A worthy subject given the big superficial treatment that isn't a total loss but the disappointment is bitter - mostly when anyone opens their mouth.
Except Jesper Christensen. This really is his film. While everyone else is busy
hamming it up (or, if you're Sam Worthington, just looking blank) and/or
impersonating each other, while failing to convince us with hoky accents,
Christensen is scaring the Hell out of us in one of the greatest pieces of
cinema villiany I have ever seen.
Laurence Olivier had a drill and "is it safe?" for Dustin
Hoffman in The Marathon Man - Christensen manages to be even more unnerving and terrifying
with a speculum for Jessica Chastain!
.
Contagion (Steven Soderbergh)
Good idea to kill off Gwynnie early on but how many of us will not be happy to
spend nearly two hours wishing Jude Law would die next!
Hopefully he's forgotten the air-holes
Not bad but not
really that great either. The characters were too thinly stretched and it cried
out for a better script - too many lazy montages with a misplaced synth score
that will date this one by the second.
It's still gripping and very
watchable though and Kate Winslet was great. Special mention should go to
Jennifer Ehle (an effective British actress usually relegated to bit parts in
big films) who was given a lot of screen time for a change - a subtle and
natural performance that seems to be getting passed over because she's not one
of the A lister's.
It was also surprisingly very funny (the 'always wash your
hands' warning of the coda will have you tittering into the credits). But I'm
not convinced that was always the intention however.
For Curse of the Demon Jacques Tourneur was totally against showing the actual demon (he claimed it was added to the completed film without his direction or consent). He preferred suggestion when it came to horror; allowing for our imagination to fill in the gaps. His films for Val Lewton were all about atmosphere and the unease of ambiguity instead of the cheap thrills and obvious shocks of an actual monster (I Walked With a Zombie and Cat People most especially are great examples). And some do see the creature as a little creaky and may snigger (especially when viewed out of context on a YouTube video clip on some twittering blog... hoho).
Pah... I don't agree. I love the demon and seeing it has always made perfect sense to me. Curse of the Demon is proof that you can sometimes have the big pay-offs without dissipating the atmosphere or the scares.
Halloween is nearly upon us and so, in the spirit (ho-ho) of things, here are some recommendations:
Dead of Night (Basil Dearden, Alberto Cavalcanti, Robert Hamer, Charles Crichton, Michael Balcon)
"What sort of dummy do you think I am?"
and the portmanteau horrors it spawned.
Amicus are the most prolific and most famous exponents of the portmanteau horrors but Ealing got there first with the chilling compendium Dead of Night. The idea of sandwiching a handful of scary stories into one whole is a notoriously hit & miss affair (stinkers alongside classics) so the viewer will always have their favourites.
Here are some of mine.
'Frozen Fear' from Asylum is hysterical as well as being scary stuff (a film maker at Amicus usually had his bloody tongue poking through his cheek). Adulterous husband (Richard Todd) kills off his unwanted wife (Sylvia Sims) while she stands cooing over the chest freezer he's just bought her. He then chops up the corpse, wraps it all in brown paper and dumps the bits in the freezer. As he closes the freezer door he quips "rest in pieces". Well, as it happens, she doesn't. And how the cheating husband and his mistress (Barbara Parkins) get their just deserts is truly gobsmacking. Once seen, never forgotten.
'...And All Through the House' from Tales from the Crypt, is a little bit rubbish if truth be told. But Joan Collins, after dispatching of her husband with a poker while her young daughter plays upstairs, being tormented by a psychotic dressed as Santa is as much fun as it sounds. Marvelous!
The genuinely shocking outcome of 'Blind Alleys' from Tales From the Crypt is fantastic. The slow drip, drip pace expertly builds up the dread factor and Nigel Patrick pays the price for his cruel treatment of the blind veterans in his care. Nasty
Not one for animal lovers!
'Gatecrasher' from From Beyond the Grave takes its cue from the mirror story from Dead of Night but takes a step further into the abyss with a very dark and bloody bit of gothic nastiness. "Feed meeee... bloood"
Trilogy of Terror, based on stories by Richard Matheson, is not an Amicus film of course (surprisingly it was made for American TV). The highlight of this threesome is Karen Black being chased about her apartment by a pint-sized voodoo doll. I remember watching this one as a teenager with my mom and although we were absolutely terrified we were also in fits of laughter. I also remember dad never shared a taste for gallows humour ("Why are you watching it if you think it's funny?").
Seeing it again more recently proved that it still is pretty scary stuff and still is very, very funny. Mmm... can I smell dinner??
But, best of all of course, is the forerunner Dead of Night. True to form, it has its misfire - lovely Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne (unofficially doing their Charters & Caldicot shtick), in the 'Golfing Story' segment, is fun, but the whimsical tale is quite out of place and dissipates the chilly atmosphere that's been built up so far with the preceding two tales: of ghostly apparitions at a Christmas party and a man possessed by a haunted mirror.
Luckily the chills return because they've kept the best till last. The last story, a psychological horror of an unhinged ventriloquist being driven insane by his dummy, is one of the most terrifying in all of British cinema. Under Cavalcanti's direction Michael Redgrave is absolutely mesmerising as the ventriloquist, helping to invest his character with enough pathos and horror for us to empathise as well as draw back. A deeply human performance.
As the story unfolds, the dread we feel is palpable (it actually brings a lump to my throat) so that by the final moments, when Max 'kills' Hugo, the brutality of the scene - Hugo's terrified screams, the kicks and the final shot of his caved in scull - is profoundly disturbing. Just as Cavalcanti managed to get away with a surprising amount of shocking violence in the superb WWII drama Went the Day Well? simply because it was a propaganda piece, so he manages it again here because it's only a doll getting it's head bashed in. After all, the flesh and bone of a human head is gonna look pretty much the same in black & white as the wood and sawdust of a doll's head.
Of course, as this segment ends, we're not let off the hook here. We still have the nightmarish finale to deal with (complete with the return of Hugo)... round and round it goes...
A film that tries a little too hard to have its cake and bash the fuck out of it
too - it wants to be both Michael Mann and Jim Thompson. Personally I think they
are poles apart (the sheen of director Mann is somewhat at odds with the grubby
immorality of pulp's greatest exponent Thompson) and I find it depressing that
so many film-makers are more than happy to blur the distinction in the bid to be
cool.
It still is a great piece of cinema - dialogue is spare and judicious;
the camera loving the city. And there is exciting screen presence to behold.
Carey Mulligan isn't given much to do beyond adore Gosling and/or look
disappointed when expected, but she does do it effectively. And Albert Brooks
should be commended in a part that, if it had been played by a bigger star,
would have made things feel more showy and indulgent. As is he's incredible and
terrifying.
But even Brooks is upstaged by Bryan Cranston totally stealing
every scene he's in - Shannon is gruff, world weary, chain-smoking, grounded and
a bit tragic. In Cranston's hands he is by far the most likable and interesting
character.
However, everyone will tell you (and they won't be far off the
mark) that this is the kid's film(Gosling's character is a man with no name and when he is referred to as the kid in the film it feels like a subtle joke on more than one level). But, as the fetishising of 'homme du jour'
Gosling shows no signs of abating (thank the good Lord) far be it from me to
comment too deeply on a film that loves his curves so much while still managing
to uglify those of Christina Hendricks (saggy denim and cruelly dispatched in a
somewhat thankless role).
Insidious (James Wan)
It's behind you!... pity he didn't stay there
The makers prove they know how to make a really scary film - things begin as a
kind of homage to both The Haunting and The Exorcist as they expertly crank
up the suspense so tight I thought I would crack my knuckles. I was more than a
little impressed.
Then they throw it all away in gleeful horror fanboy
abandon. I suppose I should have known better than to trust in 'the makers of Saw' - James Wan and Leigh Whannell (how old are these guys anyway???).
It all starts to go wrong when the 'ghost hunters' turn up and the
sillier aspects of Poltergeist are evoked. But in a pastiche overload we get
them all - we've already had The Haunting, The Omen, The Exorcist and
Poltergeist, now we have Sam Raimi in all his obviousness, John Landis,
Argento and even Jeepers Creepers?!
By the end of this mess I half
expected the marshmallow man from Ghostbusters to appear!
Coming to Insidious, I didn't expect
much really and so I was pleasantly surprised by the first 20 minutes or so of
expertly wound tension. It's just a shame the elastic snapped so early. Still,
If you thought Drag Me to Hell was the scariest film you've ever seen then you
might enjoy this a lot. Long before the end I was feeling a tad deflated and was pining for the chills of Hill House.
There is a moment towards the end of 'Lust, Caution' where the two main characters
give each other a series of looks. It lasts for quite a while and there is no
dialogue. It's not necessary - the protagonists tell each other what they are
thinking simply with their eyes. We know exactly what they are
thinking - or at least are given the opportunity to make up our own mind. We
also know a fraction of a second before she delivers the killer-line that she will say it.
It's a great moment which made me gasp. Up till this moment in the film, I feel
that Ang Lee has given us one big tease. Is she, isn't she? Is he isn't he?
'Lust, Caution' is quite obviously a take on Hitchcock's
Notorious (something Lee has gone on to say as much in interviews). But anyone
coming to this film expecting a romantic thriller, will be sorely disappointed. This is a completely different kettle o' fish. The heroine of 'Lust, Caution' is most assuredly on her own here. There is
no Cary Grant to save her from the villain or, more to the point, herself - Ang Lee fondly reminds
us of this when our heroine sees
Penny Serenade at the cinema and we have the spectacle of Grant's big close-up bearing down. It's a very touching
moment and a subtle reminder that this tale will probably not have a happy
ending. I imagine a clip from 'Notorious' would have been a bit too obvious but
in another scene we do see her crying over Ingrid Bergman in Intermezzo
(Grant's co-star in 'Notorious' and the original spy/whore).
It's interesting that we also catch a glimpse of a poster for Suspicion. In that film Joan Fontaine's ingenue marries Cary Grant's probable killer. The moral dilemma that story kicks up is clearly brought to mind here. But that film is ultimately too timid - studio pressure meant that the morally explosive climax of Malice Aforethought (Anthony Berkeley writing as Francis Iles) was expunged for the film adaptation in favour of a much tidier 'safe' ending (Hitch wasn't happy and neither are we). The twisted morality of 'Malice Aforethought' is much closer in spirit to 'Lust, Caution' than 'Suspicion' for sure.
But it's 'Notorious' Lee is most interested in here. At least as a counterpoint.
Anyone who
knows 'Notorious' will know the differences - not just in plot but in pacing and
narrative. 'Lust, Caution' is as much an espionage thriller as Brokeback
Mountain is a Western (not much then!). Characterisation is poles apart also. In 'Notorious',
Ingrid Bergman's Alicia is a drunk and treated as a tramp (Personally I'd like
to think she was just a hedonist who liked a good time or two - which to the
more prudish and judgmental among us equals a tramp anyway). Cary Grant comes
along and persuades her to become a spy, to seduce the Nazi, Alexander Sebastian
(Claude Rains) in to bed so they can find out what he and his fellow Nazis are
up to in Rio. Of course, Alicia is initially reluctant for many reasons. But Dev
knows she's been round the block a few times - she knows the difference between
work and play, and she goes along with the plan very much with her eyes wide
open. And essentially what follows is a love story pretending to be a spy
thriller - at the heart of 'Notorious' is a story of redemption through love.
The spy element is the 'mcguffin'.
But it is still a thriller.
'Lust,
Caution' on the other hand, with its deliberately slow pacing and intense
eroticism, is something else entirely. One thing it is not, is a thriller. At
least not in its conventional sense.
Although the 'heroine' of 'Lust,
Caution' is not a virgin when she meets Mr Lee, she is very much an innocent.
The clumsy, and tragically comic, fumbling 'sex lessons' she endures with one of
her fellow resistance troupe is certainly no real learning experience for life
or for what she has to do. Unlike Alicia, she is an innocent to men and
sexuality - she wouldn't find it so easy to distinguish between 'work and play'.
Like Alicia she is 'Mata Hari' - she "makes love for the papers". A spy. Unlike
Alicia, she is practically a child. But she is also an actress.
So, what are
we seeing? Is Wong Chia Chi an actress giving a convincing performance for fear of risking her
life? A naive innocent? Is this even a love story? It's a severe test of our empathy if it is.
Here, we are not given the luxury of
knowing what she is really thinking. That's were the tension comes from. That's
its genius. It's also its biggest flaw.
I don't think we ever truly know what the heroine is really
feeling - is she acting, is she falling in love with Mr Yee? Or is it maybe a
mixture of both? Possibly. Over the course of a little under three hours I don't
think we ever truly know. In the same way, we know practically nothing about Mr
Yee - his actions, what he is feeling. We only know what is told us - what is
spoken about by the troupe of resistance fighters, what they believe: that he
is a collaborator and torturer.
But we never see it! (Only once, I think,
does Mr Yee talk about it). Is this dishonest of Lee? Or
do we really need to see it?
Maybe it's not important. After all, Wong Chia
Chi never sees it so why should we? This is her tale.
The first real clues
to Mr Yee's true nature become blisteringly apparent in the first time they have
'sex' - a scene of such brutal ferocity that it gave me a knot in my stomach -
he beats her with his belt and rapes her. For the audience, it's very easy to
see the corrupting monster he is from this scene. Maybe this is how he has
treated his (female) captives? It's not hard to imagine. But for the naive
innocent Wong Chia Chi, I think it's entirely possible to imagine her seeing
this brutal act as making love - how would she know any different? She's no Mata
Hari or Alicia Huberman. She doesn't know men.
I don't know. Even after
a second viewing, I'm still undecided if I really like Lust Caution. I certainly
find it hard to engage with the main characters.
Ultimately, the ambiguity
of the heroine's motivations and the inscrutable characterisation of Mr Yee not
only alienates much of the audience but also leaves the film open to accusations
of immorality - is this really a love story? And if so, do we empathise with a
woman who is very likely in love with a monster?
Is it enough to say she is an actresst, even more than that, an innocent. I would
say that, by the end of the story, she has certainly become a little infatuated with
(inscrutable) Mr Yee and so her naivete means she makes a terrible decision. Whether he is in love with her is an
irrelevance almost. It's too late.
If she - or we, the audience for that
matter - were shown Mr Yee's crimes, this would be a very different story.
Motivations would be black and white. Whether this would have made it a better
film or easier to understand is a moot point. I do feel though, it would have
been an easier film to forget.
As shamelessly biased as I am towards the monumental abilities of our
transcendent goddess of cinephilia that is La Tilda of Swinton (she is, without any shadow of doubt in my mind, the greatest living screen actor), I was still a
little in awe of her raw, not to mention brave, performance as Julia. She is
utterly convincing as, let's be honest here, a quite repulsive woman. Someone
who, at the very least, is profoundly flawed - a self-centred alcoholic lush who
cares about no-one and wears her propensity towards self-destruction on her
sleeve. Who then goes one step further towards obliterating any last vestiges of
sympathy she may have elicited from the people around her and us, the audience,
by doing the unthinkable - kidnapping a child for ransom.
If that isn't bad
enough, the rough treatment she metes out on the boy is nothing short of spiteful and cruel. Her careless attitude is unflinching (locking him in the boot of her car
till he shits himself, screaming obscenities at him while waving a gun in his
face, gagging him and leaving him tied to the radiator of the motel room,
abandoning him in the Mexican desert at night). It's deeply upsetting to watch
and you wonder how you can engage with this mascara smeared devil. And yet yes,
we are still rooting for her! Highsmith fans will be smacking their chops.
It's not until the last 40 minutes or so, when the mother instinct
breaks through the seemingly hard-as-nails but still very brittle exterior, that
her humanity and compassion spills out at last. (It's been an emotional slog
getting there so our relief is palpable). As she awakes (from a night of filth
with her Mexican trick) and her poor wretched captive tyke is led in to her,
bathed in the warm orange and yellow glows of a South American sunrise, the
dispossessed lush and motherless son seem to bond. It's a profoundly moving
scene (reminding me a little of the restorative feel that the later scenes in
Irreversible invoked) and just about stops you wanting to kick Julia into
submission. Can Julia redeem herself? Well, she does try - she really does. Unfortunately for them it may be too late
for redemption, as events take a terrible turn and spiral even further out of
Julia's control and we wonder if anyone will get out of this alive?
The ending is
frustratingly abrupt but also kind of perfect - I'd love to know how things
panned out but whatever happens next is a whole different story of course and nothing is better than our imagination for filling in the gaps.
As near accurate a portrait of the perfect love affair and its literal death are
rendered here explicitly and so utterly, that it's jaw-dropping closing moments
will floor even those hardest of hearts [I can imagine the disappointment of the
archetypal couple, hoping for a romantic diversion to affirm their own
burgeoning amore: she persuading him that it's not a sentimental chick-flic,
while secretly assuming it is and he, all harrumphing scepticism, ending up
being the first one dribbling tears and snot into his half-empty pop-corn bag
when he realises they're probably doomed].
The chemistry between Ryan
Gosling and Michelle Williams is deeply involving. They're total opposites.
She's very internal, reserved - a little too inscrutable [to the point that some
will empathise less with her] but her restraint does what it's supposed to -
unwittingly pulls us in. Williams is exquisite with restraint [as just one single heart-stopping shot in Brokeback Mountain will testify]. He's visibly
emotional, always (self)analytical, his heart not just on his sleeve but worn
proudly like some shiny enamel badge - all gamboling immaturity that drags us
along for the ride. If it was anyone but Gosling we'd be gagging.
With her quiet
intensity & seriousness and his openness & sentimental nature, in some
ways it's quite a gender role-reversal for a love story. But this
chalk and cheese characterisation is also an early alarm-bell of the cracks to come
and not only do they ignore it but so do we - who in life hasn't ignored those
warning signs while skipping along the wishful-thinking path? Hopeless romantics will wax lyrical about the attraction of
opposites, that spark of instant amore, the clash that is only a hurdle on the
path to 'true' love. But that's the point of opposites - they have a tendency to
end up being exactly that. That's the real tragedy here. The real tragedy of
love.
It's the first Great film of 2011. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll
want to fall in love. And then you'll wanna run screaming the other way.
And
then run back again of course!
Arabesque has the unfortunate handicap of being Stanley Donen's follow-up to the rather more revered and more polished Charade. It's unfairly dismissed as a poor imitation of it's predecessor. That Gregory Peck is a poor man's Cary Grant and that the film is, at best, camp hokum and at worst lazy and boring. Even a Bond rip-off! No matter.
I will say I have never been a huge fan of Gregory Peck. I have always thought him a little too cold and wooden. His granite façade often seems impenetrable to me. There are one or two exceptions (the campy but under-rated Duel in the Sunalways comes to mind). The label of poor man's Cary Grant is maybe a little too harsh but sometimes is rather fitting. Here though, the character of Prof. Pollock is a rather fusty and naive character. A 'wet fish' if you like. So the first time we see him he has literally driven his pupils to sleep with his dry lecture. He is a quintessential stereotype and Peck fits the part like a glove. Cary Grant, at this point in his career, was the very epitome of cool suave and knowing sophistication. He just wouldn't have been right for the part. He wouldn't have sent anyone to sleep and he certainly would have seen through Yasmin (Sophia Loren) from the outset.
Arabesque is not a pale imitation of Charade. It's just a less subtle pastiche of Hitchcock. The line between pastiche/homage and actual rip-off is often a thin one and always subjective of course. But it's more problematic with Hitchcock because many of his films are templates - he invented and perfected a lot of the rules and techniques of the spy/suspense genre we now take for granted. Arabesque and much of the spy/suspense genre films from the 60s, including the Bond films, are remakes or variations on the 'formula' perfected by Ernie Lehman and Hitchcock in North By Northwest - the sophisticated hero, armed with witticisms if not a gun, the cool and beautiful heroine who is not what she seems and who beds the villain as well as the hero, the famous landmark set pieces and breakneck chase sequences, the charming villain surrounded by loyal & lethal henchmen and so on (while on the subject, two Hitchcock regulars were considered when making the Bond films: Cary Grant was considered for playing Bond and Bernard Herrmann was considered for the score. Imagine how much more Hitchcockian Bond would have felt with those two elements in place)
The sequence at the racetrack is most definitely a send up of the racetrack scene in Notorious. In Notorious it's a scene about restraint and is played for tears. A heartbreaking Bergman is reduced to tears as she is rebuffed by a seemingly uncaring Grant. In Arabesque, Donen keeps it light and frothy; plays it camp - Peck and Loren overplaying the cloak and dagger routine by speaking in 'la-di-dah' clipped tones and Loren in an improbably large hat. Just as this is a tongue-in-cheek wink to Notorious, during the finale, where our heroes are chased into a field of green crops and are attacked by the villains with farming machinery, we get a joke on the crop-duster sequence in North by Northwest. But these are only a couple of very obvious references - Arabesque is full of them, some more subtle than others, and that's why it's such fun.
That and Sophia Loren looking utterly splendid - she is given a different Dior outfit for every scene and when Peck meets her for the first time, and utters "Hello... helloo, hello, hello helloooo!", you are with him with every coo!
The villains are thoroughly camp if slightly inconsequential. Alan Badel as Beshraavi, like Blofeld with his cat, is never without his falcon on his arm and never takes his dark glasses off - I think it's meant to be intimidating. It's not - you just keep expecting him to walk into the furniture. He also seems a little too interested in dressing Yasmin in new shoes rather than threatening her with anything more physical!
And all the Arab characters are just Brits with painted faces - mostly not even bothering with an accent. Which of course only adds to the camp value.
Mix in Henry Mancini's fantastic score and Christopher Challis' distinctively psychedelic and very sparkly camera-work (lights, mirrors and reflections just about everywhere) and Arabesque feels totally of its time and genre - glamorous, sophisticated, huge fun and completely superficial. What's not to enjoy?
Certainly not Hammer's finest hour but neither is it the least. But with its utterly nonsensical plot and lack of any actual creepy bandaged mummies its surely a candidate for one of the most tedious. Add to this the cheap sets, flat cinematics and a distinctly rushed feeling, all shows up its second feature status most obviously (maybe it played second fiddle to a bandaged Christopher Lee??)
But to be fair, it's still occasionally camp fun - even the worst of Hammer will have that going for it! Namely, Valerie Leon (in an unnecessary wig) flouncing about in a series of revealing black or pink nighties, pouting excessively and rolling her heavily mascaraed eyes, killing off the rest of the (wasted) cast - seemingly armed with nothing more than a few Egyptian artifacts and her very ample, and admittedly quite impressive, cleavage.
Her nervous co-stars are a mixed bag of (mostly quality) character actors (supplementing their theatre work no doubt) wasted in thankless rolls: James Burden sweating to death - probably from wearing a worse wig than Leon's; Poor George Coulouris doing what is required - hamming maniacally and hysterically to death; Rosalie Crutchley being typically granite-faced to the end (maybe this was the look she gave to her agent?); And (poor man's Peter Cushing) Andrew Keir being... well, boring, bearded and bed-ridden. Only marvelous James Villiers comes out with any shred of dignity. But that's maybe more to do with his playing it suave and aloof.
Incidentally the ironic ending is, surprisingly, rather good and very nearly made the effort to get there bearable. Someone, with their tongue still wedged firmly in their cheek, is definitely teasing us for the disappointing sparsity of anything as thrilling as actual creepy bandaged mummies!
I have often wondered over the years if Malick is the laziest [genius?] film-maker on the planet. I have had a notion that he may not be worth my patience - this is only his fifth film in 38 years. I had an idea that The Thin Red Line, as great as it is, was not quite worth waiting 20 years for (I still think so). I have even had a thought that, as great as Days of Heaven and 'The Thin Red Line' are, that they don't quite come up to scratch when compared to Badlands (surely his debut is the one film of his that has influenced many of the very best film-makers working today). So I was a little off the radar when The New World was released (and I've still to rectify this criminal oversight). Now we have his fifth film. Seeing the trailer for 'The Tree of Life' reminded me a little of what was great about 'Badlands'. To say I was a little apprehensive would have been an understatement.
There was no need. It far exceeded my expectations.
Most film-makers know what donkeys we have become and they play the pre-publicity game to death - except the carrot is never quite in reach (doesn't anyone ever tire of the disappointment??) and is forever snatched away for the next big tease. Malick, in the meantime, has been cooking up an absolute feast to reward our patience and I for one thoroughly enjoyed the banquet (are we really gonna get dessert next year already?).
Part tone-poem, part contemplation on life, the universe and everything (yes, the reference is intentional) and part abstract meditation on [mostly] memories of childhood, rather than straight-forward piece of cinema - not only does it lack a narrative flow but much of the dialogue, whether spoken by the characters in context or narrated in voice-over, never actually carries a story as such. Dialogue is minimal and never more than incidental; scenes are random, fractured and often ambiguous in intent and the characters' voice-overs are more introspection [and prayer] rather than real thought processes. Much of the time we only have music and visuals (it really is almost a crime to even blink at such marvellous music and imagery), which all serves to add to the overall abstract feel. I will concede that the music [and sometimes even the imagery] is occasionally a little intrusive - loud, orchestral and choral sometimes felt too random and was not always appropriate. Any message or meaning is constantly in danger of being lost as we marvel at the glorious soundtrack.
If you like Terence Davies' early films you will certainly approve. Despite Malick's unique qualities, Davies is the most obvious comparison here and deserves a mention. Though the themes of the fall of the Garden of Eden (the telegram at the start of the film is a constant reminder that this perfect childhood of the 50s will give way to the harsh brutalities of the 60s), spirituality and a cruel [to be kind] mother nature (here most notably represented by the mother and father respectively) are all recognisably Malick. But the loose non-linear narrative, the use of carefully placed evocative music and sounds, also put me in mind of The Long Day Closes and Distant Voices, Still Lives.
I fear some will dismiss much of 'The Tree of Life' as pretentious and a bit of a head-scratcher. Maybe even a tad bored? (except for the closing moments, I wasn't for a single moment). And some may take umbrage at what could be perceived as two and a half hours of religious rumination (I'm agnostic so I get to take from it what I like!).
But what makes great cinema is somewhat twofold. It's partly about how much we take from it as an individual; how we interpret cinema's rich tapestry of imagery, music, themes and subtexts should be as much a personal thing for us as it is for the film-maker. Also the best kind of cinema stays with us not just because it throws up all the big questions but when we aren't given all the answers - better to have to find [and interpret] some ourselves. 'The Tree of Life' perfectly encapsulates all this like no other film I can think of.
In the closing moments things begin to unravel and the film begins to lose its way somewhat. I could have done without Penn, as the middle-aged Jack, on an immense beach and surrounded by what? Ghosts? Memories? Somnambulant extras?? Things teeter into mawkish navel-gazing. It was as if no-one knew how to end things (apart from the end of the everything of course). But, up until this final misstep, 'The Tree of Life' really is a magnificent piece of cinema and a true work of art.
By the way, you HAVE to see it on the big screen. I demand you do before it gets dwarfed onto a small screen.
In Richard Ayoade's assured debut feature he seems to be asserting his cinephile credentials by wearing his influences proudly on his sleeve. 'Submarine' most obviously evokes the Nouvelle Vague - especially Truffaut and Goddard - but there's a few surprising nods to 'Harold and Maude' and 'Don't Look Now'. But what lifts it all from slavish homage is the sheer joy and fun of it all. And the precocious leads are really great. Most especially Craig Roberts as Oliver - his dead-pan presence is like a warmer (less creepy?) Bud Cort as Harold (from 'Harold & Maude') - the duffle coat and lank mop are surely there to reinforce this. He hardly ever expresses more than a laboured grin and his downbeat monotone narration stops things getting too mushy (despite my irritation of most voice-overs). But his puppy-dog eyes encourages us to warm to him a little more than he sometimes deserves (he's not really grumpy, just a repressed intellectual) so that we forgive his pompous allusions & affectations and the rotten way he treats Jordana - as played by Yasmin Paige. She's good too - Jordana has a defiance of all things sentimental which is a perfect foil for Oliver's pretensions.
Unfortunately the grown-ups are given short shrift. Sally Hawkins manages to shine through with genuine warmth as Oliver's mother. But Noah Taylor's miserable 'dad-in-a-dressing-gown' and Paddy Considine's caricature of the 'other man' are somewhat one-dimensional and decidedly irritating. This is probably the intention - teenage coming of age tales usually have little time for the grown-ups and distance is often required when emphasising the isolation. But such scant regard for characterisation made it hard to empathise and so had me scratching my head wondering, not only why the parents would stay together but why this woman would even consider the phoney smarm of the alternative. It's only a minor quibble though. It's still a thoroughly entertaining little flic, with enough cinematic allusions and tricks to keep me interested in what Richard Ayoade may come up with next.
More comic-strip than comic-book - in other words fun, more than a bit camp and always unpretentious (which doesn't mean this is anything more than slightly akin to Joel Schumacher or Mike Hodges - though I'm sure the humourless won't agree with me).
The love interest is completely disposable and is far less important than the Shakespearean (ahem)/Greek tragedy (don't scoff)/soap-opera at the heart of 'Thor' - two brothers, only they're not (far be it from me to inject the queer reading here), one misunderstood, one 'different' (still not saying it's queer) slug it out for the approval of their father - and the throne. Or not.
Having the story (kind of) split in two, not only makes things feel a little like having two films for the price of one (epic fantasy and Superman type comic-strip) but also makes for a real lip-smacking sense of self-deprecation and is the film's biggest delight - the histrionic fantasy of the Gods clashing with Earth-bound mundanity is genuinely funny and also helps to create a warmth that is usually lacking in much of the more po-faced comic-book flics (usually about Knights who are a bit uptight or, more more apropriately, 'dark'). It's an 'in-joke' that never feels smug and knowing. The visuals and the costumes are the right side of kitsch and are quite stunning - got to love the under-light bridge & 'disco-ball' gateway, complete with a gold larme'd bouncer (Idris Elba).
The story of the Gods is a bit simplistic but the villains are villainous and the characters are never less than likable (excepting that I'm ignoring the potential for queerness and prefer that Thor had taken a shine to spunky Darcy rather than winsome Jane).
What can I say? It's a lot of fun and It made me feel 12 again.
...those wetting themselves over the anticipation of 'The Avengers' flic don't need me to remind them to wait for the post-credits tease either. But if this is indicative of what's to come then I may be riding the wave myself (who am I kidding??)
The 49th Parallel (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
I have a real soft spot for The 49th Parallel. It's certainly not held up by many as the best of Powell and Pressburger but it's one of those films I find myself drawn to again and again - P&P's warm and involving characterisation, the landscapes of Canada, Vaughn Williams' evocative score (given its due reverence as an 'honorary' character in the title sequence) are all scrumptious trimmings to a thoroughly exciting story.
Along with Hitchcock's WWII propaganda films Lifeboat and Foreign Correspondent and Cavalcanti's Went the Day Well?, it is the very best of its type - a call to arms that also happens to be cracking good cinema.
The cast list reads like a roll-call of all the great (mostly) British character actors of the day and, excepting the misfire of Olivier's phony accent, no-one puts a foot wrong. And how marvelous that Powell & Pressburger made such a successful piece of anti-Nazi propaganda and still managed to sneak in not just one of their trademark 'good' Germans but two - Anton Walbrook as Peter, the 'leader' of the (German!) Hutterite commune [his blistering speech is deeply moving and is certainly the heart of the film's message] and Niall McGinnis as Vogal, the German soldier who finds his conscience just a little too late - his demise being the quiet tragedy of a man who wanted a return to a simple life baking bread, instead of being an unthinking killer!
Think Don't Look Now crossed with Lord of the Flies but with characters drawn with such extreme bourgeois naivety that it's impossible to elicit the slightest sympathy for (precursors to the punchable leads of von Trier's Antichrist for sure). The longueurs would be fine and cinematic if we liked or empathised with these people - I would have been quite thrilled by the slightly abstract, lingering close-ups of Sewell and Béart if the overwhelming urge wasn't to slap some sense into them.
However it's still a very intriguing tease that gets so under the skin that it's hard to shake off too thoroughly without shuddering. Seared with some genuinely sinister and gothic sequences - horrid dream sequences that blur the line between what's real and imagined/dreaded, a vile dirty jungle so reeking of death and decay that you wonder why anyone would think anything living could be found there - it's not till it's over that, apart from humans, you realise we haven't seen a single living beast or insect (though we always here them). It's nothing less than a descent into Hell of course.
And the totally over the top, completely bonkers finale suddenly makes things worth the effort. Horrific, beautiful, disgusting and disturbing all at once. I would have laughed my tits off at it's final shots if I wasn't more than a little terrified.
A genuinely moving story about two lonely people trying desperately to get home against seemingly impossible odds - the occasional giant squid-like alien being the biggest hurdle of course. Along the way they (very) gradually fall in love so that by the end of their journey they realise - too late - they don't want to go home anymore.
As a travelogue/road movie it's quite stunning - in spite of and because of it's premise, the jungles and sunsets of Mexico punctuated by the odd ancient pyramid as well as the huge man-made walls and fences (to keep the alien threat at bay) are breathtaking. And the two leads are very effective too - with minimal dialogue, we are given so much more with looks and quiet moments where the simple gesture of a hand on a shoulder tells us all we need to know. The film's finale is somewhat quietly devastating and its irony puts it on a par with the great cinematic love stories.
As it happens, the title is a bit of a red herring and many expecting the obvious will be sorely disappointed. However, I was pleasantly surprised
Once again my rambling is much overdue - has it really been 10 months?? Shocking I know. I would like to say that I have been leading some hectic social life and been quite preoccupied. I would be lying of course. I'm just lazy.
So today I will be just as lazy and simply upload some of my cine-thoughts of the past 10 months that have appeared elsewhere
In bio-pic terms, 'Gainsbourg' is maybe somewhat of a missed opportunity - despite its bio-friendly length, not much about the man is delved into too deeply, as incidents and character are skimmed over rather scantily and haphazardly. This is a shame, seeing as I for one don't know very much about him aside from his public persona - his songs, especially those with his loves Birkin and Bardot, that he drank a lot and that he always had a cigarette wedged in his mouth.
However, I don't think a typical dry bio was the intention here and if, like me, you are grinning from ear to ear at the vaguely retro cartooning of the title sequence then you may just appreciate the many incidental pleasures that make up the first 75 minutes or so of what follows. Director, Joann Sfar has imagination and flair for sure (his daring use of animation and puppetry helps to stop things feeling dry) and he has certainly paid homage to the man and, if nothing else, this will certainly rejuvenate interest in the music.
Eric Elmosino is terrific in the title role and just like Marion Cotillard before him, in that other flawed bio of an Icône française, he manages to transcend simple convincing impersonation to become the man totally (and there is NO lip-syncing the songs here either, as the cast use their own voices).
Special mentions: A suitably lusty and far too brief turn by Yolande Moreau as Fréhel. The cafe scene where the young Gainsbourg meets her is a joy. As is Sara Forestier - very funny as the cheeky France Gall.
I have to admit that Laetitia Casta's big glam entrance as Bardot left me a little breathless and is one of the film's most indulgent highlights - all thigh-high boots, leopard print, lush blonde tresses and mascara as the distinctive instrumental of 'The Initials BB' trumpets away on the soundtrack. It just couldn't be anyone else.
And the songs! In fact 'Gainsbourg' feels closer to being a musical bio-pic. Or, to be more precise, it's a musical homage - as the songs, staged with originality, poignancy and sheer fun, are always never less than reverential to the artistry of the man (including acknowledging that he was an accomplished painter) if not always telling us something about his character or propelling the story. Look out for what they do with 'Comic Strip' (I just wanted to jump up and cry "more, more!"), not to mention the scene when when we finally hear THAT song - it's a little surreal and quite hysterical. Much like the film actually.
What sounded like camp, spooky fun actually does start well - looking rather pretty in it's very dated 60s way: lots of boutiques, big hair'd skinny girls and even girlier (but not always) pretty boys. Granted, the acting is a bit laboured but we shouldn't expect too much from a 'Tigon' production - apart from giving us such classic (and somewhat undervalued) chillers as Witchfinder General and Blood on Satan's Claw, it's really not too unkind to say 'Tigon' was a poor cousin to 'Hammer' and 'Amicus'.
But all hope of some fun or chills is lost when you realise no-one bothered to make any effort at all. Zero screenplay/plot/direction/logic! Lazy and pointless doesn't even cover it.
The gist of the story beggars belief: their 'groovy' party gets boring so they decide to move on to an old derelict house that's reputed to be haunted (of course). A seance is suggested (it was either that or an orgy). More accurately, they hold hands and stare at each other until a door creaks. They split up to investigate the noise, when one of them is hacked to death. Much hysterics (by the girls) and face-slapping (by the girly boys) ensues. Instead of leaving the house and calling the police they decide to bury the corpse of the man who was previously their friend. And not tell anyone... for absolutely no reason at all. Well, except that one of them convinces the others that it just has to be one of them that did the deed (well of course it is). So now it all makes sense...?? Ahem...
For the rest of the flic the players carry on bumping into each other, aimlessly wandering about; all with no conceivable purpose beyond being hysterical, or looking nervous, or bored (managing a combination of all three would have been far too much to ask for I imagine). Along the way, poor Denis Price pops up. Hoorah! Then, for a handful of scenes, he sleepwalks in an utterly redundant part and then promptly disappears again (in search of his agent I don't doubt).
It all climaxes with Frankie Avalon getting stabbed in the cock (I kid you not) when the least scariest killer in the history of cinema is revealed - who is then stopped in his limp-wristed rampage when the lights go out, causing him to run off in hysterics, screeching into the night... because he's terrified of the dark (?!).
I would have wondered here that maybe someone was overcompensating for an ambivalent audience with a bit of a joke ("last one to the exits is a rotten bit-part in a stinker of a film") but I was already nodding off and wondering how many people did the makers seriously think would have been left in the theatre at this point.
Where's Terence Fisher when you need him?
The trailer promises an "orgy of horror". The liars!
Coming as it does, not only on the cusp of Hollywood's golden age but also Davis's at Warners, 'Deception' is often forgotten or dismissed in favour of the previous classics she made with Warners or the gothic hysterics of her later films. Not fair!
A recent re-evaluation has convinced me that this is a bit of a classic. And, I have to admit, an out and out camp classic. But, more than this, the camp of 'Deception' is positively elevated to high art. The story is complete hokum of course and is performed with such overwrought feeling and pungent relish that you are constantly expecting the characters to burst into song. Opera-noir anyone??
But this was still a time when people cared and cynicism hadn't taken over so much that now anything not total po-faced realism (outside of a comedy proper) is sneered at knowingly or declared "so bad it's good" by a seemingly more 'sophisticated' audience. It was a time when they cared enough about high production values and reveled in artifice, glamour and the pure indulgence of escapism. Pah! When did we learn to stop letting go of grim reality??
Some would have us believe that 'Deception' is one solely for the die-hard Davis fans - those more willing to forgive her more arch mannerisms or looking a little 'past it'. But, despite withering opinion, those not enamoured of Davis's charms will still find much to smack their chops over as well.
Korngold's stunning score is not merely a refreshing change to Warner's over reliance on Max Steiner's often intrusive bombast - it's actually one of the best scores of the period. It also helps that Davis and Henreid don't look phony when 'playing' the music - Davis is particularly convincing because she could actually play the piano and Henreid, despite looking a little awkward, was helped with the same trick as Garfield in Humoresque. Rains, having an absolute field day as the unhinged musical genius, bangs and smacks at the poor keyboard as an unhinged musical genius in a camp melodrama would.
The sets are incredible and have a whole life of their own - huge luxurious drawing rooms, shadowy stairwells, grand staircases made for dramatic death scenes, lots and lots of cine-rain spattering windows and flooding the street of the evocative opening sequence. Combined with the noirish lighting and deep focus of Davis's favourite cinematographer Ernie Haller, all goes to making 'Deception' a visual feast for any jaded cinephile.
Less than four years after 'Deception' came All About Eve. It seen as possibly Davis's finest performance (she is great). But, as ever, a performance is what it is (Davis the original show-off). 'Eve', despite its high critical pedigree, is very much the beginning of the end for Davis as a 'serious' screen actor. As Margot, she is the absolute star of the production - positively chowing down on the furniture in one of her most hand-swivelling and eye-rolling turns. She will never top Margot. As any drag queen worth her weight in false eye-lashes will testify, from this point on, her most significant roles are never less than monstrous or crazy - Dead Ringers, Baby Jane, The Anniversary, The Star, Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte. 'Deception' feels almost subtle in comparison (who am I kidding??).
What 'Deception' doesn't deserve is to languish in the shadows of these inferior (though hugely entertaining) efforts. At the very least it's the equal of her well-known previous classic films (time has been kinder to it than The Old Maid or Dark Victory). It may be no masterpiece, but it's still a marvelous example of the golden age of over-ripe melodramas and that's surely good enough reason to drag it out of the closet and brush the cobwebs off.
A nicely sinister title sequence gives way to a rather flatly executed but fairly intriguing story of brilliant genetic engineers, in the age-old tradition of playing God. Who are they kidding??
Never mind the fact that we all know such ideas are ALWAYS doomed to end in the death and/or mutilation of all around but I had a real problem in believing such incredibly stupid people as these two could ever EVER in the imagination of even the most demented chimpanzee ever really be considered brilliant?? Maybe if brilliant equals behaving like a confused and concussed five year old, who after falling down a particularly long flight of stairs and banging his head on every stair on the way down, then carries on chasing the big red shiny balloon going “lalalalalala..lah!” because it’s soooo pretty.
And, as the film progressed (nay, descended) on it’s demented way, they plummet to new-found depths of utter ineptitude and crassness. Maybe they just got bored of inserting marbles up there nostrils when they realised it wasn’t going to come out of one of their lugholes and only made their brain itch? Come to think of it, mine was beginning to feel scratchy.
I could be here all day making mealy-mouthed pot-shots at this totally bonkers ‘film’ but I think I would give myself a migraine (how long have you got?).
I will admit that I haven’t laughed in the cinema this much in a long time (who’d have thought rape, child-abuse, pissed-off hormonal turd-things in a tank and Adrien Brody’s cum face could be so funny??). But I think it would be unfair to say that all the laughs were unintentional and a touch mean-spirited to ignore that the makers had imagination and chutzpah to spare – at least caring enough to be daring and original, not to mention still appealing to the cinephile with the many references to the classics.
However, by the time of it’s ludicrous and protracted finale, a tiny part of me was dying inside and I was beginning to feel my soul being sucked right out of my arse. And as I groaned at its sphincter-squeezing epilogue (consoling myself with the fact that most of the cast were dead) I began to wonder if self-harming was so bad after all.
The audience I saw it with howled throughout and and were enjoying it as much as I dared to admit. But as we sheepishly filed out of the cinema, our mutual bemusement and deep shame was most palpable. I for one felt more than a little defiled as I wondered if I would ever be able to erase the images in my head of the most excruciating ‘sex’ scenes ever put onscreen (and I thought Elizabeth Berkley, thrashing about like a harpooned dolphin in a jacuzzi with Kyle MacLachlan was the pinnacle!)
A worthy subject given the big superficial treatment that isn't a total loss but the disappointment is bitter - mostly when anyone opens their mouth.
