Monthly Roundup – April 2018

12 Saturday May 2018

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Action, Adventure, Alain Guiraudie, Alberto Cavalcanti, Amen Island, Animation, Anthony Russo, Assassin, Avengers: Infinity War, B-movie, Babak Nafari, Bank robbery, Barbara Britton, Billy Brown, Blaxploitation, Blue Sky, Brad Peyton, Bullfighting, Burglars, Carlos Saldanha, Children of the Corn: Runaway, Children's Film Foundation, Chris Evans, Christina De Vallee, Comedy, Crime, Danny Glover, David Paisley, Drama, Eugeniusz Chylek, Ferdinand, France, Genetic experiment, Hafsia Herzi, Horror, Jake Ryan Scott, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Joe Russo, John Cena, John Gulager, Johnny on the Run, Kate McKinnon, Le roi de l'évasion, Lewis Gilbert, Literary adaptation, Ludovic Berthillot, Maggie Grace, Marci Miller, Mark Harriott, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mike Matthews, Naomie Harris, Pine-Thomas, Proud Mary, Rampage, Reviews, Rival gangs, Rob Cohen, Robert Downey Jr, Robert Lowery, Romance, Ryan Kwanten, Sequel, Sydney Tafler, Taraji P. Henson, Thanos, The Hurricane Heist, The Monster of Highgate Ponds, They Made Me a Killer, Thriller, Toby Kebbell, Unhappy Birthday, Video game, William C. Thomas

They Made Me a Killer (1946) / D: William C. Thomas / 64m

Cast: Robert Lowery, Barbara Britton, Lola Lane, Frank Albertson, Elisabeth Risdon, Byron Barr, Edmund MacDonald, Ralph Sanford, James Bush

Rating: 5/10 – a man (Lowery) drives across country after the death of his brother and gives a lift to a woman (Lane) who tricks him into being the getaway driver in a bank robbery, a situation that sees him on the run from the police but determined to prove his innocence; a gritty, hard-boiled film noir, They Made Me a Killer adds enough incident to its basic plot to keep viewers entertained from start to finish without really adding anything new or overly impressive to the mix, but it does have a brash performance from Lowery, and Thomas’s direction ensures it’s another solid effort from Paramount’s B-movie unit, Pine-Thomas.

Proud Mary (2018) / D: Babak Najafi / 89m

Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Billy Brown, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Danny Glover, Neal McDonough, Margaret Avery, Xander Berkeley, Rade Serbedzija, Erik LaRay Harvey

Rating: 3/10 – a female assassin (Henson) finds herself protecting the teenage boy (Winston) whose father she killed years before, and at a time when her actions cause a murderous dispute between the gang she works for and their main rival; as the titular Proud Mary, Henson makes for a less than convincing assassin in this modern day blaxploitation thriller that lets itself down constantly thanks to a turgid script and lacklustre direction, and which has far too many moments where suspension of disbelief isn’t just required but an absolute necessity.

Children of the Corn: Runaway (2018) / D: John Gulager / 82m

Cast: Marci Miller, Jake Ryan Scott, Mary Kathryn Bryant, Lynn Andrews III, Sara Moore, Diane Ayala Goldner, Clu Gulager

Rating: 3/10 – arriving in a small Oklahoman town with her teenage son, Ruth (Miller) attempts to put down roots after over ten years of running from the child cult that nearly cost her her life, but she soon finds that safety still isn’t something she can count on; number ten in the overall series, Children of the Corn: Runaway is yet another entry that keeps well away from any attempts at providing anything new, and succeeds only in being as dull to watch as you’d expect, leaving unlucky viewers to ponder on why these movies still keep getting made when it’s clear the basic premise has been done to death – again and again and again…

Johnny on the Run (1953) / D: Lewis Gilbert / 68m

Cast: Eugeniusz Chylek, Sydney Tafler, Michael Balfour, Edna Wynn, David Coote, Cleo Sylvestre, Jean Anderson, Moultrie Kelsall, Mona Washbourne

Rating: 7/10 – after running away from his foster home in Edinburgh, a young Polish boy, Janek (Chylek), unwittingly falls in with two burglars (Tafler, Balfour), and then finds himself in a Highland village where the possibility of a new and better life is within his grasp; an enjoyable mix of drama and comedy from the UK’s Children’s Film Foundation, Johnny on the Run benefits from sterling performances, Gilbert’s astute direction, excellent location work, and a good understanding of what will interest both children and adults alike, making this one of the Foundation’s better entries, and still as entertaining now as when it was first released.

Ferdinand (2017) / D: Carlos Saldanha / 108m

Cast: John Cena, Kate McKinnon, Anthony Anderson, Bobby Cannavale, Peyton Manning, David Tennant, Jeremy Sisto, Lily Day, Gina Rodriguez, Daveed Diggs, Gabriel Iglesias

Rating: 8/10 – a young bull called Ferdinand (Cena) whose disposition includes a fondness for flowers and protecting other animals, finds himself temporarily living with a supportive family, until events bring him back to the world of bullfighting that he thought he’d left behind; the classic children’s tale gets the Blue Sky treatment, and in the process, retains much of the story’s whimsical yet pertinent takes on pacifism, anti-bullying, and gender diversity, while providing audiences with a rollicking and very humorous adventure that makes Ferdinand a very enjoyable experience indeed.

The Hurricane Heist (2018) / D: Rob Cohen / 98m

Cast: Toby Kebbell, Maggie Grace, Ryan Kwanten, Ralph Ineson, Melissa Bolona, Ben Cross, Jamie Andrew Cutler, Christian Contreras

Rating: 4/10 – thieves target a US Treasury facility during a Category 5 hurricane, but don’t reckon on their plans going awry thanks to a Treasury agent (Grace), a meteorologist (Kebbell), and his ex-Marine brother (Kwanten); as daft as you’d expect, The Hurricane Heist continues the downward career spiral of Cohen, and betrays its relatively small budget every time it sets up a major action sequence, leaving its talented cast to thrash against the wind machines in search of credibility and sincerity, a notion that the script abandons very early on as it maximises all its efforts to appear as ridiculous as possible (which is the only area in which it succeeds).

The Monster of Highgate Ponds (1961) / D: Alberto Cavalcanti / 59m

Cast: Sophie Clay, Michael Wade, Terry Raven, Ronald Howard, Frederick Piper, Michael Balfour, Roy Vincente, Beryl Cooke

Rating: 6/10 – when his uncle (Howard) returns home from a trip to Malaya, David (Wade) gets to keep a large egg that’s been brought back, but little does he realise that a creature will hatch from the egg – a creature David, his sister Sophie (Clay), and their friend, Chris (Raven) need to protect from the authorities until his uncle returns home from his latest trip; though the special effects that bring the “monster” to life are less than impressive, there’s a pleasing low budget, wish fulfillment vibe to The Monster of Highgate Ponds that allows for the absurdity of it all to be taken in stride, and thanks to Cavalcanti’s relaxed direction, that absurdity makes the movie all the more enjoyable.

Rampage (2018) / D: Brad Peyton / 107m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy

Rating: 5/10 – a gorilla, a wolf, and an alligator are all exposed to an illegal genetic engineering experiment and become massively bigger and more aggressive thanks to the corporation behind the experiment, leaving the gorilla’s handler (Johnson) to try and help put things right; based on a video game, and as brightly ridiculous as any movie version of a video game could be, Rampage uses its (very) simple plotting to bludgeon the audience into submission with a variety of exemplary digital effects, while also trying to dredge up a suitable amount of emotion along the way, but in the end – and surprisingly – it’s Johnson’s knowing performance and Morgan’s affected government spook that trade this up from simple disaster to almost disaster.

Unhappy Birthday (2011) / D: Mark Harriott, Mike Matthews / 91m

aka Amen Island

Cast: David Paisley, Christina De Vallee, Jill Riddiford, Jonathan Deane

Rating: 4/10 – Rick (Paisley) and his girlfriend, Sadie (De Vallee), along with their friend Jonny (Keane), travel to the tidal island of Amen to reunite Sadie with her long lost sister, only to find that the islanders have a secret that threatens the lives of all three of them; a low budget British thriller with distinct echoes of The Wicker Man (1973) – though it’s not nearly as effective – Unhappy Birthday highlights the isolated nature of the island and the strangeness of its inhabitants, but reduces its characters to squabbling malcontents pretty much from the word go, which makes spending time with them far from appealing, and stops the viewer from having any sympathy for them once things start to go wrong.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) / D: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo / 149m

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Tom Hiddleston, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Idris Elba, Danai Gurira, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio Del Toro, William Hurt, Letitia Wright

Rating: 8/10 – Thanos (Brolin) finally gets around to collecting the Infinity stones and only the Avengers (and almost every other Marvel superhero) can stop him – or can they?; there’s much that could be said about Avengers: Infinity War, but suffice it to say, after eighteen previous movies, Marvel have finally made the MCU’s version of The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

The King of Escape (2009) / D: Alain Guiraudie / 90m

Original title: Le roi de l’évasion

Cast: Ludovic Berthillot, Hafsia Herzi, Pierre Laur, Luc Palun, Pascal Aubert, François Clavier, Bruno Valayer, Jean Toscan

Rating: 6/10 – when a middle-aged homosexual tractor salesman (Berthillot) falls in love with the daughter (Herzi) of a rival salesman, this unexpected turn of events has further unexpected repercussions, all of which lead the pair to go on the run from her father and the police; as much a comedy of manners as an unlikely romance, The King of Escape is humorous (though far from profound), and features too many scenes of its central couple running across fields and through woods, something that becomes as tiring for the viewer as it must have been for the actors, though the performances are finely judged, and Guiraudie’s direction displays the increasing confidence that would allow him to make a bigger step with Stranger by the Lake (2013).

10 Reasons to Remember Stèphane Audran (1932-2018)

28 Wednesday Mar 2018

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Actress, Babette's Feast, Career, Claude Chabrol, France, Movies

Stèphane Audran (8 November 1932 – 27 March 2018)

The Sixties were a boom time for French actresses, and Stèphane Audran certainly made her mark on international cinema during that period. Success came quickly after she began acting in the mid-Fifties, appearing on stage and in an early short movie by Eric Rohmer. In 1957 she was introduced to the director who would do the most to shape her career, Claude Chabrol (and who she would marry in 1964). Early in her career, she often played the lively, vivacious friend of the female lead, but Chabrol saw another persona that could be used to greater effect: that of a glamourous yet detached sophisticate whose emotions ran deep. It was the role that Audran was seemingly born to play, and during her early collaborations with her future second husband (Jean-Louis Trintignant was her first), it was the kind of part that she returned to time and again, but she was always able to give each portrayal a different spin. By the end of the Sixties, Audran was an established star of French cinema and one of its finest ambassadors around the world.

It was the Seventies that really saw her career take off, with a string of impressive performances that garnered her a clutch of awards, and which cemented her reputation as one of the most intelligent actresses of her generation. Audran had never really had much confidence in her abilities when she started out, but the reception to performances such as the one she gave in Just Before Nightfall gave her the boost she needed. As the decade progressed she consolidated her position as one of France’s best actresses, and began appearing in English language movies, such as The Black Bird (1975) and Silver Bears (1978). Her marriage to Chabrol was beginning to suffer by then, and her portrayal of Isabelle Huppert’s working class mother in Violette Nozière aside (a role she thought she wasn’t right for, but which brought her a César Award for Best Supporting Actress), Audran began to suffer psychosomatic problems. Her career declined for a time, and though she continued working, and still on occasion with Chabrol himself, the Eighties weren’t as successful for her as the Seventies were.

But it was a movie made in 1987 and set in 19th century Denmark that cemented her reputation: Babette’s Feast. Beautifully crafted and with perhaps Audran’s finest performance at its centre, this was the movie that erased any doubts as to her skills as an actress. She continued to work steadily from then on, and even though she never again scaled the heights of the previous decades, she remained a consistently reliable actress whose performances were always carried off with honesty and sincerity. All of which was a far cry from her formative years when she was plagued by illness, and an over-protective mother who disapproved of her decision to become an actress. By her own admission her early roles weren’t very good, and she always attributed her success to Chabrol, but if she was his muse – and they did make twenty-four movies together – then we should all be grateful that he saw what a talented actress she could be, and made sure that we all found out.

1 – Good Time Girls (1960)

2 – Les biches (1968)

3 – The Unfaithful Wife (1969)

4 – Le Boucher (1970)

5 – Just Before Nightfall (1971)

6 – The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

7 – Violette Nozière (1978)

8 – Coup de Torchon (1981)

9 – Thieves After Dark (1984)

10 – Babette’s Feast (1987)

Poster of the Week – Bird of Paradise (1932)

01 Thursday Mar 2018

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Bernard Lancy, Dolores Del Rio, France, King Vidor, L'oiseau de Paradis, Polynesia, Poster of the week

Created for its release in France (n’est-ce pas), this poster for Bird of Paradise features the kind of design that US poster designers of the time wouldn’t have attempted, even if a gun was put to their heads. If you’re not sure why, then here are two words for you: green and pink. The two colours aren’t always complementary, but in the hands of the poster’s creator, Bernard Lancy, they become an arresting combination that draws the eye and maintains a connection with the viewer. The featured cape and head-dress are boldly displayed, statements in themselves, and again a challenge to the conventions of the period. The softness of the head-dress with its sprouting, curving, and questing fronds is in contrast to the hard lines and shark’s teeth pattern of the cape. Together they act as a costume for the character played by Dolores Del Rio, and they also represent the volcano that she is to be sacrificed to. It’s not often that you see such dual representation, but Lancy has carried it off with a great deal of skill, and without making it blatantly obvious.

Del Rio’s character, Luana, is the poster’s main focus, and as the movie is set on a Polynesian island and this is a pre-Hays Code feature, the poster accurately depicts Del Rio’s modesty being protected by a couple of garlands. For once this isn’t an attempt at titillation, or a sexploitative approach by Lancy, but though it could be viewed that way, Lancy’s depiction isn’t evocative at all, and entirely because he doesn’t draw attention to her state of semi-nudity in the way that some designers would have done (and besides, the movie does that job pretty well all by itself). However, he’s not so careful with the handmaiden to Luana’s left; it may be a sideways representation but she isn’t afforded the same modesty (and is featureless to boot). It’s interesting to see this kind of “double standard” in a poster: it’s not always deliberate, but it does make you wonder if the designer was trying to sneak in something that couldn’t be depicted openly (a bare breasted Del Rio wouldn’t have been allowed under any circumstances).

The ground is a swirl of leaf patterns and what look like cactus leaves, while the tree trunks are solid and thrusting (and yes there is an unspoken meaning in that), but there’s also a swathe of blue representing the sea. These colours – green, brown and blue – work well together, stanching the effect of the pink and creating a visual counterpoint. They’re also reflective of the island setting, and its status as a place where paradise can be found. The grey sails of the schooner that brings Joel McCrea’s character to the island is a neat touch, emphasising the way in which change has come to the island and by extension, what history has taught us about such arrivals in the past.

It’s a shame then, that with such a complex and wonderful image, the French distributors chose to highlight their involvement with a banner strapline at the top of the image. Jacques Haïk may have been proud to be the movie’s distributor, but the place for that information is at the bottom of the poster, and outside of the central image. After all, it’s where the title, the director and principal cast credits are located; if it’s good enough for them…? The Haïk/RKO logo in the top right hand corner is also intrusive and unnecessary, but Lancy wouldn’t have had a say in the matter, and the shortsightedness is annoying. Spare a thought for McCrea, though. Only in France was his surname misspelt. At least that wasn’t Lancy’s fault, something that serves as a reminder that Lancy and his fellow designers were hired chiefly for their skills as artists, and that the final decisions about overall content were made by somebody else. Would that it had been different.

Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) (2015)

10 Wednesday Jan 2018

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Daisy Broom, Drama, Eva Husson, Finnegan Oldfield, France, Lorenzo Lefèbvre, Marilyn Lima, Relationships, Review, Sex, Teenagers

Original title: Bang Gang (une histoire d’amour moderne)

D: Eva Husson / 94m

Cast: Finnegan Oldfield, Marilyn Lima, Lorenzo Lefèbvre, Daisy Broom, Fred Hotier, Manuel Husson, Olivia Lancelot, Raphaël Porcheron, Tatiana Werner, Olivier Lefebvre

Eva Husson’s debut feature, set in the world of Biarritz high-schoolers, could be described as a French reworking of Fight Club (1999), but with sexual activity instead of fighting. What’s the first rule of Sex Club? Answer: nobody talks about Sex Club! This may sound like a trite way of approaching the movie but it’s hard not to draw parallels with a number of other movies that focus on teens and the troubles they have in negotiating that dread period of time between being a teenager and becoming an adult. Here, the teens are predictably bored, listless and lacking in ambition (except for Gabriel (Lefèbvre), who creates his own music). Alex (Oldfield) has his mother’s house all to himself and has decided that conspicuous hedonism is the way forward; he’s aided by his friend, Niki (Hotier), who’s a little dorky but not as arrogant as Alex. Best friends George (Lima) and Laetitia (Broom) have little experience of the opposite sex, though both are curious to learn in their separate ways. Gabriel, meanwhile, is Laetitia’s neighbour, something of a loner, and attracted to George.

Thus the movie is ripe for exploring the tangled relationships that only horny and confused teenagers can endure, and the inevitable fallout when things start to go irretrievably wrong (as it does here, when their school is forced to implement a particularly embarrasing round of health screenings). But the movie doesn’t quite manage to make any of the characters’ predicaments anything more than perfunctory. The sex parties (which begin innocuously enough with games of spin the bottle) include drug taking as well, and participants are allowed to take photos or record videos of what goes on, but only for future sharing within the group. Of course, this lasts about as long as it takes for George and Laetitia’s friendship to crumble when they both sleep with Alex, and soon the widespread knowledge of the group’s activities causes further problems, but for the most part, these teenagers are still as bored, listless, and lacking in ambition as they were at the beginning. Does anyone learn anything? It’s hard to tell, not even if the lesson is simply to avoid getting involved with sex parties, and Husson’s script strives for meaning far too often and without providing any answers.

That said, the performances are engaging and acceptably fearless, with Lima a stand out as the emotionally compromised George, a character whose injured self-esteem leads her into wanton behaviour that undermines her self-esteem even more. But Husson doesn’t seem able to make anyone truly sympathetic enough for the viewer to identify with, and the whole sorry mess that the sex parties engender is best summed up by Gabriel’s father (Husson) as, “…so profoundly mediocre.” This extends to the parties themselves, which provide tame examples of the kind of “action” that would be taking place, and which for all the “freedom” that is on display, is content to show females kissing and getting together, but not males doing the same (are there no gay teens in Biarritz?). It’s a movie that also feels lightweight in terms of any social or sexual subtexts, and there are frequent allusions to train wrecks on the local news that offer clumsy counterpoints to the derailment of normal teenage behaviour taking place at Alex’s house. All in all, the movie struggles for relevance, and tells its story in too mundane a fashion for it to strike any chords – even amongst teenagers.

Rating: 5/10 – not as controversial as may have been intended, and not as fascinating as the scenario could have been, Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) offers a glimpse at a world that seeks to flout traditional rules of propriety, and without any long-term consequences; all wrapped up too neatly, Husson’s feature debut reveals a director with a certain visual flair but who needs to be aware that narrative loopholes – of which there are several – can hinder the success of any project.

A Brief Word About the BFI London Film Festival 2017

13 Friday Oct 2017

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Argentina, BFI, China, Drama, France, Ivan Mosjoukine, Joachim Trier, London Film Festival 2017, Lynne Ramsay, Movies, Norway, Sean Baker, Silent movie, Thriller

Each year in October, the London Film Festival takes place, and each year I endeavour to see as many movies as I can within – usually – a five day period. And with each passing year it proves more and more difficult to decide what to see. Quite simply, there’s too much choice, so much so that it’s impossible to see every movie that is shown. This year, however, and thanks to a new job, my visit to the Festival has been reduced to the final two days, the 14th and 15th. Here is my itinerary for the next two days:

Saturday 14 October:

The Florida Project (2017) – Sean Baker’s follow up to Tangerine (2015) about a family living in the shadow of Disney World and struggling to make ends meet.

The Prince of Adventurers (1927) – a French production charting the life of Casanova with the Italian lover played by Russian émigré Ivan Mosjoukine.

The Cured (2017) – an Irish horror movie where a zombie outbreak has seen a cure found, but distrust of the once infected leads to social injustice and eventual martial interference.

Wrath of Silence (2017) – more international intrigue in this Chinese movie set in a small town where corruption is rife and a mute miner takes a violent stand against it.

Sunday 15 October:

You Were Never Really Here (2017) – Lynne Ramsay’s latest is a taut psychological thriller that promises a terrific performance from Joaquin Phoenix.

Thelma (2017) – a Norwegian thriller that’s also a mystery and a romantic drama, and the latest mainstream art movie from Joachim Trier.

The Endless (2017) – this is a dark, cult-like movie about a cult and two ex-members who begin to wonder/suspect that maybe there’s more to the cult’s beliefs than they ever considered.

The Summit (2017) – an Argentinian political thriller that places that country’s (fictional) President in a personal bind that could have far-reaching effects on his personal and professional lives.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to seeing all of these movies – and reviewing them over the coming week. Being at the Festival and seeing a range of movies that are unlikely to be released in UK cinemas (and sometimes no matter how well received they are) is a massive bonus each year, and the BFI always manages to pull together an impressive programme of movies for everyone to enjoy. Away from the special gala showings and red carpet screenings, it’s often the less well known movies that have the most to offer, and not one of the movies that I’m planning to see lacks the ability to stand out from the crowd. I just can’t wait to get started!

The African Doctor (2016)

19 Tuesday Sep 2017

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Aïssa Maïga, Comedy, Doctor, Drama, France, Julien Rambaldi, Kamini, Marc Zinga, Marly-Gomont, Review, Seyolo Zantoko, True story, Zaire

Original title: Bienvenue à Marly-Gomont

D: Julien Rambaldi / 96m

Cast: Marc Zinga, Aïssa Maïga, Bayron Lebli, Médina Diarra, Rufus, Jonathan Lambert, Jean-Benoît Ugeux

The fish out of water movie is a such a staple of movie making that it’s hard to get it wrong, and The African Doctor, which is based on a true story, covers familiar narrative ground with ease, while providing a lightweight yet enjoyable experience for the casual viewer. Try as you might, to rail against this movie because of its simple premise and equally simple mise en scene is like railing against the air for being intangible: there’s just no point in doing so. Combining drama and comedy to good effect, it’s a movie that has no trouble in entertaining its audience, even though it tells a familiar story.

Based on the reminiscences of the comedian/singer Kamini when he was a child in the Seventies, the movie introduces us to his father, Seyolo Zantoko (Zinga), on the day that he graduates from medical school in Paris. Originally from Kinshasa in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Seyolo is unsure of where his future will take him, but having been offered the role of personal physician to Zairean president, Joseph-Desiré Mobutu, and turned it down, he finds himself being offered the role of physician in the small, rural village of Marly-Gomont. A position that’s offered to him by the mayor (Ugeux), Seyolo takes it because he doesn’t want to become corrupted by being so close to Mobutu, and to give his children a better life than they might have under Mobutu’s rule. His wife, Anne (Maïga), and two children, Kamini (Lebli) and Sivi (Diarra), travel from Zaire to be with him, and are less than impressed by their new surroundings.

Inevitably, Seyolo’s presence in the town is seen as unnecessary and unwanted, as the villagers hold fast to their entrenched beliefs and avoid going to him when they’re unwell. Seyolo ingratiates himself with some of the menfolk but to no avail; he still can’t attract any patients. In order to have money coming in he goes to work for a local farmer, Jean (Rufus), and it’s not until he delivers a baby that he’s accepted and the villagers begin coming to him with their medical issues. But political machinations – the role of mayor is up for election – see Seyolo barred from practicing medicine until certain immigration issues related to his seeking French citizenship are overcome. It’s not until the day of the election that Seyolo discovers just how highly regarded he is by the village, and what a difference a school play can make in determining his and his family’s future.

The key strength of The African Doctor – a clumsy title that doesn’t do the movie itself justice – is Rambaldi’s relaxed, almost carefree directorial style, a major plus for a movie that deals with its more dramatic moments in a quietly authoritative way, and which doesn’t descend into melodrama when it could so easily have done so on several occasions. Seyolo’s struggle to be accepted and to make a success of the clinic he’s been asked to run has its ups and downs (as expected), but it’s not the run-ins with the villagers that makes his struggle so difficult but the effect it has on him and his family. Seyolo faces a greater struggle in convincing Anne that he’s made the right decision for their family, and his bringing them to Marly-Gomont has been achieved under false pretences (they don’t know about the offer of being Mobutu’s personal physician). He also doesn’t learn from his mistakes: when Anne learns that they could have stayed in Kinshasa, it causes a rift in their relationship that is damaged further when he agrees to remain in the village at the mayor’s request and he doesn’t consult her about it.

The family dynamic is one that the script – by Rambaldi, Benoît Graffin, and Kamini himself – keeps returning to, and a subplot involving Sivi’s desire to play football (which she’s very good at) is allowed to take centre stage towards the end. It’s here that Seyolo realises his true worth to the community, and where his misguided attempts at making decisions for his family are left behind. It’s also at this point that Seyolo’s journey, one that began when he came to France to study medicine, reaches its true end stage, and his “arrival” in Marly-Gomont is complete. The subtle themes of acceptance and rejection that have been threaded throughout the narrative are given due acknowledgment, and the material as a whole, which has been buoyant even in its most dramatic moments, ends on a bittersweet note that is entirely fitting in relation to what’s gone before.

For many viewers, The African Doctor will feel derivative and/or predictable, and while much of what takes place isn’t exactly new, that’s not the point. Kamini, with the support of Rambaldi and an experienced cast, has made a tribute to his father that is both heartfelt and unafraid to show the man as less than perfect. His story may be one that we’ve seen before, but there’s a quiet dignity about Seyolo that stands out, and it’s given full expression via a captivating performance from Zinga, who captures the man’s sense of pride and determination to succeed, and the humility he experiences towards the end. Zinga is matched by a terrific performance by Maïga, who perfectly expresses the resentment and anger Anne feels towards her husband for treating her so poorly. Balanced against these portrayals however is an unnecessarily smarmy and wince-inducing turn from Lambert as the mayor’s chief political rival, an uninspired visual style, and an annoying, often grating score from Emmanuel Rambaldi (the director’s brother) that sounds as if it was composed for another, more whimsical movie altogether. These are problems that Rambaldi cannot solve (and could be said to have encouraged), but overall, it’s the quality of Seyolo’s story that wins out, and which makes this a movie to look out for.

Rating: 7/10 – an engaging movie about fitting in and finding a place in the world that suits both an individual’s needs and aspirations, The African Doctor is a small-scale, yet largely enjoyable love letter from a son to his father; though cultural and racial divisions abound, this isn’t about one man overcoming feckless hostility, but instead it’s about one man’s commitment to himself and his family, a universal theme that is played out with a great deal of charm and sincerity.

Spotlight on a Murderer (1961)

18 Sunday Jun 2017

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Dany Saval, Drama, France, Georges Franju, Inheritance, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Marianne Koch, Murder, Mystery, Pascale Audret, Pierre Brasseur, Review

D: Georges Franju / 92m

Original title: Pleins feux sur l’assassin

Cast: Pierre Brasseur, Pascale Audret, Marianne Koch, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Dany Saval, Jean Babilée, Georges Rollin, Jean Ozenne, Philippe Leroy, Gérard Buhr, Maryse Martin

Comte de Kerloguen (Brasseur) is dying. He knows it, his housekeeper knows it, his lawyer knows it, even his stable hand knows it. But the rest of his family don’t. So when the fateful moment arrives, the Comte does what all good patriarchs do: he hides himself away in a secret room in the family chateau, a place that nobody knows about and where his body is unlikely to ever be found. When his lawyer assembles the family to inform them of the Comte’s disappearance, he has odd news for them. While the Comte can be declared legally dead, his actual disappearance means that his estate can’t be divided amongst his family for another five years. And until that time, the family are fiancially responsible for the upkeep of the chateau.

Naturally, this doesn’t sit too well with most of the family, but as most of them don’t have the wherewithal to maintain the chateau, when Micheline (Saval), the girlfriend of youngest son Jean-Marie (Trintignant) suggests they make the chateau a tourist attraction and charge people to visit the place, the idea is adopted tout suite. But as the plan goes ahead and amongst other things, the building has a speaker system installed, a series of unfortunate “accidents” sees death take the lives of some of the family, until it becomes clear that one of them is determined to be the sole beneficiary of the Comte’s estate in five years’ time.

The third feature from director Georges Franju, who had made the creepy Eyes Without a Face the year before, Spotlight on a Murderer reunites Franju with thriller writers Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac in their tried and trusted tale of a family being riven from within when greed prompts one of them to dispatch the others in order to be the sole claimant of their wealthy antecedent’s estate. The key phrase here is “tried and trusted”, as this is a movie that does its best to employ a sinister vibe once the deaths begin to mount up, and all to direct attention away from the flaccid nature of the plot. Said vibe is employed to good effect, but the material itself is riddled with longueurs, and the pacing is awkward, with some scenes ending abruptly as if the team of Boileau-Narcejac haven’t thought them through fully, or don’t have so much to say.

It’s a problem, too, that the storyline, even for 1961, is “old hat”, with the script attempting to emulate or outshine previous old dark house mysteries. But thanks to a tepid script and Franju’s erratic commitment to the narrative, the movie lacks the necessary inventiveness to place it over and above the myriad of similar features. There’s only one moment that manages to overcome the indifference of the rest of the material, and that’s when the chateau’s speaker system picks up someone moving through the rooms. At first, there are only three people in the control room, and all three wonder the same thing: where is everyone else? And within a minute, everyone appears with them, leaving the audience in a quandary: if everyone is there, then it can’t be the murderer, can it? Or maybe, just maybe, the Comte isn’t as dead as we’ve all thought? Viewers who are paying attention will know the answer to this quandary, but for a brief couple of scenes the movie steps up a gear and becomes a real mystery thriller, complete with an atmosphere of dread.

The characters suffer too, being archetypes painted with broad brush strokes, from Koch’s earthy cousin, Edwige, to Audret’s easily exploited paranoiac, Jeanne. On occasion we get to learn a little bit more abut them all, but it’s never enough to help the viewer sympathise with them for more than a few minutes. The various deaths – aside from one – lack the impact needed to tighten the tension, and the whodunnit aspect of the tale generally takes a back seat to the trials and tribulations of the main characters. A blatant visual sleight-of-hand endeavours to wrong foot the viewer but again, does so only if the audience isn’t paying attention.

Spotlight on a Murderer wasn’t as well received as Eyes Without a Face, and it’s easy to see why. Regarded as a minor Franju movie by critics at the time, the movie has picked up its supporters over the years, but it remains a curio in terms of its gloomy mise en scene, and its place in the director’s career. There’s also the matter of Maurice Jarre’s less than inspired score, which tries to prop up the periods where the camera tries to make the chateau look menacing and/or atmospheric. The cast are competent enough, with Saval’s wild child girlfriend proving one of the movie’s few stellar accomplishments, while Franju sees fit to embrace rather than reject the scene where the murderer is apprehended (and which, amazingly, includes two moments of physical slapstick along the way). All in all, it’s a movie that proceeds in fits and starts and never really settles into a convincing groove – which is a shame, as there is clearly the potential there to make a movie that resonates and inspires dread to a much better degree.

Rating: 5/10 – despite the pedigree of its director, writers and cast, Spotlight on a Murderer is only a mildly successful thriller that squanders a lot of its running time with soap opera elements that feel out of place, and which don’t advance the plot in any meaningful way; proof again that even the most highly regarded of movie makers don’t always get it right.

NOTE: Alas, there isn’t an available trailer for Spotlight on a Murderer.

The Lady in the Car With Glasses and a Gun (2015)

24 Sunday Apr 2016

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Benjamin Biolay, Drama, Elio Germano, France, Freya Mavor, Joann Sfar, Literary adaptation, Mystery, Sébastien Japrisot, Secretary, Stacy Martin, Thriller, Thunderbird

Original title: La dame dans l’auto avec des lunettes et un fusil

D: Joann Sfar / 95m

Cast: Freya Mavor, Benjamin Biolay, Elio Germano, Stacy Martin, Thierry Hancisse, Alexandre von Sivers, Olivier Bonjour

Mousy secretary Dany (Mavor) works for businessman Michel Caravaille (Biolay). She has undeveloped fantasies about their relationship becoming something more than just employer and employee, but Michel is clearly uninterested. When he tells her he needs a report typed up urgently, she tells him it will take her all night. As he needs it first thing in the morning he tells her she can do the work at his home. After a quick stop at her home for some things, they arrive at Michel’s home where she is given a room to work in, and meets his wife, Anita (Martin).

The next day, and with the report completed, Michel asks Dany to drive himself and Anita to the airport, and then take the car, a magnificent Thunderbird, back to his home. Dany drops them off but decides that, with the weekend ahead of her, no one will know if she drives the car out to the coast (she’s never seen the sea), and as long as she gets the car back before Michel and Anita return. But as she makes her way through the French countryside, Dany finds herself meeting people who say they’ve seen, and talked to her, earlier on. This angers Dany, especially when the staff at a gas station are more concerned with her having been there before than in paying credence to the attack that was made on her in the toilets, and despite her receiving an injury that she didn’t have “before”.

At a hotel Dany finds again that she’s recognised by the staff. She also meets an Italian who calls himself Georges (Germano). Dany allows herself to be seduced by Georges, but the next day she finds he has stolen the Thunderbird. Desperate to get the car back she enlists the aid of a truck driver and his friends on the CB network to find out where Georges has got to. But when she tracks him down to a seaside town, events take an even more disturbing turn, and Dany discovers that she’s now connected to a murder.

Adapted from the novel by Sébastien Japrisot, Joann Sfar’s third feature is a twisty, Gallic thriller that looks cool, plays it cool, but becomes quite heated in the last quarter of an hour, as its tricksy, mysterious narrative unravels thanks to one massive mistake made early on in the movie’s construction. It’s not hard to work out what’s happening, or who’s responsible, but the why is kept under wraps until quite near the end. By the time all is revealed though, Dany’s journey from subdued, submissive secretary to not quite defenceless stooge-in-the-making has taken one too many “unexpected” turns for it all to work properly or credibly.

Which is a shame, as for much of its running time, The Lady in the Car With Glasses and a Gun is an entertaining mystery movie, sometimes feeling a little surreal, sometimes a little like experiencing a mild hallucinogen, but always keeping the audience a little off-kilter. This helps the viewer identify more closely with Dany and her escalating problems, as the script by Patrick Godeau and Gilles Marchand does its best to retain a semblance of “normality” while putting its heroine through the emotional wringer. Each successive encounter with someone who’s already met her leaves Dany questioning what’s going on but this isn’t some Twilight Zone fantasy that she’s experiencing; instead it’s a much more sinister world she finds herself dealing with, and as the script keeps Dany on the back foot, it strives to keep the viewer in suspense at the same time.

That it doesn’t fully succeed is due to the somewhat generic nature of the mystery itself. It’s unlikely that Dany is going mad, and to be fair, the movie doesn’t take that tack, but in putting her in situations where things aren’t as clearcut or as straightforward as they should be, Sfar and the screenwriters portray a secondary world where nothing is obvious, and expectations should be abandoned. Once Dany veers off the main road back to Michel’s home and heads for the seaside, it’s almost as if she’s entered some kind of alternate reality, a dream world perhaps, and the movie tries hard to maintain that illusion for as long as possible. And until Dany meets Georges, it succeeds quite well in creating that kind of atmosphere.

In a lot of mystery thrillers, the introduction of a man who is sympathetic to the heroine’s troubles, and wants to help out, usually leads to a romance between them that’s borne out of tackling those troubles. And at first it seems as if Georges is there to fulfill that role, but even though they end up in bed together, the audience will already know that Georges isn’t to be trusted (Germano’s performance practically screams “con man”). By removing this small amount of hope, the audience begins to understand that this movie may be more nihilistic than they expected. And as Dany gets further and further into trouble, so it proves.

Sfar is a competent director, certainly able to elicit strong performances from his cast – Mavor, perhaps best known as Mini from the TV series Skins (2011-12) is very good indeed as Dany – but the movie’s tone is wayward, and the ending feels rushed, as if the movie had to come in at a certain running time and a less hurried denouement would have ruined things. He’s also never quite sure as a director with where to place the camera, leaving the movie looking and feeling a little awkward in its presentation of certain scenes, such as Dany’s romantic fantasies, and when he feels the need to vary the camera angles when Dany’s in the car. And he fumbles the revelation of what’s been happening (and why), leaving the viewer unsure if he/she heard right, or if there’s something more to be added. As it is, the revelation is unnecessarily complicated, and relies too much on coincidence to work effectively, a problem Sfar doesn’t have the experience to solve.

But as already mentioned, the movie does look cool, thanks to Manuel Dacosse’s sterling cinematography. The movie has an autumnal, melancholy feel to it that Dacosse highlights through the use of some unfussy yet effective lighting, and a subdued colour palette. And it’s a movie that gets progressively darker in terms of light and shade as Dany’s problems worsen. This makes the movie intriguing to watch on a visual level, and helps make up for some of the failings elsewhere. But all in all, it’s a movie where style and substance aren’t on an equal footing.

Rating: 6/10 – while there’s much to admire in The Lady in the Car With Glasses and a Gun, it’s narrative isn’t rewarding enough to overcome the pitfalls it finds itself creating; Mavor has the look of a troubled innocent, and is the glue that holds the movie together, but her performance alone isn’t enough to overcome the movie’s various narrative problems.

Short Movies Volume 2

15 Monday Feb 2016

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Anton Sheptooha, Australia, Benjamin De Bandt, Comedy, Drama, Fabio Gradassi, France, I Miss You, Impuissance, Italy, Mech: Human Trials, Mihalis Monemvasiotis, Nick L'Barrow, Patrick Kalyn, Red Wine, Reviews, Romance, Sci-fi, Thriller, Una di troppo

The short movie is an oft-neglected aspect of movie viewing these days, with fewer outlets available to the makers of short movies, and certainly little chance of their efforts being seen in our local multiplexes (the exceptions to these are the animated shorts made to accompany the likes of Pixar’s movies, the occasional cash-in from Disney such as Frozen Fever (2015), and Blue Sky’s Scrat movies. Otherwise it’s an internet platform such as Vimeo, YouTube (a particularly good place to find short movies, including the ones in this post), or brief exposure at a film festival. Even on DVD or Blu-ray, there’s a dearth of short movies on offer. In an attempt to bring some of the gems that are out there to a wider audience, here is the second in an ongoing series of posts that will focus on short movies. Who knows? You might find one that becomes a firm favourite – if you do, please let me know.

I Miss You (2014) / D: Anton Sheptooha, Nick L’Barrow / 7m

Cast: Alex Fitzalan, Steph Howe

Rating: 8/10 – A touching, heartfelt little movie that charts the course of a romance between an unnamed young man and woman in a succession of scenes that show the rise, and eventual collapse, of their relationship. All the while the young man narrates his feelings of loss at not having his girlfriend in his life anymore. Subtly and succinctly made, with a voiceover that convincingly displays sadness and regret (even if the character says he doesn’t have any regrets), this Aussie charmer is one of those rare shorts that you wish was just that little bit longer.

Una di troppo (2015) / D: Fabio Gradassi / 4m

aka One Too Many

Cast: Arianna Ceravone, Marco Stefano Speziali

Rating: 8/10 – It’s the morning after the night before and Marco is congratulating himself on yet another sexual conquest, a friend of his flatmate’s called Gianna. But there’s more to his apparent good fortune than he suspects, a fact that becomes all too clear when he asks to see Gianna again. A quickfire assault in the Italian battle of the sexes is handled with deft humour as Gradassi has fun with Marco’s pompous self-belief and Gianna’s no-nonsense intentions. The “twist” is perhaps a little too obvious but it’s handled with aplomb by the two stars, which makes Una di troppo a small but very delicious treat.

Impuissance (2015) / D: Cleaudya Deschamps, Ludovic Julia, Chloé Prendleloup, Júlia Tomàs Pagès, Benjamin De Bandt / 8m

aka Powerless

Cast: Benjamin De Bandt, Sylvie Morizot

Rating: 7/10 – A young boy tries to cope with feelings of pain and despair in the wake of his mother’s unexpected death. If you search out short movies on the Internet then you’re bound to come across some that are the results of school projects, such as this moody, slightly eerie French endeavour, that features an impassive performance from De Bandt, and a visual approach that favours bleak, existential compositions spliced into the boy’s humdrum daily routine. It has a gradual effect on the viewer, but one question will probably remain uppermost in most viewer’s thoughts: where is the father in all this?

Mech: Human Trials (2014) / D: Patrick Kalyn / 6m

Cast: Steve Baran, Rowland Pidlubny, Douglas Chapman, Pete Gasbarro

Rating: 7/10 – Following an accident, a man retreats into the world of designer drugs, only to find their effect on him isn’t quite what he was expecting… and that he’s not alone. Along with school projects, there are an awful lot of short movies that are made to show what a movie maker can do, a) on a limited budget, b) with a lot of imagination, and c) as a calling card to the various studios out there. This sci-fi thriller, with its Terminator overtones, is high on moody shots of its star, and does well with its depiction of the drug’s physical effects, but also makes the mistake of repeating its one standout moment – and for a six-minute movie that’s not always a good thing.

Red Wine (2013) / D: Mihalis Monemvasiotis / 6m

Cast: Peter Greenall, Aggy Kukawka

Rating: 9/10 – Having cooked dinner and poured two glasses of red wine, a man waits for his wife to come home and join him. When she does, her being late leads to accusations of sexual impropriety, and an uncomfortable confrontation that speaks of domestic violence to come – or does it? With a bigger budget and a longer running time, it’s unlikely that Red Wine would work as well as it does. By keeping it tight and memorably disturbing, and even more so when the nature of the action becomes clear, Monemvasiotis manages to draw the viewer in and keep their attention fixed as events spiral seemingly out of control. Tense and hypnotic, Red Wine is one short that is astute enough to not “let off” its audience by providing a cosy ending.

For One Week Only: Women Directors – 3. Maya Deren & the Fifties

12 Thursday Nov 2015

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Alexander Hammid, At Land, Avant garde, Chao Li Chi, Døden er et kjærtegn, Edith Carlmar, Experimental movies, France, Jacqueline Audry, Japan, Kinuyo Tanaka, Love Letter, Maya Deren, Meditation on Violence, Meshes in the Afternoon, Norway, Olivia (1951), Shirley Clarke, The Fifties, Women directors

Introduction

Women directors had been prevalent during the Silent Era, but with the advent of sound, many prominent careers foundered or were unable to continue. In Hollywood, only Dorothy Arzner maintained a career within the male-dominated heirarchy that viewed women directors as “box office poison”, and she did so by making moderately successful, conservative movies that weren’t transgressive in any way at all. In 1943, she made her last movie before making the switch to television. But while Hollywood showed no interest in encouraging would-be women directors to replace her, elsewhere, there were women who, like Ida Lupino at the end of the decade, weren’t letting Hollywood tell them how to make movies…

Maya Deren (1917-1961)

An experimental movie maker, Deren made a series of short, avant garde experimental movies between 1943 and 1948 that remain some of the most impressive movies of their type ever made. Her first movie, Meshes in the Afternoon (1943) is a surreal tale of a woman whose dreams may or may not be happening in reality, and is technically astonishing for the scene where there are multiple Derens at a table (the movie was filmed using a 16mm Bolex camera). It’s dreamlike (naturally) and enigmatic, but fascinating to watch nevertheless.

She followed this with Witch’s Cradle (1944), a collection of images and static shots that wasn’t as well received, and in the same year she and her husband Alexander Hammid collaborated on a documentary short The Private Life of a Cat. She ended the year by making At Land, a haunting study of a woman’s trek through various foreign environments that she encounters; her sense of herself in these environments and her reaction to them makes for an intriguing study of isolationism and the need to belong.

In 1945 she made A Study in Choreography for Camera, a movie that packs so much about time and motion through the movement of a dancer in its four minutes that it’s almost dizzying how much Deren has managed to include in that time. It’s a movie that confronts ideas about space and time and motion that are so stimulating, it makes the viewer wonder why there aren’t more movies like it. Dance was also the main feature of her next project, Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946); its blend of dance and surrealism, allied to notions of freedom of expression, makes for some very eloquent and poetic imagery.

In 1946 her work was acknowledged with a Guggenheim Fellowship for “Creative Work in the Field of Motion Pictures”. She also won the Grand Prix Internationale for 16mm experimental film at the Cannes Film Festival (for Meshes in the Afternoon). Deren’s last movie in the Forties was Meditation on Violence (1948), a collaboration with martial arts expert Chao Li Chi that looks at the ideals of the Wu Tang philosophy. It’s a cloistered affair with the movie being rewound part way through, thus obscuring the message (unfortunately). It’s still an intriguing look at a way of living life in a particular fashion, and Chao is a mesmerising figure.

The 50’s

At the same time that Ida Lupino made her last independent movie, The Bigamist (1953), a member of the New York avant garde modern dance movement called Shirley Clarke made her first short movie, Dance in the Sun. Clarke had wanted to be a choreographer, but she was unsuccessful at this, and on the advice of her psychiatrist, followed her interest in movies instead. She made several more shorts in the Fifties, including A Moment in Love (1957) and Bridges-Go-Round (1958). All were well-received, and Clarke continued to make her own kind of experimental movies in the Sixties.

Maya Deren made two more short movies in the Fifties, Ensemble for Somnambulists (1951) and The Very Eye of Night (1958), two similar explorations of dance form and composition that also looked at ritual and expression as shown through movement. Deren stayed true to her beliefs about the nature of film, and her sudden death in 1961 was a tragedy in every sense of the word. She once said, “I make my pictures for what Hollywood spends on lipstick”; but what she achieved in such a short directorial career was nothing short of miraculous, and she remains a tremendous influence on experimental movie makers the world over.

1953 was also the year that saw Japanese actress Kinuyo Tanaka make her debut as a director with Love Letter. Only the second woman to have a career as a director – after Tazuko Sakane – Tanaka’s romantic drama was entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival. She made five further movies between 1955 and 1962, one of which, The Moon Has Risen (1955) was co-scripted by Yasujirô Ozu. Tanaka had a surety of touch behind the camera and her visual style was eloquent and disarming. She maintained her career as an actress, and won several awards later on, but her movies, though hard to find now, show a smart, capable movie maker who was comfortable behind the camera because of how comfortable she was in front of it.

In France, the career of Jacqueline Audry, which had begun with the short Le Feu de paille (1943), flourished in the Fifties, and she had particular success with a series of adaptations of novels by Colette, Gigi (1949), Minne (1950), and Mitsou (1956). Audry often tackled topics that were considered controversial, such as the relationship between a schoolmistress and one of her pupils in Olivia (1951), a movie that has come to be regarded as a “landmark of lesbian representation”. With the rise of the French New Wave her more traditional style was at odds with the prevailing trends in French cinema, and she only made three movies in the Sixties, but overall her career shows she was a woman who wasn’t afraid to challenge conventional notions of sexuality and female submissiveness (even if it meant her movies were often heavily censored).

Another actress who made the transition to directing was Norway’s Edith Carlmar. In 1949 she made what is regarded as the very first film noir directed by a woman, Døden er et kjærtegn. It was a success, and she followed it up with a drama about mental illness called Skadeskutt (1951). Another female director who wasn’t afraid to tackle serious issues that most mainstream (male) directors wouldn’t go near, Carlmar made a total of ten movies between 1949 and 1959, and each one was both a box office success and critically well-received, a remarkable achievement for the period, and one that makes her one of the most successful female movie directors of the last seventy years.

Even though these women were forging careers for themselves, and were making sometimes controversial, challenging and experimental movies, they remained a minority in an international industry that still didn’t trust women to be successful or able to attract audiences in the first place. But this misogyny was about to face its first real, and proper, challenge, as the movement towards female empowerment that began to express itself in the Sixties encouraged women movie makers to become bolder and to demand more of an equal place in cinema.

Mini-Review: A Little Chaos (2014)

27 Monday Jul 2015

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Alan Rickman, Drama, France, Helen McCrory, History, Horticulture, Kate Winslet, Landscape gardening, Louis XIV, Matthias Schoenaerts, Period movie, Review, Romance, Stanley Tucci, Versailles

D: Alan Rickman / 116m

Cast: Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Alan Rickman, Helen McCrory, Stanley Tucci, Steven Waddington, Jennifer Ehle, Paula Paul, Danny Webb

France, 1682. At the behest of King Louis XIV (Rickman), landscape garden designers are invited to submit their designs for the planned new gardens at the Palace of Versailles. Sabine De Barra (Winslet), a widow who has a keen eye for the disruptive yet beguiling influence that disorder can have on a garden, meets with the King’s renowned landscape architect, André Le Notre (Schoenaerts). He is concerned by her attitude and lack of formal training, but he nevertheless hires her to build one of the main gardens at Versailles, the Rockwork Grove.

Sabine begins her work in earnest but is initially hampered in her efforts by the other, male, designers. Le Notre intervenes for her, and as her design begins to take shape, he finds himself increasingly attracted to Sabine, despite his being married. He takes to spending more time with her, something which his wife (McCrory) notices. While Le Notre wrestles with his sense of honour and marital duty, Sabine unwittingly earns the respect of the King, and also his brother, Philippe (Tucci). As the project nears completion, Sabine is invited to attend the King’s court, where her honesty and subtle persuasiveness earns her many friends among the ladies in waiting – all except one, who decides to sabotage Sabine’s design…

An old-fashioned heritage picture, A Little Chaos – Rickman’s second directorial feature after The Winter Guest (1997) – is a movie that will sit well with anyone who’s seen similar movies from the Thirties, replete as it is with a woman battling against the preconceptions of her gender and the sexism of the times, a romance where convention says the couple should remain apart, and a minimal amount of political intrigue at the King’s court. It’s a pleasant movie to watch, not least because of Winslet’s emotive yet (mostly) carefully detailed performance, and shows Rickman is adept at staging scenes for their maximum emotional effect as well as their visual splendour.

And yet, while the movie has plenty of positives about it, it’s let down by the romantic storyline, with Le Notre and Sabine’s ardour for each other feeling watered down and sounding less than enthusiastically entered into. Schoenaerts never looks entirely comfortable in these scenes, and Winslet too seems unsure of how to play the drama of their situation. In contrast, the scene where Sabine and the King exchange views on gardening and various flowers, is laden with subtext and deliberate innuendo, leaving the viewer with no doubt that, in a different life, the romance would be between them and not Sabine and Le Notre.

Rickman is a generous director when it comes to his cast, and he finds a willing aide in Ellen Kuras’ often stunning cinematography, for the movie is beautiful to look at. And as historical romantic dramas go there’s a degree of humour that helps leaven the seriousness of the story, while Tucci’s flamboyant Philippe gives the movie a much needed boost just as it was starting to sag. And there’s a wonderful, non-intrusive score courtesy of Peter Gregson.

Rating: 7/10 – enjoyable if lacking in any appreciable depth, A Little Chaos is gentle, harmless, and a pleasant diversion from this year’s slew of mega-blockbusters; with Winslet, Rickman and McCrory winning the acting plaudits, this trip back to 17th Century France is an undemanding one but worth seeing nevertheless.

Charlotte for Ever (1986)

07 Tuesday Apr 2015

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Benjamin Constant, Bereavement, Car accident, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Drama, Father/daughter relationship, France, Lolita, Review, Script, Serge Gainsbourg, Vladimir Nabokov

D: Serge Gainsbourg / 90m

Cast: Serge Gainsbourg, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Roland Bertin, Roland Dubillard, Anne Zamberlan, Anne Le Guernec, Sabeline Campo

Stanley (Serge Gainsbourg) is a movie maker who is down on his luck. His wife has recently died in a car accident and he has no money; all he has left is his daughter, Charlotte (Gainsbourg). He tries to get an advance for a new script from his friend, Herman (Dubillard), but it comes with a condition: he must come up with the script in a week’s time.

Charlotte blames him for the death of her mother. The car she was in, and which Stanley was driving, crashed into a petrol tanker. The subsequent explosion killed Stanley’s wife, and left him with a burned hand. He displays regret and sadness at her death but refuses to be made to feel guilty about what happened. Charlotte battles against him, being obstinate and aggressive and continually challenging his assertions about the accident and his lack of culpability. She also takes issue with his liaisons with young women who appear at their home on a regular basis.

Stanley receives a visit from his doctor, Leon (Bertin) who is gay and has recently split up from his boyfriend. Leon is depressed and unhappy, but Stanley is unsupportive toward him; only Charlotte shows him any sympathy. His visit encourages Stanley to think more on the script he needs to write. But instead of coming up with something original he decides to plagiarise the work of Benjamin Constant. When the script is finished, Stanley gives it to Herman who thinks it’s terrific. Leon is present when he reads through it, though, and he tells Herman what Stanley has done. Herman is furious, but Stanley is oblivious and hits on him again for money.

Charlotte encounters Adelaide (Le Guernec), one of her father’s conquests, and angry at her (and him), she attacks her. Stanley discovers them and makes Adelaide leave before he attempts to placate Charlotte. She shows some remorse for her actions, and later, tells her father that she never really blamed him for her mother’s death.

With a screenplay filled to the brim with literary and sexual references galore, as well as a few literally sexual references, Charlotte for Ever, the brainchild of multi-talented Serge Gainsbourg, is a movie that any viewer will hope is just that: a movie. Because if it isn’t, and it only semi-accurately describes the relationship between real-life father and daughter Serge and Charlotte, then this psycho-sexual drama is likely to leave a sour taste in the mouth.

From the opening scene where Stanley tells Herman how his attention has been transferred from his wife to Charlotte, and his speech becomes more and more erotically charged (with more than one reference to Nabokov’s Lolita to reinforce the issue), the movie becomes an uncomfortable experience to watch as he manipulates his conversations with his daughter, and the viewer is left wondering if Gainsbourg the writer/director/father isn’t averse to sharing his real feelings for Gainsbourg the actress/daughter. Charlotte Gainsbourg was fifteen when the movie was made, and there are scenes where she appears topless, including one that involves her being manhandled by her father. It may be that Charlotte was a willing, and completely aware, participant in the movie, but the fact that Gainsbourg chose his daughter for the role, and not another actress, doesn’t make it any easier to appreciate.

Added to this is Gainsbourg’s continual use of sexual rhetoric and innuendo, best displayed (if “best” is the right word) in a scene where Charlotte is doing her homework. It consists of a series of questions that she asks for his help with. One question is: “What quality do you most admire in a woman?” Stanley’s response is: “Her wetness.” There are other examples where Stanley’s blunt, unapologetic use of single entendres is used and most of them are wince-inducing. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Gainsbourg is playing with the audience, but the fact that he’s using his daughter as part of the game makes it all the more unconscionable. It’s also like seeing a naughty schoolboy trying to shock his teachers: the schoolboy knows what he’s doing will cause a stir, but he doesn’t have the context that would make it more palatable – or forgivable.

With the supporting characters in place for Stanley (and Gainsbourg) to feel superior to, the movie ends up looking and sounding more like a vanity piece than a fully realised drama. Everyone talks in an arch, mannered way of speaking that features literary quotes, apothegms, precepts and quasi-philosophical assertions that are only superficially astute. It’s the type of cod-intellectual rambling that is meant to make its author sound erudite and cultivated, but which in reality makes them sound asinine instead. Gainsbourg gives himself a lot of these meandering speeches – and not one sounds convincing.

The performances suffer as a result, with Gainsbourg appearing disinterested in his own movie and prowling around in scenes as if he can’t quite decide which mark he should be hitting. He continually grabs and paws at his daughter, and wears a black glove on his right hand to denote his injury from the car crash. Alas, this gloved hand is used more as an affectation as Gainsbourg waves it around to indicate all sorts of feelings that he can’t clarify through speech or expression. In the end, it’s a lazy, semi-committed performance that soon becomes boring to watch. As for Charlotte, she provides emotional responses to Stanley’s behaviour that match the affected way in which he behaves, but which prove too wayward and inconsistent for comfort. There are glimpses of the slightly removed acting style that has stood her in good stead in the years since, but here she’s pretty much a puppet being moved around at will by her father.

Curious viewers, or fans of Gainsbourg pére et fille, will find no one to sympathise with (or recognise), and even less to engage with beyond a handful of gratuitous scenes of female nudity. The ending is abrupt and unrewarding given all that’s gone before, but at least it brings to a close a tale that manages, with considerable ease, to be both tawdry and pretentious.

Rating: 2/10 – sometimes a movie is just a dud and that’s all there is to it, and Charlotte for Ever is the movie that proves the rule; with only Gainsbourg’s disco-themed score to recommend it, this sad, alienating movie shows him not at the peak of his powers (which were considerable) but declining badly – and seemingly unconcerned.

NOTE: The “trailer” is more of a promo video for the song that plays over the opening credits (and at various times during the movie).

The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)

24 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Charlotte Le Bon, Drama, France, French cuisine, Helen Mirren, Indian cuisine, Lasse Hallström, Le Saule Pleureur, Maison Mumbai, Manish Dayal, Om Puri, Review, Romance

D: Lasse Hallström / 122m

Cast: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon, Amit Shah, Farzana Dua Elahe, Dillon Mitra, Aria Pandya, Michel Blanc, Clément Sibony

Fleeing Mumbai after the loss of their restaurant in a fire that also claimed the life of their matriarch, the Kadam family – Papa (Puri), sons Mansur (Shah), Hassan (Dayal), and Mukhtar (Mitra), and daughters Mahira (Elahe) and Aisha (Panda) – first seek asylum in England but find their new home unsuitable for running a restaurant. They head for Europe, and while travelling through Europe, find themselves stranded in a small French village, Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, when their van breaks down. Helped by Marguerite (Le Bon), one of the locals, they spend the night there. In the morning, Papa notices an abandoned building that’s up for sale. A quick look at the premises reveals the perfect site for a restaurant.

However, the site is directly opposite Le Saule Pieureur (the Weeping Willow), a Michelin star restaurant owned and run by Madame Mallory (Mirren). She is less than happy to see the Kadam’s open their own restaurant, and does all she can to sabotage their efforts to make Maison Mumbai a success, including buying all their menu’s main ingredients at the local market. This leads to a culinary war of attrition between Madame Mallory and Papa as they try to outdo each other. But Maison Mumbai flourishes, thanks to Hassan who has the makings of a great chef. He begins a romance with Marguerite and starts to learn how to cook French cuisine, albeit with infusions of spices and different flavours.

One night, Maison Mumbai has graffiti sprayed on its outer wall and its interior is fire-bombed. Hassan chases off the culprits but suffers burns to his hands and legs. Madame Mallory fires her chef (who was responsible for the attack) and voluntarily cleans the graffiti; this leads to a rapprochement between her and Papa. Hassan sees a chance to put his culinary skills to the test and “auditions” for Madame Mallory by getting her to make an omelette under his instruction (Hassan has learnt from Marguerite that this is the way Madame Mallory tests any potential new chefs). She recognises his skill and he accepts a job in her kitchen. Papa is dismayed by this turn of events, but not as much as Marguerite, who cools toward Hassan and their relationship becomes more adversarial than romantic. Hassan’s food is a success and with it comes the possibility that, thirty years after gaining her Michelin star, Madame Mallory will attain her second.

Adapted by Steven Knight – writer/director of Locke (2013) and Hummingbird (2013) – from the novel by Richard C. Morais, The Hundred-Foot Journey is a feelgood movie that ticks all the boxes on its way to a predictably life-affirming finale, but which remains entirely likeable thanks to the breeziness of its set up, a handful of pleasing performances, and the sure hand of Hallström at the tiller. It’s not a movie to change the way anyone sees the world (though it might inspire some budding chefs out there), but rather is the cinematic equivalent of a comforting three-course meal.

Movies about the importance of food and how it can bring people together occupy a distinct dramatic sub-genre, and The Hundred-Foot Journey (the distance between both restaurants) is just as aware of its responsibilities to the audience as any other culinary-based drama. So we have lots of lovingly filmed shots of food being prepared, tasted and eaten, along with satisfied grins and knowing smiles (though thankfully no one actually rubs or pats their belly). This movie’s own particular hook, the fusion of French and Indian cuisines, isn’t focused on as much as you might expect. It’s a bit of a one-way street, with French dishes being given the upgrade treatment, as if they’re on the way to becoming moribund. At one point, Hassan adds spices to a recipe that’s two hundred years old and when Madame Mallory challenges him, his reply is to imply that perhaps it’s about time the recipe should be changed. And yet there’s no attempt to take Indian cuisine and introduce any French influences. (It’s a brave movie that is willing to say that classic French cuisine needs shaking up.)

The various relationships are handled with an appropriately genial approach, the initial animosity between Madame Mallory and Papa leading to mutual respect which in turn leads to their dancing together (and we all know what that leads to). Mirren is haughty and imperious, and pulls off a passable French accent, though it’s like watching her as the Queen but in charge of a restaurant instead of a country. Puri is as curmudgeonly as ever, but with a big heart beneath all the business bluster; it’s a softer version of his role in East Is East (1999), and like Mirren he goes along with the tried-and-trusted nature of the material. As the ever-experimenting Hassan, Dayal imbues the character with an earnest, willing-to-please demeanour that doesn’t quite gel with his desire to succeed. It’s an agreeable performance that again meets the needs of the movie, but could have been beefed up (excuse the pun). Le Bon at least gets the chance to act against expectations, Marguerite’s antipathy towards Hassan’s success being the only example of a character not behaving as anticipated.

Hallström assembles all the various ingredients with his usual lightness of touch and keeps things from becoming too sentimental (though there’s a liberal amount of sugar sprinkled throughout). The drama is affected as a result – Hassan’s burnt hands and his quick, virtually pain-free recovery become almost incidental to what follows, the clash of cultures barely resonates – and remains superficial from start to finish, the various setbacks and problems the characters have to deal with proving too easy to overcome on every occasion. The movie is beautifully lensed by Linus Sandgren (though some of the matte effects are a little too obvious for comfort), and the French locations provide the perfect backdrop for the action (viewers with a good memory will recognise Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val from 2001’s Charlotte Gray). And A.R. Rahman’s score adds energy to the proceedings, but isn’t enough to offset the dependable nature of the story.

Rating: 5/10 – there are other, better culinary dramas out there – Babette’s Feast (1987), The Secret of the Grain (2007) – but The Hundred-Foot Journey doesn’t aim as high as those movies and treads a more predictable, well-worn path instead; everyone does just enough to make it entertaining but by the end you’ll be wanting more than it’s menu is able to provide.

Mini-Review: Jeune & jolie (2013)

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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François Ozon, France, Marine Vacth, Prostitution, Review, Seasons, Sex, Teenager, Virginity

D: François Ozon / 95m

Cast: Marine Vacth, Géraldine Pailhas, Frédéric Pierrot, Fantin Ravat, Johan Leysen, Charlotte Rampling

During the summer holidays, newly-seventeen Isabelle (Vacth) loses her virginity, but the experience has an unexpected and altogether darker effect on her: she becomes a prostitute. She meets men in hotel rooms, in particular Georges (Leysen), an elderly man who treats her with kindness. Naturally, her family, mother Sylvie (Pailhas), stepfather Patrick (Pierrot), and younger brother Victor (Ravat), know nothing of her activities outside school. It’s only when one of her customers dies while they are having sex, that everything comes out.

Jeune & jolie is a compelling movie, made more so by an amazing performance from Vacth, making only her fourth screen appearance. She perfectly captures that awkward period in a teenage girl’s life where the need to be an adult is so overwhelming it can lead to the worst decisions. Whether arguing with her mother, or trying to make a “normal” relationship work, Vacth is always convincing; there’s not a single off-note in her entire performance. She’s ably supported by the rest of the cast – including a quietly emotional performance by Rampling as Georges’ widow – and by a script that refuses to be predictable or pedantic in its approach; it’s a testament to the quality of the screenplay that Isabelle’s reasons for becoming a prostitute are never clearly given, and the audience never feels cheated as a result.

Ozon’s direction is as captivating and intelligent as always, and each character is clearly delineated and given room to grow. The movie takes place over a year and the seasonal changes resonate with the characters and their development – it’s no surprise that Isabelle’s family discover what she’s been doing in winter. Fascinating from start to finish, with a central performance that is incredibly assured, this beguiling movie bears more than one viewing to ensure none of its complexities are missed.

Rating: 8/10 – a riveting movie that makes a virtue of being evasive in its lead character’s motivations; a potent reminder of just how courageous and thought-provoking French cinema can be when it wants to.

My Top 10 Movies – Part Eight

10 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Algeria, Algerian War of Independence, Criterion collection, Decolonialization, Drama, France, Gillo Pontecorvo, History, Jean Martin, Review, The Battle of Algiers, True story

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Original title: La battaglia di Algeri

D: Gillo Pontecorvo / 121m

Cast: Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Samia Kerbash, Ugo Paletti, Fusia El Kader

In the late Nineties, I became aware of the Criterion Collection. If, like me, you have a broad liking for cinema, then the movies in the Criterion Collection will capture your interest from the moment you first set eyes on them. I can’t remember now which Criterion DVD was my first purchase, but there were several I had my eye on, including Seven Samurai (1954) and The Seventh Seal (1957). I built up my collection, and then in 2004 I was browsing through their listings and I saw the title The Battle of Algiers. Knowing nothing about it, I did some research and found it was about the Algerian War of Independence which took place between 1954 and 1957. It was a period of recent history I knew nothing about, but as I discovered just how highly regarded it was, the movie jumped to the top of my “must-have” list.

However, despite my initial enthusiasm, it was a while before I actually bought the movie’s Criterion edition, and even longer before I finally sat down to watch it. It didn’t take long before I was berating myself for being so tardy; the movie was astonishing. It was like watching a documentary, its shooting style almost like the audience was eavesdropping on events as they happened; it was mesmerising. And it was incredibly instructive and informative. By the movie’s end I had a much clearer understanding of the Algerian struggle for independence, and France’s response to it. It was shocking in many ways, and deliberately so. The movie left no room for doubt: both sides had been capable of carrying out atrocities in their efforts to achieve their ends. It was this fairness in presenting events that caught my attention as well, Pontecorvo’s decision to not take sides but to pass judgment when necessary on both the Algerians and the French.

Afterwards, like the really best movies (and all the rest in my Top 10), the movie stayed with me. I also watched all the supplemental material on the Criterion DVD, something I rarely did back then, or do even now. And the more I thought about it, the more I found myself wanting to watch the movie a second time. And so, a couple of weeks later, I did, and even though I’d seen The Battle of Algiers so recently, it was like watching it for the first time. The amateur cast (albeit largely dubbed) were amazing to watch, their personal experiences infusing their performances, and offering a trenchant contrast with Martin’s professional interpretation of the composite character Colonel Mathieu. The soundtrack made more of an impression also, with Pontecorvo’s decision to include the sounds of warfare as punctuation in certain scenes proving a master-stroke.

Watching the movie again reinforced my belief that cinema can both educate and inspire as well as entertain. Even though The Battle of Algiers is not an easy watch, and there are scenes that push the level of barbarity both sides employed, it works best as a document of those tumultuous times and the efforts each side made to win the conflict. The documentary-style approach serves as a framework for the political and personal stories the movie focuses on, and provides a structured point of access for the casual viewer. There’s so much information provided that some of it will most likely be missed but Pontecorvo’s mastery of the material ensures that every action, reaction or decision is clearly explained along with its consequences.

It’s a bold, complicated movie that, for its time, pulls no punches and offers, by turns, a committed yet dispassionate view of terrible events. It’s no surprise the movie came under fire when it was released, but it’s a measure of its power that various bans have failed to dilute its effect over the years.

For me, it makes my Top 10 by virtue of its unflinching approach and the way it draws the viewer into a world that most of us can’t imagine. After watching it for a second time, the movie stayed with me for an even longer time, and although I’ve only seen it a third time since then, the impression it made on me has lasted for twenty years, and that’s definitely an achievement worth noting.

Rating: 9/10 – superb recreation of a terrible period in Algerian and French history that doesn’t pull any punches or treat events shown with anything less than intelligence; a masterpiece of filmmaking that remains effective and relevant even today.

thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

Tag Archives: France

Monthly Roundup – April 2018

10 Reasons to Remember Stèphane Audran (1932-2018)

Poster of the Week – Bird of Paradise (1932)

Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) (2015)

A Brief Word About the BFI London Film Festival 2017

The African Doctor (2016)

Spotlight on a Murderer (1961)

The Lady in the Car With Glasses and a Gun (2015)

Short Movies Volume 2

For One Week Only: Women Directors – 3. Maya Deren & the Fifties

Mini-Review: A Little Chaos (2014)

Charlotte for Ever (1986)

The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)

Mini-Review: Jeune & jolie (2013)

My Top 10 Movies – Part Eight

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