I’d listened to a few reviews and didn’t go into this latest Coen Brothers film with high expectations but having enjoyed every one of their previous films (except, perhaps, their Ladykillers remake) and considering myself a committed fan I’d hoped to see something the reviewers had missed. Or at least enjoy a riotous, if inconsequential, romp along the lines of Intolerable Cruelty.

But no.

Forty minutes in I was pulling out my phone wondering how much longer there was to go. Most of the time I just watched in disbelief as lines came and went that were clearly intended to be jokes but just fell flat. There was another hour or so before we could leave. It was quite a comedown after No Country For Old Men and I left with my faith in the Coens deeply shaken.

Tags: burn after reading, coen brothers, disappointment, Film, intolerable cruelty, no country for old men

Two recent visits to the delightful cinemas at the Barbican deserve a mention here:

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly has already been widely lauded, and thoroughly deserves it. Partially adapted from the Jean-Dominique “Jean-Do” Bauby’s autobiography of the same name, the film follows Jean-Do’s experience of living with the rare locked-in syndrome, the sudden onset of which leaves him only able to move one eyelid. Director Julian Schnabel has done a masterful job, using the camera initially to show us the world from Jean-Do’s restricted perspective but gradually opening up the viewer’s line-of-sight as his experiences unfold. His background as a painter clearly helps inform the visual pallete of the film, but he never quite drifts off into the impressionist self-indulgence that would have been so easy. The result is a story that is moving without being sentimental, and tinged with a deep sadness without being depressing. For me, it was one of those films that can serve as a reminder of the medium’s true capabilities.

A Short Film About Killing was showing as part of the current Kieslowski directorspective. It’s a treat to see any of his films on the big screen, even if the print did seem rather muddy. I’d seen this film several years ago when Film 4 actually lived up to its claim of offering the films that were hard to see elsewhere, but the bigger screen naturally made it more engrossing and emphasised its power. It could be said that the core of that power comes through a particularly grizzly murder scene, and much of the film’s energy seeps out (in both directions) from that pivotal moment. That scene was especially hard viewing on a larger canvas.

What struck me on this viewing were more of the film’s subtleties: the sparseness of the settings and the sound editing; the recognition of the naivete of the lawyer who is the closest thing to a hero; and the very human nuances of the characters that makes them simultaneously repulsive and compelling. The legend is that this film was instrumental in the abolition of the death penalty in Poland, and justly so. It’s a powerful reminder that one can be both anti-death penalty and fully aware of the horrific nature of mankind’s worst crimes. But beyond that, it provides a fascinating exploration of the interplay of personal and institutional actions and responsibilities.

I’d been looking forward to No Country For Old Men for quite some time. Having been rather disappointed by their remake of The Ladykillers I was anxious for something to remind me why I love the films of the Coen Brothers. An adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel seemed just about perfect for them.

One of the reasons I thought this might work for the Coens was actually hidden in Jamie’s recent comment (on the book) that:

The reason I can’t imagine this as a movie is because of McCarthy’s genius, namely his ability to paint such powerful pictures with such a simple palette and so few strokes. McCarthy’s prose is so frugal it borders on being stingy—and somehow (just how?!) he creates an engulfing world with two-bit dialogue and miserly description that says so much with so little.

Contrary to most of their peers they’ve shown a remarkable ability to set the visual and audible tones of their films based on the narrative content. And here they really succeeded.

While the sweeping shots of the sparse Texan landscape are most immediately striking, the real strength of this film is the barrenness of its soundtrack. As this New York Times commentary points out, there are only 16 minutes of music in the entire two hour film and the sound designer and composer worked closely to produce a fittingly minimalist score. As in the best works of Hitchcock, silence is used to build the suspense, and it only takes very subtle sonic touches to underline the creepiness of the most prolific of the movie’s killers.

Perhaps the most interesting thing for me visually was the contrast, or lack of it between the literal desert and the strip mall settings that come to the fore later on. In many ways the two contexts are an extension of one another, with some of the same sweeping shots enforcing the sense of emptiness as you look down an avenue of low colourless buildings. But of course the desert is broken by the odd tree or creek, whereas the strip mall has only poorly shaped neon.

Seeing the film at the Barbican was a real treat. It’s a film that deserves a quiet audience and a good sound system. If you can find it outside of a multiplex, then that will likely be the place to see it.

I’m beginning to wonder if I should give up on going to see movies at the multiplex.

Ordinarily we can go several weeks between visits, preferring the smaller theatres in town, but with the Oscars coming up there’s been a sudden influx of larger releases we want to see. But even though a couple of the films have been very good (Children Of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth) and several others have been worth seeing (such as last night’s choice, Babel which was intense but could have done with some significant editing), the the overall experience is far more exasperating than entrancing.

The problem is the noise. I enjoy being in an audience that is noticeably affected by a film. I have no problem with people making the occasional aside to the friend sitting next to them, preferably in a low voice. And I can handle people asking lots of plot questions when they’re watching a film at home. But every movie audience we’ve been in this year has included people who insist on talking through significant chunks of the film.

I’ve become well practiced at asking people to keep the noise down, but by the time I’ve decided to get up and ask, a significant portion of a film has been interrupted. It’s a discipline in which I don’t want to be practiced.

Watching films at home on DVD doesn’t have nearly the magic of a good cinema experience. But sometimes I can’t help but wonder whether those experiences have lapsed into myth, and whether it would be better to give up on the possibility in favour of actually getting to watch movies.

Tags: crowd noise, distractions, annoyances, babel, children of men, pan’s labyrinth

For at least the past two years around Oscar time I’ve bemoaned the fact that it’s so hard to get access to short films, even those nominated for Academy Awards. Last year Apple picked up some of the slack by making a few of the films available for download through iTunes, but this year there’s a more interesting offering.

Oscar Torrents provides summaries of all the nominated films and links to torrents (the files you can feed into bittorrent software, see wikipedia for an introduction) or youtube pages for the films. Not every film is available, but there are enough to give anyone a good overview of what’s up for awards.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the site disappear pretty quickly. It’s sure to upset the academy and the MPAA, and its creators may well be deliberately goading them. But it does once again highlight the fact that the existing distribution systems just aren’t up to the task of the most talked about films to the masses.

(via waxy, who also has an interesting analysis of piracy and the Oscars)

Tags: Oscars, MPAA, Bittorrent, file sharing, Oscar Torrents, Film Distribution

Having very much enjoyed Pan’s Labyrinth on Sunday, I was pleased to hear the creative mind behind it, Guillermo Del Toro, interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air this lunchtime. The interview’s a good one and can be heard here.

Tags: pan’s layrinth, guillermo del toro, npr, fresh air, terry gross

Listening to the news this morning, with all the build up to today’s Oscar nominations, I was thinking about the blog entry I’d write to lament the fact that Ryan Gosling was cheated out of an Actor In A Leading Role nomination for his part in Half Nelson. I’m very happy to be wrong, and to see him on that list!

It’s an interesting list of nominees this year. Ryan Gosling has been displaced in my ‘cheated’ list with Children Of Men, which really should be up for the sound design awards (and perhaps something higher profile). But it’s good to see Pan’s Labyrinth and The Queen taking such a high profile. I suppose it was inevitable that the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise would get a nod to appease the big money studios but it’s gratifying to see that they’re limited to technical categories.

It’s tempting to look at some of the nominations and speculate about a breakthrough for independent cinema. Some fantastic ‘indie’ films have broken through this year in a way they haven’t for some time, but looking around the local multiplex I think that that phenomenon is still a limited one. While a film like Pan’s Labyrinth is sitting in the ‘foreign language’ category it seems subtitles still disqualify a film from being ‘best,’ and only a tiny proportion of the population got the chance to see “Half Nelson.”

Those of us who want something other than big budget swashbuckling have a few more options, but most of the money is still going into the same old, same old.

Tags: oscars, independent cinema, ryan gosling, children of men

Following on from the acclaimed (and Oscar-nominated) The Story Of The Weeping Camel, Byambasuren Davaa’s new film The Cave Of The Yellow Dog retains the simple premise, quiet pace and flirtations with sentimentality. Following a nomad girl, Nansal, who finds a puppy hiding in the cave and petitions her parents to let her keep him, the film uses its setting to explore the challenges and decisions facing nomadic families in Mongolia as their lifestyle becomes harder to maintain, and parents have to prepare their children for a radically different future.

The film lacks the magical quality of its predecessor, but compensates with fascinating scenes of the family packing up their yurt and arranging their belongings for the seasonal migration. The languorous pace, and chance encounters in the Mongolian hills also added a sense of magic, particularly as we prepare to visit Mongolia this coming summer. That connection won’t help everyone, and some may well find it all a little too twee, but it’s a good way to relax and observe a significantly different culture and landscape.

(For those in Grand Rapids, The Cave Of The Yellow Dog is playing at UICA until Thursday 25th).

Tags: film, uica, mongolia

In one way or another I’ve been waiting to see The Fountain for five years, ever since Darren Aronofsky’s last film, Requiem For A Dream left me wandering across London from Soho to King’s Cross in something of a daze and turning up at a party in a distinctly non-party mood. It’s been a long wait for his next offering, partly because of the (in hindsight fortuitous) withdrawal of Brad Pitt from the picture a few weeks before filming was due to start. Hugh Jackman’s performance leaves little doubt that the revised casting was a considerably better choice.

The film’s been dubbed ’science fiction’ but could equally be considered a historical epic or fantasy, and is probably better viewed without much thought to genre. It tracks three parallel tales set in distinct historical periods, but the relationship within them is left somewhat oblique and I’m sure many a discussion will revolve around exactly how we’re supposed to understand them, or the Mayan mythology that figures so prominently.

All that aside, Aronofsky repeats the methodology of his previous work in setting up an engaging story in the first half of the film and then through the intensity of imagery, performance and music (provided once again by the Kronos Quartet) turning it into an intensely emotional whirlwind that leaves the viewer drained but enriched by the experience. It’s no surprise that the cast and crew were watching films like Herzog’s landmark Aguirre on set—as the film shares not only its predecessors interest in South American folklore, but also its remarkable emotional impact.

There’s something a little strange about sitting in a large movie theatre on a Saturday night with only nine other people. And when the film is one of the year’s best reviewed it’s also rather sad. Maybe other showings had better turnouts?

I found myself wondering how much of The Queen made sense to those in the US audience who haven’t kept a close watch on British politics over the past decade. Much of the humour seemed to rest on pre-existing knowledge of the Royals and of Blair’s team, and in such an empty room it was tough to get a sense of how anyone else was responding.

But overall I was very impressed. It took far less time to suspend disbelief in the characters despite the fact that they all had the look of caricatures. Helen Mirren’s much raved about performance deserves the attention it has received and the overall tone and rhythm of the film is well played out.

Tags: movie, helen mirren, the queen, princess diana, royal family, stephen frears, peter morgan