown territory. I know of at least one Ph.D. Thesis dealing with similar topics here in Spain, at Comillas University, by a young American philosopher called M.Armenteros. He has seen the film and related its contents to some contemporary features of agnosticism. In "The Magus" the whole of reality is questioned. Only symbols appear as if to soften the sense of total absurdity. But even such symbols are discomforting, the meanings of life and death, deprived of transcendence, wind up getting closer and closer to the fog of mythology (i.e. "nothingness"). I interpreted the "Magus" as a film which attempts to depict hopelesness through absurdity. It is not about "climb every mountain" but rather "doubt every faith". In the book, the element of personal and political "Freedom" ("Elevteria") played a larger role in that deconstructed vision of a supposedly questionable reality. For both Fowles and Sartre our lives are an absurd where freedom becomes a mirage that distracts us from the only basic reality: death. Freedom is just meandering across our own hells. Even if I disagree with it I find the film discomforting indeed but worthy of watching and far better that the cheesier version of "The French Lieutenant's Woman".

MARIO GAUCI Being an arty psychological puzzle - and one which might well be not just incomprehensible but also meaningless - I'd always been interested in checking this film out; the fact that it was a critical and box-office failure made it doubly fascinating. Still, what must have seemed like the turkey of the year when new has, with time, acquired a certain charm all its own! On the surface, the film is certainly good-looking (shot by Billy Williams in numerous European locations, mainly a sunny Greek island) and boasts a fine score by Johnny Dankworth (which, in keeping with the film's theme, seems oddly unsuited to what's going on); the star cast responds competently to the mystifying plot (structured like a Chinese box - where past events are constantly re-enacted, identities exchanged and, of course, nothing is what it seems). Still, while Anthony Quinn may be everybody's idea of a Greek larger-than-life character, here he is saddled with an unbecoming Picasso hairstyle and, underneath it all, Michael Caine may well have been mirroring the bewilderment felt by his character since, in his autobiography, he singles out THE MAGUS as his worst film ever (though I personally would beg to differ and choose THE ISLAND [1980] for that unenviable spot)! Actually, it all reminded me of L'INVENZIONE DI MOREL (1974) - another obscure island-set drama where a man intrudes upon a remote community sharing an exclusive fantasy existence: incidentally, that film was partly shot in my native country and also featured Anna Karina (who in THE MAGUS has the rather thankless role of Caine's jilted girlfriend - though her performance is quite good and his callous treatment of Karina has a strong bearing on the main character's ultimate personal growth) as the mystery woman who captivates the hero; with this in mind, as I lay watching the film under review, I wondered at the possibilities had Karina exchanged her role with that of Candice Bergen (who's too young for her role but great to look at nonetheless).Then again, the subject matter was far more congenial to a Joseph Losey rather than the journeyman Guy Green...and one can only surmise how different - and more significant - the film would have been in the former's hands! As it stands, there are some undeniably compelling passages but also a lot of shallow modishness (the skin-flick with Bergen and Julian Glover[!] at the climax is plain risible) and lame moralizing (the WWII flashback scenes, featuring a bizarrely but effectively cast Corin Redgrave as the Nazi Commandant, being especially maudlin).At several points towards the end, it feels like the story is coming to some sort of conclusion but it just goes on and on, peeling off yet another layer to the meandering enigma; to get an inkling of what the film is like, just imagine watching two of the more cerebral episodes of the cult TV series "The Prisoner" (1967-68) back-to-back! In hindsight, the film's epitaph may have been delivered by none other than Woody Allen who once remarked that, if he had to live his life all over again, he would do everything exactly the same...except watch THE MAGUS. As for myself, I wouldn't mind taking another look at it in future: by then I'd be over the initial "shock" and could perhaps appreciate it better...

james-flynn-1 As an underage Coast Guardsman on liberty in a strange town I found the big screen version of this film a fantastic relief from the confusion of the era. Candice Bergen knocked my socks off, Anthony Quinn was my favorite actor. Michael Cain's character was my alter ego. The cinematography is better than outstanding. Sex, violence and horror were equally balanced by beauty, love, courage and integrity. You know how there are scenes in movies that stick with you long after the film is over, like Sixth Sense with "I"m ready tell you my secret..."? There is one scene on the Veranda of the Greek Estate where Anthony Quinn summarizes the meaning of life with one sweep of his hand. During the past thirty-eight years I have thought of that scene frequently and it helps transcend cynicism from feeling defeated. Several weeks after my first viewing I went to see The Magus again with a woman who was experienced with Tarot and had studied Greek and Egyptian mythology. It seemed even more interesting when she explained the meaning of the symbolism as it related to the flow of the story and added a great deal to the meaning, and the fun. People who often wonder, "What would God want me to do?" may find this film troubling. A previous commenter mentioned the TV version with ads and I couldn't agree more. I would like to get this on DVD and watch it again. Any thoughtful person would like The Magus.