Ruby Sparks
Dir. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
Country: USA
Aus Rating: M15+
Running Time: 104mins
Friday, August 17, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: Ruby Sparks
Review: Bernie
Bernie
Dir. Richard Linklater
Country: USA
Aus Rating: M15+
Running Time: 104mins
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: This Ain't California + Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap
This Ain't California
Dir. Marten Persiel
Country: Germany
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 90mins
Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap
Dir. Ice-T
Country: USA
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 106mins
Monday, August 13, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present
Dir. Matthew Akers
Country: USA
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 106mins
MIFF 2012 Review: Maniac
Maniac
Dir. Franck Khalhoun
Country: France / USA
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 100mins
This film is far too slick, calculated, and neatly packaged to have any of the same impact as Maniac 1980 (which, I guess, is what we’ll call it from now on for the purpose of this review). There are many reasons why Maniac 1980 is a classic, but most of all it is because of the downright filthy representation of New York that director Lustig imbued his film with. One of the most true, and sickening, depictions of a dying city ever put on film, New York and its boroughs had never, and certainly hasn’t since, looked quite so oppressive. Maniac 2012 takes a different tact, switching the action (“action”) to Los Angeles and filming the city in a glowing light that is gorgeous in execution, but confounding in reason. Like the aforementioned Drive, from which Maniac 2012 borrows heavily (to put it mildly), as well as Michael Mann’s Collateral, Khalfoun’s film makes a menacing beauty of the city of angels at many times, but you’d be forgiven for finding the horror of its locale less effective. The crystal clear digital cinematography of Maxine Alexandre only further accentuates this.
Among the many differences to the original, this so-called remake shifts the action to a first person POV. It’s as if we’re seeing through the eyes of Frank – a deliberately robotic Elijah Wood – which should make for a more disturbing experience (the mind of a killer and what not), but it instead drains the film of dread and tension. In one scene that recalls the original, set amongst the subway of Los Angeles as Frank chases an attractive woman through the station, there is nothing in the way of heart-pumping suspense. By aligning the viewer with Frank’s field of vision, the girl is rendered more or less inessential to the proceedings, which is a worrying thought. The audience is being put inside Frank’s mind and being forced to experience what he experiences. That isn’t scary. There’s never any moment of relief and elation at a potential victim’s escape because the filmmakers never lets us experience it. It’s virtually impossible to feel what the women Frank stalk and kill feel because no effort is made to represent them.
I don’t necessarily think any of this makes Maniac 2012 a misogynistic film – certainly not as much as, say, VHS - however, the reaction of some of my 11.30pm crowd made me think that they themselves may indeed be misogynist. At least initially, there were whoops and hollers at the gruesome stabbing and scalping of an attractive, scantily clad woman. I worry about their motivations for seeing something like this. Or perhaps its more an indictment on the director who wasn’t able to make the victim anything other than a vacant vessel to be offed, so much so that the especially nasty way she is disposed of is seen as little more than a giggle fest. I certainly don’t think the film is played for laughs, but what does it say about it when it elicits them? I’m not sure, I’m conflicted myself.
There are indeed moments of this movie that frazzled me, but that’s probably inevitable for a film as gory as this. The scalpings are disgusting and brutal, although the hint of CGI blood spray is off-putting. If Maniac 2012 bests the original in any way it’s in the ending, which takes the original’s idea and adds a slice of imagery that’s awfully effective, both thematically and visually. Fans of the original will know it when they see it. The director has some other neat tricks up his sleeve, sure: Using Q Lazzarus’ “Goodbye Horses, immortalised by a dick-tucked Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs; a fabulous Délé Ogundiran as a dreaded, aviator-wearing policewoman (I want a 1980s-set Policewoman movie starring her, please); Wood replicating the poster of the 1980 original in the shiny, reflective surface of a car door, post-scalping. The Drive stylisations are initially very distracting – the opening scene, especially, had my friend and I scribbling the exact same note – but the score (by whom I’m not sure, there is no name listed) is a wonderfully retro throwback that recalls Jay Chattaway’s bustling relic of a musical score from 1980.
Is it interesting that Franck Khalfoun directed P2 all set within one location, and now he’s made Maniac, which is set all within one body? Maybe, but probably not enough to make the exercise a true success. Whereas Maniac 1980 sourced many of its chills from its dead set sense of place and palpable atmosphere of incoming dread, the remake takes a different path. It’s an admirable goal of Khalfoun, as well as his high profile producer Alexandre Aja (who also co-wrote with CA Roseberg and Grégory Levasseur), to take a more European sensibility to the original film, something that was made even more abundantly clear by the humorous (accidental?) inclusion of French subtitles for the first 15 minutes. Much of what you make of Maniac 2012 will depend on whether you think the story is strong enough to work being told in such a radically different fashion. At 100 minutes it is arguable too long – maybe one of the stalks could have been cut, or maybe just tightened up some of the bits between Frank and photographer Anne, rather than including repetitive sky-gazing POV shots and migraine-induced fogginess. It’s an interesting experiment, but it was always going to be hard existing in the shadow of such a great piece of cinema as Maniac 1980 and it’s a shadow it never truly comes to close to stepping out from. C
Sunday, August 12, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: The Sessions
The Sessions
Dir. Ben Lewin
Country: USA
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 95mins
Dir. Ben Lewin
Country: USA
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 95mins
Thursday, August 9, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: Jayne Mansfield's Car
Jayne Mansfield's Car
Dir. Billy Bob Thornton
Country: USA / Russia
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Town: 122mins
The developments that bring the Bedford family - John Hurt, Ray Stevenson, and O'Connor - from their home in England all the way to Alabama certainly pique initial interest. As Hurt and the ex-husband of his now deceased wife, played with typical externalised gruff by Robert Duvall, duke out their own decades-old argument, his children and grandchildren all have their own heavy stuff to deal with. Thornton's Skip is deeply wounded (both mentally and physically) from his time in WWII, the same war that has turned Kevin Bacon's Carroll into a peace-loving hippy. The third brother, Robert Patrick's Jimbo, didn't go to any war and yet carries scars all of his own. Bacon has perhaps the most interesting of the film's many characters, having to deal with the shame he puts upon his decorated WWI hero father's image as well as a son who, quite tellingly, thinks enlisting for the Vietnam War would be a "rock and roll" thing to do. What they would all think of soldiers lip syncing to Carly Rae Jespen's "Call Me Maybe" on YouTube is never broached.
Thornton imbues his film with the same rustic, southern gothic sensibility that he gave his debut, Sling Blade, in 1995. Perhaps Jayne Mansfield's Car was his attempt to return to safer territory after the much-noted debacle of All the Pretty Horses in 2000. Sadly, this more expansive tale never reaches any of the lofty heights it is clearly aiming for. It looks lovely, and and an electric twang-heavy score plus references to era-defining moments in time mean there's usually something to be paying attention to, but for a film that appears to be trying to say so much it never really gets above that initial statement of "war is hell".
The fingerprints of a scissor-happy editor are there on screen as well as off. O'Connor's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" reciting step-sister seemingly vanishes for a couple of days with nary a mention of her name to remind audiences of her whereabouts. She's the highlight of the film - "It's like Gone with the Wind!" - and her vanishing act is truly a mystery. Meanwhile, the film's Wikipedia page (which humorously implies Duvall, Bacon and Thornton play the three central brothers) cites Tippi Hedren as the wife who fled Alabama for the UK, and yet she never once appears on screen. I can't imagine the bulk of the tiresome "old man takes LSD, LOL!" segment was more important, but there you go. Even the collage-style poster appears to feature images that didn't make the final product.
War is hell, duh. That's still all I can figure Thornton's film amounts to. Perhaps if he'd focused on one of the story lines over this more mosaic structure he could have truly buried deeper. As it ends - quite bizarrely might I add - it feels like Thornton hasn't used the themes and the setting in any particularly unique way, with little idea of how to maximise the potential of his big moments. It's deep-fried Americana, but all a bit tasteless. C+
MIFF 2012 Review: Carré Blanc
Carré Blanc
Dir. Jean-Baptiste Léonetti
Country: France
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 80mins
MIFF 2012 Review: Sound of My Voice
Sound of My Voice
Dir. Zal Batmanglij
Country: USA
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 89mins
Monday, August 6, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: Sister
Sister
Dir. Ursula Meier
Country: Switzerland / France
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 100mins
MIFF 2012 Review: V/H/S
A small group of thuggish yokel petty criminals accept a job from an unseen client. They are to break into a house and retrieve a mysterious VHS video tape. What they find, however, isn't quite as simple and they must make their way through the collection of videos to find the right one. Outside of the final product, this is actually quite a good connecting device for the anthology of short films to follow. Nevertheless, right from the get go these scenes are plagued by issues that are only exacerbated by the film's interminable length and irksome mission statement. Considering the directors - name like Ti West and Joe Swangberg - were aware of each other's films since creative names crossover between shorts, it's quite alarming to note that all six seem to offer up the exact same thing and all in just appalling ways. Doofus douchebags acting like pricks around women who are just as easily willing to flash their breasts on camera as they are kill you in your sleep. Women, am I right?
Short film after short film plays out in typically grainy videotape aesthetic with erratic jump cut editing and frustrating periods of nothingness. Consider the opening passages of Cloverfield extended to feature length and you've got a good idea of where V/H/S lays on the scale of 'films with characters I wish I were friends with in real life'. Fairly damn low. The only passages to not feature such openly dickish forms of the male specimen have issues of their own - evil lesbians! skype! - but ultimately the film's failure comes from its completely and utterly catastrophic use of the cinematic medium. There isn't anything in this movie that elicits a reactions other than contempt or disgust. There isn't a single likable character to be found, rendering the horrific events that befall them entirely void. There isn't a single film that doesn't feature multiple fake scares (something jumping from off screen! a character pretending to be killed mere moments before they actually are!) and lazy execution. There is barely a single moment that doesn't feel like it was born out of the mind of a leering screenwriter who has used the V/H/S concept to produce a masturbatory folly that reeks of cynicism. At least The Devil Inside (surely the previous barometer for this sort of cheap shlock) didn't hide behind a veneer of hip, nostalgia tripping smugness.
If the film were just a mere technical exercise then I could have at least found something to admire amidst its sexist boganisms, but the filmmakers can't even seem to get a grip on their own set up. Set in modern times, I find it hard to believe that even the most hardcore snuff viewer would go to all the trouble of converting a recorded Skype video onto ancient VHS. It makes no sense why we can see the desktop and cursor behind the recorded video or why the villain of the piece would even go to the trouble of filming it anyway if they are so intent on keeping things hush hush secretive. Does the dude wearing the camera glasses in "Amateur Night" have them plugged into a video recorder via cables? What about the "nanny cam" guy? How does a camera survive a high impact train collision? How come they dissolve the central premise of the film at the end and have a "video" play seemingly at random. Who is watching it? Who pressed play? V/H/S certainly could have stood to loose a bit off of its two hour run time so I'm not sure why they bothered to include Radio Silence's film-ending "31/10/98" other than they'd spent the cash on the visual effects and felt the need to include it. It's probably the best one, too, but it's still maddening.
That most of the stories have at least one element or image that I can look back on fondly only makes the end product that much more of a bitter disappointment. I enjoyed the representation of the killer in "Tuesday the 17th" (otherwise the worst segment due to its over-abundance of ridiculous exposition and awful handheld camera work), and the initial Lost Highway inspired stalker sequence of Ti West's otherwise offensive "Second Honeymoon". The visual effects of "10/31/98" were impressive and the way they were incorporated into this otherwise grungy look made them all the more so. Er, I also enjoyed Simon Barrett's moustache in "Tape 56". These moments stop it from being a total failure of a movie, although I am surely being incredibly generous by saying so.
It's sad that V/H/S is so completely lost up its own arse. You may not find a bigger cinephile defender of the Paranormal Activity films as I, and I rank The Blair Witch Project as perhaps the scariest films I've ever seen (I'm weak like that, I guess), so it's not a "found footage" gripe. It's just that the film is so chock full of boredom, sexism against both women and men, cliches, and is utterly devoid of scares. And, yes, it's in widescreen and features impressive sound design - something that Paranormal Activity also has, but here it's a distracting signpost of a half-thought out movie that inspires anger for its shortcomings rather than chills for its successes. D-
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Review: In Darkness
In Darkness
Dir. Agnieszka Holland
Country: Poland / Canada / Germany
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 145mins
Monday, July 30, 2012
MIFF 2012 Review: Holy Motors
Holy Motors
Dir. Leos Carax
Country: France
Aus Rating: N/A
Running Time: 115mins
Holy Motors is many things: maddening, confounding, joyous, “the magic of the act”. It shares much in the realm of unexplained mysteries as David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive - and I don’t just mean the shots of limousines cruising around darkened boulevards – in that to find the “meaning” of the film is probably to go about watching it the entirely wrong way. And yet there’s fun to be had in extracting reason out of the series of events that Carax presents and just how the puzzle, and that’s most definitely what it is, fits together. It’s straightforward, but hardly straight, and that’s a pleasure to behold.
Denis Lavant stars as Monsieur Oscar, a man who, from the scant clues scattered about throughout Carax’s screenplay, spends his days being chauffeured around Paris in the back of a stretch limousine that is driven by the Céline, played by Edith Scob dressed in a white pantsuit from heaven. He sets out on a series of appointments where he portrays characters for the entertainment of invisible watchers, like a real world Big Brother. While it’s hard to determine what the sewer-dwelling Merde who kidnaps passive supermodels has to do with the father picking his daughter up from a party, all ten identities appear to represent facets of the human condition that somebody somewhere is apparently willing to pay to watch. It’s a fascinating concept that makes for fun real world considerations. Is that crazy person barking down the street at 11pm just an actor? What fun to imagine. Furthermore, the implications that Oscar himself is a performance begs the question of whether this man really exists. A prologue suggests that Carax’s entire enterprise is some grand cinematic prank, but who can really tell? Certainly not I after just a single viewing.
Soon enough it appears that Carax is playing his latest film as a sort of modern day Jacques Tati. Using the concept of this man adopting disguises and characters to shed light on the lunacies of the modern world, whether that be passerbys in the street ignoring a old beggar lady or the ridiculous nature of motion capture. The black and white silent film that occasionally pops up throughout the proceedings recalls the nostalgic notions of Hugo and The Artist as Carax uses a vast array of technical abilities from captivating and transformative make-up to perplexing visual effects to turn his vision into reality. Scob donning a mask ala Eyes Without a Face at film’s end feels like Carax turning cinema in on itself like a full circle, perhaps hoping for a blessed melding of the current and the modern with the vitality of the past. One of the most curious moments sees Oscar’s world turn into a ugly mix of pixellated nonsense, while another sees him (perhaps) showing genuine admiration for what computers can do.
It’s a film of juxtaposition and dichotomy and no more is this evident that in the way Carax turns his rather jovial and playful first half on its head and gives his post-musical interlude sequences a mournful sensibility. It’s almost as if Carax himself is doubting his own hypothesis as a splendidly cast Kylie Minogue croons lyrics of a torch ballad: “Who were we / when we were / who we were back then.” That Holy Motors’ final scene (one that must be seen to be believed) is a very definite indictment on the callous nature that film has been replaced by digital, the mere fact that Carax has been able to make such a beautiful, sumptuous, almost endlessly intriguing film using the digital medium is certainly a cause for thought. He certainly couldn’t have made this film with its playful take on structure and narrative in the so-called good old days, and Carax is surely aware of the irony to be found in the loss of one medium forging his own acceleration of creativity in its replacement.
In frequent collaborater Denis Lavant, Carax has found a wonderful partner in crime. Much like the film itself, Lavant never goes truly overboard in any of his portrayals, and yet the madness is most definitely there. Scob and Minogue are lovely, with the popette proving surprisingly well versed in her role as a mirror to Oscar. Jeanne Disson as an unpopular schoolgirl in one of the film’s more restrained sequences is particularly impressive, while Elise Lhomeau’s scene is perhaps the one that viewers should pay most attention to. It’s Holy Motors’ “Club Silencio” in a way.
As it stands, Holy Motors is sure to be the most maddeningly examined film of 2012. An experience in every sense of the word, and yet one that never tailspins into tiresome drivel. I don’t claim to know anything about the rest of Carax’s career – nor the personal life that I have since discovered finds a very definite place in the film’s narrative – but I found Holy Motors to be a very engaging film that will likely surprise people. It’s rich, but never extravagantly so, told from an important voice. A-
Holy Motors screens at the Melbourne International Film Festival (2 Aug-19 Aug) and is released theatrically on 23 August.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Equalize This!
Completely by coincidence I have actually been watching series one of The Equalizer for the past week. I've always had a particular fondness for the series, without ever being able to recall much about it other than it was set in New York City and starred a man with a really funny name. I remember being a wee tyke and when I should've been in bed I was spying on my parents watching The Equalizer in the living room. The images stuck. It's curious that this show was surely the first known existence of New York City and I happening upon one another and yet I grew an instant love for the city. I mean, The Equalizer doesn't exactly paint the rosiest of portraits for the greatest city in the world, and yet still something about those analogue city lights must have really gotten to me. I have distinct memories of the images, if not the stories. Of course, there is that blue fog shot from the opening credits that strikes me as rather iconic, too.
I'm not sure if The Equalizer could be made as a series today. The fact that it deals with rapists, murderers, kidnappers, fraudsters and stalkers certainly seems like prime time material in 2012, but the filming style and the evocative sense of time and place is - quite frankly - something that can't be replicated. The New York City of 2012 is a much different one to that of 1985. Sure, there are still all sorts of nasty crimes and villainous creeps out there, but the city, from a purely visual standpoint, had an aura that makes for some truly skeazy viewing. The opening credits (below) alone are a thrilling piece of decaying Manhattan imagery. It's just not going to be the same to see "The Equalizer" (whatever back story he may take) cleaning up the human trash of a city that's actually really sparkly. A city where a late night stroll down the street - hell, even under the Brooklyn Bridge! - is a picturesque night out rather than a terrifying, traumatic experience for all. The Equalizer in a city where looking behind you ever thirty seconds once the sun as set doesn't quite make sense. He was essentially cleaning up a dying city one scumbag at a time, but does the city need him that badly anymore? Wait, are we talking about The Equalizer or Christopher Nolan's Batman movies? In episode four a character walks through Times Square passed a theatre that is playing Bordello starring Linda Lovelace!
Similarly, one of the great aspects of the series is its frequent and recurring use of New York locations. Within the pilot episode alone we see the following shots. It's a glorious show to look at if, like me, you're a bit obsessed with New York City of all eras. Could a current television series even afford to do this? Girls is mostly Brooklyn, the Law & Order franchise don't make much use of big New York imagery, nor do any others that I can think of. There's a car chase on the Brooklyn Bridge for crying out loud!
Sorry, I got carried away. But what character, what atmosphere. That blue white light that the buildings have in the night sky is entrancing.
After Woodward, Manhattan, and 1985, the final element that truly made The Equalizer what it was was the music of Stewart Copeland. I think we can all agree that his work on this series was by far the greatest thing anybody associated with The Police ever did (okay, maybe "El Tango de Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge!, but oh my lord how much do I hate Sting and The Police? SO MUCH!) Much like Jan Hammer's work on Miami Vice before it, and Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks afterwards, Copeland's score was the pulsating, electric beat that kept this dangerous city moving. And yet despite all of the blaring synthesizers and electric drums, there are unique and surprising instruments scattered about to make it really interesting. Love it.
"The Equalizer Busy Equalizing" | "Lurking Solo"
This new spin on The Equalizer being filmed in Boston is just crazy. Perhaps this new version, based on a script by Richard Wenk, will be set in Boston and they can utilise that city's look to their advantage, but then why bother even calling it The Equalizer? I know the series has a cult following, but I wasn't aware of it being all that much of a brand. Certainly not as much as some other series of the time that have already been turned into modern day features.
It's always good to see a classy thriller, and with a budget of just $50mil (Washington apparently getting $20mil of that so you can do the maths) it will fall into that mid-range sweet spot that studios seem to be finding themselves attracted to more and more as the budgets for their action blockbuster tentpoles skyrocket leaving less money to be spent elsewhere. Washington usually delivers the goods in these type of projects and perhaps whoever they assign to direct will be able to lend it a visual style that works in harmony with the memories of the original series. One name brought up in the linked article up top is Nicolas Winding Refn and I think we all know where I stand on him and his own retro masterpiece, Drive.
The odds, as Robert McCall might say, are certainly against them.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Review: Magic Mike
Magic Mike
Dir. Steven Soderbergh
Country: USA
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 110mins
Thursday, July 19, 2012
A Chair for No Seasons
For all of the criticisms that social media - specifically Twitter and Facebook - get for the way they actually make people less social, I really can't agree. I feel they just put a spotlight on the fact that so few people in our day-to-day lives have the same degree of interest in things and that there are actually a whole tonne of people out there who we may not have necessarily met (or will ever get the chance to given some live in such far off places as Guyana and South Africa), but whom we're able to form surprisingly strong bonds with.
Of course, it's also a great way of realising that no matter how niche you think an opinion is, there are always plenty of people out there who hold it too. Take, for instance, the chair from Like Crazy. I had no idea that people hated that god damned piece of shit construction as much as I did, but after mentioning it I got some wonderful reactions like:
"WORST CHAIR EVER"
"I think of that rubbish chair Anton Yelchin made in LIKE CRAZY and I burst out laughing"
"The chair was appalling"
"it actually looks like the chairs we would have in the play area in pre-school. And they were awful."
"How was his furniture business doing so well? He seemed only capable of making the one item."
"So ugly!"
"I just remembered furniture making was a plot point in a film and my heart shrank three sizes"
It's like a whole community of people who thought that damn chair was just the most heinous piece of shit. Of course, it doesn't help that the film it appears in just gets worse and worse every time I think of it. I like that you can see Anton Yelchin's face (presumably from a poster in the same exhibit at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood (an exhibit! featuring THE CHAIR!) hovering about in the top right corner like a ghost, chained to the bloody chair for the rest of his ghostly existence. It's as if he's saying "Why did I dumb Jennifer Lawrence for Felicity freakin' Jones?!?!" Even if death his character can't escape that retched woman and that hideous chair.
"WORST CHAIR EVER"
"I think of that rubbish chair Anton Yelchin made in LIKE CRAZY and I burst out laughing"
"The chair was appalling"
"it actually looks like the chairs we would have in the play area in pre-school. And they were awful."
"How was his furniture business doing so well? He seemed only capable of making the one item."
"So ugly!"
"I just remembered furniture making was a plot point in a film and my heart shrank three sizes"
It's like a whole community of people who thought that damn chair was just the most heinous piece of shit. Of course, it doesn't help that the film it appears in just gets worse and worse every time I think of it. I like that you can see Anton Yelchin's face (presumably from a poster in the same exhibit at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood (an exhibit! featuring THE CHAIR!) hovering about in the top right corner like a ghost, chained to the bloody chair for the rest of his ghostly existence. It's as if he's saying "Why did I dumb Jennifer Lawrence for Felicity freakin' Jones?!?!" Even if death his character can't escape that retched woman and that hideous chair.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Review: The Dark Knight Rises
The Dark Knight Rises
Dir. Christopher Nolan
Country: USA
Aus Rating: M15+
Running Time: 160mins
Ice Nymphs, a Branded Brain, and a Keyhole.
I know to call a Guy Maddin movie strange is completely beyond the point, but his movies can be really strange. I've been lucky enough to catch (read: find the time) three of this Canadian auteur's films that were previously unseen by me at the "Nocturnal Transmissions" retrospective of the director's work here in Melbourne. Screening at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, I've been disappointed that many of the titles I really wanted to see were only screening on Saturdays and Sunday evenings that are generally no go zones for me due to work. Still, considering there are next to no other ways to see these films that don't involve importing them from overseas on DVD, I've felt lucky enough to have been able to see the small amount that I have. And on the big screen no less.
Twilight of the Ice Nymphs was hailed as Maddin's first "full-colour.... 35mm 'big budget' picture" and, well, I guess you could say that it is. I mean, it's in colour and while I'm unsure as to its budgetary figures it certainly looks feasible that it may have cost more than some of his other, earlier work. Unfortunately the version I saw was not screened off of a 35mm print, but beggars can't be choosers and I certainly appreciated the exceptionally rare opportunity to watch Twilight on a big screen.
I'm not entirely sure what on Earth the film was trying to say and, I have to admit, a lot of the film (which I only saw last week) has exited my brain without leaving much of an impression. Having said that, however, it's truly a fascinating viewing experience and part of its interest lies in the way that Maddin's almost trademarked confusing oddness was translated to the world of colour film. He had - and continues to to this day - madee films in black and white, and given how strange most of his films are, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the upgrade (if you want to use that word) didn't blunt his significant voice. The action itself isn't all that interesting, but the method with which it is presented is a treat.
Visually, Maddin made Twilight of the Ice Nymphs into an experience that shares many similarities with Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1982 candy-coloured queer classic(?), Querelle. The sky is a permanent kaleidoscope of red, orange, yellow, pink, and purples, colours that frequently reflect off of the bright, lush sets. Elements of arts and crafts as well as a very obvious artificiality fill the frame whilst the actors strut about and recite their ridiculous dialogue in a very Shakespearean manner. Nigel Whitmey and Alice Krige in particular could be mistaken for having thought they were performing on a stage in front of a crowd. Furthermore, the story has elements of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, whilst the score at moments evokes Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet - Dance of the Knights". I have no idea what any of this means, but Maddin's next film was Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (which I recently wrote about for the Canadian "Possible Worlds" film festival) so maybe there was something here that Maddin needed to get out in order to get to a period of his filmmaking life that has come to be seen as, arguable, his most rewarding and mature phase.
A day later I went along to see one of those very films, the 2006 silent fantasy Brand Upon the Brain! While far from the excellence of Dracula or My Winnipeg, this was a very entertaining film. Alas, my body got the better of me and I dozed off for a bit at the start and then spent chapters 6-11 desperately needing to pee oh so desperately. So, really, not the best of viewing circumstances, but that only proves that it was good. In the grand scheme of things, Maddin is certainly one of the more accessible names in experimental/avant garde cinema and Brand Upon the Brain feels like a melding of his more esoteric work and his more commercial work.
"Commercial". Heh.
The third Maddin film that I've been lucky enough to see Keyhole, his latest work that is receiving its Australian premiere during the retrospective. Screening this Sunday the 22nd and then Tuesday the 24th and in 35mm, Keyhole is at times like a defiant rebuke to anybody who thought he'd gotten too arthouse mainstream with recent works. It's a maddening feature, one that appears to make little sense with its noir detective tale of ghosts and haunted houses (I think that's what it about, but I'm hardly going on the record). I don't think it's successful - and judging by this interview he gave with fellow Melbourne filmy type, Martyn Pedler, it wasn't quite what he had envisioned it to be, calling it "far more abstract". Make of that what you will - but as with all of Maddin's films, they are made for cinema viewing. It's easy to see one getting mindlessly distracted by a work like Keyhole if watching in the confines of your home. At least in the cinema there's no real escape and so even when Maddin is being an impenetrable scamp I was forced to admire the staccato editing and the rich, slippery performances of Isabella Rossellini and Jason Patric (Guy Maddin's version of an all-star cast).
I really wish I'd been able to find the time to see Archangel, Cowards Bend the Knee and Tales from the Gimli Hospital, but work and illness conspired against me.
I'm not entirely sure what on Earth the film was trying to say and, I have to admit, a lot of the film (which I only saw last week) has exited my brain without leaving much of an impression. Having said that, however, it's truly a fascinating viewing experience and part of its interest lies in the way that Maddin's almost trademarked confusing oddness was translated to the world of colour film. He had - and continues to to this day - madee films in black and white, and given how strange most of his films are, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the upgrade (if you want to use that word) didn't blunt his significant voice. The action itself isn't all that interesting, but the method with which it is presented is a treat.
Visually, Maddin made Twilight of the Ice Nymphs into an experience that shares many similarities with Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1982 candy-coloured queer classic(?), Querelle. The sky is a permanent kaleidoscope of red, orange, yellow, pink, and purples, colours that frequently reflect off of the bright, lush sets. Elements of arts and crafts as well as a very obvious artificiality fill the frame whilst the actors strut about and recite their ridiculous dialogue in a very Shakespearean manner. Nigel Whitmey and Alice Krige in particular could be mistaken for having thought they were performing on a stage in front of a crowd. Furthermore, the story has elements of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, whilst the score at moments evokes Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet - Dance of the Knights". I have no idea what any of this means, but Maddin's next film was Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (which I recently wrote about for the Canadian "Possible Worlds" film festival) so maybe there was something here that Maddin needed to get out in order to get to a period of his filmmaking life that has come to be seen as, arguable, his most rewarding and mature phase.
"Commercial". Heh.
The third Maddin film that I've been lucky enough to see Keyhole, his latest work that is receiving its Australian premiere during the retrospective. Screening this Sunday the 22nd and then Tuesday the 24th and in 35mm, Keyhole is at times like a defiant rebuke to anybody who thought he'd gotten too arthouse mainstream with recent works. It's a maddening feature, one that appears to make little sense with its noir detective tale of ghosts and haunted houses (I think that's what it about, but I'm hardly going on the record). I don't think it's successful - and judging by this interview he gave with fellow Melbourne filmy type, Martyn Pedler, it wasn't quite what he had envisioned it to be, calling it "far more abstract". Make of that what you will - but as with all of Maddin's films, they are made for cinema viewing. It's easy to see one getting mindlessly distracted by a work like Keyhole if watching in the confines of your home. At least in the cinema there's no real escape and so even when Maddin is being an impenetrable scamp I was forced to admire the staccato editing and the rich, slippery performances of Isabella Rossellini and Jason Patric (Guy Maddin's version of an all-star cast).
I really wish I'd been able to find the time to see Archangel, Cowards Bend the Knee and Tales from the Gimli Hospital, but work and illness conspired against me.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Review: The King is Dead!
The King is Dead!
Dir. Rolf de Heer
Country: Australia
Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 107mins
So the theme song goes to perennial Aussie soap, Neighbours. This ditty that originated in the 1980s would certainly feel right at home in a sarcastic context for the latest episode of Rolf de Heer’s increasingly eclectic career. De Heer’s new film, The King is Dead! (exclamation point courtesy of the opening credits), sees him swerve back to a similar suburban landscape that he navigated with Alexandra’s Project, except in this case it’s less claustrophobic chills and anti-erotic thrills, and more giggles and lampoons. Taking the scenario of a loud set of buffoonish neighbours, something surely everybody has had to endure at least once in their life, and twisting it into a chucklesome quasi black comedy is just another day in the office for the man behind such diverse films as indigenous comedy Ten Canoes, perverse Bad Boy Bubby, jazzy Dingo, and retro silent throw-back Dr Plonk.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Review: I Am Eleven
I Am Eleven
Dir. Genevieve Bailey
Country: Australia
Aus Rating: G
Running Time: 90mins
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)