Wednesday, 11 November 2009

She was born in a bottle rocket, 1929


At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It's something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.

- René Magritte, in a radio interview with Jean Neyens (1965)


[The Son of Man, 1964, by René Magritte]

[The Son of the Son of Man, 2007, by Me]

Saturday, 7 November 2009

Forthcoming projects from Uwe Boll


Storm (aka Final Storm)







Darfur







Max Schmeling






...because you know, in ten year's time, he'll be regarded as a true auteur. In fact, he already is.

Friday, 6 November 2009

From the Notebook – Episode 3



From the Notebook – Episode 3

Hostel (2005)


These are my incomplete notes for the Eli Roth movie Hostel (2005). Originally, the plan was to look at both Hostel films in a single post, attempting to work out why Hostel Pt. 1 was so much more successful than its follow-up film, Hostel Pt. 2 (2007). However, in going back and watching the original film again, I found that my initial more positive reaction to it had completely changed, and what was originally seen as a mildly diverting if never entirely successful thriller, was now something of a cumbersome bore that had absolutely nothing of relevance to say whatsoever. Before the end of the film I'd completely lost interest in writing about it and gave up making my notes shortly after the scene where Paxton (Jay Hernandez) has the conversation with the enthusiastic American businessman (Rick Hoffman). Given this complete change in opinion over the course of the last three years, I'm now wondering if it might be worth returning to Hostel Pt. 2 - a film that I'd completely dismissed as a total failure when I saw it at the cinema on its initial release - to see if my opinion of it has changed for the better (I've seen it referred to as a pro-feminist deconstruction of the first film's casual misogyny, but I'm not entirely convinced).

Once again, I'm not quite sure if these notes will be of any interest to the anonymous readers (or reader?) stumbling across this post from a random search-engine enquiry, but let me know either way. These vague musings were originally compiled last month, so the opinions are still fairly fresh... and again, it is worth repeating that I was genuinely disappointed that the film didn't live up to my earlier, more positive recollection of it.


Host el/Hostile


- An opening image establishing the setting: a traditional if not entirely original underground lair. A montage of close up images follow, exaggerating the location; water dripping from pipes, splashes of soap suds pitter-pattering off the hard concrete floor, a barely-visible figure in overalls going about his business in the back of the frame, unaffected and blasé as he scrubs the blood and gore from a collection of homemade implements of torture and death, finally hosing down the pools of thick, deep claret from the hard, stained tiles.

- Already director Eli Roth is fetishising the act of violence as a post-coital rite; presenting this torture business where the aftermath of violence is treated as perfectly normal, business as usual type stuff. No shock or attempt to unnerve the audience beyond the obvious; a particular approach that unfortunately carries through to the rest of the film.

- Crash cut to the introduction of our three main protagonists, with the blaring, generic rock music to establish the idea that these guys are looking for fun (in the blandly hedonistic westerners' abroad sense of the word). The jocular excess that reminds us of EuroTrip (2004) or An American Werewolf in Paris (1997); all frat boy posturing - "Amsterdam motherfucker!" - introducing both the location and the character's attitude to such.

- The kind of film where characters and their relationships are developed through dull conversations that are intended to set the wheels of the story in motion. The lazy satirising of supposed American jingoism, pot-smoking aspirations and banging pussy; a one-dimensional presentation that seems intended to make the characters as vulgar, dull and unsympathetic as humanly possible, just so that Roth can hang his concept on a nearly throw-away line of dialog – "these days everybody wants to kill Americans".

- Do we buy the back-story of these individuals? Can we actually believe that a dullard like Paxton is "studying for the bar", or that Josh is an aspiring writer? These details are thrown out and quickly forgotten about, never really having any kind of knock on effect or relevance to the story, either on an immediate level, or in terms of its subtext.

- No real tension is created, even after Oli goes missing, precisely because the characters are never developed beyond the level of pleasantries and Euro/American stereotyping. All we know about this character is that he has a daughter (who he can't be all that committed to raising) and an uncircumcised penis... and yet we're supposed to be on the edge of our collective seat as his two friends search the streets of a cartoon Eastern Europe in an attempt to track him down?

- The whole film plods along without ever really engaging the audience; occasionally exploiting the natural atmosphere of the locations, which are admittedly great, but Roth does nothing with them besides pointing his camera at them. Even a potentially interesting "torture museum", which could have been used to create a commentary on the actual narrative (and how an audience is attracted to violence and suffering, while not really wishing it on their friends and immediate family), is relegated to a clever if forgettable piece of production design. Like the vast majority of the ideas in the film, such moments seem to have absolutely no intellectual purpose, and instead seem to be there for no other reason than Roth's belief that such ideas are "cool".

- It is clear that Roth, like the even less talented Rob Zombie, only comes alive when he's directing scenes of violence and brutality. The scenes of exposition show some of the laziest composition of shots outside of the realms of the Made for TV thriller; cluttered, bland, stick the camera on a steadicam rig and hold it in place cinematography, and with no real regard whatsoever for the use of colour and texture. However, when he's directing the torture room scenes, he's in his element. Locked off, clearly well planned composition, atmospheric lighting, a real sense of colour (or selective colour: rust brown and red with the occasional burst of fluorescent green) and a decent use of depth of field to enforce the importance of certain objects within the frame.

- Roth, like several French-speaking directors who have found fame in the post-Hostel horror film milieu, clearly relishes having these obnoxious but completely innocent characters beg and plead as his camera lingers on every spit-dribbling close up or teary-eyed lament. The invention of the term "torture-porn", which is contentious and debatable, but when reinforced by the continual shots of moaning victims, or psychopaths attempting to reclaim masculinity through the wielding of phallic implements of death (as their prey kick and fight against tight, metal on leather straps), seems entirely appropriate.

- However, even here, where the film should have us on the edge of our seats, the overbearing music takes us out of the experience, and not in a good way. We know these characters are doomed and that their very convincing cries for forgiveness will not be rewarded with a chance of escape; so what's the point in making an emotional investment in this nonsense? This is precisely why the so-called torture-porn genre doesn't work; there's no tension. It's brutality for brutality's sake, because there's no element of the life and death struggle to keep us motivated - no depth beneath the surface of big-budget exploitation, no hope for redemption, for the victims or the victors, etc.

- It's only at the 50 minute-mark that the film becomes vaguely interesting, when Roth begins to play with the form of detective fiction; not quite a giallo, but interesting enough in the investigatory sense that we actually become attracted to the previously dull character of Paxton, and concerned about his well being.

- Putting Takashi Miike in your film won't make it as good as Audition (Ōdishon, 1999), just as having Quentin Tarantino listed as your executive producer won't make your scenes of terror anywhere near as memorable or genuinely terrifying as the ear scene in Reservoir Dogs (1991), or even the Rose McGowan/Car Crash sequence in the much maligned Death Proof (2007).

- Roth doesn't seem sure of what kind of film he's trying to make. Some scenes seem pointed towards hardcore exploitation, with the usual element of violent exploitation as social commentary - reminding us of The Last House on the Left (1971) or I Spit on Your Grave (1978), etc - while at other times he seems to be making a throwaway slasher film, where eyeballs are gouged out and fingers scattered like confetti, bringing to mind enjoyable rubbish like Friday the 13th (1980) and The Burning (1981). These continual shifts in tone clutter the film and make it impossible to connect with; too much heavy brutality to really enjoy as popcorn entertainment, and too many macabre jokes and elements of slapstick to appreciate as a serious work of note.



Hostel is available on Region 2 DVD from Sony Home Entertainment.

Wednesday, 4 November 2009

From the Notebook – Episode 2



From the Notebook – Episode 2

A Moment of Happiness
(Un moment de bonheur, 2001)


- A pre-credit sequence, introducing an at-this-point unidentified young woman who we will later adopt as our central character, who runs frantically up and down a beach screaming the name Damien as the wave's crash violently against the sand. This brief scene, a collection of no more than several single shots cut roughly together to establish the position of this character, and to some extent exaggerate her disconnection from a world that we will soon be introduced to, will eventually be repeated in context towards the end of the film, at which point the emotional mindset of the woman, and her geographical position within this seemingly tropical location, will become clear.

- The two principal characters are Betty (Isild Le Besco), the young woman, nineteen-years old, who we meet in the opening scene, and Philippe (Malik Zidi), a young man, twenty-six, riding a bus on his way to a small coastal town to meet a woman. After our initial introduction to Betty - who we can't, in any real way identify with at this particular stage of the narrative - the creators choose to change their direction and follow Philippe on his journey to this provincial seaside town, where we're fooled, primarily at least, into identifying this mysterious misfit as a genuine lead protagonist.

- A Moment of Happiness is one of those films where the same drama plays out twice, from two different perspectives, with each process of repetition allowing us to appreciate greater depths and details previously obscured by the deliberately one-sided character interactions. We've seen this kind of devise used in countless other films both before and since, however in this film, it seems particularly well suited to the intentions of the director.

- The development of the plot owes some superficial influence to the work of Polish master Krzysztof Kieslowski, in which the various preoccupations with chance encounters, fate and coincidence are the driving factors in pulling these different characters together. It might lack the nuances of Kieslowski's work, from the unwavering attention to detail as witnessed in his masterful television series The Decalogue (Dekalog, 1989), or the more magical-realist inspired flourishes that would develop through a masterpiece like The Double Life of Veronique (La Double vie de Véronique, 1991) or the simply monumental Three Colours trilogy (1993-1994), but still, nonetheless, there is a definite element of those kinds of abstractions, or the notions of each action having a greater significance on the larger whole, no matter how seemingly insignificant it may have originally seemed.

- At its most obvious, A Moment of Happiness is somewhat representative of a certain kind of cinema that flourished in Europe in the wake of the Dogme 95 movement and a certain push towards truthful, slice of life films enlivened by naturalistic performances, uncomplicated mise-en-scene and a sense of time and pace that seems to move closer to that of our everyday lives. Such films often focus on real-life dilemmas, albeit, with a level of dethatched irony that can only be expressed through the cinematic form at its most plainly manipulative.

- It is here where the ironies of the title become clear; a moment of happiness shared by two characters, one a hit-and-run driver, and the other, the mother of the boy he knocked down? There's a tragedy to this set-up that is tangible, and brilliantly conveyed by Isild Le Besco (probably my favourite actress of my own generation). As Betty, she conveys a sense of hopeless desperation, of a girl forced to grow up as a result of an adolescent mistake and her painfully dysfunctional parents, and who just wants to capture and savour that one brief moment where she can put aside any parental responsibility and just enjoy a "moment", without the reality of the situation intruding on her escape.

- It is possible to see Betty as a few-years-older variation on Le Besco's teenage-character Gwen from the earlier Girls Can't Swim (Les filles ne savent pas nager, 1999), which also had a seaside setting and a character that might one day find herself in Betty's particular situation if she continued down the road of youthful rebellion and casual promiscuity.

- The tension, and the drama within the narrative, is created by the fact that we know who these people are and expect, given the natural mechanics of such films, for the truth to eventually be revealed.

- Although in some respects A Moment of Happiness is an incredibly flawed film that never quite achieves the full potential of its individuals flashes of creativity, it still remains, in spite of such shortcomings, a completely interesting work; one that is enlivened by several sequences of brilliant drama and a great atmosphere, especially towards the end of the film, as the relationship begins to burgeon, and we know (although the characters don't), that something more shocking is there, just in the background, waiting to be revealed.



These notes were originally compiled in May, 2009.

Tuesday, 3 November 2009

From the Notebook – Episode 1



- Series Introduction -


Whenever I watch a film with the intention of eventually writing about it, on this blog or anywhere else for that matter, I tend to jot down a few pages of notes: vague reminders really of certain thoughts or themes that may or may not be worth covering at the eventual time of writing in order to clarify debate. The length of these notes can vary depending on the kind of film (how involved I am in the experience, whether or not it's a film with a lot of depth or ideas, etc), but they're usually helpful in clarifying an approach to the film that might make for an interesting opinion. In order to clear a personal backlog before the approaching New Year, I thought it might be interesting to post some of these notations for the films that I was meaning to write about, but never did. Perhaps these notes - which are admittedly unfathomable on occasion and filled with various tangents of thought that probably reveal more about me as a writer than the actual film being discussed - may be of interest to someone reading this blog, if only for the opportunity to use these fuzzy cogitations as a springboard to a more interesting discussion on the film itself.

The first instalment of this series, which could run for months, or might just fizzle out when I feel like writing full comments again, collects my three pages of observation on the brilliant Human Resources (Ressources humaines, 1999); the second feature-length film from the acclaimed writer/director Laurent Cantet. The following notes were originally compiled earlier this year with the intention of completing a full commentary on the film, which unfortunately, as a result of laziness and various other commitments, never really happened.



From the Notebook – Episode 1

Human Resources
(Ressources humaines, 1999)



- Between the rabble rousing union heads and the occasional burst of the blue, white and red colour scheme, we catch the traces of potential influence from the should be considered classic Tout va bien (Everything's Going Fine, 1972); easily the greatest film produced by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin during their radical period with the Group Dziga Vertov.

- A film that is unashamedly political, but never polemical, and also concerned with the interaction between characters that are genuinely appealing.

- In the great tradition of the so-called social realist movement, or whatever else you might want to call it, where the point-and-shoot approach to character observation is used to illustrate the daily working lives of these characters, but also revealing or exposing certain recognisable human traits.

- The dual meaning of the title, Human Resources, which is fitting for a film so concerned with characters that are recognisable as human beings, and in many cases playing variations on their own real-life personalities; and how their working lives are used to foreground the more important aspects of family, friends and community.

- A prodigious working class student, back from Paris and already at odds with his more provincial family and friends, finds himself employed in a trainee managerial post at the same company where his father and sister work on the factory floor.

- A classical story, about the usual elements: power, manipulation, lies and corruption. Like David and Goliath retold as docudrama on the subject of the 35-hour week. A Greek tragedy even, about two generations of men, father and son, replayed on a level that is entirely personal. The dramatic narrative mechanics of a film like Hamlet Goes Business (Hamlet liikemaailmassa, 1987) stripped of all the 50's-noir stylisation, leaving only the social-realist core that holds Kaurismäki's work in place.

- "Look where your damned liberalism leads"

- Discussions between the central character, Franck, and the factory worker Alain are important - in the sense of relating explicitly to the film's political ideology - and yet at the same time feel very natural. Not just a political lecture, but two actual characters, well developed and nicely performed, just talking shop.

- The familiar presentation of natural light, handheld uncertainty, or locked-off observation – where characters are framed through doorways or over the shoulder in the creation of three layers of focus flattened within a single frame. A reaction shot, as in a single shot that captures a moment of reaction, or the kind of group shots, like Pialat, which seem unrehearsed and entirely spontaneous.

- The silence and the emptiness of the factory during the strike is astounding.

- "Where's your place?" – The film ends with this uncertainly. Is it a statement or a question? Are such distinctions even important?

- Another fade to black. No musical score.



Human Resources is available on Region 2 (UK) DVD from Soda Pictures.

Sunday, 1 November 2009

Only Hope Will Kill You, After All



Klaus Kinski came back from the dead
to terrorise the ones who were left
in the auditorium of the Deutschland
Berlin hall
Who needs people?
Who needs friends?
they only drive you 'round the bend
only hope will kill you
after all
so Achtung meine Liebe!
Achtung mother!
I'm a modern guy who refused to knuckle under
Klaus Kinski went back to Germany
after the war

I was born a freak child, guess I'm lucky
men and women... just want to fuck me
some of my own kin, I've had them all
life is full of rain, people bore me
don't let the truth get in the way of a good story
Klaus Kinski went back to Germany
after the war
Achtung meine Liebe!
Achtung mother!
I'm a modern guy who refused to knuckle under
in the auditorium of the Deutschland
Berlin hall

- Luke Haines, 2009


I never wanted to be a film critic. I wanted to be an illustrator.


Sketch of Samantha Morton, drawn by the author, 2002

Wednesday, 21 October 2009

Odysseus, a film by Fritz Lang


"The gods have not created man. Man has created gods."









From Le mépris (Contempt, 1963), a film by Jean-Luc Godard

Thursday, 15 October 2009

Engrenages +



You might be interested to know that Lights in the Dusk has a new favourite television series. The second season of the excellent Spiral (Engrenages, 2005-2008) is currently winding down on BBC Four, and I have to say, the word compelling doesn't do it justice. As a crime serial, the progression from one episode to the next is astounding, with the writers successfully managing to weave one single strand of plot through several individual instalments, all the while re-establishing additional layers of drama and interaction as the narrative unfolds. In this sense, the English variation on the title is fitting, as the series presents these characters as existing in a single vortex; each crossing paths from both sides of the law and back again, in a manner that relates explicitly to the chaos and confusion of these two particular platforms – the world of law and the world of criminality – as they disruptively coalesce. It also relates to the more literal translation of the title, basically "cogs", where each single component, character or sub-plot, can be seen as being part of a much greater whole.

What sets this show apart from other Law and Order-type programmes is hard to define, but I think more than anything, I enjoy the honesty of it. There are no real gimmicks or attempts to transcend the medium - which is perfectly fine as it is, and certainly doesn't have to toady to what arm-chair critics might consider "more cinematic", and therefore worthy of praise. Spiral simply offers the viewer solid drama and a plot that is worth consideration, precisely because it involves characters that are not only interesting, but more importantly, recognisable as human beings. I would also argue that Spiral is, in some ways, more reminiscent of the harder-edged crime serials that we have in the UK – a grand tradition going as far back as Cracker (1993-1996) by Jimmy McGovern, or Prime Suspect (1991-2006) by Lynda La Plante, or more recently even with the excellent Wire in the Blood (2003-2008) (which I had intended to write something about, but never found the time) or Waking the Dead (2000-2009). It is also reminiscent of the short lived docudrama The Cops (1998-2001); another uncompromising police procedural that stressed a more realistic, street-level approach to the blending of drama and documentary technique.

Although the general style of point-and-shoot, handheld grittiness of the Lars von Trier/Paul Greengrass variety has become somewhat overused (to the point of almost cliché), I still feel that this particular series uses it well; especially with the general style of the show complementing that mixture of characters and locations, moving from the more familiar middle-class suburbs of Paris (the kind that we might immediately recognise from any number of French prestige-films), to the tenements and housing projects overrun by gangs and drug dealers – i.e. the "dark side" that generally exists in every major city, but is rarely seen in the more conventional "exported media". I would love to eventually write a more in-depth examination of this show at a later date – maybe in the New Year when I should have managed to procure a copy of the first season box set, and ideally, would have more time to really give it the attention that it deserves. Nonetheless, I'm excited to see how the current series plays out over the next couple of weeks, which, sad as it might seem, is enough to get me through my current feelings of sadness and ennui.



+ [plus]

I'd also like to take this time to mention how excited I am to find out that Luke Haines will be releasing his new album at the end of the month. A double album called 21st Century Man/Achtung Mutha. Haines is one of my favourite songwriters, formerly of both the pre and post Britpop bands The Auteurs and Black Box Recorder, and perhaps best know, from a cinematic standpoint, as the composer of Paul Tickle's imaginative B.S. Johnson adaptation, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry (2000). Can we expect another caustic, agitprop masterpiece to rival his first solo LP, the Situationist-inspired concept album The Oliver Twist Manifesto: or What's Wrong With Popular Culture? Let's hope so. The cover-art of the new release alone is absolutely magnificent!



21st Century Man/Achtung Mutha, an album by Luke Haines