DVD Review - The Patience Stone (2013)

Genre:
Drama, War, World Cinema
Distributor:
Axiom Films
Rating:15
Director:
Atiq Rahimi
Cast:
Golshifteh Farahani, Hamid Djavadan, Hassina Burgan
Buy:The Patience Stone [DVD]

Adapted from director Atiq Rahimi’s own novel from a screenplay he co-wrote with frequent Buñuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière, The Patience Stone is a beguiling film, in every sense of the word, which unfortunately cannot shake its literary origins. The story is deceptively simple. In an unnamed city, presumably in Afghanistan, during an unspecified conflict, an unnamed woman tends to her unnamed husband who lies comatose in his bed with a bullet wound in his neck. At first the woman feels lost without him and clings desperately to the hope that he will wake up but gradually – and with the idea of the patience stone of the title planted firmly in her mind – she uses her husband’s vegetative state to unburden her mind and speak freely to him for the first time, revealing her innermost secrets and desires. It is quite clear that he represents the oppressive patriarchy and she the oppressed everywoman searching for emancipation but with the setting being within the context of war it becomes unclear whether or not the film truly is about breaking free from patriarchy or if it is more about the destructive nature of war. The line “Those who don’t know how to make love, make war,” spoken midway through inclines us toward the later and takes away some of the force the film could have had. As it stands, the politics feel generalised and too artificial to fully convince.

★★★☆☆

Shane James

Blu-ray Review - Gravity (2013)

Genre:
Sci-fi, Drama
Distributor:
Warner Bros Pictures
BD Release Date:
3rd March 2014 (UK)
Rating: 12
Director:
Alfonso Cuarón
Cast:
Sandra Bullock, George Clooney
Buy Gravity: DVD[ + UV Copy] or Blu-ray [+ UV Copy]

What is there to be said about Gravity that hasn’t been said before? It’s one of the few films to live up to the hype, and it’s really the film that single handily saved the film industry’s enforcement of 3D to make more loot. Having seen the film in both 3D and the traditional 2D, it has to be said that the 2D version lacks the visceral experience of the 3D version; however it’s such a perfectly constructed film that it’s still an awe-inspiring watch on the second viewing.

The film starts with an unbroken single shot of Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Lieutenant Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) working on the Hubble telescope. It’s one of, if not the best, shots of 2013 and it’s technically so mind-blowing you will literally watch it in awe. The film’s plot is as simply as you can possibly get - high-speed space junk hits the Hubble telescopes and the spaceship they took up there. It’s completely destroyed, and the two astronauts become stuck floating in space. They need to get to the International Space Station but everything that could wrong does. All they have is Kowalski’s thruster pack to get them to their destination.

It’s full of very long takes and due to the subject matter, some of the scenes are partly fake and filled with special effects, however it remains a total game changer. In its entirety the film has about 150 shots, which is very rare for a $100,000,000 film; the average amount is around 5000 for a normal Hollywood film. The special effects are also the most believable since Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and it’s similarly best seen on the biggest screen possible.

Sandra Bullock has never been better and hopefully, like Matthew McConaughey, it will be the catalyst for a new chapter in her career by choosing more interesting and diverse roles than she had previously. Clooney is charming as ever, but the film rests on Bullock’s performance: for a good majority of the film, it is just her isolated in space and dealing with every obstacle herself. It’s also worth noting Ed Harris’ voice cameo as mission control - an obvious homage to Ron Howard’s best film Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff in which Ed Harris played a similar role.

Now onto the director Alfonso Cuarón; he has managed to redeem himself after the controversial and atrocious Autism Speaks video he did in 2009. Autism Speaks is a fake pro-autism organization, which has sadly infiltrated parts of Hollywood. They are, in reality, a group that considers Autism a disease when it’s a social disorder. They are trying to find a cure for something that is incurable but part of the person’s identity.

Cuarón last directorial effort was Children of Men back in 2006 which one of the best films of the last 20 years, and like Gravity, it is filled with long takes. It’s more of a sci-fi film because of its dystopian story. Cuarón has said Gravity isn’t science fiction but a “drama about a women in space”.

Gravity was very much the film of 2013 due to its technical achievement and fantastic minimalistic story, along with the two 2 outstanding performances from Clooney and Bullock. There could be a pretentious comparison to the work of Robert Bresson because of his minimalistic approach to filmmaking, but it’s very slight. The blu-ray includes a very insightful documentary on the making of the film, in which much of the technical side is explained – and for this, it is essential viewing for any budding filmmakers.

★★★★★

Ian Schultz

DVD Review - For Those In Peril (2013)

Genre:
Drama
Distributor:
Soda Pictures
Rating: 18
DVD Release Date:
3rd March 2014 (UK)
Director:
Paul Wright
Cast:
George McKay, Nichola Burley, Katie Dickie, Michael Smiley
Buy: For Those In Peril [DVD]
British cinema has long since been known for its realist aesthetic with directors such as Ken Loach (Kes, Raining Stones, and Ladybird, Ladybird) and Mike Leigh (Life Is Sweet, Naked, and Secrets & Lies) working at the forefront of our national cinema within a social realist idiom. In more recent years, with Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher and Andrea Arnold’s more recent Fish Tank springing to mind, the traditional realist mode as changed context and become more poetic in its form. And now we have Paul Wright, whose debut feature For Those in Peril uses local folklore to transcend the boundaries of realist cinema and imbue his story with a sense of magic.

The film concerns itself with the guilt and need for redemption that take their toll on Aaron (George Mackay), the lone survivor of a fishing accident that claimed the lives of several young men including his own brother. With the local townsfolk of the remote Scottish fishing community in which he resides either blaming him or resenting him for being the only one to return, and with his only solace coming from his mother (played by the excellent Kate Dickie) and his dead brother’s girlfriend Jane (Nichola Burley), Aaron retreats into his own world. With the conviction that his brother is still alive and after taking literally the fable his mother used to tell him as a child, he sets out to rescue his brother from the belly of the monster at the bottom of the sea.

My initial reaction when I watched the film was that the use of folklore to lift the film into the realms of magical realism was, as other critics have been eager to point out, a major misjudgement that diverts our attention away from the films compassionate and intense psychological core. But upon reflection the real problem isn’t anything to do with the films magical elements but more to do with the 18 certificate given to the film, because this film does work as a children’s fable, albeit a dark one, that should be made available for a younger audience. For while the film still has its problems, namely the credibility of the townsfolk’s resentment of Aaron, the film is an ambitious debut that deserves to sit alongside Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher, Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant, and Ken Loach’s Sweet Sixteen as a children’s film that has fallen foul of the BBFC’s rating system.

★★★☆☆

Shane James

Film Review - Funny Face (1957)

Genre:
Musical, Comedy, Romance
Distributor:
Park Circus
Rating: PG
Re-Release Date:
28th February 2014 (UK)
Director:
Stanley Donen
Cast:
Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson

Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn) happily works as an assistant in an obscure New York bookstore. One day a top fashion glossy takes over the shop as the setting for a photo shoot. During the shoot the magazine's editor Maggie Prescott (Kay Thompson) and her top photographer Dick Avery (Fred Astaire) discover Jo whom they declare as the next 'big thing'! She is then whisked to Paris by the scheming duo, where she not only causes a sensation on the catwalks of the fashion capital but soon becomes the focus of Avery's attention on both sides of the camera.

For those who think cinema's fascination with fashion is a recent phenomena, with films like The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and The September Issue (2009) - think again. Funny Face (1957), the piece of cinematic whimsy directed by Stanley Donen - who made such Hollywood classics as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) - proves that as far back as the 1950s the public was obsessed with the beautiful world inhabited by stick thin models, demanding editors and temperamental photographers. The film shares endless similarities with the real world of fashion, and especially the refined echelons of couture: not surprising considering the character of Maggie Prescott was rumoured to be modelled on Diana Vreeland, the real-life Editrix of fashion bible American Vogue, whilst the inspiration for Astaire's photographer apparently derived from one of the most influential super snappers ever, Richard (Dick) Avedon.

As with the exclusive world of high fashion, Funny Face is one of those rare films which not only transcends fads and passing tastes, but stands out from the rest thanks to its effortless style, wit and sophistication. Hepburn simply fizzes in the role of Jo, the feisty young woman battling with the attentions of Astaire's older, more worldly-wise mentor - a role she would repeat a few years later in My Fair Lady (1964) alongside Rex Harrison.

Like the industry it so wittily sends up, the evergreen Funny Face is beguiling, tasteful and painfully chic. The film's timely rerelease coincides conveniently with the close of the bi-annual fashion circus which has been making its way around the clothing capitals of the world. Few of us will ever get the chance of a ringside seat at these events. However glossy magazines like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar allow people to be a part of these fantasies, vicariously through their pages. Films such as the exquisite Funny Face - where all the ingredients came together in a picture perfect composition - also allow us to share, even if only for a brief time, in this land of adult make-believe.

★★★★★

Cleaver Patterson

BFI Player Snags Nymphomaniac for March 1st Release

DVD Review - Bloody Homecoming

Genre:
Horror, Slasher
Distributor:
Imagine Entertainment
Rating: 15
DVD Release Date:
10th March 2014 (UK)
Director:
Brian C Weed
Cast:
Jim Tavaré, Rae Latt, Lexi Giovagnoli
Buy: Bloody Homecoming [DVD]
Bloody Homecoming, from first time feature director Brian C. Weed, is a strange kind of homage to classic slasher films, from its Halloween-inspired soundtrack to its creepy high school janitor, it wears its inspirations proudly but does little else. The film follows the lives of a group of students, each guilty for their involvement in a student’s death 3 years prior. As homecoming night looms, the anniversary of Billy Corbin’s murder, the students try their best to carry on whilst a masked killer butchers the group.

Though its heart is in the right place, a lot of stuff is crazy wrong with Bloody Homecoming. There’s a seemingly conscious engagement with slasher trope but it doesn’t lead anywhere. Spoof without comedy is pastiche, but pastiche without any comment or thrill is simply bad. As the film acts out a paint by numbers stalk-and-slash you’re left wondering when something cool will happen. Characters are killed in numerous anti-climactic death scenes whilst a lack of main character leaves the film directionless. Rather than pulling something postmodern out the bag and utilising that knowledge of slasher, the film executes an ending which, due to inconsequential characters and the inability to build tension, just kind of happens.  Saying that, Rae Latt does do her best to carry the finale though the shortcomings in editing and script unfortunately halt her most enjoyable scenes.

Bloody Homecoming dances the line between home movie and straight to DVD entertainment, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Its flat performances and hilariously stupid dialogue almost give it a charming edge over other plainly bad films, but the total lack of tension and drama keep it well and truly bogged down. It’s not enough for the film to be awful and unintentionally hilarious. This is a great shame since there’s obviously a passion for horror at work somewhere in there, it just needs to be addressed in a more deserving way.

Hilarious dialogue, wooden acting, and zero tension leaves this ode to classic slasher films looking like a second-rate re-enactment of better films. Avoid this if you can.

★☆☆☆☆

Scott Clark

GFF 2014 Review: The Dance of Reality (La danza de la realidad)

Genre:
World Cinema, Biography, Drama
Distributor:
Pathe International
Rating: 15
Release Date:
23rd February 2014 (UK,Glasgow Film Festival)
Director:
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Stars:
Brontis Jodorowsky, Pamela Florence, Jeremías Herskovits,Alejandro Jodorowky
Reviewing a film like Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Dance of Reality (La Danza de la Realidad) is a tricky thing. Rarely do films achieve such a level of mind-boggling skill, flaunting an incredible fusion of art and entertainment like nothing you’ve ever seen. The legendary director’s first film in 23 years is an account of his childhood in 1930’s Chile, focusing on his troubled relationship with his father. At the Glasgow Film Festival Q & A with Brontis Jodorowsky (Alejandro’s son and lead actor in The Dance of Reality) the film’s reconciliatory purposes were made clear.

Here Jodorowsky considers his entire youth, reimagining various important events and circumstance. The meticulously executed fantastical elements can at times seem intense, distancing the viewer from the actual story of the film. However, Jodorowsky’s unrelenting surrealism ultimately proves so literal it just seems impenetrable and that makes it all the more appreciable. Jodorowsky’s mother’s unfulfilled desire to be an opera singer is here addressed by having her sing all her lines. The half-finished quality to dreams and memories is here represented by all inconsequential characters’ wearing expressionless masks. Unresolved relations with his father are perhaps the most extensively addressed as it is Jaime (Brontis Jodorowsky) who is sent on a journey of self-exploration. This series of bizarre happenstance, set against a backdrop of political disorder and communist uprising, is an honest open letter to Jodorowsky’s estranged father.

The village of Tocopilla is exotic and farcical with a host of colourful characters, each new character appearing to paint another detail onto the intricate portrait of Jodorowsky’s youth. Most obvious in all this is that even in a break of almost a quarter century, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s wit and visual capability have not been dulled. These images and tales- in the end- only add up to one perspective, but with such accomplished cohesiveness The Dance of Reality feels like a hundred gorgeous vignettes of a fascinating world.  It would be a mistake for me to take characters or events and attempt to explore their relevance to the narrative of the film and, more importantly, Jodorowsky’s life. Instead I’ll urge you to see and experience it for yourself.

The journey to Jodorowsky’s past unveils a bizarre and utterly entrancing tale of philosophical coming-of-age. The vibrant atmosphere of “Python”-esque tom-foolery mixed with beautiful visuals and often blunt social critique makes Jodorowsky’s latest a welcome return.

★★★★★

Scott Clark

GFF 2014 Review: The Girl From the Wardrobe (Dziewczyna z szafy)

Genre:
Drama, World Cinema
Rating: 15
Release Date:
22nd February 2014 (Glasgow Film Festival)
Director:
Bodo Kox
Cast:
Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Piotr Glowacki, Magdalena Rózanska

Writer-director Bodo Kox’s debut feature follows the story of three isolated individuals who live on the same floor of a block of flats in a run-down residential area. Jacek (Piotre Glowacki) operates a business from his computer and tries to maintain a normal life whilst taking care of his autistic brother Tomeck (Wojciech Mecwaldowski) who can see air blimps constantly flying overhead. Magda (Magdalena Rozanska) lives across the hall and spends her days sitting in her cupboard smoking joints and watching photo stills on an old projector.

It’s as charming and weird as it sounds; flitting between an expose on lives less ordinary and madcap venture into the world of multi-verse theory, The Girl in the Wardrobe is ultimately a tender film about friendship but should not be underestimated as an incredibly funny black comedy.  Bodo’s keen sense of humour is an integral part of his heartfelt portrait of alienation ensuring that the film remains –no matter how depressing- bizarrely buoyant.

Some of the most impressive parts of the film come from the often surreal merging of hallucination and reality, making what could have been drab and monotonous, ultimately involving and intriguing. The dull residential area in which the film is set seems grey and rotten, but Tomeck’s low flying air blimps and Magda’s jungle retreat are moments of fantastic exotic curio rarely made this matter-of-fact. Just when a conversation starts to get dull, or a sequence begins to slow down, things get weird. Rather than this feeling like some kind of last minute scene-save, it acts as Bodo’s critique on the monotony of life. Again and again society at large, at least the world outside the flat, seems predictable and ultimately vapid.

Here, under the heartstrings and weird imagery is an insidious account of the seclusion of troubled peoples. A trip to an art gallery flaunts contempt for a pretentious kind of piety found nowhere in the deeply honest world of Tomek, Magda, and Jacek. The entire cast prove their worth throughout, each receiving the same overall balance- the film itself executes so well- between humour and pain. Even though there are some dull points, Kox proves he is a capable and interesting filmmaker worth keeping an eye on.

A supremely bittersweet tale of suicide, alienation, and friendship, The Girl in the Wardrobe is a carefully balanced study of life on the outside looking in, a piss-take of the word “normal”, but perhaps most importantly an eye opening look at mental health.

★★★½☆

Scott Clark

GFF 2014 Review -The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears (L'étrange couleur des larmes de ton corps)

Genre:
Thriller, World Cinema, Giallo
Distributor:
Metrodome (UK)
Release:
21st February 2014 (Glasgow Film Festival)
11th April 2014 (UK Cinema)
Rating: 18(UK)
Directors:
Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani
Stars:
Klaus Tange, Ursula Bedena, Joe Koener

Following on from their stunning debut feature Amer, Helen Cattet and Bruno Forzani deliver another breath-taking giallo-inspired thriller, pushing the envelope even further in terms of narrative coherency and cinematic beauty.

If you’re looking for a straightforward thriller narrative wrapped in giallo style, you won’t find it here. Cattet and Forzani throw narrative coherency to the wind and gleefully launch into an intensive exploration of giallo trope, ensuring that anyone desperate for an obvious answer to the mysteries of this labyrinthine film will be sorely disappointed. Though Strange Colour does throw narrative scraps to the audience, ensuring that some vague concept of what’s going on is there, as a whole it’s more connected by theme. Obsession and passion appear at every twist and turn, whilst death and violence follow hot on their heels. The French auteurs cleverly leave little time for reflection or digestion; the symbols and ultra-violence come thick and fast in a Freudian head-fuck sure to fill numerous forums with panicked jibber-jabber as to what it’s all about.

This is a film populated by the ghosts of the giallo genre: sex mad sirens and murderous she-witches hide in the shadows of the gorgeous flat block, whilst killers in black leather seems to erupt out the walls to orchestrate scenes of visceral brutality with shimmering cut-throat razors. It’s been a while since stabbing looked this brutal. Arguably the skilled duo are covering a lot of the ground they did in Amer and even though it never comes across as tired, it would be interesting to see something totally different next.

Strange Colour actually surpasses all Cattet and Forzani’s previous works in terms of cinematography and sound. The rich day-glow noir that so excellently served their purposes in Amer and their entry to The ABC’s of Death (O is for Orgasm), is here perfected. The sound is rich, intrusive, stunning, and arguably more intimidating than any visual in the feature. The talented duo should beware that their strong sense of style has the capacity to get in the way of other aspects of the film. Long sequences of more vanguard imagery and narrative have the potential to detract rather than add to the film as a whole. In a feature so proud to leave its narrative unannounced for the viewer’s delectation, it is still possible to push the confusion too far.

Vagina-shaped stab wounds, black fedoras, mysterious figures in red veils, its all here in this lovingly told uber-giallo feature. By the end you won’t really know what’s happening, but that doesn’t matter.  Every shot is perfect, every sound so tangible it makes your skin crawl, whilst the confusion and horror at its heart make it one of the most entrancing experiences you’ll have this year.

★★★★☆

Scott Clark

Masters Of Cinema Blu-ray Review - Serpico (1973)

Genre:
Crime, Drama, Biography
Distributor:
Eureka! Entertainment
Rating: 18
BD Release Date:
24th February 2014 (UK)
Director:
Sidney Lumet
Cast:
Al Pacion, Jack Keghoe, John Randolph, Barbara Eda-Young
Buy: SERPICO (Masters of Cinema) (Blu-ray)

Serpico is one of the crowning achievements in two careers, which had plenty the director Sidney Lumet, and the film’s star Al Pacino. It came off the heels of Sidney Lumet’s little seen but brilliant Sean Connery cop film The Offence and Pacino’s star making role in The Godfather and his equally great performance in Scarecrow.

Al Pacino shines as the title character of Frank Serpico, who starts life out as a uniformed police officer. He gradually discovers a world of police corruption and plans to blow it open. Serpico becomes increasingly idiosyncratic such as read literature not associated with a police officer and basically becomes a hippie. His behaviour makes his partners, superiors to be suspicious of him cause he refuses to take any payoffs. They eventually start to threaten his life.

Sidney Lumet was the undisputedly the king of gritty New York realism and Serpico was the beginning of what would make his name despite working since the 1950s and making many great films by this time. It’s both a pioneering cop film and a brilliant examination of a man who is a flawed moral crusader. Serpico along with The French Connection became the blueprint for the gritty realistic cop film we now know and love today.

The film is also very much a product of the time. It’s a film made at the climax of the Vietnam War, Watergate and the death of the Hippie dream. Lumet was always a political director even though his politics never made his films inaccessible to people of the left or the right is evident in the right leaning Tea Party appropriation of the “I’m not gonna take it anymore” line from his later 70s masterpiece Network despite his liberal politics. It could also just be there were fewer films then and people of all political persuasions would see what was new.

Lumet would return to the topic of police corrupt in the New York police force in later films such as Prince of the City and Q & A but he never bettered Serpico on the subject. Pacino and Lumet really were at the top of the game; both star and actor rarely put a put a foot wrong in the 70s. The most amazing thing about the film is that Pacino and Lumet topped it with their next collaboration Dog Day Afternoon but that’s a different story altogether.

★★★★½

Ian Schultz