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.

My Old Lady (2014)

27 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Comedy, Drama, Inheritance, Israel Horovitz, Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Paris, Relationships, Review, Theatrical adaptation, Viager

D: Israel Horovitz / 107m

Cast: Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, Dominique Pinon, Stéphane Freiss, Noémie Lvovsky, Stéphane De Groodt, Sophie Touitou

When impoverished American Matthias Gold (Kline) inherits a Paris apartment from his late father, he has no idea that his plan to sell the apartment for several million euros will be stalled by the presence of Mathilde Girard (Smith), the woman who has lived there as a kind of sitting tenant ever since the death of her husband forty years before (she’s now ninety-two). As well, Matthias discovers that the terms of his father’s arrangement with Madame Girard means that he has to pay her a monthly stipend. In France, this arrangement is known as viager, and it also means that the apartment, which consists of three floors and a large garden, can’t be sold until Madame Girard’s death.

Luckily, Matthias has a back-up plan, in the form of François Roy (Freiss), a Paris businessman who is interested in buying the contract for the apartment, and despite Madame Girard’s presence in the property. This means little in real terms for Madame Girard, whose life will be unaffected if the contract is bought by someone else. However, it means a great deal to her daughter, Chloé (Thomas), who also lives in the apartment, and would be left homeless in the event of her mother’s death (what Matthias doesn’t know is that Roy’s plan is to demolish the apartment building and build a hotel in its place).

Matthias and Chloé are at odds over the situation, and find themselves clashing. Curious about her, Matthias follows her one day and discovers that she is having an affair with a married man, Philippe (De Groodt). Having been “persuaded” by Madame Girard to pay rent while he stays there, Matthias uses this information to blackmail Chloé into letting him stay rent-free. In the meantime, he’s been selling off items of furniture to local antique dealers in order to have some money. While searching the apartment for more items to sell, he finds a number of photographs that point to a much closer relationship between his father and Madame Girard than he ever suspected. In turn, this leads to further revelations that neither he, Madame Girard, or Chloé were ever aware of, and which have a profound effect on them all.

From the poster above (and from the trailer below), you’d be forgiven for thinking that My Old Lady is likely to be a bit of a genial romp, a comedy with heart that features a sprightly Maggie Smith running rings round a clueless Kevin Kline as she outmanoeuvres him time and again as he tries to oust her from the apartment. And initially, that’s exactly the kind of movie it is (except that Smith isn’t as sprightly as you might expect). Kline does a good job of looking exasperated and confused, Smith is polite and excessively punctilious, and the scene is set for a (one-sided) battle of wills, with humour aplenty and generous dollops of heart-warming sentiment served up throughout the movie as Matthias and Madame Girard learn to respect and like each other.

But writer/director Horovitz – adapting his stage play That Old Lady for the screen – has other ideas. It soon becomes apparent that Horovitz has a different tale to tell, one that includes humour as pathos only, and which at times, makes for a darker, more gruelling story than is first apparent. As Matthias begins to unravel the truths behind his parents’ marriage, and where Madame Girard and Chloé fit into it all, Horovitz takes the viewer on a journey into one man’s personal despair, and the way in which he finds redemption. There’s a long stretch where Matthias unburdens himself of a terrible event that happened when he was younger. It’s a scene that causes the viewer to hold their breath as Kline delivers a masterclass in dramatic acting, highlighting the depth of Matthias’s pain and the emotional devastation it’s caused him, and the effect it continues to have on him.

At first, this scene seems out of place, especially in terms of the movie’s tone, and subsequent scenes lack the power it contains (and some viewers may find the rest of the movie a bit of a letdown in terms of a lack of similar intensity), but it’s a cathartic moment, one that allows the viewer to understand both Matthias’s often crass, uncaring manner, and one that allows the viewer to connect with a character who seems motivated entirely by his own selfish needs. Chloé, who is present during the scene, has her own burdens, and this allows her to purge her resentments as well, as it becomes clear that she’s always known the truth about her mother and Matthias’ father. Both actors are superb, imbuing their characters with a common, tragic sadness that has hampered both their lives for so long, and to such terrible effect.

Rather than being an out and out comedy, My Old Lady is a compelling drama that focuses on serious topics such as emotional dysfunction, parental neglect, suicide, social occlusion, and inappropriate self-respect, and deals with each one without a trace of flippancy. But it is funny in places, and there are some good visual gags thrown in at odd moments to leaven the drama, as well as some very good reparteé between Kline and Smith that shows neither of them has lost their sense of comic timing.

Clearly at ease with the material, Horovitz blends the comedy with the drama to refreshingly good effect, and takes the viewer on a journey that in meteorological terms, starts off bright and sunny, becomes increasingly cloudy, then very stormy before rays of sunshine start to break through the dark clouds and disperse them. As mentioned briefly before, the last twenty minutes cuts corners in its attempts to wind up the narrative, and some viewers may feel that scenes have been excised in an attempt to bring the movie down to its current running time. But this is a minor disappointment in comparison to what’s gone before, and Horovitz and his trio of outstanding lead performers should be congratulating themselves on a movie that doesn’t shy away from dealing with some very serious matters indeed.

Rating: 8/10 – an intelligent, unexpectedly gripping movie that may put off some viewers (though that would be the wrong reaction to it), My Old Lady is a must-see for fans of serious drama; Kline and Thomas are superb, and Horovitz uses the Paris settings to add a melancholy tone that aids the movie tremendously.

The Trouble With Horror Sequels: Wrong Turn VI (2014) and See No Evil 2 (2014)

24 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Anthony Ilott, Appalachians, Aqueela Zoll, Cannibals, Chris Jarvis, Danielle Harris, Glenn Jacobs, Gruesome murders, Horror, Inheritance, Jacob Goodnight, Kane, Katharine Isabelle, Morgue, One Eye, Review, Sadie Katz, Sawtooth, Sequel, Three Finger, Valeri Milev

If you love horror movies then you’ll be more than familiar with the idea of the indestructible killer. Brought to life in brilliant fashion by John Carpenter in Halloween (1978), the unstoppable serial killer has become a staple of horror movies ever since, and if you’re a movie studio with a death-defying killer on your books, what can you do? The answer is: make as many movies featuring them as you can before the public gets too tired of them.

This is the way the makers of the Wrong Turn series have gone, and since the debut of Three Fingers, Sawtooth and One Eye back in 2003 – yes, it’s been that long – they’ve sliced and diced their way through unlucky teen after unlucky teen and carved out a place for themselves in the world of low budget, made for home video horror movies. And if anyone thought, eleven years ago, that the original would spawn five sequels, then they should be predicting lottery numbers and not how many cheap variations can be made out of one less than expandable idea. Which leads us to:

aka Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort

D: Valeri Milev / 90m

Cast: Anthony Ilott, Chris Jarvis, Aqueela Zoll, Sadie Katz, Rollo Skinner, Billy Ashworth, Harry Belcher, Joe Gaminara, Roxanne Pallett, Radoslav Pardanov, Danko Jordanov, Asen Asenov

Part four – the aptly titled Wrong Turn 4 (2011) – attempted to provide an origin story for the series’ trio of maniacal cannibals, but this instalment ignores that attempt altogether and creates another one. It’s no better or worse than the previous idea, but is indicative of the problems in making a fifth sequel to a movie that told you all you needed to know in the first place. No one expects a brilliant plot or storyline from a movie with VI in the title, but it’s the feeling that the makers are content to put in as little effort as possible that rankles the most. There’s the requisite handful of horny, less than whip-smart faux teens to be despatched in occasionally inventive ways, and absolutely no sense that any of the series’ less than iconic trio will ever be put in any meaningful danger or even be injured.

Wrong Turn VI tries to be different by having its three deformed murderers involved in a bizarre plot to maintain the “purity” of their hidden community, and which is set largely in a hotel that is “inherited” by troubled twenty-something Danny (Ilott). It’s ridiculous, nonsensical stuff, a badly constructed hook on which to hang a series of gory murders. It’s a movie that’s tension-free and treats its audience with a large dollop of contempt, and yet the producers are already planning a seventh movie to foist upon us in 2015. With all that, it seems equally clear that fans of the series have a low tolerance for the repetitive vagaries of the franchise, and aren’t too bothered if the acting and direction are poor, the dialogue is atrocious, and the trio’s make up varies in quality from movie to movie (Three Finger looks awful in this instalment, as if he’s part melted in the sun). It’s all about the kills, and one surreal murder involving a fire hose aside, Wrong Turn VI offers little that’s new or inventive or even interesting.

Rating: 2/10 – a chore to sit through, Wrong Turn VI is a waste of ninety minutes of anyone’s life; as mentioned above, the movie is a contemptuous, cynical exercise that deserves to be avoided like the proverbial plague.

So, then, what about…

D: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska / 90m

Cast: Glenn Jacobs, Danielle Harris, Katharine Isabelle, Kaj-Erik Eriksen, Chelan Simmons, Greyston Holt, Lee Majdoub, Michael Eklund, Nancy Bell

Where Wrong Turn VI puts every deformed foot wrong in its efforts to achieve some degree of plausibility, See No Evil 2 is surprisingly nimble on its feet, and, for a sequel appearing eight years after its predecessor, does more with its Halloween II (1981) set up than you might expect.

This is largely due to the involvement of the Soska sisters, Jen and Sylvia, who made genre favourite American Mary (2012, and which also starred Katharine Isabelle). For once, a horror sequel is in the hands of directors who really understand what works and what doesn’t work, and who manage to elevate material that’s sorely lacking in some departments to a level where those failings can be readily forgiven. The movie spends time introducing its characters, and does it so well that even Simmons’ airhead gains the viewer’s sympathy. As with any horror sequel – or pretty much any stand alone horror movie – there’s nothing here that hasn’t been seen before, but it’s the way in which it’s put together that makes all the difference. And it has a major plus in the presence of Danielle Harris, an actress with a great pedigree in horror movies.

Despite being a WWE produced movie (not always the best advert for a movie – see Leprechaun: Origins (2014) if any proof is needed), See No Evil 2 has a great feel to it, and the Soska’s display an ingenious ability in framing shots and using large areas of unoccupied space to often unnerving effect. They can’t quite overcome Jacob Goodnight’s uncanny ability to navigate the morgue where the action takes place with such incredible ease, and the flashbacks to the first movie are more for the sake of newbies than anything else, but it’s all done with such confidence that when other things happen just so the movie can move forward, the viewer doesn’t feel like they’ve been treated as if it doesn’t matter. There’s the expected nihilistic ending, an unexpected twist around twenty minutes from the end, and kills that are effective if not too flashy (or even that gory).

Rating: 6/10 – not so good that you can’t predict how things will turn out, but a well directed and solidly paced sequel that in many ways, improves on the original, See No Evil 2 has a lot going for it; Isabelle provides an amazing turn as the not-quite-on-the-same-planet Tamara, and for once, watching characters running up and down deserted corridors isn’t as demoralising as in other movies.

Comparing the two movies, it seems obvious that care is a forgotten word in the world of horror sequels, and that while See No Evil 2 is clearly the better of the two, it only achieves that position by being lucky enough to have the right directors in place. Without the Soska sisters, Jacob Goodnight’s second outing would be just another derivative stalk ‘n’ slash horror, with no verve to offset its jarring lack of ideas and solid if unspectacular retread of Halloween II. Wrong Turn VI doesn’t even have that luxury, and shows how bad a movie can be when it appears that the template is more important than the finished product. The future for both series’ antagonists is likely to see an even further reduction in the quality of their respective instalments – just how worse the Wrong Turn movies can get will be interesting by itself – but unless their producers really put some thought and effort into what they’re doing then these movies will remain for aficionados only.

Are You Here (2013)

02 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Amy Poehler, Comedy, Competency hearing, Drama, Inheritance, Laura Ramsey, Matthew Weiner, Owen Wilson, Review, Romance, Therapy, Weatherman, Zach Galifianakis

D: Matthew Weiner / 112m

Cast: Owen Wilson, Zach Galifianakis, Amy Poehler, Laura Ramsey, Joel Gretsch, Paul Schulze, Alana De La Garza, Edward Herrmann, Peter Bogdanovich, Jenna Fischer, David Selby

Steve Dallas (Wilson) is a weatherman whose easy-going, free-wheeling lifestyle is tempered by his long-time friendship with Ben Baker (Galifianakis). Ben lives in a rundown trailer and has effectively turned his back on conventional society, preferring to live away from people and challenging most modern day conventions. He also lacks certain social skills. When Ben learns that his father has died, Steve agrees to take Ben back to the small town where they grew up for the funeral and to learn what, if any, inheritance Ben will receive.

To both friends’ surprise, and also Ben’s sister, Terri (Poehler), Ben inherits his father’s house and several acres of surrounding land, and his father’s store. Terri is horrified, as she feels Ben is unable to deal with the responsibilities involved in running the store, and she’s even more horrified when Ben decides he wants to transfer the house and land over to Steve as a gift for all his years of support and friendship. With the two siblings at loggerheads, there is also the issue of Angela (Ramsey), the young widow of Ben’s father. Terri dislikes her (even though she clearly made the old man very happy), but Steve is besotted. He tries to worm his way into her affections but she’s not easily swayed, and Steve, who usually rehearses his pick-up lines before talking to women, finds he has to rethink his approach.

While Ben and Terri fight over Ben’s plans to use the store as the site for a non-profit organisation, Steve returns to work but not before he asks Angela to keep an eye on Ben. It’s not long, however, before Ben’s behaviour becomes more erratic, and when Steve returns he has to persuade him to see a counsellor (Herrmann) as Terri has insisted on a competency hearing to rule on Ben’s ability to manage his inheritance. Steve continues to woo Angela and finds his efforts are beginning to pay off. When the counsellor advises that Ben would need to take medication in order to meet the requirements of managing the store (however he sees fit), the meds prompt a change in Ben’s outlook. It also brings Ben and Angela closer together, until one night they end up in bed together. And then Steve finds out…

Ostensibly a comedy-drama, Are You Here – on paper at least – looks like a shoo-in in terms of quality. Written and directed by the creator of TV’s Mad Men, with two gifted comic actors headlining, and with a storyline ripe with comedic and dramatic potential, there shouldn’t be any reason why this doesn’t score points across the board.

And yet…

There are several problems here, and all of them serve to hold the movie back. First and foremost is the relationship between Steve and Ben. Steve is a shallow ladies man whose over-riding commitment in life is to himself, and he has very little time for the feelings of others; he treats his boss (Schulze) with disdain, and the women he meets as objects. He’s a really selfish, unlikeable character, and while Wilson invests Steve with a certain amount of sympathy, it’s not enough to make him any more palatable as the movie goes on. He’s supposed to change and become more self-aware as his relationship with Angela develops but the full extent of his selfishness is revealed when he confronts Ben and Angela over their sleeping together: he acts more like someone who’s had his favourite toy taken away from him than someone who’s truly aggrieved. With this level of insularity, it’s amazing that he could be as selfless and supportive with Ben as he is.

With the central relationship proving unconvincing, the movie’s attempts at drama prove to be off-key and more than a little underwhelming. Terri’s animosity towards Angela is trite and lacks any credibility, and her attacks soon become boring and gratuitous. She’s meant to be the uptight older sister who means well but has a hard time showing it, but thanks to Weiner’s muddled script (and despite Poehler’s valiant efforts), Terri comes across as unnecessarily mean and thoughtless (a subplot involving her attempts to fall pregnant is meant to elicit some sympathy for her but it’s never developed fully enough to be effective). Conversely, Angela is the wise-despite-her-age opposite of Terri, a loving, caring woman who is more accepting of others, and who seems settled in her own skin. The problem here is that there’s nowhere for such a character to go to, and even though she’s attracted to Steve, the romance between them is so laid-back it barely registers as anything more than something for the characters to do while Ben gets his act together.

As character arcs go, Ben’s transformation from woolly-thinking anti-consumer to gifted businessman is the movie’s biggest stretch, given insufficient credence by his father’s belief that he “has it in him” to succeed. It’s also a curious conceit that Ben achieves peace and the ability to properly move forward off the back of some mood altering drugs. Whatever the message here is, it does make the audience wonder if Weiner is saying that success can be achieved through the use of controlled substances. If he’s not then it’s just a way of forcing a change for the sake of the script and adding a bright bow tie in wrapping up one of the plot strands. Galifianakis does his best, but falls back on the kind of comedic schtick we’re used to seeing from movies such as The Hangover (2009) and Due Date (2010).

The comedy elements dominate the first forty-or-so minutes, but are slowly discarded in favour of the rambling, sub-par dramatics of the rest of the movie, leaving the audience to wonder if it’s worth staying on til the end (in the vain hope that things will improve, or at least reach an acceptable conclusion – they don’t). It’s a shame, because with a tighter, more focused script, this could have been an interesting slice of parochial disillusionment, or had something more pointed to say about consumerism, or presented the viewer with at least one character they could care about. Instead, and thanks to Weiner’s equally undercooked attempts at direction, the movie gives up almost as soon as Steve and Ben reach their hometown.

Rating: 4/10 – for a movie with this much potential and talent (both behind and in front of the camera), Are You Here struggles to involve its audience, and is unlikely to linger in anyone’s memory for longer than an hour or so; somnolent and unrewarding, the answer to the titular question is likely to be, “Not really”.