Rebecca -Alfred Hitchcock

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Alfred Hitchcock, Film review, Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson, Laurence Olivier, Movie, Noir Movie, Rebecca, Thriller and Suspense Movie

A Paler Shade of Noir

I watched Hitchcock’s 1940 film, which I had seen before, close on the heels of re-reading du Maurier’s wonderful 1938 novel, and whilst the film is in many ways a brilliant adaptation particularly served by excellent performances, a tautly written screenplay which sensibly uses du Maurier’s dialogue, where this is given in the book itself, stunning cinematography and of course is excellently suited to the master of suspense’s vision, I do have some reservations at choices which substantially weaken the film, in comparison to du Maurier’s edgier, unsoftened version.

Some of the choices made by Hitchcock (or possibly by Selznick, who produced the film), seem pragmatic and perhaps understandable, but there are two major changes – the rather soapy, surviving adversity as the music swells to soupy lushness, ending, for Mr and Mrs and, even more importantly, the changed revelation of how ‘the crime’ actually happened, absolutely undercuts the far more powerful, morally tainted and uncomfortable questions du Maurier leaves for her readers, and, of course, for her unnamed heroine. I can’t say more, in case someone reading this hasn’t read the book or seen the film. Did David O. Selznick demand this choice, or did Hitch himself pull his punches?  Some stars would not have wanted to be left with moral taints, but I don’t think Olivier was one of those.

The book itself creates the ambiguous ‘after the end scene’ ending, by having the second Mrs de Winter describe the Winter’s post Manderley life, at the start of the novel. We do not get this in the film, either in the beginning or at the end, which creates more upbeat than du Maurier gave us.

I suppose another contrast to the book is what happens to Mrs Danvers. Hitchcock goes for high opera, and a visual which in some ways underlines the similarity that the book has with Jane Eyre, though, again, du Maurier presents something less resolved, less black and white. Readers of course have time to think about what they are reading, and can put a book down. Viewers, at least back in 1940 could not pause and reflect; the dynamic of the movie, once started, must be clearer to follow and more direct in its journey

There were some more understandable changes, which are inevitable when adapting a book which is most careful and subtle at applying the build-up of tension quite slowly, particularly at the start, whereas the film must concentrate everything into 2 hours and 10 minutes.

I was impressed by how very quickly and deftly plot was advanced, and how much the wonderful cinematography immediately created the layered build-up du Maurier’s prose had been crafted to do. We lose of course the interior feelings, imaginings, the running-in-the-head commentary of the book’s narrator, but the way, for example, the pile-up effect of napkin after napkin, leaf of stationery after leaf of stationery, stamped with the assured R de W logo has on the second wife, is expertly rendered by shot choices and Joan Fontaine’s feelings and thoughts as they express in her body language and face.

Fontaine, Olivier, Anderson

The initial slow build of connection and suspense from Maxim and the gauche young woman’s meeting in the book is given a much more dramatic and quickly signalled ‘something is dreadfully wrong’ subtext in a film scene which is not in the book.

The DVD comes with a few extras, some interviews with Hitch and some of his film critic admirers, which were interesting, but there are quite a lot of rather hard to read text notes, biographies of the two central actors, etc.

Something I found most fascinating is that Olivier was insistent that his then lover, Vivien Leigh (they were not yet divorced from their respective first spouses) should be cast as the second Mrs de Winter. It was Selznick who, rightly, nixed this, saying Vivien Leigh did not have the right qualities to the part. Too right – if anything Vivien Leigh (and, particularly as her marriage with Olivier began to unwind) displayed behaviour and powerfully charged emotional states which put her on the Rebecca end of the spectrum – plus, of course, that fabulous erotic beauty and clear sexiness.

Vivien Leigh who became the second Mrs Olivier, rather than the second Mrs de Winter

By all accounts, Olivier was perfectly beastly to Fontaine, and rather undermined her. Hitch, we are told, as he so often did, manipulated the insecurities the young and at that stage, fairly inexperienced Fontaine must have felt, to create ‘in real’ the not good enough, can’t match up, extreme fragility and low self-esteem of the character. Fontaine was of course an American, so there was plenty of potential on-set feeling against a Yankee playing a quintessential Brit, particularly in such an iconic role, as du Maurier’s book had been a runaway best-seller from the off.

No doubt a similar ‘in reverse’ happened when the Brit, Leigh, won the coveted role in Gone With The Wind, which her American counterparts had failed to carry off, though I don’t think either George Cukor, who initially was on board as director, or Victor Fleming, who did direct, had reputations for mis-treating their actresses in order to get specific performances, in the way Hitch did, particularly with the women who were not yet established stars

My other ‘I can’t quite love this film, though I do admire it a lot’ criticism is of Franz Waxman’s score, which, to my taste is a little too ‘this is a love story’ – which is certainly where the Hollywood choice moral, rather than du Maurier’s darker, more bitter and difficult book, and the soupy almost happy ever after ending, at least for Mr and Mrs – are leading. I would have preferred a little more salt, a little more sourness, a little more bitterness in that music.

A stunning example of George Barnes’ craft (photo from Pinterest)

Most curiously, though the film was nominated for a whole cluster of awards, it won just two: Best Cinematography for George Barnes, and Best Picture – despite the best picture award (which thus went to Selznick) it did not win the Best Director for Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock by Jack Mitchell

Olivier, Fontaine and Judith Anderson, as a magnificent, intensely still and unhistrionic villain were all nominated, along with Robert Sherwood and Joan Harrison for best adapted screenplay, Waxman for the score, and also nominations for editing, art direction and special effects.

I found it a fascinating and rewarding experience to revisit book and film so closely together

Rebecca, Movie – Hitchcock Amazon UK
Rebecca, Movie – Hitchcock Amazon USA

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That Sugar Film

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Damon Gameau, Documentary Film, Film review, Food Industry, Health and wellbeing, Sugar, That Sugar Film

Sweet and deadly

Now this is a film which is right up my street, as I am enormously interested in the politics of the food industry and how it deliberately dupes us and deceives us – and even more interested in matters related to health and wellbeing.

Damon Gameau, an Australian actor and film-maker did not really tell me anything I didn’t already know (because I read a lot of books about the subject) but, my did he tell it entertainingly!

It is because this film is not just talking heads stuff by the prophets of doom that I rate it so highly. Neither does it fall into the other side trap of being all pizazz and flashy dumbed down soundbites without any reference and substance.

Instead, there is a very assured tightrope walked between giving lots of facts, having various experts talk through the science of how the body metabolises sugar, in its different forms, all accompanied by `turns’ by various luminaries, including Stephen Fry, giving us some of the scientific information in a more engaging and witty way.

There is even, I kid you not, a star turn rock star number with Gameau as a kind of Presley/Alvin Stardust/Rocky Horror combo sugar devil in an outrageous pink jumpsuit leering seductively at a group of babes dunking themselves in chocolate mousse! This by the way is Gameau at the end of his 60 day 40 teaspoons of the stuff ‘normal Australian sugar consumption’.

Behind all the fun `sweeteners’ though, is a shocking story (one we DO know, though, it seems, ignore) Gameau engages in a particularly shocking experiment to show the devastating effects of sugar.

Gameau’s diet had been completely sugar free for three years, and he had not drunk alcohol for about ten years. He ate a particularly healthy, wholefood diet. At the start of the film he is clearly someone glowing with vitality and energy, and when tested by nutritionists and medics, was pronounced extremely healthy, with no markers for fatty liver, heart problems, or raised blood lipid levels and the like.

The `experiment’ was that for 60 days he would keep to the same calorific intake, – normally most of his calories came from healthy fats, protein and complex carbohydrates – but would consume the amount of sugar and hidden sugar (processed foods) eaten and drunk by the average Australian – 40 teaspoons a day. But he would not do this by consuming junk food, instead, it would be by the consumption of food wrongly supposed to be `healthy’ – for example, fruit juice, smoothies, `high energy’ muesli bars and the like.

Part of the lie we have been fed is that ‘calorie control’ is where it’s at – but calories from different food sources do not metabolise the same way – the calories in sugar behave differently in the body than the calories in fat and protein

By 18 days in, this vibrant trim man was looking more than a little pasty and jaded, puffy around the eyes, which had lost their sparkle. His skin and hair looked dull, he was visibly developing a paunch. He was also suffering mood swings. Part of the brief for the experiment was that he would keep up his normal good exercise patterns. The `normal sugar consumption of the average Australian’ diet was eating into his energy, creating those sugar rush manic surges followed quickly by listless slumps and the inevitable (cocaine like) cravings for more of that white death stuff. He was finding it hard to exercise, as he lacked the energy.

Even more alarmingly his liver was showing signs of damage after 18 days – liver cells dying, releasing their contents, becoming cirrhotic, the signs of fatty liver disease. Fortunately, at the end of the 60 days, and the resumption of his old, healthy diet, all the bad effects had gone after a couple of months, though Gameau did say that the first week of cutting out the addictive sugar (it affects brain chemistry and hits the `reward’ centre of the brain and its neurochemistry exactly like cocaine) was pretty tough, and he certainly had `cold turkey’ symptoms

If Gameau and the visible evidence of the shocking changes sugar produced on him are not enough to make spoon on its way to sugar dish pause, there is the heartbreaking 26 tooth extraction on a Kentucky boy, just shy of his 18th birthday, caused primarily by a variant of Pepsi called Mountain Dew, which he had imbibed since he was 3.

Also explored tellingly in this film are the obvious parallels between big tobacco and the sugar industry. Just as the tobacco companies leaned muscle and spurious science funding scientists to do research to deliver skewed results to disprove links between smoking and disease, so the sugar industry does exactly the same.

This is a wonderful, hard hitting film, delivering its punches of fact wrapped nicely in a ….lethal candy coating. `Sweet,’ being so much linked to pleasure and reward, is hard wired in our brains BECAUSE in nature readily available fructose , is RARE, so we are programmed to want it, and respond to it, as a useful source of energy which can be stored as a long term energy resource, as fat. The problem for us of course being that now, fructose is readily available and what was an evolutionary advantage is now the sweet kiss of death.

I have one disappointment – little mention is made about artificial sweeteners, which carry as many, and in some cases, MORE problems associated with their use. Sweeteners, and the perfidious ubiquitousness of THEIR presence, as food manufacturers respond to and create new possibilities for our desire for that sweet taste, are every bit as dangerous. Many, for reasons of weight control, have got as far as checking the labels and avoiding sugar in their processed food and drink, but are surrendering to the hugely profitable diet industry and ‘going diet food’. There have been plenty of studies about the artificials, but, again, these are not hugely funded because the funders are those big, powerful, vested interest concerns who of course are not going to be giving money to researchers to prove that their products are dangerous! A little mention is made of sweeteners in the Extras section of the DVD, but the lack of much information is likely to just see the sugarholics switch to sacchaholic behaviour, in the belief they might be sparing themselves from the dangers of fructose consumption. Not so

Bravo to Gameau, making such a brilliant documentary

He also authored a companion book, That Sugar Book, where a lot of the research studies are cited
That Sugar Book Amazon UK
That Sugar Book Amazon USA

I received the DVD as a review copy, from the Amazon Vine programme, UK. It will be released for sale on 27th July in the UK. A visit to Amazon USA site shows it is unavailable to view/buy. It probably just means that video rights have not yet been negotiated, but I smelt a conspiracy around the evil empire of sugar. Well, they suppressed studies showing the perfidious nature of the stuff, so surely, an indie film is small fry to them.

That Sugar Film DVD Amazon UK

Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky – TV adaptation

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BBC Drama, Bryan Dick, Film review, Kevin Elyot, Patrick Hamilton, Sally Hawkins, Simon Curtis, TV Drama, TV Film, Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky, Zoe Tapper

Patrick Hamilton’s stunning trilogy beautifully rendered

I completely missed this at the time of transmission, possibly because at the time I was unaware of the trilogy of which it was based. And in many ways I am very glad of that, as I do prefer to have read the book on which a film or TV dramatisation has been made, as going to the book afterwards seems to get in the way of my own experience of the original.

Of course the danger of this approach might be the purist reader is forever nitpicking about how badly the book has been served and doesn’t do it justice.

Happily, this is not the case here, and in the main there has been not only a faithfulness to the book, but something added by performance and by the wonderful visual element showing the minutiae of a vanished time

Patrick Hamilton’s book, Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky was originally 3 interlocking books, published over a period of some 5 years, centring around a Fitzrovia pub, The Midnight Bell, in the late 1920s, and telling, from 3 different viewpoints, stories of hopeless love, broken dreams and the aspirations and hardships of ‘little people’, the ordinary lives of those without the benefits of money and education, but with the desire for something better, somewhere……

Bob is the barman at The Midnight Bell self-educating himself, wanting to be a writer. Pretty Jenny, from a very poor background, is initially proud to get a live-in job as a housekeeper and cook to 3 elderly people of means. Warm-hearted, homely Ella is the barmaid at The Midnight Bell. Bob loves ruinous Jenny, who loves no-one, though Bob in turn is beloved by Ella. It’s a kind of much more sparkling, much more witty, much more emotionally, less didactic Huis Clos.

Simon Curtis is a director of fine pedigree from stage, where his credits include the original production of Jim Cartwright’s Road, TV – credits include BBC’s Cranford and film – My Week With Marilyn.

Kevin Elyot was a fine writer (My Night With Reg) – and wisely here uses much of Hamilton’s sparkling, precise dialogue, lifted from the trilogy, and does not seek to impose his own voice. He prunes, shapes and guides, trusting in the source material.

All performances are assured, Bryan Dick as sweet, charming Bob, far too susceptible to the twin delights of a pretty ankle and the alcohol he serves, Zoe Tapper as ravishingly pretty, dramatically damaged Jenny, and, especially Phil Davis, always worth watching, here, more dapper, less outwardly seedy than his usual casting, but still definitely a bit creepy, as Ernest Eccles, erstwhile admirer of the stand-out, heart-breakingly must-stay-upbeat Ella, beautifully played by Sally Hawkins

The last section of the piece, Ella’s story, The Plains of Cement, as in the book itself, is the one which best manages the balance between humour, pathos and a kind of anxious terror. Davis’ horribly lonely Eccles is both repulsive and inviting of pity, and the scenes between him and Hawkins’ overwhelmed, not quite sure what is going on Ella are both funny and creepy, and I found myself with anxiously thumping heart resonating with Ella’s troubled confusion, bewildered by it all.

The structure of the 3 stories is beautifully woven together. If I have one minor criticism, it is that the end of the piece half suggests a sense of missed opportunity for Bob, which is not suggested for him, in Hamilton’s book – it may well be the reader’s, and indeed, the viewer’s perception, but it is not something which is made part of Bob’s perception.

The DVD has been uploaded in entirety (in small sections) to You Tube, I thought it was worth getting to play as a seamless whole in good definition, but at least the You Tube gives a sneak preview and allows you to make your choice!

Highly recommended

Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky DVD Amazon UK
Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky Blu-Ray Amazon USA

Gett : The Trial of Viviane Amsalem

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Film review, Gett : The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem, Israeli Film, Menashe Noy, Ronit Elkabetz, Sasson Gabai, Simon Abkarian

Sombre Film With A Rather Old Fashioned Feel : but then, so are Rabbinical Divorce Laws

Viviane Amsalem, an Israeli woman, wants a divorce, as she and her husband are not compatible. She has lived apart from her husband for 3 years. Unfortunately for Viviane, this is Israel, and the `Get’ or divorce ruling, can only happen if the husband agrees to the divorce. And Viviane’s husband does not want to release her

Shot entirely in soulless official hearings rooms and waiting areas, this is a claustrophobic film, with a trio of powerful performances from, particularly from Ronit Elkabetz, as Viviane Amsalem, Simon Abkarian as her stone-faced brooding, implacable husband Elisha, and Menashe Noy as Carmel, Viviane’s fiery, impassioned lawyer. Sasson Gabai is equally excitable and prickly as Elisha’s advocate, brother, and upholder of traditional rabbinical values.

The divided couple, both deeply suffering, one wanting her freedom, the other savagely unable to let her go `she is my destiny’, despite the fact that both leak hard suffering through their association in every glance, givw wonderfully internalised performances, electric with seething, restrained bitterness. The advocates roar and gesticulate, with fiery expression.

The film misses its final star, for me, because a few of the `star turn’ witness performances are a little too much bravura character comedy `we need some laughs here’. And though we certainly do, at times that dialogue and some of those performances are a little too obviously `play this for laughs’ and verging on caricature. Performances for the stage rather than film. Oppressive though the film and its subject matter is, a lighter touch on the `breathing space’ moments would have better kept the integrity of what the film is about.

Though the dreadful rigidity and wrongness of the system is clear, what is well done is that the husband is not played as a pantomime villain by Abkarian – he performs the role without commenting on it. It is a truthful, restrained performance which means that Elisha makes sense to himself.

Elkabetz is a multi talented woman, as she co-directed and co-wrote, as well as starred in this.

Her powerful pressure-cooker performance eventually and agonisingly explodes as the film reaches a dreadful climax and the final images had me out of my chair with shock and disbelief. Skilfully done.

This film is Israel’s entry as `Best Foreign Language Film for the 2015 Oscars.

In filmic terms, it has no whistles and bells, no fast cutting, soundtrack et al, and has nailed its submission to issue and performances.

Costumes are almost unremittingly black and white (!) throughout, pre-and-post credits and titles against a heavy red background. Sudden appearances of colour in clothing are shocking, as if we have forgotten light, shade and nuance could exist at all.

I received this as a review DVD from the Amazon Vine programme UK. The film does not yet appear under the above name on Amazon USA. Maybe it will be retitled.

Gett: The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem Amazon UK

The Great Beauty

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Film review, Italian Film, Paolo Sorrentino, Rome, The Great Beauty, Toni Servillo

Flowers of Beautiful Emptiness

Paolo Sorrentino’s much lauded, multi award winning film about La Dolce Vita, the hedonistic, excessive, stylish – but ultimately exhausted ennui of Roman high-life is itself a feast of beautiful, empty, melancholic ‘so what’ exhaustion.

The conundrum at the heart of this, is: how can you make a film about a group of sophisticated, pretentious, self-indulgent excessive artists or, more properly, for the majority, pseudo-artists, without your own art-work being subsumed into the gorgeous soft porn, sated, over-indulged luscious skin and vision-fest you are portraying.

I was not completely certain, despite the wit in the script, the gorgeousness of the vistas and especially the stunning, stylish women, which the camera lingers lovingly over, in their often naked voluptuousness, whether what I was watching was art, or merely another excuse to show beautiful women naked, and a parade of ageing powerful men clustered like vampires in a feeding frenzy round succulent female flesh.

The central character, through whose eyes we ingest Rome’s beauty, fiddling whilst – not necessarily Rome, but life itself, burns and is destroyed, is Jep Gambardella, a 65 year old journalist, of acerbic, mordant pen. Jep is lionised by his society, he is, as he always wanted to be, a mover and a shaker, and delights in being the sort of man who attends the best and wildest and excessive gatherings, but is not only the man who attends those parties – but the man whose dismissive words can make those parties FAIL. Once, many years ago he wrote a novel which was praised high, now he makes and unmakes reputations.

The unseen presence which stalks through the film is the grim reaper; death. Although it is hearing of the death of his first love which brings existential despair up close and personal for Jep, we see through his eyes, as he plunges into the swings and roundabouts of parties, sex, and spectacle that he (and all around) are doing this to stop awareness of the knowledge that we are all on that journey to the grave.

The film swings constantly between the overindulgence of spectacle, movement, noise and distraction, and silence, emptiness, spaciousness, some kind of surrendering acceptance, as exemplified by the presence of a 103 year old nun, soon to be canonised. However, the spectacle of the lizard-faced, decrepit nun crawling in suffering penance on hands and knees up a flight of stairs as part of her spiritual, saintly journey, is no particular solace either.

The performances, (especially Toni Servillo as Gambardella) are all impeccable, the whole filmic quality of the piece is lush, wonderful, artful, but at the end I was left looking for something which I’m not certain I found – something to value, some quality of heart. In some ways, though the characters in this piece have a sophistication and finesse, and a stylish wit and brio, which makes them at least knowingly witty company, I was left with the same feeling of distaste for humankind which reading Bret Easton Ellis’s The Laws of Attraction gave me. And the point of that comparison, is that this is as partial and incomplete a view of humankind (very little that is kind, in this) as the other side unreal saccharine view of traditional Hollywood. This was a world peopled pretty well by only the stunningly beautiful or the Fellini-esque grotesque. It missed the extraordinary of ordinary itself.

As filmic spectacle, it is indeed splendid, but is it more than just a very finely lacquered mind-game to be dissected and debated. And is that enough?

The Great Beauty Amazon UK
The Great Beauty Amazon USA

The Wall (Die Wand)

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Die Wand, Film review, Julian Roman Polsler, Marlen Haushofer, Martina Gedeck, The Wall

As powerful and plangent as the book : deepening mirrors

I came to this 2013 filmed version on the back of reading Marlen Haushofer’s 1968 published book. Indeed, the republication of the book, and its reaching a new and wider audience, has come precisely because of this film. We appear to have a virtuous circle going on, for once, in the relationship between the single writer’s vision and the collaborative vision of the film.

Normally wary of film adaptations of books which have strongly resonated, I might have passed Die Wand by, except for the fact that thoughtful reviews re-iterated the powerful sense evoked by the book, speaking of the patience, depth and meditative quietude and despair in the film. I’m so glad I trusted the sensibilities of the reviewers, because with this film, is something which deepens my earlier reading of the book – and the book itself is deepened by the dynamics of vision, sound and embodiment of the narrator in Martina Gedeck’s deep performance The film, directed by Julian Roman Polsler runs for 108 minutes, and can be watched with German or English narration, and is also subtitled. I chose to have Gedeck’s voiceover, and English subtitles. A performance of this truth needs no other interpreter getting between actor and viewer, in my opinion.

The word which the film owns is ‘reverence’ – not a sterile reverence for Haushofer’s strange and disturbing book about the only woman left alive, in a lonely landscape, after some cataclysmic event has turned all life outside her Alpine valley to stone – but a reverence for the living world itself, for authenticity, and for, in Haushofer’s words, love as the rational choice. Not the gushy gushy of sentimentality, but a respect for the nature of matter, of the living and the dying of things, of the tangled, interconnecting web which human being alone have choices about – often taking the wrong paths of enmity and hatred.

Certainly this is not a film to satisfy if what is wanted is a ‘what happens next’ as, like the book, itself, a journal written by the narrator over four months as she looks back over her two years since ‘the end’, as she waits, implacably, for her own, time is looked forward to and back. There is no fast cutting, there is the slow pace of the breathing landscape, the camera and the actor observing the stillness. In this, it reminds me of the film Into Great Silence, an uspoken filmic observance of life in a Carthusian Monastery.

The transformation of the city dwelling narrator, as Gedeck inhabits her (it is a performance of inhabitation and revelation rather than of demonstration) in her designer cream frock, full faced and jittery, to the shorn haired figure, like one of the Fates, staring into the inevitability of whatever new or old may befall, is haunting.

The spacious empty soundtrack, except for Gedeck’s voiceover of occasional phrases from her journal, and the natural sounds, is perfectly deepened by the underlining, sparing use of a Bach partita, melancholy and haunting, perfectly balanced in its plenitude and its emptiness.

Forgive the purpling prose, this/these, (film and book, book and film) are fully what they are, to be experienced by their next reader/viewer, who will enter into their own relationship with both film and book

Die Wand (The Wall) Amazon UK
Die Wand (The Wall) Amazon USA

The Broken Circle Breakdown

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Belgium, Bluegrass, Country Music, Felix van Groeningen, Film review, Johan Heldenberg, Nell Cattrysse, The Broken Circle Breakdown, Veerle Baetens

Lacerating and heart-breaking, beautifully told and with fine music

On the face of it, this is a simple and alas reasonably common tale : – man and woman meet, fall in love, have a time of bliss, and a child, who intensifies and changes their bliss, and then some tragedy strikes the child, and everything is changed utterly, and unravels into pain all the way.

This isn’t too much of a spoiler, as the opening of the film shows a small child in hospital, being talked through receiving something intravenously, and we see from the parents’ expressions this is not going to be good, and immediately the viewer knows where we are heading.

Any individual story is only going to work if we engage with the protagonists, though surely a suffering child almost automatically is going to grab most of us by the throat, sinew, gut and heart, squeeze and not let go. I must admit from the very beginning I was short of breath, and saying ‘oh no, no, no’

However, there has to be some leaven to get the viewer through this and this Belgian film, directed by Felix van Groeningen, manages its leaven spectacularly, both in filmic, narrative terms and the excellence of the 3 leads.

Elise (Veerle Baetens) is a quirky young woman who owns a tattoo parlour. She meets Didier (Johan Heldenberg, who also co-wrote the script) a blue-grass musician in love with America and its country music. The wonderful, intricate music runs through the film, as the band achieves greater success and scenes take in concerts from little smoky dives to larger stadiums.

The structure of the film (and it works stunningly) is non-linear, as over 7 years of relationship cuts between different moments of past and present. The audience is pretty well in the know of ‘what happens next’ all the way through, so what we focus on is the how and the internal psychology of the individuals. Intercut with this is the friction between faith (Elise) and atheism (Didier) and the wider way in which politics, medical research and individual lives collide.

Baetens and Heldenberg offer beautifully raw, real performances, and are un-airbrushed and unsentimental.

Johan Heldenberg, Veerle Baetens

However – I mentioned 3 leads – little Nell Cattrysse as Maybelle, Elise and Didier’s daughter, will not so much break your heart as rip it in pieces.

No doubt this review is screaming at the more sensitive – avoid, avoid, but, there is real joy and sweetness within it, and the savour and fizz of life, the upsides as well as the downs, are engaged with. The non-linear narrative inserts slivers of the very very good and the very very painful cheek by jowl with each other. And this is how life is.

A strong heart and a day of equanimity might be needed for this beautiful rendition of If I Needed You by Baetens and Heldenberg

Belgium’s entry for Best Foreign Language film for the 2014 Oscar nominations

I received this DVD as a review copy as part of the Amazon Vine programme, UK

The Broken Circle Breakdown Amazon UK
The Broken Circle Breakdown Amazon USA

Child’s Pose

Tags

Berlin International Film Festival, Child's Pose, Film review, Golden Bear, Luminiţa Gheorghiu, Romanian Film, Vlad Ivanov

Corruption and a dysfunctional family in modern Romania

I’m a little unsure why the Romanian film Child’s Pose won the Golden Bear (Best Film) at the Berlin Film Festival, outside some fabulous performers by the actors, particularly Luminiţa Gheorghiu, on whose back this film really rests. The performers are truthful, understated, intense, especially Gheorghiu as Cornelia, a sophisticated moneyed architect, for whom money and corrupt power go hand in hand, who believes everything can be bought, including justice. Cornelia is also an exceptionally, almost pathologically, controlling person, in her personal relationships, as well as those she has with members of the wider society.

Barbu, Georghiu’s dysfunctional adult son, (played by Bogdan Dumitrache) who barely speaks to his stiflingly over-protective mother, kills a young boy whilst recklessly driving over the speed limit.

The film charts Cornelia’s cynical attempts to bribe witnesses, buy out opposition, subvert police procedures whilst showing absolutely no sensitivity or empathy whatsoever towards the un-powerful, ordinary family who have lost their young son. Cornelia has little, if any, nobility of character, and neither she, her feckless son, her ineffectual husband (Domnul Fagarasanu) or the various people she corrupts or may corrupt if the payment she makes is high enough, have much to like about them. A scene with Vlad Ivanov as another driver at the accident scene is particularly charged and powerful, his character matching Cornelia’s in unforgiving steel.

Why, given some terrific performances, was I left a little unsure about the film?

To be honest, some elements of the story line – notably Barbu’s peculiar obsessions which border on to some sort of OCD – seem a little gratuitously tacked on, and the revelations which came out in the scene between Cornelia and Carmen, Barbu’s partner, (Ilinca Goia) almost seemed like a subplot without a home, rather than something which really added depth to any of the characters.

As a film (as opposed to the dramatic or psychological aspects) there were some curious choices made in camera work – which at times almost seemed amateur, in terms of how some scenes, particularly at the start of the film were panned. I wondered in fact whether this was perhaps `a student film’ because the camera work seemed so unsophisticated and uneven

A standout performance then, from Georghiu, who absolutely carries the film, 5 stars – but her light makes a reasonably good film (okay, 3 star) appear more than it is

The film is directed by Calin Peter Netzer, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Razvan Radulescu

Romanian Film, English subtitles

I received this DVD as part of the Amazon Vine UK programme
Child’s Pose Amazon UK

The Silence

Tags

Anna Lena Klenke, Baran bo Odar, Burghart Klaussner, Film review, German Cinema, Jule Böwe, Sebastian Blomberg, The Silence

From the Dark Side of The Psyche

Don’t expect ‘The Killing’ despite the DVD publicity cover by-line – this is not a who-done-it, it’s not even particularly a why-done-it (though that does get revealed,though its isn’t particularly the point of the film) The crime and the perpetrators are clear within minutes of the start of the film. The journey of the film is the effect of the rape and murder of a child upon the lives of the community – a bit like dropping a stone into a pond, and setting off wider and wider ripples. It isn’t an on-the-edge-of-your-seat sort of film, its a settling ever more steadily into darkness, dysfunction, despair. In keeping with the title of this German-with-subtitles film, there is indeed a lot of silence. Not just between people, but also a lot which goes unsaid, underneath the words which are being spoken, and also the silence within a person, trying to bury thoughts and words and memories which are horrific, foul or unbearable.

A very uncomfortable subject indeed – paedophilia, the rape and murder of a child opens the film, and the investigation of that crime, and the ‘copycat’ crime 23 years later is the exterior journey. The audience knows everything about this very quickly, so what we watch is character and relationship, and the exposition of damage. Perhaps startlingly the perpetrators are also handled with a judicious and cool eye. We, (the audience) are not allowed the comfort of purely dismissing them as monsters – horrible and unforgiveable though they are – they are shown to have the same need for connection with another human being as we all do. The director and actors manage a very difficult balancing act here. The crimes are appalling indeed, and we are asked, not to condone or to forgive the perpetrators but to nevertheless recognise that the ‘monster’ is an ordinary person as well as monstrous. The film flings the sometimes awful, uncomfortable truth that we want the good to be rewarded, the bad to get their just deserts, but life itself is not so tidy. Unlike Hollywood, there are no ‘wraps’; whatever happened, goes on happening.

To add to the disturbance, there are scenes of bright primary colours, yellow cornfields, blue skies, in fact the brightness of the colours are almost sickeningly so at times, whilst other scenes are shot very very darkly lit indeed. Uncomfortable viewing indeed, but again, unlike Hollywood splatter gore-fest films, this is in no way a gratuitous or sick film; its grimness is in its refusal to give the audience release, any more than the characters in the film are allowed release or ‘closure’. Sometimes, refusal to ‘resolve’, leaving the viewer uncomfortable and disturbed, is what makes a movie work.

I received this as an ARC from Amazon Vine UK

The Silence DVD Amazon UK
The Silence DVD Amazon USA

Petit Nicolas

Tags

Film review, French Cinema, Kad Merad, Laurent Tirard, Maxime Godart, Petit Nicolas, Valerie Lemercier

Cute beyond winsome, perfectly rescued by stylish, quirky charm

Set in 60s France, all in poster bright cartoon colours and a rather anarchic, slapstick performance style, this is a child’s eye view of the world.

Nicolas (an enchanting performance by serious faced Maxime Godart) mistakenly assumes his mother is pregnant and is afraid he will be abandoned and unwanted when the new baby arrives. With his goofy collection of young friends he embarks on various plans to get rid of the baby.

Meanwhile, his parents are worried about money, trying to climb the social ladder, currying favour with Nicolas’s father’s boss – a hilarious dinner party scene, where you know every single gag before it happens, but delight in the infectious, witty performances

This really is a totally feel-good film, but done with great wit and style, by all performers.

It is the quirkiness, the great look of the film, the expertise of the performances and somehow a lack of saccharine sentimentality that make this so good. I also appreciated the homely, rumpled, real lived in faces of the adult cast ((Valerie Lemercier and Kad Merad as Nicolas’ mama and papa appear innocent of a cosmetic surgeon’s knife! )

French Film, English subtitles, 91 minutes. Director Laurent Tirard. This really is a film that can be enjoyed by both children AND adults. In patronises neither audience, nor does it indulge or overplay its feel-good nature. The length of the film is just right and stops the good jokes and set pieces from overstaying their welcome
Petit Nicolas Amazon UK
Petit Nicolas Amazon USA

I received this as a review copy from the Amazon Vine Programme