Friday 18 September 2020

The Translators


Got along to an advance screening of The Translators at the Luna in Leederville a few nights ago. It's a mystery set in the world of literary publishing and the story takes a little getting the old bonce around. Broadly, a group of nine translators are seconded to a high security bunker to translate the third book in a massively popular series, Daedalus, written by the reclusive Oscar Brach (strangely subtitled as 'Bach'). Pretty soon, it's found that 10 pages have somehow been smuggled out to the Internet, setting off a series of events that land the publisher Eric Angstrom, among others, in shtuck. 


Angstrom is played by the hawk-nosed yet serpentine, Lambert Wilson, who has a swathe of shite films to his credit (Babylon A.D., anyone?). This is the best film I've seen him in, but I'm certainly not a Wilson completist, so there must be other passable works. Some of the translators are reasonably well known, especially in their home 'markets'. Olga Kurylenko plays the Russian; Ricardo Scamarcio, the Italian; Sidse Babett Knudsen, the Dane and Eduardo Noriega, the Spaniard. Alex Lawther, who was in an especially downbeat Dark Mirror episode plays the English translator, and he's ok but I didn't take to him, not sure why.

The whodunit aspect of the film soon becomes a 'howdunit', as the films twists and wriggles its way through several plot crevices, all the while attempting to keep the audience on their toes and in their seats at the same time. All this is fairly well handled by director, Regis Roinsard in only his second feature, but it didn't have the same style, or at least humour, as something like Rian Johnson's Knives Out or even those old Poirot films from the 70s. There are more things going on than I was probably aware of, for example, the significance of the Proust novel as a kind of money shot, or the apparent focus on one character, to deflect attention, perhaps?


The Translators has a lot going on and there are some tense moments sprinkled throughout. A mini-heist scene lifts the pace around the halfway mark and there's a clever Mexican standoff where different languages are utilised for extrication. Ultimately though, I was left a bit underdone by this film. Maybe it was trying to be a bit too clever, maybe some of the cast weren't quite right or possibly some parts were underwritten. It's not a bad film but as Ween once said, I can't put my finger on it.





See also:


For similar captivity themes, try the German film, The Experiment (2001) directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, and for more translation, albeit the Alien kind, check out Denis Villeneuve's brilliant, Arrival (2016).


SPOILERS IN (short) POD!!


Listen to "The Translators" on Spreaker.

Tuesday 8 September 2020

The New Mutants


After more than two years of postponed release dates, The New Mutants finally arrives in cinemas. Re-shoots, schedule clashes with other films, Disney's purchase of 20th Century Fox and covid-related cinema closures all contributed to the limbo the film found itself in. So was the wait worth it? I'd say sure. It's no world beater but it has a neatly contained story with some creepy elements (mainly down to the work of DOP, Peter Deming, whose first feature was Evil Dead 2) and nicely pitched performances. Let's have a roll call of these younglings, then. The first credit (though not the protagonist) is Maisie Williams as Rahne Sinclair [WOLFSBANE]. Anya Taylor-Joy plays Illyana Rasputin [MAGIK]. The real lead is Blu Hunt, who plays Danielle Moonstar [MIRAGE]. Charlie Heaton plays Sam Guthrie [CANNONBALL] and Henry Zaga plays Roberto da Costa [SUNSPOT]. And aside from Alice Braga as their doctor/monitor, that's about it for the cast. They all bounce off each other well and Taylor-Joy is better here than I've seen her before but Hunt in the lead is a little damp, not quite up to the energy level of the others.

The New Mutants is basically a haunted house thriller where the ghosts are mutation related, therefore explicable yet very dangerous. There's a clear through-line which follows Moonstar and her need to overcome a pretty bloody intransigent obstacle (keep an ear out for her narration at the start and an eye on her necklace thereafter). Other thematic pincushions of keeping control, sticking together and choosing the correct side of your character to 'feed' are ritually pricked. And it seems like they made Braga's doctor the daughter of a vet, just so she could spew forth some strangled analogies about baby rattlesnakes and some such.

There is a honking great foreshadowing of a character watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer at one point. Ooooh, hang on! Does this mean...? Yep, there may be some wolf-girl-on-bear-girl action at some stage. In fact, this relationship is quite sweet, if you can get past the bestiality aspect, and I'm sure you can. Each of the five have a moment to shine where their backstories are winkled out. Rasputin's story is bleak shit and serves up the scariest manifestations, partly thanks to Marilyn Manson's voice work. Speaking of Rasputin, there's a long shot near the end of the film where the five mutants walk off camera and Taylor-Joy lingers, taking her time to get out of frame. I wonder if she's trying an old Steve McQueen trick here, a way of hogging a fraction more screen time.


It seems with Disney's acquisition of Fox, there won't be any more of these new mutant films, at least not with the cast or 'creatives', namely director and co-writer Josh Boone and co-writer Knate Lee. Shame if so, as this was a happy surprise. A 'Marvel' film with a whiff of paranoid grunge horror to it. They don't come along every day.


See also:

For a similar setting, there aren't many, actually ANY, better films than One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) directed by Milos Forman. The British TV series, Misfits (2009-2013), created by Howard Overman, has an echo of young folk discovering their 'specialties'.

Wednesday 2 September 2020

Christopher Nolan Top Ten

With the release of Tenet, I thought I might rip off many film mags/websites and do a top ten of Nolan's films. For the sake of cleanliness, I've forgone his first feature, Following (assume it's 11th) and all his shorts. Let's go.

10. Insomnia (2002)

This is a remake of a 1997 Norwegian film starring Stellan Skarsgard in the Pacino role. Williams and Pacino are great and this is a pretty good film, but I prefer the others.







9. The Dark Knight (2008)

This might be an unpopular choice but, again, I actually liked this film, just not as much as the first or third in this Batman series. Ledger is spectacular and the set pieces are fantastic but it lost me with the Harvey Dent subplot and the ferry sequence was too portentous.





8. The Prestige (2006)

Clever, well-paced thriller, stacked with big names putting in sterling performances. I'm actually going to watch it again soon to try and figure out why so many people rate it as Nolan's best. It's very good but the best? Not for me.






7. Memento (2000)

This was Nolan's second feature after Following, and his first step into the US film industry, though he was still a few years off supreme leader type power. Memento is the beginning of Nolan's dalliance with time and his experiments to confuse his audience with fractured narratives and timelines. This works, as I needed to see it about three times to 'get it'. Pretty amazing stuff.






6. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Many folk have this as the weakest of Nolan's Batman trilogy but I quite liked the high stakes and the rug-pulls and the anarchic idea of forcing a city to sever itself from the rest of society. Tom Hardy's Bane was fun and an infinite amount of Marion Cotillard would still be scrimping.





5. Batman Begins (2005)

Never a fan of the Burton & Schumacher Batmans (Batmen?), nor the campy shite from the 60s, not to mention the latest DC crud, Nolan's first crack at the job was a gritty rejig, a rebirth of the character. Lashings of confident style and Christian Bale had an easy charm as well. Best of the bunch.




4. Tenet (2020)

See previous blog entry for thoughts on this gem. It's just about the most Nolany you can get, quite the melon-twister, but he pulls off the neat trick of not having it matter so much if you can't follow proceedings. Film-making summed up with this line - "Bold I'm fine with, I thought you were going to say nuts."





3. Interstellar (2014)
For all its faults (iffy dialogue, questionable politics and sentimentality) this packs a punch like none of Nolan's other work. I'm not on the best terms with McConaughey or Hathaway and yet, Interstellar had me in bits, weeping like an infant. Add a few magnificent set-pieces and you're onto a winner.




2. Inception (2010)

Career peaks galore here - DiCaprio, Page, Hardy, Gordon-Levitt - in the film that has become a throw-away term for inferior copies "Oh, it's kind of Inception-y." High stakes, complex set-ups and tension-building in spades, Inception is a ball-tearer of an experience. And a glorious, 'choose your own' final shot. Supreme film-making.







1. Dunkirk (2017)

When I left the cinema after seeing this I, maybe rashly, suggested to myself that Dunkirk was the best film I'd seen for around a decade. Still not sure I'd disagree with 2017 me. It's bloody amazing. The concentric story threads meeting at a pivot point in the ocean could be a gimmick in other hands, but Nolan barely brings our attention to this aspect, instead focussing on the lives of the desperate characters. Excellent work.