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Film: Amer
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 31st January 2011
Distributor: Anchor Bay
Certificate: 18
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani
Starring: Cassandra Forêt, Charlotte Eugène Guibeaud, Marie Bos, Bianca Maria D'Amato, Harry Cleven
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Format: DVD
Country of Production: France/Belgium
Language: French
Review by: Anastasia Catris
Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s Amer is a French homage to the Italian cinematic genre of giallo. Stemming from the Italian word for yellow, giallo refers to the series of paperback crime, mystery, horror and erotic fiction novels with trademark yellow covers. This unique genre veered towards psychological horror with emphasis on madness, alienation and paranoia; themes explored with graphic vividness in Amer.
Amer follows the three ages of Ana and her encounters with death and sexuality. The first chapter sees Ana as a curious child (Cassandra Forêt) who is haunted by her family’s spectre-like house keeper. During this chapter, she encounters the corpse of her recently deceased grandfather and walks in on her parents engaging in sexual intercourse. There then follows a brief symbolic transition into the second chapter.
This chapter follows Ana as an adolescent (Charlotte Eugène Guibeaud) as she accompanies her mother on an errand to the local hairdressers. After abandoning her mother in the town, she comes across a gang of motorcyclists, before being found and subsequently punished by her mother.
The final episode accompanies Ana as an adult (Marie Bos) as she returns to her childhood home where her strange sexual fantasies and traumatic memories collide with a violent and ambiguous present…
The film itself is notably short, but nevertheless crammed with stylistic visual imagery consisting of sympathetic lighting and colour, extreme close ups and highly sexualized cropped shots. This makes for a disturbing film experience. The transitions between each of Ana’s ages are handled in a highly explorative and sexual way, including close up shots of various body parts, often accompanied by close ups of men to symbolize her sexual awakening. This is also alluded to by the heightened sound of breathing and rough, rasping soundtrack.
Each chapter is dealt with in a very different style. The initial chapter, exploring Ana’s childhood, is obviously of the horror genre, from the veiled, dark figure of the house keeper to the grungy, shadowed set of the house against Hitchcockian flashes of red. Ana’s experience of discovering her grandfather’s corpse reveals occult imagery, such as the ritualistic adornments in his room, a dead bird in his coat pocket and crystallized salt being placed under his bed. This is also the most surreal chapter of the film in terms of lighting and colour, as Ana’s traumatizing experience of witnessing her parents having sex causes the screen to flash from blue to orange to red. All of these fantastical elements combine to create a truly effecting barrage on the senses.
The first chapter may be likened to Guillermo del Torro’s early work in its horrific content, as well as its haunting soundtrack and accentuated sound. This, however, dissipates in the second chapter and we are left with a far more French, rural image of adolescence, akin to Lolita. Whereas the previous chapter deals with Ana’s experience of sexuality in a terrifying way, associating it with death, horror and decay; this chapter is more about adolescent curiosity and naiveté.
While the fear of rape is alluded to through Ana’s disgust at having a lollypop forced into her mouth, and her eventual meeting with the motorcyclists, the only real sexual experience in this chapter is one that is in fact symbolized. A young boy, attempting to kiss Ana, is rejected and she instead follows him outside to watch him play with his football. Both of them then chase the football down a darkened tunnel and out into the light of the town outskirts. The heightened breathing of the two characters as well as the vacillating motion of them as they run, paired with the extreme close ups and physical exertion implies their sexual experience without showing it. Whilst only being alluded to symbolically, this is the only example of an untainted and innocent sexual encounter in the whole film.
The final chapter of the film is the most disturbing. While not openly engaging with the theme of horror as in the first chapter, this time-line deals more with realistic horror and the giallo theme of crime and death. Perhaps the fact that the first chapter is so openly fantastical while the other two chapters are more realistic in their view of horror and fear, is a comment on the traumatizing effect of memory.
Films such as Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou are alluded to through Cattet’s employ of insect imagery and the slicing of various body parts. Homages to Bava and Argento are also unsubtle in their approach.
This is the definition of an art house film and as such warrants more than one watch to truly understand what is happening. The ending is ambiguous, allowing us to draw our own conclusions from the violent imagery and iconic final shot, solidifying the fact that this is a film attempting to elicit an emotional response rather than created of enjoyment.
Despite all of the thought provoking imagery and art house styling, however, it is noteworthy that nothing truly happens within the film. Whilst dealing with Ana’s strange mind, and her experiences of sexuality, we never truly see into her character as we are merely a voyeur. The sexualisation of her character is done through the camera’s eyes, not hers; and we realize quickly that we know nothing about her as a person or character, only what the director wants us to see. This leaves us with a disturbing and voyeuristic feeling at the end of the film that does nothing to quell our curiosity about the strange little life that has just been revealed to us.
This is a film to be analysed for analysis sake. The Freudian influences are obvious and bring out the amateur psychiatrist in the audience, but this is where the mystery ends. Neither can it be said to be entertaining, as the art house style is overly familiar to us through its allusions to greater directors and artists. While this is an interesting exercise in Freudian filmmaking, it is hardly original, and seems to rely on the sexuality and violence of the plot to sell it as meaningful, when it is in fact empty. AC
Film: Woyzeck
Year of production: 1979
UK Release date: 2nd September 2002
Distributor: Anchor Bay
Certificate: 15
Running time: 80 mins
Director: Werner Herzog
Starring: Klaus Kinski, Eva Mattes, Wolfgang Reichmann, Willy Semmelrogge, Josef Bierbichler
Genre: Drama
Format: DVD
Country of Production: West Germany
Language: German
Review by: Rob Joy
Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski’s collaborations are now infamous, and their third, Woyzeck, the adaption by the director of Georg Büchner’s 1837 unfinished play, is an interesting addition to their partnership. Both Herzog and Kinski tend towards extremes and this adaption is no exception, director and actor handling Büchner’s themes of poverty, class, society, love and madness.
Woyzeck (Kinski) is a poor soldier living a relatively penniless existence in a small military town. The film begins with his exercise regime; he is dressed in an ill-fitting military tunic that is to be his costume throughout, being kicked to the ground with each incomplete push-up by a faceless superior. It’s immediately apparent from the look on his face that Woyzeck isn’t simply tired, but almost worn away. Along with his captain, who belittles him for his lack of morals due to his poor living circumstances, Woyzeck carries out extra tasks for the doctor, being restricted to only eating peas for four months as a medical experiment to earn enough money to support his family. The experiments have already taken their toll on Woyzeck, weakening him physically and mentally.
Woyzeck’s partner, Marie, with whom he has a child out of wedlock, constantly flirts with the drum major. We see them first as he parades around the square looking up to her at a window, then later at her home, after they meet, while she is accompanying Woyzeck and their son to a carnival show. Herzog implies in this scene that the two sleep together, the drum major initially being rather overt and forceful. As Woyzeck’s condition worsens, he discovers Marie’s infidelity and attempts to confront the drum major in an inn after he sees the two dancing together.
These storylines play out interspersed with scenes of Woyzeck and his colleague Andres. These are used to further show Woyzeck’s decline into paranoia and madness: his nervous disposition; his language - poetic, cryptic and pessimistic. Andres offers little advice other than to visit the infirmary, but Woyzeck is set on stopping the drum major and Marie from being together, and his madness leads to drastic measures, the climax played out in a beautiful but harrowing slow motion shot, the speed of which is repeated at the finale where we briefly hear the authorities take on Woyzeck’s ultimate actions...
Büchner’s play was fragmented and incomplete, more a set of scenes to be compiled and finalised. It has been interpreted on stage, film and in song with each artist rendering their own order of the final piece, though they share many similarly sequenced sections. Herzog certainly makes a cohesive story from the fragments and stays faithful to much of the dialogue, but he transcends the original text. His additions, including the drum major’s strong, violent advances on Marie (in the play, the affair is a fiction, delivered to torment Woyzeck by his captain and the doctor to push their experiments on him even further and tease him for his lower-class background) help the film move along and change the focus a little.
Poverty and the treatment of the poor by other classes are big pre-occupations of the play, but Herzog, or more obviously Kinski, renders this version more clearly about the descent into insanity due to the circumstances and less about the circumstances themselves. His performance is equally intense and fragile. His panicked, desperate look contrasts wonderfully with the arrogance and confidence of almost all of the other characters, the only exception being Marie (an excellent Eva Mattes), who is at once a strong and weak woman, aware of her failings to remain faithful to Woyzeck, but desperate to supersede her class and income, the drum major being her potential ticket up the social ladder.
Production began just several days after the star and director finished work on the remake of Murnau’s Nosferatu, and Kinski’s tired appearance lends itself excellently to his portrayal of the tormented title character: sunken, worried eyes, and a hollow look about his face. The pace of the film owes much to its use of long takes in many scenes, in keeping with the theatrical origins, Herzog uses the camera’s potential: allowing characters within a shot to make good use of their space, approaching the camera, giving the audience a close up for dialogue, while action takes place behind them. The camera is often in motion, albeit invisible on the whole, and the action on-screen captivating enough to surpass the need to cut, tightly choreographed to fit into the shot. The advantages of producing the film like this were apparent to Herzog, who shot and edited the film in under a month. It’s economy works in its favour stylistically, presenting an incredibly objective viewpoint for the audience, never showing a character’s point of view and never cutting within a scene to a close up, but always to another shot to continue the action.
The picturesque town (Czech, doubling for German) and surrounding countryside are not akin to the usually more extreme circumstances that Herzog tends to shoot in, particularly in his work with Kinski, but they provide a more sleepy setting, striking in its quaintness and natural beauty, for the horrors that the film contains. A beautiful sequence with Kinski running, out of breath, through a poppy field about to break out into bloom before he hears voices, coming from the ground, from above, within, is striking in its simplicity and beauty, as well as its portrayal of something that could have, in the hands of another actor or director, quickly descended into parody of sorts and certainly diverted from the distressing nature that Kinski fills the scene with.
The score is provided by Fiedelquartett Telc and is very apt for the setting - an almost off-key string quartet with a heavily Germanic sound - it elevates certain scenes and jars intentionally and effectively in others and, along with the setting, gives a more authentic feel for the era.
The supporting cast are exceptional. As mentioned above, Eva Mattes brings a duality to Marie; her guilt at her natural flirtatiousness alongside the misery of her penniless position comes across, and she embodies well the frustration of being unable to suppress her behaviour. One scene in particular of her telling a story to a group of children before Woyzeck leads her off is particularly touching, the loneliness she talks of clearly being the loneliness she feels, isolated by her own actions and class.
Contradictions are written in to almost all of the characters. The captain (Wolfgang Reichmann) excels, extolling his own virtues and morals one moment, while being entirely uncertain of his place in the world the next, and all the while making sure Woyzeck knows his (much lower) place socially and mentally. Both the captain and the doctor (Willy Semmelrogge) use language with an air of authority. Their moralising and scientific justification for everything gives them an unfulfilled existence: while checking his own pulse to calm himself after an outburst, the doctor says: “Anger is unhealthy, unscientific,” despite having spent the scene telling Woyzeck that mankind is free, able to as he wants when he wants. Woyzeck’s use of language on the other hand is far more poetic, colourful and rich.
Kinski delivers with a determination and seriousness (though there are notable inclusions of humour, both light and dark) which is relentless, pulling the audience deeper into his character. He often references the class struggle he is part of, feeling that he is doomed to a life of work and toil, telling the captain early on: “If we ever got to heaven, they’d make us work the thunder.” The final fifteen minutes in particular really allow Kinski to shine, the emotion in his expression and actions really carrying the longer takes, his visceral actions and appearance during the climax cementing Woyzeck as one of his finest performances.
Herzog delivers an unusual film for him. Despite Kinski’s performance, it’s a little more subdued and understated than some of Herzog's other efforts. In part this may be due to the adaption from a stage-play and some of the restrictions that entails, or possibly the approach taken to its filming and structure. It is certainly not ‘typical’ Herzog, if there could be such a thing. The cast excel, and although Woyzeck is not universally loved, it’s a fine literary work in its own right, and Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski cast a slightly different light on its conventional perception, bringing a new depth and intensity they have become acclaimed for to Büchner’s tale of class, madness and mayhem. RJ
Film: The King Maker
Release date: 21st March 2011
Certificate: 12
Running time: 92 mins
Director: Lek Kitaparaporn
Starring: Gary Stretch, John Rhys-Davies, Cindy Burbridge, Dom Hetrakul, Nirut Sirichanya
Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD
Country: Thailand
This is an English-language release.
During the early 1990s, Gary Stretch was the glamour-boy of British boxing, his biggest moment undoubtedly arriving in 1991 when he challenged Chris Eubank for the WBO world middleweight championship in London. Billed as “beauty versus the best”, the outcome proved controversial, but because Stretch earned more as a model than actually fighting, he took the loss on the chin and the lure of movie stardom proved all too much. In 2004, his hard work finally paid off when he was cast as psychotic gangster Sonny in Shane Meadows' gritty thriller Dead Man's Shoes (2004). A year later would see him become the leading man in Let Kitaparaporn’s The King Maker. Would it take Stretch to the top in Tinseltown, or instead be the knockout blow?
Fernando De Gama (Gary Stretch), a young Portuguese soldier of fortune, sets sale for the Orient seeking the man who killed his father. Shipwrecked, captured and sold into slavery, Fernando is rescued by a beautiful woman only to discover she is linked to his father's murder.
When Fernando is pressed into military service, his heroics on the battlefield gain him the distinction of becoming a celebrated personal guard to the King of Siam.
It isn’t long, though, before he uncovers the devious queen's plan to replace the king with her lover, so Fernando must battle to stop the very plot in which he is incriminated, before the kingdom explodes into war…
The hackneyed but enjoyable opening, including some entertaining action scenes, impressive stunts and, particularly fun, our hero’s encounter with a crocodile, means that for a good twenty minutes the viewer is willing to venture further into a world that’s simple but functional and quite nicely conceived, managing to forgive the over enthusiastic use of computer generated effects and close up shots of a fake leg to the face. But, echoing Gary Stretch’s penultimate boxing match against Eubank, The King Maker also fails to go the distance.
Once again, however, such a farce isn’t necessarily down to Stretch. He is, after all, one of the highlights of the film, and even if his acting abilities aren’t quite on a par with Paddy Considine, whom he was cast alongside in Dead Man’s Shoes, his performance is ten times greater than any of the other cast members. There’s also an impressive boxing match in the final act that will entertain more than just fans of his boxing career.
The rest of the cast could easily argue that they’re let down by some woeful dialogue. The one who suffers most is Yoe Hassadeevichit, playing Queen Sudachan, hamming it up with lines that would make George Lucas cringe: “Believe me, they have never known a woman like me before, but soon, they will!” she hisses, moments after another gem, in which she mumbles to herself, “He (the King) treats me like a common whore. One day, I will make him pay for his indiscretions, that, I promise!” Best of all though is a conversation she has with her lover: “I’m going to have a baby – do you understand?” she says, lovingly waiting for his response. “A child?” is his dim-witted reply. He’s obviously quite a catch…
With so many daft conversations throughout, lazily pushing the story forward (we want to see, not hear), Kitaparaporn has obviously forgotten the three important rules of dialogue. First, it requires compression and economy, saying the maximum in the fewest possible words. It must also have direction, without the repetition shown in the angst of his antagonist, the queen, and it should also have purpose. In one more doozy, during a pointless cockfight, someone dares to utter the line, “There might be something funny about your cock” to the other contender. It has no relevance, and thanks to the drivel spat out before it, it isn’t clear whether this is an attempt at humour (neither is the Witch Doctor who sounds like Crazy Frog), which sadly sums up a movie with actual potential to entertain.
Equally tiring are the visuals, and it’s odd to report that The King Maker has already dated badly, somehow resembling the 1980s imaginings of John Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China (1986) a decade too late. It may bring other-worldly veracity to the party, especially in the opening exchanges, but how a film nineteen years younger manages to fail with simple back projection techniques (most notable in the big battle scene) is worrying, and certainly disrupts an audiences’ ability to suspend disbelief. Luckily, Kitaparaporn short changes us with the action anyway, cutting to Fernando standing amongst a pile of dead bodies instead.
There will always be those who’ll suggest that all the corn witnessed here adds to the charm, but there’s no getting away from a terrible script that lacks realistic conflict and characterization, even if the score provides some thumping action themes and a couple of love songs Celine Dion would’ve been proud of, if only she wasn’t so busy with a three-year, 600-show contract to appear five nights a week in an entertainment extravaganza at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.
Sadly, Gary Stretch never performed there, and here lies the problem, reiterated by his film credits since (discounting World Trade Centre, in which he played a paramedic). He’s the poor man’s Vinny Jones, despite the ageing looks, and unless he joins the WWE sharpish, always will be.
An exercise in style over substance, with very little of the former, The King Maker will entertain fans of Gary Stretch the boxer, but will fail to endorse Gary Stretch the actor, thanks to a script that hits the canvas after the first round. DW
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
Check out the trailer below for Black, which comes to DVD on 14th February 2011.
More information on this film can be found by clicking here.
Film: Black
Release date: 14th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 115 mins
Director: Pierre Laffargue
Starring: MC Jean Gab'1, Carole Karemera, François Levantal, Anton Yakovlev, Christophe Aquillon
Genre: Action/Crime/Thriller
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: France
The debut film from director Pierre Laffargue and starring District 13: Ultimatum star/rapper MC Jean Gab'1, Black is a heist film with a sprinkle of comedy and mysticism. After screenings at a variety of film festivals throughout Europe and North America, Anchor Bay Home Entertainment now bring the 2008 heist film with a difference to UK DVD.
Black (Gab’1) is down on his luck. A Senegalese bank robber born and raised in France, his latest heist proved a complete failure, with him being the only survivor. Black thinks of going straight until he gets a call from his cousin in Dakar, who tells him that a briefcase full of contraband diamonds has just been placed in the vault at the bank where he works.
Believing this will be an easy heist; Black puts together a new team and quickly heads out to Africa. What he didn’t count on, however, was that they aren’t the only people interested in the diamonds.
If Black and his team are going to get out alive and with the goods, they’ll have to go through a corrupt bank manager, a crazed arms dealer, a gang of mercenaries and an sexy female Interpol agent. So much it for it being an easy job…
From a wide city shot of Paris opening, Black immediately thrusts the viewer into the action with a rather low key robbery. While initially it doesn’t feel all that different to the kind of heists you see pulled on American cop dramas and Blaxploitation films, the European twist on the genre becomes immediately obvious when Black’s cohorts get gunned down left right and centre. Such a high death count so early into the film is the perfect attention-grabber, and nicely sets the scenario for what’s to come.
After such a violent introduction, the plot development becomes key to the film rather than the action sequences that follow. Yet the film manages to stray away from being too plot heavy, as narrative details fly by and remain seemingly secondary to the action. Most importantly, the visuals remain true to the age the film is homaging, with freeze frame character introductions (complete with names appearing superimposed on the screen), multiple-split screens and, more aesthetically, the rich grain and colour the film has makes it look like it’s from another age. But despite paying his respects to the past, Laffargue has clearly rooted his tale in the modern day – making his style choices all that more interesting to watch.
Looks can be deceiving, as Gab’1 plays Black to be as equally charismatic as he is threatening. Black is a man disgusted by the poverty of his roots and the simplicity of the African people, but as the film develops, he realises that perhaps the country he’s turned his back on until now isn’t quite as dumb as he first believed. Gab’1 is an actor with real star potential, and one to watch. The rest of the cast is equally as colourful, from Black’s naïve heist team to crazed Russian Viktor Ouliakov (Yakovlev), who manages to steal almost every scene he appears in.
But just as the last half hour begins to roll, Black starts to become an entirely different beast – beast being the key word. The animal imagery that pops up every now again throughout the film suddenly comes to a head, and elements of African mysticism and animal instincts suddenly dominate the film. The full extent of it comes as a surprise, and it certainly drags the film out of the ordinary. The only problem is that it happens far too late into the film, and is such a U-turn that it almost feels like Black doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. The climax of the film also makes use of very dark footage coupled with deep blues, which from an artistic point of view looks excellent – but unfortunately makes the sequence rather difficult to follow.
The soundtrack is an excellent blend of the sounds of modern Africa and those reminiscent of ‘70s American cop shows and Blaxploitation films such as Shaft. The best part about Black’s soundtrack is that music is only used where it’s needed, which means many of the scenes where the dialogue is the main focus is not drowned out by unnecessary background music. Instead it’s kept in all its glory for the city-scape scene transitions, explosive action sequences, and gloriously retro split-screen moments.
While a quirky heist film full of retro charm, Black’s change in direction comes a little too late in making the film truly standout. Still, despite being a film with a rather formulaic plot, its unique spin on events will keep the audience guessing. AJ
This is an English-language release.
Starring the gorgeous Romina D’Ugo (Hairspray) and UK chart-topping R’n’B sensation Jason Derulo performing exclusive and original material in his feature film debut, Turn The Beat Around puts a cool and modern spin on 1980s classic Flashdance for a new generation.
Set in the competitive LA dance scene, Zoe (D’Ugo), a struggling young dancer gets the opportunity to fulfill her professional dreams when she convinces Michael (David Giuntoli, Eli Stone), a wealthy club owner, to open a modern disco club where young people meet and connect through dance. The club pumps out classic disco beats updated with a modern sound celebrated through breathtaking contemporary dance moves.
Both on and off the dance floor, Zoe’s personal and professional life collides and she finds herself caught between Michael, her dancer boyfriend Chris (Adam T. Brooks, 90210) and Malika (Brooklyn Sudano, Rain, Wife and kids) the sexy, overly ambitious choreographer she might be about to replace.
The film features some amazing dance moves and plays along to a bad-ass soundtrack that features tunes from Jason Derulo, B.O.B, Cobra Starship plus many more!
If you’re a lover of hip-hop, R’n’B and dance music as well as the street-dance movie phenomenon then this is definitely one for your DVD collection.
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
DVD Special Features:
•
Trailer
Produced by Marco Cherqui (A Prophet) and starring French hip-hop artist MC Jean Gab’1 (the District 13 movies), Carole Karemera (Sometimes In April), Francois Levantal (A Very Long Engagement; D’Artagnan’s Daughter) and Anton Yakovlev (The Beat That My Heart Skipped), Black has a supernatural sting in the tail that sees its eponymous protagonist and anti-hero travelling from Paris to West Africa and the Senegalese capital of Dakar in order to pull off the biggest score of his criminal career.
When an armed raid on a security van in Paris goes horribly wrong, one of the gunmen, Black (MC Jean Gab’1), decides to lie low until the dust settles. That is until he receives a call from his cousin in Senegal supplying information about a stash of uncut diamonds being stored in a poorly guarded bank in Dakar. Eyeing the opportunity to make one final score that would set him up for life, Black travels to Africa and hooks up with a small group of fellow thieves who can help him pull off the heist.
Unfortunately, news of the diamonds and their insecure location travels fast, and Black and his crew aren’t the only ones with their eyes on the prize. Also looking to get their hands on the jewels are a crazed, mercenary Russian general (Yakovlev), a ruthless, reptilian arms dealer (Levantal) and his African voodoo sorceress mistress (Mata Gabin), and a corrupt, female Interpol agent called Pamela (Karemera).
As his team rapidly begins to fall apart in the ensuing melee to claim the diamonds first, Black once again finds himself alone, running and fighting for his life against seemingly unbeatable odds.
Film: Black
Release date: 14th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 115 mins
Director: Pierre Laffargue
Starring: MC Jean Gab'1, Carole Karemera, François Levantal, Anton Yakovlev, Christophe Aquillon
Genre: Action/Crime/Thriller
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: France
Film: Amer
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani
Starring: Bianca Maria D'Amato, Cassandra Foret, Delphine Brual, Harry Cleven, Marie Bos
Genre: Drama/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: France/Belgium
Amer owes a huge debt to the giallo genre, an art house slasher sub-genre from Italy that became popular in the 1970s. What made the films unique was the use of a black gloved killer stalking beautiful women and offing them in a variety of ways. Any sharp object piercing the skin of a gorgeous, shrieking Italian actress would do nicely. It is time to put on your black gloves and take out your open razor as directors Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani deliver their sensual and stylistic homage to the Italian giallo film.
The film unfolds in three distinct parts. Each part shows a different stage in the sexual evolution of Ana, the protagonist. The first part shows Ana as a child, growing up in a wonderfully gothic house, with a dead body in the basement, and a black veiled housekeeper, who may or may not be a witch.
The second part shows Ana as a teenager. This part of the film is highly sexualised as Ana has blossomed into a beautiful teenager, and becomes sexually aware of the male characters she encounters.
The third part is Ana as a woman. She returns to the house where she grew up and is stalked by a taxi driver who puts on black gloves and carries an open razor. He becomes obsessed with Ana after picking her up and driving her to the house…
Amer is a classic example of style over substance; lots and lots of style. The cinematography is absolutely stunning. It looks beautiful, and is edited creatively. There are sequences of psychedelic colour and expressionistic filtered lighting inspired by Dario Argento’s masterpiece Suspiria.
The other big success of the film is the sound, which is taken from giallo films from the 1970s and features compositions by the likes of Ennio Morricone. It is hard to think of a film that utilises sound and music so evocatively to create emotion. While the music in the film is excellent there is too much reliance upon it. Whole sequences appear to exist for no other reason than to look ‘cool’ with the music. Quentin Tarantino uses music as a similar device in his films. Interestingly, he named Amer as one of his favourite films of the year.
The key problem with the film is the complete lack of any narrative. After a great opening that really engages and creates an atmosphere of mystery and suspense, the middle section drags badly. Even beautiful photography starts to wear thin after a while, and as a viewer you find yourself longing for something tangible. The final segment, in which the classic murder takes place, feels perfunctory and forced. It is almost like the filmmakers thought, “we have to have a black gloved murder in the film,” and then tagged it on. It is executed well-enough but none of the pieces of the film really seem to fit into a cohesive whole.
Another criticism is the repetition of shots and motifs. A shot of an eye through a key hole looks good once or twice, but after five or six of the same shots, the novelty wears thin. The eye may be the window to the soul and to reading the emotions, but endless close ups soon become tedious. A homage such as this can too easily descend into a derivative rip-off, and at times, Amer falls into this trap.
In terms of acting, and there isn’t a huge amount of it, the performances are solid. Ana, at each stage, is performed well by striking and convincing actresses, and the role of the mother is performed convincingly by Bianca Maria D’Amato. Charlotte Guibeaud, the adolescent Ana, bares a striking resemblance facially to Beatrice Dalle in Betty Blue, and she communicates well without dialogue.
The direction is largely creative and fresh, if somewhat derivative in places. For example, Ana’s sexuality is evoked through the use of breathing, close up of eyes, breasts and legs, droplets of sweat on the skin and hair, and clothes blowing in the breeze. This is repeated throughout the film. It is a film that urges you to use your senses.
Amer is very much in the art house tradition, and will alienate and frustrate many fans of mainstream cinema. It would have made an amazing short film, but at ninety minutes, the concept is stretched very thinly indeed. Beautifully made, it is a treat for the eyes but, with no story to speak of, is also a strain on the patience. LM
Film: 22 Bullets
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 115 mins
Director: Richard Berry
Starring: Jean Reno, Kad Merad, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Marina Fois, Gabriella Wright
Genre: Action/Crime/Thriller
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: France
Jean Reno returns to the kind of sensitive tough guy role which gained him worldwide fame in Leon in the early-90s. Franz-Olivier Giesbert’s novel based on real life crime in the Marseille underworld, L’Immortel, inspired the character of Charly Matteï - a one-time gangster who reforms for the sake of a quiet life with his wife and family.
Three years into his retirement from crime, and seemingly safely cocooned in the peace of family life, Charly Matteï is ambushed and gunned down in an underground car park in Marseille’s old port by masked gunmen, his body ravaged by the 22 bullets of the title. Remarkably, he survives to take revenge upon his would-be killers.
The briefly explicated back-story reveals that Charly Matteï had fallen in love with someone equally entangled in the Marseille underworld, a woman under the control of both a violent pimp and her own drug addiction. Extricating her from both, he turned his back on crime’s empty rewards of power and money in order to create a safe and peaceful way of life for his new family. But retirement from the fragile hierarchy, and secret loyalties of the city’s criminal society was clearly never to be as simple as he had hoped.
Charly’s resolution to remove himself and his family from the perils of the underworld inevitably gives way to his instinct to take revenge upon those who have betrayed him, his blood drenched vendetta destined to stain the sun bleached streets of Marseille…
The character of Charly Matteï was apparently inspired by a real life Marseille crime lord Jacques Imbert, who suffered a similarly vicious attack yet lived to tell the tale, earning himself the nickname of The Immortal. The film’s writer and director used this incident and other material from Franz-Olivier Giesbert’s novel as his initial inspiration, augmenting this with his own research carried out in the Marseille underworld. It is a pity, then, that so little of anything distinctive or remarkable survives in either the script or the plot. The film is full of generic and predictable motifs from the mafia film genre – from a lame interrogation scene culminating in the victim’s body falling to the floor in slow motion, to the uneasy bonhomie of a birthday celebration for one of the gangsters - the excess of drugs and drink finding its inevitable ending in a bloodbath.
The actors deserve better than this script. Reno’s irrefutable charisma is given few chances to shine, but takes flight in a handful of scenes where his understated menace puts the thrill into the thriller. A rare humorous scene, Matteï in monologue with a cat, allows Reno to show the character’s humane side in a more original context than the rather schmaltzy scenes of family togetherness.
Marina Foïs provides the other standout performance as the police investigator attempting to break the code of silence surrounding the criminal fraternity, and facing apathetic and political opposition from her own police chief. Her finely understated and, in the main, unsentimental performance is undermined by the banality of the script. When Matteï proposes that she let him walk in order to set a trap for his would-be killer, she counters with the lame line: “I have a tough job to do” – as an exposition of the shadowy moral complexities faced by an investigator implicated by her association with a known criminal, it’s hardly thought provoking.
There are other potentially strong performances that are undermined by the blandness of the script and the predictability of the plot. Kad Merad as the current Mafia boss, a close ally of Mattei since childhood; or Jean-Pierre Darroussin, playing the inevitably morally compromised role of lawyer to organised crime lords. As for Matteï’s current wife, and indeed his first wife who also makes a number of very brief appearances, these are cardboard cut-out parts. Considering that Matteï is supposed to have turned his back on the brotherly bonds of his crime family in order to be with his wife, her part is horribly underwritten.
The other great omission of the film is the underuse of Marseille as a distinctive location. There is the odd shot which gives a sense of the place – the bare bones bleached-ness of a hillside graveyard, the exotically striped facade of the cathedral reflected in the windows of a passing car, or the medieval squalor of rubbish bags piled up in a market place. These intermittently appealing scenes only emphasise the film’s general lack of visual impact. A director of such a film might argue that pretty-pretty aesthetics are not appropriate to the subject – but higher quality cinematography could legitimately be used here to heighten dramatic effect. One scene takes as its setting the industrial backdrop of an oil refinery; the sense of horror of the torture and murder that take place here could have been heightened by better use of the starkly lit alienation of the refinery’s towers lit up against the night sky, but poor cinematography reduces the impact of the scene.
The underwhelming sense of menace is in part due to the cartoonish characterisation of the evil henchmen – again, an inevitable result of predictable plotting and woefully underwritten dialogue. As the villains drive past Matteï following a further failed attempt on his life, there is the merest suggestion of a phantom fist shaking and the words, “I’ll get you, Penelope Pitstop”. Considering how certain actions in the film are – the peppering of Matteï’s body with bullets, boiling water being poured over his face, someone’s head being repeatedly slammed with a car door – the violence appears curiously bloodless and insipid, reflecting the blinkered morality of the reformed Matteï. The hypocrisy of his personal ethics is challenged towards the end of the film, but the challenge lacks the subtlety that could have made this a disturbing and thought provoking examination of a troubled conscience.
22 Bullets has a fine premise – the moral consequences inherent in a reformed criminal trying to turn his back upon the violence and degradation of his former life, and whether such a way of life can be consigned to the past. The calibre of the acting talent is underused by the script and plot, while the setting of Marseille could have been used to much stronger effect to reflect the harshness and beauty of the film’s feudal moral code. Given the promise of its concept and cast, the film disappoints. KR
Check out the trailer below for Amer, which comes to DVD on 31st January 2011.
More information on this film can be found by clicking here.
The winner of several international film awards, including the New Visions Award at Sitges International Film Festival and the Public’s Choice Award at Montreal Festival of New Cinema.
Recalling the captivating cinematic style, recurring themes and bold visual motifs seen in the works of directors such as Dario Argento, Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci, Cattet and Forzani’s highly original and visionary tribute to the Italian masters is a virtually dialogue-free, Freudian tale of sexual awakening, obsession and murder.
The story unfolds in three parts as Ana (played, respectively, by actresses Cassandra Forêt, Charlotte Eugène-Guibeaud and Marie Bos) progresses from childhood through adolescence to womanhood.
For Ana, in all three stages of her life, fear, sensuality and the threat of violence are constant companions, each lurking in her mind’s eye and waiting to take physical form.
Scored (in ‘Tarantino style’) utilizing recycled Italian movie soundtrack music composed by Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Adriano Celentano and Stelvio Cipriani and destined for cult status, Amer is a must-see for fans of art house, horror and independent cinema.
Film: Amer
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani
Starring: Bianca Maria D'Amato, Cassandra Foret, Delphine Brual, Harry Cleven, Marie Bos
Genre: Drama/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: France/Belgium
Special Features:
•
Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's short films
•
Teaser trailer
•
Main trailer
22 Bullets, starring Jean Reno (Leon) and directed by Richard Berry (The Black Box), is a thriller inspired by the real-life events in the world of the Marseille Mafia. Sharing writing duties with Berry is Irène writer Eric Assous.
Charly Matteï has turned his back on his life as an outlaw. For the last three years, he's led a peaceful life devoting himself to his wife and two children. Then, one winter morning, he's left for dead in the parking garage in Marseille's Old Port, with 22 bullets in his body.
Against all the odds, he doesn't die...
Film: 22 Bullets
Release date: 31st January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 113 mins
Director: Richard Berry
Starring: Jean Reno, Kad Merad, Marina Pois, Jean-Pierre Darroussin
Genre: Action/Crime/Thriller
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: France
Special Features:
•
Interviews
•
22 Bullets in Marseille
•
Making of
•
Original French trailer
•
Theatrical trailer
A collection of fifteen Euro-sleaze horror films from cult director Jesus 'Jess' Franco.
Films featured are: Marquis De Sade: Justine (1969); Eugenie: Marquis De Sade's Philosophy In The Boudoir (1969); Barbed Wire Dolls (1975); Downtown (1975); Jack The Ripper (1979); Ilsa - The Wicked Warden (1977); Blue Rita (1977); Love Camp (1977); Love Letters Of A Portuguese Nun (1977); Sexy Sisters (1976); Voodoo Passion (1977); Macumba Sexual (1983); The Sexual Story Of O (1984); The Inconfessable Orgies Of Emmanuelle (1982); and Mansion Of The Living Dead (1985).
Film: Jess Franco: Collection
Release date: 17th January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 1302 mins
Director: Jess Franco
Starring: Klaus Kinski, Maria Rohm, Lina Romay, Paul Muller, Josephine Chaplin
Genre: Action/Adventure/Crime/Drama/Erotica/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: DVD
Country: Italy/USA/West Germany/Liechtenstein/Spain/Switzerland/France
Recalling the captivating cinematic style, recurring themes and bold visual motifs seen in the works of directors such as Dario Argento, Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci, Cattet and Forzani’s highly original and visionary tribute to the Italian masters is a virtually dialogue-free, Freudian tale of sexual awakening, obsession and murder.
The story unfolds in three parts as Ana (played, respectively, by actresses Cassandra Forêt, Charlotte Eugène-Guibeaud and Marie Bos) progresses from childhood through adolescence to womanhood. For Ana, in all three stages of her life, fear, sensuality and the threat of violence are constant companions, each lurking in her mind’s eye and waiting to take physical form.
Scored (in ‘Tarantino style’) utilizing recycled Italian movie soundtrack music composed by Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai, Adriano Celentano and Stelvio Cipriani, and destined for cult status, Amer is a must-see for fans of art house, horror and independent cinema.
Amer has won several international film awards, including the New Visions Award at Sitges International Film Festival and the Public’s Choice Award at Montreal Festival of New Cinema.
Film: Amer
Release date: 7th January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani
Starring: Marie Bos, Delphine Brual, Harry Cleven, Bianca Maria D'Amato, Cassandra Foret
Genre: Drama/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Anchor Bay
Format: Cinema
Country: France/Belgium
