Elijah Wood in THE OXFORD MURDERS, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
Also Starring:
Director:
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Based On The Novel By:
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Production Company:
- Tornasol Films
- Telecinco Cinema
- Oxford Crimes Ltd.
- La Fabrique 2
* Most external filmography links go to The Internet Movie Database.
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The Oxford Murders (2008/2010)
Opened: 08/06/2010 Limited
| On-Demand | 07/02/2010 | |
| Play Dates | 08/06/2010 | |
| DVD | 10/05/2010 |
Trailer: Click for trailers
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Rated: R for language, sexual content/nudity and some violence/disturbing images.
Synopsis
When an elderly woman is viciously murdered in Oxford, her body is discovered by two strangers whose lives are immediately changed forever: Arthur Seldom (John Hurt), a prestigious professor of logic, and Martin (Elijah Wood), a young graduate student who has just arrived at the university hoping to be Seldom's pupil.
It quickly becomes clear that hers is the first in a series of increasingly bizarre murders, with each victim's corpse marked by strange symbols. Professor and student join forces to try and crack the code, setting into motion an elaborate game with the killer with ever-increasing stakes. As Martin gets closer to the facts, he grows increasingly unhinged from his grasp on the world around him.
Based on Guillermo Martinez's award-winning novel, THE OXFORD MURDERS is an edgy and intelligent thriller from cult-favorite director, Alex de la Iglesia.
About the Film
Director Alex de la Iglesia was a top choice to direct the novel written by Guillermo Martinez as Tornasol Films knew that he would do something innovative with the material. Producers were very surprised to find that he'd already read the novel and was interested: We knew he would and introduce his own visual world on this very Oxford and academic thriller."
Adds de la Iglesia: "The novel is not actually very cinematic and that appealed to me. It's a film about knowledge, about the possibility of coming close to absolute truth, about plenty of things I found fascinating back when I studied philosophy. So what I found most interesting was that, shall we say, ‘non-visual' aspect of the story and how to capture it in images."
Besuievsky continues: "He liked the challenge of doing something different to what he had done before. He liked the idea of making a thriller and shooting in England - quite the opposite of the comedies he had made so far in his career."
As the film was being shot in England, the Spanish film makers required an experienced UK producer to guide them through the shoot. They approached Kevin Loader, who had read the book, seen several of de la Iglesia's films and was attracted to the Director's "incredible visual imagination and such a distinct sensibility that the chance to work with Alex was the big draw."
With a production team on board, it was essential to attract the right actors for the innovative script. Elijah Wood who play Martin, was immediately drawn to the material: "It isn't often you get scripts for murder mysteries...so getting the chance to read the script and seeing it was taking what was essentially the classic construct for a murder mystery and adding the elements of the world of mathematics was intelligent and not like anything I'd read in a long time."
These thoughts are reflected by most of the collaborators in this story of serial murders, passion, jealousy and logic. Adds John Hurt: "This is a thriller format, so it has to work as thriller. But it's rather more than that, it has quite a lot of philosophy and applied mathematics to the structure of the story itself, all of which I found very intriguing."
Julie Cox was attracted to the project because "I wanted to work with Alex - I was fascinated by Alex, and also by the story. THE OXFORD MURDERS seems like quite an old fashioned story, a film noir kind of Agatha Christie horror/thriller murder and I was really fascinated as to what he would do with it, because I knew it would be nothing as obvious as it seemed on paper.
Producer Kevin Loader could also see why the material was so suited to de la Iglesia's shooting style: "The story is an odd mix of a very post modern kind of take on the English murder mystery, but with these extraordinary flashbacks. The Calman sequence, the Victorian Ellis murder trial sequence and the Wittgenstein World War One sequence. So we have these diversions within the story which give Alex the opportunity to bring his own extraordinary imagination to bear on what otherwise might have seemed a rather traditional English murder story..."
The idea of working with Alex de la Iglesia was always of immediate appeal to Wood: "Meeting Alex convinced me that I wanted to be part of the film...He's such an incredible human being, has so much passion and is quite hilarious and clearly has an immense amount of passion for this film and how he wanted to make this film. I was very much attracted to that side of his personality and knew I would have a great time working with him."
Leonor Watling agrees: "Alex is the most expressive director I've ever worked with. He is very loud and he shouts when he is happy and he shouts when he is desperate, which I think relaxes everybody a lot. Once everybody knew that it was all good and he wasn't insulting anybody, that he wasn't being aggressive, when they realized it was just his way of letting off steam, I think it made everybody feel very comfortable."
Adds Producer Kevin Loader: "He's a larger than life character and he is very passionate and energetic and you are always aware of where he is. It is that passion and enthusiasm that everyone has responded to, even in the coldest weather."
