HUGO

Its initially hard to get your head around the whole idea that a Director famous for gritty violent R rated movies is going to film a children’s story, but when you discover that the Director is Martin Scorsese then you know that this is going to be something totally out of the ordinary.  It all happened because his wife told him that for once he should make a film that his 11 year old daughter could see, and the book that his family persuaded him to film was 'The Invention of Hugo Cabret'.

Set in the 1930’s, it’s the story of Hugo an orphan who has been abandoned by his  alcoholic Uncle who is the official timekeeper of a Train Terminus in Paris. Not wanting to be dispatched to on orphanage, Hugo takes over his absent Uncle’s duties.  He lives alone in a dark dusty apartment hidden deep in the station’s interiors and when he is not attending to all the clocks, he is trying to fix a broken automaton that his father had left him.

Hugo is missing one vital key to get his the automaton working, and he discovers this by chance during an adventure involving the station’s toy shop owner and Isabelle his goddaughter.  Thanks to Hugo fixing the automaton we find out that the miserable grumpy old shopkeeper is none other then Georges Melies who was a magician turned celebrated moving-picture pioneer before he fell on hard times and out of vogue.  And that’s the cue for the pieces to start fitting together for a  happy ending for all.

The movie begins with a stunning long opening sequence with the camera dive bombing in and then zooming in on Hugo being chased through the entire busy bustling station by the Police Inspector. It’s a marvelous sight especially of the spectacular breathtaking sets.  These are the work of Dante Ferritti, the Designer that picked up Oscars for creating Sweeney Todd’s old London Town, and a world for all the blue people in Avatar.  This has to be his 3^rd Oscar!

Aside from this, for me the best part of the truly delightful film was the latter part when Mr. Scorsese is obviously in seventh heaven showing clips of George Melies remarkable films.  They just don’t serve in putting a real perspective to the story, but are a real treat in their own right.  (The story may be fiction BUT M. Melies was very real).

As for the cast :Hugo is sweetly played by Asa Butterfield (‘The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas’), Isabella was Chloe Grace Moretz who reminded me of a very young precocious Helena Bonham Carter.  The one outstanding performance was Sasha Baron Cohen as the Station Inspector who had all the best funny lines and really played them well. The rest included some fine Brit actors such as Ben Kingsley, Jude Law, Emily Mortimer, Frances De La Tour, Richard Griffiths, Christopher Lee who were all very good, but I have to confess that the sets outshone them most of the time

This enchanting and captivating movie is also Scorsese’s first venture in 3D which has meant a lot of muttering by cinematic purists who believe that this is a mere gimmick that only enhances the box office takings ( cos the ticket prices are higher). Personally I think he has really utilized  the process brilliantly to make the visual impact that much more stunning.

And although we have young Francesca Scorsese to thank for her father making his first ever movie with out even a single hint of violence, but I don’t think this is a children’s film at all (as borne out by the packed crowd I saw it with that only included one child).  It’s a charming sentimental story that is told in style and with a great deal of wit and I think is a great addition to Mr Scorsese’s already distinguished body of work.

★★★★★★★★★★

'THE TAQWACORES' & 'TAQWACORE:THE BIRTH OF PUNK ISLAM'

The intro to my Blog says when it comes to movies my preference is ‘the weirder the better’ and I guess this movie definitely falls into that category.  It’s title is an amalgamation of ‘taqwa’ an Islamic word denoting love & fear for Allah, and ‘core’ for hardcore as in punk music i.e. its about Islamic Punk Rock. Who even knew there was such a thing?

It all started with Michael (Mohammed) Knight a nice American Celtic lad whose life with a racial separatist father and an abused mother led him to seek enlightenment in a mosque in Pakistan. On his return to the US he wrote ‘The Taqwacores’ a novel about a fictious group of punk rock musicians that gained a following among young North American Muslims who felt stifled by their religion and their heritage. The book spurred more of them to start their own bands, which in led to Omar Majeed’s documentary ‘Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam’.  Majeed filmed Knight accompanying several of these bands on a bus touring and playing in diverse venues around the US.  Eventually they all ended up in Pakistan looking to spread the punk message to some very baffled and disconcerted locals who simply didn’t get it!

And then came the feature film based on Mr. Knight’s book and directed by first time filmmaker Eyad Zahra.  It’s the story of Yusef, a first generation Pakistani student with overly-keen well-meaning parents, who discovers the house he is going to room in, is full of Muslim punks.  It’s a rather squalid house with its assorted group of residents who have some decidedly untraditional ideas about their faith.  There are prayers during the day and wild parties at night.

As a way of explanation, one of them tells Yusef that ‘Allah is too big and too open for my Islam to be small and closed’. And slowly straight-laced Yusef gets the message and starts to unwind, and by the time there is one enormous party in the house, which numerous local Taqwacores are invited to play and stay over, his world finally explodes.

The Documentary was a great scene setter and gave more relevance to some of the issues that the Feature Film touched on.  I guess it also opened my eyes to this whole burgeoning culture that I was totally unaware off, and more importantly it educated me about the ignorance and reluctance that it encountered within not just the Islamic community but in a very bigoted society as a whole.

It is no means a perfect film and it was a little too crude at times, and although occasionally a tad heavy handed with its message, it was also had some sensitive takes on how these young westernized Moslems deal with issues that are particularly ‘touchy’ for their faith, such as pre-marital sex, homosexuality and the place of women.

I found it thoroughly enlightening, and enormously entertaining even though I will fess up I am no big punk rock fan, Moslem or otherwise.

The Feature Film is available on DVD, the Novel is also still available, but I thought the Documentary would be tough to track down but evidently its available at Walmart ! Who would have guessed, but they obviously have not watched it themselves !

★★★★★★★★

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THE DESCENDENTS

A boating accident has left Elizabeth King in a coma, and husband Matt, the self-proclaimed back up parent, is left in charge of their two daughters.  Scottie is a sassy 10 year old with a bit of a potty mouth on her that she has picked up from Alexandra her 17-year-old sister whose reckless ways have landed her in boarding school.

Matt is an easy-going workaholic Lawyer who knows he has been neglecting his family, but he has been focusing on the future on an important parcel of land that he and his relatives have inherited from their ancestors who were once part of the Hawaiian royal family.  (Perhaps I should have mentioned that the story takes place on the Hawaiian archipelago and in fact as a setting, it plays a significant ‘starring’ role.)  Now just as he is facing the news that his wife will not survive, Matt discovers that she had been unfaithful and had a lover.

Alexandra now home from school insists that her stoner boyfriend Sid hangs out because it will help her mood, but his ‘cool-dude’ insensitive naiveté does little to help Matt’s.  Neither does his hard-ass angry father-in-law who blames him for his daughter’s impending death and what he considers is a life wasted up to then.

Matt decides that as well as allowing all their close friends to say goodbye to Elizabeth just after her life support system is shut off, he should really track down her lover and offer him the opportunity to do so as well.  But as in life, nothing quite works out as neatly as we plan it too.

It is unquestionable a magnificent movie for several different reasons.  Firstly because the story line does not follow any predicable pattern and is full of unexpected twists, and it’s treatment of a family in crisis is outstandingly perceptive and totally refreshing.  Secondly Alexander Payne’s somewhat inspired direction is faultless, particular in the several moving scenes where different people are talking to, or shouting at, comatose Elizabeth in her hospital bed.  Thirdly the acting: both of the ‘daughters’ are superb but Shailene Wooley as Alexandra gives a compelling performance esp. when she is giving her father a wake up call by telling him what her mother really was up to.  And Judy Greer as the wife of Elizabeth’s lover steals two of the three scenes she is in.  It is however very much George Clooney’s film. His Matt is vulnerable, angry, funny, caring and his very raw emotional performance that totally dominates the screen is unquestionably one of his very best to date.  I smell Awards here.

I liked the fact that not only do we notice that Matt’s legal, family and emotional troubles are really all connected together, but we realize that this is one of those rare movies when we get completed vested in not just his life, but in those of the other characters too. It’s an intelligent movie well played out that makes us think, care but also laugh too.  It is a real gem.

Its been 7 years since Alexander Payne last directed a movie ('Sideways' which won him a Screenplay  Oscar), and this was definitely worth the wait.


★★★★★★★★★★

SARAH'S KEY

In just two days in July 1942 the French Authorities arrested some 38000 Jews in Paris and dumped some 13000 on them, including women and children, in Velodrome d’Hiver a Cycling Stadium close to the Eiffel Tower.  The inhumane conditions there were unimaginable but within days they were all shipped off on trucks and trains to Concentration Camps and their certain death. A mere 400 people survived this infamous incident known as ‘The Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup’ in which the French Police claimed they were only following Orders from the German Occupying Forces!

This movie is the story about one of the families that was included in the round-up, but when the Police called at their Apartment, quick witted 10-year-old Sarah locked her younger brother into a secret closet and he escaped detection.  When her family is later split up at the Camp, Sarah still clutching the closet key, determinedly enlists another 10-year-old girl and together they escape so that they can go back to Paris to rescue the brother.  The journey is not easy, and after her traveling companion dies of diphtheria, a farmer and his wife befriends Sarah  and  they manage to get her back to her home and the closet.

Sixty years later, and Julia a journalist is researching an article about the Roundup at the same time she and her husband are preparing to move into an apartment in the Marais, which his family have rented for decades.  It turns out to be the very same apartment that Sarah and her family had lived into to that fatal day when the Police took them away.  Julie gets hooked on the story, and as her own comfortable life starts to crumble away, she becomes obsessed with finding out whatever happened to Sarah as there is no record of her ever been re-captured back then.

The Holocaust part of story is highly emotional and extremely gripping and we are soon invested with the hope that there is a least one small happy ending out of the devastating genocide.  It is so powerful that it makes Julie’s struggle with her own present day life seem rather inane and even a tad insulting.

What redeems the movie is the excellent performance of Kirstin Scott Thomas as Julia who despite the weakness of the contemporary storyline is convincingly sincere about her desire and determination to uncover the whole truth.  She makes the movie worth watching until the end.

Be warned that the disturbing facts and reality of Sarah’s story are tough to witness, but as Julie the journalist insists to her younger ignorant colleagues at her Magazine, it is part of our history that we should never forget. 


★★★★★★★

LIGHTS IN THE DUSK

This is my third movie from idiosyncratic Finnish filmmaker Ari Kaurismaki that I have seen in as many weeks, and I am developing quite a taste for his work. This one is the last in his ‘loser’ trilogy and deals with loneliness and is heart wrenching sad.

It is the tale of a Security Guard who is ignored by his work colleagues, has no friends, and leads a sad solitary life.  One day totally out of the blue, he is chatted up a striking blond well-dressed woman who insists that he asks her out on a date. He has no basic conversation skills and the evening is stilted and awkward but the woman doesn’t really mind at all as she is not actually after stealing his heart, but just his keys and security codes to help facilitate a robbery.

He still thinks it could be love, so takes the rap for the burglary, serves his time in jail, and once free again he catches sight of his Date and then he realizes that he actually was set up.  He attacks her Boss, and ends up getting beaten up for his trouble.

Come to think about it , Koistinen seems to get beaten up a lot in this movie. It’s particularly bad when he tries to rescue a dog that has been tied up outside a bar without water for weeks by three oafish thugs.

All the Kaurismaki movies I have watched have  characters with the same dour deadpan expressions, as all the emotion and feelings come from within.  They are completely fascinating and totally engrossing.  And I’ve learnt that no matter how contemporary the story is, Kaurismaki, with his great eye for detail, gives them a very definite period/old fashioned feel to all his movies.  He is also somewhat of a whiz choosing his soundtracks too.

I’m grateful that the Miami Beach Cinemateque saw fit to run this Retrospective as I may have never ‘discovered’ my latest passion/obsession.  Kaurismaki’s work is definitely an acquired taste … and I cannot wait to seek out more.

P.S. Mr. Kaurismaki likes to work with the same actors and the same dog.  Laike is in almost all of his movies.


★★★★★★★★

BELLFLOWER

I guess this new hip, slightly grubby, apocalyptic indie movie could be classified as ‘mumblecore* plus’ i.e. it’s a tad more professional (despite the minuscule budget) and more accessible than others in that genre.

It’s about two young men barely grown up who are best friends, good looking, immensely personable , very funny and quick-witted, and who are obsessed with everything ‘Mad Max’, and they fantasize about building their own flamethrower so that they can go on a rampage.  Living in a decidedly un-glamorous part of LA, neither Woodrow or Aiden seem to have jobs so when they are not building their  ‘big toys’, they party hard, hang around in bars and pick up girls.  Woodrow, sensitive and somewhat girl shy, hits it off with Milly a tough funny blond and they take off on a madcap road trip to Texas for their first date.

When the tender romance turns sour, so does Woodrow, and the mood turns from sweet to sheer violent.  By then the boys have not only perfected the flamethrower but have souped up an old car with them installed too, and have created a four-wheeled monster that they can reek pyrotechnic havoc with.

The disappointing ending kind of loses the plot and me, but up till then I loved it.  Essentially because of the remarkable and natural chemistry between Woodrow and Aiden which is probably the closest two straight men can ever get together.

Like other movies of this genre you can sense the sheer energy of the filmmaker … this one Evan Glodell in his debut, wrote, directed starred and even built the two cars himself!  Wow …. this boy has some talent … as well as not being totally unpleasant to look at (!)

If you have a taste for indie movies of the future, then this is definitely one for you.

 * mumblecore = a genre of low-budget movie using non-professionals to depict mundane post college or early adult existence

★★★★★★★

QUIET CHAOS

One doesn’t usually associate Italians with restraint, but in this enchanting movie from 2008 that I have just come across, they are just exactly that in the telling of this wee drama about surviving a death in a family.

In a bizarre coincidence when Pietro returns from the beach with his brother after they have rescued two women from drowning, he discovers his wife has had a fatal fall.  He is left totally confused and now alone to be a single parent to their 10-year-old daughter Claudia.  He is not a man able to outwardly deal with his grief, and is convinced that Claudia has inherited the same trait as she behaves unnaturally normal.

When Pietro takes his daughter to school when the new term starts he tells her that he will stay outside the whole day so that she can know that he will be close at hand at all time.  And he does stay .. and the next day ... and the next .... until it evolves into his daily routine and he becomes a regular fixture in the small park right outside the school.

Pietro is a Television Executive and his company is in the midst of rather a rancorous merger so it suits him, and the Company, that he stays away from work for the time being.

As the days stretch into weeks and word spreads about his presence outside the school it provokes an outpouring of both admiration and sympathy for his situation.  As the Merger heats up at work, various colleagues come to seek his support and advice on how they should proceed, and despite his great loss (or because of it) he is the one who is calm and clearheaded about their turmoil.

Others come to seek him out including his melodramatic sister in law who hints of a shared past …. and also the striking blonde mistress of his possible future employer, who it turns out, was the woman he saved from drowning.  She repays him in a very graphic way that reminds you very succinctly that this is after an adult Italian movie.

It is a gentle thoughtful movie that carries no deep or profound message but beautifully deals with an emotional and difficult subject in a very mature manner.  No spoilers, so I will simply add that the end works out well, if not slightly surprising.

Extremely well written with a great cast including a very unexpected cameo, and rather a joy to watch.  Thanks for suggesting it Netflix.

★★★★★★★★

THE TREE OF LIFE

Its no easy feat collecting one’s thoughts after watching Terrence Malik’s latest confounding epic of a movie: it is truly mind-blowing.

What little plot there is focuses on the O’Brien’s, a rather ordinary middle-class family in small town America in the 1950’s.  Mr. O’Brien struggles with  conflicting ideals: he is a strict disciplinarian of a father yet unnerves his frightened sons by odd outbursts of affection when he demands that they love him.  He’s a disappointed musician and a failed inventor so he appears constantly angry at his frustration with his life.

The relationship with Obrien and is his eldest son is the most prickly because the boy has evidently inherited his father’s fiery temper but also his mother’s gentleness.  We see him the boy still struggling with the memory of this years later when he is A disillusioned adult.

When the middle son dies (1 think at age 19) the sense of loss is overwhelming and makes the whole family take stock of what their lives are really about.

I will not profess for one moment to really understand much beyond that in this immensely confusing film that was at one point just a whole series of bizarre spectacular landscapes, oceans, arid deserts and prehistoric jungles all overplayed with heavy symphonic music that seemed like something one would watch on T.V's Discovery Channel.  Totally beautiful but completely bewildering, and it was where I lost the drift of the filmmaker’s thought-process.  I avoided saying ‘plot’ here cos there wasn’t any at all in these non-narrative passages.

Brad Pitt was excellent as Mr. O'Brien and dominated the whole film.  His wife, with very lines to say, was the gifted Jessica Chastain who never seems to be off our screens these days ( and no complaints from me on that).  Sean Penn made a very brief appearance as Jack as an adult ... but the kid, Hunter McCraken who played Jack was the real mccoy and turned in a superb performance for a newbie.

This is Mr Malik's 5th feature film in his 40 years of filmmaking, so it's safe to say he really takes his time to  thinks things through way beyond the norm.  I think this highly personal vision of his on love and loss can only be described as magnificent, or mad.   There is no gray area on this one.   I for once am copping out of deciding in which camp I would vote with.  I neither loved it nor hated.  It was a challenge to watch  … and I’m pleased that I did … the question is, are you willing to take the challenge too?

MARGIN CALL

In less than 24 hours a major Wall Street Investment Firm (that seemed awfully like Lehman Brothers) jolts from success to near death in a story that would have been inconceivable before this current financial free fall started in 2008  … or maybe not.

The meltdown starts when in the midst of a round of cost-cutting redundancies  Eric, a senior risk analyst is laid off and as he is being immediately escorted off premises, he passes a USB drive to Peter one of his younger colleagues who has still got a job.  His parting words are to tread very carefully with the information that it contains, and he does.  Whilst the rest of the staff on his Trading Floor adjourns to a Bar after work, Peter remains at his desk to study the data on the disk.  What he discovers totally freaks him out, and he calls a workmate to insist that he, and Will their Boss come back to the Office immediately.

Once there they quickly realize that Peter’s discovery is potentially catastrophic, and so Will calls his boss Sam, who in turns calls Jared the CEO, who the informs John Tuld the Chairmen who immediately flies in by helicopter to take control of the situation.

It is now almost 4 am in the morning, and the Chairmen surrounded by all the Senior partners,  demands that Paul tell him exactly what all the fuss is about, and he insists that he does it in plain simple English so that he can grasp the situation.  His job he stresses is to manage the Corporation, but not necessarily understand its business.

Essentially the mortgage-based securities that they have been holding as part of a complicated moneymaking scheme have lost so much of their value they could bring the Company down in one foul swoop.    There is not a moment to lose if it is to survive. It is up to the Chairman to make the margin call.  In other words to order his Company to start dumping these worthless holdings before the truth gets out, even if this means completely betraying their customers.  He doesn’t hesitate for a single moment, as he decides that his is their survival plan and that he will also find a scapegoat to take the blame. He is unshakably ruthless and without feeling for people, and just keeps repeating, there is no choice.

This wonderfully tense thriller unfolds at a sharp fast pace, and even if like the Chairmen you don't get all the minute detail, you know that you are witnessing a potentially major disaster.  The total disregard for human casualties is frightening and made compellingly believable by a stellar cast who convincingly mastered all the financial jargon.  The cool hard Chairman is brilliant portrayed by Jeremy Irons , and is joined by  fellow Brits Paul Bettany as Will the chancer of a Floor Supervisor, and Simon Baker as the young steely CEO. Sam is played by Kevin Spacey looking very much his age but showing what a fine actir he used to be too, Demi Moore was the token women excecutve, and the junior analyst who disvoevred it all was played Zachary Quinto, a refreshing discovery himself. And this highly polished movie was most surprisingly the debut of writer/director J.C. Chandler.

As much as a I hated what was going down in the story, I really loved this tale of corporate greed that knows no bounds.  It had me totally hooked, as well as putting my last few dollar bills tucked safely away under my my mattress.

★★★★★★★★

QUEEN OF HEARTS

It’s not often that the main character of a movie is so annoying that I just want to slap her legs hard in the hope that she will stop being so irritating, but this is one such case.  And in fact now I think about the rest of the cast, I would probably want to slap the lot of them

In this new French comedy, thirty-something Adele is devastated after being dumped by her boyfriend. Adele has nowhere to live and no job, which she thinks is reason enough to stay in bed and just cry all day.  She also has no close friends or family, so her neighbor dumps Adele with her distant cousin, Rachel, who is rather a mess herself, but she reluctantly takes her in.  Rachel attempts to salvage Adele's life by first finding her a job babysitting, and then insisting that she follows her own well worn path on how to get over a heartbreak i.e. by sleeping with as many other men as possible. Adele does just that and throws herself at  the first three men that cross her path .  And just when you think you couldn't possible dislike her more, Adele bursts into song every now and again ..... and don't get me started on soppy french pop songs !  Urgh!

Then in one ridiculous final scene where all the different lovers collide, and one of their wives too, it is obvious that the course of  love, true or otherwise, will never run smooth for Adele.  Something that was obvious to us at the beginning and that we could have told and saved her a lot of unnecessary bother.  And 90 wasted minutes of our time too.

And then as the credits rolled I discovered that the 3 men in Adele’s life were all played by the same actor, and I still cannot tell if was a) to show off his versatility with disguises, or b) because they were all meant to look alike or c) it was a very low budget production.   But then again, I haven’t got to the core of  why this grossly unfunny movie was originally titled 'La Reine des Pommes' i.e.The Queen of Apples.

This DVD evidently is available next June, but don't hold your breath.  You'd be better off just staying  home and eating queen apples (yes, they do exist) or just copy Adele as if you are also getting over a broken heart.

★★

TYRANNOSAUR

Joseph is a tormented self-destructive and angry drunken old man whose sad life seems one violent episode after another.  One day he runs into a Charity Thrift Store to avoid a mob and encounters Hannah the Manager, who as  devout Christian. offers to pray for him.  On a subsequent visit he soon discovers that Hannah’s life is far from perfect and she has more than her fair share of problems.  What develops in this unconventional love story is unexpected and almost as bleak as the setting of this Northern British town.

This movie is the impressive directing debut of actor Paddy Considine who extracts peerless performances from Peter Mullen and Olivia Colman in a truly moving drama.    

N.B. Be warned the violence includes animals.


★★★★★★★★

MR. NICE

Howard Marks was a drug smuggler who, when on the run as a Wanted Criminal, stole the identity of a Denis Nice.   And according to this entertaining biopic based on his life it was a very appropriate name for him as everybody (except the police and customs officials) seemed to love this rather charming and outgoing fun-loving family man.

As the movie is based on Mr. Mark’s own account of his rather colorful life in which he wrote on how he could spin a good yarn with little regard to the truth, I guess we can take some of the facts with more than a pinch of salt.   He did after all have 43 different aliases at one time.  Anyway it is true that he was born in 1945 in a working class family in a small Welsh village.  A bright boy, he defied expectations and won a scholarship to the prestigious Balliol College in Oxford which was both the start of his fascination with learning, and also cannabis.

He started smoking marijuana as way of fitting in with all the middle and upper class students with their privileged backgrounds, and in the end became not just one of them, but actually their leader as he ended up suppling them with their ‘dope’.  Howard was amazed not only how easy this was, but also that he could make money doing it too.

However he graduated, got married, became a school teacher, until one day a friend in a fix asked Howard to rescue a car full of cannabis that was stranded in Europe.  He does, makes some real money, and is hooked.   There is no turning back and he sets himself up as smuggler/dealer to make his fortune.

It’s rather a mad story that has him persuading the IRA to use their gun running activities to help him import resin from Pakistan, and he has get gets more and more successful, and its not until Howard sets his eyes on a bigger market i.e. the USA, does he start to get into trouble with the Law. 

The every creative Mr. Marks is now cornered and facing hefty charges in Court and so he claims he is in fact an undercover spy for the UK’s Secret Service and produces a telephone number of a high-ranking official and gets set free.  This time anyway.  Later on despite trying to invoke the same excuse when he is on trial in Florida, he finally ends up in jail.

This delightful and funny film is no masterpiece by any means, but is thoroughly entertaining.  How much is true, is kind of irrelevant to the story.  What I think is indisputable is that Marks always stuck to marijuana and never ever dealt in hard drugs, and as that as is essentially a ‘herb’ which should be legal anyway, he probably isn’t a criminal at all.  And there is very noticeable none of the usual gang warfare or in fact and violence at all.  But it is probable Mark’s total devotion as a family man with his wife and children that is the sealing ingredient to the fact that he really was a very nice bloke. (chap)

Playing Marks in his first leading role is Welshman Rhys Ifan who, borne out by the DVD extras IS Howard marks.  It’s a wonderful performance and he imbues it with his great gift of comic timing.  Chloe Sevigny plays his wife : an odd casting choice and I really cannot fathom out why.

A good Brit comedy that will make you laugh without the need to resort smoking a 'joint' first.


★★★★★★★

MELANCHOLIA

This movie starts out with a stunning long visual prologue played out to the sound of Wagner’s Tristan & Isolde that sets the tone of this powerfully dramatic story told in two parts named after two sisters.

The first is Justine, who is a severely disturbed and melancholic bride, struggling to get through the lavish Wedding Party that Claire her older officious sister has taken great pains in organizing.  It’s in the glorious setting of a luxurious country club owned by Claire’s wealthy husband John, whose patience with the family he married into gets stretched to breaking point. The very odd cast of guests include Gaby, the pathological bitter mother, Dexter the lecherous father with his two girlfriends both called Betty, Jack the father of the groom who's also Justine's Ad Agency employer and who’s obsessed with pursuing her just for a campaign tag line.  And then there is Michael the unfortunate groom who has to stand on the sidelines as his bride, and ultimately his brand new marriage, slowly comes apart at the seams in front of his very eyes.  On the way to the wedding Justine spots a bright red star in the sky, which John, a passionate astronomer, tells her is the planet Melancholia.

The second part is  Claire, and by now the older sister is taking care of Justine who has suffered a total mental collapse.  And the rogue planet that was just a speck in the sky is now looming large and set to collide with Earth. The sisters roles are somewhat reversed as the fatalistic Justine calmly faces the prospect of impending doom, whilst more realistic Claire becomes increasingly distraught as the planet gets closer and closer.

This totally extraordinarily and stunning apocalyptic movie from the enigmatic Danish auteur Lars Von Trier had me hypnotically on the edge of my seat right up to the end of the world.  Literally. It’s a powerful and provocative piece that is both a deeply disturbing and uncomfortable study of an earth that Von Trier seemingly wants to dispense with entirely, and its also an utterly magnificent work of art.

I won’t pretend to understand all (or any?) of the metaphors peppered throughout the whole piece, you’ll need to read a much more esoteric review for that (NY Times?).  But I do think that this is such an intense and multi-faceted piece that it will inevitably not be seen and interpreted by any two people in the same way.

Kirsten Dunst as Justine deservedly won the Best Acting Award at Cannes, and although Charlotte Gainsbourg looked nothing remotely like her, convincingly played her humorless sister Claire.  The rather superb cast included Charlotte Rampling, Stellan Skarsgaard, and his real life son Alexander Skarsgaard, John Hurt, Keiffer Sutherland,  and Udo Kier as the extremely annoyed (and funny) Wedding Planner.

I’ll confess that I am not a major fan of this filmmaker’s work (loved 'Dancer From The Dark' though) and the controversy around his infamous tasteless remarks at Cannes which went viral has maybe colored some peoples judgments on the movie itself.  There are evidently only two camps.  Those who hate Melancholia and those that unequivocally love it,  I am so firmly in the latter.

It's by no means a perfect movie (the beginning of the 2nd half really needs editing etc) and its baffling and even confusing in parts, BUT it has the best end of the world that I have EVER seen ….. and unique work as mind-blowing and as outstanding as this are few and far between.  It should be seen …. even if you sadly do end up hating it.


★★★★★★★★★★

LE HAVRE

There is a wonderful old-fashioned sensibility in this latest movie from idiosyncratic Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki that portrays an essentially gritty story about a major casualty of contemporary life as a somewhat sentimental fairy tale. 

Set in the French Port Town it tells of Marcel a shoeshine man who plies his diminishing trade wherever he can, and on his trek around town comes across Idrissa a young African refugee boy who is on the run from the Authorities.  Marcel befriends the lad and takes him back to the modest home he shares with his wife Arletty and their dog Laike in a working class neighborhood.  The neighbors may be poor but they share a real sense of community spirit where they all happily help each other out without a moment’s hesitation.  When Arletty gets ill, and when the boy needs hiding, everyone rallies around Marcel and plays their part.

As Marcel and his neighbors plot an escape plan to send Idrissa to his mother in England, they are doggedly pursued by a dour Police Inspector who threatens to be their undoing. 

This is all played out with Kaurismaki’s signature deadpan style, but this time behind all the usual expressionless faces we find in his films, there is real warmth and a great deal of emotion.  Every element of the visual look has been stylized to reflect that this tale focuses on old-fashioned ideals, and it is noticeable  devoid of any modern prop (there is only single shot of a cellphone). You could be forgiven for thinking that the movie had been shot in the same era as the values it shows.

A great ensemble piece and as I am slowly discovering Mr. Kaurismaki's work, I can see that he uses many of the same actors in all his films.  Including the dog.  They must love working with this extraordinary and unique talent as I much as I am now appreciating his work.

A great movie that has already snatched an Award at Cannes, and is tipped to be one of the five Nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar this year.


★★★★★★★★★