The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

A sometimes goofy, sometimes profound sprawling epic chronicling the 40 years of service of a stuffy British officer. A rare non-propagandist war film made in the 40’s, with Britain in the midst of the fight, Powell/Pressburger’s challenging picture both aggrandizes and mocks the superiority complex of upper class British soldiering.

The Sessions

Good intentions both help and hinder this now celebrated story of a polio-stricken man, also a virgin, who hires a sex surrogate to learn the ways of sexual intercourse. It’s a feel-good affair from start to finish celebrating the triumph of one’s mind over one’s body, as well as the empowering nature of the sexual act. But what you see is what you get. Lewin’s simple, uncomplicated approach to the narrative is admirable, as he declutters the scenery, but it also feels staid and unmemorable.

The Sessions (2012) dir. Ben Lewin
Starring: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood, Annika Marks, W. Earl Brown, Blake Lindsley, Adam Arkin

By Alan Bacchus

Over John Hawkes’ filmography the familiar character actor seems to be characterized by two contrasting faces: the snarling hillbilly psychotic exemplified by startling turns in Martha Marcy May Marlene and Winter’s Bone, and the sympathetic ne’er-do-well as in The Perfect Storm or Contagion. As the emaciated polio victim, also a romantic poet bound to live horizontally on a gurney, Hawkes is most certainly the latter to the extreme, but he has never carried a picture before and he achieves this admirably.

Hawkes plays Mark O’Brien, inspired by a real person who authored the novel How I Became a Human Being: A Disabled Man’s Quest for Independence and was the subject of an Oscar-winning Short Documentary. His dilemma is simple; he’s never had sex and wants some. Other than the physical deficiencies, his faith would appear to be his complication. As a devout Catholic he’s constantly in confession and seeking advice from his minister, played by William H. Macy, who looks like he just stepped off the set of Shameless to appear in this. Macy’s role as the sounding board for Mark is too obvious. The religious conflict of sinning by fornicating outside the role of marriage is glanced over for humour, but nothing else in this relationship truly challenges him.

As the surrogate Helen Hunt is endearing. Initially she plays the role as sexual mentor with clinical detachment but she eventually succumbs to Mark’s romantic charms. Hawkes plays the awkwardness, fear and elation of his first sexual acts with the utmost integrity and realism. While not as explicit as the film has been made out to be in the press, it’s Helen Hunt’s comfort as an ‘older’ woman on camera in full nudity and the verbal expression of the stage-by-stage details of sexual intercourse that are most salacious.

In the background, the conflict from Hunt’s husband who feels threatened by Mark’s emotional attachment feels overly engineered, and the comic banter between Mark’s doting and conservative assistant and the motel manager, who is enthralled by the idea of a sex surrogate, only generates a mild smirk or two.

Unfortunately the drama in this unique situation is entirely on the surface. But The Sessions coasts remarkably far on the precise casting choices and the awkward but fulfilling sex education.

***

In the Mood For Love

Significant for a number of reasons, 'In the Mood for Love' is not only a great film, routinely voted in polls as one of the best movies of its decade, it also completes Wong Kar-Wai’s decade-long examination of the barriers to human connectivity, a series of now-iconic and influential HK films which includes 'Chungking Express', 'Happy Together', 'Days of Being Wild' and 'Fallen Angels'. It also comes at the end of the millennium, which has the impression of being cinema’s last word on the theme of love and romance in the 20th Century.

In the Mood for Love (2000) dir. Wong Kar-Wai
Starring: Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung

By Alan Bacchus

Part of the allure of the cinema of Wong Kar-Wai is it’s relation to the prevailing action genre in Hong Kong at the time. After the proliferation of John Woo/Jackie Chan-inspired action and kung fu extravaganzas in the '90s, Kar-Wai seemed like the supreme antidote to these overly produced, emotionally excessive exports. In the Mood for Love is like a delicate porcelain doll. With a wisp of a story, the film coasts on the constrained angst of the characters, but always with a supreme cinematic eye, as cool, stylized and memorable as those engrossed action movies.

It’s 1962, and here Kar-Wai’s frequent collaborator Tony Leung plays Chow Mo-wan, a journalist looking for an apartment for him and his wife. Same with Su Chan (Maggie Cheung), his comely neighbour, alluring and gorgeous in her 60s bees nest hairdo and form-fitting pattern dresses. But Su’s also married to a man as busy and unavailable as Chow’s wife. Conscious efforts are made not to see the faces of Chow's or Su’s spouses, a commonality the audience subliminally recognizes, thus connecting the two characters together.

Gradually through a series of impressively edited montage scenes we learn of an affair between the two spouses. The sequence ends in a magnificent restaurant scene, in which Chow and Su question each other about their respective accessories - Chow’s tie, which resembles the same tie Su gave her husband from abroad, and Su’s bag, which resembles a bag Chow gave his wife.

A love affair develops between the two without consummation. Together they vow not to ‘become like their spouses’ and betray their marriages. Kar-Wai turns these screws extra tight as Chow gradually grows fonder of Su, subtly inviting her to consummate their relationship. Thus, Su’s increasing apprehension and teasing love furthers the sadness of their forlorn love. And after a series of time shifts forward into the late '60s where we see a downtrodden Chow return to the same apartment years later looking for Su, Kar-Wai elevates his drama to near-Odyssey-like tragedy.

Before In the Mood for Love, Kar-Wai was celebrated for a unique fluid visual style, his camera seemed free to float in and around the busy HK streets at will. But here Kar-Wai consciously sequesters himself in the tight spaces of the cramped apartment space. Even with these limitations he manages to find evocative compositions in which to frame his characters. We never see Chow’s wife but immediately identify her by the semi-circular window overlooking her office. And the frequent meeting place for Su and Chow in the early days of their courtship is simply the landing of the building’s staircase. Kar-Wai maximizes these repeated and simple slow-motion shots with help from the indelible music cue from Shigeru Umebayashi, and of course Christopher Doyle’s lauded cinematography and lighting.

It took four years for the follow-up, 2046, to come out and three years after that came his English-language film, My Blueberry Nights. These lengthy intervals suggest perhaps, much like the effect Apocalypse Now had on Francis Coppola’s career, In the Mood for Love exasperated Wong Kar-Wai's remarkable creative juices. I hope this isn't true.

****

In the Mood for Love is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

Summer Interlude

Wow, just when I thought I knew Ingmar Bergman, the master of Swedish cinema known for often impenetrable art house elegies on life and death, the rediscovery of 'Summer Interlude', an early masterwork from 1951, shows us a youthful energy and remarkably taut pacing not present in his more formal and refined works. The story of a professional ballerina looking back on a romantic summer has the brooding rigorousness of 'Black Swan' and the melodramatic pulpy brilliance of 'Mildred Pierce'.

Summer Interlude (1951) dir. Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Maj-Britt Nilsson, Birger Malmsten, Alf Kjellin, Georg Funkquist

Tragic and beguiling, Summer Interlude is definitely Swedish and all Bergman. Yet his remarkably accessible storytelling methods could have easily been mistaken for a populist Hollywood production.

In the present, Maria (Maj-Britt Nilsson) is a famous ballerina rehearsing for Swan Lake, exhausted from the rigors of the play and the backbreaking demands of her director. When she receives a mysterious package containing on old diary, she's brought back to one of the few moments in her life when work didn't dominate, a brief 'interlude' of pure unbridled passion, a romantic free spirit broken by a sudden tragic ending.

Summer Interlude fits in with a number of Bergman films from the '50s, including Summer With Monika and Wild Strawberries, which use the Swedish summer vacation as their backdrop. It's not an arbitrary period either as, unlike North American society, summer vacation in Sweden means a two-month break during which citizens free themselves from the shackles of everyday life for the pastoral serenity of the country.

Maria's vacation takes place in a stunning rocky archipelago, and while frolicking in her bikini she meets her romantic partner, Henrik, an idealistic student entranced by Maria's gracefulness and beauty. Their time together is blissful until Maria's devotion to her dance interrupts their impenetrable bond. Bergman intercuts Maria's solemn recollections strolling through the people and places of her past with these dreamy flashbacks of romance. It's a devious narrative arc, taking us from the highs of summer passion to gradually disintegrating their relationship when they eventually come to terms with the fact that their careers will prevent them from going any further than a summer tryst to a tragic conclusion that continues to haunt Maria in the present.

These emotional layers are masterfully controlled by Bergman. If you ever had preconceptions of him as a solemn filmmaker with a methodical style just watch the energy of his mise-en-scene - his compositions and camera movement and the choreography of his actors within the frame. The present day sequences in the ballet are choreographed with remarkable energy. His camerawork is fresh and as lively as the Hollywood studio master of this style, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca). Of course, Bergman was famously influenced by his family's career in the theatre, and so his visualization of this world is strong and dynamic.

With the use of Swan Lake and the attention paid to the half-dozen dance sequences, the intensity of which contrasts with the serenity of Maria's summer interlude, I can't help but be reminded of Darren Aronofsky's use of the same material in Black Swan.

Other stylistic flourishes which draw attention to Bergman as director and auteur include the use of long dissolves moving us elegantly between time frames, but in a way that's more than functional, bringing us into the introspective regret of the lead character. There's even a headscratching animated sequence, hand drawn stick figures that come to life on a record listened to by Henrik and Maria.

The emotional journey and the pulpy and passionate treatment of this kind of tragic love story at best showcases Bergman's tremendous cinematic arsenal and power over the medium, even at a young age. He's a true cinema master who can beguile us with intellectual dissertations such as The Seventh Seal and Persona but also titillate us with romance and Hitchcockian mystery like Summer Interlude.

****

Summer Interlude is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

Casablanca

Casablanca (1942) dir. Michael Curtiz
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt

****

By Alan Bacchus

This is my favourite movie of all time, the zenith of Hollywood studio system, a war time romance, pot boiling noir and razor sharp thriller all rolled into one, crafted to perfection with one of the greatest screenplays of all time. It’s also the culmination of the creative skills of one of the great directors of all time, Michael Curtiz, a shamefully unheralded genius, a rare studio-era auteur whose influence spread for decades into the work of pulp masters like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

It was also the launching film for Humphrey Bogart, who, before then, was a primarily a character actor, playing second bill heavies, supporting more notorious thugs like James Cagney. Here Curtiz takes a chance on Bogie as brooding anti-hero and romantic leading man. He plays Rick Blaine, owner of Rick’s a popular club in Casablanca (Morocco) a port city known for exporting anti-Nazi resistence spies. But Rick’s there because he’s escaped his own persecution in other parts of the world, as well as a failed relationship with his former fling. Once burned twice shy, now ‘he sticks his neck out for nobody.’

Then, of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, in walks Isla Lund (Bergman), his former flame with her Residence hero husband Victor Laszlo (Henreid), looking to buy letters of transit which would send them abroad in safety. The Nazi thug Major Strasser (Veidt) and the Casablanca chief of police Capt Renault (Rains) know this and tries to intercept. With Rick in the middle, and torn between his rekindled love affair and his innate desire to fight against oppression, he’s forced to make a crucial decision, leave with Ilsa or give up the letters to Laszlo. This decision,  choose selfishg love, or sacrifice for the good of the world, becomes one of cinema’s great surprise endings.
Plenty of analysis has done on Julius and Philip Epstein’s legendary screenplay. It’s perhaps rivalled only by Chinatown for it’s structural perfection, like the Parthanon of screenplays. Michael Curtiz’s direction is even sharper and to the point. Watch his editing, and punctuation scenes, his brilliant montage scenes and pacing of action. The opening sequence is magnificence, powered by the pulsing Max Steiner score, Curtiz throws us into the fast paced, multi-cultural world of urban Casablanca. Few films kickstart with a better bang than this.

Curtiz's mastery of the visual cinema language is on the level of all the revered masters of the era – Ford, Welles and Hitchcock. His camerawork is unmistakable. The master of the dolly shot, but always motivated  by the movement of his actors. But since Curtiz loved to move his camera, it meant his actors were constantly in motion, criss crossing the frame in the foreground and background to create the elaborate choreography on screen. His lighting represents the best of early studio noir. His use of shadows is a hallmark as well – often framing the shadows of his characters to convey the secretic world of the covert activities.

The awesome new Warner Blu-Ray boxset commemorating the 70th Anniversary of the film is chock full of goodness. In fact before even before I popped in the Blu-Ray of the actual film I watched the accompanying documentary: Michael Curtiz: The Best Director You’ve Never Heard Of. The comprehensive chronicle of his career confirms everything I love about the man, his artistic triumphs as well as his gruff cantankerous personality. The testimonial of Steven Spielberg alone, who owes as much to Curtiz as he does to Ford, is perhaps the greatest compliment to the man.

Casablanca 70th Anniversary Box Set is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Entertainment

I also suggest going through Michael Curtiz's great body of work to discover some great films made in the style of Casablanca, such as:

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
The Sea Hawk (1940)
Mildred Pierce (1945)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
The Sea Wolf (1941)
Flamingo Road (1949)
Young Man With a Horn (1950)

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring: Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Edna Best

***

By Alan Bacchus

Part haunted house story, part searing cross-dimensional love story, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir paints a wonderfully textured gothic romance with all the intrigue and heartbreak of a steamy romance novel. But with Mankiewicz's moody tones and Bernard Herrman’s typically entrancing music, the movie waxes and wanes with much emotional grandeur.

Gene Tierney, as Mrs. Muir, is a recently widowed mother, who leaves her former life behind to live in a hilltop Victorian seaside house. The landlord is not shy to inform her that the ghost of the former owner, a grizzly but handsome seaman named Capt. Daniel Gregg, continues to inhabit the house. But ironically, Mrs. Muir loves the idea of a house with 'character'. The ghost is quick to make his presence known and introduces himself to the lady. The ghost then inspires Muir to express her creative side by 'ghost' writing his memoirs.

Meanwhile, Miles Fairley, a smarmy fellow author whom she meets at her publisher's, pines after Mrs. Muir with a suspicious aggressiveness. His possessiveness slowly comes to bear under the nose of Muir. Of course, Daniel notices and knows the truth about Fairley but needs Muir to discover the truth herself, no matter how painful that will be.

As the ghost/former sea captain, Rex Harrison embellishes all the clichés of a gruff sailor with charm and scene-chewing delight. Under the Hollywood production code, a surprisingly lustful sexual desire between him and Mrs. Muir is buried beneath the surface. Part of the deal between Muir and Gregg is that he can appear only in Muir's bedroom, which brings its own naughty connotations. In fact, one could argue Mrs. Muir is drawn to the ghost by a deep sexual attraction she never experienced with her former husband. Her drab marriage is characterized by a statement to her landlord – that her pregnancy with her daughter 'just happened'. And the dirty old sailor even remarks about observing Muir's naked body, but can't touch it.

Under the direction of Mankiewicz the production design and lighting of the grand old house contributes as much to the gothicness as the salacious material. The exterior backdrop behind the grand bedroom changes from lovely sunset to harsh lightning storms to foggy engulfments in order to express the mood of the scene. The night time moon, which comes in through the window as it reflects off the bustling waters, creates some deliciously expressive shadows at night.

But the film is made memorable by the genuine relationship that emerges between the ghost and Mrs. Muir. The emotional climax hits a surprisingly profound moment when Capt. Gregg says his painful goodbye to her while she's sleeping, asking her to “choose life”.

Restless

Restless (2011) dir. Gus Van Sant
Starring: Henry Hopper, Mia Wasikowska, Ryo Kase

**½

By Alan Bacchus

Annabelle and Enoch are a couple of social oddballs who find each other through their mutual fascination with death. In fact, they meet when Enoch crashes a funeral attended by Annie, and they later crash other people's funerals just for fun.

Their burgeoning relationship takes us from one whimsical romantic scene to the next, from etching chalk outlines of themselves on the pavement to attending a Halloween party dressed as a Japanese pilot and Geisha girl. Enoch also has an imaginary friend, Hiroshi, who is a downed kamikaze pilot from WWII. Annabelle, in addition to working with cancer-stricken children, reveals that she also has cancer and has three months to live. Yes, the theme here is death, which provides the only connective tissue between these overly idiosyncratic story elements.

But this is a Gus Van Sant film, and he rarely plays it safe, constantly testing himself and the audience and never resting on his laurels. Restless falls between his traditional melodramas, such as Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester, and his aesthetically adventurous efforts like Paranoid Park, Last Days and Gerry.

While overly sappy in tone, including the oh-so-tender musical choices, Restless is also rigorously bizarre. Even the lead character's name, Enoch, is ridiculous, and the same goes for the anachronistic costumes and the staid tone in which he speaks with his kamikaze best friend. Annie also inexplicably draws water birds, writes plays about her own death and, like Enoch, dresses in impossibly quirky outfits fresh out of the Nouvelle Vague.

The best part of the release is the Blu-ray special features, which contain a completely silent version of the same film. During production, after every shot, Van Sant would do a silent take with the actors using their expressions to convey the drama of the scene without dialogue, or in post-production he would use dialogue insert cards like in old fashioned silent cinema (or The Artist). The final result isn't really watchable, but it's an innovative experiment that speaks to Van Sant's creativity and desire to show us something we've never seen before - brownie points and an extra half-star for that.

Restless is available on Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Hanover Street

Hanover Street (1979) dir. Peter Hyams
Starring: Harrison Ford, Lesley-Anne Down, Christopher Plummer

**½

By Alan Bacchus

A young Harrison Ford in a romantic lead makes this obscure wartime romance an interesting discovery of the past. Peter Hyams, director of some decent ‘70s/’80s action thrillers (Narrow Margin, 2010, Capricorn One), directs this hopelessly tragic romantic war film channeling the sweeping epic qualities of David Lean, unfortunately, at times, with the heavy bluntness of Joe Wright.

Harrison Ford is an American pilot, David Hallerin, stationed in London in 1944. He catches the eye of a beautiful and well mannered erudite British gal, Margaret Sellinger (Lesley-Anne Down), and immediately develops an infatuation with her. An illicit romance starts, dramatized with gentle touches, heavy breathing and all the guilt that follows. Poor Margaret is actually in a happy marriage to a dull but well meaning bore of a man, Paul, played by Christopher Plummer.

Meanwhile, David continues to fly his bombing missions into France, becoming more belligerent and disillusioned about the danger his superiors are putting him in. Coincidentally, David and Paul meet on a secret mission inside Germany and are forced to work together for the cause without knowing their connection with each other. Love, courage and heroism collide with full-on heartbreaking tragedy and exhilaration so often featured in these sweeping epics.

The picture was shot right after Star Wars, so it’s fun to see a young and spry Harrison Ford with maximum charisma, rebellious confidence and foolhardy innocence. He looks damned fine in military garb and Lesley-Anne Down's big doey eyes are also irresistible, so it's not hard to sell us on this romance, which is thrown at us without much set-up other than the fact that they are the two most beautiful people in the room.

Peter Hyams’ trademark photographic look is pastoral beautification personified. His long lenses crush the edges of the frame squeezing out the periphery of the populated London streets to concentrate solely on his two lovers. The opening scene on the trolley where David and Margaret first meet is poorly written, but with such lovely compositions, Ford at his charismatic best and John Barry’s grand swooning score it sets the mood appropriately.

There’s not much on-screen chemistry that isn’t forced down our throats with these other cinematic embellishments. The age and relative obscurity for a Harrison Ford-led picture allow us to excuse contrivances I would normally pounce on.

The third act climax is reverse engineered without much nuance. Out of the blue David is assigned to pilot his lover’s husband on a dangerous mission into France. And for much of the journey they get to know each other without knowing they’re sleeping with the same woman. We see where it’s going a mile away, but Hyams manages to make it all exciting by dulling us to the outrageousness of it all - he even throws in a well choreographed chase scene (also a specialty of his).

Hyams certainly does not reach the mark of the David Lean-inspired romantic grandeur, but with top notch production values and a handsome and young Harrison Ford as an anchor, Hanover Street is rendered watchable. Enjoy.

Water For Elephants

Water For Elephants (2011) dir. Francis Lawrence
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Reece Witherspoon, Christophe Waltz

***

By Alan Bacchus

The film version of the beloved literary historical romance novel of the same title may not have been scorching box office success, but the handsome production values and meat and potatoes themes of moral decency and ethics are refreshingly old school.

For much of the film it's delightfully cinematic and vividly dramatized. In the present day, an old man is left standing in the rain as a modern circus wraps up its tents to move on to the next city. The manager brings him out of the cold, and over a bottle of gin whisky we learn about his connection to the circus of old – the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show.

Flashing back to the Depression-era 1930s, we see Robert Pattinson as Jacob, a Cornell veterinarian student, distraught over the death of his parents, run away from life and accidentally join up with the Benzini circus. His knowledge of animals impresses the charismatic though slightly deranged owner, August (Waltz), and he gets a job. Once on the road he becomes enlightened to the squalor in which the carnies exist and the heinous maltreatment of the performing animals.

Jacob ingratiates himself with the leading lady of the show, Marlena (Witherspoon), as they bond over the animals, and, of course, their mutual good looks result in an unspoken romantic connection. But Marlena also happens to be the boss’s wife, and so there’s clearly some danger afoot. The more dire the financial situation of the circus gets, the more cruelly the animals are treated, to a point where Jacob must stand up for himself, the animals and Marlena.

For the first half, the film coasts on the vivid depiction of the idiosyncratic circus life. Francis Lawrence, who created the visually striking worlds in Constantine and I am Legend, creates another beautiful cinematic spectacle. Large-scale epic sequences, such as the arrival of the train or the raising of the tents, are breathtaking - the stuff of David Lean and other great epics of the '60s.

Robert Pattison is handsome and adequate as our naïve entry point into the seedy travelling entertainment business. His romance with Reece Witherspoon doesn’t smoulder, and Christophe Waltz only piggybacks on his cruel performance in Inglourious Basterds. Therefore, as the visual awe subsides, we’re left with predictable narrative plotting backed by a mostly dull love story.

Despite the narrative deficiencies, Water for Elephants is one of the most visually pleasing movies of the year. Terrence Malick’s shadow is cast over this aesthetic. The Midwestern prairie locale recalls the awe in Malick’s depiction of wheat fields in Days of Heaven. And the train cars that feature prominently in the background of many of the scenes recall the epic staging of the arrival of the wheat shuckers to Sam Shepard’s farm in Days.

For good and bad (mostly bad) there’s also a strong '90s feel to this. The use of the bookended story in the present – the old person reflecting on the adventures of his life, lost loves and the unpredictable journey of life – reeks of Titanic and other schmaltz fare from writers like Ron Bass (Snow Falling on Cedars), Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) and Richard LaGravenese (Bridges of Madison County). In fact, the screenwriter here is none other than Mr. LaGravanese. Unfortunately, we live in different times, and this flavour doesn’t taste as sweet as it did back in those days. But Water for Elephants is still an admirable, under-appreciated, throwback film of sorts.

Water For Elephants is available on Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

TIFF 2011 - W.E.

W.E. (2011) dir. Madonna
Starring: Andrea Riseborough, James D’Arcy, Abbie Cornish, Oscar Isaac, Richard Coyle and James Fox

***½

By Greg Klymkiw

The King’s Speech gave me pathological hemorrhoids.

Thankfully my piles receded after seeing Madonna’s W.E.

This vaguely feminist fairytale crossed with fashion porn is a wildly stylish, dazzlingly entertaining and sumptuously melodramatic flipside to that horrendous Oscar-baiting nonsense.

Instead of Colin Firth spluttering with nobility as King George VI in television director Tom Hooper’s painfully earnest snooze-fest we get an exuberantly acted reverie into the life of Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough), the snappy dressing American divorcee who wooed King Edward VIII (James D’Arcy) into her boudoir, forcing him to abdicate for the woman he loved and thus allowing his stuttering, half-wit brother to mincingly don the Crown of Jolly Old England, hoist Blighty’s sceptre and eventually provide inspiration for the aforementioned hemorrhoid-inducer.

Madonna and co-writer Alek Keshishian (with script consultation from Madame Ciccone’s ex-hubby, Rock n’ Rolla helmer Guy Ritchie) make the deliciously daffy choice to tell the love story through the eyes of Wally (Abbie Cornish) – named thus by her Wallis Simpson obsessed mother. Wally is married to a philandering, alcoholic, abusive psychiatrist (Richard Coyle) and spends her days wandering through the Sotheby’s public viewing of Wallis and Edward’s soon-to-be-auctioned worldly goods.

Here she meets the dreamy Evgeni (Oscar Isaac) a brilliant Russian musician moonlighting as a security guard. He’s an olive-skinned, high-cheek boned Fabio with a Slavic accent and a great Jason-Statham dome. He tinkles the ivories with passion and reads Rainer Maria Rilke.

He’s a catch!

Instead of immediately plunging herself onto Evgeni’s schwance, she mopes about wondering why her hubby dinks around on her whilst sticking herself with hypodermics full of progesterone – hoping that she’ll get herself a bun in the oven.

And then there’s Sotheby’s. Here she ogles Wallis and Edward’s finery and slips into dollops of their passionate love story – even occasionally getting visits from the ghost of Wallis who dispenses Miss Lonelyheart's advice.

Okay, I bet you’re thinking this all sounds kind of stupid.

Well, it probably would be, but Madonna’s insane, passionate direction yields a movie experience that is pure romance. Via cinematographer Hagen Bogdanski, Madame Ciccone allows the camera to glide and whirl its way through the dress and décor of the filthy rich with such abandon that she creates a magical world that we’re very happy to be a part of.

And I reiterate – this movie is, at its peak, pure, joyous romance!

Take, for instance Wallis and Edward’s first meeting. Madonna stages the ballroom dancing with such sweep and form that she has us soaring as high as her subjects. Or in another instance, Edward gets so pissed off with his party guests snoozing through a Chaplin film screening in his sumptuous parlour that he and Wallis serve up champagne spiked with Benzedrine to liven up the proceedings – and liven up they most certainly do.

Then, there’s my favourite scene of all – Edward gets Wallis to engage in a super-sexy dance with a Nubian sex goddess and Madonna stages the entire sequence with The Sex Pistols blasting out “Pretty Vacant” on the soundtrack.

Why? You ask?

Why the fuck not? I retort!!!

Maybe it’s the old punk in me, but I loved how Madonna is clearly enraptured with Wallis and Edward. She paints a portrait of a Man Who SHOULD Be King. He’s cool. And so, especially, is Wallis. Madonna clearly has little use for the simpering brother who eventually places his butt on the throne and his nasty, controlling harridan wife. (At one point, I even imagined King George's buttocks on the throne and wondered if his farts stuttered too. But I digress.)

I genuinely believe Madonna IS a Monarchist, but she seems to be suggesting that it was the British government and the idiotic protocols imposed upon someone like Edward that destroyed the Monarchy. What it needed most was a King and Queen who were cool. And man, the portrait Madonna paints of these fun-loving lovebirds is cooler than cool.

Madonna even has the audacity to create a loving portrait of the late Dodi Fayed’s father, Mohammad al Fayed. Again, I say – why the fuck not? It’s so obvious that the Monarchy had Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed knocked off. Things might have been very different if Edward had been able to tell everyone to fuck off, marry Wallis AND keep his crown!

Okay, maybe I have a bit of a bias here. Now this might not sound like much of a compliment, but believe me – it is. It’s very heartfelt. I used to have the sweetest, cutest, friendliest white and honey-coloured Shih Tzu. I loved her big time. I named her Wallis after – guess who?

Why? Why the fuck not?

For so long people made such a big deal of what Edward gave up to marry Wallis, but you never heard much about her side of the story. Oddly, this was one of my own personal obsessions and I was delighted that it’s a central thematic question that drives this movie and the character of Abbie.

As I write this, I have yet to read any reviews, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that it gets mercilessly savaged. Everyone, no doubt, has his or her knives sharpened to gut Madonna – mostly, I imagine – for being Madonna.

Many critics and maybe even the movie business at large are ready to pounce. In this day and age, when it’s harder and harder to finance a movie and next to impossible to get a movie directed by a woman off the ground, an easy target is someone who is as rich, famous and powerful as Madonna. Oh well, of course, they’ll all be saying (or at least thinking) – she got her movie made BECAUSE she’s rich, famous and powerful.

There’s a reason she’s rich, famous and powerful. She has exceptional style, savvy and talent.

Most of all, making a movie about Wallis and Edward and focusing on Wallis is – dare I say – something we’d ONLY see from a female director.

So it’s Madonna.

Why the fuck not?

She’s been the primary fuel behind an astounding career and one with considerable longevity – driven by a brilliant ability to artistically reinvent herself. With W.E. she not only reinvents herself as a filmmaker to be reckoned with, she does so with audacity and aplomb.

A few boneheads out there will probably attack the movie for being campy.

Is the movie campy?

You bet it is.

Since when can’t camp be art?

If anything, I wish the movie didn’t spin its wheels in its last ten-or-so minutes and I especially wish it didn’t resort to being so on-point in these final minutes about the consideration of Wallis Simpson’s point of view, and for that matter, a woman’s point of view. All of this was there in spades and didn’t need to be so emphatically, obviously reasserted.

That, however, is a minor quibble.

I might also add that only the style end of things, I am so delighted to say that the movie is replete with characters who smoke cigarettes. Watching good looking people smoking on the big screen is almost as pleasurable as smoking. When will people learn that smoking is cool - at least on celluloid.

Damn! W.E. is one of the most entertaining movies I've seen all year.

I feel like a virgin all over again.

W.E. is being unveiled for North American audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2011) and will be released theatrically in North America by e-one Entertainment.

Léon Morin Priest

Léon Morin Priest (1961) dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Emmanuelle Riva, Irène Tunc

***

By Alan Bacchus

While the French New Wavers were running around Paris with their handheld cameras reinventing cinema, fellow French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville continued to make his classical Hollywood-influenced Euro-cool crime pictures, including films like Bob Le Flambour, Le Samurai and Le Deuxieme Souffle. Sandwiched into these stylish films is a remarkably gentle and quiet picture, Léon Morin Priest, featuring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a handsome priest who has a profound effect on a cynical widow in Nazi-occupied France.

Barny (Emmanuel Riva) is a recently widowed mother to a young daughter living like many of her girlfriends – scared witless for her family’s future in her Nazi-occupied village. With Jews being extricated from the village and her being half-Jewish, Barny needs to find a new identity. For women like her, the only option is conversion to the Catholic Church.

Walking into the Church she confesses for the first time at random to Léon Morin (Belmondo), a deeply thoughtful and impossibly handsome priest. As an atheist, Barny initially intends only to fake her way through the conversion process for the sake of her and her daughter. But given the combination of Jean-Pierre’s persuasiveness and attractiveness, Barny gradually becomes a true convert and by the end she is completely devoted to God.

The film begins and ends with a naughty and sexual tease of then New Wave heartthrob Jean-Paul Belmondo as a man-in-frock. Belmondo’s rugged and untraditionally handsome face, even with these heterosexual eyes, is the stuff of dreamy Hollywood. Imagine bad boy Steve McQueen wearing a frock and a reverse collar?

This is not The Thorn Birds though. Melville’s screenplay (based on Beatrix Beck’s novel) is one of the most devout and intellectually rigorous films about religion I’ve ever seen. The near two-hour running time is filled with numerous lengthy dialogue scenes between Barny and Morin discussing the contradictions and attractions of Christianity. At times overly intellectual and at other times spiritually stimulating, the film doesn’t quite hold us through its excessive 117-minute running time.

At the very least, this film is something to be cherished for its place in the filmography of one of France’s best filmmakers. It’s an elegant and heartfelt transition to something personal to Melville. The theme of the French resistance also connects well to Melville’s Army of Shadows (1969), as they are two films about the passionate fight for freedom. One is about guns and bloodshed, and the other, in this case, is about a spiritual awakening and liberation of the soul.

Léon Morin Priest is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau (2011) dir. George Nolfi
Starring: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Terrence Stamp, Anthony Mackie, Michael Kelly

***

By Alan Bacchus

It’s probably the least ‘sci-fi’ of the Philip K. Dick adaptations, and though it’s no Blade Runner or Total Recall, The Adjustment Bureau is probably better than Minority Report, Paycheque, Next or any of the other unmemorable Dick stories brought to screen lately.

If it’s a Dick story, we know we’re in for a mind bending, near-future sci-fi high concept scenario. Here, it's the actual physical manifestation of God, or fate, or divine intervention in the form of the 'Adjustment Bureau', a group of hat-wearing suits who have the power to softly change our reality or change our thought processes in order to direct us toward where we are ‘meant to be’.

For David Norris (Damon), a NY politician looking to become a senator, his attraction to a gorgeous ballet dancer, Elise Sellas (Blunt), is cause for the Bureau to intervene. After a chance meeting with Sellas, which wasn’t supposed to happen, Norris’s protective agent/angel, Harry Mitchell (Mackie), is supposed to cause Norris’s coffee to spill, a minor event that is supposed to prevent him from running into Elise again. Somehow this doesn’t happen, which alarms the Bureau suits. When Norris actually catches the Bureau erasing the memory of one of his colleagues he becomes witness to this process of divine intervention. Now the chase is on – Norris fleeing from his apparent destiny.

The first act is difficult to get through. This is the heavy lifting, getting the audience through the high concept scenario and establishing the science fiction rules. There’s much information to get across, which is always a difficult task. Nolfi does his best to give us the ground rules, and even if Matt Damon is the recipient of this information, it’s still a slog to get through. But then Nolfi makes a surprisingly deft turn at the second act and sails his picture along at a quick clip.

Anchored by a genuine love story between David and Elise, we eventually forget we’re watching science fiction. Nolfi’s sci-fi rules are as minimal and real world based as possible. In this middle stretch, David finds himself figuring out ways to use these rules against those chasing him and beat the system that is preventing him from being with Elise. Nolfi even expands his timeframe by jumping months and years in time to show that David’s battle with the Bureau might just be a lifelong fight for love.

Dick was a master of using futuristic concepts to examine profoundly existential, religious and spiritual themes and concepts. In this case, he cleverly spins the idea of fate and free will. Dick and Nolfi celebrate our individuality and present our minds as powerful forces strong enough to oppose the almighty divine. This is the stuff myths, legends, bibles and Kirk Cameron movies are made of. The Adjustment Bureau rarely feels preachy. It’s just a fun romance cum action film with a semi-serious message.

The Adjustment Bureau is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Universal Home Entertainment.

Something Wild

Something Wild (1986) dir. Jonathan Demme
Starring: Melanie Griffith, Jeff Daniels, Ray Liotta

****

By Alan Bacchus

There’s not much to celebrate from ‘80s cinema. I posted an article about this topic a few years back (HERE), and I actually forgot to put Jonathan Demme on this list. Something Wild, new to Criterion Collection deification, stands up as one of the best films of the decade. It sits in a pile of unquantifiable quirky films of the ‘80s, which are distinct to the decade and represent the attempt of filmmakers to subvert the strong capitalist conservative values of that time. We could also include Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and a handful of Jim Jarmusch films (Down By Law, Stranger in Paradise, Mystery Train) in this bucket.

I can distinctly remember my reaction watching this film for the first time years ago, specifically the remarkable midpoint tonal switch from fun, fluffy romantic road movie to a dark and violent kidnapping and revenge tale. The moment occurs in a convenience store, where Charlie Driggs (Jeff Daniels), a meek suburban schmuck who, on the second day of his rambunctious, spur of the moment road trip with his flighty free spirit girlfriend Lulu, is caught in an armed robbery heist with a dangerous criminal. The scene is punctuated by a raucous punk song and features Ray Liotta losing his cool and throwing around and pistol whipping store patrons, as well as a mighty cool freeze frame in the middle of the action for good measure. It’s a Martin Scorsese-type scene all the way, and we can’t help but think Marty saw this and decided to cast Liotta in Goodfellas.

The scene is also famous for influencing Paul Thomas Andersons' famous midpoint tonal shift in Boogie Nights, when (spoiler alert) William H. Macy’s character, after witnessing his wife boning another dude for the umpteenth time, decides to blow his own head off in the middle of a party. As in Something Wild, this scene represented a distinct turn to the dark side for Anderson.

Liotta is indeed a revelation in this film, a pocket full of rage so dangerous and threatening we can feel it through the screen in our seats. Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith also give fabulous performances. It's one of Griffith’s signature roles, the high-pitch voiced cock-tease character she would hone over the next ten years or so. For Daniels, his “awe shucks” personality represents the conservativeness of Americana in the decade, which makes Lulu’s seduction and corruption as the skewer into the social and political values of the period so delightful.

Demme was a master of using real locations and real personalities from these settings to create authenticity and realism. Watch the scene in the second half, when Charlie, who, while stalking the reunited lovers Lulu and Ray, enters a convenience store to buy a disguise. It’s a comical scene with Charlie donning a garish t-shirt and ludicrously tacky sunglasses. But watch his interaction with the other actors, who seem to exist in the space instead of being ‘placed’ there for the purposes of the film. Same with the end credits when Lulu and Charlie walk away along the sidewalk. The camera pans to a street vendor singing a reggae ditty. Demme has no reason to point his camera at her other than the fact that it feels right for the scene. I doubt this was in the script or even the shot list at the beginning of the day. But it’s the mark of a great filmmaker running on all cylinders and unable to make a mistake.

Something Wild is a classic from a decade with very little classics.

Something Wild is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

Now, Voyager

Now, Voyager (1942) dir. Irving Rapper
Starring: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper, Bonita Granville

****

By Alan Bacchus

Now, Voyager is an astonishingly emotional and epic melodrama of the highest order. Todd Haynes’ Mildred Pierce is running on HBO right now. It’s a decent re-imagining of the novel that was turned into the now classic Warner Bros. Joan Crawford vehicle in 1945. Now, Voyager, however, dramatizes a character arc so grand and powerful, in terms of shear emotional distance it trumps both versions of Mildred Pierce.

Poor Charlotte Vale (Davis) lives a privileged life as the youngest daughter of an old wealthy widow, Mrs. Vale (Cooper). While she stands to inherit the family fortune as her mother’s unwanted child, Charlotte become the runt of the family, indentured by her tyrannical mother to be husbandless, childless and a broken down mirror of her sad mother.

When a good natured and concerned psychiatrist, Dr. Jaquith (Rains), comes along, the ugly duckling is given a chance to break out of her shell and blossom into a real woman. After a period in the doctor’s solitary care, Charlotte’s new social skills are tested when she’s sent on a vacation cruise to Brazil. The exotic locale and social freedom become a transformative experience, especially when she finds love with a handsome fellow traveller, Jerry Durrence (Henreid). Unfortunately, Jerry’s married, though unhappily. This is just one complication in the epic journey for Charlotte. Battling the near psychotic, passive-aggressive evils of her mother, her desire to become an independent woman and find true love with a man seem to run counter to each other.

It’s a landmark role for Davis, the epitome of the strong female lead roles which were commonplace in the Hollywood heydey but gradually disappeared. Just the physical transformation from the dowdy and depressed homebody she’s introduced as to the strikingly beautiful, sophisticated socialite she becomes is astonishing, let alone the subtlety of her posture, rhythm of speech, walking gait and emotional confidence.

In the Todd Haynes version of Mildred Pierce, he seems to have attempted to strip out the melodramatic tone, instead plugging in a new kind of modern realism. Without this filter, much is lost. The Hollywood melodramatic filter applied to Now, Voyager is the stuff of great storytelling and pure cinema. The core conflicts are identifiable to all of us. Whether or not we are the child in a wealthy family, the power and control a mother has over her child is a fundamental conflict with which we can identify.

Director Rapper directs Charlotte’s mother into such extremes that she becomes a pure kind of evil – that Lady Macbeth or Iago kind of evil, so diabolically manipulative we can’t help but yearn for Charlotte’s escape. We’re always rooting for Charlotte to transform her life from the outset.

Even Jerry Durrance, who represents the pull away from her mother, is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. When it appears that Jerry and Charlotte could be together, Rapper and his writers throw even more obstacles in front of her attaining complete satisfaction. By the end, Charlotte’s victories are earth-shatteringly triumphant and her losses severely tragic. Moving so boldly and quickly through these extremes is what makes melodrama so effective and entertaining.

And this is one of the greats.

Now, Voyager is available on the Bette Davis 4-Film Collection, along with Dark Victory, Old Acquaintance and Jezebel from Warner Home Entertainment/Turner Classic Movies.

Love and Other Drugs

Love and Other Drugs (2010) dir. Edward Zwick
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Oliver Platt, Hank Azaria, Josh Gad

**1/2

By Alan Bacchus

The problem with most of Ed Zwick’s films is the disconnect between the need to tell an important story about issues, whether they’re political, social or otherwise, and the disposability of the genre conventions in which he operates. It never seems to work. For example, Blood Diamond, his film about the diamond trade in Africa, lost its credibility due to the numerous explosions, gunfire and action movie peril in which Leonardo Di Caprio’s character found himself.

Based on the trailers and advertising campaign for Love and Other Drugs, it appeared that we were headed for the tried and tested romantic comedy genre featuring two of Hollywood’s hot young and viral actors. Yet midway through this picture following a second act that consists of one fleshy sex scene after another, we’re bombarded with Zwick’s issue-du-jour.

However, the surprise is that it almost works. Jamie Randall (Gyllenhaal) is a new drug rep for Pfizer, and his job entails travelling to doctors’ offices to pitch his wares. He’s the ideal person for the job. He’s handsome, gregarious and someone who treats ‘picking up’ women like a science. Indeed, Jamie swoons and beds as many secretaries as he can in order to get his products on the shelves. When he meets Maggie Murdoch (Hathaway), he’s immediately attracted to her whip-smart confident ways – and the breast she pops out of her bra while on the doctor’s table.

They strike up a quick physical love affair, banging just about anywhere they can. Surprisingly though, she’s the one who wants no strings attached. The more time they spend together the more Jamie’s lustre wears off, which reveals his deep connection with Maggie. A life-changing disease gradually enters the fray, and that threatens any kind of permanent bliss James desires. When the passion wears off the pair are forced to deal with the dead serious realities of life and forecast the type of relationship they would have given Maggie’s debilitating predicament.

Maggie’s illness is treated carefully and respectfully. We never really get a bombshell dropped on us, which Zwick could have used to jerk us around. We know from the first meeting with Maggie that she has Parkinson’s, but it’s such a flippant comment that we barely even take her seriously. In fact, I questioned whether she was lying in order to get her hands on some drugs. This misdirect doesn’t quite work, but it’s an admirable attempt to respect the disease.

The film feels like two halves – one fun and wistful and the other sobering and reflective. The picture might have been aided be a permanent switch in tone from one to the other. But where it falls off the rails is the incorporation of romantic comedy tropes once the story is on the trajectory of doom. The lightness in tone and the rom-com chase finale, which is to be expected in this genre, never quite feel right.

It’s a difficult corner for Zwick to back himself into. Part of the story is a powerful existential drama about a man and woman dealing with the eventual dissolve of one’s mental capacity. But of course, this betrays the expectations of the rom-com genre, which could be like the black plague at the box office. There was a chance for Zwick to shatter the notion of the disposability of romantic comedies by force-feeding us a dose of real life to his characters. But the mix of comedy, romance and heavy drama doesn’t quite congeal.

Love and Other Drugs is available on Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

The Tourist

The Tourist (2010) dir. Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Rufus Sewell, Timothy Dalton, Steven Berkoff

*1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Considering the immense talent and money involved with The Tourist, its failure is completely shameful. Everyone deserves a naughty slap on the wrist for this picture. Hell, look at the writing credits – three Oscar winners contributed to this stinking coiler.

It’s as bad as everyone says it is – an elegantly shot and designed yet lifeless comic romance spy thriller set in Venice, where an international thief and his gorgeous girlfriend are due to meet up. It’s a teasing opening, during which Elise (Jolie) is given a letter from a courier while she sips coffee at a Paris cafe. The note is from her lover, Alexander Pearce, who tells her to take a train to Venice and befriend a man who looks similar to him to act as an unwitting decoy. With the British authorities and some Eurotrash gangsters hot on her tail, Elise uses Frank (Depp) as her decoy. Frank is a humble high school math teacher on vacation in Europe by himself – as if.

Despite Elise’s angle, there are some sparks between her and Frank, and when the action and chases start, Frank is caught in the fray. He tries to convince the people shooting at him that he’s just a tourist. The twists are telegraphed from the outset and fool no one about how this film will end.

In between, the emotionless performances from Jolie and Depp will have most people falling asleep on that first train ride to Venice. Jolie still seems to be playing the elusive spy Evelyn Salt and Depp’s only bit of business is his goofy muggings from his Tim Burton comedies.

Everyone phones this one in, including co-writer/director von Donnersmarck, who directs his action without any pacing, creativity or inspiration. Even his studio-shot, blue-screened scenes stand out like bad Hitchcock-era process-work.

Even the usually fantastic composer James Newton Howard was smart enough not to waste his good stuff on this picture. His score disappears into the background and brings up little if any of the emotions of the film.

The most annoying part of the whole endeavour is the amount of time wasted by the director, who previously directed the magnificent The Lives of Others. This is the peak creative period for von Donnersmarck, and arguably at least a film and a half is now lost from him. Let’s try and forget this movie ever happened.

The Tourist is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Home Enterainment

SUNDANCE 2011 - Like Crazy

Like Crazy (2011) dir. Drake Doremus
Starring: Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlie Bewley, Alex Kingston, Oliver Muirhead

***½

By Alan Bacchus

It’s been three days and us writers waiting in line of the P&I screenings are constantly trying to figure out the ’it’ film of the year. It may have just arrived Drake Doremus’ epic romantic bittersweet journey of love.

Anna and Jacob are in love. They meet in the first scene in a college class, follow each other home, hang out, giggle, hold hands, eat, play around, maybe they kiss, maybe they don’t. Either way they are hopelessly in love. Oh what bliss, what could possible separate them? Well, Anna is British on a school visa, which of course will run out. But she’s a romantic and nothing can stop her from being with her man. So she stays in the US to stay in bed and make love for two months.

She can’t escape reality though and it comes crashing down when Homeland Security detains her for violating her visa after a brief trip back home to the UK. Now, it’s a long distance relationship with the US government separating them. Thus begins the rollercoaster ride of love, the ups and downs of Anna and Jacob - like Going the Distance made by Michael Winterbottom.

After the opening act, Doremus puts his cynical hat on and tests our ability to believe that these two should be together. So are we watching Blue Valentine? Or (500) Days of Summer? Doremus keeps us on edge at all times. Anna flirts with other boys back home, so does Jacob, but their I-phones always connect them. Doremus constantly oscillates between these extremes of love struck pit of your stomach romance and the agonizing missteps, miscommunications which road blocks us between love. Just when we think they’re splits for good all it takes is a short text across the ocean to jumpstart the rollercoaster ride once again.

Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones are close to the last word as recent on screen romantics. Doremus’ frequent close-ups connect them like intertwining vines. Whenever they’re in the same space together, on screen, they seem to engage in a graceful sensual dance .

Pitch perfect hip music compliments the new millennium courtship these two are engaged in as well as Winterbottom/Boyle visual aesthetic employed by Doremus. And so, just as I’m close to shooting myself having to constantly hear about the authenticity in the highly overrated Blue Valentine, I can latch onto Like Crazy, the superior antidote to that other film.

Come Undone

Come Undown (2009) dir. Silvio Soldini
Starring: Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino and Teresa Saponangelo

***1/2

By Alan Bacchus

Two ordinary, seemingly normal people start an affair. It's a familiar story we‘ve seen before, but one which always seems to make for good cinema. After all, if done right we get to live vicariously in the lives of people who fall victim to their carnal desires, but without suffering the pains of the damage which always occurs.

Co-writer/director Silvio Soldini doesn't break new ground with Come Undone, a modest Italian festival traveller, but a pair of completely accessible and grounded performances, including smoldering red hot chemistry bordering on alchemy by his two leads makes this a marvelous little gem.

Anna is a middle class gal with a loving husband. Nothing's particularly wrong in her life, but like a random strike of lightening, or cupid arrow if you will, she falls victim to the coy flirtations of a handsome caterer. Domenico is the caterer, a working class charmer struggling to make ends meet supporting his wife and two children. The build up to their first sexual encounter is well played. A couple of meetings, and even a couple of attempts at consummating fail. Their inability to get together, both due to their jobs and their domestic situations has the sexual tension is bursting at the seams. But eventually they do finally get a room and merge as one in sexual splendor.

It can't be all bliss and we know something has to go wrong. And it's Anna who turns into the crazy stalker bitch when she turns up unexpectedly at Dom's scuba class, a turn which perhaps comes too suddenly and betrays the sensabilities and accessibilies of the characters. The film threatens to fall into Fatal Attraction territory, but thankfully Soldini regains his footing and charts the course of the demise of their relationship with real world believability.

The love scenes are arousing but natural without being stylized in an Adrian Lyne sort of way. The couple have sex passionately and we feel the cathartic feeling of them being together. To compliment the mood the motel room is lit with warm yellows and reds, contrasted with the coolness of their outside world.

Melodrama is kept to a minimum, instead Soldini lets his actors gain our trust. We're strictly in their characters' point of view, and though they're commiting heinous acts of adultery we feel their pain and anguish of the illicitness of their affair.We feel the pressures of the domestic lifestyle they have put themselves into, and the trueness of their love they just can't express outside of their bedroom.

There's a scene towards the end showing Anna and Domenico waiting for their bags in an airport. They are embracing one another causally, with physical skin on skin contact and gentle naturally carassing of their hands together, subtle but dramatic realization of their true love for one another. Come Undone succeeds because of moments like these.

'Come Undone' is the November selection for the DVD-of-the-Month club. Visit http://www.filmmovementcanada.com/ to sign up.

William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet

Romeo and Juliet (1996) dir. Baz Luhrmann
Starring: Leonardo di Caprio, Claire Danes, Dash Mihok, Harold Perrineau, Brian Dennehy, Paul Sorvino, John Leguizamo

***1/2

by Alan Bacchus

There’s nothing subtle about Baz Luhrmann’s hyper kinetic pop art rendition of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. In fact there’s nothing subtle about the filmmaking of Baz Luhrmann in general. He manages to apply his unique staccato style of storytelling he demonstrated in Strictly Ballroom to William Shakespeare, a bold gesture which worked back in 1996 and still works today.

Resetting the tragic love story in the sun drenched Venice Beach, CA in a gang culture environment featuring comic book colours and ultra-hip pop music was like a sledgehammer to our heads. Not everything works perfectly in Luhrmann-land, but there’s enough visual and aesthetic innovation and a verve of energy it indeed elevates Shakespeare to another plane of melodramatic entertainment.

The colours, guns, music, hawaiian shirts is really just window dressing for the monumentally tragic core story of star-crossed lovers who together take their own lives in the name of love and war. The story is powerful in any medium, as literature, on stage, as dance, and on film through the eyes of say, Franco Zeffirelli or Baz Luhrmann.

The film’s high points are the opening act. The first 30 mins is a sprint. Before the story even starts Baz shows us a trailer for the movie we’re about to see. What?? We’re then thrown into a Sergio Leone-style standoff and shootout at a gas station, visualized with aggressive stylistic devices such as camera speed ramping, accentuated performances and sound effects, freeze frames and tight editing. These techniques combined with Shakespeare’s original loopy rhythmic dialogue is electrifying.

The Capulet party which the Montague boys, high on esctasy, crash continues the accelerated pace and heightend stylistic euphoria. Only after Romeo meets Juliet, in the wonderfully staged scene through the electric blue fish tank does the film slow down to catch its breath and engage us with the characters and conflict familiar to us in the play.

Leo and Claire make a fine romantic pairing. We feel the genuine love and passion between them, usually a tough sell considering the very quick courtship (a matter of days before they actually get married). The final moments where a combination of coincidence and unfortunate happenstance causes Romeo to take his life thinking Juliet has taken hers is still powerful, even if the art direction has about a 100 more candles in the church than it needs have.

But this is an over-the-top operatic world of melodrama. And so, in Baz Luhrmann’s church there’s a thousands candles and we accept it as so.

On Blu-Ray the film looks fantastic. Donald McAlpine’s saturated colours pop like never before. Leo has never been lit better than his beautifying star-making appearance in the film. Almost every shot seems to have him angling like a supermodel with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, backlit with a gorgeous sunset, or rimmed with a sharp white light making him look like an angel (with a Hawaiian shirt).

Romeo + Juliet is available Blu-Ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2009) dir. Jan Kounen
Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Anna Mouglalis, Elena Morozova, Grigori Manoukov and Anatole Taubman

*

By Greg Klymkiw

You know a movie about the affair between Igor Stravinsky and Coco Chanel is going to be as entertaining as anal fissures when the camera glides along lugubriously for no rhyme nor reason save for the pretension of its director as characters stare endlessly at each other or at nobody or nothing in particular and worst of all, when the opening set piece - an attempt to recreate the disastrous premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps is presented with all the "style" of those dull performing arts TV specials so popular in the late 80s and early 90s.

While it would be unfair to slog the rich production design and often gorgeously lit cinematography, it's as staid and overtly arty as most everything else in this movie. The picture is often gorgeous, but to what end? The drama is so mute and dull, the performances so sub-Masterpiece Theatre, the screenplay so bereft of any true passion or conflict, that the picture is little more than a foreign language Merchant-Ivory costumer (sans the occasionally trashy/arty Merchant-Ivory aesthetic).

So what do we get? A largely passion-free ill-fated romance between Coco and Igor. Coco, still pining for her dead lover Arthur "Boy" Capel, attends the premiere of Stravinsky's work. In spite of the jeers of derision from all the snooty French people in the audience, she recognizes in Stravinsky's work the same sort of commitment to expanding the boundaries of music as she is endowed with expanding in the world of fashion and perfume. Given, however, director Kounen's middle-of-the-road rendering of the ballet is, one wonders why she doesn't join the rioting Gallic upper crust types. But no, instead she offers Stravinsky and his family a safe haven in her country mansion and her patronage.

This is followed by much staring and a plethora of unmotivated camera moves.

Almost one hour into the movie, we get our first sex scene between Coco and Igor. And what a doozy! It's about as sexy as one of those unmotivated camera moves. Watching it, I longed for an episode of Red Shoe Diaries, but sooner than you can say "cum shot", Kounen cuts out of the dishwater dull gymnastics on the rug and gives us some nice shots of foliage.

Speaking of Red Shoes (minus the "Diaries" part), any movie that features ballet needs to include dance sequences that at least match if not better the great Powell-Pressburger classic The Red Shoes. If not, it's best to just forget it. Emulation of performing arts specials on television just doesn't cut it. Darren Aronofsky knew this all to well - hence, the brilliant Black Swan.

And if you're going to ask your actors to strip down and pretend to have sex, you kind of need to shoot them with some panache.

The second coital snore-fest is bookended with endless shots of Stravinsky's wife looking dour and more unmotivated camera moves, and worse yet, some incredibly hopeless still-life shots of, well, not much of anything really. A few dull conversation scenes about, not much of anything follow and Coco is off on a business trip, leaving Igor in her mansion alone with his wife and family. This, happily, gives us an opportunity to watch Igor play chess with his son, followed by a snail-paced conversation between Igor and his wife where she finally reveals, "I feel like I don't know you anymore." Seeking something even more scintillating, helmer Kounen takes us back to Coco as she spends an eternity sniffing perfumes in her lab and finally, she hits pay dirt and discovers Chanel No. 5 - certainly reason enough to celebrate and return to her country home for another dull round of sex with Igor.

At approximately 75 minutes into the picture, Coco offers Igor's wife some free perfume while Igor plays croquet with the kids. A ridiculous conversation ensues between the two ladies where wifey begs Coco not to interfere with Igor's music. This leads to wifey telling Igor she smells the decay of her own insides as if she were dead. Yup, that sure would make any man's schwance rise to the occasion. Igor and wifey stare at each other and we cut to another boring sex scene twixt Coco and Igor and more unmotivated camera moves and skewed angles during pillow talk.

When Coco makes another trip away from home we are treated to shots of Igor lying on the ground, walking around and wifey sitting forlornly on a swing.

Do I need to go on?

I thought not.

However, indulge me.

We get a dull dinner scene with Diaghlev and Nijinsky. It's actually quite a feat making a dinner party with those two light-in-the-loafers funsters boring. My hat off to our helmer.

After what seems an eternity, Igor's wife and family finally leave so Igor can romp about in Coco's love nest all by his lonesome. Coco reads a letter from wifey and Kounen brilliantly reveals an imaginary wifey behind Coco's back whispering her contemptuous thoughts into her ear. Gee whiz! I cant say I've seen that before.

Soon enough, Igor begins writing music furiously, but when he needs to saw off a piece of Coco ass, she rebuffs him. He goes back to his music, composes a masterpiece, drinks himself into a stupor and Coco loads him into a bathtub without offering even a hand job. Scintillatingly, we get to see Igor lying in the bath alone for quite some time.

Eventually, Chanel No. 5 becomes popular and Igor achieves the fame he deserves.

Both become old.

Alone and adorned with bad, heavily applied makeup to remind us they are old, 'tis only the memories of their passionless affair that keeps them going, no doubt, to their respective deaths.

And what of me? Or you, the audience?

We are left only with the feeling that we've lost 120 precious minutes of our lives watching pretentious art house drivel.

It's a wonderful life, mais non? Yeah sure! Pass me a bottle of Chanel No. 5 so I can chug it back and drown out my sorrow.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment