Before Midnight - another conversation, another town, another wonderful film

I’ve discovered that Before Sunrise can be a bit of a marmite movie… (and possibly Before Sunset too, though I’m guessing those crazy people who don’t like marmite, I mean Before Sunrise, don’t make it that far).  Well I loved both of the Before movies, and so both couldn't wait for Before Midnight and was slightly worried in case it spoiled the memory of the previous two.  Well, despite the best efforts of the people in the row behind me who talked over the last 10 minutes, it didn't let me down.

The best thing about the film is that Celine and Jesse have evolved, are recognisably 40-odd and have been in a relationship with kids for several years, but also they still are most definitely Celine and Jesse.   Naturalism is essential to these films, so there is also a tightrope to walk between filling in something for the audience about what has happened in the intervening years and not going too heavy on the exposition.  The film hints at what has gone before but gets the mix right – similar to the deft way that they handled the did-they/ didn't-they meet up early on in Before Sunset.  What exposition there is also sets up brilliantly how the characters have become who they are now.

Celine is probably the more complicated character, and also possibly would be less immediately likeable to people who haven’t seen the other films.  But Julie Delpy is such a phenomenal actress, she makes Celine’s bluntness, frustrations and fieriness both truthful and sympathetic.  There are scenes where both are in but you just can’t stop watching her because the performance is so excellent.  And Ethan Hawke makes Jesse’s response to her feel real, while giving her performance space and not allowing his character to get lost behind it.

My favourite scenes were the ones that transplanted me back to the previous movies as they wander through the town, conversing and, as they quite freely admit, bullshitting.  The early scenes in the car also have some of that feeling, though with the twins in the back seat, it is very clear that time has very much moved on from Vienna and Paris.  There are also extended scenes featuring the family they are staying with in Greece allowing to have lofty, thinking out loud discussions without you wondering why they haven’t had this conversation before in the previous 10 years.  These group scenes fit in tonally but also expand the film beyond its usual world of a one-to-one conversation.  The only scenes I wasn't quite as sure about were those in the hotel later on, with a static camera and more closed location.  Obviously there have been many indoor scenes in the previous films, but there world suddenly felt smaller and trapped.  This is quite probably deliberate – especially given the content of much of those scenes. It feels like some of the energy has gone from the film, and given that both the characters feel tired.  Maybe that was the right choice to make in terms of shooting style since it evoked that emotion.  It  may well be I just didn't want them to feel that way which is why I resented the change in atmosphere.

Obviously there probably isn't too much in this film for anyone who didn't appreciate the first two, but for anyone did, it seems a fitting end.  Perhaps it is a little less hopeful and overtly romantic than previous films, but realistic, honest and emotionally satisfying.  Whether we see Celine and Jesse walking and talking on to film again I don’t know. But I’m just pleased to have dropped in on them one more time, believable grown-ups but still not certain about life, less optimistic, more thoughtful, but still absolutely those two people who got off a train together nearly 20 years ago.

Upstream Color - a hypnotic nightmare

It’s a couple of hours after I finished watching Upstream Color, and I’m still not quite what I think or feel about it.  My final film at EIFF was probably the most mind-blowing.  A sci-fi, sometimes queasy, horror, that comes off as a mix of drug-induced nightmare and alien abduction (without the aliens) with no easy answers and a great deal to process.

I am 90% certain that I really liked it, and hope I still feel that way in a few days.  It is visually arresting, intelligently acted, mesmerising and brain-spinningly edited.  I don’t think I can even hope to describe the plot although I think I just about followed it.  It just would sound too silly typed out in black and white.

It is certainly a unique vision, starting with what seems like strange but relatively innocent teenage drug experimentation but then switching to the drug-and-hypnosis induced nightmare to end all nightmares.  (As an aside, if like me, parasites and people trying to remove them with large kitchen knives freaks you out, take something to hide your head behind for this section).

Amy Seimetz is terrific playing a woman who has no idea what has happened to her or how to move forward with her life.  It’s an incredible emotional balancing act and the film could easily have fallen completely apart without her brilliantly judged performance.   The choices of locations are strange and disorientating, as is the soundtrack, all coming together to throw the viewer into the air and not provide a safe and comfy landing.

Now with apologies for some terribly vague description -  the film is really evocative of something…  a paranoia, a feeling of not being wholly in control of one’s life, unknown connections, something impossible to quite put your finger on.  It is brilliant at overwhelming the audience with this uncertainty, at pulling the rug from under your feet – not just with the storytelling, but with the editing, the pacing, the camerawork and the score.

I’m really glad I saw it and may be trying to comprehend it for a few days to come.  The fact that I was totally fascinated by what was going on, rather than put off, makes me feel that if I do come to understand it, it will stick with me for a long time.  I think this is going to be one I have to watch again, although who knows how many viewings it will take for things to fall into place.

The Last Time I Saw Macao - too many experiments wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

The Last Time I Saw Macao may be the strangest film I saw at this year’s EIFF (though it has strong competition from Taboor).  It was slightly hampered by the fact that the sound was not working for the first 20 minutes or so, and I wasn't sure if the directors had chosen to keep the voices off screen in the way they did with faces or if it was in fact a mistake – given how important sound was to the atmosphere of the film as it progresses, it was a big mistake.  It probably did prevent me from getting into the film early on as I maybe needed to but I’m not sure that isn't the whole reason I didn't fully engage with the film.

The narrative of the film is actually in the narration, as an unseen Portuguese man tells of a strange and dark story when he returns to Macao to help a friend.  The visuals are presented in a weird sort of travelogue style, almost as if we are watching someone’s odd holiday slide show as he tells us the story over the top.  Events happen off screen – the scene presented as an empty stage or on the other side of a door or wall and we merely hear them happen or are told that they have just occurred.  It works in some cases and not in others.  Letting the viewer fill in their own gaps can of course be a brilliant film making technique that draws the audience in, but perhaps needs to be more sparingly as it felt like we had to do too much of the work.  The problem too is this is coupled with unseen characters (so you’re never sure whose hand is whose etc) and a vague and opaque plot – all three together are a bit alienating.

There are some really interesting tonal elements – montages of visual and audio that create a distinct moment or feeling but they never feel knotted together as one film.  I am definitely not against film makers doing something different and using a defined style but it has to be in service of the film itself and what these stylistic choices do to increase the viewers’ understanding, emotion or engagement.  The Last Time I Saw Macao felt imprisoned rather than liberated by the stylistic choices.  It feels like there was a really interesting film trapped in there but despite several stunning instances of brave visual or sound choices, there was too much experimentation going on to let something meaningful through.

7 Boxes - one simple task, one not so simple night

Paraguayan crime caper 7 Boxes is a mix between gritty realist thriller and black crime caper that sometimes work together and sometimes is discordant and uncertain.   I still can’t tell if I would have preferred it to stick to one or the other (and which of those would have been better!) It sometimes felt like the characters and their stories had come from two different films and had accidentally got mixed up together.

It grabs your attention from the opening super-fast montage scene and holds onto it throughout, it is certainly never predictable.   Market porter Victor is promised the money he needs to get the camera phone he craves if he can just cart 7 boxes around away from their current location and back to their owner, evading the police and gradually others.  It is full of blackly comic mix ups, incompetent villains and bungling police but also of deadly serious gang members (one of whose motivation is to get money for his kid’s medication – which doesn't really fit with comedy) and violent realism. 

The camera work and editing is stunning – fast paced, kinetic and evocative.  It turns the market setting into a character of its own.  The ever twisting plot is competently handled and mixes multiple elements well without feeling contrived or unconvincingly coincidental.

 On the whole, the characters worked, and the actors were excellent, except that distractingly one of the villains resembles Tom Cruise’s character from Tropic Thunder (complete with dodgy bald wig and in this case false teeth) which I kept expecting to be ripped from the character as some comedy plot point but isn't.

It is definitely a film worth seeing, mainly because it is so gripping, energetic and full-on, but I wish it had settled on a tone and stuck to it – probably the blacker comedy one – instead of presenting a slightly strange and uncomfortable mixture, which means the film doesn't quite fulfill its potential. 

A Story of Children and Film - a wonderful essay on the brilliance of film at capturing childhood

A Story of Children and Film is a beautiful, intelligent and mesmerising film essay on how children and childhood have been portrayed in film over the years.  Mark Cousins has an extraordinary ability to engage, inspire and inform all at the same time. 

Put together in an entrancing way, that feels like one of the relentless and exciting journeys depicted in some of the chosen films, Cousins identifies several key emotions of childhood (from wariness, to adventure, to the strop) and picks clips from films both familiar and strange to demonstrate how good film can be at reflecting the world back at us.  He does this not only by pointing out what the film is showing us but how it is showing it to us – by camera work, lighting, editing, sound, showing the brilliance of the film makers behind the clips.  I was completely engrossed from start to finish, and came away with another list of films to check out.

This is a documentary that can speak for itself, so I’m not going to say much more other than check it out if you can.

Of Snails and Men - I have a cunning plan....

Of Snails and Men is a gentle Romanian comedy, not unsurprisingly receiving comparisons to The Full Monty due to its subject matter.  Set shortly after the fall of Communism, it is about a union leader who tries to convince his colleagues to try an unusual money making scheme to buy out their factory after it is due to be sold.  Although not completely based on a true story, it was inspired by an idea on similar lines from about 10 years ago that was named one of the worst business ideas of all time!

It is an amusing, if not consistently funny film, but doesn't have anything like the emotional pull of The Full Monty.  There is something very 90s about the film, especially the side romantic storyline, which is presumably deliberate to reflect the time setting of the film, but it did sometimes make it feel a bit old hat and tired.  The film is good at capturing the sense of a town stuck in the past with no future, but somewhere that is also optimistic and that will probably never give up on trying to save itself.  It’s a likeable enough, pleasant film, but didn't feel hugely original or memorable. 

Die Welt - is a new life out there?

If I’ve had two themes come through in multiple films that I've seen at EIFF, they are people trying to escape their country and people slightly adrift in the world, not sure where they fit in.  Perhaps I subconsciously chose films on similar lines, or maybe it is a reflection of the world at the moment.  Die Welt combines both of these as a young Tunisian comes to the decision for his life to start he needs to leave Tunisia, around the time of the recent revolution.

The film splits into two halves reflecting two different ways in which the character might reach his new life – the first lighter, funnier, more hopeful, but as that option seems to close on the central character, Abdallah, the film becomes slightly darker and atmospherically more desperate.  The first half was perhaps my favourite.  The camera work felt more energetic and the humour that infused this section was used really evocatively as well as entertaining.  There are some great monologues to camera, the opening one as Abdallah tries to convince a customer at his DVD store to buy something other than Transfomers 2 is a mini work of art on its own.

Director Alex Pitstra is Dutch, but his father is Tunisian and the film is reflective of his experiences in getting to know his Tunisian family and heritage. His life sits very much on the other side of the fence from Abdallah, but the film brings an interesting take on perceptions of Europe from those trying to reach it.  There is a sprawling cast but all the individual characters feel like they add up to a well-rounded whole.

Although I’m not 100% convinced the two halves fully melded together and that the tonal shift completely worked (if anything it was the carry over of some of the tone from the first half that made it feel slightly uncertain), Die Welt is definitely a very interesting and engaging film that feels like it opened a window on aspects of Tunisian life in a fresh way.

Everyone's Going to Die - but not just yet....

Everyone's Going to Die is a funny, sometimes very, very funny, British debut independent film, set on one day in Folkestone. It is the story of Melanie and Ray, two very different people both lost in their lives.  They meet a couple of times by chance and, having nothing better to do, spend the day chatting and trying to help the other figure something, anything, about their lives.

The film avoids an instant spark type set up, which could have drifted into cliche, with little more than boredom the original reason for continuing their conversation.  Although at first there is nothing to suggest these people would get on, as the film unwinds, the friendship begins to make its own kind of sense.

Nora Tschirner is perfect in her role (very early on I worried we were about to get an Anglo-German take on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl - but this is a fully reaised character, grounded in reality, quick-witted and easily amused). The deadpan performance from Rob Knighton is also effective and surprisingly the actor's first feature film.  The unexaggerated characters make the occasionally absurd humour all the funnier as it feels so much more likke real life.

The directors are also on their first feature but they are very adept at bringing together a naturalistic atmosphere, well reaised sense of place, cool soundtrack and both comedy and drama in a way that both make the film feel light and fresh but also emotionally touching.  They allow the actors to shine and give us characters well worth spending the day with.  Definitely one of my highlights of EIFF.

Before Snowfall - the further away from home...

Before Snowfall is not always an easy watch. It follows a teenager, Siyar, as he travels from Iraqi Kurdistan through Turkey and onwards as he chases his sister.  However, this is not to save her. He believes he must kill her after she flees with the man she loves on the day she is to enter into a marriage that he has promised her to.

The film creates moments of unbelievable tension but also a dilemma over how to react to the protagonist.  The journey that the audience wills Siyar on is the emotional one to realising his intentions are horribly wrong - a journey away from the oppressive mindset of where he has come from.  But you sense he needs to go a long way on his other journey, the one Siyar has chosen for himself towards murder, even as far as finding his sister, to arrive at the destination that the audience needs him to get to - the place where he no longer believes he must kill her.  The tension lies in which, if either, he will arrive at first and also the unease about how far you want him to go.

Abdhullah Taher was discovered by chance and is excellent at conveying the tug between what he has always been told the world must be like - and what he must do to be a man - and the new world he is finding both in his travels and his growing friendship with Evin.  Evin is the heart of the film, and actress Suzan Ilir steals the show with an exceptional performance.  Evin has her own journey to go on and the acctress brings an excellent mix of compassion, fun, ferocity and heartbreak.

This is an ambition first film, tackling a very difficult subject from a new angle which director Hisham Zaman handles brilliantly, walking the tightrope of demonstrating Siyar's conviction without alienating the audience from the character.  It is well paced, with gentler moments that develop the characters interspersed and balanced well with the harder and tenser moments.

This is Martin Bonner - friendship can be found in unusual places

Although in many ways, a fairly simple film, it's hard to get over how different This is Martin Bonner felt.  It tells the story of Martin Bonner, an Australian man with an American family, who has moved to Reno after divorcing who still has regular phone contact with his daughter who has recently had a child, but less so with his artist son.  He seemingly knows no-one bar colleagues at his work and works as a volunteer manager for a church scheme to help people leaving prison.  In many ways he has been cut off from the world, but he will not let it get away from him, and finds his own ways to build connections.  Eventually, he builds a friendship of sorts with Travis Holloway who has just been released following a prison sentence for manslaughter after a drink driving crash.

Because in conventional storytelling, drama comes from conflict, it is rare you come across a drama where no-one is a bad person, even for the sake of driving the plot.  The characters in This is Martin Bonner aren't the most charming, or the funniest, or the sweetest people you will meet on film, but they feel genuine and real. They may not have the answers or be totally in control of their lives, but they are trying to do their best and make sense of the world in the best way they can.

Paul Eenhoorn is terrific as Martin and gets excellent support from the rest of the cast.  He doesn't always say that much and plays the character quietly, but you soon feel like you've known him for years.  It really feels like the film is showing characters as how we hopefully see the people we like in our lives - as complex people, who mean well and want to help out when they can, who are trying their best, sometimes getting things wrong, but not malicious.  Whereas many films judge their characters or mock them, this film gives everyone the benefit of the doubt and it therefore connects on a much more interesting emotional level. This maybe makes it sound like it's a cheesy or happy clappy film; in fact the tone is quite sombre, but not without humour.   It is emotionally real and fulfilling, with a refreshing, warm and truthful world view.

The film was shot for a really small budget, partly funded by Kickstarter, and kudos to those who spotted it and put their money in, as it was really money well spent.  It uses Reno, a city I know virtually nothing about, fantastically as a location, making it both an unknown and anonymous town and one that feels like somewhere with real communities. It has a great sense of humour and whilst recognising life is serious, doesn't take it too seriously.  I am really interested to see what director Chad Hartigan does next and hope he continues to bring us the world on these terms.

Up and Away (Bekas) - escaping and escapism

Up and Away is a sweet, very funny, very moving story of two orphan brothers in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1990 who make it their mission to travel to America and meet Superman.  It features two of the best child performances I can remember seeing recently, two actors who handle both the comedy and tragedy of their story brilliantly and memorably. 

Director Karzan Kedar does a very good job of keeping a light overall tone to a film which is frequently dealing with tough and upsetting circumstances.  Despite their harsh lives, the brothers are still kids – and very funny kids at that.  The fantasy of bring Superman back to save Kurdistan is poignant – it drives the brothers and brings a lot of the humour but the audience knows this will never happen.

The tense moments are incredibly tense (there were audible sighs of relief when certain scenes were over) and the sadder moments are truly affecting.  The relationship between the brothers is believable and touching, each with their own distinct personality.  The credible relationship is one of things that stops the film tipping over into sentimentality during its happier moments.   Given the situation it is tackling – two desperately poor orphans trying to escape their country through some of the most dangerous means imaginable – it seems a bit insensitive to describe it as massively entertaining but that is a measure of how funny it can be and how memorable the two kids’ performances are. 

ACAB (All Cats are Brilliant) - finding an anchor in uncertain times

ACAB (All Cats Are Brilliant) provides a different take on simmering revolutionary feelings in modern day Greece.  Elektra’s anarchist boyfriend is awaiting trial for a series of offences, their friends staging stunts and protests in support.  Elektra is no less committed to the cause, but her take on it is not one of grand, futile gestures and dogmatism and polemic.   Her approach is subtler and more creative, leaving unusual, questioning posters dotted around the city.

The film does two particularly interesting things.  Firstly, it’s portrayal of contemporary Athens which no longer feels like a city in a modern European democracy but as one step away from a war zone or police state – an occasional visit to the still wealthy areas emphasise this. 

Secondly, it poses questions around how people engage with politics and change in a turmoil.  Is her boyfriend Manousos brave for risking his freedom for what he believes in, preaching all or nothing revolution, or foolish as he is not succeeding in changing anything and being side-lined? Her parents are not endangering anything but are also only shouting at the TV in protest – does this make them as bad as those in charge for not taking more direct action to change things? Elektra herself is trying to work out her place within this new world, torn between idealism and pragmatism, as she wanders round the city. Maria Georgiadou's performance is brilliant at portraying this mix of uncertainty and determination, and brings a fully-realised and sympathetic character to the screen.  The only real connection she finds is with a child from a rich background that she babysits for, gently helping him see the world in a new way and enjoying the holiday away from the trouble in the rest of the city.  The film doesn't spoon feed answers, instead focusing on giving on a portrait of a city in uncertain times and the people trying to find their bearings again within it.  It is entertaining, engaging and thoughtful, infused with both anger and hope.  It is well scripted, directed and acted and is a really fascinating insight into an uncertain time that could see the country pulled in any direction.

The Swimming Pool - one day in the sun....

The Swimming Pool is only an hour long and in some ways feels like a lengthened short rather than a full feature.  Its strength is its observational, non-judgemental tone that allows the individual characters to come through, important given the lack of narrative drive. 

It depicts a day in the life of four disabled teenagers and their swimming instructor at a pool in Cuba.  What it portrays well is a group of kids testing how to relate each other and how far they can push things – something that is heightened by the way they are clearly stuck in a group together, separated from the other kids who they have to clear the pool for.   The film unfolds gently, perhaps a little too gently given it only has a short running time, with a documentary feel to it.  It has nice moments of comedy and emotional touches, but in the end is a short, quiet piece that doesn't quite reveal as much as it could have.

Pluto - ice cold and cracking under pressure

Pluto is a brilliantly chilling film from South Korea.  My own regret is that I suspect it is also a much more biting satire than I was able to realise as I didn't know anything about South Korea’s school system or class structure beforehand.

It opens with the murder of the star pupil, Yujin, at an elite boarding school on the eve of the highly competitive national exams for entry to the top universities.  The chilling tone is set by the callous indifference with which the murder is met – from his school, his friends, his family, even the initial suspect is more concerned with whether this will affect his academic performance than the fact that a murder has happened.  Only the police are concerned about what has happened.

As the truth of what has been going on in the school, and the intense competition that the students are driven into, is revealed, the film only becomes more and more unsettling.  Only one character is even remotely likeable, although the central character also caught up in this is very compelling even as his choices become less forgivable.  This makes the film eerily fascinating and utterly horrifying.

The film has a good deal of visual flair, infusing the film with more and more creepiness and unease.   Yujin’s laconic bitterness, June’s furious determination and the other school kids bratty entitlement mix together superbly and make the film an even more tense and intense experience, building to a heart stopping stand-off.

Although  deliberately exaggerated and heightened in both plotting and emotion, the film doesn’t lose the viewer but instead draws them in further to the melodrama.  At times I’m not sure I was still breathing.  It unwinds at its own pace making the punctuations of violence even more shocking.  This easily could have turned schlocky or incredible (I can imagine some people will find it so) but I felt that it packed so much in yet contained it so well that I was gripped from beginning to end.

You and Me Forever - Teenage Strife

Although by no means a bad film, You and Me Forever didn't really engage me.  The actors give good performances and a lot of the direction is excellent, energetic and capturing the feel of the teenager’s world. But I had real issues with the central character which meant I was never really absorbed by her life.

Laura is annoyingly passive, apart from when clashing with her parents, never showing any individuality or taking control over her destiny.  It’s not that it isn't credible that would thoughtlessly abandon a close friend for someone who seems more glamourous and cool but teenagers can be so absolute in their actions and emotions because of the internal, unshakeable logic and world view that drives them. They might act in an illogical, incomprehensible way, but it is driven by a belief that this is totally right. Laura’s internal logic does not come through enough to make her choices understandable and so she becomes a frustrating presence rather than a sympathetic one.  Her passivity and poor choices feel like a projection of adult incomprehension rather than genuine teenage acting out.  Perhaps that was the intention, but it didn't work for me.  Or perhaps I’m just getting too old and have more tolerance for adults who aren't able to take control of their lives (see Oh Boy)  than teenagers who don’t take control.

The film does have its positives.  Along with the performances, the film gives a good sense of the feeling of being stuck in a small town and therefore away from the action where life is surely happening without them.   In many of the scenes it also captures well the sense of testing out the boundaries of the world (the girls drinking and generally being loud on trains feeling pretty familiar – see most teenagers on buses/street corners etc!) and a sense of exhilaration from being two people against the world.  Laura’s new friend, though more extreme, feels more convincing, if only because I did get a sense of her world view.  With a central character more of a protagonist who made choices for some apparent reason, rather than no apparent drive of her own, this could have been a truly convincing snap shot of small town teenage life.

Oh Boy - In Search of a coffee in Berlin

Oh Boy was the first film of this year’s festival that I really loved.  It had a hard comparison to live up to as one of my all time favourite films I saw at EIFF is In Search of A Midnight Kiss – this wasn't quite as good but it also can live with the comparison.  Although Oh Boy is not a romance, it is shot in black and white and features a guy in his twenties wandering his city whilst not sure which direction his life should take.  However, instead of romance Niko primarily needs a coffee.

In fact, the coffee is really just a nice recurring joke, his failure in this, just one of several trials he encounters during the day, many of them trivial but most definitely adding up to this Not Being His Day.  In this film, having nothing to do seems to mean that pretty much anything can happen and Niko wanders from scene to scene to character to character, and frequently from misunderstanding to misunderstanding.  The misunderstandings generate the humour within the film; the characters (and their comparatively more profound problems) the emotional heart and the bittersweet poignancy.  

Tom Schilling gives an excellent central performance, quiet and unobtrusive, that really allows you to believe that Niko could have meandered into the uncertainty of his life without this making him a frustrating or pathetic character.  The direction is lovely and makes Berlin as much one of the interesting characters Niko meets as any of the people.  Director Jan Ole Gerster explained in the Q&A that he chose black and white and the great soundtrack to give it a timeless feel.  For me, even more importantly, the black and white gives it a less polished and therefore much more personal and real feel which fits brilliantly with the atmosphere and connection that the director is trying to create. 

The other great choice that the director makes is to not tell or spell out for the audience the impact each encounter has on Niko.  The character is processing and figuring it out for himself and the audience can interpret his character development in their own way  too, which probably means for every viewer there is a different  take on the central character.

I was really pleased to hear the film had been a big success in Germany as I hope this means it can become more widely known.  As a piece of character driven, involving, believable and funny film making, it is a truly engaging and touching experience.

Old Stock - for when life gets tough

Old Stock is a gentle and wryly amusing film following a young man, Stock …, who has moved into his grandfather’s retirement home, and retired from life, following his involvement in a serious accident.  Although the film isn't going to change the world, it starts from a nice different idea and plays it out well, tackling ideas around guilt and the choices people make to engage with life and the people around them in an engaging manner. 

The film isn't necessarily told in the most original way, and is largely what you’d expect from a quirky indie, but it is still very enjoyable, with really good central performances and some good, funny, set pieces and ideas.  The central conceit of such a young man happy to have retired from life may not be the most credible or believable if the film didn't handle it so well, setting it within the character’s emotional decision making rather than his whole character and making it a hook for the story rather than the driver.  Using this as a jumping off point rather than the framework for the film is one of the things the film does well as it leaves more room for the stories to shine.

The visuals are nicely done, and it gives a sense of a town not much less sleepy than the retirement home itself.  The relationships between the characters are believable and feel like they are genuinely developing rather than forced in a certain way to drive other aspects of the plot. 

 These are characters that it is interesting to spend an hour and a half with and a film with handles its amusing and heartfelt tone well, so even though not life changing, it’s an enjoyable, very funny, and warm-hearted film.

From Tehran to London - Imprisonment comes in many forms

The saddest thing about From Tehran to London is that is unfinished as director Mania Akbari made the difficult decision to end production to protect her cast and crew and to leave Iran for London when film makers began to be arrested by the Iranian authorities.

At the most superficial level, From Tehran to London is a drama about a disintegrating marriage and illicit relationships. But the circumstances of trying to make the film infiltrated the story and atmosphere on screen and it is much more about the limits of self-expression and creative imprisonment.

Much of the film focuses on everyday activities that wouldn’t normally be on screen while the dramatic, expositional conversation surrounds it.   This gives it an effectively melodramatic feel and also adds to the claustrophobic feeling of the film.  It is this feeling that the film is particularly brilliant at drawing out.  We never leave the house and camera positioning always has a sense of how limited this space is.

The portrait of the marriage at the centre of the film begins by showing it a reasonably positive and playful light – it is clear that Ava expects a reasonable amount of personal freedom and self expression that is gradually shown to be being suffocated within the marriage.  The plot deals with several subjects that you would expect to be taboo in Iran, but I didn’t realise until the accompanying short documentary about the film that one of the Iranian rules being broken is that of showing someone dancing (in fact, originally not just Ava, but her maid Maryam would have been shown dancing, but the latter scenes had to be cut to protect the actress who remains in Iran).

Although unfinished, the film still manages to viscerally represent  life stifled creatively and emotionally.  Hopefully Mania Akbari will be able to make films with full creative freedom, wherever she now makes them.  To end on a positive note, in the Q&A she expressed hope that things will also improve in Iran following the recent elections, so she may yet be able to find that freedom in Iran soon.

ID - Everything can be lost in Mumbai

ID journeys with a young middle-class woman into the sprawling and chaotic maze that is Mumbai and out of her complacent life.  Based on a real event, a painter collapses at Charu’s shared flat on a day she is more concerned with job interviews and what is going on with her friends.  At first, she has no idea what to do in a crisis and convinced someone other than herself must be responsible for the man tries to get out of the situation; her conscience never allows her to fully abandon him however.  Her naiveté lets her down, leads her to take him to an expensive hospital and to find herself frustrated through indifference and bureaucracy at every turn.

Charu may not be streetwise, and completely out of her depth in a Mumbai much more manic and turbulent than her more familiar Kolkata, but she is determined to solve the mystery.  Geetanjali Thapa gives an excellent central performance – portraying well a character knocked out of her familiar surroundings but without making her too earnest or stereotyped. 

What the film does particularly well is give a sense of her journey as a labyrinth. Many times she is in a place that seems as poor or alien from her lifestyle as you can get only for her to turn a corner into somewhere even more desperate or marginalised. The film is not always subtle, but in some ways this works for it – Charu has a conversation on her iPhone about a marketing strategy for Adidas whilst seemingly right on the furthest edge of the worst slum and city (both geographically and figuratively) a neat trick that is just about effective.  It also really gets across the way that the bigger a city becomes, the easier it is for an individual to not exist for the rest of the city.  Instead of more people to look out for you, anyone's identity can be lost.

The main let down for the film for me is the score which was distracting and intrusive.  In some ways, Charu is paranoid and on edge and the score seems to be being used to reinforce it.  But if feels a mismatch tonally and makes the film feel more over-the-top than it otherwise is.  The film excels in its realism; the score jars.

Overall though,  the film is very well made, gives a really good sense of Mumbai and of the massive gulf between the middle-class and the poor without hammering it home too obviously and it is centred around a very convincing and believable protagonist. 

Taboor - Strange goings on in Iran.... but what and when?

Taboor is a near wordless (apart from a few lines of voice-over there is no dialogue),mysterious film following an older man, wearing a foil suit under his clothing, around his city.  It is strange and disquieting, perhaps a little too mysterious and unexplained to be truly satisfying.

For the most part, the lack of dialogue works well.  In parts, it gives the film a sort of deadpan humour, with a sort of visual punchline in the long still shots and silent exchanges between the characters.  It also adds to the unsettling nature of the film, something reinforced with the occasional horror genre camera work of unnerving shots down long corridors or over stairwells.

The film does use its urban landscape very well, finding locations and shots that make the film feel like it has twisted out of this landscape and gives it a dystopian atmosphere.  The city is almost deserted, but whether it is supposed to be post-apocalyptic is uncertain, particularly when an ambulance arrives quickly and efficiently making it seem like this is still set on the edge of a functional world.

All of this does make the view experience the troubled unease of the central protagonist. He is clearly searching for something or trying to solve something wider than the odd tasks in hand but it remains unexplained.  Unfortunately,  I found the frequently weird scenarios and uncertain narrative often a bit too perplexing and disorientating to really lose myself in the film, instead becoming quite conscious of trying to understand what is going on.  This is not to say that my attention wasn't mostly held by the moving and I was frequently absorbed and overall I would say it was a worthwhile watch, if mainly for the interesting technique.  However, the person next to me was constantly fidgeting and the lack of dialogue and slow, still camera and lack of explained narrative means it probably wouldn't be for many people.

Viola - Shakespeare goes..... somewhere?

Sometimes when you come out of a film not entirely sure what you've just been watching, it's refreshing, some times it's just annoying.  Viola falls somewhere between the two - partly because it feels like the film is missing a third act.  It's a film that engages and holds the attention whilst it is happening without quite cohering; funny and well-acted but missing a layer.

It starts with a performance of a scene from Twelfth Night, leading to a backstage discussion on the nature of relationships and attraction.  This then spills into an exploration of one of the actor's theories through a constant reacting and retelling of the scene by two of the actors at one of them's flat.  All very interesting and intriguing.  Except we suddenly cut half way into a conversation in a different flat with two different people.  One of them is called Viola and we follow her around Buenos Aires until she is also forced to examine the nature of her relationship in a conversation.  We see her also put theories to the test.  And then the film draws to a close.  We both do and don't have an answer to the questions posed but not in the most satisfying way.  

Much is unexplained but it feels opaque rather than intriguing.  There is definitely a thought-provoking film with a different take on relationships in there if only it could be expounded more. The acting is excellent, with a convincing rapport between the cast that makes you want to sit in on their conversation. However, the one-hour running time doesn't allow ideas to be fully explored or to really enter the characters' world.  The lightness and humour to the film makes it entertaining and interesting in the moment but it is not quite a film that adds up to the sum of its parts. 

Sofia's Last Ambulance - Life on the front-line in Bulgaria

Sofia's Last Ambulance is a documentary following one of the city's very few ambulances, one with a worrying lack of suspension.  It is interesting enough, mainly because the crew, particularly Mila, were such engaging and undeniably characters facing an endless affront to their patience with humour, good grace and compassion.  The characters also shone clearly through because although a documentary. it was shot and cut like a character-led art house type film, rather than one with talking heads interspersed with real life footage.  The vast majority of shots were still cameras from the dashboard focusing on a single person for an extended period, frequently through a fog of cigarette smoke, so you got to see the full gamut of their emotions for each episode.  We never see a patient, just how these heroic people deal with what's thrown their way on shift.

However, this style also brought about my biggest issue with the film - the frustrating lack of context.  Although each individual episode engaged, there was no real sense of timescale, (was this a typical 24 hours or much longer time?), of the wider issues of the health service or of modern Bulgaria.  Interesting as the crew were, isolating their story from its wider world felt like we were only get a small part of the story and it did them a disservice.  It also seemed that pretty much every story chosen was one which showed the world at it's most testing or desperate, but with no context or variety, the impact is less.

It is still a rewarding film,  because of the strength of the characters and the reserves they find to deal with the situations they come across.  I was very happy to spend time with Mila, Krassi and Plamen.  And the fixed camera being thrown about in the ambulance as it races through the city was as visceral as many car chases in action films. Many of the episodes had their own individual tension and suspense and the unpredictability of many scenes had the real human feeling to them that are brought out so much better by documentary than fiction. But something that told me a bit more about the wider situation, that put these characters and their trials in context, could have made it so much more fulfilling and interesting.

So I've run through my take on Best Picture and hinted at some of my choices for the others.  Here's a bit more detail on the major categories:

Best Director
Should win: Ang Lee
Will win: Lee or Steven Spielberg
As long as they don't win:  David O Russell

Just for his visual adaptation and making Life of Pi seem like a story that belongs in the cinema, Lee gets my vote.  Spielberg keeps his sentimental tendencies under control and has brought together a fantastic film. Michael Haneke has made cinematic something that could be stagey and created a film which is nearly tonally perfect when dealing with an extremely difficult subject. Behn Zeitlin has crafted something poetic and touching and unique.  But I can't really see what was so special in David O Russell's direction of Silver Linings Playbook (apart from that incredible sweep shot during the final dance scene which is everywhere) which merits inclusion over Paul Thomas Anderson or Quentin Tarantino.

Best Actor
Should win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Will win: Daniel Day-Lewis
As long as they don't win: Bradley Cooper
See my other blog post for some of why DDL deserves the award.  I didn't take to Joaquin Phoenix's performance at first, finding it a bit mannered, but I grew into it and the mannerisms proved to be highly effective. A fantastically wild performance that if Day-Lewis wasn't up for it, I'd be championing.  Hugh Jackman gives an effective and enthusiastic performance, and for sheer hard work alone, deserves his nod and he does what he can with the lack of characterisation in the musical.  I haven't seen Flight so can't comment on Denzel Washington.  See my other blog for my opinion on the limitations to BRADLEY COOPER and his box of quirkiness.

Best Actress
Should win: Emmanuelle Riva
Will win: Jennifer Lawrence (or maybe, just maybe Riva)
As long as they don't win: N/A
Riva's performance is heartbreaking.  She doesn't have long to create a convincing character before the first stroke but she does and judges her descent into worse and worse health perfectly.  There is no showiness. just terrible sadness.  COOPER, learn from this!  Jennifer Lawrence is pretty terrific with her part, much more convincing than her co-star, but she is clearly the better actor.  Jessica Chastain is fantastic as usual although Maya's similarities to Carrie Matheson meant I was slightly distracted during the film and it also feels like a part that it is easier to impress in than, say, Riva's in Amour.  Quvenzhane Wallis is superb, unbelievable for a girl of her age - this wasn't just child acting, it was acting, acting. Phenomenal.  I haven't seen The Impossible so can't comment on Naomi Watts.  Still cannot believe that Marion Cotillard wasn't nominated for Rust and Bone. I guess two French actresses wasn't an option.

Best Supporting Actress
Should win: Amy Adams
Will win: Anne Hathaway
As long as they don't win: N/A
I went through my paragraph on Les Miserables without mentioning Anne Hathaway because deservedly she's the first person every mentions. She is terrific, and she gives it everything.  But Amy Adams, has a truly unforgiving part, which she nails and frankly Amy Adams deserves every award she goes for probably for her whole career. There is nothing wrong with Jacki Weaver in Silver Linings, though I was surprised it was nominated as it wasn't particularly impactful.  I'm not sure about Sally Field in Lincoln.  Nothing to do with Field herself, and from all accounts, an accurate one of the emotional Mary Todd Lincoln, but it just didn't quite feel in keeping with the greater emotional control of the rest of the film - although as my mum helpfully pointed out, because of the focus is on such a short period, we only get to see a snapshot of her and a longer period biopic would have led to a very different characterisation and performance.  I haven't seen The Sessions (I will try amend that at some point!) so can't comment on Helen Hunt.

Best Supporting Actor
Should win:  Philip Seymour Hoffman
Will win: Robert de Niro
As long as they don't win: N/A
It's a sign of de Niro's class that he provides a much more a convincing performance of someone with a possible mental health condition than his co-star.  It's a nice performance and I think there will be enough sentimentality to give him the award.  But Hoffman, wow.  His turn as Lancaster Dodd is so frighteningly convincing it probably belongs in a horror movie.  He more than holds his own against Phoenix without overshadowing him, and is utterly riveting.  Alan Arkin is fun without being exceptional in a pretty wide ranging and competent cast. Tommy Lee Jones is very effective and does a great job with his role, but it's not his film.  I would be more than happy to see Christoph Waltz double up on his BAFTA.  He has a particular charisma that few other actors do, and although he is not given quite the opportunity to show off his abilities that he did in Inglourious Basterds, he gives a very memorable turn and it is one of those times you can't really imagine anyone else playing that character.  I would have liked to have seen James Spader (for Lincoln) and Samuel L Jackson (for Django) nominated, but I suspect the former's part was maybe a little too small and the latter's too controversial for them to get picked up.

Best Original Screenplay
Should win: Moonrise Kingdom
Will win: Django Unchained
As long as they don't win: n/a
Look any screenplay by Wes Anderson is likely to be on my should win list. Moonrise Kingdom was funny, charming and moving.  Django is sharp, smart and delivers a great story.  To me Amour is so much about the naturalistic performances, I'm not sure how much I noticed there was a script - though Georges' anecdotes are wonderful and poignant, as are many of the character-setting conversations.  Zero Dark Thirty is so set on being impartial reportage that it is perhaps one of the reasons the film is a little emotionless, but it is still effective at pushing through the story.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Should win: Lincoln
Will win: Argo
As long as they don't win: Everything bar Lincoln
I can't say enough good things about Tony Kushner's screenplay.  This could easily have turned Lincoln into the mythic hero President instead of the complex man who doesn't always fit this.  It could have got bogged down into detail or been so sweeping that the near impossible task ahead looks like an inevitability. Argo is the screenplay of an effective thriller, well told, but perhaps could have used a little more context about the politics and the current affairs, after the opening few minutes. Life of Pi is all about the visual achievement though the script is successful in capturing the book in spirit.  I still can't believe that Beasts was based on a play as it feels cinematic and incredibly natural.  Silver Linings Playbook's simplification of bipolar disorder means it should not be on the list, although except for that, there is some nicely written dialogue.

Well let's see tomorrow if I was right on any of those predictions....

9 Films, 1 Winner

Oscar time again, where (some of) the best (if you ignore almost everything outside America) films get a fantastically expensive celebration, whilst we admire some frocks,  hope that Seth MacFarlane is vaguely funny and that there is at least a 15 minute break between each time that I Dream a Dream gets belted out.  Hmmm, this might need a drinking game.

So, I have this year seen all 9 Best Picture nominees (it helps when they don’t pick anything so scathingly reviewed that  I can’t bring myself to go see it – see The Blind Side and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for previous years!) and here are my thoughts – I’ve tried to avoid spoilers but may not have succeeded.

And it has to be said, I haven’t hated any either.  Les Mis didn’t really speak to me , even as it bellowed earnestly in my face, but I still enjoyed the spectacle.  Beasts of the Southern Wild and Lincoln couldn’t be much more different but are my definite favourites.  As for the other 6, I’ve tried putting them in order as to my preferences, and I can’t.  It does have to be said that Amour and Zero Dark Thirty are clearly superior films to Silver Linings Playbook or Argo but I came out of the cinema considerably happier from the latter two! Django also has the enjoyment factor but needed a bit of an edit (well the removal of Tarantino acting) and Life of Pi was just remarkable – weirdly I can’t think of a good reason why it isn’t third in my preferences, maybe otherwise it didn’t quite grab me as much as the book did, maybe my memory is being mean and not giving it the credit it deserves.

So to rescue my dad from having another half hour phone lecture on what film should win and why here is my quick reviews of each the films – for many of these from memory of films I saw a few weeks or more ago, so might be different from my immediate reaction – and also my views on some of the other major categories.

In alphabetical order….

Amour:

I know I was going to leave the other categories to later, but please, please can Emmanuelle Riva win Best Actress.  Something which takes place almost entirely in one flat and for the vast majority of the film features only 2 actors, should probably belong on stage, and should probably not be so engrossing on film.    It is the performances by Riva and by Jean-Louis Trintignant which involve you so deeply in the story, they are perfectly judged and utterly believable.  It’s a shame that Trintignant didn’t get a nomination too, for best actor, perhaps instead of BRADLEY COOPER.   The fact that it feels cinematic and more than something that should be done on stage, is down to Michael Haneke’s direction, which makes the flat feel like a full-on landscape.  The film is beautifully done, but my one slight qualm about it is that it builds up to one big event which then suddenly happens out of the blue, which given the subtlety and perfect pitch of the rest of the film, it jarred too much for me and slightly took me out of the film.  I don’t know whether Haneke is trying to provoke, or that it was just the timing didn’t work for me.  But otherwise the film is an impressive and haunting achievement.

But for a film that wasn’t so haunting….

Argo:

I remember enjoying Argo immensely.  I remember being completely gripped, particularly through the last section of the film (although I was laughing at the cars chasing the plane down the runway).  There were lots of fun performances, and the story was sharply, slickly and well told.  But I’m not sure how much it stuck with me.  I guess the films I rate the highest are the ones I’m turning over in my mind over the next few days.  Argo was one of those films that I was happily recommending to friends and colleagues as an enjoyable night out, but maybe wasn’t thinking that much about afterwards.  So it’s a well-made, well-scripted and well-edited  and exciting film but maybe not one of that much substance.  It looks like it will be walking off with the Best Picture Oscar – I’m not annoyed at this, but it’s not the film I’ll be cheering on either.

Which brings me nicely to….

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Now here is a film that stayed with me immediately and for long after.  It’s a film that feels poetic, is full of intimate moments of sadness and masses of defiance.  The central two performances are excellent – and I’m not sure how to quite articulate but what most impressed me about Quvenzhané Wallis’ performance was that this didn’t feel like a brilliant child acting performance, it felt like a brilliant performance by an actress.  This may be film about a marginalised community going through a disaster, but one of things that impressed me most was the film was devoid of any pity or self-pity.  It celebrated survival and getting through on your own terms.  It wasn’t po-faced, it dealt with serious issues without being too earnest, instead it had real visual flair and the ability to pick up and completely transport its audience.   It was a really special debut, and I can even forgive Behn Zeitlin for being younger than me and getting nominated for Best Director (I don’t approve of high achievement  by those younger than me!!!) because of his imagination and vision.

Of course for directors with a single-minded, bloody-minded vision, you can’t go much further than….

Django Unchained

Well probably only Tarantino would do this – make a bloody revenge western set in slavery, just like he did it with the Second World War.  And this was somewhat less a-historical than Inglourious Basterds.  Furiously entertaining,  bloody, bloody, bloody, and just about balancing between visceral horror and being much more entertaining than revenge violence has any right to be.  I think one of the bigger achievements was the clear tonal difference between the violence perpetuated against slaves, which is harrowing and all to convincing, and the cartoon violence inflicted by Django and Schultz, in the style you’d normally associate with Tarantino.  That’s how he just about gets away with making this a western set against something which cannot be taken lightly.  Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo di Caprio and Samuel L Jackson are all excellent – and it’s a shame someone as brilliant as Kerry Washington wasn’t given a little more to work with.  The only thing that I’d really fault the film for was its excessive length, which meant it wasn’t quite as tight as it could have been.  Not necessarily even cutting a section but shortening bits here and there, to stop the occasional meander.  And also a ban on Tarantino acting, especially with that awful attempt at an Aussie accent.

Meanwhile without their Aussie accents….

Les Miserables

I’m going to try not get too negative on Les Miserables as I did appreciate the spectacle, but with so many positive things to say the other films here, this is one of those films I enjoyed while I watched it and then started to pick apart after I left.  I think the problem is the source musical – and where you can get away with a lack of characterisation in a stage musical, to me it fundamentally let down the film. Hugh Jackman does his best, but I would have loved to know more about the early Jean Valjean, to have a more interesting and explored character transformation, so that I could really care about the character at the end.  I was more moved than I expected at the end (despite Amanda Seyfried trying to put me off) but still just didn’t care that much.  I suspect Tom Hooper and his colleagues were hamstrung by not really being able to deviate from the original as it has too many fans. This is a shame, as I think cutting back on the utterly unconvincing love story between Marius and Cosette and perhaps focusing on the ongoing battle of wills between Valjean and Jalvert, it could have been a much more engaging film.  The revolutionary bits are done well (me, a sucker for anything related to French revolutions?!! Yeah, ok….) and are well and truly epic and as an on screen achievement, I can’t fault them for effort, it’s just I need characters to care about, and apart from rooting for the success of the obviously doomed revolutionaries, there just wasn't much there for me.

Speaking of an achievement in bringing something to the screen…

Life of Pi

 I saw a critic say somewhere that perhaps the most impressive achievement by Ang Lee in his realisation of Life of Pi was that instead of thinking of the source material as a book that is impossible to bring to the screen, it seems like the most naturally filmic story in the world, perfectly made for cinema.  And to a large extent I agree with this – it is a phenomenal achievement, and despite my love for Lincoln, I really hope that Ang Lee gets his second Best Director award.  The film is absolutely stunning, and although I can accept that the tiger wasn’t real, I refuse to believe they did not actually film the whole thing at sea.  If there was a better visual achievement last year, I don’t remember it.  If it doesn’t win the relevant technical awards, I might just march on Hollywood. How far is it again? Also, the actors deserve a nod, Suraj Sharma deserves an endurance award – the fact he was able to still act convincingly at the same time is impressive, and I think Irrfan Khan judged is part perfectly – even being slightly off could have spoiled the film.  So I’m still trying to work out why I’m not quite as passionate about this film as I would expect me to – I loved the book and thought this was as good as an adaptation that you could hope for.  I think it might have been the foreknowledge of the revelation at the end and perhaps that the more fantastical elements (such as the island with the mongeese) whilst we are hearing someone tell us a story that is supposed to be real, perhaps work better on the page than the screen.  But it’s a minor quibble, and if Life of Pi was to win Best Picture, I would not begrudge the makers that one bit.

Of course I would slightly prefer it if the Best Picture went to….

Lincoln

Now to be honest, particularly given the class of Tony Kushner’s script, I was probably guaranteed to love Lincoln.  Something that plays out like The West Wing 1860s-style? Yeah, I am totally there.  It really does all begin with Kushner’s magnificent script (it better win Adapted Screenplay, or most of Edinburgh will be woken up by a lot of angry yelling), which does a great job of mixing the political and the personal, of capturing the clash of ideas and the complexity of the great task ahead, whilst still (for me at least) pushing the story forward.  I was probably as tense through the vote near the end of the film as I was during the final acts of Argo or Zero Dark Thirty.  And at the same time, it manages a brilliant character study of Lincoln himself, a complex man and a study that never drifts towards hagiography.  Of course, that element of the script is given a huge helping hand by Daniel Day-Lewis’ stunning performance.  Enough has been said about how you forget you’re not watching Lincoln himself (I totally agree), what I think is also particularly magnificent about his performance is that you have to believe such a person exists - a man who is both charismatic enough to drive these events through and brilliant enough to pick his way through the political maze – that someone so incredible could still be a real person.  And Day-Lewis really, truly does this.  There is also a terrific supporting cast, even if it was occasionally a tiny bit jarring to spot random actors in there – oh look, it’s Gale Boetticher from Breaking Bad, is that Hannah’s creepy boyfriend Adam from Girls?  But a big shout out should also go to James Spader who is clearly having a whale of a time and was massively entertaining.  As for Steven Spielberg, his direction is assured and unobtrusive, leaving the actors and script to shine, probably exactly what was called for.  My biggest fear was, after the schmaltzy disappointment of War Horse, that he would have the cheesometer turned up to 11, but in fact there is very little of that as he recognises that the emotion is in the importance of what is happening, and is in fact nicely underplayed.

Enjoyable as it is, underplayed is maybe not the first word you would use to describe…

Silver Linings Playbook

I really did enjoy Silver Linings immensely. It got to the end and I had a nice warm, fuzzy feeling, it really hit the spot.  But best picture of the year? Hmmmmm.  The way I managed to enjoy it was to pretend that BRADLEY COOPER’s character was in fact suffering from some sort of personality quirk rather than a mental illness as potentially serious as bipolar disorder.  Because there is a line where he mentions that he is now better because he is taking his medication but you could easily miss it and assume that the improvement is purely down to dancing with Jennifer Lawrence.  I also just wasn’t 100% sold by BRADLEY COOPER’s performance – he’s not bad, but he’s not exactly convincing either, there’s just not enough depth to the performance, it’s too much bells and whistles (which is why I’m insisting on putting his name in shouty caps, in case you hadn’t worked that out!).  So I can’t tell if he’s been nominated for Best Actor because people were so surprised to discover BRADLEY COOPER can do dramatic reasonably well, or if the Academy didn’t realise Tropic Thunder’s take on Oscar-picking roles as comedy.  But hey, there is still a hell of a lot to enjoy in this film, and like I said, taken as a nice film to see one evening, it’s a proper engaging, feel-good movie.  Both Jennifer Lawrence and Robert de Niro are terrific, and their characters feel fully realised and much more convincing.  Jacki Weaver is good too, if a little underused.  It zips along nicely, you sort of know where it’s going but it is also entertaining, and quite touching too.  One final thing, that has really confused me.  David O Russell’s last two have been his most conventional and probably his most uninterestingly directed.  Yet both have earned him Best Director nominations? Of the man things I will never understand when it comes to Academy choices, this is one of the biggest.  Especially when they didn’t nominate Paul Thomas Anderson.

And for my final dodgy link between pieces, speaking of this year’s not-nominated directors….

Zero Dark Thirty

It’s a week or two since I saw Zero Dark Thirty and I’m still not quite sure what I thought of it.  Much of it was impressively shot, Jessica Chastain is of course excellent, the final act is far more tense, edge-of-the-seat than it has any right to be. But. I think my issue with the film is that in trying to stay neutral and just present and report, it feels a bit disconnected and dispassionate.  I don’t need a film to tell me how or what to think or feel, but I think I engage with it a bit more if I feel it is thinking or feeling something.  There is something cold and clinical about ZDT, which means while it is a tremendous, often unnerving, piece of film making, it can also be a bit clinical. I like moral ambiguity in a film but this just didn’t quite spark off.  It is not pro-torture, in that it shows just how horrific even so-called enhanced interrogation is and yet it didn’t feel angry enough about the time wasted on these dead ends.  It doesn’t lionize the CIA agents, make them heroes or villains, just sits there in the corner watching them.  In many ways, this is a brave choice, and quite probably the right one, I just wanted to be grabbed a bit more.  Maybe the length, and the splitting of the film into chapters is what accentuates this.  It felt like watching half a series of Homeland in one go.  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, but with that, you know you can stop any time. ZDT just felt like a bit of a marathon until we got to that final, brilliantly realised final act.  This might be a film I have to watch again until I finally make up my mind.  Until then, I will put it as a technically excellent, if detached, piece of film making.

So, if you can’t tell from above, I would prefer Beasts of the Southern Wild (it won’t) or Lincoln to win (it might sneak it), and would have no problem with Life of Pi, Amour or Django Unchained winning.  I am resigned to the fact that Argo will win, this doesn’t annoy me, but it is a little bit disappointing that something more original or substantial isn’t the favourite.  And if Les Miserables or Silver Linings walk away with it…. Well Academy, you and I are having words.

On a final note, if you’re wondering why I care so much about the Oscars when I doubt many people truly believe they are rewarding the best film of the year, it’s more because of their impact on what it means for film production – the types of films that succeed are the types of films that are more likely to get made, either because of the boost to their financial success or to the studios’ prestige. Awards shouldn’t matter, but they do.  It’s important to me that big, proper films are being made by studios as well as the blockbusters and cheap horror franchises, because the reality of the film industry is that I’m never going to get to see most smaller movies because they won’t make it to screens.  Yes, I can see a few at the Film Festival, but it’s only a fraction of what’s out there.  So the other chance I get to see films with something of an original vision, with a director in command of his art, with proper characters realised by talented actors is through the ‘Oscar’ film. It’s not an ideal system, but what we’ve got. So c’mon Academy, be bold, give the awards to the real accomplishments so that these films keep getting made.