My week in film: Mud and more…

Posted on by harrietwarman

Recently it’s been very hard for me to keep up a weekly cinematic investigation: ‘My week in film…’ due mainly to my commitments at work (EIFF) and extra-curricular writing assignments. I miss my weekly blog though, so I’ll try and catch up here on what I’ve seen in past few months, albeit in significantly fewer words. Another_Earth_06I watched Another Earth (2011) – mainly because I appreciated the ambition and wit of the filmmaker’s (director Mike Cahill and writer/star Brit Marling), The Sound of My Voice (2012), which seemed to be one of a number of films that suggested 2012 was a year of films about cults (see also, Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Master). Another Earth was just as unnerving, but like the later effort, seemed to rush it’s ending andwes-andersons-moonrise-kingdom-trailer_h undermine its dramatic focus in favour of a clever twist in this Sci-fi tale. I re-watched Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, 2012) and was bowled over by its sincerity, emotion and practically breathtaking beauty. Meanwhile, Stoker by Oldboy (2003) and Thirst (2009) director, Park Chan-wook confirmed what the trailer suggested in its heavily Hitchcock-inspired tone and plot (most obviously Shadow of a Doubt, 1943). Mia Wasikowska in Park Chan-wook's StokerWith captivating performances from the three stars – Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode – as eighteen year-old India Stoker, her mother Evelyn, and her newfound uncle Charlie, Stoker impressed with its tale of death and desire. Everything from the nuanced acting and precise costuming to editor Nicolas De Toth’s expert work, created an intoxicating atmosphere and some truly memorable images, even if its not director Park’s best work. Also with stoker in the title, Alexei Balabanov’s The Stoker (2011) was released this month by new distributor on the block, Edinburgh’s Filmhouse (more on their decision to branch into distribution here).The Stoker

A dark, dark, deadpan tale of murder and revenge in St. Petersburg, The Stoker is brilliantly simple in its premise and execution, and with a damn catchy soundtrack too. With his films only just hitting UK screens – Bradford Film Festival also recently programmed a retrospective of his work – I was sad to hear over the weekend that Balabanov passed away following a seizure. On-The-Road_04Having recently, finally got round to reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac, I decided to give Walter Salles’ film adaptation a look and came away with much the same feeling as that toward his other, road-based feature, The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) – boredom. Despite the gift of fascinating characters and an engaging plot, I was left unmoved by On the Road as it skipped over some of the most interesting parts of the book and failed to provide any reason to care about Sal and his love for Dean Moriarty.  Lastly, I saw Jeff Nichols’ celebrated new feature, Mud starring Matthew McConaughey as the titular fugitive relying on the loyalty of two teenage boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) to reunite him with his lifelong love, Juniper (Reece Witherspoon). In close pursuit of Mud, Carver (the versatile new talent Paul Sparks) is the brother of the man he killed, hoping to ensnare his target and get revenge on behalf of his evangelical family. MUD-pic-3_3-1024x585Ellis meanwhile, allows his romantic nature and confusion about his parents crumbling marriage guide his choice to help Mud, thinking that as long as Mud and Juniper love each other, its worth overlooking the inconsistencies in his story. Mud’s version of a love story – that it’s the only thing you can trust – is one of two presented to Ellis, the other being that by his father, who is frustrated that he both relies upon and resents his wife’s ownership of the riverside family home, and therefore feels betrayed when she expresses a desire to move.

A film primarily about men – male friendship, the male perspective on love, and brotherhood – it was easy to be concerned that women were being unfairly portrayed in the reese-witherspoon-mud4film. Ellis’ father manipulates him into turning against his mother, and has his opinion of Juniper soured when she fails to keep up her end of the arrangement to bring her back to Mud. That women are therefore unreliable and selfish seemed to be the message learnt by Ellis by halfway through the films running time. However, it’s ultimately the male narrative in Nichols screenplay that redeems the negativity towards women. Ellis, in his naivety, has invested in Mud, and in his childlike way, Mud has invested in Juniper – holding onto an ideal from their youth that’s impossible to grasp in adulthood. When Juniper fails to show therefore, its Mud that Ellis lashes out at – he being the man who sold him a tale of love more romantic and attractive than the complexity of his parent’s marriage – thereby disappointing Ellis just the same when the tale ends differently. Similarly, its Ellis’s mother who shows him that their family is worth more than her husbands insecurity, in one brilliant scene demonstrating that its her voice that should be heard. mud-picture04


Following the excellent Shotgun Stories (2007) and Take Shelter (2011), Nichols continues to be one of the most impressive and accomplished voices in US independent cinema, taking a seemingly small, coming of age tale and weaving grand themes about identity and loss of innocence into his beautifully realised narrative. Its also important to note the outstanding Sheridan, Lofland and McConaughey, who’s performances provide the solid emotional core of the film. I can’t recommend Mud enough.

 

 

Also watched:

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God – Alex Gibney

Ghost World – Terry Zwigoff

 

My week in film: Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Posted on by harrietwarman

50afa903b0e0c.preview-620Now being fully embroiled in festival programming duties, the days of watching ten films as diverse as Innocent Sorcerers and Bachelorette every week are on temporary hiatus until the programme locks in April. For now, I’m trying to fit in at least one film every week that’s viewed just for myself and happily, thanks to the Filmhouse‘s The Third Dimension strand, Cave of Forgotten Dreams was it. A documentary that offers the only footage inside the Chauvet Caves in Southern France, where the earliest examples of drawing were discovered in 1994.

First of all, let me just give a small bit of praise for the projection team, who far surpassed what was offered when I first saw the film at Glasgow’s  Cineworld in 2011, in which the sound was deafening and the light dispersion from the silver screen rendering the image somewhat shallow. The film itself is a true cinematic pleasure as well; director Werner Herzog’s distinctive timbre providing a suitably reverent voice-over as the camera pans across the cave walls, revealing (as interpreted by Herzog), drawings akin to ‘proto cinema’. Accompanied by Ernst Reijseger’s celestial score, to say the effect of contemplating the beginning of art and representation is ‘moving’ would be an understatement. ??????????????????????????????????????????????????

A key eccentricity in Herzog’s documentaries is the way he extracts tangential anecdotes from his subjects, one particularly delightful example here being the archeologist who’s prior career involved circus entertainment. Herzog’s inquiry into the past of his interviewee occurs naturally when said juggler turned archeologist describes what it is that fascinates the viewer of the Chauvet cave drawings; they are all that’s left of a people who lived thousands of years ago – we can only imagine the lives they lived and the thoughts they had. The way that our lives change – sometimes serendipitously in the twenty-first century – may be easier to document, but what makes us human is our expression of feeling, or thought, creatively represented through art, be it oral or visual. In an age of constant communication, Cave of Forgotten Dreams reminds us of the importance of private thought and considered creativity – revealing via a three-dimensional cinematic experience, what we can never see unmediated.

My week in film: Zero Dark Thirty and McCullin

Posted on by harrietwarman

The Hurt Locker, McCullin, Zero Dark Thirty: this week has been all about war and its representation. Each film addresses the impact of war on the individuals that fight them and in the case of McCullin, the devastating burden of memory that comes with bearing witness to the atrocities of combat. Watching The Hurt Locker again I was surprised by how straightforwardly it makes its argument for war as a drug – the first time I saw it I took this single-mindedness as a sign of focus that serves the tension in the film very well. On second viethe_hurt_locker28wing, there seemed to be moments of narrative emptiness – or at least that the trajectory that central character, James (Jeremy Renner) is on, naturally involves lows as well as highs and that this occasionally results in watching a character that is hard to engage with.  This focus pervades Zero Dark Thirty as well, as CIA agent Maya (Jessica Chastain), following 9/11 becomes obsessed with finding and killing Osama bin Laden; at the cost of any friends, family connection or personal relations at all. The screenplay not having included a romantic/parental guilt subplot is not just a welcome relief; it also provides the moral, human critique that many of the films’ detractors have said it lacks, by showing that the efforts of Maya to achieve hers and the governments’ goal don’t solve anything, or justify the war, let alone release Maya from the weight of her obsession. Maya’s emotional numbness; her blank expression on seeing the body of bin Laden represents perhaps a most disturbing judgement of torture that suggests its use has lead to an anticlimactic nothing – a truly chilling notion. zero-dark-thirty-trailer-final

Its problematic that screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow didn’t choose to emphasise the enormity of the moral outrage and complexity surrounding the use of torture by the CIA, instead portraying it as one method of getting information, that is then replaced by others, such as bribery. However the result is a film that allows for ambiguity – for the viewer to think and engage critically, not just after, but also during the film. Even as Maya is portrayed sympathetically – grieving for the loss of her last ‘friend’ and colleague – she remains somewhat unreachable; unsympathetic; pushing her team to the limits – perceiving that bin Laden’s death will somewhat correct the imbalance caused by the enormous US and UK death toll from terrorist attacks. This distance allows for a viewing that at every turn, can consider what the impact of her actions really are, on her colleagues, the economy, the public perception of the hunt, and most importantly, for the victims of torture. esq-thirty-1012-xlg

The raid scene itself rewards the procedural approach of the preceding hunt, delivering palpable tension as the SEAL team approach, broach and invade the ‘fortress’ in which their target is concealed. Using an aesthetic most closely akin to video games, and utilising the inherent eeriness of night vision POV, these scenes put the viewer in the midst of the action, following the soldiers as they move up each level – a moment given to dwell on every life taken.

mccullin-northern-irelandLives taken feature heavily in McCullin; David and Jacqui Morris’s documentary portrait of war photographer Don McCullin, who, over three decades covered conflicts the world over – Biafra, Vietnam, Northern Ireland, Cambodia – with an unflinching, yet sympathetic eye. Paced steadily, with a solid, if unimaginative chapter-like approach, McCullin traces its subjects’ career, placing the photographs themselves at the heart of each tale of brutality and violence. McCullins’ images, most poignantly described by the man himself – show the humanity that is being lost in times of conflict, or with regard to one devastating account – finding dignity in a place where it would be least expected. Some of the most tragic and heartbreaking moments in McCullin however, are those in which his articulate testimony, without visual representation, conjure a vivid image, allowing the viewer a means to imagine what horrors still haunt the great man.

Also watched, in the Filmhouse Polanski season: Cul de Sac – a delight.