I find it a little bit daunting whenever I sit down to write up a review of a revered classic like The Seventh Seal. It's a film that's considered one of the key cornerstones of film history and is perhaps Ingmar Bergman's most celebrated and influential work. Rife with symbolism, it bucked the American and British conceptions of what a film could be by focusing less on plot or characterisation and more on ideas of death and christian faith. Most astonishingly, it didn't disguise it's intellectualism as a subtext. Instead it meets it's themes head-on by making the personification of death an actual character in the film (he's more or less the Grim Reaper, but is never referred to as anything other than 'Death'). It's the kind of boldness that has since characterised The Seventh Seal as the very definition of an 'art film'. Modern or more mainstream-attuned viewers may find the resulting style a little odd, but the film never becomes boring, static or overly complex - it's actually quite full of incident and not without a somewhat sly sense of humour, and the way it uses micro-narratives from scene to scene builds a satisfying larger picture.
Antonious Block (Max Von Sydow in a star-making role) is a medieval knight who returns home to Sweden from the Crusades. Accompanied by his cynical and blackhumoured squire, Jons (Gunnar Bjornstrand), he arrives on the beach to be met by Death (Bengt Ekerot). Block is not ready to die yet, his experiences in the Crusades have weakened his faith in God, so he challenges Death to a game of chess with his life as the wager. Using the time gained by this, Block travels his plague-ravaged homeland in an effort to better understand the meaning of life. He comes across religious fanatics, a small company of actors, and soldiers who plan to burn a young woman at the stake for carousing with the devil - all the while collecting an eclectic gathering of medieval folk around him. They travel to his castle with Death at their backs, the black-shrouded figure patiently waiting for Block's game of chess to end.
One of the first things you'll notice about The Seventh Seal is the wonderfully crisp and evocative black and white imagery. The scene where Block and Death first sit down to play chess has become an oft-parodied part of pop culture. Much of the film was crafted around actual pieces of medieval art, with Bergman using both this historical influence and the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa as a template to build his film on. The medieval setting is a big part of what makes The Seventh Seal so memorable, as an era of ignorance and superstition it's an ideal backdrop for a dissertation on the role of death and the ways in which people cope with it. In this case, the onset of the devastating black plague and the all-pervading influence of the Christian Church are a perfect environment for a character who sees faith as a curse... Block's journey from shore to castle seems to demonstrate that heaven and hell are both right here on Earth, and perhaps also enitrely in our mind. The knight and his squire are very much voices of reason in an insane world, questioning the order of things in the name of rationality as the black plague creeps across the land. Block comes to represent the paradox of the unbeliever - asking how someone can be convinced of God's existence if they simply can't or don't believe.
As I mentioned earlier, for a film about death and tragedy it's also quite funny in parts. The medieval setting (and some of the colourful supporting characters) often makes for accurately ribald humour. The script is also chock-full of double meanings, such as when Block tells a priest (who is really Death in disguise), "I plan to outwit Death with a combination of bishop and knight". I also love the way that Death is casually reintroduced at certain points, the camera pulling out suddenly to reveal him standing over someone, or the way he just wanders into the edges of a scene. The way the humour plays into the film also seems to highlight the bitter aspects of death - it's a hollow laughter that hints at the senselessness of death's unpredictable cannon (such as the scene where the character of Skat fakes his death to avoid the wrath of a cuckolded blacksmith). Bengt Ekerot's unassuming portrayal of Death has become an immortal part of film history. Von Sydow and Bjornstrand are also memorable as the knight and squire... Von Sydow is suitably belak and drained as the questioning protagonist, and Bjornstrand makes a nice contrast as the sarcastic but honourable right-hand man.
My only criticism (and I hesitate to say anything, given how highly regarded this film is) is the ending, where the actor Jof describes the Dance of Death and the way that rain pours onto their faces, mixing with their salty tears... it seems like such a low-key way to end such a big film. The climactic scenes before this point build to a certain weight, and then we just have a character describing something from afar. Would it not be better if we had seen this powerful image rather than just had it described to us? I understand that Bergman filmed this scene after some of the actors had left the production, so I guess there's a reason why it takes place in long-shot, but still... if it was purely borne of practical reasons rather than creative ones then it's damn shame. Anyway, there's not much else I can say without further viewings. It certainly deserves it's hallowed status, and I'm sure it would stand up to a lot of re-watches. If you haven't seen it, it's a magnificent film that will stay with you long after you finish watching it.
DIRECTOR: Ingmar Bergman
WRITER/SOURCE: Ingmar Bergman, based on his own play.
KEY ACTORS: Max Von Sydow, Bengt Ekerot, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bibi Anderson, Nils Poppe, Inga Landgre
RELATED TEXTS:
- Bergman adapted the film from a student-play he had previously written called Wood Painting.
- Bergman later made a loose trilogy of films that dealt further with faith and doubt in God, these are Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence.
- The way Death is characterised and represented in The Seventh Seal has been parodied and ripped off by a wide range of films and TV shows, including: Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, The Young Ones and Woody Allen's film Love and Death.
AWARDS
Cannes Film Festival - won Jury Special Prize. Nominated for Palme d'Or.
Joining the ranks of Little Miss Sunshine, Up in the Air, Juno and American Beauty as a topical dramedy aimed squarely at the awards season, The Kids Are All Right tells the story of what happens when the teenage children of two upper-middle class lesbians go looking for their biological father. The film can pretty much be summed up as "Hey yo, it's the 21st century and things are different now, but also pretty much the same". Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Bening) are an ageing gay couple who find that their relationship is growing stale and routine. Their 18 year old daugher Joni (Mia Wasikowska, from Alice in Wonderland) is about to leave for university and their 15 year old son Laser (Josh Hutcherson) is curious about the idea of a father figure. Into the mix comes Paul (Mark Ruffalo), the sperm doner who made all this possible. Paul is the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons - a catalyst for change that will turn all their lives upside down.
Mark Ruffalo is incredibly likeable as the flawed would-be father. He convinces you that he doesn't have any ulterior motives, even when he does. Paul seems to genuinely want to spend time with these kids, and I'm glad the film hangs onto that right until the end. Bening is very believable as a headstrong 50-something lesbian, she doesn't turn it into a caricature or sway too far towards being overly sympathetic or unsympathetic. Moore is good too, she gets her kit off a fair bit so kudos to her for continuing to deliver herself so completely into the hands of her art. If I had to single out one of the principle cast for praise though it would still have to be Bening, she gives the most realistic and original performance of the three principle cast members and she deserves recognition for her work as Nic.
Look, it's a pleasant and interesting comedy-drama but it's hard for me not to be a bit cynical about something that deals with a supposedly controversial subject in such a middling manner. At the end of the film I just felt like, is that it? A lot of the drama arises from Jules and Nic having to come to terms with extending of their family to include Paul, it's about building new relationships and getting outside of your comfort zone. The character of Paul walks a fine line between being dangerously irresponsible and an actual force for good. As much as the film seems to sway towards painting him as selfish, I like that he was shown as a positive role-model for each of the kids (especially in regards to how they choose their friends). Some of these plot strands threaten to raise the film above being average, and a lot of this is also down to the performances.
DIRECTOR: Lisa Cholodenko
WRITER/SOURCE: Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, based partially on Cholodenko's experiences.
KEY ACTORS: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson.
RELATED TEXTS:
- The one that immediately comes to mind is the French comedy La Cage aux Folles and it's American remake, The Birdcage.
- Other films about gay parenting include Bobbie's Girl, Get Your Stuff, the Australian film Violet's Visit, the British dramas Hollow Reed and The Hanging Garden, and the documentaries Paternal Instinct, All Aboard and Making Grace.
AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated Best Film, Best Actress (Annette Benning), Best Supporting Actor (Mark Ruffalo) and Best Original Screenplay.
BAFTAs - nominated Best Actress (Benning), Best Actress (Julianne Moore), Best Supporting Actor (Ruffalo) and Best Original Screenplay.
Golden Globes - won Best Film (Comedy/Musical) and Best Actress - Comedy/Musical (Benning). Also nominated for Best Actress - Comedy/Musical (Moore) and Best Screenplay.
Independent Spirit - nominated Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress (Benning), Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Ruffalo).
The Coen brothers revisit the themes of harsh justice and lawlessness from No Country for Old Men and refract the old west through the same rustic eye that made O Brother Where Art Thou? such an entertaining period piece. Going beyond the John Wayne version of True Grit, the brothers have used the original source material (a novel) as a template for their unique style and have also enlisted an A-grade cast to help bring their take on the western genre to life. As far as westerns go, it's surprisingly traditionalist in some aspects, seeking to strike a good balance between a realistic depiction of the era and the touchstones of the genre.
Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is a 14 year old girl who travels into town to hire someone to avenge her father's murder at the hands of bad seed named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). She finds Marshall 'Rooster' Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), a bloated and cantankerous drunkard with a reputation for killing his prisoners. Cogburn agrees to take on the job and throws in with a Texas ranger named LeBoeuf (Matt Damon), who is also hunting Tom Chaney for seperate crimes. Mattie adamantly refuses to be left behind, she is keen for Tom Chaney to know that she is responsible for his capture and death, and so they head out into forbidding Indian territory to track down this mean character.
All the casting is absolutely perfect. Steinfeld is precocious, practical and headstrong without becoming annoying (a fault easily found with the actress in the original True Grit). Damon is delightfully gruff and braggardly in sidewhiskers and moustache, and the prickly banter between LaBoeuf and Mattie is hilarious and brilliantly inflected. Bridges is likeably shabby and rough-edged, he makes the character completely his own without straying too far from the characterisation that John Wayne also tapped into to such good effect back in 1969. Josh Brolin, one of the most undersung actors of his generation, is suitably glowering and cotton-mouthed as the dimwitted killer... he steals all his (too few) scenes as well.
I think that this is actually a far better film than the rather disposable 1968 True Grit. The Coens take a great, peverse delight in bringing to the screen this grimy, coldbitten Oklahoma story, as told through the eyes of a 14-year old girl. It's a tale where villains get blown to kingdom come and heroes bond via their displays of 'true grit'. I loved the way the film accurately presents the routine and casual mistreatment of Native Americans, even from supposedly sympathetic characters like Cogburn. Too often in westerns, particularly ones that seek to show the injustices done to the Native Americans, the lead characters will be depicted as sympathetic or empathic to the plight of the Indians. In True Grit there are no such pretensions, it mines that dark Coen brothers humour to reflect the racist reality of the old west. It's perhaps at it's most pertinent and blackly funny in the early hanging scene where each man to-be-hung is allowed to speak their last words, only for the last man (an Indian) to be cut off by the crack of the noose just as he starts speaking.
Ultimately, True Grit is a winner for making the western a revitalised new canvas for harsh adventure. By treatng the west primarily as a historical era rather than a genre, the Coen brothers make it all feel fresh again (much like the way the west is approached in the TV show Deadwood). The central theme of toughness and resilience (the 'true grit' of the title) also ensues a certain relevance that gives the film a valuable edge, and it's our attachment to the characters of Mattie, Rooster and LaBoeuf (helped in great spades by the actors who portray them) that makes it such an engaging journey.
DIRECTOR: Joel and Ethan Coen
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the 1968 book by Charles Portis.
KEY ACTORS: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, J. K. Simmons
RELATED TEXTS:
- The novel True Grit, on which this film is directly based.
- The 1969 film True Grit, also based on the novel.
- As mentioned, I think this film's approach to the west is similar to the television show Deadwood. The recent western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has a similar (though humourless) tone.
AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominations for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Jeff Bridges), Best Supporting Actress (Hailee Steinfeld), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Adapted Screenplay.
BAFTAs - won Best Cinematography. Nominated for Best Actor (Bridges), Best Actress (Steinfeld), Best Costume Design, Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound.
A while ago I reviewed a book called Fade to Blue by Sean Beaudoin. It's a pop culture-savvy novella that mixes cyberpunk with the high school blues, and Beaudoin has followed it up with a new detective fiction-influenced novel called You Killed Wesley Payne. Celebrated teen-fiction author M. T. Anderson has started using this book as educational material for some of his lectures, and it's been getting notice with some American literary organisations.
To help promote the publication of this hot property, Beaudoin has kindly donated his time for an exclusive Q&A session...
First up, tell us about your book.
It's a black comedy disguised as a neo-noir murder mystery set in the mean hallways of Salt River High. The hero (anti-hero) Dalton Rev transfers in to solve the mystery of a body found hanging from the goalpost at the end of the football field. Just so happens to be Wesley Payne. There's cliques, danger, loot, wisecracks, and femme fatales. Pretty much everything you'd expect from another debutante novel. We almost decided to call it Gossip Boy.
How is it different to your last two novels?
Say what you like about any of my books (they rule! they suck!), but I don't think you can say they're very similar. This one is totally different than the other two. I guess I get bored easily. A.D.D. can apparently stand for either Attention Deficit Disorder or Another Dumb Digression. Actually, if there's any similarities, I hope it can be said that they're uniformly sort of funny.
How did M. T. Anderson come to use You Killed Wesley Payne as an educational tool?
He told me he was at a conference where a table full of authors were passing an advance copy of Wesley Payne around and laughing about parts in the back. So, he picked one up and liked it. Mr. Anderson (what I usually call him. That, or "yes sire") has used Wesley Payne as an example of a novel that plays with language in an interesting way. I believe he ends every lecture with the phrase "And now you WILL all go out and buy three copies!"
How hard was it to first get published? How did you get into writing?
I've been writing since I was a teenager, with various results. I got into it more formally when I began getting paid. And also when I realized it was one of my few marketable skills. Getting published is never easy. It depends what your publishing goals are. Short story? Poetry? Indie press? Blockbuster novel? I will say it's much easier to get your writing around and read nwo than it was when I began. In other words, if you want to make it happen, there are fewer excuses than ever.
Other than writing, what else do you fill your days with?
I would like to be able to say "surfing, fencing, racing Ducatis, jamming through an enormous Marshall stack, and writing proprietary gaming code," but, you know, it wouldn't be true. I make sandwiches, wipe my daughter's nose, ignore emails, and read. I read a lot.
I have to admit, I didn't get the comic book sequence in Fade to Blue... what was that all about?
There's a comic book in Fade to Blue?
My copy of Fade to Blue has a comic-strip sequence called "The Adventures of Destruktor-Bot" that runs for about 6 or 8 pages or so after page 86. Are you unaware of this, or are you just being flippant?
You should head on down to Borders right now and demand you money back!
Have you ever considered writing full-length comics?
I would love to. If I found an illustrator who seemed to be on my wavelength, I would pound out a graphic novel on spec in a heartbeat.
What influences youre writing and who are your favourite authors?
I think, except for the very best writers who ever lived, we are all very obviously the summation of the personality you see in the prose. In other words, as an author you can't hide who you are in a novel. My influences are probably pretty clear from reading (or, you know, skimming in the bookstore before putting it down and picking something else) the first two books.
I have too many favourite authors to list. But the first seven to randomly come to mind are: Evelyn Waugh, Stephen Wright, Jim Thompson, Alice Munro, Don Carpenter, David Mitchell and M. T. Anderson (Mr. Anderson gives me a dollar every time I say that.)
Do you have ambitions of writing for television or film?
I am currently working on a screenplay with my buddy Pie Truck. We are about halfway through it. It's tough, because he lives in a different state, so we do it all via email, but it's coming along. A totally rocking monster/social satire sort of thing with no robots who turn into rocket-bots, but maybe some explosions.
How did he come by the name 'Pie Truck'?
That's what I call him. Because he is simultaneously shaped both like a pie with one piece cut out of it, and an enormous delivery truck. If you saw him, you'd instantly know what I was talking about. And like a nice, warm piece of pie, he doesn't mind the name at all.
What's your next project?
My next book, Wise Young Truck, is in the hands of my editor as I type this. Hopefully, it will come out exactly a year after You Killed Wesley Payne and be at least 26% better.
What kind of novel will Wise Young Truck be?
It's sort of a fictional memoir about being in a band in high school, and wanting to do nothing except rock harder than everybody else. And, you know, meet girls.
Thanks!
Thanks for having me! It was fun.
Trailer for You Killed Wesley Payne...
Shane Cooper (Ryan Kwanten) is the new cop in Red Hill, a small township in the Victorian high country. His new chief is Old Bill (Steve Bisley), the big man in charge of town and a mean cold-blooded bull with hard, conservative values. Old Bill takes an instant dislike to Shane and his cityfolk ways, and Shane's liberal views put him automatically in opposition to Bill. Shane's first day in Red Hill is just about to get a lot harder than that though as news breaks that Jimmy Conway (Tommy Lewis), an escaped Aboriginal prisoner and convincted murderer, is on his way back to Red Hill to take revenge on the township and it's polive. The town goes into lockdown, with Bill rounding up a gang of vigilantes to help him take Jimmy down.
First of all, this film is tight. It's economically constructed so that there's not a wasted line or look for it's all too brief 90-odd minutes. It doesn't take long to kick in to the main storyline and once it puts the screws on it doesn't let up until the final few minutes. I've heard about some viewers getting hung up on technical inaccuracies in regards to firearms and Australian small-town police stations, but to do this is to really miss the point of the movie... it's a western, it's not supposed to be realistic, it's meant to be mythic. Red Hill takes enough American western tropes to be recognisable as part of the western genre, but it also has a firm Australian context to justify it's setting. It's a great film in terms of being both a western and an Australian film. And whilst it has something interesting and genuine to say about society and history (like all great westerns) it doesn't do so at the expense of being a rip-roaring crime film full of blood, vengeance and hard injustice.
Tommy Lewis shines in a worldess role as Jimmy, a man whose facial scarring can be seen as a metaphor for the Aboriginal people. Most of the time he just looks on impassively like a walking accusation, the viewer filling in the backstory by bringing their own cultural assumptions to interpret his violent actions as he doles out unflinching revenge. His backstory is only given to us in short detail at first, we know there has to be more to the story even if Jimmy himself remains so stoic and tightlipped. For most of the film words simply can't express the injustice, and this further reinforces Jimmy as a walking larger-than-life metaphor. The contrast between Jimmy, with his half-burned face and shabby clothes, and the plastic traditional Aborigine in the window of the local information centre is deliberate and boldly stated... this is a once proud people with a rich culture and history now repackaged for white tourism and reduced to rogue justice.
Near the film's beginning we glimpse a town meeting where the townspeople express their fear at the very real danger of losing their identity in the face of big business and privatisation. In the western tradition, these are pioneers about to be swept away by modernisation - an insular and fiercely protective people who will do anything to preserve their way of life. Old Bill is the town patriarch, the Aborigines are the dwindling native americans who have an uneasy relationship with the whites, and Shane is the outsider with the power to put things right. Red Hill isn't a big budget action bonanza, but it gets everything right and is certainly full of thrills. My only criticisms would have to be the silly panther subplot (this already tight film might've been that little bit tighter without such unneccessary quirk and symbolism) and the capture-escape routines that Shane goes through in order to stall the film's inevitable showdown. But don't let that put you off, this is easily the best western ever made in Australia.
DIRECTOR: Patrick Hughes
WRITER/SOURCE: Patrick Hughes
KEY ACTORS: Ryan Kwanten, Steve Bisley, Tommy Lewis, Claire van der Boom, Christopher Davis, Kevin Harrington
RELATED TEXTS:
- Two classic westerns immediately come to mind, Bad Day at Black Rock (outsider faces off against racist township in contempoary western setting) and The Ox-Blow Incident (mob justice/injustice).
- Tommy Lewis is best known for his breakout role in the classic and confronting Australian film The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. I don't think it's a coincidence that his character in Red Hill is also named Jimmy.
- There aren't a great deal of Australian westerns, but we've had a stab at making a few in our time. Some notable ones are... Mad Dog Morgan, The Man From Snowy River, The Man From Snowy River II, Ned Kelly, The Tracker and The Proposition.
The nominees are in for the 2010/2011 Academy Awards, and I'm happy to say there are more than a couple of suprises. Well, surprises in the acting categories. The Best Film nominees were uniformly pretty obvious. Hell, I'm just chuffed that Jacki Weaver got a nomination!
BEST PICTURE
Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, 127 Hours, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, Winter's Bone
I'm relieved that no junk made it in courtesy of the 10-picture rule. I was a little nervous that Alice in Wonderland might get in at the expense of something decent. It's a shame to see that The Town didn't make it, and as much as it was a long shot it would've been awesome to see Animal Kingdom get nominated too. I'm not too sure what will win Best Picture... I mean, I'm fairly sure it will be The Social Network but this is a very strong set of films. I'll be backing Black Swan.
BEST ACTOR
Javier Bardem (Beautiful), Jeff Bridges (True Grit), Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), Colin Firth (The King's Speech), James Franco (127 Hours)
Javier Bardem! This guy is a legend and it's great to see him get nominated again. Colin Firth is the favourite to win at the moment, I can't really see any of these others guy beating him. Franco and Eisenberg are both fairly young so it's highly unlikely they'll win, people will see their nominations as reward enough... a little unfair perhaps but in my mind Firth's performance probably deserves it the most anyway. In an ideal world Michael Caine might've got a nomination for Harry Brown but I'm not sure if it was even eligible for nomination.
BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone), Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
The only one of these performances I'm yet to see is Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine. I'm prett sure Portman will win, and she's far and away the best I've seen this year. Her strongest competition is Annette Bening, who has the veteran's vote on her side.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale (The Fighter), John Hawks (Winter's Bone), Jeremy Renner (The Town), Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right), Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)
Christian Bale will get it. Jeremy Renner is totally just nominated because he got nominated last year, and as good as Geoffrey Rush is, his isn't the sort of performance to justify a second Oscar win. John Hawks is a surprising nomination. I think Ruffalo or Renner could've been bumped in favour of Vincent Cassel's great work in Black Swan though.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams (The Fighter), Helena Bonham-Carter (The King's Speech), Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom)
I'm so happy for Jacki Weaver, I'll be backing her but she'll never win in a million years because most of the voters probably won't even bother to watch their Animal Kingdom screeners. Melissa Leo is the favourite, she's already won a Golden Globe, but I'm not sure how this category will pan out. Helena Bonham-Carter and Amy Adams are both fairly strong, and Hailee Steinfeld is really good in True Grit, so she might surprise everyone. I thought Barbara Hershey might've got one of those comeback nominations, but I guess there's only five slots to fill!
BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), Ethan and Joel Coen (True Grit), David Fincher (The Social Network), Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), David O. Russell (The Fighter)
Fincher will probably win it, he's had a lot of attention over the years and he's the biggest hitter amongst the names if you don't count the Coens (as they already have an Oscar for No Country for Old Men). I'd love to see Darren Aronofsky take it though, his work is the most striking and original out of the nominees and he might get it as a consolation prize if Black Swan doesn't win Best Picture. David O. Russell is another great unsung director too, but I can't really see him winning for The Fighter.
Considered one of the great classics of Australian cinema, The Year My Voice Broke is a coming-of-age film set in rural 1960s NSW. Noah Taylor stars in a breakthrough role as Danny, an intelligent country kid who refuses to fit in with his footy-playing peers, and acts out a bittersweet love letter to a bygone era, complete with the the nostalgic pangs of adolescence in all their awkward glory. Writer-Director John Duigan takes the veiwer on a vivid tour of the era, hitting all the right beats in terms of dialogue, inflection, time and place. He's helped out by a wonderful cast that includes great Australian talents like Bruce Spence and Graeme Blundell, as well as eager newcomers like Ben Mendelsohn, Loene Carmen and the aforementioned Noah Taylor (who is probably best known to international audiences as the younger version of the character Geoffrey Rush played in Shine).
Danny is an aspiring guitar player who likes sci-fi films. As you might guess, this means he isn't particularly at ease in his dusty home town, and he pines for Freya (Loene Carmen), the adopted daughter of the town drunk and his longstanding childhood friend. Freya unfortunately only has eyes for Trevor (Ben Mendelsohn), a confident and popular older boy with a wild streak. Trevor becomes protective of Danny (perhaps sensing that it will impress Freya) and Danny must watch on in despair as Freya and Trevor become involved with one another. Danny finds himself torn between his unrequited love for Freya and a small sense of loyalty to boofhead Trevor. The film charts their relationships with one another as they come to terms with the impending end of their childhood, and drama begins to unfold as a consequence of ill-judged decisions.
Danny and Freya are kindred spirits... both are outsiders in a town that becomes much too small for them. As Freya and Trevor become embroiled in a scandal of sorts, Danny begins to uncover the town's dark history. What's refreshing is that the film never plays into the usual coming-of-age cliches, it opts instead for a more realistic angle and has more than a few surprises up it's sleeve that make it a memorable take on a familiar story. Danny narrates in an ironic beyond-his-years voiceover that often makes light of the contrast between how he sees himself and how things really are, it's a characterisation that would slip through the fingers of most actors of Noah Taylor's age, but Taylor handles it with wry and self-deprecating aplomb. Also of note is Mendelsohn's performance as Trevor, he takes what might've been a boorish character and adds layers of immaturity and forthrightness to round him out in a realistic and entertaining fashion. Mendelsohn and Taylor would have to be two of the most undervalued Australian actors of their time.
There's also the usual breathtaking cinematography that tends to characterise serious Australian dramas... in this case it doesn't feel over the top and it fits the setting. I also liked the ambiguous and unstated nature of Danny and Freya's relationship towards the end of the film, the use of classical music (The Lark Ascends) helps highlight the emotional complexity that comes with Danny's journey toward manhood, and the film strikes just the right responsive chord. A true five-star effort.
DIRECTOR: John Duigan
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by John Duigan, based on his own childhood experiences.
KEY ACTORS: Noah Taylor, Loene Carmen, Ben Mendelsohn, Graeme Blundell, Bruce Spence, Lynette Curran, Judi Farr, Malcolm Robertson, Nick Tate, Rob Carlton
RELATED TEXTS:
- Duigan intended for this film to be the first in a trilogy that would chart the coming-of-age of Danny. The second film was the equally critically-acclaimed Flirting, but a third film never made it to the screen.
- Other Australian coming-of-age films include 48 Shades, Puberty Blues, The Rage in Placid Lake, Australian Rules, The Big Steal, Looking for Alibrandi, Beneath Clouds and Yolngu Boy.
AWARDS
AFIs - won Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Ben Mendelsohn) and Best Screenplay. Also nominated for Best Actor (Noah Taylor), Best Actress (Loene Carmen) and Best Editing.
This B-grade exploitation film combines sci-fi and action to posit a near future where Australia has become a police state run by corrupt and despotic government officials. We follow a small group of subversive characters as they get thrown into special prison camp 47 where 'deviants' like themselves can be 're-educated'. The 'turkey shoot' of the film's title refers to a hunting game set up by Camp Master Thatcher (Michael Craig), where he extends an offer of freedom to five prisoners. To win they must stay alive until sundown, whilst Thatcher and his privileged pals hunt them for sport. The prisoners might be labelled 'deviants' but it's their hunters (a smug elite cabal of sadists, sociopaths and rapists) who are the real deviants.
First off, anyone watching this in the expectation of an intelligent Orwellian vision of a totalitarian Australia is going to be sorely disappointed. Turkey Shoot only really touches on the basics of dystopian fiction, IE. Control through fear, all-powerful governments, lots of nehru collars and boiler suits. It's pretty much just an easy framework to facilitate gratuitous nudity, violence and lots of cool explosions. American Steve Railsbeck plays Paul, the prisoner 'they can't break', and he comes across as vaguely annoying with his non-stop preaching. He should've gone for a more stoic, Steve McQueen approach - the script just isn't really up to it when it comes to any kind of moral high ground, and his philosophising is cartoonish at best. He's partnered by Olivia Hussey (from the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet), who spends most of the film looking like a rabbit caught in headlights. It's no acting either, apparently she was quite frightened of the Australian bush during filming. The rest of the characters are vividly two-dimensional, and there are stacks of inventively gory deaths in store for them as the film pounds along (it swings into outright slasher territory on more than one occasion).
One of my favourite moments is when alpha-guard Ritter (Roger Ward) starts throwing mock punches at a young woman as she haltingly recites a pro-government mantra. It's so ridiculous and campy that it's hard to take it seriously, which I suspect was the intention of the filmmakers. A serious version of this film, with more realistic levels of violence, would no doubt be quite boring in comparison. The image of Alph the slobbering circus freak stalking a slimy prisoner in coke-bottle glasses at the foot of rainforest-covered mountains, scenes of Ritter grinning triumphantly as he gloats at the edge of a burning sugar cane field, or Stan from Hey Dad making a brave last stand as he's struck full of futuristic-looking arrows... well, you just can't see these sort of things anywhere else. As much as Turkey Shoot is all surface and no subtext, it's wonderfully colourful and unpretentious.
DIRECTOR: Brian Trenchard-Smith
WRITER/SOURCE: David Lawrence, George Schenck and Robert Williams.
KEY ACTORS: Steve Railsbeck, Olivia Hussey, Michael Craig, Carmen Duncan, Roger Ward, Bill Young, Gus Mercurio, Noel Ferrier, Lynda Daniels
RELATED TEXTS:
- The original human-hunts-human story was The Most Dangerous Game, a 1920s novel that has become the basis for at least twenty films over the years.
- A lot of the idealogy for Turkey Shoot is casually ripped off from Nineteen Eighty-Four and it's many pretenders.
- Brian Trenchard-Smith made a career for himself in the 1970s and 1980s directing exploitative action films that have come to be known as 'ozploitation' films. The stories behind these films have been covered in the documentary Not Quite Hollywood. Aside from Turkey Shoot, his other major ozploitation films are The Man From Hong Kong, Day of the Assassin, Stunt Rock, Dead-End Drive In, Day of the Panther, Strike of the Panther and Out of the Body.
Back in 2005, Look Both Ways swept the Australian Film Institute awards with 11 nominations and 4 wins. It seemed to strike a chord with the criticial community but, in the fashion of most AFI winners, didn't really make an impression on the wider public. It's unfortunate because, whilst it has a lot in common with the insular and artistically-elite films the AFI tends to favour, it also happens to be an inventive and quite funny films that rewards the average viewer just as much as it might stimulate the intellectual set. It's a film both cynical and optimistic, a sprawling and colourful meditation on the modern world we've made for ourselves. It's like Australian pub philosophy put onto the big screen, but in a good way.
In the tradition of those big multi-character 'concept' dramas that were so popular with critics from about 1999 to 2007 (EG. 21 Grams, Crash, Lantana...), Look Both Ways takes a single tragic event (the accidental death of a man who chases his dog out of the way of a freight train) and shows us the stories of the people whose lives briefly intersect in the aftermath. Primarily, there's Meryl, the woman who witnessed it (Justine Clark), and Nick the newspaper photographer (William McInnes) who accompanies journalist Andy (Anthony Hayes) to the scene of the accident. In less focus but perhaps of no less importance are also the train driver (Andreas Sobik) and the wife of the victim (Daniela Farinacci), mostly wordless roles that reflect the grief-laden consequences of the accident that the subsequent newspaper article fails to take into account.
Meryl is an artist with an overactive imagination, she anxiously sees her impending death everywhere (represented by short, wonderfully rendered animated sequences). Nick is facing possible death by prostate cancer, and stands on the cusp of entering into a relationship with Meryl. He fears putting her through his terminal illness, but he also fears being alone. Through them we witness the sum of modern life's anxieties... fatty food, carcinogenic substances, microwaves, sharks, the media, etc. It's the story of the horrible facsimile of the world we've created for ourselves, and the neverending fear of death that goes with it - all the negativity and pressimism that comes to each of us via outside forces (not least of all the media). The character of Andy is important too, he's a journalist with a chip on his shoulder, desperately trying to make sense o fthe world by interpreting random accidents as a conspiracy of suicides. Tellingly, he also has issues of his own that he'd rather not face.
The relaxed pace of the Adelaide-setting inevitably makes all these worries feel like aggresive and unfounded interlopers. If I was feeling trite I might suggest that the film's ultimate message is that cricket is a force for good. I have some issues with the way the film wraps things up... it's a kind of cinematic sleight of hand, resolving and creative drama by choosing to show us only certain things at certain points. It's a strange way to tie up a plot, but then again - how else do you end a film that is essentially about a concept rather than plot? Something could be said about the artificial imposition of narrative onto real life, and the way film tries to reflect reality whilst simultaneously making for a satisfying viewing experience. I could write a lot more about that, but the fact that it's made me think so much tells me that thi smight not neccessarily be a flaw so I shouldn't try to tear it down. It is a good film, it's funny and emotional and it certainly isn't boring. What more could you ask for?
DIRECTOR: Sarah Watt
WRITER/SOURCE: Sarah Watt
KEY ACTORS: Justine Clark, William McInnes, Anthony Hayes, Andrew Gilbert, Lisa Flanagan, Daniela Farinacci, Andreas Sobik
RELATED TEXTS:
- As mentioned in the review, Look Both Ways fits into that subgenre of critic-aimed drama where the plot revolves around a large set of characters who are only tenuously-linked at best. Other examples include Magnolia, Traffic, Crash, Babel, Lantana, 21 Grams.
- Director-writer Sarah Watt's follow-up film was My Year Without Sex, which also dealt with ideas relating to terminal illness.
AWARDS
AFIs - won Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Anthony Hates). Also nominated for Best Actor (William McInnes), Best Actress (Justine Clark), Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Sound, and Best Supporting Actres (Daniela Farinacci).
Beneath Hill 60 adds to a grand tradition of Australian war films that encompass what it means to be Australian and the way our national character engenders greatness on the battlefield (and I don't mean that in terms of actual battle - the 'greatness' refers to the retention of identity, survival and certain coping mechanisms linked to 'mateship' amongst the troops). Whilst Australian war films often look at the tragedies of war like their international counterparts, they differ greatly from American war films in that they often feature a curiously positive subtext to the ANZAC spirit... this idea that our national identity can see us through the toughest of times. Beneath Hill 60 is no slouch in this department, striking a fine balance between the melancholy and the rousing. I'm not patriotic in the slightest sense, but I can appreciate an idealism in it's purest form when it's not linked to aggressiveness or exclusion.
Most Australian will already be familiar with the story of our involvement in WWI... it's a bloody tale of attrition, futile trench warfare and British incompetence. Beneath Hill 60 uses this backdrop as a stepping stone to tell the untold story of WWI tunnel warfare. It's the height of the Great War and the two sides in Europe are locked in a stalemate. Australian miners are enlisted by the allied British-ANZAC forces to help man and maintain tunnels that have been dropped beneath enemy lines in order to prevent the Germans from the same thing. Captain Oliver Woodward (Brendan Cowell) proves so adept at this that he and his team are given a highly important mission under the hellish Hill 60. A mission to detonate a huge payload of explosives directly underneath an amassing army of German soldiers.
It's a stirring warts-and-all war story told with remarkable sensitivity in a characterisatically Australian voice. Brendan Cowell is perfectly cast as Woodward - he has that slightly pugilistic look of a fair dinkum character. His face has character. Woodward's experiences on the front are intercut with the story of how he came to be involved with the war... we see the homefront atmosphere, the opening credits play out under the overbearng song of cicadas as a soldier dramatically dons his uniform in a sun-soaked room. It's an idyllic world about as physically far removed as you can get from the muddy fields of ruined Europe, but the attitudes of Australian society highlight the pride, duty, ignorance and social pressure that made the era what it was.
Owing to our budgetary constraints, Australian war films have traditionally been less about spectacle and more about recreating an era or exploring way sin which these wars have informed or benefited from our Australian-ness. The scenes set on the front explore notions of identity through various aspects - larriken humour, mateship, bullshitting, mistrust of strangers, and the hard lot of the honest Aussie battler under the command of cowardly senior officers.
This is a great film, easily the best Australian war film since Gallipoli. It looks the ticket too, brilliantly recreating 1910s Australia and the terrifying imagery of the first world war in full swing.
DIRECTOR: Jeremy Sims
WRITER/SOURCE: David Roach
KEY ACTORS: Brendan Cowell, Gyton Grantley, Aden Young, Anthony Hayes, Jacqueline McKenzie, Steve Le Marquand, Chris Haywood, Bob Franklin
RELATED TEXTS:
- Australia's involvement in WWI was also portrayed in Gallipoli, The Lighthorsemen and The Hero of the Dardanelles.
- Other Australian war films include: Breaker Morant, Kokoda, The Odd Angry Shot, The Highest Honour, Blood Oath and Australia.
- The story of Hill 60 is also told in a semi-novelisation of the film also called Beneath Hill 60, by Will Davies.
AWARDS
Won Best Sound at the IF Awards, where it was also nominated for Best Director, Best Film and Best Production Design.
Also nominated for an Australian Screen Sound Award.
Well, Australia Day is coming up next week so I thought I'd use the occasion to do an Australian-themed week of reviews. Starting tomorrow I'll be posting a variety of Aussie film reviews. It should help fill the time in the run up to the announcement of this year's Oscar nominations. Stay tuned!
One of the most hyped films for the leadup to the 2010 Oscars at the moment would have to be Black Swan, a film about ballet by Darren Aranofsky that just snuck up out of nowhere and took the world by surprise. Even with all this hype I can't say that I had particularly big expectations for it. But having just sat through it I've been left gobsmacked and I can't help but think that for once the hype is completely deserved. Think back to Aranofsky's previous film, the superb drama The Wrestler, and take that dramatic quality and perfect piece of lead casting. Mix it with something approaching a psychological horror film and you might have a vague idea of what kind of film Black Swan is. It's a strong contender for film of the year, and proves once again that you don't have to look very far past the franchises and remakes to still find high quality original filmmaking in America.
Nina (Natalie Portman) is a naive, coddled ballet dancer with ambitions of stardom. When a casting call goes out for a new production of the ballet Swan Lake she convinces the director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), to take her on despite her apparent inability to embody the darker aspects of the performance. The lead in Swan Lake requires someone who can play both the innocent, vulnerable white swan and the darkly passionate and sexualised black swan. Nina makes a great white swan but Thomas has to really push her (physically, psychologically and sexually) if she is to capture the essence of the black swan. This pressure becomes nearly insurmountable when a possible rivalry emerges between herself and another dancer, Lily (Mila Kunis), who is as much a natural black swan as Nina is a natural white one. Then there's also Nina's cloying mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), a failed ballerina who will do anything to remain in control over her daughter, and Beth McIntyre (Winona Ryder), an ageing ballerina that Nina idolises and is now replacing.
Right from the opening dream sequence there's a juxtaposition between the delicateness of ballet and the ominously sinister that gives this film it's unique tone. Here the ambiguous nature of film allows for an entirely open-ended exploration of psychology that keeps the viewer guessing right up until the magnificent climax. We glimpse fractions of Nina's relationship with her mother throughout the film but are never given a complete picture... her mother never affords her any privacy, but quite what this means to Nina isn't made very clear until a lot further on in the film. Whether Nina has always had a problem with this or whether it's a new development isn't completely clear either, but this is part of the film's genius and the strength of film as a medium in general.
Nina is a repressed woman without an outlet - her possible glory in Swan Lake depends on her finding this outlet but at what price will this glory come? To nail the role she needs to lose herself in it, to find a sense of duality and embrace her dark side, but it's a path that might also destroy her. As a commentary on the relationship between madness and great art it comes across as thoroughly genuine and uncliched. Ballet as an art form is one where the artists burn so brightly for such a relatively short period of time, their lithe bodies at the mercy of age and other physical factors. Nina's story, and the story of Swan Lake itself, are neat allegories for this.
Aranofsky uses a few interesting tricks to pull the viewer into Nina's world. There's a reflection motif that gives the duality theme a visual representation, and there's also disturbing recurrent images of Nina's body breaking down (mysterious scratch marks on Nina's back, her skin peeling away on her finger, a stubbed toe, etc) that suggests both self-abuse and transformation. The character of Thomas is interesting too, treading a fine line between casting-couch sleaze and someone who genuinely wants to free Nina's sexuality up for the good of her performance. We don't immediately know if it's a game for his own gratification or if it's a gambit to create great art - once again, the ambiguous nature of this is part of why I love film so much. Portman's complete embodiment of Nina is another reason why this film works so incredibly well. It's a staggering multi-faceted performance that's both at once engimatic and vulnerable, you believe that the pressure she feels is completely real. It must've been very physically and emotionally exhausting for Portman, it's certainly a million miles away from her two-dimensional acting in the Star Wars and in Black Swan she gives the performance of a career.
I also liked this film a lot for making ballet accessible to schlubs like me. Ballet just isn't something I've ever had an interest in, and I think you'd be hard pressed to actually make me want watch it but this film achieves just that. It adds intriguing modernist dimensions to a classic piece of ballet... it gives the viewer a way in to what can be a daunting piece of high culture, and I think making high culture accessible is one of the finest achievements a director can aspire to. I'm not sure if that was ever Aranofsky's intention but it's definitely a byproduct of this film, and the Swan Lake performance at the end uses all the film's elements to justify the most cinematic yet traditional interpretation of the ballet possible. It might not sound like the most exciting premise for a movie but between Aranofsky's command of the visual and Portman's amazing performance it's an incredible journey that is every bit as perfect as the ideal that Nina chases throughout the film. You should watch it without any real expectations, just let it take you on a ride.
DIRECTOR: Darren Aronofsky
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Mark Heyman, Andre Heinz and John J. McLaughlin.
KEY ACTORS: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder
RELATED TEXTS:
- Swan Lake, probably the most famous ballet opus of all time.
- A Japanese feature-length anime film (also titled Swan Lake) was produced in 1981.
- An American animated film, The Swan Princess, was produced in 1994, and followed by two direct-to-video sequels: The Swan Princess II: Escape from Castle Mountain and The Swan Princess: The Mystery of the Enchanted Kingdom.
- Aronofsky's previous film, The Wrestler, is a thematic companion piece to Black Swan. Early drafts of The Wrestler even concerned a love affair between a wrestler and a ballerina. As the final films stand, both concern the destructive use of the body for the sake of art - one for low culture and one for high culture.
- Powell and Pressburger's 1948 film The Red Shoes brought ballet to the big screen using similar metatextual techniques.
- Comparisons have also been drawn between Black Swan and the Roman Polanski films The Tenant, Rosemary's Baby and Repulsion.
AWARDS
At the time of writing, Portman has been nominated for, or won, six Best Actress awards - including the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirit Awards. Mila Kunis has been nominated for three Best Supporting Actress awards.
The film has also been nominated for Best Drama and Best Director Golden Globes.
Lovers Jump is a short film by Irish filmmaker Mark McCombe, starring Australian actor Laurence Fuller and concerning the aftermath of a woman's death. Like all the best short fiction, whether it be a film or a piece of literature, it reveals a story to the audience and then turns your expectations on their head. Most of this is achieved through cryptic dialogue and an interesting visual grammer made up of extreme close ups and wide shots.
My only criticism of Lovers Jump is a technical one, the background noise tends to fluctuate a little bit... I think it could've been adjusted so that it's more consistent when the film cuts from shot to shot. It's only a little thing, some viewers won't even notice it, but I found it a little distracting. Other than that it's an incredibly well-made piece of micro-narrative, I watched it a few times. I could see myself using it in an educational capacity in the classroom for students who are interested in filmmaking and storytelling construction. Laurence Fuller drives the whole film with a slightly sinister performance made up of carefully chosen words and knowing looks.
McCombe has a good sense of space and knows how to use it to tell a story without resorting to gimmicky camera play. I liked the way it abruptly cuts to credits about 70% through the film before coming back for a mood-setting final shot... it's a nice subversion of filmic conventions, and suggests that McCombe will be a director to look out for in the future if given the chance (and budget) to make something significantly larger. If Lovers Jump is any indication of style and subject matter, McCombe may well have a career in tough, uncompromising dramas.
DIRECTOR: Mark McCombe
WRITER/SOURCE: Jenny Wong
KEY ACTORS: Laurence Fuller, Holly Clark
RELATED TEXTS:
- An article on Mark McCombe at the movieScope Magazine website can be found here.
- Laurence Fuller's website details the actors involvements with several acclaimed short films and bigger projects.
Ostenstaciously starting with a placard asserting that it's "a simple story of plain people", D. W. Griffiths' Way Down East is a warbling melodramatic epic with a typically biblical finger-wagging stance in regards to morality. Griffiths would have the viewer see the film as a treatise on the concept of monogamy as a true ideal to follow, with a sideline on the hypocrisy of the rich and male in relation to this standard. And it's all of these things, but as far as cautionary tales go you'll have to look past Griffiths' penchant for high-minded preaching. Subtlety isn't his strong point, but this boldness is also what sometimes makes Way Down East so grand.
Anna (Lillian Gish) represents poor and innocent girls everywhere, the sort preyed upon by selfish, parasitic men (represented by the character of Lennox, played by Lowell Sherman). Lennox fakes a wedding in order to shag naive Anna, and then dumps her once she's pregnant. Left to fend for herself, Anna's baby dies and she's forced to find work as a servant in the nearby town of Bartlett. Her past hangs over her like a shadow though, and she must hide her tragedies if she's to remain in the employ of the pious Squire Bartlett (Burr McIntosh).
Griffiths' tells a relatively big story over the film's 140 minutes with a good sense of pacing. He issues a lot of pompous statements like "Maternity - woman's gethsemane" but thanks to Gish's vivid doe-eyed performance as Anna it's easy to look past this sermonising. You'll rally around her as the injustice gets piled on thick and fast... a lot of the film concerns the appalling things that humans do to each other and the hypocrisy, intolerance and double-standards that lets them get away with it. The scene where Anna is alone with her dying baby is truly horrible.
The first half of the film plays out as thi sgrand tragedy that contrasts good-hearted country folk with fake, mean-spirited city people. After all the tragedy it then segues into a second act based around small-town life that's almost like a comedy of errors. Anna becomes an angelic presence on the Bartlett's farm despite Squire Bartlett's initial reservations, but her secrets loom behind her - threatening any chance of true happiness she might achieve with young David Bartlett (Richard Barthelmess), so she fears getting too close to him. This builds into a suspenseful crescendo before an exciting and nailbiting climax on a rushing river full of breaking ice (a tour-de-force sequence that was achieved without any special effects, and would have to go down as one of the true highlights of the silent era).
As mentioned, Griffiths can get a bit over the top at times, though he does make a fair point about the misuse of religion. Way Down East was chockful of dated Victorian values even by 1920, but it's reputation lives on thanks to the mesmerising Gish, bold strokes of pathos, and the fantastic ice floe scenes at the end.
DIRECTOR: D. W. Griffiths
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Anthony Paul Kelly and D. W. Griffiths, from a play by Lottie Blair Parker.
KEY ACTORS: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Lowell Sherman, Burr McIntosh, Kate Bruce, Creighton Hale, Emily Fitzroy, Edgar Nelson
RELATED TEXTS:
- Way Down East started life as a popular 1897 play that ran until at least 1912, with over 4500 performances.
- Two shorter silent film versions of the story were produced in 1908 and 1914.
- A less successful sound version was made in 1935, starring Henry Fonda.
- Lillian Gish and D. W. Griffith made 42 films together - about ten of these were feature-length, and include the director's most famous films, The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms and Orphans of the Storm.
- For a more modern slant on naivete, sex and trickery, see An Education.
Has it really been fifteen years since the first Toy Story came out? I have to admit that I was thoroughly unenthused when it came to the idea of a third Toy Story film. I enjoyed the first two but in light of more recent stand-alone Pixar efforts like Wall-E and Up, I felt like a third entry might be a bit too inconsequential and light. And really, when has the 3rd film in any franchise ever really delivered? Karate Kid 3, The Godfather Part III, Spiderman 3... they all sucked. I'm happy to say that Toy Story 3 bucks the trend in a big way, not only delivering on the promise of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 but managing to be the best film in the series yet.
Instead of fundamentally pitting Buzz against Woody or vice versa, this time all the toys are in it together. Toy Story explores the same themes of friendship and loyalty but also goes further into the cycle of what happens when kids get too old for their toys. The thing I love about Pixar films is that there isn't always a status quo for characters to return to - and this is certainly true for Toy Story 3. The changes to the toys' world are big and irreversible, and the characters move forward as a result.
There's a resonance in coming to love characters like Woody, Buzz, Rex, Jessie, Hamm, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head and Bullseye. The average viewer will identify with the part that toys play in our own development from childhood to maturity. I cried whilst watching this movie, several times... it's emotional without being manipulative because it means more than just getting a reaction out of the audience. The filmmakers aren't neccessarily looking to push our buttons in order to make their film more memorable, it's jus a story that they wanted to tell and the emotional response arises from the a belief in the characters. The plot of Toy Story 3 is an important story in terms of the larger toy story and what it means to be a toy... it's a poignant piece of their story that I didn't think would ever really reach the screen in such an honest and heartfelt fashion. It's not an overstatement to say that it;' brave for a film suppposedly aimed at children. A truly brilliant adventure.
HIGHLIGHTS: Big Baby made me so sad! The concept and execution of this character struck an unfortunate chord with me, and his big moment near the film's climax had me transfixed.
DIRECTOR: Lee Unkrich
WRITER/SOURCE: Scripting by Michael Arndt, from a story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich.
KEY ACTORS: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Estelle Harris, Timothy Dalton, R. Lee Ermey, Bonnie Hunt, Whoopi Goldberg
RELATED TEXTS:
- The obvious ones are Toy Story and Toy Story 2.
- There is also a direct-to-video traditionally-animated spinoff, Buzz Lightyear of Space Command, featuring the voice of Tim Allen as Buzz. This was followed by an animated TV series where Patrick Warburton provided the voice of Buzz. It ran for two years.
- Disney almost mounted their own version of Toy Story 3 back in 2004, which would have featured a plotline involving the recall of all Buzz toys to Taiwan. Pixar regained control of Toy Story 3 when the two companies merged, and all production on this version of Toy Story 3 was subsequently shut down.
AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Song (We Belong Together) and Best Animated Film. Also nominated for Best Film, Best Sound Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay.
BAFTAs - won Best Animated Film. Nominated for Best Special Effects and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Golden Globes - won Best Animated Film.
What happened to writer-director Jared Hess? His first film, Napoleon Dynamite, was such a huge cult hit and a perfectly pitched work of comic originality. And now here we are, five years later, and his third feature film, Gentlemen Broncos, gets such poor reviews that it bypasses the cinemas and gets released directly onto DVD like some stinky Steven Seagal movie. It's a damn shame because Gentlemen Broncos is such a weird and obscurely-aimed film that I found it hard not to like. It doesn't exactly live up to it's premise (waning sci-fi author steals idea off young fan) but there's something loveable about the homage it pays to pulp sci-fi literature, and I love how Hess resolutely refuses to change his style to be more mainstream.
Michael Angarano (The Forbidden Kingdom) plays Benjamin, an awkward home-schooled sap whose naivete and shyness means he is quite easily exploited by others. Ronald Chevalier (Jemaine Clement) is at the top of the list of people who use Benjamin, shamefully stealing Benjamin's story when his publisher threatens to drop him. Next in line is Tabatha (Halley Feiffer), the home-schooled girl of Benjamin's dreams who frequently manipulates him, and Lonnie (Hector Jimenez, previously seen as Jack Black's skinny sidekick in Nacho Libre), a low-budget filmmaker who wants to make Benjamin's story into a movie. We see three versions of Benjamin's sci-fi story throughout the film - the one envisioned in his head, the version that Chevalier envisions when he steals it, and the ultra no-budget movie made by Lonnie. All three are equally hilarious and easily the highlight of the film.
Hess' characters live ina twilight world of ridiculous ambitions linked to an apparent lack of talent. It was funny in Napoleon Dynamite but I have to admit that the joke is getting a little old now. It's a world populated by social outcasts who are easily impressed, filtered through the eyes of somebody's nanna: a palette of skivvies, cardigans and brown decor. It's a place where things like the internet exist but they aren't really a part of the world. Hess should a least be commended for sticking to his style rather than adhering to more accessible comedic stylings, though I question his newfound vigour for vomiting and other gross-out bits (to be fair though, you haven't really live until you've see Sam Rockwell spedw pink projectile vomit at a flying deer equipped with missiles).
Some of Gentlemen Broncos comes across as intentionally juvenile (Benjamin's version o fhis story is fairly disgusting and concerns itself a lot with testicles... perhaps a reflection of his age and schooling). If there's one thing I really like about this film it's that it puts the kind of hardcore pulp sci-fi on the screen that never usually makes it off the page... we're talking big cats with Lynx ears, pink skies, one-eyed aliens, robotic deer, all that high concept stuff in all it's ridiculously outdated glory. Clement's characterisation of Chevalier is entertaining too, he plays the oddball author with a stately James Mason accent, and it's good to see displaying a bit of range when it comes to comedy. Sam Rockwell is great too as Bronco, the Alan Moore-ish hero of Benjamin's story, and Jennifer Coolidge steals all her scenes as Benjamin's delicate mother.
HIGHLIGHTS: The best bit, without a doubt, would have to be the montage set to the song Wind of Change. Such a great song, and it's used so effectively.
DIRECTOR: Jared Hess
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Jared and Jerusha Hess.
KEY ACTORS: Michael Angarano, Jemaine Clement, Jennifer Coolidge, Halley Feiffer, Hector Jimenez, Sam Rockwell, Mike White
RELATED TEXTS:
- The obvious ones are Hess' previous two films, Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre, both of which have that same peculiar tone.
- Lonnie's low-budget version of the Bronco story put me in mind of the 'sweded' films from Be Kind Rewind.
- The character of Chevalier is apparently partially based on Dave Wolverton (AKA David Farland), who wrote the Runelords series.
AWARDS
Independent Spirit - nomination Best Supporting Actor (Jemaine Clement)
