Back with Betty

Quite pleased to discover that I still think Betty Blue is a pretty great film. I watched it a lot as a teenager, partly because I fancied Beatrice Dalle and partly because I was in a phase of renting art-house films from the library (‘cos I fancied the actresses in them…) and Betty Blue was my favourite. Since then I’ve read a lot of quite scathing reviews of it, writing it off as either pseudo-intellectual soft porn or directionless melodrama. But decided today to give it another try and thought it a lot better than I’ve seen it described. It’s nowhere near as erotic as the easily-pleased teenage me found it – Betty’s actually a lot cuter and sexier when she’s dressed than when she’s not, thank to the cheerful petulance and charm which Beatrice Dalle brings to the role, and Zorg is a lot more appealing than I remember him – muscular, easygoing and devoted.

There are plenty of flaws; both Betty and Zorg are rather idealised, and the final third of the film descends dramatically (the drag scenes? hmmm). But the first 90 minutes are extremely winning – the months they spend drinking and dancing in the Paris hotel with Eddy and Lisa are exactly what I hoped for from my 20s, the pacing is delightful, and there’s a lot to be said for the way Zorg and Betty get (it) on. I liked the way that for all that Zorg is devoted to his unravelling girlfriend, he’s not paternal, macho or aggressive in the way he seeks to protect her – which is what the drag stuff is about, I guess. It’s full of mis-steps and a few shonky attempts at humour, but overall I really enjoyed re-visiting it. It looks, needless to say, absolutely beautiful, too.

precious, a film by lee daniels

I watched Precious, today, the second feature by Lee Daniels, and was very impressed, if upset, by its grim, unflinching portrayal of domestic abuse in 1980s Harlem. It’s only Daniels second film, although he is an established name in Hollywood, having produced both the excellent ‘The Woodsman’ – a hard, affecting film about a convicted paedophile – and the execrable ‘Monster’s Ball’, a condescending, unpleasant film about ‘black America’. Here, aided by some excellent casting and several terrific performances, he has crafted a film which is alternately painful to watch, surprisingly heart-warming, and very funny.

It’s the severity of the circumstances his young lead must face that resonate most strongly. Precious, an impassive, obese 16 year old who is pregnant for the second time by her own father, is played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe with real depth and significant restraint, and entirely fulfils her role in a film where appalling events are threaded routinely into the plot. The comedian Mo’Nique, who plays her mother, is even more impressive, bringing a nightmarish intensity to her portrayal of one of the most unsympathetic characters I’ve ever seen in celluloid. In addition, there is good work by a (slightly too-good-to-be-true) Paula Patten and Mariah Carey, whose hard, ambiguous social worker is central to the film’s (ultimately hopeful, despite everything) climax.

At times, particularly when Mo’Nique is inflicting shocking abuse on her screen daughter, it’s terribly hard to watch. To leaven the horror, Daniels provides a hopeful subplot which lauds the role of the state in protecting its most put-upon citizens, and it’s for the best that he does, else the film might be unwatchable. At times the contrast between these two strands seems a little unbelievable, but it is a necessary plot device. As in both Monster’s Ball and The Woodsman, however, there are some ambiguous moral lessons. In The Woodsman, vigilantism is presented in a strangely uncritical light, and in Precious it’s hard not to notice that every character who lines up to help Precious (and thankfully there are several) seem to have progressively lighter skin.

Her relationship with Patten – who plays her teacher and mentor – is touching and convincing; but at times it feels that Patten is a little too good to be true; an impeccably groomed, comfortable liberal – she seems remarkably unfrazzled for an inner city teacher. Indeed, her class – supposedly made up of Harlem’s most troubled teenagers – seems at times to resemble the kids from Fame.

This is nitpicking – there are great performances here, and it’s very difficult not to be upset, moved, and exhausted by the film. It’s a great success and Mo’Nique, for one, might feel unfairly cast aside if she doesn’t pick up an Oscar for her role. I hope that the intolerable life young Precious is handed in 80s Harlem is a historical observation, and that things are better for America’s poor today.

top ten films of 2009

Observant readers will notice that I never got round to posting my 2009 lists - records of the year etc. Not quite sure why - I spent ages working out my top tens and exhausted my interest, I think. I'll dig the music list out and post it this week. In the meantime, a bit late, here are my top ten films of 2009. Thoughts in the comments box, please.

Best Films of 2009, in order.
1. An Education (UK)
Utterly charmed by this - everything from the sensitive adaptation to the casting to the period detail was exquisitely done - Carey Mulligan in the lead role acted with incredible subtlety and charm. A beautiful, fascinating film.
2. Fish Tank (UK)
Very unfortunate not to be first in the list, I thought this was terrific, too - another beautifully realised film with a captivating central performance. Here's a link to my more detailed review.
3. Let The Right One In (Sweden)
The thought of the US remake of this perfect film fills me with, well, horror - I just can't understand the decision to remake a film which is so beautiful, accessible and chilling. An unexpected, complex reworking of the Vampire myth. One of only two films in the list I've seen twice, and it impressed even further on the second view. I'd happily watch it a third time.
4. Moon (UK)
A film that really stayed with me - Sam Rockwell is perfect in the central role(s) and this is a brilliantly realised bit of unsettling science fiction. And yet another promising new director in Duncan Jones. Upsetting and brilliant. Here's my review - I got told off for including spoilers, so read with caution.
5. A Prophet (France)
Pretty much as good as everyone says it is - where this film really impressed me was in its dual portrayal of toughness and sensitivity. It has the weight of the great gangster films, with a thoughtful metaphysical component.
6. Thirst (S. Korea)
What with True Blood, Let the Right One in and the wonderful Being Human on the BBC, as well as the many other vampire franchises in operation, one would be forgiven for taking a pass on yet another film about people who bite people. But Thirst was brilliant. Totally repositioning the Priest's role in the Vampire story, this was great stuff.
7. In The Loop (UK)
Do you know, I was a touch underwhelmed by this the first time I saw it, finding it a bit less funny than I was expecting and mostly concentrating on the furious final third. But I've seen it since and thought it much better on a second viewing. A case of it's funny 'cos it's true, perhaps.
8. Star Trek (US)
So much better than it had any right to be. Mystifying middle section apart, this was awesome fun.
9. Down Terrace (UK)
Not sure if this has had a general release yet, but this very dark, low-key comedy is a gangster flick set in Brighton. Somewhere between Mike Leigh and The Sopranos, it was quite brilliant, and genuinely shocking in places.
10. Helen (UK)
Not sure if I actually enjoyed this, but I admired it for its simplicity and purity - a strange, unsatisfying meditation on identity - it's well worth a look.

Obviously there’s a bunch I didn’t see (Avatar, The White Ribbon, The Antichrist, 35 Shots of Rum) that might have made the list, but as I didn’t see ‘em...

jonathan ross and mark kermode

Do I care that Jonathan Ross is leaving the BBC? Well, of course not, given that I hardly ever watched or listened to his programmes, but I mind a little in the sense that the baying, myopic tabloids which made such a prolonged and nauseous protest against him have been handed their victory.

I actually think that Ross is a very talented and likable presenter - although by no means flawless - and he has been treated very shabbily by the BBC over the last couple of years. He should have walked when they made him pre-record his radio show.

Either way, his parting does create one point of interest - and that is whether the BBC will appoint the one obvious, deeply intelligent, stand-out candidate to replace him on Film 2010 or, well, or someone that isn't Mark Kermode. He would be a fabulous appointment - he's already responsible for one of the best podcasts, if not the the best, that the BBC make, and would, I suspect, immediately transform BBC1's flagship film programme from something I never watch, to one of the best programmes on TV. I hope they do it.

the london perambulator

A couple of weeks ago myself, Vic, Dan, Ant and Alec went down to the Sallis Benney Theatre to see the screening, as part of the Cinecity Brighton Film Festival, of John Rogers’ new film, London Perambulator, a wonderfully affectionate portrait of Nick Papadimitriou, a writer who lives in North London – in my old haunting ground of Barnet, no less - who dedicates his life to the pursuit of what he calls ‘deep topography’; what you and I might have heard described as ‘pyscho-geography’ – urban exploration through the medium of walking, enacted not through pre-researched routes but by chance and happenstance, working on the assumption that the mysteries of the landscape will be revealed through being ‘found’.

As that muddled definition implies, the practice of deep topography is an inexact thing, occupying a vague, semi-mystical space between geography, anthropology, philosophy, art and science. What Nick Papadimitriou does, essentially, is walk through the overlooked corners of cities, and writes about his experience. His preoccupation is not with finding conventional beauty, whether ancient or modern, but rather in examining the functional areas where mankind, nature, and necessity overlap. In the process of this obsession, which sees him undertaking long ruminative walks, creating a kind of philosophical mind-map of the city, he has carried out research – and acted as somewhat of a poetic muse – for the likes of Will Self and Iain Sinclair (whose own book, ‘London Orbital’, sparked my interest in this area).

Papadimitriou is self-evidently an idiosyncratic individual, pursuing with admirable single-mindedness a line of enquiry which many would dismiss as eccentric. Rogers’ film cannot help but play on this, observing its protagonist in reveries of post-industrial romanticism, waxing lyrical over water treatment plants and manhole covers, standing rapt on brownfield sites transfixed by concrete posts. As one might expect of a close confidante of Will Self, Papadimitriou is not only incredibly literate but also extremely funny. So it’s easy for the film to poke affectionate fun at him, not least because a contributor like Russell Brand – who is insightful throughout – can’t resist sending him up.

Speaking after the film – which is only 45 minutes long – Papadimitriou expressed a little wry frustration at the fact. And that is understandable; there is something innately comic about the intensity of his passion for, say, Mogdon Water Treatment Plant – but the film plays up his eccentricity without sacrificing the opportunity to include many thought provoking and poetic displays of language and thought. And the more involved with his subject matter he gets the more profoundly interesting he becomes. It’s in Middlesex, that absent county at the top of London that was folded into Hertfordshire, Surrey and Greater London but which retains a geographical presence of its own, that his most fervent interest resides, and for a period in the film I found myself transported back to the vocabulary of my youth – Barnet, Southgate, Potters Bar, Finchley, Hendon. Papadimitriou is not myopic in his interests – he has a long term plan to walk across the Ukraine – but it’s obvious where his heart resides. He tells us:

“My ambition is to hold my region in my mind… so that I am the region. So that when I die I literally do become Middlesex in some way. For me that is my highest spiritual aspiration, I will be the tarmac that you race along on the A41-T, I’ll be absorbed into the mildewed lintels hidden in overgrown knotweed by the side of the Hendon way…”

My own youth was spent mapping out this part of the world; rambling through Hadley Wood, waiting for tubes into the city at Oakwood station, tracing cycle paths through Totteridge, scrabbling over high fences to let off firecrackers behind the Sainsbury’s car-park in New Barnet. I’m not especially nostalgic for those years, but Papadimitriou’s enthusiasm is infectious. I understood him best, I think, when he stopped suddenly between two semi-detached houses in a glum suburb, and pointed out the contour of the ageless landscape through the gap; where a river once flowed. These buildings, he pointed out, could be destroyed in moments, but it would take something immense to change the shape of land which has held its form for thousands of years.

I’m not sure I fully understand to what end his infectious, limitless enthusiasm can be taken, but in his current role, mid way between philosopher and naturalist, urban historian and dreamer, it strikes me that Nick Papadimitriou is doing something terribly important – chronicling parts of the city which are all around but rarely seen; liminal, overgrown, ambiguous places where mankind has made marks on nature which we would do well not to forget. Their unsystematic, unresolved, chaotic distribution seems to have some significance when counterbalanced against our own unsystematic, unresolved, chaotic lives.

You can watch a short clip of John Rogers’ incredibly enjoyable film below, visit his website here, or download the regular podcasts (“Ventures and Adventures in Topography”) which he and Nick make for Resonance FM here. Nick’s own website, misleadingly named Middlesex County Council, and as chaotic a site as you might expect, is essential reading. Here’s the link.

http://www.middlesexcountycouncil.org.uk/

not tempted by avatar

Over on Gawker.com, they're compiling evidence which points to the distinct possibility that James Cameron's 'Avatar' - which promises to be a revolution in film-making technology - will turn out to be a a big, queasy, sugary, 3D nightmare. Along with a few damning facts about the film, they provide a very early review from an industry insider, whose comments are wonderfully frank, culimating in the quite magnificent line, "Of course there are very beautiful moments, with great editing/sound/art direction, but overall it's a horrible piece of shit."

I had a ticket to see a preview taster of this film a couple of months back but something seemed wrong about it even then. Would be nice to be proved wrong, but I think this film is going to be really really bad.

Here's the Gawker case for the prosecution.

fish tank, by andrea arnold; review

It's a trite but accurate observation that good art is not just about how it makes you feel while you're experiencing it, but also about how it stays with you. In the spirit of that, I keep returning to Fish Tank, the second film by Andrea Arnold, which I saw a month or so ago, and admiring the depth of its feeling, the power of the central characters' performances, and the striking visuals of the cinematography. This makes me think I should have written about it here earlier – as much as anything so I could compare my thoughts then with my thoughts now, which feel like they have blossomed and deepened, but may merely be overpowering my memory as the details of the film recede. This is definitely a film I'll return to when it comes out on DVD.

I remember the visuals more than anything; the way that Arnold has captured a landscape which, although it's familiar to me from encountering it myself, feels alien and extraordinary in a cinematic context, consisting as it does of a sequence of extraordinary, vivid sunsets over the Essex countryside, intercut with scenes of industrial blight – pylons towering overhead and motorways ploughing through the fields. The film is set on the edge of London and at the start of the Essex countryside, so a strange urban/rural duality is presented. Mia, the central character, a bolshy and bright 15 year old, lives a bleak life in a tower block (although this itself in Arnold's film is refreshingly free of cliché – there are no guns in this movie), and understandably dreams of escape. She is a dancer, although perhaps not one, like Billy Elliot, with a life-changing talent. As the title indicates, Mia is caged, looking for an escape. The fact that she can walk out of the city into the green fields, however, offers no respite until Michael Fassbender arrives in her life. He is Connor, her mother's new boyfriend, and a surrogate father figure.

Mia – played with extraordinary believability by the newcomer Katie Jarvis – is in every frame, prowling through the landscape, her movements repetitive, purposeless and frustrated. Each day she sneaks out, argues with peers, circles the estate, and passes a patch of wasteland where travellers keep a horse tied up. Her movements echo that of a caged animal, listlessly circling, sniffing at the possibility of escape. Her outrage at the horse's imprisonment is palpable – her own yearning for freedom just as obvious.

Her home life is thankless; her young mother is largely unconcerned with the duty of raising her two daughters, and Connor – who displays a sudden, unexpected interest in her life – offers something to which Mia is quite unused; encouragement, positive reinforcement, love. Mia has been excluded from school, and her mother echoes their analysis of her, that she is a nuisance, trouble, out of control. And there is another problem brewing; for all that Connor tries to nurture the girls, it is quickly apparent that Mia's role as troubled daughter is complicated by her emergence as a sexual rival for a mother who, apart from when Fassbander is around, is stuck in the memory of her own teenage years.

Connor is as complex and fascinating a character as the young lead. Notably a bit better educated, a bit more gainfully employed, a bit more comfortable in his own skin than the men Mia's mother normally sees, he nevertheless has his own troubles, and his complex relationship with Mia is just one of them. Their connection is apparent very early on. In one scene, Mia pretends to be asleep so that she can enjoy the feeling of his carrying her back to her room, and in another extraordinary set-piece, Connor takes the family out to the country, where he leads Mia into a fast flowing stream, leans over, and simply lifts a fish smoothly out of the water with his bare hands. It is an incredibly sensual scene, where electricity fizzes silently between the two characters, while Mia's mother and sister look on, oblivious.

Mia can hardly be blamed for her feelings for Connor; living a life so shorn of encouragement and love, she is completely unprepared for her reaction when such things are offered. Connor represents freedom, adulthood, and escape. Her already profound spirit of rebellion is spurred, as is a heart-warming, uncynical appreciation of the more poetic side of life. There are some absolutely thrilling scenes when she dances.

For all that Mia blossoms with Connor's encouragement, he is not the strong, centred man that he appears, and things swiftly get out of hand. Yet Arnold handles the development of the story beautifully, drawing wonderful things out of her young lead, and keeping such a tight hold of the reins that the final third of the film, again shot beautifully on the shores of the Thames Estuary, is completely surprising.

Fish Tank has been the best film I've seen this year, even better than Moon, which I praised very highly on this blog just a month or two ago. It's a magnificent study of youthful disaffection, love and anger, beautifully controlled, shot in bewitching colours. And as I indicated, I've thought about it almost every day since I saw it –so I don't think I could possibly recommend another film so heartily.

snow angels

I've not seen his later films, but I'm a massive fan of the two early movies by the American writer and director, David Gordon Green - George Washington and All The Real Girls (which I've written about before). Since those films Green has made a couple more indie pictures and a couple more which suggest he's keen to move in to the mainstream: he's currently making a stoner comedy starring Zooey Deschanel and Natalie Portman. Having lost track of his films somewhat, I just took a quick look at Wikipedia to see what I've missed, and noted that he made a film in 2006 called Snow Angels, starring Sam Rockwell (who was excellent in Moon) and Kate Beckinsale. Anyone seen it? Worth seeing?

Anyway, curious about it I just flicked over to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) and read a few user comments. This one delighted me - I love it.

"The only problem I found with the movie was that its setting was a bit confusing. There were scenes where the characters used cell phones, and others where there were those record players for LPs. But other than that, the movie was flawless."

Mobile Phones and record players. Can any of my clever readers solve this complex chronophysical puzzle?

moon, by duncan jones; review

I saw Moon tonight, the debut feature by Duncan Jones. Set in a familiar, dystopian future, it is what all the best science fiction films are; a slow, thoughtful examination of isolation. What could be more lonely than being sent to space, so far from the people who begat us? (Except perhaps to be living in a city - where far more science fiction films ought to be set).

Moon gives away it's plotline early, so I have no compunction about revealing details, although I'll try to hold something back, in case you've not seen it. Following in a great tradition of stories about identity and the self, it's about doubles; Sam Rockwell - the beautifully calibrated lead - encounters no-one on his solitary posting on the moon - except himself. He's there on the last leg of a solitary posting to oversee a mining operation which supplies Earth with 70% of it's energy, alone but for a nostalgic portrait of a robot companion, voiced by Kevin Spacey (with more than a nod to HAL). And then an exact clone of himself arrives, ready to assume his post. Immediately he starts to disintegrate. And the process is painful and frightening to watch.

It must be hard being a first-time director. Everyone looks not only for evidence of genius but obsessively for immature flaws. So Moon has encountered its own doubling, its own dichotomy, in its reception. On the one hand, reviewers note, it's an emphatic triumph - a mature, thoughtful science fiction film, a loving homage to a lost era of film-making and a triumph of art over budget. On the other hand, we read, Jones gives too much away, references too many forebears, doesn't quite pull it off. Well - nonsense. I thought Moon was a perfectly weighted film, and a complex, haunting pleasure to watch.

Rockwell must take some of the credit. It's unusual to see a film where one actor alone carries 99% of the screentime, and more unusual still to see him make such a success of carrying not one, but two, distinct characters. For although Rockwell plays two clones of the same character, he imbues each with their own identifiable strengths and weaknesses.

And this is what the film is really about. The first Sam, the dying ember, slowly approaching the end of his shift, is self-aware, rounded, complete. Three years in space have allowed him the time to resolve his conflicts, make peace with his demons. By the same token, the dynamism apparent in his younger clone is altogether gone - his lifeblood drained by his isolation. As the drama unfolds, we begin to wonder - is he resolved, or is he beaten? And is his younger, more aggressive, more impetuous self, his only hope of escape?

Few dystopias, of course, have happy endings. The question, here, is what hope has man in the face of corporations? Sam is only a commodity to be exploited. And only humanity can save us. When GERTY, Sam's robot companion, first begins to exert his malign influence on his final days, we can see only the negative connotations of a computerised future. But soon GERTY, who is treated as a friend by Sam, begins to display not just emoticons - his screen displays them to denote texture to his monotone pronouncements - but real emotions, humanity is given a metaphorical shot in the arm. He helps propel Sam's clone to the film's semi-positive denouement. But we must be cautious; his sentience is sympathetic but not empathetic. Despite helping Sam, he declares himself happy to be re-booted, his memory wiped, the program to begin once again. Essentially, his 'humanity' is nothing more than a glitch in the program; albeit one that Sam is lucky to find, and exploit.

So perhaps this is the future - a future where we're forced to look for holes in the system, glitches to exploit. Corporations, governments, mean only to exploit mankind. But humanity is ingenious, humanity is persistent. Jones never quite gives resolution, and the film is ultimately upsetting and bleak. But Rockwell's Sam is so powerful, Jones's direction so focused, that Moon can only inspire. A sad, loving, hopeful, defeated - and defiant film. Best thing I've seen in ages.

skinny jeans

I was standing outside The Duke Of Yorks cinema in Brighton with Vic, shortly after watching 'In The Loop', the other day. We stood discussing the film, waiting for Andrew to join us. Dimly, somewhere behind me, I heard the beeping of a horn. I ignored it.

"I really thought it was great", I said, "how the last half hour was so angry. It may not have been as funny as 'The Thick Of It', but it had much more energy".

Beep Beep Beep. "Oi, mate", I hear.

I continued prattling on. Vic fidgeted, bored of my critique, waiting for her brother.

"Oi", the voice persists. "Oi! Skinny jeans!"

I turn around. Sat in a small hatchback are four laughing black guys. One is leaning out of the window and pointing at me.

"Aaaaahhh!" he shouts. "Skinny jeans, mate. Naaaaa..." He shakes his head. They all laugh.

Apparently my choice of trousers opens me up to a certain amount of ridicule.

tribeca film festival

Turns out I'm staying in TriBeCa the week before their big film festival, meaning that the area is buzzing with expectation, with lots of activity evident as people prepare for a week of premieres and parties. I'm annoyed I won't be here - it looks really exciting. For those of you who like looking at these things from afar, rather than from just around the corner, here's the programme. Why not imagine the films you'd see if you were here? That's what I'm doing.

vicky christina barcelona

Thought I'd add a rather late voice of support to the apparent consensus that Woody Allen's most recent film, Vicky Christina Barcelona, is a significant return to form and a rather good film. I watched it on the flight over to Boston and really enjoyed it, all the more because it seemed to have very little of the clunkiness of his 'British' films, and because, although the film's setting in Spain is hardly essential to the plot, it makes for some beautiful shots and ingenious casting - particularly Javier Bardem and Penolope Cruz, who give magnificent performances.

The film, like most of Allen's oeuvre, is concerned with the transitory, illusory - and yet essential - nature of love and relationships. Vicky and Christina, played by Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johannson respectively, spend a summer in Spain and fall under the spell of Bardem, who is a magnetic, fascinating artist painted initially as a womaniser but later sketched out into an appealing, sophisticated character. Christina, fascinated by Bardem and determined not to restricted by bourgeois or conventional expectations, embarks upon an impulsive but successful relationship with her lover and, later, his ex-wife, played with careering, reckless glee by Penelope Cruz. (Johannson, disappointingly, is below-par throughout).

Vicky, by contract - whose fascination with Bardem is tempered by her desire for a conventional marriage - is the real emotional centre of the film. For all the plaudits Cruz and Bardem have earned for their performances, it is Rebecca Hall's beautiful, precise portrayal of Vicky's cautious, agonised involvement which resonates. And which proves that Woody Allen is still capable of writing proper, grown up parts, and funny, worthwhile films.

Of course VCB is not up with his best, but it was the first one of his films I've seen in many years which left me feeling fully satisfied. Really hope it's a good omen for his future projects.

review: waltz with bashir

Waltz With Bashir, Ari Folman’s excellent animated film, is a cool, deliberate and moving evocation of memory, conscience and war which moves from muted tones of yellow and black through luminous multicolour and back again as the director recounts the nightmarish reality of 1982s Israeli-Lebanon War, and his own efforts to reconstruct his recollection of it. Like thousands of men his age, his formative years were defined by his involvement in war, though both his own country and much of the Middle East which surround it – particularly Lebanon – have found themselves the staging ground for much of the world’s conflict since. At 19, be that as it may, he was sent to fight, and to kill. Yet he remembers little. What took place all those years ago?

Part autobiography, part fantasy, and part documentary, Waltz With Bashir is constructed from a series of flashbacks, hallucinations and interviews, all lovingly illustrated. Unable to piece together the details himself, Folman begins a long, painful search for the truth, finding people he served with, drawing out his own suppressed memories and interweaving them with those of his peers. The results are always beautifully drawn, but invariably upsetting; an officer forced to swim out to sea to escape capture by Palestinian forces; a troop trying in desperation to cross a junction while being fired on from all angles; the memory of six men having to gun down a child armed with a rocket launcher.

Worst is the darkest memory of all; Folman’s involvement in the massacres at Sabra and Chatila, where Phalangist Christians led Israeli forces into refugee camps and enacted a devastating genocide on the Palestinians within – murdering young and old, entire families lined up and shot under the yellow sky. As the film’s most devastating line attests, Folman, whose own parents survived Auschwitz, is made unwittingly to play the role of Nazi, firing flares into the sky so that the light persisted enough for the massacre to continue. At the apex of this savage injustice, the film switches not just from monochrome to full colour, but from animation to live video. The final, dreadful moments of the movie consist solely of archive footage of the terrible aftermath - wailing survivors surveying the destruction, the bodies of children poking horrifically from the rubble.

Despite the painful reality of these closing shots, the movie conjures up several arresting images of its own - an early sequence, which describes a memory experiment at a funfair, is echoed, in a moment of playfulness, through a window; a pack of dogs charge vengefully through the streets; a terrified soldier, cowering on a military boat, is provided with a moment’s respite by an erotic hallucination. The most powerful image is that of the auteur’s face, frozen in the streets of Beirut as he witnesses the carnage around him. It’s repeated several times; a slow pan around a youthful face, and gains in intensity with every viewing, until at last you learn something, something, of the atrocity of war. Waltz With Bashir is both chillingly upsetting and notably beautiful – a superb, troubling, and yet strangely cleansing film. Go see it.

review; lust, caution

Me and Vic went to see Ang Lee's latest film, Lust, Caution, last night, and I was very impressed with it. It's a long, noirish thriller set in Japanese occupied Hong Kong and Shanghai in the early 1940s, in mood a slow, charged cousin of a Hitchcock movie with flashes of Won Kar Wai's exotic stylings.

It features two enormously impressive turns from an established and brilliant actor - Tony Leung - and a complete newcomer, Tang Wei, who puts in a mesmerising performance as a young student actress turned spy and charged with getting close to Leung's sinister, sadistic collaborator, Yee. Built around a back story which, courtesy of a two hour flashback, delays the film's denouement considerably, it's beautifully done and, with the exception of an unpleasantly long sadistic sex scene which I wanted to turn away from, done with real subtlety.

That said, it lacked the focus and clarity of Lee's Brokeback Mountain, and ended rather unsatisfyingly with Wei wavering in her determination to see through her mission. It is perhaps some consolation to know - as Leung's Yee surely does - that with the Americans around the corner, the end of his corrupt regime is nigh. It's this knowledge, along with Wei's increasing ennui and uncertainty, that finds release in the destructive passion of the film's protagonists.

Lust, Caution is a long, elegiac and rather tragic thriller, and probably one of the best films you'll see this year. I felt a bit dissatisfied at the end, but this is a film about war and what war drives people to - so a little dissatisfaction is not so very strange.

peter bradshaw is insane

I was really looking forward to seeing Control, Anton Corbijn's fim about the terribly sad story of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of the dismal/incendiary (delete according to preference) Manchester group Joy Division. Not least because, although the film itself sounded terribly dark, the Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw wrote:

"Control is a film about England, about music, about loneliness and love; there is melancholy in it, but also a roar of energy. I thought it might depress me. Instead I left the cinema walking on air."

Tremendous, I thought, so it won't be that draining after all! Wrong; a fairly jaunty first forty five minutes aside, the vast majority of the film was like being punched in the stomach repeatedly. At the close of this tremendously beautiful, excellently acted film (Riley is terribly convincing as Curtis, and Samantha Morton's portrayal of Debbie is as finely wrought as you'd expect from Britain's finest actress) I felt bereft and anything but walking on air.

But that's not to say that Control is not a fine film; it says a lot about the Manchester of the seventies, paints a fine picture of a tortured individual, and does a creditable job of recapturing the spirit of a fantastic band. But god, I felt rubbish afterwards.

If you don't think you can take the emotional kick of the film, can I suggest you skip it by reading this review; easily the best blog post I've seen in a while.

And if you have seen it and disagree with me entirely, then go read Matthew's comments over at Fluxblog. He hated it:

The film is just awful; basically a pretentious tv movie. Granted, virtually all biopics are terrible -- how could they not be when they are nearly always super-linear hagiographies with no real narrative momentum -- but Control is an embarrassing mess of cliches, on-the-nose musical cues, and trite sentimentality. Really, don't bother, even if you totally love Joy Division.

Oh.

coogan on tony wilson

As you might expect, Steve Coogan's article on the passing of Tony Wilson is affectionate, funny and touching. The full text is on the Guardian website, and here, at the Manchester Evening News.

Writing about playing Wilson in 24 Hour Party People, Coogan writes:

"Tony was nervous for the same reasons I was and we talked before filming began. As an artisan, he understood perfectly that it would be an impressionistic interpretation of him and events. He disputed aspects of the script but quoted John Ford when he said "If it's a choice between the truth and the legend, print the legend". Throughout filming, he visited the set. On one occasion he walked in whilst we were filming a scene which was un-sympathetic to put it mildly. "That never happened" he pronounced, "but its your interpretation and I believe in artistic freedom", before leaving in flourish. I love him for that. On another occasion, at the production office, which now seems almost surreal, I was standing at the end of a corridor dressed at Tony in a Yohjiyamanoto suit and white tennis shoes, (a distinct Tony look). When Tony arrived at the other end of the corridor dressed identically, he was on the phone "oh this is too weird" he said "can I call you back?"

"The writer, Paul Morley, later mused that if we'd touched we would have ended up in the fifth dimension. Peter Hook said at the time with robust affection "the biggest twat in Manchester being played by the second biggest twat in Manchester". It was the biggest compliment I ever received."

nick broomfield and slavery

I'm really keen to see Nick Broomfield's first feature film, Ghosts - Broomfield is one of our finest film makers and he's taken on a fascinating subject, as Stephen Newton points out in chastening prose on his blog:

"I'm not easily moved to tears, but Nick Broomfield’s Ghosts did that trick. They were tears of shame. It’s a film that shows that imperialism is alive and well and that the relatively luxurious lifestyles we enjoy come at a high price to be paid by those who born into foreign poverty.

These illegal Chinese immigrants did the jobs British people would rather not, for wages British people would not accept. They found themselves in meat factories (and we’re reminded that cruelty extends well beyond our treatment of other human beings); tempted into prostitution; working the land. Always they are treated with contempt."

Make sure you read the rest of his post, and take particular note of his mentioning the Morecambe Victim Trust Fund, which has raised £1,306.39 towards the £500,000 needed to clear the victims’ debts. I've just donated*. To quote Stephen again,

"As you dig into your pocket for some spare change, remember how relatively easily you earn your money and how much harder – and more expensive – life would be without the cheap labour of illegal immigrants."

*clarification: I've just tried to donate six times, and each time it refuses to let me, stating that it's not recognising the security code I type in. Either I'm being subconsciously stingy and typing it in wrong on purpose, or there's a problem with the site at the moment. Well, I'll keep trying - hope it works for you.

more daniel johnston

Just watched 'The Devil and Daniel Johnston' - what a great film, and what lovely songs.

"Though the whole world be blown apart
No matter how dumb or how smart
Still beats beneath the rocky rumble
The dead lover's twisted heart"

You can read more about Daniel here.

the lake house

Agh, busy day today so just time for a bit of cut and pasting; Peter Bradshaw's film reviews in the Guardian are a pretty reliable good read, but his review of The Lake House, which sounds like a particularly inane time-slip love story, wherein Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock live in the same house two years apart but manage to communicate by writing grafitti on the walls for each other to find in the future, is particularly good. It doesn't sound like a film that would hold my attention and it certainly didn't hold Bradshaw's. Before long his mind is wandering....

"There's only one problem with all this lovelorn loveliness, and it's not the plot-holes. Philistine non-romantics, male and female, will see it right away and be obsessed with it all the way through the movie. If you were corresponding with some sweet soul two years in the future, you might well find yourself writing: "Mmm. Yeah, Jane Austen's Persuasion is your favourite book? Oh wow; gosh you've had an unhappy love life, me too; yikes, your relationship with your dad was tough, yeah, me too, hey that's sad, I wish I was there to comfort you properly, NOW TELL ME WHAT THE LOTTERY NUMBERS ARE GOING TO BE. I'll hit the jackpot and leave half the loot in a railway luggage locker for you to pick up in two years' time! Trust me!"

As Keanu and Sandra simpered away to themselves up on the screen in their little 84 Charing Cross Road nightmare, the alternative version unspooled inside my head. Keanu scores a double-rollover lottery payout with Sandra's six numbers and immediately heads off to Acapulco with his secretary, forgetting all about Sandra. She opens up the luggage locker at Grand Central Station, wherein she finds nada. Furiously, Sandra prevails upon an ex-boyfriend, a theoretical physics major, to design and build for her a time machine. It is in this remarkable device, on the top of which helicopter rotors are attached, that she lands on the beach where Keanu is canoodling. She pulls a gun and forestalls Keanu's excuses by busting a cap in his duplicitous ass. Credits. Sadly, all we get in this existing version is slush. What it needed was a bit of realism."

Full review here, but you've just read the best bit.

all the real girls (2003)

I watched and enjoyed Walk The Line last week, but I don't really see the point of writing a review of a film which almost everyone who read this will have either read about at length already or seen, so I won't go into it, apart from saying that it was great and one of those rare films which stayed in my thoughts for a days after seeing it, which is always a test of a good film, or book or record for that matter.

It's a test I can't apply, however, to a film I watched as recently as this evening, All The Real Girls, but I'm tempted to write a few words about it because I thought it was a particularly charming and interesting film which deserves a mention. Written by David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider (who directed and starred in the movie, respectively) and released in 2003 (I completely missed it at the time), it's kind of a low-key elegaic Garden State without the more obvious comedy or self-conscious hip-ness. It's a very serious movie, in fact, although not one which isn't regularly very funny - but it's one of the sweetest, slowest films I've seen in a while.

Seemingly filmed in the dawn and dusk hours in an absolutely gorgeous North Carolina, meaning that almost every shot (practically the whole movie is set outdoors) is bathed in beautiful golden light, it concerns a pair of young drifters in a small town who drift together, seeking comfort and redemption, and then drift painfully apart when their expectations differ. Largely informed by improvisation in rehearsals and featuring a pair of remarkable turns from Schneider and Zoey Deschaneal, the film is deliberately vague and unformed, ending not with clear resolution but rather with open-ended pathos and lingering shots of the unchanging landscape.

In places the films is marvellous; the supporting roles (from Patricia Clarkson, Danny McBride, Shea Whigham and Benjamin Mouton) by are all as good examples of character acting as you'll come accross this year, particularly from Whigham, whose unpredictable, charged performance as the childish Tip is a masterclass in wringing feeling from a few thin lines. Gordon Green shoots some lovely snippets of layered conversation, and evinces beautifully the contrast between the so familiar inhabitants of a little-changing town and the excitement of discovering someone new. Despite the appearence of several accomplished actors, Green draws heavily on old film-school colleagues and local residents; this, coupled with the rigorous improv, combines to produce an atmosphere and a shared vocabularly of glances which speaks powerfully of real friendship.

It's by no means a perfect film; the last third is frustrating, for all the director's admirable determination to maintain the steady level of careful realism. Nothing is resolved, nothing is ever resolved, the film whispers, all of which makes for a beautifully stylised and shot parable but not so much for a satisfying film; although the movie unexpectedly ends with a tangential, charming moment of comedy. Despite this, it's tremendously believable and struck through with impeccable dialogue and elegant, serious acting. And the stunning scenery of North Carolina chimes with the story as bewitchingly as David Lynch's Washington did in Twin Peaks. Like Lynch - although the movie doesn't resemble his work in any other way - Gordon Green attempts to capture a whole community rather than just his central protagonists; it's these kooky, largely unexplained diversions which pull focus and give the film its disjointed, undisciplined feel. But that's how life is, you can hear Green saying, and that's where you find the film's humanity.

Really good stuff, all told.