iainwatson

Seven years ago at the Edinburgh Film Festival I was lucky enough to see a 'Breathe Control', a documentary about the unofficial fifth element of Hip-Hop, Beat-Boxing. I say 'lucky' because the film was never released, and lots of people still want to see it - My review is still on the films page on IMDb. 'Turn it Loose' feels like part two of in an 'Elements' documentary series, focusing as it does on another one of Hip-Hop's elements, Break dancing... or to give it it's accepted term 'B- Boying'.

Every year see's Red Bull put on the One B-Boy Championship where dancers square off against each other in a knock-out one-on-one tournament. Each dancer dances three short 30 second rounds against each other in an arena while the crowd cheers and whoops it up from the stands. Hong 10 won the tournament in 2006, and returns to defend his titles in 2007's battle, which the documentary is based around. Hong 10 is a young Japanese kid who lives for the thrill of that baying crowd. He compares the rush he gets in the battle and from the cheers with almost drowning as a kid, that sense of panic when you know you are out of breath.

Lilou is a cocky French Algerian who won the competition in 2005 but got put out in the first round in 2006. He refuses to hand back his winning Championship belt to Red Bull as without it he is nothing. He's a Muslim and we see him praying to Mecca in the build up to the competition, which he enters wearing a traditional Arab headscarf to show his solidarity with Muslims around the world when he battles American Roxrite in the semifinal.

Roxrite wins, and the crowd starts booing. Lilou takes this as a personal win. Roxrite puts it down to the fact

he's American. The championship takes place in Johannesburg, and he says everyone thinks it's all great for everyone in the US. We learn he's had a tough life and grew up homeless on the streets with his family and he believes that's what gave him his drive to succeed in the B-Boy world.

My favourite B-Boyer was Taisuke, not for his abilities (Roxrite perhaps the most technically accomplished dancer), but for his Samurai-like take on life. He lives on his own in Tokyo after leaving his disapproving parents in Nagasaki. His entire life is dedicated to the art of B- Boying. He says "I live for the Breakbeat. Even when I'm old I will always remember the Breakbeat. It's with me till I die". I just wish it wasn't in Japanese, but English, so I could sample it for a tune.

The introduction of each character always takes parts during one of the battles. The camera will freeze in the middle of an amazing move and we hear the bboy's voice-over. It had a feel of Caradiru/City of God feel to it - IE. I am Lilou, this is my story. While I liked this at first it started to grate after a while as it interrupted the flow of the battles themselves. This narration also felt a bit too 'X-Factor'/BGT at times, every B-Boyer giving us a tragic story relating to his life, that while I sympathised, was unnecessary.

While I really enjoyed the film, that came from the characters, their personal philosophies and the little moments of comedy that came from those beliefs. The dancing whilst spectacular did get a little samey at times, and because of this I'm willing to forgive the continuous character story interruptions as it might have been a poorer film without them. However I couldn't help but feel a lack of emotional connection between filmmaker and subject that was abundant in 'Breathe Control'. What BC lacked in budget, cinematography and direction it more than made up for in it's enthusiasm for the subject matter. 'Turn it Loose' seemed to be made by an insider looking into a scene he isn't part of. The film was made by an ex music video director, Alastair Siddons in conjunction with the sponsors Red Bull and I feel this corporate driving force was to the film's detriment. I'm going to dig out 'Planet B-Boy' on DVD now, hopefully that will be free of corporate shilling.

PS. A bonus of the feature was also seeing Spike Jonze's new short featuring skaters in slow motion, on the build up to tricks. It continuously cut to another just as the money shot was about to happen and eventually built to a collage of stunts where the ramps exploded. Very cool.

Stardust - Tristan (Charlie Cox) is a young dreamer in olden days England, obsessed by Victoria (Sienna Millar). They see a shooting star crashing to earth and Victoria promises to marry Tristan if he can bring it to her. He goes to find it and crosses a wall where normality ceases and the land of the surreal and bizarre come to life. He finds the fallen star in the shapely form of Yvaine (Claire Danes) and starts a quest to take her back to Victoria. However a battle is taking place for the kingship of the land, and the princes fighting for it need the ruby around Yvaines neck that the king flung into space and that caused her to crash land. Also hunting her is the evil witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her evil sisters who want to cut out her heart and consume it to retain their eternal youth.

It goes full steam ahead from the great opening, right to the best ending for a film I've seen in ages. With a massive A-list ensemble cast and a veritable who's-who of British acting talent almost without exception giving fantastic performances. Pfeiffer in particular brings a depth to Lamia that makes you hate the character and want to see her get her comeuppance. Newcomer Cox seems a bit wooden at first, and up against acting royalty he looks a bit out of his depth, but I soon warmed to him as his character changes through the film and he seems to embrace Tristan's burgeoning confidence.

I admit that I was extremely sceptical of the film when I started watching it, but I was completely won over after the first half hour. Stardust is in the vein of those great epic action fantasy films like Baron Munchaussen and Time Bandits. It shows up Harry Potter for the clunky shallow children's story that it is. The action slightly slows in the middle of the film, and a few small trims could have made this the 10/10 it nearly was - 9/10

We, the "developed" nations, are a controlled by fear. The media continuously bombards us with stories of terrorism, disease and disasters. The bigger the fear is, the more we allow our governments to control us, to dissolve our civil liberties.

In various nations people can be held with no trial or charge simply for looking a certain way, having faith in non-Christian gods, or being brown and having a beard. Claw for a hand optional. These people are tortured and humiliated.

Terrorism is a real threat, there is no denying it. There is only avoidance of the cause. Very little asking why, but a lot of finger pointing and knee-jerk reactions. These reactions are caused by fear but simply fuel terrorism, like a self-fulfilling prophecy it scares more and more people every day while the reactions fuel the anger of the terrorists. If we, the people, force our governments to examine and eliminate the causes of terrorism we will eliminate our own fear. This is unlikely to happen as the governments will no longer have the power to control us. The power of nightmares is strong, the politics of idealism long gone, we are firmly in the grip of the politics of fear.

This may lead to the situation presented in 'V for Vendetta'. A Naziesque totalitarian government keeps a tight grip on the citizens of Britain. Evey part of the media is controlled and every event is spun for the benefit of keeping the public in fear and the government in power. Until one man decides to fight back.

So is V the most subversive mainstream film to ever hit cinemas? Possibly. Is it a cheesy b-movie with bad acting and forced dialogue? Definitely ... and that's why I think it's brilliant. It's top level allows the subtext to get plastered on thick, and it's all the better for it.