Upcoming reviews include:
You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (2010, Woody Allen)
Source Code (2011, Duncan Jones)
Of Gods And Men (2010, Xavier Beauvois)
I am also planning an article about "paranoid" cinema in the 1970s and the influence on today's cinema. Expect a lot about The Conversation, The Parallax View and Chinatown. Probably a bit about Zodiac and the TV series Rubicon.
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010, Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
A Thai widower dying of kidney failure spends his final days on his farm conversing with his relatives, alive and dead, while considering his past lives.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, by the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul , was last year voted winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes and is based on the true story of a man named Boonmee who told a Buddhist monk that when meditating he could recall his past lives in great detail.
The long (and dialogue-free) opening sequence has a water buffalo wandering off into the forest before cutting to a long scene in a car travelling to Uncle Boonmee’s farm. Mostly filmed in medium to long shots with little or no close-ups the film has the title character’s reflecting on his past, and eager to make peace with it. As such the film is spiritual without being overly religious. Certainly Buddhist concepts such as Karma and reincarnation are discussed by the characters as are the folk beliefs of Thailand but neither is given precedence over the other. Apparent supernatural phenomenon such as the appearance of Boonmee’s dead wife as a transparent ghost are treated as normal by the characters as is the reappearance of his long missing son who returns in non-human form as a monkey spirit.
The acting by the mainly amateur cast is very naturalistic with standout performances by Thanapat Saisaymar as Uncle Boonmee (the calm point around which the other characters orbit) and Jenjira Pongpas as his playful sister-in-law Auntie Jen. The cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Yukontorn Mingmongkon and Charin Pengpanich is almost painterly with beautifully composed shots of the natural world.
David Bordwell, author of The Way Hollywood Tells It, has shown how the likes of Paul Greengrass in the Bourne films and others have reduced the average length of shots in the modern Hollywood film from roughly 10 seconds pre-1960 to an average range of 4-6 seconds with the average shot length (ASL) of the Bourne Ultimatum a dizzying 2 seconds. For the viewer this means a film is edited into a rapid succession of images which are constantly changing thus giving a forward momentum to the film. The detractors of this style say this reflects a culture where concentration is at an all-time low and an audience impatient with anything requiring our full attention.
In contrast to the Bourne Ultimatum’s queasy 2 seconds per shot the ASL of Uncle Boonmee is a stately 34.1. (That’s slow although not quite as slow as Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr’s film Werckmeister Harmonies which has an ASL of 219 seconds.) For some people the pace of Uncle Boonmee is so slow that we might feel that time has stopped dead in its tracks. There seems to have been a resurgence recently for things like slow cooking as a reaction to the way things are getting ever faster and more frenetic so perhaps a film like Uncle Boonmee is one step in the direction of slow cinema.
The film has little in the way of incident, but you find yourself adapting to its rhythms and getting drawn into its hypnotic pace. It’s refreshing to see this side of a society such as Thailand that we somehow seldom see in the cinema unless it’s used as a touch of “local colour” in a Western blockbuster. It’s sobering to think that had it not won the Palme d’Or what sort of release it would have had in Britain and the United States. We can only wonder what other hidden gems are unseen by the cinema-going public at large because they haven’t won an award or accolade.
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, by the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul , was last year voted winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes and is based on the true story of a man named Boonmee who told a Buddhist monk that when meditating he could recall his past lives in great detail.
The long (and dialogue-free) opening sequence has a water buffalo wandering off into the forest before cutting to a long scene in a car travelling to Uncle Boonmee’s farm. Mostly filmed in medium to long shots with little or no close-ups the film has the title character’s reflecting on his past, and eager to make peace with it. As such the film is spiritual without being overly religious. Certainly Buddhist concepts such as Karma and reincarnation are discussed by the characters as are the folk beliefs of Thailand but neither is given precedence over the other. Apparent supernatural phenomenon such as the appearance of Boonmee’s dead wife as a transparent ghost are treated as normal by the characters as is the reappearance of his long missing son who returns in non-human form as a monkey spirit.
The acting by the mainly amateur cast is very naturalistic with standout performances by Thanapat Saisaymar as Uncle Boonmee (the calm point around which the other characters orbit) and Jenjira Pongpas as his playful sister-in-law Auntie Jen. The cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Yukontorn Mingmongkon and Charin Pengpanich is almost painterly with beautifully composed shots of the natural world.
David Bordwell, author of The Way Hollywood Tells It, has shown how the likes of Paul Greengrass in the Bourne films and others have reduced the average length of shots in the modern Hollywood film from roughly 10 seconds pre-1960 to an average range of 4-6 seconds with the average shot length (ASL) of the Bourne Ultimatum a dizzying 2 seconds. For the viewer this means a film is edited into a rapid succession of images which are constantly changing thus giving a forward momentum to the film. The detractors of this style say this reflects a culture where concentration is at an all-time low and an audience impatient with anything requiring our full attention.
In contrast to the Bourne Ultimatum’s queasy 2 seconds per shot the ASL of Uncle Boonmee is a stately 34.1. (That’s slow although not quite as slow as Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr’s film Werckmeister Harmonies which has an ASL of 219 seconds.) For some people the pace of Uncle Boonmee is so slow that we might feel that time has stopped dead in its tracks. There seems to have been a resurgence recently for things like slow cooking as a reaction to the way things are getting ever faster and more frenetic so perhaps a film like Uncle Boonmee is one step in the direction of slow cinema.
The film has little in the way of incident, but you find yourself adapting to its rhythms and getting drawn into its hypnotic pace. It’s refreshing to see this side of a society such as Thailand that we somehow seldom see in the cinema unless it’s used as a touch of “local colour” in a Western blockbuster. It’s sobering to think that had it not won the Palme d’Or what sort of release it would have had in Britain and the United States. We can only wonder what other hidden gems are unseen by the cinema-going public at large because they haven’t won an award or accolade.
Friday, 12 August 2011
Limitless (2011, Neil Burger)
A wannabe writer known more for his drinking than his prose enters into a Faustian pact when he becomes hooked on an experimental smart drug called NZT which increases his intellect.
Limitless is a great thriller with a wry sense of humour. When we first see Eddie Morra (played by Bradley Cooper, of The Hangover fame) he’s dressed like a roadie for Pearl Jam with long straggly hair and is immediately dumped by his go-getting editor girlfriend (Abbie Cornish). What was she doing with this loser anyway? The Inciting Incident (as Robert McKee would have it) is a meeting with his ex-wife’s brother who we infer used to be a small-time drug dealer (and might still be). He gives Eddie a clear pill called NZT which when taken increases his intellect exponentially. A few scenes later Eddie is dressed in a smart suit, with a fashionable short haircut, looking more like the suave Bradley Cooper we’ve seen in the A Team and the Hangover films. Imagine if we could all take a pill just to iron out our sartorial crimes (let alone allowing us to learn Italian in a weekend) I think the drug companies might be onto a winner...
But into each life some rain must fall... The rain in Eddie’s case comes in the form of Gennady, a crazy Russian gangster he’s borrowed some money from with which to invest on the stock market. Silly boy. (Gennady is played by Andrew Howard, an actor surprisingly from Port Talbot in Wales and not St Petersburg.) Robert De Niro has a few scenes as a tycoon called Carl Van Loon (think Donald Trump minus the comb-over) who is impressed enough by Eddie’s new-found intellect that he asks him to broker a major corporate merger. Anna Friel, playing Eddie’s ex-wife and Abbie Cornish, so good as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star, Jane Campion’s film about John Keats, take on the other main roles.
Leslie Dixon’s screenplay sticks (for the most part) closely to the plot of The Dark Fields, the source novel by Alan Glynn. It’s always tense when one of your favourite novels is adapted by Hollywood but this is one rare occasion where the author needn’t disown the film. (Incidentally, I still think the Great Gatsby-inspired title The Dark Fields is better than Limitless but that’s a minor quibble.) Style-wise it owes something to David Fincher’s Fight Club, as well as some visual touches from Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind (I’m thinking particularly of the representation of cascading stock market figures via some clever CGI effects).
Neil Burger, previously best known for enjoyable magician romp The Illusionist with Edward Norton, has made an extremely enjoyable and stylish film with solid performances and hyper-kinetic cinematography. One of the most purely enjoyable films of the year so far, Limitless is a thriller that I can unreservedly recommend to anyone.
Limitless is a great thriller with a wry sense of humour. When we first see Eddie Morra (played by Bradley Cooper, of The Hangover fame) he’s dressed like a roadie for Pearl Jam with long straggly hair and is immediately dumped by his go-getting editor girlfriend (Abbie Cornish). What was she doing with this loser anyway? The Inciting Incident (as Robert McKee would have it) is a meeting with his ex-wife’s brother who we infer used to be a small-time drug dealer (and might still be). He gives Eddie a clear pill called NZT which when taken increases his intellect exponentially. A few scenes later Eddie is dressed in a smart suit, with a fashionable short haircut, looking more like the suave Bradley Cooper we’ve seen in the A Team and the Hangover films. Imagine if we could all take a pill just to iron out our sartorial crimes (let alone allowing us to learn Italian in a weekend) I think the drug companies might be onto a winner...
But into each life some rain must fall... The rain in Eddie’s case comes in the form of Gennady, a crazy Russian gangster he’s borrowed some money from with which to invest on the stock market. Silly boy. (Gennady is played by Andrew Howard, an actor surprisingly from Port Talbot in Wales and not St Petersburg.) Robert De Niro has a few scenes as a tycoon called Carl Van Loon (think Donald Trump minus the comb-over) who is impressed enough by Eddie’s new-found intellect that he asks him to broker a major corporate merger. Anna Friel, playing Eddie’s ex-wife and Abbie Cornish, so good as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star, Jane Campion’s film about John Keats, take on the other main roles.
Leslie Dixon’s screenplay sticks (for the most part) closely to the plot of The Dark Fields, the source novel by Alan Glynn. It’s always tense when one of your favourite novels is adapted by Hollywood but this is one rare occasion where the author needn’t disown the film. (Incidentally, I still think the Great Gatsby-inspired title The Dark Fields is better than Limitless but that’s a minor quibble.) Style-wise it owes something to David Fincher’s Fight Club, as well as some visual touches from Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind (I’m thinking particularly of the representation of cascading stock market figures via some clever CGI effects).
Neil Burger, previously best known for enjoyable magician romp The Illusionist with Edward Norton, has made an extremely enjoyable and stylish film with solid performances and hyper-kinetic cinematography. One of the most purely enjoyable films of the year so far, Limitless is a thriller that I can unreservedly recommend to anyone.
Monday, 1 August 2011
Vincere (2009, Marco Bellocchio)
Vincere (Italian for "Win", a popular Fascist song) is the story of the future Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's relationship with Ida Dalser, a woman who may or may not have been his first wife. They had a son together but once Mussolini returned from the battlefields of the First World War he married someone else, cut himself off from Ida and set about erasing both her and their son (also called Benito) from history.
We first meet Mussolini, played by the excellent Filippo Timi, as a moustached Marxist on the up challenging God to strike him down. When God fails to oblige he declares that God does not exist. In the aftermath of a rally he meets shop-owner Ida, played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno, who soon in the throes of amour fou sells both her business and home to fund his newspaper venture. We sense immediately that this will end badly. Once WWI comes along young Benito is swept up by nationalistic fervour into joining the fight and loses touch with Ida. On his return the former socialist has become a committed fascist, soon to become Il Duce. Though the emotional world of the characters, mainly Ida, is easy to follow the same cannot be said for the political and historical background which is often either muddled or simplified with too much jumping around in time at the start of the film. And why exactly does Mussolini change from the left to the far-right - was it simply political opportunism? Alas we never find out here.
The two main actors are excellent but the direction frustrates their efforts with unnecessary stylistic tics such as the "March of Time" style newspaper headlines which flash up on screen accompanied by newsreel footage of rallies, marching goosestepping Fascists and most curious of all, a line of breastfeeding lady Fascists. The disappearance of Timi halfway through the film is only explained when Timi returns towards the end sans moustache playing Benito Junior for a few scenes. Once he becomes Il Duce, Mussolini is only represented in the film through marble busts, paintings and newsreel footage, his chin jutting out arrogantly, arms tightly-folded like Les Dawson, delivering his Fascistic slogans.
The acting is never boring but it's a film more to be admired than enjoyed.
If you want to see a film about Fascist Italy I'd recommend you watch Bertolucci's masterpiece The Conformist instead.
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