Tag: films

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The First Movie

Just a little plug for The First Movie, which I went to see on Friday. It’s a documentary by Mark Cousins; he visits a Kurdish village which is remote enough that none of the children have ever been to the movies, and puts on a showing of a selection of films in a makeshift outdoor cinema; then he gives the children little digital movie cameras and waits to see what footage they bring back.

It’s a film which looks beautiful and is in turns funny and moving, with a narration provided by Cousins in a very attractive Belfast accent. As I was watching it, I was thinking that, by comparison, nearly everything you see in the cinema has incredibly little faith in the audience’s intelligence or attention. Not that this is some kind of ultra-difficult film, but it’s not afraid to be poetic, to talk about aesthetic issues, to be slow, to hold shots for a long time and let the audience look at them. I really thought it was excellent.

During October it’s on a tour of independent cinemas around the UK. I happened to see the first of these showings because it was at my local cinema. So if you’re in the UK and happen to live near the kind of cinema that might show arty documentaries, check the showing dates and give it a go. And if you’re not in the UK… I don’t know, it might appear at a film festival? Or on Netflix in due course? Well worth a look.

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Culture

Skeletons

I went to see Skeletons, directed by Nick Whitfield. The IMDB blurb says ‘two exorcists literally remove the skeletons from the cupboards from people’s homes’, which is a particularly daft thing to say since there are no literal skeletons involved — though there are some literal closets. And ‘exorcists’ isn’t quite accurate either, but it gives you the general idea: there is something spooky going on.

It’s darkly comic, moving, understated. It’s hard to know what to compare it to: some people have suggested Withnail and I; I found myself being reminded a bit of Delicatessen. I’m not sure it’s an instant classic, but it’s definitely worth seeing. Any film which is thoughtful and shows real originality has to be worth a plug, especially perhaps a small British film.

Because it is a low-budget film, it’s currently on a limited release in the UK, so catch it while you can. Or if you’re in some other country where it may not get a release, watch out for the DVD.

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Kick-Ass

So I went to see Kick-Ass, the generally well-reviewed superhero film. And I enjoyed it, it’s a clever, well-made film. But it did remind me of a quote I posted to Salmagundi the other day:

‘And then I realised that Watchmen was in no way extraordinary but perfectly symptomatic: we are, after all, living through an age in which the fabulous ingenuity of craft is being lavished upon the realisation of a pathologically adolescent imagination.’

You can read the whole of that article (from the games magazine Edge) here.

I don’t know. I actually do think that cinema is often at its best in a populist mode, and I’m quite sure it’s possible to make a superhero movie that transcends the genre, just as it’s possible to make a western that transcends that genre. But I’m not entirely thrilled to be living in the Age Of The Superhero Movie, somehow. Hell, at least SF usually attempts to create a whole new world: superhero movies, set in a contemporary setting, is a form of imaginative fiction that seems strong on wish fulfilment and weak on real imagination.

Having said all that, if you fancy an entertaining evening at the cinema, you could certainly do worse than Kick-Ass. I enjoyed it. I’m just being grumpy.

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Un prophète

I went to see Un prophète today, which is, as you can see below, un film de Jacques Audiard. Though obviously I saw the subtitled version.

It’s a gangster/prison drama about a young French Arab, played by Tahar Rahim, who arrives in prison at the start of the film and is immediately approached by a Corsican gang who threaten him and offer him protection in return for killing someone.

The film starts with Malik arriving in prison — we learn almost nothing of his life beforehand — and ends when he leaves, so it’s set in a very grey, constrained, claustrophobic world, and visually it’s mainly a kind of gritty realism. It’s rather Wire-esque, both in that visual style and in the attention to the procedural and mechanical details of prison life.

I thought it was a very good film. It works as a gangster movie — perhaps slightly slower-paced than you might expect from most American movies in the same genre, but none the worse for that. But it’s a gangster movie with an underlying serious-mindedness and darkness, and with other themes running through it, most obviously the French muslim immigrant experience, that give it a bit of heft. And it has a very good, understated central performance by Tahar Rahim.

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The Wah-Wah Diaries by Richard E. Grant

This is Grant’s account of making Wah-Wah, his first film as director. Grant grew up in Swaziland and the film is about growing up there, so I read it as my book from Swaziland for the Read The World challenge.

For me, the book is mainly interesting for its portrayal of film-making, which is fascinating but sounds very very stressful: complicated, expensive, highly time-sensitive, and requiring the juggling of dozens of cast and crew, all of whom have other work commitments.

The film was a French co-production, for the sake of getting the right funding and tax breaks; and Grant had an exceptionally bad relationship with his French producer, who comes across in the book as startlingly incompetent and badly-suited to her job. In fact I suspect her first reaction on reading it was probably to call her lawyer.

It was slightly odd to be reading a making-of book for a film I haven’t seen, but it was an engaging read. I’ll keep an eye out for the film.

(and by the way, is it me or does Julie Walters look really weird in the poster?)

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Culture

Cabaret

I watched Cabaret again tonight. First thing: it really is a very good film, and if by some chance you haven’t seen it, hurry up and do so.

I was struck by how grown up it seems: it touches on serious subjects (Nazis! homosexuality! abortion!) but does so, mainly, in a stylishly, darkly humorous way. It made me wonder when I last saw a new movie which didn’t talk down to its audience.

It also made me want to read some Christopher Isherwood.