Triangle of Sadness

With The Square in 2017, and now Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Östlund has joined a select group of directors who've won the Palme D'Or with consecutive films (Billie August and Michael Haneke being the others, though nine directors have won twice). Rarified air. Add 2014's Force Majeure and that makes up a critically lauded hat trick. With only Force and Triangle to go on (I've been meaning to see Square but, shit, I've been meaning to do loads of stuff), Östlund seems to be furrowing a mildly provocative, fluffy bête-noire niche for himself, not fully blown Von Trier, but it's early doors.

The title refers to the space between your eyes and the top of your nose, and has something to do with modelling pouts, as far as I could tell. The leads, Harris Dickinson (Carl) and Charlbi Dean (Yaya) are gorgeous, young fashion models - Yaya is also an 'influencer', which is the reason they find themselves on a luxury super boat, fraternising with other disgustingly opulent guests. You'll probably have guessed by now that this is a satire on the rich and irritating, though not necessarily a successful one.

It's hard to sympathise with any of the characters, which is fine, but it's also hard to be all that interested in anybody either, and that's more problematic. Carl is a querulous prat, Yaya is a petulant 'me-me' and Woody Harrelson's captain is a feckless blank, presenting as an 'American Marxist'. Some characters slowly begin to win us over once the final third kicks into gear - Yaya, in particular, develops some personality - but by then it's too little, too late. Most of the incidental characters on the boat are pretty thickly trowelled; self-made, drunken Russian oligarchs; extremely well-heeled British pensioners who just happen to be weapons dealers; and oddly, a German stroke victim who can only say 'In den Wolken' (admittedly, that character isn't as prototypical as the others, but she isn't really given much to do other than rant those words).

There's one uproarious sequence in the dining room of the boat during choppy seas - cue wall to wall vomming, followed by some rear-ended, liquid Krakatoas to raise the grotesquery. The audience I saw it with certainly enjoyed it, though I reckon Östlund laid it on a bit thick (if you pardon the imagery). This section is nearly the culmination of the second act, and each of the acts of Triangle (3 points?) are clearly set out to be appreciated in slightly different ways. In my case, the three viewpoints were; Act 1: bemusement; Act 2: discomfort; and Act 3: annoyance. So clearly, 'appreciate' is the wrong word, but I genuinely think Östlund would be satisfied with the affect his film has on audiences. Like it or not, it gives us something to chew over and argue about.

The third act, maddeningly dispensable final scene aside, runs the gamut of influences, from Buñuel and Renoir, to Wertmüller and William Golding. It's a farcical 'chickens coming home to roost' fantasy that many of us welcome (or is it?), but as I said above, it's very hard to give a monkey's about anyone. By this stage, I just didn't care, and that's a shame because there are moments of promise scattered throughout. 

Triangle of Sadness is showing at the Somerville Auditorium at UWA for the Perth Festival from Jan 2 - 8.

See also:

Now, I can't remember if I've seen all of these or not, but here are a few satires about class divides: Jean Renoir's fantastic The Rules of the Game (1939), Luis Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel (1962), Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend (1967), and Lina Wertmüller's Swept Away (1974).

The Banshees of Inisherin

Criminally, this is only Martin McDonagh's FOURTH feature, but it's vying with In Bruges as his best yet. In fact, were it not for the uneven mess of Seven Psychopaths, he'd be on a brilliant run, including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The Banshees of Inisherin reunites Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell in a story of two mates, Colm and Pádraic, on an Irish island in the 1920s, trying to deal with some friendship issues. In a nutshell, Colm decides one day that he's had enough of his mate and his attempts to keep Pádraic at arm's length become increasingly.....inventive. Farrell and Gleeson are brilliant; Pádraic's outburst in J.J.Devine's public house is a super scene, and I reckon this film might be the highpoint of his gathering storm as a genuine talent. His esoteric choice of films going back a few years are indicative of this - probably since 2015's The Lobster, and running through The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Beguiled and After Yang. Gleeson's scene in the confessional is another unmitigated peach.

Now, as front-facing as the lads are in this, I reckon Kerry Condon as Siobhán is the star. She's outstanding as Pádraic's unmarried sister, the sensible anchor to all the coming shenanigans, and the film came to a natural conclusion for me when her story ended. All the petty shit with the man-children of this inbred island wears her down until she finally does one to the mainland, and understandably so. Barry Keoghan as dimwitted Dominic deserves praise, as do the priest and the cop, the publican and the gobby shopkeeper. The scene where she's digging for 'news' from Pádraic is magnificent. Pretty fine cast all round.

Niceness, and the nebulous nature of it, is a central theme, but for all the bleak solemnity about relationships and the inevitable strains upon them, this is a wickedly funny film. I can't recall laughing so much at the cinema this year (maybe Violent Night?) One unnamed patron* even likened it, maybe ungraciously, to a feature length Father Ted episode. I'll have to take his word for it. There are great lines of dialogue throughout and the fantastic Irish accent doesn't hurt the delivery of them ("One boring man? You're all feckin' boring!")

McDonagh infuses his film with familiar notes - mundane, yet bloody injuries (reminiscent of In Bruges), burning buildings (Three Billboards), animals in key scenes (Seven Psychopaths), sudden moments of shock (all of the above) - and the island scenery, shot by Ben Davis, is spectacular and lovely, not to mention Carter Burwell's gorgeous score. The out-of-sight, out-of-mind civil war across the water is a clear metaphor but it's not played too heavily, and only really operates as an off-screen reflection of the 'battle' between the leads. The banshees of the title may refer to the old 'ghoul', Mrs. McCormick (Sheila Flitton), who utters Macbeth-ian shite, hinting at the likely continuance of the 'beef' between Colm and Pádraic. 

But c'mere to me now, I could probably watch this film every year until the banshees wail for me. It's a fantastic delight.

The Banshees of Inisherin opens on Dec 26th at the Luna and Palace cinemas. 

See also:

Obviously, check out all of McDonagh's previous work, but also, this film could be seen as a modern (?) version of John Ford's The Quiet Man (1952). 

* It was Merv.

Return to Seoul

Return to Seoul is a quietly moving drama, written and directed by Davy Chou, a Cambodian/French filmmaker. It runs through a few years in the life of Freddie, played by 'plastic artist', Park Ji-Min. She's Korean by birth but was adopted out to a French family as a baby and at the start of the film, finds herself back in Seoul. On the face of it, she's there simply because a flight to Tokyo was cancelled, but we get an inkling that the desire to reconnect with her biological parents is working its way to primacy. Freddie can't speak Korean when she first arrives so she latches onto a young woman who works in the guest house she's staying at, Tena (Guka Han). The relationship is a curious one - polite, caring Tena seems to find chaotic Freddie fun....until she doesn't. At one point, during a spiteful night out, Tena tells her something like, "You're the saddest person I've ever met" and this 'slash and burn' style threatens to derail any bonds she may want to foster.

The film jumps forward years at a time and in each segment Freddie changes in one way or another - new boyfriend, more hectic lifestyle, new job, etc. Underlying all this flux is the nagging emptiness of absent parents, there, but not available. Like most people, I wasn't adopted and so I'll never know how those who were feel, but I reckon this film gets as close as any to illustrating the emotional turmoil involved. Freddie is all over the place, fun and energetic one minute, destructive and cold the next. If we weren't privy to her background, we'd likely find her a pain in the arse, or worse. Yet, her snarky, pernicious behaviour comes across as completely understandable. Ji-Min hasn't acted in a film before and it shows in her unfettered, naturalistic performance. Her glares are priceless.

There is a lot going on in the film, much of it elliptical, leaving some details for us to winkle out. This comfortable attitude to the narrative is possibly due to the director's intimacy with the story. Chou has said he developed this idea when a friend of his told him about her adoption, while they were attending the Busan Film Festival together. It seems some of the awkward family moments in the film mirrored their reality, hence the authenticity and at times, the oddly tense humour. Chou lets a few scenes run a bit long but I wouldn't say there was much wastage here, everything we see is required to progress the story, or more saliently, Freddie's arc. She's the focus, and so is the whole international adoption system by extension.

Return to Seoul plays at the Somerville Auditorium at UWA for the Perth Festival from Dec 12 - 18.

See also:

Some bits reminded me of Julia Ducournau's, Titane (2021), especially an extended dance scene. There were also very slight hints of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria (2021), which played at last year's Perth Fest.

Violent Night

First up - great title, Violent Night. Combine these words on the poster with a bedraggled, blood-encrusted Santa Claus, chewing a candy cane like Eastwood chewed his cigar, and you've done half the job of selling the film. It also helps that it's a riot of inappropriateness - vomit, piss and (reindeer) shit all occur within the first few minutes, with the blood and gore soon to follow. Season's greetings to all!

David Harbour plays Santa, disenchanted and ready to hang up the sack, when he drunkenly stumbles into a criminal heist situation at a luxurious mansion. The unimportant upshot is the family matriarch, Gertrude Lightstone (Beverly D'Angelo), has illegally ferreted away a stash of millions in her vault, which boss wrong'un, Scrooge (John Leguizamo) has sniffed out (how? again, not important). The heart, and the cheese, of the film rests with Gertrude's granddaughter, Trudy (Leah Brady) and, to a lesser extent, her separated parents, Jason and Linda (Alex Hassell and Alexis Louder). Aside from the big fella, they're the only likeable characters in the place, by design. 

Well, that's the set-up, and all that's left is to have at it. Here's where the film delivers in spades. The fight scenes are wondrously brutal, inventive and squirm-inducing. There's one scene on a ladder that produced a theatre-wide "UUURRRRGGHHH", quickly followed by roars and giggles. Harbour puts some of his Hellboy skills to good use, and his performance as a whole is exceptional. He plays this iconic role like a washed-up David Mamet everyman, by way of King Lear. With a massive metal hammer. And the weird thing is, he's the most believable character in the film. The production company behind this is 87North Productions, co-run by David Leitch. He's the director of Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2 and Bullet Train, amongst others, and he has a long CV in the stunt caper. The job of directing this film was given to Norwegian, Tommy Wirkola (of Dead Snow 'fame') but Leitch's experienced dabs are all over Violent Night.

You may be wondering whether the nice people survive all the carnage, whether the baddies get their lumps of coal and whether Santa re-discovers his passion, and well, yeah, of course they all do, but that's hardly the point of the film. The cliches of past Christmas films are played out to juxtapose with the broken legs and torn off skin, and it all balances out pretty well. There have been a few attempts to grot up Saint Nick (see Bad Santa, Fatman and Finnish effort, Rare Exports) but I reckon this film has knocked them all into the mulcher.

Violent Night is on wide release around the country.

See also: 

There are elements of John McTiernan's Die Hard (1988) and a bloody piss-take of Chris Columbus' Home Alone (1990), though I can't really recommend that, as I haven't seen it.

SPOILERS IN POD!!

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2022)

Kompromat

Kompromat (shorthand for Compromising Material) is a serviceable near-thriller, based on book about the true story of Yoann Barbereau, a French national who spent more than a year on the run, trying to escape the Russian authorities. It opens with a cliched forest chase, then a '5 months earlier' title card, leading into the 'how did we get here' backstory. The film has its ups and downs until the climax, where it reaches its nadir, thanks to some overwrought symbolism and mawkish emotion, not helped much by the swelling score.

Gilles Lellouche plays Mathieu Roussel, the Irkutsk director of the Alliance Francaise organisation. He lives in this Siberian outpost with his not-best-pleased wife and young daughter until one day when he's arrested for a trumped up charge of publishing child pornography. The reason for this fit-up isn't quite explained - is it suspicions of spying or petty revenge? Maybe something else entirely? Perhaps we're meant to be as clueless as Roussel but I don't think the film did its due diligence here. There's even a weird hunting scene where a kindly, yet bigoted benefactor (Mikhail Safronov) tells Roussel he'll never fund his organisation again after watching a homo-erotic dance recital. Heavy-handed display of cultural differences....check. Oh, and in more cloth-eared metaphor news, the Russian then shoots a wide-eyed deer which lies prone on the ground. Roussel simply swallows, just like the weak Frenchy they assume he is. 

Lellouche is fine but has been much better with superior material and directors. Joanna Kulig (luminous in Pawlikowksi's Cold War) plays Svetlana, Roussel's guardian angel, and honestly, the amount of times she comes to his aid is freakish, almost like it's been scripted... Her motivation didn't ring true either. I have her down for one brief meeting with Roussel and then a semi-pissed dance and chat at a bar. And suddenly she'll do anything for him, including risk her life at the hands of the FSB (modern KGB). Odd.

The scenes of Roussel on the run are pretty well directed, aside from his uber-convenient 'get out of jail free cards', and the politics of the Embassy staff dragged the film back to the intense French drama genre that it never really stuck to. Not the worst effort but surely there were better ways to deliver this story.

Kompromat opens Dec 1st at the Luna and Palace cinemas.

See also:

Lellouche in Fred Cavayé's Point Blank (2010), and Kulig in Pawel Pawlikowksi's Cold War (2018) are better pointers to their craft.

The Menu

The Menu is a great satire on the haves and the have-nots, set in an exclusive island restaurant called Hawthorne. Ralph Fiennes is the chef, Slowik, who at first, seems like a snobby, arrogant kitchen-maestro, but has deeper...issues. He's, as always, excellent, giving us more to chew on than pure sociopathy. Nicholas Hoult plays Tyler, a foodie twat, seemingly oblivious to the creeping danse macabre taking place. But it's ultimately Anya Taylor-Joy's film. She's Margot, Tyler's date for this once in a lifetime culinary event, though she appears to have her reservations (I promise that's the first and last food or restaurant pun in this write-up. My apologies.) Margot is the audience conduit and Taylor-Joy brings the gusto and a feisty 'no-shit-taken' attitude.

John Leguizamo is spot-on casting as the actor to whom Fiennes says something like, "Your face has irritated me for a long time" regarding a terrible film he was in. It's the perfect role for one of my least liked actors (in fairness, he's pretty good in this). And hello to Angela from Who's the Boss (Judith Light) in an uncomfortable 80s flashback.

I'm deliberately not mentioning the story as it's best to go in cold (not a pun) to this - I'll only say that it's rare for a film with this standing (budget, cast, producers of note, etc.) to actually follow through on its initial promise. Kudos to writers Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, as well as director Mark Mylod, for having the courage of their convictions, and Searchlight Pictures for allowing it to happen. Mylod has had quite a varied career in TV direction - from Vic and Bob to Game of Thrones and his hand is steady on the material. I found this to be a darkly funny kick in the nuts. But not in a bad way. 

The Menu opens at many cinemas, including the Luna and Palace on Nov 24th. 

See also:

Michael Sarnoski's Pig (2021) runs another chef through the wringer, and Peter Richardson's Eat the Rich (1987) is a manic antecedent. 

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

A new Marvel film isn't quite the drawcard it once was. Aside from the Doctor Strange multiverse film, Phase 4 of the MCU hasn't really delivered anything of much quality. There were moments in Black Widow and Shang-Chi, even Eternals at a stretch, but the crackers from Phase 3 seem a long way back. Now, SPOILERS AHOY, but presumably Kev Feige and his acolytes hadn't expected Chadwick Boseman to pass away at the age of 43, causing the need for massive rewrites (or a reimagining at any rate). Incidentally, they probably chose the best way to deal with an actor's unexpected death. It was nicely handled, a fitting tribute to Boseman. The beginning was a deviation from the usual action splash, in order to make way for the sombre, but zesty funeral scene. It was an authentic tear-jerker too, if the young German & French international students in the cinema were anything to go by.

So, here's a film choc-full of grief and loss, which is only amplified by the mirror of real-life. That scaffolding is padded out with a story of politics and war-mongering, introducing the comic's 'first mutant', Namor (Aquaman with winged ankles). The introduction to these wet folk is pretty gnarly, wreaking havoc on an ocean rig, and their other-worldly menace is fun. I think the ground-laying of Namor (an impressive Tenoch Huerta) as a nemesis to Wakanda in particular, and the 'surface' in general is promising, as he has the potential for mayhem.

But onto the film's issues. With Boseman unfortunately out of the picture, the vacuum has to be filled somehow. It would seem logical and canonical to position T'Challa's younger sister, Shuri as the replacement. This makes sense, until it becomes clear that Letitia Wright, perfectly fine as a side character in the first film, doesn't really have the gravitas or charisma to take centre stage. The film hangs a lot of emotional work on Wright - she has to deal with loss, increasing responsibility, more grief, and leadership, while struggling with her spirituality vs science dichotomy issues - and this all feels slightly beyond her at the moment. She's a pretty good actress, but carrying a Marvel tentpole requires more star wattage. 

But these qualms pale in comparison to one of the supporting actors. The student scientist, Riri Williams is played cringingly by Dominique Thorne - it's probably one of the worst performances in a Marvel film. It's hard to detail her level of crap acting, it's unnatural, awkward and riddled with affectations. Compare this to the times when Lupita Nyong'o or Winston Duke are on screen and it's easy see what real actors can bring (also, nice to recall these two as the couple from Jordan Peele's Us). Angela Bassett brings quiet power as Queen Ramonda and Danai Gurira as Okoye is kick-arse, though I didn't quite buy one key scene between the two of them.

There's an underlying thread of Shuri attempting to reconcile the whole 'technology versus tradition' thing. It's all a bit tiresome, and we know it's only going to end one way, this being an MCU project. The cut and paste emotional beats do carry an extra weight here considering the actual passing of Boseman, but there's still too much that we've seen before, for example, though Shuri flirts with revenge, she ultimately comes down on the side of stoic nobility. Incidentally, I don't see this as a spoiler because if you've seen any MCU film, you'll know they have a formula that even the 'edgy' indie directors and writers have to adhere to.

One curious note: a character refers to Namor's people as 'The Lost Tribe'. Is this a reference to the lost tribes of Israel? If so, why? Odd throwaway line.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is showing everywhere.

See also:

I'll continue to bang the drum for Us (2019), and Bassett was good in Kathryn Bigelow's interesting but uneven Strange Days (1995).

Brian and Charles

Brian and Charles is the 'Brian-child' of David Earl and Chris Hayward, who also play the leads - the former, a shabby loner, the latter, his bodgy android creation. The film is set in the glorious North Wales countryside, and have a run at some of these place names - Llyn Gwynant, Ysbyty Ifan, Trefriw, Cwm Penmachno, Betws y Coed, Llangernyw. Rough on the tongue, gorgeous on the eye. Earl plays his Brian Gittens character as a sweeter, less disgusting version of the lonely loser from Ricky Gervais's After Life and Derek. He's a single, middle aged depressive, who loves tinkering and inventing (objectively useless) things. The scene of the aftermath of a flying cuckoo clock test run is an early highlight, underlining the 'mockumentary' style of the piece.

The 'useless inventions' theory is scotched when Brian surprises himself by actually making a robot, albeit a very shonky looking one. As Charles says, "My tummy is a washing machine." The central relationship is mostly played like a father-son pairing, sometimes mates, occasionally even owner and pet, and it strikes a balance somewhere between poignant and pitiful. Hayward brings a sense of naïve dignity to the hidden role of Charles and the two leads clearly get along well.

The film, lengthening the 2017 short it was derived from, doesn't take too many risks. Obviously, there's a need to build a narrative around the double act but there's nothing groundbreaking here. It's a pretty straight up and down plot, complete with a geeky love interest, played by Sherlock's Louise Brealey, and peril in the shape of an aggressively chavvy Welsh family who take a fancy to Charles. Audience acceptance of this film is almost totally predicated on the level of interest or affection one has for Earl's Brian character. His awkward mannerisms and visual smell can be grating, but if this is surmountable, a sweetly odd little film is there for the taking.

Brian and Charles is playing at the British Film Festival at the Luna and Palace cinemas in Perth and various other cinemas around the country.

See also:

Kogonada's After Yang (2021) shows what can happen when a robot breaks down, and Gavin Rothery's Archive (2020) is always worth another plug.

Amsterdam

It's been a few years between drinks for madly inconsistent David O. Russell. His last film before this was Joy in 2015, and he has the pretty great Silver Linings Playbook under his belt. Now, as Thom Yorke once sang, ambition makes you look pretty ugly, and this lyric applies to Amsterdam. This is not to say it's a terrible film - it has a few very good moments - but Russell has bitten off more than he can chew with this one. And there's a lot to chew. The film is based loosely on The Business Plot of 1933 in the US, a failed attempt to overthrow the Franklin Roosevelt government and install a fascist dictator, in line with Italy and Germany.

The ambition is manifest in the breadth of the story and the amount of characters involved. Russell has at least 15 'names' to his disposal but many of them (Timothy Olyphant, Ed Begley Jr., Chris Rock, Taylor Swift, etc) get very little to do. I'll try to unpick some of the threads - it begins with a suspicious death; followed by an autopsy; another less suspicious death; then, whammo, backstory covering WW1; the coming together of the three stars; their post-war idyll in the city of the title; blam, return to present (1933) where investigation leads to rich business leaders, a retired general, sterilisation clinics, the Committee of the Five and the webbing of the reality-adjacent plot (above). Shit dude, I get it. You've so many pieces on the board that by the end, the need to smother the audience with exposition was too tempting to avoid. 

I guess the main reason people will see this film is the cast, and for the most part, they don't disappoint. Christian Bale (as Dr. Burt Berendsen) is fun - almost caricature but good enough to keep it off the ledge, Margot Robbie (Valerie Voze) brings an earnest naturalism to her role, and John David Washington (Harold Woodman) has an oddly mannered style of reading his lines but just about matches the other two. These three carry the film - there's a kind of Cabaret vibe going on with their time in Amsterdam, and they even get a bit of dancing to do, à la Godard's Band of Outsiders. This is all top larks but the film needs to move on so flash-forward they must.

The message delivered is fine - rich businessmen will work with dictators or go to war with them, whichever brings the most profit - but De Niro's climactic speech was overly simplistic, in fact his entire role was blatantly cardboard. The film really needed a tighter edit (probably at the script stage). It's way too long and we're spoon fed the answers to the 'whys' of the story, especially the unravelling of knots at the end. Perhaps worst of all though is the absolute waste of the film's one allocated 'fuck'. Seems to be a trend that American films, in order to mollify the censors, use their 'fuck' in the most egregious, most pointless spots. If a well-placed 'fuck' can't be achieved, then what hope the rest of the film?

Amsterdam is showing at Palace and Luna cinemas

See also:

As mentioned above, Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972) and Jean-Luc Godard's Band of Outsiders (1964) are great '2 guy, 1 girl' trio films.

See How They Run

So I rocked up to the Palace cinema last week, intent on seeing Amsterdam only to hear that the session had to be cancelled for some projection reason. No harm done, I'd just finished work anyway so was thereabouts. Ah, but what's this? There's another film showing in that time slot, says the cinema staff. It's apparently in a similar vein - mysterious, rompy, witty, etc. Why not, I say, pretending to be spontaneous, though in actual fact, I'd been thinking of seeing this anyway. Oh, I forgot to mention that a seagull had shat on my shoulder on the way to the cinema, though it looked more like gozz than shite. Supposed to be good luck, so you might think that See How They Run turned out to be a brilliantly happy accident. No? No. It's not much good at all. I've been wondering how this was greenlit. Who is this even for?

The film 'ever-so-cleverly' weaves a murder around the London stage production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, with some real life characters like Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sim (played by Harris Dickinson and Pearl Chanda) to add to the veracity of the story. Potential perhaps, but the big issue, apart from the plot contrivances, is the tone. It's a very light, fluffy confection of a film, like a Wes Anderson remix without the symmetry or the charm. Those excellent 27 percenters, Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell, headline but neither have the greatest time - I'm not sure they know how to play it - Ronan is not great at this comic whimsy shtick and Rockwell is virtually moribund. Others, like David Oyelowo and Tim Key, are slightly more suited to the film. Key, as Commissioner Harold Scott, may well be the best thing in it, and aside from always watchable Reece Shearsmith, he's the only real funny person here.

The whole hotchpotch is clogged way too clever with all the nudges and winks to camera and the playing with the form - too meta for meta. Wes Anderson alumni, Adrien Brody's plays Leo Kopernick, an American director hired to film the play. He has the thankless task of narrating the zany antics surrounding the 100th stage performance of The Mousetrap. He sometimes has to reel off things not to do in a film which suddenly, you guessed it, appear in the film. Not the most original trope, to be fair. 

Maybe I'm being too cynical (a reasonable bow to draw) but I reckon I racked up ZERO laughs for the comedy and NIL gasps for the mystery. To top it off, it almost burst the onion bag for boredom. Sadly this is an immediately forgettable film, not worth the time of its fine cast.

See How They Run is showing at Palace cinemas and the Luna.

See also:

Rian Johnson's Knives Out (2019) is a far superior example of a big house mystery, as is Robert Altman's Gosford Park (2001). And if you have to watch a Wes Anderson film, I reckon The Darjeeling Limited (2007) is the least twee and irritating.

The Night of the 12th

Here's a French police procedural that doesn't promise closure, in fact it pretty much tells us that this is based on one of France's many unsolved murders. Soon enough, that lack of climactic suspense proves to be a boon for The Night of the 12th. The audience (me anyway) can leave the 'whodunit' nature to one side and just focus on the relationships, the characterisation and the actual procedure, as well as the effects of these types of crimes.

Director, Dominik Moll (also co-writer with Gilles Marchand), takes the book by Pauline Guéna and builds the story around detective Yohan Vivès (a great Bastien Bouillon), a newly promoted captain in the Grenoble police department. On his first morning in the new job, his team are called to a town at the foot of the Alps where a young woman has been burnt to death by an unknown assailant. The usual steps are taken - ascertain victim's identity, canvass potential witnesses, inform parents, begin interviewing possible culprits - we've all seen the beats, but here is where the film differs slightly from most of the rest of its ilk. Satisfying conclusion shortfall. You'd think this might hamper a film but, aside from a slightly awkward time shift, it virtually revels in the unknowable, the mystery that, sadly is still unsolved to this day.

There are fine moments of frustration, particularly courtesy of an older detective, Marceau (Bouli Lanners), and a lot of despair in amongst the suspect interviews. The key scene is a meeting that Vivès has with the victim, Clara's (Lula Cotton-Frapier) best friend, Stephanie (Pauline Serieys). Tired of having to answer questions about her friend's lifestyle, she snaps that Clara did nothing wrong, that she was killed by a man the police haven't caught yet. It's an obvious case of victim-blaming, intended or not, and the realisation stuns Vivès. From then on, he alters his outlook, leading to run-ins with his colleagues and, a few years later, a working relationship with a judge, played by Anouk Grinberg. 

The Night of the 12th is a watchable, almost thriller, with fine performances and nuanced characters. It takes some gumption to deliver a film that clearly states there'll be no resolution, while still maintaining interest throughout, and though it lost its way a little in the final third, it's still worth a look.

The Night of the 12th is showing at Luna Leederville.

See also:

David Fincher's Zodiac (2007) is another film that rides into its lack of answers at full tilt, and Moll's excellent Harry, He's Here to Help (2000) will do you no harm.

Three Thousand Years of Longing

George Miller holds a special place in Aussie cinema, thanks largely to the Mad Max films (soon to be supplemented with Furiosa), so it might surprise folk that Three Thousand Years of Longing is only his tenth stand-alone feature - not including the excellent segment from Twilight Zone: The Movie, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, with John Lithgow. The legendary New Yorker Magazine critic, Pauline Kael said this about Miller, in relation to the aforementioned film, "Miller's images rush at you; they're fast and energising." Well, not much has changed in the nearly 40 years since she wrote this, if anything, he's picked it up a notch with Fury Road and, to a lesser extent, his latest film. This is based on a short story by A.S. Byatt called The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye, and it stars two shining lights in Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. 

Swinton plays Alithea, a narratologist, a collector of stories, who uncovers an odd looking bottle in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. Back at her hotel, she inadvertently uncorks Elba's Djinn (genie), who offers her the traditional three wishes. Alithea isn't so eager to fall for any potential trick and so resists until she learns more. A conversation begins, pepping up the story with Miller's visual flourishes (Kael's noted images), with no little help from ace cinematographer, John Seale and editor, Margaret Sixel. The Djinn runs through three tales of desire, entrapment, loneliness, greed and folly, at times interrupted by Alithea, bringing us back to the more prosaic present. 

The balance of past and present, of the mystical and the modern is just about right but it's hard not to feel a bit shortchanged with these shifts, The ancient scenes are just more fun, though Swinton and Elba's sparring and eventual thawing is nice to watch. My only slight reservation in the story was the hint that Alithea's racist old biddy neighbours (coincidentally, one of them is Anne Charleston, from Neighbours!) may have been proven right about people not belonging to some places. I don't think this is what the film is trying to say but it didn't exactly sit right with me. Ultimately though, hope is rewarded, connections are developed and seemingly enhanced, and the film does its best to deliver a swirl of cinematic enchantment. 

See also:

Miller's Mad Max tetralogy (1979, 1981, 1985 & 2015) are the business, and the Ottoman setting puts me in mind of Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), though I can't remember if it's good or just overblown.

Don't Worry Darling

Here's a film that's had more said about the bullshit around it than the film itself. Therefore, I'll try to keep it relevant. This is Olivia Wilde's second feature and she's a bit of a dab hand at this directing lark. I haven't seen her debut, Booksmart, but have heard good things. In a nutshell, Don't Worry Darling (errant comma notwithstanding) is a stylish, speculative drama, with a patina of utopia-cum-dystopia that masks something far more commonplace and unsettling. Florence Pugh is the dutiful 1950s hausfrau of Harry Styles, who live in a postcard perfect sunny, desert community, presumably near the West coast of the US. Styles' Jack works for Chris Pine's pseudo-cult leader, Frank, in a mysterious compound just out of the town of Victory. Pugh's Alice spends her days with other wives, shopping, practicing ballet or getting pissed up. All's going swimmingly until one of Alice's friends, Margaret (Kiki Layne), begins to ask questions and is summarily silenced. 

The film starts out as a 1950s all-American dream but aside from the terror of this particular scenario in general (that 50s bright and cheery Americana cheese gives me the absolute shites), things are clearly askew. Alice breaks eggs that have nothing inside, she cleans a window wall that slowly begins to squeeze her like a sandwich press, there are mirror reflection errors like in those 'find the differences' pictures, and the plasticity of her friends has a whiff of the Stepford Wives. Frank's business involves 'modern materials' but there are hints of secret weapons manufacturing. It's a great premise and it mostly works, in large part thanks to Pugh's performance. She's got a very emotive face and she sells the paranoia really well. There's been a lot of grief for poor old Hazza but he's not terrible in this. The stuff about his accent is misguided - it's just a northern pom accent for the most part. Pine pulls some solid menace, he's well cast, and Wilde's Bunny has some of the best lines.

On balance, this is a watchable slice of psychosis-cinema, with good performances. It's not perfect - there's a slight unevenness in the plotting (I felt it could have done with more of the 'other' side and Pine needed a bit more fleshing out, as did the underused Gemma Chan as his wife), and the ending was a bit too ambiguous. But the realisation of the What in WTF!? is satisfying, and the theme of female disempowerment is important and timely. Avoid the circus around this and I reckon you'll get something out of it.

Don't Worry Darling opens October 6th.

See also:

The Black Mirror episode, San Junipero, written by Charlie Brooker and directed by Owen Harris (2016), WandaVision, directed by Matt Shakman (2021) and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) all share some DNA with the above.

(Film stills and trailer ©Warner Brothers, 2022)

You Won't Be Alone

Can an idea be killed? Can you erase or transform folkloric mythology? Star Wars and organised religion would hope not but it seems Goran Stolevski might think otherwise. You Won't Be Alone is the debut feature of this Macedonian/Aussie filmmaker (he's also got Of an Age doing the festival circuits at the moment - it took out the top prize at WA's own Cinefest Oz recently). The film is set in Macedonia in the 19th century and, as you might expect, it's pretty bleak, especially for women. It starts with a mother and baby getting an unexpected visit from Old Maid Maria, a scarred witch who is after blood. The mother cuts a deal which gives the child 16 years grace before she is to be taken so, in the words of the mother, "you won't be alone." In an attempt to trick the witch, the child is hidden in a cave until the inevitable day when she is claimed. Henceforth, the child grown, Nevena (Sara Klimoska) becomes a kind of trainee witch to Maria (Anamaria Marinca).

This is a dense, slow-moving tale that's only made more mysterious by the much appreciated lack of exposition. The dialogue is Macedonian and the story was pulled together by Stolevski as an amalgam of various tales in the folklore of the area, coupled with his own embellishments. Fatalism has its place but also there's some satisfaction to be had from drawing a line under the prevailing superstition (if you read it that way). Maria's plaintive protestation that, "It was all so easy for you", feels like an ushering in of the new and a pretty unsympathetic dispensing of the past. Fair dues, I suppose, as Old Maid Maria was probably due some form of comeuppance, murderous witch that she is. In fact, her backstory is told later on in the film, and in line with the general shithouse treatment of women, it's hard not to feel some measure of pity for her.

Klimoska is excellent as the mute 'me-witch', and the actors she transforms into - Noomi Rapace, Carloto Cotta and Alice Englert - mimic her odd mannerisms perfectly. Marinca is horrific, but calm and almost dignified, and the landscape is golden and warm, belying the grotesqueries performed within it. And here is where the preview screening I was in lost a few of the punters - there's some fairly icky stiff going on with innards and gizzards and I can understand if that's not your jam (mmm, gizzard jam...). All in a good cause, mind, nothing really gratuitous, though the walkers may have a different opinion.

You Won't Be Alone is a very assured directorial debut - steady, confident, with a seemingly singular vision. It's likely not for everyone and it drifted slightly at times, but the ambiguity, the lyricism of Nevena's urge for love and acceptance in society, the strong female characters and the exploration of creepy myth and legend make this a quality piece of work.

You Won't Be Alone opens at the Luna on Sep 22nd

See also:

Rapace stars in Valdimar Jóhannsson's Lamb (2021), which shares the same levels of creep, and you could do worse than check out John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) for more shape-shifting giggles. 

Moonage Daydream

This loyal coverage of the Bowie legend begins with the voice of the man himself over a whack of white text on black, musing on the apparent 'death of God'. It's a fairly ambitious way to kick off but director Brett Morgen isn't have a bob each way here. It must have been a thankless task deciding on the format and style for this doco (ok, maybe not style, as that kind of speaks for itself with Bowie). There are amazing concert snatches peppered through the film and the opening number - All the Young Dudes - from an early gig is stupendous. Sound and Vision, from his Berlin sojourn, was brilliantly cut to painterly dobs, like a Kandinsky composition, and Heroes was spine tinglingly fine.

But...returning to the format, I think this is where it dips out. The film is a long 2 and a quarter hours, by long, I mean it felt like a lot longer. Morgen attempts to use as much Bowie narration and gig footage as possible and neglects any other viewpoint or angle that may have opened the film up a bit - for example, there's no mention of his first wife or children, and nothing about his work with other artists (Queen, Jagger, Iggy Pop, etc). Sure, this film isn't meant to do anything else than show us the master showman in all his glory, and there's no disputing that it does that in spades. There are also a smattering of shots of Bowie on the wander and a couple of interviews but the segments are telegraphed and I found myself willing each one to be the last. THIS SHOULDN'T BE THE CASE WITH DAVID BOWIE. 

Now, I'd say I'm probably a mid-level fan, I like most of what he's done (and some of his stuff is excellent), but I wouldn't say I'm a completist or anything. So how does this film sit with the hardcore fans, I wonder? The filmmakers had permission from Bowie's estate and so clearly wanted Moonage Daydream to be his visual legacy. Job done on that front, it just doesn't quite work as an engaging biopic of a legendary musician. There must have been hundreds of hours of footage to choose from and so some obviously tough decisions on what to leave out. Another issue is the editing. This come across as an editor's 'death by a million cuts' - it's sliced to fucking distraction. As a counterpoint, another musical bio, Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, has a multitude of shots but this raises them by the power of Greyskull.

Perhaps it's the choice of director. Morgen has some experience with docos (he made the excellent The Kid Stays in the Picture) but I reckon someone like Asif Kapadia (Senna, Amy, Diego Maradona) or Julien Temple (the MacGowan doco, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle) would have handled this with more zest -  a film, rather than a record of an important life. It's not a failure by any means, I just wish it gave Bowie the filmic send off he deserved.

Moonage Daydream opens in cinemas on Sep 15th.

See also:

A couple of top quality musician docos have played at Rev in recent years. Temple's Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan (2020) and Michael Cumming's King Rocker (2020) are just two examples.

PROBABLY SPOILERS IN POD...

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2022)

The Quiet Girl

This is a great film, especially in the way that it manages to create something interesting out of a reasonably mundane synopsis. A young girl is sent away to a relative's house for the summer where she is treated better than at home. Sounds like it could have a bit of Rohmer-style youthful awakenings? Or maybe some gritty Loach-ian societal comment? Even perhaps a revenge tinged 'fear the youth' theme? Well, it's none of the above, and more power to its style.

The Quiet Girl herself (Cáit) is a newcomer, Catherine Clinch, and she was apparently found via an Irish language school call out. She's incredible - meek, direct, no airs nor graces whatsoever, with a clear-eyed awkwardness. She's almost like a little female Bowie in The Quiet Girl Who Fell to Earth (no, not a film but I thought I'd italicise anyway). There are orbiting performances that complement her perfectly. Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennet play Eibhlín and Seán Cinnsealach, the couple who take Cáit for the summer. Eibhlín is the cousin of Cáit's mother, Matháir (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) and they're happy to have a child in the house, for reasons that become apparent during the film. Michael Patric plays the father, Athair, and he's the closest thing in the film to a villain - he's a terrible dad, and it's quite informative that he's one of the only characters that speaks English most of the time. Incidentally, his accent was so tricky to get an ear around that I thought those responsible had forgotten to subtitle his dialogue.

This is mature, humane filmmaking, a world away from most multiplex fare and it has almost everything to recommend it - music, cinematography, pacing, direction, acting, script, themes (loss and grief, neglect, child-raising, kindness and its opposite). It's full of fantastically executed scenes, crackling with tension and emotion. Seán has trouble initially warming to the young girl in the house and bawls her out on one occasion, only to apologise later by subtly placing a cream biscuit on the table next to her. No dialogue, one locked off shot followed by a close-up of the bikkie, back to Cáit noticing it. Perfect example of 'show, don't tell' character development. It's no coincidence that Seán says later in the film,

"You don't have to say anything. Always remember that. Many's the person missed the opportunity to say nothing, and lost much because of it."

On a beach near the house, Seán tells Cáit about a horse that was led in from the surf one night and the story is thick with significance, as is the fact that Cáit notices three lights on the horizon as they're leaving, where earlier there were just two. The 80s setting is bleak and kitschy, all crappy decor and cheesy Irish TV snippets, and this gives the film another way of showing the mundanity of life for the characters. There's a quiet power suffusing throughout and the final scene is an intense, almost cathartic release. This appears to be the first narrative feature from writer/director Colm Bairéad, let's hope he makes many more. 

The Quiet Girl open at the Luna and Palace on Sep 8th.

See also:

Another neglected kid is the focus of Francois Truffaut's, The 400 Blows (1959), and there are some similarities to Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher (1999).

Beast

Here's an enjoyable, tense genre pic that doesn't pretend to be anything more than you'd expect. Beast stars Idris Elba as a doctor trying to reconnect with his daughters on a trip to the African savannah. Potted backstory: he had split with his wife, then she got ill and died, now the kids carry some animosity towards Big Dris. The ever-so-subtle tagline, 'Fight For Family', makes it plain where we're headed. Sure, his kids are ratty with him but a LION WANTS TO KILL THEM ALL. The titular animal is rendered fairly realistically, in fact it's sometimes more believable than the humans. Here is the main issue with the film, but to be fair, it's not a huge problem. I understand we are asked, as an audience, to suspend disbelief in many films, and I'm generally in accord. Occasionally though, the decisions made by characters make an eyebrow raise, even a snort escape, and this happened a few times in Beast. It was just enough to take me out of the film, sadly.

The director, Icelandic, Baltasar Kormákur, has some pedigree with survival tales, having helmed films like Adrift, Everest and The Deep. He knows his onions in this genre and it's clear in the handheld, anxious camerawork, and the blocking of spaces - in one scene Nate (Dris) and his youngest daughter, Norah (a fantastic Leah Jeffries) are searching a building with an open door in the background, and every pan past said door raises the chills. With this kind of tightened, almost claustrophobic shooting, you're never quite sure where the threat is poised to pounce. Cinematographer, Phillipe Rousselot, also gives us some gorgeous South African vistas to marvel over.

Elba gives a fine display of stoic heroism, Sharlto Copley as his mate, Martin, local 'anti-poacher' is good value (if only to hear that cracking accent on film), and older daughter, Mer (Iyana Halley) is pretty good too. The pick of the performances though is Jeffries - she's quick-witted, emotive ("I have a rainbow of emotions available to me") but not too precocious. There are some character-scaffolding dream scenes that feel a bit dropped in, and the final inclusion of another lion pride draws a long metaphoric bow, but I jumped a few times, was edging to the lip of the seat at others, and that's really all you need from this kind of film. Not outstanding but worth a watch, nonetheless.

Beast opens on Aug 25th.

See also:

Another lion on the rampage film (and quite good too), The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), directed by Stephen Hopkins. And making a tangential link, Rousselot shot the fine Queen Margot (1994), directed by Patrice Chéreau.

SPOILERS IN POD!!

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2022)

Nope

Jordan Peele really doesn't flinch from a stoush. His first film, Get Out, took an excoriating swipe at racism and white privilege in the US. His second film, Us, delved into class divides and human rights. His latest film, Nope, takes aim at man's subjugation of nature, primarily for profit. The marketing of this film suggests a creepy, sci-fi alien invasion film, and while this is all accurate, there's more going on here too. Daniel Kaluuya, returning for a second Peele film (after Get Out), plays OJ Haywood, a trainer of horses that appear in films or TV. His father, Otis senior (Keith David), is killed early doors in a freak accident....or is it? Well, no obviously, it isn't, but life moves on for 6 months before more manure flies.

OJ is joined by his sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), as the Haywood Hollywood Horses business, bereft of the old man's guidance and experience perhaps, begins to flounder. OJ has been selling some of the horses to Steven Yuen's Ricky 'Jupe' Park, who runs a cheesy theme park on neighbouring land. It's around this time that the first 'encounter' takes place. Building tension is Peele's forte and he's pretty cheeky here. Each turn of the screw brings a dip of relief at its mini-resolution - a bit of fakery here, a magnified insect there until, at one point, you might wonder if the film will continue this way to the end, with no meat on the tricksy bones at all. More fool you. There's plenty of meat, literally and metaphorically.

Aside from the cautionary memo of messing with wild things, the film has a lovely little sideline in voyeurism. There are a fair few moments where looking is NOT advised, be it to the sky (beware of falling items), in the eyes of performing horses, on surveillance video screens, and especially at....well, you'll see. A cinematographer character, Antlers Holst (gravelly-voiced, Michael Wincott) is even portrayed in his office rolling through rushes of wild animals attacking each other, like a morbid anti-Attenborough. 

Somewhat related to this is Ricky's incredibly macabre sub-plot backstory, where, as a child actor, he witnessed a performing chimp rampage and was perhaps seconds away from a severe mauling. This sequence, which is drip-fed to us (and begins the film) is reminiscent of something Tarantino would cook up to stir the audience, to shock but also to add value in a thematic sense. Top deviating. Incidentally, there's a piece of prosaic iconography here that I can't fathom - we see a victim's shoe, blood-spattered BUT standing on its end, toes up, defying gravity. This shot reappears a number of times, so there's some significance there, I'm just not getting it. Answers on the back of a postcard, please.

After a second act finale of pulse-raising energy and blood-soaked windows, the final furlong of Nope plays out like a dusty, landed Jaws, with driven characters planning the trap (including a great, sappy Richard Dreyfus role from Brandon Perea as Angel Torres); loopy Quint-a-like, Holst, going rogue to get the shot with the dusk light; even a huge rubber mascot standing in for a scuba tank. But the analogy isn't water-tight, as the ultimate motive of the gang switches throughout from monetary gain, to fame-seeking, to revenge, even to planetary altruism (briefly), whereas in Jaws, they just had to kill that mutha of a shark. I suppose both can be seen as territorialism, though I can't see this film maligning aliens for decades as Jaws did for sharks. I might be wrong.

Any minor reservations I carry about story motivations don't dent this enough for me, though. It's superbly structured, tightly edited, beautifully shot (by Hoyte Van Hoytema on Imax cameras for more scope) and, of course, expertly pulled together by writer/producer/director Peele. A word on the cast too - Palmer kicked arse, Yuen balanced his role well (is he a product of his upbringing or a cynical opportunist?) and Kaluuya brings a special kind of naturalistic despondency to his pivotal role. He's excellent, as always.

Nope is social commentary masquerading as blackly comic, horror/sci-fi and, look, you can't say that about too many films. A fine hat-trick from Peele.

See also:

Obvious parallels with Spielberg's CV but Jaws (1975) is mimicked most closely here. I'd chuck in Francis Ford Coppola's, Apocalypse Now (1979) for one character in particular.

SPOILERS FOR MANY FILMS IN POD - TREAD CAREFULLY!

Walking Man

I think this may be a first - here are some words about a 30 minute, made for TV documentary, which I was lucky enough to see (pre-broadcast) at The Backlot cinema. It's called Walking Man and and it's a film about the eponymous bloke who used to walk along Stirling Highway here in Perth for years. I think I'd seen him in the past, definitely many people I knew had, and if you're of a certain vintage, and from Perth, you'd know about him. He was quite the urban (living) legend. But I had no idea that he was actually a bloody good artist and he spent much of his life making art.

The film is seen through the lens of the Walking Man, Ross Seaton's relationship with professor Ted Snell, who chanced upon him working one day and asked if he'd be keen on an exhibition. Ultimately agreeing but, sadly, passing away before things could be sorted, the film continues as a sort of jigsaw puzzle, with pieces provided by relatives and members of the public alike. Seaton's work is quite varied - numerous sketches of a mystery woman juxtapose with geometrical shapes, occasional line drawings of animals give way to interlocking, non-representational expressionist pieces. Stylistically, he's all over the place, but that's one of his strengths. We're told by his brother that after working as a teacher for a few years he travelled to Europe to check out the masters. His work seems to be unfettered by any 'movement' strictures, though a lot of it's very linear - and curiously some works are covered in numbers, maybe measurements or deeper mathematical posers? 

Whatever he was trying to get to the bottom of, he clearly had a plan and part of that was to continue producing art. The director, Luna Laure, tells the story as a celebration of Seaton's life as a artist, and the culmination of his work at the exhibition is a testament to him, as well as Snell's drive to give his work the platform it deserved. As Snell said, 'there are so many outsider artists, we just don't know about them.' Here's one mystery solved. 

Special mention to Mat 'Cheeky' Cheetham for a top notch score and Brendan Hutchens of VAM Media (Executive Producer and the guy who kicked the idea off).

Walking Man will be on ABC TV PLUS on Wed Aug 10th at 7:30pm and then on ABC iView.