Day: October 4, 2016

Sing Street (2016)

tom drama, European, Humour, Irish , , ,

 

I’ve been thinking about how to open this one, would l describe the film as a “coming of age” movie or one about a boy forming a band to impress a girl. It is those but not specifically, and to simply describe the film as one or the other of them would be to do it an injustice.  John Carney (Once, 2007) gives us a movie about identity, who we are, who we think we are and who we dream of being. It is 1985 and our young  hero Conor is going through some changes, though not ones of his liking or making.  Coming from a middle class background, the family is in financial trouble, due to work drying up for the parents and sacrifices have to be made. One of those sacrifices is Conor’s schooling as he is taken from a private school and dropped in Sing Street Christian Brothers School (a public school).sing

Here we have the middle class boy, with his middle class background suddenly in the working class school, without even the correct colour shoes. This brings him into contact with Br. Baxter (Don Waverly (Ondine, 2009) The Christian Brother with a not very Christian attitude. Another who is not who he seems. Br. Baxter becomes Conor’s nemesis, as they struggle over shoe colours, hair dye and make-up. To its credit, Carney manages to avoid dropping the movie into the quagmire of sexual scandal, though hints at it, the Christian Brothers were not going to escape completely from the sins of their past.

Against all of these struggles in life Conor, practically on his first day in school, noticed a girl, Raphine (Lucy Boynton, Ballet Shoes, 2007) sitting nearby on her doorstep, he immediately falls for her. And as with many lads of his age, he immediately begins to woe her. She’s out of his league, so in an attempt to impress he first repeats some musical trivia his older brother, Brendan (Jack Reynor, Glassland, 2014) shared only the night before and then announces he has a band and would she like to be involved. Indeed Brendan, with his own issues, still manages to ensure Conor has all the brotherly advice needed to get through life and get the girl of his dreams.

What follows is a quest by Conor to quickly find a group of guys he can call a band.  He actually manages to do this without any major issue. Indeed the band aspect of the film is straight forward and of no major issue. As part of his band, Conor  tells her, they are going to make a video, if she , the model she claims to be (almost…)would like to be in it. She reluctantly agrees to give the video some weight by appearing in it. What follows is a group of young boys trying to pull together a mid-80s new wave music video, with all the situational gags possible. Mark McKenna, Ben Carolan and Percy Chamburuka, all deserve mention as his fellow band members.

And so through the usual trial the boys manage to get it together enough to film the video, which is pure new-waveish, 1980’s punk-rock. All of this initial band success is against a personal background that sees the family split up as their parents are separating and the children are being dispatched to a new apartment with their farther (Aiden Gillen, Calvary 2014), While his mother ( Maria Doyle-Kennedy (Jupiter Ascending, 2014) moves in with her new boyfriend no one is happy about that arrangement. Away from his music, he turns to his older brother for advice on everything from relationships, music to life in general.  We go on to learn how his would-be model girlfriend is a lot more fragile than made out to be.

In school the band decides to play in a school event coming up, this provides the scene for their first public performance and also a chance to make a statement of rebellion against Br. Baxter and the school.  Another of those people who is not who or what they seem is the school bully, Barry, played by Ian Kenny who is from a hard home and a life of domestic violence, however when it comes to being the tough-guy in school, young Barry is good at scaring people, but not very good at seeing threats through and Conor notices this, ultimately asking Barry to be their roadie, something he happily agrees to, he has a purpose.

As this quest for identity and discovery develops it does so against the social backdrop of 80s Ireland and emigration.  Conor slowly realises his only hope for happiness is to leave his home, Dublin and Ireland and head to  London (with nothing). Supporting Raphine through her own struggles, they embark together for London with the help of his Brother, using his late-grandfather’s boat…

8/10 sit back and enjoy the trip in to the past.

The Overnight

tom Comedy, Uncategorized, US , , ,

 

Written and directed by Patrick Brice (Creep, 2014). This is a perfectly fine piece of entertainment. I say this because given the subject matter and story line it could have been made a number of ways, from a Woody Allen 1970’s angst ridden social farce or a glorified soft-porn TV movie.  Instead Brice manages to pull off an exploration of the fears  and weaknesses. tumblr_nq7ddbul0d1uwiej5o1_1280

Alex (Adam Scott, Krampus, 2015) and Emily (Taylor Schilling, Argo 2015), together with their young son RJ are new to LA and don’t know many people. Against this they meet Kurt (Jason Schwartzman, Fantastic Mr. Fox, 2009) an extroverted Los Angelino while at the part with their son RJ, Kurt is there also with his son. After a short conversation (which leaves Alex and Emily scratching their heads) they are invited to dinner with Kurt and his wife Charlotte. Dinner starts off normal enough with Alex and Emily learning that Charlotte is an actress. They later see some of Charlotte’s “work” as they get to know their new friends better during the night.

Indeed as the night progresses we are exposed to the extroverted confidence of Kurt and Charlotte, which ultimately  reaches the point where Kurt decides they should all take a plunge in the pool outside, obviously the hosts are all for it, while our more reserved guests are somewhat shy about doing so nude. A reservation “justified” by the large size of Kurt’s manhood, compared to Alex’s. We can see the tension between everybody, Alex is not too comfortable with the events of the night while Charlotte is more open to allowing events unwind as the night develops.

This leads to some tension, which Kurt seeks to remove by showing Alex his pool-house where Kurt practices his art (the majority of the paintings are of the female reproductive organ) and also his breast suction pump films which they make for the Scandinavian market.

Alex, not at all comfortable with the night would be more than happy to leave. As the night progresses he spends some time talking with Kurt, as Emily and Charlotte also spend some time talking in the bed room.

As it turns out Kurt and Charlotte are not the perfect couple of their image, they have the same insecurities as the rest of us, but they do not want to accept these. While they all come from the point of not being happy with their lot in life, they begin to realise that what they have is not as bad as they thought it was.

On the down side the camera work resembles that of a cheap made for TV movie that does not inspire the casual viewer to sit down and watch the movie, the dialogue is a little stained in places but overall it works.

This is a safe 3*** movie with no pretensions of greater.

Timbuktu

tom African, Uncategorized , ,

The 2014 film by Abderrahmane Sissako, takes you by surprise and ultimately leaves you sitting there wondering what just happened with your life.  I say this because if like me you sat down to this film and immediately were struck with the slowness of life and the movie at the start, only to find that you cannot leave it, then you know what I mean.

Set on the outskirts of a small village near Timbuktu in Mali the film mainly revolves around a small cattle herder and his family and the “local” ISIS thugs who now control the area. The film is a serious statement made in a way that draws us in to listen to it, rather than shout the message at us.  We see the tranquil nature of life as people go about their normal lives only to have it regulated by the ISIS thugs to the way they believe the locals should live. Music and signing are banned, but yet the locals continue to play music and sign in the privacy of their homes, in defiance of the thugs. People are forced to dress according to the rules of their new overlords.

The local Iman is forced to walk a fine line between representing the local people on religious matters and protecting them where possible and lot having himself murdered in the process.  Against all of this Kidane (Ibrahim Ahmed) lives his life, looking after his family, his wife Saima (Toulou Kiki) and daughter, even his cow-herd (who might be suitable to marry his daughter one day).

There are difficulties such as the bad relations he has with a neighbour who nets the local river for fish. These nets are a cause of concern as the cattle get in to them and destroy them. Life is regulated by the ISIS thugs, who we get a look at.  Abdelkerim is one of the ISIS enforcers patrolling the region. He is helped by a local young man who speaks the local language. In deed much is made (in a subtle manner) about how the ISIS thugs are outsiders come in to impose their way on the local people. We see how many of them are in fact from places such as Libya and other countries and practice the bad habits such as smoking they are demanding the local population stop form doing.  It should be noted that Sissako’s balancing of the reaction of the local population with the specific story is well done, setting the background and conditions we need to know about for the story to work.

In the course of events, one of Kidane’s cattle is killed after destroying nets while in the care of the young cow-herd. Kidane goes to the fisherman to seek compensation, a struggle follows and in the fight the fisherman is killed. The murder is reported and the local ISIS thugs, taking a break from hunting down people singing and enjoying themselves, arrest Kidane.

The trial “scene” or questioning by the ISIS chief (Salem Dendou) is a study on true evil. The insidious quiet type which tries to present itself as right and decent.  Quietly, seemingly during the interview Kidane is sentenced to death the next morning as he could not pay the blood price of far more cattle than he owns. The chief inflicts cruelty in a manner which suggest he is being charitable. Through all of this they must use an interpreter (who seems to be not quite as fundamentalist as his leader) which emphasis the foreign nature of the overlords.  We also see just how hypocritical they are, practicing those things which they also ban. We also see through them as uneducated and nothing special.   These are a foreign unwelcome people who are not as true and pure as they would like the world to believe. Their power is in the force with which they inflict their way of life on the local populations.

With death approaching, there are no options left for Kidane, he is to be publically executed and the townsfolk forced to watch, is there any chance for him?

The power of this film is in its understatement. The dialogue is sparse and only used where needed. Sissako prefers to show the viewer what is happening, rather than tell. The cinematography is similarly used, giving us a picture not just of the landscape but also of the live of those people who populate that landscape.

An excellent film well worth the watch 4/5

 

 

The Witch (2015)

tom drama, Horror, The Witch, Uncategorized , ,

 

Robert Eggers’ (the Tell-Tale Heart, 2008) movie is set in the early 1600’s with a new England farming family, headed by the farmer husband and father (Ralph Ineson, Intruders, 2011), a man of strong religious views, are banished, for religious reasons from the community they live in.  Needing to build a new life for the family, they settle down a couple of days away from the town and build a new existence for themselves. Life is hard and the family is struggling to make an income in the harsh New England countryside.

As hard as life is, it still goes on. Each member of the family has their position and duties accordingly. And this is where the film works. The movie draws on the folklore of ththe-witche early New England settlers as they came to terms with the new land, the strange surroundings and the natural fears and superstitions of life at this time.

There is an under lying tension within the family, As the father and mother (Kate Dickie, Red Road 2006) struggle to make a success of their little farmstead, the children also have responsibilities and duties. It is to this background that things start to happen. The two oldest children are of an age where the tensions of hormonal changes are coming into play, most especially for the son, who is becoming aware of himself, so to speak. One day while taking care of the youngest child, the oldest, Thomasin, (Anya Taylor-Joy, Viking Quest, 2015) loses her, but only after taunting the middle daughter, Mercy (about witches and saying she was one). This of course leads to all sorts of implications. The Son, Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw, Oranges and Sunshine, 2010, a person who could have a bright future ahead of him) is caught in the middle of this and goes to find his little sister, only to make things worse.

The days following the disappearance of the child are tense ones, made all the more tense by the otherwise mundane arguments and struggles of life, which are blown-up in the tensions of the struggles.  Eventually things are said and accusations are made, Did Thomasin do something to her little sister, did an animal take her or did the [ubiquitous] with in the woods take her?

As we are drawn in to this struggle, the tension mounts, but then we are introduced to a new element, the witch herself, it turns out there is a witch in the woods, who might actually have taken the child.

Over the next while the presence of the witch is hinted at and explored at first, but then takes a larger part of the story-line, especially with the use of the family mail goat as a familiar, who might actually be the devil.  The last act or so of the film is an old fashioned blood and gore horror segment which needless to say culminates in the great showdown. This final denouement  (and yes any denouement should be final…) is to me the lessor event.  As the tensions in the household mounts and events begin to take their toll, the children are taken over and possessed, with young Caleb especially affected. This scene is one of the better ones of the film.

Now, let’s be clear; this is not the great horror movie people seem to think it is. It could have been, a nerve wrenching thriller playing on the fears and dangers hidden in the dark corners and damp ground, or it could have been an old fashioned horror with our heroes fighting the evil monster etc. Instead it tried to do both and so ultimately failed to succeed to the level it wanted. The acting by the younger actors in particular in first class, even if the character of the mother seemed a little over the top (more the character than the acting).

This is a good film, scoring a safe 3 stars, it could have been much more, if it decided to go one way or the other. Personally I would have liked a movie where we never say the protagonist, but only the fears, reactions and struggles of the family.