Category: film reviews

Film Review: So Long at the Fair

This period mystery made in 1950 and starring a very young and incredibly beautiful Jean Simmons really is a little known gem of British cinema and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it. Chances are, a good number of you haven’t even heard of it because it rarely crops up on anyone’s list of must-see movies. But do yourself a favour and don’t let that put you off – it’ll grip you from beginning to end!

Simmons plays Vicky Barton, who along with her brother Johnny (David Tomlinson – perhaps better known for his roles in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Mary Poppins) is en route from Naples to the Paris Exposition of 1889. She is brimming with excitement at her first visit to the French capital and can’t wait to be one of the first people to climb the new Eiffel Tower. Johnny though is more reserved, one might even describe him as stuffy but he’s willing to endure the sightseeing to please his dear little sister. Vicky is keen to stay in Paris for at least a week but he’s only booked their hotel rooms for two nights and doubts whether they will be able to extend their booking on account of the crowds that have descended on the city for the Expo. He’s also tired and keen to get home to England.

On arrival at their hotel, Vicky and her brother are welcomed by owner and manager Madame Hervé (Cathleen Nesbitt), a chalk cliff-faced widower if ever there was one and she gives them the keys to their rooms, 17 and 19. Johnny is about to sign the hotel register when he is distracted by a missing item of luggage and while he pops outside to their coach to retrieve it, Vicky signs the register instead. After having settled into their rooms, Vicky drags poor tired Johnny out for a night on the town and following dinner they head to Moulin Rouge where she encounters George Hathaway (Dirk Bogarde), a charming young artist living in Paris. However, George is with friends and so their encounter is only brief.

Back at the hotel, Vicky leaves her brother in the lobby to enjoy a nightcap and she heads up to her room with the threat that she’ll drag him out of bed at 9 in the morning. As Johnny enjoys his drink, George appears with his friends who just so happen to be staying in the same hotel. He asks Johnny if he has change for a 100 franc note because he doesn’t have anything smaller to pay his cab fare but the best Johnny can do is lend him 50 francs, which he does. George promises to pay him back in the morning. And so nightcap imbibed, exhausted Johnny finally retires to his bed behind door number 19.

In the morning when Vicky trots down the corridor towards her brother’s room his door isn’t where she thought it was and on closer inspection, door number 19 opens to reveal a communal bathroom. Assuming she must have remembered his room number wrongly, she asks Madame Hervé which room her brother is in to which she is told – “Your brother? But surely you are here alone.’ Startled, she asks the hotel porter who confirms that she arrived on her own and the register backs up their story because only her name is in it. In fact, there’s no evidence of her brother at all, not even the room he was supposed to have taken. And so begins a wonderfully paced yarn full of Victorian etiquette and charm that will keep you guessing right up to the end.

I would be doing you a disservice if I revealed the rest of the plot so I won’t but I will say that Vicky seeks help from the dashing young George who is only too happy to come to this fair maiden’s aid. Simmons is just terrific as the confused and rather helpless innocent abroad and Bogarde plays his part of the raffish young hero as easily as he does in many of his movies. The sets and costumes are splendid as are the exterior shots; you’d never guess it was filmed entirely at Pinewood and to add to the film’s overall authenticity many of the British supporting cast (who are all excellent by the way), speak French like natives. The audience is not distracted by unnecessary subtitles either and it works because even if you don’t understand the language, you understand body language. Sometimes a shrug of the shoulders or a wave of a hand can relate as much as any line of dialogue.

Written by Hugh Mills and Anthony Thorne and directed by Terence Fisher and Antony Darnborough the film has parts that will make you giggle and others that will send a shiver down your spine. Imagine being a stranger in a strange land with no money and very little knowledge of your environment only to be told the person you arrived with (and more worryingly your guardian – the person who was looking after you) was but a figment of your imagination! A hard to imagine scenario, isn’t it but scary nonetheless. But did it really happen? Well, according to legend it did (with a slight variation on the characters) although there is no evidence to back up this claim (sounds like poor young Vicky).

So Long at the Fair is an intriguing British noir, a dark little tale set in the city of light. It’s worth a look for many reasons not least because there’s something frighteningly real about it. Has such a thing really happened before? And in today’s complicated and technologically advanced world could such a scenario happen at all? Surely not. But just suppose the day before the opening ceremony at London 2012…

Film Review – “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”

Collaborating for a third time were star Humphrey Bogart and writer/director John Huston in this 1948 classic. They would go on to make a total of six movies together including The Maltese Falcon and The African Queen and all I can say to that is – like eggs and bacon, some partnerships were just meant to be!

Some films thrill us with their stunning visuals and intricate plots that weave and wend through a patchwork of location changes and character allegiances; some make us laugh from witty dialogue or weep from a deep emotional connection but then others simply lay bare, in all its divine glory or unholy horror, the spirit of humankind.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre has one of the seven deadly sins at its core but in spite of its heavy theme, it remains surprisingly entertaining. That’s what a great writer can achieve and Huston was rewarded with the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for his troubles. He also took home the Award for Best Director and just to keep things in the family, his father (Walter Huston) took home the statue for Best Supporting Actor.

In 1920s Mexico, American drifter Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and fellow vagrant Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), find themselves begging for food in the small town of Tampico because they’ve been cheated out of several days wages by an unscrupulous contractor. In a frowsy boarding house, they meet grizzly old-timer Howard (Walter Huston) who captivates them with his tales of gold prospecting and it doesn’t take long before their heads are filled with dreams of striking it rich in the Sierra Madre mountains. After Dobbs and Curtin allow their fists to persuade the swindling contractor to cough up what he owes them, they purchase prospecting equipment and together with Howard, they head up into the hills in search of their fortune.

Howard, the old-timer has been on this fortune trail before and is all too aware of the perils they face. He explains about the bandits and the inhospitable elements and he also warns about the danger they present to each other. “I know what gold does to men’s souls”, he says. It’s clear from the outset, when Dobbs promises that everything will work out dandy and that any gold they find will be split three ways, that Howard is the least convinced of the three.

With Howard’s knowledge of the mountain together with his mining know-how, they begin to extract their gold. The work is filthy and hard but their labours continue and the gold piles up. Greed soon comes into camp though and Dobbs becomes increasingly distrustful of his partners to the point of being terrified they will kill him. Sleep becomes something all three attempt to avoid in order to stay alive but then a fourth American, James Cody appears on the scene thereby setting up a moral debate regarding the sharing out of the gold. Paranoia increases, bandits turn up, guns are fired and the ending is a bitter irony and a lesson to be learned.

This film is a far cry from the cool sophistication of Bogart’s earlier Huston-directed efforts and in this he’s about as charming as a scorpion in your lunchbox but all in all, it’s a cracker of a movie. Walter Huston takes the honour of finest performance though and indeed, it was rumoured that he was asked by the director (his son) to tone down his performance so as not to steal the movie from Bogart. It is noted for being one of the first Hollywood films to be shot almost entirely on location outside the U.S and is quite faithful to B. Traven’s novel of the same name on which it is based.

If you haven’t seen it yet, lucky you. Go rent it or better still, buy it because you’ll want to see it more than once for sure. It’s a title that appears in numerous top 100 polls, it includes an iconic quote about “stinking badges” and best of all, it’s devoid of any visual flab so common in mediocre moviemaking. It’s bare boned, gritty and powerful; cinematic storytelling at its very best.

Film Review: “Carnage”

Carnage is perhaps a hyperbole. The implied connotations may give you different expectations of this movie, and not all of them will be met. It’s remarkable how so much damage can be inflicted through mere words, and this film explores that, accompanied by a quartet of bitingly sharp performances from its leads.

Though the movie takes place in a Manhattan apartment, it was in actual fact filmed in Paris, due to Roman Polanski’s inability to step foot in the USA. This has never prevented him from working with the best actors available, and making some of the greatest films of the last 50 years. Though his magnum opus remains Chinatown, made almost 40 years ago now, his work is as relevant today as it was back then.

 

The movie is a screen adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s play ‘God Of Carnage’. This is evident in the way Polanksi has bizarrely made use of space and time. With the exception of the opening and closing credits, the movie doesn’t stray from the apartment of Mr and Mrs Longstreet (John C. Reilly and Jodie Foster). Reluctantly joining them is upper-class couple, Mr and Mrs Cowan (Christophe Waltz and Kate Winslet). The reason for their occupying the same space is their children. Zachary, belonging to the Cowan’s, has smashed Ethan, belong to the Longstreet’s, around the face with a stick. The conversation flows politely in its early exchanges, a brief moment of silence here and there, or whenever Alan (Waltz) is ‘forced’ to remove himself and answer his incessantly-ringing cellphone.

 

The power here is how it develops. We open with a shady state of equilibrium; a state that has to smoothly cross into the realms of the eponymous carnage. This is orchestrated with masterful work from Polanski, giving his actors just that little bit extra to work with, deftly timing each event that takes place to occur precisely when it needs to. The running time of the movie is just over an hour, as is the on-screen narrative.

 

It’s a character study of considerable depth; at first, each of them displays signs of accustomed social conventions. Nancy (Winslet) feels inclined to enquire about the apartment she finds herself in, as well as the different displays of culture which Penelope (Foster) has laid out, primarily on her luxurious coffee table. Alan and Michael (C. Reilly) discuss their jobs, picking apart each other’s livelihood through polite, yet slightly strained dialogue, which is to lead someplace darker.

 

Bit by bit, shot by shot, Polanksi manipulates happenings to his will, sparks begin to fly, and tempers begin to flare. Put together by their children’s childish behaviour, the four parents exhibit their own infantine dispositions by hurling verbal put-downs at each other. They belittle, they snarl, they vomit, they drink, they scoff, they drink more, they sob, they turn on their own spouses, they drink even more, they smoke. It doesn’t ever reach what I would call ‘carnage’, but it certainly inhabits a space nearby.

 

As you’d expect, the script is solid enough to keep an audience satisfied for 70minutes, but the four actors, Winslet and Foster in particular, exude unmatched ability in being able to distort themselves over and over again, finely treading, but never crossing, the line between radical depiction and parody. They are all cynics, expecting next to nothing from their opponents; they won’t budge on their opinions, and a considerable amount of care is put into the way they act within the different circumstances Polanksi throws their way. It’s a refreshingly honest piece of work, but not funny enough to be considered comedy. It’s a movie worth watching, but don’t expect to be enlightened, amused, or entertained. This is a movie about character; it’s peculiar and comes off with an odd taste, but it’s impeccably acted, and masterfully directed.

Film Review: “The Woman In Black”

The Woman In Black has received a lot of attention since its announcement, partly due to it being a well-known story from its book and stage production, and partly because all eyes are on Daniel Radcliffe.

The film is a big departure from Daniel, who will forever be known as Harry Potter, no matter how illustrious his career goes on to be. Focusing on the actor for a moment, there can be little criticism of his performance. From his appearance to his character portrayal, he performed wonderfully. The drawback to casting Radcliffe however was not in his performance, but that the public has known him for such a long time as a young person, thanks to Harry Potter, that it’s hard to shake that from your mind when watching The Woman In Black. Which means that it’s difficult to disengage the actor from his previous roles to view him objectively in this film. Put another way, we feel like we know Radcliffe, and that offers a sense of comfort when watching him perform in a horror film – and it removes quite a large element of the suspense from the film because we’re just too comfortable with the lead actor as someone not to feel scared by. And because the film is almost voyeuristic in that you feel as though you are accompanying Radcliffe on his journey, there is a peculiar sense of protection throughout.

All that could be overlooked and indeed overcome if the writing was stellar, but sadly it wasn’t. With a 12A certificate The Woman In Black was never going to be a terrifying, white-knuckle ride that kept viewers on the edge of their seat. It gets off to a slow start, where we learn of Radcliffe’s sad personal problems before he embarks on a journey from London to England’s North East as part of his job as a lawyer. His task is to get the paperwork of a deceased widow in order so her house can be sold off. Once we see the house, the film starts to rely too heavily on tired horror cliches to shock an audience that is desensitised to such attempts. Scares and moments of suspense were thin on the ground, but they were almost entirely revoked thanks to obvious camera movements (who doesn’t expect something to happen when the actor is to one side of the screen while what’s behind him is in full view, or when there’s a close-up and the camera then pulls back?) or creepy music acting as a big neon sign warning of an impending moment for which to prepare. For a widely publicised film with a huge star in the lead role, not to mention the film’s history as a play and a book, there could and should have been more substance. With such a vast back-catalogue of haunted house films and stories from which to draw on, The Woman In Black could have been one of the scariest films to be released, but instead it found itself with an identity crisis, stuck in no-man’s land somewhere between horror and drama, not quite knowing where to lay its loyalties and eventually deciding on neither. You know you should be scared, but are left wondering why you weren’t. And for a 90-minute film, you’re also left wondering why it took so long for the story to get going. A slow start would be fine had it been a longer film, or picked up to a flurry of activity that left viewers hiding behind their hands from the ceaseless onslaught of scares and suspense, but instead when the lights come on there’s nothing to think but how anti-climatic it transpired to be. Throughout the film, rather than gasps and screams, the most common reaction from the audience was laughter – not the reaction horror filmmakers tend to go for, and a rather clear indication of how scary this film turned out to be.

Perhaps it was the inclusion of Radcliffe that encouraged the writers to keep the film tame – with his fan base predominately comprised of the younger members of society, and his reputation mostly as a child star, it may have been considered too big a leap to enter a bonafide, adult horror film, and instead a deliberate attempt was made to achieve a 12A rating. It’s pure speculation, but if it’s true, it was a mistake. A film like The Woman In Black deserves a genuinely terrifying script with a more experienced director behind the camera to ensure that big scares occur and when they do, they aren’t pre-empted by camera placement or music. The success of the Paranormal Activity trilogy should be a lesson to all horror filmmakers: less is more. An audience is more scared when something happens out of the blue, with nothing to prepare them for the scare; and never fail to make the final thirty minutes a hive of scares. The Woman In Black deserved that treatment, but it didn’t get it.

Rating: 2/5

 

Film Review: “Les Diaboliques”, a Must-See Movie

We all have films we could watch over and over for the way they delight us and we’ve probably all seen a few that have required more than one viewing to fully appreciate but what about a film that enthralled us to such an extent that we wish we could have our memories erased just to see it again for the first time?

That’s how I feel about Les Diaboliques. God, how I envy anyone who is about to sit down and watch that for the first time!

If your exploration into French cinema stops with Amelie then you are indeed a lucky person. And I say lucky not because you’ve saved yourself time but because you have so much to discover. For among the many fine films to come out of France, which is after all where the motion picture was born, there is this perfect example of horror come noir come thriller.

Released in 1955, it was directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot from a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. It’s set in a slightly iffy boarding school run by the truly despicable Michel Delassalle (played by Paul Meurisse) although the school is owned by his frail wife, Christina (Vera Clouzot, who happens to be the real-life wife of the director) who also teaches there. Michel is loathed by his colleagues as well as his pupils and being the kind of guy he is, he’s also messing around with another teacher called Nicole (Simone Signoret) but rather than the fancy woman and the wife despising each other, they enjoy a friendship of sorts based on the fact that they both hate Michel because of his abusive behaviour towards them. Nicole, being stronger in character than Christina, finally has enough of Michel and concocts a plan to do away with him thereby freeing them both from his tyrannical grip. Christina is reluctant at first to go so far as murder her husband but Michel pushes her buttons once too often and she later agrees to help Nicole. Under false pretences, they lure him away to a quiet location and after a brief struggle…

And I shall reveal no more because what ensues has to be some of the most masterful suspense ever put onto film and if you watch it with the lights out and the heating off, you’ll probably feel like you’re there. It’s shot in black and white, which adds austerity to its already bleak atmosphere and the tension builds steadily right to the very end. The acting is spot on – particularly Signoret, who mesmerises as the cheesed-off mistress and many little details caught by the director will send shivers of paranoia down your spine. The film ends with an instruction to the audience to not reveal the outcome and you would truly be depriving your friends of a cinematic treat if you did.

It’s hard to see how Hitchcock, who reportedly missed out on securing the films rights to the novel by mere hours, could have done any more to have us gripping our seats in fear. A true masterpiece and worthy of its inclusion in numerous lists of greatest films.

It was remade for a modern audience by Hollywood in 1996 with Sharon Stone playing the role of Nicole. It was also given a different ending and although I haven’t seen that version, I’ve read the reviews. They read as I expected.

Go on, treat yourself to the original French version and make me green! You won’t be disappointed. Just don’t tell your friends how it ends.