Tag Archives: Daniel McCarthy

CANNES 2012 PREVIEW

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The most prestigious and coveted film festival on the planet is upon us as filmmakers, stars and journalists descend on the southern French seaside resort to view and critique some of the most anticipated films of the year. Of course I cannot be going myself; the rigour of the festival is said to drive even the most dedicated of film journalists to the edge let alone a beginner. But I can definitely cast my eye over the selection and pick ten of them that have caught my and other cinefiles eyes. Some of these have confirmed UK release dates, others do not. Either way the calibre of these titles should see them generating plenty of buzz before their arrival on these shores.

MOONRISE KINGDOM

The seventh feature from the king of idiosyncratic American indie cinema Wes Anderson is a period piece set in the mid sixties following two runaway teenagers in love and the haphazard search party that sets out after them. Anderson stalwarts Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman are joined by newcomers Bruce Willis, Edward Norton and Frances McDormand to name a few. Anderson’s exceptionally detailed, designed and witty directorial style may not be to all tastes but for fans of his work this is set to tick all the boxes.

LOVE

Austrian master of discomfort Michael Haneke returns to France for a tale of a couple who must care for the wife’s elderly parents. French acting legend Isabelle Huppert appears alongside William Shimmel of the magnificent Certified Copy in what would appear to be a more gentle approach for Haneke. Those familiar with his work however, will be prepared for terrible things to happen.

KILLING THEM SOFTLY

The Assassination of Jesse James was one of the most criminally underrated films of recent years so hopes are high for director Andrew Dominik and star Brad Pitt’s reunion in this gritty crime thriller about an underworld investigation into a card game heist co starring Sam Shepard, Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini and Ray Liotta. Pitt appeared in last year’s big Cannes winner The Tree Of Life. Can he make it two in a row?

COSMOPOLIS

Robert Pattinson has the hearts of millions of Twilight fans and now we find out if he can win critical acclaim in Canadian maestro David Cronenberg’s twisted thriller about a young elitist yuppie travelling across New York City for a designer haircut and getting caught up in a dystopian, cultural revolution. Imagine a science-fiction take on American Psycho.

GRANDMASTERS

Wong Kar- wai has had glory at Cannes before with his visually lush and unconventional takes on traditional genre features with In The Mood For Love and Chungking Express. Now he turns his fine eye to a classic martial arts tale (based on the Ip Man series) with Asian superstar Tony Leung pulling all the moves.

RUST AND BONE

Jacques Audiard is known for his poetic yet brutal dramas such as A Prophet and The Beat My Heart Skipped. Hopes are high for this dramatic tale of a marine park worker crippled in an accident who finds solace with an immigrant bouncer. The magnificent Marion Cotillard plays the lead and after being sadly relegated in recent American roles she may have to clear space next to her first Oscar for La Vie En Rose…

LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE

Abbas Kiarostami is a master of blurring the line between fiction and cinematic construct and recently had glory at Cannes with Certified Copy. Here he heads to Japan, focusing on the relationship between an aging academic and a student side-lining as a prostitute. Whatever the context of their relationship the director’s previous work dictates that appearances can be deceiving.

ON THE ROAD

Jack Kerouac’s seminal road journey novel has been rolling around studios for years and now Walter Salles of the excellent road movie The Motorcycle Diaries turns his attention to the tale of two young men making their way across fifties America. Sam Riley of the the brilliant Control appears alongside Kirsten Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Elisabeth Moss and Steve Buscemi. For the cast alone this is a must see.

LAWLESS

Reminiscent of his gritty western The Proposition, Australian director John Hillcot’s latest is another tale of outlaw brothers (here in prohibition era America) whose familial bonds are pushed to the limit by the pursuing lawmen and each other. Again this is a stellar cast; Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain and Gary Oldman to name just a few.

THE ANGEL’S SHARE

Britain’s poet of the people Ken Loach is another Cannes stalwart and this appears to balance the mix between gentle humour and gritty realism of his previous work and concerns a young tearaway who finds a chance at redemption and success in the surprisingly sophisticated world of whisky brewing and selling.

The Cannes Film Festival runs from 16 May to 27 May.

Into The Abyss: A Tale Of Death, A Tale Of Life by Daniel McCarthy

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With an output rate that would make Woody Allen envious and a string of classics ranging across four decades, the prolific German filmmaker Werner Herzog has built up a devoted international following and critically gilded canon of work that most directors can only aspire to. This includes a recent spate of documentaries that look with awe at the power of nature such as last year’s brilliant Cave Of Forgotten Dreams. Herzog is fascinated however with the sometimes cataclysmic clash of nature and man, both fictional and factual, from the likes of Aguirre Wrath Of God and to Grizzly Man. Now Herzog has taken a more definitive step towards the flawed nature of man with his latest work Into The Abyss, a calm yet unflinching examination of the death penalty in America shown through the prism of one particular crime. Many of Herzog’s films can claim to look into an abyss, whether it is literal or metaphorical. Whichever way you view this latest work, it is arguably one of his strongest pieces yet.
In October of 2001 Michael Perry and Jason Burkett, two teenagers with troubled backgrounds living in Texas, broke into the house of a fifty year old nurse Sandra Stotler with the intention of stealing her sports car.

The crime ended with her death, as well as that of her son and his friend who were ambushed upon their return to the house, led into a wooded area and killed in order to gain possession of the remote control device needed to open the gates of the housing community where they lived. It is a crime noticeable for both its callousness and stupidity. Perry and Burkett where arrested days later after a shootout with police and proceeded to blame each other for the events that took place. Burkett was sentenced to life imprisonment whilst Perry was sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out in the summer of 2010. Herzog interviews the two men at their respective prisons (Perry was only eight days from execution during his interview) as well as members of the victims’ families and some of those directly involved with the process of state executions.

From the outset Herzog makes his views clear to the two men and to the viewer; ‘I don’t have to like you, but I don’t think human beings should be executed.’ His view is a humanist one, not political despite its release coming just ahead of the Republican presidential nomination in America. Despite not shunning away from the horror of the crimes committed, judgement is not heaped upon the convicted men. The conversations with them are quietly unnerving; despite having claimed his innocence Perry views his impending death with serene calm whilst Burkett discusses the troubled relationship with his father who is also imprisoned in an adjunct prison ward for a separate crime. Their pasts and backgrounds are referenced but are not used as an excuse. Instead a complex tableau is woven on both sides with family members of the victims revealing how they have been affected by the tragedy and whether or not they feel the execution will heal their pain whilst Burkett’s father holds himself responsible for his son’s wayward lifestyle. Compared to the pacing of Herzog’s fictional work and some of the documentaries, there is a unique stillness to the imagery and the tone that is tremendously sombre and effecting. The camera roves effortlessly and holds on the smallest of details; the scattered, rural landscape that prisoners pass through on their way to the ‘Death House’, the faces of interviewees left hanging at the end of questioning and not given the mercy of a quit cutaway. Rather than adhere to standard rules of documentary film-making, Herzog is drawn to what he refers to an ‘ecstatic truth’. The point is made not through a deluge of facts and figures but instead a hidden narrative construct takes us on a journey through the incredible true story and in doing so deepens the emotional response.

There’s plenty of emotion on display here. The tale is tragic on both sides and the interviews are to the point, precise and devastating. Herzog’s trademark accented narration is toned right down and he never appears directly onscreen. There is a stillness in both the one to one and interviews and the establishing shots between them as though the camera itself is respectfully treading away from anything exploitive. Crime scene footage is seen but never lingered over. Out of the remnants of the tragedy, it is the small fleeting moments of humanity that move the deepest. An anecdote about squirrels on a golf course manages to evoke tears from a prison chaplain whilst a former captain of the ‘execution team’ recalls the exact moment when he realized he could no longer carry on with his job. The film is separated into individual chapters covering the crime, the aftermath and the debate surrounding capital punishment. The last chapter is optimistically titled ‘The Urgency Of Life’, and we focus on the acceptance of the various parties involved as they discuss how the execution has and has not restored equilibrium to the situation. Rather than end on a bleak epilogue Herzog pulls off an odd, vaguely amusing and hopeful vignette. One of the final shots is a phone screen capture of an ultrasound scan revealing a child. To say anymore may rob its power, but it’s a beautiful little grace note that only this director could pull off.

I had the good fortune to see Into The Abyss at a preview screening followed by a live stream Q and A session with Herzog himself. It was a fascinating experience to hear the man give insight into his method and viewpoint on his work and how he tackled the more stressful aspects of the production. The film is being released as a companion series, On Death Row screens on Channel 4. Though at time of writing I have only seen half of the episodes, it has all the merits of the main work itself; sombre, thoughtful and astonishingly balanced in approach to its subject. With these projects Herzog is staring death in the face. And death stares straight back.

We Need To Talk About Kevin Review

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Nearly a decade after her astonishingly assured debut Ratcatcher and its enigmatic follow-up Morvan Caller, acclaimed British filmmaker Lynne Ramsey has made a striking return to screens with an adaptation of the controversial 2003 bestseller by Lionel Shriver. It comes after a failed attempt by Ramsey to bring another bestseller, The Lovely Bones, to the big screen. However futile that effort may have been Ramsey need not worry for where Peter Jackson’s adaptation of that story was met with a lukewarm reception, We Need To Talk About Kevin was regarded as one of the highlights of this year’s Cannes Film Festival and is being poised for awards glory with very good reason indeed.

The ever watchable Tilda Swinton plays the central character of Eva, a former travel writer introduced to us crowd surfing along at Valencia’s La Tomatina festival. Her face drenched in red and euphoria she lies with her arms outstretched in a Christ like pose, a grimly ironic foreboding of the hardships she will come to endure. We next meet Eva confronted by another incarnation of red; paint splattered across her crummy bungalow by a vengeful community who also glare at her in the street, openly threaten her and at one point physically assault her. It is clear that they hold her responsible for a heinous crime committed by her teenage son Kevin (Ezra Miller). He is only a child so the parent must surely be responsible right? Wallowing in self guilt, Eva remembers back to her relationship with husband to be Franklin (John C. Reilly), the birth of Kevin and their seemingly unavoidable resentment of one another as she wrestles with the difficult question: Was Kevin’s crime an act of nature or nurture?
Taking a hammer to Shriver’s literary device of Eva’s letters to an estranged Franklin, Ramsey and fellow screenwriter Rory Kinnear offer up a fractured progression of Eva’s downfall. She initially appears every bit the victim of a thoroughly unpleasant child with a thousand yard stare that would unnerve Damien. Kevin seems to take an instant resentment to his mother, refusing to communicate with her and rebuking her attempts at motherly love at each turn. Yet as the blanks are steadily filled in Eva’s saintly nature quickly dissolves. She clearly resents Kevin for the end of her outgoing life and directs her anger at him in increasingly irresponsible ways from cruel baby talk (‘Mommy was happy before you came along!’) to an unforgivable loss of temper resulting in injury.

Ramsay observes the family tug of war with increasingly unnerving close ups, most noticeably of her actors’ faces and minuet details of Eva’s ever increasing sense of social entrapment. Repeated shots of characters eating take on a strange and otherworldly effect as though we’re prying into an intensely private act. The colour red becomes increasingly clear in the frame as events progress, representing both Kevin’s impending crime and Eva’s guilt. At one point there is an incredibly blunt shot of her washing blood from a sink with her bare hands. Such symbolism could be too unsubtle for its own good where it not so tremendously uncomfortable and frightening, a feeling accentuated by Jonny Greenwood’s score whose fractured creeping tones accompanied last decade’s masterpiece There Will Be Blood. Nearly every scene is laced with a fascinating combination of familiarity and utter dread. Working closely with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, Ramsey isolates Eva within the frame of domestic docility making her world appear ever more large and alone, building surely but steadily to a shattering climax.

Swinton is magnificent as Eva pulling off a delicate tightrope act of making us sympathetic towards Eva whilst still boldly acknowledging her shortcomings as a mother. She commands with the simplest of expressions including one devastating moment when on the brink of emotional recovery she is rebuffed by a drunken work colleague. Yet despite all of the indignity Eva must endure, Swinton never lets the emotional dam break. It could have been easy to have the big break down, to cry out all the guilt and pent up feeling yet Swinton refuses to play it that way making the scenario all the more believable and dramatic particularly with her scenes opposite John C. Reilly. Still best known for some admirable yet unremarkable comedy films, Reilly continues to establish himself as one of America’s finest character actors bringing a haunting tragedy to what could have been a bland stock role of the clueless husband. For all of Swinton and Reilly’s gravitas through, the film belongs to Ezra Miller as the teenage Kevin. Disconcertingly charming and handsome yet cold and innocent, Miller perfectly sells the idea of American youth gone horribly wrong yet refuses to pinpoint the exact cause of Kevin’s horrific actions. It’s a terrific play on both part of the performers and filmmakers.

Ultimately We Need To Talk About Kevin confronts issues that will be challenging for mainstream audiences and touches on the frightening idea of things that go unsaid between parents and children. It’s reflection of a post Columbine era America never feels forced or phony despite the incredible stylistic flourishes and symbolism. It’s certainly not an easy watch but it’s near impossible to ignore or overlook. Hopefully come the awards season, people will still be talking about Kevin.

MELANCHOLIA {Film Review}

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MELANCHOLIA

Trust the tale and the not the teller goes the old saying,and with good purpose too. While it may be easy to dismiss Melancholia in light of Danish enfant terrible director Lars Von Trier’s bafflingly out of taste ‘joke’ at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, those who do, would be doing a disservice to one of the most striking and elegant films of the year. A haunting and strange sci-fi tale of sisters emotionally disintegrating, bitter family ties, depression, and the end of the world as we know it; it’s an engrossing and beautiful work that stands as perhaps one of Von Trier’s best. The plot seems simple from afar; Justine (Kirsten Dunst), a young and successful career woman, has just been married to an incredibly sweet and handsome young man named Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). Their reception is hosted at a remote castle being paid for by her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) where various members of her family and work colleagues mingle together. Though she seems to have everything one could want, Justine rapidly sinks into a deep depression and grows distant from her new husband and sister. Matters are not helped as her separated mother and father (Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt) tear open old wounds at the reception dinner and humiliate both their daughters. There’s also Justine’s astonishingly cruel and greedy employer (Stellan Skarsgard) who seems intent on committing her for a sales pitch before she’s even cut her wedding cake. Can this agonizingly uncomfortable social setting be the reason for Justine’s intense depression? Or could it be the mysterious rogue planet Melancholia which is passing close by to Earth and may just collide with it?

From the beginning Von Trier makes no allusion as to the outcome of the story as he opens with an astonishingly stylised prologue of Melancholia colliding into the Earth, interspersed with surreal imagery of the main characters and a Wagner score playing at deafening levels. Playing out in graceful slow motion, the images in this sequence resemble hauntingly beautiful classical artwork and seem a rapid departure from Von Trier’s usual style. He quickly reverts to this in the two distinct narrative acts of the film. Part one follows Justine as she arrives late at the wedding and bears witness to the social car crash that occurs. Von Trier made his mark in the mid nineties with the Dogma 95 movement, where he and several fellow filmmakers decided to shoot with nothing but what was provided within the environment of the shooting. No formalism and no gloss. Here he seems to bend his rules to a degree, employing a roving hand held camera that snatches out at specific incidents of lines of dialogue yet manipulates the appearance of the frame with beautiful downcast lighting that drenches the proceedings with an ominous dread that harks back to the opening scene. It marks a meeting of styles that Von Trier has been calling to in recent years the most notable examples including Dancer In The Dark and Antichrist, where he combines his realistic aesthetic with a tremendously stylised and fabricated one. Some may accuse him of betraying his former principles yet there is an astonishing visual rush of the first act that reveals Von Trier’s talent at visual style and composition.

The second act is far more intimate character piece, focusing on Claire as she cares for a near catatonic Justine and frets over Melancholia’s passing by. It’s in this section that we are reminded of Von Trier’s incredible direction of actresses. The male contingent gets its shout from Kiefer Sutherland who plays the foolish rationality of Claire’s husband well; if anything it’s disconcerting to see him so subtle after eight years of beating people senseless in 24. Yet it truly is Dunst and Gainsborg’s film to steer and they do so brilliantly. Dunst in particular shines in a way that she has not yet had to do in her career, outside of her work with Sofia Coppola. She imbues Justine with a fragile grace that barely conceals the chasms of despair that inexplicably overcome her. Her transition from emotional cripple to enigmatic foreseer of doom is loosely defined yet utterly compelling. Gainsbourg handles the reverse side of Claire excellently as well, the grim irony of the inevitable outcome reflected in her luminous screen quality. She personally reminds me of the likes of Liv Ullman, an actress whose facial expressions seem destined for the big screen.

Von Trier claims to have made the film in the midst of his own crippling depression and the process of bringing it to the screen was a catharsis for him. However much of this is true, is rife for debate. What we have is the work itself; an intoxicating, intricate and incredibly ambitious attempt to contrast the intimate with the epic. Von Trier’s detractors will almost certainly find his directorial vision too singular and his depictions of women distasteful, but rather than mere attention grabbing he has crafted an overwhelmingly powerful cinematic piece that stands as one of his finest to date. A depressive apocalypse drama that leaves you ecstatic? It’s a keeper.