Directed by:
Robert SchwentkeCinematography:
Benoît DebieComposer:
Martin TodsharowCast:
John Malkovich, Tom Xander, Geraldine Chaplin, Louis Hofmann, Julian Sands, Mary-Louise Parker, Andrew Koji, Alexander Fehling, Samuel Finzi (more)Plots(1)
Rome in 65 A.D. Emperor Nero is rehearsing a speech with his mentor Seneca in a rhetoric class. But this is sadly in vain: the IQ gap between the two men is all-too evident. Sensing the senator’s superiority, the ruler flies into a rage. Since he has already bumped off several of his closest family members in violent rage, this is not a good sign. Seneca suspects that the cruel rolling of heads may soon apply to him, too. He is nonetheless surprised when Nero, at the height of his tyrannical powers and usually addressed as “Mr President”, orders Seneca to kill himself. We know from Tacitus that Seneca then slashes his wrists and this drives his much younger wife Paulina to suicide. Robert Schwentke has his hero bleed for a particularly long amount of time and, during this “interim period”, the big-shot senator rails against the world but especially against himself. Schwentke has made a pyrotechnic display of a film that is almost peerless in its use of over-the-top punchlines, splatter-sarcasm and love of verbal precocity. Stunning and incredibly topical, Seneca asks: is the educated elite a victim of tyranny or an opportunistic collaborator? The time is indeed ripe for political allegories. (Berlinale)
(more)Cast
John Malkovich
USA
Best movies:
Of Mice and Men (1992)
Changeling (2008)
The Killing Fields (1984)
Tom Xander
UK
Best movies:
Jolt (2021)
Seneca - On the Creation of Earthquakes (2023)
Geraldine Chaplin
USA
Best movies:
Limelight (1952)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
The Hollow Crown (2012) (series)
Louis Hofmann
Germany
Best movies:
Land of Mine (2015)
Sanctuary (2014)
The German Lesson (2019)
Julian Sands
UK
Best movies:
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
The Killing Fields (1984)
The Keeper (2018)
Mary-Louise Parker
USA
Best movies:
Fried Green Tomatoes (1991)
Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
The Simple Life of Noah Dearborn (1999) (TV movie)
Andrew Koji
UK
Best movies:
Bullet Train (2022)
Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
20th Century Boys: Chapter Two - The Last Hope (2009)
Alexander Fehling
East Germany
Best movies:
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
The Captain (2017)
Labyrinth of Lies (2014)
Samuel Finzi
Bulgaria
Best movies:
Generation War (2013) (series)
One Life (2023)
The Captain (2017)
Lilith Stangenberg
West Germany
Best movies:
Dying (2024)
Diaz - Don't Clean Up This Blood (2012)
The People vs. Fritz Bauer (2015)
Brice Bexter
Best movies:
Green Zone (2010)
Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears (2020)
Seneca - On the Creation of Earthquakes (2023)
Nadia Benzakour
Best movies:
Zodi et Téhu, frères du désert (2023)
Open Desert (2013)
Killing Jesus (2015) (TV movie)
Samia Muriel Chancrin
Best movies:
In the Fade (2017)
Forwards Ever! (2017)
Pelican Blood (2019)
Guido Broscheit
West Germany
Best movies:
Jung, blond, tot - Julia Durant ermittelt (2018) (TV movie)
380.000 Volt – Der große Stromausfall (2010) (TV movie)
Zurück zum Glück (2010) (TV movie)
Laurean Wagner
Best movies:
The Captain (2017)
Look Who's Back (2015)
Seneca - On the Creation of Earthquakes (2023)