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Film: Das Boot
Release date: 21st December 1998
Certificate: 15
Running time: 200 mins
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Starring: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch, Martin Semmelrogge
Genre: Action/Drama/History/War
Studio: Sony
Format: DVD
Country: West Germany
Das Boot begins with a startling statistic: “40,000 German sailors served on U-boats during World War II. 30,000 never returned.” Only seconds in you have some idea of what you’re in for, a film that is representing 30,000 dead sailors is not going to be light entertainment; family fun it is not. Lauded as one of the best world cinema films ever made, The Director's Cut DVD edition adds further intensity to the running time. At 200 minutes long it may cause some to assume it somewhat tedious, but it is a solid 200 minutes of filmmaking at its best.
Based on the 1973 bestselling novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, Das Boot charts the survival of the crew of a Nazi German U-Boat during 1941. It was a time when the British freights were winning the battle of the seas and causing mass damage amongst the German U-boats, a fact ignored by the Fuhrer with constant propaganda encouragement aimed at younger men looking to join the war effort. And this is where the film begins.
A colossal booze up is taking place amongst the new recruits, young men deluded into thinking they will be joining the glamorous lifestyle aboard the U-boat submarines where the smell of clean cut heroism is afloat and victory not far from hand. This is quickly dampened by the captain of Das Boot’s central crew and Thomsen, another of the crew’s captains. Both men inflict their cynicism upon the party, Thomsen smartly dicing his speech with anti-Nazi comments. It becomes clear both men have fought in this war prior and know the true face of it. It is a forbearer for what this drunken yet bright eyed young crew are to become…
Once the narrative takes us aboard the U-boat, the story of these men and their survival takes us under its slow boiling wing. The camera that was minutes ago sweeping around a French club with sailors stumbling from table to table, is suddenly caged in this metal tube which is filled to the brim with said men. It makes for a brilliant juxtaposition, completely justifying the opening scene of the film, showing the contrast between the two worlds. As the U-boat continues its journey we are treated to a mixture of adrenaline fuelled action sequences with the dropping of depth charges, to the simplistic everyday life of the mess hall, with a sailor sat in his bed picking his nose. Moments of boredom are somehow worked into something fascinating, Wolfgang Peterson switching from film making ploys of documentary-like camera work to suddenly altering to action film manoeuvres during the attack of the British freights.
To keep the realism levels as high as possible, Wolfgang Peterson actually had the U-boat recreated with no removable walls - the cast and crew shut away in the life-like replica for a year’s worth of shooting. It shows wonderfully - the actors fatigue growing with their beards, their pallor paling as the film continues. It is a fact that could have also brought out the stellar performance from Jürgen Prochnow playing the captain - a performance of weariness and lost hopes yet with the weight of the entire ship’s crew hanging behind his tired eyes.
With the lengthy run time, the heightened realism, and the documentary-like filming, the alignment between the audience and the characters is brought to a level not many films have ever achieved. We feel their panic, we sense their boredom, and we grimace during their pain. It is a powerhouse of emotion, a fact that would not easily be accepted when linked to a film that follows a band of Nazis. But the brilliance of Das Boot is that it does not focus upon this point - prejudices and stereotypes are put aside, and the Nazis being the main hate figure of our modern era is not a focal point of the narrative. It simply devolves into a human story of survival and bitter experience amongst men trapped within the war effort, a story that is brutally climaxed in an unexpected finale.
Das Boot is ‘the’ tough man film - a masterpiece of cinema brimming with incredibly tense nail biting moments with men being pushed to the brink of their sanity during the unthinkable times of war. It is rightly is celebrated as one of the best world cinema films of all time. JCH
Film: The Secret In Their Eyes
Release date: 10th January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 127 mins
Director: Juan Jose Campanella
Starring: Soledad Villamil, Ricardo Darin, Carla Quevedo, Pablo Rago, Javier Godino
Genre: Crime/Drama/Mystery/Romance
Studio: Metrodome
Format: DVD
Country: Argentina/Spain
With A Prophet and The White Ribbon going head to head in the Best Foreign Language category, it was hard to predict the winner at 2010's Oscars, but, surprisingly for many, The Secret In Their Eyes came through to trump these much hyped frontrunners.
The film’s focus is Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin), a retired Federal Justice Agent, who finds himself constantly coming back to a case from 1974 that endlessly plagued him and his career.
In an attempt to rid himself of his demons, he decides to write a novel about the case file, otherwise known as the Morales Case - the rape and murder of a beautiful 23-year-old school teacher.
Meeting his old department chief and love interest, Irene Menendez Hastings (Solidad Villami), we are gradually pulled into the world of these characters, and the majority of the film’s remainder is reverted to a flashback of 1974, as we witness the Morales case unfold, and evidence and ideas are rustled back up in the present day (1999)…
The unravelling of the case occurs at a near perfect pace, with exactly the right amount of focus on solid facts, and the avoidance of an over complicated spiel of evidence and red herrings. This is not a Sherlock Holmes tale; it is a realistic and, at times, disturbing account of real life crime, and the attempts of the solving of this crime and achieving justice in a Fascist state.
Surprisingly, the case is solved by the midway point, with an incredibly impressive tracking shot taking place from a bird’s eye view of a football stadium, the camera then swooping down on the football game taking place and weaving in through the crowd then settling upon our protagonists and their hunt for the accused man. Things take a turn for the worse, despite the capturing of the killer, and events go off at full pelt concluding with an expertly handled finale, which manages to emote a well of disgust and sympathy simultaneously in the viewer.
It is safe to say that Campanella has such a tight hold on his film and its narrative that everything goes at such a clockwork pace, the switches in time periods effortlessly convincing, and adding further story and personality to the characters.
The love story of the two central leads is interwoven into the harrowing murder case superbly. Darin and Villamil gather up and bottle such chemistry and longing for one another’s characters that it is hard to think of another on screen will-they-won’t-they couple who managed it quite so successfully. In credit to the actors, the central hook of this film is the characters and the human heart that lies at the centre of the narrative. You can detect the subtle yet sudden change of mind of Esposito once he sees the crime scene, a case he bemoands and doesn’t want to take on initially, until he sees the body, and indebts himself to finding the man who could commit such a crime.
Of particular note, the cinematography is gorgeous in its lighting, and the deep browns and yellows manage to add an almost antique effect to what the viewer witnesses throughout.
The Secret In Their Eyes is a diamond in the rough - a beautiful film that rose to prominence at a time of cash-ins and sequels. We can only hope it holds out a life span of decades to come, with its mixing pot of romance, horror, thrill and intrigue. JCH
Film: Paradise Now
Release date: 14th August 2006
Certificate: 15
Running time: 91 mins
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Starring: Kais Nashef, Lubna Azabel, Amer Hiehel, Ali Suliman, Hiam Abbass
Genre: Crime/Drama
Studio: Warner
Format: DVD
Country: Occupied Palestinian Territory/France/Germany/Netherlands/Israel
The terrorist. The enemy of the western world. The bogeyman for the modern era. There are numerous interpretations of this enigmatic character in cinema, but few have taken Paradise Now’s controversial stance. With the 2005 Oscar nominated film, we encounter this dangerous other from his point of view.
Hany Abu-Assad’s film chronicles the few days that lead the two characters of Said (Kais Nashif) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) as they suddenly become encircled in the world of the suicide bomber, and the procedures they are forced to go through as they are groomed for destruction.
The two protagonists are presented as everyday men from the beginning of the film. They work together at a garage, both bored with their current existence and its lack of excitement. When they are called upon for the duty of the suicide bomber they go along with it, almost as if it is simply something for them to do. It is an act that gives their life some sort of meaning, a final goal to work towards, which is something they ultimately lacked before…
Palestine, the home city of the two men, is depicted as a land of emptiness, a place where nothing happens and landscapes of destruction stretch out into the distance. It paints the idea that it is this country that has warped them into these murderous men; they simply have no other alternative. It isn’t until the female character of Suha (Lubna Azabal) becomes incorporated into the narrative that the realisation of their act comes into fruition and doubts begin to surface in their minds. She becomes the voice of reason fighting through in a maelstrom of violence and destruction, and it brings about the inner turmoil within the men that carries the film.
Abu-Assad’s film is one of contrasts. We have the contrasts of location with Nablus and Nazareth, the difference in ideologies of Said and Suha, and the contrast between the men’s family life and the world of the terrorist ringleaders. It is this switching between alternating beliefs and imagery that manages to humanize the world Paradise Now creates. Nothing is black-and-white, every decision and conversation leads to yet another question - in short, no easy conclusion is ever reached. Herein lies the believable realism that manages to add further fear to the situation; they are real men wrapped up in such an awful situation.
Said and Khaled are characters an audience can initially identify with until their real identities are revealed. Unlike many films that depict the terrorist, they are humanized through their interactions with their families, and the romantic exchanges between Khaled and Suha lead to a guilty longing in the viewer that these men, these monsters of the 21st century, will live through this dilemma. It is a different approach to the usual stance given on the character of the terrorist. Here we see men manipulated into a role they are uncertain of. The usual religious trope is dodged at every corner by Assad, with the discussion of religion rarely appearing and the image of a Mosque never cropping up. Instead, we find manipulative ringleaders coaxing two men into a role that they can never truly comprehend the reason for fulfilling.
Abu-Assad never offers us an easy answer. We are left pondering long after the conclusion what the true motivation behind such heinous acts can be. It is made harder through the director’s deep and intricate character development leading us to the question; do we sympathise with these men or condone them? Due to this, Paradise Now evolves into an exploration of the human condition and how a person reacts to decisions of this magnitude in such an unfamiliar culture and country.
Paradise Now is a film that stands tall amongst its clouds of controversy, evolving into a fascinating yet harrowing exploration of the human condition and how a person reacts to decisions of this magnitude in such an unfamiliar culture and country. JCH
Film: Princess Mononoke
Release date: 27th March 2006
Certificate: PG
Running time: 133 mins
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Starring: Yôji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida, Yûko Tanaka, Kaoru Kobayashi, Masahiko Nishimura
Genre: Anime
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
During the release of Princess Mononoke, it is very likely that a lot of cinema fans would not have heard of Studio Ghibli and their tremendous output into the world of animation. That all changed with the release of Spirited Away, which brought acclaim and audiences tired of the usual Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks fare. The Oscar buzz that came totting along with the infamous Spirited Away assured Studio Ghibli’s recognition, but this was a few years too late.
Princess Mononoke begins in a small quiet village that is home to our protagonist, Ashitaka. When this cosy environment is threatened by a beast, a giant hog with a bad case of the worms, Ashitaka is called upon by the village elders to traipse into the surrounding forests and discover, and hopefully solve, the reason for this wild attack. Naturally, he does, but, in the process, a plethora of other threats are raised as our allegiances are thrown back and forth between the colonising humans and the forest creatures that are under attack from the tree cutting ventures of the humans. Of course, violence is greeted with violence, and the age old battle of man vs. nature commences.
During his mix up between the humans of Iron town, and the animal packs of the forest, Ashitaka meets our leading lady, Princess Mononoke. They form a complicated friendship that is initially rooted in mistrust, but Ashitaka is eventually invited into the clan of the wolves that Mononoke is a part of, and therefore becomes the man stuck between the two warring worlds…
Princess Mononoke came a few years before Spirited Away, and was set to become Miyazaki’s swansong, the film that would effectively signal his goodbye to directing as he planned to quietly fall into retirement. As we all know this didn’t happen, with the follow-ups of Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo filling our imaginations with yet more enchanting characters and worlds. Maybe it is because of the fact that Princess Mononoke was going to be his final film that it is imbued with everything that makes Studio Ghibli so magical and inspiring. From the vibrant animation to the twisting plot and the epic musical score, everything manages to fall into place to create a truly awe-inspiring fantasy that still manages to ground itself within reality and modern day issues.
The film’s true strength lies in its narrative and plotting. At 134 minutes, it is one of the longest-running animations ever made, yet it still manages to hold the viewer’s attention throughout as everything unfurls.
The quality of the animation is top-notch, filling the world with luscious fields, eye catching characters and mind searing action set pieces. This is no surprise, as allegedly Miyazaki drew 80,000 of the 144,000 stills. It must be said that the animation does not match the sheer beauty of more recent titles such as Ponyo, but it stills showcases a stepping stone in the world of hand drawn animation.
Switching to the voice acting, many Ghibli films are viewed in the English dub, and things are somewhat lost in this American translation, but it still makes for a highly entertaining film, with the translated script being penned by famous fantasy scribe, Neil Gaiman. Of course, Princess Mononoke should be viewed with its original Japanese casting.
Outside of the narrative and the voice acting, the score is the third factor that propels this film from being just a children’s animation into a fantasy epic, rounding everything off wonderfully as the music brims with emotion.
Princess Mononoke stands toe to toe with more famous Ghibli productions, such as Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. As exciting and entertaining as the rest of the studio’s back catalogue. JCH
Film: Frontiers
Release date: 7th July 2008
Certificate: 18
Running time: 104 mins
Director: Xavier Gens
Starring: Karina Testa, Samuel Le Bihan, Estelle Lefébure, Aurélien Wiik, David Saracino
Genre: Horror
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: France/Switzerland
Torture porn: two words that really shouldn’t have been put together, a bit like the combination of cannibalistic Nazis. So when you combine them all together you get some idea of Frontiers’ brutality.
Frontiers begins with a small group of friends who are fleeing Paris, which is going through a rather turbulent time, with a new extremist right wing president coming into power.
During their escape they come across a cosy little motel - cosy if you find Nazi paraphernalia and huge guns appealing that is. Events unfurl, and our merry gang of wannabe political freedom fighters are axed, cooked alive, chained, sliced and shot. No doubt there are many other atrocious acts inflicted upon them, but by the end it all blurs into a big screaming red blotch on your memory…
The violence in this film is as in your face as it gets. No camera cut aways a split second before the gore – and no letup on the fake blood. Despite this, there is a gradual crescendo of violence and bloodletting, which is built up throughout the film, so that by the climax our surviving heroine is doing quite a commendable impression of Carrie.
Hand in hand with the gore is the most interesting side of the narrative, as the evil doers are in fact a very strange and clearly deranged family who have a certain liking to Adolf himself. We have the Nazi father figure and his children, who he seems to have stolen over the years and brought up as his own – adopting them into his little Mein Fuhrer worshipping church. Finally, there’s the mother figure who crops up twice in the film, and does little other than sit in a wheelchair spewing gunk out of a pipe that is poking out of her throat. They are a lovely family unit and they like nothing better than chopping up and eating passersby. This idea of a family carvery does work nicely, and brings a sinister glow over the flat out gore that doesn’t really do much to scare or unsettle.
Despite this, Frontiers appears to steal from a few other horror films, melding them all together into a grotesque 104 minute show. Of course, in its defence, the genre of the horror film is so abundant that it makes it relatively impossible to create a truly original storyline to go along with the scares and bloodshed. The idea of the killer family lends itself to that of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, with Frontiers attempting its own version of the infamous dinner scene, with the incapable grandfather of Texas Chainsaw Massacre being replaced with the mother here. Then we have the usual torture porn comparisons to that of Hostel, and the ramped up gore reminiscent of other recent French horrors such as Switchblade Romance and Martyrs.
The actors and actresses are excellent - the women possessing a disconcerting amount of venom towards the victims while the men convince as towering Nazi brutes with their pecs taking up as much room on screen as their victims’ innards. And speaking of the victims, they are a realistic bunch who don’t whine and moan like the majority of horror film casts do, but boy do they scream, wail and cry. The lead protagonist, played by Karina Testa, maintains a successful level of allegiance between herself and the audience, and makes for a very convincing broken shell by the end of the film. A satisfying crack in her sanity is presented onscreen during the last third of the film, which is punctuated with a loud battle cry during the climax.
A lot better than the usual Hollywood horror fare, however, it certainly won’t satisfy the adrenaline seekers among you who like to be psychologically tested. JCH
