reginadonk Reviews

Colette (I) (2018)

The trouble with Keira

[3/10 · 5 November 2019]

This review goes under the sub-heading: 'The trouble with Keira' I first encountered K.Knightley when I took my sons to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Lets be honest, a role in those movies does not require gravitas or depth but at least Johnny Depp WAS Jack Sparrow. Our Keira. in those films, never got beyond fluttering her eye-lids, scrunching her face, biting her lip, and saying her lines in clumsy haste, maybe to avoid forgetting them. Years later I saw her in the portentous Freud flic: A Dangerous Method. Had she developed some acting skills by then? Just enough not to look out of her depth, but not enough to bring a truth to the ebb and flow of madness and sanity that dwell within us all.

So, now we have her Colette. My expectations were not high. The first thing that struck me about this movie was the almost apologetic cheapness of the production. The same few street scenes are repeatedly used and some vintage railway line somewhere in England was plundered for almost every second exterior shot. I never once felt I was in France at all. Meanwhile, the film's backers were no doubt convinced that the life story of probably France's pre-eminent female author with her breaking of taboos, alternative life-style choices, and struggle for liberation from male dominance, would connect with a contemporary audience from a distant era of over a century ago. They were right to think that, but, by hiring K.K. to play Colette, they proceeded to torpedo their own project. She managed to drain all the life out of this real person who was clearly a force of nature, a creative polymath, and a charisma bombshell, and reduce her to little more than a wayward brat and sulky victim bore. She patently looked right for the part, but possesses no tools with which to embody such a vivid historical figure. She would be better off playing someone like Victoria Beckham in her biopic. (...and, I reckon V.B. would do just as good an acting job of playing K.K. in hers!)

So, does this film have any redeeming features. Not really. The script is cautious, the other actors play it like a farce, the intimate scenes lack any lust, I only laughed once, and there is no real sense of how Colette's various antics were being perceived in wider French society at the time. Instead all we get is the Keira Knightley show, and, as is invariably the case with her, it is an acting 'No show'.

The Conductor (2018)

To attain this level of superficiality takes some kind of talent

[2/10 · 3 November 2019]

So, what we have here is a little-known true story of a young woman of Dutch extraction who is brought up in New York in the early 20th century and who develops an ambition to one day conduct an orchestra. Her name ends up being Antonia Brico (Don't ask) - ever heard of her? No, neither have I. The reason for this, as the film attempts to convey, is that then, as now, the role of a conductor is seen as exclusively a male prerogative. Naturally, this is an ongoing issue, but did Brico's minor attempts at breaking this closed shop warrant a full-blown movie, or has the story been severely exaggerated. I could not help but suspecting that it has. Meanwhile, what of the film itself (?) Well, it does look good, probably too good a lot of the time, in the way that classy Christmas adverts look good. There is also much close focusing on the main characters faces, some of whom are pleasant to look at. However, the camera rarely focuses on the eyes, where, shock-horror, depth of character might lurk. (Lets not confuse our audience, now). There is a mix of fixed camera shots, crane shots, and even hand-held camera shots, and you notice them because, firstly, they are so telegraphed, and moreover because the film is so slow paced and un-engaging that one begins to look for any point of attachment to prevent oneself from gently drifting into unconsciousness. A film such as this has to be carried by the central performance, and Christanne de Bruin, while being able to elicit sentiment from us, (In a way a lovable puppy might) is so out of her depth (Through her lack of any dramatic essence) that I found myself wincing for her rather than at her. The script is truly appalling, and along with the screenplay, reduces every single other character to even less than a cardboard cut out version of a real person. To attain this level of superficiality takes some kind of talent, and they nail it here. If you want to see a masterclass in how to spoon-feed your audience to a point where they accept being pandered to like they are encountering life depicted on screen for the very first time, then check out this supreme dud of a movie. Does it contain any redeeming features? Well, the movie briefly comes to life when our heroine travels to Amsterdam to uncover her true roots. This involves at one point entering a cloister, and a slither of tension is invoked by the possible breaking of the strict rules of silence within the Trappist order. (Yes, that really is a dramatic high-point in this arid tale) A nun communicates by scribbling on a chalk board, but she does so in such a frantic manner that the scene becomes Pythonesque in its absurdity. I was the only person giggling at this amongst an audience who were still taking this risible nonsense movie seriously after a good hour. I guess they were too busy admiring the endless shots of shiny floored corridors, period vehicles, and sculptured haircuts, to notice how truly wretchedly woeful this film was.

Lady J (2018)

Court intrigue, revenge, and moral turpitude

[8/10 · 3 November 2019]

Mademoiselle de Joncquières is a sumptuous costume drama of court intrigue, revenge, and moral turpitude is what I hoped for, and that is what I got. Anyone who ever saw 'Dangerous liaisons' back in the day will be familiar with this sort of tale, but what this movie lacks in glamour compared with that film is more than makes up for in elegant taste and style. For a good while now, I have despaired of the French film industries lurch towards populist trite sentiment and away from its reputation for sophisticated thought-provoking artistic films. This then is an echo of past glories, and just maybe it will provoke a rethink, although, sadly, I doubt it. The plot is taken from a classic French novel and concerns a Count who has taken to hanging around the country mansion of a wealthy Duchess with a determination to have her succumb to his charms. Eventually she does. However, instead of revelling in his conquest, our Count wearies of her and her weakness, seeing as she was fully aware of his reputation as a bed-hopper. He is up front about his mood and they agree end the relationship but to remain friends. Meanwhile, deep inside she is livid, as well as heartbroken, and so decides to play a cruel revenge on him by tricking him into desiring a supposedly chaste young woman, who actually turns out to be anything but. We can see the plot unfolding, and, despite the count being a likeable rogue, we are happy to see him fall into her trap. However, the Duchess, and us, are in for more surprise than we expected. The acting here is a delight; Very understated, and done with a joyous relish.The dialogue is witty and sophisticated but never for the sake of it. We, as audience, understand the vagaries of our own passions and the contradictions of love, rivalry, pride, and vanity, so there is nothing here a normal viewer could not grasp. I love that about this film. It doesn't spoon-feed but neither does it become esoteric. As for the filming.. well, in contrast to the recent costume drama 'The Favourite' this does not indulge in fancy camera angles and showy updates of the genre. Instead it plays the filming straight and the movie benefits from its unobtrusiveness. The only night scene is while the Count is wrestling with the knowledge that he has been duped and that others have been wantonly used to play the trick out. This seems like a simple tonal device but movie-making does not have to be reinvented; It is best served when that just feels like a natural feature. Why re-invent the wheel (?) At the Sunday morning screening I attended there were only seven of us present. This was a shame I felt. I contrasted this with the full house for the latest Tarantino which (despite possessing a swagger of movie chutzpah) is devoid of subtlety, resonance, and emotional depth, and the Dutch film De Dirigent which the local audience loved but was in effect a Mickey Mouse movie compared to this delightfully crafted French delicacy.

A Rainy Day in New York (2019)

'Reality is for those who don't look for anything better'

[7/10 · 3 November 2019]

Well this was a pleasant surprise for me. Firstly that the film was actually finally released after all the foolish faux-controversy nonsense that delayed his 50th film being issued. The second surprise was that it is really rather a fun and likeable watch. (These days, long-term Woody fans, such as I, have become accustomed to regular dud films between good ones) So, here we have a director deep into his 80's attempting to make a film in his unique style but comprising of a cast of mainly famous young actors to presumable draw in as big an audience demographic as possible. I admire him for this, and he, for the most part, blends the ages well and draws good performances out of all but one notable cast member (more of that later) The story triggers off with a young guy called Gatsby (!)(Timothée Chalamet) we meet on campus who's girlfriend Ashleigh (Elle Fanning) works on the college arts magazine and is given the opportunity to interview a famous film director (!) but she will have to travel to New York City to do so. Gatsby decides to accompany her. The plot then involves him being unable to avoid his family who live in NY, the girlfriend being swept up into a chase and other shenanigan's when the film-maker has an artistic crisis and his producer's attempts to prevent him from hitting the bottle and perhaps carrying through his threat to not allow his new film to be released (!), and various other revelations, near infidelities, and hidden talents. This is all handled adroitly by someone who has written and directed 50 films and thus the coincidences galore and the almost ludicrous range of skills Gatsby possesses, we accept as a part of the fun, ...almost. The real treat in this film, however, is the performance of Selina Gomez (someone even I know is a young singer/actress) who is sensational as a younger sister of someone who Gatsby once dated. They bump into each other and she then drifts in and out of the plot. It is a real shame she did not get more to do because when she is on screen the film just takes off. She not only knows how to act and to act comedy, but she knows how to act in a Woody Allen film. With her first appearance comes the rain, and we welcome it. In contrast Timothée Chalamet has absolutely no idea how to do any of these things. He should be carrying this film and making a name for himself. Instead he is a rabbit in the headlights, frozen to stiffness by the challenge, and he never once brings his character to life. The opening long tracking shot of he and Fanning discussing the trip to NY is notable for the way Chalamet never reacts to anything she says but instead gives his next line as if he is talking to us, or, more probably, himself. There is a moment a little later where he meets a college pal who is busy shooting a scene for a short film project. This pal suggests he take a small role in the next scene to be filmed. Chalamet declares "But I'm not an actor". Normally when this occurs in a film we, as the audience, note the dramatic irony of such a line. Sadly, though, in this instance there is no irony because he is not an actor, at least not in this film. He was so bad that I, on the one hand, felt sorry for him, but also I kind of suspected that Woody deliberately put in that line to expose the fact that he had soon realised that his hot young star was not capable of making this film as good as it could, and probably should have been. I recommend this film. Ignore the silly stuff that surrounds Woody and sit back and enjoy the fun. Do not expect a masterpiece, or great profound art, although he manages to slip in here and there a few quotes on life: The one that jumped out at me was 'Reality is for those who don't look for anything better'.

Shadow (2018)

Living or perishing for a reason

[8/10 · 3 November 2019]

SHADOW - Film: China 2018 I have only ever seen a handful of Chinese films and none set in the days of the dynasties, the martial arts, and the classic tales of power, love and warrior codes. I had seen Japanese films of this ilk, but this was different again. The whole movie is filmed in colour but we see it almost in Black-and-White because the tone is monochrome and the weather is always stormy, and the rain teems down incessantly, and everything appears to resemble steel. Within this is woven beautifully the motifs of the Yin-Yang and the I-Ching, icy swords and white linen. So, what is going on here? Well, we have a traditional ancient tale of decadent rulers, fanatical followers, doppelganger substitute princes, wild or benign concubines, and the vain search for parents, literal or metaphorical. I can willingly confess that I soon lost the thread of the plot during the wordy and stilted first half hour. However, I had the feeling that the movie would suddenly break loose and, my goodness, it did. When rival cities decide to settle scores the action sequences that follow are truly startling. We have already seen stylised choreographed training fights, using, of all things, umbrella shields, and this goes into full swing when a Trojan horse trick is used to invade a citadel. Here we see (I kid you not) lethal attack umbrellas first used as impromptu rain sledges, but then as multi-bladed assault gadgets. These battle scenes are almost balletic, and sumptuous. Indeed one loses the sense that this is about death in the traditional sense. It is more an exercise in living or perishing for a reason, rather than just getting old and fading away having never ever amounted to very much. As the main characters come to either meet their demise, or emerge battered with scars of honour, the blood adds much colour to the various shades of metal grey. This red mixes with the cascading rain and eventually is washed away. That is, however, until a new generation take up arms again in the endless cycle of war innovation as human progress. The force of this film only hit me when it ended and I walked back out into the cosy evening in my peaceful European town. I really was taken by the imagery, the style, and the majesty of this film. It contained no laughs, no reassurance, and precious little relief, but it was artistic, inventive, ravishingly austere, and, with its women warriors oddly relevant.

Who You Think I Am (2019)

A glowing screen presence

[2 November 2019]

I am always keen to watch a Juliette Binoche film. She is a proper film star who possesses a glowing screen presence. A lesser actress (can we still say that?) would have struggled with the lead role in this film because it is virtually (sic) a one-woman-show. Juliette succeeds with ease. This is a quiet little intimate film about a woman (Clare) in her 50's playing out a mid-life-crisis fantasy over the internet. Her long-term husband left her for a younger version, so she reacted by taking a young lover of her own who soon becomes bored with this much older woman. So, she suddenly decides to create a virtual younger version of herself and chooses the flatmate of the former younger lover to hit on. He has never met her but knows of her, and is conned into believing she is only 24. The cat-and-mouse game is played out just long enough to maintain our interest and we are given interspersed commentary by her as she explains it to her therapist. The scenario plays out in dramatic fashion, but then we become aware that she may not be telling the therapist the full story, and other possible endings emerge. This has the effect of distancing the viewer at a crucial stage, which baffled me at first, but, after the film ended, I believe I understood what the writer was getting at. I am a man in his 50's surfing the web for love, diversion and perhaps even re-definition. My contemporaries and I did not have the internet when we were becoming adults, so for us it is a magic landscape. Previously we were defined by our setting, family, friends, and cultural norms. Now we can be shape-shifting dramatic characters who don't have to make do with the tales others write: Instead we can create and star in our own life. A movie star from a script of our own choosing and editing. Binoche does not visibly glow in this role as much as she often does. Instead she ages defiantly. Her character doesn't actually go on an emotional journey, more a foolish escapade from which she ultimately concludes that having control of one's identity brings with it great responsibility. I liked this movie. Clare is supposed to be an intelligent lecturer, but finds herself behaving like a giddy teenager playing silly but potentially deadly games with the emotions of others. This could have been quite unbelievable, but the simple production and Binoche's skill allow us to take the idea on board. There are many high crane shots in the film which reminded me of sequences in my own dreams in which I seem to hover above the action. Seeing as the very first shot of this film is of someone nudging Clare out of a nap, then this impression that I had was possibly no accident.

American Masters: Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (2019) Season 34, Episode 1

Using the talking heads option is so out of date

[5/10 · 1 November 2019]

Without doubt Miles Davis was one of THE premier creative artists of the 20th Century. Beyond that he has also come to symbolise cool in so many ways. However, the realities of his character; his cruelness, tendency to violence, (often perpetrated against women) his serious addictions, disputes and asocial nature are well documented. Do we want to know those details, though, or do we prefer to focus on the genius, the sophisticated aura that he engendered, and forgive the artist his human failings? Well, this documentary certainly chooses to avoid delving too deep into the darker heart of the man. It purports to be revealing and exposing but it isn't. Yes, it acknowledges the wife-beating and the substance abuse but it manages to play down these as either a very small side of his complex nature, or, in the case of the drug use, blame it on external forces. (such as his joyous sojourn in Paris where he was lauded, followed on then by his return to a racist America that treats him like a dog - The film views his subsequent descent into heroin addiction as completely understandable in the face of this experience) This is how one goes about re-writing history, forgiving the often unacceptable, and creating a myth. Meanwhile, if we concentrate on the music then there is no question of his utter integrity, his dedication to the craft and his pioneering spirit. That is fine, although we never get enough lengthy excerpts here to sit back and wallow in. Instead we see and hear endless talking heads giving us their take on the man or how significant they (or they like to think they) were to him during his life. Using the talking heads option is so out of date in the wake of the new wave of celebrity docu-films. It smacks of cheap obvious TV style profiles and is simply artless and lazy. Having said that, there was so little older footage and interviews that I suspected that the makers were either denied rights to much film, of would have had to pay top dollar to use it. So, we end up with a cheap, airbrushed and empty story. Saying all that, the film has one moment of clarity: Someone comments that the cool, the aloofness, and the asocial behaviour of Miles Davis is potentially forever forgiven when we hear the emotion, the humanity and the vulnerability in his playing. If we focus on his message through his music and not his struggle with being a human being we feel the art and that dwarfs the trivia. The speaker assumes that it is this that made women fall at his feet and every guy to want to be him. This film should have been so much better.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

Rather like looking at a painting

[6/10 · 1 November 2019]

This movie is a French period piece and it tells the simple tale of a female artist commissioned to paint the future wife of a Duke. The artist travels to the woman's seaside place of residence and the movie covers the period of the painting of the canvas and the initially touchy, but ultimately loving, relationship that develops between these two young women. The setting is intimate, the cast is small, and the plot is almost wafer-thin. The pace is almost painfully sedate, but one gradually becomes accustomed to it, and to appreciate the opportunity to soak in the imagery, and the detail (Rather like looking at a painting, I guess) The cast is almost exclusively female, as is the director, and this is clearly a deliberate and dedicated woman's movie, in every sense. However, any man who actually likes women will have no problem being entertained and ultimately rewarded by giving this film a watch. Naturally any kind of open love between two women of social status was never going to be a potential option in the 18th century, so how are these two going to reconcile the passion that emerges between them. This is the only plot device and jeopardy element. Not much to work with, but I felt that this was a statement by the producers to show that in the woman's realm deep feelings go a longer way than plot twists and high dudgeon. The acting is controlled and meaningful, the interior settings are explored to the point that you almost fill in the smells yourself, and the sequences at the beach linger long enough that you begin bracing yourself against the coastal winds. The high-point of the film is when the community of women gather on a cliff to associate, drink a bit, and sing a particularly haunting mantra-like song. My all time favourite film (La Belle Noiseuse - Long version) also attempts to capture an artist busy in the process of painting a picture. It is not an easy thing to do on film. Naturally I believe my favourite movie does, but does this film achieve that too? Well, to a point, although, for me, the creation of the picture here is more a metaphor for the falling in love, than about the artistic pursuit as of itself. Did I enjoy watching this film? Yes, I did, but a week later I am struggling to recall more that a few vivid moments or to reconnect with it on an emotional level. A worthy film certainly, an important woman's work for sure, but one to be more admired than ever relished.

Before the Frost (2018)

Gothic horror pic disguised as a period drama

[6/10 · 1 November 2019]

FØR FROSTEN - (Before the frost) Film (Denmark 2018) How's this for an enticing movie premise - The consequences for principled ageing widowed male head of family in the face of 18th Century agricultural poverty in Denmark? Despite this bleak set up, I was prepared to give it a go. What I got was really not what I expected. Our old proud small-hold farmer is slowly being squeezed out of providing for his family by entrepreneurial land-buyers who can pick off his assets whenever times get grim. At a certain point our hero cracks and succumbs to their offers to buy his land and in return they give him a foreman's job which reinstates the status within the local village which he had been gradually losing. This seems even more painful to him than the hunger and the grinding poverty. Basically it is vanity that gets him, and, from that moment on, we see a drama played out in which he comes to discard almost every principle and moral he ever possessed. Patently this is a metaphor for how modernity and cold commercial realities can corrupt and deprave even the most earthed and tenaciously worthy of characters. Beyond that, though, it is a meditation on how easy one can fall prey to human failings when worth, respect, and indignity blend to cloud the thoughts of an ageing soul. This is an almost biblical small film, containing decent controlled acting, gritty filming, and buckets of atmosphere. There is certainly no sentimental element, in contrast it deliberately plays the harsh card. This is probably what saves a film that does have a few flaws: It felt like the plot was rushed, perhaps through the clumsy editing-out of helpful linking scenes, so that the stacking up of moments of moral descent seem to almost stumble over each other, to a point of incredulity. Plus there are just one too many rural movie cliches, such as the obligatory cow struggling to give birth to a breached calf, pails of water being futilely thrown onto a blazing barn, and a pastoral wedding filled with tension and mixed feelings. Ultimately though this film is almost laughingly serious, and doom-laden. There is almost no humour within the story, and so, one finds oneself adding one's own fun in by first totting up the body count, then wondering whether this is actually a Gothic horror pic disguised as a period drama, or pondering if there are actually any pleasant or likeable characters in this movie at all.