Spectre

seen 12 December 2015

The 25th James Bond movie (the second directed by Sam Mendes) is - a James Bond movie. At one level, hardly anything more needs to be said. Daniel Craig, in his fourth appearance, is a good 007, dry, and neither shaken nor stirred. His adventure sits somewhat uneasily between an impulse towards topicality - the pros and cons of increasing video surveillance - an impulse towards psychological underpinning - the long-term effects of a difficult childhood for both hero and villain - and an impulse towards manic action - absurdly implausible derring-do in cars, trains, helicopters and buildings under threat. The women are expendable (Monica Bellucci and an unbilled companion in the opening sequence) though, as usual, the last (Léa Seydoux) is not expended.

Diversions from the original formula include more action for M and Q (Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw respectively) and a slightly (only slightly) less thankless cameo for Moneypenny (Naomi Harris). Meanwhile there are two villains - the bureaucrat C (Andrew Scott) and the sadistic Blofeld (Christoph Waltz). While C can be predictably odious by spouting technobabble enthusiasm for increased surveillance, Blofeld is creepy in the Spectre meeting, but he is rather deflated by the attempt to root his malevolence in childhood jealousy.

However, realism is beside the point, and I must confess myself somewhat amazed at comments in 'The Guardian' blog claiming that character development is important in these films. Some level of internal coherence is advisable to prevent the whole enterprise from being ludicrous, and the film manages this (at times by the skin of its teeth). One should not really question why there is no traffic in Rome, or why there are no passengers on the train, and apparently no staff in the train's kitchen - or even how the dining car carriage seems to be so wide or its walls so flimsy.

One might question, however, whether these fantasies indicate a sense of self parody, or merely the cavalier carelessness of a franchise that has gone on for too long.

The Lady in the Van

seen 14 November 2015

The film concerns Miss Shepherd, who lived in a van in the street where Alan Bennett lived in Camden Town. Eventually, in a quixotic gesture prompted partly by exasperation with the disturbance of witnessing several uncalled for attacks on her, and partly because new parking restrictions would render her roadside position untenable, he suggested that she park her van in his driveway, an arrangement which lasted for 15 years until Miss Shepherd died.

Alan Bennett wrote an account of the peculiar relationship between himself, a private and rather timid writer, and this indomitable woman, about whom he knew virtually nothing, as she rarely volunteered personal information. This account first appeared in various editions of the London Review of Books, and was finally published as a book, and then turned by him into a play, in which he cunningly split his own persona into two acting parts - one for the person to whom the events happened and one for the writer observing it all. 

Bølgen (The Wave)

seen at the 2015 London Film Festival, 16 October

Directed by Roar Uthaug and starring Kristoffer Joner and Ane Dahl Torp, the film shows the effect of a large rockfall in the Geiranger fjord,concentrating on one family's attempt to survive the resulting tsunami.

The film opens with news footage of earlier natural disasters in the fjord country, and rapidly sets the scene by showing the work of the Åkerneset monitoring station,and the growing alarm of Kristian, who is soon to leave to work in Stavanger. Even on the day that he is supposed to leave the district with his teenage son and young daughter, he cannot stop niggling at some unusual readings, and he returns to the monitoring station to warn his ex-colleagues. (One of them later predicts he will be back within the year, unable to stay away.)

The Martian

seen 11 October 2015

This film, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, is based on a novel by Andy Weir.

Mark Watney, a scientist on Mars with four team-mates, is injured in a sandstorm which is so severe that the mission is abandoned; the others, convinced he is dead, leave him behind. The film shows how he survives his initial injury and takes steps to stay alive as long as possible in the hopes that a rescue mission will reach him in time. Due to the planetary alignment cycle, this could be a matter of waiting for four years, although an alternative is proposed by a geeky astrophysicist.

Luckily Mark is a botanist, as he remarks engagingly on the videolog that he confides in periodically throughout the film. He decides to plant potatoes, which must be nourished by the human waste already collected in sealed packages. He manages to increase the production of water after a risky first try at igniting hydrogen. In short, his inventiveness and determination are not in doubt, and Matt Damon carries the scenes with low-key charm. His occasional outbursts of frustration are all the more believable because of his general air of competence and optimism.

Meanwhile, NASA has held a funeral for Watney before realising that he has survived, and then must manage both the rescue mission and the media coverage of their efforts. In a further strand, the original crew are eventually told that Mark is still alive; the scene is set for an heroic rescue.

All this is handled with aplomb by Ridley Scott. the effects shots on 'Mars' are thrillingly done (despite the awkward fact that a sandstorm of sufficient intensity is allegedly impossible); the space shots are excellent; the human drama convincingly portrayed by an excellent supporting cast without too much melodrama, even though many of the plot twists are entirely predictable.

All in all, good mainstream science-fiction entertainment.

Roger Waters The Wall

seen 29 September 2015

The film, created and directed by Roger Waters and Sean Evans, is a documentary blending footage of The Wall tour (2010-2013) with Waters' ruminations while journeying to see the grave of his grandfather (killed on the Somme in 1916) and the cemetery memorial to his father (killed at Anzio in 1945).

'The Wall' - a Pink Floyd concept album from 1979 - had already spawned a movie directed by Alan Parker, and a series of tours. I've not seen the movie nor have I attended a tour performance. I have not even heard the entire album - I only have memories of marching hammers accompanying the single 'Brick in the Wall' when it was originally played on BBC's 'Top of the Pops', that jingle-like refrain 'we don't need no edyoucayshun' reverberating in the memory.

Consequently, I found narrative of the concept completely swamped by the technical wizardry of the shows, and further obscured by the intercut sequences of Waters travelling through Europe. Those for whom 'The Wall' is or was a defining expression of their own alienation will presumably be unworried by this confusion, since they can readily supply the whole structure from their memories, and the sequences from the concert will make perfect sense. To a newcomer, the transitions from bolshie schoolkid with cruel teacher and overbearing mother to crypto-fascist rock star to rag-doll accused in a nightmare trial were barely coherent, and their relation to a lost father figure not at all obvious.

Last Cab to Darwin

seen 29 August 2015

This film, directed by Jeremy Sims, is based on a play by Reg Cribb, who worked on the screenplay with the director. It stars Michael Caton, Ningali Lawford-Wolf, Mark Coles Smith, Emma Hamilton and Jacki Weaver.

Rex (an excellent Michael Caton) is a taxi driver who has never left Broken Hill. Though he has mates at the pub and a close but not formally acknowledged relationship with his neighbour Polly (Ningali Lawford-Wolf) he feels he can act alone when the doctors tell him that an operation to remove tumours has failed, and he has only months to live. Determined to avoid hospital or palliative care, he drives to Darwin having heard of a doctor there who is proposing to administer euthanasia. (This situation is inspired by real events, though names and situations are altered).

The film is inescapably a road movie, since the opportunity to film a journey from Broken Hill to Darwin through the Red Centre is too good to miss - the sheer scale of the outback, and its austere beauty, provide a visual feast even as they underscore the isolation of its inhabitants. There is also the convention of meeting interesting people along the way, particularly in this case the feckless Tilly, a young indigenous man played with easy charm by Mark Coles Smith, and Julie (Emma Hamilton), a British nurse taking time out to 'get some sun' in Australia.

What begins as a journey to avoid pain and indignity becomes more complicated as Rex begins to engage with Tilly and then Julie, and a further measure of ambivalence is provided by the media circus surrounding Rex's attempt to 'volunteer' for the euthanasia program, and by the realisation that Doctor Nicole Farmer's agenda does not leave a great deal of room for a compassionate patient/doctor relationship. Jacki Weaver shows us a woman to some extent trapped by the ethical and legal constraints on her project, which looks less well-thought-through as the administrative obstacles impinge on it.

Though there are stereotyped situations and themes running throughout the film, and some implausibly upbeat solutions to some of the minor plotlines, Michael Caton's performance remains the focal point of interest, and it is masterfully done. He is not talkative, and certainly not falsely eloquent under pressure, so one rapidly learns to read his expressions as he copes with unwanted personal encounters and the spasms of pain and sickness which assail him. Even the occasional widening of his eyes in pain or momentary panic shows the humanity suffering behind a mask of the stoicism so easily adopted by a lonely old man. Fortunately the issues surrounding euthanasia are not made into a melodramatic debate; instead various scenes quietly make the issues available to our consideration and leave us to draw our own conclusions.

 

Salt of the Earth

seen 7 August 2015

This documentary by Wim Wenders examines the career of the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. Salgado himself speaks in the film, and Wenders also provides some of the commentary - including some wry observations on having a photographer as the subject of a cinematic essay. Salgado's son Juliano Rebeira Salgado co-directed the film and makes some remarks, though his relationship to his father is not the major focus of the film..

Salgado, who only took up photography after his wife had bought a camera (he had previously been working for the World Bank), committed himself to various projects which lasted several years each in far-flung areas of the earth. His homage to 'Other Americas' includes the amazing photographs of the open-cast Serra Pelada goldmine in Brazil with which the film begins. There are far more harrowing images from the Ethiopian famine of 1984 and the Rwanda genocide of 1994, experiences which lead to an increasing pessimism in Salgado's commentary. But to counter this, Juliano accompanies his father on an expedition to photograph walruses in arctic Siberia, and there are sequences dealing with Salgado's encounters with remote Papuan and Amazonian tribes. There is also an inspiring account of the family's decision to replant the rainforest on the dessicated hills of the family farm.

Salgado's own comments provide a fascinating insight into the work, which is given fine and sympathetic exposre in this film. Through all the barbarity of human strife and the awfulness of suffering through drought and famine, Salgado's unassuming presence and unerring capacity to find the appropriate image render even the most harrowing of events. The later 'Genesis' project showed that his skill was equally engaged when the subject was 'other animals' or the natural world at large.

'Salt of the Earth' is a fine tribute to this master photographer and wise human being.

Mad Max: Fury Road

seen 25 May 2015

The film, starring Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult, is directed by George Miller, and is the fourth in the franchise, arriving 30 years after the previous instalment.

Action packed, and set in a dystopian grungy and desertified future, it is basically an extended car chase film with wildly extravagant vehicles in a place where character-led plot would be an incomprehensible concept. Though the post-industrial feudalism hardly bears serious examination, the film is a blast because it carries off its principal interest - the car chase - with supreme and bravura self-confidence, while at the same time underpinning the visual spectacle with the powerful idea of a quest, or an aspiration for finding a better world, which justifies the mayhem.

Tom Hardy plays Max, kidnapped at the beginning to be a 'blood bag' but soon able to assist Furiosa (Charlze Theron) in her dash across the desert to escape the Citadel. Though he is obviously haunted by his past, nothing is explained; the advice he gives the fugitives at one crucial point is his most extended speech in the entire film and it reveals almost nothing about him, except that he is completely trustworthy. At the end he slips away with just a nod of the head. Amidst all the extravagant and baroque imagery of the Citadel, where the idea of a treadmill has been elaborated beyond a workhouse's wildest dreams, this gesture somehow manages to speak volumes.

Furiosa is not quite so opaque, as at least she has a goal and a past; Theron's performance is a masterclass in understated determination. Nicholas Hoult, as the Warboy Nux, has the most development, struggling from unquestioning adolescent warrior bravado to an understanding that the world might be more complex than he could have thought, and finally turning his warrior code to meaningful and sacrificial effect. It is with allegorical, almost mythical, gestures of this sort that the mere mechanics of vehicles chasing through the desert are invested with significance 

The stunts are marvellous, totally over the top but consistently exciting to watch. There is no attempt to distract from these with melodrama; everyone just gets on with chasing or fleeing, with being evil or good. This means that the rare scenes of quietness, when there is no engine throbbing, can focus on desert expanses, or the eerie sight of figures on stilts making their way through a blasted swamp, with no histrionic soul-searching.

Inherent Vice

seen 5 February 2015

This film, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, has been adapted by him from Thomas Pynchon's 2009 novel of the same name, the first time the author has sanctioned a film adaptation of one of his works. It stars Joaquin Phoenix, with Josh Brolin, Reece Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Benicio del Toro, Joanna Newsom and others.

The film, like the novel, is a homage both to the noir thriller and the late and by then disillusioned hippy era of California in 1970. The period detail is immaculate - costumes, hairstyles, songs played, idioms used - but not ostentatious. The plot is bewildering, not least because 'Doc' Sportello, the private investigator played by Joaquin Phoenix, is almost always stoned and unable to make sense of his lines of enquiry. But this is part of the point, so it is fruitless to complain about loose ends or improbabilities.

Phoenix gives a compelling performance, flickers of alarm or puzzlement widening his eyes (when we can see them), occasional shafts of insight managing to pierce the fogs of confusion both within his mind and in the corruption and cynicism all around him. He is rarely stirred to energetic action, so that when he does express his stronger emotions the effect is disquieting after the long passivity. Even the most laid-back guy is revealed to have fiercely angry sexual urges, and a capacity for violence when under threat. The supporting cast invest what could have been cardboard stereotypes - the LA detective, the flighty ex-girlfriend, the assorted drifters and band players of the time, and the morally bankrupt 'straight' and wealthy types - with sufficient depth and interest to hold our attention in what would otherwise be an incoherent mess.

The Pynchon prose style, so vital in creating the atmosphere of the novel, has been retained in much of the dialogue - though that is necessarily elliptical and idiomatic, and occasionally hard to follow in the mouths of its stoned speakers. But the more elaborate effects are cleverly enshrined in a voiceover which goes some way to setting the scene and explaining or pointing out to us some of its oddities, even if only by way of ironic comment. The voiceover is of course a staple of noir, though usually it is the main protagonist who appears to be commenting retrospectively on the action. Here, it is a minor character Sortilege (Joanna Newsom) who speaks after the event, and though it is by no means clear how she could know so much or articulate it in such style, her comments are a vital means of giving shape to the film.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

seen 30 January 2015

How can a spoof James Bond movie be successful when Bond himself is something of a spoof? This film manages to pull off the trick, with a slick but faintly risible secret Secret Service, a cool wit and some clever plot twists which take no harm from referring to stock situations and established film conventions.

Much has been made in the accompanying media puffs of Colin Firth's training to be fit enough to perform the stunts (or at least some of them). He does cut a surprisingly dashing figure as the older spy, with his natural unflappability masking the necessary skills to defeat the run-of-the-mill baddies. He has more problems with the real villain of the piece, a marvellously over-the-top Samuel L Jackson, but that is part of the story.

Michael Caine and Mark Strong provide sterling backup as 'Arthur' and 'Merlin' (analogues for 'M' and 'Q') while Taron Egerton turns in a strong performance as the young recruit who unexpectedly comes good despite - or perhaps because of - his council estate upbringing. He is plausibly edgy and lippy at the beginning and just as plausibly suave and self-assured by the end, amidst increasingly wayward mayhem and fantastical gadgetry.

A really entertaining romp of a film.

Into the Woods

(seen 19 January 2015)

The Disney film of Stephen Sondheim's musical 'Into the Woods' stars Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Johnny Depp and many others. It simplifies the plot of the original play (fewer characters and fewer deaths) but remains true to the spirit of retelling some well known tales from the Brothers Grimm - 'Little Red Riding Hood', 'Jack and the Beanstalk', 'Cinderella' and 'Rapunzel' - intertwining them into a meditation on growing up, facing responsibility and attempting to make moral choices in a complicated world.

Testament of Youth

(seen in preview 12 January 2015)

The film, based on Vera Brittain's book of the same name, concerns the author's experiences as a young woman who succeeds, much against family pressure, in gaining a place at Oxford University in 1914, but who during the course of the First World War leaves her studies to become a nurse. It stars Alicia Vikander as Vera Brittain, Kit Harington as her fiance Roland Leighton, Taron Egerton as her brother Edward, and Colin Morgan as Victor Richardson.

The Theory of Everything

(seen 2 January 2015)

The film, based on Jane Hawking's second book about her life with Stephen Hawking, portrays their relationship from their first meeting as undergraduates in the early 1960s to his investiture as Companion of Honour some twenty-five years later, by which time they had married, brought up three children, and separated.

The salient points about Stephen are his brilliance as a scientist and the long affliction of motor neuron disease, with which he has now lived for 50 years, though it was expected that he would survive only about two years from the time of the diagnosis in 1963. But the film is not a biopic of a disabled genius; it is rather a portrait of a very strong, remarkable yet inevitably troubled marriage which did not survive the strain of all that happened.