Review: Bastards

Les Salauds, or Bastards in English, is a perplexing Gallic Noir from French filmmaker Claire Denis. Recreating a more macabre Raymond Chandler novel, Vincent Lindon stars as the weary Humphrey Bogart lead. He is Marco, a hardboiled sailor who abandons a prodigal, nautical life when his brother-in-law commits suicide. At the same time, his self-harming niece has been discovered wandering the Parisian streets naked, dazed and bloodied. So begins the revenge of Marco.

The pace is slow and contemplative, eschewing a one-thing-leading-to-another narrative in order to drip-feed details. Mood is conjured through atmosphere instead of events. Bastards certainly has buckets of atmosphere. There is good use of lighting, music and speed. In this regard, the film is in the mould of Drive. The effect that this has is to stimulate an emotional rather than rational response. Personally, it made me feel a little mentally ill. The secrets that our macho maritime champion uncovers are not pretty.

Marco is a laconic observer, moved to quick action when need be. He can handle a gun and he can handle himself. The sailor is often seen smoking pensively in his vast, empty French apartment in the early hours of the morning, lit atmospherically by street lights filtering through the blinds. Marco exudes the self-contained gravitas of a man who takes care of business – like any pulp protagonist. The villain of the piece is Edouard Laporte, a rich puppet-master of power and perversion. As sinister as he is, the character is lifted straight out of Polanski’s Chinatown. Much as Marco has replaced Jack Nicholson’s investigator, so has Laporte assumed John Huston’s role. But so utterly identical is the match that it’s a cliché. As will happen in cinema, Marco becomes involved with the neglected mother of Laporte’s child, isolated in ivory tower luxury. Raphaëlle is played by Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of Italian screen legend Marcello. She has her father’s look of detached thoughtfulness which is well-suited to the depressed and lonely Raphaëlle.

The main drawback of Bastards is its structure. Denis has clearly muddled a perfectly simple plot to heighten the suspense or mystery or whatever. But the lack of clarity doesn’t make it cleverer, it just annoys. Marco seems like he has a plan and the films appears to be going somewhere. But it doesn’t, it just fizzles out. Denis has taken Chinatown’s bitter finale and reduced it into a tasteless spoonful of nothing. The characters are so distant that we don’t really care.

France has its own impressive history of Noir cinema. Themes of revenge, murder and injustice have been played out through the chiaroscuro Parisian landscapes a thousand times before. It is these conventions which Bastards tries to subvert, but instead shoots itself in the foot. What could have been a dark, twisted masterpiece, examining the evil depths of humanity, is needlessly turned into a puzzling enigma. And not in a good way. Nonetheless, the style, acting and soundtrack must all be commended – a film for those who like this sort of thing.

Le Suspense

Review: Dallas Buyers Club

Dallas Buyers Club (annoyingly lacking in apostrophe) is a dramatisation of the life and work of AIDs patient Ron Woodroof, played by Matthew McConaughey as a foul-mouthed Texan hellraiser. Electrician by trade and cowboy by nature, Woodroof hangs out at the local rodeo with his good ol’ boy buddies and spends his winnings on prostitutes and Bud. Unluckily, he winds up contracting HIV with a life expectancy of 30 days. Keen to ‘die with my boots on’, Ron shuns the harmful pills of the hospital and sets about importing unapproved drugs. Ever the American, the lone rider builds a business selling these life-extending narcotics, using various tactics of subterfuge to stay one step ahead of the authorities and keep it all legal.

The power of Dallas Buyers Club lies mainly in the acting. Matthew McConaughey, who always sounds like he has a whistle trapped in his throat, has been the toast of Hollywood recently with a steady flow of respectable roles. Gone are the rom-coms of the past; in are outlandish acceptance speeches at award ceremonies. In addition, he garnered frenzied speculation when the paparazzi spied his dramatic weight loss demanded by the role. But for all the hype, he simply turns in a terrific performance. The Lone Star State native must feel comfortable in Texan backwaters, because there is a documentary realism as he swaggers around in boots and Stetsons, drawling and shooting across the screen. Similarly deserving of praise is Jared Leto as Rayong, a transvestite Marc Bolan fan who is also HIV positive. S/he becomes Woodroof’s business partner, but is perhaps more troubled by the whole situation. Leto manages to capture someone in what is a fairly unimaginable predicament, handling the emotional variation with a restrained intensity. Although less dramatic, Jennifer Garner is quietly beguiling as a doctor struggling with her conscience.

Contrary to tradition in the Western genre, Ron cannot simply ride out of town. He is stuck bang in the middle of the crisis, and any departure from the action would be due to departure from the mortal shore. Some critics have called it conservative and rampantly capitalistic. This ignores the progression of Ron Woodroof. Initially, he is a very traditional, predictable rebel. When he really sticks two fingers up at the world is when he starts running with the ‘tinkerbells’ he loathes and sells his Cadillac to spread the meds. Sure it’s a bit of a cliché – bigot forced to revalue his prejudices – but this convention is barely noticeable. Any film based on real events will send the history nerds scurrying off to Wikipedia, and there are inevitably some departures from the truth. Woodroof was a real guy, but elements of several other figures were inserted, and by all accounts he was less of a bull riding redneck. Again, this is minor criticism.

It is fitting that a topic like this should be difficult to watch in places. Much of it is indeed harrowing: AIDs victims cough blood and trundle drips around; patients lie like sacks of wasting bones; doctors discuss the disease in sterile, morbid wards. There would have been a danger of not doing the issue justice, but this has been entirely avoided. Dallas Buyers Club also does a good job of critiquing the pharmaceutical business without being too earnest. It takes issue with selling medical aid to make money, yet it is never distracted from the personal plot by its own worthiness. With the brazen enthusiasm of its roguish protagonist, and some of the subtlety he lacks, Dallas Buyers Club brings an important issue to the screens with acumen.

Interview: Roger Michell

We often hear how filmmakers looked up at the cinema screen as kids and dreamed of a life of movies – were you the same?

Not really, I was in theatre long before film. I started doing little plays when I was 8, and in school I got into acting but wasn’t very good at it or quite as interested as in directing. After school I went to Cambridge to do English, which is a very well-trodden path for theatre directors. Later I became an assistant director at the Royal Court, working with wonderful people like Samuel Beckett, and then slowly carved out a career. And years after that I did a BBC course, now defunct, for people wanting to get into film.

When you were at university did you have your career carefully mapped out in front of you?

Oh no, it never felt like anything was mapped out at all. It felt like a struggle. Still does!

Did you try to balance youthful vitality and vision with learning from more experienced adults?

Well I was very impressed by the people I was working with but you have to cut your own furrow. You really learn from making your own mistakes.

There must have been a few setbacks.

All the time!  Always I try to learn from the mistakes. Every time you turn to a new project, it’s like learning to make something from scratch. You’re much less aware of skills accrued than what you don’t know.

How do you begin a project?

Well film projects start off in many ways. It can be a script that flops through the letterbox but more likely to be a project that’s been developing for many years. Le Week-End, my latest film, was in development for six or seven years before filming. On nearly all my films I like to get the script to a good stage, get it budgeted, attach  cast, and only then try and finance. If you take a half-baked script to a financier, with no cast, they’ll obviously ask for Brad Pitt or Judy Dench to be attached. Or both.

Your films span several genres and styles. What elements do you think are consistent?

I realised recently that my films are all love stories of one sort or another.

Many are about common human problems. Are they autobiographical?

All art is autobiographical, I can’t think of any art which I admire which noticeably avoids an element of autobiography. Although I often don’t realise that a film is autobiographical until much later, sometimes years later.

In our uncertain economic waters, do you think that the Government has a responsibility to help national cinema?

As in any society I think we have a responsibility to support culture. It is after all what glues us together and allows us to understand ourselves a little better. In the UK we’ve almost ceased being a manufacturing country, but we make films supremely well, and I think governments have started to understand the importance of the industry. Pragmatically, a  healthy film industry is also a huge cash cow.

With digital, 3-D, the internet etc., is the industry at a crossroads?

Yes, everything is up in the air. The music industry has shown us that a tsunami is around the corner, and we should learn from this. Netflix commissioned House of Cards, for example. Last year I shot a film on a smartphone, which was thrilling and liberating.

Is that a change like when sound was introduced, or does it signal the end of filmmaking?

It won’t be the end, but it’s offering new ways of making films. It’s easier than when I was young, and there is much more choice. But people want to come back to see a story being told, whatever the technology – it’s about actors and a story.

If you could work with any actor from history, who would it be?

I’m actually planning a film about two nineteenth-century Shakespearean actors, Edwin Forrest and William Charles Macready, one an American swashbuckler and the other a static, Romantic European. I wouldn’t mind working with them.

What is the best aspect of working in the world of film?

The opportunity for limitless and intense cultural and emotional tourism – you get to live in different worlds.

So do you see cinema as simply another means of self-expression, or is it a unique art?

It stands out because it’s collaborative. It’s not like a painting or a novel.

Finally, could you offer any advice for students aspiring to enter the world of film?

Make films. Get out your phone, shoot some stuff and try and cut it together … and then you start learning that it’s more difficult than it looks.

Review: Inside Llewin Davis

The Coen brothers have an odd way of looking at the world. Not a Hunter S. Thompson acid trip way, just slightly off-beat, as if they wear wry-tinted spectacles. Weaving sardonic humour and gross brutality, tragedy and comedy are rarely far apart – a well-used concept in storytelling. They seem fascinated by those on the losing side, from The Dude to Llewellyn Moss to Larry Gopnik, and this must have been the case with Llewin Davis.

Based on one Dave Van Ronk, Llewin is a musician attempting to forge a career in the burgeoning folk scene of early 1960s Greenwich Village. He is less hero than protagonist, losing friends’ cats, ruining dinner parties, heckling performers and creating unwanted pregnancies. Self-indulgently self-destructive, Llewin wallows in masochistic, passive-aggressive failure. We do not know why – maybe his musical partner’s suicide is making solo work unpalatable. In any case Llewin is complex like any human, a positive three-dimensionality for a biopic to have. He might be a musical genius, but he might be just alright.

Inside Llewin Davis runs so smoothly, like a creamy cinematic oyster, that it is a delightful watch. The Coen brothers have buttered the camera and sent the viewer sliding through, to the extent that the film might feel lightweight to some. There is no linear plot, with each new development fading away. Similarly, the supporting cast enter and exit, forgotten as quickly as they appear. This all reflects Llewin’s life: he cannot grasp career success, but drifts from job to job and couch to couch. But maybe it was too elusive for its own good. It is certainly a film that would do with multiple viewings – the significance of the recurring feline escapades, for example, or what it all really means. The music is mostly performed live, a wise move which provides a bracingly sincere and talented soundtrack in today’s Auto-Tuned pop world.

Oscar Isaac deserves applause for his portrayal, for the production is entirely centred on him. For all of the Coens' abilities, it was up to Isaac to deliver a presence both passively restrained and charismatically dominant. Despite their diminished screen time, there are some other notable performances. Carey Mulligan is a raging wife of one of Llewin’s friends, reluctantly living the Village beatnik life. John Goodman is a heroin-addicted, cane-wielding fat man – Colonel Sanders meets Lord Byron. Pop pretty boy Justin Timberlake sings nicely in a sweater. Various oddballs, from laconic beat poets to guitar strumming yokel GIs, are chanced upon by Llewin.

Those who knew Van Ronk have complained that he was far nicer than Llewin, and that Greenwich Village loses some of its ‘vibrancy’ on-screen. But is the point of the film to tell this man’s story and introduce us to the ’60s folk scene, or is it about themes that the setting encapsulates? Joel and Ethan are very obviously demonstrating Van Ronk’s / Llewin’s influence on the most musical decade of the century, with a young Dylan and the Clancy Brothers popping up. Yet more deeply, Inside Llewin Davis is a study of failed artists, about trying to live one's dream. When do you give up? It is a beguiling, intriguing film, and one which asks more questions than it answers.

Review: The Wolf of Wall Street

Based on the memoir of a convicted fraudster, The Wolf of Wall Street has suffered extensive pre-release fatigue thanks to the dogged media questioning of its ethical position. Will it promote illegality? Will it glamorise dishonest lifestyles? Will it be able to stop the audience thinking for itself? This is all predictable stuff for maestro Martin Scorsese, who has built a career on seducing viewers with the glittering highs of gangster life. Whether or not those questions are satisfactorily answered according to a strict, pre-ordained moral code, however, does not necessarily impinge on The Wolf of Wall Street’s quality.

Like many of Martin Scorsese’s productions, we follow a man who finds himself dangerously in at the deep end of ill-gotten affluence. This time it is Jordon Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), an ambitious yuppie who climbs the Wall Street ladder by founding his own company, Stratton Oakmont, and trading illegally. He hires a bunch of frat-boy buddies, all part-time weed dealers, and builds the company into a sickening behemoth of corporate greed. All is done, of course, at the expense of ‘ordinary’ Americans. This money is then spent on himself: drink, drugs and debauchery. He becomes addicted to Quaaludes (look them up), has affairs and crashes diverse vehicles.

Needless to say, DiCaprio is faultless, as usual playing the tortured and charismatic protagonist. When he performs the manic sales pitches to his adoring employees, like a warped Sermon on the Mount, we are offered a glimpse of how the actor works. Through colossal force of personality, DiCaprio pulls the viewers into his pulsating eyes, and I suspect that this is close to the real Belfort. Jonah Hill injects much mirth as Belfort’s number two, Donnie Azoff, a cousin-marrying loudmouth who exudes an aura of sweaty perversion. Margot Robbie plays Belfort’s wife. At just 23, this must have been challenging in such a chauvinistic film, and with a director who almost exclusively films from a male perspective. Various other names (McConaughey, Lumley, Dujardin) pop up magnificently.

A lot of what you see on-screen is not cinematic fabrication – bombastic Belfort really did indulge in antics that make Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas look like Last of the Summer Wine. At first, it is dazzling. Then it becomes nauseating. By the end, you are repelled. It’s all fluorescent teeth and Italian loafers at Stratton Oakmont, where Friday night celebrations involve copious cocaine, high-class hookers and more psychotic laughter than a mad hatters’ convention. Standing at three sickening hours, even Gordon Gekko would be put off his popcorn.

So are the stylish peaks of the first half adequately answered by the mortal troughs of the second? If hubris does not subside into nemesis, then the film is simply an advert for immorality, the critics cry. I personally believe that it does: Belfort is clearly a pig and the fact that he gets away with it makes us hate him all the more. There will of course be some whooping young chaps at Canary Wharf Cineworld, but should art be banned for fear of a minority misconstruing its morals? There are always going to be criminals who enjoy Scarface, soldiers who think Saving Private Ryan looks fun, and greedy sociopaths who want to emulate Belfort. Scorsese doesn’t show the victims, focusing instead on the bullies. But he presents Belfort as undoubtedly a wrong ’un; a crazed maniac who would abuse strangers for sport if he gave them a second thought.

Great fun and very funny, The Wolf whizzes along like any good epic. People sometimes claim that Scorsese produces one masterpiece per decade, and this certainly looks to be his 2010s magnum opus. What Scorsese does so well is to let the viewer make up their own mind: this is exactly what you should do with The Wolf of Wall Street.

Review: The Railway Man

Whilst attempting to write this review, I found that my thoughts weren’t easily translating into words. That, I suspect, tells you something about the emotional pull of this film: it submerges you so successfully into the protagonist’s shattered mind that the horrors of war become unfathomable.

The Railway Man is based on the true story, and subsequent book, of Eric Lomax. He was a soldier captured by the Japanese in World War Two, and forced to build a railway in his surrendered army of de facto slaves. He was also tortured by the Imperial military police, which is never nice. The setting is pure The Bridge on the River Kwai, but the story is more akin to the The Deer Hunter: Lomax remains trapped in his war for decades. Having always been interested in trains, on civvy street the fragile Lomax has become obsessed, sinking into old railway timetables instead of facing his demons. Thankfully his new wife is not so ensnared in the past, and thus is able to help break the omerta that imprisons her husband in emotional confinement. What really helps Lomax to regain control over his life, and which makes this story so interesting, is his meeting the Japanese officer who tortured him, Takashi Nagase. Forgiveness is, fairly obviously, central to the narrative.

The film weaves between events surrounding Lomax and Nagase’s meeting and flashbacks to the nascent railway in 1940s Asia. We glimpse the brutal abuse and murder which was meted out to so many men in that situation, then fast forward to the ceaseless repercussions. The two men finally coming face to face serves as the climax, and maybe it has had the movie gloss treatment. There was no confrontation, surprise or re-enactment in reality, and apparently the two men hit it off immediately. The story is also fairly predictable and the outcome expected, but because it hasn’t been imagined by a scriptwriting hack it becomes all the more powerful.

Colin Firth is perfectly cast as the elder Lomax. On numerous occasions Firth has played men quietly stewing in turmoil, and here you can almost see the barely hidden emotions churning under his stiff upper lip exterior. The younger Lomax (Jeremy Irvine) turns out an equally impressive performance. Holding his own opposite such an experienced actor is quite an achievement, but he had more high-drama and physicality to squeeze in as well. Nicole Kidman is forgettable as Lomax’s wife. In reality, Patti was a headstrong and resourceful person, but here she is waifish and unremarkable, all deference and cardigans. She just did not have enough character to break the wall of silence in a convincing fashion. What eased the inter-generational story into believable territory is the successful matching of WWII era Lomax and Nagase (Tanroh Ishada) with older 1980s Lomax and Nagase (Hiroyuki Sanada). The younger actors captured the mannerisms of Firth and Sanada in extraordinary detail, foreshadowing the mournful movements of their sad future selves. Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard is oddly cast as a British veteran who does not manage to escape his past.

The Railway Man tries hard to illustrate the horrifying effects of war. But, more broadly, it shows how easily humanity can both fall apart and reform. Despite this, it is the restrained emotional performances which capture life’s brutal realities as best an artistic recreation can. The Railway Man may not be the greatest film about humanity’s ability to destroy itself, but in my mind it is a tearjerkingly good attempt.

Review: Anchorman 2

Hotly anticipated since rumours of its existence surfaced years ago, Anchorman 2 has a lot to live up to. The first Anchorman introduced the ridiculous news anchor buffoon Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and his loudly-dressed team. It became enough of a cult hit to put it on a pantheon with Withnail and I and The Big Lebowski. The crazed 70s style, idiotic philosophical musings, illegal aftershaves and jazz flute performances provided fans with enough quotations to keep them happy for years. Thus, this sequel was released with a substantial responsibility to viewers.

Having lost his job and wife (Christina Applegate), Ron Burgundy hits rock bottom. Fired from presenting the dolphin show at Sea World for gross misconduct, he fails even to commit suicide. Luckily Ron is offered a lifeline by an agent for GNN, the first 24 hour news network, seeking to recruit him. Anchorman 2 then treads a well-established narrative path. Burgundy travels to San Diego to reunite the old gang. Sickly smooth Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) is a successful cat photographer, redneck jock Champ Kind (David Koechner) runs a bat-frying chicken shop and Brick Tamland (Steve Carrell) thinks he’s dead. The team then battle for viewers, partake in professional rivalries and spout nonsense. Plot twists include temporary blindness and falling-outs followed by get-togethers.

What this Anchorman has is a conscious satirical undercurrent. It traces the birth of ubiquitous news channels, mixing with it the rise of cheap tabloid sensationalism. ‘Don’t just have a good evening,’ Ron declares after reporting on another live car chase, ‘have an American evening’. I thought this was all a little eager. The original Anchorman was satirical, it just didn’t go about it in an obvious way. Based on a real newsreader, Ron Burgundy was a laughable throwback to 70s alpha-masculinity, with misogyny and moustaches juxtaposed brilliantly. I mean, this is a guy who pompously declared 'I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany'. Critics became rather obsessed with the plot and satire, but Will Ferrell comedies are supposed to entertain and draw laughter. That alone is what Anchorman 2 should be judged on.

A lot of this film is simply to please fans. The whole thing reads like an ode to Anchorman. Jazz flute, Baxter the dog fighting carnivores and a large news team battle are funny because they are familiar. In the first, they were funny because they were original. It wasn’t that the jokes weren’t amusing, they just weren’t amusing enough. There is therefore not the same high yield of quotable lines. Paul Rudd should have been used more – after all, he is the man who delivered the statistic ‘60 percent of the time, it works every time’. There were some outstanding moments, like an RV crash where we see the characters colliding in slow motion (moments before: ‘why have you got a bag of bowling balls and a box of snakes in the back?’ ‘Oh that’s a long story. Let me just go over to this deep fat fryer I’ve had installed.’).

The Anchorman franchise loses something through its retelling: any novelty factor has, of course, worn out. Bereft of enough comedy to make this venture equal to its predecessor, Anchorman 2 is nonetheless completely funny 60% of the time.

'Don't act like you're not impressed.'