March Preview: Cinema & DVD/Blu-Ray

A big hello and welcome To Matthew our New writer / reviewer here at Cinehouse (& The Peoples Movies), we look forward his future posts. His first is to have a look at what films from independent, arthouse, world cinema that are coming to your local arthouse cinema or available this month.....
CINEMA:
March at the multiplex can sometimes feel a bit flat, over –indulged by endless campaign trails and suffering the effects of an award-season hangover. Those films that did pick up gongs are slowly trickling out of the cinema while the big studio summer blockbusters are months from arrival and the festival circuit doesn’t start in earnest until May. What better time then for a smaller, independent film to be released and flourish away from the shadow of the usual big-hitters.
The Dardenne brother’s latest film The Kid with a Bike added to their impressive haul of Cannes prizes, adding a Grand Prix to their two previous Palme d’Or awards. Slightly lighter in tone than their usual fare, it follows Cyril – the kid of the title and his relationship with Samantha, a local hairdresser who takes him in after being a witness to one of his many escapes from a foster home.

Currently on release is Michael, an Austrian film about a seemingly unremarkable man living a mundane existence with the slow pace of the film mirroring the methodical, routine-like way Michael goes about his days. An outwardly meek insurance agent, we soon learn he is holding a young boy captive in his basement and this sets the tone for the tense study that chronicles a 5 month period showing how the most humdrum of lives can hold the darkest secrets.

The increased popularity of documentaries in recent years has shone a light on a range of topics with experienced film-makers and documentary specialists (James Marsh, Morgan Spurlock, Nick Broomfield) sharing tales so unbelievable they can only be true. March sees the trend continue with the latest offering from prolific auteur Werner Herzog. Into the Abyss follows the lives of two death-row inmates with Herzog probing them about everything their existence now entails, their position being so unique – living with the knowledge of the exact date, time and manner of their death. Subtitled A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life, the other stories come from the families of the victims of these crimes, learning to deal with their own unique position of suffering the loss of a loved one. Herzog plays devil’s advocate to get inside his subjects in the truest of senses, gaining insight into their values, experiences and morals in this most immoral of American practices.

Khodorkovsky also spends a large amount of focus on prison life, in particular that of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch and anti-Kremlin tycoon whose political interference made him an enemy of Vladimir Putin. Told with a number of talking heads, archive footage and clever animation dramatising events, we learn what it is like to be blacklisted by the most important man in one of politics most secret organisations and Cyril Tuschi’s film could benefit from coinciding with the timely election in Russia.


DVD AND BLU-RAY
A busy month for DVD releases brings with it two adaptations of literary heavyweights. Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights received wide acclaim upon release despite the praise not reflected in its takings. Those who missed her windswept take on Emily Bronte’s classic can lose themselves on the moors in this raw and unflinching interpretation on the 26th(Pre Order Wuthering Heights on DVD or On Blu-ray). Emily isn’t the only Bronte on the block this month as her sister Charlotte’s equally classic Jane Eyre also gets its small screen release this month featuring performances from two of cinemas rising acting talents Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska.(Pre Order Jane Eyre On DVD or on Triple play (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy))

Continuing the book-cum-film theme, Hunter S Thompson’s The Rum Diary got a Hollywood make-over by Withnail & I’s Bruce Robinson, starring Johnny Depp in an appropriation of the Hunter character he first performed in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and apparently reprising ever since.(buy The Rum Diary On DVD)

The heaps of hardbacks aren’t the only stories to inspire cinematic re-imaginings coming out in March and a week separates the release of two dealing, very differently, with real life tragedies. Six years ago a story broke first in England then spread worldwide about Joyce Vincent, found dead in her North London bedsit after lying there unnoticed for three years. Carol Morley brings this story to the screen in Dreams of a Life,(Dreams of a Life [DVD]) a docu-drama questioning just how this can happen in our modern world complete with endless connection possibilities. Better known for her role as Vod on E4’s Fresh Meat, Zawe Ashton ably plays Joyce in the dramatised sections of the film among interviews with former friends of this popular and out-going 38 year-old. The reason of her death is still a mystery, her body too decomposed to determine a cause, and this film can offer no solutions but will certainly leave you astonished.

A rather more public tragedy struck an Australian town just north of Adelaide when John Justin Bunting was  condemned as the ring-leader in the murders of 11 people in a during a gruesome 7 year spell. Justin Kurzel’s Snowtown (Pre-Order)shares the name of the now infamous area of South Australia and shows, in sometimes unwatchibly violent ways, the integration of impressionable youths into gang culture. Focussing on this ‘brotherhood’ of alpha males, Snowtown shows how these gangs work like surrogate families and the lengths members will go to to appease them. Daniel Henshall a rare professional actor in the film and his blistering performance as Bunting should bring him similar break-out potential to Eric Bana performance in another tale of Australian true horror, Chopper.

Michael Shannon has been doling out convincing, understated performances for years and can feel somewhat aggrieved that his latest didn’t add to his Oscar nominations tally alongside the nod he got for his role in Revolutionary Road. He gives another terrific  portrayal as Curtis, a man suffering apocalyptic visions in Jeff Nichols follow-up to the equally outstanding Shotgun Stories. Take Shelter’s assured approach and focussed use of special effects reminds us that personal, intimate stories are often the most successful science fiction formulas.

Two successes of British film are due to hit the shelves halfway through the month.themonth. The first, My Week With Marilyn,(Buy here)(Buy)is a sleight feature about the stars’visitstars’ visit to London to work alongside greats such as Laurence Olivier with both Michelle Williams and Kenneth Brannagh receiving Academy Award nominations for their respective roles. The second film, Weekend (Buy)is a touching study on a short-lived romance over the two-day period before Glen has to leave for an indefinite stay in New York leaving Russell questioning the legitimacy of their relationship. There are moments in Andrew Haigh’s London romance that will resonate with fans of Julie Deply’s Before Sunrise/ Before Sunset films with the closeness of the characters (played brilliantly by Tom Cullen and Chris New) and naturalistic dialogue being a credit to all involved.