As always, the summer becomes a time when the focus is on the spectacle of cinema-going with movies such as Inception and Toy Story 3 packing them in. So, Special Edition # 41 will show you that it’s excellent time to chill out and enjoy some low key delights as they hit the shelves. Laurence Boyce finds some excellent films that have proved wildly popular on the festival circuit and a choice selection of re-releases.
It always seems that cinematographers never get the wider respect they deserve. Whilst your average person may be able to reel off the names of numerous actors and directors, the humble cinematographer is often forgotten about by the general cinema going public. Thankfully Cameraman – The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff (Optimum Releasing) redresses the balance with its thoughtful and illuminating examination of one of the best cinematographers in movie history. Jack Cardiff has worked with everyone from Alfred Hitchcock to Laurence Olivier and the film about his life and career has him reminisce about the greats that he’s worked with throughout his career. Director Craig McCall eschews a more formal approach to Cardiff’s career allowing Cardiff – and numerous colleagues including Martin Scorsese, Lauren Bacall and Kirk Douglas – to tell some fascinating and often humorous anecdotes of a career that begin as a child actor in 1918. Cardiff is obviously loved by his peers, not only for his winning personality, but for his artistry and talent and what results is a gentle yet endlessly rewarding portrait of a cinematic great and a paean to the skill of cinematographers from across the world. Jack Cardiff sadly passed away in April 2009, and this film is a joyous testament to his legacy.
Back in March during the battle between The Hurt Locker and Avatar at the Oscars, much-loved political theorist Zizek waded in with a comparative review of the politics of the two films. His conclusion was that James Cameron's film had been the best attack on the military-industrial complex and US corporate hegemony. Kathryn Bigelow, on the other hand, he argued, legitimised the Iraqi invasion and the actions of American soldiers by normalising them and their life - the Hurt Locker is not a pro-war film, but in making the protagonist soldiers sympathetic it inadvertently supported the politics behind them being there.
To continue this argument thru then, to follow everyday Iraqis in the aftermath of the invasion on film, as Iraqi-born Mohammed Al Daradji does in Son of Babylon, is to support the wider views of the Iraqi people and those one would expect to be hostile to an invasion. Here, then, is the first big revelation of the film. While the American soldiers are called pigs by one character and loom in the background, hovering overhead, the villain threading through this tale is the ghost of Saddam and his Ba'athist party. Indeed, in one of the many lighter moments in the film, it's revealed that 'talking to Saddam' is a way of saying you're going to the toilet. And as the film unfolds and we move from wrecked cities to a giant prison complex to the first of many mass graves, we begin to understand why. As we are told at the end of the film, some one million Iraqis have gone missing in the last 40 years, with between 150,000 and 250,000 dead uncovered so far in mass graves.
In short, the film is a devastating, breathtaking masterpiece. With such heavy subjects at its core this would always be a powerful film. But Al Daradji and his team weaves a work of great drama built upon faultless performances and world class cinematography.
We start on an empty road in the middle of the desert. A young boy and his weathered and wise grandma wait in the midst of nothingness. It's a brilliant start which pulls us into the narrative with the deft hand of a skilled storyteller. What unfolds is a road movie, and - like the Illusionist - a child / senior relationship - things that we have seen often before on screen. But they travel across a landscape that we have not seen. Perhaps at the edges of some of war films, but unlike most of these, and almost all films on Iraq to date - this film does not involve the military; there is barely one line of dialogue from a soldier. Instead this is a film about searching, not only for a missing son and father, but for answers, for an explanation and for forgiveness. It's also, somewhat, a search for meaning about death amidst God's seeming indifference.
Under director Hannah McGill, Edinburgh International Film Festival has been steadily building its reputation as a platform for great animation - showing the UK premieres of Ratatouille, Wall*E, Up - and this year Toy Story 3 - in a bumper year which includes the world premiere of the hotly tipped 'British Team America': Jackboots on Whitehall. But few films could be better suited to open the festival than Sylvain Chomet's follow-up to the Triplets of Belleville, which seduced audiences the world - the Illusionist, from a Jacques Tati script. For not only does this film deal with the art of illusion and make believe, through a vaudevillian magic act - much like the Presto short which front-ended Ratatouille - but it's a hymn to Scotland and a love song at that.
When James MacGregor wrote on Netribution many years ago that Chomet was set to make a film in his adopted homeland of Scotland, I was a little suspicious that he would take the task seriously. Perhaps like his segment of Paris Je T'aime, it would be a short look at some of the delights of Edinburgh's winding streets and windswept corners. What comes out instead is an unrestrained love letter, capturing the city we've all seen and loved, but going further, flying above the rooftops to give it a twist of magic and delight I've never seen.
The film couldn't be better suited to the festival, indeed in one scene the magician Tatischeff hides in the Cameo cinema - one of the festival venues - and watches a little slice of Tati's Mon Oncle, a knowing wink to the film's origins. In some ways you could see the film as a sister film to Up - perhaps 'Down' would best name it - an old man, close to his end, goes on a journey, accompanied with the optimism of a child. Indeed the theme tune is almost the same and there's an animal side kick to boot.
It is perhaps unfortunate that a dispute regarding the Tati estate should emerge ahead of the film's release, but the information released by the Richard McDonald, the grandson of Tati certainly increases understanding of the film. To realise that the giant of French cinema had himself come from the Parisian music hall, and left a young woman there with his child; that the age of his never-met daughter would have been the same age as Alice in this story when he was writing it - it becomes not just a touching tale of patricarchal care, but a poem from an old man to a young girl as she crosses the threshold to womanhood.
Indeed Tatischeff behaves impeccably, sometimes to the point of silliness - sleeping on the sofa in his age, and creeping off in the middle of the night to take on an extra job so he can buy Alice the pair of shoes, or dress or jacket that she desires. There's certainly no comment on materialism here - his function his largely to conjure, from thin air, the possessions she demands, while she seems solely motivated by getting such things. Still it's the one way they can communicate - with her Gallic and his French - neither subtitled, and leaving the audience with the sense of watching a silent film.
Who would believe it but its mid-life crisis time as its Special Edition #40. But, before it grows its hair long, buys a motorcycle and searches for a girlfriend of an inappropriate age, it will find enough time to go through some of the latest and most exciting DVDs available. Laurence Boyce picks some new releases (including a ton of brand new animation), TV shows and classic film that will hopefully hold your attention. Hey, both ‘Lost’ and ‘Ashes to Ashes’ have finished. What else are you going to do?
As adaptations go it’s surprising that it’s taken so long for Astroboy (E1 Entertainment) to make it to the big screen. Seen as one of the greatest works of Manga in the history of the genre (it was originally published in 1952) it’s had TV adaptations in its native Japan and the US but – aside from a compilation made of some episodes from the 60s Japanese live action TV show – it’s never been given the cinema treatment. Given that Hollywood is now looking at adapting, well, everything (coming soon: Michael Bay’s Laundry List IN 3D!) it’s been given the computer animation treatment. The film follows the origins of the titular character who is born in the futuristic Metro City after Dr Tenma (Nicolas Cage, who seems to be have embracing his inner geek as of late with this and Kick Ass) builds a robot boy to replace his lost son. But when the mechanical boy can’t live up to the expectations of his father, he runs away and finds himself finding that the future world is not as equal as it should be. And soon a threat to the world sees Astro Boy stand up for him and his friends. This is basically ‘Pinocchio’ with robots and guns and it certainly tries to have an emotional heart that seems at odds with the colourful and shiny animation. It’s often a little too uneven and sometimes feels forced and contrived (well, as contrived as any films about a robot boy in the future can be) but there’s a strong voice cast (Bill Nighy, Donald Sutherland and the aforementioned Cage) and should prove most entertaining for Manga fans and older kids. Also includes two new animated sequences and a look into the making of the film.
After a few columns in which Hollywood has been heavily featured, Special Edition # 39 focuses upon some great cinema from across the world (though with one or two releases from the US studios). Laurence Boyce will check out new releases and classics from Mexico, Czechoslovakia, Russia and Sweden whilst also dwelling upon remakes of classic TV shows and the usual mention of Doctor Who.
For those who grew up with Maurice Sendak’s classic book for children, the thought of the film version of Where The Wild Things Are (Warner Home Video) filled many with trepidation. Just how could you transfer the simple tale it to the big screen and do it justice - even when directed by someone as talented as Spike Jonze? The answer is with some great CGI, a respectful but not slavish adherence to the source material, an assured central performance from youngster Max Records and a fine soundtrack from Karen O. Young Max lives the life of a typical 9-year-old, with an older sister who seems more interested in boys and a mother who just doesn’t understand the importance of letting him play. After a fraught night in which he argues with his mother, Max runs away to find a mysterious island full of monsters who let him be their king. But is a life free of responsibility really what Max wants? This is an emotionally resonant film that is unafraid to be talky and literate. Jonze really captures the spirit of Sendak’s book with both a sense of anarchy and a melancholic edge that laments the end of childhood. Records is excellent in the lead role whilst the likes of James Gandolfini and Forest Whitaker provide fine voice support as the titular wild things (who are brilliantly realised thanks to the CGI). A clever and intelligent film for all ages.
You've heard about it, Chris Morris' jihad comedy, making terrorism funny and all that. How does he do it? Well the Dad's Army influence is certainly there: the comedy is in the power play and false grandeur of some deluded blokes who want to show the world what for.
Four young men with very similar accents to those of the lead characters here managed just that back in 2005 on 7/7. Four Lions uses comedy to try and uncover the men behind the grainy CCTV footage and martyrdom videos left behind, as well as point out the fallibility of the police in terrorist incidents.
I watched the pilot episode of HBO’s The Pacific and all my fears of the same run off the mill macho war film were somehow true. As a follow up to Band of Brothers it lacks a lot of characterisation that made the 2002 10 part series a groundbreaking multi character epic. It is still a powerful piece of television with it’s visceral carnage but the characters revert to that macho American attitude that harks back to clichéd war films.
Band of Brothers on the other hand, when it came out, dealt with the war not just with bravery but also with the brutal inhumane and pointless side of combat from adrenaline rush to boredom. The characters were well rounded and multi faceted. They were stripped of all the mechanics of what Hollywood producers would insert into the cinematic American grunt and was more reminiscent of films like Platoon. What was one of the ingredients that made one great and the other manufactured cliché? One strong answer is the directors chosen. They were British and managed to bring more dimensions to the characters motivation. British directors compared to their American counterparts bring the darker cynical aspects of defeat in combat much the same as Attenborough’s Bridge too Far. Back to The Pacific.
Come on the long days! Laurence Boyce has been stuck in front of a computer for the past few weeks, watching many, many films and currently needs a tanning machine to ensure his skin resembles the colour of porridge. Thankfully, the stuff that he’s been watching for Special Edition # 38 means that Laurence Boyce has at least got to enjoy some really good films and TV shows. But, for the love of humanity, get the man some Vitamin E as soon as possible...
Otherwise I very well may be mistaken for one of the protagonists of Zombieland (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) in which Woody Harrelson teams up with Jesse Eisenberg to blast the undead and ensure the ‘un’ prefix of their description no longer applies. On first look there’s not much here apart from gory set pieces and witty one-liners; not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that, as the film does it with such gleeful abandon that it’s pretty difficult not to have enormous fun with it all. But if you look under the rotting skin and you’ll find some quite funny mickey takes of Hollywood (especially thanks to a cameo from a pretty major US actor) and there’s an intelligence here that’s refreshing (watch it Michael Bay and you’ll learn thing or two – nope, I still haven’t forgotten Transformers 2). Most likely it’ll become a franchise where all the freshness is beaten out of it and it becomes a shambling corpse, but this is enjoyable (and refreshingly gory) mainstream fare.
Michael Haneke's critically-acclaimed The White Ribbon, which was released on DVD yesterday, is a chilling look behind the apparently normal façade of a small north German village in the lead-up to the First World War.
Narrated by one of the most sympathetic characters, the schoolteacher, when he has become an old man, the film shows us brutal events, some apparently perpetrated by children, but gives us very few answers as to why they have happened. The schoolteacher narrator supposes, with hindsight, that this generation of children were displaying their capability for cruelty before growing up to become the Nazi generation.
Filmed in black and white, making the setting feel even more removed in time from our own, The White Ribbon is a film that shows but rarely tells. Children are beaten by their parents, by people who are never caught, daughters are sexually abused by their fathers and women have to submit to the power of their husbands or fathers. The pastor, preaches his puritanical brand of Protestantism, as symbolised by the white ribbon he would tie around his children's arms, to remind them to be good. However, he rules his household with an iron fist, causing his children to rebel in the most extreme ways.
Last night I rewatched Tarsem's, The Fall. I first saw it at Edinburgh Film Festival in 2008 amidst a dreamy stream of great films. Starting with a bong toking Ben Kingsley going through a breakup in The Wackness, to a man named Nick discovering the delights of Swedish spiritualism through the painfully funny Three Miles North of Molkom, onto Wayne Wang's 1000 years of Good Prayers, taking its title from the ancient Chinese saying 'true love comes once in a thousand years of good prayers'. Then before the festival was done I was back in Sweden with Let the Right One In, and finally Wall*E, Pixar's first proper romance and a brutal anti-capitalist statement to boot.
And because of the strengths of all these films I never got round to writing about how much I liked The Fall. It is easy to dismiss it at first glance as the camp melodrama of a music video director, hungry to clock airmiles to shoot eye candy in the most exotic places his lucky location team could find. But beneath the lush visuals is the story of a suicidal and heartbroken man trying to find a reason to live, and how his imagination, and the encouragement of his good hearted friend, help him.
Here's some picks of filmmaker owned and distributed free (as in lunch) feature films you can download or watch online that really stood out over the last year. Most of them are 'pay what you want' and as ultra-indies they are produced, distributed and promoted by the filmmaker - so anything you donate goes to help them pay off their debts and make more.
Nasty Old People
Hanna Sköld, Sweden, 2009,
Pensioners and the far right make unlikely bedfellows in this remarkably accomplished debut feature from Hanna Sköld. It follows the angry, headstrong yet arresting Mette who in her work as a carer is given some of the most stubborn, difficult and neglected old people of her community. She is also a neo-Nazi.
It's a set-up I haven't seen at cinema before and the inevitable turning point for her could easily have been played for cheap and preachy point-scoring. Instead it's a complex and thoughtful drama, often funny and interspersed with mumblecore-y animations. It's peppered with broad and mostly believable characters. It's not perfect, but for a film made mostly on a €10,000 budget, with some completion funds from Film i Skåne, shot over a year in weekends and evenings, it's perhaps the first pay-what-you can live action film that looks and feels like a much bigger budget European arthouse film.
RIP is one of those films I've resisted seeing for ages because I thought it would just repeat the same arguments we've heard countless times from the copyfighting movement. More fool me - it's an entertaining and fascinating film, with a good pacing things to keep the interest up. It's central debate centres on the contrary attitude of the media industry who have made so much money from hip-hop, fairy tales and spoofs - towards remix, mashups and sampling. This issue, which currently prevents much of the creative sector from monetising such work, without a well paid media team does occasionally get confused with the more complex and debatable area of the pirate movement. Nevertheless it asks fair questions - I don't have a right to opt out from the 3,000+ adverts I see each day, and now they are lodged in my headspace, surely I have some ownership over them. Or rather, if, as Churchill said, 'the empires of the future are the empires of the mind' then the ability to adapt and remix that culture is a vital part of keeping such empires in check.
Self-funded and made entirely in Flash, Nina Paley's retelling of the Indian epic Ramayana has been screened around the world and picked up dozens of awards and much acclaim. The songs of Annette Hanshaw weave links between the present-day story of the breakup of Nina's relationship, against the classic love tale of Sita and Rama.
Doubtless embittered by her own experiences, Paley scoffs at the Ramayana's portrayal of devotion and patience in the face of a break-up, and the film has picked up some criticism in India. Nevertheless the running improvised commentary by a group of a shadow puppets, the technicolor animation and songs of Leti, which were a discovery for me, plus the openness with which Paley shares her experience, made it a moving experience. And as it's under a Creative Commons license - if you think you can improve any part of it, you can make your own cut. As well as the video file, Archive.org hosts versions in everything up to 4k size if you're able to get your hands on a digital cinema projector.
From Edinburgh-based American Peter Gerrard and upcoming Scottish production company Accidental Media (nominated for five new Talent Scottish BAFTAs), J2GAR is a graffiti documentary which takes us around America to explore the route of possibly the most visually recognisable and impacting art movements of our generation. Short at under an hour we don't get to hear from the many people to whom graff is a nuisance or hear mention of Banksy, but everything else seems to be here, including the guys who invented bubble lettering.
Born of Hope dir: Kate Madison, UK-Int, 2009 / The Hunt for Gollum dir: Chris Bouchard
Want to experience more of middle Earth but can't wait until the New Line Hobbit films arrive, Born of Hope is a 70 minute feature telling the tale of Arathorn and Gilrean, the parents of Aragorn. For an illustration of quite high the production values of 'no-budget' self-financed work can go, the burgeoning Lord of the Rings universe fan-films promise much. The 40 minute Hunt for Gollum was the first serious fan-film from the universe released, set before the first Lord of the Rings book/film and featuring sme stunning British countryside that no doubt must have helped inspire Tolkein when first describing middle earth. Both come with the obligatory copyright disclaimer but also supportive quotes from members of the WETA team suggesting on this occasion New Line/Peter Jackson concluded non-profit fan support will benefit the franchise more than harm it.
As always, the summer becomes a time when the focus is on the spectacle of cinema-going with movies such as Inception and Toy Story 3 packing them in. So, Special Edition # 41 will show you that it’s excellent time to chill out and enjoy some low key delights as they hit the shelves. Laurence Boyce finds some excellent films that have proved wildly popular on the festival circuit and a choice selection of re-releases.
In short, the film is a devastating, breathtaking masterpiece. With such heavy subjects at its core this would always be a powerful film. But Al Daradji and his team weaves a work of great drama built upon faultless performances and world class cinematography.
It is perhaps unfortunate that a dispute regarding the Tati estate should emerge ahead of the film's release, but the
After a few columns in which Hollywood has been heavily featured, Special Edition # 39 focuses upon some great cinema from across the world (though with one or two releases from the US studios). Laurence Boyce will check out new releases and classics from Mexico, Czechoslovakia, Russia and Sweden whilst also dwelling upon remakes of classic TV shows and the usual mention of Doctor Who.
Come on the long days! Laurence Boyce has been stuck in front of a computer for the past few weeks, watching many, many films and currently needs a tanning machine to ensure his skin resembles the colour of porridge. Thankfully, the stuff that he’s been watching for Special Edition # 38 means that Laurence Boyce has at least got to enjoy some really good films and TV shows. But, for the love of humanity, get the man some Vitamin E as soon as possible...
