01/10/2004

ISX at EIFF 2004

entry posted by Inquisitor at 1:08 (permalink).
categories: Movies

1) Oldboy (South Korea, 2003, dist. Metro-Tartan)

Asian action cinema in general is undergoing a major renaissance right now - having suffered a small downturn after John Woo began sucking in Hollywood - and this film is part of this new guard. Basic, non-spoilerific plotline: guy gets snatched off the street for (apparently) no reason, and is locked in a room for fifteen years. When he gets out, he's determined to seek revenge for whoever locked him up; people who still have an interest in him. Thus, ass-kicking ensues; but, unlike most of the revenge genre, there are a few rather surprising twists in the tale.

A particular pivotal scene near the beginning will have both sealife-lovers and the BBFC choking on their dinner, which should make Metro-Tartan's upcoming battle with the censors interesting to look out for. Don't let this put you off; it's extremely well done, stylishly directed by Chan-wook Park (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), brilliantly acted by his cast. Also, Quentin Tarantino - according to the rumour mill - wanted this to win the Palme d'Or, but got outvoted by the rest of his Cannes jury. It got the Grand Jury Prize instead, which is still extremely respectable - so go see this movie, if you can stomach it.

 

2) Pearls And Pigs (Helmiä ja sikoja) (Finland, 2003, no distributor)

This was a blind entry picked by me out of the EIFF catalogue - and, honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect from it. It was an extremely pleasant surprise; here we have a well-timed, decently directed, honestly funny little film of a sensibility surprisingly close to our own. And it worked for me.

Basic plotline: a closeknit, layabout, oddball family is thrown into turmoil when their father is sent to prison (for a completely botched-up, badly staged raid on the local liquor store), the local mafioso want lots of money from them, and their father's neglecting ex dumps her nine-year-old child on them (with the line "It's his bastard".) They then hatch a scheme to get the nine-year-old into a local Pop Idol style talent search, after hearing her singing voice. The only problem is, she's extremely shy...

This says nothing about the many great running gags, perfectly timed humour or the characterisation, which are pitch perfect. The film is so assured of itself, it's able to pull off an extremely surprising Princess Diana gag out of nowhere without making it seem tasteless or out of place and being very, very funny. If you can read subtitles, it's a nice cheery afternoon out.

This film does not currently have a UK distributor. It should get one.

 

3) Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster (USA, 2004, dist: Metro-Tartan)

Some kind of monster indeed: this somewhat overlong documentary (at two and a half hours), culled from 1800 hours of film, takes you directly into the recording process for Metallica's "St. Anger" album, involving missing band members, unintentional comic moments along the lines of This Is Spinal Tap (Lars talking about his art collection, Kirk Hammett getting pulled over by the cops), lots of therapy, complete fuck-ups, massive guitar riffs and auditions for bassists. And yet it doesn't cover why exactly the band were allowed to get away with lyrics like "My lifestyle determines my deathstyle".

Still, I don't like the current era of Metallica much (I am listening to Kate Bush right now, but then so is Big Boi from Outkast), while a lot of people in the audience with me loved them. I still liked the documentary - basically dissecting the working band unit - so it's worth seeing if you're into music of any sort. Those who remained in the screen - UGC's largest, so that was quite some people - had a Q&A with the co-director, Joe Berlinger (who apologised vehemently for giving the world Blair Witch 2, which was a nice touch), in which he revealed the band didn't actually ask for any material to be removed; extremely surprising, since it isn't an altogether 100% positive look at the internal Metallica structure. This should at least make you respect them, if it still doesn't make you like "St. Anger".

 

4) Inside I'm Dancing (UK/Ireland, 2004, dist. Momentum)

I know I'd get done by Private Eye for saying this (if I wasn't an unknown tool writing online with a readership of about three), but this film is the new Billy Elliot in more ways than one: i.e. a very funny, traditional-ish comedy with a subversive edge. Directed by Damien O'Donnell (East Is East, Heartlands), the storyline involves two heavily different personalities meeting up, and helping each other to discover new fields inside themselves.

Oh, and they're both heavily disabled: one almost uninterpretable with cerebral palsy, the other (the only person in sight able to interpret him) unable to move most of his body due to Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy. The place they meet up is a Dublin residential home - "A Special Place For Special People". In short, the plan is to completely subvert people's perceptions of disability.

Yes: now we have a film that treats disabled people as human. And it's very funny. Due to various problems in finding disabled actors, Damien O'Donnell had to use able-bodied actors for the lead roles (with heavy consultancy from various disability advisors), but you really can't tell - the actors both give exceptionally committed, heftily convincing performances. Add to this an excellent supporting cast (of unknowns), fantastic 2.35:1 cinematography (this film will lose lots when panned and scanned), and a soundtrack which features the Avalanches, Raging Speedhorn and Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails. This could well be one of the best British films of the year, up there with Shaun Of The Dead; making it a very good year for WT2, Working Title's experimental division (which produced both).

I managed to get a ticket to what was the gala premiere, thus gaining the privilege of a Q&A with director and cast and an introduction by Tim Bevan (runs Working Title); and if this film doesn't win the Audience Award (it's ranked #1 after my screening, something which I aided by filing my card as EXCELLENT), I'll be very surprised.

 

5) The Far Side Of The Moon (La face cachée de la lune) (Canada, 2003, no distributor)

This film is based on a one-man play by and starring Robert Lepage, is directed, produced and written by the very same Robert Lepage, and features him in a dual role. It's a rather wonderfully staged look at two competing brothers that appear to be as different as possible but really are different sides of the same coin; the metaphor used being the US and Russian space programmes. It's run through by a very dry humour and pathos that managed to get the usually rather cynical EIFF crowd (when there's no-one involved with the film in the screen) clapping at the end, which is saying something. And unlike most flickery, forgettable DV films (which we can blame Lars von Trier for), it uses the freedom of DV to allow imagery to build rather than speed by; it contains much that is beautiful. A great movie.

 

6) Saved! (USA, 2004, dist. Momentum)

Whilst the American teen movie is usually the home of godawful moralising from the likes of the Olsen twins or Lindsey Lohan, there has been a long tradition of teen movies that go against the grain. Everything from many of the John Hughes movies (much more subversive than history has made them seem - look at something like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where the school system is not favourably portrayed at all), through high school allegories like Election, to the ultimate high-school hate movie Heathers - all these movies have bitten the status quo, in some cases leaving it permanently changed. Christian fundamentalism, however, has been a topic so far unchallenged; and yet it is deeply engrained in the psyche of modern America, as can be seen from the intense overreaction over Janet Jackson's breast and the national beating of hands every time abortion, contraception or evolution comes up.

High-school Christian fundamentalism therefore has been well due a satiric battering and, thanks to Michael Stipe of R.E.M. (the producer), it's happened. The film is set in the suburbs of Baltimore where a group of intensely Christian high school students are starting the new year at a private fundamentalist high school. One of these students, however, gets herself in a very sticky ethical dilemma when, to "cure" the fact her boyfriend is gay, she has last-resort sex with him... and suffers the consequences, including the boyfriend getting sent to a "de-gayification" centre called "Mercy House" and a very unexpected pregnancy. In between, the film takes swipes at practically every tenet of fundamentalist Christianity: showing off your faith, predictions of the 'end-times', homophobia, attempts to 'convert' unbelievers (such as the only Jew in the school, a rather classy troublemaker with a liking for one-liners), speaking in tongues, gun culture, 'down with it' preachers like the school's principal Pastor Skip, protesting abortion clinics, visions of Jesus, Christian rock, Jesus Christ Superstar, the money issue and exorcism. With lots of cute one-liners:

"Oh my God - the Jew is speaking in tongues!"

The film is directed fairly well and acted mostly superbly; although Mandy Moore as the popular, ultra-fundamentalist school bitch ("Sorry about Dean's faggotry") comes off somewhat on a one-note level, she is in this uncannily like many Christian fundamentalists (and she never stops being funny). Macaulay Culkin in particular, playing Mandy Moore's wheelchair-bound, agnostic brother, is non-annoying and extremely good.

Sadly, the film runs out of steam in the third act where it goes straight for the morals and forgets about the one-liners, although they do return by the end. IMDB trivia says that the ending in the original draft was that Mandy Moore's character would shoot up the school; a very Heathers move that could very well have kept the movie running at full-pelt throughout, although it probably would have led to arson attacks on Deep South multiplexes if it had ever got in. In this, therefore, the movie fails to live up to its potential - but it's still a funny, well-done Cruise missile into the American heartlands, which we can all be thankful for.

I've just been reading the IMDB board for the film, which has been completely astroturfed by fundamentalists who haven't even seen the film - it flopped hard in the US, despite the fact the film is way funnier and much more thought provoking than anything Mary-Kate and Ashley can give us. It's very sad that many Americans won't even get the chance to see the film; cinemas and video stores in the Bible Belt like to play it safe. You really think Wal-Mart is going to stock a film that insults their very constituency? Nah.

 

7) Hamburg Cell (UK, 2004, made for Channel Four)

So controversial, it got on Reporting Scotland, Hamburg Cell is the events of 11 September 2001 told from the hijackers' point of view. In particular, it centres on Ziad Jarrah, the intended pilot of the United Airlines plane, intended for the Capitol, that crashed in Pennsylvania; and his conflicting relationships between his home life and his increasingly militant religious beliefs.

The production team knew that if they got anything wrong, they'd be in deep trouble. So while the project started very soon after the 11th September attacks, it took several years to composit the lives of the Hamburg cell together from court transcripts, interviews, the Commission and so on. According to the director Antonia Bird (Priest, Care, Ravenous), at today's post-film Q&A, they were re-editing the film for accuracy right up to only a couple of weeks ago, and it shows. The film has truly convincing acting, is almost entirely on target, and doesn't flinch from the implications. An absolute must-see.

It's being screened on Channel Four next Thursday [the 2nd of September]. Channel Four should really be ashamed that the film is going to be shown on TV so soon - it deserves a UK theatrical release. But it isn't going to get one: this puts it in the same category as such great films as Dominic Savage's Out of Control (EIFF Michael Powell Award winner in 2002, shown on BBC1 a few months after), the documentary Control Room (shown at EIFF this year, on BBC2 last Saturday), Ken Loach's The Navigators (Venice nominee, ending up shown on Channel Four) et al. Please watch this movie - it will change your preconceptions.

 

8) The Big Red One: Reconstruction (USA, 1980/2004, dist. Warner Home Video)

Sam Fuller's great war movie, featuring Mark Hamill acting in a non-Skywalker role, was severely butchered by its distributor, Lorimar, on its original release - fairly obviously by people who didn't understand what the film was about. Incredibly, a great but flawed film survives after the film's slashing; an even greater film emerges after its reconstruction.

Sam Fuller actually did fight in World War II, in the 1st Infantry (their patch being the Big Red One of the title), and the film was extremely close to his heart. So the distributor cutting it basically wasn't good news for him. Robert Carradine, who was at the screening, pointed out that a huge number of memorable scenes had been cut out of the original version; these, thankfully, have been reconstructed, so that the film is now near-enough identical to the shooting script, and thus an hour longer than the Lorimar cut.

So it's a vastly better film. When it turns up on DVD, take a look; what you get is an intelligent, anti-war film with a sense of very, very heavy realism. Highly recommended.

 

9) Hero (Ying xiong) (People's Republic of China, 2002, dist. Miramax/Buena Vista)

I'm still undecided about Hero. Amazing scenery, great battle FX, well-timed cinematography, and a deeply dodgy political compass. If you ignore the politics, it's a very rewarding movie; lots of thieving from Kurosawa, Rashomon in particular, in order to provide for a developing flashback plotline. Unfortunately, I can't ignore the politics, so the movie somewhat creeps me.

Obviously, discussing the politics is going to spoil the movie - and polarise a lot of people - so I'm not going to. You can see the same basic discussion on the IMDB boards for the film, if you so desire. All I'm going to quote is Samuel Johnson: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". Work it out for yourself.

 

Comment:

The Festival this year was extremely entertaining, filled with great cinema from around the world. Inside I'm Dancing, the right film, won the Audience Award, and I'm pleased to see they're exploiting that on the new poster. Also, I got into the closing night party, and it had a free bar, leading to a fairly obvious hangover the next morning.

 

How To Get Into The Closing Night Party:

Be in the right place at the right time. I was: I went to the UGC half an hour before my screening of "Pearls And Pigs", and got caught by a survey-taker working for EIFF. I gave them my personal details. Result: they picked me for a focus group regarding the marketing of the Festival, at the wonderful Sheraton Hotel, and as a 'thanks' for taking part we all got tickets to the party. The friend of mine I went with thinks he spotted one of the guys off EastEnders. I spotted an MSP or two. And we got to drink lots of alcoholic produce in the grounds of the Edinburgh College of Art. There can really not be many things better. Can there?

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