Revengers Tragedy

The film is an adaptation of a satirical tragedy of 1606, its events moved to a Liverpool after the apocalypse. Vindice, who lives in an obsession with revenge, has sworn to kill the evil Duke who murdered his one true love. The language of the text is kept and its world entirely changed, and those two layers make the film’s real effect. The account does not justify revenge; it shows it spreading like a disease. The violence is held exaggerated and theatrical, with no claim to realism. Crowd scenes and costume create a court life built on top of a ruined city. The source text is taken to be by Thomas Middleton. Christopher Eccleston and Derek Jacobi appear in Alex Cox’s hundred and six minute British film, completed in 2002.