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

Brothers

Brothers (Jim Sheridan, USA, 2009)
I have a soft spot for Jim Sheridan. When I started out watching films in the early 1990s, his My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father were significant films for me. I have no idea what I would think of them were I to see them again. By chance, when I was in Manhattan, New York City in December 2003, the first film I watched was Sheridan's In America about his own arrival in the Big Apple some years earlier. I didn't think it was a great film, but I enjoyed it for what it is and related to the experience of arriving in the same unique city.

I could say that Brothers is a disappointment, but despite using some pretty big cliches and being overtly manipulative, it's actually a damn fine movie for it's intended (mainstream) audience. The film is itself a remake of a film of the same title (Brødre/Brothers, Susanne Bier) which screened at MIFF a few years ago and I think also had a later limited release. I haven't seen the original but as this film unfolded, I recognised the plot and vaguely recalled seeing the trailer. All this was a little distracting, but I tried to put that out of my mind.

I suppose the problem for me was that I knew what was coming. Ultimately though, I don't think this is really an issue because the film is so contrived that you can pretty much predict where it's going to go. As some supporters of Scorsese's Shutter Island have validly pointed out, it's not a fault to know where the film is going - it's watching how expertly it gets there. I won't compare Sheridan's film with Scorsese, but the point has some validity here.

What makes the film so damn watchable is that it has three of the best young America actors of their generation: Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman. Now, I've had about as much fascination with Portman as I have with Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds), ie, a lot. I love how Portman has great presence without any embellishment. She's no big-bosomed babette, but she has a real charm that exudes intelligence and attitude. She's used very well in Brothers as the wife of a soldier (Maguire) deployed in Afghanistan. There is one occasion where I thought she was unnecessarily dolled up, but fortunately it wasn't excessive.

Gyllenhaal plays the loser brother who fills a gap in the family's life when the marine brother doesn't return from duty. Unknown to everyone, he's alive and being tortured by the Taliban, only to return later a very damaged man. Now, a mainstream audience is going to love this film when it's released next week (I was at a MIFF members' free screening. A plug for MIFF here - if you're not a member, you get invites to half a dozen or more of these each year).

I'd like to point out three events in the film that had my eyes rolling, that place the film clearly in the mainstream sphere. These details shouldn't bother the target audience, but they bothered me. I really had to suspend my critical faculties in order to enjoy the film (which I still did because, well, I suspended my critical faculties - duh). I'm not going to be specific but when you see the film, you'll know what I'm talking about.

1). While captured, Maguire's character does something shocking. It didn't seem plausible to me, but it's central to the rest of the story.
2). At a family gathering, the six year old daughter says something to her father that a child of that age could not possibly know to say.
3. A letter is written at the start of the film, and the timing of its opening really brings to mind soppy melodramas like The Notebook and Dear John (though I confess to having seen neither).

In spite of these three events, and in spite of some pretty heavy-handed use of soundtrack music, each of these three actors (and Sam Shepard in a good support role) are so convincing that I could buy into the story. A strong element of the film is that it's a story about people, about relationships. War is what is imposed on them and affects their relationships; the film is not an overt critique on the so-called war on terror. For that I applaud it, though you can read between the lines any way you like. War is not a nice thing.

French Film Festival 2010 - 7

• Micmacs à tire-larigot (Micmacs, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France, 2009)
• Non ma fille tu n’iras pas danser (Making Plans For Lena, Christophe Honoré, 2009)
  

Micmacs
I love Jeunet's films, all of them. I love his consistent retro style, the aesthetically pleasing urban and industrial decay, his bizarre characters and their equally weird looks and idiosyncrasies and the predilection for darker themes. Underlying them one senses a real love for the underdog in society and what injustices (or indeed, evils) one has to sometimes overcome.

Micmacs is a Warner Brothers production and it seems that the alignment with a big studio has required some modifications to what Jeunet may otherwise have created. Have no doubt, all the Jeunet signature devices and traits are all there - in bucket-loads. It does seem, though, to be self-consciously catering to a wider market and the film obviously has a bigger budget than his previous films.

Jeunet has assembled several of his easily recognisable actors that he's used in previous films. He's also cheekily referenced some of those films, most noticeably a short homage to Delicatessen. In fact, there seem to be a number of other filmic references. One of the characters is called Buster, for example, possibly a reference to Buster Keaton, whose influence can be felt.

The film is a visual delight, as you'd expect and I'm sure will do very well when it's released just after the French Film Festival ends. I know that every screening at the festival has had strong demand and the session I attended sold out quite some time prior - something I'm not accustomed to seeing at the Kino. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a sold-out session at the Kino until now. Micmacs is perhaps not quite as dark (thematically) as other Jeunet films and is a little more family-friendly, though less so than Amelie. My son loved it, though I found it less satisfying than his previous films. My verdict: good fun.

Making Plans For Lena
This Honoré fellow doesn't pull any punches with his films. Love them or hate them, you've gotta respect the guy and his work. For me, Ma mère is perhaps the most powerful, transgressive film I've seen. It's a hard film to watch, but it's an amazing piece of work. Dans Paris/Inside Paris is a bleak film about a depressive young man that I found difficult and Les chansons d'amour/Love Songs is a strange musical. All these films are gutsy and now we have Non ma fille, tu n'iras pas danser, literally "No My Daughter, You Will Not Dance" but titled Making Plans for Lena for us Anglophones. Having seen the film, I love the original title, which has so much more poignant meaning. I can't really articulate definitively how it relates to the story, but it feels so right.

[Edit: my French teacher has corrected my translation. It should be No My Daughter, You Will Not Go Dancing]

The film starts with a family get-together in the grand-parents' country home before and it immediately reminded me of Summer Hours. Hah! How wrong could I be. This is no light middle-class tale - this is a story about the struggles of people in relationships, about selfishness and conflict, love and contentment. But mostly conflict, and in this regard it reminded me of relationships in trouble in Sam Mendes' painfully honest Revolutionary Road.

I have a take on this film, that I feel is close to Honoré's intention, and I'm sure it will be contentious. Some might consider it misogynistic, and if that's what you think, so be it. Honoré depicts - brutally honestly in my opinion, various conflicts that all involve women.

Léna is a self-destructive and selfish woman. She's also very troubled. She left her husband without warning, taking the two young children with her and ultimately divorces. When needed, she calls upon him at short notice and places demands upon him as if they were still married. Yet she still chides and belittles him.

Léna's relationships with her family are no better. She is close to her father, but is resentful, critical and argumentative with her mother, sister and brother. She has allowed herself to be dominated by an overwhelming selfishness, a ME-ME-ME complex. She wants everything, and she wants it her way. If she is incapable of achieving what she wants, she gets angry with whoever is around for their inability to fulfill her. Regrettably, I have experienced all this first-hand.

I think it is a phenomenon of Western society that women often develop what I call a princess bitch syndrome, or PBS for short. Don't take offence if I use 'women' in a general sense. I don't mean all women and I don't want to qualify myself every time I use the word 'women'.

Women often want it all. They know (and often joke about) it, men know it, and it's simply denial not to acknowledge it. Socially, we rationalise it, we justify it ("it's a woman's right to change her mind" and similar). A common saying is that there's only two words a man needs to have a happy marriage, "yes, dear". Now, I'm all for chivalry, and I extend courtesy towards people of any gender. But the idea that a woman can treat a man like a door mat and he'll just say "yes, dear" - sorry that's just wrong, just like the idea that the customer is always right.

People find harmony within relationships by balancing difference proclivities and through compromises that leaving each person feeling equal and treated fairly. Where there is no approximation of equality and fairness, there is unlikely to be harmony. I'm not really discussing much of Making Plans for Lena, but these are the themes it raises for me.

Just as Revolutionary Road confirmed to me that Sam Mendes' American Beauty was no accident and is based on great insights that matured in the later film, Honoré's Making Plans for Lena cements in my mind how insightful a person he is. Honore's film paints on a much broader canvas, looking beyond a single marriage and yet focusing on just one woman and how she relates to people around her, including her (ex) husband.

The acting in the film is excellent, with Léna portrayed by Chiara Mastroianni and a solid ensemble support cast including Marina Foïs, Marie-Christine Barrault, Jean-Marc Barr and Fred Ulysse. The film's backbone is the writing, which is credite to the director and Geneviève Brisac. It has a mostly linear structure but jumps in time (but not back) and also includes a bizarre though enjoyable digression as a child narrates a story, a folk tale that relates to the themes of the main story.

Christophe Honoré is a director I have a lot of respect for. This latest film is a lot more accessible to audiences than most of his films that I've seen and I found it both enjoyable and thought-provoking. I doubt you'll ever see this on the big screen outside of a festival (or ACMI). Highly recommended.

A call for suggestions at MQFF

I've attended a number of sessions at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival in past years, though not recent ones. Perhaps I didn't research sufficiently and got put off by some of the fairly camp or grotesque excesses. I never liked the caricature that TV's Melrose Place became, nor the gay somewhat equivalent, Queer as Folk. It's not the sexual orientation that bothers me, but what I might snobbishly call the quality of what's on offer.

Now, I noticed that last year MQFF screened François Ozon's A Time to Leave, about a gay photographer who has a terminal disease and finds his own way to say goodbye to those he loves. For me, this is universal cinema, and the sort of film I'm happy to see at MQFF. I had a look at this year's extensive program - I believe there's 100 sessions - and there's no way I can properly research that volume of films. I've tried to make it easier by only looking at sessions that I can fit into my schedule and eliminating the genres that don't interest me in the slightest. The difficult part now is to separate the wheat from the chaff of those remaining.

My question is, are you going to MQFF? And if you are, have you looked at the programme and have any suggestions? If so, I'd love to see them.

French Film Festival 2010 - 6

Nothing great to report today - an unsatisfactory thriller and an acceptable children's film. But it's a long weekend, and I'm seeing another two tomorrow.

• Pour elle (Anything For Her, Fred Cavayé, France, 2008)
• Lucky Luke (James Huth, France/Argentina, 2009)
  

Anything For Her
This French thriller was first released two years ago, and I'm wondering if the only reason it made it to the festival is the celebrity of a character played by Diane Kruger, who luminously portrayed the glamorous German actress Bridget von Hammersmark in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Kruger's character is central but not major in Anything For Her, and I enjoyed seeing her in another role. She has a nice screen presence, but there's not much else I liked about this film.

Right from the start, details of this film bothered me but I reserved my judgements. A conjugal pairing between characters played by a miscast Vincent Lindon and Kruger didn't seem quite real. The seventeen-year age difference is not completely unbelievable, though the stereotype is a bit tired. Despite several years of marriage and a young son, their being smitten with each other like hormone-raging teenagers borders on incredulity. "OK, suppress the critique", I thought to myself. "Give it chance to breathe". Unfortunately, it only gets worse.

As mentioned, there are problems with Lindon's casting. On the one hand, we're to believe he's a Mr. Everyman, an ordinary Joe who finds himself in an extraordinary situation. He's a teacher but he looks like a hardened crim or cop, dressing like one, too. Yet, when he takes the law into his own hands, he sort of looks the part, but doesn't convince that he attempt (what to speak of succeed at) what is required.

The plot according to IMDb: "With no legal means left to him, a high school teacher devises a daring plan to rescue his wrongfully imprisoned wife from jail". Yeah, I know, it sounds like it could be silly but it also has possibility. The problem is really with the writing, which allows all kinds of ridiculous contrivances that would never happen in real life. Like a young child picking up and pointing what should be a very heavy handgun. Obviously the gun is a prop. Or meticulously planning an escape over three months, only to leave all your detailed plans in the rubbish bin for the police to find. The sentimental and anything but subtle music also grates.

There are so many details I could fault, but will leave it at that. I know there's a market for this kind of film, and I think an undemanding, mainstream audience will love it. Others seemed to like it more than me. I found it to be basically telemovie material.

Lucky Luke
The festival program lists this film with a G classification, which I doubt it could get for a commercial release. There is more than one scene where Lucky Luke punches a woman in the face, a PC no-no here. However, there's no doubt it's a children's film, and the punching scenes are a surprise simply because it's not something we normally see depicted in film (and perhaps is the better for it).

Based on a popular comic-book character, the film is quite funny but a little too silly for an adult-only audience. What I find most amusing is the Utah, USA setting (though no doubt it was not filmed in the US) and the western interpretations by the French. It does for the western (or spaghetti western) what OSS 177, Lost in Rio does for James Bond. It even has OSS 177's Jean Dujardin starring in the title role. As in that film, I find him very charming and amusing, though this film is clearly aiming at a younger demographic. Verdict: unless you're a fan of the books, it's children only, and good fun for them.

French Film Festival 2010 - 5 (White Material)

White Material (Claire Denis, France, 2009)
So this is the film that Claire Denis was too preoccupied with in preparation for its premiere to make it to an 'In Conversation With Claire Denis' event at MIFF last year. Well, I had tickets and was very disappointed that she couldn't make it, but now I forgive her. Her film that did screen at MIFF was 35 rhums/35 Shots of Rum and while it was widely lauded, I was underwhelmed by it. Good, but nothing special. White Material is, for me, a return to form.

Tacking themes similar to Disgrace, it succeeds in ways that Steve Jacob's film doesn't. There's none of the melodrama, plenty of contemplative moments (with an excellent and understated score) that leave ample space for one to feel a looming and overwhelming dread. The dread is hard to escape, because the film starts with how it ends - we know that no good can come out of this. There's pillage, murder, destruction. There are government militia, rebels and the innocents in between are in danger from both.

Isabelle Huppert plays Maria Vial, a coffee plantation owner in an unnamed African country, presumably a former French colony. Despite the risks, the threats and the warnings, she refuses to abandon her land, in denial of the obvious danger she is placing herself, her family and her workers in. The themes are relevant today; think Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe.

Huppert is looking painfully thin and is very authentic in this role. Christopher Lambert as her ex-husband, Nicolas Duchauvelle as her son and Isaach De Bankolé as a rebel leader put in solid support roles, but it's Huppert who dominates the screen. She effectively depicts both obstinance and desperation.

The title of White Material refers to the locals' description of property owned by the colonialists. The film is an indictment of the evils of civil war, specifically in Africa, with the depictions of violence, child soldiers and corruption. There are some brief challenging scenes of violence but mostly the mood is one of dread, of what could happen at any moment. The suspense in the film is as palpable as anything created by Hitchcock and I'm thinking Psycho here, though I'm not suggesting that these films are alike in any other way.

The film's flashbacks can be a little confusing, so one has to pay attention. I found it a little over-long (though this is only a minor quibble). Denis' Beau travail, also set in Africa, remains one of my favourite French films. White Material is not quite up to the same level of excellence, but one still feels that one is in the hands of a very competent film-maker. For fans of Denis, it shouldn't disappoint.

French Film Festival 2010 - 4 (Wild Grass)

Wild Grass (Les herbes folles, France/Italy, Alain Resnais, 2009)
Alain Resnais is a veteran of French cinema, and Wild Grass is only the second of his films that I've seen, the other being his previous film, Coeurs/Private Fears in Public Places. I get the sense that this unconventional film-maker might be an acquired taste. He has a fascination with artifice, not afraid to ignore cinematic conventions.

My initial impressions of Wild Grass were that the film assumes a god perspective. Seemingly ordinary events occur that may have greater consequences. We get different perspectives of the protagonists with both an all-knowing narrator as well as the ramblings of a protagonist's thoughts. It's an interesting observation, because our thoughts are usually uncensored compared to our words. I was initially afraid that the film would be full of these crazy, internal monologues. Thankfully, Resnais uses it as an establishing device, to let us know what kind of person we're dealing with.

Wild Grass is not concerned with the big issues per se. Rather, the film focuses on small details, the banal, and demonstrates how even minor events can have major ramifications. It's all a matter of perspective. Maybe this is a reflection of his age (he's in his late 80s), though it's something I relate to.

There's little attempt by Resnais to maintain a semblance of reality. The personal interactions are quite absurd, almost surreal. Yet somehow there are, beneath the dry and understated humour, some quite profound human observations. I couldn't help but make a connection to José Luis Guerín's In the City of Sylvia. Stylistically and aesthetically, they're very different films, but both are concerned with the duality of simulataneous desire for and fear of human connection. This theme struck me very strongly upon seeing each film, because it's a theme or issue I ponder very much myself.

I think we all crave a deeper sense of connection to others. We sit in cafes or walk down the street. Maybe we see someone and think that person looks interesting, or attractive in one way or another. I was having this very conversation with a couple of strangers down Degraves St. in the city just a couple of days ago.

Maybe we reach out. Maybe there's reciprocation, maybe not. Maybe there's indifference, or rejection. Maybe the other person is outwardly cold but inwardly craving the same sort of connection, a spiritual yearning perhaps. This human duality fascinates me, and is what I like most about this Resnais film. Wild Grass is funny, romantic and thought-provoking. I don't have a full handle on where Resnais is coming from, but seeing this film, I'm keen to see more of his back catalogue.

The week so far - 4/3/10

I know, I missed last week's review and, while I prepared quite a bit of writing, I completely missed January (I planned to do a month in review). The French Film Festival opened tonight - not that I got an invite. I sure wasn't going to spend $50 to see a film, as much as I love Jeunet and look forward to seeing Micmacs. I've just finished working out my schedule for the festival and may see up to 14 films - that's on top of the 10 I've already reviewed. For me, the festival begins tomorrow and, aside from Melbourne Cinémathèque (where a Fellini season is currently underway), it'll pretty much be French, French and more French films for the next two weeks.

As well as the films below, I also got to the new Mary and Max exhibition at ACMI. I hope to post on this in the next day or so, but if I don't get around to it, go and see it. It's free and it's a delight to see so many pieces from the film on display. I've taken some photos and if my post sees the light of day, I'll plaster some of those on here. So, here's what I've seen so far this week:

• L'armée du crime (The Army of Crime, Robert Guédiguian, France, 2009)
• Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, USA, 2010)
  
• Män som hatar kvinnor (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Niels Arden Oplev, Sweden/Denmark/Germany, 2009)
• Amarcord (Federico Fellini, Italy/France, 1973)
  
• Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, USA, 2010)
  

Shutter Island
Marty, Marty, Marty, what's happened to you? Aw gee, every film Scorsese's done since 1999's Bringing Out the Dead (one of my favourites of his) has been a disappointment. Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed all left me non-plussed. I think Scorsese is trying too hard, trying to break through with a big mainstream/blockbuster film. He's obviously still getting the big budgets and Shutter Island certainly looks very nice. The trouble is, it's all been done before and offers nothing new. It's a thriller without suspense. It goes through the motions, but the audience can see where it's going and what's coming. And just in case you're not sure, he makes sure there's no ambiguity.

There's a setup at the start that's such a silly subterfuge to distract the audience. But when the big reveal is made apparent, I just had to roll my eyes. Fifteen years ago, it might have had more impact, but it's been done to death.

Mark Ruffalo's role is a bit limp, Michelle Williams is underused, Ben Kingsley plays a fairly stereotypical character and Leo DiCaprio's constant state of desperation is being overplayed. If Scorsese is going to keep recycling his actors, he should give them a bit more range. I like DiCaprio a lot (Revolutionary Road was one of my top films of 2009), but his role in this film just seems to recycle his persona in The Departed.

I think Scorsese should follow one of his contemporary's lead. Francis Ford Coppola may not be producing universally lauded films but is getting back to his roots and making personal films with soul. Scorsese seems to be enamoured by technical proficiency but missing out on the gutsiness of his earlier films. I'd rather less polish, and more guts.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
I didn't have a good time with this over-long (3 hours) gothic crime thriller. I don't want to go into the plot, but much of it is silly and cliched, the acting clumsy with gratuitous nudity and violence. The look of the film is digital grainy, a murky look that does nothing to ingratiate itself. The film is not a total write-off - it will probably appeal to a hip young audience - but it's not my thing at all. It's the first in a trilogy and opens in cinemas on the 25th of this month.

Amarcord
OK, I don't 'get' Fellini. I don't understand his films and I don't connect with them, at least those I've seen. I think it was Satyricon that I tried to watch about ten years ago and I couldn't finish it. Granted, my taste in cinema has changed a lot since then, but even 8½ did nothing for me a year or so ago. Tonight it was Amarcord, which is amiable enough, but it just seems to be a rambling story going nowhere. I get that it's 'a year in the life of' this village. I get that it documents in passing the rise of fascism, village rituals and lifestyle and some of the idiosyncratic characters. I also get that it's probably part-autobiographical. But I don't connect with anything. What did I say...? A rambling story going nowhere. I'll still give his other films a go, but I couldn't sit through a second one (La strada) at Melbourne Cinémathèque. Next week it's La dolce vita and Boccaccio ‘70: Le tentazione del dottor Antonio.

Alice in Wonderland
Let me preface this by stating that I love Tim Burton's films and I'll see anything he makes, even if it doesn't quite work. And this is one of them. Mia Wasikowski is the best thing about it - she's close to perfect. She looks perfect and her performance is spot on - pretty important, given that she's the central character.

I love both Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter but I had major reservations about them prior to seeing the film. I dreaded seeing Depp's overplaying like he did in Burton's earlier Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. My fears were largely unfounded - despite his over-the-top-looking Mad Hatter, Depp's performance was relatively understated (for him, anyway). I still found the look of Depp's and Bonham Carter's characters a bit distracting.

The other strong elements of the film that worked for me include the non-fantasy elements and, in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit. These familiar characters had nice Burton touches but remained true to how we recognise them. The Blue Caterpillar wasn't bad either. Not so hot was Anne Hathaway's White Queen. The way she held her hands up in a faux queenly manner really grated, though I may be alone in this seemingly petty criticism. While her character looks lovely, the role itself seemed empty and lifeless. It did nothing for me.

The film is strongest when it's focused on the micro-elements, in particular Alice interacting with various characters in a personal way. Where the film is weakest is when it goes off on these concocted tangents of fighting and (I know everyone else has said it) elements that are more like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Golden Compass. And to compare further with Lord of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins adventures were most engaging on a personal level, but bored me shitless when the story shifted to the epic level (big wars, etc). It's much the same here.

The CGI is used profusely, as you'd expect, and it works pretty much in proportion to my previous point. In micro, up close and personal, it's lovely. When the film moves to the big picture, the CGI draws too much attention to its flaws and takes one out of the moment.

For a film that has had such a big lead time and created a high level of awareness, it doesn't seem to be on a large number of screens. I use YourMovies and it was only screening at three of the cinemas I've listed as ones I attend. So maybe that reflects the confidence that the exhibitors have in the film. If you're a Burton fan, you won't want to miss it. If you're a parent, primary school-age children should be fine with it, though there's a couple of moments that might be scary (but not overly) for sensitive children. For others, it's fun enough, but not one of Burton's finest films.

What's On

There's always complaints about the quality of art house cinema outside of film festivals. There's some top-notch cinema on right now. Grab it while you can:

• A Prophet
• Ricky
  

French Film Festival 2010 - 3

Below I review films by two of my favourite French directors, François Ozon and Robert Guédiguian. Ricky is not screening at the French Film Festival in Melbourne - ACMI is screening it until 10 March - but it is screening at the festival interstate. Neither film disappointed and, indeed, both actually exceeded my expectations - ain't life grand?

• Ricky (François Ozon, France/Italy, 2009)
• L'armée du crime (The Army of Crime, Robert Guédiguian, France, 2009)

Ricky
François Ozon's Ricky isn't what I thought it would be. In fact, discussing what it is and what it's not would spoil the surprise, because it's definitely worth seeing. Suffice to say, that if you read the ACMI or festival blurb, you may get the wrong impression of the film, which is a good thing.

The film's visuals have a lovely naturalistic look. Sergi Lopez plays a little out of type - more of a sluggard than his usual Mr. Everyman. The other performances are fine but it's the story that wins it. Highly recommended, especially if, like me, you like Ozon. I like that his films are unconventional and diverse, crossing genres and covering different genres. It adds to the unpredictability of his work. In this one, the music (which is nicely subtle) also slightly confounds one.

The Army of Crime
Robert Guédiguian is one of my favourite French directors. For decades, he's been making socially aware realist dramas (like La ville est tranquille/The Town is Quiet) with a regular troupe of actors (and behind-the-scenes technical staff, too). His latest film doesn't disappoint and should be one of the highlights of the French Film Festival this year. It's also a significant departure from Guédiguian's body of work.

First, his regular troupe step into the background with small parts, leaving the main roles to younger actors, like Virginie Ledoyen, Simon Abkarian and Robinson Stévenin. And secondly, it's a period film based on a true story, about a particular group within the French Resistance in Paris during World War II. It sits quite comfortably as a companion piece to films like Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows or Louis Malle's Lacombe, Lucien.

While the genre is surprising, the ethnic slant isn't. Guédiguian depicts a partisan group of largely ethnic French: Armenian, Italian and Spaniard communists, as well as Polish Jews. The fervour of these foreigners was a contrast to the lethargy of the French at the time. It's the multicultural elements that have attracted me to Guédiguian's social realist films in the first place.

Other than this ethnic element, I don't think the film offers anything particularly new to the genre, but that's not a criticism. Many films have informed us of the horrors of the Holocaust, the German terror, the horrors of collaboration and the French resistance. The film has many strengths. Guédiguian is surprisingly adept at handling the wartime themes but what wins it over is the human element. The film juggles many scenarios and weaves them together skillfully. It left me feeling devastated. At this stage, The Army of Crime, Ricky and The Father of My Children are the three must-see films of the festival. But with up to another dozen films I'm hoping to see, hopefully there'll be a few more gems among them. Exciting!

The Alliance Française French Film Festival opens on Thursday 4 March with Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs and runs until Sunday 21 March at the Palace Como, Balwyn, Westgarth and Kino cinemas.

Ricky is currently screening as part of ACMI's Long Play series until Wednesday 10 March.