BFI London Film Festival 2014 – Day Nine
And that’s a wrap, I thought about attending the final gala press screening of Fury but c’mon, 9.00am on a Sunday is bloody pushing it for a film being released next Wednesday, not to mention the picture doesn’t particularly appeal to me. So lets mop up a few other films I caught before we take a breather of precisely two days before the BFI Days Of Fear & Wonder begins with my first Southbank Screening – no rest for the wicked indeed;
Have you researched your Latvian slasher movies recently? It’s a miniscule genre with a body count of one, as this is the first ever made. Alas, it was exceptionally unmemorable, and even its austerity theme of the evil oligargs deserving their cruel despatch it lacks any spark of originality or indeed, dread.
Whilst I didn’t see the Festival Surprise Film which they always keep shrouded in immense secrecy I was pleased to see it was Birdman, a project which has been steadily soaring to the lofty peak of expectations. The enormous praise has been unanimous from other festival showings, and although I’ve read some intriguing elements of the film production and construction I’ll keep them quiet for now. The London critics were just as impressed as the TiFF and Venice contingent, so I’m really looking forward to this now.
Restoration is always a pleasure at a festival, alas I missed The Tales Of Hoffman (which truth be told is not one of my favourite Powell & Pressburgers) so I went in a rather different direction with this Chinese Wuxia classic. Like many of my generation I grew watching all the Bruce Lee pictures (The Big Boss, Fists Of Fury, Game Of Death) and some of the early Jackie Chan’s (Snake In The Eagles Shadow, Drunken Master), but generally speaking 1960’s martial art remain something of a blind spot. Review here, and here are my warblings on The Tribe.
My final picture was Jamie Marks Is Dead, which immediately put me in the mind of the 1980’s teen alienation classic Rivers Edge. Although it suffers in comparison his was good though, a little creepy, and again a palpable sense of isolation which seems to be a recurring theme. So that’s that for another year, for the final tally The Tribe, Foxcatcher, Whiplash, Spring and The Duke of Burgundy were the highlights. So now its time to take to the stars, and the good news we have a mission clearance for all eight of the tickets I initially applied for so prepeare for hyperspace etc….
BFI London Film Festival 2014 – Day Seven
Now this is what I’m talking about, a full day of film festival fun, two movies (it would have been three but Xavier Dolan’s Mommy was ‘sold out’ by the time I got there) and another press conference, all cantering around this jazzy little number;
Fantastic movie, pure and simple. Incredible, committed performances, evasion of the expected mentor/pupil genre traps (the film has a Sundance rather than say a Warner Spotlight vibe) and a narrative which fulfils its emotional waypoints. Just to join the choir on stating the bleedin’ obvious but J.K. Simmons is 100% an absolute lock for a Best Supporting Actor nomination, and he was quite the charmer at the post screening press conference over at the Mayfair Hotel;
So just about enough time to wolf down a sandwich before tearing the pavement up back to Shaftsbury Avenue for the second screening of the day, Greg Araki’s hard edged fairy tale White Bird In A Blizzard;
This was an unexpected treat, I’m glad I took a risk as other options were on the menu. It’s no masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but as a well baked blend of Douglas Sirk and John Hughes it works as a coming-of-age tale within an eerie mystery. After her turn in The Descendants and a reasonable anchor in the mediocre Divergent franchise Shailene Woodley is going from strength to strength, and if nothing else the film has a period specific soundtrack – 1988 to 1991 – which seems to have been directly culled from I and my mates playlists of that period; The Jesus & Mary Chain, Echo & The Bunnymen, New Order, The Cure, Depeche Mode and most esoterically This Mortal Coil. Twice.
BFI London Film Festival 2014 – Day Five
Another hilariously early start for Day Five, but hey if Reese Witherspoon can walk unaided for 1,000 miles then I can brave another rain-swept rush-hour to support her in such an endearing endeavour;
This is Jean-Marc Vallée’s directorial follow-up to Dallas Buyers Club and while he does have a talent with focusing and examining a central characters flaws and foibles, of people being irrevocably changed by extreme extenuating circumstances the film is rather flat as it meanders through all the expected trials and tribulations that you’d expect – wildlife, exhaustion, unexpected succor and threats. Still, here’s the press conference;
Regrettably, deeply regrettably in fact I had to skip the anticipated screening of Leviathan as other non-movie priorities reared their ugly head. This is the biggest miss of the festival so far as I was really looking forward to a dense, international art house themed drama for some reason, the only consolidation being I’m sure it will get a limited release outside the festival in the new year.
BFI London Film Festival 2014 – Day Four
Another one of the best things about a film festival screenings is the lack of extraneous nonsense when you actually get into the theatre, otherwise known as adverts and trailers. Now don’t get me wrong, I love a well constructed, enticing trailer as much as the next cine nerd, but they’re just so damn full of spoilers and outline the entire premise of a movie these days it’s really best to expose yourself to one viewing, and making up your mind to see the picture or not from there. At LFF screenings its straight into the action, which makes for a more continent experience. Today started with a little more international action;
This was a gentle and affecting little comedy drama, although I’m not so sure the ‘weight of one’s love’ metaphor managed to squeeze through the mild mannered artifice. The movie has been selected for Norway’s Best Foreign Language Oscar which should earn a well deserved wider audience. Speaking of a man with a wide audience, here’s John Stewart’s directorial debut;
I’m not quite sure what to make of this, I think I liked it even if was preaching to the choir of fellow left of centre communist agitating libruls such as yours truly. Here is Jon Stewart on the red carpet which provide more texture;
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Day 12 Slavoj Žižek Interview & Q&A
And we’re done. My final day at this years festival was one of the highlights of the year, I bused it over to the Hackney Picturehouse to indulge in a discussion and Q&A with the worlds leading rock n roll philosopher Slavoj Žižek. He’s in town to promote The Perverts Guide To Ideology, the ‘sequel’ to 2005’s The Perverts Guide To Cinema, both directed by Sophie Fiennes (who was in the audience) they provide a brilliantly executed stage for Zizek to explore his critical theories on cinema and society, psychoanalysis and cultural studies, all through the prism of cinema’s hidden political codes and sigils, iconography and meanings. I’m a big fan of Zizek, he is unquestionably one of the great minds currently expounding on the art form, here are some articles which may tickle your fancy. I saw The Perverts Guide To Ideology earlier in the week and it is fantastic, probably the ‘serious’ cineastes film event of the year, in a similar way to Mark Cousins The Story of Film was for 2011 if that makes sense. There’s no clips or trailer yet so here is a quite glimpse of the preceding essay;
This event wasn’t so much hosted by Film 2012’s Danny Leigh as it was him asking a question and scurrying away from the circumference of the blast radius, for example his opening query on The Dark Knight and Žižek’s assertion that the entire film shows authority and the architecture of the state all posited on a lie and untruths, to which our bearded VIP made an unhesitating ten minute answer ranging from Nixon in China to West Side Story, from the Regan administration to the Israeli and Palestinian conflict pivoting on water rights, from The Sound Of Music to Brechtian theatre techniques – he is quite the orator as you can see here, skip to 11:10 if you wanna get past the intro;
Anyone who starts their thesis with this clip from They Live is bound to working in Minty’s favour, and some of his assertions and observations were stone cold brilliant, from his love of that scene detailing a working class drifter finally becoming aware of class battles and how it has to be a deliberately painful and protracted breaking of the shackles of false consciousness, or his thoughts about the Hollywood catastrophe film are always arranged around a Oedipal order, of how in Armageddon the rogue asteroid is in fact Bruce Willis unchecked libido destroying the world as he objects to Ben Afflecks fucking his daughter Liv Tyler as a violation of his patriarchal order – well I thought that was funny. In the film essay he also makes the brilliant point that we, as a society, are perfectly conditioned to enjoy and revel in spectacles of destruction, of planet annihilation events such as plagues, alien invasions of catastrophic natural disasters, but we cannot and do not let films exist where even a slight change in the distribution of wealth in society, of a more egalitarian sharing of resources and money is never explored, as these texts simply don’t exist – and why is that?
Many people reject this sort of material as pseudo intellectual academic pretentious art-wank and maybe they have a point, I think its fascinating but that’s just me. He also remarked that he likes to play a game with his fellow academics such as Frederic Jameson where they take a neglected or inferior Hitchcock film and argue that it is a misunderstood masterpiece – Jameson opting for Stage Fright, he for Under Capricorn – simply as a critical theory brain exercise. I’ll bet they are great fun at parties too…..
So that’s another LFF done, my most ambitious coverage yet, in terms of recommendations then I must highlight Amour, Argo, West of Memphis and probably Seven Psychopaths, for the more discerning viewer I can also offer Dreams For Sale, Compliance and Helter Skelter. I’ve still got one more review to scribe and I can rest. Well, apart from tomorrows Rust & Bone screening. Oh, and that Holy Motors review isn’t going to write itself. And The Master is out soon and I’ve got to see Beasts Of The Southern Wild this week. I should also see Skyfall as that will be one of the years big films. Then there’s the two horror classics early next month………
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Day 11 Screen Talk: Viggo Mortensen
My penultimate day at the LFF contained my second special event highlight, a screen talk with Aragorn son of Arathorn, widely considered as one of the most dedicated and talented actors currently drawing breath. Compered with superb skill by Jason Solomons, one of the Observer’s film critics Viggo was as studiously serious as his reputation suggests, but also quite relaxed and self-deprecating at times, in a very amusing and informative and lengthy discussion – we had over two hours in his company which is much longer than these events usually last. He was in town for a passing visit to promote his recent film Everybody Has A Plan which I didn’t see, it has been getting some strong praise so keep an eye out once this arrives next April, trailer here;
But you wanna hear about Lord Of The Rings don’t you? Well of course this was discussed, Viggo making an interesting about how he altered his speech, language and tone throughout the trilogy as the character alters from a lowly renegade into the king of men of Middle Earth, no easy task when the film is shot completely out of sequence. I should also mention there was also something of a scoop as he remarked that he’s not in the Hobbit films, so that speculation about the connecting tissue of the three films leading into LOTR will not feature Aragorn searching for Gollum as some have speculated, so I’m off to the OneRing.net forums to ruin some people’s Sunday – not really…..
Have you heard that lovely story about what a cool chap he is? As the LOTR production wrapped up his personal horse wrangler and he had pretty much developed a loving bond with his horse throughout the production, she scrimped and saved to buy the animal on her meagre wages as the production developed. Once the films wrapped she made enquiries and was devastated to hear that the animal had already been purchased by someone higher than her in the pecking order – Well you can probably see where this is going – as yes Viggo had brought the beast and presented it to her as a gift for all her hard work – all together now aahhhh…..
His work with Cronenberg was also dissected, Viggo explaining how he researches his characters through geography and good old-fashioned books, and the intimations of speech, accent, body language and costume are constructed before he arrives on set, only for the smallest intimations to be ignored by some directors but creatives of the calibre of Cronenberg focus in on those facets, they are not expelled in the editing process which is why he has cheerfully worked with him three times to date. There was one cool anecdote, as he travelled around Russia as part of his preparation for Eastern Promises he remarked that although the newly achieved fame resulted in him being accosted in the street this was not the case in the Soviet Union, and he went through a method road trip through the enormous vistas of that vast country, and only when he was checking out of his final hotel before flying back to London to begin shooting a young boy recognised him, with a shell-shocked gasp silent pointing the boy mouthed ‘It’s Aragorn’ to which he responded with a cheeky finger to his mouth and a ‘ssshhh’ before fleeing the hotel.
Alas all the speculation about an Eastern Promises sequel is just that, there is no script and no plans at the moment. Anyway, he was a charming and charismatic dude and this was a great Q&A, a worthy addition to this years festival, we have one more post to go so here’s the penultimate round-up;
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Day 10
First things first, alas today didn’t get off to the best of starts as I slept through my alarm and failed to catch Sightseers, I’m not particularly irked at this as we slowly begin to wind down the coverage as I recovered the day by finally catching Holy Motors which I’ll be reviewing early next week, and a throughly entertaining Q&A event at the BFI which I’ll be covering tomorrow. The final push has unearthed some real achievements amongst the more obvious American material such as Argo which I throughly enjoyed;
Here is some background on Compliance, one of the more controversial titles of this years programme;
And here is the usual daily update – only two days to go;
BFI London Film Festival – Day 9
As a new tranche of reviews is published we enter the final stretch, just three days to go. Here’s a peek at today’s agenda, alas no trailer seems to have been constructed so we’ll have to make do with the lunatic himself;
Tomorrow is more hectic, with a full day of activity, heck I’m even taking in a non LFF screening just to catch up with some other material before it leaves screens. A 9:30am start with this should be an interesting start to the day;
And finally the usual daily round-up;
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Day 8
A quick update this morning as the clock is against me, firstly here’s that Seven Psychopaths trailer again;
I recommend Zaytoun, it’s not the greatest film ever made but it achieves its modest ambitions, and even the presence of a Hollywood star doesn’t disrupt the project as some nauseating vanity piece, Dorff is actually quite good with a convincing accent and attitude;
And finally yesterdays festival round-up for your perusal;
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Day 7
What was that about taking a couple of days off? Well, as I successfully got through all my chores and managed to power through all four outstanding reviews yesterday I thought I’d take another look at the schedule, thank god I did as I misread some of the timings and had to sacrifice another lie-in to go and catch Argo this morning in Leicester Square. Luckily it was worth the sacrifice as this is a terrific film, one of the higher calibre Hollywood releases of the year, give it a chance when it opens in a couple of months. I have managed to hunt down some further LFF related material to keep things progressing, firstly here is some further background to the Stone Roses coming of age tribute Spike Island;
Truth be told I think I was a little lenient with my review due to the deceptions of rose-tinted nostalgia, but that soundtrack just won me over. Here’s a glimpse at an event which I didn’t attend, looks like it was fascinating;
I cannot stress how terrific West Of Memphis is, the best documentary of the year so far, a just unbelievable perversion of justice with some incredible twists and turns to the non-fiction rollercoaster;
And finally below is the usual daily round-up. Back into the fray tomorrow with the bound to be immensely popular press screening of Seven Psychopaths…
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Day 6
I’m taking a couple of rest days gentle reader, after another full itinerary yesterday I need a breather before the madness starts again on Thursday, with back to back activities straight on through to the festivals close on Sunday. I’ve scoured the programme for the next two days and nothing tickles my fancy, plus although it might be hard to believe I do have a life outside movies and some chores and admin needs to get done, and I could do with a solid day to power through the backlog of reviews before the madness begins again on Thursday. Yesterday was another hectic schedule, starting with an early morning screening of this in the plush environs of the Odeon Leicester Square;
It’s always quite odd being around Soho and Leicester Square that early in the morning, when you haven’t been out all night on a clubbing bender. Anyway, this was solid filmmaking, taking a deeply ludicrous proposition and making it believable, which of course is all the remarkable as it was based on true story. Then it was over to the Empire Leicester Square for a press conference on a directorial debut Quartet, a film which I haven’t seen nor have I any interest in seeing until it hits DVD, but the prospect of seeing Mr. Hoffman in the flesh was too tempting to avoid;
He was quite avuncular, particularly when taking down an annoying person who has been haunting the press brigade with her stupid observations and inaccurate opinions, but being the model of discretion I’ll just leave that here. Anyway, it was quite odd seeing the likes of Billy Connolly and Maggie Smith up there as well, I’m not one for getting for starstruck but it is sometimes a bit surreal seeing these people you’ve seen in countless films over the years sitting in front of you, without the transparent interference of a TV or cinema screen, and what with The Graduate being one of my favourite films it was cool to see Dusty in the flesh. Finally I caught this;
An interesting, eeriely crafted Twilight Zone type tale is set up and develops nicely, alas it kinda falls apart at the end but to be fair they kinda wrote themselves into a place with the metaphorical nature of the story. Still, enjoyed it though, and it was my first visit to the Soho House screening room which was also fun….
Some new reviews have gone up, as you can see here.
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Day 5 Screen Talk: Marion Cotillard
The first of my three special events to commemorate this years London Film Festival, I popped over to the Southbank for a screen talk with one of the worlds finest actresses, the Parisian belle Marion Cotillard. Hosted by veteran film critic Jonathan Romney this was one of the more successful of these events I’ve attended, she’s obviously in town to help promote the increasingly excellent looking Rust & Bone, alas I missed last weeks press screening due to circumstances beyond my control but I have managed to get tickets for a preview before it gets its general release on November 2nd. Anyway, here’s some of the footage of the discussion amongst the usual daily update;
She was quite a bubbly and forthcoming character once she got into her stride, Romney skipping over her ascending career with consummate skill, so here’s a few highlights;
A Very Long Engagement was the brief role that garnered her international attention after a modest part in Tim Burton’s Big Fish – can’t say I remember her at all in that – despite a mere eight minutes of screen time as a memorable Femme Fatale in one of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s more overlooked films.
Then of course there was her Oscar-winning role as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose, a film I admired but never really connected with, I guess due to Piaf being an enormous cultural figure in France which potentially lost its legendary status when it crossed the channel. She confessed it still remains her most daunting and challenging role, playing an icon in her native France, so she simply tried her best not to dwell on the pressure and just got on with the work, immersing herself in the music and all available footage of Piaf, as a potential starting point from which her performance could springboard into reality.
With superstardom assured she was offered bigger parts in Hollywood pictures, she didn’t really discuss Michael Mann other than a passing comment on what a committed and personally driven director he is, in stark contrast with some filmmakers who remained nameless where she loathed being on set, unable to deliver the goods as she didn’t feel as if she was in a nurturing bubble when the director has to feel that the movie is ‘life or death’. She was a bit of a tease when talking about a major project that she was offered but rejected after meeting the helmsman, unable to reach a semblance of communication as all the director could talk about was costume and storyboards when she needs to delve into character and their internal life, I wonder who she was referencing?
Her work as one of the muses of Christopher Nolan was discussed, she explained although you’re at the centre of an enormously expensive super-production Nolan cultivates a ‘student film’ environment on set, working very closely and affectionately with his core actors and crew. She was also quite funny about the still discussed ambient ending of Inception, as her copy of the script didn’t have the final scene included for secrecy’s sake, thus the first time she saw it she was as bewildered and intrigued as the rest of us ordinary punters.
Curiously she cited none other than Jonah Hill and Will Ferrell as two talents she would love to work with, she desperately wants to try her hand at a comedy which is notoriously more difficult than it appears, but before that she’s got two New York set pictures in the pipeline that should hit multiplexes next year. So that’s that, a good start to the side events away from the screenings, the next one is next weekend but we have a few more movies to tackle before we get into that….
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Day 4
Another day, another dollar, here’s some general movie material that has been floating around over the past few days, and some video material relating to a couple of the LFF films I’ve caught. First up, Mika Ninagawa on her film Helter Skelter;
With excitement building for a new Tarantino, opening on Christmas Day in the States, this is amusingly significant. Here’s the crew behind Robot & Frank;
‘Best Of’ lists are always guaranteed to inspire feverish discussion, and the Onion’s AV clubs excellent ‘Best Films of The Nineties‘ is a fine selection, and they even got No.1 correct. And finally the usual daily LFF round-up;
Now I’m off to the BFI for a Q&A with the delectable Marion Cotillard……
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Day 3
I’m taking it easy today with one matinée screening to kill some time before a friends 40th birthday celebrations over in Mayfair – should be fun. I recently caught director Pablo Larrain’s previous politically unusual Argentinian drama Tony Manero which……well if you’ve seen it I think you’d agree it was quite memorable for that scene. Anyway, here’s a trailer for his new film, which is in competition for the Best Picture prize;
Here’s some promotional blurb on the ‘cult’ strand of the festival, I’ve caught a couple of these already;
And finally here’s a round-up of day three’s activities;
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Day 2
Well, that was a much more successful enterprise than much of the past few days LFF activities, two solid three-to-four star films at the BFI with the surprise guest appearance of the director for the second film, better than the advert for the festival which I think is horrible;
Urgh, who thought that concept up? I can see who it ties in with the groupings of strands this year but really….
The first dish was Takashi Miike’s violent romantic comedy delinquent musical film, if anyone needs an award for genre bending this year then this is the man. Terrifically funny, amusingly violent and deliriously made, this is up there with the top half-dozen LFF films I’ve seen so far. In fact, the Asian films are of a consistently high standard this year now that I think of it…..
The second film was Helter Skelter, an effective and startlingly filmed satire on the contemporary Tokyo fashion and celebrity scene, it was far too long at over two hours but superbly crafted, and director Mika Ninagawa popped up on stage after the screening for an illuminating Q&A afterward. Now, can someone please explain to me the mindset of the two selfish idiots who decided to talk through the first forty-five minutes of the film, sitting next to me, when everyone else was silent? Why do you feel the need to discuss everything that is happening on-screen with your friend? Are you stupid? Blind? So lacking in self-awareness that what with a capacity sold-out crowd filling the rest of the auditorium it didn’t strike you as being a little rude to the people who had also brought tickets and wanted to enjoy the film in silence? I had to intervene as they were right next to me, it was an embarrassing moment for everyone, but it had to be done…..
Anyway, I’d best crack on with my full reviews – speaking of which a new tranche of material has just been uploaded here – alas due to circumstances beyond my control I’ve had to skip both Wajida and Rust & Bone, but I have got tickets to that on the 23rd which is a week before it gets its full UK release. Just one movie tomorrow and a special event on Sunday, before we get back into it with another full day of screenings and a press conference on Monday, should be fun to see Rainman in the flesh…
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Opening Gala
And we’re off, nice carpet, shame about the film – review due soon;
Thankfully the palette was cleansed by the obliterating Amour which is one of the strongest films of the year, utterly devastating;
So I have now stood in the same room as Martin Short, my life is complete;
Two slices of Japanese lunacy tomorrow, should be fun….
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Room 237 (2012)
Finally this ugly little documentary gets a trailer, you can catch my review here;
I also recently posted this horror fans….
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962) – 50th Anniversary Restoration Screening
We can blame this one on Ebert, especially when he makes such eloquent claims as ‘As for ”Lawrence,” after its glorious re-release in 70mm in 1989, it has returned again to video, where it crouches inside its box like a tall man in a low room. You can view it on video and get an idea of its story and a hint of its majesty, but to get the feeling of Lean’s masterpiece you need to somehow, somewhere, see it in 70mm on a big screen. This experience is on the short list of things that must be done during the lifetime of every lover of film.’ – well challenge accepted Mr. Ebert, as the new 50th anniversary digital restoration screens under the ‘Treasures’ strand of this years London Film Festival, I finally concur that it is a phenomenal experience and I say that as someone who was not previously enamoured with director David Lean’s most critically adored picture. In the late Fifties and early Sixties Hollywood fought back against the increasing erosion of their audience glued to the Television, tempting punters back to the picture houses with a series of expansive and epic attuned films, utilising the big budget resources and luscious canvasses that Technicolor and numerous widescreen ratios could offer, with opulent run-times and all-star casts that their younger audiovisual brother simply couldn’t offer. These films were interminably successful, and a strong case can be made for Arabia being the absolute apotheosis of the sub-genre, before a final gasp of bloated failures such as Cleopatra and The Fall Of The Roman Empire signalled the death knell of the movement, just before a gang of unruly young Turks upended studio product with a new maturity of style and subject matter in the following decade. In that light Lawrence of Arabia may seem a document of the past, a film superseded by subsequent movements and affectations of the art and craft of cinema, but of course like the films central mystery the truth is never that simple, as even the most cursory viewing of this lengthy yet rewarding historical essay finds its current echoes in the work of the wheezing Hollywood blockbuster, with Scorsese, Lucas and Spielberg, perhaps more contemporarily Jackson and his sojourns to Middle Earth bathing in fable making of a courageous tread, with a central character the fulcrum of a passionate and self-absorbed bend.
Pastoral England, a few years shy of the invasion of Poland and the inferno of the World War II, and a blonde coffered motorbike rider careers from the road, his eye goggles captured in the twisting arms of indigenous tree – like many great bio-pics the film begins with the titular characters demise. Cut to St. Paul’s Cathedral and a number of dignitaries and establishment figures are exiting a funeral service, passing opinion on the relative merits of the newly enshrined figure of Colonel T.E Lawrence (Peter O’Toole in his first starring role) being rewarded with the highest honour of the state, weaving a tapestry of thoughts and snapshot recollections that begins an epic investigation into the intersection of man, myth, truth and legend. Rewinding twenty years to the midst of the First World War and Lawrence is a lonely, idiosyncratic army officer languishing in a Cairo desk station, suddenly enlisted to the Arabian bureau he is tasked with assessing the intentions and strengths of Prince Feisal (a languid Alec Guinness), one of the principal leaders of the diverse and diffused Bedouin tribes that populate this scorching fulcrum of feuding conflict. Lawrence departs on a visionary journey to unite the myriad Arabian factions against the Axis aligned Turkey, embedding himself in their hearts and minds through his smouldering courage and adoption of culture and traditions, an Englishman abroad whose honour and loyalty begins to undergo a mortal realignment under the unforgiving, incendiary blazing sun.
Wow. Just….wow. Consider me newly converted to the legion of Lean, as a previous kafir I have admired his films from afar through infrequent small screen viewings but just to state the absolute bleeding obvious, on the big-screen this is an entirely different, molten and mordacious trial by sol. Cinematographer Freddie Young, ably assisted by no less than Nick Roeg on second unit duties capture the unyielding and vast widescreen vistas which are undeniably breathtaking, Lean instructively populating his canvass with constant visual activity across the dense visual planes, when the scale is this expansive your eye is drawn across the screen to identify numerous instructive elements, with the wide-shots frozen in a confident grip that you simply don’t experience these days. Even when moving to interiors the drama plays out in tempo without constant cutting to close-ups and shot reverse / shots, it lets the drama breathe and incrementally builds an expansive tableaux, a tale that takes its time to rise which is watered and nurtured to build a world with a fascinating central character, a mere mortal whose drives are difficult to divulge and disassemble, as Lawrence’s odyssey boils beneath that scorching, centrifugal star.
An obvious choice maybe but this is pure cinema, expansive and illusory, a mirage shielded dense black dot on the horizon heralding Lawrence’s absorption into his new milieu, it’s curious then that Lean lets this sequence play without incidental sound to signal the drama, as Maurice Jarre’s sweeping score complements future activity in the silent, antiseptic thundering cauldron of the Middle East, those impossibly vast oceans of implacable desert. Furthermore the match-cuts are brilliantly attuned to build the parched atmosphere, the only faint problem with the glorious restoration and consequent acuity of picture quality detailing the obvious make-up affectations on the likes of Anthony Quinn and Jack Hawkins – alas those prosthetic augmentations are maybe a little too obvious when viewed in the digitally enhanced 21st century.
Those technological advances may erode some elements but the half century vintage yields other obscured treasures, just to risk another entry in the grumpy old man canon they don’t make them like this anymore, with teeming hordes screaming into battle of a physical and genuine appearance, the combat sequences of the frenzied djinn hurtling into battle actually occurred independent of SFX augmentation in situ and in-camera, and the resulting effect is all the more impressive and awe-inspiring for its tangible, tempestuous scope and breadth. The supporting cast of British character actor legends – the aforementioned Hawkins and Guinness, Anthony Quayle and Arthur Kennedy – well I’m a sucker for snobbish, imperious establishment idols, even as like Michael Powell before him Lean treats them with the deprecating disdain that they throughly deserve. That said for me the slippery politico Claude Rains gets all the best lines, his unseen, malevolent behind-the-scenes maneuverings giving the drama a historical edge that is as relevant today as it was in 1962.
The film is much more complicated than I previously gave it credit, to my shame I tend to dismiss these films as engineered with more visual power than submerged substance, with Peter O’ Toole’s nuanced performance serving as an implacable obstacle, you can see what the android David in Prometheus* saw in his puzzling and precocious take on the indefatigable human instinct for glory and immortality. I loved the scenes where Lawrence almost divines with the desert in order to invoke the solutions to his strategic knots which can be spliced in numerous ways, as he gravitates from civilised genteel to blood-thirsty warrior over the orbit of the film, shrouded in uncertainty and abused by conflicting moral and immortal temptations, it is a powerful deconstruction of heroic myth that remains elusive and intangible, like Lawrence’s impenetrable shadow blazing across the desert in some of the films more enigmatic fragments. I return again to the obvious yet essential word ‘epic’ to define this historically engrossing and emolliating experience throughout its near four-hour restoration duration, alas it is still a film with a current revelance, one needs only to tune into BBC News or CNN to see the deteriorating situation between Ankara and Damascus playing again like some historical glitch in the cradle of our fragile civilisation. Simply and succinctly put, Lawrence of Arabia is a timeless, amaranthine masterpiece;
* A mild genius came up with the following observation on one of my favourite movie podcasts, to paraphrase – ‘Hey, shouldn’t Peter O’Toole have played the aged Weyland in that abortion of a film, as opposed to the ludicrously and unnecessarily made up Guy Pearce? Now that would have been interesting…..
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Press Launch
Right let’s get started, my reviews have started trickling through here. Caught a distinctively average body horror today and a full days schedule is on the cards tomorrow, including Spike Island, a comedy musical thing concerning the legendary Stone Roses gig and the full three and three-quarter hour restoration cut of Lawrence Of Arabia – there will be lots of coffee. And sand.
Next week is also gonna be hectic, with Wednesday in particular looking fairly gruelling – Frankenweenie, the first ever Saudi Arabian film directed by a woman, and Haneke’s Cannes winner Amour – bring it on…..
BFI London Film Festival 2012 – Menagerie’s Schedule
Although I’ve got reviews stacking up like London buses – just got back from catching Dredd and that was a much more gritty, faithful and exploitation fuelled fragment of fun than I was expecting – it’s Friday Saturday and I’m not really in the mental zone for constructing full reviews at the moment. I’ll get busy with those over the next few days but in the interim I’ve been perusing this years London Film Festival programme after a members sneak peek on Thursday, and I’m slowly drawing together my plans to assault this enormous, multifaceted beast. Holistically I can’t say I’m blown away by this year programme, I’m probably being an irrelevant idiot as I know nothing of the complexities in arranging a ten-day, 255 film showcase that screens over a dozen sites in a hectic European capital, but there really isn’t one must-see (OK, maybe there is one that I’ll get too) event this year, and I am particularly irked at the lack of The Master but here we are. As usual with the LFF the opening and closing gala films leave me cold, but for the first time in a while neither do the revivals (Polanski’s Tess? Hmph, Lawrence Of Arabia? Lean has always left me a little cold) whilst the Q&A’s only have a last-minute addition of Marion Cotillard which tickles my fancy. But this is not just for me, (well dur obviously), and there are a few things which look like they may be worth a punt, judging by early reports from Cannes, Toronto and Venice.
So here is what I’m aiming for, mostly depending on two duplicate urges – the necessity to cluster screenings around the two October weekends as who knows what my employment situation will be come October and the rather more pressing matter of limited purse strings. I’ve already spent a fair whack of change over the past few weeks on what is approaching fifteen Hitchcock screenings so I need to be a little more careful, thus I’ve left a duo of major films to chance – namely Rust & Bone and Amour – to the vagaries of press screenings (assuming I get accreditation, nothing is certain) as I simply have to draw the line somewhere. I hope to programme catching those essentials alongside full days of back to back press days alongside material I would never normally be exposed to, as that for me is the whole point of the festival, to absorb movies as almost blind dates, hoping to be seduced and enthralled as has been the case with Oslo August 31st , La Quattro Volte or Amigo over the past few years, just to name a few. So here is this year’s modest and reduced battle plan of the essentials, declared on September 13th when members booking opens;
Seven Psychopaths – Looks like fun to me with that cast, that attitude, that demolition of genre paradigms, I just hope it can equal the fun and frivolity of In Bruges without descending into tiresome machinations at the expense of a genuine coherent whole.
Beasts Of The Southern Wild – Early skim read reports are good, one of our Melbourne correspondents have reported back in the positive, I’ve avoided all reviews and should enjoy going in cold with that odd, faintly magical trailer.
Room 237 – Will they ever produce a goddamn trailer for this? Evidently not. In any case a documentary on a Kubrick film? I think this might just be essential Menagerie fare, although I’m getting increasingly incensed at the hijacking of Stan’s work and legacy by the mentally ill, conspiracy theory brigade. A must see, nevertheless.
Compliance – The ‘dark’ film of the festival, based on real events, the Milgram experiment writ large in uncomfortable surroundings. This has attracted a lot of controversy and walk outs during North American screenings, thus I’m intrigued. Professional help etc….
Helter Skelter – I love Japanese cinema so this is pure experimentation on my part, I know nothing of its background, the filmmakers behind it or its relative merits beyond that trailer, but it should nicely dovetail into the following…..
For Loves Sake – Showing directly after Helter Skelter at the NFT1 I figured this could be quite the amusingly strange Japanese double bill, as Miike is always worth a few hours of my time.
West Of Memphis – I do like to mix things up with some non-fiction material, and this very odd case of misplaced justice and horrendous incarceration has generated a couple of competing documentary accounts, including this from Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, whilst the original treatment inducted a long battle for the unravelling of the truth.
Argo – Something a little more mainstream, like many I’ve heard of the tale of the crazy 1970’s CIA plot to rescue US embassy Iranian Revolution hostage victims under the cloak of a Hollywood production when it was published in the US media some years ago, and obviously the film angle made it immediately fascinating. Early reports suggest the movie is schlocky and fun, sounds good to me.
The Perverts Guide To Ideology – Zizek? Nuff said. His follow-up to the Perverts Guide To Cinema is my unique must see, alongside a Q&A at the Hackney Picture House which is my only essential event of the festival – looks like lashings of Kubrick, Nazi’s, The Dark Knight and They Live – fucking sold. Fingers crossed for getting tickets to this one which I’m sure will be neurotically popular.
It goes without saying I will also be looking to catch Sightseers, Wadjda, and for illusory reasons John Dies At The End, but these will all be at the mercy of my employment situation and those unpredictable press screening timings. So I guess I’d best get cracking on the outstanding reviews, and exhaustingly slot in a screen of Lawless, a film which fills me with little more than some odd obligation to honour Nick Cave and John Hillcoat rather than any genuine interest in the material, plus I have quite an unusual screening scheduled for early next week, a rare Soviet antidote to all this money-grubbing idolatry – nostrovia.
LFF#12 Into The Abyss
In the context of the capital punishment debate the name ‘Perry’ invokes memories of Truman Capote’s novella In Cold Blood, the acclaimed 1966 meld of journalism and literature which covered the brutal execution of the Clutter family at the hands of two criminal drifters Richard Hickcock and Perry Smith, both of whom went to the gallows three years later on a frigid and wintry November morning. In his latest documentary Werner Herzog treads similar ground to Capote with his latest documentary Into The Abyss, an autopsy of the state execution of Michael Perry, a death row denizen convicted of a horrific triple homicide in Conroe, Texas. Along with his possible accomplice Jason Burkett (who managed to get his conviction reduced to a life sentence) both individuals deny their primary involvement in the horrendous crime, apparently committed in order to steal a car from the home of a middle class family in a local gated community. After the woman of the house was shot dead the duo then kidnapped the families teenage son and his friend as they exited the enclave, as potential whistleblowers they were led into some undergrowth some miles from the original killing before being executed by moonlight, their uninterred bodies discovered some days later by a local dog-walker. Where Capote almost seemed to sympathize with his subject, fostering a sense of empathy with Hickcock and more importantly Smith and his traumatized upbringing Herzog takes a distanced approach and lets the facts speak for themselves, opting for an almost sociological view of the criminals and the emotional fallout suffered by the victims surviving relatives, an appreciation of criminality as a societal product spawned by economic and cultural conditions, rather than any notion of an intrinsic set of skewed morals or an evil disposition.
It’s an interesting approach which unfortunately doesn’t quite gel and the film loses significant focus as it progresses, with a muddled ideology that is difficult to ascertain other than the universally accepted (well, apart from the spittle flecked right-wing mentalists) truth that the death penalty is morally repugnant, that it does nothing in the way of deterrence, that is based on some questionable notion of state sanctioned revenge and the prospect of innocents being killed through corrupt or warped convictions surely disintegrates any claim for advocacy by any reasonable minded adult. After the criminal scenario is established through the documentarian interviews of talking heads of the victims extended families and a visit to the scene of the crimes (including some eerie police footage of the domicile with lights and TV blazing 48 hrs after the killing, like some domestic Marie Celeste) Herzog seems uncertain in what he’s trying to achieve with this piece, and the result is somewhat muddied and perplexing. Like some sort of bizarro world sniffer dog his ability to divine the oddballs of the world are present and correct, in this case the unusual phenomenon of the women who fall in love with death row prisoners, or the sister of one of the victims who reels off a litany of death, suicide, fatal health conditions and accidents which have struck down just about everyone in her extended family, or perhaps most arrestingly the former death row warden turned campaigner against the process in one of the films more moving sequences are all intriguing and memorable characters, but these are the only scattered highlights in a rather lacklustre, scattershot affair. The differing recollections of Perry and Burkett of what actually occurred is not satisfactorily investigated, and a balanced debate from those whom support the penalty is severely lacking (I think you have to let people air these odious and incorrect views so they can be properly discredited), with such a potent and emotive subject matter you’d expect a far more involving and moving result which is sadly not the case. Herzog touches on the notion of a cycle of incarceration and poverty potentially being passed from father to son, a sort of poisonous genetic curse which is worthy of debate but not fully exhumed, even as we slowly learn the family background of Burkett (whose father is serving a life sentence for drug dealing and violence) you realise his chances were somewhat compromised, yet the elements of free will, of choice or any sort moral precepts are not activated in what you’d expect from Herzog’s usual robust intellectual flair. A mis-fire then in relation to some of his recent non-fiction – if you haven’t seen Cave Of Forgotten Dreams yet then you need to treat yourself – but then again it won the best LFF documentary prize so I clearly don’t know what I’m talking about;
Phew, so that’s the LFF for another year. It’s taken me much longer than anticipated to finish off these reviews, in my defence you try delivering the most successful business conference in the region whilst being in the midst of re-profiling your £7 million EU programme in a fraction of the time required for such complexity whilst maintaining your sanity, as well as beginning to plan for numerous other developments you can see approaching on the horizon. Still, I managed fourteen films which translates roughly into a film a day, and I think I managed a good spread of material from the indie and mainstream US sectors, to the European fare, from a couple of documentaries to the highest quality indigenous UK offerings, including the likes of Shame, Kevin and my personal favourite Martha Marcy which will represented somewhere in the films of the year that I’m starting to put together.
LFF#11 A Dangerous Method
When judged against his peers over recent years Canadian horror maestro David Cronenberg is the film maker who has undergone the most compelling metamorphosis. Where George Romero has suffered in a shambling quagmire offering increasingly putrid returns, where Wes Craven’s chutzpah seems to have been slashed to pieces in an expired franchise, where John Carpenter seems to have hung up his monocle and is content to cash cheques from the increasingly inferior remakes of his works only Cronenberg seems to have evolved in an autumn period of work that has sublimated the flesh and the fury for the psychological study, delving into the minds of his subjects rather than spilling their guts, with a cast list of many of the more daring and dangerous actors of the era.
In his latest film A Dangerous Method the origins of psychoanalysis are exhumed in what on paper would seem to be a perfect marriage of subject
and celluloid therapist. Vienna, on the eve of the Great War, and the evolution of a nascent medicine known as psychotherapy is slowly accruing more academic prestige due to the breakthrough treatments of Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Some younger aspirants can see the potential of this radical break with traditional remedies and are developing their individual bespoke treatments of the sanity deprived, chief among them the ambitious young Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) who has recently acquired a distressed new patient Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) who has medical ambitions of her own, should her anxieties be relieved by these subversive new treatments. Jung, married into wealthy and respective society by a wife who seems more concerned with providing him a male heir than supporting his neurotic crusade soon finds himself embarking on a radical form of therapy with Sabina, igniting a sexual relationship and abandoning themselves to the earthly desires of the flesh that violate the decorums of polite society, a dangerous method that flirts with disaster.
During his introductory remarks to a matinée audience at this years LFF Cronenberg explained how his film was culled from the correspondence of the period (in a 20th century precursor to e-mail the great and good would write and receive letters a half dozen times a day) between the three main characters, all genuine historical figures, which he stated as fascinating insight into the period but not necessarily the foundations of a great film. It’s a brave and honest admission, as A Dangerous Method is handsomely crafted with a fine appreciation of detail and place, but like much of Cronenberg’s work over the past decade it’s a sterile affair, an antiseptic dissection of the anxious birth of psychotherapy, orbiting the figurehead of Freud as a distant patriarch, with a miscast Mortensen whom is more novelty than Nouveau. Fassbender breaks a recent streak of powerful performances having little more to do than toy with his phallic pipe in some blankly staged scenes and Knightley is frankly embarrassing to observe in the early spasms of the movie, writhing with a physical and vocal dementia, before growing more certain in the role as her relationship with Jung intensifies. The film seems uncertain of its intentions and the result is a uninvolving, dullen affair, with only Vincent Cassell as something of a film stealer as the rogue seducer Otto Gross, an appropriately named psychiatric maverick who appears as a proto beatnik lovechild of Keith Richards and Jack Kerouac. A scene where Jung and Freud visit America to incubate the therapy movement, arguably a defining moment of the 20th century, is not mined for its historical caliber before the film limps to a dry and emotionally neutered conclusion. In his latest film the method is flawed in this aberrant , minor Cronenberg.
LFF#10 We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)
Lynne Ramsay returns to the big screen after almost a decade long hiatus, and talk about returning with a bang. This explosive adaption of Lionel Shriver’s best-selling novel We Need To Talk About Kevin is a taboo busting tale which has the controversial temerity to suggest that perhaps not all mothers instinctively fall in love with their children and not everyone is programmed to be a parent. Having been ousted from a long gestating adaptation of The Lovely Bones Ramsay seemed to have been exiled into production limbo, following a series of personal tragedies one wondered if she would ever return to the screen, but not only does Kevin exceed her previous triumphs it also offers an evolution in her film-making style and dexterity, quite how such a miniscule budgeted project was arranged in just a short shooting schedule yet emerges so exquisitely detailed and textured is quite a stunning achievement. This vividly executed film, with yet another astonishing performance from a haunted Tilda Swinton (who must be in the running for a second Oscar) is another superb British film that screened at this years London Film Festival, having achieving the dual accolades of the fiesta’s Best Film award and the somewhat dubious accolade of the most potent form of celluloid contraception yet devised.
With her vivid lust for life illustrated in a gluttonous, grue inflected and overly symbolic opening admidst the Spanish La Tomatina festival globetrotting travel agent Eva (Swinton, brittle and brilliant) is forced to put her galvanizing life on hold when she becomes unwittingly pregnant with her partner Franklin (a muted John C. Reilly), a successful East Coast architect. Textured through a cacophonous swirl the film leaps through the various stages of Eva’s pregnancy birth, growth and adolescence of her first child Kevin, in its early stages the film centres on the horrendous social exclusion of her current life following some unspecified tragedy the film alternately spider-webs throughout her past twenty years, and the true horror of her maternal failures are revealed in incremental, dazzling, interludes. Kevin, played with a malevolent grace by relative newcomer Ezra Miller is a devilish adolescent, a wicked and unnerving young man who may simply have been born bad, alternating between an enthusiastic affection for his father and passing tolerance for his younger sister. But its the fractured relationship with his mother that pulses at the radioactive core of the movie, and suspicions are raised whether Eva’s recollections are entirely accurate through a distressed fog of failure and unreliable reminiscence, as she tries to put her life back together and understand her sons heinous, guilt inflicting crimes for which she may be partially culpable.
From conception to incarceration We Need To Talk About Kevin is a challenging and intimate film with an inquisitive use of colour, with an abrasive sound design and soundtrack (by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood) and a withering turn by one of the finest actresses working today. The source material delineates the tale through letters written by Eva to her husband but the film avoids this technique, eschewing a potential use of voiceover in favour of a purely cinematic mix of sound and image, brilliantly edited and choreographed as a dynamic fever dream and shot in sequence to enable the cast and crew to appreciate the building momentum of nauseous anxiety. Kevin may be the most honest character in the piece for all his infernal inflections, lacerating the masks of polite society that he views as a laughable charade, in one particularly agonizing scene of failed bonding mother and son uncomfortably spend some ‘quality’ time together in a local restaurant which concludes with an excruciating speech that provoked nervous mutterings and gasps at the screening I attended. On a wider scale a soft focus cartography of Americana is construed as the infrastructure to Kevin’s disaffection and Eva’s unconscious suburban hostility, from the hollow self-help posters in Eva’s Travel Agent office to the infundibular identikit houses to the unified labeling in the supermarkets a noxious odour of a truly American tragedy perfumes the film, although recent events in Norway have horrifically proved that such materialistic and idealistic poison is not confined to the North American continent.
Ramsay has explained that the punishing schedule (30 days) and paltry budget (reputedly £7 million) convinced her to map the film in pre-production to a morbidly dense execution, leaving 
little to chance, from the sound design foreshadowing (witness the water sprinklers) to evocative interludes (the Halloween phantasms) an intimate tapestry is weaved, and to the films credit it doesn’t have the aura of a coldly manufactured mood piece but feels spontaneous and vigorous, its nervous depositions conceived from incendiary performances, extempore cinematography and an acrid, caustic score. The question of nature versus nurture is raised as it was in the novel, although Ramsay insists she aimed to pontificate but not elucidate on the complex psychology there is not much ambiguity for me as Kevin is portrayed as a blood brother to Damian Thorne of the Omen films, a manifestly alien brood who only expresses a brief facade of human empathy in one key moment of the films closing scenes. The bond between mother and son is never forged, Eva almost seems to resent her pregnancy from initial diagnosis, and these challenges to cultural orthodoxy of the unalloyed sanctity of children and the saintly status of motherhood are a rich source of debate that the film, like the novel, seems certain to foster. A rich, timely and beautifully composed work, We Need To Talk About Kevin is one of the key films of this years London Film festival.
LFF#9 What a Payne
It’s an uphill struggle gentle reader, when you consider how fast the review backlog stacks up. So, as we enter the final stretch you can read another slice of reportage here, with another four to follow as I caught A Dangerous Method this afternoon and I have the final film The Deep Blue Sea on Thursday morning. Method which wasn’t quite as bad as some have said, although it was quite sterile and doesn’t linger in the subconscious at least I got to see Cronenberg deliver a short introduction, the sight of any behind the camera talent has definitely been thin on the ground at the festival this year. Richer pickings were on offer last week, suffice to say as an Alexander Payne fan I was predisposed to like The Descendants and as expected it is a breezy, amusing, well-scripted Hawaiian punch of pathos with a new star in the making;
Last Friday I struggled over to a BFI screen talk with Alexander Payne and I have to say he was a little prickly with the interviewer (some random film critic), I guess a day of answering the same repetitive questions in some twilight zone press junket can grate the demeanour of the best of us. It was a quick wander through his brief career – only five films in twenty years – but at least Payne can bask in the knowledge that he still hasn’t made a dud movie yet. Starting with the ‘hilarious’ abortion comedy Citizen Ruth the session quickly moved on to the cult favourite Election, a film which seems to accrue dedicated new supporters as the years roll by;
About Schmidt (SPOILERS) is probably my favourite and Payne recanted an amusing anecdote of directing Jack Nicholson (whom he described as a glorious old lion of the screen), it’s too unwieldy to repeat here but it was pretty funny. He bookmarked the expected influences – Lubitsch, Wilder and Kubrick for Strangelove (the greatest black comedy ever) before expressing a lively simile, explaining that yes his films are about the absurdity and bittersweet turn of our lives rendered more palatable with a humourous remedy, like the Spanish 18th century painters perhaps he does start with lathering his canvasses with thick black pigment, a foundation of melancholy and angst that he illuminates with brightly coloured characters and richochet dialogue exchanges to alleviate the suffering. He was a man with a very dry but deft turn of humor that is evident in his films, here’s the short film he contributed to the hit and miss compendium Paris, Je T’aime back in 2006 which closed the evening;
With two more films in the pipeline, funding secured and the first lensing next March its good to hear he’s getting more productive, and the next one might even be in black & white because as he said ‘it’ll be cool’ – sounds good to me.
Minty's Menagerie 
Recent Comments