Author: kevinsturton

Tales of the Night (2011, Michel Ocelot)

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Michel Ocelot presents these six inventive fairytales using silhouette animation and the latest 3-D technology.  Tales of the Night is a bewitching mixture of classical storytelling with a modern sensibility.  Ocelot is inspired by traditional folk tales from around the world, as well as real events; the human sacrifice rituals performed by the Aztecs for instance, but the resulting stories are witty and fresh.
‘The Werewolf’
Ocelot riffs on a familiar theme in fairytales, transformation.  A handsome horseman marries a woman because he mistakenly believes she was the one who sent him gifts while he was in prison.  So he reveals his terrible secret to her on their wedding day. 
‘Ti-Jean and Beauty Not-Known’
Young Ti Jean breezes into the Land of the Dead and finds himself faced with an impossible set of tasks by the King of the Underworld.  Can Ti Jean win the hand of the King’s daughter Beauty Not-Known?  Does the laid back young adventurer even care?
‘The Chosen One of the City of Gold’
A stranger is appalled to find the beautiful women of the City of Gold are all sad.  The reason for this soon becomes clear.  They are to be sacrificed to a mysterious creature which keeps the city intact.  The stranger resolves to end this barbaric practice once and for all but must face down both the monster and the people who follow it. 
‘Tom-Tom Boy’
Tom-Tom annoys the hell out of the villagers in his small African town by using makeshift objects as drums.  When an old man teaches him to use a magic drum he finds he has the power to make people dance. 
‘The Boy Who Never Lied’
A boy with a talking horse has a reputation for always being honest.  The King of Tibet place a bet with his cousin on that the boy will never tell a lie no matter what.  The cousin gets his daughter to play a cruel trick on the boy and tries to manipulate him into lying.
‘The Girl-Doe and the Architect’s Son’
A sorcerer turns a woman into a doe in front of her lover.  So he embarks on a quest to find The Caress Fairy who can turn his love back into a human again.
Though children will enjoy this animated film, there is a dark heart behind many of the stories.  Ocelot’s tales acknowledge death.  They show love can be cruel, people even more so, particularly in ‘The Boy Who Never Lied’ which ends with a grievous loss.  Tales of the Night should appeal to those who admire revisionist versions of fairytales such as Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves (1984).

The Grey (2011, Joe Carnahan) – DVD Review

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“Once more into the fray…”

I’m in the minority but I quite liked Joe Carnahan’s The A Team remake. Nothing he has done before however prepared me for this stripped down tale of a motley group of oil workers battling against the elements. Wrongly advertised as a film about Liam Neeson punching wolves in the face The Grey divided audiences with its downbeat approach and ambiguous ending. The Grey is an entry into the nature’s going to fucking eat you genre of films, the daddy of which is Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) and so far has included predators as varied as crocodiles, piranhas, alligators, lions, and anacondas, yet it stands apart from all of these with its melancholy, and its doomed machismo is closer in spirit to the bleakness of Walter Hill or Sam Fuller. 
Working amongst the roughnecks at an oil drilling refinery Ottway makes his living shooting wildlife for the company. At the beginning we see him writing a letter to his dead wife and almost joining her by putting his rifle in his mouth. Oddly enough the howling of the wolves in the distance seems to be the thing that pulls him back from the brink as if they are telling him not now, come to us. Animal rights activists have claimed the depiction of timber wolves is not entirely accurate and these animals rarely attack humans. Fair enough then but while Carnahan aims for realism in every other aspect of the film the wolves are fantastical. They are merciless antagonists, their eyes glowing in the darkness as they circle their prey. These wolves are more akin to the monsters lurking in the forest in a fairytale than real animals.
Usually humans are treated as sport in these kinds of movies as we watch them picked off one by one until the hero saves the day. Carnahan and his co-writer Ian Mackenzie Jeffers screenplay is an odd mixture of the perfunctory and the poetic as they balance the thrills with sequences where the men reveal details about their lives. “Who do you love? Let them take you there,’ Ottway (Neeson) says in comfort to a dying man which is essentially what the film is about. What do these men have to live for if anything at all? Carnahan’s existentialist approach justifies his handling of the ending; the emphasis on what has been lost rather than the confrontation between the human alpha male and his wolf counterpart.
It is a film of haunting power aided by Masanobu Takayanagi’s beautiful photography and Marc Streitenfeld’s score. Neeson’s tough soulful performance is outstanding, a natural leader of men the film makes great use of his physicality and his understated delivery of dialogue. Whether threatening to kick the shit out of somebody or reciting poetry there is no doubt he is contemporary cinema’s finest Alpha Male.
Extras
Deleted scenes which to be honest I never watch, I’d rather not see what didn’t make the cut, and a director’s commentary with Joe Carnahan. 

Shame (2011, Steve McQueen) – DVD Review

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“If I left I’d never see you again. Don’t you think that’s sad?” 

A second viewing of Shame and what fascinates more than the subject of sex addiction is the fractious relationship between two troubled siblings. Brandon’s (Michael Fassbender) life is free of any emotional connection of any kind. That’s how he likes it. When Brandon’s sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) turns up to stay for a while his perfectly ordered existence begins to unravel. There is a hint of some shared trauma in their past that simultaneously ties them together and tears them apart yet director Steve McQueen and his co-writer Abi Morgan never offer any easy explanations for their behaviour.
Sissy is first heard as a message on his answerphone calling to him, “Brandon, where are you?” Like a little child playing hide and seek who knows the person she is looking for is somewhere nearby. Brandondoes not want to hear this voice from his childhood and ignores her. Sissy is over-emotional, incapable of looking after herself and unpredictable. She stands too close to the platform at the Subway station, and clambers into his bed like a frightened child. She can’t hide what she is or how broken, unlike her brother who can go through the pretence of everyday life and never let on there is damage there.
Brandon seems to have the perfect life. He has a good job as an executive, a fancy New York apartment, and a way with the ladies. In fact he has his way with as many ladies as he can. Be they pick ups, prostitutes, or casual flings. If he’s not having sex, he’s thinking about having sex, or watching porn on his laptop, unless he’s at the office where he will use his work computer then finish himself off in the gents. He’s on a downward spiral though, his obsession beginning to interfere with the façade he puts on in public. This all leads to a somewhat melodramatic dark night of the soul on the streets of New York.
As you would expect from somebody with McQueen’s artistic background Shame is visually stunning though at times a little heavy on symbolism and occasionally overblown. In its quieter moments though and accompanied by Harry Escott’s yearning score it is a powerful study in urban loneliness with affecting performances from Fassbender and Mulligan.
Special Features

Sadly not much. There are a trio of Q & A’s; one with Fassbender after a screening at the Hackney Empire in London, and another two done during production, and a trailer. 

The Graduate – Screening Notes

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Just back from the latest screening at the Station. Mike Nichols film has held up well and remains one of the most interesting films from that particular period in American cinema. Here are my accompanying notes for the screening programme. 

The Graduate (1967, Mike Nichols)


When you’ve got to choose
Every way you look at this, you lose
‘Mrs Robinson’ Simon & Garfunkel

   Anticipating the aimless troubled protagonists of the late 60’s and early 70’s in American films like Midnight Cowboy (1969, John Schlesinger), Five Easy Pieces (1970, Bob Rafelson), and Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese), The Graduate is a darkly comic movie about a young man’s affair with an older woman. Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) has just graduated from college as an award-winning scholar and track star. Everybody wants to know what he plans to do next but Benjamin has no idea. His parents are pressurising him to go to Grad school but Benjamin would rather just take it easy for a while. Drinking her way through a bad marriage, whatever dreams Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft) may have had are long gone. Cynical and embittered she may be but Mrs Robinson is still a very attractive woman and she seduces Benjamin despite his weak attempt at preserving his innocence. But their secret relationship becomes awkward when her pretty daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross) returns from university.

The clash between the younger generation and the establishment was playing out across America with anti-Vietnam protests, civil rights demonstrations, and an emerging counter culture which rejected many of the ideals their parents believed in. Director Mike Nichols and his screenwriters Buck Henry and Calder Willingham present this generational conflict in The Graduate. Though the story is told from Benjamin’s perspective he is as flawed as his elders. The older generation are presented as being decadent and burnt out, yet they do at least know what they believe in. Benjamin is drifting, terrified by the lightness freedom can bring.   

Nichols won a Best Director Oscar for his work on The Graduate. Having tasted success with his adaptation of the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Nichols work here is more formally daring often foregoing narrative for observing Benjamin as he wanders around looking lost or hangs out by the pool. Simon and Garfunkel’s music is an integral part of the film. Though only the track ‘Mrs Robinson’ was written specifically for The Graduate the songs taken from their album ‘The Sound of Silence’ lend a haunting atmosphere to the film. 

The House by the Cemetery (1981, Lucio Fulci) – DVD Review

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I’ve never paid much attention to Lucio Fulci having seen Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979) as a teenager and dismissed it as crap. Other Italian legends like Mario Bava, Argento on his day, and Michele Soavi caught my attention but I’ve avoided Fulci films ever since. So I wasn’t expecting much from The House by the Cemetery. I may well have been wrong about Fulci. This is an often very subtle tale with a touch of Henry James about it. The final part of Fulci’s unofficial ‘gates of hell’ trilogy after City of the Living Dead (1980) and The Beyond (1981), it also features a plot where the dead cross over into the world of the living. 
Dr Norman Boyle (Paula Malco) and his wife Lucy (Catriona McColl) plan to move the Massachusettscountryside. Yet the house they are moving into looks very much like the one in the photographs hanging on the wall in their city apartment in which their young son Bob (Giovanna Frezza) claims he can see a young girl (Silvia Collatina) at the window warning him never to go there. Norman hasn’t told them but he intends to investigate the murder/suicide of an old friend who had been researching the mysterious Dr Freudstein whose experiments many years ago were aimed at prolonging the lifespan of human beings.
The House by the Cemetery will satisfy anybody looking for gore but it is the atmospheric otherwordly feel of the film which makes it a success. It is admittedly not entirely coherent. It has the logic of a dream. Time and time again the locals tell Normanthey have seen him before though he insists he has never visited this place at all. This ambiguity works in the film’s favour though and adds to the dreamlike atmosphere.
Sergio Salvati’s cinematography brings an Autumnal feel to this sombre downbeat film. Italian exploitation films shared with their American counterparts a bleak worldview. Though this despair would give way in the United States to the cheap if not un-enjoyable thrills of the horror-comedy it never really left the Italian genre film at least until the industry began to fall apart in the 90’s.
Fulci regular Catriona McCall is an effective scream queen but poor Giovanna Frezza is lumbered with horrendous dubbing on the English language version. It sounds like a fifty-four year old woman is imitating a nine-year old boy. Best stick with the original Italian language track. There is an interview with both stars on the disk in which both discuss the movie and their other work in Italian horror, as well as a wealth of extras, documentaries, commentaries, and written work to accompany the movie.

Also out today from Arrow is Forbidden Zone, a cult curio from Richard Elfman and his brother Danny who draw their inspirations from the same kind of pop culture Americana as early Sam Raimi and Tim Burton but with less interesting results.


 Made as a showpiece for their band The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo its demented college boy humour wears thin, but there are some catchy songs, and Hervé Villechaize turns up playing a trumpet.  

American Reunion

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It’s been thirteen years since they graduated from high school and nine since erstwhile pie fucker Jim (Jason Biggs) married expert flautist Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). Now they have a young son whose uncanny ability to appear unannounced in their bedroom has put a dampener on their sex lives. They’re happy enough though and about to head back to their hometown for their school reunion. The rest of the gang have gone their separate ways. Oz (Chris Klein) is now a TV sports anchor famous for a stint on a reality dance show. Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) apparently leads a mysterious life moving from country to country. Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is still fucking boring. Stifler (Seann William Scott) has avoided growing up completely and still lives at home with his hot mom (Jennifer Coolidge). In fact nobody has told Stifler about the reunion figuring he’ll find a way to fuck everything up.

Writer-directors Jon Horowitz and Hayden Schlossberg dealt with the themes of old friends getting back together much better in their last movie A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas (2011). The most entertaining aspect of American Reunion is seeing these former bright young things back together. Especially the ones whose careers crashed and burned like the hapless Chris Klein who has been in the Hollywood wilderness since John McTiernan’s half-assed remake of Rollerball (2002). Klein remains beguilingly sweet as the dumb jock with a good heart despite his woodenness. Even more welcome is the talented Natasha Lyonne who makes a brief appearance here after spending the latter half of the Noughties battling drug addiction. It adds an element of pathos to the proceedings which is handy because the film isn’t particularly funny. 

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Been going through Michael Caine’s filmography and watching some of the lesser known films on his CV. Like The Magus, an odd reworking of the Orpheus myth based on a novel by John Fowles; a sort of what’s it all about Orphee? James Clavell’s The Last Valley (1971) which puts the differing factions in the 30 Years War in one small town and works as an allegory for all the other periods of religious based conflict. Peeper (1976, Peter Hyams), with Caine as a 40’s private eye in Los Angeles, Harry and Walter Go to New York (76, Mark Rydell) which wastes not only Caine but the talents of Elliot Gould and James Caan. The two Harry Palmer movies Caine made in the 90’s which I’ve always pretended don’t exist. What struck me most was not just the varied career Caine has had but the number of interesting film directors Caine has worked with. People give him stick for some lazy work in the 80’s and 90’s, usually Jaws: The Revenge (Joseph Sargent) but Caine has worked with some of the best around. Just look at the list below.

Cy Endfield, the American émigré who settled in Britain after fleeing the McCarthy witch hunts and directed one of the great British cult movies Hell Drivers (1957) gave Caine his first major role cast against type as a posh army major. Caine then worked with Otto Preminger in Hurry Sundown (1967), made a wordless appearance in Vittorio De Sica’s portmanteau film Woman Times Seven (67), and persuaded the producers of the third Harry Palmer movie Billion Dollar Brain (67) to hire Ken Russell as director. Too Late the Hero (70) for Robert Aldrich. At his best for Mike Hodges in the classic Get Carter (71), and in the underrated Pulp (73). Squaring off against Laurence Olivier in Sleuth (1972) for Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

 Don Siegel, that most American of directors out of place in a British milieu for the odd thriller The Black Windmill (1974). For another émigré Joseph Losey in The Romantic Englishwoman (1975). Teaming up with Sean Connery in John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King (75). In John Sturges guilty pleasure The Eagle Has Landed (76). As a castaway captured by buccaneers in the Michael Ritchie oddity The Island (1980), surely an influence on the TV series Lost (2004-10). Brian De Palma (Dressed to Kill)I can take or leave but he has his admirers. Oliver Stone nabbed Caine for his first proper feature The Hand (1980). Sidney Lumet, Death Trap (1982). John Mackenzie made a decent fist of Graham Greene’s The Honorary Consul (1983). Stanley Donen and John Frankenheimer for Blame it on Rio (1984) and The Holcroft Covenant (85) respectively and both past their best.

 Winning an Oscar for Woody Allen’s Hannah and her Sisters (1986). Splendidly nasty as a sleazy gangster in Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa (1986). Peter Bogdanovich, Noises Off. Russell Mulcahy is admittedly an acquired taste and he has made better films than Blue Ice (1991). After a lean period Caine found himself back in fashion during the ‘Cool’ Brittaina era. Matching Jack Nicholson in Bob Rafelson’s Blood and Wine (1997). A menacing villain in Philip Kaufman’s Marquis de Sade movie Quills (2000). Another Grahame Greene adaptation The Quiet American this timefor the gifted but erratic Philip Noyce. A dignified presence in several Christopher Nolan movies. Truly great in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men.

 Not a bad career for a guy who’s often accused of doing any old crap provided the money is right. 

Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011, Miike Takashi)

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“Just waiting for Spring”

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai will no doubt disappoint those expecting another action-packed epic like 13 Assassins (2010), director Takashi Miike’s previous entry in this genre This is no crowdpleaser, but a slow-moving tragedy in which martial notions of honour are found wanting. A remake of Masaki Kobayashi’s haunting 1962 film Hara-Kiri it is remarkably faithful to the original but stands on its own as a work of art.

Miike is best known for the outrageous acts of violence he puts onscreen, much to the chagrin of longtime admirers who know from films like Rainy Dog (1997), Blues Harp (1998), and the wonderful Dead or Alive 2: Birds (2000), Miike can be a subtle and moving filmmaker when he wants to be. Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai critiques the notions of honour the samurai hold so dear and has more in common with Yoji Yamada’s elegiac The Twilight Samurai (2002) than anything Miike has done before.

In 17th century Edopeaceful times have rendered many samurai impoverished and masterless. One such Ronin, Hanshiro (Ebizo Ichikawa), arrives at the respected House of Il and asks for permission to commit Hara-Kiri in their courtyard. Their leader Kugeyu, played by 13 Assassins leading man Koji Yakusho, tells a story about a young Samurai who made a similar request some months ago.

Motome (Eita) was trying to pull off a “suicide bluff,” an increasingly common practice at the time in which samurai would approach a house of some repute and threaten suicide only to accept charity instead. The House of Li decides enough is enough and demands Motome carry out Hara-Kiri using the makeshift bamboo sword he carries instead of a real blade. It is a gruesome sequence, yet one completely lacking in gore. Miike uses sound design in the most disturbing way so we hear every twist of wood in Motome’s stomach. Kugeyu is not put off by this horrible tale. He has his own story of woe and reveals just why he chose to come to the House of Li to end his life.

Produced by Jeremy Thomas (The Last Emperor) with an eye towards the arthouse market, Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai sees Miike on his best behaviour and expertly using a classical style of filmmaking. The performances of the two leads are both excellent with Ichikawa combining sensitivity with an impressive physical grace. Yahusho’s casting recalls his work as the noble warrior in 13 Assassins and lets Miike play with audience expectations about how the enigmatic Kugeyu will behave.

The use of 3D is impressive and might even win over some of the technology’s naysayers. Miike frames most of the action in and around the homes of the Samurai, just living their lives as Hanshiro points out at a key moment. Something Miike values more than any notions of honour, especially those that can be subverted to suit the needs of those in authority.

Harakiri (1962, Masaki Koboyashi)

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“Motome Chijiwa was a man of some acquaintance to me.”

Set in 1630 during the uneasy peacetime after a civil war rendered many samurai destitute and masterless, Masaki Koboyashi’s haunting drama functions as an allegory condemning militaristic notions of honour. A bedraggled Ronin Hanshiro (Tatsuya Nakadai) appears at the gates of a noted samurai house and asks for the right to commit hara-kiri in their courtyard. The clan chief tries to warn him off by recounting the tale of a young man named Motome Chijiwa (Akira Ishihama) who arrived at their house and attempted what had become a common practice. Ronin had taken to appearing at the gates of house of repute and asking to commit suicide. Instead they would be given money and food and sent on their way. Motome is made an example of and forced into carrying out hara-kiri with the bamboo blade he carries instead of a real weapon. This sorry tale does not dissuade Hanshiro who seems resolute and determined to die. Yet he has his own story to tell and a very good reason for visiting this particular house. Koboyashi is best known for the ghostly portmanteau film Kwaidan (1964) and he brings a similar eeriness to HaraKiri. Characters are framed against the background in such a way that they seem impermanent, fragile, just passing through. Miike Takashi’s faithful remake HaraKiri: Death of a Samurai (2011) is out next Friday and though it is almost redundant if you have seen the Koboyashi film it does have a remarkably choreographed final confrontation and is well worth a look.