Skyfall

James Bond, rather like Bruce Wayne/Batman, is an orphan. Orphans, according to M, make the best recruits to MI6. Skyfall is the 23rd film in the Bond franchise, and in its 50th year. I think gravitated me towards this instalment (after the shockingly appalling Quantum Solace) was due to it being directed by Sam Mendes. Mendes cut his teeth in theatre and came to film rather late on. He hasn’t made that many films but as they say quality over quantity from American Beauty, Road to Perdition (frankly impressed by Tom Hanks turn as a baddie) and Revolutionary Road. Along with the cinematography of Roger Deakins (he has worked extensively with the Coen Brothers and with Mendes on Jarhead and Revolutionary Road) who is just superb. Mendes gives the Bond franchise a kind of sensitivity and intensity not just some rip-roaring roller coaster action adventure film.

Skyfall is a much more personal film, a personal voyage for Bond and M too. Film starts with the usual fast paced, awashed with stunts introduction, takes place in Turkey with Bond and another operative, Eve, chasing a baddie who has just nabbed a hard drive with all MI6 operatives on there. Bond gets shot by accident and disappears, M is being hunted by ghosts from her past which culminates in the destructive of MI6. Bond comes back from the dead. Though he’s not up to par physically nor mentally. He’s damaged ready to meet another damaged former agent cum peroxide cyber terrorist, Silva (a nod to Bond’s Spectre peroxide nemesis, Grant, in From Russia With Love). There’s the usual crisscrossing the world, Turkey, Shanghai, London, and the denouement being set in Scotland. Home for Bond enticing Silva to his lair thereby confronting their collective demons.

There’s is of course your perfunctory Bond women. Eve holds her own including a gun. At the start she comes across as an equal to Bond expertly as a field operative. There’s the wise cracks and intimacy which doesn’t lead to sex. But of course there’s the doomed Bond woman, Sévérine in this case, who suffers and will, at some point, be sacrificed for the greater good. Oh, and with Bond sex leads to death. The story that underpins this film is Silva and Bond’s relationship with M who shows herself as a steely character willing to condemn and sell-out her operatives at a whim, not thinking of the damage nor consequences. In some ways, as opposed to previous Bond baddies, you sympathise with damaged Silva. There’s a scene where Silva is captured, M meets him and denies that she ever really knew him. Silva implores M to call him by his real name. She walks away. Yet she admits to Bond who he really is and what had happened to him showing her own steely pragmatism that comes across as cold.

There’s something different about this Bond. The cinematography is impressive, especially the Shanghai scenes, shows a real rich texture of colours and manipulation of light. Bond creeping up to the assassin at a backdrop of bright advertisements reflecting on the glass, the silhouetted fight scene is very dramatic. I wasn’t sure about the added humour and wise cracks thankfully no 1970s style double entendres but I kinda preferred Daniel Craig’s Bond as a tense jawed miserable sod.

Javier Bardem creates this camp rather damaged character, Silva, over-the-top yet rooted in reality. The man has his own demons and revenge is on his mind while Bond it’s all about resurrection. I do feel sorry for Bardem because every time he plays a baddie he has the dodgiest haircut (No Country for Old Men). Unfortunately, Bardem doesn’t really appear in the film until half way through, which adds the mystery. He has the usual Bond style villan ticks and mannerisms but he pulls away from a cartoonish interpretation. There’s a geeky version of Q, all anorak and specs. Lots of product placement (hell, what else is gonna pay for the film!) and of course….a vintage Aston Martin with ejector seat (well, it is 50 years).

Overall, I am still undecided whether I really liked the film. Mendes gave Bond a more personal dimension and humour….and a Ms Moneypenny (Eve of course all desk bound now…unfortunately). The opening titles were just too surreal for me and unlike the previous two Bond films, there were scantily clad women doing the usual swirly dancing. I had hoped that had been kicked into the sexist dustbin but alas no…Indeed I know as a Leftie you shouldn’t really be going to see a pro-imperalist kick-the-crap-out-of-Johnny-Foreigner-all-ruling-class-Queen-and-country bullshit… but suspend your political consciousness for 2 hours or so. I still doubt whether the Bond franchise has run out of steam especially since the Bourne films surpassed regards to action adventure. Bond will be forever the spy the British ruling class would love to have. As Matt Damon (Bourne trilogy) once quipped, “Bond is an imperialist and a misogynist who kills people and laughs about it, and drinks martinis and cracks jokes”. Even with Mendes at the helm… Bond is still a relic still being revamped and resurrected… But how long for?

 

Review: The Dark Knight Rises

There was an initial anti-corporate message that fits with the current zeitgeist when a banker at Gotham stock exchange tells Bane that, “There’s no money here to steal”.  Bane responds, “Then why are you here”?! This specific quip gives even more credence and power as it’s uttered by Batman’s nemesis, Bane. The Dark Knight Rises is the final, an ultimate swan song, in the Batman trilogy. This time Batman is now deemed as an outlaw himself, cast into the shadows, blamed for the death of Harvey Dent in the previous The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne has hidden in his mansion for 8 years oblivious to the outside world, aided by trustworthy Alfred his butler. While Bruce hides in his shadows a daring rescue is taking place, Bane is freed from the CIA and takes his band of mercenaries to the sewers of Gotham. Bruce’s interaction with the outside world is in the shape of Selina Kyle …. cat burglar. But the person who reminds Bruce Wayne of who he is and  gets him to break his self-imposed exile is rookie cop, Blake. Commissioner Gordon spends a good proportion of the movie in hospital after being shot by one of Bane’s gang, still guilt ridden over covering up the death of the “heroic” Harvey Dent.  Bruce once again dons the garb of the caped crusader to fight Bane, along with exposing corruption and greed in Wayne Enterprises, finding love interests, fighting personal demons and a side story about a fusion reactor.

It’s looks like a rip-roaring finale, jam-packed 2 hours and 44 mins…. Indeed it looks but it’s a woeful disappointment. Where to start? Nolan indulges in a clash of imagination and reality. It doesn’t deliver and it doesn’t work. The panoramic scenes of a New York-style Gotham City is a million miles away from the imaginative dark place that lacks town planning that is the real Gotham City. Where theatrical baddies exists, such as Heath Ledger’s scruffy, grungy, and twitchy Joker all frenetic, dynamic, nihilistic and anarchic  with his exaggerated mannerisms and a Larkinesque f*cked up violent childhood to boot. Legend is, Bane also had a violent early life existing in a prison known as the pit where he finally escapes emerging into the world as a muscular psyched-up mask wearing baddie. The problem for Tom Hardy is how do you express your character as your face is covered with a mask? He uses his eyes to illustrate his behaviour which does work and his voice has a tendency to be too Darth Vader like, along with that loud wheezing. And brings me to another question, just what kind of baddie is Bane? It starts off with the impressive rescue where a team of highly trained special forces style individuals free him from the clutches of the CIA. Comes across as an efficient malevolent organisation yet later in the film it all becomes an ill-disciplined mob rule with chaotic armed gangs with Bane acting as some warlord. Is Bane a bringer of chaos? A creator of a new political order? Why would an expert crack team of super-efficient baddies degenerate into a mob? Nolan has a problem which he solves by sticking it all together. Result is that it doesn’t quite work. What can be argued is that who exactly is in charge. Bane is run and financed by corrupt capitalists but this changes dramatically. Another problem is that there’s a clash of reality and imagination. The anti-corporate message seeps into Gotham yet the imaginative world of Gotham is ill-equipped to deal with this. Instead what we get is a vengeful Bane seeking to liberate the people of Gotham through mob rule. Comic books have that strong moral code of good and bad. The people of Gotham are reduced to faceless vigilantes tossing rich people out of their houses. While the police, state officials and Batman organise a counter-revolution. I found the storyline rather reactionary and …chaotic. We still witness Bruce Wayne/Batman fighting his own personal demons…again (it’s getting tedious). Alfred trying to shake some common sense into him.

The women characters are reduced to “love interests”. Miranda Tate, a rich philanthropist, just trails along for the ride (a waste of the talented Marion Cotillard) not integral at all to the story while Selina Kyle/Catwoman has little to no backstory (possibly Larkinesque too), is a cat burglar who wears slinky expensive cat suits (no wonder she is a jewel thief she has to pay for the outfits). No explanation why she morphed into a cat-like burglar. It’s all too slick and expensive for someone who lives in a hovel. There’s no imagination or creativity. You don’t see Selina sewing her own custom-made cat suit that would stamp her alter-ego onto the costume instead it’s designer. The original relationship between Catwoman/Selina and Batman/Bruce sizzled sexual chemistry as both were fascinated by each other, but it can never be consummated as that would contradict the comic book code of good and bad. It also creates dramatic tension which didn’t exist really between Nolan’s Catwoman/Selina and Batman/Bruce.

The end result is a mish-mash of reality and imagination. It may be unfair to keep saying it, but this instalment misses Heath Ledger’s Joker who existed in the comic book world of Gotham City, the child/adolescent’s imagination where baddies like Penguin, Riddler and Catwoman exist. Tom Hardy’s Bane just can’t fill those Rosa Klebb style shoes of Heath Ledger’s Joker! Comic book Gotham has freakishly creative toys like the Batmobile unlike Nolan’s Gotham that has highly advanced and sophisticated corporate toys designed by Lucius Fox. There’s the woeful lack of the theatrical and too much CGI, Nolan is a past master of creative CGI as in Inception but this is just too lazy and boring. The dialogue and characterisation plodding, 1-dimensional and dense in many places. I would say it is overlong. At least in the previous Batman, the Joker captivates us with this “better class of criminal” .. and there was true tension between the protagonists.The usual moral conundrums and ambiguities were played out but not well and not very subtle (Larkinesque childhoods are everywhere!). Maybe Nolan meant the message to be all corporate and CGI reflecting the world we live in and no space for creativity and imagination; from the structured world of Gotham, to Catwoman’s trendy and expensive cat suits and Batman’s sophisticated toys. The Batman sign has turned into a kind of corporate logo along with the dull bourgeois ending for Bruce Wayne, all happy endings. A sad, tragic and depressing ending for the dark chaotic imaginative world of Gotham.

My list of must-see films

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who commented on my annus horribilis post or contacted me offline or via Twitter/Facebook. Thanks for your kind words!!

I have been remiss in seeing films in 2011. These are a list of films, out at the moment, I want to see:

1. Margaret

2. Dreams of A Life

3. Puss In Boots (I love the Shrek animated films)

4. Girl With A Dragon Tattoo (see if it’s as good as the original!)

5. Mission Impossible (I like the franchise….)

6. Shame (released in Jan)

7. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

If anyone has any recommendations, please say.

Ken Russell and The Devils

So I will bid adieu to that over-the-top hyperbolic baroque style director, Ken Russell. It was only a couple of weeks ago there was a programme about the British Board of Film Classification where letters between the head of the BBFC, John Trevelyan, and Russell over the controversial film, The Devils (1971). It was a fascinating, the censor telling the director to make cuts and certainly the infamous orgy scene along with the ‘rape’ of Christ (see this excellent article by Mark Kermode). The censors didn’t get or maybe they did, and by all accounts Trevelyan was worried about the American financiers. I re-read Huxley’s The Devils and viewed the film again. It is a very powerful and political film. The main issues being of religious bureaucracies, sexual repression, oppression, political subterfuge, witch hunts, persecution and execution..all added to a potent celluloid mix. No wonder the moralists hated it. Also, what also increased the power of this film was its minimalist set created by Derek Jarman. The film, The Devils, deserves its own post, which I will write at some point.

Russell, no stranger to controversy, directed Women in Love (the infamous wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed). The rock opera, Tommy, which too was over-the-top but better for it. There was The Music Lovers, The Boy Friend, Lisztomania, Altered States, Gothic and Lair of the White Worm. I saw the prequel to Women in Love, The Rainbow, in the cinema circa 1989 and was highly disappointed by it. It just had none of the originality and passion of the sequel.

I believe that Russell was underrated. Censor and critiques couldn’t see beyond the “indecency”. The director Alex Cox and film critic Mark Kermode argue The Devils  is one of the ten greatest achievements of cinema history. I think they are right.

Review: “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

Don’t usually think of quotes from former SWP leader, Tony Cliff, but on this occasion it seemed right. He said that he liked individuals in the  family but it’s the ideology of the family he disliked. I agree and it made me think of that while watching Lynne Ramsay’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin”.

I only read Lionel Shriver’s controversial book recently. The book just didn’t appeal to me when first published as it just sounded Columbine-esque replacing guns with bows and arrows and other assumptions I made. How wrong I was. The book fascinated me and it is far more intricate and perceptive (some say overwritten which I disagree with). A book written from the point of view of Eva Khatchadourian as she goes back and forward reliving her past through letters to her husband Franklin. I wondered how Ramsay would grapple with that aspect, would she have a formal voiceover? Fortunately, she goes for something better. Initially, according to Ramsay speaking at a Q&A session at the Curzon Soho, smashed up the book (on a literary basis) and constructed a screenplay from the remnants. Ramsay uses imagery in a very powerful and expressive form (see her previous films, “Ratcatcher” and “Morvern Callar”). Also Ramsay said that the film was made on a very tight budget.

Red being the colour that explicitly threads through the film, a very powerful device yet also subtle. The cinematography is outstanding. Kevin, her son, dominates the film, dominates her mind. The viewer isn’t some voyeur you are Eva. Living her life before and after Kevin’s murderous outrage. Tracing through the past jumping to the present the redness enveloping through her life; from the joyous tomato festival where you witness Eva so happy and contented to her obsessively scrubbing the red paint off her hands which has been chucked at her house.

As in the book we only see Kevin through her eyes, her point of view, no verification. Kevin exists as a composite of memories. You ask yourself, is this true? What I liked about Ramsay is the way she pared down the book yet the outline is still there. Eva’s relationship to Kevin, the screaming baby, the petulant child who refuses to be potty trained, the boy who destroys her map collection, the teenager she knows for certain blinded her daughter Celia. Eva’s fraught relationship with Kevin and her desperation to bond with him. Is Kevin an evil demon child or was he made that way through nurturing?

Franklin, the father who sees no fault in Kevin which inevitably has an impact on the dynamics of his relationship with Eva. Ramsay shows the couple living in a small cluttered apartment then they live in a very minimalist and spacious but rather alienating house (which Eva hated). Franklin plays the engaging Dad,  the dedicated Dad who encourages Kevin with his archery.

What is also key to this film is the physical resemblance between Eva and Kevin who mirror each others behaviour. A wordless scene in the prison based on non-verbal communication is an excellent example of this. The dialogue is limited yet what makes it more powerful is the surreal and nightmarish imagery. Eva lying, sleepless, in bed hearing screaming, seeing literally red going backwards and forwards in time constantly reliving the gym incident. Living in her spacious family house, having her own business to the present of working by day in a gloomy travel agents to existing (cocooning herself) in a tiny house living in fear of next blood red splattering attack on her house.

The gym scene is very economically done, no gore, no over-the-top depiction, again it’s from Eva’s point of view as she doesn’t really know what happened. A very powerful scene is where Kevin is facing the gym, back to the viewer, bowing to an invisible audience.

There is so much wrapped up in this film, guilt being one of the significant emotions. Eva scurrying away from she sees the mother of one of Kevin’s victims, embarrassed and awkward when she meets one of Kevin’s victims. She visits Kevin without fail at the prison finally asking him on the second anniversary why he did what he did. His answer, “I thought I knew but not sure anymore”. Kevin goes from an arrogant nihilistic murderous teenager to a scared and vulnerable one. As the viewer, do you hate Kevin? Ezra Miller portrays him as an arrogant yet complex teenager, with many emotional masks, who rips through the bullshit of the family with a scythe. What I also found engaging about his film is that it makes you think, creates more questions than it answers. Along with an European director like Ramsay casting a directorial eye on what seems to be a specific American obsession regarding school massacres. I wonder what kind of film would have been made directed by an American?

Ramsay, with the mirroring of the characters, projects two people similar yet different, but not too different. Thankfully, Kevin isn’t depicted as a 1-dimensional monster. Ezra Miller plays him a teenager with contradictions, the guy who sees fake. Glaring and staring at Eva then snapping out of it when Franklin comes home, “Hey Dad, how was work”? All stereotypical family life, yet all fake (reminded me too of Holden Caufield’s emphasis on ‘phoniness’ in “Catcher in the Rye”). Ramsay picks out scenes that exemplify Eva’s and Kevin’s fraught relationship. The success of these scenes are down to the excellent acting of Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller, the physicality between the two is utterly noticeable. John C. Reilly as Franklin as the dependable father is well portrayed. Franklin, as well as Celia, are kinda ghosts that flitter through Eva’s memories.

Back to the quote from Tony Cliff. Watching the film made me think about the role of the family, the ideology of the family as opposed to nature/nurture. Eva throughout the book hankers after her life globe trotting, decides to have a baby with Franklin yet her resentfulness comes through as it is obvious she prefers to be a million miles away from Kevin. One particular scene is where Eva decorates a room of her home with maps and souvenirs from those times which Kevin destroys in a very Jackson Pollock manner.

Does he pick up on this resentfulness? Eva seen awkwardly holding screaming baby Kevin away from her while Franklin isn’t around a lot. Franklin plays the archetypal Dad, see no evil…..ignoring Eva’s concerns and worries while trusting Celia is in the background, polar opposite stoic as Eva bathes her eye socket, lost due to Kevin’s savagery, or was it? Eva is lost in this patriarchal sexual division of labour family set-up (resulting with the public anger at Kevin’s actions directed towards Eva the mother). Ramsay shows Eva’s desperation for independence yet trying to fulfill the maternal mother figure especially with Kevin. The ideology of the family and what it represents along with the contradictions. It is more about that than it is about nature/nurture. Or as someone in one of the Q&A sessions pointed out that this film is a great advertisement for contraception.

Film spoilers good for the health…

Researchers from the University of California in San Diego asked 30 people to rate 12 short stories, some of which had been altered to include a spoiler that revealed the story’s ending. The results showed that those subjects who were told of the plot twist ahead of time took more enjoyment out of reading the story than those who weren’t.

I was queuing up outside the cinema one late evening in north London circa 1999. It was a very long queue too. The film had been advertised as having this great unbelievable twist to the ending. People waiting with bated breath and anticipation wondering if the film was as good as the reviews said or was it just spin and hype. Got to my seat, smirking away, watching the place fill up quickly. Had a terrible urge to shout, “Look, people, spoiler alert… the twist is …. he’s dead!” Impatience had got the better of me and I had read the synopsis to Sixth Sense in Sight and Sound which gave the ending away. My partner who is much more patient than me kept telling me not to tell him (case of sticking fingers in his ears shouting, “La la la…not listening”…). So I would pretend to break the news to him by saying, “Twist to the film is that…..Bruce Willis must have taken acting classes as he aint bad”…

But then that’s me. Fortunately, reasearch shows that spoiling the ending doesn’t really matter. Hurrah! I can carry on reading the film synopses in Sight and Sound. Apologies too I should have flagged up spoiler alert as they do on Internet Movie Database (an utter must for any sad lonely film geek) when I announced the ending to Sixth Sense. Ah, c’mon, you must have seen it…. apparently it won’t spoil your enjoyment.

So maybe it’s better that you know that Verbal is Keyser Soze. That Soylent Green is made of people. Rosebud is the name of the sled. Donnie dies. Norman Bates is the killer – in drag. 42 is the answer. Deckard is a replicant (or is he?). Tyler Durden isn’t real. Bruce Willis is actually a ghost. Vader is Luke’s father. Neo is the one (whoa). Dil is a man. And that it was Earth all along – because it will improve your enjoyment of the movie.

Though in saying that I didn’t find out the twisty ending to The Others nor Memento until I watched it. Made a change. Though it is hard when you are telling someone how good/bad/indifferent a film is without revealing the ending, kinda slips out with the shriek of “Don’t tell me”!!. Movie industry desperately tries to keep blockbuster films that have cost a whole lotta money under wraps (new Batman film). Incidentally, when Hitchcock’s Psycho was released newspaper advertisements would say “By the way, after you see the film, please do not give away the ending. It’s the only one we have”. Rather ingenious, though audiences were not used to the infamous shower scene and made some sick.

By the way, I know, 30 people in this sample, not very impressive nor much of a cross-section sample but hey, backs me up….

Vincent Price, 1970s horror and being scared stupid….

Every time I wander into HMV I always have good intentions such as buying some comedy  DVDs but end up buying some gore-fest instead, horror or some serious drama/thriller/crime. My DVD collection does not inspire any laughs though I do own the Marx bros, Duck Soup. And that’s what I did the other day bought loads of horror, horror and more horror. Even purchased “Tales of the Crypt” (Brit flick from early ‘70s starring Peter Cushing, Joan Collins and Ralph Richardson… a real gem of bad acting and red poster paint as blood… it’s apparently a cult movie now, same with the Hammer films of that time) as it took me back to being a kid.

That’s what I blame for my gore/horror/thriller/crime film collection and strangely weird knowledge on said genre…my childhood. I was rarely rapt by comedy though I had a penchant for musicals. My mother’s favourite film of all time was Dr Zhivago (possibly to do with it starring Omar Sharif as opposed to the historical/political context of the film) yet the first film she took me to as a kid was “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and I do vaguely recall it but what I also remember was wandering around the cinema sitting on the stairs in the aisle, I believe it took my mother some time to realise I had done a bunk as she was entranced by the film… I was, apparently, bored. Don’t believe I was taken to the cinema again until the age of 9 where I saw another animation, “The Rescuers” and later the more adult “Grease”.

I spent a lot of my time in front of the television especially late night movies when really I should have been tucked up in bed instead of gawping at something scary on the screen. My back catalogue of celluloid memories include tacky Brit flicks which are now iconic “Twisted Nerve” which is offensive and misogynistic thriller chiller yet it was resurrected by Quentin Tarantino who used the eerie whistling composition by Bernard Herrmann for Kill Bill vol. 1. To be honest, it was the only scary thing regarding the Boulting bros film. Another pot boiler from the late 1960s starring Rita Tushingham…. why, Rita why? You had such a hopeful career so why succumb to this dreadful misogynistic classic crap, “Straight on till Morning”..?. Same with the shockingly sleazy bad, “Frenzy” (Hitchcock becoming more like Brian De Palma..than Hitchcock). Also many of those films especially Brit films involved casual racism, homophobia, violence against women without any implicit or explicit critique. I suppose these shocklers have their own little niche in Brit flicks nestling between the kitchen sink dramas and the quiet(ish) 1970s where many film directors ran off to Hollywood or discovered television. From the early 1970s onwards British film had a tumbleweed effect (all Hammer, Confessions and Carry On) though with some notable exceptions.

What made things bearable for me was Vincent Price he scared me more than Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. “Theater of Blood” is seared in my mind mainly because of Robert Morley and his poodles. Also, “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” and “Scream and Scream Again”  which starred the unholy trinity of horror; Cushing, Lee and Price. I think one real inventive oddity sticks in my mind and that’s Psychomania starring Beryl Reid and George Sanders (this was his final film) the plot all séances, satan and sadism; terrorising the locals “back from the dead” biker gang. Bizarre and surreal yet entertaining.

The genres of these films overlapped and can be categorised into sub-genres. After a time they did also merge into two distinct categories; pure supernatural style “what’s-that-noise-coming-from-the-attic” horror to the psychological thriller usually depicting woman in peril chased by a “mad man”. Funny when I watch these films now on DVD or if some channel on telly decides to raid the cinematic obscure vaults of 1970s Brit flicks I find them interestingly bad, which also exposes the politics of the time. But there were smart and ingenious though creepy unsettling creations of that period, “Wicker Man” and “Witchfinder General”

But what remains in my psyche is these appallingly bad films my staple celluloid diet. One of the first thing I learned as a kid was how to turn off the telly properly when everyone else had gone off to bed and there was I all alone watching scary movies acting all cool and not frightened at all though once in bed I would dive under the duvet hiding away from the nightmarish images I had encountered on the screen. Scared stupid I was. But in the safe cold light of the morning it seemed like a load of fun and till the next time.

When I watched “The Exorcist” at the cinema around 21 years ago I frightened myself but didn’t want to admit it as I wanted to be appear cool and blasé about horror. This time I couldn’t dive under the duvet as the weather was just too darn hot so I buried my head in the pillow and hoped for the best listening to anything that may go bump in the night. Why the masochism? Well, I liked being scared stupid!

What I was also reminded of while writing this was when I was around 9-10-years-old I wrote to the BBC as I had just watched a real Brit schlocker though to some it’s a classic a chiller of a masterpiece, “I Start Counting”…possibly as it starred a young Jenny Agutter and Simon Ward but it’s the usual casual plot line about a serial killer murdering women… Women in peril film with very shoddy and sexist politics. But for some reason I was gripped by it (especially the opening song…still remember it now) so I wrote to the BBC asking whether it was based on a book and they replied informing me it was written by Audrey Erskine-Lindop. What kinda amazes me is that 1. I was writing to the BBC about a violent adult film and 2. looking back am surprised that the person who responded to me didn’t ask, “Why are you watching these films at the age of 9?” “You should be watching “Blue Peter and then safely tucked up in bed when these films are televisied”… But they  didn’t and if they did I still woulda ignored the advice. And hell, the experience of cinematic horror viewing from an early age didn’t harm me….. Well, I think it didn’t….I mean, the real world is far more horrifying and frightening.

Thelma and Louise: 20 years on

It was a simple idea, “Out of nowhere…two women go on a crime spree”… so says Callie Khouri who wrote the screenplay to Thelma and Louise. Vanity Fair’s Hollywood edition has an interesting piece on this film. I saw “Thelma and Louise” at the cinema when it was first released, 20 years old. Can’t quite believe it’s 20 years old! Khouri’s script is a reaction to the sexism and violence experienced these two women encounter which all the more brings them together, friendship and comradeship, the glue that binds these two women together. It is more than a female buddy road movie. Coupled with the sexual violence that causes them to go on the run in the first place combined with the educative responses to the sexism they experience on the road (one of my favourite is the truck driver who gets a crash and fiery course in respecting women from Thelma and Louise).

The script also reflects the sexism confronted in the real life development of “Thelma and Louise” how it was difficult to get financial backing as women characters just don’t inspire investment. Even when Ridley Scott got involved initially to produce he approached potential directors (no names given….) one delightfully had this to say:

“Listen, dude, it’s two bitches in a car”.

What would the film had been like if they had original choices Michelle Pfeiffer and Jodie Foster in the roles? Foster dropped out the project to play Clarice Starling in “Silence of the Lambs” (where Foster plays second fiddle to a OTT hammed-up Kenneth Williams style Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter).

Like all outlaws in Hollywood their demise usually ends in a hail of bullets but in Thelma & Louise it’s case it’s off a cliff in their 1966 Thunderbird convertible in slo-mo action with Thelma uttering, “Let’s keep going” with Louise kissing her as they disappear into celluloid oblivion. An iconic moment. I was utterly heartbroken by that scene casting my mind back to 1991. The young feminist as I was wanted them to live, drive off into the sunset without the cliff!

But the problem with these kind of movies, is just how do you end them? In the case of Thelma and Louise their lives are tipped upside down due to one hideous and violent spur of the moment when Louise witnesses her friend being raped. Their trip stars out as a usual car trip, the photo of them taken before they set off resplendent in headscarf and lipstick grinning into the camera little knowing the trauma laying ahead for them. Choices are made that will have massive implications such as law enforcement chasing you even if the cop in charge is sympathetic (surprising to see Harvey Keitel playing against type…). Thelma starts out as the  put-upon wife traditional wife. Once their lives spiral down further along with daylight robbery, Thelma is the one who holds things together as Louise, the stronger character, starts to fall apart.Louise’s own experience of rape isn’t expanded on in great deal but hinted at (when the police chief says to her on a pay phone,”I know what happened to you).

I never saw the scene where Louise shoots the rapist as revenge possibly seeing her friend, Thelma, brings back her own memories of sexual violence (they wanted a Charles Bronson “execution” style shooting…notion thankfully dropped!). It’s about decisions made in a split second, no regard at that point thinking of the implications just responding to seeing her friend being attack. What would you do in that split second? Cross the line into police showdowns and chase, transgress into crime. The tagline being“You get what you settle for”

The comedy aspects of the film are important as it’s part of the way the characters evolve. Again, another favourite scene is where Louise and Thelma need to know whether the police had informed their respective partners and are waiting for them. Thelma contacts her sexist unenlightened husband (I never found him a one dimensional cardboard cut out but kinda realistic) he is all pleasant ad caring to her. Thelma slams down the pay phone by exclaiming, “The police know”!

Thelma meets and has sex with the young seductive hustler (Brad Pitt) who steals the money given to them by Louise’s sympathetic partner (played by Michael Madsen), she dreamily drifts into the hotel restaurant all smiles with Louise remarking, “You finally got laid properly”.

I think the narrative is about how these two women cross the line yet gain freedom and power. I remember having an argument with some leftie bloke who didn’t like the film cos it was about “two women who kill”.. My reaction is that he had missed the point. The man was shot, arguably in self-defence, as he was attacking one of the women. Even then the shooting wasn’t the usual testosterone fuelled a la Charles Bronson moment, the expression on Louise’s face says it all. There are films after films that indulge in narratives about killing women for kicks, thrills, misogyny, control and power. This film examines choices and split-second decisions. Women who find themselves on the run but paradoxically feel more free. I actually believed this film a breath of intelligent fresh air. It had political things to say. They also took on the men who view women as sex objects reduced to “tits and ass” in an educative way not resorting to guns (though I suppose in American films there is a glorification of guns).

The film, for me, depicted two women who not only go on a road trip but also learn about themselves, their strengths and weaknesses. Not constrained in the limitations of their own lives unfortunately it had to take a traumatic experience to expose those changes. My only dissatisfaction is that they had to end off a cliff. Disappointment that these women had to ultimately die. Couldn’t they have ended up on a desert island somewhere, wait until the coast was clear then get back into the real world? Oh well…..

John Barry and Midnight Cowboy

I meant to write something before about the composer John Barry who died recently. His most famous composition was the Bond theme along with arranging the music for the other title Bond songs (my favourite is that epic jazz style big band arrangement for Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger). But my overall favourite is the sombre and poignant instrumental to the wonderful Midnight Cowboy (along with Harry Nilsson’s Everybody’s Talkin’…)

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

I watched the stylish intriguing modern film noir, The Disappearance of Alice Creed. It’s taut with a script with minimal dialogue. But that’s the beauty it gives the film edge and tension. There are only 3 actors in this film (the excellent Eddie Marsan who is so understated and underrated which is a real scandal as he deserves attention) that creates uneasy and volatile relationships along with twists and turns and double-crosses. Anyway, I really wanted to see this film when it was released in Spring of 2010 but it was only on a limited release in London, that annoyed me some what so as a consequence waited until the film came out on dvd. The setting, plot and superb acting creates a claustrophobic dynamic which further unnerves the viewer. Classic in the making and director J Blakeson is someone to watch out for.

This piece of music Cathy Davey’s Holy Moly is played through out the film. Wonderfully atmospheric.