At the Movies: The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas

Star Rating:

This snuck up on me. Three weeks ago, I’d never heard of this. Two weeks ago, I was really interested by the trailer I saw before another film. Now, having taken a chance on this new release, I am so pleased it did. I think I’ve just seen the best movie so far of 2008.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a wonderful fable about the morality of the holocaust and morality in general. This is always a difficult subject to tackle, to varying degrees of results, the best being that absolutely heartbreaking yet genuinely beautiful Polanski film The Pianist, to the unfocused sentimental, frankly manipulated slock of Schindler’s List (a rant I will have later perhaps). The difference in this film is that rather than tackling the experiences and brutalities of the atrocities of the time, this film deals with it from the distanced. It is a softer, youthful film that skirts over the grand themes of the holocaust. It is child-like in the greatest sense; full of the sense of the unknowing, the simplistic, the misunderstood and the innocence. It is an absolutely wonderful experience.
It tells the story of Bruno (Asa Butterfield), a eight year old boy whose soldier father relocates the family from Berlin to become the commander of a local concentration camp. The parents try to shield Bruno from the truth of his surroundings but eventually Bruno discovers the camp, which he thinks is a farm, and befriends a boy, Schmul (Jack Scanlon), through the fence who seems to wear pyjamas all day. Slowly, Bruno attempts to understand the world he lives in, the principles he is being taught to believe and the reality of what he sees. Crucially to the narrative and the themes, he never succeeds.
The film has been criticised by the British national press for being too contrived and too emotionally manipulative. Using children to tell a story about the consequences of the holocaust has been seen as in some way too exploitative, too easy in a way, and the idea of such events happening (where are the guards when all these conversations are happening?) laughable. Frankly, such criticism misses the point of the film entirely. It isn’t a realistic portrayal of the events of the time, nor is it attempting to be in anyway emotionally complex. It is deliberately simplistic because the lens of the director Mark Herman sees the world through the eyes of a child. Thus, the story is fable-like, it deals with broad and expressive brush strokes, colouring the events with a feel of wax crayons and potato paints.
The point of this is to achieve two things, both of which the film succeeds in a grandiose manner. It positions the viewer as an innocent, meaning that the film works as a teaching tool for younger audiences (it is only a 12A, a rather impressive achievement given the subject matter). This means that the film acts as a way of understanding a frankly incomprehensible act. It teaches very little, just the basics, but its teaching is done with a great emotional backbone, sometimes art based on real subject manner must always have. For the more knowledgeable audience, the tone is deeply ironic and rather doom-laden. The conversations of the two boys as the attempt to understand what is happening, watching them guess incorrectly and make assumptions and mistakes based on their uncorrupted soul is both charming and poignantly far from the reality. It uses the lack of knowledge to point out great hypocrisies to the evil acts that are far deeper than facts. How can a man be a father and a killer? How can a mother protect whilst watching others die around her? How can a person be a boy and a Jew? The Nazis deal in simplicities that do not exist, and Bruno understands that profoundly, just as we all do now. It isn’t making a great new conclusion of the terrible events of that time, its pointing out the incomprehensible nature of it. That is its tour-de-force. This is real fine film, with great performances, perfect plotting and a fresh, new voice on a historical subject. It is masterfully contrasted, its direction expressive and its score by the ever-solid James Horner absolutely beautiful as it flows through the events. Incidentally, take some tissues as the film doesn’t pull its punches. I haven’t been this upset at the end of a film for quite some time. Bravo.

The Greats: Pulp Fiction

Ok, so this is the first in a long stream of films that mean a great deal to me. I shan't rate these films, partly because I'm not really reviewing them more analysing them (well, at least attempting to) and partly because they'd all just get five jars so there's little point! Kicking things off is the film that started it all for me.... It's got a lot to answer for.

This website would not exist if it were not for this film. I would not be the person I am today if I hadn’t seen it. It is because of Pulp Fiction that I am a film lover and thus it is, and always will be, a personal favourite of mine. I first saw it at the age of thirteen. The memory of the night in question is still extremely vivid to me. I sat in a communal lounge with a friend of mine on a brass band residential weekend (a very long, sad story) watching a documentary entitled I Love 1996. At one point in the documentary, the success of this film inevitably came up and thus my friend and I sat staring at various clips, our mouths open, mesmerised by what we were seeing. We saw gimp scenes. We saw hitmen talking about McDonalds. We saw cinematic gold. The film was then shown after that documentary, and that same expression remained on our faces throughout. At that time, I had never seen a film as good, as profound and as affecting as Pulp Fiction. It made me want to watch more films. It made me want to repeat that experience. I remember thinking to myself: if cinema is capable of that, then I need to see more. To this day, Tarantino’s masterpiece is the benchmark that I subconsciously judge every film I see.

Believe me, it is not simply nostalgia that keeps this film in such high regard. The brilliance of the film is present in every single frame of its masterfully constructed hole. The film tells three short stories revolving around a criminal network. In one, Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta) are two hitmen partners who travel to and from their latest target, encountering problems that could get them in hot water with the police. In another, Vincent must take his boss Marcellus' (Ving Rhames) wife Mia (Uma Thurman) out for a meal in order that she not get lonely and thus must fight with temptations posed by the sexy noir siren. In the final, Butch (Bruce Willis) is paid by Marcellus to throw his final boxing match, only to take the money and attempt to flee the retribution of the mafia and flee to South America with fiancée Fabienne (Maria de Mederios). The genius of each story, and thus the genius of the film, its ability to build a whole out of a backbone of the almost-clichéd. It's iconography is incredibly familiar and its characters almost stock, yet Tarantino manages, through his script and direction, to dress everything up with wonderfully deconstructive postmodernism. Each story’s heart is steeped in film noir history; the territory of hitmen, seductive women, and games of cat and mouse. It harks back to the traditional 40’s detective stories of The Maltese Falcon and The Big Heat. However, Tarantino takes this setting, shakes it about, mixes it with milk and ice cream, and serves it up in one satisfying five-dollar milkshake.

The temporal structure of the film is one such example of this. Tarantino isn’t afraid at any moment to fast-forward through long periods of plot before hitting the pause button on a seemingly insignificant piece of conversation. Jules and Vincent’s run from the police is hurried and pacey, whilst the former’s date with Mia is slow, unhurried and laps the audiences pleasures. The power of cinema is fully exploited in these techniques, and establishes a very direct relationship with the audience. As the characters struggle against time, so do we. As Jules dates Mia, so do we. We meet her at her apartment, and our attraction is established by the stunning use of Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacher Man, perhaps the greatest use of a pop song in the history of film. Wee have a burger at 'Jack Rabbit Slim’s', we take her home, and we, thus, are tempted to spend the night. This emphasis on character is replicate of classical Hollywood, but the techniques used are almost reminiscent of French new wave cinema. Tarantino’s style of film making is like Jean-Luc Goddard with a heart or The Wizard of Oz directed by Ken Loach. He achieves what very little have, including many of the masters. Pulp Fiction is a film with heart and innovation. It is a stylistic tour-de-force that never forgets its audience.
Much attention has been made to the way each stories inter-lap with each other so that we have little sense of chronology. By doing this, the film keeps a strange and startling sense of momentum and story telling, making moments that could be played for a direct narrative climax that much more profound. Protagonists die half way through the film, only for them to remain alive in the final scenes, making their fates worthy of classical tragedy. Scenes repeat themselves from different angles, making them seem like ghostly echoes of previous events and once again locking the narrative between the stories into an inevitable chain of events.
But what is the effect of all this? Is it simply experimentation for the sake of it? This is a criticism often levelled at the film. It's stylistic achievements are almost beyond question. Its characters inarguably memorable and its dialogue absolutely superb, but what is the point? Critics of the film often accuse it of self-absorption, that Quentin Tarantino has made a film haphazardly, with every scene looking nice but contributing to very little. As the film is hardly narrative driven, it is easy to see why such a viewpoint exists. However, for me at least, it is also easy to see why such a view is ultimately unfair. Pulp Fiction is a film about redemption. It is about sin, being a sinner and the consequences of sinning. In one story, Jules believes he witnesses divine intervention and thus attempts to redeem himself. In another, Vincent is tempted into adultery, but by trying to avoid this commits other actions that bring further harm which he must atone for or face judgement. In another, Butch attempts to flee his past indiscretions, only for judgement to come falling down on him and thus he is freed. It is this thematic continuity that lies at the true heart of the film. At its core, Pulp Fiction is a deeply profound experience, a deeply personally made film and an absolute triumph. I cannot recommend it heartedly enough and I hope more people will see it and thus, consequently, there will be more film lovers in this world.

At the Movies: You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Rating: **

Sometimes being a film fan isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and usually this is because of Adam Sandler films. This commercially successful comedian is the bane of our existence: he is unexplainably popular form making what summarises as a very average collection of films. For every Wedding Singer there is Click, a film so undeservedly sentimental that I wanted to smack it with a holocaust victim. For every Punch Drunk Love there is I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry: a nasty, hypocritical piece of celluloid and one of the worst films of last year. In his latest comedy, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Sandler does what we’ve all been waiting for, he tackles the complex political situation in the Middle East in a comedy about a former Israeli hitman trying to make it as a hairdresser at a Palestinian saloon in New York. Yep, sometimes it's a bit of a struggle.
First of all, about ten minutes into the film you realise that actually its concerns have absolutely nothing to do with anything happening on planet earth. Maybe on some far moon of Jupiter, which incidentally appears to be where Sandler has researched his accent, there is a political climate resembling something that is presented here. I don’t watch the news as frequently as I should, but I’m fairly certain no Israeli spends their time wearing tight shorts and arse wiggling for anyone’s pleasure and I’m also quite confident no Palestinian looks like Rob Schneider. But of course, that’s not the point. The film isn’t concerned with anything happening east of the Brooklyn Bridge, it’s interested in how disgusting old people having sex are, how funny a good nob joke is and what a glorious sensation it is to break wind. At the finale, the message of the film seems to be that whatever your religion, whatever your ethnicity, everyone likes a Mariah Carey concert. And for a real measure of how conservative this film actually is, the diva herself shows up for a cameo.
So what we are left with very quickly is just another Adam Sandler comedy and, I’m sorry if I’m being a party-pooper, but I struggle to see why that’s a good thing. Have I missed a meeting or something? When was it decided that a 42 year-old man attracting beautiful women in an eerily Stepford-like way by being disgusting was funny? When was it decided a comedy pitched to be flying in the face of political sensitivities can be this bland and uninteresting? The film isn’t without some laughs, I chuckled occasionally throughout, almost all due to the antics of people other than Sandler himself. When all is said and done, this film isn’t terrible it’s just rather dull, thoroughly unmemorable at ultimately not worth the price of admission. How sad that technically it exceeded by expectations.

At the Movies: Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Rating: ****

No doubt as the summer draws to a close, this year’s selection of blockbusters will be summarised neatly into three words: The Dark Knight. Proclaimed by many critics to be 'the Citizen Kane of comic book movies' and already the second highest grossing film of all time, it looks set to eclipse all that have come around it. For my money though, which I confess isn’t a significant investment, the title of best superhero of the summer goes to Guillermo del Toro’s latest work. The sequel to his modest 2004 hit, this film has more wit, more invention, more heart and a much more coherent substance. It is a film that truly understands the art-house, picture-house divide. You don’t need to make something that is both because one done well is enough. Whilst Christopher Nolan’s work interspersed action with characters openly discussing the moral dilemmas they found themselves in, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army tells its politics through its visuals, through its character development and through its larger-than-life story. Ironically, for a film about devils, 6ft fish and twisted firestarters, it is full of heart and soul. The Dark Knight took two and a half hours to work out that sometimes it’s a bit hard to be quite good when bad stuff is happening to bad people that might have been good if they hadn’t gone bad. Hellboy 2 interrogates a very simple question: what makes a man? Is it is upbringing or his nature?
For those of you unaware of the quirky, fun delight that is the original Hellboy, let me explain the key movers. Our hero is Hellboy (Ron Perlman), a devil created by the Nazis to destroy the world, but instead raised amongst humans and now fights to save it. He is accompanied by fellow freaks in the Bureau of Paranormal Research, including girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), who occasionally spontaneously combusts and best friend Abe Sabien (Doug Jones), a giant fish. In this adventure, they fight to save the world from the threat of Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), the prince of the fantasy creatures that were banished from our world long ago, who is a little pissed off. This breezy, light fable is a welcome relief from the grimy, realistic aesthetics of recent major money outings, which to me sit rather uncomfortable when you’re essentially telling the story of men in tights and capes kicking people. The events on screen aren’t there to make people frown or think or chin stroke, there they to make you jump, laugh and reach for another mouthful of popcorn.

However, this does not mean to say that the film is without substance. Its not Transformers, it has characters to interact with and a plot to get engaged with, and whilst these qualities seem simple, they are the bread and butter of narrative cinema. Del Toro has a real understanding for his audience. His job is to entertain, not preach or intellectualise. His characters are well drawn and interesting, his situations absolutely magical and original. It’s like watching a modern day Lewis Carroll, as if the writer himself were still alive to deal with Hollywood agents and studios. It knows when to be stylish, when to be deep and when to play for the laughs. We care about the character of Hellboy, and we suffer when he suffers. When he is ostracised by the public or when he struggles with his own identity – he is ultimately the demon of the apocalypse – we struggle to. That is where the substance of the movie lies, and that is why it is so good.
I should add a confession at this point, I can’t help watching this movie with the mindset of another. I still haven’t quite got over seeing Pan’s Labyrinth a few years ago, a Spanish-language civil war fairytale by the same director. That film was an absolute masterpiece, and this I must admit is not. Like his character, this film feels like Pan’s Labyrinth with its horns filled down to fit in, and thus there is a sense of hesitancy throughout. The direction is slightly unsure of itself, the tone of the film juddering about occasionally when it really needs to be assured, meaning that some action sequences are not quite as spectacular as they could be and moments of emotional depth fall a little flat. However, and I want this clear and on the record, it is the superhero film of the summer. It is more fun, more exciting and much, much more coherent than The Dark Knight and once everybody gets over Heath Ledger’s performance and realise that they’ve spent a lot of money on something that isn’t that good, hopefully then this well get the attention and make the money it deserves. And when that time comes, for the official record, I said it here first.

At the Movies: RocknRolla

Rating:

Guy Ritchie is an idiot. He makes films about idiots, for idiots. They have no substance, they make no sense, they have no flair, no invention, no originality or interest in anything what so ever. Then he made Revolver, a film that tried to have all of the above, and it was just as bad, but at least I could laugh my way through that such was its incompetence. But of course, Revolver didn’t make any money, so he’s ditched any attempt at doing something different and gone back to the likes of Lock, Stock and Snatch that were an irritation of my adolescence way beyond spots and uncontrollable penises. In this film, he’s back to his worst. Congratulations Guy, you’ve now made the same terrible film three times.

The plot of RocknRolla is rather hard to decipher through the endless fast edits, stupid zooms and silly accents. Luckily through, the dialogue is so terrible that characters often sit in rooms explaining it to one another, so I did manage to work out a few things. Gerard Butler steals things from people with the help of Thandie Newton, who is the accountant to some Russian guy who lives in Wembley Stadium. Meanwhile, a rock singer fakes his death, takes a lot of drugs and a property developer kills people a lot, blissfully unaware it seems of the disastrous state of the housing market. Sorry I can’t go beyond that, but it was literally all I could work out. Oh yes, and there’s an awful subplot about a robber coming out to his mates which Guy clearly thinks is Brokeback Boozers or something, but whilst the Ang Lee film used understatement and emotional depth, this uses faggot jokes and a ‘hilarious’ (please note the quotation marks) scene of two guys slow-dancing.
Once again, the film is directed to an inch of its life, shots serve no purpose other than to look cool and one scene constantly blurrs into another with lots of spinning, freeframes and cock-ker-knee voice-overs. It jumps about all over the place and it is impossible to follow the vague pretensions of a narrative. Guy Ritchie definition of character development and thematic substance is to have his characters say the films title over and over again. All there is a vast collection of stuff happening. Two hours of stuff created with Guy Ritchie and his mates is enough to send me out in hives. The performances are all uniformidly awful. Thandie Newton’s got a new haircut, but she still cannot act in anything ever, so smokes a lot instead and tries to a do a look which she thinks is sexy and sassy but actually makes her look vaguely constipated. Toby Kebbell is incredibly irritating as a supposedly mad-philosophising crackhead. Gerard Butler, who can’t do accents at the best of times, seems to be struggling vastly here with his Scottish, which is odd because he’s actually from Scotland. Clearly, Guy Ritchie can even prevent people from speaking properly. Let this die please, let it float away and never be seen again because if you don’t, he’ll make it again.

A Little Introduction

Hi there everyone (or no one, as is a more probable audience at this stage)

I've decided to start a blog because I need my life to have a wee bit of clarity (I'm not scottish, don't make that assumption. Lets get off to a good start)

I see a lot of films. I go to the cinema at least once a week, but usually more. Its September, and so far I've seen over 30 films at the cinema this year, which even by my maths skills (math if your american, I cater to all audiences) makes it more than once a week. I also watch a lot of new films at home from various rental subscriptions and such over the marvellous thing that is the internet and that television thing. We these included, I've seen over 130 films this year I hadn't seen in December '07.

This has a strange affect on my psyche, as I am rarely ambivilent on the subject of cinema. Many film I absolutely love, many I absolutely hate. In a week, a couple of both many enter my consciousness, and I need... I NEED.... a way of venting this. A good film should be praised on an idyllic mountain top and a bad one should be verbally spat upon.

Thus we have this blog, which at this stage I have no idea how often I will add to it. It will include reviews of new releases, old releases, classics and not-so-classics. Sometimes I will talk about one film, sometimes a group and sometimes a filmmaker or actress or individual or not. I don't know basically. Let's see.