nevermind the bricolage

Be Italian

Nine, was not high on my list of films to see but there I was on a Friday afternoon nestled into a comfy seat in a cinema filled with musical-lovers watching the latest outing from the director of Chicago(can I say how much I didn't enjoy that musical!!). But this one had a few extras in its favour from my perspective--Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz. A cinematic representation of a stage show homage to Fellini's 8 1/2, Nine is a thread of a story--writer's block sandwiched between big, extravagant over-the-top and very-dated lyrically, dance numbers, black and white memory scenes and pitch-perfect 60s italiano designs. And you know what? I really liked it. Oh, did I mention Glenda Jackson, yes, M, of recent years, and an actress able to take anyone to wherever her character is heading, plays sexy seamstress/confidante to Day-Lewis' Guido Contini, and owns every single second of screen time People have criticized DDL's singing in this film, but that I think misses the point, you don't have to sing well, you have to act well in a singing part and that is what he does, plus I thought his vocals matched the state his character was in--but there again I love Nick Cave!! It was really lovely to see him in a looser role--still enough sturm and drang but essentially, he is reflecting on the women in his life while he tries to come up with a topic for his new film. It is a thread of an idea, not much different in that regard to Avatar, and it relies on great staging and lighting (plus some very fine looking women) in big numbers to keep us interested--again a bit like Avatar--but for me, there was some soulfulness that managed to pull it all together. The lyrics to most of the songs are dreadful--Marion Cotlillard, playing his long-suffering wife has almost the indignity of having to open a song with the line, "my husband makes movies/to make them he lives a kind of dream," but by the end of that song her face is the only thing every living creature in the theatre is looking at, spell-bound, as the pain of loving a wayward man and seeing a relationship crumble before ones eyes moves across her eyes--surely one of the best single moments in film emoting in a long time. Nicole Kidman glammed up, Kate Hudson bopping around in full 60s glee, Sophia Loren, Penelope Cruz writhing in fishnets--it could all be so horribly wrong, but somehow, somehow, I found that it all came together for me.

Creation

"nature selects for survival, man for appearance."

Creation, the film about Darwin, had trouble finding a US distributor over the volatility of the content for some on these golden shores, but even the hardest creationist shouldn't worry too much about this film because Darwin's theories take quite a back seat to a larger narrative in the movie, namely, the death of his much-loved daughter. Of course, there is plenty of stuff showing Darwin at work honing his theory and refining his experiments, but essentially it is a homage to a man's love for his child and the awful pain that the death of a child wreaks upon the soul. Darwin was broken by the death of his daughter (not the only one of his children not to make it either) and combined with an already fragile belief in God, it only helped him move towards his idea that natural selection shapes creation and not God. It is quite difficult to imagine the furour at this, but the film does attempt to put the theory into it's historic context and it does a pretty good job of pitting science against religion (which is a bit of an unnecessary stretch I think. Having read On the Origin of the Species recently, I still don't get the antagonism some argue that it expresses towards God--that is not to say it is without bias, but I think we have to take Darwin off of the contemporary theist/atheist continuum, and put him, his life, his times and his contexts, into the broader Victorian world he inhabited. I realize that his ideas are still viewed as blasphemous by some, but having discovered that most people I ask have never read the book itself,  I would hazard that a false dichotomy is being set up).

Darwin is played by Paul Bettany and his real wife Jennifer Connelly plays Emma, Darwin's wife. Together they capture the tensions in a marriage torn by both loss and opposing views of faith. Much of the film moves at a glacial, almost dreamy space, matching Darwin's grief malaise. He struggles to write, to engage with his family, to live essentially, and spends most of his day in a stupour recalling moments with his daughter. In fact it is only in the last ten or fifteen minutes of the film, when he has found healing between himself and his wife, in spite of their theological differences, that the film picks up pace and he actually writes his book. The ending is rather abrupt if you are waiting for big moments concerning his theory or responses to it, but as I said, this film is more about the role that grief played in this man's life than about his theory that changed the world.

It is a lovely film, shot in classic BBC Film style, with enough contemporary effects to make it more than simply a period drama, and it is hard to fault Bettany, who plays this grief-stricken man with empathy and tenderness. Everyone else is essentially a bit-player, including Connelly, but everyone is on their game and it makes the film rich and immensely watchable.

In spite of continuing resistance from some quarters, we seem to have embraced evolutionary concepts and their effects on virtually all aspects of our lives, it is amazing to think that this is a new idea in the grand scheme of things, 150 years old or thereabouts, and not exclusive to Darwin---as with most ideas it seems to emerge in the cultural ether and any number of people find their lives circling around similar thoughts and ideas. And, as with most ideas, the theory itself is morphing and changing--many of Darwin's original ideas have been tweaked, rejected, developed, as our knowledge grows about the world around us. Yes, even evolution is evolving!

Nowhere Boy

Sam Taylor-Wood's bio-pic about John Lennon.

Wild Things

Where the Wild Things are is the Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers attempt at bringing Maurice Sendak's very short story to the big screen. Max, is an angry kid, mad at the world, mad at his mother, who runs into the night and winds up on the desert coast of some distant land inhabited by some very strange creatures. Eschewing CGI for actors wearing 9-foot high costumes, the film captures something so magical  that I sat mesmerized through the film. Jonze does a great job in capturing the imagination and frustration of a nine-year old boy--he's angry but doesn't know why most of the time and all he really wants is to be loved--it's a simple story and because this is what Jonze goes for, it works. The actors who play the creatures--James Gandolfini, Forest Whittaker, Catherine O'Hara, Chris Cooper, Lauren Ambrose and Paul Dano, weren't installed in isolated sound booths but were gathered in a room together to capture the crazy interactions, tensions and fun that surround them. Where the Wild Things are is an unsentimental tale, that this movie captures that and leaves you hungry for more is testament to it's richness. I don't really want to deconstruct or critique the film much more--it's wondrous, you just don't see stuff like this on the screen often enough--but I should also single out the pitch perfect score courtesy of Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and the Kids.

An Education

Twickenham 1961, Jenny is approaching her 17th birthday and her life is all about getting an education. Oxford, that is what her father wants for her, to go to Oxford to read English and then...Well, that's the plan and that's the focus of her life until she meets David, an older man full of sly wit and charm, who beguiles her and opens her up to another education in life, one which will undermine everything she has worked toward so far.  An Education, is a lovely little film, with a screenplay by Nick Hornsby and wonderful direction from Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners). It is essentially a typical coming of age tale, but great acting and a strong story save it from being overly familiar. Jenny wants to taste life, she is chaffing at the grind of school and home, her father (Alfred Molina) rules the roost, and is a testament to British middle-class values--all proper manners and pseudo-intellectualism. In fact, it is these very values that open up space in the story for David to get his foot in the door of Jenny's heart and the story to twist and turn on a young girl's desires and an older man's secrets.

In Britain in 1961 things are shaking but not much has changed yet--we are still in the 50s really and it will be a few years more before culture starts to shift dramatically. Jenny has a couple of options--an education or a marriage, and either will essentially lead to a life of drudgery and boredom, at least that is how she interprets the information presented to her. David offers Paris and cool cafe's, nightclubs and a taste of life's glittery edges, and pretty soon she is drawn into a web of glitz and glamour that disrupts her entire world. But it can't end well, this we sense for much of the film, although what happens is well kept within the storyline. There is heartbreak and redemption, and a bit of a too-tidy ending, but lessons are learned and a marvelous young girl gets some hard-earned wisdom beyond her years. Carey Mulligan as Jenny is a revelation--just sexy enough to have us believe a man like David (Peter Sarsgaard--the perfect blend of suave and slimy) would be enthralled, but still enough of a schoolgirl to capture the wide-eyed innocence and heart-breaking naivete of youth. She is never a victim which is why the film works so well, but she can't be told, won't be told, so she, like the rest of us, must learn the hard way.

The soundtrack sets the film firmly in it's pre-pop era and the set direction is a marvel. For those of us who grew up in this Britain, every detail from the wallpaper to the battenburg cake is perfect and a reminder of where we've come from and how much things have changed...maybe.

Trevor Rhone

Trevor Rhone, who co-wrote The Harder They Come, the movie that brought a glimpse of urban Jamaican life, and a big slice of reggae to the world, died a few days back. The Harder They Come was driven by a great soundtrack mainly composed by Perry Henzell, the other co-writer of the film, and of course, by some seminal songs by Jimmy Cliff, including the title song. A film that brought a real-life Jamaican gangster back to life in a different era, it has that blaxploitation feel of many films that emerged in the 1970s as black culture found its way to the surface of broader cultural awareness--one of my favourite music-driven films.

Touch Has Memory

"Touch has memory," declares poet John Keats to his love, Fanny Brawne, in Jane Campion's wonderful film, Bright Star. Campion has a great eye and a glorious tale to tell. It's a story of unrequited love, a love bound by societal constraints--the ability to provide dowry and social station being chief among them. Fanny, quite literally, the girl next door, is an independent-minded young woman with a keen eye for fashion and a deep desire for passion--in the alchemy of Keats' words and his broken life she experiences something so deep, so profound that their short-lived love (he died at 25 a mere two years after they met), was so devastating that she remained alone he rest of her life--walking for hours on Hampstead Heath. I t could have gone wrong as a film--young live, cultural inhibitions, romance poets, but in Campion's capable hands this is a film of beauty and depth that carries you away and wraps you in its fabrics and colours--see it.

Beard Again...

A documentary I watch over and over again.

Fantastic Mr Fox

It looks like Wes Anderson is stretching his creative edge a little. Fantastic Mr. Fox is an animated film from the master of tableau cinema--Tannenbaum's, Darjeeling Limited, Life Aquatic etc. I love the worlds he creates, the attention to detail is always remarkable and as much a part of the story as anything else. There is always an environment that is unrolled before us filled with wonderful inventions and stuff--this film expands that into the animated world. I must say up front that I am not a big fan of animated films, but there have been exceptions and this upcoming release looks like it might be another one.

Operation Kino

On the eve of the 70th anniversary of Hitler's invasion of Poland, I settled into a cramped and uncomfortable theatre seat to watch Nazis wreak havoc one more time. Well, I  actually was about to watch a bunch of 'inglorious basterds' wreak havoc on Nazis, but let's not get too picky at this point. Tarantino's latest offering has caused the usual ripples of praise and condemnation, the lovers and haters of his work drawing lines in the sand and offering thoughts on his latest piece of cinema. It has taken me a couple of days to process all the many things I think and feel about this film. I must say that my thoughts are overwhelmingly positive, something about this film really got under my skin. Now, I am a complete wuss when it comes to violence and even though I frequently use Tarantino's movies in teaching environments, the thought of exposing myself to his particular love with violence and gore, always makes me think twice before I see his films. The violence in Inglorious Basterds is novel, that comes a as surprise really, given our cinematic preponderance to explore violence of all kinds, but the almost-comic approach to it's use, scalping, baseball-batting, leg explosions, well this alone sets the film apart from its contemporaries, but as with most Tarantino films, the film is exploring something more than new approaches to screen violence, and this time, I think it is cinema itself that he is going after.
Knowing of Tarantino's obsessive knowledge of cinema, the references that run through this film, from genres to actors, to directors, to scenes--its bloody amazing, and of course, cinema becomes in the end a tool of violence itself--brilliant. I think that T is both applauding and indicting cinema on so many levels it is virtually impossible to capture them all. Aside from all that, there is the story, which moves at a very different pace than his recent films, and is filled with some of the best on-screen work I have seen in a while--Brad Pitt doing, Clooney (O Brother) meets Brando meets, Donald Sutherland--I don't know, plus a cast of characters that only Tarantino could concoct. What is amazing is that here is a film 70 years after the start of the Second World War, that offers a novel approach to exploring its continued effect upon us and our psyches--Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa is the most humanized-dehumanized Nazi ever, playing with our perceptions and throwing them all out of the window.
As you can tell by my ramblings, I haven't put all of this together yet, but perhaps that alone is a statement about the worth of this film, you can't get it out of your head, and it is not because of the violence, which in Tarantino's universe is comparatively muted, its because this is a story of history, of the world of cinema, of violence, of humanity and inhumanity. Tarantino has said that it is a spaghetti western using WWII iconography...well that helps. And before I close let me say that another reason to always watch one of Tarantino's films is because of the music--lots of orchestration this time and when you least expect it, David Bowie/Giorgio Moroder--Cat People--brilliant.