Incubus

Rating:
Summary: Chiaroscuric Esperanto
Review: While the plot of the story & its execution are typical of the chiaroscuric approach of black & white cine d'art of the mid-1960's, this is one of the few movies ever made in Esperanto, and is worth the viewing time of anyone remotely interested in that language. While the dialogue in its entirety is not free-flowing, that of Shatner and Allyson Ames is delivered considerably more realistically than any of the highly stilted Latin of the better known art film "Sabstiane" (1976). As for the assertion that Esperanto sounds like French, it sounds as much like that as does Russian like English.

Rating:
Summary: A satisfied viewer
Review: Wow, this movie was awesome. I once heard a passing reference to Esperanto on a "Forever Knight" episode; I was intrigued. When I heard that "Incubus" was filmed entirely in Esperanto, I had to check it out.
Despite knowing nothing about the purpose of Esperanto, I found it's use in "Incubus" very appealing, and could sense that it was intended to give the film universal appeal. I had little difficulty picking out the English meanings of most of the words as I read the subtitles. It surprized me even more when I found out that the actors in the film had no prior knowledge of Esperanto; if they could sound natural and fluent without knowing what any of it meant, it must be pretty easy for an actual language student to master....
As a result of watching this strange and interesting film, I have myself decided to learn Esperanto as a second language. If this movie was intended as an Esperanto propaganda device, it has fulfilled it's purpose.