elab49
Posts: 51538
Joined: 1/10/2005
|
Blue Eyelids (Contreras, 2007)
This was on my list but I bumped it up when I read that Kaurismaki comparison in the Forum Poll.
Starting with a fairytale of emancipation that turned into a successful uniform business, the story centres round and isolated shop girl who wins the annual company prize – an all-expenses 2 week holiday for 2. She has trouble finding anyone to go with and eventually – near the end indicating not the best of relationships – she asks her sister. It would be easy to write the sister off as a selfish cow I think had the writing and performance not suggested real desperation for that role, and it does – you know what's she's building up to long before Marina does but I couldn't find it quite in me to hate her for it as she did seem genuinely scared – not just the pretty, selfish one. Marina rightly turns down her suggestion and sets out to find another companion, bumping into an old and equally isolated school mate whose sole conversation centres round a school life with people who no longer keep in touch with him. Not quite the small town jock who can't get past his high school success because you can't believe he enjoyed that kind of popularity – but how sad it is that he clings to that as his happiest time when Marina can't even remember him?
I can see where the Kaurismaki comes in – Suarez is no Kati Outinnen, but her face is so withdrawn and uninvolved, her life so basic and uninspirsed, you can kind of see it. Both leads, actually, although it doesn't have the humour or the dourness. It does have one of the most disinteresting and dispiriting sex scenes committed to film though.
I also rather liked Lulita's sections – sure, the freed birds motif was an obvious metaphor but it was prettily done and Marguia as the elderly ailing businessowner whose incontinence was the first new thing that had happened to her in ages, was very good indeed.
Man of Violence (Walker 1971)
The Big Switch (Walker, 1969)
The BFI has been spending time on releases of lost and little-known British films from the swinging 60s/groovy 70s – the Flipside strand (the sublime Bed-Sitting Room was one of the first releases). From the evidence here I'd say their approach is somewhat scattershot rather than an attempt to look out actual lost gems. though. These 2 films (the main one and The Big Switch, an extra) do not suggest Pete Walker is some great lost master, just someone a little obsessed with James Bond types without depth.
Moon is a crook who gets caught up in tensions between 2 ex-'business' partners. The tale saunters into ludicrous stories of African gold and clearly thinks it shows its difference to the mainstream with a bisexual hero, although it still shows more than enough tits to go round for no reason and tips over into sexual violence. Pete Walker would shortly go onto to better remembered horror work, but there is little of merit in this – at times it looks like nothing more than an overly-convoluted trailer for a glamorous highliving TV series, with long dead stretches where people sit around and do nothing. The lead, Michael Latimer, is genuinely awful – no charm, charisma or acting abilty, it is a genuinely bad central performance.
BFi can't get a lot of funding. I got this on rental and I'm sure the booklet must try and justify why on earth they brought this out. I don't see much value as a cultural artefact even beyond the poor film that is being presented, either.
The Big Switch is already the better of the 2 a minute in with a droll Patrick Allen voiceover and it adds more to the project as it spends more of its time ostensibly slating the 'permissive society' while clearly revelling in the sleaze of it, spending time in strip clubs and Carnaby St. The story is pretty much as poor though and I'm not sure there are any females in the film that don't soon end up stripped, even if we ever see them clothed at all. Caught up in murder, Carter (Sebastien Breaks, an improvement on Michael Latimer, but, then, a tub of lard would have been) drifts through having the same tedious conversations in beds and badly decorated drawing rooms, the same woman strips over woman violently, etc. Apart from one rather ludicrous bit where the lead couple are clearly running on the spot, the final shootout on the pier isn't actually that bad and qualifies as the best bit of both films combined.
Hey Ram (Hassan, 2000)
At least I get to praise one Indian film this month. It isn't brilliant and looks rather cheaply made but I found large parts fascinating, and it actually features acting, unlike the entries from the Channel 4 season.
Archaeologist Saketh Ram is about to die. With his novelist grandson as his bedside his mind drifts back to his life Post WWII as India was heading to partition while in the modern day we see, as they try and remove him to hospital, that many of the problems started then have not gone away.
After a tonally odd first section on a local dig (including a musical insertion normal films would see as pointless) the problems start back home when his wife is raped and murdered during muslim riots and Ram gets caught up with Hindu groups who believe that Gandhi has betrayed them and handed the country to the muslims. It's a fascinating approach to the story that is rarely told in the West – the Gandhi who is hated by Hindus (who have problems of their own, hiding in plush rooms with Hitler on the wall) so even though it is raising the story there is also a strong implication that the lead is completely wrong and needs to be led back to the right side – by his muslim friend who reveres Gandhi, by his new wife's family who look at the country more objectively and, ultimately, by Gandhi himself.
Kamal Hassan – whose hair changes more often than the host of an MTV awards show – is good in the lead and there are some nice touches, e.g., when he takes opiates before signing up for revolution. It's not perfect, but it managed to keep my interest in a running time that went to over 3 hours.
Pitch Black (Twohy, 2000)
Aaah – another of my favourite SciFi/Horrors. And a reminder yet again of how badly Twohy squandered the great character of Riddock in that high budget shenanigans sequel.
An accident puts a ship down on an unknown planet – on the trip down pilot Caroline nearly sacrifices the passenger section, something that deeply affects her and helps dictate her future actions. On board are the usual ragtag bunch but given a lot more character than might be the norm, particularly Keith David, legend in the field, as an Imam leading 3 young students. Also on board are guard and prisoner – drugged up Johns and a violent apparently sociopathic escaped prisoner Riddock, with surgically altered eyes to fit. They've unfortunately landed just as the planet heads into the dark at the end of a 22 year cycle – and when it gets dark, a whole different breed of predator comes out.
The most compelling creation is that of Riddock, unusually well-played by gravelly voice Vin Diesel, someone you wouldn't really normally link to good performances. There are some nice touches and contrasts – his initial reaction of 'beautiful' watching the killing machines rise in the dark reminded me of Ash's reaction to the Alien in the film of the same name – while that robot admires the efficiency of the killing ability, are we taking the same for Riddock? Or recognition of a compatriot? But Riddock's background isn't quite so cut and dried, and his reaction to Jack's hero-worshipping and Caroline's 'sacrifice' suggest there is a lot more going on. Radha Mitchell got herself a career out of the strong performance she gave as the 'captain' of the group – no flashy hysterics, but grounded and considered.
Pitch Black is both thrilling and unusually well-characterised for a low budget SF/Horror – both factors that turned it into a well-received sleeper hit on release. The creatures are well-realised and genuinely terrifying and the direction keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat even at the nth viewing. The let-down of the sequel was keenly felt although, if you can find it, the animated 'sequel' Dark Fury wasn't nearly as bad (and was one of the first to take a film into animated territory influenced, I think, by the Animatrix stuff shortly before).
_____________________________
Lips Together and Blow - blogtasticness and Glasgow Film Festival GFF13!
Films watched 2012
What are your top 10/25 films of 2012? Vote in the forum Annual Poll now! Deadline is Sunday.
|
Printable Version
RE: Top 100 Films I've Watched This Year: 2010 - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread