Midway through ‘Another Earth’, feature debut of director Mike Cahill, the camera pulls back to reveal a huge piece of graffiti daubed on the road of a perpetually overcast middle-American city. It reads “spare us” – with the people of this strained, determinedly “indie” drama fearing revelations of the unknown as an exact double of our planet comes into close orbit. I know the feeling: watching this dimly lit affair I was tempted to scribble the same thing on the cinema walls.
The film stars co-writer Brit Marling as a young woman who gets admitted to MIT only to spend four years in jail instead, having killed several members of a family after careening into their car whilst driving under the influence. Just prior to this life changing event, Marling spies a brand new star in the sky. It's, of course, our planet's aforementioned doppelgänger, and it's soon discovered that it's home to exact doubles of every person on our planet. After leaving prison she comes to see the planet as offering potential redemption, entering a competition to win a seat on the first voyage to "Earth 2". She hopes to find a new life in the unknown dominated by one thought: are the people she killed still alive up there?
This is a good idea in theory - potentially a cerebral blending of science fiction and lo-fi American indie drama. Yet, beyond some budget defying special effects, the film lacks ambition and is content to wallow in a rather more conventional, Earth-bound story about guilt and remorse. Even so, these are interesting themes. Yet here they are explored almost without feeling and in an oppressively banal setting. It's a cold, sterile experience set in a gloomy world and filled with people who don't read as convincingly human. Instead they are merely players in what feels like a trumped-up student film, high on its own imagined profundity.
Indeed the single worst thing about 'Another Earth' is a narration from an unseen character who asks all the most searching questions about the ramifications of this new planet - just in case we're too simple to ask them ourselves. It's a clumsy device which plays like a bad Werner Herzog impression rather than an exploration of grand meta-physical themes. Much like the film itself.
'Another Earth' is rated '12A' by the BBFC and is on UK release now.
A very slight and shamelessly frothy romantic comedy from French writer-director Jean-Pierre Améris, 'Romantics Anonymous' is a genuinely heart-warming proposition. It sees two highly strung, middle-aged chocolatiers, who use confectionery as a substitute for relationships, meet after Angélique (Isabelle Carré) goes to work at the near-bankrupt company of Jean-René (Benoît Poelvoorde).
Both have extreme social anxiety issues and live lives of quiet regret instead of facing up to their fears. Angélique can't bear to the focus of any attention - and gets tongue tied in conversation - which leads her to hide her superior chocolate making skills from her employer, acting instead as an incredibly meek sales rep. Meanwhile, Jean-René comes across as mean when he is really just deathly afraid of human contact and has no idea how to talk to women.
The title comes from the fact that Angélique belongs to a sort of Alcoholic Anonymous style support group for those with emotional problems, whilst Jean-René is often seen consulting his therapist. These scenes, whilst funny, provide insight into the characters, showing that (though the word is never used) they are autistic rather than just a couple of quirky oddballs. Both lead characters are expertly observed.
It runs for a satisfying 80 minutes and consistently generates gentle, affectionate laughs. Free of cynicism, it's set in a profoundly humane world where people aren't afraid to burst into spontaneous song and where the audience is encouraged to laugh along with the characters rather than at them. The third act isn't encumbered by the usual misunderstanding or childish argument and, as a result, it never outstays its welcome. It won't take a particularly shrewd viewer to predict exactly where this is all headed, but you won't begrudge these two outsiders their deliriously happy ending.
'Romantics Anonymous' is out now in the UK and rated '12A' by the BBFC.
'Hugo' is a rare sort of film that warrants all the trite pull-quotes you read on so many posters. It's a triumph. It's spellbinding. You could even sincerely call it magical. A kids' movie that is full of sincere, cynicism-free wonder about the world and, most interestingly, the value of cinema. Here cinema takes a reverent position with one of its pioneers even afforded a central role in the plot.
As a colourful family film - and a first foray into 3D - it could be considered a departure for director Martin Scorsese, yet conversely this is perhaps the most personal film he has ever made - more closely related to documentaries like 'A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies' than the hard-edged likes of 'Taxi Driver' or 'Goodfellas'.
Hugo, as played by the wide-eyed Asa Butterfield, is the director's surrogate here. He may be a young orphan living within the workings of a vast Parisian clock in the 1930s, but he sees cinema the way Scorsese does and it's through him that we bear witness to its power. To him films stir up powerful memories, recalling trips to the cinema with his late father (Jude Law) who describes cinema as a place you can see dreams in the day.
Other memories Hugo views as though part of his life's own movie, with Scorsese staging a moment of teary recollection as if his young hero were seated in a cinema, with the blue light of a projector filtering overhead. To Hugo films are not merely dreams and memories but also feats of magic. The cinema itself provides a place of comfort and a distraction from his sense of loss and loneliness. The script may call for Hugo to take the final bow, but make no mistake the cinema itself is the hero of this adventure.
After his watchmaker father is killed in a freak accident, Hugo is adopted by an alcoholic uncle (Ray Winstone) and put to work maintaining the clocks of a Paris train station, secretly living within the walls of the building. This isn't a bad fit as the boy has a gift for fixing things, taking comfort in the way machines work - though he's primarily focussed on restoring an old anthropomorphic automaton which was discovered abandoned in a museum by his father.
Years later his uncle is gone and he's an outsider, living vicariously through the station's disparate oddball inhabitants as he eagerly watches them through a network of peepholes - perhaps touching on cinema's appeal to voyeurism. The players here include Richard Griffiths, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee and Sacha Baron Cohen, as an overzealous station inspector determined to send him to the local orphanage, and each has their own satisfying and sweet narrative arc.
Hugo's only tangible link to the past, fixing the automaton is an obsession which leads him to steal odd parts (springs, cogs, motors) from an old toy seller on the platform (Ben Kingsley). After falling foul of this bad tempered and sorrowful old man the boy befriends his adopted daughter, Isabelle played by the again outstanding Chloë Grace Moretz, and the two of them set about unravelling the mystery of the robot. This quest proves to be something of a red herring, solved within the first half as the film heads in a very different direction, with the children becoming increasingly fascinated by cinema - for the literary-inclined Isabelle a forbidden pleasure.
They visit a library and read from early books on celluloid history, telling the film's young audience all about the earliest days of the medium. They chat with early film historian René Tabard (Michael Stuhlbarg) and learn about how silent movies were made. And Scorsese duly backs these lessons up with no small amount of footage from the films themselves, introducing his prospective young audience to the Lumière brothers' 'Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon' and oft-referenced 'L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat', before showing clips of Chaplin, Keaton and many, many others.
This second half of the film is about the medium of cinema far more than the adventures of Hugo and Isabelle, yet it's hard to find fault with that when the result is this passionate and affirmative. The cinema history lesson here is not relegated to subtext: it is the principle text. This is equally true of the subject of film preservation (Scorsese's other great passion) which goes some way toward becoming the ultimate moral of the story.
But this is also the story of 3D - which Scorsese uses majestically throughout, transporting us into the miniature world of the children as adults loom large and oppressive in an impossibly vast world. By the end he's shown us genuine colour, 3D footage of World War I and even a new stereoscopic version of Georges Méliès' seminal 1902 spectacle 'Le Voyage dans la lune' - which, incidentally, looks magnificent.
By drawing the parallel between cinema, dreams, magic tricks and machines, he makes a powerful case for gimmick as a fundamental and exciting part of cinema from the time of its inception onwards. It's the most persuasive pro-3D argument to date and - even if Scorsese never makes another movie in the format - it's clear that this technology excites and fascinates him as much as the medium itself.
'Hugo' is not the most exciting, consistent or perfectly structured children's film you'll ever see. In fact it often seems like a slick piece of educational programming rather than a fun family movie - with the slapstick chases around the station the least effective sequences. It's almost as if Scorsese has engineered a self-indulgent piece of fan fiction as a clandestine way to educate children about the art form he loves and give some of his favourite film clips a fresh airing for a new audience. But as a fellow lover of cinema I find this entirely admirable. It's heartening to see such an unabashed celebration of art.
'Hugo' is rated 'U' by the BBFC and is playing in the UK now.
I don't usually do "spoiler warnings" but if you're incredibly sensitive about plot details then don't read this review. I would hate to spoil this outstanding film for anyone, but it's difficult to talk about properly without mentioning certain events.
That Takeshi Miike has already released his follow-up to last year's remarkable '13 Assassins' should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the Japanese director's career. Prolific would be an understatement for a filmmaker who has made at least two films a year since the mid-90s - indeed, according to the IMDB, he has two films in post production right now. But what is surprising is that his latest film - the first 3D film to play "in competition" in Cannes - is every bit as accomplished as that ultra-violent epic, retaining the feudal Japanese setting but telling a very different type of story. There are thematic similarities between the two, but this is more period melodrama than 'Seven Samurai' styled war film - yet it's no less compelling.
'Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai' begins with a lone rōnin (a lordless and therefore jobless samurai) arriving at a wealthy lord's estate, begging permission to use the courtyard to perform hara-kiri - the highly ritualised form of suicide that involves opening one's stomach with a sword, ideally without showing pain, before having your head cut off by a trusted second. We are told that the higher the status of the premises on which the act is committed, the more honour the act will restore. At a first glance it is this belief in proper social order which brings the sombre Hanshirô Tsugumo, played by veteran Kabuki theatre actor Ebizô Ichikawa, to the estate determined to end his life.
But before granting the request, Kageyu - a sort of head caretaker whilst the lord is away on business, played with trademark intensity by Kôji Yakusho - tells Hanshirô a chilling story in order to test his resolve. In the first of two long backflashes which form the bulk of the film, he tells the warrior about another rōnin, a young man named Motome (Eita), who came by recently with the same request - and whose end was extremely unpleasant (as depicted viscerally). Motome, it is soon revealed, did not truthfully come seeking death, but charity - hoping that the lord's house would sooner give out some food and a few coins than go through the inconvenience of assembling the household staff for such an elaborate ritual. However, he is shocked when the house agrees to meet his request in order to make an example of him and deter future "suicide bluffs".
Hanshirô hears this story and is given the chance to withdraw his request. He declines and, in front of the assembled house, reveals that he has his own story to tell. Of course it barely qualifies as a spoiler to say that Motome and Hanshirô's stories are linked and that the former's death has something to do with the later's arrival on the estate, though I will say that how the two stories link is heartbreaking.
With '13 Assassins' Miike playfully mocked Japanese tradition and criticised the country's historic cultural values. He questioned why honour and death are so often linked and had his heroes kick dirt in their enemies faces - fighting for survival rather than as part of some slickly choreographed pageant. Here these criticisms are foregrounded. Social class, poverty and a culture of obligation are targets, as well as the wisdom of bushido. And just as the child-murdering, woman-deforming lord in '13 Assassins' represented all that's contradictory about a society which saw swordplay as equivalent to penmanship and poetry - outwardly representing all that was considered beautiful - in 'Hara-Kiri' such vanity is attacked again.
Here honourable men refuse to be seen in public after having their topknots cut off, yet are quite happy to watch a boy disembowel himself with a blunt wooden stick. In this society the wealthy would rather see the poor gut themselves than break tradition by asking for help. For the poor (or at least for a poor samurai), trying to live in spite of hardship is seen as a shameful practice. Here the vain pursuit of precise, formal beauty has the effect of destroying that which is genuinely beautiful. That Motome is driven to desperation by a lord's cruelty (he becomes rōnin due to a petty dispute between two nobles) and is destroyed by social convention, expectation and tradition leaves the viewer in no doubt that he is an unlucky pawn in a game played by the ruling class.
When a climactic scene of what could be termed "cool" violence does arrive, Hanshirô is totally non-lethal and his only goal is to force his enemies to commit acts of taboo and break from their preciously held codes. He's shown to be a sane man in an otherwise mad world, ruled by oppressive and ultimately meaningless tradition. Whereas '13 Assassins' arguably contradicts its message by staging such a shamelessly entertaining 45 minute massacre at the climax, here the fight itself is framed as the rejection of violence recalling the sudden brawl in Kurosawa's otherwise sedate 'Red Beard'.
Hanshirô is challenging his attackers to slaughter him in cold blood and, in showing that they can do this without threat to personal honour, underlines the futility and madness of the entire social structure - and even of his own public suicide. It's a brilliantly esoteric triumph but one that is every bit as futile as the social structure he abhors. That Kageyu and his underlings are more frightened and moved by Hanshirô's iconoclastic scattering of a elaborate suit of armour than his sad story - or his doomed appeal to reason - is Miike's final sick joke in another thoughtful and resolutely anti-traditional film.
'Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai' is not yet rated by the BBFC (though it'll be nothing less than a '15'). I saw it at the Brighton's CineCity Film Festival at the Duke of York's Picturehouse, though a limited release should be expected in 2012.
London, a few years after the war, and a desperate woman (Rachel Weisz) is committing suicide, filling her flat with gas after necking a bottle of pills. She is unsuccessful, saved by concerned members of the local community, but in a contrivance of the plot her lover (Tom Hiddleston) soon learns of her attempt and leaves her in a rage. The rest of Terence Davies', by all accounts faithful, adaptation of the Terence Rattigan stage-play is defined by Weisz's pained expression and melodramatic warbling as she regrets that her lover doesn't view her with reciprocal levels of passion. He loves her but, alas, not enough and she just can't take it any more. "Weren't things better during the war?" is the unspoken refrain of the piece.
It is, to put it mildly, a dated story which trivialises suicide and follows a heroine whose problems are very hard to sympathise with - not least of all because Hiddleston's drunken former RAF pilot alternates between being a tedious, war-obsessed bore when ecstatically happy and a volatile, shouty child when upset. It's very difficult to understand why she has "no power to resist him", as she tells her estranged husband - a well meaning but extremely wet judge played by Simon Russell Beale. It also suffers under the weight of its staid fifties-penned script and theatrical origins with Weisz and Hiddleston (actors I'm usually very fond of) going right over the top at every opportunity, often forced to talk in heavy handed metaphor.
Davies, the feted director of 'Of Time and the City', compounds the play's inherent problems by directing the film in an equally lugubrious style, allowing enormous pauses between lines of dialogue amid insufferably long takes. Weisz is driven to kill herself by an intense passion - perhaps too big for the time she is born into - and yet the direction is dispassionate and isolating. The film only truly works during a backflash in which we see Weisz, still with Beale's judge, visiting her bitter old mother-in-law (Barbara Jefford). Perfectly observed, immaculately paced and fizzing with a caustic sense of humour, it only serves as an infuriating reminder of the talents involved.
The biggest problem though is that, whilst 'Brief Encounter' is a brilliant film routed in a specific time and place, doing that sort of old fashioned melodrama in 2011 can't help but read as an unintentional parody - and the film often reads as funny rather than tragic or poignant. It's also hard to shake the feeling that an odd nostalgia for the war era permeates the whole thing, with frequent interludes of perfectly groomed and immaculately dressed people singing gaily together. It's as much a celebration of "the blitz spirit" as anything else, which is jarring given that it's about a suicidal woman. That she mourns the war years to this extent (it's the same grief that's turned her lover to alcoholism - "he's not been happy since the war") is even faintly offensive.
'The Deep Blue Sea' is rated '12A' by the BBFC and is out in the UK now.
Widely tipped to win big at next year's Oscars, 'The Artist' is a French (mostly) silent movie starring the charismatic Jean Dujardin as George Valentin, a star of silent era Hollywood whose career suffers after the introduction of sound. To a large extent it's a retread of 'Singing in the Rain', with large helpings of 'Sunset Boulevard' and 'A Star is Born', as one star's fall from the limelight coincides with another's meteoric rise. Here it's the energetic young Peppy Miller, played by Bérénice Bejo, who becomes the It girl and darling of the early talkies - sparking conflict and romance with her ageing idol and sometime mentor.
Director Michel Hazanavicius has made a sweet movie which only ever aspires to be charming and, for the most part, succeeds. The humour is gentle to a fault, the stars are elegant, gifted physical comedians and the early Hollywood setting is recreated with no shortage of affection. Adding to the good time feeling are cameos from John Goodman as a brash studio mogul, James Cromwell as a loyal limo driver, Malcolm McDowell as a cantankerous old man and Missi Pyle as a shrill actress. There are dance routines, moments of passion and also an adorable little dog. It's a nostalgic crowd-pleaser and, particularly in the first act, entirely joyful and full of laughs - amusing sight gags and clever misdirection jokes. It's about twenty minutes too long, losing its way in a bloated second act, but it's fun nevertheless.
That the film is so unapologetically winsome and uncynical in its reverence for Hollywood, whilst being so superficially high-brow - not only is it silent, but black and white and shot in 4:3 aspect ratio - will be in its favour come Academy Award time. It'll also be helped by that veteran Oscar campaigning powerhouse Harvey Weinstein whose company is distributing the film. If it combines these qualities with the expected box office success there will simply be no way of stopping its rise. I bring this up because Oscar success will (perhaps unfairly) change the way many critics - myself included - feel about the movie in the long-run. Simply put: the film could go from being a modest and delightful curiosity to an over-praised monster. Think 'The Hurt Locker'.
It could become one of those movies people who actually don't really like film bring up at parties as evidence of their great taste and quiet devotion to cinephilia - just like 'The Shawshank Redemption'. Worse still, the Academy giving the Best Picture award to a film like this would be a self-serving gesture on the part of its members, who can use this silent, black and white, French movie as evidence of their integrity. To the watching world it will look like Oscar has stuck his gold-plated neck out for an obscure, boldly different little art film, in spite of the fact that it's, in content and form and by definition, conservative. Ultimately it's every bit as cosy and middle class as last year's champion: 'The King's Speech'.
Yet for a year the American film industry may be allowed to pretend that the Oscar isn't a celebration of great financial success at all, but a simple celebration of art and, like Roberto Benigni before him, Michel Hazanavicius can stand on stage and endear himself to a vast television audience with his adorable European accent, become a Hollywood darling and then quietly disappear back home.
'The Artist' is, truly, a lovely little film. In its present state, free from the inevitable reassessment brought on by such things as Oscar glory, it's one of the year's most charming and eminently watchable movies. But not one of its best. It isn't technically ground-breaking, thematically challenging or formally experimental enough to be considered one of the year's most significant films and, though its derivative nature is central to its charm, it's still derivative. Yet whatever trajectory its critical fortunes take the film's infectious good nature and lightness of touch won't fail to raise a smile.
'The Artist' opens in the UK on December 30th and has been rated 'PG' by the BBFC.
I've conducted an interview with one of my heroes - the satirist Charlie Brooker - whose new TV show 'Black Mirror' begins on Sunday. The whole thing is up to read at WhatCulture!.
A former freelance film journalist based in Brighton, I have written contributions to The Daily Telegraph and several websites, provided occasional analysis for BBC Radio Sussex and Radio Reverb, and recently I've been involved with several volumes published by Intellect Books.
I've also written about video games for GamesIndustry.biz.
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