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 - 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 Day 9

Sat 2 August
Üç maymun (Three Monkeys, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/France/Italy, 2008)
Dead End Drive-In (Brian Trenchard-Smith, Australia, 1986)
Matewan (John Sayles, USA, 1986)

Three Monkeys
Nuri Bilge Ceylan really impressed me with his MIFF 2006 film, Climates, my festival favourite that year. Three Monkeys is no less a film, that I found very, very satisfying. This is what I go to the cinema in search of. And after the previous evening's Lorna's Silence, that's two top films in a row. Both these films have another screening on the last day of the festival and highly recommend them before they sell out. Ceylan's film won Best Director at Cannes this year, and I can see why.

Looking at Ceylan's very slick and informative website, I learnt that he has a long background as a stills photographer. It's worth putting aside some time and exploring this site (which documents both his films and photography), as not only is his work visually remarkable, but it also gives some insight into the photographic aesthetics that inform his film-making.

This guy has an amazing sense of frame. The film's opening scene as the darkness swallows up a passing car, the wind-swept sea- and landscapes, the child's hand appearing out of nowhere all have a breath-taking impact. Another thing that struck me was the cinematography. Shot on high-definition digital, the film uses a stylised palette similar to two films that screened at MIFF last year: Still Life and Alexandra, with strong use of desaturated colours and with a bias towards greens. The transfer to 35mm film was excellent, with none of the graininess of those two other films.

The film is about how small lies become big problems when we adopt the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" position. Ceylan is so accomplished a visual story-teller that he doesn't need to rely so heavily on dialogue or musical cues like most directors. What he depicts of people's inner turmoil is a beautiful experience to behold. This film moved me so much that I have just now ordered everything I can of his works on DVD.

Dead End Drive-In
After last year's festival intensive, I had a better idea of how to plan for this year. Based on past experience of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's work, I made sure the film I saw after it wasn't too deep. What better than a 'throw-away' Ozploitation flick like Dead End Drive-In? I really enjoyed this a lot and can see why Quentin Tarantino is a big fan. I could just imagine his enthusiastic squealing and hooting over the old-style stuntwork, the spirit of which he replicated in Death Proof. In fact, most stylised big-budget Hollywood equivalents today don't even come close with their over-reliance on CGI and manic editing. This film captures something of its era and perhaps, rough as it is, could inspire a return to some of the old (and better) ways of genre film-making.

Matewan
This is a great-looking film, and it starts out very promising with a strong and recognisable cast. There's a host of actors that I would not have recognised at the time: Chris Cooper and Mary McDonnell, who both performed in Donnie Darko, are there. There's David Strathairn, Will Oldham, James Earl Jones, Gordon Clapp (NYPD Blue) and others.

The story depicts the struggle of coal-miners for decent working conditions and the part that the union played against the mine owners. I enjoyed the film, but found it a bit unnecessarily sentimental at the end. Nonetheless, I was keen to see another film by Sayles, the maker of my favourite family film, The Secret of Roan Inish. I've heard it said that every Sayles film is different to anything else he made. I have a lot more of his work to catch up on.

The Week in Review

Last week's screenings were dominated by the last of the season of Czech New Wave at Melbourne Cinémathèque, some truly rare and exception cinema. All these Czech films screened in this season were Australian premieres and all were excellent prints. The other highlight was Haneke's Funny Games, which I watched on DVD. I purchased it after seeing Time of the Wolf as part of the Focus on Isabelle Huppert at ACMI.

I had purchased a ticket to see Destricted at ACMI, but didn't get to see. I've heard that there's only a couple of segments of this omnibus film worth seeing, most notably Larry Clark's, so hopefully I'll get to see it on DVD some day (or maybe ACMI will re-screen it).

FILMS:

• Angel (François Ozon, UK/Belgium/France, 2007)
• The Nanny Diaries (Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini, USA, 2007)
• Prípad pro zacínajícího kata (A Case for a Young Hangman, Pavel Jurácek, Czechoslovakia, 1969)
• Konec srpna v Hotelu Ozon (Late August at the Hotel Ozone, Jan Schmidt, Czechoslovakia, 1967)
• Hairspray (Adam Shankman, USA, 2007)
  

SHORT FILMS:

• Postava k podpírání (Josef Kilián, Pavel Jurácek & Jan Schmidt, 38 mins, Czechoslovakia, 1963)
  

DVD:

• Funny Games (Michael Haneke, Austria, 1997)

Angel
François Ozon is one of my favourite French directors, who produces films of many genres. I'm really looking forward to the ACMI retrospective of his work starting later this week. Ozon makes subtle and understated yet compelling social dramas like Sous le sable (Under the Sand, 2000) and Le temps qui reste (Time to Leave, 2005) that are reflections of mortality that really resonate with me.

Swimming Pool (2003) is a more conventional thriller with a twist that shares some themes with Ozon's latest effort, but is of a completely different genre. Both films explore the life of a writer, but while Swimming Pool is a contemporary story somewhat grounded in reality, Angel is a melodramatic fantasy set 100 years ago. It's also Ozon's first English language film - quite a daunting challenge.

Angel Deverell comes from a lower middle class family but is passionately ambitious to succeed as a writer of melodramatic novels. The film takes on the mood of one of her novels - the melodrama is evident from the opening scene with the choice of music. While the press notes for the film give no hint that the director's intent of fantasy, I can't take it any other way. Angel succeeds at a very young age, beyond her wildest dreams. The narrative is almost dream-like. I have no experience of Douglas Sirk's films, but from what I've read, the film appears to be a homage to his work.

The production of the film is lush and the film looks beautiful. The period reproduction is very competent, but the genre of film won't appeal to everyone. Ozon clearly has an interest in women's stories and these often have appeal regardless of gender. I suspect the melodrama of Angel is likely to appeal more to women than men, and to lovers of English period dramas.

The Nanny Diaries
The husband and wife team that brought us the innovative American Splendour (2003) has worked together again for a more conventional comedy with The Nanny Diaries. The film satirises a tendency among some of the extremely wealthy of Manhattan's Upper East Side who, courtesy of their husband's huge income, can afford to both not work and pay others to raise their children.

Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney play Mr. & Mrs. X, Scarlett Johansson plays Annie the Nanny and Nicholas Art plays Grayer, the X's young son. The performances are acceptable enough, and there is some genuine humour, but the writing felt clumsy to me, and fell into stereotypical cliché. Johnasson has potential with comedy, but while the clumsiness of her role in Woody Allen's Scoop melded reasonably with the narrative and style of the film, it doesn't quite gel in this film. Maybe that's a weakness in the direction or editing - I couldn't really tell. It just didn't quite work for me.

There wasn't enough material to engage an audience for over 90 minutes and the film would have benefited by having some 15 minutes cut to bring it to this length. The film basically is a single joke that gets too repetitious as time wears on. The aspect that bothered me the most was a convenient and emotionally tidy ending. This may not concern a more conventional audience, which should find this enjoyable enough. Good for a bit of light but forgettable entertainment.

A Case for a Young Hangman
Virtually all of the Czech New Wave films screening at the recent Melbourne Cinémathèque season seem to have a fixation on indirect criticism of the totalitarian regime of the day. A Case for a Young Hangman is based on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and uses heavy satire and surrealism that also borrows heavily from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, particularly the appearance of a clothed rabbit replete with pocket-watch.

The film also recalls Orson Welle's The Trial (1962), reflecting a frustration with government incompetence, but takes absurdism and symbolism to a more extreme level. The film is structured like a dream, removing the need for narrative coherence and allowing the story to jump from one scene to another seemingly at the director's whim. Combined with visual inventiveness and restrained humour, this sucks the audience down a rabbit hole and is thoroughly engaging.

These devices are effective in conveying the frustration of living in a madly bureaucratic state. Krzysztof Kieslowski ran foul of the authorities by his direct and realist approach to criticism of the authorities in his native Poland, so the indirect methods employed by some of the Czechs (as in A Case for a Young Hangman) are quite novel.

Josef Kilián
This short film made an excellent companion piece to A Case for a Young Hangman. It also employs absurdism, but to a lesser extent than A Case for a Young Hangman. It is also highly satirical and uses irony to humiliate the craziness of bureaucracy.

Our hero stumbles across a cat rental store and on a whim hires. Having recently seen the realist depictions of communist life in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the director's mocking of bureaucracy is evident. A disinterested shop-girl asks for ID, takes the money and warns there's a steep penalty for late returns. The cat is mangy, nothing like the one asked for, and our hero - resigned to the uselessness of complaint - takes it for a day. He returns the next day but the shop is empty and no-one knows anything about it. The film then follows our hero as he desperately seeks the shop.

Late August at the Hotel Ozone
One of the finest post-apocalyptic films I have seen, that possibly inspired Haneke's Time of the Wolf. It has little of the humour of the previous Czech films. There is little dialogue and the story takes a while to unfold. We follow a troupe of young women being led by another old enough to be their mother. None of their identities is evident. Gradually we learn that they are some of the last remaining people on Earth (or at least, in the country). The older woman leads them across the country in search of other people, and particularly men.

Like Haneke's film, there is some fairly graphic violence, which works effectively in the context of the film. It also recalls Golding's novel, Lord of the Flies. The ending is full of irony and tragedy, but handled with subtlety. Great stuff.

Funny Games
Michael Haneke is one of my favourite directors. He uses bleak social realism to convey horror stories of sorts - thrillers, emotional dramas, post-apocalyptic stories and so on. Funny Games predates by several years Haneke's earlier efforts, Time of the Wolf (2003) and Hidden (2005), but explores common themes. Like Time of the Wolf, there is a holidaying family in crisis and like Hidden, there is an examination of the nature of reality and manipulation through the medium of film. Funny Games is particularly audacious in its cheeky self-reference, in which one of the antagonists directly addresses the audience.

It was interesting to see the recently departed Ulrich Mühe (from The Lives of Others). Apparently filming on an American remake (with Naomi Watts and Tim Roth as leads) directed by Haneke itself has recently completed and is due for release next year. It will be interesting to compare versions.

In the DVD extras, Haneke says this film is the only one in which he deliberately provokes the audience. It is indeed a chilling story, and not for the faint at heart - my partner was scared shitless! I have yet to see a Haneke film that I have found less than excellent.

Hairspray
This films has wide distribution and much has been written about it. I went with the family, who enjoyed it less than I. Three words sum it up: lots of fun. The film is full of light uplifting energy, and it would have benefited by cutting 15 - 30 minutes to keep up the initial momentum.

Michelle Pfeiffer is looking painfully and excruciatingly thin and appears to be deforming herself with cosmetic surgery. John Travolta has a clumsy but effective role, John Waters has a hilarious cameo and Nikki Blonsky largely carries the film's success on her effervescent performance. The rest of the cast were good, especially Jerry Stiller (George Constanza's father in Seinfeld), Amanda Bynes and James Marsden, though I found Queen Latifah as Motormouth Maybelle a bit flat. Good clean entertainment, with some nice choreography (by the director!). I'd like to see the John Waters original.

Isabelle Huppert at ACMI - 3

The films from ACMI's Focus on Isabelle Huppert in this post are a varied lot: a social-realist horror film, a film-noir comedy, an American western and a period drama. The ACMI programmers have certainly given us a diverse range of films in which to appreciate the subject: the very talented Isabelle Huppert.

Today and tomorrow are your last chances to catch some of the finest screenings of French films, including one by the very enigmatic (and rarely seen in this country) Raúl Ruiz:

• Mon 7.00pm: La vie promise (The Promised Life, Olivier Dahan, 2001)
• Mon 8.45pm: Comédie de l'innocence (Comedy of Innocence, Raúl Ruiz, 2000)
• Tue 7.00pm: La cérémonie (The Ceremony, Claude Chabrol, 1995)
  

Le temps du loup (The Time of the Wolf, France/Austria/Germany, Michael Haneke, 2002)
Somehow I missed seeing this film made in between my first Haneke experience (The Piano Teacher, 2001) and my second (Hidden, 2005). I think I was put off by a description I heard of it as a horror film. Genre brings expectations, and while the film does not really fit into that genre, it is not altogether inappropriate either (though any horror is not what the title may initially suggest). It is more of a social drama/thriller about an unidentified threat to civilisation as we know it.

The film is sparse, austere, and with little dialogue. While the plot is very different to Hidden, it shares that film's style. The plot has more in common with say Children of Men, without the stylistic embellishments (and that's not a criticism). While Cuarón's film describes a world crisis without explanation, Haneke's provides so little information, that we don't even know what the threat is. What we see in abundance is the disturbing social responses from the perspective of a family caught away from home and away from the city. The film also recalls Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), but without the zombies.

Like Ma mère (My Mother) and Nue propriété (Private Property) - both of which starred Isabelle Huppert - the film's opening credits are without any sound, adding to a sobering sense of mystery and foreboding. The whole film is without music other than a character's unenhanced playing of a tape in a cassette recorder.

Haneke is a difficult director for some audiences. His films (the ones I've seen) are cold. He uses cold colours. People are emotionally distant, don't communicate effectively, don't relate. While this makes it hard for some to engage with unsympathetic characters, it peels back the medium to reveal a raw core. One doesn't have to like a character to appreciate the nuance depicted and Haneke's work is full it. His depiction of a scenario without explanation is so intelligent and effective. We get to share the experience of the characters, trying to learn facts and make sense of 'reality' as if we were there ourselves.

Huppert's character is mother and protector of her two children on holiday in the country when disaster arrives suddenly and shockingly. Think of the abrupt moment in Hidden. There are a couple of moments like this in The Time of the Wolf. While the brilliant Huppert has top billing, her role is subordinate to the enormity of the situation she finds herself in. The portrayal of the situation is itself relegated to the background, with the prime focus being on how people react, individually and collectively.

The Time of the Wolf is both very original and very bold in both its conception and execution. It powerfully succeeds in everything it sets out to achieve, ending with ambiguity but (like Children of Men) with some sense of hope. Having now seen three Haneke films, I look forward to seeing anything else by this very talented and challenging director.

Amateur (Hal Hartley, USA, 1994)
Cinema is an emotional experience and a good serious film takes time to digest. While I generally don't like to see two films in a day, exceptions can be made for something as outstanding as ACMI's Focus on Isabelle Huppert. Fortunately the ACMI programmers put on a comedy on after the very harrowing The Time of the Wolf.

Amateur is my first experience of Hal Hartley's films. It's a strange beast and crosses different genres: film noir, black comedy and parody. It doesn't take itself seriously, is silly yet intelligent. There is a real shortage of good, intelligent comedy in cinema today to the extent that I rarely see a comedy any more. So this film is welcome relief.

In the context of an Isabelle Huppert retrospective, it's interesting to see how this actress is utilised by American directors and how her performances compare to those in French films. She has a good command of the English language, so I think she could portray anything in English she has in her native French. However, it seems that American directors appreciate Huppert more for her willingness to tackle sexually challenging characters rather than her much more special talent at depicting subtle and ambiguous emotional roles. Or maybe it's a case that Huppert is not interested in the same kind of roles when appearing in American films. I don't see this as a negative - it's just an observation. It does add to the variety of roles she has played.

In this film she unsurprisingly plays a former nun (and always smoking, something she seems to do in every film I've seen her in). I found neither the film nor Huppert's performance outstanding, but a welcome addition to the retrospective as an example of the varied films she has appeared in and a variation on her range. The performance certainly is against type and am open to the possibility that I brought expectations with me into the cinema. The film was well-written, very enjoyable and with very interesting characters.

The official website for Amateur quotes Huppert: "I call Amateur a metaphysical thriller. It's a strong thriller full of deep and philosophical themes and questions. But it's never intellectual or cerebral. To carry all that depth and ask all those deep questions in a simple, action movie is truly great art." The site also quotes Huppert's reasons for accepting the role: nobody would ever have given her this role in France. It goes against the preconceptions of who she is and the kind of work she does, and this was an opportunity for her to break out of that.

Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino, USA, 1980)
Isabelle Huppert was about 27 when she made this film, and doesn't she look young! Again, it's interesting to see how an American director utilises her talents. Playing a loveable 'whore', she's not pushed or challenged to any great degree, but delivers some of her trademark emotional nuance that few American actresses are capable of. The depiction of prostitutes in this film was similarly repeated in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, and Kris Kristofferson's Averill reminded me of Eastwood's characterisations, particularly as the cool-as-a-cucumber Inspector Harry Callahan in Dirty Harry.

I'm not a great fan of the western genre, though this film departs from the typical goody/baddy stereotypes. While it does test a contemporary audience - labouring somewhat over 225 minutes (nearly four hours) - it has much to admire. The story concerns itself with a death list that the stock association puts together - with a $50 bounty for each person on the list. The list appears to be comprised completely of poor starving immigrants who have settled harsh land and have stolen cattle to feed their struggling families. The film seems to be a critique on the corrupt relationship between government and big business and the arrogance towards the 'little man' in the land of free enterprise. It could almost be a metaphor for oil and Iraq and definitely has universal and timeless relevance that resonates to this day.

Typical with genre, the widescreen is used effectively, and there was good attention to period detail - this film must have cost a bundle to produce. There was a smoky soft-lens look about the film which reminded me of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, which was a quieter film but similarly slow-moving. Heaven's Gate does have action - it's a western after all. It seems like Cimino was attempting to rescue the genre from legend and place it within both an art film and more serious historical and political context. If that was his intent, he largely succeeded, though I believe the film did poorly at the box office.

There's a great line up of recognisable actors other than Kristofferson - particularly Christopher Walken, but also John Hurt, Jeff Bridges and Micky Rourke - and it was interesting to see them with much younger faces. Huppert's role as Ella was not particularly major, but seemed to serve as the emotional core of the film and connected various characters. It must have been a strange and perhaps liberating experience for her to move from dark French films to a grand project like this. I enjoyed the film in context, and it added variety to the Huppert retrospective, but it's not the type of film I normally go out of my way for.

Saint-Cyr (Patricia Mazuy, France, 1999)
Prior to seeing Saint-Cyr, the only other French period film I had seen was Patrice Chéreau's very bloody La reine Margot (Queen Margot, 1994). While these films are very different to each other in content and style, both are very extravagant productions vastly superior to most of their English counterparts. In fact, Queen Margot is one of the first foreign-language films I saw, and its brutality shocked as much as its beauty enthralled me.

Saint-Cyr has none of the brutality but much beauty. Isabelle Huppert plays Madame de Maintenon, a mistress then wife of Luis XIV (Jean-Pierre Kalfon). A strict woman, with the assistance of Luis XIV she founded Saint-Cyr, a special boarding school that selected 250 poor girls with the aim of elevating them through moral and social training, perhaps to be part of the royal entourage.

Madame de Maintenon is depicted as a strict and demanding woman, prone to whims. The film depicts the gradual training of the girls, the teaching of French (many of them spoke regional dialects) and the conflicted emotions as the girls reached marriageable age. When the girls are courted by the local nobility, Madame de Maintenon forcefully coerces the abbot (Simon Reggiani) to apply strict rules for their behaviour.

It was interesting to note a small role by Jérémie Renier, prior to his gaining prominence in the Dardenne brothers' L'enfant and Joachim Lafosse's Nue propriété. Isabelle Huppert is an actress whose screen presence could easily overwhelm a film. Of the dozen or so films I have seen her in, I have yet to see a one in which she has allowed herself to dominate the screen in the way that Hollywood films often exploit their actors. In this she portrays compassion, dignity, severity and subtlety with another fine performance.

Related posts: Isabelle Huppert at ACMI 1, 2, 4 or All