Tag Archives: cinema

First Québec Cinema Showcase for London

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Following the international success of Québécois films including Monsieur Lazhar (Philippe Falardeau), Incendies (Denis Villeneuve) and Café de Flore (Jean-Marc Vallée), a showcase of new cinema from Québec will take place for the first time in London at the Institut Français, South Kensington (2-4 November).

Québec Cinema Showcase is part of the 50th anniversary celebrations marking the opening of the Québec Government Office in London. The programme of five feature-length films and four shorts will present some of Québec’s finest and most recent cinematic offerings, including the latest work from award-winning director, 23-year-old Xavier Dolan, Laurence Anyways.

Québec Cinema Showcase will open with the UK premiere of Ken Scott’s massive box office hit comedy Starbuck (2 November).  Veteran comedy actor Patrick Huard plays David Wozniak, a 40-something delivery man whose life is out of control. But things are worse than he thinks. In his twenties, David was a prolific sperm donor to help pay the bills but the past comes back to haunt him when nearly 150 of his more than 500 offspring, now young adults, collectively take court action for their right to know the identity of their father. The film has been so successful – Canada’s biggest domestic hit in 2011 taking $3.5 million at the box office – that Scott has been asked to direct the US remake starring Vince Vaughn for Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studios. Starbuck is on general release in the UK from November 23.

Laurence Anyways (3 November) is the latest offering from Cannes award-winning director Xavier Dolan, (I Killed My Mother, Heartbeats). Dolan’s success continued in 2012 at the Cannes Film Festival when Laurence Anyways’ female lead, Suzanne Clément, won best actress in the festival’s “Un certain regard” category and the film was awarded the Queer Palm. Laurence Anyways also won the award for Best Canadian Feature Film at Toronto International Film Festival 2012. Dolan made his Cannes debut with I Killed My Mother, a film he made in his teens, resulting in an eight-minute standing ovation and three awards in the Directors’ Fortnight section in 2009. Spanning a decade, Laurence Anyways tells the story of a couple who are passionately in love. But when Laurence (Melvil Poupard) announces to girlfriend Fred (Suzanne Clément) on his 30th birthday that he wants to live as a woman, the consequences are tumultuous – and unexpected.  Laurence Anyways screened at the BFI London Film Festival on 11 and 12 October and is on general release in UK cinemas from 30 November.

“The Québec Government Office in London takes pride in witnessing Québec cinema’s current popularity worldwide. We are delighted to welcome the first edition of the Québec Cinema Showcase as part of our 50-year anniversary celebrations marking the opening of our London office,” says Pierre Boulanger, Agent-General of the Québec office in London.

Other films in the programme include Karakara from Claude Gagnon (3 November), a Canadian/Japanese co-production which follows Pierre (Gabriel Arcand), a retired professor in his early sixties who goes on a short, unsettling trip around Okinawa in Japan with Junko (Youki Kudoh), a 40-year-old runaway wife. Bestiary (Bestiaire) from Denis Côté (4 November) is an intriguing documentary which reflects on human fascination with animals.  Behind Closed Doors (Catimini) from Nathalie Saint-Pierre (4 November), the final film in the Québec Cinema Showcase, is a touching story about a reunion between four girls living under the care of the child protection services.

Across the weekend there will be director Q&As: Claude Gagnon, on Saturday, 3 November after the screening of Karakara and Nathalie Saint-Pierre on Sunday, 4 November after Behind Closed Doors.

Cinema from Québec is currently enjoying the international spotlight with two films – Incendies and Monsieur Lazhar – shortlisted for best foreign language Oscars in the past two years, as well as a BAFTA nomination for Incendies. Québécois director, Jean-Marc Vallée’s Café de Flore starring Vanessa Paradis, has also garnered critical acclaim. Earlier this month (October) at the Raindance Film Festival – Europe’s leading independent film festival – a number of films were screened in a special Québec Strand and Laurentie by directors Mathieu Denis and Simon Lavoie scooped Best International Feature.

François Macerola, President and CEO of SODEC, Québec’s development agency for cultural enterprises added: “For many years, the international market’s interest in Québec cinema and its filmmakers has grown considerably.  New audiences and new possibilities have allowed films from Québec, and our filmmakers’ vision to cross borders, thanks to events such as the Québec Cinema Showcase in London.”

 

Tickets for Québec Cinema Showcase are £10 (conc £8) and are available from the Institut Français website (https://www.institut-francais.org.uk/book)

Québec Cinema Showcase is an extension of the marketplace event Cinema du Québec a Paris which is celebrating its 16th year (6-11 November). Québec Cinema Showcase is also part of the 20th French Film Festival UK, which will present a selection of the best shorts from Québec in Glasgow and Edinburgh . (http://frenchfilmfestival.org.uk/FFF2012/wp/)

 

Québec Cinema Showcase has been organised by the Québec Government Office in London, with the support of SODEC and the Ministry of Culture and Communications, in collaboration with the Institut Français in London and the French Film Festival UK.

The Québec Government Office in London’s cultural services implements market development initiatives for artists and cultural industries from Québec.

For more information:
www.quebec.org.uk
www.sodec.gouv.qc.ca
www.mcc.gouv.qc.ca
www.institut-francais.org.uk
www.frenchfilmfestival.org.uk

 

Starbuck 
Dir: Ken Scott 2011 – 109 mins
Friday 2 November, 8.15pm

The biggest Canadian box office hit in 2011, Ken Scott’s comedy Starbuck follows a likeable middle-aged loser as he wrestles with regret and responsibility. Hapless deliveryman David Wozniak (Patrick Huard) gets parking tickets at every stop along his route, has thugs on his tail for massive overdue loans, and his girlfriend tells him she’s pregnant just before dumping him. These are the least of David’s concerns, however, when he returns home to find a lawyer in his kitchen. The past comes back to haunt him in the form of a class-action lawsuit launched by 142 of the 533 children who resulted from sperm donations he deposited over 20 years ago.

Starbuck will be preceded by Demoni, a short directed by Theodore Ushev.

 

Karakara  
Dir: Claude Gagnon 2012 – 101 mins
Saturday 3 November, 5pm

Gabriel Arcand plays Pierre, a retired professor in his early sixties who has decided to renounce sex and achieve spiritual peace until Junko (Youki Kudoh), a  40-year-old Japanese housewife arrives on his doorstep seeking refuge from her abusive husband. They end up making a short, unsettling trip around Okinawa, Japan, together. Though the confused intellectual would rather not get involved with this unlikely and unexpected lover, he decides to follow his destiny, wherever it may take him.

Karakara will be preceded by Anata O Korosu, a short directed by Phillipe David Gagné and Jean-Marc E. Roy

Laurence Anyways 
Dir: Xavier Dolan 2012 – 159 mins
Saturday 3 November, 7.30pm

The third Cannes award-winning film by 23-year-old writer-director Xavier Dolan (Heartbeats, I Killed My Mother), Laurence Anyways follows the story of Laurence and Fred, his girlfriend – a couple passionately in love who attempt to sustain their relationship and fight the prejudices of their family, friends and society when Laurence turns 30 and can no longer deny his desire to be a woman.  Winning two awards at Cannes including Best Actress in the festival’s “Un certain regard” category for Suzanne Clément and the Queer Palm and, as well as the award for Best Canadian Feature Film at Toronto International Film Festival 2012.he film had its UK premiere at this year’s BFI London Film Festival on 11 and 12 October.

Bestiaire ( Bestiary)

Dir: Denis Côté 2012 – 72 mins
Sunday 4 November, 4.15pm

The documentary explores the fascination humans have for animals, combining footage from a drawing class, a taxidermist’s workshop and a Québec safari park. The poet, essayist and naturalist Diane Ackerman has reflected on animal parks as venues for the discovery of interspecies shared identity, but also as places where humans focus “on the lives of other creatures to dispel the usual mind theatres that plague us.” Those notions are challenged as often as they are reinforced in Denis Côté’s soberly beautiful Bestiaire, but exact conclusions are left for the viewer to form.

Bestiaire will be preceded by Tout va Mieux (Everything is alright) a short directed by Robin Aubert.

Catimini (Behind Closed Doors)  
Dir: Nathalie Saint-Pierre 2012 – 112 mins
Sunday 4 November, 6.30pm

Four girls are living under the care of child protection services: Cathy, six-years-old, arrives in a new foster family, the Bilodeaus; 12-year-old Keyla is transferred into a group home for teenage girls; Mégane, a rebellious 16-year-old, ends up in a detention centre in late winter; on her 18th birthday, Manu leaves her youth centre and moves into her first apartment. In the hope of reconnecting with the few people that have meant something to her, Manu attends a reception honouring the Bilodeaus, one of her former foster families. She bumps into Keyla and Cathy, and ends up hanging out with Mégane. It proves to be a reunion that no-one will forget anytime soon. Behind Closed Doors won the Valois d’or prize at the fifth festival of francophone cinema in Angoulême.

Behind Closed Doors will be preceded by Ina Litovski, a short directed by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette and Andre Turpin.

 

Frost Loves…Sofia Coppola

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Sofia Coppola- Icon.

She may never be completely separated from that surname (would she want to be?) but she sure is doing a good enough job of making a name for herself in spite of, not because of, dads, brothers, cousins or aunts.

Her style, her photography and her beautiful films are uniquely hers. They waft of her. Her sensitivity and quiet forcefulness. She has won over James wood and Bill Murray. As well as countless other critics and movie fans. No mean feat. She won an Best Writer, Original screenplay Oscar for Lost in Translation in 2003.

I remember seeing a short film she made called ‘lick the star’ and thinking this woman is going places. I raved about her to anyone who would listen. Her last film, Somewhere, was a very European film. Nothing really happened apart from human emotion.

There was always her photography, which was in, amongst other magazines, Nova and Allure. Her clothing range Milk Fed, and then there was the High Octane series for comedy central with her good friend Zoë Cassavetes, her appearances in music videos such as the Chemical Brothers (her favourite band), Elektrobank which was directed by then boyfriend now ex-husband Spike Jonze. In the video Sofia plays a gymnast. She is directing her own music videos now. Who can forget her video for the white stripes ‘I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself.’ In which she persuaded Kate Moss (another friend) to pole dance in a black bikini? All shot in black and white.

Her association with Marc Jacobs (she is his muse. Even having one of his bags named after her and starring in his advertisements. ) As well as other creative talent, she seems to be at the centre of a new creative movement. A movement which also includes such people as Wes Anderson, Lance Acord, her ex-husband Spike Jonze, Zoë Cassavetes, Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Tamra Davis who is married to Mike Diamond and gave Spike Jonze his first breaks and her brother Roman, who directed his own film CQ in 200, which Sofia appeared in. It all seems to tie together from person to person.

She was born in 1971 and baptized into cinema as a baby boy in The Godfather and said recently that she remembers parts of her life more by which movie they were than anything else. Sofia and her two brothers, Gio,who tragically died in a boating accident when she was 15, leaving behind a daughter Gia and fiancée Jacqueline de la fontaine (Who went on to marry Peter Getty and is now divorcing him and wants $300,000 a month maintenance after she found a full frontal picture of a neighbour on his computer), and Roman (who is one of the new wave of music video directors and also writes and directs his own films), traveled around with mum, Eleanor a documentary director, and dad, Francis as he worked on his movies.

Movies of cinematic greatness like The Conversation, Apocalypse Now and the Godfathers all of which Sofia was in. more prominently in Godfather III for which she was unfairly lambasted by critics with a unrelenting harshness which seems to have lasted, if only to a slightly lesser degree to this day.

This is why Sofia Coppola inspires me. Why I describe her as an icon. She is herself she makes no excuses. Yes her surnames Coppola take it or leave it and she does not pretend to be one of the boys, does not yell. She gets what she wants the way she wants. She has survived a hell of a lot. Was vilified in public and came up to prove them all wrong with sheer talent, guts and determination. It is because she has her own influential style, because she has conquered. Because she is talented and unique and a true artist and even more importantly. She proved all the bastards wrong.

Sofia is 40 now. Has two children and recently married Thomas Mars, of hip band Phoenix, in a celebrity studded wedding in Italy. She is still a fashion icon, still making movies.

Sofia Coppola is definitely one to watch. As she may yet become one of the most prominent and influential directors of our time.

Have You Seen… Five Documentaries to Seek Out (Part Three)

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Charles Rivington asks the immortal question: Do all dogs go to heaven?

 

I stated way back in part one that I was going to present this list in no particular order. Having said that I have saved my favourite feature length documentary by my favourite documentarian for last and written so much about it that I’ve had to give it an article in its own right. Oh well…

 

Gates of Heaven (1978)

 

Throughout the first two parts of this three-part article and through these four brilliant films, I have touched on some very challenging issues: war, mental illness and suicide, child molestation and the disintegration of a family, the birth of the movies. It therefore might seem somewhat anti-climatic, perhaps even rather disrespectful to have as my final entry a film about pet cemeteries. Surely a documentary about people batty enough to spend large amounts of money giving Fido a proper burial can only ever be mildly amusing (in a sort of ‘ha ha, she thinks he’s people’ kind of a way) or perhaps even just a bit pathetic. Surely, it can’t be one of the greatest and most profound works about mortality, loneliness and the human condition ever made, right?

 

Wrong. Errol Morris’ Gates of Heaven is, quite simply and quite literally, an incredible film. It’s the sort of film you could watch every day for the rest of your life and it would still be deeply rewarding. Throughout this article I’ve touched on what I believe makes a great documentary and I’ve suggested two things. Firstly, I’ve stated that a great documentary should be impartial and force the audience to form their own judgements

An enthusiastic pet owner.

without telling them what to think.  Because of Morris’ unobtrusive style and the fact that he lets his subjects speak for themselves and is neither nor seen nor heard throughout the entire film (Michael Moore could certainly learn from him), Gates of Heaven does this so effectively that that at any given moment of the film one section of the audience might be in tears while another suppresses giggles. Secondly, I have suggested that the great documentary will often take a subject and use it as a springboard to touch upon much broader or challenging themes. Gates of Heaven is a movie about freaking pet cemeteries that deals head on with humankind’s most terrifying and impossible question: that of its own mortality and solitude. This is truly the stuff of genius. It is one of the greatest documentaries of all time, by one of the greatest documentarians of all time and quite frankly one of the greatest films of all time. It’s also one of my favourites.

 

     Gates of Heaven takes as its inspiration the story of the exhumation and transportation of 450 pets from one cemetery to another. This fascinating and odd story is used to shape the film, which is structurally little more than a series of talking heads, into two halves. The first of these focuses on the story of Floyd “Mac” McClure, a paraplegic man who had dreamt of building a pet cemetery after the death of his childhood dog, and uses interviews with pet owners and investors in order to explore how his dream briefly became a reality. Particularly memorable interviewees include Mac’s rival, the owner of the local rendering plant who attempts to defend his unglamorous profession to hilarious effect, and a woman who holds conversations with her dog.  Most of Morris’ subjects have their eccentricities, and the film is not short of humour, but he has a unique skill for looking beyond these to the humanity below, frequently unearthing

Devastating

accounts of loss and loneliness. The story of the failure of Mac’s cemetery is a particularly resonant example of these and the tragedy of the matter is that this compassionate man was unable to translate his dream and his passion into a workable business.  It is a tragedy that occurs daily but that does not make it any less heart breaking and I imagine that it will resonate with many people, perhaps even more so now than in 1978. The final shot of Mac sitting in his wheelchair under a willow tree, surveying the former site of his failed cemetery is entirely devastating, a perfect, wordless evocation of loneliness and despair and a prime example of Morris’s subtle and unobtrusive early style.

 

 

Florence Rasmussen sits on her stoop.

At the film’s centre, acting as a kind of transitional moment between the two distinct halves, is a monologue by an elderly woman named Florence Rasmussen. It is truly one of the most bizarre, moving and hilarious few minutes of any film I have ever seen. Sitting on her stoop outside her house, which overlooks Mac’s cemetery, this fascinating woman recounts her baffling life story in short bursts, constantly contradicting herself as she attempts to explain her troubled relationship with her son. In another’s hands this might have come across as exploitative or condescending and it is abundantly clear that Rasmussen could easily have been mocked as a stereotypical madwoman. Morris’ camera however does not judge, merely records and the entire film is mercifully devoid of any cruel reality tv editing or Louis Theroux-style winks to the audience. Instead Florence is allowed to speak for herself and the result is a frustrating, funny and ultimately sad meditation on one woman’s delusion and loneliness. It is a stunning monologue and one that, as Roger Ebert states, ‘William Faulkner or Mark Twain would have wept with joy to have created.’ And yet, it is reality. It is reality, in its most pure, unedited and unscripted form. Sometimes real life truly is stranger than fiction.

 

 

A funeral at Bubbling Wells

The film’s focus then moves to The Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park, which is run by the Harberts family. Patriarch Cal is a lot more ambitious and business savvy than Mac but shares his compassion for animals and has even built a church in order to celebrate God’s love for pets. His wife Scottie shares this view stating that, ‘God is not going to say, well, you’re walking in on two legs, you can go in. You’re walking in on four legs, we can’t take you.’ Although clearly successful in their business endeavours, the Harbarts family also harbours some unhappiness and this is particularly obvious in their sons Danny and Philip who both left their other lives (college and a job as an insurance salesman) to come back to the family business.

 

 

A bereaved couple reminisces in Gates of Heaven

There is one moment from this second half of the film that never fails to move me: a long silent montage of the headstones at Bubbling Well. If I had seen it on it’s own without the benefit of the rest of the film, I admit that it would probably have left me cold and it is true that some of the inscriptions are at first glance rather trite, silly even (‘God spelled backwards is dog’ etc). However after 80 minutes spent in the company of animal lovers and grieving pet owners and hearing them express their loneliness and grief, these inscriptions become a profound articulation of a universal and fundamental need for companionship and love. One of them reads ‘I knew love: I knew this Dog’ while another simply reads ‘For saving my life’. It is clear that there are stories behind each of these inscriptions, heart-breaking, heart-warming stories behind every headstone, stories about what it means to be alive, what it means to love and what it means to experience profound loss. They are stories about what it means to be human. Gates of Heaven merely touches on a few of these stories and in doing so it earns its place as one of the greatest documentary films of all time.

 

 

Gates of Heaven is currently available on DVD as part of ‘The Errol Morris Collection’ box set along with Vernon, Florida and The Thin Blue Line, which are both excellent.

 

 

 

Have You Seen… Five Documentaries To Seek Out (Part Two)

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This is the second part of my list of five documentaries that I love and hope that you will discover and love too. The first part, in which I lurch from historical curios to sexual fetishes and underground comics, can be found here: Part One.

 

The Sorrow and The Pity (1969)

 

Perhaps due to its appearance as an anti-date movie in Annie Hall, Marcel Ophuls’ The Sorrow and The Pity is often unfairly relegated to the punch line of jokes about gruelling and dull ways to spend an evening. It’s true that Ophuls’ film is a pretty mammoth undertaking but for those willing to persevere it can also be an immensely rewarding one. Filmed in 1969 (although not released until 1981 due to objections from the French government) and clocking in at a mammoth 251 minutes, Le chagrin et la pitié (to give it its French title) is an in-depth look at the behavior of the inhabitants of the French town of Clermont-Ferrand during Nazi occupation.

 

In a sense The Sorrow and the Pity could almost be watched as a companion piece to Albert Camus’

A striking poster for the film.

powerful1947 novel La Peste, which deals with the same subject by using disease as a metaphor for occupation and I will admit that having this book in the back of my mind certainly helped me clarify my experience of this gargantuan film. There is a famously enigmatic quote at the end of this novel, ‘What we learn in time of pestilence [is] that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.’ It is The Sorrow and The Pity’s inability to either confirm or deny this statement that makes it so compelling and the audience is forced to try (and fail) to make the moral judgments that the film so stubbornly avoids.

 

     The Sorrow and The Pity is split into two parts. The first of these, entitled The Collapse focuses on the French Resistance and particularly on Pierre Mendès-France, a Jewish political figure who was a key member of this group. The second, entitled The Choice, presents us with the other side of the coin recounting the story of Nazi collaboration particularly that of Christian de la Mazière, a member of the upper classes who fought under the banner of Fascism. As well as these key figures and other well-known persons (including British primeminister Anthony Eden), Ophuls also spoke with the ordinary townspeople who were faced with the impossible choice of collaboration or resistance. This puts a very human face on this grueling situation and by the film’s close you really do feel as if you have lived among these haggard, corrupt, heroic and deeply relatable people in their little town of Clermont-Ferrand. Perhaps the most remarkable and uncomfortable thing about the film is it’s lack of moral judgments particularly given the film’s relative proximity (just over twenty years) to the events it describes. Anthony Eden provides us with perhaps the most useful way of processing this when he states that, ‘One who has not suffered the horrors of an occupying power has no right to judge a nation that has.’ By the end of The Sorrow and The Pity it is impossible to argue with him and we realize that this is perhaps the closest we’ll get to an understanding of Camus’ inscrutable sentiment.

 

The Sorrow and the Pity is currently available on region 2 DVD and is well worth setting aside time to watch.

 

 

Capturing the Friedmans (2004)

 

The Friedmans celebrate during happier times.

Arnold and Elaine Friedman and their three sons were pretty much your archetypal middle class family living in a small town in upstate New York in the 1980s. He was an upbeat and well-liked teacher who ran a computer class out of their basement while she was a hardworking housewife whose rather serious demeanour made her the butt of her husband and three sons’ high-spirited jokes. Like many upwardly mobile families of the period, their favourite pastime was recording their mundane yet happy lives on their personal video camera (a relatively new innovation at this time).  They were content, down to earth and almost aggressively normal, like a Jewish 80s Cleavers. All this came crashing down in November 1987 when their typical suburban house was raided after Arnold was accused of molesting several children in his computer class. Extraordinarily, the family did not give up their beloved hobby and continued to record every tense discussion and blistering argument on videotape as more and more allegations were made, son Jesse was accused and their family began to disintegrate.

 

Andrew Jarecki’s Capturing the Friedmansassembles this startling footage and intercuts it with interviews

The accusations tore the family apart

with the family, police and victims. What makes the films so gripping is that it is cast in the mould of a thriller with each new piece of evidence or witness testimony contradicting something that the audience had earlier been convinced was fact. The result of this is that you are never really sure of anything except the truly subjective nature of truth and, by the film’s close, it is almost impossible to make any definitive judgements about Arnold and, to a larger degree, Jesse’s guilt. This style is undoubtedly effective and makes the film breathtakingly gripping. However, its moral implications have opened it up to some justified criticism and it is hard to watch the film in the same way now that news has emerged that Jarecki (who had previously declared himself to be impartial) actually funded Jesse Friedman’s appeal.

 

What earns Capturing the Friedmans a place on this list though is it’s unique, self-documented insight into a family in turmoil; the way each family member deals with the traumatic events is a master class in psychology and it is staggering to consider why on earth they chose to film themselves going through this horrible ordeal. Elaine Friedman is perhaps the most fascinating character in this respect, the seemingly emotionally fenced-off wife who was oblivious to her husband and son’s crimes. She is also arguably the most sympathetic of the Friedmans and it is heartbreaking to watch as her family continues to favour their father, frequently taking sides against Elaine even after he is prosecuted for the most despicable crimes. A great documentarian will often start with one subject and allow it to develop organically into something entirely different. This is certainly the case with this film, which started out life when Jarecki interviewed son David Friedman, who is a clown by profession, for a documentary he was making on children’s entertainers in New York City. That this light-hearted film spawned  Capturing The Friedmans is as intriguing as it is darkly ironic.

 

Capturing The Friedman’s is currently available on Region 2 DVD and come with a wealth of special features including Jarecki’s ‘Just a Clown’, the documentary on New York clowns that introduced him to David Friedman, and a wealth of documents (including a psychologist’s assessment of the victims) which are provided as DVD-Rom content.

 

Read Part 3, in which I discuss my favourite feature length documentary.

Charles Rivington can be followed on Twitter at @crivington.

Have You Seen… Five Documentaries To Seek Out (Part One)

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   In a special three part ‘Have You Seen…’, Charles Rivington explains that reality does not necessarily bite…

 

Reality is a dirty word. With the recent tragic suicide of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member Russell Armstrong hitting headlines, the debate about the cruelty of so-called ‘reality’ television has once again captured public imagination. I’m not here to debate the culpability of the show but there is a well-known saying that suggests, and I’m paraphrasing, that every innovation or new piece of technology, even those conceived with the best of intentions, will eventually be used to bring mankind one step closer to destruction. In a sense, this is exactly what happened to the documentary genre when its techniques and style were first appropriated, bastardised and reduced to their most shallow and cruel form by the reality tv docu-soap. I believe that, now more than ever, we should learn to value, appreciate and celebrate reality again, not Bravo’s ‘reality’ but the unscripted, impartial and thought-provoking reality of cinema’s great documentaries. This edition of ‘Have You Seen…’ is therefore a little bit different as, rather than focusing on one film, I have decided to focus on a genre, that of feature-length documentaries. Due to its length, I have split it into three parts.

 

The documentary genre  is as old as cinema itself and almost everything you can imagine has been the subject of a documentary film.  Narrowing this vast category down to a definitive ‘five greatest’ would thus be pretty much impossible not to mention entirely redundant given the subjectivity of this criteria (how do we define greatness? Is my great the same as your great and is your great the same as Leonard Maltin’s great? Probably not.). Having said this, I do believe that a great documentary, regardless of whether its subject is penguins or the Second World War or a spelling competition, should challenge its viewers and force them to consider an idea or a point of view that might never have occurred to them. Whereas the great documentary-maker simply observes and questions without judgement, the great documentary connects with the audience by insisting that they think for themselves, forcing them to evolve from passive observers to active participants. This list is simply five films that did that to me.

 

I've heard great things about Hoop Dreams

I have limited the field to just feature length films (no Attenborough here I’m afraid) and excluded films that I think most people have already seen and therefore don’t fall under the remit of ‘Have You Seen…’ (Bowling For Columbine and Man on Wire for example are both wonderful films but are excluded for this reason).  I should probably still apologise in advance because I am bound to have omitted one of your personal favourites either because I don’t share your opinion or because I simply haven’t seen it yet (Hoop Dreams, often regarded as one of the greatest documentaries of all time, is omitted from this list for the simple reason that I’ve never watched it). These five films are presented in no particular order. Feel free to disagree/put forward your own suggestions/advertise a dating website for rich singles in the comments below.

 

The Early Actualities of the Lumière Brothers (1895)

 

Having spent quite a bit of time defining the rules for this list, I have gone and broken at least one of them in the first entry because this is not one film, but rather a collection of one-reel films – the first ten of which were debuted at the Grand Café in Paris in 1895. It is also arguable the extent to which they are documentaries as given their short length (one-reel is usually less than a minute) it seems that most of them were probably at least partly choreographed and the comic L’Arroseur Arrosé (The Sprinkler Sprinkled) is often hailed as the first narrative film. Regardless of this, they are remarkable records of a bygone age and are therefore more than worthy of mention.

 

Filmed in their hometown of Lyon, Auguste and Louis Lumière’s fascinating actualities, among the first films ever made, give us an unparallelled glimpse at the lives of the French working class at the turn of the century. Among these first ten are La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon)

The Lumiere Brothers

and Les Forgerons (The Blacksmiths). Their depiction of the working class, and the fact that they were screened to audiences of all backgrounds, makes them as much a document and engine (pun intended) of social change as they are the remarkable first gasps of an emerging technology. Of course, at the time, the draw of these films was the amazing technology on display and the Lumière’s cinématographe, a device that recorded, developed and projected films, was the real star. These early audiences, used to the flat painted backgrounds of the stage, were particularly impressed by the capturing of nature on film and it is said that the popularity of films such as Repas de bébé (Baby’s Breakfast, which featured Auguste’s own family thus making it the first home movie) owed more to the movement of the leaves in the background than to the film’s charming subject matter.  Because of this, this early, pre-narrative period of cinema is often referred to as ‘The Cinema of Attractions’  (a term coined by film scholar Tom Gunning). Nowadays, the opposite is true and it is these actualities’ remarkable depiction of every day life in France at the turn of the century that makes them so fascinating.

 

For a set of ‘local films for local people’ featuring an interesting look at British life during a similar, slightly later period, check out Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon’s actualities which were often filmed and projected on the same day and feature many other entries into the ‘factory-gate’ subgenre.

 Both the Lumière Brothers and Mitchell and Kenyon films are currently available on DVD. As they are out of copyright, they can also be legally watched online for free and are relatively easy to find.

 Crumb (1994)

Part of my fascination with the documentary genre lies in its wonderful breadth. Anything from pet cemeteries to the horror of war to cave paintings to parrots, when handled in the right way can make, and have made, incredible documentaries. That this list’s second entry should be so wildly far-removed from its first is a testament to this breadth and I make no apologies for the jarring shift in tone. I can’t begin to imagine what the Lumières and Mitchell and Kenyon would have made of Terry Zwigoff’s moving and shocking Crumb, a film apparently so depraved that the 1996 Academy Award nominating committee switched it off after only 20 minutes, but I like to think that, unlike the prudish Oscar snobs, they would have persevered and recognised it as a worthy and spellbinding entry into the genre they helped to create.

 

     Crumb is very hard to describe and like the best documentaries doesn’t tell you how you should respond to it so that laughter, tears and repulsion are all equally valid reactions. It takes as its subject Robert Crumb, the

A self-portrait of R. Crumb. He's not kidding either...

subversive comic artist most famous for creating Fritz the Cat, the counter-cultural slogan, ‘Keep on Truckin’’ and a myriad of other works that were at the forefront of the underground comics movement of the 1960s. I have to admit that I was wholly unfamiliar with Crumb’s work before I saw this film (I only sought it out because I’d seen and loved Zwigoff’s rather more mainstream, Ghost World) and even now I’m not sure if I can say that I actually like his drawings with their garishly warped figures and often challenging and unsettling depictions of women and African Americans. However, as is the case with many great documentaries, the ostensible subject is merely a way in to much richer territory and the heart of Crumb lies not in these drawings (although their geneses are often as fascinating as they are disturbing) but in the man himself and his bizarre and tragic family, most notably his disturbed and equally artistic brothers, Maxon, who developed a penchant for sitting on nails and sexually harassing women, and Charles, a recluse who committed suicide before the film was released.

 

Featuring various interviews with family members, friends, critics and ex-girlfriends as well as his surprisingly well-adjusted wife and daughter, Crumb paints a picture of an intelligent and sensitive man who escaped a

Robert Crumb and friends

horrible childhood and went on to find salvation through art when others around him who were not as lucky.  Crumb is a disturbing yet frequently amusing portrayal of mental illness and people on the fringes of the society that is frequently depressing but also strangely relatable. Crumb himself is a tapestry of quirks and odd sexual fetishes. As a young child he developed an attraction to Bugs Bunny to the extent that he would carry a picture of the cartoon rabbit around with him, periodically taking it out to look at it and much of the film deals with his life-long obsession with women with disproportionately large hindquarters. Despite these quirks Robert Crumb emerges as an oddly charming character whose quiet sense of humour and bafflement and disgust at the world around him is remarkably sympathetic, perhaps even inspirational.

 

Needless to say, Crumb is unsuitable for children and the prudish but if you can stomach it, it is a very rewarding experience. It is currently available on Region 2 DVD (annoyingly this print does not feature the fantastic Roger Ebert commentary that is available to our American cousins, so if you watch the film and like it – and have a region free DVD player – the Region 1 DVD is well-worth seeking out for this alone).

 

Coming Soon… Part 2!

Prose & Cons: A Melancholic Comedy

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After the success of Bridesmaids, a new wave of films with strong female characters are hitting cinema screens. Prose & Cons is a black, melancholic comedy set in the world of artistic frustration and writers block.

Sarah [Played by Catherine Balavage] is one of the new waves of poets. Her book sold millions of copies, but now she hasn’t written anything for over 160 days, and her publisher is getting restless. After an ultimatum from her publisher, and a horrendous poetry reading that went viral on twitter and YouTube, Sarah becomes increasingly desperate for new material. Her actions have far-reaching consequences that will change the lives of all of those around her.

Directed by Richard Wright and produced and written by Richard and Catherine; Prose & Cons is a film about writer’s block, consequences, friends and the resilience of typewriters.

Follow the film on Twitter here: @undersadtears

Here is the directors production diary: http://undersadtears.wordpress.com/

You can keep up to date on Prose & Cons IMDB Page

And more info on Catherine here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2952107/

Released 28th November 2011.

Film Review: Robin Hood (2010)

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Frost Rating ****

There have been many interpretations of the legendary man himself. Popularly first known by Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and then the Kevin Costner version, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). I’ve only seen the latter, it was all good fun and one of the few films I watched mostly as a kid. I loved the idea of a man standing up corruption and just being an old fashioned swash-buckling adventure. Although Kevin Costner was miscast as the English rebel, only reason for being cast was his big heyday back in the early 90s and winning awards for Dances With Wolves. The only plus side was having a scene-stealing Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham. It has been nearly 20 years since, and Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe have now brought us their version of the story.

We’ve seen the tale of Robin Hood been done to death and it’s actually a sigh of relief to see something fresh to an otherwise adventurous story. Another point to make that it’s more a revisionist take, than a remake or reboot. As many have mentioned, this is a prequel than the typical Robin Hood story we all know. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor is explained, rather than making it a basis of the film. It shows how Robin Hood (known through-out as Robin Longstride) becomes the man we all know and love. It may be not needed, but Ridley Scott pulls it off rather well. Robin is a soldier for the crusades under the rule of King Richard (Danny Huston, a brief but wonderfully played role), and returns back to England from his long fight in France after Richard dies. He comes back finding the country in a total mess, now Prince John (Oscar Isaac) is pronounced King and starts making an example to his rule by using threats to make the whole of England pay the kings taxes. Robin returns a sword to Walter Loxley (Max Von Sydow) as a promise from his dead son, which his wife happens to be Marion (Cate Blanchett). The theme of the story is self-discovery, although it slightly acts as a bit expositional but it doesn’t linger on to make it that much a critique. Meanwhile, the sub-plot is with France preparing to invade England.

Slightly distracts us from the story of Robin and Marion, but it unravels an exciting climactic battle sequence and the reason King John declares out leading hero to be an outlaw. The performances from the entire cast are top notch. Russell Crowe still proves to be a convincing leading man, although his dialect goes a bit off once or twice (although better than Kevin Costner sticking with his American accent). Cate Blanchett is always a treat whenever she’s on-screen, and is the heart of this film. Both Crowe and Blanchett’s chemistry does spark but only so subtle to make the scenes together work. Oscar Isaac is brilliantly juvenile and devilish, practically a scene stealer and one of the best things of this film. Mark Strong delivers a good performance, but unfortunately doesn’t stand out the best of the villains roles he’s played (the best would be as Frank D’Amico in Kick-Ass). Matthew Macfayden plays as the Sheriff of Nottingham, he doesn’t make it as hammy as Alan Rickman did previously but still makes himself being devilishly likeable. Especially when his house is about to get burnt down by the French, and slyly says to a soldier to save his house “I’m half French, on my mothers side!”

The script by Brian Helgeland is also very well done, showing he’s still at his game being a talented writer. Given credit the development of Robin Hood had been going around quite some time, and went through 2-3 stages before they finalised on a story they wanted to make. It’s a story that somehow makes it culturally significant; especially when we’ve just dealt being in the recession. It also brings a strange cultural heritage, having the character and its setting a strange mythical history. Admittedly, the story may mislead people. Given the title ‘Robin Hood’, it should be about Robin Hood and it does. Ridley Scott mentioned he likes to create worlds, and he does so by bringing up events that will revolve around and has Robin involved to make it plausible.

Ridley Scott’s eye for detail is always staggering and beautifully well shown on-screen. The cinematography is gorgeous to look at, shot very well and all around a great looking film. What also strikes me as the film looks it could be plausible in the history books. Although Scott doesn’t treat it as a History Channel documentary, he makes it very clear he mixes with history but also with a bit of fantasy. The action sequences are exciting and thrilling to watch, just shows how much Robin Hood can be an action hero. It also amazes me Ridley Scott is the only filmmaker who’d do these sequences with very little digital effects and make them look spectacular. Also kudos on the wonderful costume design by Janty Yates (who designed costumes for Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven).

The music by Marc Streitenfeld is atmospheric and delivers emotion to every scene being delightful or tragic. Overall; people may expect the conventional Robin Hood tale, but going to a different route can lead to surprising results. This delivers the goods on both story, characters and the visual spectacle. It doesn’t stand along with Scott’s best films (Alien and Blade Runner), but it certainly amongst his really good ones (American Gangster and Kingdom of Heaven: Director’s Cut). I’m very sure there will be a director’s cut version in future. This is epic filmmaking at its best, and no one does it better than Ridley Scott.

Robin Hood is showing at cinemas right now. See the trailer on the official site.

by Owun Birkett

Stefan Reviews; Nightmare on Elm Street.

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From the Eighties to the early Noughties the horror genre has been dominated by two names; Jason Vorhees and probably the little more known….Freddy Kruger.
With nine films, a TV series and a smorgasbord of (sometimes parody) guest appearances in TV under his belt, Freddy has certainly made his quadruple bladed glove mark in the world of celluloid.
What started out as a very scary character played horrifically menacingly by Robert Englund, Kruger sadly became one of mischief and comedy rather than a to-scared-to-turn-the-lights-out-after-watching monster that he once was. This however was rumoured to all change when Freddy was taken on by Jackie Earl Haley.
Best known for his sinister portrayal of Rorschach in last years Watchmen, Haley was an eagerly awaited choice for the role by the majority of Kruger fans wanting to see the darker side of an already pretty pitch character.
The before the title opening scene gives a nice quick introduction to the main players in the film and ends in a way that seems to promise as much blood as you would expect from the old franchise and a lot more scares. Unfortunately it doesn’t deliver, there are a couple of gallons of blood and a few actual scary moments that make squeals and screams erupt from a jumping audience (I cant remember the last time a new horror film did that) but they are few and far between so fail to keep viewers on the edge of their seats, although this could not be said for the girl sitting behind me who I think must have lost most of her popcorn!
The mostly unknown in movies cast (mainly American TV an small film roles) are good at keeping out the horror shlock thus once again making this an altogether different route for Nightmare, but only Rooney Mara stands out from the rest (strange considering it also co-starred Clancy Brown). Her portrayal of troubled heroine Nancy Thompson is believable and pulls in the sympathy and could easily be carried over into sequels if they choose to remake the rest of the Nightmare stories (I’m hoping they don’t for fear they would go the same way as the 80’s/90’s lot and end up with a rapping Haley arsing about with a prop guitar). Joy turns to disappointment with Jackie Earle Haley, as promised, he is a lot more menacing and frightening than Englund ever was, but for some odd unexplainable reason during the finale fight he starts spouting rubbish one liner quips. Threatening with the promise of violence and abuse throughout the entire film, resorting to crappy puns very nearly ruins the re-imagining of the character.
A film that promised much and delivered a bit Nightmare on Elm Street has too few scares and fails to build suspense, and if you can ignore the image of Freddy wearing Rorschach’s mask (it seems Haley has adopted that voice to express malevolence and inspire fear) I suggest you wait for the DVD.

Nightmare on Elm Street is still playing at most cinemas and is rated 18.