The Name of the Rose (1986)

The name of the Rose
The film takes place in a Benedictine abbey, in the north of Italy, the year is 1327. It’s winter at the moment and there’s snow. Brother William of Baskerville is a studious and respected Franciscan monk who arrives on a donkey (because the abbey lies in the mountains) with his novice (pupil), Adso of Melk. Once inside the grounds they are welcomed by the Lord Bishop. The atmosphere around the abbey is kind of mysterious. Before William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk arrived, a terrible accident had taken place. A young novice jumped out of the steeple en was found broken and mutilated near the graveyard. They are told of the widespread belief that the presence of evil is at work and that the devil himself roams the abbey. William of Baskerville doesn’t belief in such explanations and starts to investigate what really happened. In a very short time he discovers that a murder had taken place. In the main time Adso of Melk follows him wherever he goes and learns from him. The actual reason of William’s presence is that the papal delegacy and the Franciscan monks are going to have a debate about the role of the church; should the church possess earthly riches and play a role in temporal politics; or should it work among the poor and outcast, emulating the poverty of Christ? But when more dead bodies are found, William throws himself on the investigation of those murders. Brother William is piecing together the fragments of evidence and with this information confronts the Lord bishop. It seems that hidden messages, found written in lemon juice on parchment, reveal secrecy surrounding a book, which could be the cause of all those strange deaths. Also every dead man has an black tongue and a black finger. Brother Wlliam and Adso of Melk are trying to find that dangerous book, but strange things happen and the book disappears constantly. The abbey contains the greatest library in Christendom, but only the librarian and his assistant are allowed into the labyrinthine stacks. William and Adso presume that the dangerous book is hidden down there, but there not allowed to go there. But the Bishop is not convinced by William’s theory’s and convokes a Holy Inquisition escorted by Bernardo Gui, a sadistic and unforgiving witch hunter. After arriving they immediately accuse a young peasant girl who’s poverty stricken quarters contain traces of witchcraft, if only in the form of a black cat and cockerel. It’s enough for the inquisition to accuse her of black magic. Adso, who has fallen in love with this peasant girl is prepared to do anything to save her. William met Bernardo Gui before, because he was a member of the inquisition a long time ago. But William didn’t want to accuse an innocent man and said that he was against the conviction. The inquisition accused William of witchcraft and tortured him also. Also accused is Salvatore, de hunchback monk who dabbles in heretical dialogue. With him is also his master (Remigio) accused of being a member of the Dolcinite movement. They are tortured until they finally confess to heresy and seem resigned to their fate. They have to make their confession again when they are standing in front of the holy inquisition. Then Bernardo Gui chooses two of the present people to ask for their judgement; Lord Bishop and William of Baskerville. Of course William is against the condemnation and gives his honest opinion, that it is not true. Bernardo Gui gets really mad and they still are all condemned to the stake. Adso en William discovered a secret entrance to the library and are trying to find the dangerous book to prove that all those accused people are innocent. They find the old monk with the book and discover that the pages of the book have been besmeared with poison on the angles. That explains all; the person who was reading the book putted his finger on his tongue to turn over the page, when the person did that again he licked the poison of his finger and died in a very short time. It explains the black tongues and fingers. They want to take the book with them and show the inquisition that they’ve wrongly accused the people, but the old monk is the culprit and grabs the book and runs away. William and Adso both go different ways to find him, but the library is a labyrinthine and they both get lost. At the same time the whole building is on fire and William gets trapped. The culprit monk eats the pages of the book, while burning alive. Adso escapes. Meanwhile two of the stakes are burning, only the stake of the peasant girl is still not lighted. At the time Adso of Melk arrives two stakes have been burned, but the stake of the girl is untouched and the girl is gone. Adso goes back to the building and William has escaped somehow and also took some of the librarian books with him. Th mystery is solved and William and Adso are going home on their donkeys through the mountains. But when they pass the abbey for the last time, the peasant girl appears near Adso. He stops, but realizes he has to go on and leaves the girl behind. My Opinion: My opinion about the process and the verdict, is that it is a terrible and unjust thing to do. The condemnations are not based on facts, but on subjective suspicions which also have been dragged out of the people by torturing them until they confess. Lots of innocent people got killed by cause of this holy inquisition and I think that’s a shame. I also think that the way of killing people, the stake, is the worst thing to do. It’s such a pain full dead to be burned alive and the most rare thing is that everybody’s watching at you at the time. I think the whole process is very strange and horrible and I ask myself how people are capable to do such things to one and another. It’s definitely not a thing of this time.