tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87359030448342864832024-03-13T16:54:22.042+10:00After ImageCapsule reviews and clumsy criticism from a cinema neophyte.GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-46154102720344352702021-12-20T13:38:00.019+10:002022-12-29T18:07:55.248+10:00A Ranked Guide to Every Marvel Movie I've Seen<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Ant-Man and the Wasp:</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> I want my multiplex superhero
movies to be breezy fun and this one mostly delivers. Sure it feels like the
plot was awkwardly massaged into shape in an editing booth but the jokes are
funny, there's a gleeful joy in the shrinking and embiggening, and detectable
romantic chemistry between the leads (even if it never sets off a fire alarm).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> </span>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Black Panther:</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> Ryan Coogler made a film as
thoughtful and bold in its ideas as a Marvel movie is allowed to be. There are
distinctive, stunning sets and costumes! Killmonger’s museum heist is genuinely
provocative! It's such a shame that it's ultimately muddled and declawed. Sure, Shuri
spits "Coloniser!" at Martin Freeman's CIA agent but he's a complete
teddy bear and the script contorts itself to present his participation in a
coup against the fairly chosen head of state of a foreign government as
morally righteous. And the final big step forward for Chadwick Boseman's hero
is leaving all the racist structures in place but... teaching black kids to code?
Come on!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">(Also the
need to hit an M rating and make the action look "cool" really
undercuts the tragedy of the civil war. The two title fights are compelling
though - they have strong narrative arcs.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Thor Ragnarok:</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> Everyone says this is the quirky
one but honestly it's only a fraction weirder than the Guardians films. It's
allowed to be coyly queer - but not too queer! And a little - but only a
little - shaggier in its plotting. (And that's to make room for a director
cameo. Frankly I have never found Taika Waititi to be funny in front of the camera.
His actual face isn't even on screen this time and yet somehow you can still
see him wink and mug relentlessly, like some overachieving theater kid
desperate to please.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">I will
award it some points for Cate Blanchett going harder than most Marvel villains
but I'd seen too many of these by this point and the increasingly prefab nature
of the whole affair was beginning to get to me, especially since I'd been
promised that this one was different. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"><u><b>The
Avengers:</b></u> It's fair to say that Joss Whedon has deservedly fallen off a pedestal that
was always too high but... the man does write feuding family banter better than
any other Marvel writer. And the plotting here is very slick while still
leaving room for beats like The Hulk's heartfelt chat with Henry Dean Stanton.
It's just a shame that the action is so static, so drearily televisual. (To be
fair Marvel action is mostly a write-off until Winter Soldier.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Guardians of the Galaxy:</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> A bit like The Avengers insofar
as the dialogue is actually somewhat witty but the climatic fight sucks. It
tries to ape the multi-strand finale of The Return of the Jedi and the like.
Unfortunately it turns out that watching a billion tiny ships piloted by
nobodies form a shield is not even half as exciting as watching a single ship
piloted by a named hero run the Death Star's defenses. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Also this
time there's no villain as charismatic as Loki on hand. (I will allow that
Karen Gillan has some spark and that her character's relationship to Gamora
turns some of it to flame. But she's hardly in the movie and Lee Pace's
glowering nonevent sucks up too much oxygen.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Captain America:</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> There's a definite charm to its
period stylings and, oddly enough, how thoroughly conservative it is. It's like a nice boy in a Christmas sweater who wants to bring you
home to his mum. Which is pretty much who Captain America is as played by Chris
Evans so, um, that metaphor got weirdly literal. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">The thing
I can't get past is that it's a movie about fighting Nazis and it just kind of
skips over the whole holocaust thing? You can see the racism in Red Skull's
ubermenschen dreams but the movie is way more interested in drawing parallels
between the Nazis and Steve's bullies and well, the Nazis are not just garden variety
bullies! They are genocidal fascists! This is important! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Oh, of
course it also earns points for the pec grab that isn't AKA the only time
(afaik) that anything Marvel has ever been steamy.</span></p><p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Ant Man:</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> I saw this after its sequel and was disappointed.
The train fight is spectacular but the rest... I don't remember the rest. Also
the romance was so gutted in the editing booth that they don't even kiss.
What's the point?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">Thor:</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;"> I will cop to having only seen about 40 minutes of
this but Branagh's sense of the dramatic here is so leaden and his desire to
make every other shot a Dutch angle so bizarre that I found it all but
unwatchable. It makes a perversely good argument for Marvel to keep all
evidence of personality far, far away from its films.</span></p>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-82682018929673773802020-06-17T00:16:00.004+10:002020-06-17T00:16:36.298+10:00John Wick: Parabellum <span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">To grasp how John Wick's action sequences work it's instructive to watch how other films execute their own. Take Winter Soldier's opening ship set piece whose action is every bit as professionally staged. The difference is in the editing. Winter Soldier is cut to the beat of its blows; each edit lines up neatly with Captain America's fists meeting faces. Violence is its punctuation. However for John Wick violence is the subject. Though the goriest wounds may be hidden in shadows the impacts themselves are shown in full and soundtracked to elicit winces. Its punctuation is death.</span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">You can build a movie out of the endless ways to meet one's maker - Parabellum shifts ably from South Korean inspired brutality to Keaton-esque slapstick to third person cover shooting - but how to build a franchise (now spanning three movies, a comic series, a video game and god knows what else) out of a movie whose bread and butter is endings? Up until now the answer has been to invest ever more heavily in its "mythology"; a bunch of rituals, phrases and tchotchkes given unearned weight by exaggeratedly dignified turns from Ian McShane and Lance Reddick.* Once again Parabellum piles on more layers to the increasingly creaky edifice - calling on Asia Kate Dillon to embody cold, impersonal power.</span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">It also seeks to expand the building - travelling to Casablanca for a little incidental filling of gaps that would probably better serve as windows. I think what they’re going for here is a cosmopolitanism that extends the rituals and fine clothes to different contexts: here are the tattoos you're familiar with but this time they're in Arabic. Alas what they end up with looks more like the same old western exoticism. It’s an unintentional crassness that nonetheless fits right in with the intentionally garish subtitles and the way cuts from The Four Seasons and The Nutcracker are made vulgar by both ubiquity and modern remixing.</span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">By its end Parabellum seems to be recognizing the futility of such endeavours - acknowledging that there's only so much interest that can be gained from an ever proliferating set of phrases and titles and suggesting that it’s time to bring the whole thing tumbling down. It is merely a suggestion at this stage though and the film’s Ouroboros-like plot, in which possibilities are done away with as soon as they are raised and kingdoms are reestablished as soon as they are razed, gives no hope for an escape.</span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Parabellum’s treatment of John Wick is similarly cyclical. He is a man without a future, only able to locate more facets of his identity by delving into the past. There are never any new friends, only old associates. It's almost admirable to refuse the standard device of giving him new things in order to take them away. Even more so given that the film is self-aware; letting Wick himself state that his reason for living is the remembrance of old things and not creation. But there’s no future in it.</span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">If there is a way out it may lie in the embrace of actual mythology. There’s a fresh potency in the Bowery King surveying his new chthonic realm from a throne and a new kind of power in John Wick having acquired a kind of Hekate-like liminality as a result of coming completely unmoored from life and death as we know them.</span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">PS: I greatly enjoyed they way Mark Dacascos' fanboy villain is used to poke at the hoary conventions Parabellum otherwise plays straight.</span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">*I personally feel that the praise stems mostly from John Wick having had something where other films of its ilk have nothing.</span>GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-50379590827808317112018-01-06T03:49:00.002+10:002019-08-14T11:24:32.411+10:00New Year, New Ambivalence If You Are the One begins and ends - as all romcoms must - with a broad satire of investor capitalism. OK honestly it's a little odd but not because of the content - any number of Chinese films express anxiety about a changing society in much this way - but because the scene is also about a bright future secured for tricksters like Qin Fen (Ge You) through the shortsightedness of others.<br />
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The rest of the film meanwhile is infatuated with honesty. At first because Qin and Xiaoxiao Liang (Shu Qi) are attracted to each other on account of being brutally frank about their shortcomings and later because honesty with themselves allows them to push past said flaws. Well, sort of. Qin's obviously eternally a huckster. And they use each other mercilessly along the way without always being upfront about it.<br />
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It is refreshing in a way that the film itself is honest. This isn't the sort of romcom that wraps up poor behaviour in sentimental trappings and expects you buy it as romance, although it alternates between showing the emotional impact of their acting out and playing it for laughs.<br />
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When it does the former it is achingly true to its characters' feelings. In one scene Xiaoxiao is having it out with her previous lover. They're sitting at a table, across from each other and their earlier conversation has been captured in close-ups. But in the moment when Xiaoxiao expresses her anger she gets up to pour a drink and the camera cuts to a wider shot of her arm and the drink before it cuts again to an even wider shot of her with her back to the camera and her lover looking back at her while she rages. It's like something out of a Mizoguchi film. Her anger and sadness is perfectly captured but her desire for distance is also conveyed and respected.<br />
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In some ways I can't help but feel like I've been conned by the film. Qin's dating classified is awful! He's awful! Xiaoxiao's almost equally awful! However while the film may buy into some of their dubious POVs it doesn't expect me to think of them as good people per se. If You Are the One just expects empathy.GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-2994383728709180042017-08-16T15:28:00.002+10:002020-04-18T02:08:51.826+10:00I'm Too MifftyI saw seventeen films at MIFF and I liked a lot of them but I'm lazy and so I only managed to write up four of them. On the Beach at Night Alone, A Man of Integrity, The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson and High Tide come highly recommended. The Idea of a Lake, A Skin So Soft, The Wound, Lover for a Day and Sami Blood are all worth a look.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Axolotl Overkill</i>: Its detractors are right insofar as we probably didn't need another trawl through the Berlin drug/club scene but seeing as we got one anyway I'm happy to have Axolotl Overkill. It cuts from scene to scene with little regard for connecting tissue yet somehow this produces a hazy rhythm rather than an abrupt one. Also setting it apart from its peers is an eye for the absurd (where did that penguin come from?) and a willingness to pause all forward momentum for flights of fancy like an out of nowhere contemporary dance performance set to Me and the Devil.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Bright Sunshine In/Let the Sunshine In</i>: Claire Denis is the greatest living director so calling this a major disappointment for me is something of an understatement. All the pieces are in place save for a script which approaches romance as an intellectual pursuit apart from the rest of life and a collection of characters (very deliberately) designed as caricatures of masculinity complete with unbearable tics. It is very much what it intends to be so if that description appeals to your sensibilities by all means have at it. I'll be over here exchanging sad high fives with the disappointed. (That is an actual thing that happened. Film festivals are strange.)<br />
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<i>Floating Life</i>: The sad truth of films is that for every widely hailed masterpiece that enters the canon and is forever available on a million different formats there are at least three other worthy films condemned to obscurity. The nice thing about film festivals is that such gems are occasionally dug up. Floating Life is definitely a gem. It starts out as a broad fish-out-of-water comedy set in the overexposed Australian sun but before it's done it cycles through a dozen different tones (lowkey realist drama, heartrending tragedy, sexy romance...) at least three different continents and all manner of compositions (flat with loads of negative space, deep focus, striking bird's eyes...) and yet all of it feels of a piece and contributes to its kaleidoscopic take on the immigrant experience.<br />
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<i>Nocturama</i>: Ostensibly this film is about terrorism and consumerism but it methodically, deliberately strips away almost all of the familiar context and rhetoric used to explain such things. Even physical space is violated in its finale as the action is viewed through banks of security screens which make it difficult - if not impossible - to know where people are in relation to one another. The cumulative effect of these choices is disconcerting, almost terrifying. There are no explanations to be found for its protagonists' deeds, no potential cures suggested for the sickness at its heart; just a headlong fall into a (richly aestheticized) void.GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-67075621008342112542017-07-02T02:15:00.002+10:002017-07-02T02:15:39.138+10:00Band Baaja Baaraat<div class="MsoNormal">
Band Baaja Baaraat contains all of the usual romcom cliches
including a last minute run to win a lover's affection. That said all of them are played with
ridiculous energy and fervor; as if they were being invented for the first
time. Anushka Sharma's hilarious mugging in the first performance of Ainvayi
Ainvayi is emblematic but performances aside there's also a riot of dutch
angles, jump cuts and zooms. Some of its style is rigorously consistent (like
the film's bright colour palate) but some of it comes and goes as needed: there's just one scene involving characters speaking directly into the
camera. All of it feels every bit as delightfully kitschy as the heroes'
wedding designs. Also whether serendipitous or not the film's through-line of
first timers breaking through aligns nicely with its previously unknown male
lead and debut director.</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-30350144266643690302017-05-09T22:30:00.001+10:002019-02-12T00:34:25.086+10:00A Brief History of Gay Zombie Porn and Australian Film Criticism In 2010 the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) attempted to screen L.A. Zombie, the latest work by avant garde filmmaker/art pornographer Bruce LaBruce.* It didn't work out. The Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC - now the Australian Classification Board) stepped in and refused it classification, effectively banning it from being screened in Australia.**<br />
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Predictably enough the Melbourne Underground Film Festival (MUFF - no really, that's its acronym) rode to the rescue of adventurous sickos everywhere and scheduled an illegal screening. Despite being widely advertised (with the location omitted, presumably the details were e-mailed to ticket buyers) the screening went ahead without interference.**** However the organiser's house was later raided by police and charges were laid.***<br />
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For me it's in the immediate aftermath of the screening that the real story lies. Luke Buckmaster - quite possibly Australia's most middlebrow film critic - attended and was unsurprisingly outraged. Somewhat disingenuously he supported the OLFC's decision to "...ban the film from screening in general cinemas."**** Strictly speaking that is indeed what the OFLC had done. Of course in practice the film was never going to screen outside of MIFF (with the possible exception of the Sydney Underground Film Festival) and was always going to be shown as an unrated film for 18+ attendees. However Buckmaster is not one to probe technicalities.<br />
<br />
The Young Turks of Screen Machine, then Australia's premier journal of smarty pants film criticism, were incensed at what they saw as shameful wowserism and philistinism. The stage was set and on 13 September 2010 the curtain lifted on what I believe to be simultaneously the greatest and pettiest stoush in the history of Australian film criticism.<br />
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Ladies and gentlemen, courtesy of the Internet Wayback Machine I present to you Luke Buckmaster vs Emma Jane and Brad Nguyen. Be sure to read the comments: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150423172850/http://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2010/09/13/a-different-opinion-on-gay-zombie-porn-in-defence-of-bruce-labruces-la-zombie/">https://web.archive.org/web/20150423172850/http://blogs.crikey.com.au/cinetology/2010/09/13/a-different-opinion-on-gay-zombie-porn-in-defence-of-bruce-labruces-la-zombie/</a><br />
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*<a href="http://miff.com.au/festival-archive/film/23584/l-a-zombie">http://miff.com.au/festival-archive/film/23584/l-a-zombie</a><br />
**<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jul/21/gay-zombie-porn">https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jul/21/gay-zombie-porn</a><br />
***<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-11-12/filmmaker-questions-timing-of-zombie-porn-raid/2334866">http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-11-12/filmmaker-questions-timing-of-zombie-porn-raid/2334866</a><br />
****<a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/08/30/cops-didnt-show-but-maybe-they-should-have-gay-zombie-p-rno-sickens/">https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/08/30/cops-didnt-show-but-maybe-they-should-have-gay-zombie-p-rno-sickens/</a>GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-69424881300175660352016-10-22T00:39:00.003+10:002016-10-22T01:46:51.131+10:00Shin GodzillaShin Godzilla is pretty good albeit in an odd duck way. It's only peripherally a disaster movie. That's not to say it doesn't utilise Godzilla as a metaphor for nuclear destruction. There's a moment of grand tragedy that is utterly heartbreaking and its ending is quietly chilling. However such moments merely establish stakes; the meat of the film is, of all things, an unabashed celebration of bureaucracy.<br />
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Granted it celebrates a particular kind of bureaucracy. Before the heroes can work their magic we churn through a forest of deadwood; old men installed at the top of the hierarchy but too scared of their tentative grasp on power to venture opinions of real substance lest they be shamed. Once they're dealt with the effective bureaucracy can get to work: a mix of Young Turks (including a lone women who is disappointingly token in number but reassuringly not in narrative impact) and old men dismissed as crackpots working together in a comparatively flat organisational structure.<br />
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Their teamwork is celebrated in an unusual way. There are no Sorkin-esque walk and talks here and very little striding through hallways in general. Instead <i>Shin Godzilla</i> gets its energy from aggressively edited, oddly framed stills with something subtly off-kilter about the way their subjects are blocked. Adding to the effect are an overwhelming barrage of chyrons (mostly job titles) that are gone as fast as the audience can read them and a musical score that is a hodge podge of original composition and rearranged pieces from previous Godzilla films and, of all things, Neon Genesis Evangalion.<br />
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When individuals do emerge from the group it only serves to heighten the film's praise of self-sacrificing teams as they merge their egos with the desire to serve their nation. At one point an ambitious young man explains himself by way of reflecting that, "There needs to be a Japan in ten years if I am to be the Prime Minister of it."GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-63389721168937678852016-08-06T16:05:00.005+10:002016-08-06T16:14:30.005+10:00Compounding My Mifftake<u style="font-weight: bold;">Being 17:</u> Andre Techine makes a respectable return to the material that animated his best known film (<i>Wild Reeds</i>). It's not as complex as that earlier, better work - the tangled knots of love triangles and fluid sexualities are reduced to two boys who learn that fighting is no substitute for fucking - but it does gain the fluid, tracking camera of <i>The Girl on the Train </i>which lends it a measure of anxious energy. It also speaks well of the film that its nods to contemporary hot button topics feel more like parts of characters' daily lives than talking points. Despite this the territory it covers feels over-familiar; perhaps it's time for the coming-of-age genre to grow up.<br />
<br />
<u style="font-weight: bold;">The Ball at the Anjo House:</u> A part of me suspects that this film's fame in its day and its comparative contemporary obscurity speaks to its now dated now-ness: at every opportunity it hammers home its theme of the aristocracy's fading star. That said it is far from the stodgy work it first appears to be. <i>The Ball </i>slowly ramps up as the evening progresses climaxing in anguished outbursts, suicide attempts and a riot of dutch angles. Unfortunately the actors don't quite sell the melodrama. Setsuko Hara anchors the film in what is apparently a typical dutiful, wise daughter role (I confess I've only seen four films in which she appears) and Masayuki Mori is suitably louche as the dissolute older brother but others over-egg their performances and turn anguish into camp.<br />
<br />
<u style="font-weight: bold;">Certain Women:</u> A common theme of secure, well-off individuals failing their more needy, precarious acquaintances unites three otherwise disparate stories of small town America. As usual Reichardt achieves sympathetic performances and nuanced interactions. It's a pity then that so much of <i>Certain Women </i>seems to climax in a shrug. This is no more true than of the middle story in which the initial ending of a younger woman's uneasy relationship with an elderly man ending uneasily is in no way complicated by the (already foreshadowed) ultimate success of her material project.<br />
<br />
<u style="font-weight: bold;">Cosmos:</u> There's a great deal of pleasure to be had at first. I delighted in Genet masticating his dialogue as though every syllable was a piece of gristle, Libereau pulling off a delightful Chaplin impression and the assigning of peculiar ways of speaking to every character. Unfortunately the quirks are repeated ad nauseam until they shred the nerves and the rapid paced verbal gymnastics never let up for a breather. Ultimately the effect is akin to a piece of music played at an unvarying fortissimo for two long hours.GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-29904916137692053832016-07-31T01:22:00.004+10:002016-07-31T01:24:46.264+10:00I Sure Hope This Post Isn't a Horrible MIFFtakeBy popular demand (okay no one demanded this) I present a short selection
of (mostly) unedited, parenthesis ridden, barely coherent thoughts
about most of the films I’ve seen so far at this years’ Melbourne
International Film Festival. Oh and they're adapted from Twitter. Happy reading.<br />
<br />
(I ran out of steam before writing
about <u><b>Happy Hour</b></u> which – for the record – is an immaculately blocked
take on female friendship that is soured slightly by a late, almost
inconsequential development. ...I just wrote about it, didn't I?)<br />
<br />
<u><b>The Eyes of My Mother:</b></u> This movie toys with the audience’s empathy like
a puppet-master and juxtaposes beauty with horror as though digital
black and white was worth a damn (maybe it is?) but its overly familiar
take on childhood trauma and murderous psychopaths hamstrings it.<br />
<br />
<b><u>
Paths of the Soul:</u></b> Any given frame of this would serve as a Windows
wallpaper which is either high praise or devastating criticism depending
on your aesthetic bent. (I’m somewhere in the middle. It’s a little
uncomfortable here.) That said no Windows wallpaper has ever contained
this much arduous religious devotion and the combination of staggering
human effort and beautiful scenery is almost as unnerving as the similar
contrast in The Eyes of My Mother.<br />
<br />
That said it’s all presented
in such a way as to make it completely murky as to whether it’s a
documentary project or a fiction film. If it’s more the former then
these people are near superhuman; if it's more the latter then this film
has made ordinary people into myths.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Blood of My Blood</b></u>: A
Dreyer-esque moment of Grace makes this ungainly but beguiling mash-up
of witchcraft trial and gentle vampire movie worth more than the sum of
its Frankensteined (that's word now) parts.<br />
<br />
<b><u>A New Leaf:</u></b> So
blackly hilarious that its grudging charm almost goes unnoticed. (By me
anyway – I wouldn’t presume to speak for you. Even though I just did.
Pretend it didn’t happen.)<br />
<br />
<u><b>No Home Movie</b></u>: If you’ve lost a
relative recently this film will make you relive that experience. That
said it has its own particulars: In this case the dying relative is a
holocaust survivor and as one scene makes painfully clear her loss is
also the loss of a living history.<br />
<br />
However the film is
uncomfortable for less positive reasons: there were times when the
filming felt like an non-consensual violation of privacy. The rough and
yes, home movie-like aesthetics didn’t make this sit any easier.
Uncomfortable intimacy is the watch-phrase.<br />
<br />
<u> </u><b><u>Toni Erdmann</u>:</b> No
hyperbole is too much; no bold text can be sufficiently bold. This may
be the single greatest film I have ever seen. (And I’ve seen Beau
Travail.) Somehow it manages to take on corporate culture, globalisation
and the personal, lonely grind of being human without seeming as direct
or as grandiose as that might imply. It does so with a mood that swings
between hilarity and misery and sometimes includes both. I was crying
and laughing at the same time during a scene in this move and the next
scene went and topped it.<br />
<br />
<b><u>Three:</u></b> I imagine the process of making this went something like this:<br />
"It’s going to be set in a hospital." <br />
"OK." <br />
"But it's going to be a really artificial set." <br />
"Eh... Hospitals are already kind of artificial?"<br />
"It's going to be the most artificial hospital ever."<br />
"Alright." <br />
"Also this is going to be a ethical drama about professionals." <br />
"Sure."<br />
"But any semblance of ethical, professional behaviour will vanish 10 seconds in." <br />
"Um..." <br />
"Also get me a thimble for a pot." <br />
"?!"<br />
“This is going to boil over.”GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-88925942689939773352015-10-06T21:47:00.001+10:002016-10-22T01:04:58.062+10:00Ex Machina<i>Ex Machina</i> is the kind of science fiction movie that hammers home <i>Solaris'</i>
point: Any attempt to study or imagine the in- or post-human is doomed to collapse into yet
more navel gazing.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Ex Machina</i> is a decent film about a very
particular masculine delusion. Namely the god complex as it manifests in youthful technology professionals. Call it Frankenstein 2.0. Unfortunately it fails utterly when attempting to depict an artificial
intelligence: the best it can imagine is something yearning and learning
to be human, first by explanation, then by physical experience. There's
no thought as to what comes after it understands and embodies humanity or any thought that AIs might not be
as interested in us as we are in ourselves. In that sense <i>Ex Machina</i> replicates the very delusion it describes.GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-40547377121295258832015-07-07T02:45:00.000+10:002018-10-02T10:29:20.540+10:00Four Directors I've LovedFour favourite directors is one of those "post four pictures" memes going around on twitter. As always I've lived in fear of not being chosen (no one thinks I'm a cool cinephile) and of being chosen (everyone will know what a shitty cinephile I am). Thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/jdrrr">@jdrrr</a> the former worry is alleviated and I need only grapple with the latter.<br />
<br />
In all honesty there's no way I can pick out four directors I currently love because I'm not sufficiently versed in enough directors' oeuvres. There's more than a few of whom I can say that I love every work of theirs that I've seen but "every single work that I've seen" is often 1/3 or less of their output. So I've decided to cheat a little and go with four directors whose work I have been in love with at some point or another.<br />
<br />
<b>1. Hirokazu Kore-eda: Baby's First Cinematic Love</b><br />
<b> </b>Films seen: All his fiction features with the exceptions of <i>Hana </i>and <i>Our Little Sister</i><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="210" id="irc_mi" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjupoWMMVdd9tHvpKQ6IqqbtfGvZtWfpNCoMOAWdT3cbewspRFv5Jp3sWYL280EZUKcGZ5oxBehO4LZt5ACNCCw9HwtEvgLk2mOVfyRwuIQziFEbZvp6YH9ztccTliJTLvw3AaCtlcRtf0/s400/Maborosi-kids-running-by-lake.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 46px;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maborosi (1995)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I saw my very first film by Kore-eda at my very first film festival. I hadn't seen a film that portrayed a foreign nation with a very different material and social culture before and it blew my very suburban, very white mind to see other cultural practices not just as theoretical differences but as lived, taken-for-granted experiences. The film in question was <i>Still Walking </i>so it also blew my mind to see such a low key and yet deeply moving film. Seeing as I was studying at the time I was able to source most of his films through my university's library and I promptly did so. I especially fell in love with <i>After Life </i>which I watched from a VCD (remember those?) on a laptop. Its portrayal of the afterlife as both stiffly bureaucratic and unabashedly romantic has stayed with me more than anything else Kore-eda's done. I also read more than a few interviews with him and in doing so learned a little about the history of Japanese film: Interviewers almost always quizzed him about Ozu and he almost always responded by acknowledging a debt to Naruse.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*** </div>
<b><br /></b>
<b>2. Carl Theodor Dreyer: Baby's First Religiously Attended Retro</b><br />
Films seen: Everything, shorts included, except for <i>The Parson's Widow.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjccvZy9u0tA6k6GAxglR7K2nJ1W159oIB3ZOpVSfZddLWGRKAh4mpkb7sQ8yJ59XmwPK64Wx_7s1cHbs_B6hX-xWd7KrPkYQYxnHmRR_2aVygBhvwnhVkOq2qsQapBmCIpdzd6np9gzrM/s1600/Day-Of-Wrath-6673_12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="750" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjccvZy9u0tA6k6GAxglR7K2nJ1W159oIB3ZOpVSfZddLWGRKAh4mpkb7sQ8yJ59XmwPK64Wx_7s1cHbs_B6hX-xWd7KrPkYQYxnHmRR_2aVygBhvwnhVkOq2qsQapBmCIpdzd6np9gzrM/s320/Day-Of-Wrath-6673_12.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Day of Wrath (1943)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As a terrible cinephile it's only natural that I viewed silent films somewhat suspiciously - sight unseen - for the usual nonsensical reasons (too silly, "bad" acting, too simple and so on). However when a full Dreyer retro came to town I had no choice but to attend. For one thing there would be live accompaniment, for another everyone insisted that <i>The Passion of Joan of Arc </i>was one of the greatest films ever, no qualifications necessary. So yes, I went and yes, I fell in love. The films I most enjoyed were his passionate dramas about religion and/or morality like <i>Joan of Arc, The President, Ordet </i>and <i>Day of Wrath. </i>Perversely it was these films that finally gave me the courage, after at least two years of disbelief, to finally tell my religious parents that I was an atheist and would no longer be attending church or leading youth group. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*** </div>
<br />
<b>3. Andrei Tarkovsky: Baby's First Use of Film to Fill a Hole in His Life</b><br />
Films seen: <i>Ivan's Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Stalker, Nostalgia.</i> <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="170" id="irc_mi" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwev6Imr1SVNrkXOkTyWa3ij4HvB6SQzyux_L9X-MgmqX3aJ20JhzaC0WrNF0YkD7iVvViSxUPP-lBSAykCR2dIwPMQDwRxRgiG3SCdc5F0E_T9vt4FclNAlsKLkomRKJMgeNaOmf35Ag/s400/Solaris_93-1024x437.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 31px;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Solaris (1972)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Seeing as I was no longer attending church and<i> - </i>being an asocial hermit crab - had nothing much else to do I started watching films on Sunday mornings. For the first few months I ended up diving into Tarkovsky. It was more by accident than by design but I quickly realised just how appropriate his films were. In particular <i>Solaris - </i>in which humans go out among the stars ostensibly to search for something different to or bigger than themselves but in fact to find yet another mirror - struck a chord with me.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*** </div>
<br />
<b>4. Claire Denis: Baby's First Director Loved From Afar</b><br />
Films seen: Her fiction features with the exception of <i>I Can't Sleep, </i>plus <i>US Go Home </i>and <i>The Hoop Skirt. </i><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="260" id="irc_mi" src="https://www.thepinksmoke.com/images/nenetteetboni.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 42px;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nenette and Boni (1996)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i> </i>I was theoretically studying history and social science at uni but that didn't stop me from reading film studies books when I was supposed to be researching Zapatistas. It was when reading a book of director interviews that I first came across Claire Denis and learned of her radical take on <i>Billy Budd. </i>For some time <i>Beau Travail - </i>and her films in general - were my cinematic white whale. I nearly rent my garments when I realised that I had turned down the chance to see a Denis film at a festival because it (<i>35 Shots of Rum) </i>had been programmed in the YA section. Fortunately I soon got a chance to see one of hers when <i>White Material </i>played in my city and I caught up with others on SBS or through DVD. However I didn't fall in love until I caught attended a near complete retro of her work while completing a teaching prac. I would stagger into the art gallery every <i>vendredi soir</i>, dead on my feat but eager to prop my eyes open in order to catch Denis' seductive, sensual films. Fittingly none of her films proved to be more alluring than <i>Beau Travail </i>which, despite five years of being an unattainable object of desire, did not disappoint<i>.</i>GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-77916405222588293522015-05-31T00:26:00.002+10:002015-05-31T01:48:06.924+10:00Cure <div class="review text text-large">
<div>
There's a Caitlín R. Kiernan quote from <i>The Drowning Girl</i> that
sums up this film's subject perfectly so I'll let it do the heavy
lifting: “Hauntings are memes, especially pernicious thought contagions,
social contagions that need no viral or bacterial host and are
transmitted in a thousand different ways."<br />
<div itemprop="description">
<br />
Kiernan goes on to say that one of those methods of transmission
is art and if that's so then Kyoshi Kurosawa is probably responsible
for more than a few hauntings. <i>Cure</i> has no jump scares whatsoever
but it nonetheless conjures an undercurrent of dread by way of
otherwise innocuous things: a repeated routine becomes unnerving when
shot from a new set of angles, water creeping across the floor becomes
unsettling when it begins to trace a connection from antagonist to
victim and conversations are made uncalm when their expected rhythms are
disrupted.<br />
<br />
In comparison the brutal act of murder is often portrayed a rather
banal manner. When it's shown at all it occurs in long shots (as, to be
fair, most of the action does) which reduces the impact of gore, is over
quickly and is perpetrated against victims who never get a chance to
cry out or show obvious signs of distress. I'm not sure whether this is
intended to make it feel like a natural, expected outcome of the events
leading up to it or whether it's intended to make them more unsettling
through perverse means, or both. Whichever it is <i>Cure</i> succeeds admirably.</div>
</div>
</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-13371870092362750882015-05-24T08:03:00.001+10:002015-05-24T08:03:58.300+10:00Duel to the Death<div itemprop="description">
<i>Duel to the Death's</i> title implies that it's going to be
something of a long, frustrating march to the fireworks factory. The
finale is indeed an impressive show-stopper of a fight which slowly
builds to the bombastic spectacle of the combatants reshaping nature
around them but the build-up is impressive too.<br />
<br />
It begins with a meticulously edited scene in which ninjas hunt for a
book. Searching library shelves doesn't sound exciting on the face of
it but the camera - anxiously gliding along the shelves, searching just
as restlessly and as athletically as the ninjas - sells the scene. Bold
stylisation helps sell later scenes too. <i>Duel to the Death</i> makes a
motif of characters striding or running towards distant cameras set at
low angles; the fights are well choreographed and use wire-fu
judiciously; and the production design features some truly unusual
imagery (including men suspended from ropes in a geometric pattern and
hang gliders stalking men on foot).<br />
<br />
The film is equally attuned to its characters' warring passions.
Personal pride, love, nationalism and honour are all set against one
another. Furthermore all the characters are offered a measure of
dignity. The film's sole female fighter gets a truly badass introduction
(executing a particularly harsh but fitting bit of revenge) and a
potentially unctuous scene in which she tries on clothing coded as
feminine is defanged by focusing on her pleasure rather than indulging
the audience. Her hands are shown in close-up sliding through silk
sleeves (practically caressing them) and the last shot is of her smile
as she combs out her hair.<br />
<br />
All of the above does pay off spectacularly when <i>Duel to the Death</i>
does culminate in its heroes dueling to the, well, you know what. Yet
while the fight may thrillingly defy the laws of gravity its conclusion
is also genuinely sobering.<br />
</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-16020424035702904962015-05-23T21:08:00.001+10:002015-05-23T21:08:28.275+10:00Forty Thousand Horsemen<i>Forty Thousand Horsemen</i> is very much an unapologetic
propaganda film complete with embarrassing racism, cloying nationalism
and an awful, condescending romance. It's appropriately scored almost
entirely to the strains of the national anthem and <i>Waltzing Matilda</i> so if you don't appreciate either of those awful songs this film may present as something of a struggle.<br />
<br />
<div class="review text text-large">
<div>
<div itemprop="description">
There's an early scene to establish why Australians are fighting in
the Ottoman Empire and the given reasons are class mobility and free
speech. How those aims are achieved by participating in a European power
struggle is never made clear. The Ottomans themselves are treated as
worthy opponents who rightfully respect the fearsome yet laid back
Australians. Meanwhile the Germans are mustache twirling villains -
unsurprisingly given the film was released in 1940. Local civilians get
the shortest end of the stick: they're presented as patsies just waiting
to be fleeced by larrikin (a nicer word for arsehole)
Australian soldiers.<br />
<br />
The sets and battle scenes have clearly had a lot of money lavished
on them but while director Charles Chauvel comes up with some stirring
images - cavalry leaping over trenches is possibly the most exciting
World War 1 combat has ever been - he fails to tell a sophisticated
story with them. Instead they're reduced to a simple montage, the upshot
of which is that the Australians won.<br />
<br />
In the very broadest sense Chauvel is faithful to the historical
record<i> -</i> unsurprisingly since his uncle played a crucial role in the
battles portrayed. He does though, in the tradition of all good
Australian propaganda, elide the role of British forces and he's not at
all afraid to sacrifice truth on the alter of pulp storytelling. The
highpoint of the film is easily a James Bond-like finale in which our
ocker hero battles a dastardly German officer to prevent him from
blowing up explosives that would kill everyone in Beersheba.<i> Forty Thousand Horsemen</i> is by no means a good film but at least it's not the torturous history lesson embodied by the likes of <i>Smithy</i>.<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-86886288051819832902015-03-16T02:10:00.001+10:002015-03-16T02:31:05.496+10:00Barking Dogs Never Bite<div itemprop="description">
In many ways this is the kind of formally flashy film first time directors often make. Every other cut in <i>Barking Dogs Never Bite</i>
is a match cut and on one of the occasions that it's not it's a rather
goofy demonstration of the Kuleshov effect that appears to have been
used for no readily apparent reason. (Aside from linking the two main
characters I guess? But they are already pretty firmly linked by
that point...)<br />
<br />
That's not to say that Bong Joon-ho is all about empty tricks here -
far from it. For example he employs a rather low key variation of the
"people mover" shot to make an ethically dubious discussion suitably
queasy. One might argue that he's over-egging it - the scene is already
shot in an overlit restroom - but given the outsized goofiness of the
film as a whole it fits right in.<br />
<br />
That outsized goofiness never gets in the way of its overwhelming
sincerity. This is a remarkably sympathetic portrait of scrabbling suburbanites. While the characters suffer
every indignation and reversal possible and many give in to their canine
instincts in order to pursue their place in the sun they all ultimately
transcend both their suffering and their human nature. Even the
typically overbearing wife is revealed to have been straitjacketed into
her role by the patriarchy and even the cruelest fate suffered is
revealed to have a silver lining.</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-18063012525964562402015-03-16T02:09:00.003+10:002015-03-16T02:27:45.410+10:00Blue Velvet<div itemprop="description">
<i>Blue Velvet's</i> characters constantly remark on just how strange
the world is but in case someone in the audience mishears them there's
always the regular human ear made alien by close-up, the lip syncing
mobster or the non-stop perspective distortion to set them straight.
It's all the more ironic then that <i>Blue Velvet's</i> world is not very strange at all.<br />
<br />
I suppose it's darker than the idealised catalogs of suburbia, with
capital E Evil lurking inside even the most straight-laced college boy,
but it's less surprising or unusual than many a 40s noir. Everything is
exactly as it's described less than 40 minutes into the movie - the rest
is just wheel spinning. Perhaps more damningly the cynicism with which
it views pristine colourful surfaces is so diffuse and toothless that it
doesn't even break the skin. Ultimately <i>Blue Velvet</i> feels less like an earnest weirdo and more like an awkward teenage boy cultivating a series of studied poses.</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-5611504237790011052015-03-03T00:37:00.000+10:002015-03-03T00:37:07.193+10:00The Neon Lights<div class="review text text-large">
<div>
<div itemprop="description">
•<i>Shanghai Triad</i> takes the familiar approach to 1930s Shanghai
as a place of wealth, opportunity and corrupting vices that sits in
stark contrast to a simple virtuous countryside. The truth is
considerably more nuanced: most of Shanghai's residents worked as
pedicab drivers, factory labours, taxi dancers and the like while living
in hovels or in cramped, sublet houses. In many cases they were
actually worse off than "country bumpkins". The "money and sin" approach
does mirror the contemporary, popular perception of the place though. I
suppose in that sense it's truer than a broader representation of the
city would be.<br />
<br />
•The cinematography and sets support this duality. In the Shanghai
half of the movie there are a lot conspicuously studio bound sets which
are fussily lit - the beams of light in an early scene in a warehouse
fall just so. When the action moves to a rural island there is
considerably more on location shooting and while the lighting of scenes
is far from relaxed (this is Zhang Yimou we're talking about*) it is
less luridly colourful - there are no bright blues present.<br />
<br />
•<i>Shanghai Triad</i> uses a protagonist with limited knowledge
(it's a young boy, it's always a young boy). Like a lot of similar
movies it more or less has its cake while eating it too. While Shuisheng
may not have perfect information the audience sees everything they need
to in order to fully understand the story. That's not to say that <i>Shanghai Triad</i>
wastes this device - far from it. There are a number of effective
scenes - often shot in pov - in which a crisis' impact is heightened
because the audiences' perspective has briefly been limited to that of
Shuisheng. While the film does eventually explain itself these brief
moments of confusion and uncertainty are genuinely thrilling.<br />
<br />
*Yeah, I know he did <i>Not One Less</i> but it's fair to call that a departure, right?<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-52536432658463433742015-02-22T09:03:00.003+10:002015-02-22T09:03:44.560+10:00Still Alice<div class="text collapsible-text" data-full-text-url="/s/full-text/viewing:7637454/">
For a weepy about Alzheimer's disease <i>Still Alice</i>
is uncommonly orderly and efficient. Every scene starts clearly, gets
straight to the point and then cuts to the next - much like it would in a
well made thriller. In the film's early stages this strategy works well
as in some sense the film is a thriller. Alzheimer's is more or less a
monster stalking Alice. Every time she begins to speak or goes out on
her own the disease is lurking, ready to cause her a sudden moment of
discomfort or anxiety. There's a particularly strong scene in which
Alice is shakily drinking a glass of water while her husband walks out
the door in the distance. For a reason I can't quite articulate the
scene is surprisingly suspenseful despite the fact that the worst that
could happen is that she might drop the glass. She doesn't though and
the film moves swiftly on.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately towards its latter
stages the film begins to feel too precise and clinical even as Alice
herself is able to muster less and less order in her daily life. It's
not that the film ignores the ruptures that Alzheimer's tears in Alice
and her family's life - far from it - it's that it quickly moves passed
them and on to the next, hitting each beat but never leaving them time
to linger.<br />
<br />
Aside from the problems with the film's overall
strategy there are a few individual scenes which don't work for entirely
different reasons. Many people have singled out the speech to the
Alzheimer's support group and I think they're right to do so. The
overall conception of the scene is strong. It's a moment in which Alice
is able to reclaim her identity as a distinguished expert and public
speaker. However it's played far too traditionally. There's far too much
emphasis on her words as a thesis statement and the scene's arc, in
which Alice successfully overcomes an early fumble to win over the
audience and assert her identity, is stultifyingly conventional.<br />
<br />
Equally
frustrating is the film's use of product placement. The film opts for
the strategy of actively integrating the product being pushed into the
storyline. I'm sure that the real Alice had favorite branded hangout
spots but the repeated use of the company's full name and it's positive
association for Alice means that as a viewer all I could hear were the
brand experts selling the film to advertisers as an sophisticated
entertainment targeted at upscale auds. Product placement may be a
necessary evil but there's no reason to make it an excessively obnoxious
one.<br />
<br />
This all might sound a excessively negative so I should emphasis that <i>Still Alice</i> is by no means a bad film. It does contain moments of unexpected subtly and grace.* However <i>Still Alice</i>
feels like a film that is holding itself back lest it be judged as
being too manipulative or indulgent, as a result it's at war with
itself.<br />
<br />
*I do wish it had held back on the butterfly though, as contradictory as that seems.<br />
</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-81645532738591944412015-02-21T21:48:00.002+10:002015-02-21T21:49:16.791+10:00When Animals Dream<div class="review text text-large">
There's a long history of feminist werewolf stories and it's easy to
see why: Aside from the terror of big, nasty dogs the horror of the
werewolf lies in a loss of control over one's own body. <i>When Animals Dream</i>
gets great of mileage out of this subtext. Before the protagonist,
Marie, has even begun to wolf out she's subjected to an intrusive
doctor's examination and the unwanted attentions of a local boy.<br />
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<br />
By the time she's asserting pride in her werewolf identity by
refusing to shave the film is not only underlining its feminist subtext
but also giving it an additional queer resonance. At this point in the
film the townsfolk are fairly certain of what she is but have been
prepared to tolerate her, provided she doesn't claim her identity
in public.<br />
<br />
<i>When Animals Dream</i> also gets great mileage out of the bright
Scandinavian light, particularly in indoor scenes were it is often used
to create images like this one: <a href="http://i.imgur.com/SUgE3Ph.png" rel="nofollow">i.imgur.com/SUgE3Ph.png</a> in which Marie's similarly "afflicted" mother is highlighted in the background.<br />
<br />
It's somewhat disappointing then that a beautiful horror film that is
so effectively about horrors (as opposed to fear) relies on a
undercooked love story and builds to familiar and, as a result,
anticlimactic conclusion. But I suppose it's fitting that a film about a
werewolf doesn't have the best control over where it wakes up.</div>
</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-56910998056931012562015-02-21T21:47:00.003+10:002015-02-21T21:49:24.178+10:00The MuleYou know Australian cinema isn’t having a good time at the box office
when what is essentially a direct to video release is hailed as an
innovative distribution strategy. Having said that it’s clear that <i>The Mule</i>
wasn’t dumped; there was a considerable effort to promote the film
through twitter and the like which suggests it was intended to attract
an audience that simply doesn’t show up to poorly promoted, short run
limited releases (<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/26/australian-film-australian-audiences?CMP=twt_gu%29." rel="nofollow">www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/26/australian-film-australian-audiences?CMP=twt_gu).</a><br />
<div class="review text text-large">
<div>
<div itemprop="description">
<br />
As for the film itself <i>The Mule</i> begins on a less than
innovative note by using the America’s Cup race of 1983 to establish its
time period. However as the movie progresses the race is transformed
from a banal indication of <i>The Mule's</i> period bona fides into a
loopy simile for the battle of wills that drives the film. Ray Jenkins
(Angus Sampson) is a drug mule who, when caught, refuses an examination
that would reveal his wrongdoing. In response the police decide to hold
him until he, uh, expels the evidence. Will Jenkins hold on or will the
police be triumphant? It’s a bit like the America’s Cup race although
I’m still not sure exactly how that's so...</div>
<div itemprop="description">
<br />
Sampson has the perfect face for this role: with his large lips, weak
chin and long forehead emphasised by a particularly awful haircut he
genuinely looks like a regular, somewhat feckless, bloke drowning in
1980s Australian suburbia. There’s an obvious class difference between
him and the clean cut, suit wearing Det. Les Paris (Ewen Leslie)
although this is kept as subtext for most of the film until it’s brought
sharply into focus in their final confrontation.<br />
<br />
Not that the subtext is subtle. One scene plays as a parody of <i>The Castle’s</i> alternately condescending and celebratory portrayal of lower middle class Australia. Which is fitting because <i>The Mule</i>
lands in a similar place: ultimately the rich assholes are vanquished,
racism takes a literal beating and the middle class can relax in the
knowledge that their moral balance is in the green, no matter how much
money they’ve made from selling drugs or how poorly they’ve treated
women. (Oh c’mon Glen, It’s all for a laugh.)<br />
<br />
The comedy element of the film has been somewhat oversold in its
marketing although Hugo Weaving finds the humour in Les Paris’ repulsive
partner, Angus Sampson is particularly funny when woozily declaring
victory in the rather unconventional contest and Georgina Haig, despite
being underutilised, finds a kind of derangement in her crusading legal
aid lawyer’s decision to ditch her values for the pleasure of putting
one over the cops. For the most part though this is a low key suburban
thriller with a jarring edge courtesy of co-writer Leigh Whannell’s
horror past.<br />
<br />
If I’ve made it sound like a film driven by its performances and
script that’s because it is. That’s not to say its cinematography is
inept or boring. For example there’s a neat series of rhyming two shots,
a good use is found for a garish neon sign and John Noble is
particularly menacing as a silhouette behind plastic drapes.<br />
<br />
Such unremarkable competence is a good synecdoche for the
film as a whole. Its attempt at social commentary is not thoughtless but
it doesn’t really get off the ground, its attempt at humour is funny
but comes and goes, and its attempt to be thrilling bears uneven results
– sometimes uneasily threatening and sometimes jarringly violent.</div>
</div>
</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-15479573068624425242015-01-11T03:01:00.003+10:002015-01-11T03:01:48.292+10:00Birdman<div class="text collapsible-text" data-full-text-url="/s/full-text/viewing:7019889/">
<i>Birdman</i> is so in your face that it makes a motif out of
characters speaking directly to the camera. It's a manic, propulsive,
eager little thing driven by a relentless drum score, a swooping camera
and restless actors who talk as though they could burst into flames at
any moment. It's populated by caricatures and filled with the kind of
passionate nonsense that regularly fills columns exclaiming that
Hollywood has run out of ideas, or that theater is a dying art, or that
truth and authenticity fill playhouses, or that blockbusters are
beautiful diversions, or something...<br />
<br />
None of this really covers up the gaping hole at the center of it
where there should be an authentic human being grappling with the value
of his life. But maybe that's the point? Maybe it's a movie about the
hollowness of art that is itself hollow? Maybe it's made a - wait for it
- unexpected virtue out of ignorance? I'd like to believe that but it
does grasp after emotional truth. You can see it strain when Keaton
tells his jellyfish story or when the camera tries to climb into Stone's
eyes. Unfortunately you can't magically transcend the bullshit; you do
have to leave some flesh and blood in your film.<br />
</div>
GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-23293982818070549342014-12-21T14:35:00.000+10:002014-12-23T11:44:31.843+10:00Linda, Linda, Linda<span style="font-family: inherit;">Linda, Linda, Linda starts with a scene that's intended to encapsulate the movie by way of three filmmakers who ineptly stumble their way towards "making an impact" as they shoot a piece about their school's festival. However it also serves to call attention to the process of film-making by laying bare their decision making process as they decide that a cut to a close-up will give their documentary more of a jolt than simply using one shot. From then on viewers can be expected to pay a little more attention to the film's visual grammar than they might have otherwise done.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Such simple but effective technique persists throughout the film. For example the next scene recalls the opening of Irma Verp or Serenity as the camera tracks to follow a single character in very long takes and in doing so introduces both the setting and most of the major characters in a concise, elegant manner. The film's narrative however is less tidy. Certain conflicts remain somewhat unresolved, back-story is hinted at but limited, "important" scenes are elided and the bass player suffers the indignity of bass players everywhere as she's mostly relegated to the background.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />The result is something of a strange film. It's sweet and touching but subtly so - in stark contrast to contemporary Western teen films. Its tone can be summed up by its conclusion; it ends on a oddly melancholy note. Rather than finishing on the girls' triumphant performance of the title song it concludes on a montage of packed away festival equipment in the rain.</span>GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-7160143426823699022014-12-14T08:55:00.001+10:002014-12-14T08:57:24.016+10:00A Hard DayI once read someone opining that the worst thing that can happen to a national cinema is for it to become a genre. I don't think there's any real danger of that happening to South Korean film (there are too many idiosyncratic voices working in the industry) but it's fair to say that even a filmgoer with only a passing knowledge of the nation's films could construct a bingo card for the typical commercial movie. <i>A Hard Day </i>would probably allow you to fill out that bingo card in under 30 minutes. All the boxes are covered: Wild tonal shifts, brutal violence and a soupçon of social commentary crop up relatively early.<br />
<br />
Fortunately <i>A Hard Day </i>is a fairly accomplished version of <i>Commercial South Korean Movie. </i>It's stylishly, albeit somewhat anonymously, directed in a way that only occasionally starts to grate (check those dutch angles!) and is blessedly free of the super fast continuity editing that plagues the films of Na Hong-jin. It also does an excellent job of placing its protagonist, sympathetic dirty cop Go Geon-soo, in memorably tense and funny predicaments. It never really tops an early set piece involving a child's toy, a dead body, balloons and a shoe lace but that's to be expected.<br />
<br />
<i>A Hard Day </i>does occasionally drift into excess. The score can best a described as overbearing and the climax is overextended (check your bingo card), but for the most part it zips along and it will provide an excellent exemplar of what Korean film in the 00s was like.GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-91371771523430692802014-12-12T12:02:00.001+10:002014-12-12T12:02:24.447+10:00We Are the NightThis is mostly just a bog standard "vampirism as unbridled hedonism" movie. It's marginally interesting in that it links social class with the ability and desire to be a pleasure seeking junkie but it never really explores that idea, or any idea, productively because it's too busy laying track for its bog standard "corrupted innocence" plot line.<br />
<br />It's never subtle either. When Lena (Karoline Herfurth, <i>Passion</i>and <i>Errors of the Human Body</i>) undergoes her transformation it physically strips away her class indicators (haircut and tattoos) and when she first tastes blood she orgasms. There's a marginally more clever scene in which the vampires' voracious capitalism is offhandedly underlined by a game in which the person who buys the least must pay for everyone else but mostly it's just very obvious in a rather dumb - if fitfully amusing - way.*<br />
<br />The shallow way it treats its supposed themes occasionally pushes it past simply being dumb and into potentially offensive territory. During Lena's initiation Louise explains that vampires are an all female society as all male vampires were killed off in order to preserve female autonomy. This idea is never directly explored and as a result it simply becomes another aspect of their hedonistic behaviour. Sure, the film seems to imply, it might be nice for women to be free and not dependant on men but it's really an unsustainable excess just like all the rest.<br />
<br />I'm not sure that the film's writers or director intended this interpretation (although the way in which the women's ultimately unfulfilling interactions are positioned against Lena's embryonic heterosexual romance suggests they might've) because despite its overwhelming bluntness it can be somewhat muddleheaded. Purportedly three endings were shot: one in which Lena decides to watch her crush die rather than turn him, one in which she turns him and the actual, trendily ambiguous ending. The choice of the third ending suggests that the director has no strong feelings about what his movie is about which is amusing given how on the nose so much of it is.<br />
<br />*Someone is killed by a page from <i>For Whom the Bell Tolls</i>. The audience knows which book it is because there's a quick close up of the book title right before it happens.<br />
<br />
<br />GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8735903044834286483.post-44320827551513245062014-12-12T11:52:00.004+10:002015-01-07T00:59:43.356+10:00A Festival By Any Other Name Would Smell As SweetI've made it to Brisbane in time to catch the tail end of its new festival, the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival (BAPFF). The BAPFF is replacing the more compressed (in terms of time frame) and more sprawling (in terms of films' origins and the number of films programmed) Brisbane International Film Festival. As usual I'm writing up some of the films and as usual I make no promises as regards the quality of the writing or its regularity.<br />
<b style="font-style: italic;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-style: italic;">Salt of the Earth: </b>Let's get the obvious out of the way: Sebastiao Salgado's photographs are so astonishing it's hard to describe them without one's prose descending into a mess of superlatives and cliches. Somehow he manages to capture people instead of bodies using just... see what I mean? In any case with that dealt with the question becomes whether <i>The Salt of the Earth</i>'<i>s </i>presentation of Salgado's work does it justice. Initially the answer seems to be yes. The film opens with an evocative description of the photographer's art and the subsequent use of Salgado's narration and sound effects to contextualise his work is effective, if hardly revelatory. Eventually though, the film founders. The constant narration laid over the images rarely leaves room to simply contemplate the images and Salgado's baffling incomprehension in the face of Europeans with high standards of living committing unimaginable war crimes "...at the end of the twentieth century..." (!) serves only to diminish the man and his work. Similarly the biographical segments are patchy at best, tend to gloss over strife and culminate in a rather on the nose final set of title cards. (I suppose that's the risk of having a family member as one of the work's primary authors.)<br />
<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">Lake August: </i>My enthusiasm for this film (bolstered by the appreciation of several smart film people) was initially deflated by its style. The festival approved formulae of static, or near static, master shots combined with long, unbroken takes is rapidly becoming less of a signifier for artistic seriousness and more of an indication of laziness. However several elements of the film combined to jolt me out of my apathy. The first of these was the way in which the style complements the film's content. What better way to convey the ennui of young adults cast adrift then long stultifying takes and airless conversations in which every question or statement is followed by a long pause? To be fair though this hardly sets the film aside from its festival brethren. What really drew me in was the indications that the director was really thinking about his shots and edits. A long shot of the protagonist dazing in a boat is broken by a sudden edit to a new and disorienting camera angle combined with the loud intrusion of a passing train on the soundtrack. I was jolted into life in much the same way as the protagonist.<br />
<br />
Also notable is the way in which sly humour or commentary is regularly present as details at the edges of frames. The restaurant/hotel in which most of the film takes place is festooned with signs forbidding spitting and a mundane scene of the protagonist washing himself on a roof slowly morphs into something much stranger and pointed by way of a wayward political banner (indeed political posturing is ever present in this film but never remarked upon or even really noticed by the characters). Sly humour is not always simply a detail in this film: there's extended drunken "dance" scene that gets across a sense of anomie without requiring the viewer to stare directly into the void.<br />
<br />
The danger of a film about anomie is that the main character - here a disaffected young man who speaks and acts with a near total lack of affect in the wake of personal tragedy - will quickly lose the audience's interest. Wisely <i>Lake August </i>contrasts him with Ah Fang, a more vivid character who is constantly investing more in her relationships than she can ever hope to get out of them. While at times faintly ridiculous (she is forever wearing absurdly chunky platform shoes) the defeats she suffers are heartbreaking - if only because she's one of the few characters in the film who is palpably invested in their own life.<br />
<br />
If anything the complete product seems very reminiscent of the films of Jia Zhangke in both its depiction of people left adrift in modern China and in the ways in which the realist atmosphere is punctured by oddities (for example the, um, rather mobile architecture of <i>Still Life</i>). However Yang Heng is clearly doing much more than blindly copying as evidenced by the way he makes slow pans right into a recurring, yet never mechanical, motif.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
For reading through all that nonsense I once again present you with Glen's Super Awesome Double Bills: For complete disaffection I recommend pairing <i>Lake August </i>with <i>Wasted Youth. </i>Actually no, don't do that unless you want to feel really lousy.<br />
<br />
<br />GlenHhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05148358447968029801noreply@blogger.com0