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Film: Lucia
Release date: 1st March 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 160 mins
Director: Humberto Solas
Starring: Raquel Revlizita, Eslina Nunez, Adela Legra
Genre: Drama
Studio: Mr Bongo
Format: DVD
Country: Cuba
In 1969, Humberto Solás - one of the greats of Cuban revolutionary cinema – released Lucía. Shot in three parts, and spanning seventy years of Cuban history, it focuses on the changing attitudes of the Cuban people through the political turmoil of Cuba’s fight for independence.
The film is separated into three stories, each about a different female central character called Lucía, and each living in politically relevant times in Cuba. The first is set in 1895, amidst the Cuban war of independence, and sees well-to-do Lucía become embroiled in an infatuation and romance with a stranger who’s hiding a politically scandalous secret.
The second story is set in the 1930s and sees socially isolated society girl Lucía fall for a guerrilla resistance fighter, and she herself becomes mixed up in the political struggle.
In the third and final film set in the 1960s, we see a newly liberated Cuba, the resistance in full swing. Everywhere, societal advances are being made and cultural freedom is flourishing. Except for Lucía that is, who’s seemingly idyllic new marriage quickly turns sour as her husband reveals himself to be an insanely possessive and controlling bully…
To show Cuba’s struggle for independence through the eyes of three different women over a number of years is a brave and visionary idea which has its fair share of hits and misses. No-one can deny Solás’ extraordinary eye as a filmmaker and his unique approach to bringing his vision to the screen. Lucía features some strikingly beautiful imagery, including some hypnotic dream sequences which rival Fellini at his best. Equally, the chaos and brutality of war is filmed with shocking realism and surprising savagery in contrast to the beauty and care he lavishes on his protagonists - and this is a film that’s clearly in love with its three female leads. In many ways, it is a film which deals with the beauty of women and how they are betrayed, captivated and often destroyed by the ignorance and fear of men and their wars.
It’s also a film about the insanity of conflict. The theme of insanity runs strongly throughout Lucía, particularly in the first story ‘1895’. Here, much is made of the mental casualties created by the awful atrocities and inhumanity of war. Its hard going at times, with some of the imagery and unfeeling cruelty proving tough to watch, but it is a subject which Solás handles compassionately and intelligently. Indeed, strangely, some of the characters who appear most delusional prove to have the most rational grasp on the events surrounding them. It’s a clever paradox which illustrates the madness of the circumstances.
Lucía’s greatest achievement is as a film primarily of the heart. Solás breathes incredible life into his characters, and succeeds in wrenching extraordinary performances from his actors, with all three of his Lucía’s veering from moments of ecstatic joy to hysterical anguish and back again. It’s to the actors’ credit that, for the most part, the performances are entirely credible and intensely soulful, with the cast clearly giving their all to realise Solás’s vision.
With so much in its favour, it’s a crying shame that Lucía’s inadequacies often overshadow its virtues. Granted, it’s a film principally about and for the Cuban market, but to anyone who isn’t well versed in South American history they may really struggle when it comes to keeping up with the plot. Solás makes no effort to explain the political events surrounding the stories for an outsiders’ point of view, so, as a result, many of the references are obscure and exclusionary, in turn making the plot almost indecipherable. You might argue that the main themes of Lucía are of the affects of war and political climate change in general, and so the specifics of the conflict are unimportant. However, since the plot often hinges on the protagonists’ political beliefs, and their roles in shaping these events, if you’re not already familiar with the events themselves, you’re going to struggle to stay completely absorbed in the narrative.
Technically the film suffers also from some atrocious editing, which results in scenes and set pieces jumping about randomly unannounced. There are many instances where it appears as if dialogue – particularly expositional dialogue - has been lost on the cutting room floor, and none of this helps the flow of the stories. It’s also lamentable that sometimes Solás slips over the line into self-indulgence, and the film undoes all its own good work, slipping almost into parody. The finale of the first story springs to mind as an example, where, in the midst of a raging battle, a posse of naked black revolutionaries suddenly appear from nowhere riding on horseback, and proceed to join in the fray. It’s an unnecessary detail, and without the relevant explanatory detail – frankly bizarre.
Lucía is an adventurous, brave attempt to represent a nation in change through the suffering of its women. It has many successes, but sadly just as many failures. Worth seeing for the extraordinary visuals and intense performances, but if you haven’t read up on your Cuban history expect to emerge confused. LB
Film: Kill Zone
Release date: 8th March 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 88 mins
Director: Wilson Yip
Starring: Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Sammo Hung, Jacky Wu
Genre: Action/Martial Arts/Crime
Studio: Cine Asia
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Hong Kong
With the martial arts talents of Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen, spectacular fight sequences were a given, but Kill Zone doesn’t rest on its laurels.
Simon Yam’s Inspector Chan has devoted his career to putting Mob Boss Po in Prison. When escorting a witness with indisputable evidence of Po's wrong doing to court, his police van is rammed at high speed by a car driven by an assassin. The wreck kills the witness and his wife, but spares the their young daughter. Chan is left with a shard of glass in the back of his head and upon removal, doctors discover a tumour in his brain. The knowledge that he doesn't have long left makes Detective Chan all the more determined to bring down Wong Po.
Having taken responsibility for the victims daughter, in failing health and due to retire soon, Chan goes from a good man with a burning desire to put a bad man behind bars before it’s too late, to a man who’ll do anything to accomplish his goal - legal or not. He can count on loyalty from his small group of officers, but faces opposition from Inspector Ma (Donnie Yen), who has been assigned to take over the unit when Chan retires. Ma seems rigidly by the book, but he too has a dark past...
The central issue of Kill Zone is the transformation of Chan and his men from good men determined to serve justice to villains out for themselves. Sammo Hung’s mob boss acts as an impetus for their descent, but doesn’t force Chan and the others to do anything. At times, it seems that Po is as much narrative mechanism as he is character, in that while he is the reason for Chan’s downward spiral, he is not orchestrating it. Yes, Po is the nominal ‘bad guy’, but how far can the ‘good guy’ go before he crosses that line.
Sammo Hung’s performance as Po is excellent, and couldn’t be more removed from his usual, genial persona. Po is not a pantomime villain, rather he is a dangerous man, determined to hold onto what he‘s got. In that respect, he is all too human.
Without a doubt, though, it’s Simon Yam that makes Kill Zone tick. Inspector Chan is the type of role Yam has specialised in lately, although never with this much depth of character. He is undoubtedly a good man, but at the top of a slippery moral slope. While Chan’s criminal actions will undoubtedly make the world a better place (Po is a vicious murderer, after all), the tragedy is that they won’t just cost Chan’s limited future, but that of his men as well. Chan is so single-minded about his goal that he never comes to realise this, making his moral crusade more of a dark obsession that has to end badly. Yam, a fine performer in even the most mediocre of productions, brings genuine humanity and moral ambiguity to Chan.
Good as Kill Zone is, though, it‘s far from perfect. Donnie Yen, while brilliant in the action scenes, just doesn’t have the acting chops, and seems out of place in such a dark, brooding crime film. Also, while suspension of disbelief should be a given, in a world where beating down a police officer in front of several witnesses, mostly fellow officers, doesn’t land you with a custodial sentence, it’s no wonder the cops have to resort to morally questionable actions.
Although it’s most effective as a dark, gritty crime story, Kill Zone also has a number of top class action scenes that will please fans of the genre. Patience is a virtue, though, as we have to wait fifty minutes or so before the film fully explodes. Until then, there are several ‘teasers’, most of which involving Po liberally dishing out beatings to the police because, as mentioned, he’s beyond reprimand in this version of Hong Kong. The movie’s signature action sequence has to be between Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung, however - a clash of the titans indeed. It’s Donnie Yen’s speed and agility against Hung’s brute strength and power, and it’s one of the most memorable fight scenes committed to film for some time.
Kill Zone is a successful merging of a gritty crime drama and a martial arts movie, and marks a potential transition point for Hong Kong cinema - a grown up martial arts film. We can only hope that others take note and follow suit. PD
Film: A Nos Amours
Release date: 22md March 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 94 mins
Director: Maurice Pialat
Starring: Sandrine Bonnaire, Maurice Pialat, Christophe Odent, Dominique Besnehard
Genre: Drama
Studio: Eureka!
Format: DVD
Country: France
French director Maurice Pialat died in 2003, and his drama Police (1985) remains his best-known work, but this film from 1983 also deserves its re-release. It’s a highly disturbing, violent yet desperately touching and moving tale about the relationship between a teenage girl and her father, played mysteriously by Pialat himself, on top form.
The film has already been released on DVD in 2006, but only on region 1, by The Criterion Collection. This region 2 version, from the excellent Eureka!, has most of the extras from the Criterion edition, but boasts a new transfer, which looks gorgeous, especially in the opening scenes on a sun-drenched beach. Eureka! usually specialise in older classics – 1983 is pretty recent for them – but they have released this and Pialat’s Under The Sun Of Satan, which also stars Sandrina Bonnaire.
She was just 16 when she made her screen debut in A Nos Amours, and what a stunning entrance it is. She plays Suzanne, who, when we meet her, is a free spirit - a sexually voracious girl taking on a play in the south of France and making the most of the opportunities her role offers. She is camping with her dour, monosyllabic boyfriend but has flings with a sailor and a local.
It takes a while to tune in here, as the film lurches from scene to scene with no clues as to the time difference between them. Gradually we realise months have passed between the various encounters, but what is behind this mysterious girl? All becomes clear when Suzanne goes home to her parents’ house in Paris. The house is also their place of work – they are clothes makers and repairers, and use the poky apartment for labour day and night. Worse, her parents and brother are disturbed, abusive and distinctly nasty. Her brother is angry about his confused sexuality, her mother flies off at the slightest tension and her father beats her...
Pialat himself takes on the role of the father, and provides the key moments in the film. After banning Suzanne from going out with her friends – she ignores him, and sleeps with yet another boy, and he predictably flies into a rage. However, the scene turns on its head when he suddenly becomes tender, and shares an amazingly intense scene when he asks his daughter where her other dimple has gone. “When you live with someone you don’t notice these things,” he says sadly.
Clearly Suzanne has issues because of her volcanic parents and brother, and sees sex as a form of compensation and escape. Her father, equally, and obviously, is rather closer to his daughter than he should be. The film ends with two genuinely amazing scenes, the famous dinner party scene when he interrupts a fun gathering to cause upset, and an extended sequence when he accompanies his daughter to the airport. “Perhaps me and your mother should have done the same,” he says with genuine regret and weariness.
For a painfully young woman, Bonnaire produces a simply staggering performance as Suzanne. Playing a 15-year-old - Bonnaire was 16 – she invests her character with all of the complications and contradictions of that age. “I’m only happy when I’m with a chap,” she laments, and it’s said with genuine regret – she simply cannot work out why she is unhappy, nor why her parents seem to hate her so much. Clearly they have issues of their own, but it has produced a child who apparently can only get attention through her sexual attractiveness. When a stranger persuades her to have sex with him by buying her a Coke, he says thank you. “You’re welcome – it’s free” is her awful response. Bonnaire has the confused eyes and body of a teenager, and when she is beaten by her family – assaulted, actually – she appears genuinely in peril.
The double-disc set comes loaded with extras, including a concise but pertinent 16-minute interview with Bonnaire in 2003 just three months after Pialat’s death. She admits the director was something of a father figure to her, even though her father was alive and well during the film.
There is that new anamorphic transfer of the film in its original aspect ratio, and new and improved English subtitle translations. Disc two has L’Œil humain [The Human Eye], a 55-minute film by director Xavier Giannoli that analyses A Nos Amours and features former Cahiers du cinéma editorial director Jean-Michel Frodon, actors Jacques Fieschi and Bonnaire, and other members of the cast and crew.
There is also a 48-page booklet containing a new essay about the film by writer and filmmaker Dan Sallitt, a two-page image-essay by Craig Keller, and a transcript of the sit-down conversation that took place between Maurice Pialat and Jean-Luc Godard in 1984, appearing for the first time in an English translation.
All of Eureka’s releases are worth investigating but this is a particularly fine example of a full release of a slightly forgotten early-80s classic. MM
