NITRAM***** - BFI London Film Festival 2021 - Day 7

NITRAM is a stunning and disturbing film from Aussie writer-director Justin Kurzel that covers a deeply traumatic and controversial mass shooting in mid-1990s Tasmania. The perpetrator was a man called Martin, who was teased with the nickname Nitram because he was mentally "backward".  Indeed, it's a open question what's wrong with Martin. He seems childlike - his mother describes behaviour that seems psychopathic - he's being prescribed drugs for depression - he has an unhealthy obsession with fireworks and guns. What's clear is that his parents love him but also enable him - particularly his dad - and at various points of the film I became angry that he wasn't in a residential care facility rather than out and about in the general community. 

The truth is stranger than fiction.  This misfit somehow meets an incredibly wealthy eccentric older woman (Essie Davis) and she essentially bankrolls him and takes him in, even though even she draws the line at buying him a gun.  As the film develops we see that this newfound freedom and money does not satisfy Martin. He remains severely lonely, unhappy and disturbed. And so we move to the inevitable final act, which is handled delicately and largely off-screen. We are left with harsh questions.  Could his parents have prevented this? His doctors?  The people he freaked out but who didn't report anything? And would anything have happened if he hadn't had the (mis)fortune of access to wealth, and thanks to Australia's then lax gun laws, a cache of arms?

Caleb Landry Jones won the acting award at Cannes for his performance in NITRAM and it's well deserved. It's incredibly moving and nuanced - at once terrifying and heart-breaking. I was physically wincing in fear, but also believed Martin genuinely loved his mum and particularly his dad. Judy Davis is typically brilliant as Martin's mum and Anthony LaPaglia is heartbreaking as his dad. 

I also loved the choice to use a limited claustrophobic aspect ratio that makes us feel trapped by Martin in the hazy summer heat of dusty abandoned rooms. This is arguably Kurzel's most assured and impressive film to date. Kudos to all involved. 

NITRAM played Cannes 2021 where Caleb Landry Jones won Best Actor. It was released earlier this year in Australia. The film has a running time of 112 minutes.

DAVID STRATTON: A LIFE IN FILM - BFI London Film Festival 2017 Preview

Director Sally Aitken's DAVID STRATTON: A LIFE IN CINEMA is one of those films that makes you fall in love with cinema all over again.  It's a must for cinephiles and especially for lovers of Australian cinema.  I must confess, however, that I sat down to watch it never having heard of the titular film reviewer. But it turns out that he's actually something of an icon - the Aussie Roger Ebert, say.  He started out living in England, before moving to Australia, and discovering his adopted country through its cinema. Obsessed with movies, he realised he could watch films for free if he volunteered as an usher at the Sydney Film Festival. He then worked his way up the be the festival's director for many years, before working as a critic for Variety, and then hosting a hugely popular and influential TV review show in Australia. Even now his passion for cinema is undimmed, and he teaches a seemingly never-ending class on world history at Sydney university.

The still-English accented Stratton takes us through his life and the development of Aussie cinema by highlighting movies that he thinks are exceptional but also personally important to him.  So we get Aussie classics like PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK and recent films like MURIEL'S WEDDING by way of fan favourites like STRICTLY BALLROOM.  But he also subtly teaches us about the first time we saw an Aussie female director, or Aborigines take lead roles, or when Geoffrey Rush was the first Aussie to win an acting Oscar for SHINE.  He takes us through the Ozploitation trend and into the birth of arthouse cinema. And we even learn that the first ever feature film in the WORLD was an Aussie film about the Kelly gang. 

What I loved about this film was seeing actors and directors from Peter Weir to Nicole Kidman to Russell Crowe to David Michod discussing their films with Stratton - the insights and the debates. The most controversial of these is over the white supremacist film ROMPER STOMPER, starring Crowe, that Stratton thought was well made but actively dangerous.  The director hasn't gotten over the slight but Crowe is surprisingly gracious.  We also see Stratton change his mind over the Aussie classic THE CASTLE. 

Having watched this film, I desperately want to buy a compilation of Stratton's written reviews, to sit alongside those from Sarris, Kael and Ebert. He seems like such an insightful, historically literate critic.  This documentary has also given me a list of Aussie films recommended by Stratton that I can't wait to watch. To that end, it's a great doc insofar as it has deepened my understanding of old favourites and provoked a hunger to get to know more about Australian cinema.

DAVID STRATTON: A CINEMATIC LIFE has a running time of 97 minutes. It played Cannes 2017 and opened earlier this year in Australia. There are still tickets available for both screenings at the BFI London Film Festival. 

TO ROME WITH LOVE

TO ROME WITH LOVE is a rather mediocre, derivative, Woody Allen movie - a portmanteau of four stories, neither of which is especially interesting, well-acted or well-developed.  The only real link is that they all take place in Rome - there isn't a link between them - either through the characters or thematically, as far as I can tell. 

The most ill-fitting of the four stories, by virtue of the fact that it's in Italian and also because it isn't romantic but whimsical-philosophical, centres on an ordinary Joe (Roberto Benigni) who suddenly becomes famous for no reason he can see. It's kind of an inverse Josef K situation - and a wry comment on the fatuousness of modern celebrity culture - and reminded  me of early Woody Allen movies where a fantastical idea was worked out to it's ludicrous extreme. The problem is that the story makes a rather simplistic point, and doesn't really take it anywhere.

The story I found simultaneously the best and worst features Woody Allen himself back in an acting role, as a cynical retired impresario who puts his daughter's Italian father-in-law on the stage. Problem is, this simple mortician can only sing when he's in the shower. It's meant to be fantastic and funny but fell rather flat for me. The only redeeming feature was Judy Davis, cast once again as Woody Allen's wife.  She gets the only really funny one-liners of the whole film.

Next up, we have Jesse Eisenberg playing a young Woody Allen character - an unsatisfied cynic who cheats on his earnest girlfriend (Greta Gerwig) with her flighty, flirty best friend (Ellen Page). I really hated this segment, mainly because the romantic triangle is well-worn in Woody Allen; second, because I thought Ellen Page was woefully miscast as the femme fatale; and third, the conceit of having Alec Baldwin play a devil on the shoulder of Jesse Eisenberg's character also just fell flat.

Finally, we have the weakest story of the bunch.  A young Italian couple lose each other - she flirts with an elderly actor and he gets entangled with the cliché Woody Allen brassy whore (Penelope Cruz.) No laughs, no insights, no point.

All in all, after his recent good run, this is an utterly worthless and mirthless movie.  We've seen all this done before - and better. Most of all, it's disappointing to see Jesse Eisenberg wasted on such poor material.  He's an actor who seems to have been playing Woody Allen all his life.

TO ROME WITH LOVE opened earlier this year in Italy, the USA, Argentina, Brazil, Norway, Uruguay, Belgium, France, Israel, Russia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Iceland, Mexico, Denmark, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, Finland, Greece and India. It opens this weekend in the UK, Ireland and Lithuania. It opens next weekend in Portugal, Singapore, Estonia and Spain. It opens on September 28th in Taiwan and Turkey; on November 9th in Bulgaria; and on December 20th in New Zealand.

Overlooked DVD of the month - IMPROMPTU

Afflicted with a summer cold, I spent a day convalescing. While waiting for the Euro 2008 matches to begin I stumbled upon the new iTunes video rental feature. The prices are high and the choice limited, but I was a captive market. The only movie I hadn't seen and was mildly intrigued by was the early 1990s Chopin-George Sand biopic, IMPROMPTU. I rented the movie because I'm a sucker for period romance but also because George Sand is an intriguing figure. A radical feminist in the mid nineteenth century, her fiction may be of mixed quality but her importance cannot be denied. She flouted conventions by wearing men's clothes and loving "strongly, exclusively and steadfastly" a number of the key artists of her time - not least Frederic Chopin and Alfred de Musset. An added inducement to watching the film was the fact that Judy Davis - a brilliantly talented actress - was playing the lead. I was less enamoured of the prospect of seeing Hugh Grant play Chopin.

The first half of the film passes as something of a bedroom farce, with Liszt, Musset, Delacroix, and Sand house guests of some country aristos eager to look civilised. All of Sand's lovers quarrel and Sand pursues Chopin - a provincial, prudish blushing near-virgin. It's all rather light and funny and reminded me a little of Woody Allen's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY. As the artists disperse we get to the true business of Sand wooing Chopin and we leave them as they depart for Mallorca. Here the film has a more serious, more straightforwardly romantic tone.

Judy Davis is superb as Sand. She embodies her energy, passion, opennenss and intelligence but also her vulnerability. You truly understand why men would be drawn to such an unconventional woman. Davis is surrounded, for the most part, a sterling supporting cast. Bernadette Peters gives a great performance as Franz Liszt's mistress Marie d'Agoult. She is a monster, but crucially, one with whom we can empathise. Mandy Patinkin is hysterical as Musset. Emma Thompson displays her gift for comedy as the Duchess d'Antan. Anna Massey is captivating in her cameo role. Indeed, the only bum note is struck by Julian Sands as Liszt - an utterly thin performance.

The real surprise, however, is Hugh Grant! He pulls off the accent, the provincial outrage, and finally the hesitant declaration of love. He's never looked more beautiful and it was a courageous role for a young actor - to appear so thoroughly emasculated on screen. I am thoroughly impressed!

IMPROMPTU was released in 1991 and is available on iTunes.

THE BREAK-UP - not bad, just painful

THE BREAK-UP has been marketed as a romantic comedy but it’s really a relationship drama that happens to feature a character who is very funny. That character is Gary Grubowski, a tour-bus guide, sports-nut, slob and motor-mouth. He’s played by Vince Vaughn as a sort of grown-up and out-of-shape version of Trent from the brilliant dating comedy SWINGERS. Gary has a best-friend (Jon Favreau) and a younger brother who are also playing fifty-seven shades of Trent from SWINGERS, even down to replicating the “batting the bunny around speech” with a “feeding kitty some milk” speech. This is all good. The bent fork in the toaster is that Gary is in love with, and living with, a chick called Brooke, played by Jennifer Aniston. Brooke works in an art gallery and likes the ballet. She is pissed off with Gary for taking her for granted – which he does – and wants him to change. She reacts to this by being whiny and manipulative although clearly she is HURT so that’s okay.

The movie is sporadically funny – usually when Vaughn is doing his Trent schtick. But most of the time it is painful to watch. Not because it’s bad. It’s like if you’re out with two friends who keep arguing with each other, and you feel really awkward and just want to leave. Well, that’s pretty much what watching this movie is like. It also means that whenever the movie reverts to broader humour – notably in Judy Davis’ marvellous cameo as Brooke’s boss – the tone of the movie changes abruptly and jars. Also, a minor gripe, but why does every romantic comedy now have to have a scene where a family sits round a dining table and starts singing?

THE BREAK-UP was released in June 2006 in Singapore, Canada, the US, Australia, the Netherlands, Russia, Mexico, Belgium, France, Greece and Hungary. It was released in July in Portugal, Iceland and Thailand. It goes on release in the UK today. It opens in Argentina, Finland, Poland and Sweden on August 4th, Germany, Austria, Turkey and Venezuala on August 11th and Egypt on August 30th. It opens in Italy, Spain on September 22nd.