Film Shapes

Here's a film I knew next to nothing about, except that it starred Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg, both ticks in my book. Oh, and that it was set at a resort somewhere. And Roth mentioned something about money. But that's it. And I'm glad I was mostly in the dark, because Sundown crept up like a stalking horse. In fact, a stalking thoroughbred, because it's a slow-burning triumph. The film starts with a shot of a load of fish on a boat, eyes in sharp focus. Roth's Neil is staring down at them, looking as distantly bored as anyone has ever looked. The rest of the family - Alice (Gainsbourg), Alexa (Albertine Kotting McMillan), and Colin (Samuel Bottomley) - are enjoying their beach resort holiday in Acapulco (though we don't know where until some time into the film). The dynamic is very 'cool parent' as the teenage kids seem to be settling into an peer-like relationship with the adults. A phone call disrupts the idyll and the group must head back to L...

This brilliant classic was screened at The Backlot cinema in West Perth as part of the current Book to Film season. It's in my top five favourite films of all time but I think it was the first chance to see it on the big screen and it's as good as I remembered it. Set in post-war Vienna, it stars Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard and Bernard Lee. Harry Lime (Welles) has invited Holly Martins (Cotten) to Vienna with the promise of a job of some kind but when he arrives, he learns the Lime has been killed in a traffic accident. In fantastically economic storytelling, Martins meets various folk - Major Calloway (Howard), Anna Schmidt (Valli) and assorted acquaintances of Lime - and during his ham-fisted investigation he discovers Lime had been watering down penicillin and selling it on the black market. Also, crucially, there was a third man at the scene of the accident, not just the two friends as previously thought.  So begins Graham Greene's intellig...

All right, Garland, fair dues. You had a crack, picked out the top corner from the halfway line. It just skimmed the bar, didn't it? This is Alex Garland's third feature directing effort, after Ex Machina and Annihilation , and he certainly has some ideas. It seems to be that he struggles to bring them into focus in the wash-up, though. As with Annihilation , Men does really well setting up the conceit, drawing the viewer into this odd, uncomfortable world, where things are slightly askew and we're always on guard. But once again, all this good work is undone by some frankly batshit stuff at the end. Actually, I'm being a bit unfair on Annihilation . That kind of worked, I just felt it petered out a bit. Men , on the other hand, doesn't peter out as much as fucking explode in viscera and placenta. This is the story of Jessie Buckley's Harper, a woman who decides to take a respite in the countryside after a traumatic experience that has left her a widow. The co...