Paranoid Park. Gus Van Sant 2007.

Van Sant’s latest addition to his canon of films dealing with youth in crisis may well be the apogee of his career. Many elements of the director’s previous work, such as the adoption of a non-professional cast and the deliberate discrepancy between sound and visual tracks, are maintained here, but these rudiments converge to awesome effect in ‘Paranoid Park’. Undoubtedly, Christopher Doyle’s signature cinematographic style contributes a significant formal element to the film by complimenting the director’s abiding fascination with the beautiful awkwardness and poignant transience of youth; long tracking shots are interspersed with slow-motion Super 8 footage of skateboarders that put the adolescent body through a cinematic ceremony revealing a quasi-balletic quality that reminds us that these are bodies fundamentally in transition. However, it is the director’s uncanny ability to visually map the teenage rituals invoked to deal with or mask immense pain that remains in the viewer’s mind long after viewing the film and confirms him as one of the genuine auteurs of American cinema. A scene of breakdown, rendered poetically through the use of an expressionistic soundtrack and tight close-up, is a particularly memorable moment. If this isn’t teen art, then I don’t know what is.

Control. (Anton Corbijn. 2007)

Bloody amazing. Bloody amazing.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss (Alex Holdridge. 2007)

Touted as the 'American Indie discovery of the year' by Hannah McGill, the artistic director of the EIFF, I trotted along to this with interest. It didn't disappoint. Shot in austere black and white with intimate camera-work, its 'indie' origins are apparent. What was perhaps more unexpected, was the way in which the narrative draws you into the lives of two self-confessed 'misanthropes' with equally squirm-inducing and charming measure. This really is 'Before Sunset' without all the self-conscious acting-out (which has always left me on the fence-post when it comes to Linklater). Moreover, I found all the characters to be wholly believable because the relationships between them are never simple; rather, they are messy, complicated and full of hidden agendas. This film is like a relationship on fast forward: you see the flirting, the bickering, the exhilaration, the heartbreak and the disintegration all within the space of 24 hours. Is this the meaning of cinema verite?

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971. Robert Altman)

For reasons that are too boring to disclose, I am currently studying the Western genre. Having read about the homestead, the savage, the puritan, the Stetson and Mr. Wayne for several tedious weeks, I went looking for something that would utilise and then dispose of all these generic elements. I thought this film was not only visually stunning but also extremely sad. There's no hero in this piece (and if Beatty's character is supposed to be this, then he's just a rather inept man with a gastric problem) and there's no 'civilising' woman either. Furthermore, the requisite, archetypal whore is, in fact, an astute businesswoman. I agree with Roger Ebert's summation of the central relationship as a business partnership and not a romance (hence the titular '&' and not 'and') but this doesn't prevent the film from being saturated with a longing for authentic feeling. Well before the conclusion we know that this need will never be fulfilled as Altman consistently places his characters within an unrelentingly harsh, dirty landscape . In Altman's portrait of frontier life, it's every man for himself but this has nothing to do with the strong individual of Western myth and everything to do with melancholy and loneliness played out to the sounds of Leonard Cohen.

Pretty Persuasion (Marcos Siega. 2005)

My goodness this is a silly film. It is very similar to 'Heathers' in its use of hackneyed characters and its development of themes pertaining to similarities between the cruel world of adolescence and the even crueler world of adulthood. However, instead of sticking with its initial parodic tone, the director decided to tack on an oh-so-serious coda, replete with brooding piano score, at the end which, to my mind, seriously undermined the whole tenor of the narrative up to this point. We know the central character is a shit by the end of the film (which a state of affairs not entirely of her own making...diddums) so we don't need this ludicrous moment of self-realisation. Also, I was intrigued by the introduction of a Muslim character at the beginning until I realised that she had only been inserted into the piece as a benchmark of naivety and finally, extremity....poor, very poor indeed!

Brick. (Rian Johnson. 2005)

I love Film Noir. The more confusing it is, the better. The more beautiful and heinous the female protagonist, the better. The more guns, the better. The more smoking, the better. The more dirty one liners, the better (you get the idea). So I was very excited about seeing this post-modern take on the genre. Set in an American High School with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the surprisingly resilient central hero on the trail of his sweetheart's killer, I was captivated by this from beginning to end. I had read reviews upon the film's release that expressed annoyance at the adolescents' wiser-than-thou repartee and I will admit that the film, true to its generic roots, is hard to follow. To be quite honest, I don't understand these kinds of critics. Don't they want people to make interesting films? And if they thought these loquacious teens were annoying, they obviously have never been subjected to an episode of 'Dawson's Creek'. Anyway, moving on...this isn't your typical post-modern parody because it employs the coordinates of the genre to full effect and doesn't send them up. In fact, I would argue that the whole convention of Noir suits the exploration of the teen experience perfectly: its confusions, its darkness, its melodrama and its fundamental loneliness. It was for this reason that I loved this film. p.s I also really enjoyed the hilarious scene with the Pin's mother and the apple juice (see this film and you'll know what I'm talking about).

The Devils (Ken Russell. 1971)

I am reading Aldous Huxley's book 'The Devils of Loudon', on which this film is based, at the moment so was very intrigued to see what wanton excesses Ken Russell's adaptation of the text would bring. I have equivocal feelings about Russell. I adored 'Women In Love' and I loathed 'Tommy' but it seems that he has a flair for precisely matching content and form in a way few directors can. As a result, I am not sure what I thought of this. I would like to think of it as a serious film about religious devotion and hypocrisy but the sheer flamboyance of Russell's imagery and his drooling, raving protagonists often prevent me from really feeling this. To my mind, this is a film about the power of religious iconography and the sway it can hold over those who are desperate to believe in something. Of course, it's also a film about repression and it seems pertinent in its linking of the religious experience with sex (the testimonies of many saints would confirm this). I don't want to be the sort of person that throws around words like 'tasteless' and 'dissolute' when it comes to discussing Russell as his lack of regard for such notions really seems to be half the point of his stylistic approach anyway. However, when faced with a gaggle of surprisingly good-looking, pert and eager nuns (incidentally, who were all masturbating over images of our Lord, Jesus Christ), the word 'ridiculous' came to mind.

My Life Without Me (Isabel Coixet. 2003)

This is just a beautiful, beautiful, gorgeous piece of cinema. I know nothing about the director or the short story it is based on but it had me mesmerised throughout. The premise for the story is actually a fairly hackneyed one: young mother of two discovers she has but a few months to live and decides not to tell her family. She makes the ubiquitous 'things to do before I die' list (one of which is to sleep with Mark Ruffalo - wise move!) and in a very business like fashion, goes about the business of living. Given this all too familiar storyline, one might expect the film to be maudlin or melodramatic but it's neither of these things. In fact, the main protagonist's life doesn't change that much: she still battles on with her crushingly boring night job as a caretaker at a university, she still takes her kids to school, and she still argues with her bitter mother. In fact, none of her relationships radically alter. What does change is her relationship with her environment. What I found most intriguing about the film was its blend of realism with surrealism (that is heightened realism). The film, after all, is about someone who comes to be aware of every passing moment and sensation and this state of elevated existence is exquisitely rendered through the tactile textures picked up by the camera, the use of heightened sound and the blurring of objectivity and subjectivity. We come to empathise wholly with the central character not because she is dying but because we see the world through her eyes and, as a consequence, are reminded of the little things that really matter.

'Moliere' (Laurent Tirard. 2007)

Set in the 17th Century, ‘Molière’ offers its audience all the lavishness that would be expected of a classy costume romp enacted by a stellar cast (Romain Duris is superb in the lead role). The vast majority of the film depicts events which could have been the catalyst for the eponymous hero’s salubrious career. Through use of literary quotation, visual gags, bedroom farce and sumptuous visual-style, Tirard sets out to flatter, amuse and seduce his audience and at this, in the main, he is adroit. What lets this film down, however, is the clumsy frame narrative that tends to confound rather than enlighten the audience through its skewed chronology, and the completely otiose love story which one suspects may have been tacked on as an afterthought to sadly, only maudlin effect. Like the playwright himself, Tirard is clearly at his best when he sticks to comedy.

Reign Over Me ( Mike Binder. 2007)

I think this just might be the first film to address 9/11 pertinently. Incidentally, that infamous date designating both time and place in our collective consciousness, is not even mentioned until half way through the film. Binder's decision to sift through the bitter remnants of grief outside of the predictable format of the disaster film, is nothing less than audacious. Of course, this is a fictional story and films like 'United 98' and 'The World Trade Centre' have traded on the kudos of realism (the former by adopting documentary techniques, the latter by purporting to include moments of 'actuality'...in the words of Alicia Silverstone in 'Clueless' - 'WHATEVER!') for their emotional (read manipulative / exploitative or downright stupid) effect. Adam Sandler is truly a revelation in this film; his demeanour, reflected through the shallow focus of the camera, is that of a somnambulist who is only half aware of his surroundings. The pain that he cannot channel is manifest in the lugubrious camera movement and the significance of the heavy rock soundtrack that accompanies him where ever he goes so as to smother his grief. The film's triumph is in its lack of condescension. Too often films dealing with mental illness are content to suggest that all bad things must be exorcised and once this is achieved, everything can return to normal. 'Reign Over Me' eviscerates such platitudes of their trite content; in fact, it is only once Sandler's character has confessed, has admitted he once had a family, that his desperate and somewhat vitriolic rage at the world becomes apparent. However, it is Sandler's performance as someone who is clearly ill but intent on 'finding his own way' which ultimately rids this film of any accusation of being emotionally spurious or manipulatively sentimental. Sandler is so delicately poised between a childlike simplicity and unbearable frustration that his performance throws into poor relief those of actors such as Russell Crowe (whose portrait of a mentally ill mathematician left me wondering if he had a particularly virulent case of the nits). There is no tidy answer to the question of how one can even speak of such sadness and Binder acknowledges this with his inchoate conclusion. This films is serious and it is affecting but I'd also like to add that it has veritable moments of humour courtesy of Sandler's character whose special manner of articulation lacks any kind of politically correct filter.

Lights In The Dusk. Aki Kaurismaki. 2006

This is the second film I've seen of Kaurismaki's, the first being, 'Leningrad Cowboys Go To America'. I came upon him because of my unadulterated love of all things Jim Jarmusch who cites him as a major influence (once you've seen the two, the connection is palpable...Jarmusch even plays a dodgy car salesman in 'Leningrad'). This had all the absurdity of 'Leningrad' without any of the sweetness. The central protagonist, Koistinen is a hopeless loner and, if we're being mean, a total loser; he becomes embroiled with a group of Finnish gangsters through his infatuation with their moll, Mirja. The humour is so dry, it's like trying to eat a piece of burnt toast whilst having a severe case of laryngitis. You want to sympathise with Koistinen because he's actually done nothing wrong but he's as apathetic to everything as his environment is to him (Kaurismaki is very picky about which bits of Helsinki he shows his audience...it's not an advert for tourism); in fact, his whole demeanour suggests that trying to work his way out of the spiral of disaster he's involved in is simply too much effort. So, I've made this sound like a depressing hour and a half in the cinema. It's not. Kaurismaki sets up this cinematic world as a piece of absurdist theatre from the get-go. There's barely any camera movement and his signature narrative elipses and inclusion of dead time are all here to remind you that you're just watching a film and this is just a bit of fun. So, why not throw the central character in jail for something he hasn't done and while you're at it, kick him when he's down on his luck? After all, it's just a laugh!

I had read various reviews of this film suggesting that it isn't bleak because the central character never loses his sense of hope (some people can't take it, can they!). Frankly, I think this is rubbish. I don't think Koistinen has any hope to start with and that's precisely what makes him so great and the film so funny. He's never surprised or outraged by anything that happens to him because he doesn't view the world en rose; he is wholly accepting of the repetition, the boredom and banality of everyday life... which leads me to wonder whether Kaurismaki had seen Jarmusch's 'Broken Flowers' before he made this?

Far From The Madding Crowd. John Schlesinger. 1967

This is a really long film (2 hours 40 mins) but I actually enjoyed it immensely and I'm not even a person who is partial to Hardy's special brand of melodrama. I had heard that the acting was not so fantastic and there's certainly nothing I would describe as a tour de force here but I think the gloomy restraint rather suits it. Furthermore, seeing Julie Christie at the height of her 'it' girl fame (replete with purple, Biba-esque eyeshadow) only reinforced how this Bathsheba could capture not only the hearts but also minds (read sanity) of all the men who surround her. So, she may have only been being Julie Christie, but she does it ever so well here. Terence Stamp is truly truly slimy in this (to my mind, he looks like a tacky car salesman)...the montage scene where he demonstrates his prowess with a sword is hilarious (I think Bathsheba is supposed to be so frightened that she's turned on...personally, if some gappy toothed man was waving a sword in my face, I'd tell him he'd missed his chance and that would be the end of it). The most appealing thing about this film is the photography by the commensurate Nicholas Roeg (whose 'Don't Look Now' Julie would appear in later); I don't know where it was shot but it looks like the South Downs to me. Really gorgeous colours abound throughout: pastel springtime shades mixed with the earthy hues of autumn all conveyed through languid panning shots. I think this would be a perfect film for a Sunday afternoon when it's raining outside...there's even a happy ending (who would have thought that of Hardy!)

Fur. Steven Shainberg 2006

‘Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus’ (Steven Shainberg, 2006)


Director Steven Shainberg is no stranger to the weird and arcane, his last feature being 2002’s ‘Secretary’. In, ‘Fur’ he palpates similar territory taking Diane Arbus, the controversial American photographer who has been both pilloried and praised in equal measure, as his subject matter. Unlike other ‘bio-pics’, Shainberg does not purport to give his audience factual accuracy; by focusing on what may have been Arbus’ catalyst for her extraordinary career, he presents the film as a piece of interpretive conjecture from the outset. Dispelling the myth that Arbus was a mere voyeur who exploited the disenfranchised, Shainberg suggests that it was within the abject and marginal that Arbus found her true calling; her sympathy for the freakish and strange is shown to be the result of her peripheral status within middle-class society making her photography an act of kinship and not objectification. Unashamedly pro-Arbus, ‘Fur’ gives us a real insight into the formation of a seminal artist whilst the powerful and emotive performances by Downey, Kidman and Burrell ensure that the film is consistently imaginative rather than ridiculous.

Mutual Appreciation. Andrew Bujalski. 2005

‘Mutual Appreciation’ (Andrew Bujalski, 2005)


Having only just received UK distribution, this may be your first encounter with the work of Bujalski; if so, you have a treat coming to you. ‘Mutual Appreciation’ represents the director’s second foray into the world of filmmaking after his impressive and critically lauded debut, ‘Funny Ha Ha’. Bujalski returns to similar subject matter here: the liminal, disaffected youth of thinking America. All the big existential questions are posed here but, unlike Richard Linklater’s affected and self-conscious philosophising, Bujalski places the quiet, unassuming and sometimes downright inarticulate thinker at the centre of this funny, engaging and unpredictable ménage a trois. It is Bujalski’s penchant for dead time, the sentence that trails off, drunken ramblings, seemingly improvised dialogue and simmering emotion that marks him out as a filmmaker of considerable merit with an aesthetic that hangs somewhere between the French New Wave and the sublime work of John Cassavetes. If you are in any doubt over the state of American independent cinema, you must go and see this film!

The Night Porter. Liliana Cavani. 1973

I think this is a really strange film and it has left me with an equivocal feeling. I don't think I could easily say whether I liked it or not and that's probably a very good thing. Aesthetically, it's dark and lugubrious. It's closer to Visconti's 'Death In Venice' than Bertolucci's 'Last Tango In Paris' (with which it seems to have been frequently compared). I suspect that the comparison with Bertolucci has to do with the subject matter: a sado-masochistic relationship between a Nazi concentration camp guard (Dirk Bogarde) and a young Jewish girl (Charlotte Rampling) is revived after the event to deleterious result. Yet the fascination / disgust with sex seems to have more to do with a Freudian repetitive compulsion than shock value or mere titillation. Half way through the film, I decided that the key to the central relationship was the fact that Bogarde's character is embroiled in a group who refuse to admit any guilt at the same time as knowing they are guilty of perpetuating atrocity on a mass scale; in the context of guilt and denial, his relationship with Rampling's character becomes one of both punishment and a way of working himself out of guilt. In many ways, Rampling's character is the more controversial of the two as she returns to the man who has made her a victim in more ways than one. In the extras, Rampling confesses that it was her character that sat most uncomfortably with contemporary viewers because it was thought that nobody would ever do such a thing...

The film is affecting because it explores the grey area between good and evil which is continually denied.

Mon Dieu

Bonjour,
I am new to the world of blogging and thus a little shy of intrepidly posting the quotidian wears, tears and bores of my life for all to see. I am currently trying to print an academic article on Sofia Coppola's cinematic career to date. My main aim in doing so is to expose the substance below the style and, most importantly, to single-handedly salvage 'Marie Antoinette' from the opprobrius criticism it unduly received...all in a day's work! I've just gotten home from an exceedingly depressing talk given by academics to aspiring academics on the harsh realities of publishing. Given the fact that this talk was held by specialists in the field of Divinity, I can only hope that my article may be of more interest to the world than one written on the gospel accorrding to St. Matthew (unless it's the Pasolini film we are talking about, in which case, I will demur).
I'm probably going to turn this into a little bit of a running commentary on cinema: new film releases, old classics and any gems I may happen upon.
First up tonight is an evening in with 'The Night Porter' starring Charlotte Rampling.