Song of the Sea Film Review

Home is where the art is in this brushstroke of genius. Tomm Moore, who previously directed the similarly themed and under seen ‘The Secret of Kells’, co-writes and helms ‘Song of the Sea’, an absorbing fantasy film with adroitly designed animation from Moore and artistic director, Adrien Merigeau.

Drenched in Irish folklore, the film follows Ben and his younger sister Saoirse. She is the last selkie, a creature who has the ability to live on land as a human and live in the sea as a seal. The two siblings, who have been relocated from their lighthouse-by-the-sea to the murky depths of a city to reside with their grandmother, decide to journey back to their true home. Ben, who resents Saoirse, (her birth resulted in the loss of their mother), soon learns of her propensity to transform into her other self, and in this newly found knowledge, he must work to save his little sister from the clutches of Macha the owl witch and her myriad of minions (owls if you hadn’t guessed).

There is of course so much more to this film than the aforementioned synopsis, not solely in story, although it is worth mentioning Cú, the spectacularly loyal sheepdog, and the kindly gruff Brenden Gleeson as kindly gruff Conor, father to Ben and Saoirse, forever plaintive over the loss of his wife. ‘Song of the Sea’ though, is also rich in visuals and vividly creative. It’s a painting set in motion, a riveting reverie of fantasy combined with the simple reality of suffering. The film is varnished in sentiment, and this is to its credit, as the audience is enraptured by this as much as we are by the pastel coloured images on display. The recurring symbol of circles can be seen throughout, perhaps evoking the spiritual energy that the song of the sea provokes. Also, particularly in Celtic culture, circles were drawn as protective boundaries, which is likely the main reason they feature so dominantly. After all, one of the themes of ‘Song of the Sea’ is unity, it is ingrained in the inner workings of the piece, and the circular symbol of protection embodies such unity, such togetherness. 

Moore, along with his adept crew, embellished his original idea by painting on it a distinct creative style, one that has no obvious counterpart. It has flecks of Sylvain Chomet’s ‘The Illusionist’, but that is about it. In tone of course, it reminded me of some of the Studio Ghibli classics such as ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ and ‘Spirited Away’. On this record, I believe Moore can be a luminary for future storytellers of fantasy film, both in and out of the animation department.

‘Song of the Sea’ was nominated for Best Animation at the 2015 Academy Awards, losing out to ‘Big Hero 6’. For me, it should have swept away that board, as, after seeing it this week, ‘Song of the Sea’ can surely be justified as one of the most inventive and stunningly realised animations of the past decade.

Slow West Review

Slow West rides as a slow western. One might view this as a criticism, but I see it as the strongest asset to a gorgeously ominous tale of relationships, revenge and retribution. This expedition is expeditious in its eighty-four minute duration, yet writer/director John Maclean does not crack the whip on character development, instead he takes his time with his pair of protagonists, who wonder on and off horseback to the old west. One, Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee), is a debutant to this territory, the other, Silas (Michael Fassbender), is a denizen, but also an immigrant. Jay has migrated from Scotland to Colorado in search of the girl he loves, Rose (Caren Pistorius), who has fled her homeland with her father, due to an incident instigated by Jay’s unrequited affections for her. Silas attaches himself to Jay, and demands money in return for keeping Jay safe on his journey. Silas though, soon has other intentions; for a bounty lies on the lives of Rose and her father, one that Jay is oblivious to.

The western genre has near enough become obsolete in this generation of cinema; it was a fixture of film from the 30’s to the 60’s in particular, a paradigm of stand-offs were regular dénouements. This is not to say that it has been completely lost, over the past year we have seen Hillary Swank in the good-but-not-great ‘The Homesman’, and Mads Mikkelsen in the rather exciting ‘The Salvation’. However, if this was, say 1955, a western would arrive every other week. Films like Slow West offer the possibility of resurgence in a once crowded genre.

Maclean recalls the ambience of Sergio Garrone’s ‘Django the Bastard’ in his oneiric sequences, and, with the assistance of Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan, beautifully frames a vast landscape, which reminisces Winton Hoch’s own work on ‘The Searchers’ and, of course, Terrence Malick. Maclean’s main focus though is his characters, sweat, blood and tears are extensively realised both in his own dialogue, ‘love is universal – like death’, and the defined features of each performer. Smit-McPhee plays love and heartbreak with assurance and wears his feelings for all to see. Fassbender’s greatness is in his grit, controlled anger and quiet intensity, like a cross-breed of Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood. His grandeur is in his minimalist style, the smallest of traits, and the renegade Silas facilitates these qualities. Ben Mendelsohn as Payne, also after the bounty along with his gang, menaces most in moments of perceived geniality. His affability when bumping into Jay and Silas is of course a façade, which gleefully forebodes the climactic shoot out. Pistorius enchants as Rose in her equanimity, she is perhaps too strong-willed for young Jay. New Zealand too acts as a stunning backdrop for 1870’s Colorado.

Slow West is a highly original, melodic composition. Yet, its influences by great films and great directors are palpable, and it will hopefully influence others to find the old west on the map, and start shooting.

The Third Man Rerelease Review

The Third Man is reappearing in twelve cinemas across the UK this week, including Bristol’s very own Watershed cinema, as part of the BFI’s Orson Welles season, to celebrate a century since the famed auteur’s birth.

In this film, we follow pulp-western author Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) into post-war Vienna, who has been promised work by his old school friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Yet, as Martins arrives in the Austrian capital, he is informed that Lime has recently perished in a car accident, where two of Lime’s friends were witnesses. Understandable shock shifts to unsurprising cynicism, when Martins learns of contrasting stories regarding Lime’s death, one of which recalls an unidentified third man at the scene of the tragedy. It all becomes apocryphal, thus, aided by his deceased friend’s actress girlfriend, Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli), and whilst ignoring the warnings of Major Calloway of the British Army Police (Trevor Howard), Martins attempts to demystify the mystery around the arcane demise of his old chum, Harry Lime.

Studio interference almost irreparably maimed this picture, with heavyweight producer David O. Selznick requesting that the film be made on studio lots rather than on location. Other potential alterations included Noel Coward being cast as the enigmatic Harry Lime, rather than Welles, and that the film should have an upbeat score, rather than the unforgettable, note-perfect zither sound performed by Anton Karas. Roger Ebert aptly described it as ‘jaunty but without joy, like whistling in the dark’. Luckily, for the legacy of The Third Man, Carol Reed, the director, stood up to O. Selznick, and declined his, shall we say, suggestions. With his creative licence unrevoked, Reed went on to make one of the greatest films ever made, with some of the most famous sequences in the history of cinema.

Perfection is supposedly unattainable, though The Third Man resists this claim. How can it be bettered? Graham Green’s script, of which the dialogue is channelled flawlessly by the actors, is brilliantly written, the words chime corruption and, in Holly Martins case, uncertainty. Robert Krasker’s black and white expressionistic cinematography, which won the film’s only Academy Award, nourishes the mise-en-scene and forebodes the ominous events ahead. The Third Man does not paint itself with an oneiric brush, which is conventional to most film noirs. Instead the bleak reality is refulgent, even in Krasker’s unlikeliest shot of a cat circling round the shoe of a stranger nestled in the shadows; the revenant Lime. The ‘sewer chase’ climax is a riveting sequence, superbly edited by Oswald Hafenrichter. Many of the performers appear in their finest roles, with a never better Cotton proving that the ‘lead’ suited him. The sardonic Howard would in normal circumstances steal the limelight, had the light not shown Welles as Lime. I am sure that was purposeful. He, along with his self-scribed monologue that satirises Switzerland, which acts as his justification of his own insouciance toward his shady crimes, is THE THIRD MAN. Not just the character, but the film. That is not to discredit the other key players, who I have credited profusely throughout this review. Welles, who meets the camera for barely twenty minutes, is iconic. Arguably, this trumps Kane as his most popular onscreen appearance. It might also trump hearing him voice Optimus Prime in Transformers: The Movie.   

The 4K makeover will embellish its look and sharpen each and every frame. Its resolution will exemplify its status as a classic. Well worth seeing at the cinema. Catch it if you can, from today.

Jurassic World Review (RAWWWWWR and all that jazz)

Let’s get this out of the way; Jurassic World has Indominus Rex sized flaws. However, it rectifies the mistakes of the previous sequels, as it harks back to the Jurassic Park of 1993. It roars for the original, yet it hatches its own originality. This summer we walk with (and run away from) the extinct once more, and it is mighty fun.

                                                

The Indominus Rex is our genetically modified dinotagonist. That’s right, I present to you a hybrid of ‘dinosaur’ and ‘protagonist’. If they can mix up science over on Isla Nublar then I can mix up language in this review. It is a seriously ‘clever girl’ with rather unfortunate abilities, bequeathed to it by scientists, who were delegated the Frankenstein experiment as dinosaurs alone just ‘aren’t that exciting anymore’. It has not yet been revealed to the tourists of Jurassic World, a twenty-first century prehistoric theme park, built on the remnants of Jurassic Park.

This blend of animal traits, which includes a capacity to alter blood temperature, allows the film’s threat to coax itself out of solitary confinement. The Indominus Rex kills ‘for sport’, and as it rages through the restricted area of the island, on towards Jurassic World, danger is afoot, and the action starts to speak much louder than words.

I haven’t even mentioned our cast yet, led by Chris Pratt, as Owen Grady, who in this role tries on the shoes that he’ll surely fill in a soon-to-be-announced Indiana Jones franchise. Allegedly. He has a totemic relationship with Velociraptors and rides a Triumph Scrambler. Pratt’s charisma is crisper than high-definition. The actor is armed with charm, which translates in his flirtation with Jurassic World’s operation manager, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas-Howard). His belittling of her is refuted by her actions amidst the action, especially when the film reaches its climax. Dearing’s nephews, Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins), are treated with a VIP visit to the island, and almost treat themselves to the roaming science project.

Dallas-Howard is fine as Dearing, not quite endearing, but fine. She does not stumble in her high heel athleticism and proves a match for Grady, which is no mean feat. And she is NOT Jessica Chastain, for your information. Both Robinson and Simpkins portray their sibling dynamic very well indeed; bicker, attitude, bicker again, more attitude, then a rush of loyalty. Simpkins rips off the ‘annoying kid’ tag he wore in Iron Man 3, and Robinson faultlessly authenticates the late teen phase. If Jurassic World continues to fly high at the Box Office, it will live up to the title of Robinson’s previous film, Kings of Summer. The blockbuster is alive with characters, well, some perish of course, but many are introduced, though aren’t fully realised in the script. Vincent D’Onofrio, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, the returning BD Wong, Judy Greer and Jake Johnson, are arguably all surface with little substance. 

The flaws are as palpable as the product placements (I’ll get to that). They all trickle down from the biggest of all which is, after everything that has happened in the last twenty-three years, how is a park like this still running? At least Alan Grant has finally got the picture, and declined a ticket this time around.

Jurassic World is a haven for product placement; Beats by Dre, Starbucks and Mercedes are three of about three hundred advertisements that the camera gamely points at. In fact, I would place a wager that product placement made more of a killing out of this movie than the Indominus and Mosasaurus combined (the Mosasaurus was the big sea creature, which isn’t technically a dinosaur, another flaw). Nonetheless, is the product placement a bit tongue-in-cheek? A Washington Post article explains:

“The dinosaur park is strapped for funding and takes on corporate sponsors: Its star dinosaur exhibit becomes ‘Verizon Wireless Presents The Indominus Rex.’ A side character jokes they should have gone even further, naming a dinosaur ‘Pepsi-saurus.’”

The theory makes sense, and it also quashes my point about the biggest flaw of all (although there are still minor and major details that make more noise than a Velociraptor mating call). But my final argument is: who really cares? Colin Trevorrow, the director of Jurassic World whose prior picture, Safety Not Guaranteed, was a darling of Sundance not so long ago, teases us and enthrals us. He maps the screen with Spielberg DNA and scatters it with a touch of Trevorrow class. The humans make us laugh and the genuinely terrifying monster makes us scared. These subjective reactions were much more important to me than a perforated script and an advertisement flooding.

 

There was one scene I had a problem with, when Claire’s British assistant was torn apart by Pterodactyls and ravaged by the Mosasaurus, a silly segment that echoed Piranha 3D. Still, Jurassic World may have closed for now, but I am sure sequels will force it into re-opening. Biting entertainment.  

Freaks Re-release Review

Oh horror. Horror, horror, horror. It’s a conflicted genre. Many of the scariest films of all time aren’t really horror films at all. The Exorcist is a mystery/thriller, Psycho too, Alien a sci-fi, The Blair Witch Project a mock-doc and as for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, well, that’s a family indie dramedy isn’t it? Ok so maybe the horror machine does produce some effective horror labels. And yes I do admit that films can grow up in a family of genres.

So then, what is Freaks? Tod Browning’s deformed dystopia of a particular family of sideshow acts travels back into cinemas this week, and still shocks with its insidious direction, eighty-three years after its initial release. Freaks is a sexually charged love story, a fantasy that weeps in its nightmarish reality and above all else, a genuinely horrifying experience. On my inaugural viewing of it (I was twelve and malleable to an extreme reaction), the infamous dénouement resulted in a face spasm, which left me looking like Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’. On what must be my seventh or eighth viewing of it now, I perceive it as an uneasy watch, hauntingly authentic, and an unmistakable masterpiece.

The film is gleeful in its aesthetic of the macabre. It bathes in its odd, darkly comic presentation of fear and loathing in a carnival space. Browning paints his picture from a personal palette. He spent a period of his teenage years attached to a travelling carnival. Perhaps the memorable outbreak of ‘one of us, one of us’ around the half-way mark, is an ode to the director, even if it is also a precursor to a rather unfortunate ending.

Browning does nudge the audience with his dalliance in exploitation; he wants his voyeurs to respect the “freaks”, but he hardly makes them look respectable. This has often been aired as a criticism, yet it is almost certain that some sideshow acts of the period were mistreated, thus, the plot’s vengeance tale is understandable.

Freaks captured the horror beat. The film’s writer, Clarence Aaron Robbins knew when to tread carefully, and when to inject trauma. He was a harbinger of great horror story-telling, and he managed to pour the correct dosage of fear and fright into the narrative. The film offered and continues to offer a profound influence to film-makers emblazoned with the horror crest. David Lynch, a distinctive and stylised director, owes more credit to Freaks as an inspiration than any other film committed to celluloid.

Freaks left an indelible mark on me, one that cannot be removed. It confidently stomps into the horror paddock and it is truly, one of the most iconic films of the genre, ever made.

San Andreas Review

Dwayne Johnson wrestles with an earthquake that rocks the West coast.
 

California is the soon-to-be shaken setting for San Andreas, where anyone adverse to suntan has a lot more to worry about than the prickly heat. As helicopter pilot Ray Gaines, an appropriate name for The Rock’s character, who seems to surpass only himself in size as each of his films sweep by, the former pro wrestler turned heavy-set movie star throws thrills, as well as himself, into the tide of this silly disaster flick.

San Andreas’s waves of quality undulate on the Richter scale. Any sign of a strong story-line falls to the ground with the first of many skyscrapers. The unstoppable force of CGI takes control, and threatens Johnson’s top billing as the star of the movie. However, just as Johnny Depp is the new face of Dior, The Rock is the new face of the (sometimes 3D) action genre. I would not say he captivates as Ray, though he is rather watchable as a much-more-than-capable rescue pilot intent on finding his daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario), who is sitting pretty high up in one of those vulnerable skyscrapers, that is until disaster deals a tsunami. Ray, assisted by his ex-wife Emma (Carla Gugino), who he saves from the devastation of Los Angeles and whom he is still enamoured by, races into risky tectonic territory to locate his estranged daughter. This, whilst avoiding emphatic aftershocks.

I am usually unshaken by this particular film template; the format is prosaic and it is prone to containing an airless plot. Having said this, I cannot ridicule San Andreas too much (it’s had enough aftershocks as it is). The ridiculousness is refined by good performances from Gugino and Paul Giamatti, who plays a seismologist armed with a fistful of clichés such as, ‘you need to get out, if you can’t, god be with you’. Giammati’s speech and gestures tremor even more than the earthquakes, though he doesn’t quite cause as much damage. He is consistently a likable figure on film, his awful cameo in the The Amazing Spiderman 2 being the exemption. Yet, there is no one more likable here than The Rock. His oeuvre lacks a masterpiece, and San Andreas isn’t one. Though, his presence is enough. It wasn’t enough for The Tooth Fairy or Race to Witch Mountain, but here he steadies what could have been a sinkable ship.   

San Andreas does hark back to 70’s blockbuster fare like Earthquake (of course) and The Towering Inferno. There was a pleasurable trashiness to 1974’s Earthquake in particular, and this is certainly true of this film too. The spectacularly realised CGI is where the comparability with these 70’s disaster movies ends. The impressive special effects blitz is more ominous than the inclination that what we are viewing could actually happen in reality. Due to this, it has similarities also with more recent films that dine with natural disaster, like The Day After Tomorrow and Deep Impact.    

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has muscled into the top of the Box Office, and deservedly so. Dumb and fun, just don’t take it too seriously. 

Top Five Review

It’s a high-five for Top Five, Chris Rock’s self-referential, day-in-the-life account of former alcoholic comic, Andre Allen, who cannot catch a break in being taken seriously. Rock writes, directs and stars as Allen, whose pursuit to be a respected and relevant actor has put some stand-up talent to bed.

In 2001, Chris Rock was labelled by Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly, as ‘the funniest man in America’. Since then he has gone on to film projects that have hardly been critical darlings, the likes of Grown Ups and Head of State spring to mind. One might say then that Top Five’s protagonist mirrors Rock himself, someone who has never quite had the prolificacy in film as he has had in comedy. With this entry into his filmography however, he produces an authentic and, at times, hilarious depiction of the deformed, dysfunctional, deranged world of celebrity. Rock integrates his trademark gusto and high-pitched delivery, peppered with profanity, into the performance. Oh, and he jettisons in the N-word wherever possible, a predominant feature of his stand-up routines. Rosario Dawson, as a New York Times reporter who interviews Andre Allen for the entirety of the feature, grabs herself some good-ish material. Rock also over-indulges us with an array of cameos, including Adam Sandler, Whoopi Goldberg and Jerry Seinfeld, who bring the funny late on.

Certain critics might be repelled by some gross-out sequences, yet these will appeal to a broader audience, graduates of such films like American Pie and There’s Something About Mary. Also, there may be a sprinkling of the derogatory, but the substance and satire of Top Five will engage with the cultured crowd too. The wondering around the city and sporadically intelligent musings reminisce Linklater’s ‘Before’ movies, as well as Rock’s own picture with Julie Delpy, Two Days in New York. Although not all the jokes induce a laugh-out-loud reaction, some are quite middling in fact, this is Rock’s best cinematic outing to date. And like I said, it merges intellect with the, well, disgusting stuff. Think French New Wave meets the Farrelly brothers.