DAILY FILM DOSE: A Daily Film Appreciation and Review Blog: 2008 Films

Showing posts with label 2008 Films. Show all posts

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Hunger

Hunger (2008) dir. Steve McQueen Starring: Michael Fassbender, Stuart Graham, Brian Milligan, Liam McMahon, Liam Cunningham

****

By Alan Bacchus

This debut feature, re-released on Blu-ray to coincide with the release of Shame, is still a magnificent introduction to the former new media artist and designer Steve McQueen (no relation to the Bullitt star) and an impassioned story about the 1981 hunger strike by Irish revolutionaries in Maze Prison.

Passion and intensity overcome the rather orthodox narrative; it's hard to ignore the misleading flow, which can confuse the casual viewer. McQueen initially introduces us to Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham), a prison guard we watch go about his mundane morning routine: showering, getting dressed, eating breakfast and, lastly, checking under his car for bombs before going to work. Once at work, McQueen goes into the details of his exhausting task of overseeing a group of miscreant prisoners united in the name of Irish freedom against their captors. McQueen then switches to the POV of Davey Gillen, a boyish-looking, incumbent inmate identified as having a nonconforming attitude. Once in his cell, which has been grotesquely decorated with faeces by his new mate, Gerry Campbell, we realize Gillen has entered a new kind of hell. And yet, the film isn't about Gillen, Campbell or Raymond the prison guard.

Finally, after a ceremonial beat down session by the guards, we glimpse Bobby Sands for the first time, who will takeover the film from hereon in. First, we see him as a feral beast of a man, with long hair and a long beard, being dragged kicking and screaming to get his hair cut. At the end of the ordeal, we see Sands the man for the first time, cut and bruised but absolutely resolute in his determination.

In the context of cinema history, it's also a magnificent introduction to Michael Fassbender the actor and Hollywood star in the making. Fassbender's embodiment of Sands' unbelievable dedication of mind and body to the cause of Irish freedom has the same kind of visceral power as Robert De Niro's Jake LaMotta or Brando's beatings in On the Waterfront.

The final act, wherein Sands wastes away on a bed, refusing all food, is brought to life by McQueen in the most uncompromisingly painful manner. And yet, at the moment of his death it's an existential, ethereal moment, beautiful and serene.

After Sands takes over the picture we never see Gillen again, nor Campbell, nor the young Swat member who guides us through the harrowing riot sequence. As such, upon my first viewing, I was admittedly confused, not knowing who to follow. But looking back, McQueen's intentions are clear. Hunger is not a political film, but a work about the effect of the Irish conflict from all sides, sympathizing with everyone engaged in the fight, whether it's Sands' voluntary commitment or the guards just trying to make a living. Everyone suffers in Hunger, but in the process we are enlightened about the power of our resolve and commitment.

The Alliance Blu-ray is devoid of special features, which makes the Criterion Collection Blu-ray the keeper for collectors. But McQueen's immaculately controlled visual colour palette looks as beautiful in high definition and thus is worth every penny.

This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca

Sunday, 4 March 2012

Nightwatching

Nightwatching (2008) dir. Peter Greenaway
Starring: Martin Freeman, Jodhi May, Emily Holmes, Eva Birthistle

**

By Alan Bacchus

Enjoyment of Nightwatching will depend largely on your ability to stomach the tedium of Peter Greenaway – that intensely idiosyncratic British director known for lavish, overly theatrical and often debaucherous art films – the British version of late-career Fellini. Greenaway's latest tells the story of Rembrandt in the golden age of the Dutch empire and his journey to painting his most famous work, Nightwatch.

Like Guido in Fellini’s 8½, the film establishes Rembrandt, already a revered painter, as highly coveted by everyone to commission his next work. He chooses an offer from the Amsterdam Civil Guard, depicting the militia in a group portrait, only to get embroiled in a murder mystery that exposes the political crookedness of the group.

All the hallmarks of the Greenaway style are here, including impeccably composed classical frames heavily populated with lavishly costumed characters and extravagantly decorated production design. While visually stunning, like most of his work, it's a difficult film to penetrate. Lengthy, wordy dialogue sessions play out the complex conspiracies and historical analysis of the great painter and his work. There’s obviously great intelligence and deep character and artistic examination going on, almost all of which, admittedly, went way over my head.

For me, the only watchable element from these doubting eyes is Martin Freeman’s witty performance. Freeman, known for his affectionate Tim character in the original British version of The Office, inhabits Rembrandt’s skin admirably, giving us a highly accessible entry into what probably could have been a stodgy old theatrical character, much like the working class affability of Tom Hulce’s Mozart in Amadeus.

As usual, the visual palette includes large expansive and sometimes near-empty sets, theatrical in look, feel and sound. Often the characters talk directly to the audience like a Shakepearean soliloquy, the same feeling we got from the staginess of Lars von Trier’s Grace trilogy. There’s even a distinct stage echo in the sound design, which reverberates the actors’ dialogue.

Thus, Nightwatching ultimately becomes a highly esoteric affair – either for history or art scholars, or Greenaway junkies. For me it was a tough struggle, and I disappointed myself when I couldn’t really hold my attention to the film's complexities. Oh well, I never was a Greenaway fan, and this confirms I never will be. To each his own.

Nightwatching is available on DVD in Canada from Alliance Films.

Friday, 7 October 2011

Genova

Genova (2008) dir. Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Colin Firth, Catherine Keener, Willa Holland, Perla Haney-Jardine, Hope Davis

**½

By Alan Bacchus

This 2008 Michael Winterbottom film, unreleased in North America for years, finally arose earlier this year timed with the awards buzz for Colin Firth. It's a decidedly grim story about a family dealing with the death of their mother. Winterbottom adequately applies his on-location immersion modus operandi to this film, but the grim material is missing a spark of optimism to keep its audience from drowning in excessive grief.

The opening scene is played out with ominous tension. Winterbottom shows the tragic car accident that takes the life of the devoted mother and wife (Hope Davis) to Joe (Colin Firth) and his two daughters, Kelly (Willa Holland) and Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine). After the funeral, Joe decides to uproot the kids and move them to Genova, Italy where he has been offered a teaching job.

Once in Italy, it’s a culture shock for the kids. Kelly is a typical teenager and thus despises having to hang around her father and her pre-teen sister. At every opportunity she abandons Mary and Joe to exercise her burgeoning sexuality with local Italian boys. Mary, the youngest, is having the most difficulty with the loss. Her only method of coping is her waking visions of her ghostly mother, which keep her safe when she's alone. Catherine Keener plays Joe’s friend, who guides them around the city and acts as their surrogate mother. Unfortunately for the family, the city of Genova acts as both an enabler and an inhibitor to the grieving process.

Winterbottom and his crew appeared to have had a wonderful time filming the movie. The location is stunning and serves as a great promotional piece for Genovese tourism. Marcel Zyskind, Winterbottom’s frequent collaborator, lenses the film with a light and mobile handheld digital camera. While the colours becomes muted by the video-ness of the image, the camera is free to move covertly through the public streets interacting with real live Italian pedestrians.

At times, the documentary-like location shooting can feel self-conscious and draws attention to itself. Winterbottom, listed as a co-editor, often cuts randomly to locals in the background who seem unaware they’re being filmed. While it’s authentic, it’s also an obvious attempt to be authentic, when authenticity isn’t required.

The heart of the story is how each of the family members deals with the mother’s death. Kelly’s coming-of-age story is the most accessible because it’s structured with a traditional and familiar character arc. Unlike some of his other films, Winterbottom keeps the content PG13. Some tasteful skin is flashed, just enough to remind us of those days of innocent love and sexual discovery. Both Joe and Mary are characterized with less completeness. Joe ‘reacts’ more than ‘acts’. Once he’s in Genova he’s a passive character and does nothing to advance the story. Mary drives the film. All the tension and action is motivated by her decisions. But Mary serves more as a device than a developing character.

Winterbottom crafts only a couple of ‘cinematic’ set-piece scenes of danger – both involve Mary getting lost. The finale is a contrived conversion of the three characters. It’s a clichéd scene, which we’ve seen in a number of Hollywood genre films. Though it seems out of place for Winterbottom’s free-form techniques, I certainly welcomed the satisfying suspenseful climax.

Genova frustrates because Winterbottom never adequately defines his characters’ goals and instead lingers too long with the grief. I’m still questioning if it’s a coming-of-age story, a thriller or an art house mood film. It’s all and none of the above. Whatever it is, we desperately need a spark of optimism.

Wednesday, 15 June 2011

Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss

Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss (2008) dir. Felix Moeller
Starring: Thomas Harlan, Christiane Kubrick (nee Harlan), Jan Harlan, and Stefan Drosler

**1/2

By Greg Klymkiw

Veit Harlan was the director of a dreadful picture called Jew Süss.

His movie is dreadful on two counts.

Firstly, it’s no good – awful, in fact. It creaks and groans with storytelling techniques from another age and renders melodrama in ways that allow detractors of the genre to level their knee-jerk criticism at even the genre’s best work because movies like Jew Süss are, simply and purely, BAD MELODRAMA.

Secondly, the picture is the vilest, most hateful, prejudicial anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda ever made. The picture was such a huge hit upon its first release that Jew Süss is credited with inspiring pogroms, became required viewing for the S.S. and took its rightful place in the Final Solution as the film equivalent of a murder weapon. The movie was commissioned by Josef Goebbels, the Minister for Propaganda under the Nazi regime. Released in 1940, this disgusting and poorly made piece of trash told the story of a Jew who rises to power, rapes a Gentile woman (instigating her suicide) until his actions eventually result in all the Jews of the region being run out on a rail - "triumphantly" , no less - by all the non-Jews. And I reiterate, the picture was a HUGE success at the box office in Germany.

And yet, perhaps because of the movie's success, one is shocked at how utterly execrable the picture is as a movie. If you could, for only a moment (God forbid) look past its anti-Semitism and try to assess it as a film, you'll find it works neither as fiction, nor does it APPEAR to even be good propaganda. Sure, bad movies have often been hits in all countries all over the world, but Jew Süss is not just bad, it's a total clunker of a movie. In spite of this, and sadly, even the most cursory analysis of the historical events surrounding the time this picture was made yields complete and total understanding of the picture’s power.

So many examples of propaganda, especially of the dramatic variety (not just in Nazi Germany), are inevitably replete with all the hallmarks of moronic incompetence. [It is, I think, worth mentioning that an earlier draft of this review bore a weird Spell-check-generated typographical error and produced the word “incontinence” rather than “incompetence”.] In essence, effective propaganda is, more often than not, the artistry of the obvious and aimed at the lowest common denominator. That said, Jew Süss, as cinema is in complete contrast to the work of another filmmaker who was working under the same regime, Leni Riefenstahl.

Jew Süss is clearly without the style, artistry and slow burn intensity of Riefenstahl’s great work, The Triumph Of The Will, which, no doubt, brought more than a few Germans on board Hitler’s bandwagon of evil as Der Fuhrer descended from the Heavens to deliver his evil plan to the masses at the Nuremberg rally.

Even now, though, unlike Jew Süss, Triumph has the power to GENUINELY stun, shock, thrill and even (dare I say it?) enchant – simply and almost profoundly on the basis of its sheer cinematic virtuosity. Riefenstahl, the Adolph Mädchenname des Kinos of Nazi Germany was not simply a blonde, beautiful dancer and actress, she was one of the 20th century’s most dazzling filmmakers.

Under the mentorship of Dr. Arnold Fanck, the mad master of German mountaineering melodramas, Riefenstahl was, I’d say, a born filmmaker and a great one at that who, in spite of making Triumph should have been allowed to keep making movies with the same level of support Veit Harlan received – not just during the war, but AFTER, as well.

Riefenstahl’s pariah status after the war was truly lamentable – shameful, in fact.

Not so lamentable in Veit Harlan’s case. Jew Süss might well have been made by Ed Wood (if he’d been an inbred totalitarian nincompoop) as a sort of period Plan 9 From Outer Space, or if you will, Plan Jew From the Middle East.

Pariah? Yes. Working filmmaker? Veit Harlan? Absolutely yes! This is what's even more extraordinary. Harlan kept making movies. Then again, call me a Bleeding Heart Liberal if you will, but I must admit I've always been against the notion of blacklisting any artists for anything, and that includes perpetrating propaganda. So many American films include(d) hateful propaganda at various points throughout its history and in the former Soviet Union, Sergei Eisenstein extolled the virtues of a regime that butchered millions of people in the pre-Stalin era. Once Stalin was in power, Eisenstein, save perhaps for his last film, Ivan the Terrible II and the unfinished Ivan the Terrible III, continued - much like Veit Harlan in Nazi Germany - to strap on the kneepads before his totalitarian boss and extoll HIS "virtues". Stalin murdered many more millions in the former Soviet Union including the Ukrainian Holocaust - the forced starvation of millions of nationalist peasants. Stalin's purges murdered even more.

Certainly Riefenstahl should not have been blacklisted and, I'd argue that maybe even Harlan should not have been made a pariah - a laughing stock, however, for just how dreadful Jew Süss is as a movie would not have been out of line.

Harlan and his place in both the Nazi regime and in cinema always seemed like natural subject matter for a movie and it’s odd it took so long for a documentary on Jew Süss and its maker to materialize, but that it now exists, is cause for some kind of celebration.

Alas, Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss is in that horrible never-never land of “it’ll have to do for now“. Director Felix Moeller doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp on the story he wants to tell and by covering too much in too short a running time, the movie leaves one with far too many questions – not questions of the philosophical variety, but more along the lines of wanting to simply know more within the context of the material presented. Sadly, the movie lacks a clear focus.

There is, however, a fascinating tale buried in this flawed, half-hearted TV-style feature length documentary. The movie not only focuses on Harlan’s career as a filmmaker in the pre-and-post Jew Süss period, but it includes numerous interviews with his family – children (the great political filmmaker and author Thomas Harlan), grandchildren, nieces, nephews and, I might add, one fairly prominent niece, Christiane Kubrick, the widow of the great filmmaker Stanley Kubrick (and executor of his estate) and her brother, an equally prominent nephew, Jan Harlan, Kubrick’s long-time producer.

On one hand, Moeller seems intent on telling the story of a family and how they’re connected to a legacy of evil. On the other, Moeller seems equally interested in delving into the career of Harlan himself. Pick one, already, Felix - or if you want the whole boatload of bananas, choose that and do it properly. Oddly, the story of Jew Süss itself, feels almost like an afterthought in this documentary.

Moeller’s movie is a mixed bag.

This, of course, is what makes it the most frustrating type of documentary – its filmmaker has no voice. He has great subject matter, terrific interview subjects (the surviving family who run the gamut of defending, demonizing and being indifferent towards Harlan), carte blanche access to family home movies and photos, rare archival footage and scenes – not just from Jew Süss, but from all of Harlan’s films. While we watch with fascination because of all the elements listed above, the experience and overall impact of this documentary seems lacking.

Just as Harlan’s Jew Süss pales in comparison to Riefenstahl’s The Triumph Of The Will in the Nazi propaganda sweepstakes, Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss pales in comparison to Ray Muller’s brilliant documentary, The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl. With the latter film, Muller sought to provide balance to his cinematic perspective of Riefenstahl’s life and in so doing, he was compelled to infuse the picture with an epic scope. It is this sense of sweep and the presence of a filmmaker’s voice that makes it work. Moeller, on the other, has great material, but has no real idea what to do with it. The picture, and as its title asserts, seems to be more about a family living in the shadow of one picture.

Well I, along with Peggy Lee, must ask, “Is that all there is?”

There’s nothing wrong with the surviving family thrust, but their perspectives don’t have the power they need to because one feels there’s simply not enough focus placed on Harlan himself – his life, his work and finally, why he chose to remain unrepentant.

Perhaps, it was enough that he was the only filmmaker from Nazi Germany to be tried for war crimes (for making Jew Süss in particular) and that he endured two trials and was acquitted both times.

This, however, is one of many maddening aspects of Moeller’s documentary. I longed to get more details about these trials – clearly the materials exist as public record. As well, I wanted to know more about Harlan and what his state of mind might have been before, during, between and after the trials. Surely enough people have thoughts on the matter.

Interestingly enough, the clips used from Harlan’s other films that pre and post date Jew Süss look great – so great I want to see as many of them now as possible. The clips suggest Harlan was a master of melodrama – perhaps even an inspiration to Douglas Sirk – and weirdly, their use in the documentary serves to suggest that he was a great artist in his own right.

Even more weirdly, they lend credence to Harlan’s firm insistence that he was coerced into making Jew Süss and furthermore, my own assumption based upon the documentary’s use of these clips that Harlan perhaps intentionally made a bad picture.

Oh, why must this be my assumption and why do I seriously doubt this was Felix Moeller’s intent?

Why?

Because Moeller's picture, as made, is like so many documentaries these days – it’s not been created by a real filmmaker. It’s been cobbled together by a camera jockey with great subject matter and finally, he manages to deliver a film that is still worth seeing because it addresses issues surrounding what might be the most notorious, evil and artistically lamentable film of the 20th century.

For me, Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss was and still is a must-see film. Even if it doesn’t quite do what it should, it’s better than nothing at all.

And that is something.

Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss is available on DVD from Zeitgeist Films. It’s a fine transfer and includes a few superb extra features that certainly supplement what’s lacking in the film itself. Definitely worth renting for anyone interested in the subject matter and of special interest to any Kubrick fans in light of the recent Kubrick Blu-ray box set. Scholars of this material may be better off buying the film since it has some excellent footage in spite of the film's lack of clear focus.

Saturday, 23 April 2011

Trouble the Water

Trouble the Water (2008) dir. Carl Deal & Tia Lesson
Documentary

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

'When the Levees Broke', Spike Lee's comprehensive and definitive third-person documentary of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, is a damned near-perfect film. Thankfully, Deal and Lessin's film doesn't compete with this, instead offering the ideal companion piece: a uniquely personal ground zero account of the Katrina disaster that goes beyond the harshness of Mother Nature, past the deep-rooted governmental inefficiencies and exposes the bright light of America's spirit of ambition, competitiveness and survival.

Kimberly Roberts and her husband Scott were invisible to American society before Katrina, a couple of poor, black, struggling, lower status citizens living day-to-day. In August, 2005, before the storm hit, Kimberly, sensing the gravitas of the situation, grabbed their cheap consumer DV Camera and started shooting. And so Rivers, the entrepreneur, opportunist and now documentarian gives us a tour of her near-poverty-stricken Ninth Ward district of New Orleans. When the storm hits we become witness to Mother Nature's aggressive wrath and the heroic acts of ordinary people fighting to survive.

As we all know, the storm was only the beginning and Rivers continued to film the sad aftermath, eventually linking up with another documentary crew, who combine and merge their stories into what would become Trouble the Water. Kimberly goes from camera operator to documentary subject and continues to guide us with an astonishing ground level point of view through the absurdities and bewildering, discombobulated bureaucracy that embarrassed America in front of the world. The botched rescue effort is exemplified by the one-on-one conversations with the military personnel who refuse to let the starving and homeless citizens into their base for shelter.

Trouble the Water succeeds because of the infectious personality of Ms. Rivers, an affable and candid subject whose anger and fury are tempered with warm Southern charm. But in the end, it's the realization that her steadfast determination to make good on the American dream is what allowed her to survive and make the best of the disaster.

The DVD features some worthy deleted and expanded scenes, and offers us a chance to see Kimberly and the filmmakers revel in the success of the film. A Q&A with Richard Roeper at the Roger Ebert Film Festival and a one-on-one meeting with the New Orleans Mayor at the Democratic National Convention show the effect of the documentary on Kimberly and her husband as advocates for social change in the country.

This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca

Sunday, 13 February 2011

Snow Angels

Snow Angels (2008) dir. David Gordon Green
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, Michael Angarano, Olivia Thirlby, Griffin Dunne

**

By Alan Bacchus

Before he even reached 30, David Gordon Green has delivered three unique and personal auteur films, “George Washington”, “All the Real Girls” and “Undertow”. Unfortunately “Snow Angels” is his first failure – a depressing small-town character film represents a new benchmark in the ‘life sucks’ genre of films.

“Snow Angels”, based on the Stewart O’Nan’s novel of the same name, is set in small town Pennsylvania. It’s a depressed environment inhabited by depressed people. There’s Annie (Kate Beckinsale), a separated single mom working a dead end job as a waitress in a crappy diner. Annie’s separated husband is Glenn (Sam Rockwell) who’s even farther down in the dumps, living with his parents, jobless and recovering from a suicide attempt. Arthur Parkinson’s (Michael Angarano) parents are also going through separation, which has him in the dumps as well. Arthur's only respite is a burgeoning high school crush with a cute wallflower Lila (Olivia Thirlby). A local tragedy sends these characters into further despair which will eventually result in violence and more tragedy.

I appreciate a little of bit depression on screen. If it provokes proper emotional response, the film has done its job. But depression has to be part of the ebb and flow of the narrative and play against emotions of joy and happiness. But in “Snow Angels” things start low and get lower and lower and lower, until in the very end the actions of the characters are so dire and destructive, it becomes an exercise in torture.

Green has an affinity for ‘regular people’ in America – the working and underrepresented classes. And in “Snow Angels” his actors deliver these natural unHollywood performances. I think everyone knows one or more people like Glenn. Sam Rockwell plays him as a man who may have been one of the popular guys in high school, and even wedded the hottest girl in school. But without drive and motivation, success in life never moved past the scope of the town. I appreciate Rockwell as an actor, but he’s a scenery-chewer and in this film his reliance on mumbling speech and ‘actor’s business’ is especially distracting. In the second half of the film when things start to go really bad, Green turns Glenn from a natural character to movie character. He’s given no less than three rambling drunkard scenes, which essentially ruin the film. Kate Beckinsale gives a fine performance as Annie. And even though she’s still stunning beneath the atrocious outfits she has to wear, she is believable as the confused mother.

The film fails in the third act when the film goes into darker places it doesn’t need to go. After the tragedy the film has an opportunity to build back up its characters. Instead they are agonizingly beaten down to such disparity the film becomes as torturous to the audience as the characters.

Snow Angels

Thursday, 12 August 2010

The Headless Woman

The Headless Woman (2008) dir. Lucrecia Martel
Starring: María Onetto, Claudia Cantero, César Bordón, Daniel Genoud

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman, premiered at Cannes in Official Competition to those inexplicable boos, which doesn't necessarily mean they disliked the film, but the critical reception was varied and the film was left empty handed of any awards. On the festival circuit scene it got nowhere near the attention of other high brow international art housers such as Gommorah, A Christmas Tale, The Class, Waltz With Bashir etc. While these other films got picked up for US and North American distribution by the heavier hitters such as Sony Picture Classics, IFC etc, The Headless Woman went nowhere, even topping Indiewire’s annual best ‘undistributed films list' of 2008.

Eventually it was snagged by the smaller Strand Releasing and quickly gained a critical cult following, with art house word of mouth rising in stature, attaining a place as THE art house film to see of that year, even securing a spot at #25 on The Toronto International Film Festival’s respected ‘alternative’ Decade Best of List.

It's no surprise the film took a while to gain traction. At a glance, it's inpenetrable. Few films have shown greater devotion to their ‘point of view’. There’s only a whiff of a story in The Headless Woman and little or no plot, yet it’s a remarkable attempt at execution of a completely unique style of storytelling.

The point of view in question belongs to Veronica (or Vero for short), a middle aged upper class Argentinean woman played brilliantly by María Onetto, whom we meet on the road in her car travelling home. As Martel does throughout the entire film, her camera is lasered in on Vero’s profile, at the wheel when she hits something on the road. She’s shaken and angry, and it isn’t until she drives away from the scene that we see in the distance a dead dog on the road. Yet through the hours and days after Vero is still shaken to the core as we watch her wander through the daily movements of her life in a daze, aloof, barely acknowledging her friends and family.

So what’s eating Vero?

Only midway through the film does Vero confess to her husband that she thinks she may have hit a child, but cannot be sure. As Vero continues these moving through these foggy days and nights we encounter details and snippets of information of the accident, a missing child, a blocked canal due to a carcass stopping the water flow, details which may or may not add up to any closure of Vero’s guilt-ridden angst.

When other characters talk, Martel is always on Vero’s face, observing her reactions. If the description of this film couldn’t get more unappealing, Vero barely has any reaction to the information and events after the accident. Martel is singular in her direction – show the internalized anguish and psychological torment of Vero at all times.

Martel is so vigilant with her point of view, her camera never leaves Maria Onetta’s head – I say ‘head’ instead of 'face', because half the time, it’s the back of her head in focus, or her profile we see instead of her face. Martel barely even shoots below her shoulders. Not since The Dardennes Bros exclusive shot Olivier Gourmet in Le Fils with one medium-close up has a director been so limiting with their camera. But as seen through Martel’s longish lens (which compresses the visual space in perspective ), Onetta is beautified, producing gorgeous and wholly cinematic compositions.

We never really get a satisfactory answers to the mysteries in the film, and the last shot which features the film’s only moment of music suggests an optimism that Vero will emerge from her haze. Or maybe not?

The open endedness shouldn’t come as any surprise considering the intellectual melancholy of Martel’s tone. That doesn’t mean it’s any less satisfying. Hell, I love closure, and hated the The White Ribbon for not providing any but The Headless Woman is a different film and we never feel Martel needed to solve its mystery in order to satisfy us (or at least me), thus earning her the right to leave us hanging.

Wednesday, 11 August 2010

Revanche

Revanche (2008) dir. Götz Spielmann
Starring: Johannes Krisch, Irina Potapenko, Andreas Lust, Ursula Strauss

****

By Alan Bacchus

Some spoilers below...

Götz Spielman's Oscar nominated Revanche is an inspired masterpiece of a thriller, which doesn't really turn out to be a thriller in the end, instead something more emotional complex and profound than a mere genre film.

Alex and Tamara are a pair of lovers, desperately trying to make a life together. First they have to get out of the sex traffic business, Tamara is a hooker/stripperworking for an Eastern European gangster and Alex is the club’s hardened but ineffectual barkeep. Alex makes a plan to hold up a small town bank, grab the cash, pay off their debts and ride away into the sunset in freedom. Plans go wrong of course when the heist is interrupted by a humble cop, Robert, who interrupts their escape.

Spielmann is clever to subvert our expectations, steering the movie in the direction of a lovers-on-the-run road movie in the first half, before pulling the rug from under us and making a dramatic left turn to something deeper and complex. The second half deals with the fallout from Alex/Tamara’s encounter with the cop, the details of which I won’t reveal here. Soon Alex finds himself alone hiding from the authorities in the home of his elderly grandfather and his kindly female neighbour Susanne, who happens to be the wife of the cop who disrupted the heist.

The title Revanche, means revenge in German, but it can also mean ‘second chance’ - the prevailing theme which dominates the rest of the film. Alex wrestles with the desire for revenge and his inability to commit to another act of violence, or whether his grandfather and the town will become his second chance at making a real honest life for himself.

Afte the heist Spielmann disposes of the urban setting and the strip club and we don't ever see the slimy pimp and club owner again. As such, it’s a greyer area of conflict. What was easily characterized as good vs. bad, hero v. villain, protag vs. antagonist, is much more difficult to identify with.

The relationship of Susanne and Alex is particularly intriguing. For Alex, he would appear to have contempt for Susanne a) because of her association with the cop that prevented the bank robbery and b) Susanne’s nosey small town congeniality which threatens Alex’s grieving process. Then out of the blue Susanne seduces Alex. It’s a shock to us, but an instinctual carnal attraction of desperate souls, not unlike Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton’s smouldering love affair in Monster’s Ball.

For Susanne though her agenda is more devious than Alex’s. Alex easily succumbs to passion, because well, he’s a man and it’s doesn’t take much to seduce a man. For Susanne, it’s a desperate attempt to save her marriage, by secretly conceiving a child even if it’s not her husband’s.

Spielmann sets a quiet tone, a trendy observational style, languid easy going pace, and unstylized though pristine visuals. Without overt violence or conflict Spielmann slowly simmers his situations and characters with internalized emotions. Like Hamlet, Alex who desires revenge against Robert, is unable to make a decision and take action – a trait of Alex’s planted by Tamara’s pimp in a throwaway conversation early in the film. So we sense there’s possibility of violence at every moment, whether it’s against Robert, Susanne or even himself. Spielmann’s repetitive use of the wood chopping is almost pornographic, suggesting either it’s groundwork for its significance later in the movie, or that at any time Alex, who is so wound up, could lose control, chop off a finger, or lose a limb.

Revanche succeeds masterfully because Spielmann’s makes us love Alex, Susanne, and Robert so much that we desperately want all of them to achieve their dreams and make good for themselves.

Revanche, nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar in 2009, has just received the Criterion Collection treatment on Blu-Ray a format’s which render’s Spielmann’s compositions sharp and immaculate.

Monday, 14 June 2010

The Last Lullaby

The Last Lullaby (2008) dir. Jeffrey Goodman
Starring: Tom Sizemore, Sasha Alexander

**

by Reece Crothers

Recently released on DVD I picked up a copy of this Tom Sizemore Hit-man drama because it's been a long time since I've seen anything good from the actor I used to have great artistic admiration for. From Tony Scott's "True Romance" in 1993 through Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down" in 2001, Sizemore had a run as one of the most thrilling character-actors working in American movies. Sandwiched between those Scott brothers films are stand-out performances in pictures like Natural Born Killers, Heat, Saving Private Ryan, and Bringing Out The Dead, to name a few.

Then Sizemore got addicted to methamphetamine, had eight hours of sex tapes surface on the internet, beat up his girlfriend - the famous Hollywood Madam, Heidi Fleiss and, and by 2007, he had landed himself in jail. He had fucked up big, Robert Downey Jr big. But Sizemore, lacking the charm of his Natural Born Killers co-star, has had nowhere near the comeback Iron Man has. And it's not for a lack of trying. His imdb filmography since 2007 lists a staggering 40 credits (if you include his Celebrity Rehab and Shooting Sizemore reality TV appearances). Not one out of the 40 is in league with his 90s work. I was hoping this might be the hidden gem among a plethora of cheque-cashing appearances in forgetable pictures and a return to form for once-great, now-disgraced, artist.

Sizemore's performance in The Last Lullaby is interesting because it's a lead role and one in which he exercises a great deal of restraint. His face shows the wear and tear of a decade in oblivion. He seems humbled by it. Like a great ball player sent down to the minors, it's hard not to watch him play and get nostalgic for the old days, or to lament the wasted years, or to wonder about where he might be now without the meth, and domestic abuse, and porn, and reality TV. But there are hints at redemption in this modestly enjoyable picture. The wear and tear becomes a character actor after all.

So what about the movie itself? The story fits the actor well. A hitman who has been out of the game attempts a comeback, but is conflicted when he develops a personal relationship with his latest target. The DVD jacket claims that it the screenplay is from the co-writer of Road To Perdition, which is slightly misleading. It is co-written by the author of the graphic novel that Perdition is based on. Writing character and dialogue for film is an entirely different beast than writing for graphic novels, and the script for The Last Lullaby never would have attracted someone of Sam Mendes' calibre. The plot is well-worn and the story cliched, but the naturalistic approach and execution by the filmmakers, which focuses more on drama than action, provides many fine character moments for Sizemore, though the rest of the cast is pretty flat, especially his female lead Sasha Alexander. It's better than most direct to video features, but looks and feels like TV. And I don't mean HBO. It probably should be added to the list of titles that would have been better as a series pilot. It isn't quite that hidden gem I hoped it would be, but it suggests that one is possible. There is a glimmer of hope that his career is salvageable.

Aside from those 40 pictures, Tom is apparently attached to the long-gestating Fahrenheit 451 remake that Frank Darabont is developing. That could be the start of something beautiful, a return to working with the A-listers.

Wednesday, 9 December 2009

My Effortless Brilliance

My Effortless Brilliance (2009) dir. Lynn Shelton
Starring: Basel Harris, Eric Lambert Jones, Calvin Reeder

*1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Lynn Shelton’s” “Humpday” was a great film, perhaps the most audience accessible of this new wave of low rent, semi-improvised Mumblecore films. Unfortunately her previous film, “My Effortless Brilliance”, now available on DVD is not. In fact, it’s probably the worst example of the genre - a terribly navel-gazing and esoteric excuse for a movie.

One of the hallmarks of the Mumblecore genre are the self-absorbed characters whom we see living in their own bubble of petty troubles. However self-absorbed, in 'Humpday' or 'The Puffy Chair' or 'Baghead' this vacuum of angst produced engaging, funny and entertaining characters who go through profound emotional revelations and under the funny observations situational comedy.

In 'My Effortless Brilliance' there’s a conscience effort of Shelton to avoid all of the above. It’s a simple story of two friends who reconnect in the Washington backwoods, years after a falling out. Dylan (Basel Harris) is a semi-successful Seattle-based writer whose pretentious attitude pissed off his old buddy Sean (Eric Lambert Jones), so much so it caused Sean to retreat into near obscurity in the rural Washington interior. Years later, upon the release of Dylan’s latest book he decides on a whim to drive to Sean’s house for a surprise visit.

Sean is exudes no emotion upon seeing Dylan. Is he surprised? Shocked? Pissed off? Happy? Don’t know, but the elephant in the room, the conflict which caused their male-breakup, is never discussed. There’s much awkwardness between the two as they struggle to carry on even a simple conversation. The weekend discomfort continues when Dylan’s woodchopping buddy, Jim joins the fray for hunting trip for a local cougar. The two bond their mutual annoyance of Jim, before Dylan had to leave for the big city.

So we have a story two people fighting, who don’t fight, and we don’t even know what they’re fighting about. What ends up on screen is a lot of dramatic pauses, lengthy improvised and inane dialogue which merely fills space and a lot of long glances and shift eyed eyebrow movements.

The film appears to have been praised for creating a pressure cooker of awkwardness between two passive-aggressive best friends. Indeed, some tension is created with this dynamic, and it’s enough to sustain a first act, but not two other acts in a feature film.

A comparison film executed with infinitely more subtlety, grace, comedy, drama and entertainment value is Richard Linklater’s 'Tape”' which features two old college buddies in a room rekindling old fire and exposing old war wounds. Even Kelly Reichardt’s “Old Joy”, is paced with the same kind of slow simmering tension benefits from a tone of melancholy and sombre life reflection.

There’s much integrity in its filmmaking methodology which we learn in the DVD’s behind-the-scenes featurette. Shelton, essentially employing the Mike Leigh approach of developing the script extensively with the actors as opposed to drafting a traditional screenplay. Watch this film as practice ground for Shelton’s much better executed “Humpday”.

Tuesday, 24 November 2009

Sauna

Sauna (2008) dir. AJ Annila
Starring: Ville Virtanen, Tommi Eronen, Viktor Klimenko, Sonja Petäjäjärvi

***1/2

“Sauna” is a truly wonderful cinema experience – a dark gothic horror near-masterpiece which mashes the existential atmosphere of Andrei Tarkovsky with the mindbending terror of J-Horror and a dash of the Spanish films of Guillermo Del Toro.

As a Finnish-Russian co-production its a unique collaboration, set in a time and place virtually untouched in the movie landscape. It’s the year 1595, on the border between Finland and Russia. A long bloody war between the Swedes and Russians has just ended, with Finland caught in the cross-fire. A group of Finnish and Russian geographers are on a journey to map the new border between the two Empires. When they happen upon an uncharted village in the middle of a giant swamp they encounter a dark ghostly curse which threatens the lives of the group.

Screenwriter Iiro Küttner and director Antti-Jussi Annila have a traditional ghost story on their hands, but execute it with metaphysical and at times confusing narrative. It’s a complicated set-up to start with and the filmmakers are careful about telling too much information which we couldn’t deduce visually. The unfamiliar period of history means there’s a political dynamic which takes a while to grasp. We are given few details of the village, the sauna, the history of its inhabitants and the dark forces around.

But the heart and central conflict of the film is clear. Our heroes are the two Finnish geographers and brother, Erik and Knut. Erik is introduced early as a maddog warrior with 73 killings on his conscience. Knut is along for the journey to help him get a job as a teacher, so he can live a quiet scholastic life. When Erik murders a Russian villager and leaves a young girl locked in an underground cellar to die, their divergent principles put them at odds.

The other point of conflict is the relationship of the geographers with the village itself and the ghosts that haunt it. The presence of these metaphysical forces causes each character to have horrific delusions. This feeds the strongest theme of the film - their moral and religious conflict. Some research into the history of Russian/Scandanavian relations would probably create deeper meaning in the film, but we gather there’s a bitter feud between the Russian Orthodoxy and the Scandanavian Protestantism. But the real conflict is Erik’s own acceptance of God and his need for confession of his laundry list of sins. Though the film is vague about the dark forces, we gather it’s that vengeful one, which Catholics are taught to fear. And so it becomes a truly terrifying Wrath of God.

Like Tarkovsky Annila uses the cold and lifeless environment to create mood. But he also has great lead actors to bring life to the two Finnish characters. Tommi Eronen and Ville Virtanen are a great pairing. Virtanen is the great discovery though. Annila gives his character a natural arc of personal redemption and the need to find family honour, Virtanen's hardened and course face appears to be carved out of stone, each wrinkle and facial crevasse reads as the physical expression of these emotional battle scars.

When Annila is not slowly burying the atmosphere and tension into our skin, he’s shocking us with jolts of traditional horror genre goodness. The climax is a terrifying sequence anchored by a great reveal of the physical manifestation of the dark forces. Annila pays off all the low lying tension with great satisfaction. There’s almost no denouement or lingering time after the climax, which can bring up the question, ‘so what was the point of all that?’

The quick ending allows us to formulate the meaning behind the actions in the film ourselves. While all the dots aren’t connected for us, the themes and conflict are clear enough for the film to make perfect sense. I've seen Sauna twice now and it stands up as well on both the big screen and the small. Enjoy.

"Sauna" is available on DVD from IFC Films

Tuesday, 20 October 2009

The Ruins

The Ruins (2008) dir. Carter Smith
Starring: Jena Malone, Jonathan Tucker, Laura Ramsey, Shawn Ashmore

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

“The Ruins’ released last year earned a modest $17million domestically, but against its meager $8million budget it’s proven to be fine successes in low budget horror. Like its closest cousin “The Descent” it’s a near-perfect execution of the ‘Vacations-Gone-Bad’ subgenre of horror.

The film has a great pedigree – the literary source material is provided by Scott B. Smith, who wrote and scripted the great Sam Raimi drama “A Simple Plan”, Ben Stiller serves as producer, the great DOP Darius Khondji lenses the film and the leads are played by Jena Malone and Jonathan Tucker, a couple of talented former child actors, who always choose interesting projects. Add in Peter Jackson's production designer Grant Major and there’s some major creative talent behind this little horror film.

The story follows four good-looking college students enjoying the last days of their Mexican resort vacation. They meet a fun German dude, who brings them on an off-the-beaten-path trip to an unknown Mayan ruin. Despite warnings by the locals the tourists use their good ol’ American greenback to bribe their way into the uncharted jungle. When they arrive at the ruins, the locals, who only speak an aboriginal dialect, are immediately hostile. They are chased up the pyramid to the top for a siege-style standoff. Once on top they discover the locals are keeping them on the pyramid for a reason and where a much more sinister presents waits.

“The Ruins” would appear to have a bunch of hurdles to surmount – the location is the top of a pyramid, with very little location space to traverse; There’s a mineshaft at the top which creates some wonderfully suspenseful sequences, but there’s only so much one can do with a vertical space; Around the pyramid are the omnipresent locals, but there’s very little interaction or direct conflict against our heroes; And the ultimate enemy remains faceless.

But essential to the horror genre is the location, and in it’s great films claustrophobia is as important as character. Confined spaces helps isolate the characters from the outside world, amplifying their fear and forcing them to confront their assailants face to face. In “The Exorcist” it was Regan’s bedroom, in “The Evil Dead” it was the cabin, for “The Blair Witch Project” the woods confined its characters and “The Descent” used the dark and wet underground caves to create fear. In the “Ruins” Smith, Carter and company isolate their conflict and fear atop an ancient Mayan pyramid.

It’s a wonderful device – a lost pyramid, with a supernatural curse. It’s actually believable.

This is what makes “The Ruins” so effective. Like the first half of the “The Descent”, and even M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening” it’s man vs. nature. The location not only isolates their characters against their enemies, in this case, the location is the enemy.

As consequence, character takes a back seat to these hooks and devices. It’s interesting to compare the adaptation of Smith’s first novel “A Simple Plan”, which puts it’s characters above its genre (in that case, a noir). In “The Ruins” genre trumps character. Though four good actors play the roles, they are indiscernible from each other and lack development of any kind. The horror genre forgives this oversight, but fans of “A Simple Plan” should change their expectations.

“The Ruins” should be separated from the pack of sub-standard horror films which bombard us. This one is the real deal. Enjoy.

“The Ruins” is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

The Ruins

Saturday, 3 October 2009

Tulpan

Tulpan (2008) dir. Sergei Dvortsevoy
Starring: epbergen Baisakalov, Ondas Besikbasov, Samal Esljamova, Askhat Kuchencherekov

***

By Alan Bacchus

We've never seen a landscape as dull as this make for such peculiar and inspired cinema. We're in the desert of Kazakhstan, which is even remoter and more alien than the Borat version, a land of flat, infinite horizons, perpetual gusting winds, camels, sheep, a hut or two and one motor vehicle. That's it. That's all we get visually from 'Tulpan', Sergei Dvortsevoy's feature debut that won the En Certain Regard Award at Cannes in 2008; it's a fresh, funny, emotionally resonant and wholly unique experience.

Asa is one of the stranger movie protagonists we've seen in a while: a Kazakh youth with a funny face, short hair parted in the middle, wingtip bangs and big Prince Charles ears. He's just returned from a tour with the Russian navy and he's introduced telling wild tales of far-off lands to his family members; it's revealed later that it's part of Asa's ritual courtship for the hand of a local gal Tulpan. Unfortunately, despite never meeting, Tulpan rejects him solely based on the size of his ears. It's earth shattering to Asa, whose only dream is to raise a family and a flock of sheep in his homeland. But without a wife this is impossible. Poor Asa, as Tulpan is the only single girl in the vicinity, and like his brother-in-law, Ondas, argues: "he's got two arms and two legs, what's not to like?"

Dvortsevoy isn't so much concerned with detailing a romance as showing us the strange lifestyle of accepted sparseness and solitude of the Kazakh people. The camera lingers on the wide expanses of the land and moves only when motivated by the people and animals that cross its path. Even when nothing is happening the sound of whistling winds and the grunting of camels and sheep are strangely fascinating. Much time is spent with the sheep ― an important aspect of the livelihood of the characters. There's a problem with the pregnant females giving birth to still babies and Asa and Ondas's investigation makes for an eye-opening lesson in sheep birthing and mouth-to-mouth lamb CPR.

There are no overt gags but these strange, otherworldly moments contrasted against the characters' awareness of the world and pop culture is deadpan hilarious. The use of Boney M's "River of Babylon" is a great ironic moment; Asa and his friend 'Boni' in the middle of the desert rocking out to the '70s German/West Indian disco-reggae band is a symbol of connectivity even in the remotest places on Earth.

This article first appeared on Exclaim.ca

Sunday, 27 September 2009

Mesrine: KIller Instinct

Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2008) dir. Jean-Francois Richet
Starring Vincent Cassel, Gerald Depardieu, Cecile De France and Roy Dupuis

***

By Blair Stewart

Jacques Mesrine was France's answer to John "Public Enemy" Dillinger, a supercrook who'd caused enough havok the police were willing to bend the rules in order to take him down. Spanning several countries including Canada, from bank robbing to kidnapping to murder, ol' Jacques had his fingers in many pies while he taunted the authorties. And when Mesrine was caught and thrown in prison he broke out-four times in fact.

Having a criminal career this expansive French action director Jean-Francois Richet has enough material for two films - the sequel "Mesrine: Public Enemy #1" to be reviewed seperately.

Starting with his military career in late 50's Algeria where he was used as muscle(and an executioner)on prisoners, Jacques returned to Paris and quickly fell in with his old gangster buddies led by an impressively hefty played by Gerald Depardieu.
After a string of crimes Jacques is eventually jailed and upon his release attempts at going straight to save his marriage. Once this is thwarted and the marriage is pitched off to the dust-bin Mesrine returns to his roots with ferocity, enough so that he flees to Montreal to avoid getting wacked. Together with his hoodlum lover Jeanne(Cecile De France) and FLQ buddy Jean-Paul(Roy Dupuis) they mix up the concept of 'laying low' with 'kidnapping their millionaire boss for ransom'. This leads to Jacques being caught and imprisoned in the notorious Quebec SCU prison where he escapes with new-found purpose in his ways, so much so that he actually returned to stage a disastrous large-scale breakout. The film ends with Jacques heading back to France to leave a new trail of destruction.

As the notorious subject Vincent Cassel plays Mesrine as a constantly shifting entity of charm and violence, prone to boasts of entitlement and delusion. The film presupposes Mesrine was shaped by the guilt of his father's complicity with the Germans during WWII and his own sorrid history in France's occupation of Algeria that turned him into a quick-tempered wildcard.

Cassel is surperb in the lead, unconcerned with vanity as he packs on the pounds while his subject blazes through criminal history. Interestingly, the film was shot in reverse so Cassel could shed the pounds and avoid a lengthy split in filming like DeNiro's four month binge for the second half of "Raging Bull". In support Roy Dupuis brings pride to the Quebec film scene with a charismatic turn as his Canadian partner-in-crime.

Containing enough split-screens for a De Palma retrospective, filmmaker Richet and scriptwriter Abdel Raouf Dafri condemn Mesrine's actions( more so in the sequel) while reveling in the brazen shoot-outs and the chutzpah of a man who would rob a bank across the street of another bank he just robbed.

"Mesrine: Killer Instinct" can be tremdendously entertaining, but it still lacks
the kinetic energy and audacity of Scorsese's "Goodfellas" and "Casino", two of my preferred 'realistic' gangster films. After seeing this first-part, the second-part's ending is obvious, but the life of Mesrine demanded you keep an eye out for him even when he was in handcuffs.

Saturday, 5 September 2009

O Horten

O Horten (2008) dir. Bent Hamer
Starring: Baard Owe, Espen Skjønberg, ta Nørby, Henny Moan, Bjørn Floberg

**

O Horten, a Norwegian art comedy, and frequent festival traveler which arrives on DVD from Sony Pictures Classics, plays like ‘About Schmidt’ by way of Roy Andersson – one of those entries in the self-conscious cinema of nothingness. But quirky wideangle imagery and occasional glimpses of surrealism aren’t enough to sustain 90mins of your time.

An odd looking and shy Odd Horten (appropriate first name) is a train engineer on his last day of work before retirement after 40 years of service. It’s the only thing in his life, and we suspect he won’t have much to live for without his beloved trains. On his last day, he misses his shift causing him to wander the streets of Oslo (?) for a couple days meeting other lost souls while contemplating his existence.

Attempts at deadpan humour come off as just plain dead. Director Bent Hamer visualizing the film with the wideangled eye of Roy Andersson (the Swedeish master surrealist and director of 'Songs from the Second Floor'), but without any of his scathing social commentary . But there’s so little of anything to grab onto other than the wide angle wide shots - and some of them look truly majestic. The situations Horten finds himself in wouldn’t be perceived as surreal if it were not for Hamer’s chosen camera angles.

So it seems false and contrived an effort to make someone else’s film. Its not as surreal as he thinks it is, not as profound as he wants, nor as funny and charming as Hamer’s incessesant tone implies. All style over substance in the worst sense.

If anything the only thing we to latch onto is Bard Owe’s thoroughly weathered unexpressive face. His hairstyle, moustache, nicely fitting, though old-fashioned suit and smoking pipe suggests a man stuck in the past, in a routine which is the sole purpose for his existence. And so his reflections upon his ski-jumper mother who broke with tradition and skied in a man's sports is not lost on us.

And so does a purpose to this banal exercise emerge at the end? Horton steals a pair of skis and attempts to ski jump in the middle of night. We don’t even know if he can ski. For all we know he jumped off, broke both legs and I guess its some attempt to connect with past, - he doesn't. But if he did it would have been the much needed jolt of real comedy this film badly needs. Narratively it exasperates the depressing melancholy of this whole affair.

"O Horten" is available on DVD from Sony Picture Classics Home Entertainment

Thursday, 20 August 2009

The Class

The Class (2008) dir. Lauren Cantet
Starring: François Bégaudeau, Nassim Amrabt, Carl Nanor, Franck Keita, Esméralda Ouertani

**1/2

Laurent Cantet’s “The Class”, based on actor/writer Francois Begaudeau’s experiences as a middle school teacher in urban Paris is so authentic to inner city classroom life it’s indistinguishable from a documentary. Many films try for the documentary look, feel and tone and not even the Dardennes come near Cantet’s invisible realistic drama. We appear to be watching a new form of cinema reality we’ve never seen before. I've seen the film twice, and while I gave the film the benefit of the doubt for it's narrative banality, I have to take a more cynical point of view the second time round.

Cantet opens with introductions of the teachers to each other. One of them is Francois who teaches French. Francois is never characterized as righteous; he’s flawed and as vulnerable as many of the students.

Over the course of the school year we watch how Francois’ teaching methods both inspire and come into conflict with the students. When he’s put into a difficult situation he always maintains his professionalism but Begaudeau’s fine performance reveals defenseless weaknesses that threaten his reputation and career.

In the first half Cantet is a fly-on-the-wall in the classroom as we watch the many lengthy discussions of subjective adjective and verb conjugation. The kids interact with Francois with the attention deficit disorder we’d expect from 13 years olds. Gradually interclassroom conflicts arise not related to schoolwork as a number of students standout from the bunch.

There's a conscious attempt not to become “Dead Poet’s Society”, “The Blackboard Jungle”, “Dangerous Minds” and “To Sir, With Love”. And thus, any temptation to manipulate reality for the sake of traditional cinematic plotting is avoided.

So as admirable as "The Class" is, maintaining the integrity of its characters at all times, the lack of any cinema conventions is also frustrating. It doesn't take more than 15mins to establish credibility with his world, at which point the film is ripe for a plot point. We never get it. The film finally becomes focused when the young and angry black male Souleymane challenges Francois’s off the cuff slur to one of his fellow students. Unfortunately it takes an hour and a half to get here.

And so what starts out as documentary observance finally develops into a sharp battle of wills and wits. The aloof giggling and gossiping schoolyard children become powerful enemies. It’s a worthy journey but one which require much much patience to get there. Enjoy.

The Class | Movie Trailers

Sunday, 12 July 2009

12

12 (2008) dir. Nikita Mikhalkov
Starring: Sergey Makovetsky, Nikita Mikhalkov, Sergey Garmash, Alexey Petrenko, Yuri Stoyanov

***

A Russian remake of “12 Angry Men” is concept behind this Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee from last year. At 160mins, it’s an imposing epic length version of the 1957 film, which originally ran a scant 96mins. Under Mikhalkov’s rich directorial style and a dozen inspired performances, “12” is watchable for the original 96mins and most of the extra 54.

The film has been described as a loose remake, or an inspiration from Bernard Rose’s original screenplay. Despite the added length, it’s as much a traditional remake as we see in Hollywood today. The concept and narrative structure is the same. We never see the trial, instead we meet the jurors once they've arrived in their sequestered room (a school gymnasium this time) to deliberate over the case of a young man accused of murder. In this case a young Chechnyan boy accused for killing his foster parent – a respected officer of the Russian police. The men are exhausted, home sick and ready to jump to their first knee jerk reactions to the case – a guilty plea. Eleven men say guilty, one doesn’t.

Over the course of the day, one by one, the tide begins to turn against guilty. Two opposing steadfast personalities clash, in the Sidney Lumet version Henry Fonda was the voice of reason, and Lee J. Cobb as his stubborn foe. In “12” Sergey Garmash inhabits Cobb’s racist bully part and Sergey Makovetsky instantly expresses the warmth required to replicate the Fonda everyman persona. In between are a number of bravura moments, highlighted by Sergei Gazarov’s coy mindgame with the racist who claims to know his way around a knife. In a scene of wonderful dancelike choreography and editing Gazarov’s half-Chechen surgeon character turns the tables demonstrating how a Chechen uses a knife (Note to the audience, do NOT get into a knife fight with a Chechen).

Mikhalkov’s directorial style has macho-masculine bravado. Visually Mikhalkov’s moves his camera around with confidence and lights and frames each of his men like they are the star of the film. Each character is important to him, each gets his dramatic speech which results in a tidal change of opinion and contributing to the impression of the case as a whole.

Each actor is a force of nature, commanding the stage when necessary. It’s a guess, but the original play was called "12 Angry Men", for the simple reason of politically incorrect male superiority on the part of the writer. Why write a woman into a picture if there’s no chance of a romance? In “12”, men is not in the title, and so, a woman could have been cast, but Mikhalkov sticks with 12 males. His reasons take on greater significance in the dynamic of the room. The case could stand alone as a distinctly male story of father and son and the responsibility of men as protectors – a system which failed the boy. As the men wrestle with their duty as citizens and men to the boy, the finale takes on even greater emotional resonance.

“12” is not perfect either. There's a predictability in how things will play out. We know each man will get his speech and the tide will eventually turn. It’s not a breezy 160mins either, the first 25 are a slog, setting up a tone of immaturity with the men - the school gymnasium easily distracts the grown men like attention-deficit children. The intention is good, but10mins could have sufficed. A stray bird which has flown into the room becomes a visual metaphor though not as profound or significant as implied. We expect the bird, which is even featured in the movie poster, to play a part in the story so there’s a lost opportunity to have this elegant, almost feminine presence, influence the decision of the men.

The finale presents us with a wonderful denouement adding even more panache to Mikhalkov’s treatment of the original story. After spending so much time with the lifestory of the accused, in deciding his fate, for good or bad, one of the jury members brings up the responsibility the 12 of them have for the boy even after the trial is over. The final scene is not necessary, but one of inspired cinema with continues the story beyond the final credits bringing Bernard Rose’s original screenplay to a grander level of cinema. Enjoy.

“12” is available on DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Saturday, 27 June 2009

JCVD

JCVD (2008) dir. Mabrouk El Mechri
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, François Damiens, Zinedine Soualem, Karim Belkhadra

***

Good on Van Damme and good on Mabrouk El Mechri for humanizing and generating genuine sympathy for a laughable former action star. What makes Jean-Claude Van Damme worthy of cinematic exaltation? Why not Steven Seagal? Why not Dolph Lundgren? Even in roles like “Bloodsport” and “Sudden Death", in between his high kicks and splits, every once in a while there would be a glimmer of sadness in his eyes, a moment of truth and vulnerability behind those muscles from Brussels. Seagal never had it, Dolph never had it, not even Arnold. Chuck Norris had it, Charles Bronson had it, and so does Van Damme.

And so, what brilliant casting and screenwriting to produce an entire film devoted to deconstructing the celebrity of Van Damme, and saving him from the need to go on “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Outta Here”.

We’re in Brussels , Van Damme is broke and on the verge of losing a custody battle for his daughter who disowns him. All he needs is some money to pay his lawyer to get him back on the case. When he walks into a post office to withdraw some funds he finds it’s been taken over by a group of bank robbers. When they find out they have none other than Jean-Claude Van Damme as a hostage they convince the police that Van Damme is the perp as a rouse for their escape.

As the press gathers around the post office in a ‘Dog Day Afternoon’-like situation Van Damme is thrown back into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The event forces him to come to grips with the mistakes of his past and tests his ability to be a hero in real life.

JCVD succeeds solely because of Mr. Van Damme. He delivers an honest Mickey Rourke-like performance as a beaten down pathetic has-been with so much baggage behind him he just can’t escape from. Unfortunately director El Mechri doesn’t know how good a thing he has with his lead, as he continually imposes that Luc Besson-influenced French hyper styling.Van Damme is that good, and if told with a gentle and honest directorial hand, JCVD could have been as powerful as “The Wrestler.”

The cinematography is away overlit, highlights are blown way out of proportion, in what would be distracting even for a 5mins music video. So at 90mins, it had me shouting at the screen – “You dummy, turn the lights down!”

El Mechri is also unnecessarily clever with the narrative, establishing Van Damme as the perp, then doubling back on itself to reveal him as the victim. Unfortunately not enough comedy, or drama is revealed from this tactic and seems only to announce his presence as a director. This is no surprise though, it’s a first feature from the man, and it has the familiar markings of an immature rookie trying to make a name for himself. Even the showcase confession scene for Van Damme is dramatized with Spike Lee styling, as Van Damme breaks the fourth wall and begins talking directly to the audience while the camera and the man elevate into the air above the movie set lights. It’s a bold expression, which, I’d rather have seen told through regular dialogue, say, with his mother or ex-wife on the phone.

Unfortunately, despite the success of the film, I don’t see Van Damme returning to cinema in anything other than his usual brainless action vehicles. They may now get theatrical releases for a brief period of time, but we should consider “JCVD” as a one-off expression of himself as a legitimate actor. And that’s all we really need. Enjoy.

Friday, 26 June 2009

Home

Home (2009) dir. Yann Arthus-Bertrand
Documentary

***

Piggybacking on the popularity of enviro-films like “Planet Earth”, and “An Inconvenient Truth” arrives another nature doc showing us pretty pictures while scolding us for our naughty behaviour destroying the natural order of the earth. It’s a heavily preachy affair making us feel very guilty for our irresponsible mass consumption, but the stunning high definition visuals is a wonder to behold and more than worth the rental.

Glenn Close narrates this doc about ‘home’, aka ‘the earth’, aka ‘our planet’, which is shot primarily from air. The beautiful aerial view of earth allows us to see the miracle of nature and the stunning landscapes it has built over millions of years, as well as the mass destruction we have done to it over the last 100 years.

The filmmakers start with a history lesson explaining with clarity the formation of the earth, its gases, the water and eventually the life which was birthed from these unique environmental conditions. We’ve never quite seen these elements – rock, water, gas, ice – in this way before. Sure we’ve seen the National Geographic and the Discovery Channel, but director Yann Arthus-Betrand shoots the world with a grand cinematic scope it's often breathtaking.

The French seem to be the best at these types of films. Listing some of the recent documentary achievements of the last 10 years or so, “Microcosmos”, “March of the Penguins”, “Winged Migration” it’s clear the French have a panache with this material. Luc Besson even lends his name to this production, though I'm not sure what kind of creative hand he had in this, we know for certain, he wouldn't put his name to it if it wasn't a highly stylish visual presentation.

The visuals are superlative showing us the beauty of the planet. From the wondrous vantage point of the sky, the earth appears to us like a canvas of art, organic patterns created by the centuries and centuries of ecological evolution. And so the effects of our own man made patterns of deforestation, or river diversion in such a short period of time is alarming enough.

But in essence this film has already been made before, as "Koyaanisqatsi" in 1983, except Godfrey Reggio’s film didn’t need expository voiceover telling us what we’re seeing. Most of the words spoken to us by the husky voice of Glenn Close is unnecessary and often insulting to our ability to derive our own conclusions from the visuals. Towards the latter half of the film when the science and history makes way for the finger-wagging environmental agenda we feel like we've been duped. Close’s written narration even resorts to the first person, saying “you” and “we” in describing our culpability for our predicament.

It’s not all entirely pessimistic though, the filmmakers actually cite the positive actions by some of our nations to repair the environment - housing communities fueled by solar power in Frieberg Germany, governments who make renewable energy a priority, eco-friendly coal-fire plants in Denmark – an act of cheerleading which is missing in many of the previous enviro-cautionary films.

To spread the word about the film and its causes the filmmakers have made the film available in reasonably decent quality on youtube. See below. But I strongly advise finding a DVD, or preferably Blu-Ray version from Fox Home Entertainment for the maximum experience.

Saturday, 20 June 2009

Zombie Zombie: Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free

Zombie Zombie: Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free (2008) dir. Simon Gesrel and Xavier Ehretsmann

****

The geekout discovery of the year occurred this week at the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto. In festival’s annual ‘Scene not Heard’ program devoted to music videos, the last film to screen was an ejaculation of 80’s fandom – a fan made video for the French electronic band Zombie Zombie, inspired by John Carpenter’s “The Thing” acted out entirely by stop motion GI Joe figures.

I kid you not, this is real.

In the opening after a neat old school movie logo, the film sets the scene, “Antarctica 1983”, an overhead shot of a group of snowsuit wearing scientists gather to extract a piece of ice from the ground. One of the scientists is ‘Snow Job’ the skiing G.I. Joe character from the early 80’s. Yes, I now know this is real.

When the group brings the ice sample back to add to their historical collection of ice pieces, little do they know a virus of some sort is embedded inside, After some melting the virus is released into the air and into vodka bottle of the Dreadnok 'Buzzer'. Buzzer starts stalking the other scientists much like the shapeshifting 'Thing'. The group fight back with all means necessary, flame throwers, shot guns and finally a self-sacrificial explosion of dynamite.

While it’s not a remake of “The Thing”, most likely for logistical reasons, the homage and reverence to Carpenter is clear. Right down to Rob Bottin’s nasty creature effects, the set design of the camp and interior art direction of the base, the digitized film scratches, even the choice of music, a monotonous electronic piece, resembles the same tone as Ennio Morricone’s great score.

The articulate ‘swivel arm battle grip’ which for serious GI Joe players back in the day allowed kids like me to create realistic scenes of battle in the sandbox, on film also makes for surprisingly realistic stop motion characters.

Co-Directors Ehretsmann and Gesrel pull some great tension out of these plastic figures, and full fledged story. They are not just geeking out entirely, their visual eye, shot selection and storytelling abilities are acutely apparent in this brief six mins of fun - which, something tells me will be more enjoyable than the Stephen Somers' GI Joe movie coming out soon.

There’s no real need to write any more, because the film is available in its entirety on youtube. Here it is:

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