THE INTERNET'S OWN BOY: THE STORY OF AARON SWARTZ @ Sundance 2014

This is the story of a charming and selfless information prodigy that strived to use his talent to make this a freer and better world for which he ended up paying for with his life.

Aaron Swartz was born in Chicago, the middle son, of successful middle-class Jewish parents. Inquisitive from birth, he taught himself to read by the age of three and by the time he reached High School he despaired of his teachers who he complained taught him less than he could read up in an hour. At 13 he won a competition for young people who created non-commercial websites for which the prize included a trip to M.I.T.  From then on, there was no looking back for him.

From there the young genius played a major part in the development of the basic Internet protocol RSS and also co-founded Reddit which became the most popular social news website in the world. His work brought fame in the online communities and also wealth (when Reddit was sold) but this affable young man couldn't have been less interested in either. What did excite him was social justice and political organizing that focused on working to free up inaccessible information online that he believed belonged in the public domain and should be available to all without charge.   It was what would prove to be his undoing in time.

Without Swartz's involvement it is most unlikely that the Stop Online Piracy Act would have been defeated in Congress, but when he set about copying almost 5 million academic articles from JSTOR (Journal Storage) Database at M.I.T. events did not go his way. Swartz maintained that as these articles had been financed from public funds they should be freely available. When he was caught, JSTOR chose not press any charges but the Federal Government did and very aggressively pursued Swartz and indicted him with a total of 13 felonies. To its shame, M.I.T. just stood on sidelines and did nothing.

The beauty of Brian Knappenberger's rather wonderful documentary of this extraordinary young man is that he makes a concerted effort to show not only why the online community was in awe of his seemingly unlimited talent, but by including his very supportive and proud family and friends, he showed what an exceptionally nice person Swartz was too. This very unassuming man was magnanimous and both reserved and quiet but he seemed to blossom as more people called on him to help. He was a passionate thinker who used the same logical approach he employed when programming also in how tackled any social injustice he came across.

Why he took his own life is never really explained in the movie, but what is very clear from listening to all the evidence is that was a wasted life cut short. However his memory just doesn't live on with his loved ones, and with the online community who are in awe of all his inventions and achievements, but also last year in Congress a Bill was introduced to finally reform the ambiguous and outdated Anti-Hacking Law that the Government used so mercilessly against him. The Bill is called Aaron's Law, as well it should be.

Unmissable.

★★★★★★★★★

WEB JUNKIE @ Sundance 2014

China does nothing on a small scale. The Government has established 400 rehabilitation and treatment centers to 'cure' what they claim is over 24 million young people of compulsive Internet use ... or as they crudely term it 'electronic heroin'. This eye-opening documentary looks at just one of these military type camps and how it goes about trying to wean the teenagers off their addiction.

Most of the tearful kids have been forced or tricked into being committed by their parents ..'I thought we were going skiing in Russia' one cried.  They are angry and frustrated, something they let out at the joint therapy sessions they are made to have with their parents, supervised by earnest female doctors who look almost as young as their charges. 

Part clinic, part school, part boot camp, the parents have to pay what is twice the average Beijing salary (10,000 yuans) for their offspring to be 'cured'.  They claim that this really is their last resort as their kids skip school and spend days/weeks doing nothing else than play video games.  The extreme ones even wear nappies so that they never ever have to take a break from playing. 

At the beginning of their three month stay most of the kids show no remorse at all, and without exception claim that they cannot/will not give up their addiction. As one of them explained so succinctly, to them virtual life IS reality! And in the therapy sessions as the Doctors start to probe deeper, the whole Chinese culture of one child per family starts to emerge as one of the main causes of these kids attitudes.  It often appeared that when parents put all of their own personal aspirations onto their only offspring and exerting so much pressure for them to succeed academically, it is at the expense of having any sort of natural loving communication between father/mother and son. 

It was however hard to see from this film if this treatment of computer addiction as a clinical disorder was effective or not.  Most of the young boys were bright enough to eventual learn to give the expected responses to the Doctors that they knew would speed up their release. In fact the movie deliberately ends on a high point as we see one of them finally being allowed to leave with his parents, although I have this sneaking suspicion he will soon revert back to his old ways.

I started out watching this documentary actually thinking how very cruel and inhumane the whole situation was, but if this really is a problem of such epidemic proportions, I simply have no idea what an alternative solution should, or could, be.

Its an excellent and fascinating documentary by filmmakers Shosh Shlam & Hilla Medalia  that made compelling viewing and could become as addictive as it subject.

★★★★★★★★

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

Martin Scorsese's take on a big time financial crook who swindled money out of a legion of small time people to finance his life of excess and debauchery is a piece of faction.  Based on the real life of convicted stockbroker Jordan Belfort whose Firm fraudulently sold billions of worthless penny shares, it does however use Belfort's own memoirs as source of information, so its very questionable to how much of it is actually true.

Belfort was born in the Bronx, and brought up in Queens by his Jewish middle class parents who were both accountants.  His first job on Wall Street was as a runner but when he passed his exams and qualified to be a Broker the Market crashed on his first day trading and he lost his job.  Virtually unemployable he ended up in crummy office in a Strip Mall in Long Island where some itinerant salesmen were trading with Penny Stocks and making a meager living from it. Belfort quickly caught on to the untapped potential of selling these shares and he racked it up more than a notch of two and started making really good easy money.

This was just the start of an extraordinary tale of unbridled greed that spurred Belfort to bigger and wilder illegal schemes that would rake in countless wealth for him and his sidekicks.  He would quickly trade his first Office in a disused garage for the most flashiest trading floor in a skyscraper on Wall Street in the same cavalier manner that he also would replace his childhood sweetheart bride for a racier sexier young one.

With seemingly limitless monies pouring in, Belfort indulges in a hard-partying lifestyle with excessive amounts of pills, women, cars and other toys that it allows him to buy, and they in turn drive his obsession to keep making even more money regardless of its legitimacy or morality.

Scorcese portrays this all like a depraved manic circus-like orgy that is so ridiculously wild and salacious that it seems like it couldn't possibly have happened.  It's not just the fact that Belfort is such a repugnant character but the way that he draws in his cohorts to ape his obscene behaviour too.  It is a sight to behold, and one that stuns you into complete silence as it is so repugnant.

In the movie Belfort, in a superb Award winning performance by Leonard DiCaprio, is a charismatic handsome charmer that we are meant to admire.  And even when the FBI catch up with him and have him in a tight corner facing ruin and a potentially long prison sentence, he acts like an honorable man he is reluctant to snitch on his friends to save is own neck.  Whereas in real life he co-operated with the Authorities with hardly any hesitation at all.

As a piece of pure entertainment, Scorsese has provided a jam-packed three hours of exhilarating and extravagant story telling that leaves one quite exhausted.  As for the reality, it glamorises a really nasty self-indulgent crook who robbed thousands of very ordinary people of their life savings and more. Even years later after Belfort has served a short prison sentence he has moved to Australia so that he can keep all the proceeds from his two books, this movie and his inspirational speaking gigs and thus avoid paying back any of the Restitution to the Victims as ordered by the U.S. Courts.

Available on Amazon

★★★★★★★

ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY

Marie is a middle-aged bit part Hollywood actress who has still not had her big breakthrough part. She has been successful enough to be able to live in a Malibu Beach apartment, albeit a small rented one. She's a bit of a hippie and leads a healthy lifestyle with her daily routines of paddle-boarding and regularly drinking the very un-appetising looking vegetable smoothies she makes herself.

What little there is in the way of plot in this movie is furnished with the arrival of Marie's niece Faye who is an aspiring actress and who is visiting her Aunt for a vacation and some mentoring. Having the younger woman around gives Marie to verbalise on where she went wrong with her life choices so that Faye doesn't repeat them. And she in turn she invites her Aunt to hang out with her own party-going friends, one of whom ends up taking Marie to bed.

Marie is in fact smart enough to recognize all the signs of her own fast approaching mid-life crisis, but she is still unable to stopping the inevitability of it happening.

Co-written by actress Jane Adams who also played Marie which to all intents and purpose was surely just playing herself.  Co-written and directed by Joe Swanberg .... the most intriguing and prolific of contemporary filmmakers and actors .... who with his hand held camera was the sole crew member on location. This is ultra-micro budget filmmaking at its best.

Whether Jane Adams was actually acting a part or not, this sad reflective woman on screen was sufficiently engaging that you became invested in the outcome. Although there was little point to that, as this was not so much a narrative in the usual sense, but more an essay of where one woman found herself in the middle of a life which has disappointed her so far.

Swanberg made this movie in 2012 before his biggest 'almost mainstream' movie 'Drinking Buddies' finally started attracting a much wider audience for his work at last. This one is not in the same league but is i fact somewhere between 'Drinking Buddies' and his early mumblecore works,  but much more accessible than the latter ... and more enjoyable too.  He is definitely a filmmaker who I will always look out with great interest to see what he delivers next.

Compulsory viewing for any actresses about to hit 45 ....!

Available on DVD & VOD at Amazon


★★★★★★

SAVING MR BANKS

Based very loosely on a true story, this is the tale about all the shenanigans behind the making of the multi-Oscar winner smash hit movie 'Mary Poppins' in 1964. Walt Disney had been pursuing the book's author P.L. Travers (Pamela) for the past 20 years to get the film rights and now in a last ditch attempt to persuade the reluctant writer he had arranged to fly her to Los Angelas for a visit to see if she could be tempted by the screenplay that had been written.

Mrs Travers, as she insisted on being addressed by all and sundry, was a formidable woman and although actually Australian by birth, had become this quintessential English grand dame with a marked distaste for everything American.  The only reason that she had been persuaded to take this trip by her Agent was that as her book sales had slowed up considerably, she was running out of money.

Everything about the Studio, including the script, the songs and Walt himself totally appalled her and she made sure that everyone knew this in no uncertain terms.  She ran roughshod over the poor screenwriter, dismissed the Sherman brothers cute songs as banal, and at one point even threw the whole script out the Rehearsal Studio window.

In a series of flashbacks it became clear that these stories that she had written about this magical Nanny were rooted in her own tough childhood in the Australian outback. When her beloved father (surprisingly sensitive performance from Colin Farrell), who had always encouraged her vivid imagination, tragically died when she was only 7 years old, it was the sudden appearance of her Aunt who had come to 'save' the family that was the turning point in her young life. When Mr Disney finally realised that in the book it wasn't the children that the Nanny had come to rescue, but Mr Banks himself, he knew then that he had cracked the code to Mrs Traver's story ... a fact he used to now convince her that he could be trusted to make a movie that she would like.

Saving Mr Banks is a gloriously funny over-sentimentalised movie that proves to be a great vehicle for the Emma Thompson's dynamic turn as Mrs Travers with her rapid-fire acerbic wit. She is nothing short than superb with an hilarious performance that will probably earn her an Oscar Nomination.  The flashbacks show us that she has never reconciled to her loss of her father and this accounts for her overly protective grasp on her Mary Poppins books.  It takes Tom Hanks effortlessly playing an amiable Walt Disney with more patience than God and an unshakable charm offensive that wins her over so that he gets to make his movie. At the premiere in LA, which Mrs Travers had to invite herself too, she sits between the Sherman brothers and openly cries. Alls well that ends well.

If only that was all true though.  This movie that had originated in Australia and then was slated to be produced by the BBC in the UK, but as they needed get permission to use the songs etc from Mary Poppins they needed approval of The Disney Company who then ended up making this movie.  Hence the discord between Mrs Travers and Walt ended up on screen as being totally cordially, with Mr Disney being portrayed in such an impossibly saintly manner. What is not shown, is that after the Premiere Mrs Travers sought out Walt and demanded that the animation sequences be removed. He is quoted as saying 'That boat has sailed Pamela'. After that she refused to sell him the film rights for the rest of the Mary Poppins books, and never ever returned to Hollywood.

Another omission that was even stranger given the fact that in this movie Mrs Travers frequently asked other people if they were parents, yet there was no mention of the fact that she had a child too.  Never married (she had relationships with people of both sexes) she had adopted one of twins, but had very oddly refusing point blank to adopt his brother.

'Saving Mr Banks' is a entertaining crowd pleaser ..... but think how much better it would have been if they had used more facts and less fiction.

P.S. Stay for the final credits as they used the actual tape recordings that the real Mrs Travers made on that fateful visit to the Studios.

★★★★★★★★

WINNIE MANDELA

With its opening shots dramatically sweeping over the sun-drenched plains accompanied by the lush sounds of a symphony orchestra you can be forgiven for thinking that you are about to see an African 'Sound of Music' rather than the tale of the poor tribeswoman who would end up marrying one on the most famous men of the last century.  This is the story of Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela who's birth in 1936 greatly disappointed her school-teacher father who was hoping that his sixth child  would finally be the son he always wanted.  Young Winnie however turned out to be quite the tomboy and an avid learner too so by the time she won a scholarship to go study in the big city, her father had become really proud of her.

Winnie was a very serious young lady preferring to spend all her time studying and then working rather than socialising with colleagues and friends. Even before she met her future husband, she shocked everyone by turning down a chance to study in Boston so that she could become a Social Worker in the Township of Soweto instead. When she caught the eye of budding politician and activist Nelson Mandela she initially rebuffed his advances, and only gave in and started dating him when he showed how tenacious he could be.  By the time they married, Mandela was already being harassed and pursued by the South African authorities often on the most tenuous of charges. They tried to make life as impossible as they could for the couple and that included having Winnie fired from the job that she loved so much.

Mandela was arrested and tried with three other black leaders and narrowly escaping the death penalty is given a sentence of life imprisonment.  There is a wonderful slightly ridiculous scene in the movie which adds a touch of humor when Winnie enters the Courtroom for the Trial and is decked out in full national regalia topped off with an outrageous headdress.  It earns the rebuke of the judge, to whom a defiant Winnie replies that she has little rights as a black woman in this country, but she still has the right to decide what to wear!

With Mandela doing hard labour on Robbins Island, the Authorities turn their attention to Winnie who has taken over her husband's mantle and become a leader of the Movement and something of a firebrand speaker. They jail her without charges and put her in solitary confinement for almost a year but when they fail to break one single part of her spirit and determination, they release her again.

When she is finally allowed to visit her husband in jail he is horrified by her appearance and screams 'what have they done to you?'  To which she calmly replies 'Made me stronger!'. 

Winnie is then banished to a remote township for some years, until the Government starts having some serious discussions with Mandela in prison about trying to find away out of the country's political impasse, and so they allow her to return to Soweto. The township has radically changed since she was last there and now rival anti-apartheid gangs violently fight with each other resorting to the practice of necklacing (putting a tyre around a victims neck and setting it alight). When Winnie's house is firebombed, one of her supporters creates a bodyguard posse for her using the cover of a football club to make them appear legitimate.  Before long the antics of the Mandela United Football Club become infamous and when she visits her husband in jail he demands to know why Winnie is condoning the actions of these thugs and asks if she is actually sleeping with their leader.  She doesn't answer either questions.

This is possibly the weakest part of the story as there is no attempt to explain why this respected activist who had been known throughout the world as 'the mother of the nation' is suddenly standing by silently when those close to her are committing unspeakable acts of violence.  When one of her Club boys is murdered for being a suspected Police Informer, we are never sure how complicit Winnie was, although many years later at the Truth and Reconciliation hearings she is held 'politically and morally accountable' for all the gross violations in human rights by her Football Club.  

By the time a freed Mandela became the President of South Africa in 1994, he had been seperated from Winnie for over two years.  He knew that his position as Leader would have been untenable if he had remained linked to this woman who once had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but had turned out to both malevolent and dangerous.

This fascinating biopic with its overly-dramatic soundtrack that gives it such an old-fashioned feel ends way before Winnie does finally end up behind bars.  What lifts it higher than its somewhat cliched script may have deserved is the two central performances, particularly that of Jennifer Hudson as Winnie who proves that her Oscar was no fluke performance. Terrence Howard takes great pains to ensure that he sounds acts as much like Mandela as possible and strangely physically ages much quicker than Winnie on screen!

Mrs Winnie Mandela is a powerful and fascinating character and I know there is a lot more milage in her life story yet, and it will be interesting to see how this incomplete version compares with 'Mandela : The Long Walk to Freedom' that has just been released.

Out now on VOD & DVD.

★★★★★★★

BEST KEPT SECRET

When they answer the phone at John F Kennedy High School in Newark, they add the tag line 'New Jersey's Kept Secret' and after watching Samantha Buck's heartbreaking documentary you can understand why they so deserve to make this claim. You will also soon realise that most of the credit for the remarkable activities and achievements at JFK is due to a self-less inspirational teacher called Janet Mino who refuses to ever give up on her classroom of autistic children come what may.

The city is not only the 10th poorest in the nation it also has one of the highest rates of autism too.  Mino and her colleagues have some of the toughest jobs in education and sadly they have the misfortune to be in a State where the school systems are not only chronicled under-funded but also having to cut even more vital services when budgets are squeezed even further as result of the current recession.

The documentary follows Mino's class that will graduate in 18 months timeand focuses on three of the kids in particular, all of whom will break your heart.  A few are lucky to have two parents to support them, many are from single-parent homes and a couple have been placed in foster-are when their parent couldn't cope. Mino has both inexhaustible patience and limitless respect with them all, and in most cases has far more optimism of their capabilities than their own carers who struggle to accept anything beyond the status quo.  She wants her pupils to be able to communicate and be as independent as possible in a world that is often hostile to people like them

Asides from teaching them, Mino rushes around to check out all the government-funded programs in which to place her students after graduation hoping to find ones that will continue her good work. Sadly they include facilities where they will be set to do mindless repetitive work just to keep them occupied but not stimulated, and as these often are a cheaper option for the parent/carer they are often the ones selected. Mino is nothing less then tenacious in trying to always get the best for her pupils despite her colleagues attempts to get her to face the harsh realities of very limited options that life has in store for these future 'consumers' as they will now be deemed by officialdom.

Buck's camera is upfront and close at all times following Mina's every step and also recording those of her pupils, and it remains there too when one of them has the occasional meltdown.  When Mina manages to fulfill Erik's dream of a part time cleaning up at Burger King we are as elated as him, and equally crushed when it falls through because there are not funds to provide the necessary job coach to mentor him for those few hours a week.

The entire class deservedly get to graduate and in style, By this time we are 100% in their corner as we have got to know them one by one over the past 86 minutes we now share Mina's genuine concern about the next stage in their fragile lives. Meanwhile she has a whole new class of autistic kids in needs to start the whole process all over again.

The woman is a Saint.

Available now on VOD & DVD

★★★★★★★★

THE HUNT

Lucas is slowly getting his life together after a messy divorce with a traumatic custody battle, and also losing his teaching job as a result of the recession. Now in this small Danish country town he is working helping out at a kindergarten in the day and hanging out having fun with his male friends at night. It's not a perfect situation with him alone in the big house that he once shared with his family, but he has just heard that his son wants to come live with him so things are definitely on the up.

That all changes suddenly one day when in a fit of pique a 5 year old girl called Klara blurts out to Grethe the Kindergarten's owner that Lucas had exposed himself to her. A flummoxed Grethe calls in a child psychologist to see if there is any truth in the accusation, and in his overly-cautious way of desperately trying not to upset the child anymore, inadvertently puts words in her mouth and so draws the wrong conclusion.  Lucas is told to take a few days off whilst the matter gets sorted out, and Klara's parents ...... who happen to be Lucas's best friends .... are called in and told of the accusation.

From there the situation snowballs out of control as Grethe gives all the other worried parents a vague list of 'symptoms' to watch out for and then they all become convinced that Lucas has molested their children too.  And then when young Karla attempts to recant her story and tell the truth, this is rejected and explained away by the 'experts' as actually the severity of the abuse that has been inflicted upon her. When the local Magistrate refuses to charge Lucas due to an overwhelming lack of evidence, almost the entire community are outraged as they are totally convinced that a pedophile is loose in their midst now. 

As we know that the whole thing is a lie from the outset, it's harrowing to watch Lucas falsely treated like a criminal by the very community that he was once such an integral part of it.  They take out their anger on him both physically and verbally inflicting their own concept of justice on a man they unanimously feel should be punished.

Fast forward to when the truth finally is allowed to come out, and when the whole town accepts that it was all one huge mistake, Lucas and them kiss and make up, and life gets back to exactly where it was again for them all.  Or does it ... wait for the most unexpected finale before you decide .

Directed and co-written by Thomas Vinterberg ('The Celebration') it has a remarkable centered performance from acclaimed Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen with his weather-beaten sad face. Its a break from seeing him from playing a villain as he is usually typecast .... he was Le Chiffre in 'Casino Royale' and is currently playing Hannibal Lecter on NBC TV. He subtly portrays the persecuted Lucas with an intense quiet dignity despite all the hatred that is heaped upon him, until he finally lets his inner rage surface.  It's powerful stuff that it makes you want to root for him even more as the plot thickens.  Mr Mikkelsen was deservedly given the Best Actor Award at Cannes Film Festival for this.

Credit too for an astonishingly realistic performance from young Annika Wedderkopp as Klara, and also to Thomas Bo Larsen ('The Celebration') as Theo who was so torn between his loyalties as Klara's father and Lucas's best friend.

A harrowing take on a very difficult subject where people are so desperate to over-protect young children that they inadvertently see what they want to see and are totally blind to the truth.  It will make you both angry and sad. Trust me.

Out now on VOD & DVD.

★★★★★★★★

AMERICAN HUSTLE

From the opening scenes when a bald and paunchy Irving Rosenfeld (a totally unrecognizable Christian Bale) stands in front of the mirror doing a painstaking ritual of sticking on a toupee and then doing the most ridiculous comb-over ever, you can immediately sense that you are in for a riot of a movie.  This wonderful 1970's stylish comedy caper directed and co-written by 3 time Oscar nominee David O Russell is as much fun as you will ever have at the movies.

Its very vaguely based on a real incident from that time when the FBI enlisted the services of a con man from the Bronx to lead an undercover operation called Abscam that included the creation of a fictitious Arab sheikh named Abdul and resulted in the conviction of six congressman and a United States Senator, among others.  But in this movie where everyone seems to be intent on conning each other its almost impossible to keep on top of the complicated plot at all times.  Not that spoils one's enjoyment at all, as the real pleasure is in the cast of extraordinary hysterically funny characters that make this such a sheer delight.

Irving is a small time con man and loan shark who although married to his stunning beautiful but batty wife Rosalyn, falls really hard for Sydney a tough bright cookie from New Mexico who transforms herself into English aristocratic Lady Edith Greensley complete with fake high-powered business connections in London. She makes Irving ratch the cons up a notch or two and soon the money starts rolling in.  But their success attract the attention of  the FBI  who set them up on a sting, and once caught they are persuaded to help entrap some bigger fish in exchange for the charges against them being dropped.

They now have to work for Ritchie DiMaso a would-be hot-shot Agent who puts curlers in his hair at night and still lives at home, but is so insanely ambitious he would happily beat his boss to a pulp to get his own way.  Ritchie is so manically intense about everything which often causes him to goof up as he gets in such a state, he cannot see the woods from trees. Played somewhat frenetically by a rather brilliant Bradley Cooper who manages to steal most of his scenes ...even the ones with Bale.

The three of them embark of a series of ambitious undercover stings which brings them closer together and so Sydney turns her romantic attentions towards Ritchie as Irving will not (or can not) let Rosalyn loosen her grip on him.  Jennifer Lawrence's completely over the top showy performance as Rosalyn is a deliciously funny comic highlight of the story, and as such is already attracting a lot of awards and nominations.

When the chips are down and their biggest entrapment looks like it is going horrible wrong it is the sleezy looking Irving that proves that once again he is the smartest man in the room, and no matter how bright the best FBI Agents are, you can never out-con a con man.

Mr Russell has not put one single foot wrong creating this, one of the very best movies of the year.  The sets, the costumes, the make-up, the hairstyles, the soundtrack etc. every little detail makes this movie soar so high.  He's reunited with some of his favorite actors that he has once again extracted award-winning performances from.  Besides Christian Bale (Oscar Winner 'The Fighter') who is totally superb in yet another career-best turn, there is the sublime Amy Adams (Oscar Nominated 'The Fighter'), Bradley Cooper (Oscar Nominated 'Silver Linings Playbook'), Jennifer Lawrence (Oscar Winner 'Silver Linings Playbook'), Robert DeNiro (Oscar Nominated 'Silver Linings Playbook). Plus two time Oscar Nominee Jeremy Renner, Jack Huston, Alessandro Nivola and Michael Pena.

I definitely want to see this one again.  Not to try and make sense of some of the complicated plot twists I may have missed, but simply to revel once more in the experience of so much joy that this well-crafted movie has.  Such excellence from Hollywood is a rare commodity, and fun needs to be repeated.  More than once.

★★★★★★★★★★

THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN

Didier and Elise may look like a good fit when they fall in love at first sight and start a life together on his rundown farm, but appearances can be deceiving. This lanky bearded bluegrass banjo playing man is a romantic atheist whereas Elise, a beautiful blond hippy tattoo artist who maps her life out by the ink on her body, is a religious realist.

They both share a passion for each other and also for making music together and when Elise becomes suddenly pregnant, they extend this to Maybelle their child too. It's a big happy family until one day Maybelle, now aged 7, is diagnosed with a terminal illness.  Elise finds solace in her spirituality and in religious symbolism, whereas an desolate Didier focuses his anger at raging at the fanatics of the religious right who are successful in banning cell stem research that could help others like his child.

Keeping their lives together becomes more difficult as they get mired in their grief, and this couple that were inseparable can now barely speak to each other and are bound to go their desperate ways.

In this story co-written from a play by lead actor Johan Heldenberg (Didier) what strikes one most is the sheer intensity of every single part of the story. Right from the very raw love-making of the pair, to the heart wrenching twist of the child's sudden illness. When Didier suddenly loses his cool completely and rants and rages at the audience in the middle of his band's performance he is really asking what the point of life actually is if tragedies like the loss of his child can occur.

The irony is that this Flemish man has always been so impressed with everything American as he believes life there is perfection, yet he can see from his TV (Pres. Bush at a news conference) that the culprits who are stopping the medical research are in his precious USA.  And the Appalachian music he is devoted to sing is deeply infused with the God that he hates so much.

It's an immensely powerful and painfully devastating movie that will move you to tears more than once. Watching the pair struggle to come to terms with having to witness the sheer cruelty of Maybelle's suffering, (with a staggeringly realistic performance from an exceptionally talented five year old Nell Cattrysse) and then trying to find some rationality in the situation just exasperates their anger even more.

And lest I should forget, there is the glorious haunting Bluegrass music that peppers the whole story ..... and all sung and played by the actors themselves.

This is Belgium's official nomination for Best Foreign Language Oscar and has deservedly made the final shortlist and is a very serious contender for actually winning.  It has already been picking up awards around the world including a Best Actress one at Tribeca Festival for Veerle Baetens's riveting performance as Elise.

Unmissable.

★★★★★★★★★★

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS

Poor Llewyn is both a loser and a user. Nothing is safe in his hands as his life careers from disaster to disaster whilst he goes from crashing on couch to couch in his long suffering friend's New York apartments. He even manages to lose one of his host's cat that he lets escape into the streets.

'Inside Llewyn Davies' is the Coen Brother's wonderful take on the early 1960's folk music scene in Greenwich Village that focuses on good-looking 30-something year old Llewyn whose songs are as bleak as his very messy life.  He treats everyone so shabbily that it is a complete surprise that anyone puts up with him at all. There's Jean, who sings with her husband Jim when she is not sleeping with Llewyn and half of the folk club circuit. She blames Llewyn for her pregnancy and although he unquestioningly accepts responsibility for paying for an abortion, in reality it may not even be his child.

There's Joy his resentful sister who allows Llewyn to crash in the Long Island house that had once been their childhood home just so that she can nag him to give up singing and go back to being a merchant seaman. And in uptown Manhattan, there are the Columbus scholars the Gorfiens whose cat he loses, but it also turns out that they were the parents of Llewyn's late singing partner who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge.

Everybody on the folk club circuit is enjoying more success than Llewyn even though he think he has much more talent, but he fails miserably to earn their respect or worthwhile gigs or even a decent Agent.

Why such a depressing tale should be so watchable is totally down to the Coen's obsessive attention to detail.  It's a glorious period piece shot in smoky hues that makes it feel like a black & white movie that has been hand tinted with some color.  The acting from this incredible ensemble is top-notch but the production design and cinematography deserves star billing too. The fact that we get so engaged in watching the story of a loser is because he is played by a remarkable relatively unknown actor Oscar Isaac (and local Miami boy) who was nothing less than sensational in this his first ever lead role.

Rounding out the cast were the superb Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake as Jean and Jim, Garret Hedlund as Johnny Five, and John Goodman playing the obnoxious loud-mouthed Roland Turner.

My initial reaction after viewing this, was one of stunned silence as I had simply not been prepared for what a downer the actual story was.  Now on reflection, and I am wallowing in the memory of the sheer pleasure of what a powerful character study of such a flawed character it was in such a magnificent set piece.  And lest I should forget there was all that music too that had been ex-produced by none other than T Bone Burnett.

It won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and is unmissable, as it could even be the best Coen Brothers yet.  And that is really saying something.

★★★★★★★★★★

THE PATIENCE STONE

In a decrepit bomb-damaged house in a  war-torn country ....probably Afghanistan ......an unnamed young woman in her mid thirties is struggling to take care of her two young children and also her much older husband who was seriously wounded in a battle. A bullet in his neck has reduced him to a comatose state, and as they have run out of money to buy any drugs, he is kept alive by the glucose drip she has rigged up, and by her extraordinary patience.

They have been abandoned by all his family who have escaped to a safer area, and even his fellow combatants and are now totally alone in what has now become the front line of the fighting. She manages to track down her Aunt, who has survived as an independent unmarried woman in this fiercely Muslim country by working as a prostitute and she provides a refuge for the children, and some support/encouragement for her to go back and sit it out with her husband.

Left alone with his motionless body for company all day, the woman starts to open up and speak the truth to her silent husband. Something she would never have dared to do had he been conscious. She tells him about her childhood, her frustrations, her dreams and her innermost secrets. Emboldened by the relief she feels in letting go, her confessions get more extraordinary and audacious as she rails on about this old man who never tried to understand her, or ever showed her any respect or kindness, and so often mistreated.

According to Persian mythology 'the patience stone' is a magical black stone that absorbs the plight of those who confide in it, and that is exactly what the woman is now doing. She goes even further and even confides to her husband about the young stuttering virgin soldier who mistook her as a prostitute and how she has been finding happiness in helping him with his sexual awareness and teaching him how to pleasure her.  And if that is not enough, she finally confesses about the long-held secrets about the paternity of their daughters.

The movie written and directed by Atiq Rahimi based on his own award winning novel is a powerful feminist tale. To take aim like this against a repressive religious patriarchy in a set up where the men literally have no voice, is completely ingenious. We share every sliver of all the emotions that the woman feels from her bitterness to her downright anger in being forced to have silently accepted her role as her husband's property to do with exactly as he pleases. It's a potent and compelling performance by Golshifteh Farahani, an exceptionally gifted Iranian actress who is no longer welcome in her home country since she posed nude in a French Magazine last year. The success of the whole piece lies squarely on her shoulders, a task that she rises to so totally.

It's a movie that every woman should see .... if nothing more than to empower you to find your own 'patience stone' and tell a few home truths to your partner even if he isn't comatose.

P.S. This is Afghanistan's Official Submission for Best Foreign Picture Oscar.

★★★★★★★★★