In the Fade

$19.50 for a ticket? Check. Small but comfortable screen? Check. Foreign language film? Check. Choc bomb? Check. Hairy companion (Liam) alongside? Check. Ahh, this must be the Luna in Leederville. Just like old times. Actually, it appears they're adding some screens in the building next door. Good news for the independent cinemas. Hope it all works out.

Anyway, In the Fade, literally 'Out of Nowhere' but the title comes from a Queens of the Stone Age song from 2000. Josh Homme, singer, etc wrote the soundtrack for the film. The background of the film is juicy, abhorrent ground. It's based on the true story of 10 murders in Germany between 2000 and 2009, committed by a group of right-wing neo-nazi cunts called the National Socialist Underground. This from the Junkee website:

The movie is based on the true story of killings that were allegedly carried out by the National Socialist Underground between 2001 and 2009. German Public Radio film critic Patrick Wellinski remembers those years.

"The police [were] investigating murders that occurred all over Germany," he says. "Migrants were killed, nine: one Greek and eight Turkish men were killed. And they didn't even have the idea that all the murders were connected, that the all murders were perpetrated by terrorists, by right-wing terrorists. And after this was uncovered, the whole society was like in shock: politicians, you know, citizens, the media. The media had a very crucial role ... and I think this is a shock which still lingers on."

For filmmaker Fatih Akin, who was born in Hamburg to a family of Turkish immigrants, those murders felt personal. He says, "I was very angry when all the truth came out, when we knew that the police [were] wrong and the media was wrong and the public was wrong by blaming the victims to be involved in some criminal activities just because they have backgrounds, you know. That [is] the fact which bothers me more than the essential killings."

Easy to see why Fatih Akin wanted to make this film. And it's a pretty powerful film at that, completely dominated by Diane Kruger's performance. She plays a wife and mother trying to deal with the grief of losing her husband and son in one of the aforementioned attacks. The film revolves around her attempts to find justice or revenge, whichever comes first.

Akin is a fine film-maker. He adds just the right amount of melodrama without over-doing it and keeps things on a relatively simple trajectory. There's nothing glamorous or even innovative here, but what we get from Akin is solid, unfussy story-telling. And it's hard to take your eyes of Kruger in this - it's a happy case of a director knowing what kind of talent he's got working for him and molding the film as such. Apparently, that's a form of symbiosis called mutualism. I've just looked it up - disregard the fact that Kruger and Akin are of the same species and you get my drift. All right, it's late and I'm still trying to get my head around the ball-tampering shit that went down in South Africa. Please excuse me.


See also:

The Edge of Heaven (2007), another calm essay by Akin and, a tentative link but, The Baader-Meinhof Complex (2008) by Uli Edel for another German terror trial.

Get Out

Just got around to seeing this little cracker about a year after its initial release. It was shown once or twice at the Moonlight outdoor cinema in Kings Park and I was lucky enough to score another freebie (thanks again sis). In fact, I may not have paid to see this as I'm not a big fan of this kind of genre film. At least, I suspected it was a genre film - a schlocky horror throw-away in the same blue-red vein as Paranormal Insidious Annabel 4 or whatever the fook. But this was a sneaky little bugger. A creepy, social commentary slash thriller couched in horror. And full of the smarts too.

On a side note, this is the first time we've done the podcast before I've had a chance to park it and spew keyboard waffles all over the www. Consequently, as I feel like I'm treading on old ground, I'm probably going to make this a short one. Lacking spoilers. Listen to the pod below for a more detailed dissection of Get Out.

But suffice to say, I had a pretty good time with this. The thing I noticed most about this film is that it improves not with a second watch (yet to be tested) but with a follow-up reading on it. For example, here are some of the noises I made as I scanned various (but mainly IMDB) message boards - ahhh, ohhh, uhuh, oh shit really, ha!, eh?, what the fudunkler, oh that's why he was @*^$&#%&*, yep, etc.

The director, and now Oscar-winning co-writer, Jordan Peele made his debut with this and he obviously spent some time planting the seeds. There are too many seeds to go into but the disguised (and more obvious) details make this a satisfying watch (and read after). From a tiny budget of around $USD 5 million, it has washed it's face and then some, making around $USD 255 million worldwide at last count. Get Out? Get In!


See also:

Rosemary's Baby (1968) for similar paranoic creeps and The World's End (2013) for no reason really. Or is there?

SPOILERS WITHIN PODCAST!!

Listen to "Get Out" on Spreaker.