Ivansxtc

This is really one of the most honest, most genuinely unnerving films I have ever seen (and I have seen a lot, by any standards). My lady and i didn't speak the whole hour driving home, just sat in stunned contemplation of this stunning film. As we drove, I could almost not believe just how superb this film was.

Huston is an absolute revelation as Ivan, a once-in-a-lifetime performance that seems to have sprung into life fully formed and whole. His is one of the greatest faces cinema has offered, full of humanity and pathos, at once a recognisable everyman and a unique and extraordinary figure.

The narrative's initially gimmicky flashback structure become essential as we are allowed to see the fundamental pointlessness of the feckless Ivan's life even before we meet him.

Flashing back, we then see the last few weeks of Ivan's life as he finds he has terminal cancer and slowly wastes away, surrounded by the most tacky/glamourous trappings of Hollywood life.

From the early realisation of Ivan's insignificance, we are drawn to see him as fully alive and utterly human.

This is the triumph of the director's intensely humanist vision, a moving testament to the individual worth and humanity of each of us, even the most lost and dissolute amongst us.

Equally rich are the surrounding performances, the whole cast working tiny wonders, but special mention certainly belongs to Huston and also Peter Weller, the latter giving what I think must be his strongest ever role. His sleazy big-shot actor is an instant classic, utterly true and blackly comic.

I lived and worked in the industry in Hollywood and I recognised many of the characters and situations. In the whole film, not one false note was struck. The locations expertly chosen, from the Sky bar to the winding backroads around Mulholland and Hollywood Blvd at dawn, the feel of Ivan's Hollywood was exactly right.

I recommend this film to anyone looking for difficult but richly rewarding, thought-provoking cinema. It is not entertainment, but it performs the quiet miracles that few film-makers even attempt, let alone achieve with these devastating results. A triumph, a truly visionary work and clearly a labour of love for all involved, Ivan's xtc is simply astounding, quite the equal to the early works of Ingmar Bergman and I can think of no higher praise than that.

Again, we have a literary masterpiece "adapted" to the big screen (e.g., the recent "Bartleby"). Not a total success, in my opinion. First of all its transformed setting...the Hollywood scene...while the film creates its reality fairly well...is far from the original characterization of a public servant (a magistrate) and his powerful, reflective downward path to death. Secondly, the depiction of the movie business as superficial and full of back=slapping and phony relationships is a rehash to the point of cliche.

That said, Danny Huston's performance as the high-living Hollywood agent, facing his imminent death is very convincing and even moving at times...and creates sympathy for an otherwise vacuous character. We are spared none of the grim details of his last days on earth...so be warned.

Rule #645: All films made in Hollywood, by Hollywood, about Hollywood, must be seedy. I should probably add ‘for Hollywood' to the above list, as the film is more or less a home movie. Like The Player, Sunset Boulevard and countless others before it, it is a film that has been made by locals and just happened to have been given a world-wide release; seemingly by accident. It also takes great delight in detailing what a dreadful, decadency, drug and sex-fuelled level of hell it is. Personally, I can't wait to go there.

Although based on an original novel, its structure is different and only the central idea has been ‘borrowed.' Danny Huston plays (and rather well) an agent who manages to land a big, starry client and discover that he has cancer, all in the space of a few days. It's all downhill from then on as he begins to reassess his life, realises his girlfriend is just after his business connections and that he has barely achieved anything of worth in his short life. To be honest, that really doesn't come through in the film and feels as if it could have done with a few more scenes and some sharper editing. Despite some excellent scenes, the characters seem too much like improvised teaching studies and not well-written, three-dimensional people. Only Ivan manages to leap from the screen, and that is largely because of Danny Huston's Jack Nicholson-like presence.

Another thing to note is that the film was shot with digital cameras, although the sound seems to have been recorded with a Dictaphone. The photography is good, but is soft and jittery. This is because it was shot interlaced and not in progressive scan. Given the quality of the cameras available, and its inevitable transfer to film, I'm not quite sure why. Techno-bore detail, I know, but still distracting.

A good effort, but a home movie: 6/10

Ivans xtc is shot with slow shutter speeds and no 'tripod', with the result that it looks like a documentary - but it's not. Add to that some superb acting performances and the result is an extremely credible fiction film. One reviewer here complains of a lack of wisdom; I wasn't looking for wisdom. I was just watching a film about some very believable characters and what happened in a short section of their lives. Yes, it was interesting and gripping. It was also supported by some magnificent music, including excerpts of Richard Wagner's Tristan. I cannot recommend this film highly enough.

Loosely based on Tolstoy's 'The Death of Ivan Ilych' this searing indictment of Hollywood must be one of the most under-appreciated films of the last ten years.

Danny Huston plays Ivan Beckman, a typically sleazy, coke-snorting Tinseltown agent who is forced to confront the emptiness of his life when he learns that he is dying of cancer. Amongst the many people with whom he is surrounded but cannot confide in are hotshot director Danny McTeague (James Merendino), gun-toting homophobic mega-star Don West (Peter Weller), and Ivan's girlfriend, Charlotte (Lisa Enos), who may or may not be using him to further her own ambitions.

IVANS XTC. actually begins with the news of Ivan's death, and apart from the first 15 minutes or so the story is told in flashback. This works superbly because we immediately discover just how meaningless Ivan's life and career really were. Nobody really gave a damn about him (nor does anyone believe for a minute that he died of cancer rather than a cocaine OD), and his death merely serves as an inconvenience to those involved in the film project he was trying to get started (West and McTeague even have the insensitivity to confront each other in the middle of Ivan's funeral service!).

When Ivan learns of his cancer he tries to binge his way to redemption through drink, drugs, and women, but there is none to be found. Nothing can ease his physical or emotional pain. He can't even find an image of beauty or happiness in his head - everything he can think of is "shit". Ivan was already a victim even before the cancer took hold.

Many films have successfully attacked the excessive yet soulless Hollywood machine in recent years e.g THE PLAYER and SWIMMING WITH SHARKS, but IVAN's XTC. is perhaps even better (British writer-director Bernard Rose drew from many of his own bitter experiences). The film is shot entirely on DV (with oddly effective use of Wagner as musical accompaniment!) and this gives it a documentary-style realism (you really feel you're in the back of that limo with West as he snorts coke off Charlotte's leg). It is also to the film-makers' credit that no punches are pulled when it comes to conveying exactly what Ivan's cancer is doing to him (the visceral last reel is not for the squeamish).

The performances are first-rate all round, but Huston is especially brilliant and should have had an Oscar nomination. Although Ivan is an unpleasant individual - and Rose never dresses him up to be anything but - Huston manages to elicit the viewer's sympathy simply by demonstrating Ivan's ever more desperate need for something to fill the complete void that is his quickly fading life. As far as the 'terminal illness' genre goes this film is ultimately far more moving than blatantly manipulative stuff like TERMS OF ENDEARMENT and MY LIFE precisely because there is absolutely no on-screen sentimentality whatsoever. Ivan's one moment of true tenderness comes not with Charlotte or with any of his friends or family... but with a nurse he doesn't even know. The glorious closing shot is surely one the best in recent film-making history.

This is a disturbing film that is at times difficult to watch. Yet at the same time it is so perceptive and involving that one feels it actually deserves several viewings. Highly recommended.