Dolemite Is My Name

Welcome to a new version of Film Shapes. I primarily blog about films I've just seen at the cinema but, what with the closures and lockdowns, I don't know when I'll get to do that next. So, like most of the world, I've decided to do my viewing online. My plan for now is to do a short write-up and record a podcast, WITHOUT SPOILERS, for each film. It may change as we go on but that's the idea for now. Please enjoy.


The first film in this 'new' format is Dolemite Is My Name, available on Netflix. This is a film in a film for the most part, based on the 1975 film, Dolemite, brainchild of Rudy Ray Moore. Eddie Murphy plays Moore in this bipoic and he does it with gusto. It reminded me that Murphy was a genuine superstar in the 80s. Not sure if I really appreciated him back then.

The film follows Moore in his attempts to strike it big. He's an old style showman, singer, MC, comedian, raconteur, and he thinks he should be a success. Ripping off an old homeless drunkard is his way in and thus, his Dolemite character is born. From around the start of the second act he decides he should be up on the big screen and it's here that the film picks up for me.

Dolemite Is My Name is a fun, star-driven diversion and I reckon one of the best Netflix-produced efforts yet.


See also:

The night after watching this, I revisited Beverly Hills Cop (1984), directed by the now defunct Martin Brest, and it still holds up, particularly as a vehicle for Murphy. For other 'film in a film' films, you could do worse than Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion (1995) and Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005).


Listen to "Dolemite Is My Name" on Spreaker.

Happy New Year, Colin Burstead

I have to admit being a little agnostic towards Ben Wheatley's films. Of the ones I've seen, only High-Rise impressed me. Down Terrace wasn't great, Free Fire was hit and miss and Kill List left me cold (I'm yet to get to Sightseers and A Field in England). So, would a Luna preview of his new film, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead pull one back? Indeed. Back of the net! 3-2! He must have a foot like a traction engine!

While I wouldn't say this is a thunderbastard, it's a very solid piece of work that lets us (anyone not lower middle class English) into the lives of these people for a day. The set-up is that Colin has organised a party at a stately home for his mum, who has been poorly. Extended family and friends are invited - the complication being brother, David, who has been invited secretly, is a bit of a twat and not roundly popular with anyone, reasons for which are pared backed as the film progresses.

The cast is probably the main draw here, with great turns from the likes of Neil Maskell as Colin, Sam Riley as David, Hayley Squires as sister, Gini, Charles Dance as uncle Bertie, Doon Mackichan as mum, Sandy and Bill Paterson as dad, Gordon. According to the credits, much of the cast added impromptu dialogue to their scenes and the whole film feels pretty organically put together. This works most of the time, only occasionally leading to a sense of 'over-lingering'. If anything, there are too many characters in this ensemble - some people don't have much to do, some are only seen in the final credit sequence (though they may have been crew rather than cast).

I've been trying to unravel exactly what Wheatley is proposing with this film but only came up with a fairly dicey moral aphorism - "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Colin is the one who wants to do something nice for his family and ends up getting royally shafted for it. This seems very much a post-Brexit film, where people's petty squabbling and selfishness bubble to the surface. Everyone's so self-obsessed that a guy like Colin, sensible and altruistic, doesn't stand a chance. The film ends with the whole family having a right old knees up on the dance floor - minus Colin, wife Val and daughter Fran. Their absence makes it hard to go along with the jollity. Happy new year? As Colin screams to the sea, "Fuuuck theeem!"

See also:

Similar family gathering scenarios in Thomas Vinterberg's Festen (1998) and a smaller, more hopeful take on it with Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies (1996).

Honeyland

Day off today so what better than a trip to the cinema? Screen 7 of the Luna in Leederville isn't very big but it still smells new and, what with it being a Friday morning session of a Macedonian documentary about beekeepers, you can guess how packed it was. More's the pity for the lack of an audience because this is a fantastic film.

Honeyland is all about Hatidze Muratova, a middle-aged Turkish/Macedonian wild beekeeper, living and barely subsisting in a small, near deserted village with her elderly mother in central North Macedonia. The directors, Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov, flag their intentions early by showing Hatidze walking through a vast tract of land, ending up on a cliff's edge. Here she cracks open some of the rock to reveal too many bees for anyone's good. Honestly, if bees aren't your thing (I'm thinking of an old college mate, Fraggle Rock, specifically), steer clear of Honeyland. As you might expect from the title, the little buzzing fuckers infest the film, but their importance - locally AND globally - is brought front and centre in due course.

Complications arise when a family of farming nomads arrive in truck and van and proceed to set up their house and cattle in the dilapidated ruins of the village (apparently named Bekirlijia). Initially, Hatidze seems to get along well with them, especially the kids but the father, Hussein, notices her beekeeping set-up and tries to muscle in on the honey trade, meagre though it is. The nub of the problem is the theme of the film - is it possible to live in harmony with nature? Hatidze takes half the honey from the bees and leaves them half to carry on their bee work. She co-exists with her environment. Hussein, though, requiring money to feed, clothe and educate his family, decides on a more 'capital-based' approach, thus endangering every bee in the area. The film-makers elicit these scenes in such a way that there are no villains, just hard choices and a kind of grinding fatalism.

Honeyland is quite unlike any film I've seen recently (though the landscape and decrepit buildings remind me of Calabria in Southern Italy). Before the nomads enter, Hatidze makes a trip to Skopje to sell some honey and do some shopping at the markets. This section of the film felt oddly familiar, simply because it was a city and not the desolation of the village. Contrails appear in the sky a few times, presumably to hint at a distant modernity. The nomad family fashion a makeshift antenna from an old metal plate and this crackly connection brings weather reports and crappy music, much to the delight of Hatidze.

The film's focus is on Hatidze and she's a really interesting character. She's good humoured but occasionally quick-tempered, mostly with her mother. She's good with kids and animals. At times, she appears innocent but is also realistic. She's regretful about not marrying but fiercely independent too. And her loneliness comes through above all else, which is why the third act scenes have so much power to them. But you can find out the rest when you see it. And you should see it.

See also:

Zhang Yimou's The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) is similar in look and Bill Condon's Mr. Holmes (2015) has Gandalf himself pottering around an apiary. Both worth watching.