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February 2009
February 22, 2009
Alela Diane - White as Diamonds
I've had a bit of an eventful week, what with suffering a nasty allergic reaction to antibiotics and spending the night in Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital, where the staff were very kind and efficient - thank you! I'm now at home and still feeling rather poorly - frustratingly, I can't yet go back to work. So I'm feeling ill, sorry for myself and rather bored into the bargain. However I did receive some beautiful flowers from my new colleagues which really cheered me up - thank you very much!
I've also been taking my mind off things with Alela Diane's single 'White as Diamonds', taken from her new album To be Still and which is very beautiful indeed. The accompanying video gives the song visuals as poetic as its lyrics:
DVD reviews
LoveFilm have sent me some very different DVDs of late, and I thought I'd share my thoughts on them with y'all.
Southland Tales is a movie more like a string of pop videos melded together, starring former wrestler The Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott and Justin Timberlake. As if this list of stars isn't perplexing enough in itself, the movie tackles apocalypse and terrorism, using biblical allusions and exploring philosophical ideas. This aint your average blockbuster, even if it kinda looks like one at times. Predestination and parallel worlds are thrown into the mix but don't let this put you off; high falutin as it sounds, the movie is probably best watched as visual candyfloss - any attempts at deriving meaning from events were beyond me and apparently many others who have watched it. Baffling yet beautiful, Southland Tales is too up its own posterior to prove a patch on director Richard Kelly's former project Donnie Darko, but top marks for effort.
I'm a relative - some would say reluctant -newcomer to Mike Leigh, having been put off by the bleakness of Life is Sweet some years ago, and then the annoying character of Poppy in Happy Go Lucky. However seeing the fantastic Secrets and Lies recently prompted me to give his stuff another chance and boy am I glad I did. With an exceptional turn from Imelda Staunton as Vera, Vera Drake is full of humanity and never glosses over the contradictions at the heart of that most emotive of subjects: abortion. Set in 1950s London, a period when only the wealthy could procure 'clean' abortions, cleaning lady Vera accepts no money for what she calls 'helping' working class girls out when they accidentally get pregnant. That what she does is illegal is not an issue for Vera: she sympathises with the circumstances of those she helps and is a genuinely good soul whose actions forces us to consider anew the puritanical and anti-feminist laws of the time, as well as the hypocrisy inherent to a class system which favoured the freedom (relative as it was) of wealthier women. The daughter of one of Vera's employers, played poignantly by Sally Hawkins, highlights this dichotomy when she is able to discretely procure an abortion having been forced into sex. I liked how this contrast was set up: although a little heavyhanded, there is a moment when you think Hawkins' character will go to Vera for help and that this will be Vera's undoing. This red herring adds some suspense to the mix and serves to elevate the story above Leigh's typical 'slice of life' style, which is not for everyone.
A mother and wife much loved by her family, upon her arrest the revelation of Vera's secret life threatens to destroy their tranquility. Her arrest is not portrayed melodramatically and is full of Leigh's trademark realism, although the cinematography is perhaps more artful than we're used to expecting from him. Shot in tones of grim greys and greens, the period is otherwise conveyed unobtrusively, enhancing our credulity in what we are watching and no doubt aided by a performance completely lacking in vanity from Staunton. A gripping and naturalistic observation of how one woman's ethics clash with pervading social practices, Vera Drake confounds both the viewer's own preconceptions of what a backstreet abortionist is like and encourages us to consider our own stance on abortion, whilst not preaching either way. Staunton is so believable you forget she is acting and makes Vera entirely her own - it's incredibly hard to think of anyone else playing this role which surely says it all. Although Leigh sidesteps telling us what to think, I believe this movie is essential in supporting choice: the traumatic ripple effect of such repressive legislation is its own indictment in this movie. Given that there are many parts of the world where women are forced to take illegal measures to deal with unwanted pregnancies, there is much still relevant in Leigh's gruelling but moving period piece.
February 21, 2009
Doubt
I was lucky enough to get access to a 'For Your Consideration' copy of Doubt, based on the successful play by writer John Patrick Shanley, who is on board for this adaptation. Doubt is yet another Oscar contender with a thespian history, but couldn't be more different to Frost/Nixon, with which it shares theatrical DNA. Set in 1964 and starring Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius, a foreboding and traditionalist nun in charge of a Catholic school in the Bronx, the play is essentially a threehander between Streep's character, Philip Seymour Hoffman's Father Flynn and Amy Adams' Sister James. Sister Aloysius suspects the liberal influence of newcomer Father Flynn conceals something more sinister - she believes - on scant evidence - that Father Flynn is abusing altar boy Donald Miller, the school's first black pupil. Using the naive and susceptible Sister James as accomplice, she embarks upon a quest verging on persecution to remove Flynn from the school.
We never discover whether Flynn does abuse Donald, and like Sister James are left constantly switching allegiance between Sister Aloysius and Flynn. Much of our doubt can be attributed to an exceptional yet understated performance from Hoffman, who is both charismatic and strangely unsavoury. This latter characteristic doesn't mean that he's a paedophile, but it does explain our own conflicting viewpoints as the movie gets underway. He is ostensibly protecting Donald from the racist attacks of his peers, but there are many unexplained events which suggest this could be a cover for something much more sinister and serve to keep us guessing. Streep's performance is much more scenery chewing; she dogmatically hounds Flynn, her belief in his guilt so strong that she needs nothing upon which to base it. Of a type with her Devil Wears Prada character, though much, much more austere, Sister Aloysius is a frightening figure and the antithesis of her warmer, worldlier nemesis. She is not someone to be fobbed off or reasoned with, but just because she doesn't project the same friendliness of Flynn is not to say that she is wrong - he could easily be grooming the Catholic institution itself as well as Donald. She takes on the character of Aloysius with just her habit as disguise, her red rimmed eyes sore with sheer singleminded belief. Poor little Sister James, pop eyed with fear and apparently always trembling. It's no wonder she is so confused. There is nothing but shades of grey here, and nowhere is this more discernible than in the scenes between Sister Aloysius and Mrs Miller (Viola Davis). Mrs Miller, herself torn between her violent husband and her son's safety, is apparently willing to risk her son being molested by Flynn if this to save him from other dangers at home. Davis has been roundly praised for her brief appearance and quite rightly too - she conveys such a mixture of emotions that she saves the movie from being a mere theological debate and moves it into something much more human. She also, it has to be noted, steals the scene right from under Streep's beaky nose. All the actors are very well cast: we are attracted by Flynn's warmth whilst we feel slight revulsion to him; we find small comic relief in Aloysius' self-righteousness, from her baiting of Flynn's use of ball point pens to his belief that the Christmas play should include 'pagan' songs like Frosty the Snowman, yet we also see much quiet compassion in her. Adams, a world away from her flibbertigibbet socialite in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, shows much promise in a role which neatly avoids insipidity. Of course it's Davis who is the real showstopper, upping the levels of moral and spiritual ambiguity considerably.
But for all this there is something rather turgid about Doubt. Roger Deakins' cinematography is plain and bleak, a world away from the lushness of Revolutionary Road, suggesting that the movie's dialogue was prioritised ahead of the visual elements needed to really snare the audience. Although heavy with symbolism, from storms and gusts suggesting both inner turmoil and the winds of change to lights which blow and shades which are perpetually drawn and then pulled open, the movie is still very much anchored in it's origins as a play. The symbolism is too weighty to feel natural and though it tells us much about the tussles between the characters, it's too stagey for the screen when combined with the stillness of the camera in other key scenes - it left me wondering, 'why bother make this into a film?' Much of the dialogue, though thoughtprovoking and powerful, has a similarly scripted feel and refuses to come alive with the exception of the aforementioned scenes between Davis and Streep. This is the kind of movie actors will watch to be inspired by its performances, and which, in the light of revelations of paedophilia in the Catholic Church, carries much resonance. Is Flynn being protected by a patriarchy which refuses to see what's right in front of it, or is his liberalising force and affectionate nature merely causing other people to doubt their own spiritual paths? Aloysius is not a character to be sided with easily, and neither is Flynn. Creating two such contradictory characters is a clever device which I suspect, if I watched Doubt again, would result in a different conclusion to that which I reached after an initial viewing. Regrettably, though Doubt is a fine film, forcing us to consider the foundations of religious belief, the direction and verbal battles are too selfconscious to sweep away our own doubt that this is anything other than just an above average TV drama. I wonder if the big names had not been attracted to this, whether it would have been adapted as just that.
Secrets and Lies - DVD review
Secrets and Lies is a film with performances so naturalistic they seem plucked from fly on the wall documentaries. Its themes speak to everyone about family, appearance and reality, and the quiet tragedies of ordinary people. With a cast as impressive as the one Leigh assembled for this movie, it's hard to select one particular actor out for praise. Spall projects a decency which is deeply affecting as he tries to manage the tension between his wife, sister and niece; Blethyn is damaged and needy as Cynthia; Logan full of self-hatred and frustration. The introduction of Jean-Baptiste's tenacious and intelligent Hortense, the daughter Cynthia put up for adoption as a teenager, serves to draw out family secrets and emotions long smuggled away by the Purley family in a realistic and moving confrontation.
This film deserves to be studied by anyone who calls themselves a film fanatic. Rich characterisation and a solid and compelling story make this a winner.
February 17, 2009
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Based on an F Scott Fitzgerald short story and starring Brad Pitt in the title role, The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttonis the story of a man who ages backwards. Set in New Orleans and beginning just after WWI, the story is framed by an old lady called Daisy's last hours with her daughter Caroline (Daisy is played by Cate Blanchett who is heavily made up as an octogenarian when we first meet her). As she encourages Caroline to read Benjamin's journals, it becomes obvious what significance Benjamin has for her daughter. However as with Tim Burton's Big Fish (which this movie vaguely resembles), this framing device is totally superfluous. Like most obligatory children of 'special' individuals in such movies, Caroline is nowhere near as intriguing as her parents and fails to ignite our interest.
We follow Benjamin as he grows younger and younger, waiting with him and childhood friend Daisy for the time when their ages will intersect and they can realise their love. As the love story plays out we are introduced to a host of characters who have a huge impact on Benjamin. Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), the kindly woman who adopts baby Benjamin after his horrified father abandons him (harsh really, don't all babies look like old men?), is one such character. Through Queenie we are introduced to the black community of New Orleans, amongst whom Benjamin grows up. Placing the death of Benjamin alongside the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina is no accident, more of which later. Other notable characters include the fabulous Tilda Swinton's diplomat's wife Elizabeth Abbott, with whom Benjamin has a brief love affair, and Jared Harris' Captain Mike, who introduces Benjamin to the sea, booze and brothels. These characters show Benjamin love and understanding and his difference is more often than not accepted at face value by them - tolerance is the name of the game here, no doubt also suggested by the fact a white child is being raised by a black family in 1930s America. The emotional tugs this creates in the audience can't be denied - there were many moments when I was unable to stop the tears streaming down my face. Obviously the biggest tearjerker is Benjamin and Daisy's fleeting opportunity for happiness, and the tyranny of time over their romance. We are all oppressed by time, but the quirks of their relationship remind us of this in an unusual way, prompting us to consider the fact as if for the first time. Sentimental and deeply moving, the movie is a pre-emptive elegy to everyone's love affairs, all ultimately doomed by mortality and the continuing tick tock of time: as Benjamin is told, 'we're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?' The clock at the New Orleans train station, designed to go backwards after it's creator's son dies in WWI, is deeply symbolic of life's impermanence; Benjamin is born as the clockmaker's son dies - almost reincarnated - but time is impervious to us going back even as Benjamin appears to do. Living in reverse, even he must die. When we are told of his death, the clock is also replaced with a new, digital version, the disappearance of the ticking hands emblematic of our hero's passing but also temporal inevitability - Benjamin embodies this paradox.
The cinematography is chosen to fit the mood of past and present plots perfectly, with prosaic blues and greys for the hospital scenes between Daisy and Caroline and warmer browns and golds for Benjamin's recollections. I especially loved how the old people's home in which Benjamin is raised is shot, and indeed all the New Orleans scenes. There's a tactility to them which welcomes you; conversely the sterner hues chosen for the metanarrative left me cold. Maybe that's because they just didn't serve any discernible purpose. It saddens me to say, but this beautifully directed treatise on the domination of love by time is itself held captive, by a running time nearly three hours in length. As a consequence, the middle part of the tale failed to hold my interest and sagged like the jowls on seven year old Benjamin's face. No amount of painterly cinematography could make up for this I'm afraid. The proliferation of otiose scenes smack bang in the centre of the story do the movie a big disservice - my mind wandered and I lost patience with aspects of the story. Here's where the interruptions of the elderly Daisy and her daughter fall short; we don't really need them to invest in the wider narrative and although it's clear their story occurring during Katrina is no accident, symbolising the tragedy of recent events, Fincher doesn't do enough with it for it to really go anywhere. This and the wider cultural history we pass through is woefully underused - some of the superfluous scenes could easily have been replaced with ones of greater cultural significance and we'd still have been moved come the credits.
Many reviewers have described this film as arthouse Gump, and there are many similarities - probably because the movies are written by the same person. Like Forrest Gump, Benjamin is a simple character, betraying few defining characteristics beyond his innate kindness, and whilst this is touching and perhaps intended to be instructive to the audience, it's a little bit patronising too. If I didn't know that director Fincher had been at the helm during Fight Club and Se7en, I'd never have guessed it from this, which is markedly less subversive and geared towards mass appeal/Oscar season.
Don't get me wrong - there's plenty right with this movie, in spite of the cloying homespun homilies its characters offer us. After my praise for Pitt in Burn After Reading, I risk major sycophancy, but he is remarkable as Benjamin. His character's plight is no doubt helped by the fact that offscreen he's considered one of the world's most beautiful men - and he does look ravishing as the younger Mr Button. Benjamin is majorly out of sync with all those he loves, looking more and more youthful and handsome as all those around him creep towards physical and sometimes mental decrepitude; Pitt portrays the loneliness this creates in Benjamin poignantly, often with just his eyes as his features are transformed by the CGI and make up required to get him looking wizened and old as well as pubescent. The CGI alone is marvellous: amazing new possibilities are paraded in front of filmmakers everywhere without any flaws, allowing us to see actors in totally new ways as they portray people from their teens to old age. Ultimately the movie's achievements are technical and emotional, if not perhaps matched by the opportunities such a story presents us with. I won't lie. I bawled like a baby more than once during the movie and gasped with awe at the special effects. But on reflection, in the cold light of day, I felt slightly manipulated by the way the movie's sentimentalism had exploited me. Take the subtle piano-led score, chosen to very deliberately affect us: it starts warped as if to mirror Benjamin's strangeness, gradually settling as he and Daisy get to live out their romance. I wouldn't mind, but I felt if the story had been just that little bit more experimental, the tears might have been worth it.
A phyrric victory for Fincher.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
I'm on record as being a huge Woody Allen fan, so it was great to catch his latest reputed return to form at Oxford's Phoenix Picture House on my Birthday Eve with some girlfriends.
Famous for a snog between sex bombs Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz, the movie's titular heroines are actually played by Britain's own wonderful Rebecca Hall and the aforementioned Miss Johansson respectively - I wonder if Hall is cheesed off at the fact the movie is being promoted around Madames Cruz and Johansson? Vicky and Cristina are that well worn of jokes, American tourists (although way more glam than those usually pilloried) in a beautifully captured Barcelona who are propositioned - simultaneously(!)- by Javier Bardem's charismatic artist Juan Antonio in their first week. Friends since the age of twelve, we are told that the pair agree on most things except their romantic expectations. We are introduced to them by an anonymous narrator and via a split screen, indicating that the two women's ideals set them on course for very different futures. Vicky is engaged to a preppy, square and well-to-do New Yorker and studying for a masters in Catalan Studies, hence the trip to Barcelona. She's essentially the offspring of Annie Hall and Alvy Singer (perish the thought); totally neurotic and in receipt of some of Allen's best lines. Her first impulse is to avoid Juan Antonio at all costs, but deep down she is attracted to him and struggles with the implications of what that means for her life plan. Her best friend Cristina is dreamier and more impulsive, searching for a means of self-expression and constantly flirting with various artistic mediums. Obviously, she jumps at the chance to tag along with the hunky Spaniard. To cut a long story short Juan Antonio ends up bedding both of them, with Cristina soon moving in with him and, it later transpires, his emotionally unbalanced ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), who also happens to be an artist. The unconventional, apparently contented threesome prompt Vicky to wonder what she is missing out on by marrying fiance Doug (a very funny Chris Messina, whose character surely defines the word 'chump'). Is it true, as Maria Elena argues, that 'only unfulfilled love can be romantic'?
This most honest of movies seems to suggest that to a degree this is true, but the plot's most resounding truth lies in its ending and other kinds of unfulfilment: the pragmatic Vicky takes refuge in stability; Cristina's continued search for something emotionally meaningful. Despite all the laughs, the movie tackles the subject of emotional satisfaction with some degree of seriousness and the balance is always just right: the results of Vicky and Cristina's holiday prove realistic, painful and funny for them both. Allen's always been great at fusing the tragic and the comic and it's gratifying to see he's still got what it takes after years in the critical wilderness (from an audiences perspective, Anything Else perhaps said it all in the title). Aside from being very funny and having the majority of the theatre laughing pretty much consistently, this movie was also surprisingly sexy. Allen's enjoyed his fair share of hot leading ladies in his time, from Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow (probably best not to dwell on that relationship ...) to Angelica Houston. But what a boon it must have been for him to be directing three such stunning women! And at his ripe old age ... Although still brimming with Allen's trademark intellectualism, VCB is notable for a definite erotic charge which may stem from the fact it is set in such a deliciously sensory city: Barcelona's architecture, al fresco dining and good wine all seem to have injected a shot of life into Allen's directing in the same way as his beloved New York did for so long, but with an extra spice and sensuality. The passionate Juan Antonio and Maria Elena serve as an erotic catalyst for not just our eponymous heroines, but also Vicky's relation Judy (Patricia Clarkson), an older woman who is trapped in a loveless marriage and whose failed attempts at escaping it are quickly siphoned into machinations into Vicky's lovelife.
No one is left unmoved by the tempestuous Spanish pair, least of all the audience. Maybe I am more susceptible than I'd like to think, but player that he is, I was charmed by Bardem's sexy artist. However perhaps like Cristina, I was even more taken with Cruz: she was outstanding as the unhinged Maria Elena and demonstrated strong comedic talents even as her character unravelled. Cruz managed to channel both Sofia Loren and a psychopath - no mean feat. Johansson plays the same character she pretty much always plays, although as a friend and I reflected afterwards, these days she comes over less as sexually precocious young plaything and more as a slightly naive grown woman - I think it might be time for her to cast her acting net a little wider with her next role ... However, she looks absolutely beautiful and its indisputable that the camera adores her; she projects a certain 'quality' which just is and is evidently why Allen has cast her in three very recent movies. I still find it hard to gage why she is cited as his 'muse' though: although Johansson's modern Monroe is riveting, Hall is more typical Allen material as Vicky and seems to have more range. On the whole though, all three - including Johansson - do justice to the script and craft strong female characters which are up there with some of Allen's finest; he's always been adept at writing strong parts for women and that's one of the reasons I love him so much. The three women he's written for this movie, whatever their actions and behaviour, emerge as strong and memorable cinematic creations - even Vicky, who by the end has apparently scorned Juan Antonio's lustiness as madness, shows herself capable of great passion. We sympathise with her fears even as we urge Cristina on to keep searching for something more than Vicky has settled for, and as for Maria Elena ... We are maybe just glad that she's the one with the greatest creative power of the four (I include Juan Antonio here!).
Yes, there are areas which seem clumsy. Juan Antonio's works of art, for starters. The notion of Spanish artists hanging around Park Guell sketching is about as credible as thinking that all Londoners walk past Big Ben on their way to work (see Match Point). The dichotomy between the passionate Catalans and uptight New Yorkers could also be seen as reductive, but I'd counter that by reminding detractors that one of the finest novels ever written, EM Forster's Room with a View, sets up a similar contrast between impetuous Italians and repressed English people on holiday in Florence. And his ending was much more conventional than Allen's is (he does send it up in 'A View Without a Room though', if anyone is interested)! Allen seems aware of such literary lineage and the narratorial construct he employs works very well, often adding an extra layer of humour. He also manages to captivate us with Barcelona's seductive beauty and do so in a way true to the lived experience of the tourist. Barcelona really breathes through the whole movie as another character and is a pleasure to feast your eyes upon. I'm not sure that this movie has made my mind up about Maria Elena's aforementioned statement one way or another, and even suspect that I am, for better or worse, in league with the sensibilities of Vicky, but I can say with confidence that the critics are right - VCB represents a remarkable and long awaited return to form for Allen. I am now eagerly anticipating his next project Whatever Works, which will feature the brilliant Larry David.
Now where was that passport? Barcelona, here I come ...
February 16, 2009
Emmy The Great - First Love album review
Last week I promised you a full review of Emmy The Great's debut album, and can now deliver it to you via Bandweblogs - click here for my thoughts. I hope it encourages you to check her out, coz she's great.
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