FILM BLOG: APRIL

We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lynn Ramsey – DVD (7/4/12) As predictably harrowing as the novel’s premise, Lynn Ramsey does fitting and powerful justice to a very troubling story. The eerie soundtrack (that premeditates the tapping water of garden sprinklers- a key and unsettling element of the film’s disturbing scene of final violence) is innovatively arranged and written by Jonny Greenwood (having already explored inventive film music in There Will be Blood and Norwegian Wood). Tilda Staunton gives a very strong and arresting performance as the tortured mother, while Ezra Miller excels as the adolescent Kevin (he perfects a twisted smile of malevolence). Not only mastering a non linear fragmentation in the film’s first half (effectively building the portrait of a woman haunted by the past, lost in the present and bleakly coming to terms with what might constitute the future) but also creating some very memorable shots, brilliantly utilizing light and striking compositions (For instance: Tilda Staunton’s gaunt face framed by an expanse of Warhol-esque cans of soup, or later, sitting in the ghostly emptiness of a hospital corridor, holding a garishly discordant multitude of children’s balloons – both serving as dramatic examples of masterful control and calculated visual flare.  Having had everything she loves destroyed by what she created; the mother is left with lonely and unnerving challenge of understanding the destroyer. Before the film’s emotive and chilling influence had truly settled (i.e. very early on), it occurred to me that We Need to Talk About Kevin could be perhaps be the most hard hitting and torturously labored advert for durex ever conceived: ‘If they had stayed safe…We Would Never Have Had to Talk About Kevin’. However, such whimsical digressive thoughts were soon dispelled by the compulsive and immersive nature of the film. 8.5/10

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo – Jessica Oreck – DVD (22/4/12) A documentary tracing the unique fascination, in Japenese culture and history, with insects. From the chirruping Crickets that are valued for their varying ambient ‘songs’ (produced through a process called ‘stridulation’ whereby one serrated wing is rubbed against the respective teeth of its other wing- the notion that the noise is created by rubbing their legs together is a myth…or so the entomological fountain of knowledge: Wikipedia, informs me!). Anyways, the documentary fuses poetry, philosophy, anthropology, bizarre and brilliant visuals and a memorable soundtrack to create a thoroughly immersive, entertaining and moving cinematic experience. Becoming much more than a factual account, Oreck’s film tactfully blends between poetic shots, redolent of essay film experimentation, eccentric voice over information (ranging from the social observations of contemporary Japan, folklore, science, poetry and philosophy), candid interviews – all alongside the raw, unadulterated footage of a day to day involvement with this under exposed and eccentric topic. Giant Luna Moths, pinned butterflies, fighting beetles, emperors and gadflies, warriors and dragonflies and the boxed song of crickets. It is an original, fascinating and, at times beautifully hypnotic, documentary that manages to convey spiritual depth without affectation or cringe-worthy navel gazing. A film that reaffirms what Western materialism, amongst other unfortunate pastimes, has engulfed, ignored and eclipsed: a simple enchantment with the natural world.

       An innate appreciation opposed to the neurotic hunger to change, improve or defend against nature, or more commonly to repress any trace or interaction with nature. When cockroaches and maggots are wheeled out in bucket loads for cheap entertainment in the car crash charades of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! The shock game show sensationalism that snooty conservatives of British Television would traditionally relate to ‘Trashy Japanese Gameshows’ of yesteryear, it seems we (in all our Western gameshow glory) are now inhabiting the stereotype that was reserved for a misjudged colonial ‘them’. I am not saying that Japan is not without its extravagantly bizarre gameshows, far from it: women tying raw meat to their heads, and then placing said vulnerable craniums  (loaded with blood red meaty temptation) into the tank of a Komodo Dragon…it’s out there. A simple Google search of ‘Japanese Gameshows’ will confirm this. But what I am, tangentially, suggesting is that this film communicates a value we undoubtedly are in danger of overlooking. It is the simplicity, tangible wonder and crawling, flying joy of insects. Viva la woodlouse! Hail mighty housefly! Praise the carapace, consecrate the six limbs, crown the antennae, worship the moth and…well, watch the film. 8/10

Volver – Pedro Almodovar – DVD (27/4/12) A tale of family, love, death, ghosts and deception, all told with a gently dark sense of humour. Alberto Iglesias’ score over the final credits is brilliant- but not as intense or memorable as the soundtrack to the, ultimately more tense, The Skin I live In. A terrific partnership between Director and composer…calls to mind other great patnerships, or a contemplation of the chemistry between film and music-which directors use which composers and why, how those relationships are fostered, change and mature. Thinking of Alfred Hitchcock and Bernerd Herrman, Daren Aranofsky and Clint Mansell, David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, and recently the interesting relationship between David Fincher’s The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Trent Reznor’s electronic accompaniment. Returning to the film, it feautures a brilliant performance by Penelope Cruz (playing the short tempered and emotional lead with effortless charisma and seductive scene stealing beauty), meanwhile Blanco Portillo provides a gripping and nuanced performance of the quietly strong Augustina, desperate to discover the truth about her mother before her inevitable death. 7.5/10

The Headless Woman – Lucrecia Martel – DVD (28/4/12) The film manages to take a potentially simple occurrence and swamp its subsequent aftermath and telling with a complex, unsettling, compelling and disorientating atmosphere. The film follows the life of Verónica, an upper class Spanish woman who, at the very start of the film has a car accident. We see her look in the wing mirror at what appears to be the slumped body of a (now dead) dog, presumably the cause of the car’s abrupt halt and a resulting ominous thud. From this moment on, her character becomes ambiguously detached from her day-to-day existence, seeming remote, anxious and melancholy. Our viewing experience matches Verónica’s altered mentality after the accident: it becomes a film in which certainty is replaced by a haunted suspicion and we are left wondering what exactly did happen? Did she hit a dog – or, when she confesses to having killed someone do we believe her? Is she loosing a grip on reality, or is her reality unhinged by a trauma now repressed? We begin to inhabit the same space of paranoia and isolation, never quite at ease with exactly why, or even who. The film manages to remain compulsive without ever delivering the action, explanation or resolution that a conclusive clarity or understanding aches for. Much of the film’s power radiates from María Onetto’s central performance as Verónica. She conveys the distress of her emotional instability with a helpless poignancy, carrying the suffering of an event which remains unknowable while enacting, with naturalistic and understated expression, the quiet desperation of a damaged mind struggling against a trauma which evades understanding or satisfying reconstruction. The film consequently becomes indirectly suggestive of both Lynch’s Mullholland Drive and Bergman’s Persona, however without the undercurrent of surrealism, in its depiction of a woman’s descent into psychological disarray. It lingers long after watching and, for all its lack of action and cinematic adrenaline, builds an impressively original and disturbing atmosphere. 9/10

That Obscure Object of Desire – Luis Bunuel – DVD (28/4/12) The film begins with a man climbing aboard a train, he sees a young woman running alongside the train and somehow manages to acquire a bucket of water: he throws the water at her-competently drenching the poor wench. Once in his train cabin, the other passengers nearby (a woman and her child, an old man he happens to know from court and a dwarf who studies Psychology) are intrigued to know the story behind this bucket- based station altercation: and so begins the narrative of That Obscure Object of Desire.

Needlesly Cynical and Comprehensive Plot Synopsis: (many, many SPOILERS alert)

A bearded man (Fernando Rey), resembling an aristocratic Alan Sugar or a slightly slimmed and elongated Tom Jones meets a woman he falls hopelessly in love with. He appears to be around the sixty mark, she meanwhile is a casual eighteen years old. He seems to woo her with a combination of money, sharp dressed swagger and persistence. This woman bizarrely changes, without anyone mentioning or acknowledging the change, from one beautiful dark haired actress to inexplicably be replaced by another insanely beautiful (but entirely different) dark haired actress- both playing the same character. Their ill fated affair ends in his realization that, unsurprisingly she was never really into him and was in fact stringing him along to the point at which he bought her a house and entrusted her with a key. Once given the key, she closes an iron gate whereupon he is locked out and subjected to her triumphant laughter. She wins: the wealthy older man seduced and deceived by the cunning young temptress. She reveals she was in fact sleeping with a much younger and handsome fella, who is allowed to wander from the shadows once the gate is shut. She then proceeds to strip off and taunt the poor elderly gentleman with the spectacle of her having sex with her real lover. Several unexplained changes betwixt each actress later she attempts to demonstrate that the man was actually a homosexual, the whole thing being a charade, and yes she does still in fact love him. The older man (our crisp suit sporting protagonist) slaps her around a little bit (in a time when such fits of physical outrage were only proper for a man in his position), livid that she has returned after humiliating him so severely. This leads us chronologically to him alighting the train, soaking her on the station and entrusting the motley crew of passengers with his farcical tale. Meanwhile, what he doesn’t know is that Concitta (his mercurial lover) has boarded the train too. She has found a reciprocal bucket of water and, after our man has finished his raconteur act, she appears at the cabin doorway and drenches him. Yadda yadda yadda…they somehow patch things up and start a life again together. The whole film takes place against a backdrop of street terrorism, car bombs and gang attacks etc. At the very end of the film our lovers are walking hand in hand in a shopping arcade (after staring at a seamstress in a shop-window weaving patterns on a blood stained fabric) when an explosion engulfs the frame of vision. The final shot is of the flames, billowing explosion and smoke- characters lost from sight and potentially, and very much fatally, dead. Freeze frame…Roll dem credits!

Moving on…

The intriguing casting of two actresses (Carole Bouquet and Ángela Molina) to play one role was suggested by Bunuel following a decisive argument he had with Maria Schneider, the actress originally intended for the role. The use of the two actresses works in a fascinating manner, reflecting changes of temperament and aesthetically adding an unexpected dimension to the film. Despite my cynical round up of the narrative it was an enjoyable and definitely interesting film (undeserving of random derision!). Thematically the film taps into notions of sexual gratification and its role within love, the tension between male and female desires, desire as a mysterious and misleading force and of course, Bunuel’s latent distaste for bourgeois affectations. Desire as an absence and the distinctly surrealist fixation with the female form- as the ‘obscure object of desire’, all provide the film with plenty of insightful moments for anyone intrigued by Bunuel’s particular surrealist sensibility. It was Bunuel’s last ever film.  7/10 

War Horse – Steven Spielberg - DVD – A film of classic family Spielberg sentimentalism that, for the most part, fulfills its blockbuster objectives and entertains with emotive competence. While I don’t feel the need to attack it with the venomous critique that Peter Bradshaw so mercilessly deployed: ‘Suffused in a buttery-digital glow, as if shot on special film made of liquid fudge, Steven Spielberg's disappointing, coercively sentimental version of War Horse has a baffling, soulless, artificial look’ – I am still pretty reserved with praise. The combination of John Williams’ score, with its insistent heavy-handed emotional signposting, and Spielberg’s lighting, that all too lovingly evokes a cinema of saccharine pastoral landscapes, earnest twinkling eyes and a consecration of the family unit to the point of moralistic syrup…can all become pretty trying. I think also, at some point on the Kermode and Simon Mayo podcast the comment: ‘War Horse: Why the long film?’ surfaced…and yep, it could do with being a bit less lengthy. However, as a family film fashioned with care, convincingly acted and replete with spectacle it delivers. 6/10

Blue Valentine – Derek Cianfrance – DVD –A film that explores the untidy death of a relationship; a realistic, moving and unflinching portrayal of how love and life exhaust each other. Both Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams give terrific performances, making for a genuinely compelling, flawed and believable couple. The dialogue is interesting and well written, with the film’s aesthetic palette reflecting its honest tone with colours, scenes and settings devoid of glamour and shot with a subdued sense of (that overused cliché) ‘grit’. 8/10

Troll Hunter -  Andre Ovredal (missing appropriate Nordic accents…as I cant find them currently) – DVD – A ‘found footage’ documentary that follows a small group of students who stumble upon the fact that Trolls live! A fantastic, fun, at times hilarious…all together impressively enjoyable! It is truly refreshing (especially in the saturated sub genre of ‘found footage’) to see such a fantastical, fairytale creature visually realized with such serious detail and flair. It is the serious, straight faced nature of the film that lends it its humour, excitement and charming emotion. A lot could be said about this film, but far more enticing and immediate is the need to express just how fun it is. Not a long film and not a film that explicitly tries for comedy or the acceptance of horror fans in buckets of blood it is instead a humble beast…a ruddy lovable troll. 8/10

HESTER'S HOTEL : Extract from a Short Story

HESTER'S HOTEL

The old man stared at the boy with flowers in his arms, ‘Come in, come in-you shouldn’t have…. thanks.’ The old man placed the flowers on the desk by the wall, above which was a smudged mirror, unremarkable and large, and in the corner a small black television on an extendable bracket. ‘Mum says you’re dying’ the young boy said without emotion. ‘Yes, well your Mum says a lot of things, we all know that’. ‘She said she was there when the doctors told you’. A short silence fell between them.

            ‘I still have a while, so,’ he coughed: a croaking convulsion that threw his head forward into a closed and wrinkled fist. ‘I suppose you’re wondering what your old Granddad has been up to, these last coupla months- what does an old man like myself find to do in these’ he opened his arms wide, gesturing to the shabby room ‘these inspiring quarters’. ‘No, not really’ the boy answered, without looking up. The old man made a short disgruntled noise, half way between awkwardly clearing his throat and starting a wordless sentence. He drew the cheap blinds to reveal a cracked concrete patio.

            The hotel room looked out over a small and parched field, at the end of which ran a nearby and busy motorway. To the left of the hotel was a small garage with two pumps, a small shop and an illogically large car park. The old man was called Hester and he had been living in room 213, of the Hounslow Grange Hotel, for just over a month. His room had oatmeal carpet, fraying near the door and turned up by the patio double doors. Already he had made the bare cell of a room a bizarre testament to his curious enthusiasms.

Scattered around the foot of the bed were three cheap and garish garden gnomes (one with a fishing rod, one with a wheelbarrow and one smoking a pipe on a large red and white mushroom). On the desk were two large oak cabinets. In the first cabinet were a series of stuffed rodents. Taxidermy had been a long-standing trademark oddity of Hester’s. For Will, his grandson and the bearer of the garage flowers, he had fashioned a road-kill squirrel into a tweed suit and glued a deerstalker hat upon its head. The curious ‘Sherlock Squirrel’ was deemed inappropriate as a christening present and besides, at that point Hester was still perfecting his art. This had lent his botch job preservation the amateur look of a malevolent cuddly toy, about to split at the seams.  The assorted gerbils in this particular oak cabinet were far more professional. The scene was meticulously laid out to recreate the JFK assassination, but , of course, with gerbils. History had also been a growing obsession throughout Hester’s life. Piled beside his single bed was a stack of esoteric titles: Blood and the Tsar: Bones of the Peasantry, Osiris and the Starred Ceiling, The Sunflower Battalion, Hitler’s Dog: One Way or Another, The Magic Circle and Necromancy, and, rather incongruously a dog eared copy of Ben Elton’s Dead Famous.

‘I do keep myself busy. I have to, I mean I’m sure you wouldn’t think about that, you have school and, or is it college?’ A brief silence followed, in which Will dutifully ignored the question. ‘But, as you can imagine it can get boring. And, like me, if you know the end is nigh, well, that won’t do will it? Can’t be bored in your last days. No… Come outside, we can sit down.’ He beckoned for Will to follow him; unlocking the patio doors he let the sound of the motorway buzz into the dank room. Slowly hobbling through the blinds and on to the meagre patio (consisting of five slabs of grey concrete, three of which were fissured with weeds) Hester scraped two plastic garden chairs next to each other. Will emerged, squinting in the sunlight and took a chair next to his Granddad.

‘So I listen to music, from 8 till 9 (I get up at 8, I mean often people at my age will rise earlier but I have never been that way inclined) at 9 I walk down to the garage and pick up two Ginsters pasties, a carton of orange juice and an apple. I don’t have a microwave, but often the man at the garage will heat them up, if not, I don’t mind them cold. I return to my room and nap till lunch. I finish lunch around 1:30, after which I stroll beside the motorway looking for dead animals. If I find any, I will spend the afternoon stuffing, or thinking about stuffing said animal. I haven’t been very lucky lately. I normally nap then till evening. Then I’m liable to get drunk and write, I still write a lot, or, if it’s a Friday I go down to wait in the car park. On Friday a coupla locals hang there and I can score. Are you surprised at that?’ Will maintained his habitual silence. ‘Old Hester, your granddad, scores? I take drugs. I mean, I’m on drugs for-well, you know. But these guys bring all sorts. Normally just weed or pills – often had that MDMA stuff. It comes highly recommended. I find myself sometimes staring, sometimes hungry, and sometimes desperately clawing through the T.V. channels for something vaguely pornographic. I won’t order the adult channels. I’m not a sad-case. Seriously.  I tend to think, what would Rose think (if she were here) to see me, drugged up and masturbating to pay per view nonsense, so I don’t. I just search in vain for some paltry bland substitute. Maybe an old film with a topless scene, maybe just a music channel (have you seen those, might as well be…well, they’re best on mute). But there is no need for me to be so sordid. As I said, I’m still writing, still reading, still listening to music and still writing (I said that?) and still here, for now. A lot to be thankful for.’

Will calmly scratched the few hairs that were starting to fluff in pubescent promise on his chin ‘Do you think you’ve lost it Grandad? I mean, it sounds like you’ve lost it.’

‘Lost it? No, I’m embracing it!’

‘I think that’s the same thing.’

‘Well, it really shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be.’

            They both sat staring at the endless stream of traffic that blurred beyond the field. Hester scratched the lime plastic arm of his chair and cleared his throat. Minutes passed, the sun fell behind a cloud and shadows moved across the featureless outside wall of Hester’s room. Looking down beside his feet Will noticed a small graveyard of bottle tops and stubbed out cigarettes. He wondered whether he was bored. Looking at Hester it was hard to feel very much at all. Except perhaps that the large grey shirt he was wearing looked like it should smell, maybe it did, flaring his nostrils he tried to ascertain any unsavoury smells emanating from Hester’s slumped form.

‘I’ll read you a poem!’ Hester exclaimed breaking the silence in a spasm of delight. Wisely not waiting for Will to respond, he struggled out of his chair and disappeared back into the room. Will picked up a bottle top and held it up to the sky. Closing one eye and squinting with the other he moved it in front of the sun. Using the gold beer top to eclipse the sun he held in front of his eye like a gold coin, slowly compressing finger and thumb to bend the metal- he allowed the sunshine to flood back into vision, assaulting his sight with a pageant of purple splodges. He kept staring, mildly hoping he might go blind.

‘Here we go’ Hester emerged clutching a napkin adorned with an angry mess of scrawled bryro crossings out. ‘It’s not that great, still a draft obviously, but I think-’ ‘Just read it’ Will interrupted. ‘You’re right, nothing worse than prevarication. It’s called Miraculous Accident or Check Spam for Details.’ He grinned, waiting for Will to comment on the ingeniously unexpected title. Will of course did not comment. Only slightly disappointed, Hester began:

‘A poltergeist peal of long dead laughter canned so many, many sitcoms ago.

A sophisticated mouse collapses at the airport, tiny suitcases skid across the marble floor.

To return to the dead laughter: Do you ever think that way about

            Porn?

A morbid profundity, or just perversely wed

To the pessimism

Of what is dead.

‘If it bleeds it leads’ Protects against tooth decay. Ah Muerte! For dinner we are

Relaxing the etiquette. For not every man is a disciple, not every disciple follows

God. I am bored; he spouts the sprocket until colours are without a spectrum:

Each one a tenacious nomad belching for attention. Well, that’s enough. Shake me down.

A Crayola sunset, against which the silhouette of a kite dangling a hooked worm

Seems perhaps inevitable, but no less surprising than its occurrence, if purely

Chance, would have appeared. The always white of a reimagined canvas with

A red feather at its heart.

Don’t leave the hotel. Don’t ever leave the hotel.’

His voice ended, the sound of traffic returned. The sun was hidden behind a cloud, its late afternoon rays occasionally breaking through various gaps like pins pushed through a cushion. ‘I’m not sure I liked it’ Will offered, turning to look at Hester in the eyes for the first time.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s sad’

‘Why is it sad?’

‘That you are here, drinking on your own, listening to music, eating garage food, close to death and writing poems that no one will ever read.’

‘Someone might read them’

‘Who?’

‘After I die, I want you to publish my writing, I have it all in the bottom draw of the desk- there’s at least a book’s worth.’

‘You serious?’

‘Deadly.’

‘No one will want to read it, why would they? I had no idea what it meant. What does it mean?’

‘What do you mean What does it mean? Did you really just say that?’

Hester stared glumly into the distance, deeply offended, and then, to himself muttered something incoherently. Will could just about make out the words ‘Mother’, ‘Better’ and he thought ‘Margritte’-or it could have been ‘My feet’.

            ....

A Recent Collage of Mollusc-made Origin :

Selected Poetry and my Photography

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

-From 'Morning Song', by Sylvia Plath (in Ariel)

When Night is almost done -
And Sunrise grows so near
That we can touch the Spaces -
I'ts time to smooth the Hair -

And get the dimples ready -
And wonder we could care
For that old - faded Midnight -
That frightened - But an Hour -

- Emily Dickinson '347' , in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson

To a Child Dancing in the Wind


Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not yet known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of the wind?

                                                       -W. B. Yeats

No one knows what it's about anymore.
Even in the beginning one had grave misgivings
but the enthusiasm of departure swept them away
in the green molestation of spring.
We were given false information on which
our lives were built, a pier
extending far out into a swollen river.
Now, even these straws are gone.

- From 'On the Empress's Mind', by John Ashbery (in Hotel Lautreamont)

Then everything, in her belief, was to be submerged
And soon. There was no life you could live out to its end
And no attitude which, in the end, would save you.
The monkish and the frivolous alike were to be trapped in
       death's capacious claw
But listen while I tell you about the wallpaper -
There was a key to everything in that oak forest
But a sad one. Ever since childhood there
Has been this special meaning to everything.
You smile at your friend's joke, but only later, through tears.

- From 'The Ecclesiast', by John Ashbery (in Rivers and Mountains)

None of this makes any difference to professional exiles like
       me, and that includes everybody in the place.
We go on sipping our coffee, thinking dark or transparent
       thoughts . . .

- From 'The Skaters', by John Ashbery (in Rivers and Mountains)

XVII


Because your voice was at my side
     I gave him pain,
Because within my hand I held
     Your hand again.

There is no word nor any sign
    Can make amend -
He is a stranger to me now
    Who was my friend.

- James Joyce, from Chamber Music

              Tears


         are shed, and every day
Workers recover
the bloated cadavers
of lovers or lover
who drown in cars this way.

And they crowbar the door
and ordinary stories pour,
furl, crash, and spill downhill -
as water will - not orient,
nor sparkling, but still.


- Michael Donaghy (in Conjure)

Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given

These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes

Six sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair

Touching and melting.
Nowhere.


- From 'The Night Dances', by Sylvia Plath (in Ariel)

March Films

Annie Hall – Woody Allen – DVD - A simply fantastic comedy, written with razor sharp wit and delivered with all the endearing neurosis of Woody Allen at his best. Some of the most memorable, quotable, Woody Allen moments in this film are beautifully balanced and facilitated by Diane Keaton’s genuinely quirky (unlike new venerations of ‘kooky’, that prescribe to the belief that a pair of unnecessary geek chic glasses and a love of The Smiths constitutes character) performance. 9/10

A collection of quotes:

 Alvy Singer: Here, you look like a very happy couple, um, are you?

Female Street stranger: Yeah.

Alvy Singer: Yeah? So, so, how do you account for it?

Female Street stranger: Uh, I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say.

Male Street stranger: And I'm exactly the same way.

Alvy Singer: I see. Wow. That's very interesting. So you've managed to work out something?

…

[after Annie parks the car]

Alvy Singer: Don’t worry. We can walk to the curb from here.

…

Alvy Singer: A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.

…

Annie Hall: So I told her about, about the family and about my feelings towards men and about my relationship with my brother. And then she mentioned penis envy. Do you know about that?

Alvy Singer: Me? I'm, I'm one of the few males who suffers from that.

…

Alvy Singer: Sylvia Plath - interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college girl mentality.

…

[Alvy questions an old man on the street about his sex life]

Alvy Singer: With your wife in bed, does she need some kind of artificial stimulation, like, like marijuana?

Old Man on street: We use a large vibrating egg. 

The Tree of Life – Terrence Malick – DVD – If ever a film to seek out at the cinema…this would be it. The DVD I had even kindly suggested that the film was intended to be heard loud…so I obediently clutched the remote and, to my brother’s annoyance, increased the volume with excitable abandon. It is, without reserve, a film of epic ambition. The film creates a vastly symphonic and poetic meditation on the existence of God and creation – as inspired and explored through a tragedy of loss that befalls an American suburban family. Managing to soar through images of galaxies, solar activity, crashing waves, volcanoes and a jaw-dropping (near psychedelic) array of natural wonders, Malick tackles the history of life. Not exactly mumble-core or understatement…this could be a visualized enactment of America’s elusive desire to find the American Novel – just with added scale. A feeling underlined by Nick James’ comment that ‘Malick looks increasingly like the unconscious father of modern American cinema’, looming large like the literary heavy hitters, enshrined in the American consciousness (a la Whitman, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner).

The film’s human pulse emanates from a fractured sub urban family, played with convincing brilliance by Brad Pitt (the father), Jessica Chastain (the mother) and most notably of the three boys: Hunter McCracken (whose older self is played by Sean Penn). After witnessing the death of a friend, the boy (played by McCracken) begins to unravel gradually developing into a brooding and awkward presence, teetering on the edge of violence. At its most disturbing this begins to echo in thoughts of killing his father and uncontrolled urges of violence (at one point resulting in the unfortunate demise of a frog strapped to a rocket… pretty funny to reference, but horrifically redolent of the casual fascination with power and death that can grip children). However, at no point does this narrative of family drama and growing up play out with conventional action, or scenes of extended dialogue. Instead these scenes (beautifully shot by DP Emmanuel Lubezki) act as sporadic grounding for the tidal ambition of the film’s spiritual and cosmic scope. At its best, the film achieves an awe inspiring and jaw dropping majesty (conducive to a naf and befuddled clutching for clichés) in which sweeping classical scores (from Bach, Mozart and Brahms to Preisner and Tavener) build into crescendos of, literally astronomical, beauty. Never before have I been near bleary eyed at the sight of astronomical photography… Patrick Moore would bloody love it. At times, the sheer grandeur and visual bombast of the film comes close to moments of overkill. Instead of the abstract poetry speaking, at times the questions of nature and grace are labored; the film occasionally had me wondering how David Attenborough’s familiar tones of reverence would sit comfortably alongside the visual sermon I was receiving. To again quote Nick James’ article in Sight & Sound: ‘Even at it’s most clichéd and pious, the film is at the very least the most astonishing family-snapshot-screensaver you will ever see.’ Such moments were only ever slight and fleeting though, and to be fair, a near inevitable resonance when bravely confronting such philosophical and visual enormity. It is that bravery of vision which makes the film so impressively triumphant – to have the conviction to make a film of such magnitude…where shots of canyons, galaxies and dinosaurs glide into the surreal imaginings of memory, faith and family is…for want of a better word: inspiring. So, whether or not you feel at points like you might have slipped into a particularly melodramatic episode of Planet Earth, the masterful achievement of this film cannot be denied…and thankfully, in winning the Palme D’Or was rightfully recognized. At the end of the film, I felt an excitement for the next opportunity to watch it again…so many amazing images to revisit. Whether it was the eerie and beautiful twirling in the air of Jessica Chastain’s levitating body (recalling, with a less severely haunting tone, that memorable scene in Tarkovsky’s The Mirror), the dazzling fiery solar ripples, or even Brad Pitt’s gurning concentration as he plays a church organ, there is a wealth of moments to choose from. 10/10

The Serpent’s Egg – Ingmar Bergman – DVD – Having seen Through A Glass Darkly, Persona and Wild Strawberries, this was a pretty large let-down. Still, even David Lynch made Dune – so, in conclusion: being a genius is not mutually exclusive with the capacity to cock up. The film feels muddled in its story and confused in its tone. Only his second film to be in English, the dialogue suffers- feeling both clumsy and uncharacteristically devoid of developed thought. Character’s are left feeling shallow and blunt, even concluding with a painfully stereotypical Nazi villain (sparkling blond hair and dubious medical theories). The male lead, played by David Carradine, plays an out of work acrobat mourning the suicide of his brother. It is a bizarre premise for a character that, while intriguing as a concept, becomes impressively ignored by the film (in terms of its exploration and depth). Ultimately dull and, considering Bergman’s status and other work, an all round disappointment. The opening sequence, juxtaposing a slow motion black and white crowd (a sea of shuffling faces), with ridiculous jazz, was perhaps the film's most inspired moment. 3/10

Ivan’s Childhood – Andrei Tarkovsky -  Tarkovsky’s first feature film follows an orphaned child who is desperate to help in the war effort and is subsequently used for slipping, unnoticed, into German lines. Requiring far less patience than Tarkovsky’s later work, it offers intimations of the ambition and style he would later develop. Beautiful shots of Russian landscape, the dreamy spindling limbs of silver birch trees, swamplands and the desolation of war’s destruction, make the film a consistently visually engaging watch. 7/10

The Rite – Michael Håfstrom – This film feels heavily reliant upon Anthony Hopkins’ presence, which, although impressive, is not enough to carry a dull and uninspired film. Low on scares, lacking in depth, riddled with nauseating and unnecessary Americanisms that feel discordant with the attempted sombre tone, and a frustrating example of a great actor denied great material. Shame…could have been much more interesting, with more attention to building up a darker exploration of excorcism/being possessed/paranoia…and less distracting, flimsy character details it could have attained a bit more force. Highlights: Hopkins’ use of a welsh accent in a demonic context. Low points: the cameo of a donkey demon with red eyes to constitute the film’ scare factor. Optically odd mules and an abundance of (cute) frogs do not make for convincingly chilling viewing – or even interesting viewing. 3/10

The Brood – David Cronenberg – DVD – This essentially dull film, interspersed with psychopathic dwarfs wielding steak tenderizers and laughably clumsy dialogue, left me disappointed. Following a similar structure to his later (and more entertaining) film Scanners, The Brood maintains a solemn tone of suspense in which the audience is left waiting for a cathartic sequence of drama or climactic shock. Unfortunately the final sequences really don’t merit the badly acted, badly scripted and frustratingly absent ‘bodyhorror’ FX that Cronenberg later pioneered (at their best in Videodrome, The Fly and Naked Lunch).

       Following the therapy sessions of an unstable mother, manipulated by the sinister presence of stern therapist Oliver Reed, it is revealed that [Spoiler] our erratic female protagonist has spawned a homicidal clutch of, pretty pissed off, dwarfs. The eponymous ‘brood’ exists in correlation to her moods, becoming increasingly murderous if she gets angry. The psychosomatic spawn live in Oliver Reed’s attic, in what looks like a budget boarding school dormitory, leaving only to avenge the mental turmoil of their frizzy haired and melodramatic mother: jumping from cupboards, wandering into school with murderous intent and scrabbling from under the bed. The problem being (overlooking the immature pseudo psychoanalysis and awkwardly blundering portrayal of complex emotions) that The Brood never delivers the horror of its potential. Mutant children enacting the repressed desires of a mother loosing her sanity, the sinister encouragement of a dubious therapist and the vulnerability of the mother’s original and ‘normal’ child, could conspire to create a disturbing epic.

        Instead The Brood is a yawn inducing and highly unsatisfying missed opportunity. The only elements that hint at the film’s true potential manifest in the commanding presence of Oliver Reed and the final scene [Spoiler]: the mother lifts up her top (a bizarrely Roman-esque diaphanous gown) to reveal her warted body and the bulging amniotic sack that protrudes, in alien fashion, from her stomach. Her externalized womb, drooping like a diseased tumor, is then torn open freeing a motionless and bloodied fetus. She then begins, oh so naturally, to cradle the wee brood baby and lick the blood from its body. This shocking moment seems to align the maternal figure with a nightmarish deity; she kneels surrounded by pillows, the wings of her gown spread like ceremonial robes drawn apart to present the majesty of her creation. Or perhaps even a vampiric nuance, with the blood licking and bat-like sleeves. Either way it is an inventive and memorable scene that, rather than justifying the weakness that precedes it, reminds us how brilliant Croneberg can be and, consequently, how disappointing the film is. For more Cronenberg fleshly freakery seek out Videodrome and Naked Lunch. Although both of these films also struggle with dialogue, the effects and imagery are enjoyably innovative and make the stunted human portrayals worth enduring. 3/10

Dogtooth – Giorgos Lanthimos – DVD – A mother and father confine their three children (two girls and a boy), who are aged ambiguously around their late teens/early twenties, to the isolation of their house and garden. Language is reinvented (a ‘pussy’ is a lamp, a ‘zombie’ is a yellow flower), cats are said to be the most dangerous animals in existence, fish are born in swimming pools, aeroplanes are flying creatures that occasionally fall from the air, and bizarre games (with stickers for rewards) are played to create a sense of hierarchy and loyalty. They are told that only when their dogtooth falls out (the canine) are they ready to leave the house and see the world.

The film’s style is comprised of static and clinically executed shots, often framing characters oddly and cutting off limbs or faces from the camera’s field of view. We are never told or shown the parents’ inspiration for the cruel and bizarre imprisonment of their children, which only serves to increase the film’s emotional opacity. Often described as an ‘icy’ or ‘cold’ film, it unflinchingly portrays scenes of violence, blood and perfunctory sex, without emotively preparing the viewer. Thus it becomes closer to a sterilized documentation, surveying the absurd charades of warped behavior with detached and unquestioning objectivity. It has the feel of a black satire, or a twisted fable, both of which refuse to confirm or appease any certain sense of message. Although uncomfortably dark (with scenes of graphic incest and violence), Lanthimos proliferates the film with brilliant absurdist comedy. One of the most vividly bizarre scenes occurs in the family’s celebration of the parents’ wedding anniversary. The brother plucks a classical guitar with a mournful repetitive melody while the two sisters contort in variously awkward dance moves. They start off dancing together like robotic cartoons of Broadway imitation, before one girl gets carried away and busts out some hammer-style, frantic dance tantrum. All the while the parents are sitting without comment at the dinner table, the composition (held beautifully throughout) of garish balloons and lights, enhances the girl’s display of mad, inappropriate and impressively energetic dance, until persuaded to sit down she collapses on the table. Seconds of exhaustion pass before she, just as frantically, begins to devour the pudding in front of her.  It is a moment in which words such as ‘bizarre’ and ‘absurd’ fall short of communicating such a crafted glimpse of madness. It is by no means an entirely pleasurable film to watch; veering towards uncomfortable and strange, and stoically remaining there for the film’s duration. It is a concept and film so uniquely weird that its story, shots and atmosphere linger long after viewing.

Lanthimos’ next film, Alps: has been described by the director as more dark and more funny than Dogtooth. It revolves around the idea of a company (‘Alps’) that provides the service of replacing loved ones. If a close relative or lover dies, actors can be hired out to replace the deceased, acting out scenes from their life and, supposedly, helping with the mourning of loss. A decidedly grim and odd idea that suggests Lanthimos may prove to be an excitingly strange director to follow!

7.5/10

Killer of Sheep - Charles Burnett – DVD – With a stunning soundtrack of bluesy soul ( Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong, Scott Joplin, Elmore James – and plenty of others), black and white visuals and naturalistic (often sparse, or to hard to hear) dialogue, this film creates an immersive near documentary portrait of a black community in urban L.A. It is the sense of unadorned reality that makes the film such a beautiful watch: scenes of quiet discontent, relationships that need work but that are ultimately fine, kids playing in the street and the boredom of everyday, all conspire to evoke a very real and relatable community. The song that serves as the film’s emotional backbone finds its form in Dinah Washington’s chilling and moving ‘This Bitter Earth’. A song that has been powerfully reimagined, with the added emotional gravitas of Max Richter, for the final credits in Scorsese’s Shutter Island. 7/10

Wings of Desire – Wim Wenders – DVD - An existential and unapologetically poetic film that meditates upon the notion of angels, suggesting that angels wander through the world of the living (seeing only in a sepia tinged monochrome – naturally, an arty and melancholy palette for the afterlife), while always hearing the spiritual and cognitive monologues of mortals. The cinematography is consistently stunning, and the dialogue is maturely philosophical and thought provoking. The first half of the film is sometimes overbearingly elegiac and poignant at times, feeling as though Wenders’ vision lacks a touch of cynical humour or relief. However, this is probably symptomatic of an age/generation that lives and breathes irony, cynicism and pastiche… that ol’ ‘postmodern’ lack of familiarity with unadulterated poetry and pondering, uninterrupted by the nervous tick of some cultural reference or neurotic self-deprecation. A generation that navigated the awkwardness of growing up through documentary reality, the social studies of David Brent, the introspection of Peep Show, and the cinematic compass of Tarantino. An insular screen based existence of self imposed defining tags, unending playlists, favourite films, favourite music, the ‘relationship status’ and a general reluctance to confront character or life, unless through a series of quotations and cultural references. [Great article on this here]. Anywho…to return to Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire is a beautifully filmed, well acted and philosophical film that I certainly want to revisit. Also has an unexpected performance of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds! 7.5/10