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“The Albino Code” Mocks Brown’s Weak Work
Dan Brown’s barely literate book “The Da Vinci Code” comes to the big screen this week thanks to Opie and Forrest Gump, better known as Ron Howard and Tom Hanks. Whether their talents can save what was an almost unreadably poor book remains to be seen. Nonetheless, those interested in a work that is better written are encouraged to watch “The Albino Code,” a parody of that other film.
The bad guy in Mr. Brown’s tome is a religious nut-job named Silas, who is also an albino. Reminiscent of Francis Dolarhyde, played by Ralph Fiennes, in the film “Red Dragon,” Silas is a tormented soul whose evil is really the result of poor socialization early in life. This journal maintains that Hannibal Lechter was much better as a baddie; hating Silas or Dolarhyde for their evil is rather like hating a wild animal for defending itself. Still, “The Da Vinci Code” has to be reckoned laughable on the grounds of generally poor research into albinism, along with its other innumerable literary flaws.
Dennis Hurley, an actor who auditioned for the part and who knows something of the condition since he has it, wrote on “The Albino Code” website, Brown
supposedly did his research in the area of religion, but he seemed to skip the albinism research entirely when he created Silas. Silas is a full, rich character in the book, I admit, but he bears no resemblance to a real-life person with albinism. As a result, Mr. Brown perpetuates the negative and fictional stereotypes of the evil albino with red eyes and/or supernatural powers that Hollywood has perpetuated for years.
Rather than cast Mr. Hurley in the part, Hollywood decided instead to give a non-albino in the role, a decision right up there with letting extremely Caucasian Boris Karloff play the role of very Asian Charlie Chan. One must dispute that Silas is full, rich character, however; he’s a cartoon, like most of Mr. Brown’s characters.
Given lemons, though, Mr. Hurley has made high-grade lemonade along with his collaborators from 7 Fluid Oz. Productions, producer Seth Howland and director Aaron Howland. At about 12 minutes, the film is perfectly timed to set the mood, tell the tale and put the boot in where it belongs. Parody doesn’t work on an epic timeframe.
Because it’s on the ‘Net, one can view it again and again without paying $10 a head and waiting in an endless line. It’s worth doing because one is too busy laughing to catch all the jokes the first time through. The best of them: when the French inspector hears that the perpetrator is an “alb-eye-no,” which he pronounces “al-bee-no.” When corrected, he replies in his best Peter Sellers accent, "that is what I said." Priceless.
© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.
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