Film

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

MV5BMjMzNjMyMjU2M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzA3NjQ0MzE@._V1_SY317_CR4,0,214,317_AL_

26/05/15

Despite the rather ponderous title, there’s much to recommend about this low budget indie from Iranian director Ana Lily Amirpour, not least the stark black and white cinematography and the assured performances by a cast of unknowns. While the industrial settings and bursts of white noise occasionally echo early David Lynch (with Eraserhead an obvious touchstone) and some of the soundtrack tropes are clearly influenced by Ennio Morricone, there’s nonetheless a lot here that’s like nothing else you’ve ever seen on a cinema screen.

The story is set in ‘Bad City,’ an industrialised hellhole where the sight of a ravine filled with heaps of dead bodies doesn’t seem to cause any of the inhabitants to raise so  much as an eyebrow. Arrash (Arash Marandi) is a handsome young man, saddled with the upkeep of his junkie father, Hossein, who is in hock to vicious drug dealer, Saeed. When Hossein can’t pay what he owes, Saeed does not hesitate to take Arrash’s much-prized car as a part-payment. Into this bleak scenario wanders ‘The Girl,’ (Sheila Vand) a hijab-wearing, night walking (and occasionally skate-boarding) vampire, who seems to choose her victims according to a strange, self-determined code, homing in on those who she deems to be wicked. It’s an intriguing performance from Vand, as beguiling and compelling, as it is, occasionally, terrifying. She first meets Arash when he is stoned, returning from a fancy dress party dressed as Dracula. She promptly wheels him back to her place and a quirky romance ensues…

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a fascinating film, pretty much the last sort of movie you might expect to emerge from Iran. Even though the sexual overtones of the story are portrayed in an allegorical way, they are undoubtedly there, along with unflinching scenes of drug-taking and some interesting role reversal – here the girl on her own is the one you need to be afraid of. It’s an assured debut from Armipour, who manages to create something really original here, proving once again, that the supposed demise of the vampire movie has been somewhat exaggerated. This is another fresh twist on the genre, that will have you discussing the film long after you’ve left the cinema.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Mad Max: Fury Road

imagesimages-1images-2

17/05/15

I have to declare from the start that this has been my most eagerly anticipated film of the year. I’ve been a devoted fan of the Mad Max franchise, from its humble B movie origins in 1979, through the awesome action tropes of The Road Warrior in 1981, and on to the inventive storytelling of Beyond Thunderdome in 1985. Through the intervening 35 years… can it really have been that long?… I, like many others have been keeping alive the hope that director George Miller would stop concentrating his talents on anodyne nonsense like Babe and Happy Feet and revisit his glorious, testosterone-fuelled past. And by jove, he’s finally done it – although this time out, he’s added a welcome dash of oestrogen too!

It’s a tough act to follow and a tough act for newbie Max, Tom Hardy, to step into Mel Gibson’s boots – so I’m delighted to report that this is a triumphant return to form and that Fury Road not only equals those earlier efforts but in many ways surpasses them. It’s a blitzkrieg of stunning vehicular chases, amazing stunt work and unforgettable dystopian visions, but it’s also backed up by a compelling central story. As ever in Miller-land, dialogue is kept to a minimum (Hardy doesn’t get to utter so much as a word for the first twenty minutes or so) but there’s so much going on up on the screen, you barely notice.

In a nightmarish, desert landscape, evil dictator Imortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) has founded an empire built on toil and the exploitation of the weak. (Max fans will remember Keays-Byrne as ‘Toecutter’ in the very first movie.) When one of Joe’s war parties brings in a bearded, half-conscious Max, the captive is summarily shaved, tattooed and branded, and is then assigned to ailing suicide-warrior, Nux (a barely recognisable Nicholas Hoult) as a living blood transfusion unit. However, when one of Joe’s most trusted lieutenants, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) decides to abscond with Joe’s five young wives (or his breeding stock, as he so delicately refers to them) Nux is one of the team despatched to bring them back and Max duly finds himself strapped to the front of a truck and hurled headlong into a terrifying chase. We’re taken along for the ride.

And what an unforgettable ride it is! The film leaps effortlessly from one frantic chase to the next, as Miller’s welded-together juggernauts collide, accelerate, swerve and explode in jaw-dropping style. There’s barely a sign of CGI to be seen, everything’s done pretty much for real and it’s little wonder that the closing credits feature what looks like hundreds of stunt performers. But it’s more than just action. Miller’s futuristic world is fully thought-through and dazzlingly captured amidst the stunning Namibian landscapes (this is the first of the series not actually shot in Australia) and there’s so much here to delight and surprise the viewers. Key among them are the manic lead guitarist chained to the front of a truck and pumping out death metal and fire in equal amounts; Joe’s breast-milk pumping parlour, where pregnant women are er… pressed into service; and the tribe of aged motorbiking female warriors who turn up to prove that when it comes to a fight, they’re more than a match for the younger men.

I loved this to pieces. The Mad Max films, though, are cinematic Marmite. If you don’t like what Miller does, this is going to feel like putting your head in a tumble drier and pressing the on switch. If however you like action cinema at its most inventive, this one is for you. One thing. The film was actually shot in 2D and for the 3D version, the process has been retroactively applied, which never makes for a good transfer; but trust me. You won’t need 3D for this. It’s eye-popping enough without.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

03/06/15

Ahem! Time to eat a few slices of humble pie. After my suggestion that there was no need to see Mad Max; Fury Road in 3D as it hadn’t actually been shot that way, a couple of friends contacted me to say they’d seen it in 3D and it looked pretty damned good to them. So I broke the habit of a lifetime and went back to the cinema to check out their claims. I have to admit that my friends were absolutely spot on. Not only does this movie bear repeated viewing (it really is that good) it also looks eye-poppingly brilliant in 3D and effortlessly leaps into the ranks of my favourite films in that format – Gravity, Hugo, Avatar and er… Piranha 3D. In fact, if i see a better film this year than MMFR, I’ll be very surprised.

Far From The Madding Crowd

MV5BMTQzNjE5Mjk5MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzQ3NDMwNTE@._V1_SX214_AL_

11/05/15

Thomas Vinterberg is a brave man – brave enough to take on Far From The Madding Crowd, in the certain knowledge that it is going to be compared to John Schlesinger’s 1967 masterpiece and inevitably found wanting. But perhaps I’m being unfair. Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Terence Stamp – these are all names that belong to another era and will mean very little to young cinema fans – and there’s no doubt that Carey Mulligan’s take on the tempestuous Bathsheba Everdean is as accomplished as you could reasonably want, even if some of her costumes – (the leather riding jerkin in particular,) don’t quite convince as being of the period.

Thomas ‘Chuckles’ Hardy is of course, a writer who excels in miserable stories and few come glummer than this tale of thwarted love and desire. Bathsheba is an orphan, who works as a farm labourer. The neighbouring farm is owned by handsome but taciturn shepherd, Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoonaerts.) Gabriel takes a shine to Bathsheba and asks her to marry him, but she’s not quite ready to settle down yet and declines his offer. Shortly afterwards, as it is wont to do in Hardy novels, disaster strikes, robbing Gabriel of his livelihood and obliging him to move away. Bathsheba does rather better for herself, inheriting a farm when her Uncle dies unexpectedly. By a twist of fate, (or massive coincidence, whichever you prefer) she finds herself as Gabriel’s employer and is subsequently lusted after, both by her rich neighbour, Mr Boldwood (Michael Sheen) and by a rakish soldier, Sergeant Troy (Tom Sturridge.) Gabriel remains in the background, her ever watchful guardian angel. But which man will she end up with? And how many gallons of tears will be shed along the way?

Vinterberg, who came up through the Danish Festen cinema movement, makes a pretty good fist of this quintessentially English tale. The rolling landscape of Dorset is handsomely portrayed, the performances are all pretty much spot on (Sheen is in particularly good form as the tragic, obsessive Boldwood) and though the Sergeant Troy ‘reveal’ is handled far better in the Schlesinger version, it’s hard to fault such a meticulously rendered production. Hardy fans will perhaps feel that this version is more about Gabriel’s story than Bathsheba’s, but that seems to me a minor quibble. This is superior filmmaking and the results are well worth catching.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Unfriended

Unknown

08/05/15

There have already been a few unsuccessful attempts to marry the fright movie to the world of social media – Chatroom (2010) springs to mind, or last year’s low budget offering, Open Window – but Unfriended is the first film to really understand how the medium actually works and to exploit it to maximum effect. The film’s events are completely confined to the screen of a computer and the interconnected Skype calls of five young friends who find themselves being trolled by a sixth, initially unidentified caller. Whoever it is seems intent on carrying out an ever more vicious revenge for something the others have all been involved in. Could the trolling have anything to do with the first anniversary of the suicide of Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman) a young woman who killed herself after a humiliating film of her drunken indiscretions was publicly aired on Facebook? It’s in no way a spoiler to say, yes, it could, big time.

Considering the restrictions of the staging, Unfriended manages to generate almost unbearable levels of tension, often in the most unexpected ways – the time, for instance, it takes for an emailed link to download, or the way in which characters, composing text messages, repeatedly edit themselves before pressing send. The young cast of unknowns do a pretty good job of convincing us that they are genuinely terrified. As events move from the explicable to the paranormal, there’s plenty of stylish chills to enjoy, despite the film’s 15 certificate. Some of the (admittedly fleeting) gore effects surely challenge that categorisation, but maybe I’m being picky. The film certainly isn’t for everyone. There were a few mid-movie walkouts at the screening I attended and a row of kids sitting behind us, seemed to think it was fine to chatter all the way through it, just as they would if they were on social media themselves. Maybe they don’t get out much.

Unfriended is a valuable addition to the horror genre, much more satisfying that the majority of found-footage, shaky cam offerings that have arrived, seemingly relentlessly,  in the wake of the seminal Blair Witch Project. But be warned. This film could put the more nervous viewer off using social media for life.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

The Falling

MV5BNjA2NTkxODkwNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzEwNDAwNTE@._V1_SY317_CR101,0,214,317_AL_

03/05/15

Carol Morley’s The Falling is an intriguing and occasionally mesmerising film, that has somehow managed to stake a claim at the multiplexes, amidst the tub-thumping superhero and action flicks. You’ll have to go back a long way to find something similar; all the way, in fact, to 1975, and Peter Weir’s Picnic At Hanging Rock, with which this film seems to share an affinity for the languorous, sensual qualities of nature. Weir’s story was, of course, based in Australia and this one, somewhere in the UK (it’s never actually specified exactly where) but Morley is fond of counterpointing luscious shots of lakes and woods with the tightly corseted, emotionless wasteland of a girls’ private school. Indeed, the two films have so many scenes in common, I refuse to believe that it’s coincidental.

It’s 1969 and the wild and rebellious Abbie (Florence Pugh) is beginning to discover the depths of her own sexuality. Her best friend, Lydia (Maisie Williams) can only watch helplessly as Abbie is inexorably drawn away from her towards Lydia’s brother, Kenneth (Joe Cole). Lydia lives with Kenneth and her tightly buttoned mother, Eileen (Maxine Peake) an agoraphobe who never leaves the house and who seems incapable of portraying any kind of emotion whatsoever. When Abbie finds she is pregnant, it threatens to blow apart the closeted world of the private school she attends and Lydia starts to look for ways to procure an abortion for her friend – but shortly afterwards, Abbie collapses and dies. The resulting shock has a profound effect on her fellow pupils. Lydia begins to experience rapturous fainting spells and as hysteria mounts, more and more more girls (and even one of the female teachers) experience the same phenomenon. In the film’s most powerful scene, pretty much the whole morning assembly succumbs. Is it simply a case of mass hysteria? Or is something deeper and more sinister at work?

The film revels in throwing out more questions than it has answers for. Morley’s slow, sensual direction generates an atmosphere of incredible tension and there are occasional uses of subliminal imagery that lend the film an almost hallucinatory quality. As Lydia, Williams delivers an unforgettable performance, while Pugh is so charismatic that her memory haunts the proceedings despite her early exit. Interesting too, to see former Merchant Ivory pin-up Greta Scaachi, taking on the role of the school’s sternest teacher.

The Falling is by no means a perfect film, but it’s far more experimental than most movies you’ll see these days and it has an ephemeral quality that will prompt you to talk about it long after the final credits have rolled. Not something you would say about Iron Man or The Avengers.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

All Good Things

MV5BMTcwMjIyMTc2Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTQyMzc5Mw@@._V1_SY317_CR0,0,214,317_AL_

29/04/15

Here’s one I missed earlier. All Good Things was originally released in 2010 and it’s one of those ‘based on a true story’ films, so mind-bogglingly bonkers that it really only could be the truth.  Ryan Gosling plays David Marks (the name has been changed to protect the – allegedly – guilty), the older son of dodgy property magnate, Sanford Marks (Frank Langella). When we first meet David, in 1971, he’s determined to resist going into the family business and when he meets up with Katie (Kirsten Dunst) after popping round to mend her leaky pipes, they start a relationship. But as time moves on, Katie begins to appreciate that David has several unsavoury skeletons lurking in his cerebral closet (not least the fact that he witnessed his mother’s suicide) and when eventuality he’s forced to capitulate and go back to work for his domineering dad, it’s painfully clear that things are not going to end happily.

These days, Gosling is very much the sex symbol, but here he plays the moody, cross-dressing and decidedly repellent David with considerable aplomb (although the ‘old age’ makeup he’s forced to don for later scenes wouldn’t win any awards). The story covers a lengthy time period and takes in Katie’s mysterious disappearance and a couple of murders, while the script doesn’t hesitate to point the finger at the real life counterparts of these ‘fictional’ characters. All this may go to explain why the film had such a low key release – apparently there were many who were ready and willing to sue the production team. But director Andrew Jarecki (of Capturing the Friedmans fame) stuck to his guns and somehow managed to get it out there.

All Good Things is certainly worth catching, if only to marvel at the way in which ‘David’ managed to come out of the whole business with no more than eight months in jail. It tells an intriguing (and occasionally mind-blowing story and for the most part, tells it well.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Fruitvale Station

MV5BMTQ0OTU1MDkxMF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjI5OTA3OQ@@._V1_SX214_AL_

26/04/15

Fruitvale Station wasn’t in the cinemas for very long, so I missed it on the big screen, but this powerful drama works just as effectively on a more intimate scale. It tells the real life story of 22 year old Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) a Bay Area resident who was shot and killed in the early hours of New Year’s Day, 2009, by a police officer, responding to a minor disturbance on a tube train.

Ryan Coogler’s debut full-length feature occupies itself with the last day of Grant’s life, beginning with him waking up on New Year’s Eve and following events through to their tragic conclusion. It’s a stripped-down, high-powered production, just 85 minutes in duration, but one that it nonetheless compelling from start to finish. Jordan plays Grant as an affable charmer, with a tendency to get things wrong (on the day he died, he was coming to terms with the fact that he had lost his job at a grocery store because of persistent lateness.) A brief flashback to his time in prison is a little sketchy on detail, making you wonder is he really could have been quite as nice as he’s portrayed here, but as a searing plea for gun control the film works effectively and it would be a hard heart indeed that won’t be moved by its final, harrowing images.

Plaudits should also go to Octavia Spencer as Grant’s much-put upon mother (who heartbreakingly urged her son to take the subway into town in order to ‘avoid trouble’) and to Ariana Neal as his young daughter, Tatiana, who demonstrates acting ability beyond her tender years. Fruitvale Station may only be telling us something we know already – that the right to bear arms is a bad thing indeed – but the lesson is delivered in a confident, assured way, making Coogler a name to watch in  the near future.

4.1 stars

Philip Caveney

While We’re Young

MV5BMTc4MDEzMTA5MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODA5MTM0NDE@._V1_SX214_AL_

13/04/15

Reviewing Noah Baumbach’s previous film, Frances Ha, I remarked that it was the best Woody Allen movie in ages and I think that still holds true for While We’re Young. The spirit of Woody in his prime haunts this sprightly comedy, though perhaps this is mid-period Woody, around the time of say, Hannah and Her Sisters. This isn’t intended as a criticism, by the way, but as a compliment of the highest order. Even Woody Allen can’t make movies like this any more.

Josh (Ben Stiller) is a once-promising documentary maker who has stalled on his second project, still incomplete after ten years of tinkering with it. His wife, Cornelia (Naomi Watts) is a film producer who works alongside her father, Leslie (Charles Grodin) a documentary maker of near legendary fame, a cross which Josh has had to bear for most of his life. When Josh and Leslie encounter cool young film-maker Jamie (Adam Driver) and his free-spirited girlfriend Darby (Amanda Siefried), they soon find themselves being inexorably drawn into their quirky universe, complete with a change of wardrobe and a visit to a spiritual vomiting course. Jamie professes to be Josh’s greatest fan… and he soon has him working as his collaborator on a new film project – but is Jamie everything he claims to be? Or does he have more mercenary objectives in mind?

The film is funniest when examining the ‘chalk and cheese’ aspects of the two male leads. While Josh plays CD’s, Jamie prefers vinyl. Where Josh frequents Facebook, Jamie prefers scribbling down obscure messages on bits of paper. It soon becomes clear that Jamie is actually a total jerk. Despite that, it’s also obvious that he’s likely to make a big success at his chosen vocation. There are plenty of laughs along the way, but the story falls down somewhat with a conclusion which suggests that people cannot really be complete until they become parents. Since Josh and Cornelia have spent most of the movie professing how lucky they are to have escaped that particular ‘trap,’ it seems a little facile to have them both willingly falling headlong into it.

Still, for all that, this is that rarest of things, an intelligent comedy that hits most of its intended targets with ease. It may not quite be in the same league as Frances Ha, but it’s not so bad either.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

13

Woman In Gold

MV5BMTExMTUxNDQ5MjdeQTJeQWpwZ15BbWU4MDk4NTgxMzQx._V1_SX214_AL_

11/03/15

One of those real-life tales that would seem highly unlikely if presented as a piece of fiction, Woman In Gold tells the story of Maria Altmann, (Helen Mirren) an elderly Austrian-born woman living in California, who after the death of her sister contacts a young lawyer, Randol Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds) to ask his advice about a painting – a very famous one. Known to the world as The Woman In Gold, it was painted by Gustav Klimt, was commissioned by Maria’s father and is actually a portrait of her late Aunt. Looted by the Nazi’s during the Second World War, it now hangs in Vienna’s most famous art gallery and is widely regarded as Austria’s most quintessential piece of art. What chance would there be, wonders Maria, of having the painting returned to her?

The story looks at the long series of meetings, negotiations and court cases that the two leads have to go through in order to obtain justice. Mirren is on great form as the cantankerous Maria, (though it must be said that for a supposed octogenarian, Mirren looks distinctly healthy), while Reynolds, always an underrated actor, makes an adept transformation to the quietly-spoken but determined lawyer, prepared to take an entire country to the supreme court. The Altmann’s tragic history is shown through a series of assured flashbacks with Orphan Black’s Tatiana Maslany looking surprisingly convincing as a younger version of Helen Mirren.

In a story like this it would be all too easy to slip into schmaltz, but Director Simon Curtis manages to keep everything reined  in enough to tug at the heartstrings without losing control; and this is, after all, an emotional story of cruelty, dispossession and greed, that will make all but the stoniest individuals shed tears. A decent and absorbing film.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut

5172CDVME5L

09/04/15

Thirty three years ago, as a raw recruit with Piccadilly Radio, I was sent to review Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. The film was far from perfect (a Chandleresque voiceover by Harrison Ford, one of the chief offenders) but nevertheless, it blew me away. I couldn’t remember seeing a more credible vision of the future. Since then, Scott has revisited the film several times, trimming it, tuning it, reworking certain scenes with new technology as it became available. This version, originally released in 1992, now receives another showing on the big screen and if ever there was a film that deserved to be viewed that way, this is the one. Scott’s dystopic vision of Los Angeles in 2019 is a twelve course feast for the senses – a world dominated by acid rain, Japanese technology and endless adverts for Coca Cola. The visual effects are quite extraordinary (all the more so when you consider that this was before the days of CGI), but they don’t dominate proceedings, while Vangelis’s pulsing electronic score makes a perfect marriage with the onscreen action.

Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a Blade Runner, a man charged with the tricky task of hunting down and eliminating rogue Replicants (incredibly realistic androids, generally used as workers on off-world colonies.) Four particularly resourceful Replicants led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) are hiding out in Los Angeles and Deckard is recruited by his old boss to hunt them down. Visiting the Tyrell Corporation, who manufacture the replicants, he meets Rachael (Sean Young) an intelligent young woman who it seems, might not be quite as human as she appears…

In futuristic movies, it’s always fascinating to see how many unlikely predictions are made. In 2019, apparently, Deckard is still reading old fashioned newspapers and loading printed snapshots into what looks like a CD deck (though he can admittedly do amazing things once they’re in there). Meanwhile, people are zooming around in flying cars! But this matters not. The film goes deeper than most sci fi stories to ask some challenging questions. Does artificial life have as much right to exist as the creatures that have created it? And do those creators have the right to take that life away, when the creation fails to meet their expectations? The final sequences in J.S. Sebastian’s toy shop/apartment in ‘The Bradbury Building’ build to a compelling conclusion and Hauer has never been as enigmatic as he is here.  Blade Runner is serious film-making on a grandiose scale. Scott has made many films since, but this will probably remain his undisputed masterpiece. It’s stood the test of time and passed with flying colours.

5 stars

Philip Caveney