AKA

For some reason, Canal+ Film2 channel is showing on my boyfriend's TV. This movie was on this morning. I didn't even know it's name, I just searched with the name of a character since I felt I should comment on this. AKA is most likely a movie not many people have seen, since it deals quite heavily with things that are often swept under the carpet, such as homosexuals and drugs.

This is not a bad movie. I can't see why so many people seem to have rated it 1/10. I gave it 7 since it's not excellent, but still worth viewing. The main thing is the tension between British middle class and aristocrats. Do you remember the episode of Faking it where a sales girl was taught to be a lady? Well this is the same thing but with a boy and no one to teach him. The main character Dean Page is a mama's boy who must leave home and soon finds himself in Paris, pretending to be Lord Alexander Gryffoyn. David and his lover boy Benjamin take Dean/Alex under their wings, unaware of who he really is. Upper class proves to be mostly a bunch of arrogant cocaine sniffers that treat outsiders like s***. Notice when Dean returns home there is a pile of dog poop on the road. The ending is quite predictable, but what's said about David is quite funny.

In Britain, while the class divide is no longer relevant to most people's lives in terms of access to education or employment, there is still a great fascination with the lives of the rich. This takes the form of magazines such as 'Hello!' and 'OK!', various TV shows (particularly 'Faking it' in which a person of a certain profession/background/up-bringing is taught to behave in an opposite manner) and the enduring popularity of 'My Fair Lady' on the London stage. AKA deals with this fascination with the upper class and the way a person might assimilate into the group by deceit. Plot-wise the film is therefore quite similar to 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' and indeed also includes the homo-eroticism of that film (a symptom of privileged all male education perhaps?) as well as a certain similarity between the two leads (Matthew Leitch particularly reminds the viewer of Matt Damon when he smiles).

This is another excellent film by the recently deceased Film Four in its Film Four Lab guise (following 'Jump Tomorrow', 'My Brother Tom' & 'This Filthy Earth') which allowed for some experimentation in the cinema - which in this case means the entire film is shown in triple split screen. Creating an image even wider than 2.35:1 this does mean the viewer has to look from one third of the picture to another to entirely follow the action, but unlike Mike Figgis' 'Time Code' this is never distracting as each of the images is chosen to complement the others - for example a shot of two people talking is split between two images with the third providing a close up - and the audience does get used to this after a couple of minutes when it becomes second nature experiencing a film in this way. There doesn't seem to be a particular reason why the film is set up in this fashion at first, but it does compliment the duplicity of the lead character and the layered facades the other characters in the film hide behind (especially Benjamin). It also obviously provides a way for a 4:3 DV image to fill the cinema screen. Coming from TV backgrounds, all the actors put in reasonable performances, especially the 'adults' but Matthew Leitch in particular (who, like Peter Youngblood-Hills, comes from 'Band of Brothers') gives a commanding performance and it is no surprise that he followed this film with a Hollywood movie (David Twohy's 'Below'). While there are a few problems with the plot - the film implies that homosexuality stems from childhood abuse - an occasional problems with the quality of the sound (due to the budget) this is nevertheless a brilliant feature debut for writer director Roy, and together with his lead actor, I will be surprised if an impressive career does not follow...

What a bad film AKA is. Bad acting, bad dialogue, bad lighting, and hard to see images. Why of why did this director choose to use three tiny images instead of one? Does it serve a purpose other than to annoy you? I don't care if the director is writing his own comments on this site or if in fact he isn't a very nice person in real life, this film is plain and simple

This film is excellent, and obviously effective, judging by the lively debate it has inspired. Whether you loved it or hated it (and I loved it), you just couldn't forget it. It keeps creeping up on you for days after. In my opinion it's beautifully shot, with lighting that effectively elicits the the right emotional response for each scene.

The acting is terrific, with an wonderfully subtle and stirring performance by its lead, Matthew Leitch. The supporting characters are all excellently played, although the American is annoyingly shrill (which is probably the point). Not for the faint of heart, this is a beautiful, moving film.

I did buy the Dutch release of this movie by Home Screen. On this DVD you can find the split screen version (that a lot of people seem to hate so much), but fortunately also the normal (= single screen) version. I did watch this normal version only, because I don't want to have a headache or I don't want to feel dizzy. And I must say that you can follow the story very easily then. This Duncan Roy movie is not a masterpiece, but it's an entertaining film and I liked it. It's not as good as "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (that's almost impossible), but it's a real story and that makes it peculiar. Watch the single screen version and you will see it's not bad at all !