Holy Motors

2012
Director: Leos Carax
Writer: Leos Carax

Compared to previous years, 2012 personally hasn’t been a standout year for new films. There have been some entertaining rides along the way: Moonrise Kingdom was a charming love letter to young romance, The Dark Knight Rises was a sprawling, busy, flawed but ultimately epic film about the breakdown of socio-ethical values and the superhero myth while Skyfall simply re-affirmed my love of James Bond films. But there wasn’t much that that truly inspired or enthralled me to any great extent. There was Amour, Michael Haneke’s soul-crushing study of an elderly man’s devotion to his wife whose mind is slowly dying but for me the real standout this year was Holy Motors.

Despite not winning any prizes at the Cannes Film Festival this year, Holy Motors was the film which seemed to generate the greatest amount of buzz and fervour out of anything playing on all of the websites, blogs and reviews I was finding. I didn’t know anything about the director Leos Carax (this is his first film for 13 years) or any of the major actors in it. All I knew were some bizarre details about the plot which didn’t seem to make much sense and some glowing reviews praising its originality; it was intriguing. The trailer didn’t offer much more- just a series of distinct and memorable clips and images but it was enough for me. I couldn't wait to see it.

So what is it about then? We follow a day in the life of the mysterious figure Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant), during his bizarre odyssey across Paris in the back of a white stretched limo driven by his dutiful chauffeur Céline (Édith Scob). His day involves him engaging in a series of ‘appointments’, for each of which he has to perform a new character in public complete with new costumes, make-up and personality. He starts the day as a middle aged banker leaving his art deco home replete with luxury cars and armed security. Throughout the film he plays an elderly crippled woman begging for change, an ordinary man picking up his daughter from a party, an assassin assigned to kill his doppelganger and an actor performing stunts for motion capture animation on a soundstage, amongst several other roles. The reason why he does this is never made entirely clear and the only thing linking them is Monsieur Oscar himself.  

To put it bluntly, this film is insane. A very funny series of surrealist stories, Holy Motors is not constructed like or driven by any narrative conventions but instead takes the fundamentals of cinematic form and genre and subverts them, inviting the audience into this strange dreamscape not through narrative engagement but through bold imagery, warped humour and a strong awareness of itself. It’s a massively self-conscious film, filled with loving homages to previous French cinema and playfully running wild with ideas that don’t make much sense together and encourage the viewer to be aware that they are watching a film. Some might get frustrated by its clear lack of structure or purpose but for me the real joy of this film was never being able to guess what was about to happen next. Surrealism is so hard to do but this makes it look easy, making something that can at once be crudely funny, deliciously disturbing or knowingly tedious and existential.

Filled with unique and unforgettable setpieces, Holy Motors is frenetic, vivid and schizophrenic. It is a film about cinema- beginning with a prologue in which the director Carax himself wakes from a dream in a hotel room and breaks through a wall with a giant key embedded in his finger, he emerges at the back of a packed cinema filled with an attentive crowd. He’s transfixed by this new world, one formed by the artistic visions of the subconscious where anything is possible. Throughout the film, it asserts itself as a cinematic vision. Everyone in it is aware that they are performing for someone watching- indeed it is their professions. Each character M. Oscar plays is within its own cinematic realm- one time it is a violent thriller, another a languid melodrama about death filled with highly emotional performances and overblown cliché dialogue; it even turns into a musical as bizarrely Kylie Minogue turns up and sings a song about loss, heartbreak and change. Clips from early cinema of dancers and male bodies on display are spliced throughout. There’s even an intermission. The best bit is M. Oscar’s third appointment, a masterful sequence; he plays a revolting sewer dweller that emerges in the Père Lachaise cemetery to the theme from Godzilla, where he discovers a photoshoot by a deranged photographer and an American model whom he kidnaps and takes to his underground lair. So ludicrously funny, it’s also a scathing satire of contemporary France (sewers filled with illegal immigrants, a woman being disguised in a burka) and of self-obsessed celebrity culture.

Holy Motors is not like anything else I’ve ever seen recently. It’s refreshing to see something which doesn’t try to force overwrought thematic subtext down your throat. Instead you’re invited to simply enjoy the ride and marvel in the spectacle of a film that doesn’t take itself at all seriously. Certainly some viewers might dislike its unconventionality and puzzling content which is full of questions and secrets, but it’s just so much fun that these don’t matter. They’re not what this is about anyway; this is a hallucogenic experiment of the capabilities of cinema, so wonderfully formed and put together.

*Spoilers* But seriously, what is it about? It can definitely be seen as treatise on the art of acting and the nature of performance. In his TARDIS-like limo seemingly bigger on the inside and filled with boxes of props, costumes and make-up, we see the upmost care M. Oscar puts into each of his performances, the vast amount of time he spends carefully preparing for each role. The true centrepiece of the film is Lavant’s extraordinary performance, he truly throws himself fully into each character and it’s delightful to watch.

Holy Motors could also be about the performances we ourselves put on everyday- how we mark ourselves in the world through our behaviour, appearance and manner and how this is distinguished from our true selves seen only in private. We catch only brief glimpses of the real Oscar, when he is alone in the limo with Céline- he’s gradually downtrodden and tired as the day continues. One wonders if he’s grown increasingly weary of having to play so many such exacting roles while his real self grows older and is increasingly exerted. We catch a brief snippet of his strain as he takes a sneaky cigarette before entering the house of his final performance of the day, sighing, knowing he has to do it all over again tomorrow. The only glimpses of the real world he ever gets during the day is by watching the Parisian streets glide past on a television monitor in his limo. He spends his day interacting with families and strangers but everything that occurs, all the emotions he feels, are false; he’s definitely a lonely man consumed by a wider societal need to perform, to entertain and to distract. This is applicable to everyone in the film- Céline at the end of the day puts on a mask, this perhaps being the performance she puts on in her personal life (as well as being a reference to the wonderful French horror film Eyes Without a Face which Edith Scob also starred in). Eva Mendes’s kidnapped model retains her emotionless public persona required for her work, even during the chaos happening around her in the sewers away from the photoshoot.

One theory I want to propose is how Oscar could be developing melancholia over his growing old and his lack of genuine human relationships. Each of his roles could in some way reflect his own phobias and insecurities. He has no genuine family, yet the film is filled with daughters or daughter-figures (the little girl saying goodbye at the start, the self-hating daughter leaving the party, the devoted niece by her dying uncle’s bedside, the chimpanzees), perhaps stating his own desire for a child or something to give him purpose. The sewer monster’s final descent into almost childlike dependency yet one tinged with a creepy sexual undercurrent belays his desperate need for interaction. The assassin’s murder of himself (which is then repeated vice versa) could be a sense of self-loathing. The crippled woman, alone and begging, or at the other end of the scale, the banker attacked in the street, could be his future- isolated and misunderstood by the rest of the world that demands homogeneity.

It seems the world is changing around Oscar- he describes how he started this work and his love of it for “the beauty of the act”, yet he laments the loss of the beholder to appreciate this beauty. This could be a protest at the state of modern technology in the world- he decries how he unable to see the cameras anymore, perhaps because they are too small, and therefore he can no longer be aware of the audience watching him. Further, we can see the acts he performs on the soundstage with the contortionist for the motion capture- here the camera lingers on the fluidity and form of their bodies and ultimately juxtaposes this with the final product their movements are helping to create: a crude animation about copulating dragon monsters or whatever the hell they are. It’s not worthy of their efforts and it masks the real artists at work- the dedicated actors. Finally there is the wickedly silly scene at the very end of the film, where fears of being replaced and made inadequate by new machines are discussed, complaints about how people no longer want to see anything beyond what they use and want.

One major question is who is Oscar really performing for? It seems he’s in the business of creating filmic fiction for someone- it’s implied he’s be doing this for some time and we meet several other actors also engaged in acting for unseen audiences. Are the crowds unseen, and if so how are they watching? Oscar says he cannot see the cameras anymore, so does that mean they are actually there? Is anyone actually watching, or is this business (that of cinema itself and the art of performance) slowly dying, to be replaced cheap imitations and lazy commercialism? Or is the camera simply Carax’s, and the audience we ourselves watching right now? Few films have taken such measures as to make the viewer alert to the fact that we are watching something artificial and staged, created for artistic and entertainment purposes. Do we simply take for granted the efforts that go into creating cinematic art, and are we ignoring the truly deserving artworks in favour of those that pride novelty, technological gimmickry and convention over creative innovation? Oscar’s performance in the mo-cap studio is restricted and dictated by a demanding unseen voice, telling him exactly what to do; this then compared to his gloriously unhinged performance as the sewer monster.

Frankly, I could be way off the mark with all of these interpretations- Holy Motors is so dense in content which is so hypnagogic that it is open to any number of readings. People could easily hate this film, simply sit back and enjoy what’s happening or try hard to engage with its deranged content, but either way they can never say that they’ve ever seen anything like this before. Its refusal to follow the rules or frankly even simply make perfect sense is inspiring to watch and consider and that’s why for me Holy Motors is the best film of 2012.

Oi, shut it you slag. It's the fucking Sweeney.

2012

Director: Nick Love

Writer: Nick Love

Something I should really do more is to go to see films I wouldn’t normally see. Sure it can be a bit hit and miss but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how good some of them ended up being. Even better is seeing films I know nothing about and therefore going in without the tainting of prior expectations. So it was a Sunday afternoon and I was unbelievably bored at home when my parents announced they were going out to see The Sweeney and were asking if I wanted to tag along. I didn’t know much about it, other than a few majorly negative reviews. Dad wanted to see it due to his being a big fan of the original TV show in the 70s and was hoping this remake would live up to his high regard for it. To be honest I wasn’t bothered, but I bugger all else to do and hey, it’s a free film- why not? It might be fun.

With the amount I know about the original series, going into this was pretty much like knowing nothing. The original show from the mid 1970s starred the great John Thaw and Dennis Waterman as two detectives. That’s all I knew. According to Wikipedia, the title refers to Sweeney Todd, the cockney rhyming slang for Flying Squad, a branch of the police which deals with violent crime and armed robbery. With its themes of police brutality, violent crime and the cutting of corners and bending of laws to ultimately get the job done, this seems to fall within the guise of the Dirty Harry imitators I mentioned a few posts ago. The Sweeney was supposedly remarkable in its time for showing a high degree of realism as well as more brutal and flawed characters and far more onscreen violence than any other cop drama.

This time the main roles are played by Ray Winstone and Ben ‘Plan B’ Drew as Jack Regan and George Carter respectively. Two members of the more renegade Sweeney department, Regan is the oldest and most cynical of the squad while Carter is his protégé- young but still with his own battle scars. Our first glimpse of them is on the way to stopping a raid of a warehouse by an armed gang. The banter in the car on the way there is respective of much of the language and tone of the film- coarse, explicit and quick. This time they’re rating one of the guy’s girlfriend out of ten based on looks; it seems misogynistic but two members of the squad are girls and they get right into the banter too so it’s okay… I guess? The raid setpiece that follows is equally representative of the action in this film- shouty, sweary and with lots of shit getting smashed up. The level of destruction in this is something I’d normally associate with action spoofs or parodys but here it’s quite serious. When they drive in the warehouse they don’t just pull up and get out but instead smash through some crates and then into the getaway car, wrecking both vehicles. The violence is rapid and brutal, with the whole realism-assuring shaky handheld camera and jumpy editing. The action scenes are actually a lot of fun and generally well put together, with a shootout in Trafalgar Square being a highlight as well as some watchable car chases.

Although probably why they stand out so much is because the rest of the film doesn’t offer so much. The plot is unfortunately pretty feeble- the whole investigation is pretty slight with much of their progress coming via informants, helpful coincidence or the odd bit of violent interrogation which isn’t the most satisfying or engaging of stories. Frankly it was hard to care who was actually behind the crime because it just wasn’t interesting enough. I know this wasn’t going to be Agatha Christie-levels of intricate pacing and deviant plot twists but I was hoping for a little more bone for all the meat.

The main characters aren’t the most engrossing of leads either. This is nothing to do with the actors- Drew does a perfectly decent job and Winstone does the cockney tough bastard act he can do in his sleep which makes him definitely the best thing about this film. It’s just there’s not much to the chracters- Mum said how they were far less sympathetic than the original duo. Much of their onscreen time is occupied with cocky self-satisfied macho posturing rather than actual normal behaviour. Of course they do have personal lives- Carter is an up-and-coming cop with a young child and a pregnant girlfriend while Regan is an overweight slightly embittered man who begins an affair with the distant wife of Ivan Lewis, the sleazy bureaucratic cop with a vendetta against Regan and the Sweeney. Sadly, these side plots are pretty much thrown aside during the second half as the needs of the case take over. Scenes between the two leads are surprisingly lightweight although some were entertainingly boisterous. For me this mainly comes down to the brisk dialogue and their bloody need to fucking well swear every shitting other motherfucking word. Yeah, banter can be fun if it’s done well which it sometimes is here. And I couldn’t help smiling every time Winstone, without irony, would call a criminal a slag.

My Dad said afterwards that this wasn’t a bad film but he was disappointed with it. For him it did have the legacy of the TV show to live up to but ultimately I agree. It was a relatively enjoyable if forgettable action film which thankfully delivered on its main promise. I suppose it was better for me than I knew nothing about the show; this was no more than run of the mill generic action. Although in some ways it couldn’t help actually feeling a little bit dated despite its modern day setting. The plotting, the OTT shootouts, the themes of violent police retaliation and the debate over whether these methods are superior to the red tape of following by the book would fit better in the 1970s when problems within the real life Flying Squad were making news, whereas here they don’t gel as well with modern conventions of crime drama- such as the ethics of punishment or the focus on details and technology in the solving process. Plus who actually robs banks nowadays? The criminals break into a supposedly exclusive and private bank with surprising ease which just doesn’t ring true. Again, it’s not a bad film (although there were some badly done matching on actions which irritated me a bit), I guess it’s just not a very good film either. It was made by Nick Love, the man behind other such emancipated male fantasies like The Football Factory (2004) and The Business (2005) which work perfectly well in their own ways; it’s just like this, they don’t appeal to me- beating other guys to a pulp isn’t really my idea of fun.

Dirty Harry

1971
Director: Don Siegel

Writers: Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Reisner

With far too much time on my hands during holidays, they’re always a good time to catch up with films I haven’t seen for a long time. After a year supposedly studying film academically, I suppose I wanted to see whether my opinions on any of my favourite films would be any different. To be honest, I doubt they ever would, not unless I could now see some glaring flaw in any of them I wasn’t aware of before, but I have no idea what they could possibly be. I still don’t watch them in the same way as the films we study at uni- I’m not going out of my way to note the mise-en-scene or studying the editing techniques; to me they’re still simply films I love to watch. Although I’ve found that on some base level, I do keep an eye open for these things when I watch films for fun (especially if they’re particularly distinct), just not in as much detail as during lectures.

It’s from this slightly confused standpoint that I decided to watch a film I’ve always had a lot of love for: Dirty Harry. Along with the likes of A Clockwork Orange, Pulp Fiction, Being John Malkovich and several others, this is one of the few films that are actually quite personal to me in that they were amongst the ones I watched when I was around 13/14 and being more adventurous in my viewing. These were some of the films that showed me how diverse and captivating cinema could be and ignited my passion for film which remains today. Dirty Harry also has the honour of being my first introduction to the living legend that is Clint Eastwood, a man whose sheer screen presence and effortless cool is still a pleasure to watch. Dirty Harry is still my favourite Clint film and his most memorable role, revisited across four sequels of unfortunately widely varying quality.

It had been a few years since I last watched this and so I wanted to see whether my high regard of it was still deserved or whether I was simply looking at it through rose tinted glasses. It is very different to a lot of my other top films in terms of factors like its content, scale, the period it was made in and its visuals. Of course I’d be worried if all my favourite films were especially similar but I did wonder what it was about this film that kept leading me to look on it so positively.

The time: 1971. The place: San Francisco. The city is being held hostage by a sadistic serial sniper known only as Scorpio. He has already murdered a young woman by shooting her from a rooftop and now demands $100, 000 or else he will kill another person each day. With the police on high alert, Inspector Harry Callaghan is assigned to the case. His no-nonsense style, lack of respect for his superiors and unorthodox methods have helped form the basis of many onscreen maverick cop imitations ever since. They’ve also developed his infamous reputation in the police department- many different theories are suggested as to why he’s called ‘Dirty’ Harry, from the fact that he’s the one most willing to do all the dirty jobs to the point that he is simply a bit of a perv (as evidenced several times during the film). What starts as a routine investigation soon escalates into an intense battle between Callaghan and Scorpio, with the two men resorting to increasingly offhand tricks to win their own personal wars.

I think that’s where this film’s greatest strength lies: in its simplicity. It’s less a police thriller and more a study into two dark and violent men. Rewatching it this time made me realise how similar they both are; it just happens one is on the side of the law and one isn’t. Both are driven solely by single forces- Scorpio with his sadistic love of killing and Callaghan with his need to enforce the law, although as the film progresses his methods become increasingly unethical as his desire to overpower Scorpio overtakes. Very little is revealed about the lives of either man other than the events onscreen. Scorpio’s name or history is never discovered, his life seems to consist of nothing more than his insatiable urge to cause pain. A scene of him robing a liquor store shows he has no interest in money or gaining possessions; he’s simply there to retrieve a new weapon to restart his campaign, although he does slip a bottle of whisky on the way out. He’s always presented in a dehumanised manner- our first glimpse of him at the very start is simply that of the barrel of his rifle. We don’t see his face until about 10 minutes later and don’t hear his flat voice later still; even then it’s only on the other end of a telephone line where we can’t see him. The music distorts and becomes far more sinister in his presence.

Similarly, Callaghan is shown as being motivated almost entirely by his work. There is frequent reference to the fact that he doesn’t have a wife and the only time we do see him off-work, he’s using his time to follow Scorpio. We learn little more about him, other than brief glimpses into his voyeuristic tendencies and his general dislike for other people, especially those in power he sees as ineffective (although he does show increasing respect for his new partner Chico Gonzalez after he shows his capabilities in the field). Many critics and reviewers have pointed out the conservative right-wing tendencies of the character and the film and its series in general. This sort of view never really occurred to me the first times I watched this, as I tend to prefer to remain generally apolitical when I watch films, although now Callaghan’s desire to preserve justice over an need to follow rules or preserve human rights  is quite obvious. The controversy surrounding this film in the early 1970s doesn’t seem at all shocking now, although I can understand why it caused such concern over issues like police brutality and fascist ideals, with scenes such as Callaghan torturing information out of an unhelpful Scorpio or shooting a gang of African-American bank robbers being the most obvious. At times it does seem like a critique of the legal system, one which is slow, ineffectual and which preserves the rights of the criminal over those of the victim, a criticism which still rings around today. The film does definitely seem to side with Callaghan on this issue, most notably when Scorpio, having been captured, is released because the evidence is inadmissible due to it being collected without a warrant. However, Callaghan’s methods are so unusual and so extreme than they can hardly be called realistic; it seems this film is intended more as a study of Callaghan himself and how his determination to stop this criminal drives him to extreme lengths, with any sort of social commentary coming second in priority.

Dirty Harry is definitely intended to be an entertaining piece of action cinema and it’s in that sense that it works so well. The pacing is very brisk and precise; no time is wasted on showing anything which isn’t entirely relevant. Instead we get a series of strong and memorable set-pieces, the telephone chase around town and the school bus hijacking especially. Don Siegel directs this very well with a strong steady eye for detail- the violence in this film is convincingly messy and unchoreographed-looking yet retains a sense of style and clarity that makes it incredibly watchable and tense. There’s also an intelligent use of time and place; San Francisco is treated almost like a character in itself with numerous long shots of skylines tied with intimate filming right on the streets and alleys to give it a distinct feel. Several landmarks are used inventively in the action sequences; what stood out for me was the ironic use of religious imagery such as the cross in Mount Davidson Park and the neon ‘Jesus Saves’ sign outside the church, these two locations being home to some of the bloodiest violence in the film. These signs reflect the burgeoning tolerance and general peace of the city being put under threat by this maniac. The city is also distinguished here because of its association with the Zodiac killings that took place here in the late 1960s and that would have been still fresh in the memory of those who watched this when it was released. Those real life crimes were obviously an inspiration for the writers as similarities are drawn such as the sending of threatening letters and the threat of kidnapping a schoolbus full of children. This is referenced directly in David Fincher’s rich drama Zodiac (2007), based on the investigation of the murders, where investigators watching Dirty Harry at the cinema are shown to be visibly uncomfortable with how much overlap there actually is between reality and fiction.

 My brother complains that Clint Eastwood always plays the same role no matter what film he’s in. I suppose there is an element of truth in that (definitely in his earlier films) although his demeanour is most definitely his own and for me that’s what makes him so watchable. Here he is cocksure and confident; you can’t imagine him taking any shit off anyone. Harry Callaghan is just such a distinct character, with a swagger and a smart-talking economy with words all to himself. His ironic tone with his superiors and the mayor are a lot of fun- I loved spotting the homage to this in The Naked Gun with Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin repeating Callaghan’s ‘I shoot the bastard’ speech. And of course you can’t forget Andy Robinson’s chilling turn as Scorpio, who on first appearances seems so unlikely- director Don Siegel describes how he has “the face of a choirboy”. But often it’s simply the cold smirk on his face that makes him so horrendously unpleasant, this marring of supposed innocence with such evil. His disintegration from the calm controlled sniper to the maniacally driven monster is creepy; he is definitely one of the most horrible movie villains I can think of.

What’s stood out for me on this repeat viewing is just how unbelievably dark and grim this film is. Although age adds to this, it is definitely a grimy looking film as we’re introduced to some of the most inhospitable parts of San Francisco hidden in the shadows. Lalo Schifrin’s jazzy score does add a touch of class but ultimately this is a supremely gritty film. It’s so cheesy of me to say this but Dirty Harry is very much a dirty film, not necessarily because it is explicit but because it doesn’t hesitate from showing the dark underbelly of urban space, the impersonal machine-like working process of law enforcement and the blackest reaches of human depravity- there are no limits to which either Scorpio or Callaghan will go to which will stop them from overcoming the other. I’m surprised how much of this I missed when I watched it at around age 14. Then it was just a highly watchable thriller, one that has aged surprisingly well. It’s strange how much more disturbed I was by it this time, although I’m glad I was because seeing this in a new way was refreshing and it reaffirmed my respect for this film. I know this has ended up turning more into an essay than a review but I guess I just have a lot to think about with this- I’m glad I still like this film so much, it certainly makes my favourites list much more intriguing. 

Peaches/Iggy Pop - Kick It

I've started listening to Peaches a lot lately, I like her style and I've not really listened to anything like her before, even though most of her songs seem to consist solely of her talking about fucking. 
This song makes a bit of a change though and I can't think of a better collaborator. Again, this song doesn't have much content and is no more than them being self-referential with each others music but they do play well off each other. And the video is fucking brilliant. 

The Girl Who Played with Fire/ The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

2009/2009
Director: Daniel Alfredson
Writers: Ulf Rydberg/ Jonas Frykberg

Thank you Lisbeth Salander, thank you for ruining the idea of Sweden for me. Once a place of annoyingly beautiful blondes, stunning landscapes, flatpack furniture and nudists; it’s now a cold hostile place full of violent rapists, misogynists and secret government agencies infringing basic human rights. She really has had it tough, Ms Salander, and now things are really going to get trying for her. After investigating the shady history of the Vanger family with journalist Mikael Blomkvist in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), Lisbeth made her escape to the Caribbean using funds stolen from the corrupt Wennerström corporation. One year later she’s back in Sweden and being thrown back in the deep end.

In The Girl Who Played with Fire, her investigative partner from Dragon Tattoo Mikael Blomkvist and Millenium magazine are preparing to publish an article on human trafficking by young journalist Dag Svensson and his girlfriend Mia. Just days before the release of the issue, both journalists are found horrifically murdered in their apartment. Meanwhile Nils Bjurman, Lisbeth’s sexually abusive guardian is also discovered to have been executed, both crimes having been commited on the same night and with the same gun. Unfortunately, Lisbeth’s fingerprints are recovered from the murder weapon and she’s now the police’s main suspect. Forced to go into hiding and on the run, Lisbeth sets out to stop the people who framed her while Mikael uses Dag’s article as a starting point to investigate the people behind the crimes and prove her innocence. Both begin to find themselves being drawn into a mysterious web of intrigue, prostitution rings and political abuse, all headed by a shady figure known only as ‘Zala’. To top it all off, Lisbeth is now also being hunted by a seemingly unstoppable man mountain called Niedermann.

To be honest my expectations going into this film weren’t sky high. Played with Fire was my least favourite of the novels, finding it to be slow and slightly muddled in terms of pacing and plotting. Any reviews I’d read for this were mixed at best. I doubt it would ever be able to match the heights of previous film, a much more solid thriller and more in line with a murder mystery, a genre which I have a real soft spot for. I’ve always been intrigued as to how much of an impact prior expectations have on my opinions of the final products; often low expectations lead either to pleasant surprises or disappointments, often because I tend to stay a bit too biased against the film (something I should really try to stop doing!)

The problem in this case is that whatever attitude I had going into watching it, that doesn’t stop it from being a poor film, especially when compared to the previous film. A good adaptation should retain the essentials from the source while moulding them into a form that’s more cinematic. Fire however feels subservient to the novel, following it slavishly. This isn’t helped by the fact that the novel is itself so disorganised and heavy and simply results in a film that feels plodding and slow, despite it being by far the shortest of the trilogy in terms of running time. I ended up checking my watch several times- the framework of the screenplay allows little sense of any overriding tension or progress; it feels like it’s simply doing what it’s being told to do.

Part of what helped make Dragon Tattoo so engaging was the presentation of the unusual relationship between Lisbeth and Mikael and watching it develop, from tentative and perhaps suspicious foundations up to a positive working partnership and a burgeoning sexual relationship, leading to what could be love on her part. Regrettably, there is no building on that in Played with Fire as the two barely interact at all in person. Each pursues their own storylines and frankly Mikael Blomkvist isn’t an enticing enough character to command full attention. Thankfully the saving grace of this film is again Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth. Throwing herself so dedicatedly into playing such an emotionally complex and troubled character, Rapace wonderfully exudes the right sense of intensity as well as vulnerability to fully flesh out Lisbeth into someone so engaging. Unfortunately she isn’t given as much to work with here, often being shown either smoking and looking moody or threatening people for information. The supporting characters aren’t given much space for development either.

The film does begin to pick up slightly at the end but the laboured pacing and lack of exciting enough action scenes or set pieces isn’t enough to make it worthwhile. It seems like the film edit of Played with Fire feels mostly like a bridge between its neighbours.

Which brings us on to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest .Without wanting to give too much away, Lisbeth is now in hospital having been severally shot several times and despite the benefit of starting to make a recovery from her injuries, is now having to face trial for all her crimes, both those forced upon here and those she committed in self-defence and revenge. Mikael and Millennium now face battle against a dangerous and covert secret government agency known only as ‘The Section’, which will use any means to possible to try to silence Lisbeth and stop her from revealing the truth. As they discover more about the illegal practices of the Section, the danger grows for Lisbeth as they build a case against her to have her incarcerated against in a mental hospital, as well for Mikael and the entire staff of seemingly around only four employees at Millennium, as the bad guys become increasingly desperate.

Hornets’ Nest already has the benefit of stronger source material- the novel is a pretty hefty tome but is in general far more controlled and engaging than the previous book. This works more as a political thriller in some ways, as the numerous layers of plot begin to intertwine. It’s also far more complex and this can work against the film sometimes, as a large number of new characters are introduced, mainly linked to The Section and the police. It sometimes tricky to keep track of all of them and some don’t get much of a look-in as Hornets’ Nest tries hard to maintain its labyrinthine structure into something more cinematically feasible. This also means we see far less of Lisbeth than I’d prefer. Even worse, she spends most of the film either confined to a hospital bed or sat in a courtroom, horribly restricting her dynamism that made Played with Fire ultimately bearable. Incidentally, due to a lack of many notable setpieces, it’s the court scenes in the final third that carry the most trepidation, as we’re engaged in a battle of wits over who knows what and what evidence either side of the law actually has.

One wonders how many elements of truth there are in the existence of such a corrupt and illegal operation as The Section, as we consider how the novel tries to combine Stieg Larsson’s desire to expose political and social prejudice and abuse alongside a need for more entertaining pulpy content. A lot of the men (and they are all men) and the methods involved with The Section do seem extreme, almost pantomimishly so as they discuss means of silencing Lisbeth in fairly cliché evil villain talk. The character of Dr. Teleborian, the man who ‘treated’ Lisbeth in her stint in the asylum as a child is so unbelievably unpleasant that it feels it can undermine some of the authenticity of the plot.

Perhaps another factor that works against these two films is that they have a different director to Dragon Tattoo. I’m not able to find out much about Daniel Alfredson other than that he is the brother of Tomas Alfredson, director of Let the Right One In (2008), so I suppose most of his previous work was in his native Sweden. The two films aren’t badly directed, in fact they’re filmed quite solidly; it’s just they lack some of the style and vivacity of the first film which leaves them feeling more like the TV movies that you forget they actually are. Neither film has any shots or stand-out moments that linger around in the mind long after the film is finished- it ends up feeling a bit pedestrian. Again, not to say that they are bad films; I did enjoy Hornets’ Nest once it finally began to pick up pace but I would have like to have seen something more substantial. A lot of the novel’s commentary on the state of modern Sweden and the unwelcome prominence of abuse and misogyny isn’t featured as prominently as it deserves to be as the films try to remain entertaining. Ultimately though neither film is engaging enough to really be called totally entertaining. This trilogy was highly ambitious and I’m intrigued to see if I can ever get my hands on the extended versions of each film which were shown on European TV in several parts and deduce whether that leads to any improvements. For now though I have to conclude that Played with Fire in my eyes is a fairly admirable failure while Hornets’ Nest is a mixed success.      

Life of Pi - Trailer

When I read Life of Pi about 2 or 3 years ago, already aware of rumours of a film adaptation, I tried to picture what it would be like on the big screen. I couldn't really imagine how it would be possible, given the sheer difficultly and impracticality of many aspects of the novel from the actual filming in the middle of the ocean itself, to working with a tiger to play Richard Parker and other parts such as the shipwreck and the mysterious island of meerkats.The majority of the novel features Pi stuck at sea on a tiny lifeboat, half delirious from thirst and malnutrition- it hardly seems the most cinematically engrossing of things. But then I'd thought the same about other less plot driven novels, ones which at first seem like they'd be difficult to adapt, and then been surprised at how well they transferred- some of my favourite examples being The Virgin Suicides (1999), We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011) and Orlando (1992).


So I'm going to look forward to this with high hopes mainly because I'm intrigued to see how they do it. I really enjoyed the book and how it was able to take such a surreal concept and turn it into something so engaging as well as present an enlightening look at Pi's own religious discoveries, his childhood in India as well as offering a look at the nature of religious allegory. It couldn't be in better hands as well, considering director Ang Lee's track record. 


Of course, there's the question of how they actually created much of the unusual imagery and it seems they've relied on an abundance of CGI. Personally I'm not a big fan of it when it's overused and I can't help thinking how artificial it looks when watching this trailer. But this is hardly Transformers (2007); it all looks very subtle and it seems a lot of effort was put into making this more aesthetically beautiful than realistic, perhaps to build on the fantastical aspects of the novel. It reminded me a lot of the look of The Lovely Bones (2009), another seemingly troublesome novel to adapt and indeed that film was more flawed than I'd wished, being too much in debt to its outlandish visuals. This trailer focuses almost entirely on imagery as its big selling point and so I guess it wouldn't make a huge amount of sense to those who have no idea what Life of Pi is about as explanation and even dialogue are sidelined.


I trust Lee and screenwriter David Magee will still focus just as much on the book's first half looking at Pi's spiritual and religious experimentation as well as retaining the second half of Pi's stranding at sea as the possible testing of his faith in God and its parallels to the allegories of religious prophets. However it ends up, this trailer has gotten me excited, I anticipate it has the potential to be something pretty special.

Paris, Texas

1984
Director: Wim Wenders
Writer: Sam Shepard

A sweeping helicopter shot over a vast desert landscape of bare rock and warm bittersweet copperish hues. The camera zooms in on a lone figure, dwarfed by these huge surroundings. This is Travis, a wandering man who has spent the last four years escaping his past by trekking alone across the American south, clad in his shabby suit and distinctive red cap. Upon collapsing in a petrol station, he is soon rescued by his brother Walt, who had long since believed him to be dead after his disappearance from home.

But Travis is a changed man- unable or unwilling to speak, dead eyed and walking aimlessly off, seemingly oblivious to all around him. Walt is often at his wits’ end trying to deal with as they drive their way torturously from Texas to his home in Los Angeles. Travis gradually begins to speak, but minimally. Not sleeping and barely eating, he refuses to say what has happened to him all these years; his face still tinged with sadness from a period of grief in his past that still taints him but which he struggles to remember. There is an emptiness in his life- we see him sat alone in a hotel room staring unblinkingly at static on a television screen.

It’s upon returning to Walt’s family, caring wife Anne and son Hunter, that something awakens in Travis. Hunter, it emerges, is Travis’s own son, raised by Walt and Anne as their own child after the mysterious and sudden disappearances of both Travis and his wife Jane.  What was so serious as to cause them both to leave their own son? Travis needs this chance to rebuild his life, reconnect with his son and put to rest the demons that plague his mind and tore up his family.

Wim Wender’s film is a deceptively simple fable about the importance of family and the roots we create for ourselves in the people and places around us, and how strong or brittle these can be. From here we build our desires and dreams- a maid who helps Travis in his aim of self-improvement tells him “You must look to the sky, not to the ground”. Everybody needs to look up and out, work to get the best for themselves but not totally lose their heads in the clouds. Each of these characters is striving for their own paradise, their own American Dream if you look at it. It is about overcoming hard times and improving upon it. Paris, Texas for Travis has always been the realisation of his dreams. The town means an awful lot to him, as his parents described how it was where they first made love, and where he was probably conceived. We never actually go to Paris, instead only seeing a photo of an empty space there, a lot where Travis hopes to build a home. He is so fixated on fulfilling this dream that he loses track of the things around him, only realising when it’s too late. Travis has spent so long running away from everything, constantly moving and distracting his mind that he’s forgotten what matters, what’s best for his family. He must re-establish their roots, even if it means sacrificing anything that he had before.

It is ironic that it’s a foreigner who is so able to capture the essence of these people and places in this love letter to the American south. Sam Shepard’s effortlessly natural script and dialogue creates such an air of realism while the sprawling cityscape of L.A. and the vast expanses of Texas are filmed with such confidence and in such distinct colours that they often look like paintings dwarfing the small figures within them. The frequent recurrence of the colour red, here captured so vividly, imbues the objects with such vitality and richness as they highlight the purposes of Travis’s life and pinpoint the things that matter most amongst the bustle of existence, the markers on his journey. The red shades are so bold and filmed amongst so many other expressive colours: the warm orange hues of the Mojave Desert, the strong blue of endless skies, the eerie green glow of electric lights.

It’s easy to understand why this won the Palme d’Or. In terms of plotting it’s surprisingly simple and linear but its real strength lies in its ability to create characters so well drawn out which we can invest so much in emotionally. The dialogue is natural and unshowy. Travis connects with both Walt and Hunter with conversations ranging from childhood memories of parents to discussions about the Big Bang. The entire film is low key, preferring a love of the intimate and ramshackle over any sort of spectacle or cloying oversentimentality. This is wonderfully summarised in a scene where Travis describes his mother and how she never needed to be fancy, just good. The father’s obsession for her to be better is ultimately his undoing. Paris, Texas avoids such problems, thankfully focusing instead on the details that matter. It is a surprisingly long film and its languid and often patient pacing will not be to everyone’s tastes. But where this film succeeds is how it avoids the mawkish melodramatics of many other family dramas, instead working more as a contemporary western film. It’s a morality tale about a lone figure in a big bad world, an anti-hero of sorts who must preserve the natural order of world beyond any sort of social structures. 

Liars- No.1 Against the Rush

My favourite new discovery, I love this song and the album too. It's so sinister, especially with this video. Watching Drive a few days ago reminded me of this video, not just the setting but the whole look and feel of it.

A History of Violence

2005
Director: David Cronenberg
Writer: Josh Olson

One of my aims for these next few months is to try to expand my viewing of different directors. I still can’t believe how little I’ve seen from the likes of David Lynch, Werner Herzog, Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman. Another name to add to that list is David Cronenberg. My full exploration of his work extends into two films: Eastern Promises (2007), a very cold film which I enjoyed nonetheless and Videodrome (1983) which I think I was too young to watch at 13, as it didn’t make much sense and disturbed me in some parts, especially the VCR in the chest parts for some reason. So I was excited when I finally had the chance to watch the copy of A History of Violence I had saved on Sky+ many months ago once I got back from university. I’d heard good things about it and hoped the slightly less abstract content would give me a smoother introduction into Cronenberg’s working mind.

Thankfully this turned out to be true, here presenting a snapshot of a small town in Indiana, the kind where everyone knows everyone and strangers are treated with suspicion. Indeed, it’s surprisingly ordinary for Cronenberg, filmed solidly in dulled autumnal hues. Here, Viggo Mortensen plays Tom Stall, a local diner owner, well-liked by everyone and part of a loving family of wife Edie, teenage son Jack and young daughter Sarah. He comes across as a kind and almost gentle figure, as shown by his careful care for his restaurant as he cleans litter outside and his friendly banter with the customers. Our glimpses into his intimate relationship with his wife played by Maria Bello, shows him almost as being submissive, as she takes control in the bedroom. However everything is soon thrown into disarray following an armed stickup by two gangsters at the diner. In self-defence, Stall takes out the men violently and swiftly and is soon deemed a local hero by the media. This though brings the unwelcome attention of East-coast mobsters including Ed Harris’s deformed and menacing Carl Fogarty, convinced that Tom is in fact Joey Cusack, a former gangster on the run.

This curveball soon brings the family into crisis. They become increasingly aware of other facets of Tom’s personality, ones which he had concealed even from himself. His moods shift, he suddenly much more reserved and defensive, the look in his eyes change. The stalking by the mobsters soon disturbs the town, afraid of these unwelcome strangers. The tension here builds as we and the family have no idea what they want or what they will do next. The smallest of movements and the most ordinary of objects inflict added stress: the slow passing of a car outside, the central framing of a door, a close up of a shotgun all creates a threat of incoming terror. It’s this attack on the things that Tom holds dear that makes it so unbearable: his home is no longer safe, his family is at risk, even his own identity is being jeopardised.  Cronenberg is fascinated with the process of change Tom and the family goes through, as we witness his own personal identity crisis and the shock of doubt for his wife and son especially as they question the man they know.

Of course central to this is the theme of violence and what it means to people. Cronenberg presents it as being something that permeates all aspects of life, as being something that comes naturally to anyone, as part of our own animal subconscious. Roger Ebert in his review of the film notes how the title A History of Violence has three meanings: the past actions of an individual, the role of violent acts in history and the role violence plays in our own existence, our evolutionary survival of the fittest. The visceral scene of Tom trying violently to calm Evie which soon morphs into a burst of rough sex highlights the primal essence of both actions, how they both serve our need for self-preservation and gratification. Every instance of violence within the film is there for a reason- each one signifies the gradual process of transformation Cronenberg is so interested in. Who inflicts it and on whom? Why? This is also presented in the son Jack and his own crisis. His increasingly unrestrained reactions against a bully at school are tied with the increasing emotional strain from the terrorisation and the doubts about his own father. Is this emerging violent streak something he inherited from the people around him, an aspect of their personalities he wasn’t aware of? Was it always there, to present itself eventually?

From this Cronenberg explores the creation of our identities and personalities. Firstly, we see how others choose to identify the characters, most notably the local media’s declaration of Tom as a hero. We then also see how characters choose to present themselves- the gangsters aim to flaunt their prestige and opulence, as shown by the ornate mansion of the mob boss and the large estate car with tinted windows they drive. This immediately stands out and arouses the suspicions of the local people; its distinction emphasises the distance between the small town in Indiana and the big city of Philadelphia where they belong and where Tom’s shady past which he has been trying to escape resides. From here Cronenberg asks us to question the identity of Tom. His creation of his humble life in this small town is so strong he has convinced himself it’s the real deal, but is it truly him? He chose to play this role but will his inherent personality, the roots of which lie in his mysterious past, eventually dominate? Are we ourselves as human beings doing the same- simply choosing to consciously supress our base instincts?

Despite all this possible meaning layered within, the film also works brilliantly simply as a tense and entertaining thriller. Cronenberg’s control and its calm leisurely pacing only heighten the sense of trepidation as the world of the characters that he has spent time carefully creating for us is increasingly threatened. In terms of plotting, this film isn’t entirely pioneering- once we begin to learn more about Tom’s past, the outcome does begin to feel expected and inevitable. However, what the script really puts emphasis on and what its greatest strength is comes from the creation of characters so richly complex and so excellently brought to life by a great cast. The subtlety of their performances coupled with the more extravagant content of the film creates a diegesis that remains believable and engaging. I enjoyed my latest exploration of David Cronenberg and found that whatever his films contain, they all concern the very factors that make us human and how outside impacts, ranging from the fantastic to the far more ordinary, can force drastic mutation and trauma which push the very boundaries of our psyche.

X-Men: First Class

2011
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Writers: Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn

After four commercially successful albeit mixed quality films, it seems the people at Marvel realised that something was missing from their X-Men films, arguably a necessity to all superhero films: an origin story. Of course, they had covered this slightly with the appropriately titled X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) but this only focused on one character. What about the rest of the X-Men? There certainly are a lot of them, but most importantly what about Professor X and Magneto. Their wonderfully complex symbiotic relationship is never fully explained, despite it being the basis of much of the conflict in the first two films.

Marvel here took a very bold decision in replacing the whole cast to portray the younger X-Men, here living in the 1960s and doing a very good job of creating an alternative history which I think actually works quite well (It would be great if more comic book films could make an effort of trying to create an enhanced sense of time and place in their diegesis, rather than the generic ‘present day America’ setting most rely on). The script of First Class benefits from its pretty smooth insertion into examples of real life conflict, to create a sense of verisimilitude amongst all the fantasy. It’s also aided by a stellar cast, most notably James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Charles Xavier and Eric Lensherr respectively. We are shown their childhoods in parallel: one is raised in opulence in a mansion in the English countryside, the other held captive in Nazi concentration camp. One grows to become a free-spirited professor, the other an embittered Machiavellian seeking revenge. Their lives cross during their respective searches for Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), the former Nazi who had tortured Lensherr. Now an ageless playboy figure, he has aroused the suspicion of the CIA. Joining forces, the pair works with mutant friendly CIA agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) to build a rag-tag army of mutants to stop Shaw’s dastardly plans for world destruction.

The first problem here is that Shaw is a fairly unsubstantial villain, at least compared to the menacing theatricality of Ian Mackellen in the previous films. The majority of the film contains little threat, at least until we discover his aims in the second half. Instead, he spends most of the film lounging about on boats and submarines and occasionally wearing a plastic hat to stop his thoughts from being read.

The bold ideas of the script are further let down by laboured plotting, as it attempts to fit far too much in at once. The Magneto/Professor X plotline is annoyingly sidelined in favour of a multitude of other underdeveloped characters. Instead, the intricate differences in their personal philosophies are repeatedly presented simply via scenes of them playing chess and discussing the ethics of the mutant situation. Meanwhile the large numbers of supporting characters get even less time, many of them only represented to us through their individual powers: the girl with wings, the guy who is good at high-pitched screaming, etc. They have very little personal development, often presented during the slight montage sequences set to anachronistic soundtracks which don’t entirely fit the tone of the rest of the film. Eventually they are used simply as figures of spectacle in the final battle scene, being pitted against some equally one-dimensional villain sidekicks.

In spite of this, First Class can hardly be described as a boring film. The inevitable epic finale is a lot of fun and all the action scenes are all creditably choreographed. It looks great, with the CGI thankfully mostly unobtrusive and generally aiding the creation of characters. The whole is thing is very well put together, which we’ve come to expect from director Matthew Vaughn after the success of Kick Ass (2010). This film is as equally stylish as well, nicely capturing the James Bond/Mad Men-type aesthetics and feel of its 60s setting and its ambitious globe-hopping. The period seems suitable for the story, with the growing civil rights movements at the time tying possibly tying in with the plight of the mutant characters- whether they should fight to assert their presence and be “mutant and proud” and other such cliché dialogue.

Ultimately, X-Men: First Class is a mixed success. It’s far more sophisticated than most summer blockbusters and much more interesting visually and in content. The period setting makes a welcome change from the usual anonymous present day locations of other comic book films and it makes a greater effort to place character’s personal dilemmas amongst all the bloodless violence and shit blowing up. But a strong idea is let down by a muddled script, which tries to take on too much at once and ultimately leaves a film which is enjoyable but not majorly memorable or iconic in any way.

Final thought- I still can’t understand the title. Is it saying the heroes of the film are superior in some way because of their decision to defend the world? Or is it saying the mutants are a cut above the other humans, the next step up? The film makes great effort to show how the humans are no different from each other regardless of whether they are American or Soviet, as shown by the near-symmetrical framing of them during the boardroom and battleship sequences, and their shared fear of mutants. Ultimately are we more inclined to side with Professor X’s desire for integration but pragmatic realisation that remaining hidden is the best plan, or with Magneto’s campaign against humans to assert their own dominance?