skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Film: Wings Of Desire
Release date: 28th July 2008
Certificate: 12
Running time: 122 mins
Director: Wim Wenders
Starring: Bruno Ganz, Peter Falk, Solveig Dommartin, Curt Bois, Otto Sander
Genre: Fantasy/Drama/Romance
Studio: Axiom
Format: DVD
Country: West Germany
Wim Wenders’ decision to shoot from an unusual viewpoint, perhaps inspired by Rilke’s meditations on death and immortality, gave birth to a film whose central characters are uniquely placed to examine the human soul and the nature of existence and spirituality.
It takes a certain bravery to create a film with an angel as its main protagonist, to avoid straying into the territory of whimsy. The film’s opening aerial shot is a nod to Capra, as an angel stands on top of a church tower, wings unfurled, as harp music plays and children look up in wonder. But the lives of the citizens of Berlin whom the angels protect are not wonderful. The thoughts of the people, audible to the angels, dwell on miscommunication, death, isolation.
A conversation between the two main characters, Damiel and Cassiel, reveals that the angels are there to bear witness to the spiritual life of humanity. This often takes the form of small, delicately observed incidents – a boy telling his schoolteacher how a fern grows, a station guard on a sudden fancy calling out “Tierra del Fuego” instead of the station name. The angels stand by those in need and provide invisible yet tangible comfort. Only children can see the angels – the film’s recurrent litany of Peter Handke’s poem Lied vom Kindsein (Song Of Childhood) speaks of the importance of dreams and questioning in childhood (“als das Kind Kind war” - when the child was a child), and the openness of children to the existence of things beyond the material world.
The central character, Damiel, speaks of his desire to experience being a part of the world, rather than merely an observer, and know simple pleasures, such as coming home at the end of a long day and feeding the cat, like Philip Marlowe. When he strays into a circus showground and encounters Marion, the trapeze artist, despairing that the circus has to close and that her dreams may now be at an end, his distress at being an observer, separate from the suffering of humanity, increases.
The film goes on to explore the consequence of Damiel’s desire to be mortal; as well as the human desire to cease living, and the nature of despair, of consolation and the will to persevere and to love…
As a foil to the main storyline featuring Damiel and Marion, the character of Cassiel has a number of scenes with an elderly writer, whose thoughts turn on the nature of writing and the warlike tendency of human nature. He describes the German people as being divided into as many states as there are individuals, each state only accessible with the right passwords. The writer is frail and haunted by memories of the city before the war, but he feels a compulsion to try to write an epic of peace, to counteract all the preceding works that have celebrated warriors and kings. There are recurring images of war – bombers cutting across clouds, buildings in flame, bodies heaped at the side of a road – and an extract of the writer’s work merges straight into a film set, peopled by actors playing Nazi soldiers and refugees. The themes of violence and separation are most obviously symbolised by the forbidding presence of the Berlin Wall – a reproduction constructed for the film, as filming by the Wall itself was not allowed.
Berlin becomes a character itself in the film. Wim Wenders has said that he chose Berlin as it is a place of fantasy, even after the Wall came down, because for years afterwards people still couldn’t quite believe that it had been destroyed. He has said that many scenes came out of the locations, and that he wanted to make the places come alive. This process contributes to the impression of an independent reality to the city outside the scope of the camera lens - that the angels wander the city at random and encounter scenes which somehow reflect the essence of that particular locality.
The music in the film alternates between classical – romantic, stirring and melancholy – and bleak post-punk, which suitably reflects the harsh politics of the time and place. Nick Cave’s songs of death and isolation sit comfortably with the film’s themes, as he sings of eternity and of the carny, whose departure no-one witnesses. The passion of the classical pieces harks back to Germany’s strong romantic tradition in poetry and music, and aptly expresses the yearning of the characters for understanding, meaning and love. In contrast to this, the performances are nicely understated, where any hint of melodrama could have pushed the film’s premise into the realms of the ridiculous.
The angels’ lack of dialogue in scenes with people requires Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander to convey much merely by expression. Bruno Ganz manages to express sympathy, humour and pathos in the leading role, with a childish wonder in some scenes, which is a pleasing contrast to the world weariness of many of the characters. Solveig Dommartin’s trapeze artist fluctuates from sad-eyed despondency to childlike mystification at the world, and how she should exist within it. At the same time, there is an ambiguity in the performances which reflects the uncertainty of the themes explored by the film – we can read an expression of despair or distress but, unlike the angels, not the thought processes behind them. Thought itself, the film seems to suggest, is only an approximate expression of human consciousness.
A melancholy and poetic masterpiece, whose haunting images, powerful music and ambiguous meditation on the nature of existence linger in the memory long after watching. KR
Film: The Warlords
Release date: 2nd March 2009
Certificate: 15
Running time: 108 mins
Director: Peter Ho-Sun Chan
Starring: Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Xu Jinglei
Genre: Action/Drama/War/History
Studio: Metrodome
Format: DVD
Country: China/Hong Kong
Director Peter Ho-Sun Chan unites three of Asian cinema’s most prolific and charismatic leading men for an epic of war, morality and betrayal loosely based on one of “the great unsolved mysteries” of China in the Qing Dynasty.
1865. China has been ravaged by a decade-long civil war that is eroding the will of the nation. Destiny brings together three men, soldiers all, whose decisions and actions may yet decide the fate of the country. Brothers Er-Hu (Lau) and Wu-Yang (Kaneshiro) are joined by General Pang (Li), an unpredictable warrior haunted by a moment of rare cowardice, and driven mad by his need to atone for it.
With Pang uniting and organising their ragged army, Er-Hu and Wu-Yang soon become major players in the war for China. But, as their army marches across the land, each man’s moral code is tested by difficult and potentially soul-shattering decisions. Can they make free their country before destroying each other?
It is strange to consider that Jet Li, like Jackie Chan, is now very much an elder statesman of Chinese martial arts/action cinema. After twenty-plus years of working mostly within his righteous hero persona, Jet Li takes his longest stride away from his comfort zone with The Warlords, a grim, brutal historical epic. General Pang may share martial proficiency with Li’s back catalogue of heroic figures, but where he differs is in his tenuous grip on his own sanity, and an agenda that seems anything other than honourable. Like Jackie Chan’s recent attempt to exercise his acting muscles with The Shinjuku Incident, Li seeks to subvert his cinematic persona - his performance distorting his usually impassive features with tinges of bloodlust and a megalomaniacal frenzy. While the end result is a slightly over-cooked turn that ultimately does not match the sheer perfection of his necessarily blank performance in Zhang Yimou’s Hero, Li’s acting is nevertheless a notch above what his star vehicles usually permit him to do, his unhinged delivery extremely effective within the parameters of a war fable.
He is ably supported by his two co-stars. Andy Lau’s Er-Hu, the most honourable and conflicted of the trio, is an over-stuffed box of pent-up frustration surely destined to explode. Lau plays him with a measured stillness that is slowly, hauntingly, inevitably undone, and his performance here is arguably his best since 2002’s Infernal Affairs. But the star turn, almost predictably, is from Takeshi Kaneshiro, who makes believable the about-faces and suddenly redefined motivations the script thrusts upon Wu-Yang. Together, the three leading men form three pillars of a morality tale which, though fairly simplistic in its examination of necessity-during-war, is far more compelling than its occasionally pedestrian and predictable narrative.
The film itself is a stirring, searing war epic that owes as much to Greek, Shakespearean and operatic tragedy traditions as it does to Asian action cinema. Its battle sequences, directed by Ching Siu-tung, are visually stunning slices of pure excitement, even if they lack the crisp clarity of Ching’s work in the aforementioned Hero, and the screenwriter’s decision to gradually narrow the focus of the film to the characters and their emotional motives is a welcome change from war films that walk blindly into a chaotic final battle sequence. Both action and drama are shot with the lush, meticulous hand of the venerable Arthur Wong, whose cinematography conjures up some truly memorable images, not least the sight of a horrified Andy Lau standing in a sea of dead soldiers after a mass execution.
But, as stellar as The Warlords is on a technical level, there remain persistent niggles with a slightly underdeveloped script that is oddly elliptical, suggesting a film that’s received the kind of savaging in the editing room that its principal characters inflict upon each other on-screen. Whole scenes and sequences seem to be missing (for example, a siege of Nanking - presented as a bone of contention between the three conflicted lead heroes - is strangely skipped over), leaving viewers scrabbling to connect the dots. Likewise, a pseudo love triangle involving Jet Li, Andy Lau and Xu Jinglei’s Lian is hinted at, but never fully explored or committed to, and is eventually utilised purely as a device through which the script can swiftly put its main characters at-odds going into its third act, which unfolds with the inevitability of Shakespeare and the carnage of John Woo. In addition, any allegorical contemporary relevance to which the film might aspire is buried too deep beneath the violent, visceral aesthetic to truly resonate. While it may play very well for local audiences, The Warlords is likely to at least mildly alienate overseas viewers. That should not, however, detract from an often-exhilarating cinematic experience.
Subtlety is not on the menu for this feast of blood and carnage, but The Warlords is an effective historical epic with more than enough well-staged action to recommend it. The action is complimented by fine work from the cast, and Arthur Wong’s visuals are stunning. JN
Film: Welcome
Release date: 22nd February 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 110 mins
Director: Philippe Lioret
Starring: Vincent Lindon, Firat Ayverdi, Audrey Dana
Genre: Drama
Studio: CineFile
Format: DVD
Country: France
So near and yet so far - this is the thesis behind Philipe Liaret’s drama Welcome, a sad tale of one young man’s quest to reach his Eldorado.
Bilal (Firat Ayverdi) is a 17-year-old Kurd who travels from his homeland Iraq to France. He wants to be reunited with his girlfriend Mina (Derya Ayverdi), who has recently emigrated to England but is faced with the final, but extremely daunting prospect of crossing the channel to reach her.
Bilal pays a smuggler 500 euros and is given a place in a lorry heading for England, along with some other Kurds, at the border. As a way to disguise their presence, the stowaways cover their heads with plastic bags in a hope of avoiding the CO2 detector. Bilal, haunted by a previous memory of incarceration, panics, and he is discovered, along with his frustrated and bitter travellers.
Knowing he will never be able to bear the crossing in the back of a lorry, Bilal decides to turn his attention to swimming, and this is where he meets Simone (Vincent Lindon). Simone is a middle-aged swimming instructor and a former professional swimmer who is quietly etching out his days alone. Bilal enlists the help of Simone, and works tirelessly in the pool to improve his technique and prepare himself for the challenge of a lifetime - the solo swim across the 25 mile stretch of channel that separates him and Mina...
What adds depth to the film is the duality of it. On the one hand, it is a story about romance, separation and regret. Both Bilal and Simone are separated from their loved ones, and they both seek to be reunited with them. Bilal’s drive and determination to literally scale the globe to reach Mina shames Simone, as he realises how easily he let Marion (Audrey Dana) go. On the other hand, the film deals with the hardships of being an illegal immigrant and the humiliation that these people have to face.
Philipe Liaret spent some time with illegal immigrants at the Calais border, and this certainly pays off in the film’s details. The border, where these refugees sleep, appears as more of a jungle in the film, with fighting and bartering the order of the day. They are without bathing facilities, and there is a good scene where a group of them try to gain entry into the local swimming baths so they can wash. We also meet the other elements to a refugee site, including the volunteers who selflessly hand out food on cold winter evenings, and the smuggler rackets trying to exploit these people.
The audience are made to feel the frustration of the refugees in Welcome as the police and local supermarkets harass and discriminate against them. There are measures to ensure that the locals do not aid the refugees in any way, and harsh punishments await any who disobey this. Simone is called to question on more than one occasion.
For a film dealing with such a serious and gritty topic, Liaret took a risk with the casting by not employing any professional Kurdish actors or actresses, Firat Ayverdi and Derya Ayverdi. Firat alone confirms that this was a risk worth taking, and comes across as extremely sincere but also vulnerable. Being able to pull off a leading role at such a young age makes Firat is one to watch out for in the future, and his role as Bilal is important to the plot and message of the film because it shows that mere children are embarking on the potentially perilous trip across the border. Derya Ayverdi is also brilliant as Mina, who puts real emotion into her role.
Vincent Lindon is also excellent as Simone. Lindon seems to have the ability to simply use a single gesture or movement in order to convey complex emotions. His interaction with Firat Ayverdi is first class also, and there is a definite chemistry between them both.
With top drawer performances, Welcome paints a sad but sympathetic picture of the lives of refugees, not afraid to explore beneath the surface. BR
