...28 Years Later: A sort of insanity rarely seen

It really looked like Ralph Fiennes was going full Colonel Kurtz in ...28 Years Later. The bright dye covering his naked torso, the intense gaze seen in glimpses in that remarkable trailer, it seemed obvious that he was going to be a new kind of monster among the infected.

And then he wasn't that. He wasn't that at all.

The more I think about it, the more things I love about.that this belated sequel that was already predictably my favourite film of the year. There's a lot to like, especially in the way it does not go in any direction anybody was expecting, but the character of Doctor Ian Kelson, as played by the indominable Fiennes, really is something special.

Because he is obviously insane, but of a kind that is rarely seen in cinema, While he's clearly lost his mind, he still doesn't want to hurt anybody. He still wants to help. He is dealing with such unimaginable trauma in a way that he truly believes is honouring the dead that surround him.

He gets shunned by a 'normal' society that hides behind ancient masks, doesn't have a single doctor and sends out 12-year-old boys to fight insane rage monsters, because they do not understand what he is doing.

He will go about his task on his own if he has to, but the relief when he gets to explain what is going on, and the compassion he shows when he finally has a new patient shows that there is still vast oceans of humanity beneath that iodine-stained surface.

Fiennes is always good in everything, and sometimes he gets a transcendent role in films as diverse as In Bruges, Schindler's List and The Grand Budapest Hotel, with his Kelson clearly ranking with those, for the subtlety he uses to portray a fierce will at the end of the world. 

Obviously conflict breeds drama, and the vast majority of mental illness seen in movies and TV are used as an excuse for terrible, hurtful behaviour. But there are more people in real life like the good doctor, broken into a million pieces inside, but still going around and trying their best. 

He might get smashed apart again in the imminent sequel - the latest trailer does make him look more fierce - but I do weep for his quiet humanity on this isle of the dead