Film Shapes

Tod Browning's Freaks was a Saturday afternoon offering as part of Exhumed Cinema for the Strange Festival . It was first time the old Liberty Cinema in Perth has been open for films since 1997 (I believe they had some art and music shows there in 2022). The films are being shown by 35mm projector, in this case the projectionist spoke before the film. He told us the film would be on four 20-minute reels, and as they weren't allowed to cut the head or tail, there'd be a 10 second fade between reels. They might have needed more reels as, apparently, some of the more 'objectionable' scenes were cut from the original 90-odd minutes, bringing this widely seen version down to a smidge over 60 mins (it's pretty clear where the excises were made). The screening actually turned out to be the fist leg of a night at the Strange Festival, which had shows and installations throughout the Perth CBD. We popped in to some pop-up events in and around Hay Street Mall - Slow Rain...

Reality Winner isn't the title of a shitty TV game show, or a victor of one such mess. It's actually the name of a Pashto language expert who was arrested by the FBI for 'mishandling classified documents' in 2017. It starts with a dialogue-free locked off wide shot of a woman at her desk in an office with, crucially, Fox news showing a clip of FBI director Comey's sacking on wall mounted TVs. Cut to a number of days later and we see Winner, played with wet-eyed anxiety by Sydney Sweeney, heading home after grocery shopping. On her arrival home, she gets a knock on her car window, and here's where the film begins its unusually constrained method of using only the recorded transcript of her 'interrogation' as dialogue. This works surprisingly well and there are even a number of gimmicky shocks when redacted material is mentioned. It's a neat way of working, presumably a cheap way also, and it stands as more of a docu-drama record of this part of recent...

There's an intriguing correlation that seems to be occurring in pyjama films these days. Once the undisputed master of the genre, the MCU has dipped of late (though the recent Guardians film was a peach), whereas the erstwhile shite DCEU has lifted its game. Their latest entry is The Flash , written by Christina Hodson and Joby Harold, and directed by Andy Muschietti, and to my surprise, it's a bit of a banger. It concerns the fast one in the Justice League, Barry Allen (AKA The Flash) and his awkward attempts to fit in to society. A possible reason for his gormlessness is the fact that he lost his mother when he was a child, so when he realises he can run fast enough to, stay with me here, crack the space time continuum (!), he decides to go back and prevent his mother's death. What could go wrong? Well, shit, obviously a lot, and so, wrong it goes. Even though Batman warns him off it, Flash can't resist and is on his way back to his past when he's knocked out of ...

Based on events in Barcelona following the death of General Franco, this film looks at injustices within a prison system that systematically brutalised its inhabitants. Director Alberto Rodríguez sets most of his film inside the (in)famous Cárcel Modelo prison, where Manuel (Miguel Herrán) is sent for embezzling a sum of money from his company (in an early indication of the film's intent, we discover that he's been left to carry the can for the boss's son). The prison building is a fantastic drawcard for the film - it was designed in the 'panopticon' style, a kind of concentric layout where, in theory, one guard could view all sections of the jail from a central hub, with the 'spokes' as the inmates' quarters. On arrival, Manuel is sent to solitary quarantine where he's attacked by bugs and guards alike, but where he also meets Blacky (Jesús Carroza), a fixer type of prisoner. When he's finally released into 'regular' accommodation, Black...

Here's a harrowing drama from director, Alice Diop, that's based on her own experience at the trial of a Senegalese-French woman who murdered her own 15 month-old daughter in 2013. It's nominally a courtroom drama, but it's like none I've seen before. In fact, the courtroom scenes are a framing device for our protagonist (Diop's surrogate), Rama, played with a calm intensity by artist Kayije Kagame, and her struggles with her own family situation. She's often seen in flashback as a kid dealing with her mother's apparent breakdown. I say apparent because this is one of the film's strengths - Diop doesn't spell things out for her audience. We, adults for the most part, are encouraged to draw our own summations on what's going on and why Rama is so encased in her own thoughts. Her mystery is mirrored by the more morally repugnant question of why the woman on trial, Laurence (Guslagie Malanda) would choose to commit infanticide. Both the leads ar...

This is a funny, sweary, extremely bloody take on the Dracula tale, focussing on his manservant, Renfield, and their 'complicated' relationship. It very much hangs on the casting, and the filmmakers have pulled an ace with Nic Cage as the Prince of Darkness. He's as hammy as he's ever been and his utterance of the word 'husk' is worth the ticket price alone. But, in theory, this is not Cage's film, as you might guess from the title. The lead is played by Nicholas Hoult and he's the perfect foil for Cage - meek and awkward (at least until he eats bugs), caring, to a degree, and loyal. Until now. It appears Renfield is having a few qualms about his role in the uneven partnership, and this has led him to attend a co-dependency therapy group based in a New Orleans church hall. The writers handle this scenario better than might be expected, with some melancholy accompanying the chuckles. This schism in Renfield's life is bound to displease his master and ...

This third 'volume' of the Guardians series of MCU films will likely be James Gunn's last behind the camera, and we'll all be sorry when he's gone. He has such a firm handle on things that it would probably be best for everyone if this actually is the final in the canon. As it stands, it's at least the equal of the first one, possibly even better - watching this feels like flopping down into a comfortably grungy couch. The story eschews the big picture, galactic-level shitstorms that have hampered many of the recent Marvel efforts. The focus of this film is Rocket and his thus-far concealed back-story. At the start of proceedings he's attacked on Knowhere by a glittering gold twat, Adam Warlock, who critically injures him and escapes after a fearsome tussle. In trying to treat the little fella, it's soon discovered that he has a 'kill switch' inbuilt and any attempt to save him will activate it. Jeepers, time for a mission. So Rocket spends most ...

Here's a fictionalised historical biopic of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, seen through the eyes of her lady-in-waiting, Irma Sztaray. The political background was where the interest lay for me, whether it was hubby Emperor Franz Joseph calling Sisi back to court, or bro-in-law Viktor talking about Viennese orgies, or the trick of using a look-alike to stand in as Empress, even an odd meeting with Queen Victoria, but this is all white noise in the grand scheme of the film. The relationship between Irma and Elisabeth (or Sisi) is the bedrock. They begin as employee and employer, albeit in a slightly dysfunctional workplace, but soon they become firm, with Irma especially discovering deep feelings for the ratbag royal. The film opens with Irma getting proper walloped by her horrid mother and shortly thereafter being seconded to Corfu to meet up with Sisi and her acolytes. Just when it felt like the majority of the film was going to be encased in this one locale, they up stumps to Alge...