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Film: 71 - Into The Fire
Release date: 14th March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 116 mins
Director: John H. Lee
Starring: Cha Seung-won, Kwone Sang-woo, Choi Seung-hyun, Kim Seung-woo
Genre: Drama/War
Studio: Cine Asia
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: South Korea
An expensive, ambitious production chronicling the heroism and sacrifice of a reluctant group of student soldiers who fought one of the most important battles in the early goings of the Korean War.
They have only fired a single shot in training, but 71 student soldiers in the South Korean army are left behind to face the elite 766 Commando Brigade of their North Korean enemies. Under the leadership of Oh Jang-beom (Choi), this band of hapless and frightened young men suddenly find themselves on the front line of one of the crucial battles in a raging war.
As Oh’s leadership grows and faces tests from inside, the North Koreans get closer and closer. Soon, violence will explode, and not all of the 71 can hope to escape alive. But in a war destined to endure long after their souls have departed, how long can Oh’s ragtag band of young warriors hold off their enemies?
By now, the average film-viewer is used to seeing cinematic war from deep inside the trenches and right amongst the battle. But rarely has a war film featured violence and chaos as immediate and relentless as 71 - Into The Fire. It throws the viewer right into the thick of things, following the fortunes of characters whose names the filmmakers trust their audience to catch and remember. In not stopping to carve out personalities in the opening minutes, director Lee creates an effective cinematic reflection of the chaos and fundamental madness of war. That the viewer is plunged into a battle already taking place is disorientating enough, and a pretty standard film technique for this genre. As the action and exposition progresses across the first act at a deliberate pace, with older military men already at each other’s throats over strategic differences in a campaign that seems to have been doomed long before the opening credits, it renders the characters mostly elusive - the nameless and faceless destined to merge together beneath a statistic in history. It makes for unsettling and occasionally uncomfortable cinema for the distanced viewer, but is arguably far more potent for it.
The crew do exemplary work, both with the practical and prosthetic effects, as well as the digital. Bullets whiz by characters’ heads, zipping past the frame, while hideous dark blood sprays and spurts from new bullet wounds in all its saturated gore. Scenes of the inexperienced South Korean student soldiers dragging a variety of dead bodies into mass graves is convincing to the point of stomach-turning, as arms come loose and maggots writhe in bloody wounds. It would take a viewer of unfathomable impressionability to sign up to any army after watching this film.
The effects crew is matched shot-for-shot by the stunt team. In the opening ten minutes, the viewer watches agog as a stationary jeep is lifted twenty-feet off the ground by a bomb blast, soaring over the prone body of a soldier. It is the kind of stunning image, imaginative in its conception and breathtaking in its execution, that stays with the viewer throughout and after the film. Elsewhere, stuntmen tumble lifeless from buildings and absorb debris in explosions. In every department, Lee achieves a brutal, unromantic realism.
But the very nature of cinema brings a certain kinesis to proceedings and, as can sometimes happen with a war movie, or any film depicting real-life disasters and human suffering, there is the question of should it be as exciting, heart-pounding as it is? Is it disrespectful to thrill and entertain when depicting an important moment in history, a drive for freedom in which many lives were sacrificed? Director Lee admirably dances around this issue, by giving the audience thrills not with stylised or comic book-style violence, but with the heroism of the characters. The tragedy of war pounds the viewer into an exhausted state, but the courage and valour of the young men whose tale it tells makes 71 - Into The Fire an exhilarating ode to the human spirit.
Technically, the film is superb. The saturated colour palette again perfectly evokes the feeling of hopelessness and despair of war, while the cinematography is a seamless, fluid mix of a pseudo-documentary style and a more unobtrusive, subdued style in the dramatic and dialogue scenes. But no war film, however engrossing, can get by on action and visuals alone. What elevates 71 - Into The Fire above the general standard of the genre is the heart afforded to the script, and Lee’s way with teasing a pure, base form of dread from his audience. The aforementioned burial scene is stark and uncompromising in showing the human cost of war - not just the physical price paid by the dead, but the mental and emotional damage incurred by those who have to bury them. In less experienced hands, the spontaneous vomiting of the soldiers could have played like riotous - or even unintentional - black comedy, in Lee’s, the scene is heart-rending, and stokes the fires of fear in the viewer that not everyone in the group is cut out for the carnage and horror that is about to unfold. This sense of dread pervades the entire film - a scene with three ‘student’ soldiers play-acting with a grenade is unbearably tense, while the heightened antics of the North Korean forces (who swim across a river at the command of their single-minded general) render them almost otherworldly villains - the near-mythological bogeymen of history, marching relentlessly upon the plucky, overmatched South Korean underdogs.
And then there are the performances. Choi Seung-hyeon is an engaging lead as Oh Jang-beom, the reluctant commander of the student forces, whose sense of duty and patriotism is tested by his lack of faith in his own abilities. Pleasingly, upon being appointed, Jang-beom is neither whiny nor loud in his reluctance, but rather understated - his quiet conviction that he is not right for the role does as much to convince the viewer of impending doom as the looming North Korean army. But as his character rises to the occasion, Choi pulls the audience with him every step of the way - steady without being intense, and compelling without once showing off. Stealing the show is Cha Seung-won as Park, the North Korean general, who benefits from the more obviously stylised manner in which the early scenes of the North Korean advance are shot, edited and scored, filling the bigger frame with an effective evil charisma.
Of course, despite the film’s many strengths, there is the odd niggle. Lee is not averse to the odd cliché. A sequence showing fleeing soldiers crosscut with a flashback to their triumphant, hopeful setting off for the war, accompanied by a swelling orchestra, is pure war-film-by-numbers. Elsewhere, the suffering of the South Korean people is displayed in slightly gratuitous slow-motion, every effort made to wring out the last drops of emotions, and paint clear black-and-white baddies and goodies. But in a film of this quality and integrity, such flaws are forgivable as concessions for audience accessibility.
Come the conclusion, the viewer is left exhausted and spent. At two hours, the film is perhaps a little overlong - but that may be exactly the point. After all, does not every war outstay its welcome?
Technically on a par with any war film in recent memory, and with genuine heart and emotion, 71 - Into The Fire is a marvellous tribute to a brave band of reluctant warriors. JN
Film: Darfur
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 98 mins
Director: Uwe Boll
Starring: Kristanna Loken, David O'Hara, Noah Danby, Matt Frewer, Hakeem Kae-Kazim
Genre: Drama
Studio: High Fliers
Format: DVD
Country: Canada/South Africa/Germany
This is an English-language release.
World-renowned Director, Uwe Boll, takes a step away from adapting video games into big screen features and focuses on a project which highlights the massive humanitarian shortfalls in Darfur, Sudan.
The film - previously called Janjaweed, and also known as Attack On Darfur – centres around six journalists visiting a small village in the Darfur region of Western Sudan. Their intentions are to photograph and interview the inhabitants of a small village, taking accounts of the ongoing conflict and suffering in the region.
The journalists, accompanied by the Nigarian commander of the African Union (AU), Captain Jack Tobamke, interact with the village inhabitants on a very personal level. The group learn of the harsh realities surrounding the treacherous attacks by the Janjaweed, a militia funded by the Sudanese government, whose intentions are to wipe out the African tribes of Darfur.
Having obtained some insight into the lives of those suffering in the small village, the group begin their journey back toward camp. En route, however, the group learn that the Janjaweed will imminently be descending upon the village they have just left. The group must therefore make an almost spontaneous decision, to either continue on course for camp and document their findings for the world, or return to the village in the hope that the presence of international journalists will prevent the Janjaweed from inflicting any violence upon the inhabitants.
When the group agree to return to the village, they are soon faced with the reality of the conflict, and with the commander of the Arab Janjaweed. When forced at gunpoint to leave the village, the journalists have little choice but to head back to camp. However, two of the journalists, Freddie Smith (David O’Hara) and Theo Schwartz (Noah Danby) are unable to simply return to camp and allow the inhumane Janjaweed to slaughter innocent people.
Swartz and Smith therefore, along with Captain Tobamke, return to the village, armed and seeking to prevent the murder of innocent men, women and infants. Outnumbered and inexperienced in combat, their task is unquestionably courageous, yet exceptionally dangerous…
Uwe Boll’s fans and critics – and there are many of each – will note that this film is not a typical Boll production. Better known for transferring the thrills and gore of computer games into live action films, Boll has taken on a somewhat different project. The docu-drama centres around the conflict within the region of Darfur, which despite being well documented, remains largely unimpressed upon the world. To consider that UN intervention has occurred on a larger scale and with greater haste than occurred in the Darfur region of Sudan, is evidently Boll’s intent in making this film. Boll does not want the world to remain ignorant to the genocide that took place, and his movie makes perfectly clear the type of crimes that were committed.
The film starts at a very slow pace, with the group travelling in a jeep towards the village, stopping along the way to observe a mass grave. This scene, whilst disturbing and impacting upon the audience, still does not quite set the tone for what is to come.
The early scenes in the village, whereby the African victims of the conflict tell their stories, are filmed very carefully, and capture just the kind of emotion and disclosure as is sought by the characters themselves on their visit. Filmed in the style of a documentary, the audience gain some background knowledge surrounding the conflict, as well as a harrowing insight into the victims’ lives. These early scenes assist greatly in building the audience’s empathy towards the victims.
When the film picks up pace, and the horrendous realities of what actually occurred within these villages is shown to the audience, the initial shock coupled with the anticipation of what is to come will undoubtedly have the audience at their most attentive. The soundtrack is constant and brilliantly fitting at this stage of the film, managing to maintain a sombre mood whilst simultaneously sustaining a fast-paced and heavy beat.
The script takes a downward turn following the second departure of the journalists, and Boll seems to take a similar approach to that of producing one his video game ‘shoot ‘em up’ films. The dialogue becomes weak and lazy, and there are some scenes which really lack authenticity. For instance, when the journalists make their way back into the village and cautiously seek out the Janjaweed, the pair appear to have undergone some intense Special Forces training just prior, enabling them to professionally pursue and target the militia.
Nevertheless, Boll sustains his shocking imagery of rape, murder and infanticide through to the conclusion, which may seem a little over the top at times, but which is wretchedly accurate all the same. There is not a hint of caution shown by Boll in his approach to the subject matter, and certainly those with little knowledge on the subject of the Darfur conflict will be appalled by what they see on screen.
Boll could certainly have developed more upon the religious, political and social problems which resulted in the conflict commencing and being maintained, as it is somewhat simplified as an Arabs versus black Africans war. That said, the film focuses more on the consequences of the war as opposed to just the background to it, and Boll succeeds in highlighting these consequences to the audience.
The film is shot using a mixture of close up and distance shots for varying effects. The zoomed shots enable the audience to feel up close and personal with the victims of the conflict, and to really develop that sense of empathy which Boll requires for the film to work. Yet, in the same scenes, Boll will use a long range shot to show the audience just how detached and abandoned these inhabitants really are from anybody else, and this creates a vast sense of hopelessness.
“That we have not stopped the genocide means we have not learned from history” read the final words on the screen. This would be an apt conclusion had the film carried slightly less Hollywood-style drama to it in the final scenes. That said, the lasting impact of the film is more than enough for the audience to take away as food-for-thought on the conflict of Darfur.
A deeply disturbing portrayal of the atrocities committed in Darfur, which understandably will not be to everybody’s taste. The plot may be a little on the Hollywood side and the characters less than convincing, but love him or hate him, Boll should be given credit for this harrowingly accurate and compelling feature. TMO
Film: Waste Land
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: PG
Running time: 99 mins
Director: Lucy Walker, Karen Harley & Joao Jardim
Starring: Vik Muniz
Genre: Documentary
Studio: E1
Format: DVD
Country: Brazil/UK
Lucy Walker is an established director, with documentaries including Countdown To Zero already under her belt. Waste Land is her latest project and has made waves around the world. It was nominated for an Oscar this year and has won several other awards, including the 2010 Sundance Audience Award for a World Cinema Documentary.
Brazilian-born Vik Muniz is a highly successful artist in his adopted home of New York. Having reached a period in his life where he has all the material goods he has ever wanted, he decides to return to his native country and give something back to society. His initial idea is to use garbage in his art, so he seeks out the largest garbage dump in the world; the Jardim Gramacho in Rio de Janeiro. He is not at all sure what sort of people he will find working there – he is prepared for drug addicts and questionable people living on the edges of society. However, when he meets the pickers, or catadores, he is surprised to find a well-organised syndicate of 2,500 workers who make an honest living and carry themselves with dignity, even whilst picking through the rubbish to find recyclable materials. He meets amateur philosophers, mothers earning money in order to provide for their children, and leaders who ensure fair payments and keep the peace in this vast group. They are more than happy for Muniz to create artworks, the profits of which will go to the Association.
Instead of simply remaining as his subjects, as Muniz originally intended, the catadores become fully involved with the art project. Six are chosen to have their portraits turned into art, each one representing a famous work. They include Tiao, the leader of the Association and fan of Machiavelli, Zumbi, the ‘librarian’, who set up a community library from the discarded books he collects, and Irma, the resident cook who conjures up stews, salads and pasta dishes for the workers. From photos that Muniz takes, the group gets to work transforming these into giant images made from items collected from the Jardim Gramacho. The experience changes everything for the catadores involved, but it leaves Muniz with some difficult moral decisions: is it beneficial for these people to have a glimpse of another world if they have to go back to picking through a rubbish dump at the end of it?
The film unfolds as organically as the experience does for Muniz and the catadores. Walker is a sensitive director who slowly reveals her film subjects layer by layer. We are introduced to the six catadores in turn early on, and then we slowly learn more about each one. In this sense, we share Muniz’s perspective. As he builds relationships with the catadores, they open up to him and share their stories. Walker employs the same tactics with Muniz himself – we know that he came from a poor background in Brazil, but we do not see evidence of this until the end of the film. The way Walker has done this echoes the connection Muniz feels with the catadores, but for a chance event, he could have ended up as one of them.
Walker selects footage that feels natural to what Muniz and his team experience – the first sight we get of the Jardim Gramacho is a wide, sweeping view of the rubbish tips, with people moving about like ants. Only do we get close-ups of individual catadores, which starts to give some sense of humanity to the area, a feeling which Muniz expresses. Walker inserts overhead views of the dumps throughout to remind the viewer of how it is seen from outside – it becomes very easy to forget that this is a deliberately ignored corner of Rio once we begin engaging with the people who work and live there.
As Muniz finds, it is the human element which makes this a story worth telling. It is not really about garbage, or even art, but about the people. There are moments of quiet heartbreak, as individuals are able to find a voice for stories which have so long been repressed due to the daily grind of their work. However, the overriding feeling is one of optimism and positivity. Each picker we meet is dignified, eloquent and tenacious. They demonstrate a remarkable strength of mind which enables them to get through each day with a smile and a few words of wisdom. They welcome Muniz with great warmth and throw themselves into the project, spending days working on the portraits. When they finally get to see the finished works at auction and in a gallery, they make no attempts to hide their joy, and these expressions of raw and unbridled emotion have a real impact on the viewer – you cannot help but connect with the catadores on some level.
The object of any documentary is surely to give us an insight into the lives of other people and Waste Land does that poetically and assuredly. By following Muniz on this project, Walker has uncovered the potential of the human spirit in the most unlikely of places, literally in the rubbish dump. Executed with the same quiet determination and restraint shown by the catadores, the film never slips into melodrama but simply provides a faithful portrait of these people, and allows them to speak for themselves. The feeling that comes across above all is that the catadores do not need pity or charity; they are proud to earn an honest wage and they support each other. They are grateful for the opportunities and additional income that Muniz has brought to the Association, but it seems that Muniz learnt as much from the project as they did. The end result is a film which engages the soul as much as the mind and which cannot help but charm its viewers.
An uplifting, surprising story of an artist who has catapulted into the spotlight people who are usually ignored. This film will lift your spirits and remind you what it means to be human. KS
Film: War
Release date: 21st February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 120 mins
Director: Aleksei Balabnov
Starring: Aleksey Chadov, Ian Kelly, Ingeborga Dapkunaite, Sergey Bodrov Jr.
Genre: Action/Drama/War
Studio: Palisades Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: Russia
Directed by the popular Russian filmmaker Aleksei Balabanov, best known for his 1997 film Brother, War is a tale of revenge in war-torn Chechnya. The film's main themes were thrown into the international limelight, not long after the its original release in 2002, following an incident in which a Moscow theatre was held hostage by Chechen rebells. Controversially, Special Forces used gas in a heavy-handed attempt to immobilise the Chechen captors, resulting in the death of over one hundred hostages. In light of such events, War's militaristic themes have been criticised by some, whilst its lack of a disconnected and sanitised depiction of war has been positively received by others.
On tour in Georgia, British actor John Boyle (Ian Kelly) and his fiancée Margaret (Ingeborga Dapkunaite) are captured by Chechen rebels. Having witnessed the brutal murder and beheading of two Russian soldiers, both are thrown into a cellar and held hostage, alongside a Russian conscript named Ivan (Aleksey Chadov). However, when the Chechen rebel leader realises his captors' ransom money is unlikely to materialise any time soon, he releases John to raise two million pounds in order to secure the release of his fiancée, Margaret. The Chechen leader also frees Ivan as a gesture of goodwill, but makes it clear that if John fails to raise the ransom money within two months, his fiancée will be raped and killed.
Whilst John travels to Britain, raising a relatively small sum of money, Ivan returns home. With no money, his father ill in hospital and no job, Ivan finds himself in the position of many post-war Chechnya veterans. Having nothing to lose, Ivan agrees to help John return to Chechnya, in order to save his fiancée…
In many respects, the plot sounds alarmingly similar to many terrible Hollywood action films, in which the characters fight off countless two-dimensional ‘bad guys’, blow up a few vehicles and save the day; not to mention becoming lifelong buddies thanks to the experience. Thankfully, War avoids these pitfalls and is anything but a predictable action film. With a striking sense of realism and lack of sentimentality, War is gritty and surprisingly sophisticated in its handling of a topic that is little discussed in film.
The range of characters that are brought together by the film's script offer an interesting range of perspectives. On the one hand, there's the tough Russian conscript, Ivan; unflinching in the face of death. On the other is the extremely timid British actor John, who never really seems to grasp the nature of the situations he finds himself in. However, in contrast to the aforementioned characters, the Chechen rebels are portrayed as stereotypical religious fanatics, with little depth beyond their merciless acts of decapitation. That said, this depiction of the rebels appears to be ironic in nature, an attempt on behalf of the director to reflect the views held by many Russians (after all, the film is narrated by Ivan).
Surprisingly, the film's action sequences are rather muted and are unlikely to get your heart pounding. But, in a way, this is what makes War a rather impressive action film. The action sequences, whilst anything but visually arresting, add a sense of realism that is not achieved by many films of this genre. Many scenes are long and drawn out, and offer nothing in the way of a satisfying resolution. This is the one aspect of the film that is most likely to divide viewers and, most importantly, what separates it from many modern action films.
Whilst the action sequences may be slow, the film does feature many notable shots and some stunning cinematography. From beautiful, mountainous backdrops to impressive tracking shots, Balabanov cannot be said to have created a film which is visually unsatisfying. Thanks to the film's extraordinary sense of realism, many shots which otherwise may be of little interest are particularly memorable. A scene in which John and Ivan roll a Jeep over the edge of a cliff, sending it crashing down the cliff face, is particularly memorable (if not for its beauty, then for the fact that it doesn't explode into flames).
Another point to note is the documentary-like feel of various scenes. Many scenes are shot using low quality camcorders, sometimes alternating between hand-held cameras and more conventional shots, providing a far more personal view of the events unfolding on screen. Most importantly, the director manages to pull this off without cheapening the overall feel of the film.
Many of the actors also offer some decent performances, although none can be described as 'exceptional'. Ian Kelly proves rather amusing as the timid Brit who, upon being captured and beat, informs his captors that they are not respecting his human rights. The transformation of his character, who appears far more focussed in a war situation by the end of the film, is also interesting. This is comically illustrated in a latter scene, in which John sits beside his distraught wife, apparently “pumped up” following the experience of combat, blissfully unaware of the trauma his wife has endured.
War is a breath of fresh air to a genre that can often lack imagination. Balabanov never sacrifices his characters to ostentatious action sequences which are detached from reality. Instead, the film explores a conflict that is rarely depicted in film and offers an interesting mix of drama and action. It may not be a groundbreaking film, but it's certainly an impressive addition to its genre. ME
Film: The Living And The Dead
Release date: 21st February 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 87 mins
Director: Kristijan Milic
Starring: Filip Sovagovic, Velibor Topic, Slaven Knezovic, Marinko Prga, Borko Peric
Genre: Fantasy/War
Studio: Kaleidoscope
Format: DVD
Country: Croatia/Bosnia and Herzegovina
Two time periods, two groups of conscript soldiers, one haunted hillside that leads them to their destruction. Kristijan Milic’s The Living And The Dead paints a brutal, uncompromising portrait of these two bloody moments in the history of the Balkans as we see men separated by time but united by grim circumstance fight their way across the unchanging and blood-soaked lands of Serbia.
Both groups are on the run from superior forces and take shelter in a graveyard as their enemies close in around them and their final battles begin.
As their numbers inevitably start to dwindle, the men begin to question the value of their orders and, ultimately, their struggle, choosing instead to search for something of greater meaning.
The survivors are menaced by the ghostly images of their fallen comrades and struggle to come to terms with their visitations and the actions that each man has taken…
There is no specific plot as such. The film offers multiple viewpoints and no particular central character from whose point of view a story is told. Closest to this would be the duel characters of Tomo (1993) and Martin (1943), both played by Filip Sovagovic as grandfather and grandson. Martin, in particular, is the everyman moral compass of the piece and, in both time periods, he is surrounded by the usual cohort of two dimensional squaddies. One of these, Vielli (Velibor Topic), the brutal ex-boxer killing machine offers the only other true character perspective.
The rest of the troop is drawn from the war film staples: the cowardly young kid, the cynical weathered officer, the comic relief... From when the battles begin in the first thirty minutes, it is clear that the only real objective is survival. Thus the film transfers from the war genre into something much more akin to survival horror as, inevitably, the characters are picked off one by one, and the ghostly supernatural element begins to fully present itself.
Clearly aimed at a Croatian/Balkan audience, the film does little to disentangle the various factions at play. In the more modern story, the enemy is simply described as ‘The Serbs’ and ‘The Muslims’. In the past story, the enemy is the Serbian communists and our protagonists are drawn from the Croat State conscripts. This confusion, however, has very little bearing upon any enjoyment of the film, which carries as a statement nothing more complicated than “war is hell” and “we’re all going to die anyway.”
As the soldiers enter the graveyard area and the ghosts begin to appear, the film enters its strongest moments. The raw psychological effects of being alone and hunted in the dark are delivered compellingly by the ensemble cast who manage to retain the humanity of the soldier in the face of the paranormal twist. The simplicity of the ghosts who appear merely as people who the characters know are dead, staring uncompromisingly at their former comrades, allows us to retain the belief that their images are born as much of stress and combat fatigue as from any cursed patch of ground or ectoplasm. This marries with a film that is no gore-fest. The most harrowing scenes of corpses better resemble war correspondent footage than horror film gratuity.
As reflected in the numerous awards at the Pula Film Festival, including Best Film and Best Director, the film’s visuals merit the strongest praise. The Croatian location shooting contributes much to the film’s feel and style. A grey, brooding, empty desolate wasteland, helped only by minimal effects, adds to a sinister, windswept dread that makes soldier after soldier crack under its weight. Effective, too, is the choice of music that mirrors the triumphal martial dirges glorifying national pride. Played alongside the dire consequences of extreme nationalism, the irony is unmissable.
The film seems almost to go out of its way not to make sense either of the issues of the two wars or debate their rationale. Such exposition, as is offered, tends to be devoted to establishing our limited characters and including as many ethnic jibes as possible. This appears to be a deliberate tack, and expands upon the films message in presenting the senselessness of conflict regardless of the context. This is further indicated by the casual barbarity eschewed by some but jokingly tolerated by most. There is graveyard humour as items stolen from the slain are then handed on as the platoons are whittled down by enemy action and ghostly occurrences.
The film invites us to consider all its protagonists as dead from the moment they appear on screen with its opening text insert: "We are all dead, only buried sequentially." That being the case, it can be challenging to feel much beyond a general distaste for warfare as the protagonists begin their inevitable dwindling in number. The experience is greatly enhanced, however, by a rudimentary understanding of the conflicts it seeks to mirror. The film is perhaps guilty of not offering enough of grounding to non Balkans for whom much of its intricacy and allegory are lost.
The Living And The Dead might make for somewhat heavy going for the interested outsider. As evidenced by its winning reception at Pula, there is a great deal more to this film for those for whom the Bosnian conflict is both all too real and all too recent. For them, one suspects the ghosts take on a symbolism that a foreigner can never truly share. NB
Film: Turn The Beat Around
Release date: 21st February 2011
Certificate: 12
Running time: 85 mins
Director: Bradley Walsh
Starring: Romina D'Ugo, David Giuntoli , Adam T. Brooks, Brooklyn Sudano, Shauna MacDonald
Genre: Drama
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD
Country: Canada
This is an English-language release.
An established commercials director and music video director and producer, Bradley Walsh has enjoyed a long partnership with MTV. This is his first feature-length film, made for MTV in Canada and now available in the UK.
Zoe (Romina D’Ugo) is a dancer trying to make the big-time in LA. Like many of her dancer friends, she is currently working a ‘survival job’ in her stepfather’s shop, and going to every audition that comes up without much success. She is constantly battling against Malika, a choreographer with the power to make or break dancers, and who seems to have a vendetta against Zoe. She cannot even count on support from her mother, herself a failed dancer who wants Zoe to make something of her life, rather than wasting away the years dreaming of being a dancer while never breaking out of a dead-end job.
A way out of this situation comes in the form of Michael (David Guintoli), a young, successful club owner. When Zoe and her boyfriend, Chris (Adam T. Brooks), go out one night, she meets Michael and they get talking about the success of the club. Zoe boldly proposes that he should revive the 1970s by starting a new disco.
After initial reservations, Michael agrees to find a venue and test out the idea with a disco party, employing Zoe as ‘disco expert’. She sets to work hiring dancers and devising choreography. However, Zoe’s dream life is short-lived when tensions between Michael and her boyfriend begin to emerge. As if that wasn’t enough, Malika is also threatening to sabotage Zoe’s life in more ways than one…
This is a made-for-TV melodrama about the LA dance world and one girl trying to revolutionise it by bringing back disco. It is about as good as it sounds. The plot is entirely predictable to the point where the viewer could almost feed the characters their lines, and it is so contrived as to make it totally unbelievable.
Zoe is a character we can sympathise with for approximately fifteen minutes, if she’s lucky, before she becomes unbearable. It is clear from the moment that they meet in the club that Zoe and Michael are destined to be together, so Chris is quite right to be wary of this man that his girlfriend seems to be spending all her time with. However, Zoe is apparently unaware of the fact that she is on dangerous ground with her boss and is outraged when she finds that Chris has been cheating on her. This leaves the path conveniently clear for romance between Zoe and Michael - and Chris takes all the blame. Zoe also employs sob-stories about her parents’ divorce and wanting to make her mother proud at the strangest of moments, such as when breaking up with Chris or trying to win her job back. Because of all of this, it is very hard for the viewer to care about the characters or what happens to them, and so it does not make for a very engaging film.
Not content with one genre of dance movie, namely the revival of disco, the writers of this film also chuck in a good lot of hip hop at the beginning before changing tack. They would perhaps be able to pull this off – a hip hop dancer can surely learn all the disco moves she needs in twenty minutes of tuition from her mother – but they also throw in the obligatory ballet-dancer who hates ballet and wants to do hip-hop, disco or pretty much any other style of dance as a side-story. This girl, who patently cannot dance anything other than ballet, is nevertheless signed up by the plucky Zoe for her disco troupe.
Perhaps all of this could be forgiven if the main focus of the film was the dance sequences. Romina D’Ugo is an undeniably talented dancer and there are some genuinely good moments of dance in the film. However, these are too few and far between to make any real impact on the jaded viewer. If the dancing had been the driving force with the plot as a support, then it would have been more enjoyable and could have been judged appropriately on its merits as a dance film. As it is, the dance is very much in the background, leaving the ridiculous plot in the spotlight.
One small positive is that the film’s soundtrack is bearable and fits the genre. Disco classics such as Disco Inferno and, of course, Turn The Beat Around are cover versions by current artists rather than the originals, and it does shamelessly promote Jason Derulo’s single of the moment, but it is the least offensive thing about the film. Walsh is clearly in his comfort zone with music videos and there is an incongruously long sequence about a music video which has little bearing on the main story, but the music is at least upbeat and sets the atmosphere. It’s just that all the other elements of the film are severely deficient.
The fact is that this is a harmless enough movie which teenage girls will probably adore, with its love story, dance and music. Romina d’Ugo is a good dancer and a passable actor, and it is probably asking too much to expect anything more than a one-dimensional story from a director best known for music videos and commercials. But for anyone who cares about film in any meaningful way, this is painful viewing. Although made in Canada, it represents all that is stereotypical about its Los Angeles setting – it is self absorbed and lacks any kind of intelligent discourse.
There is a reason this film never saw a cinema screen; it is distinctly below average, even in comparison with other teen dance dramas. Unless Step Up 2 is your all-time favourite film, in which case this might just be watchable, it is one to steer clear of. KS
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: Primal
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 85 mins
Director: Josh Reed
Starring: Krew Boylan, Lindsay Farris, Rebekah Foord, Damien Freeleagus
Genre: Horror
Studio: Kaleidoscope
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Australia
This is an English-language release.
The arrival of Wolf Creek in 2005 announced Australia as a genuine source for respected modern horror cinema, but the output since has done little to build on that promise. So the release of Primal on DVD brings with it a certain amount of buzz that there is a new Australian horror with teeth. But is Primal the beast it promises to be?
Beginning 12,000 years ago, Primal kicks off with an Aborigine painting on the wall outside a cave. Unbeknownst to him, something is watching him, and it’s only a matter of time before there is more than paint splattered on the rock.
Jumping forward to the present day, we follow six friends in the Australian wilderness who are out to be the first to see the painting for thousands of years. Passing through the cave, the youngsters disturb something, and it’s not long before a dormant creature awakens - and it’s hungry.
After swimming in water infected by the creature, Mel (the blonde promiscuous one) develops a fever. Then she develops sharp teeth, and a taste for raw meat. Soon the group are in a fight for their lives as the infection spreads and the infected attack.
If they are to survive, they will have to become as primal as the infected, and battle their fears to find out what is truly happening around them…
There are many forces at work in Primal. On the surface, it is a slasher based around the idea of infection, in a similar vein to Cabin Fever. Further into the film, we get into the squelchy realms of a monster movie that seems to want to be a cross between The Thing and The Descent. Then there is the idea that if a member of the group becomes primal, the uninfected will have to reduce themselves to a similar state in order to survive. Twinned with this theme is the nature of the wild and the wilderness, respect for which should be maintained lest you fall foul of something with teeth. Shame, then, that Primal never comes close to reaching the level of the films it riffs on, and doesn’t manage to make the themes work on any level.
The opening scene offers some creepy promise; with an Aboriginal painter placing what we come to learn is a warning on the wall of a cave, occupied by a mysterious and hungry creature. It is a good looking scene, with an effective stalk-and-slash moment, which efficiently sets up the rest of the film. As in the majority of modern horror, we are then introduced to a collection of clichéd young adults as they make their way to the cave to view the painting. We meet the lone woman with a dark past that haunts her, the alpha male who can’t keep his torso covered, the promiscuous blonde and her irritating boyfriend, plus a comedy male, and a pointless photographer who seems there simply to even up the genders. It isn’t impossible to draw convincing characters in a claustrophobic horror setting as Neil Marshall proved with The Descent, however, here the characters appear as nothing more than fodder for the infection or infected.
If Primal’s comedy was genuine instead of accidental then this would work, and the film would be an enjoyable romp. What we get instead is a film short on just about everything that makes horror work effectively, such as gore, menace, escalating terror and convincing performances.
Josh Reed, directing his first feature, does a decent job of building tension early on. The characters, while never being interesting enough to care about, are put through their paces to reasonable effect, arriving at the cave, discovering one’s claustrophobia, and another’s libido, building nicely to the moment when the first unfortunate cliché is infected by a virus that will turn her primal. The manifestation of the infection is also handled reasonably well, at first, with a fever, then loss of teeth, and finally the growth of hideous fangs. It is when the infection takes hold proper, and the horror begins, that the film falls apart. Reed’s ideas are clearly bigger than his budget, and the effects are bad to the point of unforgiveable. The direction, at times, lacks any real skill, and the underuse of the Australian wilderness is almost criminal.
Hinted at throughout is the fact that there is something living in the cave. The arrival of the characters causes it to wake up, and the infected feed it at regular intervals. This is supposed to build tension as we are waiting for the moment when the survivors flee the infected and enter the cave. When they do, what could have been an effective (if completely insane) climax turns out to be a nonsensical mess that is little more than an excuse for the most appalling CGI you are ever likely to see. Instead of the intense, insane climax hoped for, what we get is something tasteless, confusing and utterly uninspired.
Primal feels confused and cheap. Every time the film threatens to be fun, it pulls away and frustrates with its lack of genre savvy and awful characters. It’s a pity, as somewhere in the mess is a good idea waiting to get out, and a director who clearly isn’t short of imagination. Primal could have been a fun entry into a well established genre, or it could even have been a relevant, original and visceral horror. Instead, it seems the filmmakers didn’t know which way to take it, and it turns out to be neither. It would be a shame to think that Australian horror peaked with Wolf Creek, but this offering gives little evidence to the contrary. RM
Film: Accidents Happen
Release date: 14th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 92 mins
Director: Andrew Lancaster
Starring: Geena Davis, Harrison Gilbertson, Harry Cook, Joel Tobeck, Karl Beattie
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Studio: Matchbox
Format: DVD
Country: Australia/UK
This is an English-language release.
In 2002’s The Hours, troubled authoress Virginia Woolf states that she is killing off the heroine of her most famous book because “someone has to die, in order that the rest of us should value life more.” Don’t be fooled by the breezy title; Andrew Lancaster, helming his first feature-length project, Accidents Happen, has made a film that re-iterates a similar theory, placing tragedy at the epicentre of familial strife, and the catalyst for emotional blockading and forced self-evaluation.
Accidents Happen introduces us to the seemingly happy Conway family, consisting of mother, father, and four young children, whose routine is abruptly halted when their car collides with another. We aren’t shown the immediate aftermath of the event, and instead the film jumps forward eight years to a point in time where the surviving members of the Conway clan are being forced to address the impact of the accident on their lives, and search for some form of closure.
The implications of the crash are that Linda, the Conway daughter, has died, and that one of the sons, Gene, is in a vegetative state in hospital. Gloria (Davis) and husband Ray (Tobeck) have also since divorced, provoking bitterness towards Ray’s new fiancée Becky. By default, youngest son Billy Conway (Gilbertson) is the principal figure in the film, as everyone else in his family are either voiceless or unapproachably volatile. His unflinchingly direct mother, plagued by a medical condition as a result of the accident, hates everything around her; his alcoholic older brother is a destructive force within the family.
Billy, much less vocal about his feelings, becomes caught in the crossfire of all these frayed relationships, but also must deal with the guilt of his own wrongdoings…
If this all sounds unbearably overwrought, then that’s a fair assessment; there are plenty of ways to instigate familial issues without resorting to such brazen attempts at melodrama. Writer Brian Carbee has approached a heavy subject matter by giving the characters irredeemable flaws and grating oversensitivity to the point where it’s relatively impossible to see this family dynamic as genuine, or even credible.
Accidents Happen has a difficult time finding fresh ways to articulate the perceived tropes of guilt-laden grief, content to follow the black-comedy style of accentuating the stony-faced, bitter persona that tragedy can invoke. There’s a tendency towards chronicling grief through bitingly-honest quips – particularly courtesy of Davis’s Gloria. One feels that the film is striving to be The Upside Of Anger, in terms of viewing standoffish, comic hostility as a substitute for grief, but the one-liners and general limitations of Gloria as a person (she’s more of a badass sister to her kids than a mother) just make the entire setup feel infantile. Davis herself opts for the Julia Roberts method of rabid, quickfire delivery, but has neither the charisma nor the material to pull it off.
As a framing device, the crash itself doesn’t prove effectual enough in binding the family together, so it’s very difficult to gauge what might have gone on in the eight years that have passed. Accidents Happen does everything it can to feign bravery (and even novelty) by making none of its main characters particularly sympathetic amidst their seriously unenviable state of collapse, but then expects us to rally for them in its final act. Examples of clinical Solondzian humour litter the film, almost as if it’s satirising guilt itself; maintaining a coolly distant but assuredly fervent perspective on dysfunctionality. When the script lurches towards staging misfortune to introduce its ruminative philosophies on loss and blame it gets particularly schematic, embellishing poignancy in an unmistakably conventional style.
Lancaster does manage to build a community around these characters, which harks back to the 1970s, in the way that Linklater’s Dazed and Confused did. Youths engage in boredom-fuelled acts of minor, concentrated criminality, while struggling for affection or a sense of purpose. And while it’s true that this makes Accidents Happen slightly more interesting as a generational conversation piece, it would be generous to suggest that it takes advantage of the era, much more adept at providing a soundtrack than connecting this pocket of time to Billy’s legitimate concerns. A redundant, pompous voice-over occasionally chimes in to heighten importance; shots of floating fragments of shattered glass act as emblems of transition – but the question remains: what has this film, with its fleeting, commonplace title, really told us about blame or acceptance?
Accidents Happen appears perfectly committed towards alienating its audience at first, but falls back on itself, reverting to encourage emotional identification through climactic, wrenching clichés. Lancaster’s film is murky, certainly, but fatefully not involving enough – a pallid version of Running With Scissors that never really clicks, and can’t fulfil the cutting personality intoned in the frosty dialogue and effacing actions of its disconnected troupe. It may bear enough of the hallmarks of a self-destructive family dramedy, but scratch beneath the surface and this is an ill-conceived genre film effort. CR
Series: The Slayers Evolution-R: Season 4 Part 2
Release date: 7th February 2011
Certificate: 12
Running time: 325 mins
Director: Takashi Watanabe
Starring: N/a
Genre: Anime
Studio: MVM
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
The fifth anime series to evolve from Hajime Kanzaka’s Slayers novels and manga continues into its fourth season, as Slayers Evolution-R attempts to keep the fan-following for the franchise alive two decades after its initial popularity. The last in a long legacy, Evolution-R carries a heavy responsibility to Slayers fans, as it ret-cons Lina Inverse’s earlier adventures through this Dungeons & Dragons inspired universe, where campy comedy and lengthy back-stories travel hand in hand.
Series four, disc two starts in the middle of Lina’s mission to protect gloomy merchant Radok from the threats of Zumma, an assassin out to kill Lina. The true plot focuses on their pursuit of the Hellmaster’s Jar, with which they can resurrect Rezo the Red Priest, as well as finding and destroying one of the scattered segments of Shabranigdo’s soul.
As the characters try to work out how to free Rezo, and bicker over what they want to use his power for, revelations occur that make them question whether they should free him at all...
For a show with such a complicated background, Evolution-R continues to be simplistically written. Though every episode progresses the storyline, it does so in slow baby steps, padding out the events out with stereotypical anime fight scenes and extended comical sequences. Ever notice that only two main, definable events seem to occur per original-trilogy Star Wars movie? Now subtract budget and originality. Most frustrating of these padding sequences on this DVD involved the gang repeatedly fighting monsters to make useless broths under Rezo’s instruction, lament their wasted time, and then repeat the process. This gag gets played far beyond funny, until the fast-forward button is looking extremely tempting. This said, the episodes do, at least, finally deal with the Rezo, a long-awaited development of the show. Now that the moment is finally upon us, the writers seem eager to drag it over as many episodes as possible.
Many back-stories are revealed in these episodes, which provide some insight into the characters, and aid in making them seem less flat and insubstantial. Even the annoying stuffed animal, Pokota, has a painful past, and faces some difficult realisations and choices. However, when the spotlight is not on a particular character and their personal angst, they continue to be two-dimensional stereotypes. The show is, granted, a parody of earlier anime, which explains the unoriginal nature of the cast, but cannot excuse it. From the dialogue to their appearance, there is nothing to recommend them above those in other anime. Lina, in particular, is as loud, annoying and unsympathetic as ever. When the main character is the hardest to tolerate, you have a serious problem. As these episodes strive to give her companions some development, her own un-engaging nature becomes extremely apparent.
Evolution-R cannot, of course, be blamed for the design of the characters, as it is merely continuing a long established story. What it can be held responsible for is the way it portrays and handles them. In the first episode on the disc, a fatal error is instantly made. Radok, the merchant, has a long talk with his son, delving deep into his personal angst. Giving so much time to an apparent side-character shifts our interest from the main cast onto him, which is then made worse by Lina’s immature taunting of him. Her words aren’t clever or even believable in tone – she seems to smile whilst challenging the serious things he just confessed. This is a failure of her acting, scripting and animation, and when Radok and his son are no longer in the show, we’re left with the now unappealing protagonist.
This acquisition and then loss of two characters highlights another issue with the show. It’s thin on plot, yet heavy on characters. Minor characters constantly arrive and leave, adding to the confusion of the already complex back-story. The plus side of this is that fans of the franchise can get nerd-excited every time a figure from previous incarnations shows up. For example, Xellos (the obligatory happily fay character) makes enough cameos to keep his following happy, though his appearances contribute very little to the storyline.
Artistically, some of the episodes have some beautiful backgrounds, and an interesting effect is often used for beams of light; they’re no Studio Ghibli, but they provide something pretty to look at to make up for the less skilfully animated characters. Though smooth enough, their movements are occasionally jerky or un-natural, and more distracting are the instances of expressions not matching the lines spoken. Angry exchanges are far less effective when the characters appear happy about them.
As well as the illustration, there is varying quality in the voice acting. Some of the performances are lacking; for example, once again, Lina’s character is left lacking. Her character is intended to be immature and annoying – her comrades comment on it often – and yet the director has made a bad decision in portraying this to the point where she is intolerable to listen to. It is commendable that FUNimation were able to re-unite most of the Central Park Media dub cast from previous series’; however, this does not mean that all of them were perfect.
These flaws aside, Evolution-R is very simple watching. In these episodes, in particular, where the Hellmaster’s Jar plot continues over several episodes, it is easy to let them wash over you. If you can tolerate cheese and enjoy laughing at bizarre or cliché lines, and you let your guard down, the show can get under your skin. The intended humour is less entertaining then what is, perhaps, the unintended humour, but this campy nature, these quotably naff lines, and its failure to meet its potential all, in a way, provide what is needed to maintain a cult following. Playing the so-bad-it’s-good card, the lack of substance can leave some people wanting more, and therefore, despite themselves, coming back. It’s a fatal, yet highly effective trap.
If you don’t expect much from it, then Slayers Evolution-R can provide some light entertainment to a coach potato session. Part 2 continues the camp, comedic style of the series, whilst finally addressing some of the issues many complained the series took too long to get to. The jokes can feel strained or over-done, flashbacks often feel like substitutes for three-dimensional character scripting, and, of course, Lina continues to irritate. A fan could either forgive or strongly condemn these flaws. For a recent addition to a long line of anime and manga, one would expect higher production value from this show. On the other hand, it stays in line with what came before and frequently references characters from other strands, so, at the end of the day; it comes down to where you place your priorities. Critically, though, it cannot stand as a competitor against the more acclaimed anime. AIB
