This South Africa-set film has been sitting quietly at the Apollo Cinema, Piccadilly for a week or two now, and it's only through lack of obvious choices of other films to see that I decided to give it a go. And I'm glad I did.
It's about a girl, Chanda, played by newcomer Khomotso Manyaka and her relationship with her mother who has AIDS which culminates in a struggle to do what she believes is right in the face of prejudice.
The film starts with her visiting an undertaker to get a coffin for her baby half-sister who has died, her mother Lillian is too wracked with grief to leave the house. Her step-father is an alcoholic-waster who visits his wife and children full of promises and regret only to steal what little cash they have in the house and disappear again.
Chanda is bright, studious and takes on the role of parent to her two younger half-siblings as Lillian gets sicker. The community she lives in rally around to help Lillian when her baby dies but the truth about her illness is something that she must hide at all costs - only her neighbour Mrs Tafa (Harriet Lenabe) is complicit in her deceit and she has her own reasons for keeping the truth hidden.
British filmmakers have been ploughing a rich seam in the last 18 months. There have been some cracking low-budget indie flicks - Skeletons and Monsters to name just two. And directing duo Brek Taylor and Elizabeth Mitchell's debut, Island, is another to be added to that list.
OK there are one or two clunky moments but this is an otherwise beautifully shot and acted piece which is intriguing from the outset. Protagonist Nikki (Natalie Press) travels to a remote and bleak island, hell-bent on revenge on her mother Phyllis (Janet McTeer*) who abandoned her as a child. But her plans go awry when she realises she has a brother, Callum (Colin Morgan**) and her mission becomes more about wresting him from matriarchal control.
But weaving its way, like a cat around its owner's legs at meal times, are a series of delightful myths and legends which Nikki and Callum tell each other - almost recreating the childhood they never had together. It lends the story a hint of the fairytale but fairytale of the Grimm vein where there is hint of the grotesque and sinister. Something that is not that far from the truth as revealed in the films final scenes.
Definitely a palette cleanser after the dreadfulness of recent Hollywood fare I've enjoyed it packs a lot of visual and emotional punch. It gets 79% from me but as it has such a limited release at present doesn't yet feature on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic so you'll have to take my word for it.
* After the screening there was a Q&A with Brek and Elizabeth who said that Juliet Stevenson and Anne Marie Duff were originally lined up for the female leads. Can't quite see that working as well somehow despite them being such good actors.
** Doing a wonderful Scottish accent - he really is a master but would love to see him do something in his native Northern Irish at some point
This beguiling, beautiful film is both love story and an examination of grief. Naoko and Kizuki have known each other since they were young children and grow close. Together with their friend Toru they form a tight-knit threesome until Kizuki commits suicide.
Toru moves away to school in an attempt escape the past but one day bumps into Naoko igniting old feelings. While Toru has thrown himself into his new life of studying and working Naoko has suffered a break down and is fragile.
A relationship of sorts develops between the two. Toru is smitten but an event triggers unhappy memories for Naoke and she disappears leaving him heartbroken. He starts seeing another girl Midori while still trying to find Naoko. Midori is the antithesis of Naoke, confident and sometime manipulative but she too has eyes for another and so a consolatory relationship flourishes until Toru traces Naoke to a remote mental hospital and starts visiting her.
It is such a beautiful and sensuous film and suprisingly gripping. The central performances while understated never fail to convey such deep emotion that you can't but help being moved. It haunts you afterwards and I can't praise it enough. It gets 93% from me.
Of course it hasn't got a massive distribution being a subtitled, Japanese film, so Rotten Tomatoes only has 17 reviews but those aggregate to 82% with an average user rating of 48%. Metacritic doesn't have a rating for it.
You can see the trailer on the Guardian website - can find an official one with English subtitles to embed.
Man Booker winning author (Never Let Me Go was shortlisted) Kizuo Ishiguro said the marketing material of both the book and the film on which is based caused many headaches. The reason? How much to give away.
One of the things I loved about the book which starts off in an English boarding school is that there is a slow growing sense that there is something not quite right about the school, it's staff and pupils. The reveal comes half to three quarters of the way through.
The trailer to the film, I felt, gave too much away although I do concede that knowing the story may make me read more into it than someone coming at it blind. I've always felt that these sort of stories should be presented in the order and at the speed that the author intended and I worried that much of the impact of the reveal would be lost if the film plunged in to quickly.
However, what I didn't reckon on how much that prior knowledge of the book would have on how intently I would engage with the film.
Continue reading "Letting go at Never Let Me Go & Ishiguro Q&A" »
Nearly didn't go and see The Fighter because I really don't like boxing. In fact I'll go as far as admitting that it was the best film Oscar nod that swung it, that and the fact it has two great leads in Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale.
It's based on a true story about two brother boxers who come from a large, tight-knit Irish-American family who live in a poor community in small town Massachusetts. Older brother Dicky (Bale) is the local hero having knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard in a fight ten years earlier (or did he trip?). He's made a career or certainly a life of notoriety based on this one famous fight but has subsequently succumbed to crack addiction and petty crime.
His younger, half-brother Micky is trained by Dicky and managed by his mother and it quickly becomes apparent that his lack of success as a boxer is more to do with these factors rather than his lack of skill in the ring.
Micky falls for college drop-out and bar maid Charlene (Amy Adams) who sees the damage his family is doing to his career. When Dicky goes to jail for impersonated a police officer, Micky is persuaded to take a chance with a new trainer and a manager and his career starts to flourish. When Dicky is released from jail family loyalty clashes head on with Micky's aspirations.
Big name stars aside the grittyness of The Fighter reminded me a little of another Oscar best film contender - Winter's Bone. It's a different setting but there is a raw authenticity about it which makes for compelling viewing.
There isn't too much boxing which was a relief. I don't think it would be an Oscar contender if there was, after all the outcome of the final fight is a foregone conclusion even if you never followed boxing; it wouldn't be film-fodder otherwise.
I nearly didn't go to see this Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart & Dianne Wiest vehicle thinking that an hour and half watching a couple grieving the loss of their four-year old son wasn't a cheery way to spend a Saturday afternoon. But I'm glad I did.
The film is based on the Broadway play by David Lyndsey-Abair for which Cynthia Nixon won Tony for her performance as mother Becka, the role Kidman takes in the film. You can see how it would work on stage but it does also translate well to the big screen too.
The linnear narrative examines how Becca and Howie (Eckhart) are processing their grief differently and the impact it has on those around them and on their own relationship. With such a subject matter it would be easy to drift into cliche and the temptations are there like bear traps but deftly side-stepped.
When I came out of the cinema I tweeted how 127 Hours had made me feel sick. A friend responded:
It is a fair point. The film is based on a true story and few will sit down to watch without knowing that it's about adrenalin junkie Aron Ralston who falls into a canyon becoming trapped by the arm which he ends up amputating in a desperate attempt to free himself. Well if you didn't you do now.
But what made we want to see it, despite getting sweaty palms and feeling a bit squeamish just watching the trailer, was how he got to that point emotionally and physically. And that is what is interesting and engaging about the film.
Trapped and facing a slow, lonely and almost certain death gives Ralston time to reflect. Now that in itself might put some people off with visions of the film being series of flashbacks. It isn't. Ralston is an engineer and an experienced canyoner, albeit one who makes a near fatal mistake, so the story also follows his journey working through the 'problem' and potential solutions.
It is also a film about human physical and mental survival. He was in the canyon for five days having taken with him enough food and water for the weekend. (Yes, he drinks his own wee).
With Danny Boyle at the helm there are some imaginative devices used to move the story along, show the passing of time and his nutrition and fluid denied brain's inner workings. I'm not sure all of them work quite smoothly and delusion/fantasy scenes are always tricky to pull off without merely resorting to foggy edges.
Peter Weir doesn't shy away from making films of epic content and scale. This one sees him tackle the true story of a group of prisoners who escaped from a Siberian gulag in 1940, walking their way to freedom across 3,000 miles of the harshes environments.
The rag-tag group is made up in principle by Russian thief Valka (Colin Farrell), Pole Janusz (Jim Sturgess) convicted for anti-Stalinist behaviour on the basis of his wife's forced testamony and American Mr Smith (Ed Harris) who travelled to Moscow to find work during he US depression and is imprisoned for being a foreigner. They are joined en route by orphan Irena (Saoirse Ronan).
The Way Back isn't so much a road movie as a hiking movie - extreme rambling if you like. The problem is that once you've stripped out the very few encounters they have en route (the trailer does make it look a bit more action packed than it actually is, I'm afraid) and some character banter it is essentially about endurance and survival.
Nothing necessarily wrong with that. Weir does well to make the two hours stride along relatively confidentally although there were a couple of times when the pace did nearly slow to a blister-induced hobble. But I couldn't help feeling that it lacked the emotional depth of some of his other work.
The group spend so much time together in isolation and yet I never really felt like I got to know them. Yes there are some moving moments demonstrating the bond that forms but it nonetheless feels a little light on emotional engagement.
Acting against blizzards, baking desert heat and vast mountain ranges* is a feat in itself and there were some notable performances from Sturgess and Ronan in particular. Indeed the latter is carving out quite an illustrious career path for herself if she carries on developing her craft in such a way.
To say that The American is about a killer with a heart is to over simplify and do a diservice to this complex and atmospheric character study.
The only thing we know for sure about George Clooney's charcter Jack/Edward is that his job is to kill people; for whom and in what capacity is never revealed. The scene is set in a secluded snowy landscape where Jack is spending time with a lover in a chalet. On a walk he quickly realises he's being stalked. A gun battle ensues and the lover, now a witness, is disposed of with seemingly little thought.
Quickly departing the scene of the crime he heads to Italy where his boss/handler arranges a place for him to live in a small mountain village where he decides enough is enough and is given one last, low key job to perform.
With a screenplay written by Roland Joffe (28 Days Later/Brighton Rock) and directed by Anton Corbijn (Control) The American isn't your average spy/assassin thriller/action movie. For a start the action sequences are few. Instead Corbijn plays on layers of ambiguity to create something far more deliciously subtle and tense that seems more about the central character than the unfolding plot.
The idylic pastoral setting it at once beguiling and threatening with Corbijn unexpectedly shattering the peace on occasion and making even the nosy neighbours seem slightly less than innocent. Jack is, of course, the biggest ambiguity. He is an emotionless, alert and experienced killer and yet someone who craves company and closeness. Friendship, particularly with women, is his weakness.
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