DVD Review - Psalm 21 (2009)

Psalm 21, 2009.

Directed by Fredrik Hiller.
Starring Jonas Malmsjö, Niklas Falk, Björn Bengtsson, Görel Crona, Josefin Ljungman and Per Ragnar.


SYNOPSIS:

Investigating the death of his father, a priest arrives in a desolate village where he inadvertently opens a door to the other side where ghosts from the past begin to cross over into the real world with a single purpose... vengeance.


The subject of hell in films is such an easy thing to handle in a hammy fashion. Once you go down the path with fire, brimstone and laughing red men with hooves, you’re stuck down Dante’s cul de sac of generic visions. Personal hells are usually the best ones, although they can’t really exist outside the genre of psychological horrors. And then of course there’s the other hazard of going down Freudian Lane. And once you go down that road, it’s only a matter of time until you can’t look at your mother the same way again. In the recent Scandinavian horror by Fredrik Hiller, a priest is smothered in the face by his inner demons in a rather compelling and tense fashion.

Psalm 21 feels like a Japanese version of The Sixth Sense with a thoughtful message about the personal definition of hell. Our main man is a priest whose life almost descends into total madness after hearing about the death of his father. What ensues next is a mix between a murder mystery and a Silent Hill videogame. Father Henrik Horneus has a disinterested son and a divorced wife. Despite his seemingly confident nature, he is shown to have an undermining element of pathos which instantly makes you cling to the character. There are many scenes where is played well by Malmsjö as a tortured soul who tries to keep a lid on the font of his emotion. When he gets the call about his father tragically drowning, the performance takes you by slight surprise. This isn’t just another cheap shock in the dark.

Rather than linger on all of the extremely nasty parts constantly, the focus tends to be on the utter saturation of suspense. One moment in the film seemed to act out like a slow motion car crash. Father Horneus is reading from a book whilst a figure emerges from behind him. This ghoulish motion seems to go on for ten minutes, and all throughout I was on the verge of screaming to look behind him. The personal demons in question take the form of the figures of his mother and a recently deceased member of his congregation. Oh! And their faces keep rotting away. It’s a cheap trick to use such CGI wizardry to stir my bowels into terror, but I have to say I think it came across well in places. After the initial shock of having some half melted ghost woman stare at you for a peek a boo moment, the macabre look on their faces. It really gives some of the visions a rather decent nightmare feel to them.

Accompanying the mood of the film is the fantastic musical score. Instead of tailoring itself completely to the horror aspect, it tends to reflect on Father Horneus’s emotional state, usually playing to the tune of tortured soul searching for salvation, rather than a panicky man running from zombies. Along with the moody grey lighting, I felt that they were trying extra hard to remove themselves from the horror genre in some way. But they didn’t stray too far. There are still some fantastic shock moments, even if some are easier to spot out than Canterbury Cathedral. Psalm 21 seems like a cheap horror at first, but soon you’ll find yourself converted. Something that fans of a good psychological horror will truly appreciate and go away a little more thoughtful than before.

Will Preston is a student at the University of Portsmouth. He writes for various blogs (including his own website), presents a weekly radio show on PURE FM and makes various short films.

Movie Review Archive

DVD Review - The Warrior's Path (2009)

The Warrior's Path (a.k.a. The Sanctuary), 2009.

Directed by Thanapon Maliwan.
Starring Michael B., Russell Wong, Intira Jaroenpura, Patharawarin Timkul and Erik Markus Schuetz.


SYNOPSIS:

When a priceless antique is discovered deep in the dark heart of the Thai jungle a young explorer thinks all his dreams have come true. Little does he know that this artefact harbours a dark secret and will set in motion a series of catastrophic events.


Personally speaking, I try to steer clear of spending a hazy Sunday afternoon watching film channels. It’s at this time of day that you’re usually subjected to something lacking an edge or a cheap knock off of something that has a bit of an edge. Even worse, a cheap knock off that doesn’t know what edge is, but decides to keep swinging a blunt object until the hour and a half mark is over. My Sundays are best spent choosing my films wisely. The Warrior's Path is a film I can’t imagine anyone bringing up in conversation unless their day was really that unfulfilling.

Shambling along from the first scene, we are subjected to bad acting and a very cheap feel. A phrase that came to mind during the set up to the film's story was ‘crap Bond film’. The macguffin is introduced, stolen and is then the centre of an underwhelming fight scene in the first ten minutes. The unoriginal object of desire in question is a set of royal pottery and a mystical jewel, most likely worth enough to have five members of the Royal Family killed. This generic charade takes place in the latter half of the 19th century before we are fast forwarded to a modern day Thailand (I forgot to mention the location before, but this story could take place anywhere, to be frank.) where we are introduced to a collection of cut out bad guys and frightfully awful protagonists.

I’m not overreacting when I’m saying I had no idea who to root for. The bad guys seemed like phoned in anti heroes who would be suited in a Channel 5 standard heist movie, whilst the leading ‘heroes’ just seemed irritatingly young and whiney. In a way, I just wasn’t interested in who got what they were looking for; I just wanted them to go away. Even the cookie cutter heisters didn’t seem like they were trying at all. Imagine if Tomb Raider was stripped of its entire Indiana Jones links and the action scenes were reduced to below par Chuck Norris fights. Can you do that? Now imagine a terrible soundtrack and use of sound effects that make the finished product have the feel of a particularly bad videogame adaption of a film that probably wasn’t that good anyway.

I might sound like I’m repeating myself, but The Warrior's Path does not feel like its own film. There’s an overhanging sense of borrowing things from other films. In a word, generic. Everything slots into place in such a painfully simplistic way that the film could be about a talking duck hunting down a large supply of concrete pancakes, before a gang of retired office desks armed with dangerous loaves of bread can get them and you’d still be watching the same film, to an extent. I really don’t know how this film came together in its conception stage. Was it a pulp martial arts flick with a tacked on antiques hunt? Or was it a poor man’s Indiana Jones with fight scenes thrown in? I don’t think anyone has a clue about what the film was supposed to achieve, not even the director. If you find this in the bargain bin at your local Tesco, find another Tesco.

Will Preston is a student at the University of Portsmouth. He writes for various blogs (including his own website), presents a weekly radio show on PURE FM and makes various short films.

Movie Review Archive

DVD Review - As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me (2001)

As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me, 2001.

Directed by Hardy Martins.
Starring Bernhard Bettermann, Iris Böhm and Anatoliy Kotenyov.


SYNOPSIS:

A German soldier escapes a Siberian labour camp and must brave 8,000 miles of unforgiving terrain, freezing temperatures and constant danger to reunite with his wife and child.


Last year Peter Weir made his directorial return with The Way Back, a star studded and old fashioned tale about the possibly true and possibly grossly exaggerated escape of a group of Polish prisoners of war from a Siberian gulag. Its critical reception was mixed, with some praising the film’s ambition and visuals, whilst others bemoaned its fatal lack of emotional engagement. However a German film, As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me, beat Weir’s epic to the broad concept by nine years.

Released in 2001 As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me, now available on DVD, follows a German officer fleeing from imprisonment on Siberia’s easternmost shore. And for this reason its ethical foundations are considerably flimsier and more controversial than The Way Back’s.

This is saying something because The Way Back was based on a bestseller by Slavomir Rawicz, which since publication, has been disputed and branded a fake from a number of sources. And yet Weir’s film is unlikely to be attacked for historical bias of any kind. The story of Poles and Jews getting one over on their persecutors, be they German or Russian, is a common and acceptable one. Make your hero a German who has fought for a Nazi controlled state and buying into the character becomes far more complex.

Some might say that the way in which As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me is told twists and distorts historical fact. We see Bernhard Betterman’s Clemens Forell hug his wife and young daughter goodbye on the platform in 1944 Germany. Then we cut swiftly to Forell being sentenced to 25 years forced labour in Siberia. He is charged with war crimes but the implication is that Forell is being unfairly condemned by corrupt and vengeful Communists. Then there is a long and grim train journey across the cold expanse of Russia, with glimpses of the grim hardships to come. Finally, exhausted from malnutrition and a hike through the snow, they are thrust into life at a camp.

Throughout all of this we discover nothing about Forell’s war record and his potential sins and little too about his political sympathies. He is shown to be a compassionate and brave man though; in other words a typical hero. He treasures the picture of his family and uses it for galvanising motivation that replaces the sustenance of food and drink. It is never explicitly mentioned during the camp scenes and moments of inhumane, cruel punishment but the shadow hanging over the story the whole time is that of Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps. You can’t help but feel uneasy as your sympathies inevitably gather around Forell in his struggle.

Of course the debate about the moralities of the Second World War and the balance of its sins can hardly be squeezed into a film review. Indeed the sensible view is probably to admit that it’s an unsolvable problem; evil was committed on both sides on an unimaginable scale. Stalin’s Russia was carrying out atrocities throughout the 1930s, long before the worst of Hitler’s cruelties were inflicted and on a larger scale than the Holocaust. It’s impossible to reason with or categorize such statistics of death and horrific eyewitness anecdotes. But this is a film that unavoidably makes the viewer think about such issues and not necessarily in the best of ways.

I don’t object to a story from a German soldier’s perspective. In fact I find it refreshing and necessary to witness an often overlooked point of view. But As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me glosses over too much at times, so that it becomes ethically dubious, compromising and limiting your investment in the narrative. The filmmakers will probably argue they are simply telling the story from Forell’s viewpoint alone. I think this argument falls down because of the film’s other weaknesses in plausibility though.

As Forell slowly makes his way back, first through Siberian snow, then Siberian summers and on through other outposts of the USSR, in a muddled route elongated by the help and hindrance of kind (and not so kind) strangers, we are continually shown glimpses of his waiting family in Germany. These scenes are so unconvincing that they spark the questions about the rest of the film.

The lives of his family are completely unaffected by the war, with only two exceptions; one is his ever present absence and the other a throwaway remark by the son Forell has never met, which his mother labels “Yankee talk”. Presumably they have therefore encountered American occupiers in some way. Forell’s daughter is only ever shown getting upset or dreaming about her lost father. I’m not being callous but the girl was young when her father left and her reaction is so simplistic that it punctures the believability of the entire story. I’m not saying she wouldn’t be absolutely devastated by her father’s absence but she would perhaps have moved on in some way. The possibility of Forell’s wife finding another man is never raised and they never give him up for dead.

All of this, coupled with the chief of security from the Siberian camp pursuing Forell across Russia like an ultimate nemesis, transforms As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me into am unrealistic fairytale. Forell is helped by a Jew at one point but the issue is merely touched upon. The period elements of this film are so secondary that they become redundant, but then the film does not claim to be “inspired by true events”.

It’s possible to enjoy this film if you look at it as simply one man’s impossible journey back to his impossibly perfect family. At way over two hours long, As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me is hopelessly brutal at times but somehow snappy too. It’s an engaging enough example of traditional storytelling, despite my doubts, but the only truths to be found are symbolic and stereotypical.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)

Movie Review Archive

365 Days, 100 Films #24 - My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

My Neighbor Totoro, 1988.

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
Featuring the voice talents of Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Tim Daly, Lea Salonga, Frank Welker, Pat Carroll and Paul Butcher.


SYNOPSIS:

In post-war Japan two young sisters move to the countryside and discover a forest inhabited by magical spirits known as Totoros.


Remember when you were a kid and everything was massive? Cynicism barely existed back then. You could genuinely believe that a ‘People’s Elbow’ was the most devastating move in all of sports entertainment when really it was just The Rock doing an elbow drop. You could sit for hours in your bedroom plotting out mass, universe-wide battles pitting a Boba Fett action figure against an evil army of Lego drones. Some stories would span across many planets from under the stairs to the back of the garden. Christmas was great not just for the presents, but also because there was a rare military base that appeared only once a year in that assembled tree.

Suspending disbelief is easy when you’re young. There’s no doubting or second-guessing the realities you create with friends or toys. I’ve never seen a film that commits this unquestioning belief to film more than My Neighbour Totoro. It’s about two sisters who move to a new house with their father. Their mother is in hospital, but with nothing serious. It isn’t that sort of film.

Nothing much happens besides three brief scenes. The two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, about ten and four years old respectively, play in the garden and explore their new surroundings for most of the film. Satsuki eventually starts attending school, leaving Mei at home with her father. Mei’s the sort who could entertain herself for hours with only a toy bucket. On one of these play sessions, about half an hour into the film, she sees a tiny, faint blob hopping across the ground in her garden. Its ears are two small triangles on the top of its head. Mei startles the creature and chases it through the bushes at the garden’s edge. She comes to the base of an enormous tree, one that stands about twice the size of the rest of the forest. The faint blob jumps down into a gap between the roots. Mei jumps in after it.

Here she discovers two more of these blob-like creatures, only one is a little bigger and furry, and the other is much bigger and furrier. They are ‘Totoro’, which is Japanese for ‘forest spirits’. Satsuki compares them later on in the film to some drawings in Mei’s picture book. A lesser film might have used this to reveal the Totoro as figments of Mei’s imagination. That’s the easy interpretation – the sisters have created a fantasy to deal with their mother’s extended stay in hospital. If you wish to reduce the film with such redundant psychoanalysis, you’re missing its point. My Neighbour Totoro isn’t about the power of a child’s imagination. It’s about an entire realm of fantasy of which only children are conscious.

My Neighbour Totoro wisely never addresses this explanation, rather opting for a world where such fantasy is real for the children but only warmly humoured by their parents. It suggests that these Totoro are real, but because we’re a little older now, we just can’t see them.

Toy Story does this more obviously. After first watching that film, who didn’t believe that their toys would jump to life as soon as they saw you close the door? See it when you’re a little older though. You’ll appreciate the technique and some of the humour more, but you’ll loose that sense of wonder – that Toy Story was actually revealing something a lot bigger, a grand conspiracy where toys are actually sentient beings. My Neighbour Totoro addresses how a child’s imagination experiences the world more subtly. In doing so, it merges together this fantasy with reality. It makes you want to not only believe like a kid again, but for that lost perspective when you could see where the Totoro existed.

That the Totoro are used so sparingly is another of the film’s great strengths. You’re left wanting far more than you’re given and you start to dream yourself about what they might be up to when they aren’t on screen. Are they nocturnal? Are they the last of their kind? Do they take trips into space on the Cat Bus? Oh, right, the Cat Bus…

The Cat Bus is arguably the greatest animal form of transport ever conceived. It has five legs on either side and two mice on its roof for illumination. Its face owes a great debt to Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat and its eyes beam out strong headlights.

Its first appearance comes in the rain, whilst Satsuki and Mei are waiting for their father at the bus stop. He forgot his umbrella and they’ve brought one to give to him when he arrives. That’s how nice they both are, and how superbly simple this film is. King Totoro (the biggest of the three) has joined them, but he’s has only a leaf to cover his head from the rain. Satsuki offers him her father’s umbrella. He doesn’t know what to do with such a contraption, so he plays with it in Chaplin-esque naivety. He’s delighted when it opens above him. This is the first time Satsuki has encountered a Totoro, yet she batters not a single eyelid.

After standing in the rain for a while, King Totoro lets out an enormous roar to summon the Cat Bus, who gallops down the road and takes him away. You’re as unfazed as Satsuki because you share her child’s perspective, accepting the bizarre with a merry shrug. It’s only when the camera cuts to a witness frog across the street, mouth agape, that you realise the how absurd it all is – two girls and King Totoro underneath an umbrella that’s hardly half his width. Oh, right, and the Cat Bus. Taken out of context, it’s as trippy as balls.

So many movies are hard going. Lead characters often have some form of parent trouble or bereavement; others require parts of intense conflict for the conclusion to mean anything. Some, however, like My Neighbour Totoro, are just charming. It’s easy to read “a child’s perspective” as condescending, like it’s inferior to our wiser, aged view. William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience addresses the differences between the two outlooks. He also spoke of a higher innocence, an enlightened stage that follows experience. My Neighbour Totoro helps you get there.

Oli Davis

365 Days, 100 Films

Movie Review Archive

Hayao Miyazaki: Drawn to Anime

365 Days, 100 Films #23 - Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Grave of the Fireflies, 1988.

Directed by Isao Takahata.
Featuring the voice talents of J. Robert Spencer, Rhoda Chrosite, Amy Jones and Veronica Taylor.


SYNOPSIS:

A boy and his younger sister struggle to survive in war-torn Japan during World War II.


"Yes, it's a cartoon, and the kids have eyes like saucers, but it belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made." -Roger Ebert

Seita is a pre-teenager in Japan who has just lived through World War Two. The film opens on him as he slowly passes away, homeless and starving in a train station. His war is over as he utters “Setsuko” with his last breath. He whispers it in the same way Kane spoke ‘Rosebud’. The camera tracks back as two janitors start to tidy him away. The shot’s increased scope reveals many more like him, supported by the station’s numerous pillars. Commuters consider them a nuisance.

Seita takes a ghostly red form and begins to wonder through his life during the war. Grave of the Fireflies is animated, so these moments aren’t ruined by warped special effects. Those at Studio Ghibli imbue more humanity in their subjects than most live action films can muster with their claims to truth. Seita boards a train that will proceed to call at events in his past. It’s so he can understand what has happened and how he ended the way he did. Only then can he finally be free of his guilt.

These flashbacks start at Seita’s home with his mother and young sister. The latter is his ‘rosebud’ – five-year-old Setsuko. The comforts of home and family are in stark contrast to the previous opening scene of Seita’s death. American planes are dropping napalm canisters over their city. Most of the homes are built from wood. They never stood a chance.

Seita and Setsuko become separated from their mother during the air raid. They take cover away from the city and are unharmed, but their mother sat like a duck in the local shelter. They reunite at a makeshift hospital in a levelled city that doesn’t have enough medicine or staff. Seita’s mother is so badly injured, it wouldn’t make a difference if they did. She looks as though her eyes have been seared clean off. Her lips are two swollen sausages and her skin is replaced with blood-soaked bandages. Seita doesn’t let Setsuko see. He tells her that mother’s quite ill so they’re off to stay with their aunt. Seita has decided to shoulder the pain exclusively, and he continues this way until his death. His protectiveness appears noble now, but will become selfish and harmful soon. As they leave we see mother’s body being lifted upon a bonfire. Maggots and flies already feast away.

Their aunt holds a grudge against the orphans. Seita and Setsuko come from a military family, living with more generous rations than their relatives. That Seita and Setsuko do nothing but play like children all day also frustrates the aunt. Her husband and daughter work constantly to support the war effort. But what can the brother and sister do? Their mother has just died and are without a home. Their father is a Navy man from who they haven’t heard in so long. Go to school, their aunt insensitively suggests. It burnt down, replies Setsuko.

By default, Seita is now the head of the family. A very small family, but at least he still has that. Exhausted by the pestering aunt, he pawns his mother’s clothes and withdraws the family savings so he can support Setsuko alone. They find an abandoned air raid shelter near a lake and, like children playing ‘house’, plan the rooms of their new home.

Money, however, quickly becomes worthless as the Japanese currency falters. It’s all about trading needed item for needed item now. As they live outside the system, in their cave by a river, Seita and Setsuko aren’t entitled to food rations. Setsuko begins to show signs of illness. She scratches a lot and has sores on her back. Sometimes she faints. Dependent child characters often become tiresome or annoying. Not Setsuko. It’s the way she’s drawn clutching her doll and wearing her hat. She’s so endearing and helpless you want to rescue her yourself. It’s why Seita’s relationship with her is so heartbreaking.

She becomes delirious from hunger, chewing marbles and making rice cakes out of mud. Seita does all he can to save her. He takes food from people’s empty houses during air raids and steals fruit from farmer’s fields. But he never considers going back to his aunt, even when their situation becomes increasingly desperate. She’s a horrible woman, but she could have saved them.

It’s almost as though it’s because of a hidden selfishness. Seita has invested all his loss, of his home, mother and father, into caring for Setsuko. If he lets someone else take over, or even merely share, he would have failed her and his deceased family. His love is smothering, but he does everything for that girl. He’s only a kid – how’s he supposed to know any better?

The film itself is based on a semi-autobiographical novel. The author lost his sister to malnutrition at the end of the war too, but unlike Seita, he survived. He blamed himself for his sister’s death and wrote the book to make amends.

This is the one Studio Ghibli film for which Disney does not hold the distribution rights. The book’s publishers do. It’s fitting, in a way. Grave of the Fireflies should to be separate from the rest of Ghibli’s canon.

There’s no overt anti-war agenda because the story is such a human one. These aren’t soldiers or politicians, they’re civilians. But in focusing on and attempting to deal with such a personal tragedy, Grave of the Fireflies becomes as powerful a statement against war as Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth or Roberto Rossellini’s Germany, Year Zero.

Oli Davis

365 Days, 100 Films

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Hayao Miyazaki: Drawn to Anime

365 Days, 100 Films #22 - Young Bruce Lee (2010)

Young Bruce Lee (a.k.a. Bruce Lee, My Brother), 2010.

Directed by Manfred Wong and Wai Man Yip.
Starring Aarif Rahman, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Christy Chung and Jin Auyeung.


SYNOPSIS:

A biopic exploring the early years of martial arts legend Bruce Lee.


There’s a great story about how Davey Boy Smith (aka The British Bulldog) got his name. Smith’s mother, still weary from giving birth, accidentally wrote her newborn son’s gender, “Boy”, as the middle name on his birth certificate. Young Bruce Lee opens with a similar mix-up. Bruce Lee has just been born, and his mother, tired and slightly delirious, murmurs the word “push” over and over, echoing her long gone doctor’s words of encouragement. When asked for the child’s name, the American nurse mishears “Push” as “Bruce”. His family and friends knew him as “Phoenix”, but he kept “Bruce” as a stage name. There’s a lot in a name. The Americanised “Bruce” sits snugly alongside the Eastern “Lee”. That juxtaposition was arguably what made him such an international star.

Young Bruce Lee is the story of Bruce Lee before this happened, opening with his birth and ending as he leaves for his first trip to America. Two of his surviving siblings introduce the film in a brief prologue, claiming theirs as the untold Bruce Lee story. One of them is Robert Lee, and it is his book, ‘Bruce Lee, My Brother’, on which the film is based.

There are three stages: baby Bruce (1941), youngster Bruce (1947) and teenager Bruce (1957). You need gaps about that size in biographical films. It lets you change the actors without too much fuss. Throughout he lives with his huge family in Hong Kong and maintains a group of close friends. It’s their exploits that the film follows, including a love triangle between Lee, his friend Kong and Kong’s girlfriend. He can get away with a lot, because he’s been a local film star since an early age, but he values his friendships more than anything else.

It’s remarkable how Americanised their lives were. They listen to Elvis, dance the ‘Cha-Cha’, watch Rebel Without a Cause and dress accordingly. It’s American Graffiti with a Chinese cast. Hong Kong was a portal to the West in these times, but their domestic film product had not yet broken through to the international market. This is what Lee wishes to achieve.

You wouldn’t really know it, though. People wonder through the narrative with no definitive goals, and thus few obstacles that could create dramatic tension. There are flashes in the love triangle, and in Lee’s feud with an American boxing champion, but they phase in and out with little or no build. Apart from the ending scenes, there isn’t anything particularly special about the film’s story. If Lee weren’t its subject, Young Bruce Lee could be accused of being about very ordinary affairs.

Thankfully, there’s a lot of joy to be had with Lee. It shows what an enduring pop culture figure he is. The yelps! I could listen to them all day. The film occasionally treats you to one with a zoom-in close-up. Shit’s old school. It has a lot of heart, too. There’s a big emphasis on Lee’s family, and their warmth to each other comes across very well.

It does have an odd, recurring stylistic device though, where there will be slow motion close-ups of quite mundane actions (a foot stepping forward, a hand being placed on a chair). It’s not like they’re contextually meaningless actions, just that slow motion should be used sparingly. It makes it all a bit melodramatic. The film could have probably shaved off about 10 minutes if they played them at normal speed.

For a film that introduces itself as the “untold Bruce Lee story”, by his brother and sister, you wouldn’t expect it to be so stylised. There’s the aforementioned flogging of the slow-mo close-up, a barely believable ‘Cha-Cha’ competition and quite a few stagey fight scenes. It makes you want to take the film like a Tequila slammer (with a pinch of salt and lots of alcohol). But then, just before the end credits, a series of actual photographs are shown alongside stills from the film. There’s Bruce Lee dressed in a dapper black suit and tie, triumphant with his younger brother after winning a ‘Cha-Cha’ competition. It’s a bit of a slap in the face, but it isn’t your fault for harbouring such cynicism – it’s the film’s. Why should it feel the need for melodrama and exaggeration when its source text is so rich? All it needs is a bit of toning down.

Rating: **

Oli Davis

365 Days, 100 Films

Movie Review Archive

365 Days, 100 Films #21 - Laputa - Castle in the Sky (1986)

Laputa - Castle in the Sky, 1986.

Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
Featuring the voice talents of Anna Paquin, James Van Der Beek, Mark Hamill, Cloris Leachman and Jim Cummings.


SYNOPSIS:

A young boy and girl race against pirates and foreign agents in the search for a legendary floating castle.


People call Studio Ghibli the Eastern Walt Disney. I couldn’t say which people exactly, but that seems to be Wikipedia’s general consensus. That they make animated children’s films is the most obvious reason for comparison, but there’s something more intangible about the similarity. They both share a sense of ‘magic’. Cringe away.

Laputa – Castle in the Sky was the first film the studio released in 1986, which places it within the last classic age of Disney from Fox and the Hound (1980) to The Lion King (1994). To further show the two studios’ affinity, Disney currently holds the Studio Ghibli’s distribution rights in the west.

It follows the sprawling adventure of Sheeta and Pazu in the seas of the sky. Everyone is after Sheeta because she possesses something they all want – a strange stone held in a necklace, inherited it from her mother just before she died. The film opens with Sheeta under military protection, or rather, ‘imprisonment’. But the people in Laputa don’t travel by roads; they voyage on vast airships that surf the clouds as though they’re waves. They’re shaped like giant boats tweaked with wings and propellers to keep them in the air, with a gloss of steampunk seasoning.

The main delight is in the film’s mythology. It places you, along with Sheeta and Pazu, in the middle of a much grander story of which Laputa is merely a chapter. None of us know why the stone floats Sheeta gently down to the mine where Pazu works when she falls overboard from one of the ships, nor why it is so sought after. As their adventure develops, and they encounter other, more knowledgeable characters, the legacy of Laputa is slowly disclosed. Many centuries ago there were races of people who lived in floating cities of their own invention, the grandest of which being the castle of Laputa. In time, these sky people moved to the earth and their history was consigned to legend. Pazu’s father, a pilot, once saw Laputa half obscured by a torrent of windy clouds, but everyone thought him crazy when he spoke of it. Sheeta’s ties to the castle are a little stronger. Such an epic story, spanning thousands of years, invests you in an entirely different world full of its unique history and myth.

The secondary delight is the film’s quirk. It possesses a surreal sense of humour, and you should expect nothing less from a film so imaginative. Pay attention to the background because everyone has something to do. Henchmen struggle with the simplest of tasks whilst others bicker. Most trip or fall.

Perhaps a little too long overall, but Laputa has such a rich tapestry of story and background detail that it’s hard to complain.

Oli Davis

365 Days, 100 Films

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Hayao Miyazaki: Drawn to Anime

The Tree of Life takes the Palme D'Or at Cannes

The 64th annual Cannes Film Festival drew to a close yesterday as the jury announced their prizes for 2011, with Terrence Malick's divisive drama The Tree of Life taking the top award, the Palme D'Or. The film, which stars Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, was met with a mixed reaction of cheers and boos when it premiered earlier in the festival but the jury, which was headed up by legendary actor Robert De Niro, deemed it worthy of their most prestigious honour.

Take a look at the full list of honours below...

Palme D'Or - The Tree of Life (dir. Terrence Malick)

Grand Prix - Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan) and The Kid with a Bike (dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

Prix de la mise en scène - Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive)

Prix du scénario - Footnote (dir. Joseph Cedar)

Jury Prize - Polisse (dir. Maïwenn Le Besco)

Prix d'interprétation féminine - Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia)

Prix d'interprétation masculine - Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Camera d'Or - Las Acacias (dir. Pablo Giorgelli)

Be sure to check back later this week when we will be posting an in-depth article on the making of The Tree of Life.

DVD Review - Max Schmeling: Fist of the Reich (2010)

Max Schmeling: Fist of the Reich, 2010.

Directed by Uwe Boll.
Starring Henry Maske, Susanne Wuest, Heino Ferch, Vladimir Weigl and Yoan Pablo Hernández.


SYNOPSIS:

A biopic of the German boxer and heavyweight champion Max Schmeling.


Nazi Germany is a historical setting we are all familiar with. Films set within the Third Reich often have similarities; good natured people trying to help persecuted Jewish neighbours, informers, political intimidation, concentration camps and the striking red background of the swastika. Equally there are areas often overlooked. The boxing rings for example.

Max Schmeling is a German film directed by Uwe Boll which tells the story of one of the 20th century’s greatest boxers. He became world champion in the early 1930s, getting his big break by beating the title holder by default after an illegal “low blow” from his opponent. The film begins by following Max as a paratrooper for the German army in Crete, where everyone seems to know his name. During a conversation with a British prisoner he recalls how his fame started, flashing back to his regret at being denied the world championship outright. The rest of his career became a struggle to prove he deserved that title.

Schmeling wanted to prove himself outside of Germany as well as within it. He wanted to be the best in the world. He was already a national hero but he wanted to win other countries over with his ability. He frequently flew to America for huge matches at iconic venues such as Madison Square Garden. He was beginning to win admiration around the globe until his task became a lot harder with the rise of the Nazi party. As Germany’s image was soured so was Schmeling’s. One of the interesting themes in this film is that Schmeling saw himself as a boxer first and a German second. And that Nazism would simply pass as though it were an adolescent phase.

Hitler wanted Schmeling to be a symbol of the Aryan race and Germany’s might. As Schmeling sought to arrange fights with the formidable black American boxer Joe Louis, an opponent with an unbeaten record and extraordinary number of KOs that would enhance his boxing credentials should he somehow beat him, the Nazis tried to portray the clash as a battle between races and ideologies. Schmeling was naive in one sense but extremely brave in another, to carry on regardless of this manipulation and insist it was just a boxing match. Through his honour he simultaneously became a political pawn by refusing to recognise the wider significance, and rose above the Nazis by continuing with his dream.

So this film is an epic historical drama, encompassing wide areas of German life before and after the Nazis took power. We see both the glitz of the Weimar era and the race riots of Kristallnacht on the streets of Berlin, when Jewish shops and residents were viciously attacked. The period detail, particularly the costumes, and the variety of locations, are impressive. It is also a story of the rise of a sporting great, with Rocky-style montages as Schmeling trains for his big fights and moments of tactical deliberation. And there is a love story, when Schmeling meets his soul mate in actress Anny Ondra and manages to marry her.

The love story gives this film something extra. There are, as I said, a lot of stories set in Nazi Germany, often with romances, sometimes with sporting heroes trying to avoid the control of the regime. But this romance is particularly convincing. Henry Maske gives an Arnie-esque performance, as a simple man falling for a beautiful woman. And Susanne Wuest is believable as first a teasing woman suspicious of a brute pursuing her affections and finally an actress frightened by what the Nazis are doing to her profession.

A short but enlightening “Making of” feature on the DVD reveals the reason for the authenticity of this relationship on screen; Maske is not an actor but a boxer. Therefore, as Wuest puts it in an interview, we have a boxer playing a boxer and an actress playing an actress. Director Boll was impressed with Maske’s performance and put it down to his ability to effectively play himself, identifying with Schmeling to inhabit the character.

Overall this might not be the most original film experience but it is immensely enjoyable. All of its various elements are superbly executed, from the production standards to the acting, from the music to the exciting and raw boxing matches themselves. This feels like an incredibly real snapshot of history and it’s a story that deserves to be well told about a remarkable man.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)

Movie Review Archive

Blu-ray Review - Buried (2010)

Buried, 2010.



Directed by Rodrigo Cortés.

Starring Ryan Reynolds.





SYNOPSIS:



An American contractor working in Iraq finds himself buried alive inside a coffin.





Being buried alive is up there with drowning and burning to death on the commonly accepted list of the worst ways to snuff it. Cinema has a long history of exploring and exploiting these fears for our viewing pleasure and pain. Certainly there are countless films about infernos or choking on salt water. There are classic scenes in tunnels with dust and dirt threatening to submerge our heroes. But never before has a film been quite so confined beneath the earth as Buried is.



Buried opens, after a slick titles sequence that gives the impression of descending through the soil, with a completely pitch black screen, affording me an opportunity to discover and enjoy high definition darkness. Paul Conroy, a civilian truck driver in Iraq, wakes up in a box below ground before our eyes in this nothingness. This is Buried’s only location, a wooden coffin. It therefore might not seem the best film to enjoy on Blu-Ray, as there are no luscious visuals and locales to gasp in wonder at. The ever so slightly sharper picture and sound quality does truly allow you to appreciate the astounding technical achievement of Buried though.



The textures of the sand and the splintered wood feel real enough to touch at such intimate proximity. Conroy’s face, along with all the varied expressions it shifts through, looks incredibly lifelike. The excellent soundtrack, along with Conroy’s rasping breathing, is crisp and clear. The flame from a lighter looks vivid and dazzling in the sparseness of the coffin.



And the additional special features that come with a Blu-Ray disc are worth a look for once. As Ryan Reynolds, who plays Conroy, says in an interview, realising such a concept from a good script was a feat of engineering as well as filmmaking. Director Rodrigo Cortes explains that seven different coffins, each used for different types of shots, were used to make the 90 minutes or so of film. The variety of camera angles and techniques is incredibly impressive, with Reynolds highlighting that unlike a lot of films the same shot was scarcely used twice here. Most of the shots are entirely realistic, placing you firmly in Conroy’s shoes, with just a couple of exceptions, zooming out and away from him to really emphasise his isolation and loneliness.



One of the crew members interviewed says that if Hitchcock were alive today this is the sort of thing he’d be doing. There is undoubtedly the sense that new ground is being broken, in terms of storytelling and filmmaking. The majority of mainstream releases these days are miles away from the level of audience immersion on show in Buried. Even on an ordinary TV screen in a comfortable living room you feel Conroy’s claustrophobia and live his rollercoaster of emotions. This is as much down to Reynolds’ captivating performance as the fine detail and execution of the production team.



Reynolds copes with everything the script asks of him with very little to work with. He takes us from panic to paranoia, from despair to determination and back again. He deals equally well with anger and heartbreak, often conveying an emotion simply through breathing or a look in his eye. He is helped by some good voice performances by those he interacts with on the phone, his one real lifeline, its battery constantly withering away. Particularly good is Brit hostage negotiator Dan Brenner, played by Robert Paterson, who is convincingly professional and genuinely sympathetic. He managed to calm me down as well as Conroy.



Somehow Buried contains what I can only describe as an action scene, in which both the acting of Reynolds and the inventive wizardry of the director, combine with unbelievable effect. Without giving too much away, there is a snake involved. I was literally on the edge of my seat. And the reason this scene was so scary, gripping and exciting, was how well established the character and situation is beforehand.



As well as inexplicably pulling off a believable and enthralling thriller in a box, Cortes’ directing and Chris Sparling’s script also manages some thought provoking dialogue on major issues of our time. The way these topics are explored is seamlessly part of the action and not forced. During the course of Conroy’s phone conversations we explore not just the depths of his character, but the limits and immorality of bureaucracy and the subjective nature of the word “terrorist”. Buried therefore also has political credentials, without ever leaning too far to one side of the debate.



With similar limitations to Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, Buried is a film reliant on its lead actor. Whilst James Franco was good, Reynolds is even better. In fact Buried is better full stop. For the moving climax alone, that will have you unable to look away through confused tears, it is worth watching. Buried delivers a master class in acting, cinematography, dialogue and political comment. It is a unique and bruising ride of a story. And a must see film experience.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)



Movie Review Archive

365 Days, 100 Films #19 - 13 Assassins (2010)

13 Assassins (Jûsan-nin no shikaku), 2010.



Directed by Takashi Miike.

Starring Koji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada and Yuseke Iseya.





SYNOPSIS:



Feudal Japan is in a time of peace, but the sadistic Lord Naritsugu is next in line for the Shogun’s rule. 12 samurai, and one scavenger, are under orders to assassinate Naritsugu to avoid such a political catastrophe.





You know what’s missing from cinema these days? Really good villains. I don’t mean, like, a ‘good’ villain as in a bad-guy who sees the errors of his ways (confusing word order: noted); I mean some detestable sonofabitch that you can’t wait to get their comeuppance. Films that are blessed with such antagonists can build their whole plot around their eventual, humiliating (hopefully bloody) demise. 13 Assassins does so masterfully.



There’s a cheap trick in storytelling called ‘kicking the puppy’. It’s where you have your bad guy commit a bad deed that is separate from his relationship with the hero. These acts should be indefensible and, because they do not concern the ‘good guy’ in any way, will show the villain as an objectively evil person. He isn’t just driven by an accidental wrong the protagonist committed (see: Iron Man 2), but is wicked to the core. So you show a guy kicking a puppy onscreen, or something in a similarly provocative range, and it’s established in your viewer’s mind that he is a villain. It whets the appetite for retribution.



13 Assassins, being a Takeshi Miike film, takes its sweet, graphic time over this. Lord Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki) is the Shogun’s sadistic half-brother, and next in line to the de facto throne of 18th century Feudal Japan. He kicks a whole lotta puppies. In the film’s opening 20 minutes, Naritsugu has already been shown raping a clan leader’s daughter-in-law, then beheading (after three failed attempts, like some demented lumberjack) her husband, and using a tied-up peasant family (who seems to be comprised entirely of women and children, the most sympathetic of puppies) as bow-and-arrow target practice in his garden. Most horrifically, though, is the aftermath of one of his hideous pastimes. A young lady sits weeping in a cloak; her eyes appear black and the tears they leak are a dark crimson. She had been found dumped by a road near Naritsugu’s palace, apparently after he’d grown bored of her. To demonstrate the need for action, one of the Shogun’s advisers, Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira), is showing an old samurai, Shinzaemon (Koji Yakusho), this example of Lord Naritsugu wickedness. He asks someone to take off the girl’s cloak. It reveals a writhing, limbless torso. “What happened to her family?”, Shinzaemon asks, appalled, but the girl can only speak in cries because Naritsugu had taken her tongue as well. She writes her answer instead on a scroll laid out on the floor. Her red tears stain parts of the paper. An aide holds up the Japanese characters to Sir Dou and Shinzaemon. The white subtitles below read: “Total Massacre”.



The whole sequence is like punting a puppy across a football pitch, and its augmented by those onscreen sharing in the disgust. This is a time of peace in Japan. The Shogun has managed the various clans’ relationships well, and the days of the Samurai are nearing an end. Sir Doi secretly recruits Shinzaemon (“The Shinzaemon?”, everybody seems to ask when he introduces himself, hinting at a glorious past) to assassinate Naritsugu. Shinzaemon’s sword hasn’t been in battle for years. Times of peace aren’t that great for samurai. He dreams of an honourable death, as do the 12 other samurai he recruits for the task. This may be their last opportunity for one.



When you meet a few of the other samurai, you can tell they’re just there for the stuffing, like the red-shirts on a Star Trek away team. You have your loyal one, your joker one, one doing it for the money - it’s all very cute, but they’re never given any time to develop, not like in Seven Samurai. But it’s never really about the 13 assassins. It’s all about Naritsugu getting what he deserves.



Like in Seven Samurai, the 13 men fortify a town. It’s on Naritsugu’s route home, and it is where they will strike. This is what 13 Assassins builds up to. The opening 30 minutes details Naritsugu and the politics of trying to be rid of him. The following 50 minutes show the 13 men being brought together and fortifying the town. It’s paced calmly and with restraint. There’s only a brief flash of swords in the first hour and 20 minutes. Then Naritsugu’s troop arrive at the town. Shinzaemon had prepared to face 70 men. Naritsugu has brought 200. The odds get longer and the body count higher.



What follows is an epic and exhausting 40-minute battle sequence. The cinema frequently gasped at the set pieces, and the chap next to me even punched his fist and said “Yeah!” under his breath at one point. It’s exciting, but because of its immense length, it becomes something of an endurance test. As the assassins tire, so do you. You’ve battled hard with them, and it shows how desensitising and wearing battles really are. And then comes the final showdown. Naritsugu vs Shinzaemon. You’d be hard pressed to find a pay-off sweeter.



Rating: ****

Oli Davis



365 Days, 100 Films



Movie Review Archive

DVD Giveaway - Psalm 21 - NOW CLOSED

May 30th sees the UK release of the psychological and supernatural thriller Psalm 21 from Swedish actor, writer and director Fredrik Hiller and to celebrate Flickering Myth have two DVD copies of the film to give away to our lucky readers courtesy of Revolver Entertainment.

Read on for the synopsis, trailer and details of how to enter…

"When popular Stockholm priest Henrik Horneus (Jonas Malmsjö) learns of the death of his father Gabriel (Per Ragner) from a drowning accident, he travels through the dark, endless forests to reach the desolate village in which he died to investigate. However, his arrival at the village begins to set dark forces into motion, opening a door to the other side where ghosts from the past begin to cross over into the real world. And the ghosts seem to have one single purpose... vengeance."

Psalm 21 trailer:


To be in with a chance of winning, all you need to do is drop us an email with the subject heading "PSALM" and an answer to the following question...

Per Ragner also starred in which Swedish vampire film?

A) Let the Right One In
B) Frostbitten

The competition closes at midnight on Sunday May 29th. UK entrants only please.

Pre-order now at Amazon.

The Prize Finder - UK Competitions
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DVD Review - Biutiful (2010)

Biutiful, 2010.



Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu.

Starring Javier Bardem, Marciel Álvarez, Hanaa Bouchaib, Guillermo Estrella, Diaryatou Daff and Cheng Tai Shen.





SYNOPSIS:



A single father, who struggles with love, fatherhood and his business in the underworld of Barcelona, is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He must also deal with his bi-polar wife and a large group of illegal immigrants.





Films about a life of crime always tend to focus on the rise and fall of a young man with big ideas being completely crippled by the baseball bat of corruption. It’s almost like they follow a moral code that says all people who dive into the underworld must drown at the end. After a while, you find yourself asking for a little more forgivingness in these affairs. Or at least let us see a man who genuinely kind, despite his illegal behaviour. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s newest release has given me a new type of crime drama.



Alright, so it’s not a crime drama primarily, but it does deal with a lot of the criminal underworld in Barcelona. Javier Bardem is Uxbal, a single father with two children and a bi-polar ex-(ish) wife, who is also working in various illegal projects. Not only is having Bardem play the lead in this a great idea in its own right, but the characterization is a whole string of fantastic ideas. Uxbal is a charming father figure who just happens to be involved with an underground empire with his brother Tito and a Chinese crime boss called Hai. But he has a good heart.



As well as being one of the most loving fathers I’ve seen outside of the work of Dickens, he is generally nice to those that surround him, despite the shady activities. One part of his empire is an illegal Chinese sweatshop, but he goes out of his way to make sure conditions are at least adequate for the workers. Ok, that’s not exactly a perfect thing to hear, but it compliments his character as a caring person in a world of corruption. Which is why the plot pivot couldn’t be at a better place.



Towards the end of the first act of the film, Uxbal is diagnosed with terminal cancer with a couple of months to live. So begins his redemption and to secure a better future for his children. His bi-polar (sort of) wife is the biggest obstacle to cross. Drinking, smoking and swearing at the kids, the thought of leaving them with her is a frightening one indeed. At times it feels like a pretty extreme episode of Eastenders, but with real actors. Also, he puts himself at risk to make sure the illegal immigrants under his *ahem* ‘employment’ aren’t deported back to their countries, even to the point of paying rent for some of the luckier ones.



The approach of the film feels very similar to the style of a Darren Aronofsky in the way that the camera is allergic to tripods and everything looks grimy. I’m serious. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hired someone to smear the walls with a dead chicken before sneezing over everything. Yes, it really looks like a dump. The lightening helps to make it look more depressing than it really should be, as well. But the optimism and charm from the characters throughout the film provides a good juxtaposition against the filthy background of Barcelona’s underworld.



Biutiful deserved the notice it received at the Academy Awards and it’s a bleeding shame that it lost out on winning anything there. Bardem is fantastic to watch on screen at all times and the narrative swings into so many unexpected shocks that will grip you until your arms go red. It’s a subtle epic that doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Will Preston is a student at the University of Portsmouth. He writes for various blogs (including his own website), presents a weekly radio show on PURE FM and makes various short films.



Movie Review Archive

DVD Review – My Neighbours the Yamadas (1999)

My Neighbours the Yamadas, 1999.

Written and directed by Isao Takahata.
Featuring the voice talents of James Belushi, Molly Shannon, Daryl Sabara and Liliana Mumy.

SYNOPSIS:

A series of episodes showing the ups and downs of everyday life for a family living in Tokyo.


My Neighbours the Yamadas was written and directed by Isao Takahata, co-founder of Studio Ghibli with his long-term colleague Hayao Miyazaki. It is a definite change in genre from the popular 1988 film that was his first with the studio, Grave of the Fireflies, a war drama. My Neighbours the Yamadas is a comedy focusing on the lives of a Japanese family who experience many adventures and misadventures. It was released between Studio Ghibli’s international successes Princess Mononoke (1997) and Spirited Away (2001).The film received an Excellence Award for animation at the 1999 Japan Media Arts Festival.

My Neighbours the Yamadas has a unique visual style, very different from the other Studio Ghibli films. It is the first 100% digital movie created by the studio and uses a nicely drawn sketch-like animation technique with pastel watercolour-style artwork that results in one of the most visually simplistic Ghibli animations. It was inspired by the Japanese ‘Nono-chan’ comic strip by Hisaichi Ishii.

The film has no continuing storyline; instead it is comprised of a compilation of scenes that depict the daily life of a somewhat dysfunctional Japanese family. Takashi Yamada (superbly voiced by John Belushi) and his wife Matsuko live with their teenage son Noburo, young daughter Nonoko, the children’s grandmother Shige and the family dog Pochi. These are relatable characters and the entertainment comes from the heart and humour that they provide.

The collection of short vignettes is like a number of individual four-panel comic strips, usually ending with a funny outcome. Each segment is introduced with a descriptive title, like ‘The Iron Chef’, ‘Dynamic Duo’, ‘Beauty is Fleeting, Life is Long’ and ‘Age Comes Before Wisdom’. Japanese Haiku is also used at certain points in the film. Examples include, “The scent of plums on a mountain path. Suddenly dawn” and “Turn toward me. I’m lonely too. The autumn dusk.” These serve to elevate the events above the dull, daily grind, into something more poetic and fantastical, suggesting we should try to see the magic in our everyday lives.

The film won’t appeal to everyone because some may be put off by its disjointed format as it takes some getting used to. However, it does grow on you after you’ve settled into watching it. The visual and narrative styles are different from what people have come to expect from a typical Studio Ghibli film. Also, the dramatic moments in some of the sections don’t work as well as the jokes.

Overall though, the bickering family and the amusing situations they’re presented with are both charming and endearing. Although it follows a typical family in Tokyo, the themes circumstances are mostly universal so there is no problem with a lack of knowledge about the Japanese culture. My Neighbours the Yamadas is a feel-good comedy about the many adventures life throws at you, even if you’re just an ‘ordinary’ family. It celebrates everyday family life and the entertaining ups and downs.

My Neighbours the Yamadas is released on Double Play Blu-Ray and DVD on May 9th.

Emma Hutchings

Hayao Miyazaki: Drawn to Anime

DVD Review – Laputa - Castle in the Sky (1986)

Laputa - Castle in the Sky, 1986.

Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
Featuring the voice talents of Anna Paquin, James Van Der Beek, Mark Hamill, Cloris Leachman and Jim Cummings.


SYNOPSIS:

A young boy helps a girl with a mysterious crystal hunted by pirates, the army and secret agents in the search for a mythical floating castle.


Laputa - Castle in the Sky was the first film to be created by the Japanese animation studio and production company Studio Ghibli. The famous studio behind more recent successes Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) released the original version of this film back in 1986 and it won the Anime Grand Prix 1st prize that year. It was written and directed by the prominent and influential film director Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli.

Laputa follows a young girl called Sheeta who is voiced by Anna Paquin (X-Men, True Blood) in this English dubbed version. Sheeta wears a mysterious crystal as a necklace, which lots of people want to get their hands on. An exciting pre-credits sequence culminates in her falling from an airship after being tracked down by sky pirates, the crystal starts to glow and enables her to float safely into the arms of a young boy called Pazu (James Van Der Beek; Dawson’s Creek, The Rules of Attraction).

Hunted by the pirates, the army and some secret agents, Sheeta and Pazu go on the run and join in the search for a legendary floating castle that many believe to be a myth. The crystal has been in Sheeta’s family for years, passed down by her grandmother, and the different groups that want to claim it believe it holds the key to finding the castle of Laputa and unlocking its secrets.

Laputa - Castle in the Sky is a reference from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, which features a hovering castle called Laputa. This imaginative extrapolation of that small idea is a very strong first outing from the studio responsible for a number of enjoyable animations that have become popular not just in Japan, but across the world. It is a fun adventure story with many selling points; pirates, conspiracies, robots, airships, magic crystals and a beautiful floating castle. The familiar visual style is seen in many Ghibli films, it is colourful and well-drawn. The supporting cast of voice actors includes Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, along with Cloris Leachman, Jim Cummings, Richard Dysart and others.

The film reverses audiences’ opinions about the different types of people we are introduced to. The pirates who at first (and often in films) seem to be the bad guys, later join forces with Sheeta and Pazu to try and find the floating castle. The men who work for the government should be agents for good but they have sinister ulterior motives.

Laputa - Castle in the Sky is a very engaging fantasy adventure. There are moments of action, comedy, coming-of-age drama, suspense and thrills that keep you hooked. The film also boasts great visuals and impressive animation. Although it lasts two hours, it successfully fills its runtime and maintains a high level of interest and excitement so you won’t be checking the clock. It’s a really fun animated film that will amuse and entertain the whole family.

Laputa: Castle in the Sky is released on Double Play Blu-Ray and DVD on May 9th.

Emma Hutchings

Hayao Miyazaki: Drawn to Anime

DVD Review - Budrus (2009)

Budrus, 2009.

Written and Directed by Julia Bacha.
Starring Ayed Morrar, Iltezam Morrar, Kobi Snitz, Ahmed Awwad, Yasmine Levy and Doron Spielman.


SYNOPSIS:

A documentary depicting the non-violent demonstrations by resident of Budrus against the building of the Israeli West Bank barrier inside of their village.


Walls aren’t always great. Take the Berlin wall for example. It divided a country into two opposing sides. When used like this, all a wall does is to show how opposed to each other each side of the wall is. A literal metaphor, if you’re so inclined. But what about the people who aren’t on either side, but just happen to be caught in the wall’s path of bricks and segregation? Julia Bacha’s recent documentary on the Palestinian town of Budrus (entitled “Budrus”, funnily enough) gives an insight into what happens when the bulldozers come rolling up. In 2000, the village of Budrus would have been divided and surrounded by the building of the Israeli West Bank barrier, resulting in the loss of hundreds of acres of land as well as thousands of olive trees, both part of their culture and their economy.

Budrus focuses on Ayed Morrar, a father of four who is also the leader of the non-violent movement in Budrus. He has been to prison four times for his protest work with Fatah, a Palestinian political party. “We don’t have time for wars”, says Ayed. This line pretty much some up the nature of the film, as the group of people he leads area strict in their non-violent approach. The documentary shows Ayed giving a speech in a village community hall, which whilst not very dramatic, is one of the honest thing’s I’ve seen. Bacha is showing us a man who doesn’t ooze charisma in the most obvious fashion, but his passion for what he believes is not too subtle that it is totally missed.

We’re also shown interviews with Ayed’s daughter, Iltezam Morrar, who convinces Ayed to allow women to take part in the demonstrations. Iltezam shows a more youthful confidence than Ayed and the rest of the villages women seem more than happy to muck in. Some of the scenes of the women demonstrators chanting against the armed police are heart-warming in a weird way. Shots of them smiling and laughing make it seem like they have no fear and are more than happy to be there, which draws up parallels’ to some of the demonstrations we’ve had over here lately. Even when the police start firing rubber bullets at the crowd, they show no pain and often get up instantly and shout back. Those have to be the strongest women I’ve ever seen.

As well as showing the side of the protesters, two members of the Israel Border Police are interviewed. Whilst they try to make things as calm as they can, they are in severe doubt about the protests working. At some places in the film, we see the police fight back in a way that seems totally robotic, as if they are taking no side in the fight, but to suppress everything. As the film progresses the situation builds up until the police start opening fire at various parts of Budrus. At this point, the documentary takes a turn from being optimistic to showing just how bad a demonstration can go.

Bacha starts by painting a beautiful picture of a village blessed with community and flora before diving in deeper into the people that are trying to keep the village away from drastic change. But it’s not all about resilience against an armed force; the villagers of Budrus are surprised when they come face to face with native Isreali’s helping to fight their cause. These people where their sworn enemy before, and now they have no choice but to fight alongside each other. Whilst it’s a slow moving documentary to begin with, the last half really shines and provides a concise insight to how effective non-violent protest can be.

Will Preston is a student at the University of Portsmouth. He writes for various blogs (including his own website), presents a weekly radio show on PURE FM and makes various short films.

Movie Review Archive

Movie Review - I Saw The Devil (2010)

I Saw The Devil (a.k.a. Akmareul boatda), 2010.

Directed by Jee-woon Kim.
Starring Byung-hun Lee and Min-sik Choi.


SYNOPSIS:

A serial killer has long evaded the best efforts of the authorities until he picks the wrong victim - the daughter of a retired police chief and fiancée to a Korean Secret Service agent.


It will be a day of unforgettable celebration. The nation will rejoice in a night of endless partying and universal happiness, or so they’d have you believe. The flags and the bunting will sway proudly in the sunshine in the streets, on the most iconic landmarks and the grandest stately homes. All our troubles will be forgotten, swept under the carpet, out of sight and out of mind. Everything will be the best of British; sweet, comforting and clockwork. As the fizz flows and the glasses chink, polite patriotism will give way to unparalleled scenes of euphoria. Derelict dance moves will stumble drunkenly from graves and tombs long since sealed. Like it or not, success or failure, it will be a date etched on the face of history.

Friday the 29th of April: Wills and Kate shall finally tie the knot. I wouldn’t say I fall into the “like it” or the “not” category. Instead I’d jump in with what I sense to be the quiet, grunting majority; the “don’t give a shit” group. Most of these people will be happy to use the Royal Wedding as an excuse to get “frightfully merry” but I’m not even fussed about that. I’ll just be glad when they bugger off on honeymoon and everyone calms down.

The long awaited date also happens to herald the release of Korean revenge thriller I Saw The Devil. It will hit selected cinemas as the happy couple say their vows and head rapidly to DVD and Blu-Ray for the 9th of May, when I assume they’ll still be relaxing on a lavish honeymoon. I have a feeling that honeymooners in general, not just those benefiting from pure and perfect blood, will steer clear of this one though. That’s unless they are devoted fans of Korean filmmaking or lashings and lashings of gore, or prefer a particularly sick and dirty tinge to the consummation of their holy joining.

I Saw The Devil is the tale of a serial killer and one specific family he devastates. It begins with a beautiful young girl trapped in her broken down car in the snow. Sounds predictable right? Well I Saw The Devil will continually take seemingly generic set ups like this and make them raw, real and surprising. The refreshing thing about this opening scene was the phone conversation between the girl and her fiancé, who will become the film’s “hero”.

I can never really relate to characters and protagonists like him. He is a slick and successful high flyer with a super cool job (a secret agent in this case). He is so busy and absorbed in his immensely interesting and important work, that he has little time for the woman he is with; a woman he is lucky enough to love and have this love reciprocated. I’m a man with time on my hands, with ordinary clothes and standard prospects, for whom love is usually a one way street. Add into the mix a ruthless ability to kill and a purposeful crusade for revenge and this is the sort of man I fantasise about being; not one I can readily empathise with.

And yet as I Saw The Devil embarks on an unlimited chase through as many deadly sins as possible, prompting comparisons with such notorious projects as Antichrist and endless cuts on the editing room floor, it keeps the moral implications of its action in focus. It’s not simply your typical revenge thriller but a thoughtful one that questions the nature of revenge. Our secret agent swiftly catches the killer of his beloved, only for him to decide that a monster deserves a monstrous death. Butchering him would cause the beast no real distress, so a tracking device is popped in his mouth and the hunter becomes the hunted.

The ethics of this are clearly dubious and as the killer rampages the Korean James Bond wishes he’d ended it when he had the chance at times. But despite my inability to relate to characters of his ilk, the audience sees the twisted emotional logic behind every move he makes. True justice and true revenge is necessarily brutal when confronted with such soulless savagery.

This is a beautiful film as well as a shocking, horrifying and thrilling one. In its opening chapter alone there are numerous stills that would warrant a frame and a prominent place on a wall. The score does a wonderful job of evoking grief, fear, anger and terror. Prior to watching I Saw The Devil, I had heard about a controversial rape scene during which the victim begins to “enjoy” things. This led to even more debate and conflict over its age rating and release than the countless bloody violence. In terms of morality it is the most questionable scene in the movie, but it did not spoil it.

The film could have done with being a little shorter but I was never bored. Things reach a suitably dramatic climax and the whole thing is well paced. But for me a scene from the film’s opening is the most memorable. It’s just as the girl’s body is being discovered and the forensic teams, hounded by the press, swoop on a spot in some marshes to bag and remove her decapitated head. Flash bulbs erupt and officers shout and the head is knocked from the hands of the forensic team. It rolls shamefully in the dirt. The grieving father and fiancé look on aghast.

It may be over the top but this scene captured something real about the growing phenomenon of the serial killer. In many ways such barbaric deeds are now common place news and the only way to keep the true horror of it all in focus is to focus on the families and friends. Those who really feel the pain. I Saw The Devil is a gripping illustration of what emotional pain can do to a human being. Life never ends with a fluffy wedding dress or a cup of a tea.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)

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