The opening scenes of Le Grand Jeu, with its fast cars and its beautiful modernist apartment (reminiscent of the designs of the Irish born architect Eileen Grey), epitomise the glamour and fast living lifestyle of 1930's France. The character of Florence (played by Marie Bell) with her modern hair style and beautiful modern clothes evokes the image of the “new woman” found in the paintings of artists such as Tamara De Lempicka –the woman who is bold, drives fast cars, wears fashionable clothes and most of all loves the wealth and the decadence that was synonymous with the French capital of the 1930s.
However, it is fast cars and the “new woman” that results in the French Foreign Legion for the character of Pierre Martel/Pierre Muller in Jacques Feyder’s 1934 film Le Grand Jeu - released on DVD in the UK on 21 June 2010. Pierre’s uncle agrees to pay Pierre’s astronomical debts on condition that Pierre leaves France. Florence, whose desire for nice things and is responsible for Pierre’s trouble, refuses to leave with him. Pierre is devastated.
Pierre travels to Morocco and agrees to hand over five years of his life to the French Foreign Legion. He finds it hard to forget Florence and numbs the heartache through drink and self pity. After several months of marching in the Moroccan countryside Pierre is on leave and asks Blanche, the owner of a hotel, to tell his future. The cards reveal that Pierre will meet a woman and come into money.
The woman is Irma (also played by Marie Bell) who could be the twin of Florence. Irma works as a cabaret singer in one of the many bars that “entertain the troops”. Pierre becomes obsessive and possessive of Irma. He sets her up in a job in Blanche’s hotel bar so he can have her all to himself. Initially Pierre torments and punishes Irma for not being Florence. As the years pass Pierre forgets Florence and finds comfort and love with Irma.
When Pierre is eventually demobbed, he and Irma plan to go back to France. Preparations are well in hand when Pierre bumps into Florence. Pierre is overcome with desire for Florence, and on the pretence he will meet Irma in a couple of days in France he persuades her, Irma, to leave for France without him. Pierre is devastated – again - as Florence rejects Pierre’s love – she has moved on. Realising he has also lost Irma, Pierre signs on to the Foreign Legion again –however, this time, the cards reveal that death is his future.
Feyder, together with Jean Renoir and Marcel Carne were associated with Poetic Realism, a movement that emerged in France during the 1930s. It was concerned in depicting “reality” by utilising lighting, composition, location shooting and realistic sets to heighten the underlying predicament of the main protagonists. The script often had a fatalistic view of life; with the protagonist resigned to disillusionment of life or death at the end of the film. It is not hard to see how Le Grand Jeu is one of those landmark films in history and embodies the traits of the Poetic Realism movement. Nonetheless there are still issues particularly with the representation of the colonisers and the colonised; the dearth of Moroccans depicted (a bit better than Casablanca), and white Europeans often represented in positions of power.
The DVD jacket is itself appealing, depicting the striking face of Marie Bell. The opening credits begin with a graphic typical of the 1930s followed by images of Morocco, utilising tracking shots that will be found in Renoir’s La Grand Illusion. Included with the DVD is a terrific booklet on Le Grand Jeu, written by Ginette Vincendeau.
The DVD was released in UK on the 21 June 2010 by Eureka Video.
Animation’s current success with film goers has seen the reappearance of Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards, which had its U.K release on DVD and Blu-Ray on 24 May 2010, (see the following website www.eurekavideo.co.uk)
Bakshi worked for the TerryToon studios and on the Spiderman’s series in the 1960s, and made the animation feature Wizards in 1977. At the time, it was a financial success. Often misunderstood by critics and by the ever powerful studios, Bakshi has become a legend in animation. He has been cited as the animator’s animator.
Wizards is ultimately a story of good versus evil; good is represented by the pint size wizard Avatar and bad is represented by his brother, the wizard Blackwolf. The action takes place in a post apocalyptic future where humans have destroyed each other. The only life forms that remain are various forms of mutants, elves and fairies. There is an element of magic realism that runs through the film. Avatar, along with his trusty companions elf warrior Weehawk, sexy fairy princess Elinore and Peace - a robotic assassin sent by Blackwolf to assassinate Avatar - rally themselves to confront Blackwolf and his legion of mutant armies. For Avatar to triumph and save this new world he must destroy Blackwolf’s secret weapon, which has been found in the ruins of previous lifetimes; it is a projection of Hitler and his armies mobilising for war. Ultimately this film is a reflection on man’s capacity to destroy. Bakshi’s use of stark colour and dark shadow heightens the intensity of this deformed landscape with the only glimmer of hope embodied in the fairies, elves and Avatar. His images of barren landscapes and morphed forms suggest a surrealist influence. Rotoscoping is heavily employed, and to great effect.
Stunningly designed and thrillingly dramatised, this unforgettable cult classic is presented in a breathtaking new high-definition transfer, released on DVD and Blu-ray on 24 May 2010 see www.eurekavideo.co.uk . Extras Include: Audio commentary by Ralph Bakshi,The wizard of animation featurette, Stills gallery, TV-spot, Theatrical trailers x 2.
Petropolis is a film that was commissioned by Greenpeace and depicts the destruction of the Boreal forest in northern Canada. Beneath the Boreal Forest lies an abundance of plant life that has been compressing for some 200 million years. That ancient life is now the world’s largest oil reserve, now known as the tar sands. The tar sands consist mainly of sand and the crude oil known as bitumen- it is this bitumen that is refined to produce oil for general consumption.
The opening montage depicts vast green forests that suddenly turn into industrial landscapes of furnaces, open pit mining and tailing ponds, reminding us of the massive effort required to refine the bitumen. The viewer is informed that processing bitumen requires a number of natural resources, such as water, and the residue is piped into holding tanks that are placed right by the shore. There are sweeping images of vast expanses of industrial wasteland, so soulless that it is hard to believe that anything exists there. Petropolis is shot primarily from a helicopter and it is this aerial perspective that has greatest impact in helping us comprehend the naked destruction to this ancient land. There is very little dialogue; the images are punctuated with informative sound bites detailing key statistics. The result is an astonishing observation on the reality that the power of oil reigns supreme and that compassion is something that has been forgotten.
Help uncover a dirty secret and win £500!
Creating lakes of toxic waste that can be seen from space, Canada’s tar sands operations are destroying formerly pristine forest and polluting the air and water, with profound consequences for local people and wildlife. Welcome to the real Avatar.
Director Peter Mettler’s film chooses an aerial perspective to tell the story of the most pressing climate change threat of our time. Devastation looks different from above. Can you do better? How would you put the impending climate and ecological disaster of Canada’s tar sands in the limelight? Submit your ideas or designs for a poster, billboard, game, badge, photograph, animation or shortf ilm; or come up with something entirely different. Get creative and help us communicate the folly of the tar sands.
The winner, judged by us at The Co-operative, will receive £500, and your brilliant idea maybe used in our high profile Toxic Fuels campaign. Find out more about tar sands at www.toxicfuels.com and submit your entries to www.facebook.com/toxicfuels by 18 June.
The Milk Of Sorrow is a story that has parallels in the lives of indigenous populations the world over who have suffered from the terrors of political and military conflict. It also expresses the tensions between the old and the new, the rural and urban, adult and child, the haves and the have-nots. The film is set in Lima, Peru. The opening scene depicts an old lady who is bedridden; she is singing. The lyrics tell us that during the country’s war on terrorism she was violated and mistreated. She relives her fears so as not to bury the memory of the evil. Fausta, her daughter, tends her mother and she, too, communicates via singing. Fausta sings about their memories. This is an Andean expression of capturing its history so it passes down through the generations. It soon becomes clear that Fausta is traumatised by her mother’s memories. The mother dies and the daughter faints. Later in hospital it is revealed that the fainting was not just due to the grief but also to a peculiar measure that Fausta’s mother took to protect her daughter from a similar fate. Fausta has a potato buried deep in her body. Fausta’s uncle believes that she is suffering from the condition known as the milk of sorrow.
Fausta returns to live with her uncle and his family; Fausta has only one wish and that is to bury her mother in the village she was born in. For Fausta’s wish to be granted she first must earn money. Her relatives are not well off and are saving for the wedding of their own daughter. Fausta works at two jobs; as a servant to a cruel and egotistical pianist and also as a waitress at wedding functions. The pianist is entranced by her singing of traditional folk songs and promises to give her a pearl every time she sings. Fausta has to be escorted by a member of her family to and from work; she is fearful of everything. She makes a friend in Noe, the pianist’s gardener. As she earns the money, her mother‘s embalmed body remains in Fausta’s bedroom. The weddings that Fausta works at have taken on the trappings of western affairs with the white dresses, photographs and tawdriness associated with a consumerist society. The weddings symbolise progression and in doing so, replace the tradition of festivals, myths, rituals and song of a previous world - the world that Fausta is more at home in.
The pianist betrays Fausta. On returning home from a successful concert she drops Fausta off in the middle of nowhere. Fausta is full of fear but does make it home. As part of Fausta’s revenge, she goes back to the house and removes the pearls set aside for her but never received; Fausta faints again. Noe takes her to the hospital and Fausta has the potato removed. On her journey to bury her mother she sees the ocean and realises the world outside “the village” can be beautiful. It is at this precise moment that she completes her journey from fear to freedom. The beauty of the ocean has worked its magic.
The director Llosa has personalised the impact of political and military conflict and in doing so reminds us the extent of suffering and trauma some people go through. The story is subtle and beautifully paced. The spectator is allowed to enter the world of Fausta and her relatives and through them learn the history and culture of Peru. It is a deep meditation on identity, rediscovery and hope.
Claudia Llosa writes The Milk of Sorrow is a metaphor for breakdown, for a repressed country that can only express itself via its collective unconscious: its myths, its fears and traumas. The body of a bleeding woman expresses emptiness that needs to be filled, anguish that needs to rest, the terror of coming across something extraordinary, of losing control. We live in an indecisive, repressed country whose main informer is its body. But memory is not the only aim of the battle.
Directed by Momoko Ando
Kakera : A Piece Of Our Life is a film and a half. Based on the best-selling manga ‘Love Vibes’ by Erika Sakurazawa and featuring a soundtrack by James Iha (former guitarist of The Smashing Pumpkins), the debut feature of Momoko Andô, is a delicately nuanced portrait of two very different women, Haru and Riko.
Haru is a college student who is frustrated by the lack of any real spark between herself and her idle, two timing and indifferent boyfriend who only seems to be interested in her for sex. One day, while brooding over a cappuccino in a cafe, she catches the eye of Riko. Riko joins her, and the two strike up a conversation. We know from this meeting that Riko wants Haru and it is important that Riko lives her life as an active participator rather than some passive bystander.
Haru is drawn to Riko initially because Riko is not scared of her own desires and is open and direct about her feelings and life . As the loving relationship develops between the two, their bond is tested by Haru’s ex boyfriend, society’s view, and the growing pains of adolescents as the couple experience the pains of discovering themselves and their place in the world. Kakera: A Piece Of Our Life is a perceptive, well thought out drama, examining love and desire.
Copyright © Artyfacts2010
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
With the Gospel According to St Matthew Pasolini achieved a cinematic masterpiece. I can not understand why it is not shown more often and I would recommend this film to anyone who is interested in film, regardless of beliefs. Pasolini’s interpretation of the life of Christ is great because of its simplicity, its realism and its use of music (Passolini evoked the nature of spirituality through the music). Paolini’s mother, Susanna, played Mary, an unknown Spanish student played Jesus and a Roman truck driver was cast as Judas. Pasolini shot the film in Calabria by which he heightened the authenticity of the representation. The literate reading of the Gospel according to St Matthew is thought by some commentators to evoke communist as well as Catholic beliefs and is probably why Pasolini chose it.
Pasolini was a poet, writer (he wrote several novels) and an ardent critic of the Establishment. He was murdered in 1975, in mysterious circumstances.
Copyright © Artyfacts2010
Who Is Maurice Pialat?
Pialat is one of those directors who is best described as a maverick; not belonging to a movement or school. He came to filmmaking late in life (he made his first feature film when he was 44). Originally he studied at L’Ecole des Arts Decoratifs and the L’Ecole des Beaux Brts in Paris. During the 1940s he had several solo exhibitions. He has often said that Jean Renoir’s film La Bête Humaine was the reason he became a film maker. He left painting and took on many small jobs in TV and theatre including the job of actor. He made his first short film L’Amour Existe in 1960. However, he didn’t make his first feature film until 1969; L’Enfance Nue – he was forty four.
The aesthetics of Maurice Pialat
Pialat often drew on the techniques of painters to achieve an aesthetic that achieved emotional intensity and the sense of immediacy. He allowed actors to be inventive with the script and often adopted documentary methods, for instance natural lighting,and sequence shots to achieve a realistic and naturalistic effect. The characters drive his scripts and he is nonchalant about the need to adopt a linear narrative; he often leaves gaps in the spectators’ knowledge about events and in some cases, presents rather than introduces characters. The audience is an active audience and for Pialat are an integral part of his films; spectators often feel they are in the scene with the characters - again suggesting immediacy.
A Nos Amours portrays the sexual liberation of Suzanne (played by Sandrine Bonnaire), a teenager who believes she will never find love but at the same time, likes men. Her relationships are fleeting, never finding love or worse; she does not have the hope of finding love. Suzanne’s father (played by Pialat) abandons the family, after which the mother becomes more and more neurotic. Suzanne’s brother Robert has a complex relationship with his sister; at times he is violent towards her and at other times is both protective of her and incredibly tender towards her. After considerable emotional upheavals the family reaches a fragile peace; Suzanne has married as has her brother. The last scene is of a dinner party, which represents this newly aquired normality, but it is only the calm before the storm. The father returns unexpectedly to disturb the status quo and challenges the existence of his estranged family. This film is remarkable not only as a great work of art but for both the explosive performance of Sandrine Bonnaire, who was only fifteen at the time of filming and also for the menacing portrayal of the father by Pialat.
Sous Le Soliel De Satan is adapted from a book by the French author George Bernanos. It depicts the inner torment of a priest Donissan played by Gerard Depardieu who is struggling with his beliefs and is tormented by the struggle. The torment is expressed in Donissan’s lack of ability to focus on the rituals of the Catholic Church and has become unconcerned with his duties of a parish priest. A senior priest Menou Segrais, played by Pialat, tries to temper his frenzy. Donissan is then confronted with Satan and tempted by Mouchette (played by Sandrine Bonnaire) who has murdered one lover and threatens to destroy the life of another lover. Donissan finds strength from these meetings and eventually performs a miracle by bringing back to life a boy who has just died. The images that Pialat creates are reminiscent of biblical paintings by the Italian artist Caravaggio, particularly in the use of light and le mise en scene. This is no ordinary religious depiction and we are reminded once again of Pialat as artist and Depardieu as an outstanding talent. Pialat won the Palme D’Or for this film at Cannes in 1987
The DVD’s include many extras including in the case of Sous Le Soliel De Satan - some of Pialat’s short films – no one who has any interest in films should exclude Pialat in their collections. I find it a relief to be reminded of what films can truly achieve and the genius (a word I do not use lightly) of a film maker who realised emotional soul on the screen.
Nehrain Khalifa, 2010
Eureka Video website www.eurekavideo.co.uk
Directed by Ken loach
It is Glasgow, present day. Casim is part of a close-knit Glaswegian Asian family. Though he recently graduated in accountancy, his real interest lies in music and his dream is to open his own nightclub. Roisin is an Irish Catholic. She is employed as a music teacher in a Catholic school. Roisin has just broken up with her husband.
Casim and Roisin meet when Casim collects his sister from Roisin’s school. Casim falls for Roisin and they start to go out with each other. Cultures clash and Casim is forced to choose between Roisin and his family. Roisin has to decide between Casim and her job. The prospect of being shunned by his family and community compel Casim to give up Roisin.
Tahara, Casim’s younger sister, challenges her father’s authority file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Owner/My Documents/My Webs/myweb/TateBritain1.htmby deciding to move away from home and accept an offer from Edinburgh University. Turning to Casim for support, he aligns himself with their father. Casim breaks down and informs his parents to cancel the wedding they have arranged for him. Casim returns to Rosin.
Casim’s eldest sister, Rukhsana, attempts to break up Roisin and Casim. This is to secure the happiness of her parents and restore the family’s honour within the community. Rukhsana stages the return of the prodigal son that Roisin is a witness to. Casim’s parents believe that if Casim meets Jasmine, he will change his mind. The plan backfires and Casim returns to life with Roisin.
A Fond Kiss can be viewed as a comment of the friction that exists across the religious and racial divide in today’s Britain. A modern day Romeo and Juliet, it follows the love affair of Casim and Roisin. The former is a young Glaswegian Muslim, the later a young Irish Catholic. As the relationship evolves, cultural differences threaten to derail the love affair. As with most of Loach’s films there is a political thread running through the film. Echoing issues that exist in multicultural Britain, Loach has attempted to tease out a number of misconstrued beliefs that result in blind prejudice. Although Loach makes an effort to be objective he is guilty of employing racial stereotypes. Casim’s father is an authoritarian and owns a corner shop. Casim has an arranged marriage planned for him. Although his sisters are educated they are expected to marry and be dutiful wives.
Loach’s observations are in the main subtle and do not jar the storyline. The exception is the opening scene. It boldly and bluntly deals with generalisations and identity. Tahara, Casim’s younger sister and a pupil at Roisin’s school, addresses the issue of identity and touches on the notion of a shifting as opposed to a firmly rooted identity. She also challenges the fact that the West has made Islam synomyous with terrorism. As a final act of defiance Tahara removes her blouse revealing a Glasgow Rangers shirt.
Loach then touches on the Islamic and Christian religions and the audience discovers that they have certain aspects in common. We learn that Mary and Jesus are referred to in the Koran, although in different guises; Jesus is a prophet.
As Casim and Rosin soon find out the racial and religious prejudice of family, friends and colleagues impact on their lives. He is ostracised from his family. She is forced to leave the Catholic school and take up a job at another school.
The film’s climax is a last minute attempt by Casim’s elder sister Rukhsana to reunite the family, not by accepting Roisin into the family but by undermining her. The plan backfires and Casim returns to Roisin. In line with Loach’s other films it offers social and political comment. To sum up, this is a no frills love affair with a conscience.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2004.
If you like your fairy tales ‘vintage’, i.e., gutsy, blood-soaked originals with a dash of historic veritas then Brothers Grimm, (Terry Gilliam, 2005) is for you. It is based on the true life story of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, brothers who travelled the length and breadth of Bavaria during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries collecting and writing down folk tales that otherwise would have been lost. It is thanks to them we have still the stories of Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and Hansel and Gretel.
The forest features very large in this movie, not as a benign and welcoming place but a savage beast with a life of its own, ready to devour any unsuspecting person who is lost. Such is the malignity of this forest that its denizens actually tentacle into a woodland village, snatching children from their parents and siblings.
The obscurity of the forest could indeed be a metaphor for the entire movie since there is a lot of monkeying about before we get to the heart of the plot. French soldiers call in Jacob (Heath Ledger) and Wilhelm (Matt Damon) – Bavaria at the time being under Napoleonic occupation – to solve the mystery of the disappearing children. The brothers launch into their mission with gusto and along the way they meet oddly fragile peasant girl Angelika (Lena Headey) . She tells them the story of a fourteenth-century princess who died of plague while screaming aloud for life and beauty. Her corpse is alleged to occupy a tower at the centre of the woods.
The gallant Jacob ignores a whinging Wilhelm and is catapulted to the top window of the tower. Inside he opens a whole can of worms – and serpents, and spiders, and other horrors. Wilhelm sets out to rescue his brother while Angelika is caught in a sub-plot involving her father who had been transformed into a werewolf, years earlier.
Through the medieval fug the brothers battle on and discover that the dead princess (Monica Belluci) is using the kidnapped children to restore her to life. When Jacob breaks the mirror in her chamber she crumbles to pieces along with it, and all is restored to norm.
Apart from the Baroque plot the problem with this movie is that it does not seem to know who it is entertaining. I’ve no doubt that the intertwining of the plot with Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel is aimed at a very young audience. But surely parents aren’t going to expose their sweetie-and- ice cream-filled offspring to the sight of Angelika skinning a hare, or to the spectacle of a young girl being swallowed live by a horse?
All is not grim, however. There are strong performances all around and much comic interplay with the gendarmerie, led by Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce). The convolutions of the plot and the grotesque images that go with it may be appreciated by an adult of a certain, post-modern mindset. If that is your twist then enjoy this over-egged pudding. But how I longed for a sprinkling of traditional fairy-dust amid the blood, muck and poverty.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2005.
With the movie Creep (Christopher Smith 2004), the thing, that staple of the ‘fifties horror film is back in movie theatres, that gibbering, creeping, crawling spawn of not quite the devil but more of nature gone wrong, a blast of radiation, a genetic mutation or simply the unfortunate victim of an accident.
The thing lurks in the shadows and hides, always underneath, in the deep, or underground, in this instance in the London Underground, rising to find the sleeping Kate, (Franka Potente) the beautiful German who has missed the last train home.
Kate wakes up and finding herself locked in to the network of tunnels, flies into a panic. She jumps on board what appears to be a legitimate train but there is a fellow passenger; it is Guy (Jeremy Sheffield), the guy she had left the party early to escape.
Kate fights off his unwanted advances and the thing comes to her rescue. But soon she is being pursued by the flesh-eating travesty. There follows a frenzied attempt at escape that brings her into the company of Jimmy (Paul Rattray) and Mandy (Kelly Scott), a homeless couple, and their dog, Ray.
Kate persuades Jimmy to take her to the station controller, and freedom from the Underground and the thing seems within reach. But the night of horror is only beginning. What follows is too dreadful to chart here.
We are at one with Kate as she dashes through tunnels, tumbling into sewage and treading on rats. Her journey is only temporarily alleviated by the company of George (Vas Blackwood), an Underground worker who had been captured by the thing in an earlier episode of the movie.
But Kate’s ultimate fate is to tackle the thing herself. She does so with a mixture of gusto and remorse, leaving us wondering if she didn’t feel a tinge of pity for whatever perversion of nature had given rise to this subterranean mutant.
Kate emerges from the labyrinth, blinking in the fluorescent light. Ray the doggie, the only other survivor of the carnage, shortly follows her. In a comic reversal of fortune, an early-morning, work-bound executive tosses some money at the tattered, shivering girl. As the irony of the situation breaks over Kate she begins to laugh and cry at once.
If this movies lacks anything it is subtlety. The gore, when it happens, is quite overdone. But the sense of lurking menace never fades. The jerky motion of the camera captures the edginess and alienation of urban life. The white-tiled banality of the surroundings only heightens the claustrophobia, the terror of being stalked, and the taut storyline will leave you gasping for breath.
There is more than a dash of feminist sub-text here; both Guy the creep and Creep come to prey on Kate and are destroyed. And social subtext; would the destitute Jimmy and Mandy have fared any better in the real world had they escaped the thing? And watch out for actress Franka Potente. As her second name suggests, she has a long way to run yet.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2005.
The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004) is one of those rare animations that will elicit questions long after the storyboards have faded. Among them, is Bob a hero only because there are bad guys in the world or would he have found an outlet for his powers in any case?
No doubt many will see The Incredibles as an allegory for the Bush regime, but there are many more thoughtful currents to explore in this marvellous piece. The younger folk will no doubt enjoy the slapstick but the movie carries a deeper and darker message for adults.
Bob Parr is understandably bitter. Fifteen years earlier he had been forced to abandon his career as a super, i.e. a gifted person who used his powers to wipe out all that was bad and mean in the world.
He was not alone. An entire team of supers worked after hours, rounding up villains, muggers and thieves. But the insidious compensation culture forced them out of their masks, and capes, and boots and into lives of – for many – recognisable mundanity.
An evil plot to destroy the world restores Bob, his wife ‘Elasti-girl’ Helen and friend Frozone – who turns everything to ice – to their rightful occupations.
The Incredibles is a memorable movie because we can put ourselves in Bob’s shoes or, rather, boots. It satisfies the human need in us to affirm who we are and what we can do. The storyboards are evocative; the urban backdrops against which Bob does most of his crusading, the grey suburban setting to where he is banished, the hi-tech paradise he is lured into and almost meets his end.
The movie looks askance at contemporary life; the manipulations of the insurance business, the scourge of the compensation culture and explores the many dynamics of the American family; parent/kids, parents/teachers, parents/parents. The many strands of the story all converge on the same message; we need our heroes.
But although Bob succeeds as a hero we will remember him and the other characters of this movie for their humanity.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2004.
I have always had a soft spot for zombies, not the least because someone I once worked with frequently likened me to one. With the release of Land of the Dead, George A. Romero’s fourth zombie movie, I just had to get in there and draw parallels, and calculate divergences between them and us. It has been an enlightening trip and somehow comforting to encounter humanoids with even worse skin than mine.
In his movie series Romero had always eschewed stars in favour of (mostly) unknown actors. There is no other way, after all, without revealing in advance who is going to survive and who is going to be zombified. Can you imagine Nicole K with a ruined complexion? Or Catherine ZJ or Johnny D? In Land of the Dead Romero does an about turn and casts Dennis Hopper as greedy businessman Mr Kaufman. It works, just as the others did. There is no continuity, plot wise, between one movie and the next, except that we see a world becoming more and more ‘zombified’ with each successive movie. This has given each movie a different focus and a different slant.
Land of the Dead carries over the basic themes of the three earlier movies: the zombies are always ex-humans who have been transformed after being bitten by another zombie. They enjoy feasting on the flesh of humans who haven’t been transformed. The only way to kill a zombie is to shoot him – or her- in the head, and zombies are always afraid of fire.
In the original movie, Night of the Living Dead, (1968) just a small number of individuals have been transformed. One character mentions a ‘Venus probe’ that activated radiation from outer space and caused the zombie mutation. This roots Night of the Living Dead in the War of Worlds/Village of the Damned tradition, a hangover from the political paranoia of the 1950’s.
At this stage, only families and individuals are at risk. The story opens with a brother and sister, Johnny and Barbara, being attacked in a graveyard. Johnny is taken but Barbara escapes to a farmhouse. She is helped in fighting off the zombies by the arrival of a young man, Ben. Also hiding in the house is the Cooper family and a teenage couple. Ben is convinced that the army is going to come and rescue them all, that they only have to survive the night. We share the claustrophobia of the group as personalities clash and tensions flare. They make a bid for freedom only to be thwarted by a disagreement by Mr Cooper and Ben. In the end it is all too late. The Cooper’s young daughter has already been infected, i.e. bitten by a zombie. The danger lies within and not outside the house. By morning there is only one survivor, Ben. Ironically, the army do come but they shoot him – and all the zombies – dead.
Dawn of the Dead (1978) opens with another shooting rampage by the army. A group of survivors manage to ambush a helicopter and escape. Their refuge is a shopping mall where they barricade themselves into a zombie-free zone. Through glass walls they can see the antics of their undead friends while they themselves enjoy the choicest fruits of consumerism. Dawn of the Dead is not exactly plot-heavy. At times it is nothing more than a series of montages of Fran, Peter, Roger and Steven enjoying life juxtaposed with side-splitting sequences of what happens when zombies and consumer goodies touch base. In time a gang of bikers, who want the consumerist paradise for themselves, invade the mall. Roger has already been lost to zombies. Fran escapes to the roof while Peter and Steven snipe at the invading bikers, who then rise up against and destroy each other, well aided by zombies of course. The friends escape in the helicopter
There is plenty of blood and gore in Dawn of the Dead but this is way surpassed by that of Romero’s third offering, Day of the Dead (1985). A helicopter flies over a ruined city that is over-run by zombies. Inside the helicopter are Sarah, her friends, John, Miguel and McDermott. They land at a zombie-free army base and immediately clash with the personnel there. The base is run by a hard-neck called Captain Rose who only tolerates his staff because he, Rose, cannot survive without them. He particularly despises Dr Logan or ‘Frankenstein’ as Rose calls him, who has chained up some living zombies to experiment with and to try to discover how to ‘tame’ them. Although Rose threatens to kill anyone who challenges his regulations, the friends decide to stay. Even so, they don’t feel safe, and Sarah is under constant threat from a lecherous soldier called Steel.
This is the most violent movie of all and there are many harrowing images. When Miguel is bitten, Sarah chops off his arm and cauterizes the wound with a firebrand. Rose peppers Logan with bullets when he discovers that he, Logan, has been feeding the flesh of dead soldiers to his ‘pet’ zombie, Bill. The ensuing holocaust is almost indescribable. The zombified Miguel allows in other zombies to destroy the military. Steel, the lech, is one of the first victims. Bill escapes and is enraged by the sight of a dead Logan. He overpowers and kills Rose. Meanwhile Sarah, John and McDermott escape in the helicopter to a paradise of sun and sand. At the closing scene, we can’t help but feel their tranquillity will be short-lived.
In Land of the Dead (2005), Romero eschews the blood and gore of the previous movie for a less turbulent but still violent, social parable. The world is now almost entirely over-run by zombies, with only pockets of surviving people. Unbelievably or inevitably, whichever your point of view, the free market has survived and created a social hierarchy. In a fortress town called Fiddler’s Green the elite live in the Tower, an apartment block that lights up the sky at night. Inside is utopia: shopping malls, chic boutiques, bars and restaurants. The remaining inhabitants of the town are either homeless or huddle together in derelict out-buildings with only rats for company.
Cholo is a handsome, young brigand who works for Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), the businessman who controls the Tower. Cholo’s job is to venture into the outside world, ravaged by marauding zombies, in search of fine wines and other luxuries now only available from deserted stores and warehouses. It is a high-risk job and at the outset of the movie, Cholo is embittered. In spite of all his years of labour and accumulated money, Kaufman won’t grant him an apartment in the Tower. Cholo swears his revenge.
Cholo’s stumbling block is Reilly, another but more high-minded brigand whose side-kick is Charlie, a disfigured young man he rescued from a fire. In a nightclub Reilly and Charlie had rescued a young woman who is thrown, for sport, into a pit of fighting zombies. Reilly thwarts Cholo’s plan to fire rockets at the Tower and destroy everyone in it, including Kaufman
Meanwhile the zombies are growing in numbers and intelligence. This continues a theme begun in Romero’s previous movie, Day of the Dead, when Dr Logan taught Bill, the captured zombie, to mimic human activity, including the shooting of rifles.
A charismatic zombie called Big Daddy leads several hundred others to swim the river, the unguarded point of Fiddler’s Green. Drawn by light from the Tower they head for the centre of the town where they wreak havoc. Reilly learns what is going on and makes his way back to try to help the inhabitants. Cholo, who has been separated from Reilly, is bitten by a zombie and realises that his hours, as Cholo, are numbered.
He is philosophical about his plight, however, and declares he wants to learn about 'the other side' when a military buddy offers to shoot him. Poetically, the zombified Cholo is instrumental in finishing off the greedy Kaufman. Slowly the battle wanes and a new, dignified zombie emerges from the holocaust.
‘They’re looking for a place, just like we are’, declares Reilly, as Big Daddy leads a posse of zombies across a bridge. These zombies certainly have more dignity than the human denizens of the nightclub whose idea of entertainment was teasing captured, chained-up zombies.
So there it is, from grainy, 1960's monochrome to the full-colour, mainstream blockbusters of recent years. Something tell me, however, that Land of the Dead is not the end of the zombie brand and that zombistas can look forward to another zombie yarn yet.
HOW TO WRITE TALES OF HORROR, FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION, edited by J N Williamson, Robinson Publishing, London, 1987.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2005.
Something is missing from Madagascar (Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath). It is not cuddly animals. We’ve got Marty the zebra, Alex the lion, Melman the hypochondriac giraffe, Gloria the hippo, four penguins and not one but two monkeys, all populating Central Park zoo. Then there is the host of lemurs that populate the island after which the movie is named.
Julian, king of the lemurs, (voiced by Ali G) puts in a superb performance as does his henchman Maurice and cuter-than-cute Mort, who is positively aaaaah – inspiring. Madagascar does not lack great storyboards. We’ve got Central Park zoo against a Manhattan skyline, Grand Central station, the ocean liner and Madagascar itself. All are by-and-large, stunning. The jungle, in particular, is a triumph of 3-D, multi-coloured veracity.
Madagascar does not lack gags. The story hosts a variety of jokes for adults and younger folk, with lots of references to TV shows and other movies. But, oh, the storyline. It begins with a birthday party for Marty. Despite the happy occasion Marty is dissatisfied. He has uncovered a plot by the penguins to dig their way to Antarctica where they will be free. This sets Marty longing for his freedom and he voices his disquiet to Alex.
But the lion is happy in his role as king of the zoo and tries to pep Marty into his way of thinking. However instincts prove too strong. Marty escapes the zoo at the first opportunity and is followed by his three friends on a journey that ends up on the island of Madagascar. It could have been a great tale but somehow it all falls flat.
Marty’s fulfilment of his desire for freedom backfires on all the wrong people. While he receives nothing more than a bite on the bottom for his bad behaviour, Alex nearly loses his life. The lion is desperately seeking steak, the only food he can eat, when he is attacked by a colony of foosas, the vicious little animals that serve as the bad-guy foil to the good lemurs. This conflict should be central to the plot yet it seems to have been tacked on as an afterthought.
The very funny duo of English monkeys is criminally underused in the story as is the quartet of technologically advanced penguins. The plot leaves us, like the characters, stranded on Madagascar and wondering where to go next. That last sentence sums up the stasis that seems to have settled into animation plotlines since the release of Robots. We have said it here before and we will say it again; the fact that animation has survived one hundred years is evidence that audiences won’t abandon it in a hurry. And this is all the more reason to match genius in one area – visuals - with expertise in another, i.e., storytelling. For now, a limp story is no reason not to see Madagascar. But it won’t always be thus. Animators, take note.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2005.
Director Bong Joon-Ho, South Korea
Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-Ho, 2003) is a film set in provincial South Korea.The film depicts the methods used by two very different cops to find a serial killer. Detective Park, played by Song Kang Ho, is a local detective who uses unorthodox methods of work including intuition, suspicion and most of all, violence. His main weapon is to beat his suspects into submission regardless of any evidence. This has usually been destroyed by Park’s mishandling of the crime scene.
Inspector Suh is brought in from Seoul and has nothing but contempt (and does not try to hide it!) for his provincial colleagues. The initial suspicion falls on a local retarded man, but it soon becomes clear they he didn’t do it. Park and Suh find themselves in competition to find out who the perpetrator is; it is not long before Suh undertakes the method of Park when he is convinced that he has the murderer- and shows the frustration felt when there are lack of any leads or clues. The media, of course, is ever mindful of corruption and is always ready to tell a story. The film is peppered with details about South Korean life, for instance, the defence drills, protests and lack of DNA testing facilities all hindering the investigation.
Memories of Murder carries on the tradition of recent well-crafted films from Korea. In noir fashion there is the blurring between the good and the bad. It also informs the viewer about life under the threat of dictatorship from North Korea. It does this unobtrusively and in no way does it detract from the plot. The muted colours used heighten the despair and frustration felt by the police in trying to locate the serial killer. The audience initially find themselves in anguish by the incompetence’s of the local police force and sympathise with the 'rogue cop' from Seoul. As with any investigation there are twists and turns and the audience find themselves drawn in; not only to the investigation of the serial killer but the relationship between Park and Suh. Memories of Murder can rightly be seen as a modern noir; it contains all the elements - except for the femme fatale! It is a clever and suspenseful film, one not to be missed.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2004.
My Architect continues the renaissance of Cinema Verite films that have reached the screen in the last five years or so. The architect in question is Louis I Khan who realised his architectural utopias in such buildings as the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California and the Capital complex in Dhaka. The narrator/filmmaker is Khan’s illegitimate son Nathaniel Khan, who was eleven when his father died aged 73 in Penn station New York in 1974.
Khan junior hopes to reconcile himself with the father he hardly knew and at the same time with Khan’s two other families. The film is an exploration of Khan’s architectural creations, permeated with references to his somewhat unorthodox and turbulent lifestyle. Although married, he had affairs with two of his employees, Anne Tyng and Harriet Pattison. The women involved fell pregnant and were forced to bring up their children Alexander and Nathaniel respectively without a father. This occurred in the 1950s and 1960’s, a time when unmarried mothers were given the cold shoulder by society. His ‘auxiliary’ families existed only in the margins of Khan’s life.
The viewer seems to know only a grey haired Khan. His younger, earlier life is merely hinted at. Khan was born in 1901 in Estonia, was Jewish and his family emigrated to the U.S. in 1905. The viewer is not informed of Khan’s student life and his struggle to gain commissions through the depression years. The montage of the middle-aged Khan is reinforced by the filmmaker punctuating the film with amateur shots of the architect grey haired and invariably in a dinner suit, his overcoat thrown over his shoulder. This lack of information regarding the architect’s formative years does not do justice to Khan’s battle to form a new building aesthetic.
Only a few of Khan’s projects materialised and the audience witness some of them; the twentieth century’s most exalted buildings. Khan’s magnum opus is the Capital Complex, Dhaka. His buildings are monumental and solid, composed in the main of pure geometric forms and working with simple materials, brick and concrete. The Salk laboraties in California are a good example of this. The building consists of two symmetrical halves, divided by empty space and water feature – a narrow trough. Each half houses laboratories with studies strategically placed for the scientist – an amalgam of form and function. Devoid of any detail and surface decoration it evokes the attributes of the international style of earlier architects such as le Corbusier and Mies Van Der Rohe. The medium is faithful to Khan’s constructions. The camera circumvents the buildings and unobtrusively glides through his creations. The viewer soon appreciates Khan’s monumental and mystical structures.
The Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas allows the viewer an insight into the disposition of an artist and also the tension that exists between engineer and architect. The structural engineers involved in the Art museum vents his frustration with Khan by claiming that he, Khan, would take up to eight hours to choose a particular screw or he would want something redone without regard to budget or time constraints. Khan is uncompromising and resilient.
The last building we visit in the film is the Capital Building in Dhaka. The fact that it ever was built was an achievement in itself. The project was interrupted by political unrest and a war for independence. Here is Khan’s vision of an architectural utopia – monumental and lasting.
The viewer leaves the cinema wanting to know more about Khan the architect. Nathaniel’s attempt to personalise this film does not succeed, the audience is totally absorbed by Khan’s architectural utopias and little inclination to engage with Nathaniel’s personal journey.
Official Website: www.myarchitectfilm.com
Copyright © Artyfacts 2004.
Open Water is low budget thriller where the constraint of a small budget works to its advantage. Based on a true story, it involves a couple that is left behind on a scuba diving trip. The couple Daniel (played by Daniel Travis) and Susan (played by Blanchard Ryan) are both in high-pressure jobs. They book a last minute break to a beach resort in an effort to escape the stresses of the modern world.
Initially the couple find it hard to relax. They can’t resist checking their e-mails on the laptop they cannot prise themselves away from. They book a diving trip and set out the following morning. The crew of the boat do an initial headcount. When they arrive at the diving location a loud and brash diver forgets his diving mask, making his diving trip redundant. The divers are lowered into the water and, after a short period, a pair of divers resurface due to one of them having difficulty with pressure on their ears. A crewmember counts three individuals on the boat; the brash diver borrows the mask of the diver having problems with her ears and coerces the other one to be his diving buddy. The roll call is still registering 3 individuals aboard the diving boat.
When Daniel and Susan resurface, no boat is visible. Their first assumption is that they have wandered off and they register two boats in opposite directions. The current makes it impossible for them to swim toward the boats and Daniel reassures Susan that their boat will soon realise they are missing and return to pick them up. Daniel’s confidence soon erodes; there is neither sight nor sound of the diving boat.
They drift along with the current, moving further away from their original location. They become mentally and physically fatigued and blame each other for their predicament. However, their anxiety soon escalates when shark fins appear in their vicinity. Conversely this is not their only danger. Susan soon feels tapping on her legs. Daniel investigates; it is a piranha fish taking nicks out of her and he does not inform Susan of this. As it gets darker their dilemma heightens and doubt of anyone finding them sets in. The menace of sharks is always apparent and their vulnerability is intensified when we see their dangling legs from below the surface of the water.Close up shots of the couple adds to the immediacy of their danger and the wide shots add to the sense of their isolation; it is a case of water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.They keep each other going for a while, trying to recall those survival tips of programmes on the Discovery channel. Daniel is the first to crack when he realises the absurdity of their situation. As it gets darker, the danger of the sharks is more ominous and looming, circling the couple and banging into them; Daniel gets bitten by one. His fate is determined by the following morning; death. Susan by that time resigns herself to the situation. The end.
Open water works as thriller because of the lack of special effects that, in turn, adds authenticity and immediacy to the situation. Shot on DV and costing very little to make, it has already been a box office success in the United States.
Official Website: www.openwaterfilm.com
Copyright © Artyfacts 2004.
Many were called but few passengers were chosen to be saved from the icy waters that engulfed a large luxury ship. The Poseidon Adventure, (2006) is the latest retelling of an earlier tale, a remake of the Ronald Neame movie of 1972. So why bother?
In our hi-tech times there are fewer and fewer plotlines that can keep us convincingly scared, and scarily convinced, for the 100 or 120 minutes it takes to spin out a movie. For example take the hoary old plum of young female trapped alone in house with only broken telephone line and determined intruder for company. Nowadays, it would take her five minutes to rummage in her bag for her mobile.
However, a Poseidon-type plot reminds us that nothing will ever keep Mother Nature at bay, not even technology. Indeed, here technology seems to be the problem here. A number of wealthy people have chosen to celebrate the New Year by taking a luxury cruise. When a giant ‘rogue wave’ strikes, it is almost if the water is punishing the ship for daring to be named after Poseidon, or Neptune, the mythical god of the sea.
The ship, overturned and humiliated, ceases to be a cradle of comfort and develops a malevolent personality of its own. The party-makers who stay in the relative comfort of the ballroom, awaiting rescue, are doomed from the start. A group of feisty contenders for survival break away from the main party and begin to work their way upwards, towards the bottom of the ship.
Alas, even they won’t all make it. Fires break out, live power lines dangle dangerously, heavy objects crash in their direction as they – and we – are tested to the limits of endurance. Meanwhile, the icy waters are surging inexorably upwards. One by one, the contenders are eliminated in cruel, game-show fashion. The behemoth has weeded out the troubled, the timorous, and the stowaway. The survivors make it to the exterior of the ship only to be greeted by another, terrible obstacle. There is one more death. A survivor sacrifices his life so that the others may live.
The sea-god is satisfied and the remaining survivors make it to a life raft. The behemoth has now sunk but its personality still pervades over the eerie calm. It is as if it needed survivors, to tell its own tale of past glory. See this movie on as big a screen as possible, Imax if you can. It will have you brushing up your underwater survival skills, just in case…
Copyright © Artyfacts 2006
Directed by Cedric Khan
Red Lights is a modern day noir, road movie. Filmed mostly at night it centres around Antoine and Helene’s car journey from Paris to the Basque region. Helene is a cold and successful lawyer. By contrast Antoine works in insurance and has a drink problem. Antoine is irritated with Helene even before the trip starts and compensates by drinking. As the journey unfolds Antoine’s driving becomes erratic and he decides to punctuate the trip with stops to bars. The bars are often located in isolated and seedier parts of town, and are recognisable by the flashing neon signs. The shots of the open and winding road add to the suspense and it brings home the isolation and vulnerability of the open road. The repeated shots of the white lines on the road add to the tension and are reminiscent of the opening sequence of Robert Aldrich noir film Kiss Me Deadly
Helene has nothing but contempt for Antoine. As an act of defiance she leaves him a note informing him that she is continuing her trip by train. He is in a bar. After failing to catch up with the train Antoine resigns himself to another drink. He sees a bar. The bar echoes the haunting isolation of an Edward Hopper painting such as Railroad or Gas Station. Returning to his car to continue his journey Antoine is approached by a menacing young man. He recognises the man from the bar and agrees to give him a lift. Antoine soon realises his passenger is the escaped convict Montana but he persists in drinking. Montana becomes agitated and short -tempered with Antoine and after gaining control of the steering wheel drives to a secluded wood. He attempts to kill Antoine. Like in the film Detour (Edgar G Ulmer) Antoine’s fate is linked to Montana. It turns out Antoine is the murderer. The following morning is sunny and bright and Antoine find himself slumped over the wheel and he wakes sluggishly from his nightmarish ordeal. Disorientated he makes it to the nearest village. He makes numerous calls to locate his wife. He eventually finds out a woman answering his wife’s description has been taken to hospital. On arriving at the hospital Antoine is questioned by the police regarding his movements the previous night . His wife has been attacked and raped. He is selective about what he tells the police. The police show Antoine photos of a dead man. It is Montana. The detective goes on to tell Antoine that they think that Montana is the man who raped his wife. Antoine and Helene are reconciled and continue their journey.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2004.
Robots (Chris Wedge, 2004) is the movie to see this Easter holiday. It is very funny, very clever and quite beautiful to watch. It is a veritable feast of visual jokes, puns and some of the most amazing animated sequences I have ever seen. In addition, there are references to early Hollywood that will leave the cinema-smart moviegoer floating to the ceiling. Yet in spite of this I left the auditorium with strong twinges of dissatisfaction.
Robots centres about Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor), the son of a lowly dishwasher, who longs to be a big ace in the world of invention. He leaves his small town for the big city, in order to work with the master inventor, Bigweld (Mel Brooks).
Things go predictably wrong. The machine world is in thrall to a baddie capitalist, Ratchet (Greg Kinnear) and Bigweld has retired to do fanciful things with dominoes. Rodney’s invention career is at an end unless he can save the day – and all other ‘outmodes’ like him, that is, robots who are no longer in fashion.
He does, of course, with a great deal of help from screamingly funny sidekick Fender (Robin Williams) and love interest, the very lovely Art Deco robot, Cappy (Halle Berry). But my heart did not warm when Rodney returned in triumph to proud Mum and Dad.
Robots is the work of Blue Sky Studios, the same studio to give us movies like Ice Age, and is the result of the converging talents of director Chris Wedge, animators Galen Chu and David Gallagher, and illustrator William Joyce. Gary Marshall writes: Robots is further proof of their powers, compelling evidence that Wedge and his associates are continuing to push the boundaries of computer animation.
On having seen the movie there is no doubting the truth in what Marshall writes. But there is one boundary the moviemakers did not push: the storyline. We have had the aspiration theme before and it always makes for a good plot. But if is going to be used again and again even aspiration must be given a new twist. For inspiration just watch The Incredibles (Brad Bird, 2004), Oscar-winner and newly released on DVD.
Movie history has proved over again that audiences soon grow tired of gimcrackery and return to that old faithful, a thumping good yarn. The fact that animation has survived one hundred years is evidence that audiences won’t abandon it in a hurry. And this is all the more reason to match genius in one area with expertise in another. For now, a mundane plot is no reason not to see Robots. But it won’t always be thus. Animators, take note.
SourcesRattle and Hum , Gary Marshall, Ani The Animation Art Gallery, Volume 1, Issue 3
Copyright © Artyfacts 2005.
As I write, the Shark Tale has just been announced as the best-selling movie of the moment. It isn’t hard to figure out why.
Shark Tale is one of those fables where other species are employed to personify the best and worst facets of mankind, with a myriad of shades in between; greedy sharks, snappy piranhas and swift, racing seahorses. Think of a human instance that can be parodied by marine dwellers and it is there. The carwash becomes the Whale Wash, the pawn shop becomes the Prawn Shop...geddit?
In this underwater world everybody knows his plaice (guh!) until Lennie, the son of mafia boss, Don Lino (shark, of course!), insists he is a vegetarian. It is Lennie’s refusal to eat little fish that makes way for the events that cause angelfish Oscar to become the Shark Slayer and hero of the movie, and BE somebody. But, it all goes pear shaped. Circumstances connive to pour cold water on the ambition of this silly, delightful fish.
I won’t give too much away. Go see this piscine tale where everything is bright and colourful, everyone cute and cuddly and all set to a funky, 1970’s soundtrack. However, the message of the movie, the consequences of unbridled capitalism, is bound to get lost in the merchandising that will inevitably follow.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2004.
The plot of The Skeleton Key (Iain Softley, 2005), this summer’s latest thriller-with-a-hint-of-the-supernatural offering holds well together if you believe that all folks from the Deep South, black and white, are thick, hick and superstitious while other Statesiders are clever, educated and rational.
Caroline from New Jersey (Kate Hudson) is a disillusioned carer in a New Orleans hospice for the dying. She quits her post and answers an advertisement for a nursing job in a private house. The moment her battered beetle car rolls through the gateposts of the Disney-esque mansion with its overgrown garden, my heart flutters in hope.
What will Caroline discover about herself, about love, and work, and life? She might even see a ghost. Caroline has been summoned by Violet Devereux (Geena Rowlands) to nurse her paralysed husband, Ben (John Hurt). But the fluttering of my heart is soon lost to a sinking of the stomach caused by a tedious plot involving locked rooms, bad dreams and desperate messages hand-written on good bed-linen.
It is not that the producers don’t try. Atmospherics there are a-plenty with Caroline trying to make sense of her catatonic patient and her neurotic boss, who have such an aversion to mirrors that, for a while, I wondered if I hadn’t mistakenly entered in to an auditorium offering the latest vampire yarn instead.
But all stirrings of interest are lost under a tide of skulls, stuffed crocodiles, pickled bodily parts and human effigies adorned with fright wigs. They push the voodoo card to the edge. Indeed, they all but stick pins in us. But nothing needles like the racism inherent in the plot.
Caroline uses her ‘skeleton key’ to gain entrance to the forbidden room in the attic (of course). There, she partly uncovers the secret of the house. Violet supplies the remainder. Caroline doesn’t turn a hair at Violet’s tale of how wealthy white people murdered their black servants. In spite of her superior northern education, she doesn’t even inquire of Violet if the murderers ended up in a place called prison.
She just knows, like we do, that all white folk from the South are a law unto themselves, like the gun totin’ Violet, and that all black folk, again from the South, are self-abnegating and resigned to their miserable lot.
The end of the story is drowned under a queasy tide of candles – plenty of those- voodoo spells, chicken legs, human blood and, intriguingly, brick dust. And the conclusion? We’ve spoken here before about suspension of disbelief but believing this will take some huge bite. However, if you can chew all that has gone on before you have some hope of swallowing this load of southern-fried crap.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2005.
Rohmer’s latest film is located in Paris during the inter-war years and focuses on a couple of émigrés; Fiodor, a Russian and his Greek wife, Arsenoi. They are both part of the so-called lost generation; displaced peoples from all over Europe who found themselves exiled in Paris as a result of the First World War and other revolutions across the continent.
Arsenoi is a warm, compassionate person who paints. Fiodor is cool, aloof and possesses the arrogance and self-assuredness of a member of the ruling aristocracy. He works for an organisation, the veterans of the white Russian army, which appears to provide a front for his secret dealings. Their friends consist mainly of other Russian exiles that, like him, desire the return of the monarchy.
Rohmer’s script takes its inspiration from the suspicious disappearance of a Russian in Paris during the interwar years. The film is heavier on dialogue than on action and the story focuses on the period 1936- 1937. This was the period when the world held its breath over the actions of Stalin, Franco and Hitler. Fiodor’s impatience and frustration with General Dobrinsky, the head of the organisation Fiodor is involved with, causes Fiodor to seek alternative and secretive ties. He is recognised in Berlin with a member of the German foreign ministry and travels to the capitals of Europe.
Arsenoi is not privy to her husband’s dealings and often hears about his whereabouts from second hand sources. This creates tension between the couple and this is intensified by Arsenoi’s suspicion regarding Fiodor’s intentions vis-à-vis any future connections with Nazism. Fiodor always remains guarded and alert to any infiltration; this extends to the French communist neighbours that his wife befriends. The story is filmed in the interiors of the couple’s home, initially in Paris and subsequently in the Parisian suburbs. This evokes both a sense of claustrophobia and isolation. The viewer as voyeur is witness to couple’s private and intimate life.
One device of Rohmer is the way he interjects the film with newsreels of the era. This succeeds in projecting images of worldwide political developments. This begins with the Spanish Civil War and climaxes with the Russian Communist/German Nazism pact (causing worldwide disillusionment with communist Russia). Fiodor tries to second-guess these developments and in a moment of pragmatism he is prepared to return to Russia. Arsenoi is hesitant. Fiodor orchestrates the kidnapping of General Dobrinsky but is soon found out. Fiodor disappears while Arsenoi is convicted of being accessory to a crime and eventually, dies in prison. The film is played out like a game of chess, slow in pace, and where mental dexterity and capability are needed as opposed to action, the characters are required to second-guess and remain ahead of the foe.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2004.
White Noise (Geoffrey Sax, 2004) is one of those movies that has left me feeling that I’d been at a banquet but missed the main course.
It could have been a superb whodunit (or whatdunit, or whydunit), or even a riveting study of EVP, or electronic voice phenomenon, a rather strange theory. The scripters are given many opportunities but toss them away, one by one, until the audience is left with a story as fuzzy, confused and devoid of purpose as any scrambled TV screen that ever was.
Like many overcooked puddings White Noise begins well. John Rivers is a thriving architect living with his beautiful second wife, Anna, and a young son, Mikey, from his first marriage. One day Anna inexplicably goes missing leaving John bereft and Mikey unsettled. Weeks pass and John is approached by Raymond, a middle-aged Englishman who claims that Anna is dead and has been in touch with him, Raymond, through the medium of audio cassette tape.
Naturally John shrugs Raymond off as a crank and a nutter, but Anna is found shortly afterwards, drowned. In an effort to rebuild their lives John and Mikey move home but Anna’s death has left an unbreachable gap. Subsequent events force John to get back in touch with Raymond. After this the possibilities are endless.
What has Anna’s career as a best-selling author had to do with her death? What is the connection between her and another woman who has also gone missing? What connection is there with a yet another woman who dies in a horrific car accident? And what has Raymond’s death to do with it all?
We never find out because John (bless him) never tries to find out. Instead he and we are drawn into a world of machines and ghosts. He neglects his job and his son while, day and night, he labours at a constantly fizzing screen, trying to make ‘sense’ of a pile of audio and video tapes left behind by Raymond. At times he comes across not so much as a hero, struggling to master his environment, but as a befuddled, old anorak trying to alleviate his depression at the death of his spouse by obsession with a bunch of electronic gizmos.
At one stage he makes the observation that, surprise, surprise, Anna is trying to tell him something. Very school-of-Shyamalan and at this stage, at least, one would think the movie would gather momentum. But no. It trundles slowly, painfully on until we and John long for the end. And that end? You’ll have to suffer it for yourselves to find out.
But it’s not all bad. There are several genuinely scary moments and smashing imagery of streamlined engines juxtaposed with bumbling humans and cold, blinking monitors in contrast to warm, friendly faces.
The performances are not lacking. Ian McNiece is superb in his cameo of Raymond and Michael Keaton is in his best form as John. But try as they might, the characters soon sink under the weight of this listless, lack of cause-and-effect script.
Copyright © Artyfacts 2005.
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