A Girl & A Gun

Persepolis (2007), Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi

Took Joseph (11) to see this, and although it's not really aimed at youngsters, he really enjoyed it. I think it would make a great end of term screening for all the copy-pirate teachers out there, although you may want to give parents a heads up on the references to torture, execution and scenes containing scary nuns.

Based on Iranian expatriate Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel series of the same name, Persepolis chronicles the authors youth and young womanhood. The origional comic book drawings make a powerful transition to big screen animation, and I think this might be the first time Joseph has not complained at being subjected to a black and white film. We watched the US (i.e. English) dub, with Iggy Pop as Uncle Anouche (the most optimistic Marxist-Leninist in film history) and Gena Rowlands (playing everyone's dream Grandmother) being the stand out characters and performances.

The story traces Marji's upbringing amongst a progressive, well-off family in Tehran. Her interpretation of the Islamic revloution, its impact on her family and their expectations are covered, as is the popular election of Khomeini and the Iran-Iraq war which Saddam Hussein launched a year later. A couple of years later, Marji is sent by her family to school in Vienna to escape the ongoing conflict, where she begins to try out identities and date boys. She later returns to Tehran, attends university, battles depression, gets married, and tries to live a reasonable life around a restrictive regime, and eventually leaves for Paris.

It's a very honest, human story, and Satrapi doesn't shy from representing herself as unsympathetic at times. The film will suffer from being the only movie dealing with Iranian history and politics that most of its audience will have ever seen: Satrapi's story is brilliantly told, but can't hope (and doesn't presume) to  carry the weight of representing 20 years of the complex story of a nation.    

War, Inc. (2008), Joshua Seftel

Unless you are politically naive to the point of missing the current US military commitments, War Inc isn't a going to be meeting you ''dark political comedy' needs any time soon. It's a straight up, fairly formulaic screwball style comedy with some good set pieces. There are occasionally flashes of what a good satire could look like in the present climate, but unfortunately these scenes are short and fleeting. Like leading man John Cusack, who revisits his hit-man-with-issues role, the film is warm, likable, but lacking hard edges. The absence of any bite capable of drawing blood is a tricky and troubling situation for any war movie.

Brand Hauser (Cusack) is a deadly killer working for Tamerlane, the private corporation which runs America and is managing the worlds first entirely outsourced war in imaginary middle eastern country Turaqistan. Brand is given a mission to assassinate the hilariously named Omar Sherif (Lyubomir Neikov) the countries Oil Minister who is refusing Tamerlane a lucrative contract. He heads to the country's green zone - the Emerald City, undercover as the manager of Tamerlane's trade fare. 

The film veers out of the gloss of the Emerald City only briefly, when Brand heads out to the war zone  to rescue damsel in distress and left wing journo love interest Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei) who has been kidnapped by locals engaged in some kind of pay per view internet beheading racket. While her protests about being against the war fall on deaf ears, Tamerlane contacted soldiers outside die and plead to know what to do and who to take orders from. The rest of the film is pretty much as sanitized and as positive as the high kicking shiny prosthetics of the land mine victims chorus line. The too neat ending is far far too neat: and like a lot of the film, over-relies on passing off gross caricature as satire.

It's certainly not an uninteresting film, but it's a genuinely Hollywood-centric representation of war, and because of that, unintentionally chilling at times.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2008), Virginia Reticker

The film won the Tribeca Festival award for Best New Narrative Filmmaker, and it's my pick for film of the festival. Taking on the complex and tragic story of Liberia's recent social and political struggles, the director managed to create a narrative that was neither soul destroying or unrealistically positive; and to tell an adult, inspiring story which makes it clear that there are no easy solutions to hard problems.

The films title is taken from one of the women interviewed during the film, who comments that former warlord Charles Taylor, president of Liberia from 1997 to 2003, was so publicly devout that  he appeared to be able to pray the devil back to hell. Unfortunately, at the same time he also seemed to be largely unconcerned about the wholesale rape, murder and toucher of ordinary Liberian people, or his involvement in the use of child soldiers. The film focuses on the achievements of the women of Liberia, who came together across religious divides to confront Taylor and the oppositional warlord-run factions to bring peace to their country. Their nonviolent protest contributed to a sea change in national politics and to the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female head of state. It's an amazing story, which avoids being sentimental or sensationalist, and manages to give you hope while reminding you that in life, there are no easy, or entirely happy, endings.

   

Les Deux timides (aka Two Timid Souls ) (1928), René Clair

René Clair's last silent film, Two Timid Souls  was screened at two sold-out special performances during the Tribeca festival, with live accompaniment by the NYC Chamber Orchestra. The commissioned score worked well, although I can't say I'm a big fan of impressionistic composition. It helped kick out the memory of a particularly nightmarish screening of Pandora's Box that some idiot had decided to accompany with Ein Klein Nacht Music. On a loop. So my preference for something a little more experimental can only seem ungracious by comparison. I always think having live accompaniment is a treat, and the atmosphere in the theater was great. I wasn't so keen on the decision to have someone read out the titles; I found it a bit intrusive and would have preferred additional English subtitles since my French isn't up to much.

Frémissin (Pierre Batcheff), a shy young lawyer, is the first of the timid souls of the title. The film opens with a farcical courtroom scene, where Frémissin spectacularly fails to defend his client, the burly, bullying Garadoux (Jim Gérald), who is on trial for abusing his wife. The story fast forwards to Frémissin failed attempts to ask Thibaudier (Maurice de Féraudy) - the second timid soul - for his unfortunate daughter Cecile's hand in marriage. Poor Cecile (Véra Flory), in love with Frémissin, finds herself stuck between two men who are seemingly unable to rise to any action of their own accord. Her father, in the meantime, has been bullied into accepting a proposal from Garadoux, who is now out of prison, a widower, and hiding his criminal past. 

It's a charming rather than hilarious movie, with some great scenes featuring street urchins and imaginary masked bandits. Pierre Batcheff, the films fey hero, went onto star as a radically different kind of leading man in Buñuel's Un chien andalou, released the following year, and to commit suicide three years after that at the age of 25.

The Cottage (2008), Paul Andrew Williams

The Cottage is UK comedy/horror and isn't, as many of you will be disappointed to learn, adventures in the underbelly of public toilets.

There are a couple of laugh out loud moments, and the horror is of the very visceral kind -people not obsessed with gross special effects will find themselves wanting to look away as the next horribly gory interlude looms. At least the plot requires you pay attention, and there's a decent enough narrative running through the film.

The story revolves around two brothers (Reece Shearsmith, Andy Serkis), who have kidnapped the daughter of a mob boss, hide out in a cottage, and watch their night going from crappy to just-about-as-bad-as-possible.

Andy Serkis (Kong, Gollum) is very good and has the advantage of being given the only half-way likable character to play, as feckless, boat-loving, lead kidnapper David.

All of the actors are competent; the problem is with the characterisation - although everyone plays their roles naturalistically (thank you!), what they have to work with is a role call of hideous stereotypes. Unfortunately this doesn't work as the hilarious parody it was no doubt intended to: it just clutters the film with a too large assortment of irritatingly 2D people, including 'psychotic Chinese gangsters'  'London mob boss', 'hen-pecked looser' etc.

Worst of all is the unfortunate casting of Jennifer Ellison, who has apparently been brought up apart from the rest of her family in a Liverpudlian tanning salon run by vipers. It must always be a temptation for any writer/director to produce a film that has more swear words per square centimeter than any other in the history of cinema, and usually I'm keen on a good salty dose of Anglo-Saxon. Half way through this though I started dying a little inside each time Ellison spat out the F word.

End of film heads-up: There's an additional chunk after the credits for those who don't like missing that kind of thing.

Guest of Cindy Sherman (2008), Tom Donahue & Paul Hasegawa-Overacker

Essentially the video diary of Paul Hasegawa-Overacke, creater of Gallery Beat, a public access TV show featuring light-touch reporting on the NYC Art scene, as he meets, interviews, and dates Sherman. You can't help but guess that making the documentary wasn't a hugely positive contribution to the relationship, which ended before filming did. Sherman additionally disassociates herself from the film in this statement.

Like Paul's cable TV shows, Guest of Cindy Sherman can't really be said to offer particularly reaching analysis of the art world and market, or of Cindy Sherman's work. Paul's critisism of the 90's Art world being characterised by a bullish, Hemingwayesque masculinity (with the A list making bigger and more expensive work) sits uneasily with his own unreformed grappling with gender issues, and doesn't really illuminate the success of the very different approach Sherman took. His insecurity about being eclipsed by his hugely more famous girlfriend doesn't get much further than the recognition that it isn't uncommon for men to find being the less important one hard, although there's a very funny radio interview about it.  As a social diary of an extremely interesting set, and as a snapshot of Shermans approach, it's very good.

The film ends up being a multi-layered but slight meditation on identity and its representation, a bit 90's itself in terms of hyper-self-referentialism. It worryingly teeters over an abyss of indulgence and vanity film making, but the directors honesty about his personal limitations and interests, and (ironically) the sheer magnitude of his ex-girlfriends talent pulls it back. The only film I've ever watched that made me glad not to be Cindy Sherman.

Rated PG for scenes where Julien Schnabel is present.

Tropa de Elite (aka Elite Squad) (2007), José Padilha

Slick, pacey action film set in 1997's Rio de Janeiro, won the 2008 Golden Bear Award and one of the most popular films in Brazilian history. Under the slick gloss of high-end American TV drama production values, beats the heart of Søren Kierkegaard.

The main protagonists take the odd-couple form of two of Brazilian law enforcement agencies - the Military Police, and the elite Police Special Police Operations Battalion - BOPE. Corruption within the Military Police is depicted at breathtaking levels of audacity. BOPE, on the other hand, is shown free of corruption but also of any humanity - as a killing machine prepared to go to any lengths to meet its objectives.

The film has been accused of promoting fascism as the only solution for the hideous complexity of criminality and social deprivation in Rio. Capitão Nascimento (played by Wagner Moura), the film main character, doesn't really support this argument. Nascimento is a man struggling with mental disintegration and disillusion, battered against the impossibility of being a good father and husband while working as a BOPE commander, and desperate to replace himself in order to make an escape which doesn't involve his death. His induction and brutalisation of his potential replacements is a giddying and nauseous spiral of spiritual corruption which makes the Military Police's squabble for power and money seem guileless by comparison. It's a powerful and astonishing film in which the director and writers seem to have been channeling Antonin Artaud passing himself off as Michael Mann. Kicking sound track too.

A Girl & A Gun goes to the 7th annual Tribeca Film Festival, NYC

That's right - your favorite film blog is off to where the the movie action is right now - New York City. A Girl & A Gun has been given her shiny new press pass and is off to explore. The Tribeca fest is screening a massive 121 feature films and 79 short films from 41 countries. Obviously I'm not going to be able to take them all in, and I'll be missing a couple of the opening parties (boo!), and some of the press screenings I did really want to catch, due to work commitments. But I'll be on the scene from Sunday, enjoying films until my eyes bleed.

What are my top tips/wanna sees?

Savage Grace (Tom Kalin)                                   
The disintegrating psyche of '60s socialite Barbara Baekeland, staring the fabulous Julianne Moore.  

Baghead (Jay Duplass)          
Comedy-horror with of four young actors, a cabin, and something in the woods.

Toby Dammit ( Federico Fellini)     
Restored 1968 Fellini adaptation of a Poe short story, with Terence Stamp as a booze and drug riddled celeb in Rome.

The Caller (Richard Ledes)                              
Film Noir with Frank Langella as a whistle-blowing energy exec.
 
The Cottage (Paul Andrew Williams)
Violent comedy horror with kidnapping that goes terribly wrong plot.
 
My Winnipeg (Girl & A Gun favorite Guy Maddin)
Maddin's hometown "docufantasia".
   
Elite Squad (José Padilha)                                             
Golden Bear winner and (another) one of Brazil's most controversial films, Elite Squad covers a corrupt special police force operating in Rio.

War, Inc. (Joshua Seftel)                    
 John Cusack back playing a comedy hit man in a fictional Middle Easter country were the US is running its first fully outsourced war. Has to be better than Grace is Gone.

Somers Town (Girl & A Gun loves Shane Meadows)
Comedy about a 16 year old running away from the lovely Midlands for the gold paved streets of London and making friends with a lad from Poland.
          

Son of Rambow (2007) Garth Jennings

Went to see this with Joseph and Mark, and we all loved it. It's hugely better than Jennings previous film, the feature length adaptation of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Jennings wrote the script here, loosely based on his own childhood recreation of First Blood. The film is simply a joy -  a mad bucketful of reckless, playful abandon.

Set in the early 1980s, two boys, different but both outsiders, fall in to a friendship fixed on making their own Rambo movie. Will Proudfoot (Bill Miliner) lives with his mother, sister and grandma and belongs to a closed religious sect hostile to the outside/modern world. Lee Carter (Will Poulter) lives with an adored and ignoring older brother, in a house attached to an old peoples home that doubles as a store house for aspirational 80s consumer items.

Both the leads are outstanding and perfectly cast. Miliner plays the protected innocent whose lack of stimulus has forced him to rely on/develop an extraordinary imagination - which literally explodes when confronted with the amazing feats of Rambo:

"You don't seem to want to accept the fact you're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare, with a man who's the best, with guns, with knives, with his bare hands. A man who's been trained to ignore pain, ignore weather, to live off the land, to eat things that would make a billy goat puke. In Vietnam his job was to dispose of enemy personnel. To kill! Period! Win by attrition. Well Rambo was the best. "

Poulter is just stupidly good as the unscrupulous wannabe wide boy Lee Carter - desperate to win Screen Test, despised by the schools' white sock mafia (how the hell those girls got their socks to stay up for the whole decade remains a complete mystery to me). 

The only scene which jarred for me was Will's hallucinogenic re-imagining of the school 6th form common room (for my non-UK readers, 6th form is typically for 16-18 years olds, taking qualifications to get them into university). In Will's version, it's teeming with goths and new wave romantics - the exact groups which in reality were routinely considered as an unpopular, freakish minority and herded up accordingly. Even with Will's planet-sized imagination it's gotta seem dubious to anyone who was actually around in the 80s that the conformist, insecure and vicious teen majority would be entirely absent, however double dipper and space dust fulled.   

Control (2007), Anton Corbijn

Since the film has to include Ian Curtis's suicide at 23, it's obviously not going to be entirely cheerful. Actually, the film turned out to be both funnier and more heartbreaking than director Corbijn's previous focus on producing videos for U2 and Bryan Adams might suggest.

Shot in brutal-beautiful black and white cinematography, and with a great sound track, the film covers Curtis's brief adolescent/adult life, particularly getting married to Deborah Woodruff (a fantastic performance here from Samantha Morton) while they were both teenagers, and of course, The Joy Division.

The film covers Curtis's fears about his epilepsy and the effect of the drugs he was taking to control it, and the pressure and vulnerability the bands sucess brought, the films central tradegedy is given over to Curis's affair with Annik Honoré. It's testament to the actors and director's abilities that Curtis doesn't just come off as a complete git - having an affair with one woman while his wife was stuck at home with their baby daughter. Sam Riley, who got to play Mark E. Smith in 2002's 24 Hour Party People, which focused on Tony Wilson and also included Curtis's suicide, is outstanding here. Torn between the debt he owes to Deborah for supporting the band in it's early days and the obvious security she provides, and being head over heels with the more intellectually compatible and also pretty hot Annik, Ian is portrayed as confused, weak, unable to cope with the situation, and a terrible dad.

Joe Anderson puts in a great performance as Peter Hook, and while Craig Parkinson isn't a good a Tony Wilson as Alan Coogan was, he does leave you wishing that there were a longer list of Wilson impersonators. Best of all is Toby Kebbell as Rob Gretton, who storms through the film as the bands ballsy, sweary manager, getting the best lines and stealing every scene he's in. My favourite? After a performance has been cut short by a Curtis's on-stage fit, Gretton dismissing his misery with "Cheer up, it could be worse. You could be the lead singer in The Fall".