In a finely-crafted and beautifully filmed story, three people meet who are engaged in deceptions of different sorts. Each one is acting in secret, yet all three find themselves thrust into the very center of their deceptions by ironic twists. Each fences with the other romantically, yet the most cynical actually fall in love. Excellent performances by Kingsley, Charles Dance and Helen Mirren, three of England's most talented and versatile actors. Exotic scenery sets the stage for a variety of passions, schemes and deceits. Mirren and Dance are spectacular, in the love scenes especially, but Ben Kingsley dominates this film. His dark eyes mirror dwindling hope in his sultan's dying world and his hopeless love for an untouchable, unreachable foreigner.
Review of Pascali's Island
