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Film: Doing Time For Patsy Cline
Year of production: 1997
UK Release date: 20th June 2011
Distributor: Crabtree
Certificate: 15
Running time: 95 mins
Director: Chris Kennedy
Starring: Richard Roxburgh, Miranda Otto, Matt Day, Tony Barry, Roy Billing
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Australia
Language: English
Review by: Mary Igoe
It’s probably safe to say that the more successful Australian films tend to build up a cult following, judging by the exploits of Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. If the secret to a winning formula’s down to a certain ‘je-ne-sais-quoi’, then Doing Time For Patsy Cline has a lot of work to do, but an American deep-south warbler crossed with an Australian out-back comedy may just do the trick!
It all starts with the shy, country & western-loving hicky Ralph leaving his home on the family farm to find fame and fortune with his guitar in America’s Nashville. With a one way plane ticket in his pocket, Ralph’s parents drop him off at a crossroads in the middle of the outback so he can hitch his way to the airport.
When a flashy sports car stops to give him a lift, Ralph meets Boyd and Patsy; a fast-living couple on their way to Sydney that will change his life forever. Along the way, a police car gives chase, and when it finally catches up to them, Patsy manages to escape unseen while the two men are arrested for drug trafficking (Boyd’s latest enterprise), and taken to the local gaol pending further investigation.
While there, Boyd and Ralph strike up a friendship of sorts, and when Patsy comes to visit, she reveals she has cancer and is going to refuse any treatment. This, amongst other factors, pushes Ralph to make the selfless decision of solely taking the blame for the crime, despite his innocence, so that Boyd can go free to be with Patsy...
Along the way, flash-forwards show the three coincidently united in a recording studio in America. When Ralph plays a song he’s written to Patsy, she sings along, and a sure hit is created between them. The two go on to win over the crowds and success follows with Boyd as a manager, but chance sees an accident fatally met by one of the party…
Sometimes it’s the oddball stories that bring all the more charm to the screen – although ‘charm’ doesn’t really seem to tally with anything Aussie. ‘Charisma’ might be more fitting, and Doing Time For Patsy Cline certainly brings a lot of Australian personality to the screen.
The story has its unexpected turns and consequential circumstances that manage to keep boredom at bay, at least from the point of Ralph and Boyd’s arrest. Pairing the ever-so-cheesy country & western theme with the frank and dark humour that Australian culture revels in is rather out of tune (pun pardoned!), but if the irony in the contrast works for you, the rest of the film should only bring laughs.
When it comes to screenplay, a little more discretion could have been used in the timing of the flash-forwards, as sometimes things get a little confusing rather than create intrigue. The script, however, is one of the redeeming qualities of the film, and if only there was even more humour, it could’ve been a corker, as, occasionally, the comedy is quite subtle and easily overlooked.
It must be near impossible to have a good script with bad characterisation, and so it follows that the colourful characters provide an easy source of entertainment. From Ralph’s parents to the neighbouring cell ‘crims’, each presents an hospitable palette to exhibit that dry sense of humour from down under.
It’s perhaps Richard Roxburgh as Boyd who steals the show when it comes to performances. The part seems to have been written for him, as he bounces off the walls of his cell with all the energy, intensity and creativeness of the optimistic opportunist that Boyd is. Matt Day is also perfectly cast as submissive Ralph in need of some balls, which he nobly obtains, and with fervent conveyance!
While Miranda Otto is a good actress, and she plays the part of forlorn maiden well, her softly whimpering voice as Patsy is a bit annoying…and continual…all the way through the film…to the very…very end, but the surprising juxtaposition in her singing voice brings a little relief.
Of course, a film set in the back lands of Australia encourages the use of good photography, which it achieves; and even shot compositions throughout the gaol scenes are appreciatively thoughtful. Finally, as far as country & western music goes, not much fault can be found in the score that bares the likes of Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris.
Doing Time For Patsy Cline could have been better if the script were richer, and if it had started from about 30 minutes in, as the beginning is quite slow and a bit bewildering as far as establishing what kind of story’s being told. Australian humour with its darkness, dryness, and self deprecation can be one of the funniest and here it doesn’t disappoint, but it leaves the viewer wanting a bit more than they receive. MI
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Film: Armadillo
Year of production: 2010
UK Release date: 13th June 2011
Distributor: Soda
Certificate: 15
Running time: 105 mins
Director: Janus Metz Pedersen
Genre: Documentary
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Denmark
Language: Danish
Review by: Mary Igoe
Janus Metz Pedersen infiltrates dogmatic Danish army operations in Afghanistan in his latest documentary. Much to his expectation, the reception Armadillo got was one of huge uproar among Danish MPs after an incident he caught on camera resulted in national debate. Inevitably, such subject matter further asks the seemingly unanswerable question as to what can war ultimately achieve in Afghanistan, and how long can it go on for?
The film follows a group of Danish soldiers in 2009 on their first visit in operation at Helmand Province. Their final hours at home see a farewell party with a stripper, and then the sad goodbyes from friends and family at the airport.
On arrival at Armadillo, forward operating base home to around 170 British and Danish troops, they are shown the ropes by various commanding officers, and hear harrowing stories from other occupying soldiers. Much of their time from then on is spent drinking beer, playing combat computer games, watching porn, and waiting around at the barracks for something to happen.
On patrol, the soldiers are advised to give any unwanted food to Afghan civilians in order to soften relationships and get them to cooperate with the troops. Only it becomes more and more apparent Taliban influence in the area prevents this, and the Afghan people remain stuck in the middle - either getting killed themselves or losing their livelihood. At one point, an Afghan man comes to Armadillo for recompense on losing his mother, his daughter and his house during combat. He is given cash compensation and the assurance his mother has now “become a martyr.”
The group of soldiers get their chance to experience heavy combat in which two soldiers are wounded. After some confusing communication between the troops, the Taliban fighters are eventually defeated. A scene shows the Taliban fighters who lie dead in a ditch being de-armed by two soldiers, giving cause to the investigation into the breaching of the rules of engagement.
What follows is a somewhat uneasy few days left on camp, where the soldiers seem all the more pensive after what they’ve experienced. It’s a wonder if they’ll ever be able to really join in to normal civilian life in Denmark again...
It’s a shame the contention surrounding Armadillo threatens to overshadow what the film actually achieves. Yes, it’s good for marketing - the film even had to be released two months earlier than scheduled in Denmark due to the clamouring of the people - but there’s irony, as with a spectacle there’s always the danger of missing the bigger picture, and what is (or was) at the centre of dispute actually allows for a subtle psychological study of soldiers who witness some of the most horrific, almost unreal experiences a man can behold.
What has to be marvelled at, first and foremost, is the bravery of the filmmakers, as they shadow the soldiers on the frontline whilst bullets whistle past their ears and grenades fly overhead. This is commitment to filming in the highest, and it certainly pays off. At times, the film feels like a full-on production, with all the tension and suspense of a Hollywood action movie.
Despite the patriotic topic of ‘our men at war’, Pedersen manages to keep a diplomatic stance as much as possible; we get the feeling no lie is being told, especially with the inclusion of the disputed breaching of the rules of engagement scene. The choice to show the Afghan civilian point of view also helps to give a better understanding of the situation out there and the complex catch-22 circumstances faced by Western troops and the Afghan public alike.
The grim temptation to call the film team ‘lucky’ in what they caught on camera can’t be dismissed. Firstly, they were given a dynamic group of lads, fit with the joker, the mummy’s boy, the hell-raiser, and the like, to provide interesting characters. Then, the structure of action the soldiers experienced seems to fall in their hands, too; a lot of waiting around after high expectations gradually leads on to more and more combat, with a calamitous climax towards the end.
This ‘good luck’ may point the way to a further argument had by critics on the film, that the use of special effects and clever editing is not necessarily appreciated by all those expecting to see a documentary. The film needs no narration at all, as all the action plays out so smoothly - like a story. A grenade thrown in a combat computer game neatly turns in to a real life explosion on camera, and often evocative cello solos accompany reflective scenes of the soldiers.
However, you could argue that sometimes there’s a need to add another dimension to a documentary in order for the audience to get a truer experience of the action on screen. After all, all any filmmaker wants to do is engage the viewer as much as possible. And anyway, the diplomatic neutrality the film seems to exude in its material only renders any ‘artistic editing’ as decorative trimming.
Nevertheless, for all its positives, Armadillo lacks something in its subject matter.It won’t tell many people something that they might not already know. No revelations or big surprises lurk in camouflage; it’s not the first frontline documentary - and it won’t be the last.
You can see why Armadillo won the Grand Prix Semaine de la Critique at Cannes with its commitment to filming for the sake of a documentary. The way the filmmakers bring action to the screen in as much of a diplomatic, removed fashion as possible is commendable, and the action from the soldiers’ perspective is as exciting as it is interesting. MI
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Film: David's Birthday
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 30th May 2011
Distributor: TLA
Certificate: 15
Running time: 106 mins
Director: Marco Filiberti
Starring: Alessandro Gassman, Maria de Medeiros, Massimo Poggio, Michela Cescon, Christo Jivkov
Genre: Drama
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Italy
Language: Italian
Review by: Mary Igoe
Director Marco Filiberti brings the ancient form of tragedy back to the masses in his latest film set on the sunny coast of Italy. With themes of forbidden love and destiny in the running, can such an old formula from the stage be a modern-day success on the screen?
The film starts with two couples at the opera. Psychologist Matteo (Massimo Poggio) is married to Francesca (Maria de Medeiros) and they have a young daughter together who barely features. Big kid slacker Diego (Alessandro Gassman) is married to the strong-spirited Shery (Michela Cescon) and they have a grown son, David (Thyago Alves). The foursome decide to spend a holiday at the beach, during which time David will join them from his studies in America to celebrate his birthday.
At first, all seems fair and well on the jolly holiday by the sea, but at the arrival of David, things start to go a bit iffy. To start with, there’s ambiguity as to the relationship between Matteo and David, which quickly unravels itself and we become aware that Matteo is in fact repressing lustful feelings for the young Adonis from the States. Meanwhile, Diego and Shery get on each other’s nerves within their love/hate relationship, and then there’s Shery’s brother Leonard (Christo Jivkov) who comes to stay for a bit, and it’s unclear as to whether he’s murdered his wife or not.
Meanwhile, a side-story sees Matteo briefly leaving the holiday twice to visit a patient, who it turns out is enduring a desperate attempt of escapism.
As the temperature mounts during a hot summer, so does the tension. Leonard and Shery have their moments suspecting something of the increasingly irritable Matteo, although never find out the truth. And then finally Matteo and David get their frantic moment alone together, but with tragic consequences…
Woe betide this party of friends who, from the very opening of the film, witness forbidden love and tragedy as they watch Wagner’s opera ‘Tristan And Isolde’. From there on in, a sense of foreboding follows every turn of the storyline, not least achieved by the hounding, teetering, eerie score which hunts every scene with a hunger of tormented pace for what’s around the corner.
David’s Birthday is incredibly successful at maintaining a steady building tempo as it works its way to the final climax; like a rollercoaster on the uphill until the vertical drop at the end. The intended structure of the story is very like an operatic tragedy, and those familiar with Greek tragedy will soon cotton on that there won’t ever be a happy ending, and might even be able to work out who checks in to Hades before the end.
At the crux of the film is the theme of fate; its impartiality, its omnipresence, and inevitably its inevitability. Yet, although the driving force of all that unfolds on screen may be fate, it’s disguised as human desire which makes the character studies in the film all the more interesting.
Massimo Poggio is clearly talented in playing tormented Matteo, and while Maria de Medeiros is perfectly cast as devoted mother and wife, Michela Cescon also stands out in filling her feisty role with gusto. Nevertheless, however much he fits the physical billing of Thyaga Alves as a young underwear model, he has a rather lacklustre presence in the theatrical sense.
The script is also a tad uninspiring, and brings trashy soap operas to mind at points. But then there’s the beautiful setting, which slightly make up for it, being so perfectly idyllic with the sparkling waves, and white washed beach houses.
The inclusion of Matteo’s patient as another story in itself adds slight confusion as to whether it runs as a parallel to the main action, or functions to provide development within Matteo’s character. Perhaps it’s a further insightful study of the human psyche which Filiberti uses to flesh out the original material. Nonetheless, maybe a more obvious distinction would have been useful here, as not all viewers will be so psychology savvy to appreciate this extra interlude.
Finally, it will be interesting to see how this film will be interpreted in the moralistic sense. The two main ‘crimes’ subject for debate seem to be committing adultery and perhaps, however unintended, being gay. Unwittingly or not, the film manages to make one worse than the other- after all, Shary’s main dispute with Diego is his lack of ambition, not his numerous affairs. It makes you wonder what the morals of the story are, however overriding the powers of fate claim to be.
David’s Birthday is one for those who like suspense galore, as it doesn’t really let up until the very end. Also, those who like psychological character studies will revel in the anguish and torment had by Matteo. And even fans of tragic drama will find enough raw passion and emphatic displays of European emotional spectacles to fill their hearts content. It is a good story, which is well acted, but there are enough gaps to leave it at average. Perhaps the film adheres too much to the form of traditional tragedy to find enough success as a contemporary film production. MI
Film: Babies
Release date: 28th March 2011
Certificate: U
Running time: 76 mins
Director: Thomas Balmès
Starring: N/a
Genre: Documentary
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: France
Thomas Balmès bores and enthrals in his latest documentary about babies – and it’s as much an adventure/comedy to boot. Described by some as “tedious” and “shallow,” has the French director’s affinity for the cute and cuddly got the better of him?
The documentary follows the lives of four babies and their mothers from birth to one year on. Baby Ponijao is a Namibian girl within the Himba tribe. They live in huts away from any modern community, out of choice, and it is the women who cook and look after the children while the father, who is never seen in the film, goes about his business in the bush.
Bayar is a Mongolian baby who lives with his traditional family in a nomadic yurt. They are surrounded by grass hills and open plateaus and keep cattle and horses, as well as other animals.
Mari is a Japanese baby living in the city with her mother and father in a small apartment. They are the ‘futuristic’ family with lots of computers and modern technology around them.
Finally, there is Hattie, an American baby girl who lives in San Francisco with her parents. They are the ‘normal’ family who represent the modern western family today.
The film focuses on the babies’ adventures as they grow up, and contrasts the way in which they experience them within different cultures. With no narration, the format is literally a fly-on-the-wall documentary charting the babies’ lives…
The ‘wonder’ of babies is universal, and the makers of Babies (the film) know how to sell it. They’ve bottled it up in four different flavours, with four photographically perfect labels, and injected it with the toxic effect of laughter.
The best description of the film is Thomas Balmès who pitched the project as “a wildlife documentary about human babies.” If you don’t have endurance for either wildlife programmes or babies, then this documentary won’t be your cup of tea. The length of it just about holds attention for the rest of viewers, although five minutes longer would have tested patience, even of those indulgent mothers.
It’s clear the makers of the documentary wanted to create something that applied to different cultures under a universal subject. The problem they might have had was the ability for such subject matter to become boring and one-dimensional; but the omission of any commentary or narrative gives the viewer a chance to come to their own assumptions. With the occasional companion of recurring ditty-themed music, only the gurgling of babies and nonsense baby-talk of mothers guide us through what’s happening on screen.
The cinematography is amazingly impressive. It’s like looking through a flip-book of national geographic photographs. But it isn’t just the landscape and colours that the makers have got right - nearly every scene is compositionally precise. There’s a shot in Namibia of two mothers suckling babies on their lap with one hand, while the other hand grabs food from a bucket between them - their toes are just visible in the foreground stretched out in front of them. There is almost perfect symmetry on the screen, and yet it’s all natural, none of the material is provoked. The effort and time spent on the filming pays off immensely.
Deliberately contrasting scenes between the cultures of ‘how to bring up baby’ highlight the main theme: no matter the vast differences between every culture, there are innate similarities between us all. However, at some points, the contrasts seem to perhaps inadvertently delve deeper in to how our different cultures affect a baby’s sensibilities. One notable contrast between Bayar and Mari shows Bayar happy simply playing with a roll of toilet paper. We then see shots of Mari crying in frustration surrounded by numerous gadgets, gizmos and toys.
The idea is that simplicity and a more natural upbringing - closer to nature – is the ideal when it comes to raising a baby, and there’s nothing in the film to say that’s wrong. Indeed, the Namibian mothers seem to be the happiest. In an interview with Thomas Balmès, he revealed the babies that cried the least were Ponijao and Bayar. Mollycoddled Mari and Hattie on the other hand have toys and books thrown at them from day one and cry more - it makes you wonder if the documentary makers are actually making a point here about modern and western upbringings, or whether they’ve stumbled upon a baby rearing revelation!
As far as documentaries go, this should be a classic, although it teeters on lengthy for the subject matter. The universality it achieves in its material will be begot by baby-lovers and those interested in how it’s done in different cultures. Even if you do get bored of the babies, there are always the enthralling landscapes to capture your imagination. However, be sure to approach with the premise – if you don’t like babies: DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM. MI
Film: Son Of Babylon
Release date: 11th April 2011
Certificate: 12
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Mohamed Al-Daradji
Starring: Shazada Hussein, Yasser Talib
Genre: Drama
Studio: Dogwoof
Format: Cinema
Country: Iraq/UK/France/Netherlands/United Arab Emirates/Egypt/Palestine
Already half forgotten from the world’s mind as other atrocities, tyrannies, wars and disasters play on, Son Of Babylon is released in the UK eight years from the fall of Saddam Hussein and the extent of his legacy revealed. However, instead of the temptation to deliver a political/historical commentary, Al Daradji presents a very emotional exploit embarked upon by a grandmother and her grandson.
Three weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Um-Ibrahim (Shehzad Hussen) sets out with her grandson, Ahmed (Yassir Taleeb), from northern Iraq in search of Ibrahim, respective son and father.
The film opens on a hot, windy desert as the two travellers follow a seemingly endless road to nowhere. Just as young Ahmed throws a tantrum and threatens to turn back for home, a truck comes along with a somewhat belligerent driver who agrees to take them to Baghdad for a large sum of money.
When they get there, the truck driver’s empathy for the two makes him return all the money and the recurrent theme of the kindness of strangers established. While they wait for a bus, Um-Ibrahim makes Ahmed read a letter from someone in the army which says how, after saving this man’s life, Ibrahim got sent to Nasiriyah prison. After a bus ride to Nasiriyah, they manage to find the prison, but find that Ibrahim is not on any of the lists. They are told to start searching the mass graves currently being uncovered in the desert.
Along the way, they meet a man called Musa (Bashir al-Majid), who turns out to be an ex member of Saddam’s Republican Guard, and who was forced to murder men, women and children while in service. After initial rejection from Um-Ibrahim, and out of guilt and good will, Musa helps grandmother and grandson search for Ibrahim’s body, but to no avail, and the two are left to endlessly search the sandy graves in the hope of discovering something that remains of Ibrahim…
By all accounts, the storyline is a bit thin. While there are western films and TV dramas galore which revel in middle-eastern political coups, desert warfare, army conflict and its effects in the West, when it comes to a film made in Iraq about the Iraqi people and by an Iraqi Dutch filmmaker, a story about an old lady and her young grandson is perhaps one of the last things to be expected. But Al Daradji succeeds in making a poignant account of what the years of oppressive dictatorship rule did to a whole people - more than one million of whom went missing or died, ending up in the astounding number of 300 mass graves.
In Son Of Babylon, religious and political animosity are pushed to the background in the name of tender humanity displayed by nearly every stranger across the races - Kurdish and Arab - and enforced none so much as in the scene where Um-Ibrahim forgives Musa. In fact, it comes as a surprise to learn that the two lead actors of the film are amateurs, unlikely to have ever even seen a film before. They nevertheless manage to incur raw and honest presentations of human experience, perhaps due to the actors’ own experiences during those times of suffering – authenticity certainly pays off in their performances.
The film is almost purely elemental in its representations of hope and death, something which is mirrored in the cinematography. It is as if the film could be set in the land of limbo; nothing is static, the people are always moving, and the buildings are never complete. It is such a land that Al Daradji films, where the surroundings echo the emptiness of its people who are always on a journey, searching for lost ones.
The use of subtle metaphor is a nifty technique when approaching sensitive subject matter, adding a poetic and philosophical slant on what could otherwise be quite brazen material. For instance, the only time Ahmed comes close to finding his father is when he drives past the gate to the gardens of Babylon - a little bit of heaven in the desolate, windy planes of the dusty desert saturated in skeletal remains.
By using the sensitive relationship of Um-Ibrahim and Ahmed, an audience can be drawn in to the film material emotionally and at least witness some of the pain endured by innocent Iraqi people. It is unclear if the film is trying to send a message. However, it is a recount of something which must not be forgotten as a part of Iraqi history (something supported by the Iraqi Prime Minister himself in a DVD extra).
This film isn't a film for everyone. It hankers after the sympathetic conscience in all of us and succeeds with flying colours. One message of sorts Son Of Babylon sends out in to the world is how resounding and reflective national cinema can be. It is a simple film, but manages to illustrate the hardships endured by those left behind so effectively that it makes one wonder of how much suffering came to happen in the first place. MI
Film: Dancehall Queen
Release date: 25th August 2008
Certificate: 15
Running time: 96 mins
Director: Rick Elgood & Don Letts
Starring: Audrey Reid, Paul Campbell, Carl Davis, Mark Danvers, Cherine Anderson
Genre: Drama
Studio: Palm
Format: DVD
Country: Jamaica
This is an English-language release.
Another film from the warm shores of the Caribbean tackles the raw issues surrounding corrupt society. However the twist in this movie lies in the storyline which wouldn’t seem out of place in a Hollywood blockbuster. With something that has been done a million times over in tinsel town, the makers of Dancehall Queen get down and dirty redeeming the poor and damning the crooked in Jamaica.
Amongst the ghettos of Kingston lives Marcia, a street vendor, her brother Junior, and her two young girls. Without the financial help from befriended ‘Uncle’ Larry, the family would barely be able to feed themselves; only in return, Larry expects sex from the eldest daughter, Tanya, who is only 15. Strife gives chase when Junior, who witnesses a serious crime, gets stuck in a no-man’s-land of continual fleeing due to the pursuit from the criminal and the police, both bearing violence.
When the headstrong Tanya adamantly refuses to carry on the perverted financial arrangement, Marcia is forced to seek other means of income. Just then, she encounters the current dancehall queen, Olivine, driving a flashy new car and receiving plenty of attention. Then Marcia notices something else - Olivine looks as normal and plain as any other girl on the street in the daytime; it’s only at night that she dons her glad rags and becomes the belle of the ball.
An idea is born! With the help of Miss Gordon, a talented seamstress, Marcia creates a new persona with a fierce wardrobe, and launches on her task of becoming the new dancehall queen around which respect and wealth flourish. If only she can find a way of saving her brother from insanity, the family from the clutches of criminal ‘Priest’, and the ever-looming presence of lecherous Uncle Larry, the dancehall queen contest would be a cinch – as long as nobody finds out her true identity, lowly Marcia the street vendor…
On paper, the film works. It has a strong storyline with good subplots to keep interest, but all this promise falls down in the content’s execution - and this is where the issues surrounding Caribbean cinema rear their ugly head again. The industry’s incapacity and financial stringency prevent Caribbean cinema from flourishing, which is such a great shame when films like this come along with so much going for them. The cracks show in the lack of fluidity of the film. One minute we’re witnessing a dramatic scene of despair and shame - Tanya argues with her mother having just slept with Uncle Larry - and a few minutes later, we see what could be a forty second advert for tourism in Jamaica, or a music video, where Tanya and her friends frolic in the sun on the beach.
Other factors of the storyline are also not contended very well. At one point, Junior is going crazy on a rocking chair in his parents’ garden where he goes to stay for a while. Having previously been quite a featured character of the story, we then see or hear nothing more of him until the end section of the film, where we get a very brief blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glimpse of him suddenly back to normal, and aware of all the shenanigans taking place. Perhaps space on the reel could have been better utilised on explaining Junior’s situation, rather than Tanya’s forty second caper on the beach.
Nevertheless, for all the inconsistencies of the storyline, the characterisation and performances are so impressive, you can’t help but fall for the inspired acting. The script helps with injections of wit and humour here and there, and it’s the debut performance from actress Audrey Reid, who plays protagonist Marcia, that steals the show. She is so convincing as both the feisty tom-boy Marcia, and also the sexy, rhythmical, dancing ‘Mystery Woman’, and the transformation is flawless - she never loses site of who the character really is, but finds a new defining side of her.
The film boasts a moral standpoint on all the issues within Jamaican society, and this gives a dimension which might be the film’s overall redeeming quality. There’s the corrupt policing, violence, run-down shanty towns, and the exploitive wealthy on the poor. No men in the film are looked too kindly on either; they’re either dishonest or weak – in fact, apart from Marcia’s father who barely features, the only one good guy in the film who protects his friends and stands up to all the wrongdoing gets killed at the beginning. We are being shown the real, gritty Jamaica, which isn’t just bright colours, hot sun, blue skies and rich music. There’s the darker side, too, but always with a hint of optimism, with sayings like “There’s more to life than money,” and “All good things come to him who waits.”
If the same film were done in Hollywood, only a depth fit to dip a toe in would be achieved, but the heavier themes within and surrounding this film – including the situation of Caribbean cinema – make it less likely for the viewer to get that sickly-sweet feeling normally associated with Cinderella stories. The script and acting carry the film over the lumps and bumps in the story’s execution to give a thoroughly enjoyable film, especially for those who love reggae, roots and dancehall music. MI
Film: Man Of Aran
Release date: 14th March 2011
Certificate: U
Running time: 73 mins
Director: Robert J. Flaherty
Starring: Colman 'Tiger' King, Maggie Dirrane, Michael Dirrane, Pat Mullin, Patch 'Red Beard' Ruadh
Genre: Documentary
Studio: Park Circus
Format: DVD
Country: Republic of Ireland
This is an English-language release.
Legendary ‘docufiction’ creator Robert J. Flaherty is brought back to life in the re-release of his heralded Man Of Aran. The 1934 film encompasses the director’s albeit disputed accredited/discredited filming philosophy in combining fiction and documentary to present a specific view of reality cohering to Flaherty’s own poetic take on life.
The main focus of the feature is a family of three, consisting of a man of Aran, his wife and their son. They live on one of three small, rocky land masses known as the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. The film follows them on their daily lives toiling amongst the harsh climatic conditions delivered by the omnipresent Atlantic. Their only means of survival seem to be based on their ability to farm on the island - with barely any soil to use - and to fish at sea for one of the biggest sharks there is in a small canoe supplied only with ropes and a harpoon.
While the wife certainly puts just as much physical effort in to daily life – gathering huge baskets of heavy seaweed and carrying it to the farm, planting potatoes, looking for rare mounds of soil under rocks – it is the man of Aran who goes to sea to do the hunting.
The last part of the film sees him head out with a handful of other fishermen with storm clouds brewing overhead. When the storm finally hits, there is a struggle for the boat to land back on shore, but after several nail-biting attempts, the man of Aran is reunited with his family…
Man Of Aran should not be mistakenly valued as a factual documentary, as it is in fact a fabricated one. Instead, it should be valued as a piece of screen art in which the director successfully portrays his visions of the world, and his most prominent theme of man versus nature. In truth, no other genre has as much persuasive influence in conveying a director’s intentions than one which involves reality, and so Flaherty cunningly manipulates the documentary to create a piece of art, something which has even led him to be proclaimed “the first American film poet.”
His efforts, however, are left unappreciated by some – mostly limited to contemporary opinion. Those expecting to see a true depiction of what life was like on the Aran Islands in the 1930s will not be able to take this film as gospel. Speaking of which, one might wonder why there is no representation of religious interest in a film about Irish life, and in fact, due to Flaherty’s personal reasons, religion is omitted as a feature. The fabrication deepens, as the family are actually all actors chosen for their photogenic nature. Even the hunting expeditions for basking sharks were a forgotten trade on the Islands by then, but Flaherty pulls the veil over the existence islanders led to invoke a sort of philosophic reality – something some inhabitants criticised at the time.
At least the film manages to engage an audience and refute a documentary’s tendency to border on the boring – especially for a documentary made so long ago. A music score is an almost constant companion to the action on screen, building tension and romanticising goings-on where necessary.
Artistic lenience in camera shots are never far away; at one point we see a shadow on a hunted basking shark of the man of Aran, harpoon in hand, claiming the huge beast as his defeated prey. Faster shots heighten suspense during the hunting scenes, and shots of the same action from different angles and distances make the pace of the film less stagnant. A DVD extra, the documentary How The Myth Was Made, reveals that Flaherty used a lot of long lens shots combined with the closer action to make the frantic waves at sea look nearer to land and more dangerous than they really were; a clever little trick that’s easily missed if not looked for.
Like his previously successful Nanook Of The North (1922), and also other not so successful works, the use of centring the subject around a small family with a young child is something of a selling point for Flaherty. Again in How The Myth Was Made, we see that Flaherty “always had an eye on the box office” (at least this explains the shot of the lamb and dog sharing a basket together in Man Of Aran). In a way this sugar-coating shows Flaherty as an optimist as well as a poet, and inevitably perhaps as viewers of his work we can learn more about Flaherty than the actual subject matter in his films.
Man Of Aran will maybe only appeal to serious film fans and lovers of the documentary – or ‘docufiction’. For what it is, a piece of film ‘poetry’, it provides a worthy study of Flaherty himself. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to note that whether fabricated or real; the theme of man’s fight for survival amongst the harsh conditions nature can throw at us is as relevant today as it was in Flaherty’s films. MI
Film: Mammoth
Release date: 14th March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 125 mins
Director: Lukas Moodysson
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Michelle Williams, Marife Necesito, Sophie Nyweide, Thomas McCarthy
Genre: Drama
Studio: Soda
Format: DVD
Country: Sweden/Denmark/Germany
This is a majority English-language release.
Lukas Moodysson’s Mammoth introduces the director’s first English speaking film and reverts back to the good old narrative style (thankfully some might say) somewhat abandoned in his last two disappointing projects. Babel-style comparative and interlinking stories pave the way for thought-provoking themes inspired by everyday people and life defining situations.
The story focuses on three different situations amongst one small family: dad, Leo, a computer game wizard who owns his own business; mum, Ellen, an ER surgeon; their young daughter, Jackie; and their Filipino nanny/housekeeper, Gloria.
When Leo travels to Thailand to sign a business contract, the deal unexpectedly takes longer than promised, and Leo is left to amuse himself. He travels to a remote, picturesque island where he takes up with some pot-smoking travellers one night and ends up in a brothel. At first he sympathises with the situation and pays a prostitute named Cookie to go home alone. However, when Cookie finds him the next morning, they spend the day together, and Leo, caught up in the romance, sleeps with her. The next day, he regrets what he’s done, pushes the deal through asap, and returns home to his family in New York.
Meanwhile, Ellen spends a few hard days at work trying to save a young neglected boy who arrives with multiple stab wounds to the abdomen which he received from his own mother. Ellen develops an attachment to the boy because of his situation, and wishes she could spend more time caring for her own daughter. Instead, she is torn between work and home while her daughter grows ever more attached to the housekeeper, and simultaneously estranged from herself.
The final strand of the tale is all about Gloria, the housekeeper, and her two young sons who live back home in the Philippines. As Gloria struggles emotionally to spend so much time away from them, her mother assures the grandsons she is doing it for their own financial good. Nevertheless, the older brother, Badong, one night seeks easy money from tourists in the city; innocently ignorant to what it entails, only eager to obtain money to allow his mother to return home. His beaten body is discovered the next day, and Gloria comes home for good to be with her family…
There has been controversy surrounding a perceived theme in the story – that of women living for their work and neglecting their children along the way, and this is an oversight of Moodysson, a self proclaimed supporter of feminist politics. Considering the film is about human relationships and families, an audience can’t help but make the link. All three working women in the film – Ellen, Gloria, and Cookie - have moments lamenting time not spent with their children, and only when something tragic happens to Gloria’s son does she return to him. Otherwise, by the end of the film, even after instances of self-realisation, nothing really happens to change Ellen’s or Cookie’s situations, and life will go on as before.
In fact, nothing hugely positive can be taken from the story at all. Be it issues of working women, tourism, child-rearing, third world society, even the modern day family – none are looked on too kindly. Instead, we are shown the dark side of tourism, prostitution, philandering husbands, negligent mothers, and people who have to make a living on rubbish dumps. If Moodysson’s aim was to pose questions and make us think, then he fails. And the reason why is because there’s not enough depth.
It’s all very well illustrating the problems in every aspect of global modern society, however, the film could have been displayed in mute and the audience would still understand what’s going on. This point would usually be taken as an appraisal of on-screen coherence and a nod to the production, but when a film like Mammoth tries to make a study of deep themes within society, it needs to give an audience more to chew on.
Better character development could have done the trick and given an extra dimension the film needs. The characters seem to be there to serve a purpose instead of the other way round.
However, saying all this, the film isn’t as bad as it sounds. It is cleanly produced and the $10 million budget makes sure of this. With a funky soundtrack, smooth filming and two big names attached in Williams and Garcia Bernal, all is not lost in the name of entertainment. The colour palette and scenery are nothing but pleasing to the eye, and there is one (although just the one) amusing episode in a conversation between three prostitutes discussing punters’ performances according to nationality.
Despite the film’s avoidance to build or flesh out its solid themes, Moodysson presents us with a just-about plausible feature; although what’s being presented is a bit slow and obvious. Mammoth should only be given a hard time by those seeking to do so. Otherwise, it’s a watchable film leaning on the side of ‘nothing’, because that’s what it leaves the viewer feeling – if a bit sad. MI
Film: Soundless Wind Chime
Release date: 28th February 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 110 mins
Director: Kit Hung
Starring: Yulai Lu, Bernhard Bulling, Marie Omlin, Gilles Tschudi, Ruth Schwegler
Genre: Drama
Studio: Peccadillo
Format: DVD
Country: Hong Kong/Switzerland/China
Having won acclaim for previous works around the world, director Kit Hung isn’t new to the award scene. His latest and debut feature film doesn’t disappoint his record, and is a proud Teddy Award nominee of the 59th Berlin International Film Festival. As a semi-autobiographical account of Hung’s life experiences, Soundless Wind Chime focuses on the themes of life, death, and memory; blurring the boundaries between each and examining the concept of oblivion.
When Pascal (Bernhard Bulling), a Swiss petty thief in Hong Kong, escapes from an abusive relationship, he runs straight in to the arms of Ricky (Lu Yulai), a lonely Chinese delivery boy. Things seem to be going well for the young couple and, after getting a place of their own, Pascal soon gets a job teaching. However, cracks in the relationship inevitably start to grow when Pascal increasingly seeks excitement in dingy underground clubs, flirting with other men while Ricky prefers a quieter life.
Then, during one of his deliveries, Ricky comes across an old lady with Parkinson’s disease who presumably reminds him of his own ill mother with cancer. A trip to see her in Beijing gives Ricky and Pascal’s relationship another shove in the wrong direction when Pascal misses the train and they are forced to spend even more time apart. When Ricky returns to find the flat a mess, and Pascal’s continual cheating unending, the relationship gets worse and worse until all they are left with are bouts of fighting followed by physical comfort, continually battling between one extreme and the other.
When Pascal tragically dies in a road accident, Ricky goes to Switzerland to find solace in what reminds him of Pascal. There he meets Ueli (Bernhard Bulling), a trinket shop owner plagued by his own grief after the death of his mother, and who bears an uncanny resemblance to Pascal. The two become an item, and when Ricky returns to Beijing to look after his own dying mother, Ueli follows him. Just as he arrives, and when Ricky is at work in the city, Ueli is in time to meet Ricky’s mother only briefly before she dies in his presence...
Soundless Wind Chime has a lot going for it, however, its many good points tend to reach excess and dip it into confusion. One thing that’s for certain is that Hung wants us to consider the theme of love versus loneliness, and studies the concept of whether it’s better to love out of necessity and fear of being alone, or suffer an unhappy relationship for the sake of comfort.
At points in the film, Hung employs the idea of the circus, and intentionally or not successfully reinforces the notion of superficial, immediate pleasures; something that Ricky and Pascal enjoy together. But once the novelty has worn off, not much is left and their relationship begins to break down. However, this interesting enquiry in to a multi-cultural gay couple’s life set in Hong Kong isn’t the only main focus in the film, which is perhaps a shame. It seems to be the most comprehensible part of the story, but is overshadowed by Hung’s attempts to aesthetically depict the surreal subconscious and portrayal of loss.
Saying that, possibly the strongest element of the film is the sympathy inspired in the viewer at the sense of loss and sadness. Hung manages to portray the concept of missing someone who isn’t there anymore – not just through words, but visually on screen. He does this with intimate hand-held camera shots and close-ups of the actors to make the viewer feel even more involved with the characters. Memory is then depicted with simple but effective contrasting scenes from the past and present. Hung blurs not only the visual but audio, too, and we often hear radio static and voice-overs to encourage the surreal impressions of the subconscious.
The story is interesting; it just gets too confusing for the viewer. It seems at points there is a gap between what the director intends and what the audience understands. The principle concern comes from the cryptic structure of the storyline and the tendency to overload the film with an art house style. It’s as if there’s too much attention paid to camera tricks and a jumpy narrative that the meaning of the film starts to inherit something of a blur itself.
It would be almost impossible not to admit that Soundless Wind Chime is an evocative film, even for those unfamiliar with bereavement. Hung’s crafty techniques instil a sense of loss and longing successfully enough, however the overall film manages to get bogged down with confusion. MI
Film: Holy Money
Release date: 24th January 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 93 mins
Director: Maxime Alexandre
Starring: Aaron Stanford, Ben Gazzara, Karel Roden, Joaquim de Almeida, Valeria Solarin
Genre: Thriller
Studio: High Fliers
Format: DVD
Country: Italy/Belgium
This is a majority English-language release.
Holy Money tackles a story set in Italy touching on themes of immigration, loss of cultural heritage, religion, crime, and greed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the film is the brainchild of a solicitor and a lawyer; however, unlike in the law courts, fate can play a big hand when miracles are involved.
The two protagonists are Anthony Tregonis (Aaron Stanford) and Dario Barattas (Luca Angeletti), childhood friends from an Italian immigrant community in London. The film starts with a funeral on a rainy day in England; Dario sleeps with the fishes after mysteriously dying in a car accident.
A flashback reveals Anthony writing a love letter for Dario to a woman called Charlotte (Suzanne Bertish), and when Anthony sees her at the funeral, he decides to track her down as things just don’t add up. She reveals that Dario had been playing her for money, and that his will, made only two days before his accident, states that newly bought land in Italy in the form of vineyards have been left to Anthony.
When an Italian stranger bangs on the door at five in the morning, making an offer for the land in cash, Anthony decides to go and see the vineyards for himself. He travels in his red Italian vintage convertible to Sant’Angelo, original hometown of the Tregonis and Barattas families, and where his promised land awaits. As it turns out, the wine made from the grapes on Anthony’s bequeathed vines is undrinkable, which leaves him to ponder why Dario bought the land in the first place.
After a spot of romance with Bianca (Valeria Solarino), caretaker of Anthony’s inn, he decides after all to stay in Sant’Angelo, and hatches a plan to put the town “on the map,” as Dario apparently always wanted. Without prosperous wine from the vines, he decides to construct a miracle in the little church on his land instead. However, the plan backfires, as many dodgy dealers near and far suddenly come out of the woodwork to obtain the land from Anthony, by whatever means possible…
With Holy Money comes the example of too many influences getting in the way of a good story; a story that incidentally comes from award-winning novelist Tonino Benacquista’s book Holy Smoke. When lawyer Gauthier Broze and solicitor Benedikt Van der Vorst read the novel, they thought it a good idea to buy the rights for the film; and it was a good idea – in theory. It has potential to be an entertaining exploit involving romance and intrigue with a twist, or a tongue-in-cheek romp about an Italian/Englishman around estranged Italian countryside; or even a deeper critique on Italian religious and mafia underworlds, but instead the film tries to incorporate all of these films in to one, creating a work of many genres with visible seams.
Nearly all films these days mix genres; it is a necessity to keep making new and entertaining films. We have rom-coms, the comedy-drama, action-adventures, crime-comedies, crime-dramas, etc. However, what is perhaps essential in achieving coherence and stability within genre mixing is the tone that is established and maintained throughout, and what confuses the tone in Holy Money lies in the acting, script and score.
Essentially it is a crime-thriller, but apparently no-one told leading actor Aaron Stanford. It seems his confusion doesn’t come from the plot’s ambiguous twists and turns, but the film itself. One minute he’s a cocky young Englishman denying his Italian roots, the next he’s frolicking around the backwoods of Italy swept off his feet in a romance, and by the end of the film, he’s reaping the just desserts of getting mixed up with criminals, mafia-lords and the Catholic church whilst he lies in a hospital bed with a bullet in his head. If Stanford approached each part of his character’s story as if he were in a crime-thriller, perhaps there wouldn’t be a problem, but instead the acting seems shallow and the tone is not maintained. He doesn’t play a believable character in the film, but an obvious actor in it.
Blame cannot be pinned on Stanford alone - after all, the script barely holds its own. Even Suzanne Bertish only just manages to portray her albeit brief part in the film without embarrassment. It could all lie in the Italian/Belgian production of a predominantly English script, and we have a case of (talent) lost in translation. The music also confuses the audience as to what kind of film they are watching. A thriller needs suspense; fast, slow, teetering music to match the action, but instead there’s a soft, endearing, repetitive guitar melody that wouldn’t be out of place in a light-hearted family caper, and it’s more annoying than charming!
Holy Money proves that although you may have a darn good story on paper, it won’t be enough to plonk a film on top if you haven’t got the matching skill and capacity in production. The potential was lost in this film somewhere between Italy and Belgium, or perhaps just misplaced in the script. What’s for certain is that Benaquista’s book seems a better bet for entertainment value. MI
Film: Two In The Wave
Release date: 11th February 2011
Certificate: TBC
Running time: 91 mins
Director: Emmanuel Laurent
Starring: Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard
Genre: Documentary
Studio: New Wave
Format: Cinema
Country: France
Two In The Wave documents the relationship between arguably the two most influential artists of the French New Wave movement, François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. The film principally focuses on the ideals celebrated by both, uniting them in friendship, and the point at which this friendship dissolves instigating the end of the Nouvelle Vague era. However, instead of a story of collaboration and teamwork, Emmanuel Laurent presents us with a film about two quite different forces running parallel for a while, until they inevitably go their separate ways.
Cannes Film Festival, 1959, sees the success of a film called 400 Blows, the first of François Truffaut’s and France’s New Wave feature films. Despite a complete rejection of the old and respected cinematic ways, 400 Blows is received with enthusiastic salutations; the coming of a new, more real filming style is drawn in to the bosom of the French film world, changing cinema forever.
The documentary’s opening scenes show footage taken at the time of the festival, and from here, with our touring guide, Antoine de Baecque as narrator, we are taken on a general chronological journey of the beginnings of the New Wave period to the end of it.
Through interviews, film clips and newspaper snippets, we track the progression of Truffaut and Godard from boys enamoured with the big screen, sampling films in their hundreds, and starting film clubs and societies along the way. Their rapture in cinema leads them to jobs writing for film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, under Editor-in-Chief and mentor André Bazin, and from there, they formed alliances and gained respect, leading to everlasting careers in filmmaking.
Influenced and utilised by both artists, actor Jean-Pierre Leaud, star of 400 Blows (and Truffaut’s on-screen autobiographical representation), becomes torn between the two; and eventually, “his voyage with two fathers of the New Wave…ends on a sad note.”
The artists finally go their own separate ways after the May 1968 student and worker strikes in France, and depart on hostile terms. Via aggressive correspondence, Godard scolds Truffaut for his “lack of critique,” while he, on the other hand, becomes more and more politically motivated in the making of his films. The two never meet again...
By and large, the artists talk of the same ideals and principles behind New Wave cinema, however, although they may have come to the same conclusion, we are shown how their motivations were quite different, and how that caused a divide between them.
Godard came from a good, wealthy family, and we see him in photographs on the shores of Lake Leman in Switzerland where he grew up. Truffaut, however, had a lonely and unhappy youth, and having been through prison twice, was “saved by cinema” as a form of education. For Godard, it was more a “school of life,” of what could come from it and the reaction it could achieve. By comparing their backgrounds, Laurent affords the viewer to better understand what inevitably drove the two apart by what was rooted in their psyche; for one, cinema was above all a pure aesthetic medium – a way of life - and for the other, it was a platform for socio-political representation.
Laurent supplies us with old interview footage of Truffaut and Godard, of which we receive images of two very different people. Godard, a year older than Truffaut, spoke with a closed mouth, wore dark glasses, and had a grave countenance. Truffaut painted quite a different picture. A friendlier expression hosted a sense of enthusiasm and warmth. We see in selected clips he often fiddles with something in his hands whilst answering a question – a slight nervousness implying innocence. He has an altogether more welcoming character.
Consciously or not, these chosen clips suggest Laurent, certainly, has a more hospitable view of Truffaut, and this is also seen amongst other material included in the documentary. When Truffaut succeeds at Cannes with 400 Blows, Laurent includes a remark from Godard; “Truffaut’s a b**tard. No thought for me!” And it is Truffaut who has the last word of the two in the film. In Two in the Wave, a more sympathetic view of Truffaut is begot, and fans of Godard may find slight contention here.
The documentary itself is evidently made for those familiar with New Wave cinema; if you haven’t seen a film with ‘l’essence de Nouvelle Vague’, this film doesn’t provide a text book study. However, those familiar with the genre might appreciate Laurent’s subtle salutes of homage in the use of French actress Isild Le Besco. As she silently studies erstwhile newspapers and magazines, long, clean close ups of her face occupy the screen; and as she visits former New Wave points of interest, a hand-held camera accompanies her on the streets of Paris.
The chosen footage in the film leaves no gaps for concern. It helps that there are a lot of interviews with the two main men; first hand footage of the subjects allows for a better understanding of who they were, and the viewer doesn’t feel they are being dictated an essay. What may have been beneficial in making the documentary more complete would have been the inclusion of films pre-New Wave, or even some influential Italian Neorealist material, for example. There is also limited information on other New Wave artists and their work - it is obvious Laurent doesn’t want to detract too much from the relationship he sees as key in the dynamics of French New Wave cinema.
The story of Truffaut and Godard is respectfully told in this interesting and informative documentary, however, there is a pro-Truffaut feeling. Laurent allows us an insight in to the motivations that first sparked and then felled a friendship, giving energy to one of the most influential movements in film history. MI
