MOONRISE KINGDOM

Wes Anderson was, for me, a film-maker like Tim Burton.  A man with a distinct and beautiful visual style but whose tendency to rework the same themes, with the same actors, playing essentially the same characters, had begun to pall.  I particularly hated his last live action film, THE DARJEELING LIMITED, for its self-absorption, narcissism, rather exploitative attitude toward its Indian context, and ultimately for just being dull. With this in mind, I went into  MOONRISE KINGDOM with barely any hope that I would find the kind of film - at once whimsical and yet also profound (echoes of Tarsem Singh's THE FALL!) - that I had fallen in love with while watching THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS.

Well, my fears were groundless. MOONRISE KINGDOM is a simply wonderful film.  It is, of course, beautifully designed, rich in background detail, empathetically scored, and well-acted.  It affects a sweet yet knowing innocence - it's full of characters struggling to deal honestly with themselves and their loved ones - it deals with the darkest of emotions but it drips with hope - in friendship, in people doing the right thing - in family.  It's as if everything that began to feel so clichéd about Wes Anderson has finally been re-united with sincere emotion - and that this emotional authenticity has cut through the stagey-ness of the costumes, locations, soundtrack - and transformed a whimsical confection into something altogether more lasting, provocative and memorable.  It's as if Wes Anderson finally gave in and just told the story he always wanted to tell - about first love.

Suzy B (Kara Hayward) falls in love with an eagle-scout called Sam (Jared Gilman) one golden summer in 1965. The carefully hatched plan to leave together triggers a sequence of scrapes, jams, shenanigans, emotional revelations and deeds good and ill.  

Anderson perfectly captures that intensity of feeling when you're a kid and you feel nobody understands you apart from this one perfect person. Suzy's trying to escape her family - her kid brothers, her distant father (Bill Murray) and the mother (Frances McDormand) she suspects of sleeping with local policeman (Bruce Willis). Sam's an orphan and a misfit with a good heart. In one of the most affecting scenes, written in exact mimicry of how we speak at that age, Sam tells Suzy he loves her but she's talking nonsense for hating her parents. Suzy and Sam run away together.  They're at the age and living in the time when you're hold world fits into a suitcase, and you take your're favourite adventure stories rather than clothes. When you can place you're entire life into the hands of another person without second-guessing yourself.  

There's a deep vein of melancholy running through the film. Most of the adults seem desperately lonely, none moreso than Ed Norton's majestically decent scout leader.  The exception is the almost mechanical Social Services, played by Tilda Swinton with steely efficiency. But the kids are in their own world, where all things are possible, and where adults barely skim the surface, except as occasional constraints and only too rarely as facilitators. There's excitement and wonder and threat and crushing disappointment. As the movie builds to a pivotal final scene (superbly scored to Britten's Noye's Fludde) I realised that I deeply cared about these kids.  I wanted desperately to know what they happened to them, and not just to download the soundtrack they were listening to. It's been a long time, but we finally have a Wes Anderson movie that makes us feel as well as admire its surfaces.  

MOONRISE KINGDOM opened Cannes 2012. It is on release in France, Germany, Ireland, Turkey, the UK and he USA. It opens next weekend in Belgium, Iceland, Hungary and the Netherlands. It opens on June 6th in Sweden, on June 8th in Norway, on June 15th in Greece and Spain, on June 21st in Russia, on June 2nd in Portugal and Lithuania, on August 16th in Slovenia and Argentina and on August 30th in New Zealand.

London Film Fest 2010 Day 14 - HOWL

HOWL is a beautifully made film about Allen Ginsberg's iconic Beat poem, published in 1955. Honest, raw, sexually explicit, Ginsberg described the reality of life on the road in the counter-culture - how young urban hipsters were really living and feeling. That rawness and authenticity - the proud joy at enjoying sex, drugs, literature, music and good company - and the anger at the establishment, the bourgeoisie, still translates. I guess a lot of us can remember a time in our teenage life when we first read Howl, and then maybe Kerouac's On The Road or Burrough's Naked Lunch.

Acclaimed documentarians, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK) have produced a film that has the authenticity and immediacy of a documentary, recreating iconic photographs of Ginsberg; using a script that is almost entirely based on interviews and transcripts of the court-case wherein publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti was charged with obscenity for having published the poem. This is, however, no court thriller - especially as we know the outcome! Rather, Epstein and Friendman use the court-case as a door through which to explore contemporary reactions to the poem - from prudish shock and patronising contempt through to bewildered admiration and excitement. And that's the genius of HOWL. It's a movie that dares to give us what is, essentially, literary criticism rather than a prurient examination of The Beats' sex lives or a conventional biopic. In other words, the film-makers want us to understand why Howl was important, artistically and socially. And in doing so - in showing us Ginsberg talking about how he wrote, and why he wrote, we get as much of a picture of the man as any straight-ahead biopic would've given us.

Stylistically, one has to give Epstein and Friedman credit for the sterling recreation of the 1950s - from cramped apartments to the costumes. The attention to detail in recreating photos is superb and DP Edward Lachman LIFE DURING WARTIME, FAR FROM HEAVEN) moves with ease from honey-coloured 1950s court-rooms to grungy beat apartments in black-and-white.

We also get an imaginative animated version of the poem that is inter-cut with court-room discussion of the same lines, and then Ginsberg reading them, or explaining them. All this adds up to a rich discussion and understanding of the text, although I personally could've done without the pictures - the words are enough for me. I wish they'd trusted more in the power of the words to carry our interest. The film is also populated with a fine cast of major names even in very slight roles - principally Jon Hamm as the prosecuting lawyer; David Strathairn for the Defence; Bob Balaban as the judge; and Mary-Louise Parker as a particularly amusing defence witness. These actors are all great, but in such small roles I found them to be more of a distraction, and wished that the film-makers had used character actors instead.

However, for all that, I still loved this film. It was an hour and a half of pure literary indulgence. And what really sets this film a cut above is the performance of James Franco as the young Ginsberg, with his perfect reproduction of that bizarre lilting way in which Ginsberg spoke and the physicality of how he carried himself. It was marvellous to see Ginsberg young and striving, rather than as the old balding man, established, that we often remember. Here he was - here the the Beats were - at the creation. It's exhilarating to watch. But a more interesting question is perhaps how far this film will translate to people who aren't as familiar with the poem. Will they be won over to its importance and artistry?  And will they find Ginsberg's speech patterns bizarre and off-putting rather than charming and particular? Evidence from my Gentleman Secretary suggests the latter.

HOWL played Berlin and Sundance 2010. It was released in Italy in August and in the the US in September. It opens in Denmark on November 25th. It opens in Germany on January 6th, in the UK on February 25th and in Finland on March 25th.

RECOUNT - liberal masochism

RECOUNT is a HBO movie depicting the fateful period after the 2000 US Presidential Election. The confusing design of the ballot led Democratic voters to vote Republican, and the Gore campaign asked for a recount. The Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, effectively stopped a full recount letting the pro-Republican result stand - a decision sanctioned by the US Supreme Court. And so the world was saddled with W. To those of us with a liberal turn of mind, the result was a travesty of justice and democracy. This movie panders to those views. To our opponents, the movie will be seen as partisan and therefore rejected. 

So let's assume that only liberals have a desire to watch this film, does it deliver? No. Because Jay Roach (MEET THE FOCKERS) can't decide whether he's directing a serious political expose or a broad comedy. As expose the movie fails because it doesn't actually tell us anything we don't already know. The Gore camp played by the rules, lacked the stomach for a balls-out cat-fight for the presidency and lost. The Bush camp had better lawyers, owned the institutions in Florida, and triumphed. Re-heating the debacle is just pure masochism. Sure, Kevin Spacey and Denis Leary as Gore campaigners do their best to look horrified by the lack of commitment on the part of their bosses and the evil machinations of the GOP, but seriously, what do we learn? 

Worse still, the broad comedy undermines the seriousness of the issues, and is, in fact, unnecessary. Katherine Graham is ludicrous enough without Laura Dern's caricature, and Tom Wilkinson's James Baker is a pantomime villain. The real truth of the recount is horrifying enough without camping it up.

Overall then, as someone who loves politics and thinks of herself as a liberal, I was sorely disappointed by this movie. I can't help but think that a more balanced documentary would've served us better.

RECOUNT is an HBO TV movie shown in 2008. It was released in the UK, Spain, Switzerland, the Philippines and Hungary last autumn and is available on DVD.

JAKOB THE LIAR - should a Holocaust film really be a feel-good movie?

Jakob Heym: Hitler goes to a fortune-teller and asks, "When will I die?" And the fortune-teller replies, "On a Jewish holiday." Hitler then asks, "How do you know that?" And she replies, "Any day you die will be a Jewish holiday."

JAKOB THE LIAR is a schmaltzy, manipulative but patently earnest film about the Holocaust. Robin Williams is in typically over-the-top as Jakob, shut in the ghetto, who stumbles into telling his fellow sufferers uplifting lies of advancing Allies via his illicit, imaginary, radio. This newfound hope transforms them: Liev Schreiber's loveable Mischa starts courting.

The problem with this film is that it takes a fundamentally grim subject and tries to turn it into a tale about the triumph of the human spirit. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It's the same problem I had with SCHINDLER'S LIST and LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL: both earnest, well-made, and arguably better-written and acted than this film. There is something that strikes me as hokey in anything that dilutes the raw power of documentaries like THE SORROW AND THE PITY or SHOAH.

JAKOB THE LIAR played Toronto 1999. It is available on DVD.

Random DVD Round-Up 2 - NO RESERVATIONS - formulaic rom-com bilge

NO RESERVATIONS is a deeply unexciting romantic comedy based on the much more nuanced German film MOSTLY MARTHA. Catherine Zeta Jones plays the highly-strung ambitious chef landed with her niece (the ubiquitous Abigail Breslin) after a family tragedy. Calculating boss Patricia Clarkson decides that CZJ can't cope with work and family and brings in boho chef Aaron Eckhart to take over. CZJ hates him. Then she loves him. And it all end schmaltzily ever after. A thousand feminists die. Philip Glass composes a typically over-bearing score.

NO RESERVATIONS squelched into theatres in summer 2007 and is available on DVD.

Random DVD Round-Up 1 - ABSENCE OF MALICE

ABSENCE OF MALICE is a rather soupy middle-aged romance labouring under its aspirations to be an intelligent discourse about journalistic integrity. Sally Fields plays a grotesquely naive and sloppy writer for a local Miami newspaper. She's suckered into writing an ill-researched piece that accuses a local businessman (Paul Newman) of being involved in the disappearance of labour leader. Newman's character spends the rest of the movie asserting his innocence - despite his shady connections he's so transparently innocent there's not much tension. And to make things even more ludicrous, Sally Field's character even starts an affair with Paul Newman's character. Clearly, director Sydney Pollack and screen-writer (and ex-journo) Kurt Luedtke want to say something deep and meaningful about the sad state of journalism. What they actually end up with is a third-rate romance. Avoid at all costs despite the high-powered cast. BROADCAST NEWS runs rings round this flick.

ABSENCE OF MALICE played Berlin 1982 and opened in 1981 and 1982. Melinda Dillon, Kurt Luedtke and Paul Newman were nominated for Oscars but lost out to Maureen Stapleton (REDS), Colin Welland (CHARIOTS OF FIRE) and Henry Fonda (ON GOLDEN POND) respectively.

LADY IN THE WATER - a deeply affecting fairy-tale for adults

I know I'm gonna catch all manner of crap for this, but I found THE LADY IN THE WATER to be an enchanting and deeply affecting movie. I wasn't even going to see it because the reviewers had universally panned it. But The Kid wanted someone to take her and, as I am also on vacation, I was roped in.

So, why have the critics panned this movie? I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that M. Night Shyamalan (the writer, director and supporting actor) comes across as an arrogant twat in most of his press coverage. "Night" as he styles himself, appparently sees himself as a visionary auteur who is misunderstood by an uncaring and insensitive world. In Night's personal mythology, mean studios and film critics embody all that is wrong with the world - cynicism, conformity, and (ironically) arrogance. Now, I am not for one minute arguing that film critics can't separate the work from the author - you can hate Wagner the man but love his music, after all. But it is very difficult to separate the two when Night creates a movie that really is just an elaborate representation of his personal mythology. To some extent, I have very little sympathy for Shyamalan. Would it really have been so difficult to cast an actor other than himself as the writer whose work will be so criticial to man's future that the sea-nymphs have sent one of their own to "awaken" him and ensure the work is completed, even at risk to her own life! Not content with casting himself as the saviour of the world, Night then goes on to depict as a film critic (played with suitable froideur by Bob Balaban) as an arrogant false-god who comes to a violent and deserved end! I was all ready to hate a film that seemed such an extension of ego but.....

Why did THE LADY IN THE WATER weave such a spell over me? Maybe because I am still just a six-year old kid at heart, wanting to believe in sea-nymphs. Maybe because I like the idea that ordinary people can come together to achieve a great good. (Hokey, I know.) I think it is because this movie, like THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE before it, touches on two subjects that have pre-occupied me over the past year: the difficulty of grieving and the difficulty of knowing what purpose life has for us. That Shyamalan chooses to tackle these subjects by using elaborate metaphors and child-like fantasy may seem odd or difficult, but I found it worked really well.

If I look at things objectively, THE LADY IN THE WATER worked for me because first and foremost it created a fantasy world that was internally consistent and so credible. Second, the cast was universally excellent, from Paul Giamatti as the world-weary Janitor/hero to the supporting cast that includes Jeffrey Wright. Maybe it's because the movie was shot by Christopher Doyle - a man who is known for capturing luminous, haunting images but who can also unsettle with his choice of what is in the frame and what isn't. So often in THE LADY IN THE WATER the camera focuses on the person reacting to dialogue rather than capturing both of the talking heads. Or we look through water, or around corners. There is a particularly stunning shot near the end of the movie where Paul Giamatti's janitor is saying goodbye to the sea-nymph as she is taken back to her world by the eagle. It would have been difficult to show such an event conventionally without breaking the magic. Doyle shoots it up through the swimming pool so that the action is just distorted shapes in the moonlight.

Like I said, THE LADY IN THE WATER has been much maligned by critics and I can see why. Despite being aimed at adults it's an out-and-out fairy-tale in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm (i.e. it includes a fair amount of sexual tension, some racial stereotyping and a lot of scary stuff.) But I have to tell it how I felt it, and for the second time this year, risk losing any shred of credibility I had as a reviewer. This movie appealed to the little girl who believed in fairy stories in me. As a simple story of faith and hope in a world filled with terror and disaster it affected me deeply. So I would urge you to give it a shot.

THE LADY IN THE WATER is already on release in Thailand, the US, Singapore, India, Chile and the UK. It goes on release in Hong Kong, Iceland, Mexico, Egypt, France, Argentina, Spain and Germany in August 2006. THE LADY IN THE WATER opens in Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Estonia, Australia, Hungary, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Portugal and Italy in September. It opens in Japan on October 21st 2006.