‘William Tell’ Review: Claes Bang Anchors an Old Fashioned Epic With a Modern Sensibility

TIFF 2024: Nick Hamm’s film is big, brutal and beautiful – over the top at times and stirring at others

William Tell
"William Tell" (Credit: TIFF)

You probably remember one thing about the Swiss folk hero William Tell: He used a bow and arrow to shoot an apple off the head of his son. But did you know that he did so on the orders of a cruel Austrian leader who wanted to quell any resistance to that country’s onerous occupation of Switzerland? Or that he became a leader of the Swiss resistance?

If you don’t remember the backstory to the bow, the boy and the apple, Irish director Nick Hamm’s “William Tell” is here to remind you, and to add a few of its own embellishments to the centuries-old folk tale.

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