To Be or Not To Be

I have read almost everything Shakespeare wrote hundreds of years ago, but my favorite play still remains "Hamlet". It is so complex and the main character is incredibly intriguing that it makes you raise so many questions about human nature, revenge, love and the intricacies of the human mind.
I got acquainted with "Hamlet" in high school because we had to study a few extracts and I found the prince of Denmark quite mysterious.
Years after that moment, in 2000, I discovered that my favorite actor, Ethan Hawke, starred as Hamlet in the modern-day New York City adaptation of Shakespeare famous play. I saw it first in 2004 or 2005, I guess and I was absolutely amazed at how well he succeeded in embodying the main character and how actual the story can be, even if written at an uncertain year between 1599 and 1602. Watching the adaptation for the screen makes you realize once more what a powerful universality Shakespeare can have.
Another plus that this movie offers is the fact that it was directed by Michael Almereyda, the famous, talented director who also directed "Cymbeline" in 2014, based on Shakespeare's play and which also stars Ethan Hawke as Iachimo.
"Hamlet" (2000) got mixed reviews from different important magazines, but you cannot judge it until you see it, and you also need to appreciate how faithful it is to the original play, not by simply sticking to Shakespeare's lines, but by playing with ideas and feelings in crucial moments. prior to delivering the well known monologue "To Be or Not To Be", Ethan's Hamlet watches a movie of a famous Buddhist teacher in which he explains the principle "To be is to be with others, to be is to inter-be."
Almereyda has definitely created a new standard for Shakespearian adaptation, one in which we should understand more the emotional pull of the characters while still "TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE."