Change Your Image
guyburns
Reviews
The Eighty Days (1944)
Little more than a Box Brownie collection
As a collection of historic clips about the bombing of London, this is very good. As a documentary, it is very ordinary, and that's how I am judging it. My copy came from the 3-Volume Blu-ray set of Humphrey Jennings.
It begins with 50 seconds of commentary explaining the "Doodlebug", the V1 bomb and what the German's intentions were; then there is 1 minute of what sounds like static; then 9 minutes of occasional location sound to accompany the images, but more often just added sounds effects; then music begins at 3 minutes before the end, and finally another minute of narration, narration that has missing words (due to the poor source material).
This doco is not even or newsreel standard. It's no more than an archive of hundreds of clips, quickly strung together, with virtually no storyline to tie it together other than London being bombed. We see close-ups of people talking, but often no words can be heard, just the added sound of bombs and the drone of V1s.
"The Eighty Days" would make an excellent source of images for use in other docos or films, but as it stands, it is simply a raw document of historic interest only, little better than flipping through an album of Box Brownie photos. Or to use more modern terms, it's as if someone had an iPhone during the bombing, took a lot of video, strung them together randomly, and uploaded to YouTube.
The Changing Face of Europe (1951)
Historically interesting but dull
I'm working my way through all of Jennings' films as contained in the three-volume Blu-ray set "The Complete Humphrey Jennings". The films appear to be getting poorer towards the end of the set, and this offering, "The Good Life" (Part 6 from "The Changing Face of Europe"), confirms the downward trajectory.
Whereas most of the earlier offerings had narration that verged on the poetic, music that had the power to move, images that mesmerised, and storylines that were engaging, this 18 minute film, though competently enough put together, never rises above the pedestrian. It is simply telling a story that needed to be told, but in a rather forgettable style.
I found the most interesting part to be the section on malaria and Lord Byron (12 minutes into the film). And I've learnt something, so that's a positive. Not only did they spray DDT in the fields - and it looks like the researcher taking samples from a pond is also going to cop the spray - there are scenes of spraying DDT inside homes, a process known as "Indoor Residual Spraying" or IRS. It's a technique approved by the World Health Organisation, but Avertino Barreto, Mozambique's chief of infectious disease control, says: "Whoever suggests DDT use (indoors), I say, 'Fine, I'll start spraying in your house first.' "
I can't comment on the remainder of "The Changing Face of Europe" as I've only seen Part 6. But if that is representative of the whole, then it will be an historically interesting film, but not very inspiring.
Family Portrait (1950)
Not among Jenning's best
A look at what Britain has given the world. The terms poetry and prose are used several times - and not just in the ordinary sense. They are also used to contrast the poetry of science and the prose of technology.
It's interesting enough in its way, however, it doesn't quite come together. it lurches from one topic to another. The narrator is too strident in places, as is the music. It hasn't got the feeling of Jennings' best work. Compared to "London Can Take", "A Diary For Timothy" or "Lili Marlene", Family Portrait falls far short. Maybe Jennings needed the backdrop of war to fully bring his projects to life.
Trautmann (2018)
A Fake Movie: false and manipulative
10 out of 10 for manipulation. 3 out of 10 as a character study - which is what this film should be about. I saw 5 minutes of competent story-telling -- the scene where the dad talks about his daughter to the goalie was well done. But I also saw 10 minutes of in-your-face manipulation, 10 minutes of heavy moralising (we get to see starved inmates of Belsen), and 90 minutes of...
The director goes for impact rather than believability. Here are some examples:
1. Opens with a war scene in a forest. Men with guns; a cute deer is briefly observed; then the audience feels the impact of huge explosions with deep bass in full surround-sound, and men are dying in mud. The deer is also shown dead. I wonder if any animals were harmed in the making of this movie?
Why didn't they open with a simple scene in a POW camp? Because the director wants to manipulate the audience right from the start. Give us a lot of bang for our cinematic buck.
2. A scene in the POW camp. A young woman comes into camp. The inmates are kicking ball to the goalie. Immediately you know the woman is the sex interest, that somehow she already has the hots for the goalie. No finesse at all. The way she talks, the way she is filmed. Sounding just like she has come out of 2018 and not 1945 (when the movie is set), she wants to have a go at kicking the ball. Really? In a POW camp during the war, a woman wants to be involved with German inmates?
3. Scene where woman and family, who hate Germans, give the soccer-mad dad a hard time. But of course we already know by the script and the film-style that the woman really has the hots for the goalie.
4. Two women talking sex-talk about the goalie. Really? During the war; about an enemy combatant; 20 years before the sexual revolution in the 60s? It's 2018 talk falsely imposed on 1945 females.
5. Goalie weasles his way into family hearts by building stilts for a crippled girl. What a wonderful man! What a 10-out-of-10 way to manipulate your audience. Goalie later moves into the crippled-girl's room, with full access to all her toys. She tells him it's okay to play with her toys. Touching.
6. Several times in flashbacks we see the goalie, during the war, stopping his commander from shooting a young boy with a ball. But it's a con. Right at the end we discover that he didn't stop his commander. Yes, deceive your audience into thinking he was a good guy during the war, so that later on you can turn it around for shock impact on the audience. It also allows the goalie to blame himself for the death of his own child. He says he had it coming.
7. Goalie is on the phone to his girl (now wife), just about to own up to his inaction during the incident when the boy with the ball was shot. Phone call is interrupted by a car crash. Wife drops the phone, and we cut to the goalie who is wondering what has happened; and, yes, just like in Ripley's 'Believe It Or Not', their son has just been killed in the street outside playing with a ball. Right at the moment of the phone call. What a tragic coincidence.
Audience falls silent on cue
8. Scene in a graveyard. The goalie is at his son's grave. Former commander at the POW turns up to visit his wife and children who were killed by German bombs. Previously a rabid German-hater (he's the one who shows the film about Belsen to the camp inmates), and who was particularly nasty towards the goalie, this supposed German-o-phobe has now seen the light. He encourages the goalie to keep on playing football. How does the goalie respond to this attempt at reconciliation? He starts a brawl in the cemetery. Cut to juxtapositions of the two graves. Another example of extreme manipulation.
Audience falls silent on cue.
I could go on. Numerous examples similar to the above litter this movie. The characters, as portrayed, are unbelievable. The scriptwriter has them saying words they wouldn't say. The director puts them is situations they would never have been in. They moralise. Now moralising is okay when it is well written and spoken by characters who are of that ilk. Mr Smith in the US senate in "Mr Smith Goes to Washington" comes to mind. So does Atticus in his courtroom speech in "To Kill a Mockingbird". And so does Rick at that end of Casablanca, explaining why he is not getting on that plane. There are many examples of characters moralising in the cinematic greats. But in this movie, the moralising is out of context.
Whatever happened to the wonderful story of a German POW being accepted as a British goalie? It was smothered by manipulation. It seems that a lot of modern directors don't have the ability to just tell a story. They have to call on excess. They have to falsify normal human interaction. To paraphrase Donald Trump, they have to indulge in Fake Movies.
I saw this film at the North-West film society in Devonport. Members vote on each film by placing beans in jars: 1-star up to 4-star. Most beans went into the 4-star jar.
Manipulation works. That's why directors do it.
The Birth of the Robot (1936)
Imaginative and surreal cinema commercial
This cinema commercial for Shell Oil Company was a great success at the time of its release, playing in more than 300 cinemas and reaching an audience of 3 million. It is difficult to fully understand on first viewing, and requires some explanation to get the best out of it.
1. The film was an experiment in using a new colour process – Gasparcolor.
2. It opens with Old Man Time cranking the handle of a clockwork carousel which caused the five planets known to the ancients to circle the Earth. In order of appearance, the planets are:
Jupiter (Zeus holding his thunderbolts)
Mercury (bright planet closest to the sun)
Saturn
Mars (the god of war)
Venus (with her lyre)
The scene closes with a pan out, showing the Earth, the sun, and the five planets on a carousel operated by Old Man Time.
3. A man in a wayward car is meandering among the pyramids. He's rather proud of his car and the sound the engine makes (music notes flying upwards).
4. He wanders into a sandstorm, and the car becomes delirious with thirst for oil. It sees a mirage of an Arabian petrol station with stylised petrol bowsers looking like perfume bottles.
5. Hallucinations begin: an hour glass and Old Man Time appear as apparitions, signalling death –- Old Man Time is now the Grim Reaper wielding his scythe.
6. The man and car perish in the desert.
7. Venus wakes, sees Old Man Time asleep (or dead), and sees the remains of the man and car. She decides to turn the skeleton into a robot, by raining down music notes which turn into oil drops, lubricating the skeleton and bringing it to life.
8. The robot rises and begins road building and development.
9. Man takes to the skies, and then to outer space.
10. Venus looks down and waves to the robot, who has motorised the planetary carousel.
11. The final scene reveals the reason the film was made: "Modern worlds need modern lubrication – lubrication by Shell Oil."
An impressive commercial for any era, let alone 1936.
Drafty, Isn't It? (1957)
Another winner from Chuck Jones (and the Army)
Chuck Jones did three cartoons featuring the adventurous Ralph Phillips. In "From A to ZZZ" and "Boyhood Days", Ralph is a boy. In this Army-commissioned cartoon, Ralph is of military age and is having nightmares about the call from Uncle Sam – until Willie N. List turns up with his Anti-Nightmare Machine (from ACME corporation, of course), and calms Ralph's fears.
At this stage of Chuck Jones' career, cartooning must have come easy. It is surprisingly good. The Army must has given Jones virtually free rein, because it comes across as informative and fun. It's a cartoon first, an Army recruitment exercise second.
The creative additions add considerably to this cartoon: the dog that must be kept asleep with "Rock-a-bye doggie, in the tree top"; the send-up of Army stereotypes (the sadistic sergeant, KP duty, uniforms that don't fit).
Yes, it's an Army recruitment exercise, but it's more than just that. It's a good cartoon that entertains its audience.
What's Buzzin' Buzzard? (1943)
Closed for the duration
Entertaining, lively, over the top, breakings of the fourth wall –- yes, a typical Tex Avery cartoon, but this is one of his better productions.
Aimed at the male audience of the war years -- there is short wolf-whistle sequence -- the cartoon is made more interesting by its references to food rationing and the war:
The juicy steak at the start and end -- an expensive commodity during the war
A sign that says "No Points", referring to a particular food (a rabbit in this case) requiring no points
Meatless Tuesday -- a reference to President Wilsons call during World War 1 for every Tuesday to be meatless.
One of the buzzard's mouths is "Closed for the Duration" – a reference to the WW2 poster that people's mouths should be closed because loose talk can cost lives.
A informative short called "Point Rationing of Foods", explains the rationing system, and is worth a look.
A Woman's Deeper Journey Into Sex (2015)
Fast-paced
I'm not sure what to make of this documentary. It's fast-paced and makes full use of various video effects in whatever editing program was used. A few minutes into the doco I thought the editing was corny, as if a beginner was playing with whatever effects were available with little thought as to suitability. Then I began to think that, no, they knew what they were doing, and purposely wanted to convey the frenzied, kitchy look. Regarding the look, I'm undecided: amateurs, or confident professionals imitating amateurs?
The narrator, also the writer and director, has a commanding presence, telling the story from the point of view of a private eye who travels the world in search of evidence that women need romance, involvement, to enjoy sex. The story is told largely in rhyme.
I think the doco works, but I'm not sure. As a novice video editor myself, I wanted to view it a second time to concentrate on the editing, see what I could learn, but other than streaming it, I couldn't find a DVD or Blu-ray copy to purchase.
Strange. People spend a whole lot of time and money on a doco and release it only to TV? Seems a waste to me.
Lullaby Land (1933)
Forgettable
Typical quality-animation from the 1930s Disney studio, but the baby-centric story is the big let down. The cartoon is full of diapers, safety pins, potties, a bare bottom, lullabies and sugary songs. There really is little of lasting interest here.
I've just been told by IMDb that I need at least 10 lines to get this review published. I can't really say much more about the cartoon. It's not worth too much extra comment. I will say, however, that on the DVD there is a section called "Leonard Slatkin Favourites" or something similar. This cartoon is not among his picks. Now, given that the CD is populated by minor Silly Symphonies (there are only two or three of the recognised classic Silly Symphonies), Leonard obviously thinks this one is fairly dismal.
Be Kind to 'Aminals' (1935)
An Absolute shocker
An absolute shocker of a short. My partner just said: "I'm sick to the stomach watching it." She doesn't want to continue (we've only seen half), and I have interrupted the playing to start this review.
There is a warning at the start of these Popeye shorts (Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938) about how attitudes have changed:
"The animated shorts you are about to see are a product of their times. They may depict some of the ethnic, sexist and racial prejudices that were common place in American society. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today."
The writer of that note forgot to mention another prejudice: the prejudice that tolerated violence. Apart from the opening minute, the rest is sadistic and cruel. The only features of this cartoon that raised it above 1-star were the title, the "be kind to animals' attitude of Popeye and Olive, and the window it gives into the mindset of a typical 1930's audience: that it was okay to throw punches for no reason and be violently cruel to animals, and that those behaviours can be a source of humour.
Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of our Nature) has documented the fall in violence in society and this short is evidence of same. Brutality such as this, masquerading as humour, wouldn't be acceptable today.
I purchased the DVD and will be keeping it. I'm not suggesting it should be censored or kept from the public, but I certainly won't be showing it to friends in our home-theatre evenings, except as an example of the depravity of 1930's audiences (assuming audiences back then found this type of cartoon funny). I think they would have. After all, blood sports in the Colosseum were considered great entertainment, and bull-fights still operate in Spain.
Aside from my low rating, this cartoon is worth watching as a reminder of how far we have come, and the long way we still have to go regarding violence.
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
Get it right! It's God Save THE Queen
The only film reviewer I have any faith in is Halliwell, 7th edition or earlier (lesliehalliwell.com). I'm collecting Blu-rays of the movies he rated as 4-star (153 attained that rating), but when my partner suggested the three-star, How Green Was My Valley, I purchased the DVD without bothering to read Halliwell's review. Upon receiving the DVD, I noted with interest a quote on the back cover "this Hollywood milestone (Halliwell's Film Guide)", and thought: We're in for a treat tonight!
I should have read Halliwell's full review before buying this disappointing tearjerker. Halliwell states: "Prettified and unconvincing, but dramatically very effective tearjerker
a Hollywood milestone despite its intrinsic inadequacies."
Halliwell was being kind. Or maybe he just made a mistake. On Halliwell's scale (0-4 stars), and comparing it to other movies he has reviewed, this movie might rate 2-stars. He doesn't explain why he considered it a milestone, and on a critical second and third viewings, I couldn't find any qualities that would elevate this movie to milestone status. But it has plenty of "intrinsic inadequacies". Hereafter I'm referring to the "Studio Classics" DVD, NTSC Region 1, with Walter Pidgeon and Maureen O'Hara in sepia tones on the cover.
1. Soppish voice over, which on the DVD is occasionally muffled and smothered by the music.
2. Overpowering, mawkish, virtually non-stop score.
3. Blurry image quality. Contrast is quite poor, with shadows almost totally blocked. The image constantly flickers in brightness and has a very pale magenta cast. The cast is not because of my setup: "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", for example, plays in perfect grayscale.
4. Too many cutesy, inane feel-good moments litter the beginning: wife pouring water over the husband while he washes off coal dust and smokes a pipe (6.10); a boy taking a slice of bread at the dinner table while his father makes a corny frown – then grins at the naughty boy (6.30); likewise, a son in his twenties is rapped on the knuckles when he also makes a grab (6.55). This type of nonsense is repeated at 11.10 (son pushed towards wife-to-be), 11.50 (groom slapped by father), and 46.00 (son pushed forward by mother). This first part of the movie sees the director going out of his way to put the audience in a happy mood. Everyone has smiling faces with plenty of teeth. The lowpoint is the first appearance of a new wife-to-be of one of the sons. She stands at the gate with a prolonged, forced, artificial smile (9.30) – audience manipulation at is most blatant.
5. All the jollity comes to a sudden end at 16.50. The music darkens and nobody smiles for the next 11 minutes except for one lone smile at 22.00. This section lurches from one drama to the next: a brick thrown through a window, a menacing crowd, the wife berating the coal miners, and then she and son fall in an icy pool of water and are bedridden for several months.
6. Sentimental Section (27.40) – replete with birds that fly into the boy's bedroom at the start of spring ("Spring?" asks the boy).
7. The preacher never wears a dog collar, probably because as daring as this film tries to be in raising moral issues, it can't bring itself to show a preacher who has a love interest, as a preacher. Was it going too far in 1941 to offend the church? Equally as jarring (for a movie set in Wales) is the preacher's American accent. Regarding accents, I will leave that to others to criticise (see "How bad were our accents", 24 December 2009 and "An epic deception!", 3 April 2011).
8. Unbelievable sequences. A dorky son and his choir mates are invited to sing before the Queen. Really? Then follows a rendition of God Save The Queen – with the wrong closing lyric (49.07). The choir sings "God save our Queen". The real lyric is "God save THE Queen". Mr Ford, you forgot to check the words of a National Anthem.
The above critique only covers the first 50 minutes or so. There are, of course, some quality scenes where the director stops pandering to his audience (or backers) and concentrates on honest human interactions, but those scenes of integrity are a rarity.
For me, this film is a disappointment. Where did it go wrong? It had a first class director (John Ford made the classic western, Stagecoach, only two years before). It had a quality cast, and money available to be to spent. But something went awry. What could have been a decent movie became lost in a mire of cheap laughs, forced drama, false accents, bloated music, and jerking of tears. Amidst the pandering to a variety of forces (including, I assume, monetary constraints and audience satisfaction), Ford lost sight of the goal of excellence.
Several days after watching this movie I watched the Blu-ray of "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", a 4-star Halliwell film, as a check of my criticisms. I saw no magenta cast, no blocked shadow detail, and no falsity of any kind – just film making at its finest. In comparison, the DVD of "How Green Was My Valley" was a disappointment.
Midnight in Paris (2011)
Conceited
Allen's conceit, if this movie is anything to go by, appears boundless. Or maybe his advance into dotage has seriously diminished his powers. It's not that he lacks imagination or flair, it's simply that he has applied his skills to a movie that ultimately has no warmth and no lasting worth.
The movie does have a message -- the timeless "There's no place like home". Other movies have taken that moral and ended up with more convincing results. "Wizard of Oz", for example, comes to mind. In "Midnight In Paris", home refers to the present time the lead character inhabits, 2010, but he would prefer to live in a previous era, the 1920s in Paris. And he happens upon a method to whisk him back to that era -- a carriage which appears on a dim Paris street at the stroke of midnight.
I happily suspended disbelief to see where the story would take me. What eventuated, and what destroyed the suspension, was the name-dropping exercise involving most of the famous artistic characters who passed through Paris in the 1920s. Allen intentionally manipulates the audience by pandering to their need to appear knowledgeable in front of friends. At every entrance of another noted artist, a murmur sweeps through the audience as people in the know are unable to restrain the urge to tell their neighbour who the new kid is. "That's Cole Porter at the piano
and there's Picasso."
And this is where I hark back to Allen's conceit. Well, two conceits. The first, that a dull, would-be writer could somehow befriend the likes of Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway and Gertrude Stein. The second, that Allan is so taken with his own persona, so enamoured with his importance as an actor, that this movie just has to have himself in the starring role -- but being much to old to play the lead in this movie, he clones himself. Like "Mini-Me" from an Austin Powers movie (except this Mini-Me is the same size as the original), this film's cloned Woody Allen walks and talks just like the real thing. And just like the real thing, the clone is irresistible to every gorgeous young woman he meets. Allen's fetish for young women is clearly on display.
Entertainment at a superficial level is what this movie is about. On the surface it is not difficult to enjoy this film. The cinematography is clean and elegant: very little unnecessary camera movement, and no out-of-focus foreground that every camera hack overuses because they learnt at film school that that's how you give depth to a scene. The sound is crisp and appropriate, with little evidence of overly-zealous foley artists at work. And the basic story -- time travel -- is always of interest.
Scratch the surface, however, and pus oozes. This film is diseased. The acting is mediocre, especially by Allen's clone; and the story itself, though inherently interesting, is undone by its ludicrous proposition -- that a dull American would be of interest to some of the most creative people of the 20th century. Pre-production, Allen was let down by people who should have put their awe aside and warned him: "Hey Woody, it's probably not a good idea to clone yourself for the lead role. And rehashing scenes from "Manhattan"
are you sure that's a good idea?"
The disease is narcissism. It's quite okay to feature yourself in the lead role of movies when the lead is an ordinary bloke surrounded by friends; it's highly suss to keep doing that when you are much too old to play the roles, and instead, hire a young clone and set yourself amongst the rich, the famous, and the gorgeous.
Having Hemingway in this film reminded me of a story about fantasy, lies, and Hemingway, in the book "Why We Lie" by Dorothy Rowe. The quote talks about the principles Hemingway used to guide his work:
"The first –- derived from newspaper experience which had trained him to report only what he had witnessed directly –- was that fiction must be founded on real emotional and intellectual experience and be faithful to actuality, but must also be transformed and heightened by the imagination until it becomes truer than mere factual events
Engaging an audience and telling the truth requires considerable skill, particularly if you put the truth you want to tell into some kind of fantasy. You have to make sure that you never lose sight of the difference between the truth you want to tell and the fantasy. Only then can you control both elements of your material". (p147)
Unfortunately, Allen did lose control of this film because he lost sight of the difference between truth and fantasy.
Woody Allen was 75 when he directed this movie. If this is all he is now capable of he should step aside from writing and directing, and limit himself to producing. Bow out gracefully, in other words, before more movie failures expose his declining powers to even his most devoted fans.
Woody, if you feel driven to continue writing movies that star yourself, write them for a man of your age. Here's an idea:
1. An elderly Woody Allen realises his creative powers are diminishing.
2. While wandering the streets of New York at night with three friends, talking about his mental decline, Woody heads off into the darkness by himself.
3. He jumps in one of those horse-pulled carriages that roam New York and ends up back in 1979 on the set of "Manhattan".
4. The older Woody and the younger Woody interact in some interesting way.
Forget the science fiction, forget the women young enough to be your granddaughters. Act your age and your movies will probably turn out okay.
Noruwei no mori (2010)
Red Dot from me
At the end of each year, members of the North West Film Society here in Tasmania are handed four green and one red dot, and we wander around rating the year's screenings, each film allocated its own board on a table.
Guess which film gets my red dot? I'm pretty confident, even though it's only April, that I won't be changing my mind between now and December. My red dot is already allocated to this dreary, overly-long drudge.
The characters are shallow and uninteresting and didn't attract any sympathy or empathy from me, even though two suicides are portrayed. When a suicide doesn't engender feelings of sympathy in the audience, you know something is wrong with the portrayal.
Lifeless conversations about the young people's sexual experiences seemed artificial and to serve only one purpose: titillation for the audience. Although I'm in my sixties, this is not a complaint from an older person out of touch with sensuality. It's simply that several times I felt like groaning ("Oh, not again") and cringing because of the embarrassing script forced upon these young actors.
Some of the rural cinematography is lovely, the soundtrack is appropriate, but the use of the Beatle's song in a Japanese film seemed out of place. I haven't read the novel, so maybe there is some connection not explained in the film. But this IS a film. I shouldn't have to rely on a book to understand what is going on.
Overall, not enough was explained. I came away feeling that more could have been made of the characters, because as it stands none of them moved me.
I keenly await December. The problem is, the red dot we are given (there is only one) is not blatant enough. I intend to buy a large, fluorescent, red dot and be the first to award it to this failure of a film.
(As told to me by my partner Jenny)
The Hunter (2011)
Needed: story integrity rather than audience manipulation
According to the producer, Vincent Sheehan, with whom I spoke after the Devonport screening, this film's budget was $6 million -- an amount that would have resulted in a better movie if more time had been devoted on story integrity rather than audience manipulation. A competent film (photography, acting, sound) that rarely rises above the pedestrian because of a litany of flaws, or to hijack the producer's word –- 'constructs'. When asked by a member of the audience why the boy was mute in the film but not in the book, Sheehan replied: "That was a construct". Too much of this film is a 'construct'.
The film starts competently enough with a voice-over sequence in Europe. It begins its disintegration when the hunter lands in Hobart and drives to his prearranged rural accommodation. He is greeted by a 9-year-old girl showering him with "F" words. Fine, if that's the sort of girl she is. But she isn't. It's the child's only instance of swearing. The sole purpose of the foul language is to make the audience sit up and take notice.
The girl is involved in another despicable episode of audience manipulation when she (and her 7-year-old brother) hop naked into a bath with the hunter. Really? A 3-year-old might do so, but a girl of 9? And with a non-family member? The scene is designed to put the audience on edge (what's the hunter going to do with a naked 9-year-old?), and the audience is again put on edge when the mother walks in. But in a twist designed to further manipulate, the mother does nothing.
Not only does the hunter get to see the naked daughter, but the naked mother as well. In a scene that drips with manipulation, the mother takes an overdose, the hunter reads the label of the pill bottle in detail, then undresses her and baths her. He comforts the children with words to the effect: "Your mother won't be needing pills anymore". He's not only a hunter, he's a psychiatrist.
In addition to the audience manipulation by nudity, there is a plethora of false drama, false sentiment, and "wow" moments ("Wow, I haven't seen that in a film before").
Under false drama we have: the hostile reaction of a barman when the hunter walks into a bar; in another bar scene, an aggressive forestry worker meekly accepts being throttled by the hunter and makes no attempt at retaliation; then there is the scene where Sam Neil pulls a gun on the hunter and threatens to kill him, but seconds later they are the best of mates.
Under false sentiment we have: the hunter kills a man and shoves his body in a rock crevice without any show of feeling, yet when he kills the last Thylacine he is so moved by the experience that he strokes it, cremates it, puts the ashes in a bottle and scatters them from a scenic vantage point.
Under "wow" moments we have: large wooden speakers hung high in the trees at all sorts of crazy angles, speakers that have been outside for 18 months. When the hunter gets the sound system operational again, the music is not lowly popular music. No, our sensitive hunter has a taste for classical music. And as good as the foley artists were in this film, their sound fakery was exposed in this sequence –- the music is reproduced in full CD quality and fills the cinema, whereas it supposedly comes from speakers hung in distant trees. (Note to filmmakers: it does rain an awful lot in Tasmania; speakers left outdoors would very soon rot.)
As to whether this film showcases Tasmania's wild places, it does not. The filmmakers chose areas easily accessible by road: Mt Wellington, the King Williams, and Mt Roland. Wonderful areas, but not showcases. For that you'd have to put on walking boots.
Overall, this film fails because of a deficit of emotion. The final mockery of real emotion, of integrity, is left for the ending. The young boy now without family, having lost his father some 18 months before and only recently deprived of his mother and sister, is shown in a schoolyard sitting alone. Bereft of father, mother, sister, and with no teachers or fellow students anywhere near, the hunter approaches. A mercenary from overseas who illegally sets snares and traps in Tasmania's highlands, who killed a man, who willfully shot the last Thylacine, is portrayed by the filmmakers as someone who may end up caring for this little boy.
After the showing in Devonport the audience was given the opportunity to ask questions of the producer. I still have a difficult time deciding which was the most depressing aspect of going to this film: the film itself or the questions. What type of gun was used? Where were the snares and traps obtained? How much practice did Wilhelm (the hunter) need before he was able to walk with a backpack?
With this film the makers may think they have some moral to impart. Unfortunately they haven't. Any moral stance contained in the book was lost in the retelling because of the lack of integrity. I left the cinema thinking that humans seem incapable of doing the right thing by nature, that given the chance we would repeat past mistakes (killing the last Thylacine, for example) and then we glorify it in a movie. I also had the unkind thought that filmmakers of this ilk are incapable of doing the right thing with $6 million – honest storytelling without resort to manipulation.
Vom Suchen und Finden der Liebe (2005)
Not a great movie, though a joy to watch
Not a great movie; still, I found it a joy to watch. The imaginative opening credits (reflected in the watery-background theme in the close) set the tone for the film as a whole: convincing and witty dialogue without sounding too clever; surreal scenes of the underworld in the latter half of the movie; engaging twists in sexuality (a husband not interested, a wife who is, then their romance is rekindled via threesomes); and a soundtrack that is in turn banal-pop or highbrow-opera. The wonder for me is that such an apparent mismatch of ideas works, when all too often in films interesting ideas turn to mash. The writer and director never tip into the void of farce. They approach the edge warily but boldly, not afraid to continually flirt with outrageous ideas. That's the wonder of this movie – how did they get away with it? The answer is: through skill and competent film making of high order.
I came away feeling that although this is not a film of stellar quality, it would bear a critical second viewing. On a first viewing I was a bit suspect, wondering why the soundtrack featured opera and pop in equal doses. And did the ancient Greek mythology really have a part to play, or was it included for no good reason other than to impress the audience? But the film displays little overt pretension. Classical music compliments the Greek-antiquity storyline when appropriate, and just as appropriately, "plagiarised" pop music (the word is actually used by one of the actors to describe the music) compliments the dullness to which love can sometimes descend. Music is important to this film, and was decisively chosen. The music swelling behind the closing credits (a reprise of music already heard), has the viewer anticipating the lyrical high-notes that signal the end of the music, bringing the movie to a satisfying close.
Part humorous, part serious, this movie never has too much of either. It visits fantastic places, but is always pulled back from going too far by its tongue-in-cheek attitude. Characters from Greek legends are balanced by the more mundane problems of what to do about being in love.
I'm hoping this film appeals to me as much the second time around as it did the first. I suspect it will.
A Single Man (2009)
Clichéd
I told myself at the start of this film that if the director had the male lead remove his glasses (to indicate in a clichéd manner that the character was becoming less of a "nerd") that I was going to walk out. Well, the glasses were removed, as I expected, but it was so near the end of the movie that I persevered.
Two general classes of film are worth watching in my estimation. The very good and the very poor. The attraction of the latter is that they are such a rich source of criticism. You can wallow in the failures -- and this film has plenty.
A woeful toilet scene. Obligatory in European films but badly handled by Hollywood, and in this case simply unnecessary. Included to extract some mindless laughs: man on toilet ducks his head when he sees female neighbour looking at him from across the yard (audience laughs on cue). Then he answers the phone with his pants down (audience laughs again).
A practice suicide scene comes across as botched. Did the director really plan this as a humorous sequence? The audience tittered half-heartedly, not really knowing what to make of it. If the director planned this scene to be played straight, then the tittering betrayed it as a complete failure. And even if he did plan it as a humorous scene, where's the empathy for a person contemplating suicide? Either way it's a failure -- either of intent or empathy.
The Foley artists had a field day with this movie. Listen for the crickets every time the sun goes down. There are even crickets indoors.
This film is a litany of clichés. It has no warmth and shows little respect or understanding for the difficulties faced by the male lead. Its aim is to woo viewers with slick images, shallow emotions, and a few cheap laughs to lighten the supposed serious intent. It is a manipulative movie with few redeeming features. Let me mention the only one: the scene where a student is able to prevent an intended suicide by leaning in a car window and simply talking to a person in crisis. A touching moment in an otherwise barren film.
I turned to my partner when the glasses were removed and said to her: "I was intending to walk out if he did that". She said: "You've misunderstood. This is a flashback to his younger days." It slowly dawned on her during the ensuing minutes that it wasn't a flashback. Just like the gratuitous toilet scene, this was just another example of a director lost for originality who felt he had to make the male lead "groovier" for the ending of the movie, by the overused expedient of removing his glasses.
A disappointment. So much talent, time, and money wasted in attempting mass appeal instead of honest story telling. It is a real pity that directors dumb down their films to try and sway their audiences.