Up to 397 minutes - without intermissions - and beautifully restored in various tints as well as black-and-white, all four parts of Les Miserables can be seen now and it's well worth it. Stylistically, it's solid and conventional with no cinematographic showing off, but Fescourt uses the camera skilfully and the characters are also well-realised, with Gabriel Gabrio the best Jean Valjean I've seen.
Reviews
111 Reviews
The Right to Live
(1921)
Kind hearts are more than coronets...
3 August 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Even in 1921 this film was old-fashioned, both technically and dramatically. All he same, it's worth watching, even if the reasons for watching it aren't cinematic. The filming technique is simple: an unmoving camera, with the actors in front of it, in long takes, the standard methods of theatre-derived early cinema. Most of the shots are medium close-up or show the whole set - mostly shots of Bill Rivers's living room and members of his family and his fish stall just outside. The only exception is a race between Bill and another coaster driving their own carts in a race on a country road. This is filmed from the back of a car travelling in front of them and is astonishingly well-done. Unfortunately, it seems to have used up all the film's effects budget, as the other two races are depicted by random shots, with the competitors indistinguishable from each other. In the last race - a steeplechase - there is a title reading "She can't lose now!" followed by a shot of three horses neck-and-neck as they cross a fence. The "dialogue" is clumsy: a series of unnecessary remarks and conversations in transliterated cockney interrupting the (in)action.
The stories too are clichéd: Bill wins a little money backing his own horse in a road-race, loses his savings backing her in a trotting race and then regains the lot backing the winner of a steeplechase. The other story is of Bill's niece, Maggie, who ran away from home and vanished years ago, out to better herself. Now and again Bill and his father look for Maggie in the West End (there's a hint they think she's a prostitute) and fail to find her. Maggie - now Marjorie Dessalar - is an actress and is just about to succeed when she takes the lead in a musical. She is also being pursued by a baronet, who may be bold (we're told he has a D.S.O.), but he isn't bad - in fact, he is strictly honourable in his intentions towards Marjorie. Equally, Marjorie tells him of her background and introduces him to her relatives before they marry. The Bart. isn't put off and enables Bill to regain his money by backing his horse by halves and all is well. That is the reason to watch the film: for all its cinematic faults and hackneyed plots, there is a remarkable human generosity to it. The Cockneyisms of Bill and his family and neighbours are looked at anthropologically as much as a source of humour. When Bill confesses that he has lost their nest-egg, his wife is stoical, accepting that Bill's pride in Polly, his horse, carried him away. The only partly malevolent character - an acquaintance of Sir Robert who marries for money - is depicted as comical rather than wicked.
The stories too are clichéd: Bill wins a little money backing his own horse in a road-race, loses his savings backing her in a trotting race and then regains the lot backing the winner of a steeplechase. The other story is of Bill's niece, Maggie, who ran away from home and vanished years ago, out to better herself. Now and again Bill and his father look for Maggie in the West End (there's a hint they think she's a prostitute) and fail to find her. Maggie - now Marjorie Dessalar - is an actress and is just about to succeed when she takes the lead in a musical. She is also being pursued by a baronet, who may be bold (we're told he has a D.S.O.), but he isn't bad - in fact, he is strictly honourable in his intentions towards Marjorie. Equally, Marjorie tells him of her background and introduces him to her relatives before they marry. The Bart. isn't put off and enables Bill to regain his money by backing his horse by halves and all is well. That is the reason to watch the film: for all its cinematic faults and hackneyed plots, there is a remarkable human generosity to it. The Cockneyisms of Bill and his family and neighbours are looked at anthropologically as much as a source of humour. When Bill confesses that he has lost their nest-egg, his wife is stoical, accepting that Bill's pride in Polly, his horse, carried him away. The only partly malevolent character - an acquaintance of Sir Robert who marries for money - is depicted as comical rather than wicked.
Walkover
(1965)
Fighting for nothing
30 May 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Rysopis ends with Skolimowski's alter-ego Andrzej Leszczyc leaving Warsaw on a train to go and do his military service, here he turns up in another town on another train. That isn't quite the beginning, though. The first thing we see is the face of a young woman who throws herself under the train as it draws into the station. Andrzej doesn't seem to notice at the time. He's trying to get the attention of Teresa, played by Elzbieta Czyzewska (who played all the women in Rysopis), who had Andrzej thrown out of his first university course. In between catching his train in Warsaw and getting off this one, Andrzej has done his military service, learnt to box, gone back to college and dropped out again and makes his living by competing in novice boxing matches and selling the prizes of watches and radios.Tomorrow he will be thirty...
The film is a sequel to Rysopis in tone and technique as well - another dog dies, there is the same kind of jazz score and Skolimowski shows his love of virtuoso camera-work, especially long tracking shots. The whole film consists of only thirty four shots - the most extraordinary involving a conversation between Andrzej on a train and a boxer he has beaten on a motorcycle as they move across the countryside. One novelty is the use of interior monologues or soliloquies as Andrzej broods over his situation in a way he did not in the earlier film. In the end, Andrzej and another veteran novice boxer are fighting outside the ring over a cheap radio awarded as a prize...
The film is a sequel to Rysopis in tone and technique as well - another dog dies, there is the same kind of jazz score and Skolimowski shows his love of virtuoso camera-work, especially long tracking shots. The whole film consists of only thirty four shots - the most extraordinary involving a conversation between Andrzej on a train and a boxer he has beaten on a motorcycle as they move across the countryside. One novelty is the use of interior monologues or soliloquies as Andrzej broods over his situation in a way he did not in the earlier film. In the end, Andrzej and another veteran novice boxer are fighting outside the ring over a cheap radio awarded as a prize...
This is the biggest electric train set a boy ever had!
19 October 2014
...said Orson Welles of a film set. Walter Summers had a couple of battleships and several cruisers as bonuses. A restoration of a silent film depicting these two battles. The ships which played the originals are named, the human actors are not, which shows their comparative importance. As far as there is a hero, it is the German Admiral von Spee, who is shown as knowing his fate almost from the start, but the film is remarkably fair in its depiction of people. The only comic aspect- its portrait of the Falklands Defence Force as food for powder who'll fill a pit as well as better- shifts to recognition that like Falstaff's men they show a raggle-taggle courage as admirable as it is absurd. But it is the ships and machinery that dominate the film. There is an extra-ordinary collage sequence depicting the fitting-out of the battle-cruisers at Devonport which is a feat of virtuosity worthy of Eisenstein; there are repeated shots of the engines and the stokers' feats in getting up steam in H.M.S. Kent's pursuit of the nominally faster SMS Nurnberg are concentrated on as exercises in co-operative skill and dedication. The ships themselves- real ships, we are constantly reminded- shown on the ocean and the pattern of guns across the screen could come from futurist paintings. Finally, the specially commissioned score, played, appropriately, by a Royal Marine band, is a fine accompaniment.
Attila Marcel
(2013)
Rondo Giocoso a la Grenouille
7 September 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Sylvain Chomet's first live action film is another exercise in homage and hyper-reality. It is in the same kind of slightly off-kilter world as his other films, like, but not quite like, our own. Paul, an aging infant prodigy, has one last chance to win a prize for young pianists before he stops being officially young. He has been mute since his parents' mysterious deaths when he was two and was raised by his mother's staid sisters, Anna and Annie, dance teachers, who control his life and have made him practise continually on the family's ancestral piano in a flat full of ancestral portraits when he is isn't playing at their dance school.
Escaping from his birthday party, attended by his aunts' elderly friends, Paul encounters Mme Proust, an aging ukulele-playing hippie with a huge black deaf dog and no aspirations to musical virtuosity, who uses exotic tisanes (accompanied by madeleines, of course) to revive Paul's childhood memories and bring closure, in the best Hollywood Freudian way, to his problems. There is a destiny that shapes our ends, she explains, rough-hew them how we will, and that is what it does to Paul.
Paul's repressed memories appear from an infant's brightly-coloured p.o.v. to the accompaniment of music his aunts would abhor, including seductive jazz-playing frog accordionists. In the end, Paul is an integrated man, an acclaimed virtuoso (if not on the piano), able to speak, a good father who does not repeat his own father's mistakes... Like Chomet's earlier films, this is a game of references and hallucinations and just as animated as they were, if in a different way.
Escaping from his birthday party, attended by his aunts' elderly friends, Paul encounters Mme Proust, an aging ukulele-playing hippie with a huge black deaf dog and no aspirations to musical virtuosity, who uses exotic tisanes (accompanied by madeleines, of course) to revive Paul's childhood memories and bring closure, in the best Hollywood Freudian way, to his problems. There is a destiny that shapes our ends, she explains, rough-hew them how we will, and that is what it does to Paul.
Paul's repressed memories appear from an infant's brightly-coloured p.o.v. to the accompaniment of music his aunts would abhor, including seductive jazz-playing frog accordionists. In the end, Paul is an integrated man, an acclaimed virtuoso (if not on the piano), able to speak, a good father who does not repeat his own father's mistakes... Like Chomet's earlier films, this is a game of references and hallucinations and just as animated as they were, if in a different way.
The Rover
(2014)
Mad Maximum
17 August 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Set in a dystopian outback ten years after "the collapse"- the end of civilisation as we- or Australians, at least- know it- this film has no coherence of plot or characterisation. For example, everyone insists on using U.S. dollars for currency, even though Guy Pearce's character Eric (he's called that in the credits, but he goes out of his way not to reveal his name in the film) points out truthfully that they're nothing but paper; even though the world is in chaos, the railways function and enormous ore trains go across country with armed escorts; Pearce's character changes from being left-handed to right-handed; old telegraph poles are used for crucifixions, but electricity functions everywhere; there are empty houses everywhere, but Eric and Rey, his companion/prisoner/hostage stay in motels. You can enjoy yourself counting the absurdities and contradictions. All the same, you've got to hang on to the end of this doolally shaggy dog story- and the landscapes and some of the acting, when you can make out what they are actually saying, make this quite good fun- to find out just what the title actually refers to.
Field of Dogs
(2014)
Through the gates of Hell
24 May 2014
A leisurely, beautiful look at grief and despair. It's set specifically in Poland in 2010- a year of unprecedented disasters: floods early in the year, the death of the country's president and many senior officials in a 'plane crash, on an official visit of commemoration to Katyn, a volcanic eruption which grounded aircraft throughout Europe. TV images of these events accompany the main characters through the film. At the same time, a young man, a poet and scholar, who was injured and scarred in a car crash which killed the driver, the young man's best friend, and his wife or girlfriend- it isn't made clear which- wanders around, relying on prescription drugs and a recording of Dante's Divine Comedy and fantastic visions to keep him going. The young man walks or drives, sleeping irregularly, ambushed by dreams or memories, talking with the dead, having hallucinatory visions in a surreal world, while his aunt, a philosopher and Stoic, offers the words of Epictetus, Seneca, Heidegger saying that life and death are illusory. A bikinied girl from a TV gameshow comes to life to offer comfort to him; a whore entertains a customer in a cemetery vault; the young man's dead father yokes oxen and ploughs up the sterile tiles of a supermarket; an ineffectual angel watches the young woman's body in a cathedral- this was the first scene- and at the end water crashes through the roof of the cathedral and floods away across the floor. It isn't a Christian vision- the only priest is ineffective- but there is a religious aspect to this solemn ritualistic pageant: perhaps beauty itself is one of the consolations of existence. In the end it seems that the young man- and Poland have escaped from the grim fugue.
A Hijacking
(2012)
Taut and realistic
20 October 2012
Warning: Spoilers
A fine realistic- almost documentary- examination of the hijacking of a Danish-owned freighter by Somali pirates. The two central characters are the ship's cook and the company's C.E.O., who negotiates the crew's release after over four months. There is an almost obsessive concern for realism- the scenes with the crew and the pirates were filmed on a real freighter- which had itself once been hijacked- off the coast of Somalia; the offices of a real shipping company were used; the hostage negotiator used as a consultant plays the part of a hostage negotiator. There are only two lapses from exact realism: the C.E.O. rejects the consultant's advice to recruit an outside negotiator. This makes for more drama at the expense of realism, but we have just seen him negotiate a deal that looked impossible with a Japanese company and- coolly impassive though he is- we can accept he is triumphant and thinks he is the best man for the job. Much of the film is a study of this man's moral education and moral courage as he learns to take others' advice, comes close to psychological collapse and finally triumphs, only to have his triumph destroyed by chance. Even then, he accepts his duty to take responsibility for what has happened, even if it is out of his control. The other lapse from realism is probably the result of the cinematic demand that something has to happen, even in a film where triumph consists of making sure nothing happens. The film takes place almost entirely in confined spaces- the company's offices, in the ship's cabins or cargo deck with occasional glimpses of the outside sea and the sky. There are a couple of moments where pirates and hostages almost meet as equals- when the crew are allowed on deck and catch a fish which inspires a feast for all of them- but for most of the film the pirates are potentially murderous 'others' who inspire only fear and hatred. Even their own English-speaking negotiator, for all his claims not to be a pirate like the others, reveals his own duplicity.
Lines of Wellington
(2012)
The Horrors of War
13 October 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Like The Mysteries of Lisbon this film was adapted by Raoul Ruiz from a novel by Camilo Castelo Branco. However, after Ruiz's death it was directed by his widow Valeria Sarmiento. It depicts the retreat of the Anglo-Portuguese army under the Viscount- as he then was- Wellington to the Lines of Torres Vedas and the civilians forced to retreat with them as a result of the scorched earth policy imposed by Wellington. Malkovich's Wellington isn't much like the original. Malkovich is twenty years too old for the part and looks nothing like the original to begin with. He is shown almost entirely in his relations with a French exile painting his portrait, complaining about too many corpses and not enough panache in pictures of battles and wondering whether being known for inventing Beef Wellington is a compliment. About the only suggestion that Wellington was a military genius is the repeated emphasis that he had ordered the Lines to be built over a year before and had anticipated his eventual retreat to them before the start of the campaign. There are only two curious scenes which suggest other aspects than buffoonery to his character: one where he watches through a telescope an aide has given him an idiot boy stagger through the retreating mob of civilians looking for help. Does he know the human cost of his policy and escape it in absurdity? The other- his last appearance- where he gazes at a portrait of Bonaparte. Does he want to look like Bonaparte? Does he want to be Bonaparte? Is he getting into the mind of his opponent like Montgomery with Rommell? It's impossible to say.
Fortunately, Wellington himself is a small role. The main emphasis is on individuals caught up in the retreat- a Portuguese sergeant, his wounded lieutenant, the Irish widow (with a cut-glass English accent unfortunately) of one of Wellington's soldiers, a Portuguese whore, an Anglo-Portuguese girl with a taste for incest, an at-first-unidentified French soldier, the French general Masséna's transvestite mistress in a hussar's uniform, the idiot boy, an aristocrat fleeing with his library and searching for his vanished wife, an apparently unscrupulous pedlar...these are just a few of the characters involved. On the one hand, they are often so interesting that we'd like to know more about them; on the other, they never stay long enough to bore or annoy. A plot does emerge gradually with quite a few characters involved, but it is the line to connect the various events- a series of horrors and atrocities, some recounted in a grimly comic way. I've never seen any of Sarmiento's films so I can't say how this differs from the way Ruiz would have directed it- the grim humour, or its openness, is hers rather than Ruiz's, I think, and a certain lightness of touch. One astonishing thing is the effects obtained from a fairly small cast and a small budget; we are never aware that we are watching 'armies' of a few dozen people. One complaint- the Portuguese T.V. version is three 60 minute episodes; the film is 151 minutes long- only thirty minutes shorter. Given that, why not let us see the lot? It would still be shorter than The Mysteries of Lisbon.
Fortunately, Wellington himself is a small role. The main emphasis is on individuals caught up in the retreat- a Portuguese sergeant, his wounded lieutenant, the Irish widow (with a cut-glass English accent unfortunately) of one of Wellington's soldiers, a Portuguese whore, an Anglo-Portuguese girl with a taste for incest, an at-first-unidentified French soldier, the French general Masséna's transvestite mistress in a hussar's uniform, the idiot boy, an aristocrat fleeing with his library and searching for his vanished wife, an apparently unscrupulous pedlar...these are just a few of the characters involved. On the one hand, they are often so interesting that we'd like to know more about them; on the other, they never stay long enough to bore or annoy. A plot does emerge gradually with quite a few characters involved, but it is the line to connect the various events- a series of horrors and atrocities, some recounted in a grimly comic way. I've never seen any of Sarmiento's films so I can't say how this differs from the way Ruiz would have directed it- the grim humour, or its openness, is hers rather than Ruiz's, I think, and a certain lightness of touch. One astonishing thing is the effects obtained from a fairly small cast and a small budget; we are never aware that we are watching 'armies' of a few dozen people. One complaint- the Portuguese T.V. version is three 60 minute episodes; the film is 151 minutes long- only thirty minutes shorter. Given that, why not let us see the lot? It would still be shorter than The Mysteries of Lisbon.
Doomsday Book
(2012)
This is the way the world ends...
11 October 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Three short entertaining and intriguing films about the end of the world or humanity. The first features a put-upon hero left to clean up the family flat while his parents and sister go on holiday who meets a beautiful girl with whom he becomes a zombie, whether from a variant of 'flu, a kind of B.S.E. or North Korean biological warfare isn't made clear and doesn'tmatter. The second is about a robot in a Buddhist monastery which appears to have 'become Buddha'- achieved nirvana- the monks want to know if this is possible or if it is a defect in the robot and the repair man sent to examine it and from there we move to a strange meditation on robots and machines and humanity and what might be the differences between them- a philosophical Blade Runner. We also catch strange glimpses of a possible future world. Paradoxically, in some ways this episode is the one least suited to cinema and the one I'd like to have seen expanded. It ends with a quiet chilling revelation that changes the way we have seen everything before.
The third part involves a little girl who throws away a pool ball and orders another on the 'net. Owing to a galactic error worthy of The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, the ball arrives in the form of a meteor ten kilometres across and liable to wipe out humanity...Cue (as in the first episode) satire on T.V, personalities, politicians, scientists, weather forecasters etc.and a curious happy ending.
The third part involves a little girl who throws away a pool ball and orders another on the 'net. Owing to a galactic error worthy of The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, the ball arrives in the form of a meteor ten kilometres across and liable to wipe out humanity...Cue (as in the first episode) satire on T.V, personalities, politicians, scientists, weather forecasters etc.and a curious happy ending.
Holy Motors
(2012)
Hang onto your seats! It's going to be a bumpy night!
30 September 2012
Warning: Spoilers
A wonderful, bonkers masterpiece inspired by Carax's love of films and literature. People want to know what it's about, which is like asking what the world is about when- like the world- it's just there, another deeply Melvillean film- a great white whale replaced by a great white limousine- inspired by another of his failures: this time, The Confidence Man, with Monsieur Oscar- remember, Oscar is one of Capax's 'real' or 'given' or 'birth' names, but may be 'only' another persona for Denis Lavant's character, if he is or has a character- in fact one effect of watching the film is to question every 'reality' or meaning, to look for connexions, real or false, significant or trivial, to look for significant anagrams in names like in 'Denis Lavant'- after all, M. Oscar only appears after the sleeper apparently wakes and uses his finger which is also a key to open the door to...a cinema full of corpses, where naked children and mysterious shapes wander in the aisles and we never get to see the film the corpses are watching- if there is a film that they are watching at all- and if there is, is it 'only' a nineteenth century study of human movement?- and they haven't just been left there or just happen to be there.
Visitor of a Museum
(1989)
Tarkovsky's disciple
20 August 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Konstantin Lopushansky worked with Tarkovsky, and it shows, in plot, setting and characterisation. Unfortunately- in this film at least- he deals with similar themes, but is no where hear as good as Tarkovsky. Sometime in the near future a catastrophe-not just ecological- the plot rests on low tide lasting seven days- means that 40% of children are born with genetic deformities. They are called "degenerates" and are played by genuinely disabled people. They are put in "reservations". There is also a mysterious museum, possibly containing lost knowledge, accessible only at low tide, which the central character wants to visit. First the good points: there are some beautiful shots, though Lopushansky seems to enjoy them for too long, and the power of the newly-risen sea is well-conveyed. However, the film's defects outweigh its virtues. Firat of all, we are told too much- in Stalker, we know hardly anything of the world outside the Zone, here we know so much that we need to know more because of it- we learn about fashion: high heels are worn by men, for example- but we don't even know how the population feeds itself and the "degenerates". We know the museum is significant, but we don't know why- indeed, in the end, the museum is a Maguffin, a simple plot device. Most of all, though, the characters just aren't convincing and their personalities change according to the plot's requirements. In the end, the central character is just another Holy Fool, driven mad by mysterious forces and we just don't care.
Merci La Vie
(1991)
Astonishing virtuosity
6 February 2011
Warning: Spoilers
I'm surprised that no-one has noticed that this isn't one film but several- several dozen, perhaps- all piled into one another. It;s a whole collection of post-war French films with assorted characters moving through them- a critique and a celebration of cinema and life. There's the road movie, the kooky teenagers film, the moral panic film, the corrupt local politics film, the love affair between a middle-aged man and a young girl film, the resistance film... and no doubt quite a few more. There's also the film about making a film where the makers' private lives reflect what happens on the set, several times over. There's also a lot of looks at reality and fantasy, morality and practicality. Blier may suggest that life is worth being thankful for- at least, Joelle is sad to lose it as she lies dying of AIDS in one version and regrets her ignorance- on the other hand, it ends with a long look at an old man who has soiled himself in a wheelchair by the sea. The old man is played by Jean Carmet though, and we've seen him acting an actor who wants to die on set. So, it's up to us whether life is something we should be grateful for.
Out of the Ashes
(2010)
"Pull up your sleeves, come on to the street and start dancing. Because happiness is rare in a poor man's life."
31 December 2010
sings an Afghan cricketer at the end of this film, and we can see why. Over two years the Afghan national cricket team rose from never having played international opponents to narrowly failing to get into the World Cup and being accepted as worthy one-day opponents for the test-playing nations. The film looks at the players and their progress. There isn't much actual cricket- in an early scene, a British embassy official- presumably dealing with the team's first trip abroad to Jersey- chortles helplessly at the thought of what the Afghans- dedicated fast bowlers and sloggers- "They play as if it was a war." he says- will do when they face a good spinner, and from the few shots we see against Nepal they do indeed have difficulties against spin: on the other hand, it looks as if one of the Afghans is a pretty good spinner too in a later shot. We never learn anything about any of the scores or much about the games. The film concentrates on the players, their characters and the society they come from. We see them progress through Jersey, Tanzania, Argentina and South Africa as they make an extraordinary progress from tyros to the edge of Big Cricket.
It isn't pretty in some ways: the players are ambitious for themselves and Afghanistan in a way that none of their early opponents- part-time hobby players- would ever be. Perhaps that is why Geoffrey Boycott responds to and admires the Afghans so much; like him, they cannot imagine an unimportant game. When things go well and the government intervene it is ugly. Taj Malik, effective founder of cricket in Afghanistan, brother of two players, manager and coach is dismissed and replaced by a Pakistani ex-Test player. There is good reason- Malik's whole experience has been on concrete pitches; he has never played at that level. Even so, other countries would promote him to an honorary and honourable position and not just boot him out, but the players accept it: too much depends on their success not to. In the end though, Malik is welcomed back to watch Afghanistan's first one-day match against India. The other part of the film is watching the players' response to a world elsewhere: in Jersey, faced with miniskirts, the full English breakfast, line-dancing, stout Labradors ('Is that a bear or a dog?') and the sea ('We have rivers better than this!') they are too busy trying to get by in the game to have much culture shock; but when they get to Argentina one player spends all his spare time in his room and grows a beard to remind him of his spirituality- bikinis and couples kissing distract him- while downstairs his team-mates stare astonished at a raunchy tango which is part of the opening ceremony. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the team's rise to being a big fish in a small pond- do they realise how very small it is?- inspires national pride. In the end, of course, they fail. Mighty Canada gets into the World Cup and the team go home to prepare for the future. As I said, they get to play India- and get damnably licked- and their own small ambitions are fulfilled. Taj Malik, who is probably closest to the ideal of cricket as an amateur pastime to be played for its own sake, has been back to the refugee camp where he learnt to play and still coaches children.
It isn't pretty in some ways: the players are ambitious for themselves and Afghanistan in a way that none of their early opponents- part-time hobby players- would ever be. Perhaps that is why Geoffrey Boycott responds to and admires the Afghans so much; like him, they cannot imagine an unimportant game. When things go well and the government intervene it is ugly. Taj Malik, effective founder of cricket in Afghanistan, brother of two players, manager and coach is dismissed and replaced by a Pakistani ex-Test player. There is good reason- Malik's whole experience has been on concrete pitches; he has never played at that level. Even so, other countries would promote him to an honorary and honourable position and not just boot him out, but the players accept it: too much depends on their success not to. In the end though, Malik is welcomed back to watch Afghanistan's first one-day match against India. The other part of the film is watching the players' response to a world elsewhere: in Jersey, faced with miniskirts, the full English breakfast, line-dancing, stout Labradors ('Is that a bear or a dog?') and the sea ('We have rivers better than this!') they are too busy trying to get by in the game to have much culture shock; but when they get to Argentina one player spends all his spare time in his room and grows a beard to remind him of his spirituality- bikinis and couples kissing distract him- while downstairs his team-mates stare astonished at a raunchy tango which is part of the opening ceremony. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the team's rise to being a big fish in a small pond- do they realise how very small it is?- inspires national pride. In the end, of course, they fail. Mighty Canada gets into the World Cup and the team go home to prepare for the future. As I said, they get to play India- and get damnably licked- and their own small ambitions are fulfilled. Taj Malik, who is probably closest to the ideal of cricket as an amateur pastime to be played for its own sake, has been back to the refugee camp where he learnt to play and still coaches children.
Winter Vacation
(2010)
"Why are you all looking at me?"
22 October 2010
...one of the characters asks in this film, when he wakes to find his friends stand around staring at him in his bedroom, and the answer may be the same as why we watch the film- there's nothing else to do. Eventually we laugh, because the only alternative is to weep.
Set on the last days of the school's winter holidays, centring on a bunch of adolescents and moving out to their families, this film is like Hongqi's other films, only more so, and in colour. This time the camera stares blankly as ever and never moves at all and most of the cast are just as motionless and indifferent. "How to be a useful member of society" the English teacher scrawls on a blackboard at the end of the film (the biology teacher- who's forgotten to take his medication- has just been telling the children that everything they're told at school is lies and delusions, but he was in the wrong classroom) and the children stare and fidget blankly while a punk song with all the energy none of the characters shows plays loud enough to hurt the ears and eventually the film ends in a blank screen. Just about the only character to show any curiosity- the four or five your old Zhou Zhangxin, "the most pitiful child I know", his playmate says- is persistently told to "Be quiet or your uncle will kick your butt", not that there's any sign his uncle- who is the teenager who asked "Why are you looking at me?"- would bother to do any such thing. We aren't surprised that Zhou Zhangxin wants to be an orphan when he grows up and eventually runs away because he can't wait. Where all the other characters slouch indifferently- even when they are bullying or being bullied, Zhou Zhangxin is striding determinedly into his future when last we see him. How far he will get is another question.
Set on the last days of the school's winter holidays, centring on a bunch of adolescents and moving out to their families, this film is like Hongqi's other films, only more so, and in colour. This time the camera stares blankly as ever and never moves at all and most of the cast are just as motionless and indifferent. "How to be a useful member of society" the English teacher scrawls on a blackboard at the end of the film (the biology teacher- who's forgotten to take his medication- has just been telling the children that everything they're told at school is lies and delusions, but he was in the wrong classroom) and the children stare and fidget blankly while a punk song with all the energy none of the characters shows plays loud enough to hurt the ears and eventually the film ends in a blank screen. Just about the only character to show any curiosity- the four or five your old Zhou Zhangxin, "the most pitiful child I know", his playmate says- is persistently told to "Be quiet or your uncle will kick your butt", not that there's any sign his uncle- who is the teenager who asked "Why are you looking at me?"- would bother to do any such thing. We aren't surprised that Zhou Zhangxin wants to be an orphan when he grows up and eventually runs away because he can't wait. Where all the other characters slouch indifferently- even when they are bullying or being bullied, Zhou Zhangxin is striding determinedly into his future when last we see him. How far he will get is another question.
These fragments have I shored against my ruins...
18 October 2010
The film begins with a long exploration like "The Zone" from Tarkovsky's Stalker: bushes glimpsed derelict tunnels, shelves of books made of lead with rocks on them, more leaden books with fragments of glass in and around them, light from overhead windows shines on rubble and dust- filled corridors. Music by Ligoti accompanies it. After some time- more than ten minutes at a guess- the first human appears, charring sets of- paper- books in a furnace. He is one of Anselm Kiefer's assistants at this strange studio or workshop- a derelict silk factory, where Kiefer adds deliberate ruins to the accidental ones. We see Kiefer's working methods- both aleatoric and industrial in their own way- enormous paintings- of tree trunks on glass, of a man or corpse on his back- a strange self-portrait, perhaps- the only painting we see not exclusively involving black, white and grey- and watch his working methods- glue and then a powder- dust or paint- is scattered on a painting on the ground and a crane slowly hoists the painting up to display it while much of the powder falls off; a strange sculpture of a deformed ship is stuck to a seascape, hiding the artist's palette which was there before.
Next there is an interview with Kiefer in the library. We never see what any of the books in the library are and Kiefer does not refer to any other artists, only to the bible and the Kabbalist Solomon Luria and the Rosicrucian Robert Fludd. Nor do we learn more of Kiefer- are the children who appear in the library his children, his grandchildren or someone else's? We never learn how his extraordinary work is paid for either. At one point the interviewer says that nothing is written on the blank pages of the lead books- no, says Kiefer, everything is written there. At no time is there a discussion of the quality of Kiefer's art or the history and influences behind it. Its value is taken as a given.
In the second half we see how the sculptures are made and someone excavates an underground amphitheatre, for an unknown end. Kiefer and his assistants pour molten lead down a mound of earth, help the lead form a cascade and melt a leaden book at the bottom- it seems important that the book be melted, rather than raw lead be used. They pay no attention to health or safety regulations, never wearing protective masks or clothing, no matter how potentially lethal the material they work with. Finally, they put up artificial ruins, already fragmentary walls of concrete that rest on the leaden books and make brittle piles in the sky, haunts for Lilith the she-demon, Kiefer says. He announces, casually, that he is going to a new studio in Paris; over a hundred lorries have already moved things, and this studio will be abandoned, a painting or sculpture left in each building to decay with the building. The film ends with another survey accompanied by Ligoti's music, this time of the ruins in air waiting to decay and fall as if Ozymandias had designed his statue as a ruin.
Next there is an interview with Kiefer in the library. We never see what any of the books in the library are and Kiefer does not refer to any other artists, only to the bible and the Kabbalist Solomon Luria and the Rosicrucian Robert Fludd. Nor do we learn more of Kiefer- are the children who appear in the library his children, his grandchildren or someone else's? We never learn how his extraordinary work is paid for either. At one point the interviewer says that nothing is written on the blank pages of the lead books- no, says Kiefer, everything is written there. At no time is there a discussion of the quality of Kiefer's art or the history and influences behind it. Its value is taken as a given.
In the second half we see how the sculptures are made and someone excavates an underground amphitheatre, for an unknown end. Kiefer and his assistants pour molten lead down a mound of earth, help the lead form a cascade and melt a leaden book at the bottom- it seems important that the book be melted, rather than raw lead be used. They pay no attention to health or safety regulations, never wearing protective masks or clothing, no matter how potentially lethal the material they work with. Finally, they put up artificial ruins, already fragmentary walls of concrete that rest on the leaden books and make brittle piles in the sky, haunts for Lilith the she-demon, Kiefer says. He announces, casually, that he is going to a new studio in Paris; over a hundred lorries have already moved things, and this studio will be abandoned, a painting or sculpture left in each building to decay with the building. The film ends with another survey accompanied by Ligoti's music, this time of the ruins in air waiting to decay and fall as if Ozymandias had designed his statue as a ruin.
The Devil's Trap
(1962)
The first step
2 September 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Frantisek Vlacil's first historical film shows the qualities he would later expand in Marketa Lazarova and The Valley of the Bees. In seventeenth century Bohemia a family of free millers are looked at suspiciously by the local ruler and the church for their independence and suspected witchcraft. They are actually proto-scientists, but that doesn't help them. Vlacil sets his characters entirely in their time and place, with no later knowledge affecting the way he looks at them or their psychology. The repeated encounters between miller, regent and priest are formal Shavian discussions. Music and camera-work are well-done- there's a repeated overhead zoom towards the mill which is vertiginously effective and elegant shots of farm-work which show the skills and toil required and the echoes of the floor-boards in the Regent's office accompany the echoes of the hollow caverns in the earth. The characters are superbly portrayed, especially the priest, an intelligent and kindly man entirely trapped by his own certainty in his beliefs. His attempt to incite the villagers to lynch the miller may fail, but we fear it will work as he coolly accuses them of witchcraft.
Guardian Angel
(1987)
Not so angelic,,,
27 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
A film called Guardian Angel about a television journalist investigating the smuggling of Roma children from what was then Jugoslavia to Italy as buskers, beggars and prostitutes, trying to save one boy, a talented musician... Surely the title refers to the hero.
Not when Paskaljevich directs it, it doesn't, and Dragan isn't a hero either. He may think he is; he spends the whole film with a half-smile on his face as if he believes his fame makes him invulnerable, but in the end he accomplishes nothing but his own death. The true Guardian Angel is the man who owns the boy and his earnings for a year and to whom- for all his brutality- he must return for the sake of the family who sold him. It's a pessimistic, realistic, almost documentary film, convention and comfort removed. The social worker who tries to take care of the children deported from Italy knows they will run away or be kidnapped. In a more conventional film there'd be a romance between Dragan and her, but here their relations are entirely professional. The Roma characters- as usual with Paskaljevich- are played by nonactors and real encampments round rubbish dumps are used: a world where a good man is one who doesn't sell his own children to the Guardian Angel. Grim, relentless and unillusioned, it's easy to see why Paskaljevich isn't as well known as he should be, he offers no comfort, but if you can see this film, do so.
Not when Paskaljevich directs it, it doesn't, and Dragan isn't a hero either. He may think he is; he spends the whole film with a half-smile on his face as if he believes his fame makes him invulnerable, but in the end he accomplishes nothing but his own death. The true Guardian Angel is the man who owns the boy and his earnings for a year and to whom- for all his brutality- he must return for the sake of the family who sold him. It's a pessimistic, realistic, almost documentary film, convention and comfort removed. The social worker who tries to take care of the children deported from Italy knows they will run away or be kidnapped. In a more conventional film there'd be a romance between Dragan and her, but here their relations are entirely professional. The Roma characters- as usual with Paskaljevich- are played by nonactors and real encampments round rubbish dumps are used: a world where a good man is one who doesn't sell his own children to the Guardian Angel. Grim, relentless and unillusioned, it's easy to see why Paskaljevich isn't as well known as he should be, he offers no comfort, but if you can see this film, do so.
Midwinter Night's Dream
(2004)
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,or what's a heaven for?
22 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
No, I don't know what Browning meant here either, but it does reflect an aspect of Paskaljevic's film-making- especially here. He could make very good realistic quiet films, but he tries to do something more difficult and more ambitious. He doesn't succeed, but it raises the question of whether a big failure is in some way better than a small triumph.
The film is set around Jovana, an autistic girl who acts- or rather- is- herself- for one thing autistic people cannot do is pretend- while the other actors act their characters around her. Quite a few scenes- including the version of A Midsummer Night's Dream the title refers to- are in Jovana's school with other disabled children taking part, reflecting Paskaljevic's use of documentary as a background for the film. The plot is simple: Lazar returns from prison, after serving ten years for killing his best friend. He served in a killer-unit of the Serbian army in the wars after the collapse of Jugoslavia and has nightmares about what he did. His mother has died and the house is now occupied by Jovana and her mother, refugees from Bosnia-Herzevogina. At first Lazar tries to throw them out, but then relents and lets them stay. He is fascinated by Jovana and tries to reach or "cure" her, but gradually he learns, like her mother, to accept her as she is. Meanwhile he falls in love with the mother. It could be a brief, realistic, redemptive story, reflecting the redemptions of Shakespeare's play, but this is Paskaljevic and this is Serbia and even a dubious redemption cannot be allowed. Jovana's mother worked as a waitress and was harassed by a drunk there. He may be Jovanna's father; characteristically, Paskaljevic leaves this aside, as he does LAzar's pre-war work- the worst tasks of the Serb army were done by criminal conscripts, and Lazar's ex-boss both owes him a lot of money and is terrified of him. After she and Lazar have become lovers, the drunk suddenly re-appears at their house and tries to woo Marija again and he kills her- possibly accidentally, it happens too rapidly to tell- with the dress-making scissors Marija holds. a neighbour accuses Lazar of the murder- again, we don't know how sincerely; the neighbour had stolen Laxar's mother's crockery and furniture and had been watching the house obsessively. Lazar drives away with Jovana and the body to a wood and as Jovana wanders away through the trees (echoing A Midsummer Night's Dream, perhaps), Lazar shoots himself. This is the flaw of the film, I think. It expands the story's significance beyond what it can carry and, whatever happened in and to Serbia and Serbs, the gentle solipsism of Jovana cannot be a convincing analogy for the murderous self-obsession that dominated that country for so long.
The film is set around Jovana, an autistic girl who acts- or rather- is- herself- for one thing autistic people cannot do is pretend- while the other actors act their characters around her. Quite a few scenes- including the version of A Midsummer Night's Dream the title refers to- are in Jovana's school with other disabled children taking part, reflecting Paskaljevic's use of documentary as a background for the film. The plot is simple: Lazar returns from prison, after serving ten years for killing his best friend. He served in a killer-unit of the Serbian army in the wars after the collapse of Jugoslavia and has nightmares about what he did. His mother has died and the house is now occupied by Jovana and her mother, refugees from Bosnia-Herzevogina. At first Lazar tries to throw them out, but then relents and lets them stay. He is fascinated by Jovana and tries to reach or "cure" her, but gradually he learns, like her mother, to accept her as she is. Meanwhile he falls in love with the mother. It could be a brief, realistic, redemptive story, reflecting the redemptions of Shakespeare's play, but this is Paskaljevic and this is Serbia and even a dubious redemption cannot be allowed. Jovana's mother worked as a waitress and was harassed by a drunk there. He may be Jovanna's father; characteristically, Paskaljevic leaves this aside, as he does LAzar's pre-war work- the worst tasks of the Serb army were done by criminal conscripts, and Lazar's ex-boss both owes him a lot of money and is terrified of him. After she and Lazar have become lovers, the drunk suddenly re-appears at their house and tries to woo Marija again and he kills her- possibly accidentally, it happens too rapidly to tell- with the dress-making scissors Marija holds. a neighbour accuses Lazar of the murder- again, we don't know how sincerely; the neighbour had stolen Laxar's mother's crockery and furniture and had been watching the house obsessively. Lazar drives away with Jovana and the body to a wood and as Jovana wanders away through the trees (echoing A Midsummer Night's Dream, perhaps), Lazar shoots himself. This is the flaw of the film, I think. It expands the story's significance beyond what it can carry and, whatever happened in and to Serbia and Serbs, the gentle solipsism of Jovana cannot be a convincing analogy for the murderous self-obsession that dominated that country for so long.
Time of Miracles
(1989)
"Death changes people"
10 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
says a character in this film. He should know, as he's died and been resurrected,or so nearly everyone believes. In 1945 in Serbia in the village of Bethany (nudge, nudge) the school burns down for unexplained reasons. Lazar (interesting name) the village schoolteacher is injured on the head rescuing the globe. The local Partisan commander, Nikodim, the lover of LAzar's sister Martha (are you getting there yet?), takes over the church as the school- he suggests that the village priest may have burned the school down- removes the cross and altars and whitewashes over the icons and wall-paintings. Next day, in the middle of a lesson, the sacred pictures appear... Some claim it is a miracle, some claim it is sabotage, most aren't sure. Cue an interesting study of belief- for Nikodim and his men are firmer and much more effective believers than the priest- and group psychology- because everyone knows or is related to everyone else so there is more than politics involved.
Up until now we have had an interesting, well-set, well-shot scene-setting with well-handled music and some beautifully-imagined visionary camera-work. However, now we have a second miracle when one was all we needed. Lazar apparently dies as a result of his injuries and a mute stranger that Lazar's other sister Mary (of course) has fed and rescued apparently raises him from the dead. Yet more complications follow and there is a gallop to fit in all of the plot before the film ends. There are some interesting aspects- the only complete sceptic about the resurrection is the priest; Lazar is not very happy to be alive again- but there isn't time to examine them all. In the end, after rushed complications, Lazar and his saviour are both dead. The film was adapted from a novel, turned into a T.V. series and then shortened into a film andit may have worked better as a series. However, as a film, it confirms that fidelity to source is usually a mistake and that drastic rethinking and simplification of plot is always worthwhile. What could have been a masterpiece is a flawed film. A fine film, and worth watching, but with a big flaw.
Up until now we have had an interesting, well-set, well-shot scene-setting with well-handled music and some beautifully-imagined visionary camera-work. However, now we have a second miracle when one was all we needed. Lazar apparently dies as a result of his injuries and a mute stranger that Lazar's other sister Mary (of course) has fed and rescued apparently raises him from the dead. Yet more complications follow and there is a gallop to fit in all of the plot before the film ends. There are some interesting aspects- the only complete sceptic about the resurrection is the priest; Lazar is not very happy to be alive again- but there isn't time to examine them all. In the end, after rushed complications, Lazar and his saviour are both dead. The film was adapted from a novel, turned into a T.V. series and then shortened into a film andit may have worked better as a series. However, as a film, it confirms that fidelity to source is usually a mistake and that drastic rethinking and simplification of plot is always worthwhile. What could have been a masterpiece is a flawed film. A fine film, and worth watching, but with a big flaw.
Legenda o Lapotu
(1972 TV Movie)
A young man's brilliance
8 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Goran Paskaljevic can only have been twenty four when he made this film and it shows astonishing talent. Set at some unspecified time in the past it shows the life of a Serbian family, ploughing with miniature oxen, grinding wheat with a hand-operated kern. The patriarch of the family is ill and can only clear away stones turned over by the plough. That night the family knows that he must die if the others will live to harvest. They report their decision to other families around- there is a long scene where the crippled herald walks to a tree and pounds a tree-trunk to draw the people to him. The old man is ceremonially washed, carried in a cart and laid down with a loaf of bread at his head. "It is not us but the bread that kills him." the people chant. He accepts it, almost as a relief. Finally the men go to the top of the cliffs and the last shot shows the rocks coming over to kill the old man. Like Marketa Lazarova the film adopts and adapts the psychology of a long-gone past as a basis for the way it shows things. Long, ritualistic shots show hard physical labour- a life for ever on the edge of hunger, a world where death is imminent- it isn't until well into the film that anyone speaks: breath is too precious for speech and in an isolated peasant society there is nothing to say. Filmed in long, ritualistic takes, even the camera adjusts to the way of life it depicts. A wonderful little film without a wasted moment/
Realer than real
6 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Set in an old peoples' home, this film uses documentary techniques wonderfully to tell a convincingly true fiction.
An old man, Captain Vujovic, the retired captain of a ship travelling the Danube, finally moves into the home. He meets other residents, makes friends with his room-mate, Mr. Predic, organises a New Year's party, persuades Mr. Predic to become less reclusive, has a heart attack and dies. it isn't the story, but the way it's told that matters. Most of the actors are in their first film here- are they pretending to be themselves or are they acting others? Is it set in a real home for retired performers?- there's an extraordinary range of talents among the people there.
What we aren't told is also important- we never know why Mr. Predic is estranged from his family or if the young man who helps the captain move is his son or a friend. These things don't matter in the film. The only problem, in fact, is the relationship between the two men- we see the "odd couple" beginning and the established relationship but we don't see the change, which seems too easy as a result. Again, the captain has a choice of whether he will have a single room or share, but Mr. Predic does not, and we are never told why a recluse has chosen to live in a double room even if he is alone at first.
The last section, a long bibulously enjoyable New Year's Party, which is- literally- the death of the captain, is wonderfully filmed and recognises that not everything is well: there are people who wait in vain in the hallway for their relatives, as well as the celebrants. Mr. Predic goes for a walk and watches his son's family celebrate and comes home again without disturbing them, but he joins he party at the home and accepts a bottle of beer from the captain. However, in the end, even he is changed: walking back from hospital after the captain's death with the captain's parrot- the first bone of contention between the two; now, presumably his responsibility- he hears the captain's favourite song, which gives the film its title, played on a pleasure-boat on the river and smiles.
An old man, Captain Vujovic, the retired captain of a ship travelling the Danube, finally moves into the home. He meets other residents, makes friends with his room-mate, Mr. Predic, organises a New Year's party, persuades Mr. Predic to become less reclusive, has a heart attack and dies. it isn't the story, but the way it's told that matters. Most of the actors are in their first film here- are they pretending to be themselves or are they acting others? Is it set in a real home for retired performers?- there's an extraordinary range of talents among the people there.
What we aren't told is also important- we never know why Mr. Predic is estranged from his family or if the young man who helps the captain move is his son or a friend. These things don't matter in the film. The only problem, in fact, is the relationship between the two men- we see the "odd couple" beginning and the established relationship but we don't see the change, which seems too easy as a result. Again, the captain has a choice of whether he will have a single room or share, but Mr. Predic does not, and we are never told why a recluse has chosen to live in a double room even if he is alone at first.
The last section, a long bibulously enjoyable New Year's Party, which is- literally- the death of the captain, is wonderfully filmed and recognises that not everything is well: there are people who wait in vain in the hallway for their relatives, as well as the celebrants. Mr. Predic goes for a walk and watches his son's family celebrate and comes home again without disturbing them, but he joins he party at the home and accepts a bottle of beer from the captain. However, in the end, even he is changed: walking back from hospital after the captain's death with the captain's parrot- the first bone of contention between the two; now, presumably his responsibility- he hears the captain's favourite song, which gives the film its title, played on a pleasure-boat on the river and smiles.
Beach Guard in Winter
(1976)
A prophetic first film
4 July 2010
Warning: Spoilers
This was Paskaljevic's first feature and, although it has faults, it is a fine accomplishment in itself. Dragan is an almost unemployable young man, with no qualifications- a repeated theme of the film is the importance of qualifications- dominated by his deranged family and going from one unsuitable temporary job to another, sponsored by friends of his drunken aunt. He meets a girl from an equally dysfunctional family, equally eager to escape her relatives,and they marry, against her family's wishes. The only job Dragan can get, and the only place they can find to live, is looking after a disused beach-café. Eventually his wife returns to her family and Dragan's father dies of a heart-attack, going swimming after eating food he'd brought for his son. At the funeral the father's long-lost friend Dunjic- or someone who claims to be Dunjic- appears and carries Dragan off to a job in the promised land of Sweden. The last shot of the film shows the train running through a dark tunnel with light at the end of the tunnel and the light at the beginning of the tunnel disappearing. To a foreigner the film has flaws- the contrast between the young couple and their monstrous caricatured families is an obvious one; they seem to have come from two different kinds of film, but the interesting thing is the way the fate of Yugoslavia is reflected in the film: the argumentative and domineering elders and the way that the young can only get peace by fleeing the country. It's well-filmed with some beautiful formal moments and some fine shots which show why Paskaljevic has been compared with Tarkovsky and Paradjanov, though he lacks their mysticism. If you can, see it and all of his work.
The Loves of Joanna Godden
(1947)
English Pastoral
15 May 2010
Warning: Spoilers
There's a scene where the camera looks at the face of Googie Withers, playing Joanna Godden, as she sleeps on the shingle at Dungeness. The lips- a thin, firm upper lip and a full sensuous lower lip- could sum up Joanna's nature: the division between desire and duty that dominates the film. The title only really makes sense if we include Joanna's love for her farm and farming as the dominant one.
In 1905 Joanna takes over her dead father's farm; because her fiancé, who owns the neighbouring farm, patronises her she rejects him and decides to run the farm herself. It's interesting because Joanna is not shown as a conscious feminist or someone who innovates for its own sake- some of her innovations fail, like cross-breeding to produce more twin lambs for market- but there's a later scene showing Joanna riding on a harvester on newly-ploughed and sown land producing fodder for her sheep where her exultation is manifest- a modern Boudicca in triumph. Nor is she depicted as enlightened. She is shocked that her younger, educated sister refuses to wear stays and when she is engaged to an educated man it is plain that there is a clash between the naturalness that attracts him and Joanna's own taste for over-elaborate and artificial Victoriana. In the end, of course, Joanna ends up with the neighbouring farmer.
The plot is episodic and the other characters are not properly developed or depicted- especially Joanna's discontented sister and her educated fiancé, whose death by drowning seems arbitrary too, although it is very effective as another depiction of nature's random cruelty- but it is well-worth watching for Withers' own performance. As well as the story there are fine depictions of the marsh- a brief series of scenes showing time passing with characteristic music by Vaughan Williams is wondefully imagined, and a quiet but obvious pleasure in the landscaper all the way through. In fact, it's a pity that the makers didn't have the courage to slow the film down and show more such scenes. It isn't a rural fantasy and is probably as realistic about farm life as a film then could be- indeed, the last scenes take place with a background of smoke from the holocaust of a foot-and-mouth outbreak.
The main reason I'd gone to the film was RVW's music and I wasn't disappointed. However, one very interesting aspect, especially compared with modern films, was how very restrained the use of music was, deliberately and carefully placed and often not there at all.
In 1905 Joanna takes over her dead father's farm; because her fiancé, who owns the neighbouring farm, patronises her she rejects him and decides to run the farm herself. It's interesting because Joanna is not shown as a conscious feminist or someone who innovates for its own sake- some of her innovations fail, like cross-breeding to produce more twin lambs for market- but there's a later scene showing Joanna riding on a harvester on newly-ploughed and sown land producing fodder for her sheep where her exultation is manifest- a modern Boudicca in triumph. Nor is she depicted as enlightened. She is shocked that her younger, educated sister refuses to wear stays and when she is engaged to an educated man it is plain that there is a clash between the naturalness that attracts him and Joanna's own taste for over-elaborate and artificial Victoriana. In the end, of course, Joanna ends up with the neighbouring farmer.
The plot is episodic and the other characters are not properly developed or depicted- especially Joanna's discontented sister and her educated fiancé, whose death by drowning seems arbitrary too, although it is very effective as another depiction of nature's random cruelty- but it is well-worth watching for Withers' own performance. As well as the story there are fine depictions of the marsh- a brief series of scenes showing time passing with characteristic music by Vaughan Williams is wondefully imagined, and a quiet but obvious pleasure in the landscaper all the way through. In fact, it's a pity that the makers didn't have the courage to slow the film down and show more such scenes. It isn't a rural fantasy and is probably as realistic about farm life as a film then could be- indeed, the last scenes take place with a background of smoke from the holocaust of a foot-and-mouth outbreak.
The main reason I'd gone to the film was RVW's music and I wasn't disappointed. However, one very interesting aspect, especially compared with modern films, was how very restrained the use of music was, deliberately and carefully placed and often not there at all.
Operation Dunaj
(2009)
Fraternal intervention
6 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
In August 1968 Polish troops- along with those of the U.S.S.R.and assorted other countries intervened- as they put it- in Czechoslovakia to prevent a hypothetical counter-revolution. This is the story of one obsolete tank and its crew...
It isn't a very good film, unfortunately. National stereotypes abound- the Poles are obsessed with "honour" and- as one of them says and the film shows- they leave a mess behind everywhere they go; the Czechs are obsessed with making deals and surviving and the Russians- who appear briefly and murderously- are glass-chewing violent drunks. Most of the film is slapstick, which makes the odd realistic violence arbitrary and inappropriate without being moving. At a guess, it's an attempt to do something similar to Kusturica's surreal combination of farce, romance and drama in Underground, but the director lacks Kusturica's skills in camera-work and the film seems arbitrary and earth-bound. In the end, most of the tank crew with their recently-acquired girlfriends try to escape to Vienna and freedom in the tank.
It isn't a very good film, unfortunately. National stereotypes abound- the Poles are obsessed with "honour" and- as one of them says and the film shows- they leave a mess behind everywhere they go; the Czechs are obsessed with making deals and surviving and the Russians- who appear briefly and murderously- are glass-chewing violent drunks. Most of the film is slapstick, which makes the odd realistic violence arbitrary and inappropriate without being moving. At a guess, it's an attempt to do something similar to Kusturica's surreal combination of farce, romance and drama in Underground, but the director lacks Kusturica's skills in camera-work and the film seems arbitrary and earth-bound. In the end, most of the tank crew with their recently-acquired girlfriends try to escape to Vienna and freedom in the tank.
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