Enki Bilal (Belgrade, October 7th 1951) belongs to one of the most prominent modern artists at this moment. His drawing style achieves praise and admiration all over the world. Fully deserved because his style is unique. Furthermore his illustrated stories contain originality and intelligence.

Bilal is best known for his so-called Nikopol trilogy, three luxury comicbooks that has been published in a period of 10 years. In this captivating story the astronaut Nikopol and the powerful Egyptian god Horus are the main characters. Short: In the year 2023 a couple of Egyptian gods travel to Paris to obtain fuel for their pyramid spaceship. Due unclear reasons Horus breaks with the godcode and abandons the spaceship. At the same time the unfortunate Nikopol falls literally out of the sky after frozenly floating into space for 30 years. He defrosts and Horus takes over his body which he uses to assume total power over Paris. He almost succeed until Nikopol goes crazy. His son, whose appearance is exactly like his father and with the same age, takes his place. Next a interesting story envolves into a post-modern love history.

For me the shock was immense when the news of a Nikopol movie popped up. After all cinema versions of (comic)books have been turned into major disappointments. Spider-Man, Blade, Hellboy, The Fantastic Four, Jeremiah, Tintin are just a few notorious examples. Only The Lord Of The Rings is an exception (with many thanks to Peter Jackson). Due to this history I knew for certain that a movie based on Bilal’s story would not do any justice to the classic Nikopol trilogy.

My fear became less when I heard that Enki Bilal himself was the one who took the responsibility for this difficult task. Not because he is such a capabale director (his former two movies are hardly worth mentioning), but because an artist would never allow anything and anyone to abuse his work.

Unfortunately I was mistaken horribly. Enki Bilal rapes his own work.

How brilliant he is as a story telling illustrator how miserable he is as a moviemaker. The atmosphere of his books are completely disappeared in the movie which is populated by clinical personages with the soul of a cold not-working computer. Not for a slight moment the story gets compelling or riveting. The motivation of the characters simply is not there. And like if the original story is not exciting enough some kind of hitman has been introduced. Very misplaced.

The movie Immortel (2004) lasts 1.5 hours and on second thought that says it all. It is just impossible to create a sound movie based on the first two parts of the Nikopol trilogy within the boundaries of that time span. This can only lead to compromises nobody wants. Also Enki Bilal not.

It is terrible to conclude Enki Bilal has been devalued into a plain bungler. But he owes it entirely to himself. An artist is being judged by his latest work what leads to this painful outcome.

- juli 2005 -

Linda Hardy .... Jill Bioskop

Thomas Kretschmann .... Nikopol

Charlotte Rampling .... Elma Turner

Written and directed by: Enki Bilal