Monkey Man (2024)

 

Monkey Man (2024)

Director: Dev Patel

Stars: Dev Patel, Pitobash, Vipin Sharma, Sikandar Kher

Short Review, no spoilers

Top marks for the style and spirit of Dev Patel’s action movie directorial debut. And for none-streamers, gratitude that Netflix apparently bottled the opportunity to buy up a movie with perhaps controversial themes, allowing Jordan Peele to scoop it up and send it to its rightful place at cinemas. Exhilarating, well shot, frenetic and well performed with a neat balance of violence and humour that is overlaid with a passionately colourful palate of cultural personality that dances with cheekily fighting spirit over the dried-up husk of the relentless John Wick franchise that inspires it.

Full Review (spoilers)

Until now, Dev Patel has floated wide-eyed around the arena of endearing, harmless dorkiness. With Monkey Man however, he arrives as a different kind of physical presence, not wholly alienated from his former image, but still demanding fresh attention to an approach that now utilises his facial innocence and gangliness to more aggressive effect. In applying what can be a wonderful source of inspiration – simply making what you want to see and isn’t there – Patel is fuelled by action movie fandom that takes in the influences of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and the aforementioned John Wick. The besuited revenge ultraviolence of the latter is clearly in effect, along with a sweet dog homage that seems to be going down exactly the same road before cleverly twisting in a way that supports this particular narrative. However, the political underdog spirit, cultural character and wit of both Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan is more entertainingly at play.

Kid – aka Monkey Man, his underground ring fighter persona – couldn’t be more underdog throughout the entire first half of the film. True to his alter ego, he is smart and cheeky in his infiltration of the genuinely intimidating realm of powerful wealth and politics that harbour the killers of his family, but he’s lacking in ultimate impact when his carefully laid plan drastically unravels. There is witty camerawork such as the subtle pan that takes in a bottle of bleach hinting at how Kid comes up with his alias, and the highlighting of everyday social injustices in the midst of a zany car chase when the mats of street sleepers are stirred by friend Alphonso’s tuk-tuk whizzing by, likewise the afterburners of the flashed-up vehicle fuelling a street food stove. And when the purse of Queenie – brutal madam of high-class prostitutes and potty-mouthed wife of the man who killed Kid’s beloved mother - is swiped by a rotund, phoney beggar before it is passed cannily through the hands of various ordinary street folk with swift, unassuming accuracy, there is a wry and admiring authenticity to Patel’s celebration of true slumdogs.

Unafraid to include moments of humour in the midst of serious action antics, Patel demonstrates Kid’s sub-superhero capabilities when he launches himself at a window during an escape but bounces off it in decent slapstick style. Impressively however, these moments are not out of place in what is predominantly a serious revenge thriller that takes in broad strokes of social injustice. Kid embodies the image of a young but haunted man and one obsessed by childhood trauma and a relentless drive to put right the suffering of him and his. After carefully inserting himself in to the world of his targets, things go well wrong however and he ends up most wanted by the police and lucky to be alive after a tumble underwater following numerous beatings. Waking up in a secret refuge of transgender outcasts however, Kid embarks on the next part of both his physical and spiritual rebirth.

Although perhaps sadly misidentified by some critics as another clumsy box ticker, the introduction of the transgender group (hijra) actually seems entirely in keeping with both the outsider element of the story and contemporary cultural injustices. Channelled through symbols that, although ancient, can be interpreted as diversity-embracing (perhaps to the surprise of some who believe that such ideas could only have occurred yesterday), and aligning Kid with a maligned community, Kid’s recovery and rebuilding sits alongside former warrior outcasts in a temple sanctuary that celebrates Ardhanarishvara, a deity that celebrates masculine and feminine energies working simultaneously in harmony. Alpha - the leader of the community as her name suggests, but without the traditional associations the word usually ascribes solely to masculinity – assists Kid to address the trauma of witnessing his mother’s murder, kickstarting real progress before opportunity for a playful break in proceedings. Legendary tabla drummer Zakir Hussain performs a male/female arrangement during a relaxed evening, but also goes on to form an integral part of Kid’s training when the young avenger embarks on the gradual destruction of a large sack of rice.

Things are kicked in to proper action again when a member of the community is beaten trying to take down a threatening notice from the door of the temple. Kid returns to the baying arena as Monkey Man, only this time he has confronted his demons and is ready to fight like Hanuman, the monkey deity that inspires his persona and the hero of the story his mother told him as a child. It’s an excellently wrought comeback with Monkey Man putting out his first rival instantaneously to the bewilderment of both audience and the sleazy organiser, Tiger, who all expect him to bomb as usual. Opponents then continue to roll out but we have a new unexpected hero. Further embodying the spirit of the simian, Monkey Man stalks loose-armed between bouts, his ape mask pointed unreadably at his opponent. This before he bursts in to the crouches and hops of a maddeningly agile animal, even banging his chest when victorious.

It might be considered unusual for action stars - especially one filming himself – that there should be as much humility as Patel demonstrates in Monkey Man. But by not allowing the novelty of himself overshadow the film as a whole there is no sense of showboating, and Patel shows us enough to entertain without descending in to any kind of ego trip. If anything, we are perhaps left wanting more but only in the best possible way. In combining the apparently opposite tendencies of intensity and looseness, Patel draws upon the taught physicality but flowing movements of Bruce Lee without attempting to reach that legend’s technical heights. This humility comes across cinematically also when a masked Kid merely glances over his shoulder at his stricken opponent and is filmed in murky blur - stoic ambivalence as opposed to macho fist-pumping.

As well as an emphatic dress rehearsal for Kid’s big-time revenge finale, his victories help finance both the beleaguered hijra and provide a valuable tip-off for old friend, Alphonso. On to the serious business now though and Kid isn’t messing around anymore. Fighting his way to the top of a building The Raid -style, the levels of gratuitous violence increase with each floor. There are some elegant fighting skills on display – at one point atop a bar and back-lit by the warm glow of alcohol display aesthetics – but gratefully nothing flashily phony. Patel doesn’t try to super-hero himself or irritate too much with wild camera/editing antics and adds more wry references (with a twist), such as when Kid is confronted by hordes of enemies from every doorway like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. However, here the cartoon aspect is lessened when the resolution to this dilemma appears in the form of his old hijra pals turning up armed and ready to assist rather than Kid having to take them all on himself.

Moving further up the echelons of classic combat homages as he continues upstairs, we see Kid initially distracted by disorientating reflections from dangling decorations in a reference to Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. And again in classic fashion, after the dispatching of many minions and an intimidating top henchman, it’s time to take on the corrupt bastard that has been dwelling hidden at the top all along, in this case an apparent guru and modern saviour who is actually behind all the corruption and murder that has ruined the city in question as well as the lives of forest dwellers like Kid’s family. Interestingly in this case, Kid appears to die with his adversary …? Like Bruce Lee’s hero characters, they don’t always survive the end of the movie. Sure if there is anything decent for Patel et al to add from here on in then fine, but there would be something quite fresh if Patel left it here.

Beetlejuice (1988)

 

Beetlejuice (1988)

Director: Tim Burton

Stars: Michael Keaton, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara

Short Review, no spoilers

There’s never a bad time to revisit one of Tim Burton’s best films, but no less so than when a 36 year later sequel is soon to be released.

Full Review (spoilers)

Beetlejuice is one of those peculiar films that were beloved by kids of the ‘80s that were actually pretty adult – certified 15 - but still recorded off the telly at whatever time of day and repeatedly watched thereafter. Naturally the few swears and adult moments of humour were cut out but this didn’t take much away from the experience and in fact, seeing the uncut version in later life only slightly upscaled what was already a blast of a movie.

Who knew Beetlejuice was Batman?! Micheal Keaton shows his capability to be darkly suave in one moment and a filthy nut in another - the ‘Let’s get nuts!’ moment in Batman is a hint – kudos to Tim Burton for recognising it as a director. In Beetlejuice, Keaton is unrecognisably costumed and made-up but unleashed to be at his most comedically manic. As the self-proclaimed ‘bio-exorcist’, he epitomises an excellent villain in a darkly cartoonish celebration of the dead and not quite – he’s rude, naughty, and chaotically rebellious. As fine foils to this however, is cult favourite Geena Davis and also Alec Baldwin - himself nearly unrecognisable by being fair-haired and a serious goof - as a loving couple who are desperate to remove some hideous yuppies from their house. They’re dead by the way, and stuck in some kind of weird purgatory, which is why it becomes an issue.

Another star is an original Burton muse in Winona Ryder, a dark-haired, doe-eyed sweetheart that nevertheless infiltrated Hollywood by way of a rare moment in the ’90s that was less interested in generically and sunnily attractive heroes and heroines. As Lydia, she’s charitably called a little girl by Davis’ character Barbara, even as she drifts gothically around in funereal dress and comments dryly on matters of death and her sense of self as ‘strange and unusual’. Performances are excellent all round, including Catherine O’Hara as Lydia’s stepmother, an ‘artist’ who is overwrought and megalomaniacal even as the commonly held opinion of her ‘work’ is that it is appalling. Husband Charles is in some ways more complex – seemingly desperate for a quieter life, it’s not long however before his own greed for wealth and validation emerges and he spies the opportunities for real estate development in the small town they land themselves in.

The fate of childless couple Adam and Barbara Maitland is really rather sad. We find them very much in love and embarking on a vacation to perfect their house in the country, however they die abruptly in a car accident and have to deal with all that apparently comes with it when you don’t simply go to heaven or hell. Nevertheless, Burton keeps the tempo up and never allows us to dwell too long on the downsides of mortality before charging on to the variously humourous misadventures of their new undead life. With playfully grim jokes and Burton at his creative best in terms of effects, we travel with the Maitlands on their journey through the complications of being ghosts who are sometimes seen but mostly ignored, even as the Deetz family move in and trample their dirty city feet all over the quaint life the couple were building before they were rudely interrupted.

Where the sequel will go narratively is yet to be seen however, any tale of dastardly gentrification by morons couldn’t be more relevant in today’s era as any other. As Charles Deetz declares to his former boss: ‘These people don't know the value of their property, I can buy the whole town‘. A joyful poke at these moneyed types is the wonderful scene when the Maitlands attempt a big scare by possessing the Deetz’s dinner party guests, accompanied by calypso music and a terrifying shrimp starter. Very funny but the cynicism of the invited guests ends up renewing the Deetz’s determination to scrape nothing but a full investment from their purchase. The true ghouls are revealed when the Deetz family and an idiotic hanger-on Otho rabble up the stairs to the attic and speculate on how the Maitlands’ deaths can be capitalised – any possibility of human empathy can just be hung out the window as far as they are concerned…

What none of them count on though is Beetlejuice’s ruthlessness when invited to the fold. They all end up attempting to rely on him to get what they want done however, this rancid, wild card pest turns out to be very difficult to contain. When the Deetz’s manage to get Charles’ ex-boss to the house, Otho performs a séance/exorcism which ends up nearly exterminating the Maitlands, so even Lydia herself turns to Beetlejuice in desperation. Henceforth, more delirious chaos and an almost marriage between the young girl and the fiendish, troublemaking ghost - a deal made to keep him permanently rampaging in the land of the living. After the yuppies are dispensed with circus-style, including Delia caged by her own hideous sculpture and Otho sent screaming in white-suited horror, the Maitlands recover and manage to intervene, rescuing Lydia and sending Beetlejuice to the bureaucratic purgatorial hell that is the living dead waiting room.

A settled compromise has come about by the end with the two families learning to live together in an arrangement that seems to suit everybody. Delia’s sculpting now has inspiration from their recent ordeal, Charles has something to read, and Lydia’s favourite kind of people – dead - take a heartfelt interest in her. In an original version of the script online, Charles reassures Lydia that in a couple of years, the town will be filled with people like them. Fortunately, their supernatural experience teaches them that they don’t have to destroy what came before them to suit their purposes, and can live harmoniously if they restrain their investment developing impulses. Sadly there will be many towns and cities the world over who will wish they had Beetlejuice to call on.

M3ghan (2022)

 

M3ghan (2022)

Director: Gerard Johnstone

Stars: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis (voice)

Short Review, no spoilers

When M3ghan first came out at cinemas, it seemed to be sold as a straight-up horror movie in the sense of both another entry in the creepy doll genre and also the latest model from production company Blumhouse. However, it is actually a refreshingly dark and clever satire made with the kind of smart restraint that will frustrate anyone demanding only ‘how many killins’ and ’ooh how it made me jump’ thrills when the real chill factor is how insidiously and seductively the promotion of technology seems to promise the solution to all of our age-old human life problems.

Full Review (spoilers)

The opening scene of M3gan was perhaps the most horrifying for me when I first saw it at my local movie house. Thinking it was yet another bloody tacky advert after the millions I’d already watched, I was soothed and amused when I realised it was a satirical start to what is a very clever and critical film. Beginning with a cheesy and hilarious commercial much like Westworld - another robot-gone-wrong movie – here we are introduced to the competitive arena of toy-dom. There on in the threat of AI and its hurried, irresponsible use to make profit is again explored but here with the added complexities of modern era child-raising.

Thus, from the beginning, we are met with bolt after bolt of sometimes very darkly funny stabs at our increasing dependence on technology and how it seems to have overridden common sense in various scenarios. Even the tragic car accident that kills eight-year-old Cady’s parents at the beginning culminates after a conversation that reveals them to be typically modern, middle class and non-real world existing parents, believing that absence of an electronic device will cause their child to go postal, and reliance on a car that looks like a four-wheel drive will be enough to get them through a dangerous mountain drive through a blizzard.

Even more clueless is Cady’s aunt Gemma, who inherits her niece after the deaths of Cady’s parents. The film frankly depicts Gemma’s ineptitude as a guardian - despite being a toy designer, she barely knows how to communicate with a little girl, even her own niece. In another swipe at the inadequacy of technology as replacement for everything, Gemma has to wait for a bedtime story to download on her smartphone because she doesn’t have any books, but the film also refreshingly brings us an authentic depiction of a woman who is not at all maternal (yes, they do exist). What Gemma and Cady do end up bonding over is Cady’s own drawing efforts and interest in Gemma’s old college project, a robot called Bruce. This in turn inspires Gemma to abandon a less interesting deadline and nail down a prototype she is more passionate about. She works solidly on the life-size doll-robot to produce M3gan, in what she hopes to be a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone effort at driving through an ambitious project at work and also appease her bereaved niece.

M3gan is an instant hit, both with Cady and with Gemma’s boss. Even a sticky moment when Cady breaks down in tears during a display for the board is overcome in style. M3gan turns it around when she successfully consoles Cady and rescues the presentation, proving her/it-self to be even more valuable than anyone expected and sealing the bond even more with Cady.

If a toy being used as replacement for parenting was dubious enough, M3gan goes above and beyond, showing that she is able to do more than any parent. Herein lies a pertinent quandary facing all those responsible for children right now, as the temptation to allow them to learn everything they need to know via the internet can be all too easily given in to. M3gan is inextricably linked to the seductive but impersonal possibilities of the internet – she needs to know everything, always be one step ahead, and, like an algorithm, be constantly adapting to changing human interests. She proves to be hard to keep up with, performing one function one moment before switching to an entirely different one the next in a way that would be deemed psychopathic in a human.

But so goes what would seem to be a perfect arrangement, with Gemma unburdened of caring for her ward, and Cady seemingly flourishing with a new best friend. Linda Hamilton’s observations on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s android in Terminator 2 are called to mind, when she sees her son fall in love with the most reliable father figure a child could have. M3gan takes this role about 50 times further, providing Cady with a companion and tutor as well as a protector. The latter is where things get dangerous, as any harm visited upon Cady creates a major grudge in her new pal’s hard drive. The neighbour’s dog bites Cady so that’s the end of him. But when a hate-filled bully boy gets heavy with Cady at some dastardly open day for an alternative school, things get human-murderous.

Like all of the characters in the film, the over-indulged, violent misogynist in the making that is the bully boy is very well written. If you have been unfortunate enough to have encountered such a type, it will ring some very resonant bells. Left partnered and alone with the boy in the woods, Cady is soon exposed to his rough treatment until M3gan shows up and his attention is diverted. Turning his less than delicate touch on to the doll and lifting up her skirts, naturally he gets way more than he bargained for. The filmmakers don’t mind indulging us in some neatly dark retaliation, as M3gan displays some of her most deliciously deranged moves. From ominous stillness in the cold, misty light of the forest, she takes to all fours and gallops like a rabid animal, a similarly grotesque distortion of a sweet little girl in shades of Regan in The Exorcist.

As with Yul Brynner’s monstrous robot in Westworld, the film creators of M3gan understand the disturbing physicality of a fantasy object made odd by sophisticated physicality that is still visibly unnatural. M3gan is cute in theory but, as with the robots in Westworld, it’s the eyes that first give it away. As expertly as she has been designed, the creators still haven’t got past the dead glass eyes that even the most beloved dolls always have. In true uncanny fashion, M3gan is repeatedly viewed as acceptable and harmless from a distance but unnerving close up. And even when M3gan isn’t behaving badly but doing what she’s supposed to, she can be hilariously weird in a way that only children and fans of modern music will accept, as demonstrated when she comforts Cady with her saccharine rendition of popular song ‘Titanium’. Her perversity is explored to its fullest though when she dances provocatively like a child beauty pageant contestant in front of Gemma’s boss, before slaughtering him mercilessly with a paper cutter (this as well as M3gan’s physicality throughout the film are owed entirely to the exquisite choreography and smart dexterity of Amie Donald, cast to enact the body of M3gan).

Aside from all the fun though, M3gan has significant things to say about the dehumanising aspects of over reliance on technology. Even before she realises how dangerous M3gan is, Gemma recognises that the doll is not helping Cady deal with grief as she had hoped it would. Feeling better is important, but what M3gan and other forms of reality escaping would seem to advocate is an intolerance of suffering at all. In not dealing with the unfortunate essentialism of suffering, Cady finds herself struggling to relate to other human beings. It is also Cady’s prevention from confronting grief that feeds M3gan’s unwieldy impulses, as after all, M3gan is a reactive product that is fuelled by technologically bonding with a child, and said child hasn’t had the chance to develop a mature conception of psychological pain. So it goes, neither does M3gan …

Ultimately and even after the happy ending when all has been taken care of, the film ends with a pointed shot of Gemma’s virtual assistant voice service (something that a lot of people already use in the real world that begins with ‘A’ to give you a clue) as if to warn that we are already on the journey to such disastrous events if we’re not careful …

Westworld (1973)

 

Westworld (1973)

Director: Michael Crichton

Stars: Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin

Short Review, no spoilers

A seminal science fiction film, Westworld came about during a nihilistic time for the genre before a more optimistic generation came crashing in with A New Hope. A stripped-down masterpiece with a hauntingly avant-garde portrayal of a robot from Yul Brynner, the film features groundbreaking effects and paved the way for a variety of influences in the future.

Full Review (spoilers)

Peter Martin : You talk too much.

Robot Gunslinger : You say something, boy?

Peter Martin : I said you talk too much.

Robot Gunslinger : Why don't you make me shut up?

There’s a pleasing irony in this rare piece of speech from Yul Brynner as the Gunslinger in Westworld pertaining to some acting advice Brynner shared with co-star Richard Benjamin. Brynner believed that the less said the better, giving what little is said more impact. This ethos could apply to the style of the film as a whole, which gives us no character detail and not much build up to the action, instead briskly running the viewer through a nightmare that begins satirically and ends violently. As stark and spare as this vision is however, it gave birth to several ideas that were developed in later films, three of which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. Machines turning on humans in The Terminator is the most obvious, but the cheesy commercials for futuristic holiday thrills which involve customers taking on different personas is also very Total Recall. Then there is the visualisation of seeing through the digital eyes of a computer-assisted monster in both Predator and The Terminator. Also in Predator is the use of coloured heat detection to hunt down human prey, and, even in a quite different genre, orchestrated characters who wait frozen until scheduled to act out their false environment is seen very familiarly in The Truman Show.

For sheer ruthlessness in an android, see Brynner’s influence on Terminator 2 and T1000’s terrifyingly frozen expression and efficient body movements. In Westworld, the Gunslinger turns from obedient plaything to menacing assassin, the cowboy swagger with thumbs hitched to gun holster perversely maintained even as he transforms from laconic tough guy to demented hunter, stalking unstoppably after his prey.

If Brynner’s robot performance is successful however, it is also conversely because there are traces of something more than a machine or monster. The Gunslinger is at times somehow melancholic and pitiable - a picture of faded elegance, he’s shot down repeatedly by dumb tourists who ape the epic fantasy that was the Wild West. Brynner’s outfit is exactly the same as the one he wore in his iconic performance from the classic western The Magnificent Seven, a ghostly reminder of past glories. The star persona of Brynner and the robot co-mingle, with the Gunslinger’s wavering, not-quite-human manner of behaviour interacting intriguingly with the enigmatic persona of Brynner himself. All supports the postmodern acknowledgement of fantasy – and particularly, fantastic masculinity - as construct, but there is a sense of tragedy in this. Brynner is visibly older but still compelling, a strong physical presence, but one that is faded and dusty and part of a fake set that is trampled through by credit-card-in-the-air yuppies. It’s like romance dying, replayed over and over each time the Gunslinger is shot dead, something that seems to be confirmed by the director’s decision to film his deaths in slow motion. In giving these moments gravitas, they contrast distinctly with the delighted guffaws of the tourists as they enact the killings. The robots are exploited like slaves, as in Bladerunner. Indeed, there seems to be some reference to this in the name of the holiday park as Delos, the same as an island that in ancient times was the site of the largest slave market in the world.

With old-fashioned reverence for classic movie stars seemingly in the dust, things take a swift turn when the mechanics of the robots begin to malfunction. Refusing to be played back over and over again, the robots break out of the fantasy and destroy the consumers. Like all great sci-fi, it begs questions about humanity, morality, society and culture, and delivers warnings about developing technology too quickly, greedily and irresponsibly … So before AI enthusiasts get excited about sympathy for the robot-devil, see the following:  https://filmstories.co.uk/features/westworld-the-race-to-make-one-of-the-most-important-films-of-the-early-1970s/ - a succinct and fascinating summing up of the making of the film and Crichton’s real intention, which was not anti-technology as such, but anti-corporate greed and its abuses of technology for profit.

 

A Night to Remember (1958)

 

A Night to Remember (1958)

Director: Roy Baker

Stars: Kenneth More, Michael Goodliffe, Laurence Naismith

Short Review, no spoilers

Sometimes the very facts of an incident are tragic enough, requiring no sentimental embellishment or special effects bedazzlement. This is how we find A Night to Remember, a film that documents the notorious sinking of the Titanic in 1912 in detailed and humanistic fashion. We see what happened to the many not the few, with the curious divisions between rich and poor, and women and men, in a manner that draws upon our natural sympathies rather than those manipulated by narrative devices. As briskly edited and broadly attentive to a vast ensemble of characters as the film is, it is far more powerful as a result, and a stand-out of the disaster movie genre.

Full Review (spoilers)

In an early scene of A Night to Remember, the second captain jokes with his wife over a soap advert that is promoted via a link to the Titanic’s voyage to America. A pompous couple sharing the train carriage chastise him for his flippancy, asking if he is either a foreigner or a ‘radical’. This shows the extent of the Titanic as a symbol of national pride and mechanical progress, and is an early hint at what subtly pervades the whole film in terms of social criticism. It is to say that, of the numerous mistakes made, the sociological is a vital point - the promotion of pride, wealth, status and progress embodied in the ship overshadowed the practical and safe planning of a vast ocean voyage transporting two thousand people with ultimately devastating consequences.

From then on, the film flits from scenario to scenario, addressing the all kinds of folk that made up the passengers of the famously ‘unsinkable’ Titanic, from the run-up to boarding before a devastating real time account of the ship’s final hours. We see the coach drawn elite who are bid adieu by common school girls, who are themselves dismissed as merely ensuring their annual Christmas turkey; the homely goodbye between the second captain and his wife; and the farewell party of well-wishers from an Irish village as migrants embark upon a new life in America.

On board, we see the various facets of society as they are placed on the ship – the wealthiest passengers in first and second class, the coal shovellers and poor folk down below, and the rest of the crew including wireless operators and of course the captain, as well as the builder of the ship who still scans construction plans for flaws. The irony of this latter action as well as others is exploited throughout to elicit winces of recognition however, knowing the outcome makes the unfolding of events no less tense or tragic, and perhaps even amplifies our emotional investment.

Perhaps some of the most painful facts pertain to the contrast between the actions of the crew of the Carpathia, a ship with no chance of reaching the Titanic before it would sink but with a captain doing everything possible to assist without hesitation, and those of the Californian, who were far closer by all accounts but who, for whatever reason/s, failed to assist until it was long too late. It is crushing to witness, but the film plays out the tragedy as even-handedly as drama can allow, acknowledging human folly and the horror of a catastrophe made up of a myriad of accidents and errors.

An excellent job is done in terms of effects (filming in black and white likely helped) - artificiality is disguised well and in fact blends impressively with the mostly human-based action that the film revolves around. Translating well the thorough research of the book it is based on, the film uses technical detail as convincing background to the foregrounded play of human nature, keeping the film convincingly authentic without sacrificing compelling drama.

Kenneth More as the second captain is top billing and the closest to a lead hero but ultimately it is very much an ensemble piece. Dignity and level-headedness in dealing with the unfolding crisis also come across inspiringly in the performances of Laurence Naismith as the captain and Michael Goodliffe as the ship builder along with however, a haunted look of responsibility visible in both men. A chef who takes to drink is the closest thing to comedy, although inevitably this comes with an edge of melancholy. Couples and families deal with what is likely to be everlasting separation, while the poor fight to be afforded the chance for survival as the rich bitch peevishly and outrageously until the end, even as the ship goes down in screams. The crew are shown as professionally brave and there is something authentically reassuring in their stoicism, more than in the fantasy swaggering heroism of typical movie life savers. Of course, as a balanced observation of human nature there is also cowardice, but we see it with sadness rather than judgement. The desperation spills over as the ship gives her last gasps, and we witness the lunacy of a fight for survival. There are opposite examples again though - just as one is following the ‘every man for himself’ ethos, he eventually hesitates to help a woman in plight; an elderly man takes a lost child in his arms and holds him until the end; and a violinist in the loneliest of images is rejoined by his fellow musicians to play with him as the ship goes down.

A gripping masterclass in editing and tension building, while keeping a firm grip on the human side of this tragic disaster - don’t bother with that fluffy James Cameron movie, this is far classier stuff.

The Zone of Interest (2023)

 

The Zone of Interest (2023)

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Stars: Christian Friedel, Sandra Huller

Short Review, no spoilers

A quietly devastating, intelligently made window in to the world that was the household of Rudolf Hoss when he and his family lived in immediate proximity to Auschwitz while the commandant was stationed there. The excellent Jonathan Glazer’s aesthetics of distanciation channel Hannah Arendt’s observations on the banality of evil, as we witness the bizarrely ordinary life of a direct participant in some of the worst atrocities ever to be committed by one set of humans on another.

Full Review (spoilers)

The wait for the next Jonathan Glazer film always feels too long but The Zone of Interest marks an exceptional return to cinema screens for the filmmaker. A vital and valuable addition to works of art that take on the horror of the Holocaust, the film zeroes in on the household of Rudolf Hoss as one small aspect of a time and place in history that was utterly shameful in its acceptance of brutality on an unprecedented scale.

There are many ways to take down monsters – they can be defeated as objects of horror and fantasy, ridiculed as objects of comedy, but perhaps the most uncomfortable is to see them as versions of ‘us’. The Zone of Interest doesn’t tell us what we already (should) know, but instead presents us with the disquieting images of a seemingly ordinary family who live as if blissfully unaware of the war crimes occurring over the garden wall of their house. The opening scene is of a family picnic by the river, where at one point, men and women separate. In one of many pointed ironies, we think of the segregation of men and women as they are divided in to groups of those to be killed and those put to work in the most opposite of circumstances. Next, we see Rudolf’s birthday, but the familiarity with SS uniform entwined with cosy family scenes and colleague deference is disorientating, not through farce but through a disturbing realism that depicts a participant in hellish deeds as the upstanding leader and family man he and those surrounding him understood him to be.

In typical style, Glazer delivers powerfully and purely through the aesthetics of film, refreshingly so in a world that increasingly embraces either the dumbed down literal or hollow fantasy. As such, those that understand aren’t patronised and those that don’t are compelled to look deeper. When Rudolf’s wife Hedwig and her female servants and companions receive a sack of dresses and Hedwig tries on a fur coat and lipstick in the privacy of her bedroom, it is presented as just another regular event in the housewife’s life. However, the understanding behind it is enraging in that we know these are belongings pilfered from murdered prisoners. Even worse is a meeting between Rudolf and engineers discussing the construction of a multi-functioning slaughterhouse/incinerator which will eradicate and dispose of beings with the utmost efficiency, conducted as if it were just the latest in factory mass production.

The arrival of Hedwig’s mother presents an interesting perspective of someone biased by her relationship with the Hoss family and compliance with Nazi ideology however, until now, also never in a situation to see its results at such close quarters. It is a standard motherly visit at first, as Hedwig proudly gives a tour of the home and tells her how they’ve decorated it, before walking mother through her treasured garden with all of its colourful fauna and pleasant gazebo to sit in at the end of it. At one point, Hedwig’s mother wonders if the Jewish woman she used to clean for might be over the wall, an observation that is unsettling in its nonchalance but also illuminating in its acknowledgement of a reversal of fortunes that is as wildly oppositional as it is arbitrary. As benignly as mother’s visit begins however, she is seen to be perturbed when she coughs uncomfortably during an evening recline in the garden, and peers worriedly at the flames billowing from the camp from her bedroom window at night. She leaves abruptly in the night with a note for Hedwig, whose resulting humiliation instigates a calmly delivered threat to the Jewish girl servant who unknowingly prepared breakfast for the recently departed house guest.

The most significant disruption for the Hoss’ however, is the order for Rudolf to be transferred, and Hedwig first reveals her brutality when she erupts at a servant at the prospect of having to leave a home and lifestyle that means so much to her. It is moments like this as well as the general sensory experience of watching the film that cleverly and disturbingly threaten to lull the viewer in to tolerating the Hoss family situation, in a manner that uncomfortably acknowledges human vulnerabilities to acceptance of atrocity, a warning that must never stop being repeated. It takes active participation to snap out of it, to remember that this is not right, to recognise the sounds and sights of human suffering even if they are in the background, and to recognise that a mother’s genuine fight for her family’s future is one built on that suffering – her ideal family home next door to a death camp.

Another dark irony is the notion of sacrifice, as in a husband separated from his family and a scene where Rudolf bids an emotional farewell to his beloved horse. As passionately as Hedwig pleads to be allowed to bring her family up where she believes is best, the reality is shown when we see her endlessly crying baby neglected by both mother and nanny, the latter of whom unhappily endures it by swigging from a bottle. It is as if the Hoss baby’s cries have merely melted in to the sounds of anguish that are a constant in this perverse homestead, as well as the lines of ash clouds that linger permanently on the horizon.

Predominantly, we see the Hoss family from a Kubrickian distance, in this case seeing clearly with our eyes but in ways that do not encourage us to empathise emotionally. We see them acting as ordinary people to thwart any hopes that the Hoss’ were uniquely sub-human, fantastical monsters, but at the same time with a distinct effort to withhold sympathetic identification with them. It allows us to look and study and feel without the guilt of complicity, while also enforcing Glazer’s efforts to depict Auschwitz and the house powerfully but not fetishistically. There are also moments in the film that abruptly break with the objective, Big Brother style surveillance of the house when we see scenes of a little girl hiding fruit in the camp at night filmed with a thermal imaging camera. She is a local girl and member of the Polish resistance, her risky efforts seen stylised in black and white in direct contrast to the Hoss house scenes, which were shot in as natural and unembellished a way as possible. This also expresses Glazer’s given intention to film the resistance girl’s scenes as ones of activated efforts, as ones of hope, in direct opposition to the naturally unfettered ‘bleak’ images of colour employed for the daily life of Hoss’ family in Auschwitz.

Added to the overall impressiveness of the film itself is the dedicated research that went in to making it. Glazer is reported to have spent extensive time researching the project, likewise sound designer Johnnie Burn, who embroiled himself in hours spent and hundreds of pages written on how it likely sounded to live in such close vicinity to a notorious death camp. Admirable work indeed and extremely effective as a subtle aural depiction of hell on earth, quiet but unmistakeable and disturbingly constant. In fact, I’ve never been more convinced of a worthy sound award winner before so here’s hoping he can add an Oscar to his recently received Bafta.

Although clearly a brilliantly constructed film, the film is also indelibly touched by reality. Most movingly is the true story behind the Polish resistance girl, which is well worth looking in to. The final scenes seem to touch on the relationship between present and past, and between fiction and documentary, when Rudolf descends a staircase pausing between abrupt bouts of vomiting, and then stares down a dark corridor. His gaze is directed at the camera, the viewer, and then the film cuts disorientatingly to present day scenes of cleaners in what is now the Auschwitz museum. It is a disarming and open-ended conclusion but notably even more banal than the Hoss house scenes. A warning perhaps? Beware the banality of evil, the evidence of suffering on a disastrous scale becoming everyday objects. Or perhaps remembering that what were once everyday objects to the poor victims have been preserved in the museum to remember how horrifically their meaning was transformed by genocide. Either way, Jonathan Glazer’s immense effort at capturing just a piece of what is an overwhelmingly tragic piece of human history is welcome, important and exceptionally well made.

 

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

 

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Director: David O. Russell

Stars: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker

Short Review, no spoilers

If you - as I was when I finally forced myself to watch this film – are cynical about how well Hollywood treats the subject of mental illness, as well as the talent and likeability of Bradley Cooper and/or Jennifer Lawrence, I implore you to watch this film. Thankfully and for once, there is humour that isn’t mocking, frankness without tragedy, and a lack of oversimplification or cliché. And the chemistry between the two leads is a delight.

Full Review (spoilers)

Finally, a movie that is sympathetic to the experience of mental illness, and a mainstream Hollywood one at that. Also, one that celebrates the ordinary rather than the freakish, and one where the comic and the tragic is balanced well. There is poignancy in the strained but loving relations between norms and sufferers, as well as acknowledgement of the humorous irony of the banal and absurd often brought together in experiences of mental illness. Like Pat’s parents’ puzzlement at his wearing of a garbage bag, and the friend from the psychiatric unit who obsesses about his hairline, all is addressed the same and sometimes it’s funny but not cruelly or patronisingly, only merely part of the busy mosaic that is a sufferer’s ‘normal.’

Bradley Cooper’s believable and charming performance as Pat provides a welcome portrayal of a young man with mental illness that isn’t a stereotype but a regular guy who loves football and Metallica. When Pat meets Tiffany, (Jennifer Lawrence) a young woman struggling with the death of her husband, they bond over medications and a shared experience of not fitting in. Although perhaps unrealistic at times – it seems wholly ill-advised to play along with one of a sufferer’s chief concerns in the way that Pat is encouraged to – it’s movie-forgivable in the context of the building romance between Pat and Tiffany.

The humour and life lessons are not for the sufferers only and there is great satisfaction in Pat’s recognition of the comparative troubles of his relatives and friends. Pat advises his friend to get help for himself when he confides marital problems to him, and calls out his father’s own compulsions over remote controls – “That’s OCD, that’s crazy.” Showing that angst and weird behaviour is all part of a spectrum, the film also highlights how the diagnosed are forced to accept these issues in themselves while apparent norms think they’re above such quandaries or try to bury them.

A great deal of the success of Silver Linings Playbook is owed to a complimentary collection of sensitively delivered performances that also have enough bite to prevent over-sentimentality. Robert De Niro as Pat’s dad is particularly worthy of mention, displaying in one particular scene a disarming and heartbreaking vulnerability rarely seen in the legendary tough guy. I would go as far as to say it is one of his best and deserved an Oscar.

In keeping things matter-of-fact and not melodramatic or cartoonish, the build-up and finale of a dance contest provides the happy ending that pleasingly celebrates being average – literally. Tiffany is a good but amateur dancer who teaches beginner Pat to partner her in a contest, something she never got to do with her husband, and with the promise of delivering a letter to Pat’s estranged wife in exchange. Avoiding a spectacular zero to hero denouement, we are merely presented with creativity over professionalism, as the couple perform an exhilarating and eclectic mix of styles choreographed by Tiffany. This includes a rock out to Fell in Love with a Girl by The White Stripes and a cheeky and unconventionally intimate clinch on the end of a lift. Seeing them pull it off is a joy in itself, but this is doubled when they all wildly celebrate a perfectly average score of 5s all round – the numbers needed to win a bet that would finance Pat’s father’s restaurant enterprise. The audience and other contestants naturally look bewildered, unaware that sometimes striving for what seems to be merely average is more valuable than you could imagine.