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Film: Rampage
Release date: 14th February 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 85 mins
Director: Uwe Boll
Starring: Brendan Fletcher, Shaun Sipos, Michael Paré, Matt Frewer, Lynda Boyd
Genre: Action/Crime/Drama/Thriller
Studio: High Fliers
Format: DVD
Country: Canada/Germany
This is an English-language release.
For those of a nervous disposition when it comes to screen violence, this film is very likely to make you feel more than a little queasy. The fourteenth of twenty-one Uwe Boll directed works over the past decade or so, Rampage is surprisingly a little more than it appears on the tin; particularly when considering Boll’s somewhat unfortunate cinematic notoriety.
Bill Williamson (Brendan Fletcher) is an angry young man. He appears to be stuck in an aimless and downtrodden existence, working in a poorly paid job whilst living at the mercy of his parents (Matt Frewer and Lynda Boyd) in small town USA.
Bill feels the pressures of modern life in America which continues to creep towards boiling point in his mind. Surrounded by a TV and media backdrop demonstrating the world’s wars and violence, he feel likes a victim at the hands of society at large, where even poor service in a low grade fast food restaurant and the radical views of Evan Drince (Shaun Sipos), who seems to be his only friend, seriously affect him.
When his parents tell him it’s time to move out, and after being poorly treated by his boss at work, Bill decides to take action into his own hands. He believes that his town, and the world as a whole, is an overcrowded place, and he must reduce the population in the most brutal way possible. Thus in his pursuit of vengeance against society, Bill builds up a suit of bullet proof Kevlar armour and goes onto the streets armed to the teeth with sub-machine guns on a devastating killing spree to establish his dominance…
An Uwe Boll film does not create great expectations, since he has gained (and indeed earned) a reputation as a maker of mostly video-game inspired straight-to-DVD schlock. It is indeed a surprise, then, that Rampage is not an adaptation of a video-game with the same title, but an ultra-violent examination of modern societal pressures in the USA in the context of a violence and gun culture.
The film is shot almost in a documentary style, with hand-held cameras and some elements of ‘shaky-cam’ adding a disturbing dimension to proceedings. There is a real sense of dread in the early sections of the film as the pressures of modern living begin to build in Bill’s mind. This is largely down to the unflinching performance of Brendan Fletcher in the central role, who is horrifyingly believable as a 23-year-old man willing and able to commit such shocking acts of brutality.
The pressures of everyday life in small town America are well illustrated by Boll, and a large part of the disturbing nature of the film is that many viewers can empathise with someone who lives such a downtrodden, stuck in a rut existence (which Bill takes to shockingly murderous extremes). For instance, in one scene, reminiscent of an even more unhinged Falling Down, Bill orders a coffee “with extra cream.” His coffee is not served to his liking, and you can tell that in Bill’s mind a mental note of his server has been taken, with terrifying results later on in his killing spree.
The main problem with Rampage, however, and this may seem strange given the film’s title, is the extent of the violence and prolonged destruction on show. When Bill is running around the streets of his town causing general mayhem and chaos (including blowing up the entire police department with the use of a remote bomb), there is a sense that the build up to the events has been downgraded to a typical Uwe Boll nasty.
Indeed, the over-the-top carnage Bill creates in some ways feels like a live action Grand Theft Auto (which may be partly intended). This isn’t as clever as Boll may have intended – instead it comes across as though these events are only happening with a clear design to shock, where they really only offend. In many ways, the relentless television violence that the film is targeting as a trigger for these events is present itself ten-fold in Rampage, where the wanton destruction and levels of implausibility combine and begin to add up. Why aren’t the police better protected in the face of a Kevlar coated madman? Does no-one else in small town America carry a weapon to fire back at Bill? Would a bingo hall full of elderly people and staff really not notice a gun wielding maniac walking in their midst?
Still, Boll does add some stylistic flourishes to the film, which add to the ‘documentary-style’ filming of events and therefore add to the realism of Brendan Fletcher’s central performance. Interspersed periodically throughout the film are small snippets of hand-held camera footage (akin to Bill’s video diary), which highlight Bill’s disturbing motivation for committing such atrocities. It is only at the very end of the film, however, that these videos are somewhat nullified, where the ending itself is more than a little implausible and, at worst, downright ridiculous. Strangely, the film does appear to be left open for sequel opportunities, and it is perhaps surprising given Boll’s prolific output that one has not been made already.
Rampage is a film which starts promisingly with the build up of fear and tension as to what is to come, but the horrifying results of Bill Williamson’s killing spree are not for the faint hearted and seem overly concerned with causing shock. Yet Brendan Fletcher’s central performance is disturbingly realistic in terms of character motivation, where Matt Frewer and Lynda Boyd (as Bill’s parents) ably support as they show genuine concern for the future of their son. DB
Film: Clash
Release date: 21st February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 94 mins
Director: Le Thanh Son
Starring: Johnny Nguyen, Veronica Ngo
Genre: Action/Martial Arts
Studio: Revolver
Format: DVD
Country: Vietnam
Clash, also known as Bay Rong, is a Vietnamese produced and martial arts filled action/thriller from director Le Thanh Son. The film was written by one of the stars of the film in Johnny Nguyen, a prolific martial arts actor and stunt double in Hollywood productions including Spiderman 2, Collateral and X Men: First Class.
Trinh (Ngo Thanh Van) is a former child prostitute bought out of the brothel by a local crime lord. As he raised her, he taught her to kill — enlisting her to kill his business contacts via seduction. To keep her loyal, he kidnapped her daughter who he’ll only release if she performs seven dangerous and criminal tasks.
Trinh builds up a team of reluctant but cash-fuelled mercenaries, including Quan (Johnny Nguyen) and the treacherous Cang (Lam Minh Thang). Together, the group attempt the tasks set by Trinh’s crime lord boss without knowing the true motivations of Trinh herself. Similarly, the other members of the group have their own hidden secrets and incentives, and may not all be what they seem…
Clash is an extremely stylish and well polished film, with well heeled gangsters and action packed sequences under Thanh Son’s direction, and Dominic Pereira’s cinematography looking exquisite as an advert for Vietnamese filmmaking. The corrupt, crime-ridden night life of Ho Chi Minh City is brutally presented in the film, with a convincing sense that gangs and criminal elements are rife in the city.
In the central role, Ngo Thanh Van as Trinh holds the film together and adds more than the well choreographed action scenes. Trinh gains the codename Phoenix in the film, which is very apt when considering the ashes of her troubled life that she is attempting to rise from. Van Ngo presents a subtlety to Trinh, particularly in the early stages of the film, that belies her hardened exterior and ‘just as tough as the men’ attitude.
Indeed, when the turmoil of her young life is revealed, and Trinh’s true motivations become clear – to rescue her daughter from a crime boss and break free from a life on the mean city streets – the character grows a dimension beyond her primary role as leader of a group of mercenary misfits. Her interaction with Johnny Nguyen’s Quan (codename: Tiger) is touching in its development, and consequently has a feeling of reality to it, even amidst the frequent martial arts sequences. It is interesting to note that Nguyen himself wrote the film with a slightly lesser focus on himself; allowing some breathing space for the emotional character driven moments in the film, which lead to real consequences to the group dynamic during the action and chase scenes.
The action scenes themselves appear to be very well executed, as might be expected from the likes of Johnny Nguyen, who is renowned as a stunt actor and co-ordinator in Asia and Hollywood. There are several fight sequences which stand out in the film, including a dual one-on-one brawl between Quan and the crime boss, and Trinh with the duplicitous Cang. There is also a scene where Trinh and her group infiltrate a house with the “Frenchies” inside, leading to a catastrophic outbreak of violence and death with ingenious co-ordination as the team pursue the film’s MacGuffin known as ‘the briefcase’.
However, ‘the briefcase’ throughout the film is poorly defined in terms of what it may do if it “falls in the wrong hands,” as we are continually reminded. As a MacGuffin to propel events in the film forward, ‘the briefcase’ serves some purpose, even if it is rather redundant as a threat overall. The frequent fight and chase scenes also distract from the danger of ‘the briefcase’, although because these scenes are so well executed, there is an appropriate focus on the human interactions between the main characters as well as the twists and turns of their true motivations.
The relationship between Trinh and Quan subtly develops throughout the film (even with some twists at the end), as Trinh begins to let her guard down. While these scenes between the two characters do contain touching moments, with some semblances of quiet realism amongst the crashes and bangs elsewhere in the film, there is also a hint of soap opera-esque emotions, at times, which might be too much for some.
An entertaining and action-packed thrill-ride of a film, Clash contains numerous great action scenes with genuinely innovate moments amidst the familiar martial arts. The central performances, particularly from Ngo Thanh Van and the lightning fast Johnny Nguyen, are impressive in showing their emotional complexity; creating a sense of genuine emotional attachment between both actors where it otherwise could seem overly played out and forced. DB
Series: Durarara!! Vol. 1
Release date: 29th November 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 220 mins
Director: Shinya Kawatsura & Takahiro Omori
Starring: Toshiyuki Toyonaga, Mamoru Miyano
Genre: Anime
Studio: Beez
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Based on Nyohgo Narita’s popular graphic novel series, this television version of Durarara!! is adapted by director Takahiro Omori. Omori has past experience in adapting Narita’s works, having previously overseen the television series Baccano! based on Narita’s writing in 2007.
Durarara!! revolves around the strange happenings and legends of the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo. At the behest of his popular childhood friend Masaomi Kida (Mamoru Miyano), Mikado Ryugamine (Toshiyuki Toyonaga) transfers from his hometown to the same school as Masaomi in order to pursue the excitement of big city life in Ikebukuro.
Yet Mikado gets more than he bargained for, as he crosses paths with a number of characters within this strange district. Ikebukuro is host to a number of exciting new dangers and legends, including secretive street gangs such as the ‘Dollars’ and the mysterious ‘Headless Rider’ roaming the city aboard a pitch-black motorcycle.
Upon his first day in the area, Mikado witnesses the ‘Headless Rider’ driving through the city streets; piquing his interest in Ikebukuro’s hidden depths and supernatural sights in the night time. From then on, a series of random attacks and events begin to occur on the streets of Ikebukuro, and a group known as the Yellow Scarves arises as Ikebukuro begins to crumble…
Throughout the Durarara!! series there is a multitude of interesting and often bizarre characters who interact with each other in different ways. Mikado is undoubtedly the anchor of events; witnessing the strange idiosyncrasies of Ikebukuro for the first time much in the same way as the viewer. Mikado’s quiet and modest nature contrasts with the brashness of his friend Masaomi, who is (deliberately) annoying as the ‘cool kid’ at the school who is seemingly aware of what lurks in the city.
Yet, while Mikado is the anchor of events in the series, it is the other characters with more mysterious or even supernatural elements that are the most interesting. For instance, one of the chief recurring symbols of the inherent strangeness of Ikebukuro is the legendary figure known as the ‘Headless Rider’, also known as Celty Sturluson. In episode four of the series, the murky back-story of Celty is examined for the first time, where she is referred to as a ‘dullahan’ (from the Irish myth of a headless faerie and harbinger of death).
Where at first the character appears dark and dangerous, this episode reveals another side to the creature who is constantly searching for memories held in her lost head. She shares a flat with an underground doctor, and is shown talking to her flatmate and carrying out mundane tasks while they discuss her past. If this situation sounds odd, it’s because it most certainly is – yet, oddly enough, it fits within the strange brilliance of the Durarara!! series. The ‘Headless Rider’ is revealed literally to have no head under her motorcycle helmet (instead there is a wispy black smoke like presence), and yet is still able to speak and to see “further than a normal human being.” In other circumstances, this facet of the character might be somewhat laughable, yet the character maintains a sense of mysterious allure that is seemingly inherent to the area of Ikebukuro. As a result, the viewer can buy into the story.
Indeed, the series as a whole is full of twists and turns, and bizarre (yet enthralling) events. Durarara!! also scrutinises the emotions of young people who go through seriously difficult and turbulent events; further allowing the viewer to buy into the absurdity of a world where true character emotions lie at the core. In one episode, a classmate of Mikado contemplates suicide because she becomes aware of her father’s adultery, and cannot face up to the prospect of damaging her family by acknowledging the truth. She is goaded and manipulated into almost performing an act of suicide by the dangerous Izaya Orihara (Hiroshi Kamiya), before she is prevented by the ‘Headless Rider’ with the message: “Life isn’t so bad.”
Durarara!!, then, is an anime series with a great deal of darkness and emotion at its core that improbably co-exists with some of its supernatural thriller elements, pushing the boundaries of its 12-rated UK classification.
The series is beautifully and vibrantly drawn, with the bleakness of unlit alleys and dangerous night-time areas contrasting with the vibrancy of Ikebukuro where there are masses of people under lit-up Tokyo backdrops (similarly, the masses uniquely appear as grey shadows in contrast to the vibrant colours of the main characters in each scene).
The plot can occasionally become rather bogged down and the full plethora of interwoven character stories may be hard to follow, but the series as a whole overcomes these issues through its immensely quirky charm.
This is an excellent adaptation of Nyohgo Narita’s original anime series, and it’s not hard to see why the property has been so popular (it has spawned manga comic spin-offs and a Playstation Portable game in Japan). Full of twists and turns within an often convoluted yet intriguingly odd world, Durarara!! is a highly recommended watch for anime fans. DB
Series: Vampire Knight – Part 3: Episodes 09-13
Release date: 17th January 2011
Certificate: 12
Running time: 72 mins
Director: Kiyoko Sayama
Starring: Daisuke Kishio, Mamoru Miyano, Yui Horie, Fumiko Orikasa, Hiroki Yasumoto
Genre: Anime
Studio: Manga
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Based on Matsuri Hino’s 2005 Japanese manga series, Vampire Knight is a curious mix of animation with fantasy, horror and romantic elements. The series features an interesting spin on the traditional (and well-worn) path of vampire folklore, with some passing thematic similarities to the hugely popular Twilight series.
At the prestigious Cross Academy, classes are divided between the Day Class and the Night Class. As the school's protective prefects, Yuki Cross (Yui Horie) and Zero Kiryu (Mamoru Miyano) keep watch over the Day Class students, who are all infatuated with the alluring and elite Night Class students. As Guardians, Yuki and Zero must also protect the secret of the Night Class - they are all vampires.
Yuki is a human dealing with a traumatic vampire attack from her youth, where her childhood friend Zero has been recently turned to vampirism and attends the Night Class. When a new student arrives at the Night Class bearing an uncanny resemblance to the vampire who turned Zero, he begins to lose his grip on sanity, where Yuki is faced with a great dilemma if she wants to save her friend…
The central premise of Vampire Knight is certainly an intriguing one; where a school divided by Day and Night Classes hides the secret that the latter classes are filled with vampire students. The basic tenets of vampire folklore and mythology are well established in modern times, particularly with the current resurgence in the popularity of the ‘vampire romance’ genre propagated by the Twilight craze. Thus the twist in this anime series gives traditional elements of vampirism a new lease of life in a well animated and greatly stylized form.
However, the story itself does bear similar elements from the Twilight series, and as such carries over many of its more irritating traits (which is unlikely to be an issue in the case of Twilight’s army of predominantly teenage female fans). For instance, there is an implied love triangle between Zero, Yuki and Kaname Kuran (the pureblood vampire who saved Yuki from attack in her childhood) that evokes some Team Edward versus Team Jacob-esque rivalry. Again this might be to the delight of the hardcore Twilight fan base, and much to the chagrin of everyone else.
Still, the animation is wonderfully drawn, and the vampires have a distinctive, different aloofness about them that suits their Night Class elitism well. There is a complexity to the characters – particularly Zero and Kaname – that is fairly intriguing in the series. Zero’s descent into madness and Yuki’s struggle to save him from his traumas are well developed plotlines, where cliff-hangers at the end of each episode hold over interest as to what may happen next. Kaname is somewhat mysterious and unpredictable in terms of his motives, with the animated design of the character effectively reflecting this in terms of the character’s vampiric movement and appearance.
In Episode 10 – Princess Of Darkness - Zero’s memories of his trauma at the hands of the vampire who turned him is conveyed particularly well. This is most evident in his showdown with Maria, who reveals her true name and face as the innocent looking perpetrator behind Zero and his family’s suffering. However, there is still a little too much melodrama in terms of the over-the-top musical tone or the expositional dialogue of Yuki wondering aloud about Zero’s condition (where a line such as “...but is it (Zero’s strange behaviour) just today? No...it has been since...(gasp) since Maria came!” is quite typical). Indeed, the series as a whole features stilted dialogue between characters, as well as many sincerely read character soliloquies creating unintentional laughter. Also, scenes where Yuki and other day students undergo exams are a little less enthralling than a vampire versus vampire showdown, with thinly veiled elements of teen drama being all too unfortunately familiar and derivative of countless other teen stories in film or television.
While Vampire Knight is an anime series with an intriguing central premise, and an interesting take on traditional vampire folklore, it is also likely to irritate and isolate those who do not subscribe to the school of Twilight-esque vampire romance. It is, however, a well animated story with some hidden character depths, with the characters of Zero and Kaname having some development in the series even amidst the wooden dialogue. DB
Film: A Perfect Day
Release date: 4th October 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 101 mins
Director: Ferzan Ozpetek
Starring: Valerio Mastandrea, Isabella Ferrari, Monica Guerritore, Nicole Grimaudo, Valerio Binasco
Genre: Drama
Studio: Vita
Format: DVD
Country: Italy
Based on Italian writer Melania Mazzucco’s popular novel of the same title, A Perfect Day is a powerful feature from distinguished director Ferzan Ozpetek. The film features a strong ensemble cast spread across several narrative threads, including a 2008 Venice Film Festival Best Actress winning turn by Isabella Ferrari.
In the city of Rome, Antonio (Valerio Mastandrea) is a bodyguard for a high ranking Italian MP. He has been separated from his wife Emma (Isabella Ferrari) for about a year, yet refuses to accept that his marriage is over. Antonio’s increasing desperation following the seeming loss of his family embroils Emma and their innocent children in his destructive descent, characterising the breakdown of a family unit in an occasionally violent and shocking manner.
In a parallel plot point, Antonio’s boss Elio Fioravanti (Valerio Binasco) tries frantically to save his political career, unaware that his young trophy wife is falling in love with his own son from his first marriage. Then there is Mara, a lonely and complicated teacher who re-discovers her long lost love…
A Perfect Day is a film about relationships, or, more to the point, the often strained and difficult relationships between family members who have grown apart. Director Ozpetek focuses mainly on the story of the estranged Antonio and Emma, and it is this plot strand that sustains the film.
In the central female role, Isabella Ferrari excels in her portrayal of Emma and indeed was a deserved recipient of the Venice Festival Best Actress award. Ferrari conveys subtle heartbreak and growing despair in her performance as the film progresses, especially as Mastandrea’s Antonio increases his desperate attempts to win back his spouse in damaging psychological and physical ways (including a brutal attempted rape).
In the role of Antonio, Mastandrea is both suitably menacing and emotionally troubling in his portrayal. His character’s progression in the 24 hour setting of the film, from a psychological perspective, is a classic case of ‘from bad to worse’, where Mastandrea does an effective job of showing the heightened danger of a man who feels he has nothing more to lose. Equally, special mention must be made of the central child performances in the film. Valentina (Nicole Murgia) and Kevin (Gabriele Paolino) are the pawns in Antonio’s deranged attempts to regain Emma’s trust, where the innocence of the children (particularly in the spirited and upbeat case of Kevin) contrasts greatly with their father’s distorted sense of marital injustice.
Yet part of the problem with A Perfect Day lies in the effective (if occasionally slipping into melodramatic) performances of the main family unit plot thread. The film is perhaps too ambitious in following different narrative threads, and therefore the subplots involving Antonio’s boss Elio Fioravanti (Binasco) and family, in addition to another separate subplot relating to Valentina’s school teacher Mara, aren’t anywhere near as compelling as the tribulations of Emma and Antonio. While the subplots do have some clever interweaving narrative elements, and similarities with the main plot alongside similar familial themes, they are on the whole rather forgettable and somewhat pointless when they move away from the most gripping central relationships.
Ozpetek’s film is an extraordinarily bleak look at 24 hours in the relationships of two families in crisis, with Antonio’s violence towards his estranged wife and manipulation of his children highly disturbing. While this is undoubtedly effective in showing the strains of a broken relationship and the menace of a man clearly on the edge of a breakdown, it does make the film somewhat tough to watch. Additionally, the drama of the events in the 24 hours covered in the film does slip into melodrama in an almost TV soap opera way. The much heralded explosive ending (foreshadowed at the beginning of the film with a dazzling Hitchcockian tracking shot of the winding stairway to Antonio’s flat) is unfortunately rather predictable, although it successfully underlines the film’s overwhelmingly bleak tone.
With some fine central performances from Valerio Mastandrea and the award-winning Isabella Ferrari, Ferzan Ozpetek’s film adaptation of A Perfect Day is an interesting if overambitious film that just doesn’t quite work as a whole. Redundant subplots and a relentlessly bleak outlook make this a tough watch even during its most interesting central focus of a family in meltdown. DB
Film: White Material
Release date: 6th December 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 102 mins
Director: Claire Denis
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Isaach De Bankole, Christophe Lambert, Nicolas Duvauchelle, William Nadylam
Genre: Drama
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: France/Cameroon
In Claire Denis’ White Material (shot in Cameroon), themes of colonialism and rebellion collide within the context of an unspecified African nation. The film is, at times, deeply disturbing and shocking, and marks Denis’ filmmaking return to Africa (after previously studying themes of African colonialism in films such as her 1988 directorial debut Chocolat) whilst drawing on real-life experiences of growing up in the continent.
In the midst of a growing civil war in an unstable African state, coffee planter Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert) faces a choice between leaving behind her way of life for her own (and her family’s) safety, or facing up to the terrible consequences of staying at the plantation.
Amidst scenes of violence, gang warfare and deadly weapon-wielding child soldiers, Maria’s immovable will compels her to stay, even when all the plantation workers desert her in fear of their lives. To compound this, Maria’s ex husband (Christopher Lambert) has his own plans to sell the plantation, while her idle son’s (Nicolas Duvauchelle) humiliation at the hands of child soldiers pushes him towards madness with horrendous consequences.
As tension in the surrounding area begins to grow, Maria’s protection of a wanted rebel officer, known as The Boxer (Isaach De Bankolé), invites even more danger into her domain…
In White Material, this imprecise state in Africa is one filled with post-colonial tension and rage; where violence and aggression can flare up without a moment’s notice, and rebels urge assault on any evidence of white imperialism. Director Claire Denis is hugely successful in creating a sense of foreboding throughout the film until the inevitable destruction and despair of the finale, and creates a number of unsettling set-pieces highlighting an area entrenched in destructive civil war.
For instance, the film contains shocking scenes of children and young men committing acts of brutality and bloodshed, acting on impulse in a lawless area for desperate personal gain. In one of White Material’s pivotal moments, Maria’s son Manuel is mercilessly humiliated at the hands of machine gun toting child militia. This sets him upon a path of despair, and his own ultimate destruction, enticing a strong performance from Nicolas Duvauchelle as a son in search of a twisted and psychologically flawed form of bloody revenge for being placed in a way of life he does not want.
Maria herself is a complicated character, where her motives for staying in the plantation are rather muddied. She is a woman who is aware of the tension and destruction heading towards her sanctuary, yet chooses to ignore the blatant danger to her own and her family’s life by staying on at the plantation (even at one point hurriedly burying out of sight a goat’s head thrown into a coffee crop yield as a purposefully disturbing warning). Huppert’s performance in the central role is therefore extremely intriguing, and may leave viewers torn in their sense of sympathy for a character who longs to keep hold of an increasingly threatened and fading way of life.
The native African cast are also very effective in their roles, with the child soldiers especially chilling in their seemingly endless quest for destruction. The portrayal of unrest and lawless brutality in the unnamed state is a brave one by Denis, adding to a sense of raw realism and unbridled ever-increasing danger not always present in the romanticised cinematography of mainstream film portrayals of Africa.
Yet, conversely, the failure to provide any real background or context in relation to the reasons behind the civil war gang uprising arguably reduces the impact of Denis’ analysis of post-colonial rebellion. In contrast to the mostly strong, if not occasionally murky motivations of the film’s characters, Christopher Lambert’s role feels somewhat extraneous in relation to proceedings. Indeed the film feels like a condensed or cut down version of a larger canvas, where fully formed plot points and characters, such as rebel hero The Boxer, appear to be less than the sum of the complete film. The finale, while climaxing in horrifically brutal fashion, subsequently feels somewhat rushed; with a final character action from Maria that might be interpreted as being either highly inconsistent with the character or a clever depiction of her own descent into the madness that consumed her son.
White Material is a worthwhile and thought-provoking film, even if it does not quite reach the full sum of its parts. Isabelle Huppert is intriguingly complex and engaging in the central performance, with Nicholas Duvauchelle also shining in a difficult role as a young man descending into darkness. DB
Film: Der Rosenkavalier
Release date: 29th November 2010
Certificate: E
Running time: 192 mins
Director: Paul Czninner
Starring: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Otto Edelmann, Sena Jurinac, Anneliese Rothenberger, Erich Kunz
Genre: Comedy/Romance/Musical
Studio: Park Circus
Format: Blu-ray
Country: UK
This version of Der Rosenkavalier was a 1962 stage performance of German composer Richard Strauss’s renowned comic opera. It was filmed live in the accompaniment of the Vienna State Opera Chorus and Philharmonic Orchestra, where the newly released Blu-ray boasts a painstakingly restored colour and image, highlighting the luscious production values of the three hour opus.
Der Rosenkavalier is a classic love story told across three acts with a powerful operatic score. The events follow the relationships and interactions between four main characters: the aristocratic Marschallin (Schwarzkopf); her young lover Octavian (Jurinac), a part sung by a woman; her philandering cousin Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau (Edelmann); and his young potential fiancée Sophie von Faninal (Rothenberger), the daughter of the wealthy Herr von Faninal (Kunz).
Baron Ochs, having arranged with Sophie's father Faninal to combine his noble rank with Faninal's money by marrying Sophie, asks the Marschallin to suggest an appropriate young man to be his Knight of the Rose, who will present a silver rose to Sophie on his behalf as a traditional symbol of courtship. She recommends Octavian.
When Octavian delivers the rose, he and Sophie fall in love on sight, and must figure out how to prevent Baron Ochs from marrying Sophie. They accomplish this in a comedy of errors that is smoothed over with the help of the Marschallin…
The main draw of this Blu-ray version of Der Rosenkavalier – aside from the impressive operatic performances of the large cast – is the newly restored image of the event. Filmed live in 1962, this version, of course, shows elements of grain consistent with the time in which it was originally produced. Yet, as an extra on the disc highlights, a painstaking process of restoration to the original print has greatly increased the vibrancy of the stage performance. As a result, the opulent costume and set designs seem to pop out of the screen. Indeed, this is perhaps as close to being in a live audience witnessing the opera unfold (short of being there at the time of filming) as one could imagine.
Director Paul Czinner’s framing of the three operatic acts of the story allows a sense of grandeur and adds to the atmosphere of watching a performance filmed live. Each of the three acts lasts for a significant amount of time, and, as with the necessity of a stage production, each of the acts largely remain statically situated within one set. While this is fine when watching a performance live in a theatre, there is a danger of stagnancy under the scope of a film. However, the production design and stage dressing largely negates this, as while Czinner is prohibited from making cinematic sweeping shots of Austrian vistas, the colourful and highly detailed costumes and interior sets are impressive in their splendour.
Title cards between acts set up the events still to occur in the following act, and are hugely evocative of the time in which the opera took place, as well as adding to the sense of magnificence of the aristocracy in a bygone age. There is also a tendency to focus on the large scale orchestra before and after each act; wisely highlighting the magnificent contribution of the orchestra conducted by Herbert Von Karajan, with Richard Strauss’s original music in front of the live audience.
The performances of the large cast, and particularly the centrally focused characters, are impressively faultless across the three hours. In the role of the Marschallin, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf especially expresses a beautiful consistency and range in her voice, whilst simultaneously expressing the anguish and emotional turmoil her character has to endure. Similarly the character of Octavian (Sena Jurinac) is well portrayed, where the female Jurinac continues the tradition of a female playing the role of the young male Octavian.
However, Otto Edelmann’s boorish Baron is almost too-much larger than life in a performance that only occasionally crosses into pantomime (although perhaps this is merely a result of acting on stage in front of an expectant audience). The film also shows its age in the fleeting depiction of the Marschallin’s child servant, who wears ‘black-face’ make-up. Ultimately, though, a product of its time as Der Rosenkavalier certainly is, this filmed version owes a debt of gratitude to Paul Czinner’s direction, with an opening title card intimating that Czinner’s developed method of capturing live performance is one which has helped to preserve this opera and others “for the enjoyment of wider audiences to-day and as a record for posterity.”
Newly restored in the high-definition Blu-ray format, Der Rosenkavalier looks and feels wonderfully vibrant, particularly when considering that almost fifty years have passed since this particular stage version was filmed live. While perhaps not to everyone’s liking (the three-hour plus runtime may be tough going for some), the operatic performances, from renowned sopranos such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Sena Jurinac, soar impressively. DB
Series: Blade Of The Immortal - Volume 1
Release date: 4th October 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 125 mins
Director: Koichi Mashimo
Starring: N/a
Genre: Anime
Studio: MVM
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Blade Of The Immortal - Volume 1 consists of the first five episodes in the thirteen-part Japanese anime-style television series. Each episode focuses on different aspects and themes, with the titles: Sinner, Conquest, Love Song, Genius and Prisoner.
Manji (Tomokazu Seki) was a samurai warrior serving an evil master. When Manji decided to rebel against and ultimately kill his master, however, he also killed 100 fellow warriors who remained committed in their servitude.
Looked upon as a beast and a monster for his actions, Manji is haunted by his deed, and is referred to as Manji “with the 100 killings” wherever he goes. Blessed (or cursed) by an ancient mystic woman with immortality, Manji protects his fragile sister Machi from harm, even while dealing with the dilemma that he killed her husband as one of the 100 killings.
However, in a confrontation between Manji and another bitter rival, Machi dies at the hand of her brother’s vicious foe. In his grief, and as a way of penance for his murderous acts, the unconventional samurai warrior vows to redeem himself by killing 1000 evil men, whilst seeking an end to his curse of perpetual life in order to die an honourable death.
On his travels, Manji meets Rin (Mela Lee), a girl who seeks revenge for her father’s murder at the hands of the notorious Itto-ryu dojo group. Together, Manji and Rin strike out against the dojo and its followers in a trail of blood and brutality, as they seek the members of the group responsible for the reprehensible crime committed against Rin’s family…
The anime style of Blade Of The Immortal is hugely effective in evoking a sense of Japan in the time of the samurai, in addition to the levels of bloodletting and violence that comes with the territory of being a warrior. Indeed, there is a level of detail and often macabre beauty in the animation that brings a strange sense of hard-hitting realism to events, even in the midst of ultraviolent deaths and fight scenes. In many ways, the pain of the characters – even the immortal Manji suffers – can be felt in the brutality of the visuals. Splashes of blood red are common throughout the episodic series, in some cases highly contrasting with dark, almost black-and-white backgrounds to create a semi-chiaroscuro effect. For instance, this is used to startling effect in Rin’s flashback sequences in recalling her father’s death, and in the opening blood-spraying sequence of episode four.
The interaction of Manji and Rin is central to the story of Blade Of The Immortal, and the continuing theme of Manji acting as Rin’s protector in the wake of his sister’s death is an engaging and often touching element. There is a clear story arc for Manji as the story progresses, and he grows to truly care for Rin, such as in episode five where he fights a shockingly formidable opponent to win back the stolen sword of Rin’s father. However, the interaction between Manji and Rin is also prone to cliché, where some elements of the dialogue (“will Manji save the girl, or will the girl save him?”) and Rin’s seemingly constant flashbacks to her past can occasionally grate when viewed as a whole.
Yet there are many hugely intriguing and engaging moral questions raised by the characters in Blade Of The Immortal, and a sense of spirituality that is again wonderfully evocative of Japan in the era of the samurai. Manji as the ‘immortal’ of the show’s title is a complex hero, who bears the weight of a dark past filled with regrets and bad deeds. He is a man immersed in his search of spiritual enlightenment and atonement for his sins, where he even wears the sign of a swastika (a symbol with a deep spiritual meaning in Eastern culture) on his back. At one stage, Manji says to Rin that he must know who is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ before striking out at evil, when Manji himself is equally capable of morally murky powers of destruction, also used by those he deems to be ‘bad’.
Of course, the main antagonists in the members of the Itto-ryu are overtly evil, where Manji has no qualms in setting about creating their destruction in honour of his pledge to himself and Rin. In one of the standout sequences of the series, in episode three, Rin comes across the man responsible for killing her father. This is a hulking warrior in full fearsome samurai regalia, and when he is unmasked, it is revealed that he is wearing the heads of his ex-wife and another person who was close to Rin - both stapled to his shoulders as sadistic mementoes of death. The killer has fallen for Rin to the extent that he wants to kill her as an ultimate “expression of love” (even going as far as to promise to remove his former wife’s head and replace it with Rin’s on his shoulder); an example which highlights the sheer darkness of this tale of emotional anguish and retribution in an effectively gruesome way.
Blade Of The Immortal - Volume 1 is an anime series well worth following. In spite of some clunky dialogue and clichéd elements (and, as a sidenote, quite frankly irritating title and end credit theme songs), the show also raises a great deal of intriguing moral and spiritual questions. It is also a visually superior production, bringing to life the brutality of the ways of the samurai as well as highlighting the moral dilemmas of one who is capable of destruction whilst on a path to enlightenment. DB
Film: A Town Called Panic
Release date: 22nd November 2010
Certificate: PG
Running time: 78 mins
Director: Stephane Aubier & Vincent Patar
Starring: Stephane Aubier, Jeanne Balibar, Nicolas Buysse, Véronique Dumont, Bruce Ellison
Genre: Animation
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: Belgium/Luxembourg/France
A spin-off of the Aardman Animation backed series of shorts produced in Belgium, Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar’s French-language film version of A Town Called Panic is just as memorable and bizarre as its TV progenitor. The film is as low budget as they come, yet the lovingly created herky-jerky stop motion animation shines through the miniature plastic and papier mache backgrounds to create something quite unique.
The surreal plot (such as it is) of A Town Called Panic follows the comedic mishaps and calamities in the lives of a horse named Horse (Vincent Patar), a cowboy named Cowboy (Bruce Ellison) and an indian named, you guessed it, Indian (Stéphane Aubier).
Attempting to surprise the fairly sensible Horse for his birthday, dim-witted Cowboy and Indian attempt to surprise their equine friend by ordering exactly fifty bricks to build a barbeque. The only problem is that through a mishap in their online order, fifty-million bricks are ordered instead, where subsequently Horse and co’s house is flattened due to a stack of bricks being placed on the roof.
This kicks off a chain of events that sees the lo-fi animated trio go on a series of oddball adventures, ranging from freefalling towards the centre of the earth to being held hostage inside a giant snowball-firing mechanical penguin in a snow covered landscape, and chasing a family of underwater dwelling creatures who have built a house from the stolen walls of the three friends…
The biggest part of A Town Called Panic’s charm lies in its deliberately low-budget and rough around the edges appearance. In many instances, the plastic toy characters waddle along on a flat toy stand which keeps them upright (most comical in the cases of Cowboy and Indian). Indeed, the lo-fi charm of the whole painstaking stop motion production process is evocative of Aardman produced classics such as Wallace & Gromit (even if a little more crudely produced), so it’s no surprise that the company distributed the original television series preceding this feature-length version. The clever homemade ingenuity of directors Aubier and Patar (makers of the similarly styled Cravendale milk ads) is unmistakably present throughout the film, with the plastic and papier mache made miniature sets adding to the surrealism of the whole story.
As the brilliant animators at Pixar know well, there is great humour to be found in the interactions between toys brought to life. Except in A Town Called Panic these toy figures also live in a wacky world suiting their off-the-wall characters, where a horse can read a newspaper and drive a rickety car and a cowboy and indian can make online internet orders for fifty-million bricks. The central relationship between the toy trio is strangely endearing and hilarious, where Horse often plays the straight man (so to speak) to Cowboy and Indian’s often annoying, shouty stupidity.
The bizarre events that the friends go through are often frenetic in pace, and, as such, the 78 minute runtime seems to fly past from sequence to sequence. This means that what there is of a plot can often be confusing and hard to keep up with as a result; where one moment the toys are falling towards the centre of the earth and the next are landed in a desolate snowscape populated by animatronic giant penguins and angry mammoths.
However, Aubier and Patar never cease to make these events anything less than highly entertaining through the ingenious low budget visuals employed, particularly in the snow and water scenes (in addition to the fact that seeing a horse swimming underwater wearing a snorkel is just intrinsically funny). Indeed, the seemingly random and chaotic sequences of fantastic events that occur merely add to the film’s huge sense of fun. For instance, in one scene, in the underwater section, Cowboy, Indian and Horse pretend to be Santa and his helpers to lure the water people into a trap in order to retrieve back the walls for their house. The colours and actions of the animated characters are extremely well animated here, where the animators’ creativity shines through the obvious low-budget necessities. The fast pace and surrealism of events is perhaps even more admirable an achievement by Aubier and Patar when considering the notoriously laborious and time-consuming nature of stop motion animation.
The voice cast (including Aubier and Patar themselves) add a lot to the onscreen characters, from Cowboy and Indian’s high-pitched panicked chatter to the calmly seductive voice of Horse’s equine love interest Madame Longrée (Jeanne Balibar). The French voice cast is universally excellent, yet it is perhaps the voice of Steven (Benoit Poelvoorde) the next door neighbour of the main trio who steals the show with his permanently angry persona. This makes a scene where the underwater people invade his house even more comical, where the rapidly cried line “Oh no! My farm!” is bound to invoke at least a chuckle from the hardiest of souls.
A home-made slice of stop motion brilliance, A Town Called Panic is nothing more than 78 minutes of ingeniously produced joy. Perhaps a longer running time would be too much in the crazy world of Horse and friends, although the film is bound to raise laughs if only out of its sheer madcap inventiveness. DB
Film: Le Bossu
Release date: 4th October 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 124 mins
Director: Philippe de Broca
Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Fabrice Luchini, Vincent Perez, Marie Gillain, Yann Collette
Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama
Studio: Second Sight
Format: DVD
Country: France
An adaptation of Paul Feval’s 19th century historical novel, Phillippe de Broca directed the 1997 French film version of Le Bossu (The Hunchback). A lavish and handsome production, Le Bossu (released in some English speaking countries under the title On Guard) provides much in the way of buckle and swash; mixing real historical elements from its early 18th century setting in France with added drama and adventurous derring-do thrown in.
Forming a friendship with the famous French swordsman the Duke of Nevers (Vincent Perez), Lagardere (Daniel Auteuil) follows his friend and sword fighting mentor as the Duke travels to remote countryside to marry the mother of his infant daughter Aurore (Marie Gillain). However, Nevers’ dastardly cousin Gonzague (Fabrice Luchini) stands to lose his inheritance of the Duke’s fortunes with the discovery of Aurore’s birth, and ruthlessly orders the killing of the Duke and his entire wedding party.
Gonzague takes Nevers’ devastated would-be wife as his own, and lands the killing blade stroke to Nevers when he is not looking. Yet, unbeknownst to Gonzague (who assumes the pair drowned), Lagardere survives the onslaught of the henchmen and saves Aurore from harm. Before Gonzague gets away from the scene, Lagardere manages to brand his hand with a mark from his blade, so that he may recognise the perpetrator of his master’s downfall. As he lies near death, the Duke of Nevers requests vengeance by Lagardere on his behalf, no matter how long it may take him to achieve.
With sixteen passing years, Lagardere has brought up Aurore and passes on the legendary secret of the ‘Nevers Attack’ sword thrust. Concealed within a travelling troupe, Lagardere and Aurore live peacefully until the devious Gonzague discovers that they are still alive, and sends his scarred main henchman Peyrolles (Yann Collette) to hunt them down. Yet the wily Lagardere has a trick up his sleeve to finally gain vengeance for his friend the Duke, gaining Gonzague’s confidence in his guise as a hunchbacked financier, with the aim to reclaim the Duke’s estate in the name of the rightful heiress Aurore…
A major part of the success (in addition to some of the excess) of director Phillippe de Broca’s Le Bossu lies in the sumptuous period styling of the film, with a shine on the screen and bright colours of the Duke’s splendour shot by cinematographer Jean-Francois Robin (along with costume design by Christian Gasc) feeling wonderfully evocative of Enlightenment era France. This backdrop adds to the sense of peril and adventure in the film, as well as adding an almost mythical fairytale-esque glow to the events and swashbuckling proceedings.
Daniel Auteuil gives a stirring performance as the heroic Lagardere, who is following in the footsteps of Vincent Perez’s ridiculously charismatic Duke of Nevers. Le Bossu’s numerous sword fighting scenes, featuring multiple onscreen characters, are certainly extremely well choreographed, where the style of the legendary ‘Nevers Attack’ is a suitably heroic movement with gruesome visual consequences.
However, despite the Le Bossu’s extravagant stylings and highly enjoyable swordplay, de Broca’s film never feels quite sure of its dramatic intentions, and occasionally crosses into somewhat parodic territory. The performances of the lead actors (whilst played sincerely) come across in a fairly pantomimic fashion, undoubtedly accentuated by the over-the-top (yet no less impressive) period setting. While Auteuil’s performance is gleeful and entertaining, some smaller dramatic moments with Marie Gillain’s Aurore are also somewhat stilted.
Fabrice Luchini is highly engaging as the scheming baddie of the story in a way that is reminiscent of a French language version of Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. Yet, consequently, the over-the-top elements of the character feel rather pantomimic, and Luchini’s character Gonzague lacks real menace despite his foul deeds and extroverted villainy. For instance, Lagardere is able to infiltrate the inner workings of Gonzague’s operation by using his penchant for hunchbacked servants against him, successfully going under the guise of a hunchback financier. Gonzague’s main henchman Peyrolles (a wonderfully disconcerting Yann Collette) is also blatantly villainous in appearance, serving as the scarred and twisted muscle behind Gonzague’s plots to kill off his nemeses.
Despite these eccentricities, Le Bossu remains consistently enjoyable throughout its two-hour running time. The superb sword fighting set pieces and adventurous scope almost compensate for the film’s misgivings, and allow the viewer to be transported to a time of heroism and rumbustiousness in a significantly heightened crowd-pleasing way.
An entertaining swashbuckling romp, Philippe de Broca’s Le Bossu portrays a painterly view of 18th century France in lavish sets and locations. Daniel Auteuil is a charming rogue in his portrayal of Lagardere (although perhaps Gerard Depardieu was too busy filming Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Man In The Iron Mask to take the role at the time), where Fabrice Luchini and Yann Collette are suitably devious as the villains of the piece. An enjoyable, audacious and fun-filled adventure. DB
Film: The Girl On The Train
Release date: 27th September 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 102 mins
Director: André Téchiné
Starring: Émilie Dequenne, Michel Blanc, Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Demy, Ronit Elkabetz
Genre: Drama
Studio: Soda
Format: DVD
Country: France
Directed by one-time film critic Andre Techine, The Girl On The Train was inspired by a real life scandalous event in France in 2004 and its resultant play. The film serves as an intriguing insight into the socio political culture of modern France, and the often complex and difficult nature of the family unit in French society.
Jeanne (Emilie Dequenne) is a 22-year-old woman struggling to get to grips with her life and her circumstances. As she continues to coast along living in her comfortable home, Jeanne’s childminder mother Louise (Catherine Deneuve) attempts to get Jeanne a job in the office of her former lover and renowned lawyer Samuel Bleistein (Michel Blanc).
Jeanne’s lack of sufficient qualities sees her badly fail in her interview, but, after an accidental meeting, she falls in the arms of her exciting and impulsive amateur wrestler boyfriend Franck (Nicolas Duvauchelle). Yet when Jeanne and Franck’s seemingly idyllic life together falls apart under shady circumstances (resulting in Franck’s arrest), Jeanne once again feels isolated and lost as Franck turns against her because of her naivety and flexibility with the truth of her circumstances.
Seeking attention and recognition, Jeanne pretends to be the victim of an anti-Semitic assault on a train by a gang of youths, cutting her hair and daubing swastikas and scratches over her body as ‘proof’ of the incident. However, as the story snowballs on a huge media scale amidst Jeanne’s claims that she was victimised due to carrying a business card of the Jewish lawyer Bleistein (she herself is not Jewish), Jeanne must ultimately face up to the dramatic consequences that her shocking lie has created for herself and those around her…
At the centre of the controversial claim of anti-Semitism, Emilie Dequenne as Jeanne reveals a want and desire to be noticed in a society that she seems to float through (often on rollerblades). Jeanne is an alluring yet frustrating character; a young woman who sees no option of changing her lack of prospects unless manipulating those around her into feeling sympathy for her.
Jeanne’s naivety means that she has no idea of the extent to which her story will be covered in the media and talked about across France. Within this central plot point in the film, Dequenne’s portrayal of Jeanne as an almost passive presence to events in her own life, before and during the resulting media storm of her extraordinary lie, is impressive. Yet The Girl On The Train is at its most interesting in the interplay between Jeanne and those closest to her, where this is most effective in her relationship with her boyfriend.
In the scenes where Jeanne moves in with Franck (Duvauchelle in an intriguing role with hidden depths), there is an element of unease and danger to the character’s fleetingly happy existence. Jeanne’s time with Franck reveals her passiveness and willingness to go along with what other people want for her, as she simply cannot fathom what she truly wants for herself. Jeanne’s traumatic break-up with Franck is the catalyst for her decision to lie about being the victim of an appalling anti-Semitic assault, where the strained relationship between Jeanne and her mother (who senses her daughter’s falsehood) in the wake of intense media scrutiny of the allegation feels deeply authentic.
However, it is in the film’s subplots surrounding Bleistein and his family that the film becomes rather unstuck. A hint of a relationship in the distant past between Catherine Denueve’s Louise and Michel Blanc’s Bleistein is only fleetingly engaging, and unfortunately pales in comparison to the relationship between Franck and Jeanne. Additionally, while Mathieu Demy and Ronit Elkabetz are decent performers in their roles as Bleistein’s estranged son and somewhat estranged daughter-in-law respectively, the segments of the film focusing on the straining family dynamics between them (a middle-upper class family cultivated by Bleistein’s success as a lawyer) feel like a fairly extraneous diversion from the film’s primary focus in Jeanne.
Despite this sense of misdirection, Techine does make some good parallels between Jeanne’s situation and Bleistein’s grandson Nathan (Jeremie Quaegebeur); tying in themes of race and identity present throughout the film. Jeanne uses Bleistein’s identity as a Jew in a desperate attempt for her own emotional gain, but in the scene where she admits her lie to Nathan, Jeanne begins to come to terms with the impact of her actions. Where Nathan (showing an astuteness beyond his years in second-guessing Jeanne’s story) is on the cusp of adulthood, and is about to celebrate his coming of age Bar Mitzvah, Jeanne is a confused young woman without a clear sense of who she wants to be. The scene between both characters serves as a turning point in the film, where Nathan is primed for adulthood in understanding the complexities of his elders, and Jeanne finally appears to accept the consequences of a situation she caused to become a more assured woman.
In the well portrayed central role, Emilie Dequenne demonstrates the angst and yearning for attention of a young woman willing to make an extremely shocking and visceral allegation of anti-Semitism in modern day France. Techine’s film provides insight into modern French society in the context of identity and family dysfunction, although some of the film’s subplots involving the lawyer Bleistein’s (Blanc) family fall a bit flat in comparison to the central relationships between Jeanne, her mother and her boyfriend. DB
Film: Downfall
Release date: 19th September 2005
Certificate: 15
Running time: 149 mins
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Starring: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Corinna Harfouch, Ulrich Matthes, Juliane Köhler
Genre: Biography/Drama/History/War
Studio: Momentum
Format: DVD
Country: Germany/Italy/Austria
In films portraying Hitler, representation of the man himself ranges greatly across genres, from comedic parody to the manifestation of evil in the flesh. Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall, however, presents Hitler (Bruno Ganz) in his final hours within the confines of his bunker in Berlin, as Russian tanks lurch ominously towards the last remnants of the Third Reich. There is a man behind the monster, where Hirschbiegel and Ganz as Hitler reveal an uncomfortable and, at times, horrifying portrayal of the worst in human nature, amidst the uncertain chaos in Germany as Nazi rule came to an end.
As the title suggests, Downfall examines the last days of Hitler’s regime in Germany in 1945, and his own being. The account of events comes from Hitler’s final secretary, Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara), a woman who was in the bunker with Hitler, and his closest cohorts, experiencing the horrors therein.
The real-life elderly Junge appears at the beginning and end of the film, adding a sense of historical authenticity to the terrible events that unfold. As Hitler’s secretary, Junge is privy to many of Hitler’s final private moments, including his interaction with his lover, blind follower and eventual wife Eva Braun (Juliane Köhler).
Like the Fuhrer himself, and many of those around him, Braun appears initially in denial that the end is nigh. However, as the Russian tanks continue to roll in to Berlin, Hitler’s despair increases rapidly as his most trusted generals begin to question his strategic sanity. As the terrifying inevitability of the end of the Third Reich becomes clear for its followers, including the grim and icy Joseph and Magda Goebbels (Ulrich Matthes and Corinna Harfouch), Hitler’s brokenness seeps throughout the bunker amidst scenes of death, despair and shocking brutality as Berlin burns outside...
In the midst of events in Downfall, Bruno Ganz’s physically uncanny portrayal of Hitler is unquestionably one of the great film representations of the notorious dictator. For months before filming his role, Ganz reportedly studied recordings of Hitler’s movement and voice, and it shows; authentically showing Hitler’s sudden mood swings from quiet tones to violent outbursts to the involuntary shaking of his hands from the onset of debilitating Parkinson’s disease. This is not the public grandstanding or mythical view of Hitler we have seen numerous times before, but rather a man coming to terms with the fallibility of his own (and a nation’s) God complex, even if it ultimately is something he cannot face up to.
Ganz’s Hitler looks increasingly fragile during his crazed outbursts towards his generals in the bunker, where true to the dictatorial nature of his regime, he cannot accept that the abundance of troops he imagined would combat Allied assault largely exists in his own mind. To emphasise the Fuhrer’s desperate delusions, Hirschbiegel reveals glimpses of Berlin outside the bunker; a city war-torn and scattered with the final stand of surrounded Nazi death squads, and misguided (doomed) members of the Hitler Youth amidst burning debris and human remains.
Downfall is a bleak and inevitably downbeat film, where a deep sense of tragedy and futility pervades throughout in contrast to, say, the crowd pleasing wish-fulfilment of Inglourious Basterds. For instance, when a Nazi general (whom Hitler had at one point sentenced to death upon incorrect accusations of abandoning his post) is promoted to become Berlin’s Commander of Defence, he exclaims: “I would rather have been shot than have this honour.”
There is a very enclosed feel to the film, suitably encapsulating the feeling of Nazi paranoia and panic, as the high command await their fate. There is also a purposeful drabness and dim lighting to the cinematography inside the bunker and the Nazi headquarters, again highlighting extreme levels of Nazi despair and confusion. Indeed, as the bunker begins to shake under the weight of explosions and mortar fire, the supporting characters around Hitler begin to echo his despondency. In one scene, Juliane Köhler’s Eva Braun attempts to dance in a final party in the muted opulence of Nazi headquarters in Berlin, before a Russian bomb explodes directly on top of the building.
For Hitler’s closest followers in Downfall, there is a growing and foreboding sense of a terrible finality to their own existence, where life without the Third Reich and Nazism is simply unimaginable. This is all the more horribly evident in Ulrich Matthes and Corinna Harfouch’s portrayal of Joseph and Magda Goebbels. As two of Hitler’s closest associates, both choose the ultimate destruction of themselves and, most tragically, their children, with a terrible coldness that lives up to their beloved leader’s philosophy that “compassion is for the weak.”
As Hitler’s individual downfall is cemented, Hirschbiegel’s film does not end as one might expect, but rather continues amidst further misery as the young and naive Traudl Junge leaves the bunker in order to cling on to survival. At times, this is an emotionally draining section of the film to watch (as Hirschbiegel intended it to be), where the final death throes of the German military machine and the self-destruction of those within it are shown unflinchingly. Yet Hirschbiegel’s portrayal of Hitler and the fanaticism of Nazism as a whole in Downfall is a brave one. It is much more effective (and frankly more chilling) in the sense that it reveals Nazi followers to be complex and fallible human beings capable of horrendously misguided acts, rather than larger than the life baddies often portrayed in countless Hollywood productions.
With a particularly mesmerising central performance from Bruno Ganz as Hitler, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall is an unflinching and bleakly enthralling account of the demise of the Third Reich. There is a dark sense of historic intimacy to events in the bunker, where the viewer witnesses the destructive capabilities of human beings and becomes immersed in the shocking true events as they unfold. An exceptionally made German-language film, Downfall has a sense of fearless authenticity that adds to its importance as a study of Hitler and Nazi Germany’s final days. DB
