Colin Firth: Colin in Roman armour - The Last Legion (Times of India)

The Taj Mahal, actress Aishwarya Rai and Alexander the Great bind famous Italian archaeologist-historian, television presenter and novelist Valerio Massimo Manfredi to India - a country whose heritage he finds iconic.

Manfredi is the author of "The Last Legion", a 2007 Hollywood production starring Colin Firth, Aishwarya and Ben Kingsley.

"My character of the leading lady (played by Aishwarya) was totally different. She was from a village but Aishwarya was totally different. She was the lover of the protagonist...but she acted as if the film was for kids," Manfredi told IANS here.

The film tells the story of emperor Romulus Augustus' journey to Britain in search of loyal legionaires to take on the "barbarian" invaders. The writer ended up befriending Firth, could not get around to meeting Ben Kingsley and was struck by Aishwarya's eyes.

"She has such strong expressive and beautiful eyes. Some little expression of love would have made the film more different. The editing was so much like a video game, so many passages were missing...I am not criticising," Manfredi said.

Memories of "The Last Legion" make Manfredi introspective.

"I have noticed that everybody who has not read the book liked the film and those who read the book did not like the movie. This is very usual because they are two different kinds of expression. While the book uses words, cinema uses images," Manfredi said.

When a novel of "almost 500 pages has to be squeezed into a 90-page screenplay and then reduced to 50 on the computer screen, it becomes 1/10th of the original work", Manfredi said.



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