The Last Station

The Last Station (Michael Hoffman, UK/Germany/Russia, 2009)
When discussing a film, it's important to consider it in context, such as its intended audience. While The Last Station is no doubt a well-made film, I'm not part of the target audience, so I'll find myself pointing out the things that didn't work for me. The target audience is the demographic that flock to historic, epic, melodramatic films at places like the Como and Nova, usually middle-class and middle-aged. The Last Station is not epic, does tend towards melodrama but is clearly historic and for me, that's the most intriguing aspect.

Leo Tolstoy is, of course, the famous author of War and Peace (which I remember my mother reading when I was a child) and Anna Karenina. I've read neither, though this film will no doubt inspire a wave of sales of books by the author.

The film's story unfolds as a new secretary, Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), an ardent admirer of the great Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) is despatched to the author's country estate where he lives with his wife Sofya (Helen Mirren), children, servants and followers. Plummer and Mirren are, of course, competent actors and they each do an admirable job. Perhaps it's because they are so well-known, but for me they never fully inhabit their characters. My favourite character is Masha, a spunky free-spirit played by Kerry Condon. She breathes the most life into the film, though we don't see enough of her.

The real problem is McAvoy's character. The whole story is revealed from his perspective so, structurally he is our tour guide through the film. I've always found McAvoy a weak actor and a one-trick pony. He plays pretty much the same role, whether it's this film, Atonement or The Last King of Scotland (the similarities with this latter film are striking). He has a naivete about him that always rings false for me. It's a contrivance of character as a clunky device to reveal the story in a particular (hackneyed) manner. I find him quite irritating at times.

Another weakness of the film for me is its overt British sensibility. It was apparently shot on location, but for all an audience knows, it could have been filmed in the British country-side. The only indications that it is a Russian story is the mode of dress, and road signs and newspapers in Russian script. Everything else is so staid, so-o-o-o damn British. That everyone (including Plummer and Giamatti as Vladimir Chertkov) also use British accents isn't a problem per se (though Giamatti's occasional introduction of a light Russian accent from time to time is distracting). No, it's not the accents - it's the British staidness that is so common in period films. The French are adept at period depictions, and the British might be OK at British period, but Russian period à la Britain just doesn't work for me. It's like we never really penetrate or involve ourselves in that moment. But I doubt this will be a problem for the target audience.

[Edit: I've been thinking about the film and decided to add the following]
The film lacks subtlety, and here's some examples:

• It wasn't enough to be told that Tolstoy's various assistants record everything about his waking life. We not only see this frequently, but whenever we do, we also hear the scratching of quill on paper in a magnified fashion.
  
• We are introduced to the device of Valentin sneezing whenever he feels nervous. So guess what, whenever he is nervous, he sneezes, his nervousness is amplified (in case we don't make the connection) and often someone makes a comment about he must be nervous. OK, I get it already!
• Characters tell us what we're going to see. Hey, cinema is a visual art - we can see what's going on without being told. Give the audience some credit.
  
• I've mentioned McAvoy's earnestness. At times he heaves with his breathing, or looks about wide-eyed. Tolstoy describes him as "a better Tolstoy than I am" to point out his fervour. All these devices heavily underscore Valentin's transformation from a naive puritan to a more open-minded person, without trusting that the audience will get it without heavy-handed sign-posting.
  

I've probably failed to discuss this film in the context that I described in my opening of this post. But these are my impressions. You may consider it a bit facile of me to now say that I think that few, if any, of what I call flaws will bother a mainstream audience. I still think that this will be well-received by the audience it's likely to attract. And it's not a bad film; it's just not my thing.

The Last Station opens on 1 April

The Week in Review - 27/12/09

FILMS:

• The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson, USA/UK/New Zealand, 2009)
• Sherlock Holmes (Guy Ritchie, UK/Australia/USA, 2009)
  

DVD:

• Network (Sidney Lumet, USA, 1976)
• L'argent (Robert Bresson, France/Switzerland, 1983)
• Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, Australia, 1979)
  

The Lovely Bones
I found this film OK, if not a little disappointing. With Wahlberg in it, it could almost be The Happening in terms of look and feel. I actually didn't mind Wahlberg in The Happening but his acting seems a bit weak here. Weisz and Sarandon don't really do much so it's left to the young actress Saiorse Ronan and Stanley Tucci, who seems to be channeling Bruce Willis (esp. á la The Jackal). Actually Tucci's is the surprise performance in the film and is very creepy.

I do like the metaphysical element and the way it's enmeshed with a slight horror element (much more maturely than most contemporary horror) and yet somehow the film doesn't seem to have the impact that it could. Perhaps it's because the film aims a little low, trying to please the masses with an otherwise difficult subject. It's actually quite conventional with some pretty blatant contrivances.

Heavenly Creatures remains my favourite Jackson film, and there's one scene that makes a nod to a particular scene in that film. The Lovely Bones is worth seeing as part of Jackson's work, but don't expect anything major.

Sherlock Holmes
I had no intention of seeing this film, but taking the kid for a bike ride and ending up at the local cinema, it was either Sherlock Holmes or a two-hour wait. The kid was about as impressed as I was - not very much. I think the film suffers from two major things: firstly there's Ritchie's kinetic style. Some love it, I don't. It appears sporadically, enough to remind you it's a Ritchie film, but not enough to spoil it completely if you're tired of his devices.

Secondly, the film tries to be too many things without focusing on what Sherlock Holmes was always about. It's got a bit of Harry Potter, a bit of Batman and Robin, Starsky and Hutch and so on. In the end, it's just another generic action film with little to distinguish it from all the other bland action films and certainly little that defines it as Sherlock Holmes.

People have raved about the production design. I'd say it's just OK, nothing special you haven't seen before. Mostly, it disguises its flaws by keeping it dark and grimy. A bit more colour would have been nice. And what's become of Robert Downey Jr, that he has to stoop to such bland roles? He may be a good actor, but here he's just playing a generic Robert Downey Jr character, the same as all the other bland comic ones. If you're a fan of his, I suppose you'd swoon to see more of the same, but for me it's all a bit tired and formulaic. Jude Law would have made a better Holmes, rather than the smart-arse Dr. Watson sidekick he plays.

Ultimately, I found the film quite laboured and it was a struggle to stay awake. I nodded off at least four times - and this is an action film! The action is itself completely run-of-the-mill, the humour is bland and the characterisations are bland. Lord Blackwood seems to be modelled on Valdemort, and the the twists surrounding him are predictable. What should distinguish the film from a zillion others like it, is the Holmes character and methodology, which has been mutilated beyond recognition and we're left with mediocrity. I can't recommend this to anyone.

Network
I'd seen clips of Network over the years, it always looked good, and of course it is. I love satire, and this is so understated on one level (ie, the humour) and overstated on another. The anger is what fuels the narrative, whether it's Howard Beale, Maureen Dowd (the female, black communist - what a joke), the Ecumenical Liberation Army or Faye Dunaway's over-the-top television producer character.

Everyone's "mad as hell". You've got the network owner in his mad rant who is actually telling it as it is. Democracy and countries are an illusion. The Russians weren't sitting around a table discussing Marx - they were plotting business the same as the Chinese and the Americans.

Actually, there is so much insight in this film with its analysis of society, politics, money and yes, television networks, that I find it amazing that all this can make it into a mainstream film. I suppose like Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon, it shows how backward we've become (in terms of what can get made in the mainstream). The film pre-empts reality television by two decades, perhaps like the books 1984 and Brave New World, extrapolating into the future and actually being spot on. Where the networks were going all those decades ago was despicable, and yet we have descended much lower into the bowels of television hell. Man, if only we could make raw films for the mainstream like this today.

L'argent
I've only seen a couple of Bresson's films, and they're decades apart. Wow, what an aesthetic! It'd be very hard to get away with this today. There is so little embellishment with fixed cameras and sparse dialogue, and the acting is so raw - at times quite clunky. I had no idea where this film was going, so when it went to where it did, it was a bit of a shock. It seems to have a social message, a critique of the social system and how an innocent person wronged can have disastrous effects. But it's also a meditation on money and its corrupting influence. The camera certainly dwells on the physical transactions of money.

I imagine Bresson is not everyone's cup of tea, but this affected me considerably. I've been discussing Cassavetes recently, and while the two directors' styles are very different, both have some commonality with their raw aesthetics. Cassavetes' films are usually quite volatile and emotional, Bresson the opposite. There is an emotional detachment, underscored by the frequent shots of people's legs as they walk past, devoid of dialogue. I feel I need to work through more of Bresson's work - L'argent was his final film.

Breaker Morant
Yes, it must be Xmas time, because I've watched 3 DVDs so far this week, about as many as I've watched in some years. Anyway, it's a good opportunity to whittle down the number of unseen DVDs in my collection, and I must be one of the last people to see this one. And wow, what a film, for it's day and even for today. A veritable who's who of the Australian film industry, it showcases many who have probably never done finer work since (Bryan Brown anyone? Or even Bud Tingwell perhaps).

This is, of course, an impressive local film and I remember when I was in the US in the 80s, whenever anyone found out I was Australian, they would always say "Oh, I loved Breaker Morant" (and Crocodile Dundee, but we won't go there). It really has a mature aesthetic, not unlike European art cinema, with a strong Australian flavour. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but it really has a lot to say about politics and political expediency, even in the context of current events such as the war in Iraq. It seems this guy Morant and Hancock got badly done by, even if they were scumbags. They were poorly done by by both their superiors and the British and Australian governments.

The Week in Review - 20/12/09

FILMS

• Precious (Lee Daniels, USA, 2009)
• Sayat Nova (The Colour of Pomegranates, Sergei Paradjanov, USSR, 1968)
• Avatar (James Cameron, USA, 2009)
• Bright Star (Jane Campion, UK/Australia/France, 2009)
• Planet 51 (Jorge Blanco/Javier Abad/Marcos Martínez, Spain/UK/USA, 2009)
  

DVD

• The Killers (Robert Siodmak, USA, 1946)

Precious
I'm a bit hesitant to write about this film because it's a worthy film, well-made and deserves to be seen. I, however, found it very disturbing and came out of the cinema feeling unwell. For me, it does for bleak social drama what torture porn does for horror. It subjects its audience to increasing levels of depravity, testing one's endurance.

While films like Antichrist and Irreversible challenge with their depictions of physical violence, this one is more about the sexual, emotional and psychological abuse endured by its protagonist, Precious, in an impressive screen debut by Gabourey Sidibe. Mo'Nique also impresses as Precious' obnoxious and foul-mouth mother, and the film features various raw and naturalistic cameos by singers Mariah Carey (as a social worker) and Lenny Kravitz (as a nurse).

All in all, this is a gutsy film, that others seemed to appreciate more than I - most of the audience at the screening I attended were Amnesty International members. Again, I hope it finds an audience, and its recent nominations for various awards may help. But it's not something I'll see again.

The Colour of Pomegranates
This film screened with Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev which, with a running time of 165 minutes, made it impossible for me to stay. My pneumonia earlier in the year has meant I have to overlook such late nights as I focus on staying well. And that's a pity, because that meant my closing Melbourne Cinémathèque film of the year was a disappointment.

The film is without dialogue and seems largely theatrical, and fringe at that. I had trouble staying awake and found it boring as hell. I suppose that makes me a cultural philistine. So be it.

Avatar
I saw Avatar the first time in 3D and indulged my curiosity by seeing it in 2D. It was a fascinating experience.

First, the visuals are nowhere near as strong. They're relatively flat - and I don't just mean because they're not in 3D. The colours seem somewhat drained of their brightness we see in 3D. It seems that the film was made specifically for 3D and perhaps it's been further processed for 2D to try to get it to look acceptable. It is acceptable, but if this was your only experience of the film, you'd be wondering what all they fuss about this film was about. Yet, I prefer the 2D experience, because there's nothing between me and the screen. As I've written previously, the 3D technology is a distraction.

Secondly, the story stands up quite well on second viewing. In fact, some of the points that slightly bothered me the first time (like the environmental and terror messages) seemed insignificant this time. Perhaps it's because I knew they were coming and when they did they had less impact. It was like this for me with The Matrix also. The first time, the love bit at the end was a bit silly, but on repeat viewings it seemed perfect.

While the story is still nothing special, it is solid and has enough meat on its bones to engage an audience. Bear in mind that I'm not the target audience and I'm seeing it for the second time. At the point where Jake Sully turns up as Taruk-something or other, it even brought tears to my eyes. I love that scene.

Watching it in 2D, I was more conscious of the film being mostly CGI, much like Lord of the Rings, but it wasn't a problem.

As I memtnioned, if you watched this film only in 2D, you'd be wondering what all the fuss was about. If you see it in 3D, you'll know. And I do think it's worth seeing again in 2D. I may even see it again in 3D, just to take more note of the technical aspects.

Bright Star
This is certainly a beautiful looking film, one of the finest for the year, perhaps even more so than The Piano. The music ain't bad either. The narrative is a bit flat for me, certainly no The Piano. But, to its credit, its more emotionally engaging than most period films, especially by the Brits. The French do period much better than the Brits, and this seemed more in that vein and will, I imagine, be well-received in Europe.

Cornish does take centre-stage and rises to the challenge. I was impressed by both her performance and her accent. At times, from certain angles, she looked eerily like a young pre-Botox Nicole Kidman.

All in all, the film is low-key and artistically credible. Some of those outdoors shots are magnificent, and so are the indoors ones. FWIW, the missus loves it as much as The Piano, and I'm thinking maybe it's more of a chick flick than The Piano.

Planet 51
It is amazing to realise that this is a Spanish film, because it looks, sounds and feels like a Hollywood middle-of-the-road kids holiday flick. It's OK, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're taking kids to a holiday flick. For that, it's enjoyable enough, but otherwise I'd give it a miss.

The Killers
I saw this at the discount shop by the Kino cinema and at $5 I knew I couldn't go wrong. Immensely entertaining, funny, suspenseful and a class film noir. Burt Lancaster gets top billing but his role plays out in the shadows of Edmond O'Brien who seems to be channeling Humphrey Bogart, as an insurance investigator who is attempting to discover why a gas attendant was a target for two hit-men.

The film uses every cliche, but looks fantastic in black and white, using long shadows and tough-guy speak. It's no challenge, just fun.

MIFF 2009 Day 17 - 9/8/09

• Kynodontas (Dogtooth, Giorgos Lanthimos, Greece, 2009)
• Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, UK, 2009)
  

Dogtooth
Here's a director with something to say, and a novel way of saying it. We've read stories in the paper of parents who have locked their children up for years, decades even. How do they get away with it, we ask ourselves. This film explores that scenario, with middle-age, middle-class parents struggling to keep a lid on their three twenty-something children. The film is sparse, interspersed at times with the unexpected, including violence.

Fulfilling the sexual needs of three adults is a logistic nightmare, and the film treads that ground also with restraint, but increasing horror. The significance of the film's title becomes evident at the rather brutal but ambiguous ending. This is a disturbing film, that affected me for some time as I walked the streets after the screening. It's also one of my favourites.

Fish Tank
I'm over social realism. Let me re-phrase that; I'm over Ken Loach-style social realism. You know, the foul-mouthed kids on the housing estate, the booze, the drugs, the sex, the violence. There's nothing wrong with Fish Tank, but it feels like a road we've been down so many times before. Arnold puts a couple of spins of her own into the story, especially the one where our teenage protagonist takes a young girl into dangerous territory, with the audience teetering on the edge of their seats. There's also some great dialogue (such as the younger sister's profanity). But I still felt for most of the film's duration (and the 120+ minutes felt very long), "so what?".

MIFF 2009 Day 7 - 30/7/09

Running at 190 minutes, I figured I'd drop United Red Army off my schedule yesterday, have a little break and do some other things (like blogging). Then darn, the person who suggested it to me in the first place tells me it's the best film he's seen yet. I'm a bit pissed with myself and yet not. I've long given up on the idea that one can see everything one wants to at MIFF, or even during the year in general.

• Red Riding: 1983 (Anand Tucker, UK, 2009)
• Away We Go (Same Mendes, USA, 2009)
  
• The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, USA, 2008)

Red Riding: 1983
What an incoherent mess this finale to the Red Riding series this is. Unlike the first two, you have to see the others to make any sense of it. And even if you have seen the others, you'll still struggle! There are unexplained shifts between the three time frames and nothing to signal which period the film is in. John Dawson, the developer murdered in 1974, suddenly appears when we're thinking it's 1983. The number of characters who flash past in quick succession makes it hard to know who plays what role and what the hell is going on. At the end, confusion reigns and I'm left wondering "what the...?"

I expected James Marsh's 1980 to be the best instalment and it was.

Away We Go

My planning for MIFF avoided seeing three films in a row, and this one wasn't really on my radar because it's getting a commercial release. I had a spare two hours between films and because I knew this would be light-weight comedy and Red Riding isn't really emotionally challenging, I slotted this between the other two.

There is nothing about this film that identifies it as a Sam Mendes film. No particular insights, no revelations about relationships, just another 'quirky indie comedy', a genre that I find I'm a bit bored with, and have been with at least Little Miss Sunshine. It's not as stupid or contrived as that piece of populist trash, but it pushes all the right formulaic buttons: hip music in all the right places, a parade of idiosyncratic characters, quirky diaogue, characters who struggle with their age and responsibilities. It looks nice enough and audience laughter came at all the intended places but it's only worth seeing if you want to see how Mendes does mainstream. Or if you're a 30-something feeling directionless in life, or pregnant.

The Hurt Locker
At the risk of sounding sexist, you wouldn't know this thrilling film was directed by a woman. It's heart-in-your-mouth from go to whoa as we follow a US Army bomb disposal unit in Iraq. The suspense, the dialogue, the understated humour, the character development are all excellent. The film is like a cross between Beaufort (MIFF 2007, for the suspense), Full Metal Jacket (for the characterisations), Jarhead (itself derived from FMJ, but set in the region) and Children of Men (for the embedded journalist style of camera work and editing).

I found the choppy look a bit more than required and tend towards the David Stratton perspective on that account, though I expect he would acknowledge the strengths of the film. This is perhaps the best film I've seen that depicts the current military situation in the Afghanistan/Iraq region and maybe that's because the film does nothing didactic. Like most of the other films mentioned above, it simply depicts the lives of these men in war and the small details of their day-to-day existence. And man, what a bloody struggle, as they count down the days to their return to the US, just hoping to stay alive each day. Definitely worth seeing.

MIFF 2009 Day 6 - 29/7/09

• Aruitemo aruitemo (Still Walking, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2008)
• Red Riding: 1980 (James Marsh, UK, 2009)
• Tatarak (Sweet Rush, Andzrej Wajda, Poland, 2009)
  

Still Walking
MIFF held a Kore-eda retrospective a couple of years ago and I think I saw them all, or maybe I missed one. Consequently, I was keen to see this latest effort and wasn't disappointed. Basically, it's a day in the lives of a family that unite (begrudgingly) each year to observe the death of a family member thirteen years earlier.

The son, daughter and their respective families travel to the home of their parents, an aging and retired doctor and his wife. It's summer and straight away I'm reminded of Olivier Assayas' sublime Summer Hours, especially the opening scene which similarly depicts the various dispersed branches of a family in an infrequent rural get-together in the family home. While Assayas' film procedes to explore other themes, Kore-eda's remains very much in the small details of the inter-family interactions.

Kore-eda is a very talented director. It is the observational nature of the film in capturing details of otherwise very ordinary people that makes this film a delight to watch. It feels almost a privilege to be privy to their lives, to see what makes them tick. It reminded me of a funeral I attended a couple of years ago for the father of a work colleague. I knew not the deceased man but attended to support my work pal, who had shown me support in various ways after my son's passing. At the funeral, I heard various eulogies that brought tears to my eyes as I received some insights into this man's life. And so I felt with this film, which becomes a meditation on the nature of relationships and ultimately, their passing.

Still Walking is a quietly satisfying film, certainly no headline act, but the type and quality of film I look forward to each year at MIFF, largely because this is the only time of year we get to see films like it. If quiet, nuanced, insightful, contemplative cinema is your thing, you'll want to see it.

Red Riding: 1980
As expected, with James Marsh at the helm, this is a big improvement over the previous instalment (Red Riding: 1974). The story seems to have a closer alignment to the Yorkshire killings, plays out with more realism and is more convincing all-round. Paddy Considine puts in a good performance and all-in-all, this ain't a bad genre film. I'm now looking forward to the final instalment, 1983, tomorrow.

BTW, while there are some slight connections between this and the previous film, you don't need to have seen the earlier one at all. This is self-contained.

Sweet Rush
It's Wajda in his twilight years; old age is here and death can't be too far away. And so it is with this film, a very strange creature indeed, that requires some further information to glean its meaning. It mixes a film's fiction with events taking place in the life of the film's protagonist and we switch between different 'realities'.

Technically, the talent is obvious and the visuals are very nice. A bit more narrative clarity would have been nice. By the end, I had some idea of what it's about and, if you ever consider seeing it, make sure you read up about it first.

MIFF 2009 Day 5 - 28/7/09

Day 5 and still no knock-out films I've seen. What about you?

• Home (Ursula Meier, Switzerland/France/Belgium, 2008)
• Red Riding: 1974 (Julian Jarrold, UK, 2009)
• Katalin Varga (Peter Strickland, Romania/UK/Hungary, 2009)
  

Home
I wanted to see this film on the strength of my fascination with Isabelle Huppert, who is perhaps my favourite actress. Huppert is obviously sought for her unusual talents: her ability to display both strength and fragility - often concurrently - and her ability to take on very demanding roles. She seems to be drawn to the types of roles and films that also draw me. They're often in small films, like Home, a film I'd describe as not one of Huppert's finest choices.

A family is living within spitting distance of a disused highway, which is effectively their front yard. Life is about to change drastically when, with little warning, it is resurfaced and consequently re-opened to traffic. Privacy is lost, noise and fumes intrude and the family's routine is completely transformed, upsetting the domestic balance.

The scenario is quite inventive and executed effectively, at least visually. I was wondering throughout the film how they were able to realistically create the whole set-up, especially the transformation of an old highway to a new one. The family dynamics are mostly well-developed and the film sucks us into its world... to a point. Unfortunately, the various elements of the film's narrative don't stick and plausibility becomes an issue. As the film progresses, it becomes less and less believable.

Wouldn't the respective statutory authorities give more warning? Wouldn't they provide more amenity, like access to the property? Would the family really imprison themselves? The MIFF synopsis describes the film as a "social farce" that "teeters on the verge of comedy", but that wasn't my perception at all. It seemed very much a social drama/family drama. The film looks nice, but the story is inconsistent and Meier doesn't seem to make the most of her good ideas.

Red Riding: 1974
Julian Jarrold isn't exactly what I'd call an exciting director, but was prepared to give this British crime thriller a go based on good word-of-mouth. It immediately reminds me of the French Public Enemy no.1/Mesrine starring Vincent Cassell, but is not quite as strong. It is very entertaining as a mainstream genre film and feels like a tele-movie.

The film's set-up is not too bad, though some devices seemed a bit too Underbelly-populist, like the sex and nudity. The film is based on a novel, and frames a fiction around real-crime events, namely the Yorkshire Ripper. The film does get a bit silly as it progresses, but it still had my heart palpitating and palms sweating, so it does work on its intended level. The verdict: fun, lots of energy and exciting, but not must-see material. Wait for DVD or TV; who knows, it might get a theatrical release. I'm still planning to see the next instalment, Red Riding: 1980, and I have higher hopes for this as it's directed by James Marsh whose previous films include Man on Wire and The King, my no.2 favourite film of 2006.

Katalin Varga
I don't have much to say about this film; basically I found it pretty ordinary. A woman is ostracised from her village after an affair and consequently exacts revenge on men who wronged her many years earlier. My biggest problem with the film concerns how she catches up with these guys and the impossible coincidences involved. There are other technical problems, like the use of sound and sometimes sub-standard visuals, but I could overlook those. I gave myself a lower threshold for walking out, and could have walked out on this at any point, but it was enjoyable enough to go along with the ride and stay. It's only 84 minutes long, so that was a plus (not very flattering, though, eh?).

Overlord

Overlord (Stuart Cooper, UK, 1975)
Overlord is one of the most startling war films which, like Come and See, is more a human story, set during war. It is highly innovative and visually spectacular. The screening I attended was introduced by the director, Stuart Cooper, who explained briefly some of the film's history.

Cooper was given full access to the Imperial War Archives. When asked by the archive's manager what he wanted to see, he responded rather naively, "the whole lot". She asked him when he wanted to start and he said "Monday". In response to her questions, he indicated he'd be coming five days a week, nine to five. "In that case", she said, "you'll need nine years to get through all this."

As it turned out, Cooper viewed some 3,000 hours of archive footage, taken variously by members of the army, navy and air force. It wasn't just prints he viewed, but the actual original nitrate negatives, which enabled him to use in his film the best quality images possible, and the visuals are truly impressive.

Rather than work from a script, Cooper assembled various pieces of footage and constructed a dramatisation that would fit seamlessly within the actual documentary footage. He used cameras and lenses from 1936 and 1938 and old black and white film stock. The result is remarkable and the fusion of fiction and non-fiction is often indistinguishable.

The story traces a young British conscript, Tommy Beddows as he answers the call to arms, takes up training and ultimately takes part in D-Day, coded-named Overlord. Originally intended as a documentary, the film's integration of dramatisation achieves a result that surpasses both documentary and fiction. The dramatisation is sparse and authentic with use of music that bleeds into the non-fiction, rendering the documentary aspect in a whole new light.

The film has some personal resonance as my father participated in the D-Day landings. At the mere age of 14 he changed his birth certificate and enlisted in the Royal Navy. He was 17 and working below deck on a frigate that came under fire several times. Unfortunately he died seven years ago and left scant details of his navy experience. He never spoke about it during my childhood.

If the film's amazing camera work looks familiar, it's because it's by the highly acclaimed John Alcott who worked on Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon and The Shining. Overlord won the Berlin Festival's Silver Bear for Direction in 1975 but without a wide release, somehow fell into obscurity. Like Soy Cuba, this is an amazing gem that has been recently rediscovered and is belatedly getting the recognition it deserves.

According to the ACMI website:

Stanley Kubrick said the only problem with Overlord was that it was "an hour-and-half too short". After seeing this remarkable filmmaking achievement, one would have to agree.

And I do. I would normally include this film in my Sunday evening Week in Review post, but seeing as Melbournians still have two more chances to see it at ACMI this weekend (as part of the First Look series), I thought I'd bring this forward. It's screening tomorrow (Saturday) at 7pm and Sunday at 5.30pm. The Sunday screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the director, Stuart Cooper, and Paul Harris.

Links: Overlord official website / Criterion essay by Kent Jones

The Week in Review - 7/12/08

FILMS:

• Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, USA, 1939)
• Ceiling Zero (Howard Hawks, USA, 1936)
• It's a Free World (Ken Loach, UK/Italy/Germay/SpainPoland, 2007)
• When the Levee Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Spike Lee, USA, 2006)
  

Only Angels Have Wings
It was fascinating watching this so close to Australia, which share common periods, aesthetics, characters, plots and even flaws (even if Australia's are more obvious). An enjoyable film, but
nothing special.

Ceiling Zero
I think it was a mistake putting these two Hawks films on the same night as they seemed to share too much in common. I preferred this of the two as it's narrative was more coherent and the film's length was more compact.

It's a Free World
Loach is brilliant and I've never seen anything by him that's not worth seeing. This is not my favourite film by him, but worth seeing nonetheless.

When the Levee Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
I liked this a lot, though I think it's better suited to television, the medium for which it was made (for HBO). It's designed to be seen in two (or even four) parts, and it drags on a bit much when viewed in one sitting. It's screening as part of ACMI's Focus on Spike Lee, which I'm hoping to see a bit of. When introducing the film, curator Roberta Ciabarra announced that four of the films are brand new prints made especially for this retrospective.

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, UK/USA, 2008)
You've got to hand it to Danny Boyle - he really knows how to reinvent himself. Nearly every film he makes is a different genre. From thriller (Shallow Grave) to contemporary drug drama/comedy (Trainspotting) to drama (The Beach) to zombies (28 Days Later) to sci-fi (Sunshine), and now romance/drama/thriller with Slumdog Millionaire. This latest outing, set in India, shares some themes with his earlier Millions (2004), a story of some working-class kids who hit the big-time when they find a suitcase of cash, though this latest film is much more ambitious.

In Slumdog Millionaire, Jamal, a poverty-stricken youth, an orphan from the slums of Mumbai, falls under suspicion of cheating the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire when he makes it all the way to the final question, with the top prize of 20 million rupees at stake. How does he know the answers? The film's exploration of this question leads the viewer down various rabbit holes, revealling Jamal's past while giving the audience a view into aspects of contemporary Mumbai culture.

The film has a frenetic pace, with aesthetics similar to City of God. The music is sensational, completely in-your-face. Boyle has gone for a highly stylised and heightened sense of reality, using highly saturated colouration (with matching sub-title backgrounds as a subtle stylistic device). I'm not usually a fan of fast editing, but like the City of God (also set in slums), it works to very good effect here.

The film is unashamedly sentimental and uplifting, but that's not a criticism. In fact, it works quite well. We see life in the slums from a child's perspective, there is a central love story, there is the drama of a life of crime and there is the excitement and suspense that is known to anyone who has watched Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Boyle has packed so many angles into the film that skillfully play out in parallel that the story remains compelling from start to finish.

The game show aspect is really quite fascinating. The set, lighting, music and game structure is virtually indistinguishable from the Australian version. The biggest difference is the compere. Instead of Eddie Maguire and "lock it in Eddie" we have Amitabh Bachchan (played by Feroz Abbas Khan). The actual show is itself dramatic, but portrayed cinematically, it goes to a whole new level of suspense.

The film is highly entertaining and is sure to be popular with arthouse audiences, possibly mainstream audiences also. In fact, this may be Boyle's most successful film yet, though it's not particularly my type of film. It's not in the same league as Trainspotting, but then, I'm a sucker for bleak cinema. Comparisons have been made to other so called “sleeper indie hits” like Juno and Little Miss Sunshine. Slumdog Millionaire is far superior to both those films.

Slumdog Millionaire opens on 18 December, with preview screenings on 12-14 December.

The Week in Review - 21/9/08

The Cinema 1968: The Whole World is Watching season at Melbourne Cinémathèque this week and is running for five weeks, possibly longer than any other season, I believe. Actually, last week's La mama et la putain introduces is thematically connected, so it could be considered a six-week season. Michael Koller, co-programmer says the length is needed to do justice to films from around the world, including Czechoslovakia, the UK and USA. If... is a knockout. The other standout (and surprising so) was The Naked Bunyip. This one impressed me so much that I wrote a separate post on it today, 2000-odd words, the longest single post in a long time. Apologies if you find any typos or lack of coherence. I don't have time to edit it.

• If… (Lindsay Anderson, UK, 1968)
• Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, UK, 1968)
• Wall*E (Andrew Stanton, USA, 2008)
• Salvation (Paul Cox, Australia, 2008)
• The Naked Bunyip (John B. Murray, Australia, 1970) + Q&A
  
• Leave Her to Heaven (John M. Stahl, USA, 1945)
  

If...
If... is a fantastically subversive and wickedly funny satire from 1968. Apparently it was Malcolm McDowell's screen debut, and his performance was strong. Little wonder he was cast in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, a role that has parallels to this. His character's name is Travis and I wonder if Scorsese was referencing him with De Niro's character (Travis Bickle) in Taxi Driver. These characters also have much in common.

The sexual undertones, the exaggerated brutality of the boys' public school system, the sometimes bizarre humour all made this film one helluva ride and thoroughly enjoyable. It would make a good companion piece to David Fincher's Fight Club.

Witchfinder General
I always liked Vincent Price when he was popular in the 1970s and his understated performance in The Witchfinder General is darkly charismatic. I like the themes the film explores - official corruption, mob mentality, demonisation of individuals - but the film feels insubstantial. It is unintentionally funny at times and the wandering towards melodrama did little for me.


Wall*E
After all the buzz about Wall*E, I feel let down. I don't think it's Pixar's best film by any stretch of the imagination. Why? The writing is pretty ordinary. And the visuals which everyone has been raving about - the bar is pretty high with what Pixar have created - quite honestly, it's nothing special.

Each Pixar film usually has some visual aspect that they focus on. For example, in Ratatouille it was the minute details like the body hairs. In this one, it's the beauty of rust and decay. I found the colours were too mute for too much of the time. Dusty, misty colouration brought the aesthetics down.

The film, as usual, is a Disney co-production, so you know what kind of film you're getting. You don't expect challenging story-lines, but they don't need to be as tired and unchallenging as this. There's some cute pop cultural cross-references, like the retro music and videos, computer games, HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey (and the classical music like The Blue Danube, etc). They're all moderately amusing. I found the score from the start overly kitsch.

It's still an enjoyable film and a good one to take kids too without being too bored (though I found it very flat around the 45-60 minute mark), but nothing to get too worked up about. Perhaps my greatest disappointment is that Pixar is churning out a mediocre story that does little for children's imaginations: just more of the same cliches.

There is an environmental/consumeristic theme, but I don't feel it's an issue the film-makers take too seriously or sincerely. Rather, it's just topical and they're capitalising on that. My 7-year old son loved it. This film should do well internationally as there is very little dialogue. The first sparse words occur 20 minutes into the film. Strangely, the film goes downhill as the dialogue increases.

Salvation
Somehow or other, I've never managed to get a Paul Cox film in before, and I didn't like this one. I'm also told that it's quite typical for a Cox film. The dialogue seemed over-theatrical or tele-movie style right from the start and the characters seemed to lack any believability, for me at least. Basically, it's the story of a tele-evangelist and her husband who are drifting in different directions. The tele-evangelist has godly feelings with her assistant (played perfectly straight and understated by Kim Gyngell) and the husband falls in love with a Russian prostitute.

I could have walked out at any time, but did my duty for the AFI screenings and stayed. The thing I liked most about the film was recognising many of the locations, as I've lived both sides of Hobsons Bay for the last 22 years and it was fun doing the location-spotting thing.

Leave Her to Heaven
I'm not big on melodrama at all, yet somehow I enjoyed this technicolor feast for the eyes. Perhaps it was the fusion with noir (another genre I've not had much exposure to) that added to the appeal, I'm not sure. The film made no pretensions of being anything other than pulp fiction and it worked a treat. The film screened under the ACMI banner of First Look; I assume it's a brand new restored print, and it looks fantastic.

It was great to see a young Vincent Price, the third film I've seen him in this week (the others being Witchfinder General and the missus was watching Edward Scissorhands last night). He always has a strong and charismatic screen presence; his long courtroom tirades were impressive in spite of their complete ridiculousness (it just couldn't happen in real life, but that's not the point, as this is the fantasy of melodrama). All-in-all, good fun.

The Week in Review - 24/8/08

• Moonfleet (Fritz Lang, USA, 1955)
• Fury (Fritz Lang, USA, 1936)
• Du levande (You, the Living, Roy Andersson, France/Germany/Denmark/Sweden/Norway, 2007)
• The Bank Job (Roger Donaldson, UK, 2008)

Moonfleet
My only exposure to Fritz Lang is his most famous film, Metropolis, which I saw a few years ago at the Astor Theatre. This film, apparently the only one shot by Lang in Cinemascope, seems quite insubstantial to me. It looks very staged, like an adult form of children's pantomime. Maybe I'm not imbibing its historical context. I'm certainly interested in the history of cinema and Lang is a significant player in cinema's early history. Fortunately, the following Lang film screening at Melbourne Cinémathèque was more engaging.

Fury
The plot of this film is fairly implausible, yet somehow manages to grab the audience and take it on a ride. Fury raises some ethical and other issues and I found it enjoyable, though still not overly substantial.

You, the Living
This film, in Swedish, has a bleak aesthetic that really appeals to me. Urban decay is very photogenic, and the various characters that are shot in single takes (mostly with a static camera) match their surrounds. The director has employed a number of peculiar devices such as irony, black humour, surrealism and social observation that results in a highly original, engaging and entertaining film. I found it tender, sweet, moving and quietly subversive (especially a religious woman's praying for forgiveness for various sinners), without being overtly political in any way.

I loved the way characters from one scene would intersect with those from another. I also loved the way some minor details recurred. But my favourite parts were the recounting of dreams, where the surrealism came to the fore, especially with the girl and the guitarist. I was in awe at how one scene (from inside a 'train') was shot. Well worth seeing if you like films outside of the box, Scandinavian films and black comedies/dramas.

The Bank Job
I had free tix to see this as a MIFF member pre-MIFF, but couldn't fit it in. The missus didn't like the previous film as much as I so she took the call on this one. It has the fairly conventional structure of a heist film, yet manages to maintain a high level of interest for a number of reasons. First, it's genuinely more complex than most, and the complexity is believable due to the underlying facts that the story is based on, even if the bulk of the film is a fictionalisation (which one would expect, particularly considering the reported national security implications).

The Bank Job had my heart palpitating in suspense for nearly the entirety of its run time and my hands were sweaty. So I felt it did a good job of grabbing the audience. The end was a bit too twee in my opinion, trying to conveniently smooth things over for resolution. This is a minor point however, and didn't really affect my appreciation for the rest of the ride. This is a good mainstream film. It looks good, has believable and well-developed characters (mostly) and has some genuinely unexpected twists.

MIFF Days 2 - 7

We're a week into MIFF, and I've only written about the Opening Night film, Not Quite Hollywood. Fatigue, time (or lack of) and the realisation that I have to get to bed by 1am have prevented me from writing as promptly as last year (as I recollect, I did a write up every night, no matter the time - crazy!). I must say, I made a big mistake this year. I went to Opening Night with not enough sleep, and have struggled since. I'm trying to catch up now, but it's difficult. Memo to self: next year make sure you're well-rested before the festival starts.

Day 2: Sat 26 July
A fost sau n-a fost? (12:08 East of Bucharest, Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania, 2006)
Long Weekend (Colin Eggleston, Australia, 1978)

Day 3: Sun 27 July
Vikaren (The Substitute, Ole Bornedal, Denmark, 2007)
My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, Canada, 2007)
Of Time and the City (Terence Davies, UK, 2008)

Day 4: Mon 28 July
Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land, Teresa Prata, Portugal/Mozambique, 2006)
Momma's Man (Azazel Jacobs, USA, 2008)
Katyn (Andrej Wajda, Poland, 2007)

Day 5: Tue 29 July
El Baño del Papa (The Pope's Toilet, Enrique Fernandez, Cesar Charlone, Uruguay/Brazil/France, 2007)
Moartea domnului Lazarescu (The Death of Mister Lazarescu, Alexandru Munteanu, Romania, 2005)

Day 6: Wed 30 July
Bam gua nat (Night and Day, Hong Sang-soo, South Korea, 2008)
Élève libre (Private Lessons, Joachim Lafosse, Belgium/France, 2008)
40 x 15: The 40 Forty Years of the Directors' Fortnight (Olivier Jahan, France, 2008)
Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong, 2008)

Day 7: Thu 31 July
Gitmek: My Marlon and Brando (My Marlon and Brando, Huseyin Karabey, Turkey, 2008)
Qing mei zhu ma (Taipei Story, Edward Yang, Taiwan, 1985)


12:08 East of Bucharest
This is a quietly satisfying film. It starts out as an ensemble drama with understated dry wit and somewhere along the way - I'm not sure when - it becomes a black comedy. The film documents the impact of the fall of the Ceacescu dictatorship on a micro level, analysing social changes, people's recollections and how lies are perpetuated. I'm making a point to see as many of the Romanian films screening at MIFF, and this was a good start.

Long Weekend
Screening as part of the Ozploitation stream, I'd heard good things about this film. With a low budget and a cast of two, despite its obvious flaws, this is a film that has much to admire and enjoy. Director Eggleston is able to maintain a high level of suspense without dialogue for long stretches. I liked the film and the missus really loved it.

The Substitute
I took the kid to see this, and while I didn't think it had anything scarier than a Harry Potter movie, there was one scene that unsettled him to the point that he started crying (he's 7 years old) and the missus had to take him out. Aside from that, I found the film fairly clumsy, like many Australian or German films. It felt like an Australian kids flick you might see after school on the ABC. It also seemed quite derivative (from parts of Men in Black). It has, however, won overseas awards as a children's film. It has funny moments, but I found it unsatisfying as either a children's film or as a film in general.

My Winnipeg
This ode to Guy Maddin's hometown reminded me of a film I watched online on Matt Clayfield's blog a while ago, but be damned if I can find it. This is the second Maddin film I've seen, after Brand Upon the Brain at MIFF last year. In the context of a film festival, I like the unconventional nature of Maddin's work, though this one is not as gripping as last year's title. Still, it's worth a look.

Of Time and the City
I found this pretty dull, perhaps a made-for-TV BBC documentary. Because I set up my MIFF schedule and forget what each film is about, I often go into the cinema without a clue of what I'm about to see. It took me quite some time to work out that this film is an homage to the director's hometown Liverpool. I found the narrative using mostly prose, including quotes from a wide range of writers like Jung and Engels, distancing. With a short run time of 72 minutes, I still found myself looking at my watch waiting for the end.

Sleepwalking Land
This film looks good and had some good elements, but just didn't work for me. I found it's narrative too clunky, too contrived. The dynamics between the actors just didn't seem quite right and I couldn't believe in the story.

Momma's Man
Low budget indie US film-making that aspires for the transcendence of Old Joy, replete with subtle political messages. Not bad, but doesn't achieve Old Joy's peaks.

Katyn
Wow, this film packs a punch. It looks great (with the same cinematographer from Polanski's The Pianist and Oliver Twist). Like other Polish films I've liked (including others by Wajda and also early Kieslowski), there's historical and political references that may seem a little oblique to non-Polish audiences. If anything, that only piques my interest to learn more about them. Perhaps more of a problem, though, are some of the relationship dynamics that I didn't completely work out - it'll take another viewing to clarify some of them for me.

Nonetheless, this is a powerful film that was clearly a very personal project - it depicts the World War 2 massacre that took the life of Wajda's own father and clearly impacted not just many of the films he has made, but his whole life. It certainly shows that the Soviets were not benevolent dictators but rather treacherous murderers who colluded with the Nazis for their own ends. Massively popular in Poland and that's country's entry for this year's Oscars, hopefully it will get a local release. This was the first stand-out film at the festival for me.

The Pope's Toilet
An enjoyable enough dark comedy that captures the social and cultural life of poverty in an Uruguayan village as it prepares for the visit of the Pope. The ending is somewhat predictable but it's the journey that is more satisfying.

The Death of Mister Lazarescu
This is the kind of film I want to see at a festival, or any time for that matter. A film like this would never be made in the West, yet it is as universal as any film could be. Who would think a story that follows an obsese and drunken slob through the last hours of his existence could be so compelling? With long takes, the film has a documentary look and feel very similar to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, my favourite cinema release of 2007.

The film is an damning indictment, not just of Romanian bureaucracy, but of the failings of hospitals everywhere. In all its minute detail and documenting of hospital admissions, I could see no material difference between how we operate here on the other side of the globe in a much more affluent society. Perhaps the only departure from Australian society is that we could more reliably expect an ambulance when needed.

Like 4 Months, this film has a fly-on-the-wall feel to it, as we get a glimpse into this poor man's life: how he lives, what is family situation is, who his neighbours are and how his addiction to alcohol is about to lead to a descent into bureaucratic hell as he is shunted from one hospital to another. Must-see cinema at its finest!

Night and Day
Pardon me now, and for the rest of my mini-reviews of MIFF films, if I become repetitive in my use of the term "quietly satisfying". For that is how I found this film, as I did with the director's Woman on the Beach, which screened at MIFF last year. A Korean guy flees to Paris to avoid possible arrest for possession of marijuana. Not seeking to absorb French life in any way, he simply bides his time and we see a foreigner's experience of Paris as he hooks up with various compatriots. While I've been a little disappointed with my overall selection of films so far, this one is enjoyable and - wait for it - quietly satisfying.

Private Lessons
I should not have gone into this film with the high expectations I did. But I couldn't help it: after the director's magnificent Private Property, my favourite film at last year's French Film Festival, this is one of only two films that this year I decided I must see. It is not a bad film, but lacks something that his early film had.

Both films have a common theme: boys growing up without their fathers. While Private Property was extremely restrained and understated, Private Lessions goes for the jugular and puts to the fore, transgression that is only hinted at in Private Property. The film looks good and has some good elements. I think it lacks subtlety. Perhaps after Christophe Honoré's Ma mère (My Mother), it is a little too predictable and a little too contrived. Still, if you like transgressive and challenging cinema, this is a good film to see.

40 x 15: The 40 Forty Years of the Directors' Fortnight
I suppose this is a reasonable festival selection considering the Directors' Fortnight stream at this year's MIFF. It was interesting enough, but nothing compelling that says you've gotta go out and see it. It covers how the DF came into being, its rocky history and where it is now.

Ashes of Time Redux
This film is all style and very little substance. It's a story in the vein of Zhang Yimou's martial arts spectaculars though with Wong Kar Wai's vivid and impressionistic visuals. I found the story very confusing and would need to see it again to understand it better, but there's no way I'd want to see it again, regardless of how good it looks. There's some good humour there, especially the way the film at times resembles or emulates the American Western genre. For me, the film is meh.

My Marlon and Brando
An interesting film that is not spectacular in any way but holds much interest for its depiction of a Turkish woman who tries to travel to Kurdish Iraq to hook up with her lover. It's 2003 and the US has just invaded Iraq, and she has to go via Iran. What I found most compelling was the difference in social mores as she travelled from one country to another. Turkey is really progressive compared to some of the places she went.

Taipei Story
I found this disappointing after all the hype surrounding Edward Yang. The film is austere, with minimal dialogue or narrative exposition. Generally, this is a quality I admire and it's on display in a MIFF film I liked a lot more, The Death of Mister Lazarescu. In Taipei Story, I found it kept me confused for way too long and I failed to understand the nature of the relationships between some of the central characters.

Happy-Go-Lucky

We know right from the start that Happy-Go-Lucky is a very different Mike Leigh film. The cue from the almost clichéd opening credits suggests a light-hearted comedy. And metaphorically, Leigh gives us a cheeky wink when in the first scene, the protagonist, Poppy, walks into a bookshop, picks up a book called “The Road to Reality” and says with a laugh “we don’t want to be going there!”

In a sense, Happy-Go-Lucky is a tale of three very different but inter-related teachers and their pupils. There’s a passionate Spanish flamenco dance teacher (Karina Fernandez), there’s Scott (Eddie Marsan), a depressive driving instructor, but mostly it’s about Poppy (Sally Hawkins), an impossibly exuberant primary school teacher.

Poppy is 30, single and sharing a flat with her long-time friend, Zoe (Alexis Zegerman), also a teacher. Nothing seems to get Poppy down, and she always sees the bright side of things. When she takes up driving, she gets Scott, her polar opposite and the instructor from hell. He always finds something to complain about: an earlier student, traffic cameras, multiculturalism, anything. He does have one thing in common with Poppy – he declares that he’s never given up on a student, and she doesn’t want to give up on him.

While Poppy could be dismissed as loony, and Scott could never survive as an instructor, Leigh has imbued his characters with so much grounded reality that we can believe in them. The dialogue is superb, with long takes that highlight the actors’ impressive performances. It’s easy to single out Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan, however the support actors are all excellent as well. We get a good sense of each character even if we see little of them, like the flamenco teacher, a chiropractor, a homeless man and Poppy’s friends and family.

Happy-Go-Lucky is quite an accomplishment by Leigh. Normally a master of bleakness, he has crafted a colourful story that will appeal to mainstream audiences who wouldn’t get within a stone’s throw of many of his films, yet should satisfy his loyal fans.

And colourful it certainly is. The visuals are a feast for the eyes, akin to the films of Almodóvar. Poppy’s clothing, décor, workplace and hangouts are all full of bright hues. The music is light and at times carnivalesque. Poppy is drawn to the light, so to speak. She trampolines weekly, takes up flamenco (the teacher is used to great comic effect) and socialises with her friends.

The comedy works well because it has a basis in reality. Even the bleak characters are funny. But unlike Hollywood, laughs are not had at their expense. Leigh imbues his characters with complexity and shows a genuine compassion even for the most miserable. Scott is revealed as a vile racist yet he shows some insights. Poppy is an optimist to the max but perhaps all is not what it seems.

The film doesn’t shy away from social issues we’ve come to expect from the director, like racism, mental illness, childhood development and more. Yet Leigh doesn’t preach and these themes are always in the background. As he says in a Q&A about the film:

“The one thing I shouldn’t do (and you wouldn’t want me to do) is patronise the audience and to start over-explaining things that can quite happily sit implicitly and have their sense of being real and meaningful without explanations.”

This is one of the many strengths of the film. It allows a viewer to take it on whatever level one chooses. Leigh doesn’t try to answer any social questions, but doesn’t shy from them either. After I first saw the film (I’ve seen it twice), I asked the projectionist what he thought of the film. He couldn’t understand what the message of the film was about. Ultimately, the film is about this one character, Poppy, and her uplifting and perhaps (for some) annoyingly happy personality. I found it both a very enjoyable comedy and also rich in drama.

Happy-Go-Lucky opens today.

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Links

Official website / IMDB / Mike Leigh interview / The Age article

Interview with Mike Leigh and Sally Hawkins

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Sally Hawkins interview

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The Week in Review

With the French Film Festival starting this week, I could see only one window of opportunity to see the much-acclaimed The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, a Melbourne production that is aptly (if not unusually) screening at the Malthouse Theatre. I planned to leave work at 4pm on Friday, leaving me plenty of time for the 5pm screening. Unfortunately I got held up by my boss and arrived at the Malthouse at 5.02pm to find that I'd been locked out. This is something I'd never experienced before, certainly not at any cinema. My calendar is really full at the moment and this was the only screening I could fit in. Disappointed? You bet. Ironically, I expect that a 5pm Friday session would have been near empty.

FILMS:

• Macbeth (Roman Polanski, UK/USA, 1971)
• Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water, Roman Polanski, Poland, 1962)
• The Black Balloon (Elissa Down, Australia, 2008)

Macbeth
I had some anticipation in seeing this magnificent portrayal of treachery, a film I first saw in my teens when we covered the text in English. It left a strong impression on me, and I remembered it as a cold and bloody film. Some thirty-odd years later and it has certainly withstood the test of time. I haven't read Shakespeare since my school days, but the guy was brilliant, and Polanski certainly brings the text to life.

I loved the graphic and repugnant depictions of the witches, bookended with the spell at the start and the coven at the end. The murder scenes were fantastically gory, and one wonders what effect the then recent murders of Polanski's pregnant wife and three of his friends by the Manson gang had on the making of the film. The story effectively portrays the changes that occur when one commits a crime out of greed. Things don't go to plan and for Lady Macbeth, the result was insanity. My favourite scene is Macbeth's vision of Banquo's ghost at his dinner table.

Knife in the Water
Polanski's first film, and the only one made in his native Poland, I found it a fascinating look into the director's early work. While the tone and narrative are clearly different, I saw similarities with Michael Haneke's Funny Games. The obvious connection is the yacht, but both films also had a playful competitiveness about them. I particularly liked the ambiguity of the ending in which several questions were left unanswered.

The Black Balloon
Despite Lynden Barber's glowing recommendations for this new Australian film, the shorts gave me reservations that I found justified. I don't think it's enough for a film to be authentic and based on a true story (which it is). It has mostly good performances, though I found the smile of the lead, Rhys Wakefield, slightly grating. I also think Toni Collette is in serious danger of being permanently typecast as a frumpy suburban mum. When I think of Rowan Woods' The Boys, I know she can do so much better.

What can I say? Maybe I'm just suffering Australian coming-of-age fatigue. Luke Ford did a better job of portraying an autistic child than I expected, and Gemma Ward was better than I expected. Erik Thomson also performed fine as the father, and his small role was well written, I thought. During and after the film, I just felt like I hadn't been offered much that could be differentiated from the raft of other coming-of-age films that have been released here in the last year, even if it is a touch better than the rest of them.