Mon Dieu! It’s Hercule’s horror show: Kenneth Branagh reveals why his new Hercule Poirot film will have the Queen of Crime’s fans jumping out of their seats
- Actor Kenneth Branagh, from Belfast, speaks about his new Hercule Poirot film
- READ MORE: Kenneth Branagh returns as Detective Hercule Poirot
He first appeared as a crime-solver 103 years ago and has featured in countless films and TV series since, while she died in 1976 and has sold a staggering two billion books.
But it seems neither Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective with the incredible little grey cells, nor his creator, Queen of Crime Agatha Christie, will ever go out of fashion.
So it’s not surprising that actor and director Sir Kenneth Branagh has returned once more to the complicated, vain and brilliant sleuth for his third Christie movie adaptation, this time a chiller called A Haunting In Venice that’s stylish and genuinely frightening.
The film depicts Poirot, played by Kenneth, as we’ve never seen him before – scared, because he is confronted by something he cannot explain: the ghosts of murdered children in a spooky mansion!
Kenneth’s previous Christie movies were adaptations of two of her best-known books, Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile. A Haunting In Venice is very different.
Kenneth Branagh as Poirot with the rest of the cast of the film, which is based on two works by Agatha Christie
It takes her 1969 novel Hallowe’en Party, merges it with her 1926 short story The Last Séance, and gives us a new tale – which means even the most diehard Christie fans will have to work out whodunnit.
‘When Ken and the writer Michael Green first mentioned this idea to me, I struggled to understand at first, and then I thought it was genius,’ says Christie’s great-grandson James Prichard, who is the keeper of the writer’s flame and a producer on the film.
‘Having made two very traditional big titles into films, they wanted to do something different, not only in terms of tone but in how they treated the story. Hallowe’en Party has been moved from an English village to Venice and is the launchpad for something totally different.
‘I think it will surprise people because although it’s a murder mystery, it’s also a horror film and a suspense thriller, and will have jump-out-of-your-seat moments. It feels like a Christie but there is something else to it too.
‘Changing her stories is not something we do lightly – it is a big leap but occasionally worth it, and I think this was one of those occasions.’
The action takes place in 1947, a decade after Death On The Nile, and we meet a very different Poirot. As we saw in that previous film, the detective had been traumatised by the events of the First World War – now there has been a second, even more devastating global conflict.
Haunted by the idea of death and how it seems to follow him, Poirot has decided to give up the detective business altogether and has retired to Venice, where he meticulously tends to his garden, eats pastries and tries to avoid the Venetians who desperately seek his help.
A portrait of the famous and prolific mystery writer Dame Agatha Christie, hailed as the Queen of Crime
‘I like that in these films there is a progression in Poirot’s character,’ says James. ‘You don’t see that in my great-grandmother’s books, in which he moves through the 20th century without ever changing.
‘They’ve given him this back story and attempted to understand him psychologically. He’s retired and is technically not taking on any new work but this case comes at him from left-field and it really tests him.’
Kenneth explains how he sees the character. ‘He has really tried to back out of being a detective. He’s seen too much crime; he’s seen two world wars; he’s seen man’s cruelty to man and he’s had enough – or so he says.
‘And yet, as we’ve seen in other films, he has a poetic, romantic side to his tough detective persona. Part of him wants to believe. He continues, despite himself, to be utterly fascinated by the human condition.’
Poirot’s peace is disturbed by the arrival of an old acquaintance, American crime writer Ariadne Oliver, played by Tina Fey. The character appeared in several of Christie’s books and is believed to be a caricature of the writer herself.
‘There are perhaps elements in Ariadne that my great-grandmother wished she could be,’ says James.
‘There are similarities: they are both crime writers and they both love eating apples. But while Ariadne is extrovert and outgoing, Agatha was very private and in public would be very quiet and reserved.’
The events of the film occur during just one stormy night, Hallowe’en itself, when Ariadne invites Poirot to a séance being conducted by a medium called Joyce Reynolds (this year’s Best Actress Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh).
Venice’s spooky double!
The key sights of Venice are also used; the film-makers spent a week shooting exteriors in the city
With the film calling for falling chandeliers, water running down the walls and storm conditions, it was clear that making it in a real Venetian mansion wasn’t an option, so the producers undertook to re-create one at Pinewood Studios.
Firstly, a one-third-size model of the exterior of the spooky Palazzo San Boldo was made, with working doors and window shutters to allow the full impression of a stormy night to be created. Mini gondolas were also used for outside scenes.
But three life-sized floors of the palazzo were built too, which allowed Kenneth Branagh to film the cast moving from room to room in continuous takes, and 11 real gondolas were transported to Pinewood.
‘Ken was really keen to see this world created in its entirety,’ says production designer John Paul Kelly. ‘Walking around our studio palazzo, you never felt you weren’t in Venice. There are ways of doing this sort of thing with trickery but Ken was adamant this film should feel as realistic as possible.’
When the set had been built, Kenneth took his cast around it, adding some extra frights to put them in the mood. ‘We toured by candlelight, made some noises to try to scare them and took them on a route that might confuse them,’ says Kenneth.
The key sights of Venice are also used; the film-makers spent a week shooting exteriors in the city. ‘Ken wanted us to tell a bit of the story of Venice, and in the year the film is set, 1947, it wasn’t a place for tourists,’ says John Paul. ‘It hadn’t been attacked during the war but it was full of refugees and poverty, and properly falling into the water.’
Reynolds is attempting to contact the dead daughter of grieving opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) at a ‘haunted’ Venetian palazzo. Events get out of hand and there’s a scream and a murder.
This all leaves even Poirot confused – he can feel the presence of the ghosts of murdered children that are said to haunt the palazzo.
‘The story of the film is him engaging with what he thinks he believes in, what he then sees that confounds that belief, and then whether what he’s seen is real,’ says Kenneth. ‘It becomes exciting because it involves him and us being terrified.’
The cast also includes Jamie Dornan and Jude Hill as a father and son, the same relationship their characters had in the hit movie Belfast, which was also directed by Kenneth.
Jamie is Rowena’s troubled family doctor Leslie Ferrier, who is haunted in his own way – by what he saw in the war – while Jude plays his son Leopold.
‘Although Jamie and Jude play father and son, they couldn’t be more different from the roles they had in Belfast,’ says Kenneth. ‘It was beautiful to reunite them. They get along and tease each other.’
Whether they survive the film is another matter, as the death count slowly rises and it appears no one is safe – not even Poirot himself.
‘The unexpected is always simmering in the air,’ says Kenneth of this mystery that is full of surprises.
- A Haunting In Venice is in cinemas from Friday.
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