Rev Stan's film blog

First film of 2011: 127 Hours

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.

Extreme rambling: The Way Back

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.

#LFF all stand for the King's Speech

Colin, Colin, Colin will you just stop it. After spending years in the rom-com wasteland you follow up the superb A Single Man with the fabulous King's Speech.

OK so its not heart-wrencher like A Single Man and a costume drama about a member of the royal family overcoming a terrible stammer isn't making a massive political statement but it is just done so well.

Firth does an excellent job of conveying King George VI's fear of public speaking and the humiliation he feels from his inability to adequately express himself.*

Indeed there is one particular scene when, shortly after becoming King, Edward VIII snidely teases his brother's stammer and George or Bertie as he was known by his family, can't verbally fight back, paralised by his speech impediment the pain is written all over his face.

It can't be easy getting an audience to empathise with someone who's had a very privileged life but he does by showing that if you strip away the pomp and ceremony and stiff upper lip there is just a scared man underneath.

Bright Star and Skeletons video interviews

You wait days for a decent interview to come along, blah

First up is a Q&A in Bristol with the director and some cast of Skeletons, the fab little indy Brit Flick that I saw earlier in the year (it's still doing a bit of a cinema tour around the UK so keep and eye out for it).

And secondly is the full version of the interview Jane Campion and Ben Whishaw gave at the Toronto Film Festival last year about Bright Star. Have only seen little segments up until discovering this.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

What can I say about this film? Well it's beautiful - I love the period and Chanel's style is par excellence so it gets loads of points for elegance.

But what of Chanel and Igor themselves and the relationship the film is set around?

Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen looking like a period Freddie Mercury) first meets Chanel (Anna Mouglalis) at the disastrous first performance  of his The Rite of Spring in which police are brought in to calm down the disgruntled crowd.

A few years later, exiled from his native Russia and living in a cramped hotel with his wife and family, Chanel offers him her house outside Paris in order to work. And so he moves with his family and a relationship develops between him and his host.

Other than a physical attraction their motives for their liaison aren't clear. Chanel leads Stravinsky into adultery by stripping off in front of him. When confronted by his dying wife, who guesses what is going on, Chanel offers no apology or signs of remorse despite her interest in Stravinsky already appearing to be on wane.  As the relationship begins to crumble he produces the rework of The Rite of Spring which was to be hailed a masterpiece and she finally chooses the signature Chanel no. 5 scent.

Chanel comes across as manipulative bitch to Stravinsky's lost devoted puppy and we are led to believe their liaison helped them create some of their best work.

It's an unsatisfying biography that reveals little about the people themselves rather concentrating on the relationship that may or may not have actually happened but if you want to watch women swanning around in beautiful clothes in elegant settings then it's definitely worth it just for that.

What the professionals said:

Steve Rose in The Guardian gave it three stars commenting "Ultimately, the affair develops into a brittle battle of artistic wills. "I'm as powerful as you," Chanel tells Stravinsky. "You're not an artist, you're a shopkeeper," he replies. It's an inviting question. How do you compare such disparate talents? How do you compare smell with sound?"

Anthony Quinn in The Independent also gave it three stars: "This Coco is more austere and ruthless than Tautou's gamine waif, and the film itself is a more considered, textured portrait. One of the best things here is a coda that finds both principals alone in old age (they died within months of one another in 1971), contemplating mementoes of their liaison – whatever it was – half a century before."

Rotten Tomatoes UK gave it an overall rating of 51%

Metacritic gave it an overall rating of 56%

Getting to know Gainsbourg

Must admit that I knew more about Serge Gainsbourg's daughter Charlotte than the French singer/songwriter himself but the trailer of the eponymous film looked intriguing.

Gainsbourg from what the film tells us grew up during the war, was a precocious child with a talent for the piano and drawing and he had a vivid imagination. He was also a bit of a charmer, particular with the ladies, a skill that he was to put to good use later in life.

He realised early on that he was never going to be a looker and it is his self-deprecating manner in this regard which seems at the root of his charm. He invents an uglier alter ego, represented in the film by a gangly man with Tim Burton-style long spidery fingers and enormous head with a sharp nose and large ears reminiscent of the Count in Sesame Street.

This alter ego leads him into trouble but ultimately onto the path to fame and fortune, 'making him' abandon his chosen career as an artist to pursue music from which he carves and long and illustrious career.

The narrative is a told through a series of key events in his life most of which revolve around his string of beautiful and sometimes famous lovers and wives.