I’ve decided to expand the blog a little to include a new ongoing feature called Recommends & Avoids (working title). I watch A LOT of film and I’ve started to get back into TV, theatre and books again. I’ve basically become an Arts junkie. My first and main love is film as you all see, but I also enjoy other modes of art that give me the same thrill watching a good film does.I see a lot of things that I would love to recommend and I also experience things I feel my solemn duty as human being to warn people about. As I am quite simply only one person, with grown up responsibilities and a life it means I don’t have the time or man power to write the lengthy reviews on each and every one. As much as I would love to. So I thought I would create something that I feel would create awareness for things I feel need to be seen in a succinct collection So for the first entry here’s some stuff I’ve seen that I’d recommend people either check out or avoid. If something’s not available then please relish my fond memories. You’re welcome:

 Play (Dir. Ruben Ostlund/ Sweden) 2011

A number of colleagues kept hyping about this film over a few weeks. I work in a large building that harbors three cinema screens, two restaurants and a number of offices hidden in walls and crevices. I would walk from one end of the building to the other and hear whispers of the word Play. I felt like I was in a lead of a thriller, what was this mysterious film Play that everyone described as brilliant but they couldn’t tell me what it was about. I discovered it made the briefest of appearances in London cinemas a couple of months ago, its two showings clashing with my schedule. I was presented forcefully with a screener and told I had to watch before our next meeting.

I have to say, two months on and this film still sticks in the memory. I have to say that I’m like the rest of them and have to be ominous in what makes the film so good. I can’t say because it will give the whole thing away. I also can’t say because there isn’t really a definite storyline to draw a synopsis from. It’s an observation piece set in Sweden that follows a gang of boys who in a shopping mall, select boys their own age to play mind games with. That’s all I can say.

Well I can say a little more. The film is also a debate piece, it manages through naturalistic performances from the child actors to explore modern European life in a burgeoning multicultural society. Themes such as race, class, boyhood and masculinity are never really explicitly acknowledged but stand as the foundations of the film. The camera work is very reminiscent of Gus Van Sant (Elephant, Last Days, Paranoid Park) whose work I usually admire but have to be in the mood for. Camera placement and the split second too long camera shot length, I thought were going to be a deterrent but it worked tremendously. It was captivating in it’s creation of foreboding that ran through every scene of the film.

I’m surprised, disappointed and cynically accepting at the lack of theatrical distribution to this wonderful film. It is a strange and fascinating film that the powers that be think the general cinema going public either won’t get, won’t like or won’t want. We all know that risk is not forbidden word for them but here’s hoping that it will have a good DVD presence to prove there is the audience for this fantastic film and others like it.

It’s available to rent on Lovefilm right now.

A Season In The Congo

I wouldn’t say I’m a regular theatre goer but every time I do go, I always chastise myself for not going more often. Going to the theatre is often a very special experience, often more so than the cinema because of the energy created between the actors and audience. A Season In The Congo was such an experience. Not only did it introduce me to the Young Vic, a really nice space that for some reason I’d never ventured to despite being a stone throw’s away, it also was the first time I’d gone to such an inventive and creative production. I say inventive not only in the mode of storytelling with the use of music, dance and puppetry but also the creative use of the space itself. Until actually sitting down in our seats (the cheapest in the venue I might add) I was amazed to find that the set was split onto two levels, the upper level in line with our seats, so where we were sat meant we could actually communicate to the actors (which we did before the show. They initiated!) and throughout the show actually make eye contact (which I did with Chiwetel Ejiofor who I’d like to add has jumped up a few places on the good ol’ husband list). This made the show very interactive and the story all enveloping.

The story is based on the true story of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Independence from Belgium and colonial rule and the appointment of it’s first Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and then his murky death a year later in 1961. To play Patrice Lumumba, to inhibit in a three hour performance the at odds characteristics of Lumumba; the charm, the relatable man, the nationalist,  the unyielding single vision regardless of pain and destruction committed to achieve it, the oratorical command and power and political savvy requires quite an actor. Chiwetel Ejifor who has proved time and time again his capabilities does so the titular character. He holds the stage in captivation as Lumumba, his voice carrying such power til the final moments of the film but I cannot reserve all the acting praise for Ejifor alone.

I think what elevates A Season is the solid performances of all. I was happy to see an all black cast. But I was even more taken aback by the sheer range, whether bit parts or leading roles all were able to shift seamlessly into multiple roles to play out what is an epic story ( there were 15 strong cast and when they needed to play Belgians or white people or other nations actors were required to put on white plastic noses to signify this and use appropriate accents and props – again recalling back to the creative inventiveness of the play). At all times, these actors some more recognizable than others (outside of Chiwetel Ejiofor, I recognized Daniel Kaluuya of Black Mirror and Skins fame, who also was revelatory as friend then traitor Mobutu) they were all consistently excellent. I was emotional with the sheer amount of talent presented.

The most striking and perhaps visceral example I can give that combines the above high caliber acting, amazing set direction, music and creative story telling is a scene that includes a well choreographed dance sequence that sees involves the actors morphing from dancers celebrating to attackers and victims and then a collective destructive group that dies while bathed in a red light that spotlights Ejiofor’s Lumumba amongst a sea of corpses. In that short scene, the visceral violence and terror of civil war is signified and it leaves a powerful after taste.

Some dissenters of the play say that it is a little too light on the story. A case of style over substance. That might be the case but I say that isn’t theatre first and foremost theatre? It’s a form of art and that has to come before the story. Concerning A Season In the Congo, I don’t think there’s even a case of style over substance. It’s a remarkable feat to be able to tell such an epic story with such panache and creativity, to be able to embody a people’s history, culture, mood and life, whether it be everyday Congolese life, an African market, the night life, war and the spirit and hope of Independence all on a stage with 15 people and three hours. If anything A Season In The Congo‘s purpose as I see it, is to encourage the audience to go and find out more about the real story from which this is inspired, and to in turn be inspired by the continued fight against oppression still suffered not just by Congolese but nations around the world.

MY AVOIDS!

Only God Forgives

I’m assuming Ryan Gosling’s presence in the poster is either for marketing/eye candy purposes as he is a guaranteed cash cow for directors because God knows he was barely present in this so-called film. As previously mentioned in other posts, I liked Drive to an extent. Nicolas Winding Refn has an excellent eye for staging, a good ear for music and the story was alright. However, I had my issues with it too. I wasn’t so keen on the lingering camera, the scenes were too long with nothing happening and the camera became so reliant on Gosling’s natural charisma that what was left was a bored looking Gosling do nothing for long stretches of time.

Only God Forgives takes this to the next level. Where that level is nothing. Remarkably, Gosling has even less to say and even less to do. Despite his face plastered all over marketing material he has the most insiginificance presence in any film I’ve seen of late. And this is coming from a big Gosling fan. Not through fault of his own, I still fill he’s a decent actor that excudes the natural charisma but still the question persists, why was he in this movie? His character was so emotionless and far removed from what was happening I actually at points thought he might be a little mentally challenged like he had had too many kicks to the heads in the boxing ring. That assumption is given strength based on the only two action scenes Gosling is involved in. One involves being beaten to a pulp really really easily, the other sees him instigating a fight gaining the upper hand, the camera cuts to the next scene. He’s supposed to be formidable according to his mother. But where’s the evidence of this?

That ladies and gentlemen gives you the jist of a film as a whole. Like Gosling’s character, its completely redundant. It’s either graphically violent or when things get interesting it either gets cut short or leads to nothing. And like Gosling’s character it looks good. It looks really good but scratch the service and all you get is a big black void of nothing.

It was a nothing of a movie. There’s barely a storyline, Gosling’s (cannot remember any of the character’s names that how much of an impression the film made) older sadistic brother rapes and kills a teenage prostitute for no reason whatsoever, a samurai wielding policeman on the case (alongside Kristen Scott Thomas he is the only other interesting character in the film, if it had only them two it would have been infinitely better)  allows for the dead girl’s father to avenge her death by gruesomely killing the dude that killed his daughter. Kristen Scott Thomas who plays the matriarch of Gosling and his now dead brother comes to Thailand demanding that Gosling kill his brothers killer and then the policeman that allowed it. What proceeds is a basic game of cat and mouse. Except its a really show chase.  Punctuated with bouts of karaoke to (trademark Winding Refn and his obsession with the 80s and Daft Punk) and gruesome violence and torture scenes.

Again the only saving graces were Samurai Cop and Kristen Scott Thomas. The two seemed to be the only slightly fleshed out semblances of human beings. The former because he was able to demonstrate real terror through his lack of words. His actions spoke for everything; his strict code of honor and impassiveness to administer justice through violence.  Always under a shield of indifference and coldness which was genuinely chilling. The latter, Scott Thomas’s character has the most dialogue, and with it she makes the most of it. She’s a rancid character but deliciously so.

But even with these two plus points, the great soundtrack, great set design and Refn’s trademark look,  this film is unsalvageable. This is a true example of style over substance. So much so that I was bored and ultimately unimpressed. All my suspicions of Drive were confirmed with this one but I hadn’t been so vocal about my reservations because the reception to Drive had been so positive. I thought it was just me but ultimately both films left me hollow. As hollow as what I had just seen (poetic I know). Nicholas Winding Refn, with Bronson, Drive and Only God Forgives, (the only three films I’ve seen of his. I’ve yet to check out Valhalla Rising nor his Pusher trilogy) two strikes out of three (I really liked Bronson) I’m beginning to think this interesting director might be a bit of lost cause for me. However, I will admit that I say this now but because his style is visually arresting, I’ll probably still be intrigued by future work. I’ll just be prepared to have extreme reservations.