Sucker Punch

There was a lot of negativity surrounding Sucker Punch when it first came out, but I have to admit that I initially saw this as mainly just part of the backlash that director Zac Snyder has been copping ever since he made 300. I have no issues with most of Snyder's films, I've enjoyed them a lot, but Sucker Punch is definitely bad news. Even with certain reservations I had hoped the film might be a visually dazzling B-film with oodles of camp CGI schlock, but there aren't really any redeeming features along these lines - it's just flat-out bad. It isn't entertaining, it doesn't have anything to really say, it isn't all that original, it struggles to be coherent and (worst of all) it works off some fairly offensive ideas.

Here are ten reasons why you should avoid this trainwreck:

1. I can handle a film that fetishsizes women, it isn't exactly ideal but I can usually tolerate it in certain contexts. Alas, Sucker Punch goes so far beyond a naive rejection of feminism that it actually tries to use the concept of 'girl power' as an excuse to get away with this fetishsization. So we get a gallery of jailbait heroines stripteasing their way through the film whilst also banding together to fight the 'good fight' against their male oppressors. Snyder seems to want the audience to support these underdogs in their gender-specific battle for freedom, yet at the same time he hypocritically objectifies them as blatant sex objects.

2. This gets taken even further as the film plays out endless near-rape scenarios where the girls are repeatedly placed within an inch of violent penetration before escaping. I'm not sure exactly what Snyder is trying to say here, but the least charitable part of me suspects it's just a case of the director using this opportunity to put a few of his own personal fantasies on the screen. Not cool.

3. After the success of Dawn of the Dead, 300 and Watchmen, I guess it was only natural that Snyder would be given a blank cheque to make the film he'd always dreamed of making - this film is Sucker Punch. This means that not only does he direct it, but he also wrote the screenplay and produced it. Unlike his other films, this one is completely Snyder's baby, meaning that the responsibility is all his as well. All I can say is that the guy is not a writer and should never be allowed near a screenplay again.

4. The film desperately wants to be a zeitgeist and fails dreadfully. It combines manga/anime influences with a range of pop culture phenomenons and styles (art deco, zombies, dragons, samurai, WWI, steampunk, strippers, etc) but the problem is that it's all too much, and films this highly stylised are rarely successful (as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow will readily attest).

5. The plot. The main character, Babydoll (Emily Browning), gets sent to an insane asylum and descends into a fantasy world. Inside this fantasy world she then travels to other fantasy worlds, and the film stretches on like this for the majority, leaving the viewer wondering why they should care. I think we're meant to be all like, OMGz, which is the real world?!? But hasn't this kind of thing already been done to death in just about every fantasy TV show ever made?

6. Okay, so let's pretend we do care about the plot. Inside the first fantasy world (the one where Babydoll imagines that she's a schoolgirl stripper) she... well, it's confusing. No, wait, that's being generous - it's just stupid. There's this idiotic quest where she has to find a key and a knife and a map and blah blah blah, it makes no sense at all... every time she dances in the stripping world she disappears into another fantasy world where she goes on these quests. Somehow it all connects up and back in the stripping world she collects all these items at the same time, but then you remember that the stripping world is also fake and in 'reality' she is really actually in a lobotomy chair in a mental asylum and there's no real reason to give a shit.

7. I'm going to go back to my fourth point because it just really annoyed me. There's mental asylums, 'erotic' dancing, a martial arts school with a giant robot samurai, a medieval fantasy world, WWI trenches filled with German gasmask zombies, an alien world filled with robots... and why? Because it's 'cool'. Don't look for any other reason besides that. It's incredibly and deliberately unrealistic, there isn't even an internal set of rules to follow in all these geekgasm worlds. Watching it is a bit like watching someone play a video game without understanding what's going on. Why do the Germans even have to talk in German if it's taking place in a fantasy world? There's no consistency or internal logic. Snyder uses the 'fake reality' premise as an excuse for a free for all. By the time that Babydoll was magnificently and bravely slaying a dragon, I just couldn't bring myself to care at all because it meant absolutely nothing, even in the context of the film. Imagine if Snyder had made a movie like this that had an actual script? It would've been great, and that's the real tragedy of it all.

8. Scott Glenn. He's one of those guys who are almost famous because they've just been around for so long playing small roles in a big films. I'm guessing he's the only moderately famous name they could get for this pile of steaming trash. His character is... what? A mentor? A trainer? He just turns up every now again spouting cliches that have no real meaning or payoff.

9. The music is really bad. The worst offender would have to be the absolutely horrible cover of The Pixies' 'Where Is My Mind?'

10. The stupid monologue at the end. Just... argh!!!!

Look. The first five minutes of Sucker Punch is a wordless but effective music-video sequence that introduces the heroine's backstory. Snyder should've made the whole film like this... it would've essentially been a silent film (he could've got in on the craze before The Artist), and it would've been automatically twice as good because the audience would be spared Snyder's awful attempts at dialogue. It's an excrutiating and frustrating film because Snyder has such a flair for manipulatively visceral visuals.

I hate to insult anyone who likes this film (different horses for courses and all that) but I question the intelligence of a Sucker Punch fan. More than anything made by Michael Bay, this film is the sharpest piece of evidence in the case for cinema's ongoing degradation. Anyone who thinks Sucker Punch has a satisfying narrative must have undergone a lobotomy of their own.

Actually, there's something. Maybe Zac Snyder is saying that this is the future; that a a lobotomy is the only thing that will make modern films like this enjoyable? Maybe Sucker Punch is a critical work of genius?

Nah.

DIRECTOR: Zac Snyder
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Zac Snyder and Steve Shibuya.
KEY ACTORS: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Carla Gugino, Oscar Isaac, Scott Glenn, John Hamm

RELATED TEXTS:
- Zac Snyder's other films are: Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen, The Legend of the Guardians and Man of Steel.
- I guess you could kind of compare Sucker Punch to Inception.
- 'Cuckoo nest' is a trope where a character in a TV show or a film is unsure of what is and isn't real, EG. The episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Buffy thinks the entire show has just been a hallucination, or the episode of Deep Space Nine where Sisko wakes up in a mental asylum and thinks he's a sci-fi writer who made up Deep Space Nine in a series of novels. Other shows that have done this include Lost, Red Dwarf, Smallville and Life on Mars.

Moving House

I would love to keep pumping these reviews out but I am in the process of moving house at the moment and it has gotten just too hard to commit to five reviews a week. Normal service should resume by next week sometime, but in the meantime it will just be a case of whenever I get the time.

In the meantime, here's some cool pictures...

Johnny Depp in the underrated historical flick The Libertine.

Jason fights off an army of (literally) animated skeletons in the classic adventure Jason and the Argonauts.

Everyone's favourite out-of-work actors in the cult comedy Withnail and I.

Arnold Schwarzenegger in this great Japanese ad. Some actors will do anything if the price is right.

Natalie Portman menaced by her own reflection in Black Swan, one of the best films of the last five years in my opinion!

Which Lie Did I Tell?

Which Lie Did I Tell? is a non-fiction book by celebrated screenwriter William Goldman. It follows on from his previous book about writing in Hollywood, Adventures in the Screen Trade.

Goldman is probably best remembered for writing the classic western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, for which he won one of his two Oscars. He also put pen to paper for the films Misery, Marathon Man, All The President's Men, A Bridge Too Far, Heat, The Princess Bride, Maverick and The Ghost and the Darkness, amongst many others. This book, Which Lie Did I Tell? is an entertaining, mildly cynical and practical look at being a writer in Hollywood.

Goldman is very much the archetypal Hollywood scriptwriter. I watched one of his later films the other day, The General's Daughter, and without knowing it was him I guessed that he was the writer. I'm not saying he's shit, but he definitely knows how to write a script in a very traditional 'Hollywood' way.

The first part of the book deals with Goldman's own experiences... the period in the '80s when he was out of work, how he came to write the very popular novel The Princess Bride, how it was adapted into a great film, and his work on the films Misery, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Absolute Power, the abysmal Year of the Comet and a few others. It's a refeshingly honest insight into how things get done in Hollywood, how egos can overwhelm a good idea (see The Ghost and the Darkness), and how little writers get recognition for their work. He regales the reader with all of this whilst using as little vitriol as possible and with much good humour, making for good reading (well, he'd wanna make for good reading if he's meant to be such a good writer!)

The next part of the book is about ideas he's had for films but hasn't followed through, and the reasons why certain scripts get picked up by studios whilst others don't. It's informative for anyone wanting to become a scriptwriter, a kind of guide to the do's and dont's.

The final part of the book shows an original script by Goldman and details the opinions of some of his peers on what works in this script and what doesn't... quite frankly, this script is an absolute stinking turkey and did little to endear me to Goldman's apparent talent. I know he has written some great films, and I've enjoyed quite a few of them, but if the script featured in this book (and the film The General's Daughter) is anything to go by - well, maybe he jumped the shark.

Anyway, this is a cool insider's guide to the Hollywood screenwriting process and has some nice trivia and amusing asides from Goldman on various bits and pieces to do with his career and the writing process. I can't say I think he's the greatest scriptwriter who ever lived, but I can say that he does know a thing or too about writing in general, and what he has to say is definitely worth reading for anyone even remotely interested in writing for a living, or anyone just interested in the behind-the-scenes hoopla of Hollywood.

My Man Godfrey

My Man Godfrey is one of the early 'screwball' comedies of 1930s Hollywood... those snappy character-based comedies built on witty fast-paced dialogue and farcial plot mechanics. My Man Godfrey is one of the quintessential screwball comedies, having endured beyond its time as a reflection of Depression-era concerns about social class and sexual politics. Along with The Thin Man series, the film is probably also one of actor William Powell's best-known films.

I liked it, it's a good mix of 'silly' comedy and the pertinent issues of the day. How come no one really mixes comedy with hard-hitting social commentary any more? Four Lions is probably the only new movie I can think of that really fits that mold, and it's about as far from a screwball comedy as you can probably get. I liked the way the bright lights at the beginning of My Man Godfrey segued into the Hooverville trash heaps of the Depression. It's a nice contrast that sums up the hypocrisies of the haves vs. the have-nots, and it set the tone for the film's narrative (which deals with a down-and-out 'bum' given a second chance by a family of rich eccentrics).

This was the first time I've seen a William Powell movie. My initial impressions were that he was a more sardonic and less attractive version of Cary Grant, but as the film went on he seemed to become more intellectual and upper class, like David Niven or Ronald Colman. The classic character actors Alice Brady and Mischa Auer also appear and are both great in their supporting roles too. Auer cracked me up more than a few times as the 'freeloading' artist sponsored by some spoilt socialites.

For me, the best bit was the scavenger hunt sequence at the beginning. It's a great way to launch into the story, and it sweeps you along with the characters as they get caught up in this gimmicky challenge. The film's narrative lags a little bit after this but things do keep changing up enough to keep it interesting, and whilst I didn't see the ending coming it still felt 'right'. Anyway, if you've liked some of the other great comedies of the '30s, My Man Godfrey is the halfway point between something like Topper and Ruggles of Red Gap.

Oh, and I was a bit shocked by the wet T-shirt sequence. Take that, Hays Code!

DIRECTOR: Gregory La Cava
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Morrie Ryskind and Gregory La Cava, based on a short story by Eric Hatch.
KEY ACTORS: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Mischa Auer, Eugene Pallette, Alan Mowbray, Jean Dixon

RELATED TEXTS:
- The short story 1100 Park Avenue by Eric Hatch.
- Remade as My Man Godfrey in 1957, starring David Niven and June Allyson.
- Much like My Man Godfrey, the earlier film Ruggles of Red Gap tells the comedic adventures of a butler.
- Other pre-eminent screwball comedies of the '30s: It Happened One Night, Platinum Blonde, The Awful Truth, You Can't Take It With You and Topper.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Actor (William Powell), Best Actress (Carole Lombard), Best Supporting Actor (Mischa Auer), Best Supporting Actress (Alice Brady), Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Meek's Cutoff

I decided to watch this film after seeing it on a few 'Best of' lists for 2011, hoping for a new revisionist western ala The Assassination of Jesse James by the Cowar Robert Ford. It isn't it at all like that film, in fact it isn't at all like any other western I've ever seen. It's very much an indie anti-western, seeking to redraw the genre's boundaries in much the same way that indie films often push the boundaries of drama and comedy. Meek's Cutoff seeks to show the often untold side of the pioneer's story, IE. The pioneers who didn't make it. What we get is a beautifully photographed and ultra-realistic depiction of 1845 Oregon that makes little to no concessions to traditional film dialogue or narrative structure.

I wanted to like this film but I found it kind of slow and boring. I can handle slow films but for me there has to be a payoff of some kind. The true story of Meek's Cutoff concerns a party of pilgrims who are led astray by their guide and 'protector' Meek. The tense slow build of the film mimics the rising panic these people must've felt as they slowly came to the realisation that they were going to die in this barren wilderness. I thought this story was going to be about harsh survival and the inevitable breakdown of civilisation when food and water runs out, but absolutely NOTHING HAPPENS. No one starts dying until the last ten minutes, and most of the film focuses on an Indian that the pilgrims capture and squabble over. It's boring and drawn out and I can almost handle 90 minutes of character mumbling and staring off into the distance if there was any kind of narrative payoff at the end, but the film refuses to nail anything down because it's much too hip and indie for that. The ending made me downright angry.

After looking up the real events this film is based on, I can only conclude that this is an abridged and seemingly toned version of the historical event. In director Kelly Reichardt's quest for atmosphere and understatement she's actually managed to make a film that's less exciting than the reality it's based on. Meek's Cutoff is a waste of a good idea, a waste of the talents of Bruce Greenwood, Paul Dano and Michelle Williams, and a waste of time. Maybe I just won't bother the next time someone thinks it's a bright idea to make a 'mumblecore western'.

DIRECTOR: Kelly Reichardt

WRITER/SOURCE: Jonathan Raymond, based on real events.
KEY ACTORS: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Paul Dano, Will Patton, Zoe Kazan, Shirley Henderson, Neil Huff

RELATED TEXTS:
- Reichardt previously directed the indie films River of Grass, Wendy and Lucy and Old Joy.
- Other 21st century westerns: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, True Grit, The Proposition, 3:10 to Yuma, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Open Range and The Missing.
- Other films about journeys of survival and/or European explorers getting lost: Aguirre the Wrath of God, Van Diemens Land, Burke and Wills and The Way Back.

AWARDS
Independent Spirit Awards - won Producer's Award.
Venice Film Festival - won SIGNIS Award. Nominated for Golden Lion.

The Bridges of Madison County

The Bridges of Madison County was openly derided by some when it first came out because of the mixing of Clint Eastwood with the romance genre. Indeed, this film could probably be summed up as "Eastwood goes soft". It's strange to hear his voice so regular. There's no growl in it, his attitude and manner is so light and easygoing. He plays against type, and he does it well. His character, Robert, is an old, sensitive adventurer - a man of the world with a certain non-judgmental openness and charisma. When he crosses paths with Francesca (Meryl Streep), she makes him realise how lonely he truly is, and the two strike up a doomed but passionate affair. The bridges of the title are a metaphor for Francesca - the county's locals take them for granted and don't see their beauty.

It's actually quite a well-staged piece of romance fiction. The story has that bittersweet edge to it, and Eastwood is able to curb his screen persona for the benefit of the genre, and he's a confident enough performer to do it without any self-consciousness. It would be nice to think that this is what the real Eastwood is really like, that the performance isn't fake because he's finally just being himself after years of macho posturing. Either way, half of the success of the film hangs on his successful performance. The other half of this success is (of course) Meryl Streep as the film's protagonist, Francesca.

Streep plays the dowdy, dependable housewife with a slight Italian accent, and as a woman whose dreams went unrealised. She's fascinated by Robert, he's from another world, but she's also self-conscious that she's too dull for him and is embarrassed about her housewifeness. I love that Streep has this character written out like this but still imbues it with a lot of unexpected strength, she steadfastly refuses to play the role as naive. And this is just as well because the whole film hinges on this character, and to have her as a stereotypical housewife cipher would've been a mistake. Eastwood-the-director knows all of this too, and he gives the whole film over to Streep as both director and actor. The camera often 'activates' and follows Streep throughout the film, a visual motif that suggests andaffirms that this is her story (EG. It follows a dog onto her lap, or follows her past Robert's car door and hovers on his company name on the truck because it's from her perspective).

Most of the film's strength lies in the acting, and the blocking of scenes. I still have some criticisms though - the meat of the story is too slow to start. The framing story of Francesca's son and daughter piecing together their deceased mother's past and discovering her secret affair didn't really work for me. Her son is the weakest aspect of the film, he's just a bit of a dick. The story occasionally cuts away back to her kids as they re-evaluate their own adult marriages in light of learning about their mother's romance and infidelity with Robert. It's upsetting for them, to see her in this new light, and it casts a pall over their memories. I can understand this subplot, but I just didn't care about it.

The Bridges of Madison County looks at the question of what it takes to make a person happy, and portrays love as complicated and multifaceted as it details a romantic fling in the most unlikely of places and circumstances. Ultimately it's a poignant, nostalgic film, and I'd recommend for fans of both Eastwood and Streep.

DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Richard LaGravenese, based on the novel by Robert James Waller.
KEY ACTORS: Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Annie Corley,Victor Slezak, Debra Monk

RELATED TEXTS:- The Bridges of Madison County, the 1992 novel by Robert James Waller. He also wrote a sequel in 2002, A Thousand Country Roads.
- Films about brief forbidden love affairs: Brief Encounter, Falling in Love (also starring Meryl Streep), In the Mood For Love and Love Affair.
- Streep also explored romance territory in Out of Africa and Heartburn.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Actress (Meryl Streep).
Golden Globes - nominated for Best Film (Drama) and Best Actress - Drama (Streep).

A Separation

"What's wrong is wrong - no matter who says what"

A lot of people felt vindicated when A Separation took out the Best Foreign Language Film award at the Oscars this year. It's the sort of film that has a quiet, undeniable power that gets into your head and makes you think, it's a film that - against all the odds - actually comes from within Iran whilst also questioning said country's oppressive regime. I have to admit that I was quite surprised at this film and the country it portrays, I never realised Iran was so modernised or that it was open enough for such dialogues to take place. I think some of us in the West have this view of Iran (and most of the other Middle Eastern countries) as backward nations full of religious fanatics. I guess this is part of the beauty of international films, they blow apart our assumptions and can broaden our view of other cultures. I'm not saying that Iran doesn't have certain issues relating to fanatacism and theocracy, because it does (as evidenced by this film), but the society portrayed in A Separation (and the issues it deals with - such as the separated marriage of the title) is entirely accessible to an English-speaking audience in ways that they may not have expected.

We open with a POV shot from within a photocopier, an image that establishes Iran as a society of contrast where technology and theocracy now exist side by side. Nadar (Peyman Moaadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) are a progressive Iranian couple undergoing a divorce due to complicated reasons. Simin wants to leave Iran so that their 11-year old daughter can grow up with a better education and opportunities, whereas Nadar refuses to leave while he still has his elderly Alzheimer's-stricken father to care for. It's a house in collapse, and the couple try to be pragmatic about it despite the difficulties in their situation.

Anyway, the film becomes quite intense when Nadar hires a maid to look after his father while he goes to work. A series of events occur (some of which we see, some of which we don't), culminating in the maid's miscarriage. Her husband, an unemployed man with a short temper, blames Nadar and demands satisfaction under Sharia law. Meanwhile, Nadar demands equal satisfaction for the woman's mistreatment of his father - an event that happened at the same time as the miscarriage.

I'm struggling to write this review without sounding racist or culturally sheltered. I don't believe that everyone in the Middle East is an Islamic extremist... I think they're people just like people in any other part of the world. But having said that, I feel like this film was partially about playing with Western assumptions about Middle Eastern society. The split between Nadar and Simin is largely amicable, they both still love each other and Simin even tells the judge that her estranged husband is a good father. This isn't your stereotypical Muslim marriage; this is a modern family that seems to be even more progressive than a lot of families in the West - with both mother and father working, and both parents supportive of their bookish daughter's quest for education... Nadar even encourages his daughter's independence (as evidenced by the petrol station scene). Another assumption that I (shamefully) made was that the husband of the maid would be an abusive spouse. He's a hot-tempered man, and the expectation of the viewer may be that he beats his wife, but the film doesn't play into such assumptions. When he finally cracks the kind of violence involved isn't what we might expect.


This is a film that's clearly working around a government's censorship - it doesn't seem like that kind of a movie at first, it's more of a courtroom drama - a complicated morality play in relation to a changing society. It tries to get at the truth of things by showing a seemingly simple situation involving a handful of people and then revealing the complications underneath. I think the hidden subversiveness of A Separation is in the fact that this is a situation where Sharia law can't and doesn't apply. These are people who are trying to assign blame for the harsh realities of life - the maid and her husband blame the loss of her baby on Nadar, and Nadar blames his father's decline on the maid. In reality, neither is really at fault for these unfortunate turns of fate - and it's a fundamental truth that seems at odds with the totality of Sharia law.

Another subversive facet of the film is the way it looks at the role of women in this modernising society. Nadar and Simin's daugher is forced by the (unfair) letter of the law into a situation that she shouldn't have to face. A Separation is partially about her loss of intellectual innocence, an internal act of government-sanctioned violation that demonstrates the differing levels of independence within Iran's infracstructure. Nadar and Simin's household might be liberal-minded but it's largely at odds with the society around it, and there's a certain incompatability between their progressiveness and the way the law operates in their country. The integration of religion into this society is quite heavy (aside from the Vatican, Iran is the only country in the world governed by a religious body), but the issues that Nadar's family faces - divorce, both parents working, care for the infirm - are ones that we would associate with our 'free' Western society.

For a film that seems so low-key on the surface, there's a lot of complexity to the issues it deals with. Director Asghar Farhadi directs it with such confidence and even pacing that it's hard not to get sucked into the magnetic pull of its events. It just feels real and relevant and once the plot started unfolding I just had to see how it would end.

DIRECTOR: Asghar Farhadi
WRITER/SOURCE: Asghar Farhadi
KEY ACTORS: Leila Hatami, Peyman Moaadi, Shahab Hosseini, Sareh Bayat, Sarina Farhadi

RELATED TEXTS:
- Asghar Farhadi previously attracted critical acclaim with his films Fireworks Wednesday and About Elly.
- For a great American indie film about divorce see The Squid and the Whale.
- Other divorce/separation films: Kramer Vs. Kramer, American Beauty, Lantana, Revolutionary Road, Little Children and Blue Valentine.
- Leila Hatami came to international acclaim with her role in the 2002 film The Deserted Station.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Foreign Language Film. Also nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
BAFTAs - nominated for Best Non-English Language Film.
Golden Globes - won Best Foreign Language Film.
Independent Spirit Awards - won Best International Film.

Brilliance of the Moon

Brilliance of the Moon is the third book in the Tales of the Otori series by Australian author Lian Hearn and rounds off the initial trilogy that the books form. It's a lot faster paced and to-the-point than it's predecessors and I found myself tearing through it rather quickly, eager to see how it all wraps up.

Takeo is now Lord Otori, gathering an army and marching across the Three Countries in the hope of uniting them, just as the prophecy in the previous book said he would. He now has Kaede at his side and plans to finally avenge the death of Shigeru and to re-take the city of Hagi from his treacherous step-uncles. But Lords who may have once been allies have now become enemies, the alliances of the Three Countries are forever shifting and the marriage of Takeo and Kaede has angered those who believe in the rigid codes of class on which their society has been founded.

There are a lot of loose ends to tie up in this book and Hearn does a pretty good job of satisfactorily concluding most of the bigger ones. Some she has deliberately left open for further novels to explore, but thankfully it doesn't feel like cheating and I don't think a more satisfying end to these epic novels of samurais and secret assassin-magic could have been written. Five battles take place in Brilliance of the Moon, and Hearn has done a very good job to ensure it doesn't get boring or monotonous.

I have to admit though that I was left a little confused by some aspects of the trilogy. Obviously the themes the author explores regarding the code of castes/classes is something too big to be completely resolved in this book, especially when so much action needed to take place and so many characters needed resolution, so I have a feeling this might be what drives her follow-up books to the trilogy (Harsh Cry of the Heron and Heaven's Net is Wide). People who read this book when it was first released as the end of a finite trilogy might've found it a little wanting though, and understandably so.

Some of the characters she introduced in this book also left me scratching my head... there's a sequence involving some kind of ogre/demon that wasn't entirely explained and seemed a little out-of-place, and it was featured so fleetingly that I couldn't help but wonder at why it was included at all. Come to think of it, this could be a criticism of the series overall - some of the characters enter and exit so quickly that I couldn't help but feel that either Hearn needed more pages to tell her story or that she should've involved less characters. I know it's unrealistic to have events like these dominated by only a few key characters and she was probably aiming at a certain historical-realism, but these are fantasy novels we're talking about here, and sometimes less is more.

Also, I couldn't help but think the ending was a little too neat. I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but let's just say there were very few surprises for me when I got to the end of the book. I don't know if I was neccessarily expecting more, but I just felt that it all went down in a far too straight-forward and predictable manner. This isn't always a bad thing, I still found it very enjoyable, I just... I dunno, as I said, maybe the other books round things out a bit more. Anyway, if you like feudal japan and samurais and cool stuff like that, and don't mind a smidgen of magic and historical-style intrigue, I'd reccomend these three books (Across the Nightingale Floor, Grass For His Pillow and Brilliance of the Moon).

Thunder Road

Rock 'n' roll hillbilly gangster whiskey bootleggers? Hell yeah, that sounds like a great movie! Robert Mitchum is one of the all time coolest cats to ever act on the big screen, and he resolutely refused to credit the profession of acting with any importance. In short: he didn't give a shit. And Thunder Road is what happens when you give this guy - a reefer-smoking, calypso music-loving A-list superstar - the chance to make his film 'dream project'. Mitchum not only stars in this film (and ropes in his real-life brother to play his character's brother), he also co-wrote the theme song, co-wrote the screenplay and produced it. When an actor usually takes this chance to do a 'vanity' project it becomes incredibly self-important or life-suckingly 'artistic' (see John Wayne's overblown The Alamo or Johnny Depp's The Brave), but in Mitchum's case? He just wants to make a movie about souped up cars and redneck rockers. What a champ.

Mitchum plays Luke, the maverick son of a good-natured crime family that specialises in brewing illegal moonshine and burying cash in their backyard. Bootlegging is in Luke's blood, but he's out to make sure that his younger brother Robin (James Mitchum) never follows in his dangerous footsteps. Luke faces hardline g-men and a rival bootlegging outfit. It's a high stakes game that can result in your car ending up a burning wreck, and Luke and his brother come up with entertaining innovations for their wheels - such as razor blades on the front, oil slicks from the back, and the ability to dump a load of whisky before the car has even stopped.

The whole film is a Hollywood cliche, but it's overlaid with all these great hillbillyisms, so it's a bit of an odd combo. The Hays Code (which specified that crime could never be shown to pay) means that we know right from the outset that Luke (and his lifestyle) is doomed. I love how all-in Thunder Road is. There's a scene where Luke meets up with the big boss of a rival bootlegging crew, and his response to the meeting is to just slug the guy and jump out the window! This is a film full of car bombs and mountainside car chases. Mitchum's character is, predictably, a war hero - but he's also a dyed-in-the-wool whiskey runner who can't commit to a meaningful relationship with a woman because of his passion for hooning around with a boot full of illegal alcohol. How can you not love that?

DIRECTOR: Arthur Ripley
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Robert Mitchum, James Atlee Phillips and Walter Wise.
KEY ACTORS: Robert Mitchum, Gene Barry, James Mitchum, Keely Smith

RELATED TEXTS:
- See also Moonshine Highway, The Moonshine War and Moonrunners.
- Also see the truck driving noir They Drive By Night.

Cowboys and Aliens

Jon Favreau started out as "one of us", a film geek who was playing in Hollywood's sandpit and proving that the fans could successfully run the asylum (EG. Iron Man, Zathura). But now it seems that he's losing that common touch as he makes more annd more films. Cowboys and Aliens seems like such a high concept winner on paper (especially with a cast co-led by Harrison Ford in a very welcome return to sci-fi/adventure territory), but all it really manages is the basics. Favreau makes a fun but ultimately soulless sci-fi tribute to the western.

Let's have a look at what they do get right. Well, the best thing about it is Ford playing such a crusty character. It's great to see him chewing up the scenary in a genre mash-up like this, he seems to be really enjoying himself again (for once). Film geeks often like to speculate on how roles might be better cast in hot projects, but this is one case where someone got it right the first time. This is purely film geek dream-casting, and the rest of the supporting roles are also filled with great actors - Paul Dano, Clancy Brown, Sam Rockwell, Adam Beach, etc. Unfortunately most of these guys end up feeling underwritten or underused. It's all stretched that litttle bit too thin.

I actually liked the way that the film wheels out nearly every western trope imaginable, though inevitably this just goes to show who this film is really aimed at: people who see westerns as just a bunch of cliches. In my mind a great western/sci-fi mash-up should be equally true to both genres, and if you're going to do the western justice then you need to respect it enough to move beyond the cliches and make a decent film in its own right. Here are the tropes I'm talking about:

• The powerful rancher who runs the town.
• Indians.
  
• Bandits.
• The sheriff who stands against the townspeople.
• A posse.
• The ineffectual barman with a Mexican wife.
• The town bully who's also a coward.
• The tough preacher.
• The man with no name (Daniel Craig literally plays a man who doesn't know his own name). This character is also a bit of an anti-hero with a dark past.
• The impressionable kid who idolises the hero.

I did like how the aliens (who are a bit like insectoid versions of the trolls from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings) were pretty much the 1880s version of aliens... instead of having lasers they had high tech lassoes, and instead of representing our fear of terrorism or the cold war or whatever, they're basically just prospectors from space. It would've been interesting to see this idea developed a bit more, but at the end of the day this film feels like all it needs to do to get by is to just combine cowboys and aliens (like the title says). It should be a great film, but it isn't. It's a novelty and a gimmick and nothing more. There's too many characters and not enough depth given to any of them (including Harrison Ford's character), and it was overall a wasted opportunity.

DIRECTOR: Jon Favreau
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orcini, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, with story input from Steve Oedekerk. Based on the graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.
KEY ACTORS: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell, Olivia Wilde, Paul Dano, Clancy Brown, Keith Carradine, Noah Ringer, Adam Beach, Abigail Spencer, Walter Goggins

RELATED TEXTS:
- The graphic novel Cowboys and Aliens by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.

- Scott Mitchell Rosenberg also had a hand in the Men in Black films, and the post-apocalyptic TV series Jeremiah.
- Sci-fi Westerns: The Valley of Gwangi, Westworld, Back to the Future Part III and Wild Wild West.
- For western sci-fi (as in sci-fi films that ape westerns, as opposed to the other way round) see the TV show Firefly and the first Star Wars film.

The Bigamist

So there's this guy who wants to adopt a kid because he and his wife are having fertility issues, but then the adoption investigator gets all up in his grill and discovers that he has a second family. This is a bit of a no-no these days, but back in the 1950s it was positively scandalous. Harry (Edmond O'Brien), the bigamist in question, seems to think that relating his story will stop his arrest but there's not really anything in his tale that suggests he has 'extenuating' circumstances that would get him out of it. In short: he's a bigamist!

I guess the real point of this film is that it humanises adultery. I don't think anyone in this film is denying that it's a problem, but the fact of the matter is that it happens and Hollywood films in the '30s, '40s and '50s had a hard time putting this on the screen without demonising certain parties. Harry is a cagey travelling salesman, so he's out on the road and away from his wife a lot. He eventually finds love in the arms of another woman, and in a way this helps him combat his loneliness at home. Both women are portrayed as innocents in all this, with neither knowing about the other (at first). It is what it is. It's not exactly a justification for bigamy, but it goes some way towards explaining it. It's pretty sensationalist and hard-hitting stuff for the '50s, and I guess this lends the film a certain film noir-ish tone (especially in the way it's told in flashback).

O'Brien plays Harry with a certain swarthiness that makes him seem suspicious, and it's important to remember that since this was a film made under the Hays Code that this means it could never go too far towards justifying bigamy. Check out this quote from the adoption investigator (played by Edmund Gwenn), it pretty much sums up the censorship-heavy mixed message of the film:

"I'm not a policeman. It's not my duty to do anything but see that the juvenile wards of the state of California are given decent homes. I can't figure out my feelings towards you. I despise you, and I pity you. I don't even want to shake your hand and yet, I almost wish you luck"

He speaks for the audience, who must've also felt some conflicted emotions after investing sympathy in this character despite his moral transgression. In a way it's a commentary on censorship and a commentary on the Hays Code itself. Regarding morality, it shouldn't really be the place of films to censor the truth of things. It should be a matter of personal judgment, and that's what I took away from this interesting and ahead-of-it's-time film.

DIRECTOR: Ida Lupino
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Collier Young, Larry Marcus and Lou Schor.
KEY ACTORS: Edmond O'Brien, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Fontaine, Ida Lupino, Kenneth Tobey, Jane Darwell

RELATED TEXTS:
For another Hollywood film from this era that tackles adultery, see The Postman Always Rings Twice.
- Actress Ida Lupino was the only female director working in Hollywood throughout the '40s and '50s. She addressed a variety of controversial social issues in a series of low budget films: Outrage, The Hitch-Hiker, Never Fear and The Trouble With Angels.
- Films about bigamy: The Constant Husband, Move Over Darling, My Favourite Wife and Eulogy.
- See also the fun HBO series Big Love, which is all about polygamist mormons.

Let Me In

As a big fan of the Swedish film Let the Right One In, I was (like most) a little hesistant to accept an American remake. In light of all the Twilight hysteria over the last five years, any antidote to Stephanie Meyer's tweenification of vampires is welcome, so at the end of the day I guess I'm quite happy for this story to reach new audiences via an English-language remake. Let Me In goes for a similar indie-film vibe as Let the Right One In, which suggests that it is a remake of the Swedish film rather than a new adaptation of the novel. At any rate, Let Me In doesn't compromise for the American audience. There are some significant changes (like the New Mexico setting) but nothing that radically alters the taste of the story.

For anyone who's unaware, this story is based on a revisionist vampire novel by the twisted Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist. It's kind of an anti-Twilight, focusing on a lonely 12 year old boy who befriends a vampire girl. The boy, Owen (played here by Kodi Smit-McPhee), is being bullied by some larger kids at his school. Abby (Chloe Grace Moretz), an ungodly vampire, moves into his New Mexico neighbourhood and the two begin learning about each other. It isn't a film for kids, it's quite full-on in parts and the extent of Abby's vampirism is more horrific than a casual viewer might suspect.

Let Me In captures the disturbing nature of bullying quite graphically. A lot of claustrophobic framing is used to rankle to the viewer somewhat, and the film uses these elements to explore taboos surrounding sexuality and puberty (which is actually quite brave for an American film). Part of this is the text's theme of androgyny - the way the bullies refer to Owen as "little girl", and the way Abby's voice becomes deep and man-ish when she's angry. I had an uneasy feeling that a lot of this stuff would've been dropped from the American adaptation, so I was happy to see that it wasn't the case. Another thing struck me while I watched Let Me In; the character of Thomas (Richard Jenkins) is portrayed in a manner that makes one think of pedophilia, but he might not be a pedophile at all - he could've met Abby when he was 12, and has been with her from that age. Just a thought I had, I'm sure others may have come to this conclusion too.

I'm not sure I liked the film's colour palette. It was all orange and shadows, which fits with the desert setting, but I'm just over America's south-west being shot in this way. Aside from the cinematography stuff, it takes a lot of its visual cues from the first film (the first attack, the way some of the deaths are shot and staged, the flaming bed, the pool scene at the end, etc). I'm not sure what kind of impact this film made overall, I'm unsure if it would've actually reached any viewers who wouldn't or didn't watch the original version. The upshot of this fidelity to a well-made film is that it means that Let Me In also happens to be quite well-made as well. If I hadn't seen the original version I might've been knocked out by this film, but as I'd seen it all before I can't say it did much for me. It's almost shot-for-shot like Let the Right One In a lot of the time, so I just felt like it was a bit of a pointless exercise. People who don't like foreign language films though will benefit from the availability of this version, it still makes a nice change from the cutesy shenanigans of the Twilight films.

DIRECTOR: Matt Reeves
WRITER/SOURCE: Screenplay by Matt Reeves, based on the script and novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist.
KEY ACTORS: Chloe Grace Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas, Dylan Minette

RELATED TEXTS

- The Swedish film Let the Right One In, and the novel it's based on, also called Let the Right One In.
- Matt Reeves previously directed Cloverfield.
- For the other recent take on teenage vampires, see Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn Parts 1 and 2.

Grass For His Pillow

Grass For His Pillow is the second novel in Lian Hearn's popular and acclaimed fantasy/adventure series Tales of the Otori. Focusing on the feudal intrigues of rival clans of samurai warlords in a Japan-like land known only as 'The Three Countries', the series mainly follows two central characters; the conflicted and almost super-human assassin Lord Takeo, and the abused, cursed and strong-willed Lady Kaede - lovers seperated by rigid codes of class and Takeo's own ambiguous loyalties.

This book picks up almost immediately from the end of Across the Nightingale Floor. Takeo has joined with the mysterious and ammoral group known only as The Tribe, and this book does a lot to answer all the questions we might have asked ourselves about them in the first book. Kaede, on the other hand, returns to her homelands to find them in ruin and her half of the book is about her own self-actualisation, her growing thirst for power and her general transformation from naive young girl to responsible adult as she takes up the reigns of her native clan.

A lot more is filled in about the Three Countries themselves and we learn more about the caste system that is mostly only implied in the previous book - we learn exactly how the Tribe fit in around the warring clans, about the outcastes (a kind of peasant class akin to the Untouchable class in Hindu culture), and more about the clans and the changing nature of their relationships with one another and the ongoing evolution of the Three Countries. Nothing is shunned or left out... much realism is added through the inclusion of homosexuality, as well as Hearn's acknowledgement of certain human weaknesses that would normally be overlooked by books about honour codes and the like.

Unfortunately this book isn't too concerned with a story unto itself, it's more about setting up a bigger story for events to come in the third book, The Brilliance of the Moon... the introduction of a prophecy and the colouring of the various religions practiced throughout the Three Countries, as well as the added information about the outcastes and Kaede's changing status and her questioning of feudal sexual politics - these things all point towards the next book and the bigger picture. Takeo's half of the book is interesting in it's expansion of the story but (despite containing the more action-orientated sequences) it didn't engage me the way that Kaede's story did... her rebellion against the traditional role of a female in this kind of society (and story) was far more interesting and motivating, and it made for quicker reading whenever her parts came up (the opposite was the case for me in the first book, where Takeo's story was the more interesting of the two!)

So I can't really reccomend this book on it's own to anyone, it isn't stand-alone but if you liked the first book, Across the Nightingale Floor, then you'll eat this one up too. This series looks to be the sort that you have to read in it's entireity though. What can I say? Sometimes the best series are of that nature.

The Hunger Games

It's being hyped as the next Twilight, which is pretty disingenuous because it's not like Twilight at all, but I can understand it from a marketing standpoint. The only thing the two films have in common is the idea of a love triangle, but whereas Twilight makes this it's main plot, The Hunger Games uses it in the way that a salad uses salad dressing. I recently read Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games novels a few months back in anticipation of the popularity explosion, but I couldn't have possibly guessed how big this was all going to be. I'll just say straight off the bat that this is a fantastic movie, and that you don't need to have read the books, blah blah blah, just go see it.

Anyway, the basic premise should be pretty familiar to anyone who has seen Battle Royale, The Running Man, Turkey Shoot, that episode of Buffy, etc, etc. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 16 year old girl in the future-nation of Panem (some 100-120 years from now). She lives in a poor mining district that pretty much does slave work for a decadent Rome-like capital city. Along with eleven other districts, her district must offer up two 'tributes' every year to battle it out to death on national television. Katniss finds herself competing in these vicious games when she volunteers to take the place of her younger sister.

To fixate on the teens-battling-each-other aspect and inevitable comparisons to Battle Royale is to ignore the fact that this story (and the novels) aren't just about this - it's about the larger world of Panem and ideas relating to reality TV and modern society, and a good half of the film (arguably the better half) isn't about the games at all. Some of the drama was lost for me when they went into the arena, the film kind of stalls a bit because we pretty much know what to expect from this point on. I love how they did a whole 1930s dustbowl/futuristic art deco thing with Panem, it gave the film an original look (and it fits with the casting of Jennifer Lawrence, calling to mind her brilliant break-out role in Winter's Bone... though this is most likely entirely coincidental).

I found the shaky cam stuff a little irritating at first but I stopped noticing it after the first five or ten minutes because everything about The Hunger Games is so incredibly engaging. The characters are all so perfectly cast, and Katniss is such a strong heroine. She never falls into the trap of annoying whininess, and Lawrence is such an all-round great actress that she simply is Katniss Everdeen for me (as opposed to one actress' interpretation of the character). I suspect the shaky cam stuff was mainly used just to cover up a lot of the violence... it always seemed to be at its most shaky in the most violent sequences (the riot, the start of the games, etc), and I think this sort of in-film censoring is far better than cutting out the violence altogether.

My only real criticism is that I thought Woody Harrelson should've been a bit gruffer as the mento-character Haymitch. He seemed to be going for a slightly fey vibe, which I guess fits with the fashion of Panem's futuristic denizens, but it just didn't work for me. It's a small criticism, but I just felt a bit disappointed because Harrelson would've nailed it if he wasn't too concerned with broadening his range. Donald Sutherland isn't how I pictured President Snow in my head, but he still fit the role rather well - combining stately dignity and cold menace rather effortlessly. The other main standout in the cast is Josh Hutcherson as the honest-faced Peeta Mellark... Hutcherson has been doing great but mostly unrecognised work in a variety of films throughout his teen years (Bridge to Terabithia, Zathura, Cirque du Freak) and it's nice to know that he's probably about to achieve superstardom.

Anyway, as I said at the start of this review, I thought this film was fantastic. It's very faithful to the book, but also completely faithful to the medium of film (I'm glad they broke free from having it all from Katniss' perspective). Most importantly the script, director and actors all capture the bravery of the novel. Despite knowing what was going to happen I really got swept up in a few of the 'bigger' moments, and I think nailing the 'feel' of a text like this is what truly makes this film a winning adaptation. I think this might just be the best of all the film adaptations of teen novels from over the last ten years or more. It's certainly better than the first couple of Harry Potter films. It's a perfect film version of a great book, and it also happens to be an artistically accomplished film in its own right as well. Go see it!

DIRECTOR: Gary Ross
WRITER/SOURCE: Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins and Billy Ray. Based on the novel by Suzanne Collins.
KEY ACTORS: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Liam Hemsworth, Donald Sutherland, Wes Bentley, Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones, Alexander Ludwig, Isabelle Fuhrman.

RELATED TEXTS:
- The novel The Hunger Games, and it's sequels Catching Fire and Mockingjay, all by Suzanne Collins.
- The idea of humans hunting each other originates in the 1920s short story The Most Dangerous Game.
- Other films that have used this idea include: Turkey Shoot, The Running Man, Battle Royale, Series 7: The Contenders and The Condemned.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Let me be about the gazillionth person to add their voice to the chorus declaiming this film as a serious Oscar contender. It isn't as bad as all that, I'm actually a big fan of the book and the film does a nice enough job of translating it to the screen... but, in it's all-too-obvious contention for Oscar glory, the quirkiness and inventiveness of the novel becomes schmaltz and unwelcome earnestness. All the humour is lost. It's not a bad film but yes, I have to agree, it didn't deserve to be nominated for Oscars. Max Von Sydow swindled Albert Brooks' Best Supporting Oscar nomination spot.

The kid in this film (Thomas Horn) isn't an actor but he still comes across as remarbly natural and avoids overt precociousness. Precociousness is actually one of the character's most indelible traits in the book but it wouldn't translate favourably to the film, so I'm glad the filmmakers realised this and toned it down. Unfortunately, the film is all about this kid (despite the fact that the book focuses equally on the character of 'The Renter'). I'm not one of those people who demands that film versions of books should always be faithful to the source material. I prefer to look at these things on a case-by-case basis, and in the case of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close it feels like a mistake to cut out all the colour and subplots from the novel. It feels too much like the director and writer wanted a story that was solely about 9/11, rather than a story that was about significantly more than this.

The book that this film is based on actually dealt with ideas relating to 9/11 in a subtle and unique way. It doesn't even really become apparent that this is what the book is about until quite far into it. By comparison, this film starts with Tom Hanks falling from the twin towers and then shows us his funeral. It's so obviously manipulative. And goddamit, the movie still made me cry. In a way it's hilariously irresponsible for this book/film to suggest that a kid can wander around New York making friends with every stranger and not get robbed, bashed, murdered or raped (even with certain revelations that shed light on his journey later on) and this is definitely something a pre-9/11 film would never have suggested. But now New York has this spirit of unity, so somehow nothing bad happens there anymore.

It's easy to be cynical about this film (as evidenced by my review so far) but I'm trying (and failing) to resist this urge because it's still quite a well-made film and I know there are plenty of people out there who would enjoy it. Despite my misgivings, and how much I hate being manipulated by this sort of thing, I still got some enjoyment out of it. I can't really fault the poor reception this movie got, but it sucks that so many people hate it because the source material is absolutely fantastic and not at all the manipulative Oscar-bait that the film is. In an alternative universe, the film might've been done better and put more people onto the book.

Oh, and Tom Hanks is about as Jewish as a pork knuckle.

DIRECTOR: Stephen Daldry
WRITER/SOURCE: Eric Roth, based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.
KEY ACTORS: Thomas Horn, Max Von Sydow, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, John Goodman, Viola Davis, Jeffrey Wright, Zoe Caldwall, Hazelle Goodman

RELATED TEXTS
- The novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, who also wrote the novel Everything is Illuminated.
- Other films about 9/11: World Trade Center, United 93, Flight 93, Rebirth and Reign Over Me.
- Stephen Daldry's best film is Billy Elliot. Daldry also chased Oscar glory with The Reader and The Hours.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - nominated for Best Film and Best Supporting Actor (Max Von Sydow)

Black Narcissus

"I think there are only two ways of living in this place. Either you must live like Mr. Dean, or like the Holy Man... either ignore it or give yourself up to it".

I'm so stunned by this film that I really don't know where to start. I'm not sure what I was expecting... maybe something like a historical drama, but I guess in hindsight it's more of a psychological horror movie. Black Narcissus is essentially about a place and a feeling, and more specifically it looks at the breakdown of a convent of nuns assigned to a remote valley in the Himilayas. The British powerhouse of Powell and Pressburger adapted what must've been a fairly complex novel into this beautifully staged and multilayered film - tackling ideas relating to faith, colonialism and memory.

Deborah Kerr leads the cast as a young nun promoted to Sister Superior. She's given four fellow sisters to take to a new convent in a secluded part of the world, and told to make the most of it. The fact that this convent was previously a monastary inhabited by monks and that these said monks only managed to stay there for five months foreshadows the troubles the nuns will face, and Kerr's nun almost immediately comes to loggerheads with Mr. Dean (David Farrar), the local British agent. Things also become complicated further when one of the sisters, Ruth (Kathleen Byron), begins to exhibit some rather strange behaviour.

We're told right from the outset that Sister Ruth is 'ill' and suffers from issues relating to faith. At first she just seems like one of those 'difficult' people, but then we also start to get an insight into the background of Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr's nun) and the film starts delving more deeply into madness, repressed sexuality and all the psychological baggage one might associate with nuns. The beautiful colour location-shooting of the mountain monastary is breathtaking, but the colour cinematography also allows for the shocking image of a nun's blood-splattered habit. This gives way to a sudden genre shift into horror territory, that stunning third act where it suddenly boils over and we unexpectedly see Ruth out of her nun's clothes - defiantly sexualised as she applies red lipstick (foreshadowed by the blood on her habit). It could almost be a slasher film, or something like Event Horizon, as Clodagh faces off against a murderously insane Ruth on the isolated mountain top. We don't really know what Ruth is capable of, especially when we get an extreme closeup on her evil, vacant stare.

When the film gets to this rather left-field place it's a culmination of a lot of tension escalated by various subplots that all explore the same themes. Mr. Dean isn't welcoming to the nuns when they arrive, he's assimilated with the locals to some degree and he resents the convent's attempts to preach and educate. The battle of wills between himself and Clodagh is representative of something much larger, in any other film it might be sexual tension (and there's certainly an element of this at play) but here it's also a dialogue between different notions of civilisation. Dean has turned his back on European ideals in order to live sanely in a supposedly forsaken and otherworldly place. This valley has a strange atmosphere that has a disconnecting effect on Westerners. For the nuns it makes them remember the pre-service lives they tried so hard to forget... it's certainly not a place for religious people who need to live with a purpose. Ultimately though, the valley is symbolic - it is a place where imperialism can't and won't triumph, and Black Narcissus uses this conceit to deconstruct western superiority in all it's forms (be it religion, education, sexual repression, or colonialism).

The anti-colonialist subtext should be clear almost straight away, Mr. Dean's letter at the film's beginning states that "The men are men, the women women, and the children are children", asserting that people are inherently the same despite their ethnographic and cultural differences. This, of course, flies in the face of ides inherent in colonialism and the missionary work of nuns. The hypocrisy of Christianity as a by-product (or perhaps 'by-force' would be a better term) of colonialism is never said outright, but it's definitely there in the film. This valley is a place in the world that just can't be colonised, which is quite a subversive idea as it sugggests that Christianity doesn't apply everywhere.

The 'Black Narcissus' of the title is actually a perfume from England. The scent of this perfume is cited as the catalyst for the changes experienced by Clodagh and Ruth... the power of smell has long been associated with memory, and here it triggers things that have been repressed. As nuns are the ultimate in repression, this naturally drives them crazy. This is a powerful and intelligent film, wonderfully acted, surprisingly subversive, and altogether unique. A must-see, and one of the pillarstones of British filmmaking.

DIRECTOR: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

WRITER/SOURCE: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on a novel by Rumer Godden.
KEY ACTORS: Deborah Kerr, Flora Robson, Jean Simmons, David Farrar, Sabu, Kathleen Byron, Esmond Knight, Jenny Laird, Judith Furse

RELATED TEXTS

- Black Narcissus, a 1939 novel written by Rumer Godden.
- Deborah Kerr would play a nun again in Heaven Knows Mr. Allison.
- Other films about nuns: The Nun's Story, The Song of Bernadette, The Bells' of St. Mary's and Agnes of God.
- Powell and Pressburger's other big films were: The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going!, Peeping Tom and The Battle of the River Plate.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.
Golden Globes - won Best Cinematography.

Across the Nightingale Floor

Across the Nightingale Floor is the first book in a trilogy known as Tales of the Otori, an historical/fantasy series set in a land based on feudal Japan. They are written by an Australian author, "Lian Hearn" (more about the author at the bottom of this review), and have become tremendously popular since their release not so long ago. So much so that two follow up books eventually followed in their wake (making the trilogy a series of five).

Most of the book's events take place from the point of view of Takeo, an orphan fugutive who was one of the Hidden - a pacifist religious minority who are persecuted by Lord Iida, Warlord of the Tohan clan. The Tohan clan rule the majority of the Three Countries through a cruel and careless kind of tyranny. Takeo is rescued by Lord Otori, who sees in Takeo some unique talents and subsequently adopts him into the Otori clan.

The other parts of the book are told from the point of view of Kaede, a 15 year old Lady who is being used as a bargaining tool by the Tohan and their allies to lure Lord Otori into a trap. She is said to be cursed, for any man who dares touch her meets a bloody death. She is distraught by the situation and reputation she has been forced into.

Much of what follows between the various warring clans of the Three Countries is twisted and complicated, and it took me the best part of the book to figure out the full rammifications of what was happening. Thankfully, Hearn writes in a simplistic and graceful manner that ensures the book never loses you... sometimes I thought the writing was a little too simple, but then Hearn would unveil a beautifully descriptive passage that transports you completely to this other time, and I think the style is entirely suitable to the subject matter.

The manners and customs of the clans are uniquely Japanese and the author never once slips up in her depiction of the way these people relate to each other and the strict ways of life to which they are bound. It makes for fascinating reading, sometimes the choices these characters make are very different to what a western reader like myself would expect, and Hearn does an excellent job of making it seem nothing less than realistic.

By around the halfway mark, I simply couldn't put this book down. I was rip-roaring to get stuck into the next two novels, Grass for His Pillow and Brilliance of the Moon. "Lian Hearn" is actually a pseudonym for popular children's author Gillian Rubenstein (previously best known for the 80s arcade game-inspired Space Demons). The follow up novels are titled The Harsh Cry of the Heron and Heaven's Net is Wide.