atyson Reviews

Climates (2006)

Relationships in a Changing Climate

[8/10 · 20 March 2007]

• Character study of a man at the end of a relationship - Quite simply, if the director's previous movie 'Uzak' (Distant) got under your skin, this one will too. So much so that the movies seem almost complementary. Both movies, about a photographer based in Istanbul, are about distance, about how much we keep to ourselves and how much we (can) share with others. In a dramatically low-key and visually inspired way, they address a great theme: the tension between the public and private, particularly in contemporary urban life. Like the movies of Antonioni or Ozu, shots are very carefully composed. Like the movies of Louis Malle there is considerable humanity at the heart of it all. Whereas 'Uzak' pointed up its main character's foibles and limitations in relation to his putting up a guest in his apartment who is looking for work in the city, 'Climates' addresses similar issues in the break-up (or breakdown) of a relationship. In either movie you will see truths about relationships and the way people live today.

Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)

Rhythmical Harmonies

[10/10 · 22 January 2007]

• A portrait of a small town in Hungary descending gradually into civil disorder -

An extraordinarily brilliant movie. But this is not for everyone. Beautifully shot in black and white, the director bravely specialises in spectacularly lengthy shots which the viewer's brain will either become absorbed by or reject for tedium. An interesting dimension which can heighten involvement in these long shots (or annoy the hell out the unconvinced) is rhythmical sound - be it cranky machinery (reminiscent of Sergio Leone),walking, or an amazing scene where two kids are jumping up and down and banging on drums on the eve before a riot ensues. There is a detachment to the camera-work which reminded me of Kubrick. Again this is a technique which will alienate many viewers. But it works disturbingly well in particular during the penultimate riot scene at the hospital.

I watched this followed by The Damnation on the current double-disc DVD edition available in the UK which is a superb issue and has an interview with the Director as a bonus feature. Interesting to note that he states quite categorically that he intends no allegorical/symbolic element to his work.

Damnation (1988)

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[9/10 · 22 January 2007]

An exceptionally brilliant movie. But this is not for everyone. Beautifully shot in black and white, the director bravely specialises in spectacularly lengthy shots which the viewer's brain will either become absorbed by or reject for tedium. An interesting dimension which can heighten involvement in these long shots (or annoy the hell out the unconvinced) is rhythmical sound - be it cranky machinery (like the relentless mechanical pulley system outside the 'central' character's window) or people dancing to cabaret music. There is a detachment to the camera-work, particularly in the dance band sequences, which reminded me of Kubrick. Again this is an approach which will alienate many viewers but it lends a kind of philosophical power what would otherwise be mundane documentary social observation.

I watched this after the more recent Werckmeister Harmonies on the current double-disc DVD edition available in the UK which is a superb issue and has an interview with the Director as a bonus feature. Interesting to note that he states quite categorically that he intends no allegorical/symbolic element to his work.

Red Road (2006)

Bleakly Optimistic

[8/10 · 16 November 2006]

• A female cctv operative discovers in the course of her work that a criminal has been released from jail early for good behaviour. She takes a very personal interest in him..-

That rare thing. A superb British movie. Set in an unremittingly bleak Glasgow focused on a multi-storey housing estate in the East End of that city, this is NOT the usual kitchen-sink or slice-of-life telly-style drama that nearly always make a disheartening prospect for cinema-going. This is a complex character-driven piece, beautifully shot and edited. Scenes are allowed space and time to breathe in their own life. It never tells the audience what to think, how to feel, or even what's going on. Yet ultimately the movie tells of a struggle against loss and grief and there is a redemptive quality which is hard-won by the director. The surveillance aspect is brilliantly handled by mixing in low-res grainy footage of surveyed scenes scanning and zooming in on actual streets (and some of the locals) and allowing the audience to figure out what is going on along with the operative. It suggested a knee-jerk parallel with Haneke's Cache (Hidden), but this a completely different take more closely paralleling Coppola's 'The Conversation' and suggesting that the effects of surveillance may be more acutely felt by the observer than the observed. The acting by the entire cast is pitch-perfect. The highly explicit sex scene is, for once, completely warranted and the sexual tension in the relationship is reminiscent of Roeg's 'Bad Timing'. But this is a film which gains a lot of power by being deeply-rooted in its time and place and doesn't need to look back. Utterly assured and contemporary, like 'Morvern Callar', it is very much what is happening NOW. And whenever the journalistic blah about a boom in Scottish film inevitably subsides, the country will be left with something more potent than bloody 'Gregory's Girl' as a benchmark for what can be achieved with a small-scale budget and Scottish/Scotland-based directors.

The Departed (2006)

Dully Departed

[4/10 · 15 November 2006]

Scorcese is a wonderful director. I will always go and see a Scorcese movie and that's that. But this is a weak Scorcese movie. It is not a bad movie by any means. I mean, it engages your attention and you can watch it all the way through. But by Scorcese standards it is passable. Merely passable.

Apparently there isn't much to choose between the ItalianAmericans and IrishAmericans. So who cares that these people are IrishAmericans ? Apart from the accent they may just as well have been ItalianAmericans. Apparently there isn't much to choose between cops and crooks (although which of the two would you prefer to respond to your 911/999 calls ?), but the movie doesn't really bite the bullet on this. Really, it just takes a long convoluted route to saying: good guys win in THE END.

Considering the gory body count of people who get their heads blown off, this is dull, routine stuff. Going through the motions. Overlong. The attempted 'love interest' was borderline silly with both 'cop' and 'crook' falling for the same woman. It added nothing, it subtracted credibility. Better to have left it out altogether. What on earth was the point of that episode with the Chinese gang and the microprocessors ? Presumably it was some kind of reference to the original (which I haven't seen). All this communication by mobile phone stuff just seemed annoyingly modish (and surely not a secure means of communication for crooks who know they are under high-level surveillance). These bits and lots more could have been cut. It should really have been a 93 min movie not 150 min. The acting is non-descript at best, at times just plain naff: Nicholson badly over-indulges himself in a couple of scenes; Damon is as wooden as ever (he'll never match the best part he ever played - which was in 'Team America'); DiCaprio was the best but didn't have material of enough subtlety to work with - the psychological effects of being under deep cover like this is potentially fascinating. Again, the movie never really gets to grips with what it has taken on.

Whilst watching this movie I kept thinking this COULD have been a really good movie. And I was thinking: I must finally get around to seeing Infernal Affairs. I wonder whether Scorcese hasn't so much lost the plot these days as simply lost his place. Violence has been done bigger, smarter, wittier and more stylishly by Scorcese himself (Casino, GoodFellas) and the likes of Tarantino and Cronenberg and many others since. Likewise the blurred moral distinction between cops and crooks. And everybody knows there are far too many dubious re-makes these days. We don't need the likes of Scorcese wasting his talents on them as well.

Zidane, un portrait du 21e siècle (2006)

The Art of Football

[3/10 · 16 October 2006]

• A film portrait of the famous footballer which tracks his movements throughout the course of an entire game - If this movie had done nothing but follow its point of interest - namely Zidane with no other soundtrack but the sound of the crowd - the audience would have seen, for better or worse, a naked account of the art of football as played by one of it's most accomplished exponents. This would have been fascinating in its own right. Instead the whole thing was ruined by self-conscious attempts to turn this inherently absorbing footage into some sort of art-house object. This meant: pointlessly cutting to blurred footage; mixing footage of different kinds to no particular purpose or effect; 'artilly' shooting screens-within-screens (views of TV monitors etc); one sudden switch to a high-speed walk into the stadium sparked by no reason in particular; contextless subtitling with quotations of unclear attribution; The soundtrack was a piece of 'mood music' of unspeakable banality that seemed to kick in at arbitrary moments and only served to erase the real atmosphere created by the spectators. The half-time 'On this day...' sequence was just wince-inducing.

Zidane is one of those rare sportsmen who has attained the level of artist in his own sphere - and so is worth watching for his grace and deportment and warts and all even by those with only a passing interest in football. A football match is a unique cultural event which has a power to engage people that contemporary artists can only fantasise about. It does not require ennoblement by the trivialising effects of dilettante conceptual-art types. Just like the best art and the best movies, the player's performance speaks for itself and should be allowed to do so. I'd consider buying it on DVD if somebody else could make a 'minimalist' cut available instead of this....MTV cut.

Tideland (2005)

No tide left unturned

[9/10 · 9 October 2006]

• A little girl is left to her own imaginative devices after the deaths of her heroin-addicted parents -

The most truly disturbing cinematic experience I have had and one of the most wonderful movies I have ever seen. I have never felt entirely happy with any Gilliam movie. He's a director who seems to specialise in over-reaching by setting himself impossible goals that inevitably produce a result that falls short of the ambition. That makes them really interesting but not always wholly satisfying. So I am always open to what he might do and always make a point of seeing them but without high expectations. Just before I realised this was screening locally, I happened to watch 'Fear and Loathing..' on DVD and 'Brazil' popped up on TV the night before - his best movies so far. But for me this is the first fully-realised movie. The genuine 100% proof article. I would normally walk a million miles to avoid a movie where the central character is a child actor. I hate child acting. Normally. But this is a far from normal movie. The whole thing depends entirely on the child actor and Jodelle Ferland's performance is a tour de force. Extraordinarily versatile and completely flawless. I cant imagine how the director managed to get a performance like this from the girl but she is distressingly brilliant. I only hope she was thoroughly debriefed regarding the subject-matter of many of these scenes - it is all so convincing you could worry about the effect it could have on her. All of the cast seemed utterly committed to Gilliam's vision and I have rarely seen a more menacing bunch of crazies (all the more so because they actually are capable of odd affectionate moments).

It is a high-pitched psychological white-knuckle ride which unflinchingly addresses the way in which a child (through imagination and play) can withstand and even continue to thrive in an insane situation.

The only disappointment wasn't really a part of the film proper. It was an ill-judged and utterly patronising talking-head 'introduction' to the film prior to lights out and the film rolling. Here we are told by the director that whether we like the movie or not it will make us think. First of all, the movie states its case on its own terms only too well and requires no introduction. Secondly, I am perfectly capable of thinking without your assistance Mr. Gilliam. But, what I wonder is, was this some production trade-off against compromising the movie with cuts which would have diluted it's allegedly controversial aspects ? I hope so (and I hope it is removed from the DVD which I will certainly be buying when it comes out because I want to watch it again and again).

Nacho Libre (2006)

Simple-minded and simply awful.

[1/10 · 14 August 2006]

• A Mexican priest becomes a wrestler to save an orphanage or something -

I went to see this movie because it was about non-WWF wrestling and so I thought it might be funny. It wasn't. It is excruciating to watch. Embarrassing. Any and every opportunity for comedy is mercilessly squandered.

I admit I don't like Jack Black anyway. After this I have been racking my brain to think of one good role that he has performed. The only thing I can come up with where he was o.k. was as a necessary foil to the John Cusack character in 'High Fidelity'. Jack Black is one of those awful relentless flat-out ham-it-up knockabout guys (like the little fat one in Abbot & Costello or Jerry Lewis) who should be told that being overbearingly idiotic is not the same thing as being funny.

It is not even slapstick. It's just irritating. It's not even stoopid, it's just stupid.

I heard good things about Napoleon Dynamite too, but if this is anything to go by I wont be rushing out to find it on DVD.

The Passenger (1975)

As Good As Antonioni Gets

[8/10 · 24 July 2006]

• An American reporter on an assignment in Africa decides to trade his identity with a man he met staying at the same hotel who has just died. - I have just seen this on re-release at the local cinema in a new print. It looks splendid on the big screen. If you like the work of Antonioni this is special. It is classic Antonioni. Perhaps the best Antonioni - although I haven't seen the others for a number of years so I will reserve final judgement. But for me it certainly rivals L'Avventura as my favourite.

As is typical of Antonioni we are presented with characters who are alienated - who don't seem to be the owners of their own lives. So the premise of this movie is particularly apt. And Nicholson is perfect here. The Nicholson character sort of stumbles around in harsh desert landscapes or is framed in rural or city architectures continually engaged in pointless rendez-vous with people whose motivations he is no more able to discern than he is his own. Long static shots of stunning beauty which will suddenly or gradually shift distractedly to some other often unexpected viewpoint often with dialogue or action taking place off-camera. Occasionally the characters are sparked with some immediate purpose (collect luggage from a hotel, move to another town) and there is even a car-chase sequence with the police in hot pursuit ! In a way it is a kind of European road-movie, or even an existential anti-Bonnie-and-Clyde. Of course, standard movie-action occurs only briefly and intermittently and it is the mystery of the characters' motivations that provide tension and and involvement. And that final famous closing shot IS everything it is cracked up to be.

It is not a perfect movie. The flashbacks do occasionally jar (like that one where the Nicholson character is burning stuff out in the back garden). I really don't think that the Maria Schneider character is as involving as she could be either. And, yes, the clothing, cars and self-conscious intellectualisations do date the movie rather badly (that said, it is nirvana for seventies retro buffs). Despite being a movie very much of it's time, it nevertheless speaks to the persisting and very contemporary concerns about personal identity - of what makes us who we are. If you just happen to love the movies of Antonioni then that will be justification in itself for a re-release. And for picking up the welcome DVD reissue as well no doubt.

Thank You for Smoking (2005)

Smoke and Mirrors - But No Fire

[6/10 · 17 July 2006]

A satirical look at the life of a pro-tobacco industry lobbyist.

Like The Truman Show and Fight Club this is a movie that attempts to engage the audience at the level of ideas. And, like these two movies, it starts with a great premise and full of energy but then fails to maintain the pitch and fudges an opportunity. I agree with those commentators who say it is not really all that satirical - more of a satirical comedy. There are lots of funny moments so it is highly enjoyable and well worth the price of admission.

But I wasn't entirely convinced by the crowbar plot moves of both the seduction and the kidnapping. Had the movie relied solely on its wit and language it might have retained much more bite. I could see the point of the like-father-like-son device as a necessary foil for the value-free ethical standpoint of the protagonist, but by the end it seemed that the movie fell back on that old US standby of asserting family values which compromised the satirical intent.

Smoking isn't really the point of the movie. Indeed, the best scenes for me were the meetings of the MOD Squad - a group of highly competitive sophists who compete to defend the currently indefensible. These scenes are a compelling and witty illustration of the underlying theme of the movie which is the subversive power of words and rational argumentation to support the most untenable of positions. The triumph is in making the Nick Naylor character a hero and that has everything to do with Aaron Eckhardt's superb performance. Instead of a pantomime villain, it seems that it is he who is a bastion of individual liberty in contemporary democracy. That's the satire - but it is not unsettling in the way that characters such as, say, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver and Rupert Pupkin in King of Comedy succeed in the end. And significantly, you wont see anyone actually smoking in this movie.

Lemming (2005)

Suburban and Deeply Sinister

[7/10 · 22 June 2006]

A professional couple living in Bel-Air discover a lemming trapped in the S-bend of their kitchen sink. From this point on, the apparent stability of their relationship is increasingly undermined. Why ? We don't know. But the movie is successful to the extent that you don't feel as though you need to know.

It is a Lynchian movie in that it seems to follow it's own internal logic rather than a plot. There is also the device of locating the dark and sinister in mainly bright daylight and bland residential surroundings with rather bland professional folks. This works really well. Also there is the sense of identity mix-up between the two female characters as there was in 'Lost Highway'.

However, what it put me in mind of more than anything was another contemporary movie set in France - Haneke's Cache (Hidden) which seems to explore middle-class professional insecurities in surprising ways. (Is this the kind of movie Bunuel would make if he was of these times and not last century ?) And as with Haneke's movie, the director has the courage to dwell on rather static scenes bordering on the boring and then punctuated with shocks. This is how tension is built up throughout and it works superbly aided by evocative sound design (another Lynch trait).

As for the acting, the 'model couple' are suitably innocuous and emotionally semi-detached in demeanour whilst Charlotte Rampling's character is a small masterpiece of menace and malintent. One of the most disturbing and distressed characters I have seen.

My own take on it was that the older couple were a manifestation of the unarticulated fears of the younger couple - of how they might turn out by pursuing this kind of aspirational professional lifestyle. The lemming,far from being a Scandinavian rat, is actually a common or garden red herring (or McGuffin). Really, the movie represents contemporary anxieties about class, professionalism and identity.

It is an intriguing and effective movie for the most part but a bit overlong. And the use of the voice-over ending seemed perfunctory and was at odds with the tone of everything that had gone before. All the ending really seemed to me to say was 'it was all just a dream/imagining/and then he woke up'. There are other moments like that throughout, but up until the end it is all open to question. The last thing I want is for these questions to be answered.

Glastonbury (2006)

Rambling In Glastonbury

[3/10 · 23 May 2006]

A documentary (I suppose) about the Glastonbury Festival in England over its thirty years or so in existence.

Well I suppose it is, in a sense, in the spirit of attending the festival being a jumbled sprawling mess of a movie. The good thing is that there are only snippets of the performers and the movie instead concentrates on footage of festival-goers from diverse sources, particularly amateur video footage. And everyone is bound to find something in it of interest (I enjoyed the travellers' contributions, and the Joe Strummer sequence). But at three hours and with no particular perspective it just becomes monotonous. And if you have been to Glastonbury or are interested in it I doubt whether it is showing you anything you didn't know already or can be bothered to sit through. Anybody want to see my holiday snaps...no ? Oh well...

Brick (2005)

Unique Little Noir

[7/10 · 23 May 2006]

A young man tries to find out the truth about the death of his ex-girlfriend.

This is an unlikely combination of American teen movie and Chandleresque detective story - and, contrary to how it might sound on paper, it works very well indeed ! With direct nods to 'The Big Sleep' and 'Chinatown' the dialogue is suitably terse and packed with colloquial invention, energy and wit. The acting is variable but invariably charming and the lead role is performed with utter conviction.

The director has made the best possible use of a shoestring (edited - brilliantly - at home on his computer apparently). What it lacks in production values it makes up for in every other respect. Really enjoyable.

Pavee Lackeen: The Traveller Girl (2005)

A Small Wonder of a Movie

[7/10 · 12 April 2006]

This is a 'slice-of-life' drama about a young traveller girl (Winnie) and her family in contemporary Ireland. Most of the (in)action takes place in a kind of lay-by next to a building site off a major road. You will probably forget that it is fiction - it's main characters are a real family and it is shot with a rough-and-ready documentary feel. Much of the dialogue is hard to catch and is spoken against a backdrop of traffic noise (probably as much a reason for showing it in the UK with subtitles as the issue of deciphering the accents). That said, there is visual poetry in much of the shooting (for example, the sequence where Winnie is ferreting around inside the Clothes Bin or where the girls go for chips).

The real strength of the movie is in what it refrains from saying: it scrupulously avoids sending a 'message' to anyone about anything. It simply presents - and is utterly convincing for that reason. The life is grim, but these people are not victims, they are not conspicuously persecuted by the authorities (the police and Council seem half-embarrassed to be issuing an eviction notice at the trailer door). Drink and solvent abuse and theft are presented more as the mere distractions of a daily routine rather than cause or effect. There isn't a lot to choose between teachers, social workers or even a traveller activist. These interested parties seem disengaged from the family's lifestyle and to be simply performing roles which barely impact upon the travellers' circumstances.

Although every opportunity for 'kitchen sink' plot development is thankfully eschewed, the trip to the standpipe for water which bookends the movie helps to suggest a cumulative worsening of the circumstances of the family.

I read somewhere that the director is influenced by the director Alan Clarke and you can see that. It has that directness of observation and honesty about human behaviour. Whatever, I look forward to the next feature by this director.