PATHS OF GLORY – Kubrick’s satiric masterpiece on the futility of war

A big part of what the British Film Institute does is preserve old films. They seek out old reels, restore them and create shiny new prints that can be played again in modern multi-plexes. The latest movie to benefit from this treatment is Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, PATHS OF GLORY. The movie is set on the French front-line in World War I and its themes are the dislocation between senior officers and front-line soldiers and the absurdity of fighting against extreme odds when the final objective is unclear. These are themes that still resonate today. Kirk Douglas, most famous as Spartacus, gives the performance of his career as Colonel Dax. Dax is a man of common sense and integrity charged with leading his men in an impossible attack on a German ant-hill. The Generals who have ordered this attack know full-well that the odds of taking the hill are slim but do not care. They are morally corrupt dandies, wearing uniforms rich in brocade - insensible to life outside their chateaux. Dax does as he is told, but when his men retreat he is forced to defend them in a corrupt court-matial.

The movie is a paragon of economy – packing profundity and absurdity into just one hour and fifteen minutes of superbly photographed celluloid. While I also admire rambling epics such as APOCALYPSE NOW and THE THIN RED LINE, it is interesting to see how much better Kubrick does in such a short space of time. Indeed, so searing is Kubrick’s attack on mindless militarism that the movie was banned in France until 1975 on the grounds that it offended France’s military honour. Similarly, the film was banned in Franco’s Spain until his death.

No self-respecting cineaste can avoid seeing this movie. Although it was made before Dr Strangelove, Lolita and The Shining, we already have the famous long tracking shots that made Kubrick famous. For instance, early on, we have a scene where Kubrick follows Dax as he walks through a narrow trench greeting all his men, and we see, close-up, the degradation of war. This shot was aped by Jean-Pierre Jeunet in his recent World War One movie, A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT. It has also influenced the fluid camera movements of film-makers like Scorsese in iconic scenes such as the entrance to the night-club in GOODFELLAS. Despite the limited budget and lack of computer-generated special effects, the battlefield scenes, shot on location oustide Munich, are truly horrific. To my mind, they have only been bettered by Spielberg in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.

So, I encourage you to see this movie, whether at the cinema in London, or on DVD. The new print does have a yellow sheen and the sound quality is rather poor, but it is great to see the film as Kubrick intended, rather than on the TV-screen format you get when watching it on DVD.

THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED - Breath-taking

This movie starts with all the style and cool and intensity of Tarantino at his best. Three young men on the prowl in Paris, wearing sharp black suits and skinny ties. They speak in slang and obscenities. They are negotiating how to split the money they'll make on a couple of deals. They listen to techno. They get out of their car at a run-down joint. Are they there to shoot someone? No. These are small time real estate brokers who will use any means necessary to close - whether that be beating up squatters or letting rats into a flat to reduce its sale value. The city is corrupt. The municipal council hands out permits to build at will. So they are corrupt. It is as simple as that. This casual and petty violence and callousness towards others seeps into their social lives. They get in brawls in bars, exploit women, and treat each other like so much trash. But it doesn't matter. They look good. They enjoy life. And yet. And yet. All is not well with our hero, Thomas Seyr. While his father is the king of corrupt realtors, his mother was a concert pianist. One day, on a whim, he chases after her manager and secures an audition. He badly wants to become a concert pianist too, but can he conquer the ties to his old friends, his business obligations and his own impatience and temper?

This is an emotionally searing movie. This is down to a superb supporting cast but most of all because of the breath-taking central performance of Romain Duris. He can be tender, vulnerable, physically frighteningl.... What can I say? It is a terrific performance. The movie also succeeds for two other reasons - one technical and one conceptual. On a technical level, while the director uses a lot of techniques to suggest a gritty urban environment - hand-held camera, extreme close up on half of the actors face while the background is out of focus - these techniques are not over-used to the point where they attract attention to themselves and detract from the story. The camerawork is not an obstacle here - we are permitted to empathise fully with Thomas. Conceptually, I think that the re-make has one key advantage over the movie on which it was based. In the original, the erstwhile pianist was played by Harvey Keitel and was the son of a mafiosi. His conflict between being a gangster and a pianist was far more extreme and melo-dramatic. Here, the director, Jacques Audiard, avoids making Thomas' father a comic-book villain. Instead, he is small-time businessman who is corrupt in a mean and petty, but realistic way. The choices facing Thomas Seyr are now less extreme, but far more credible and, thus, engaging.

I love this film.

THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED (De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté) was released over the summer in France but is not yet available on DVD. It is still playing on limited release in the US, UK, Germany and Austria.

WALLACE AND GROMIT, THE CORPSE BRIDE and NANNY McPHEE - kids movies you can watch without feeling like a big girl

Do you remember the days when no self-respecting adult would go to the cinema to watch a kids movie without taking an actual kid? This was back when Disney had cornered the market, producing schmaltzy fairy-tales where the handsome prince rescued the virtuous girl while cute animals did comic turns. How times have changed. Now it is the done things for adults to proudly read HARRY POTTER on the metro and discuss computer games at dinner parties (or maybe that’s just me?!). And Hollywood has not been slow to cotton on to the box-office pay-dirt that is the crossover movie.

These crossover movies usually have the bright colours and simple narrative structure that are necessary to sucker in the under-tens. But they also have a sophisticated, subversive sense of humour and knowing references to current events and cultural icons. And while they started off as kids films with added bite, such as the CGI animated Shrek, they are increasingly adult films with a comic book sensibility. KUNG FU HUSTLE and ARAHAN are both live-action martial arts movies that will spawn action dolls marketed at children. Both have the sensibility of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. We’ve seen the future, and it has big ears.


All of which is a rather long-winded introduction to my review segment on kids movies. All three are flicks that you may find yourself watching at the multiplex this weekend despite the fact that you are a twenty-something professional who hasn’t been within half a mile of a kid since 1998. So let’s kick off with the hysterically funny box office smash WALLACE AND GROMIT-CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT. Wallace and Gromit are two well-loved British clay-mation characters. Wallace is an inventor – sort of like an old, bald, love-able Inspector Gadget – and Gromit is his long-suffering side-kick who just happens to be a dog. Gromit never speaks, but like Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp, his facial expressions are side-splittingly funny.

In this, their first full-length feature, Wallace and Gromit are hired by Lady Tottington to rid her country estate of the Were-Rabbit that is ruining the garden. In the mean-time, the nasty Lord Victor Quartermaine is out to get the rabbit by less humane methods, and to marry Lady Tottington into the bargain. The humour is many-layered - slapstick comedy, sly visual jokes, British toilet humour, and spoofs of famous scenes from horror movies. In addition, the filming is superb. Though created out of clay, these characters are filmed with real cameras on real celluloid with real lighting. Believe me - this makes all the difference and this helps create one of the most visually stunning movies of the year.


Tim Burton’s THE CORPSE BRIDE is a very beautiful, charming movie but I am not sure that charm alone is enough to carry the average adult through 85 minutes of animation. The stop-motion animation looks fabulous but jokes are thin on the ground and even the running reference to the creepy actor Peter Lorre, most famous as the oleaginous Ugarte in CASABLANCA, wears thin. In fact, despite its Disney with necrophilia twist, this is a remarkably conservative movie. Boy meets girl, boy falls in live with girl, boy mistakenly marries another girl who happens to be a corpse……, they sing some jaunty songs and then it ends happily.

Next up is NANNY McPHEE, starring British luvvie, Emma Thompson (The one with Sense in SENSE AND SENSIBILITY) and Colin Firth (the *real* Mr. Darcy). Thompson plays a Nanny brought in to subdue some obnoxious kids in Sound of Music style. Every time she improves their behaviour she loses a wart. I kid you not. No self-respecting adult should go see this, and no self-respecting kid should find it funny. But NANNY McPHEE is raking in the cash, so what do I know?

WALLACE AND GROMIT and THE CORPSE BRIDE are on world-wide release. NANNY McPHEE is already on release in the UK and hits the US on the 27th January 2006 and Germany on the 9th February.

MANDERLAY – Lars is a whole lot dumber than he thinks he is

When Lars von Trier made the movie, THE IDIOT, the advertising slogan was “You are a whole lot dumber than you think.” Well, people who live in glass houses should avoid throwing stones. But before we get to my thoughts on his latest movie, MANDERLAY, I must confess that, for the first time in my life, I actually walked out of the screening of MANDERLAY at the London Film Festival. So what follows is not a review but a “coming to terms” with why I did this. But first, some context…..

Lars von Trier is a film-maker who has consciously created a persona as a bad boy auteur who is tough to work with but produces controversial uncompromising works of art. His need to create a high profile began from the earliest days when he inserted the “von” into his plain old name and took his first full length feature, THE ELEMENT OF CRIME to Cannes in 1985. He deservedly won the Technical Prize for the film’s amazing cinematography and the accomplished use of old-fashioned visual effects and colouring. But this was not enough for Trier who was furious not to have won the Palme d’Or and has had a difficult (and highly publicised) bad relationship with Cannes ever since. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, Trier was the master of old-fashioned (no denigration intended) film techniques and mastered every aspect of the art of cinematography. This was particularly evident in ZENTROPA, sometimes known as EUROPA, EUROPA, released in 1991. Partly filmed in black and white, Zentropa used back screen projection and all sorts of other “lost techniques” to resurrect an ethereal and sinister post-war Germany. Once again, the film won the Cannes Technical Prize, and indeed, the Jury award, but failed to get the Palme d’Or. Trier literally gave the jury the finger.

Perhaps because he was so sick of getting labelled as a technical master, or perhaps because he was just bored, in 1995 Trier got together with some other directors and came up with the DOGME school of film-making. The idea was to strip film of everything but the camera and the actor. No artificial lighting, no artificial sets, to costumes, improvised dialogue, handheld cameras, no special effects. Not a bad plan, but rather than execute it, Trier continued to film his hysterical spoof-thriller/horror TV series, KINGDOM HOSPITAL and went off to make the superb BREAKING THE WAVES. It must have rankled when Trier’s stable-mate, Thomas Vintenberg, beat him to it and released the first and most highly acclaimed Dogme movie, FESTEN, rather stealing Trier’s thunder. The stripped down shooting style perfectly suited this story of a family anniversary party ruined by accusations of incest. This didn’t stop Trier making his own Dogme film – THE IDIOT. This was, in my opinion, less successful than Festen, and once again, as with Breaking the Waves, was nominated for, but did not win, the Palme d’Or.

So is Trier the Martin Scorsese of European cinema? No. By and large, I think the Cannes jury has correctly praised his technical skill, and usually, better films have won the Palme d’Or. Even when Trier’s most complete film BREAKING THE WAVES lost, it was beaten by the marginally better SECRETS AND LIES from Mike Leigh. By contrast, Scorsese always loses the Best Film Oscar to terrible movies viz. the sublime GOODFELLAS losing to the abysmal DANCES WITH WOLVES in 1991. (Cue another essay on why democracy does not work when it comes to adjudicating film awards…)

So, Trier had failed to conquer Cannes with his technical masterpieces and had failed to wow the world with Dogme. So now he decided to produce DANCER IN THE DARK, a lavish musical starring, improbably, Bjork and Catherine Deneuve. The kicker was that this was a thinly disguised critique on the capitalism, the treatment of immigrants in America and the injustice of the American legal system. Now, I absolutely love Dancer in the Dark. I do not agree with all its political points, but I do think that they are made in an intelligent and original way and most of all, they do not overwhelm the emotional heart of the story. I admire Dancer in the Dark a lot, but I also find it entertaining in part, and emotionally involving to the point of tears in others. Finally, Trier had cracked the code, and had won the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2000, beating off stiff competition from another Pantheon movie, Wong Kar Wei’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE.

What did Trier do next? He made too of the most polemical diatribes ever seen in a mutliplex – DOGVILLE and now MANDERLAY. Both are filmed in quasi-Dogme style. They are shot in bare studios with no set and few props. Where buildings and cars and trees should be they are marked out with masking tape on the floor. Let’s take DOGVILLE first. Nicole Kidman plays Grace, who has run away from her gangster father and is taken in by the good people of Dogville. It is the Great Depression and times are tough and the villagers soon start abusing Grace as a manual labourer and finally sexually. No doubt Trier meant this to be, as in Dancer in the Dark, an indictment of American capitalism and America’s treatment of immigrants. But to watch Dogville was like being bludgeoned over the head with an over-sized version of the Communist manifesto plated with iron. The acting performances were to be admired, as well as the sheer bloody-mindedness of the technical exercise, but there was little original or interesting in the political message. Let me once again re-iterate that I did not dislike this film because of its anti-capitalist message. I love Dancer in the Dark despite this. And if there were any further proof needed that anti-Americanism is not enough to make a movie good even in France, Trier took the film to Cannes and, for the first time ever, went home completely empty handed.

MANDERLAY has all of the political dogmatism and unsubtlety of DOGVILLE but has fewer decent acting performances to offset this. Notably, Bryce Dallas Howard, taking on the role of Grace, is a pale shadow of Nicole Kidman. This time Trier focuses his attentions of race relations and whether interfering in another regime is justified, and everyone is in the firing line. Grace stumbles on a plantation where slavery is still in effect despite the fact that it is now illegal. Should Grace intervene in affairs, and tell the slaves, indeed force the slaves, to be free? Or should, as the father suggests, they keep their noses out of other people’s business. (American foreign policy, anyone?) Grace intervenes, freeing the slaves and making the white slave owners their servants. At one point she has the former slave owners don “black face” and serve the former slaves supper.

Now, it is laudable to make a film about racial intolerance and whether it can be right to “force people to be free”. But I felt like Trier had nothing new, or powerful or interesting to say about these issues – at least in the first 80 minutes of the film. Worse still, I felt that Trier had none of the restraint shown in DOGVILLE. He was simply being shocking for the sake of it, as if to mask his lack of originality or indeed profundity with cries of horror. And isn’t making actors perform degrading acts without making any original and interesting creative or political statement in itself a form of exploitation? So I walked out. Once again, let me say that I do not object to the themes in Manderlay, or the use of some Dogme techniques, or the use of shocking imagery. I just object to the quality of the creative concept behind them. To my mind, MANDERLAY is a massive miscalculation and as crass and an offensive piece of work as you are likely to see on screen. It hurts to say that because I do admire much of Trier’s early work.

So should you see the movie? No doubt. My judgment is worthless because I could not stomach the full screening and who know what might have happened had I watched the whole movie. So please do go see MANDERLAY, and please tell me what you make of it!

MANDERLAY opened in France and Germany last week. It is scheduled for a limited release in the US on the 3rd February 2006. I’ll update the UK release date when I have it.

IN HER SHOES – mis-marketed but remarkably good

IN HER SHOES is one of the most mis-marketed movies I have ever come across. The PR seems to imply that it is going to be your usual air-head chick flick. Cute girl falls for wrong guy but nice guy is waiting in the wings or variations thereupon. Some laughs, some tears, then we all go home and forget about it. And I suppose, that one plot strand of IN HER SHOES confirms to this pattern. However, there is a lot more to the film. Indeed, IN HER SHOES is a thoughtful and perceptive drama about family. It focuses on the relationship between two sisters. The elder, Rose, is a successful lawyer who has always perceived herself to be less attractive than her younger sister. The younger sister, Maggie, is a ditzy blonde who can’t hold down a job. Although Rose’ life work has been looking out for her sister, one day Maggie does something unforgivable leading to a huge rift and some serious self-examination for each of them. Rose is brought back to life by a wonderful man; Maggie by a shrewd grandmother.

The movie is directed by Curtis Hanson, the man who brought us L.A. Confidential and 8 Mile. Hanson is a director I really admire, but in retrospect. What I mean by that is that I don’t immediately recognise a film as one of his. There is no obvious visual style or thematic tic. However, he does seem to have a talent for taking apparently straightforward genre movies and making them seem fresh and credible. If you don’t believe me, compare the taught and compelling dramatic arc of 8 MILE with the ludicrous hagiography of GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’. Hanson manages to work that magic again with IN HER SHOES. He keeps all the insights of the novel and brings them to the screen at a pace wherein the transformation of the central characters seems neither forced nor unrealistic. He brings a lightness of touch to some very profound and difficult subject matter – mental illness, learning difficulties, sexual politics in the workplace – ultimately reconciliation with oneself and one’s family. In this endeavour, we have to thank the screenwriter but especially three very strong central performances from Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz and Shirley Maclaine. I have to say here, that I reject the criticism from some viewers that Toni Collette is too pretty to play Rose. I agree that Toni is very attractive but the point is that she is also, to my mind, highly successful in portraying someone who perceives themselves as being unattractive.

So, I strongly recommend IN HER SHOES to all of you, especially the girls. But this isn’t a disposable chick flick or date movie: it is a well-crafted drama and deserves respect as such.

IN HER SHOES is on release in the US, Germany, Austria and the UK and hits France next week.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - it'll do, I suppose

The story is familiar to most, but if not, here is the set up: Mr Bennet is a gentleman with a vulgar wife, no son, and hence no property to leave to his five daughters. The eldest daughter Jane is on the verge of engagement to the wealthy Mr. Bingley, when Bingley's proud best friend Mr. Darcy persuades him against such a poor match. But will Mr. Darcy be so "kind" to himself when he falls for Jane's younger sister, Lizzie?

I say that PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is a harmless and pretty film because, despite manifold failures and errors of judgement, the source material itself is so charming that, to the faithful Austen fan, there is a certain happiness in just seeing another run through. Any adaptation that keeps the famous witty repartee and chooses idyllic English country houses shot in perpetual sunshine will produce something that slides down as easily as a good up of tea. This is "heritage" cinema and as far as it goes, there is nothing wrong with that. Note also that on this point you should not be led astray by press banter from the director, Joe Wright, who claims to have "roughed up" Austen. Yes, the Bennets have geese and swine running through the back yard. But a little mud does not make this Dickens and while some characters do have sordid pasts this is all off screen. We are by no means in the realms of recent BBC adaptations of Dickens and Thackeray where all the dirt, grime, corruption and pollution is on screen. By contrast, everyone in this adaptation looks like an advert for The National Trust.

But when you look beyond the pretty gowns and carriage there is something very wrong with the mechanics of the thing. I think this is half casting and half scripting. Keira Knightley looks lovely as Lizzie Bennet and has the right sort of energy, but too often looks petulant rather than passionate. Much has been made of the fact that she is the same age as the fictional Lizzie Bennet but I, and it would appear much of England, prefers Jennifer Ehle's portrayal in the 1995 BBC adaptation. Matthew Matthew MacFadyen is similarly miscast as Mr. Darcy. He has none of the fearsome authority that would silence a ballroom ( a proposterous scene). Rosamund Pike is delightful as Jane Bennet but her Mr. Bingley is hopeless. Not that I think that this is fault of acting as much as of scripting. Poor Simon Woods is made to look a complete buffoon. Bingley is meant to be too trusting and too persuadable, but not an idiot. Against such a poor cast, it is no wonder that Tom Hollander stands out as the odious, obsequious Mr. Collins.

The other half of the problem is scripting. By this I mean that while it is not inconceivable that we should have a 2 hour PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, this is not it. In choosing what to slash and compress some wrong choices have been made. The plot strand that really suffers is Lizzie's infatuation with Mr. Wickham and her conviction that Darcy has done him wrong. I am convinced that Rupert Friend was only cast as Wickham because he looks vaguely like Orlando Bloom and he gets precious little screen time with Lizzie. As a result, we hardly understand why she should take against Darcy on his account. This undercuts the development of the relationship between Darcy and Lizzie - the very centre of the story.

Overall, then, a decent enough romp through familiar territory but hardly anything to recommend a second viewing. To be sure, it does not have the luxury of 6 hours playing time, but even in the shorter time-frame allowed more could have been made of the cast. Perhaps viewers unfamiliar with the iconic BBC adaptation will not hold this version up to that high benchmark and take this version on its own terms as a sweet, period drama. But ardent Austen fans, while thankful for any big-screen indulgence, will be disappointed.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE was released in the UK in September and in Germany and Austria in October. It is released in the USA on the 23rd November and in France on the 28th November. A 10th anniversary DVD of the BBC production has also been released.