Wonder-par

Alice in Wonderland is somewhat of a misnomer. Oh, Alice is here, alright, although older and possibly a bit wiser than you’d expect; she’s not in Wonderland, though. Apparently she misheard - it’s “Underland”. A joke that suits Tim Burton’s gothic sensibility, maybe, but it also reveals that Lewis Carroll’s classic children’s book and the director aren’t really the perfect fit they initially might seem. Fact is, Burton’s a far cry from his Edward Scissorhands days - for my money, far and away the finest film he’s ever made - and critical favour towards his watered-down black magic has been waning, even as box office figures balloon in the opposite direction. Underland is less delightfully insane than Wonderland ever was, and the fantastic dress-up Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter do is more pantomime than anything else. Tim Burton doesn’t celebrate and cherish the odd anymore; he was thrust into the mainstream and the only thing they do with weirdness there is laugh at it.

You only need remind yourself of the tiresome addition of a humanizing father flashback for Willy Wonka in Burton’s adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to see that Burton is afraid to let weirdness stand tall and proud these days, and it’s much the same here. Lunatic supreme the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp, but of course) isn’t the incomprehensible oddball of the novel but someone haunted by the past, and while Depp carries this damaged persona off surprisingly well it can’t help but jar, not least because it thrusts him so far into the forefront of the story they might as well add him to the title. I’ve yet to hear any good reasoning behind Burton’s invention of this whole additional story - the original story’s immense charm and appeal was in its freewheeling, loose nature, and that’s something you feel Burton of old could have carried off. This new story arc is yawningly traditional, and the darkness of feeling the added years (Alice has returned to Underland now a young adult) drags the charm down into the mud.

I’ll take the good points where I can get them, though. While a story focused on Alice would have been preferable - that is, one that doesn’t cut away from her entirely as this does - Mia Wasikowska isn’t really a strong-enough screen presence to maintain that sort of thing. She’s pleasant, but slightly innocuous. So despite the mangling of source material, one queen becoming two provides more queen for your dollar, and both Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway deliver. It may be becoming a bit boring to see Bonham Carter in every film her partner makes, but she was always the perfect fit for this role - a screaming, impulsive, big-headed (literally) tyrant. Better, though, is Hathaway, whose White Queen floats around airily and angelically whispers her commands, but Hathaway strikes the ironic notes of someone who’s clearly not that perfect, who may be better than her sister but knows it, relishes it, enjoys their childish animosity.

In the end, it’s all about expectations. I long gave up expecting Tim Burton to impress me. Maybe sticking to the original story would’ve brought out the spark in him again, but he didn’t do that and instead he just poured drab darkness over it. His regular collaborators feel a bit freer here than they have done previously, but one senses Burton and co have fallen into a routine they could walk in their sleep. And Alice in Wonderland might be a dream (or is it?), but it’s a fantastical one, a bizarre one; not one with such inevitability to its tread. It feels less like something Burton would want to make than something concocted in a clinical studio boardroom, and he was just the weird director for hire. C-

P.S. I hope to be around a bit more from now on. This was my first 2010 film, so think of this a New Year's Resolution.

Beware the ideas of Orson.

Written in the style, or at the least in the attitude, of Orson Welles.

YOU THERE! Yes, you! Don't think I can't see you, I've got eyes in the back of my head. Come and sit down. Be quiet! What I've got to say to you is much more important than whatever you've got to do. It always will be. How can I respect you if you're not fully committed to this thing? Good. That's better. Now pay attention. I'm only going to say this once.

You must see Me and Orson Welles. No, no, it's no masterpiece - I can easily admit when things aren't perfect, you know, for often it's the imperfections that make things so palatable to the human emotions. It was always going to be the way with Richard Linklater, anyway - the man's style is too loose, too free to ever let a tightly contained masterpiece out of his soul, and here that's even tempered by the rather obvious structuring of the piece. You can't blame him for that, though. He had to work with the sub-par writing he was given - the man's a director, a visionary, and it's a shame he has such amateurs around him. I'd never let such things pass, naturally.

It feels a little under-budgeted, a little too enclosed to really engage on a sensory level, but we've all had to work with money constraints, haven't we. It all works with the theme of creating a masterwork out of rag-tag bits and disasters. At least it looks good - that Dick Pope's been around for a while, always making things look stripped-back in an attractive sort of way (the best way to be, really, don't you agree?), and he never gets enough credit. Give those costumers, credit, too, especially for undermining Zac Efron's naive cockiness by putting him in dungarees (good lord) and shirts that are miles too big for him. Nice details, but they don't go unnoticed by my keen eye. Nothing ever does. (Stop fidgeting.)

Then there's that Zac Efron. Too pretty for his own good, that boy is. He usurps the whole thing, almost, just by existing. I'm not denying I'd like a thing with him on the side, really, although no one of us has got into his pants yet so I wouldn't bother trying. (Plus if you do I'll make sure you never work in this town again. SIT DOWN.) He's good, though; he cleverly uses the arrogance it's easy to see in him to deepen the character's youthful, misguided arrogance. And really, Christian McKay is so strong, so unmatched in magnificence that even Zac's face can't run away with the picture. And I've not even mentioned that Claire Danes commits her easiest, most engaging performance in several years to her part, or that the ensemble cast makes the film feel even more alive. I see a lot of myself in McKay, actually - the fearlessness, the passion, the raw magnetism. He even manages to make the obligatory "see, this guy isn't a monster really!" moments work by carving them from the exact same piece as the rest of his performance, and muddies whether this moment is really you seeing Welles' soul or merely another manipulation. Without him, the film would be severely lacking; it'd simply be called Me, and that's a ridiculous title. Who's so self-obsessed they'd see a film called Me?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN "I WOULD"? You're fired. Never show your face around here again. I don't have time for amateurs like you.

(B-)

Un quartetto di emozioni

While everyone's going nuts over Star Trek (which I will be seeing, so let's just see if I can be bothered to write anything about that), last night I decided to be all weird and different and I went to see Il divo. Thankfully I refer not to Simon Cowell's pop-opera quartet, but instead to Paulo Sorrentino's lauded film about former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti. However, inspired by the pop-opera quartet and my easily divisible reactions to the film, I'm crossing those caterwauling men (I wish I could use their faces in this post, but they just look like smug, self-satisfied bastards in every photo) with the Seven Dwarfs and bringing you my review in the form of four emotional subheadings. Confused? Yes, you're right! That's the first one. (DoyouseewhatIdidthere, etc.)

Confusion. It may as well be admitted immediately: I went into this film knowing nothing more about it than the couplet "Italian politics" (which is hardly a thrilling advertisement, but anyway). I didn't know who Guilio Andreotti was, I had no cognisance of the events that unfolded before me. I've never been a political person and I'm certainly not an Italian political person (hey, if I don't even care about my own country's politics, I can hardly be expected to care about Italy's). So, for much of the film, I was a bit confused as to who all these people were, what they were doing and why they were doing it. It'd all been jazzed up a bit, probably for people exactly like me, but we'll get to that in a second.

Amusement. Forgive me. But as Guilio Andreotti, Toni Servillo walked like a camp Nosferatu and looked like a cross between David Frost and Milton from Office Space. Servillo's performance isn't by any means bad, but, at least initially, Sorrentino seems all too intent on mining the caricature for laughs, positioning Andreotti's immobile face and hunched body against "hilarious" oppositions like a lost cat. I wasn't amused by the attempts to amuse me, but more the ludicrousness of it all, as well as the time I spent trying to figure out exactly who Servillo resembled. Did I get the perfect description? (Vote now!)

Annoyance. I haven't seen Gomorrah yet, but from what I've heard it fits the same mould as Il divo does- visceral, hyper camerawork, a style aping classic Martin Scorsese; basically, jazzing the dull story up by quick editing, shocking sonoral moments and camera placement that shoves half the frame up to your nose and the other half so far away you need to squint. Il divo adds to the sleek post-modern feel by sticking every character's name, rank and nickname on-screen when we meet them, these labels sliding behind objects and twisting around things and generally making themselves hard to read. You want to make politics more exciting, I get it. But to be honest, the only reason I didn't fall asleep was because you threw in a gunshot or someone yelling every so often so I was jolted out of my slumber.

Melancholy. Alright. So the film didn't work for me on an intellectual level, and that's probably my fault. And it didn't work for me on an aesthetic level, and that's definitely their fault. But there were a couple of moments that cut right through all the bullshit and genuinely moved me. Andreotti and his wife are watching television, and she reaches for his hand, which he coolly gives to her. As they sit there holding hands, staring at the TV, she turns to look at him, and here, for once, the camerawork hits the bullseye. The point-of-view shots linger over the side of his face, desperately trying to penetrate his hard outer shell, and you realise that his wife has lost him completely, no matter how hard she tries, and as she tries again to talk, to break through to him, it's a devastating moment. And then there's the secretary, crying on the bus- a singular moment of unfettered melancholy. Il divo doesn't get much right, because there's so much bullshit, both on the level of plot and of film aesthetics, but when it reveals the deep sadness at its core, it's undeniably powerful. C

Honesty is the best policy.

Duplicity is amazing. Duplicity is shit. Duplicity is okay. Duplicity is the worst film I've ever seen. Duplicity is the best film you'll see all year.

I love Julia Roberts. I hate Julia Roberts. Julia Roberts has a very large mouth. Julia Roberts is sexy. Julia Roberts is better than Clive Owen.

I love Clive Owen. I hate Clive Owen. Clive Owen looks very nice with his shirt off. Clive Owen took this role when George Clooney turned it down (probably). Clive Owen is better than Julia Roberts.

I love Tom Wilkinson. I hate Tom Wilkinson. Tom Wilkinson looks very nice with his shi- Wait. Tom Wilkinson is much better in this film than he was in Michael Clayton. Tom Wilkinson is better than Julia Roberts AND Clive Owen.

I love Paul Giamatti. I hate Paul Giamatti. Paul Giamatti fits into this world far better than expected. Paul Giamatti is funny. Paul Giamatti got what he deserved. Paul Giamatti is better than Julia Roberts AND Clive Owen AND Tom Wilkinson.

I give Duplicity an A-. I give Duplicity an F. I give Duplicity a B-. I give Duplicity a C. I give Duplicity a B+.

I give up.

I only came to, er, check your boiler.

Would you like to spend an evening in the company of yelling, screaming bourgeoisie people with problems-a-plenty? Well, you're in luck. Out in cinemas at the moment are not one but two, yes two!, movies detailing the ups and downs of just such people. What's that you say? You'd love to go, but the credit crunch means you only have enough for one? What a shame. I'll try to give you all the help I can.

If you like your bourgeoisie with a little bit more repression, then why not take a trip back to the white-collar world of the 1950s with Revolutionary Road? There waiting to welcome you with folded arms are the Wheelers, a man and wife with two children (they're around... somewhere. But don't worry if you don't like children because they know they're best not seen or heard.). Frank works in the city, but that's all very constricting and straight-laced so he generally spends his time skiving off, getting drunk and fucking secretaries. (Hey, if it's good enough for those Mad Men, it's good enough for you.) Don't tell his wife April, though. It'll only give her more ammo to sling at him when he tries to explain why he's just not as adventurous or distressed with his life as she is.

But it's April you might be into spending more time with... if you like free spirits that is. Try and tell her what to do or box her in and she won't take it well. She wants to get away you see. Paris, maybe, but anywhere to the East will do. If she's a little distant, just feel her out, and watch her open up. That's all she wants, see. Freedom. All this repression gets to her, and there's no telling what she'll do if all gets to be too much.

Still, she's the more relatable one, and the one they want to sympathize with. I think. See, this film's a bit odd, really. A bit Greek. (Did you see that film last year? It's a bit like this. Only this is a little softer.) Only problem is this tragedy starts going round in circles. Like depression? Good, because this film can't get away from it. The circulation gets a bit boring, really, starts drowning in its own fatuousness. All these people are pitched on different levels and when they bash together it's like a comedic farce meeting a stripped-back realist drama. Be careful treading into this world, because the tectonic plates won't stop shifting. C+

If you're of a more modern mind-set, however, Rachel Getting Married might be just the ticket for you. They're all a bit bohemian here, all kooky and a bit eclectic, although the returning former drug addict sister of the titular bride-to-be is welcomed back with mixed feelings. Daddy loves her; Sister's a bit more wary. So she should be. There's some dark shit in these people's pasts, but don't worry: there's no po-faced deceptions going on here, just natural familial dynamics playing out in improvised, documentary-like fashion- that camera never rests, see, barely lets itself have a break except when one of these people starts monologuing, and even then it's still gloriously open, checking out reactions from people you know and people you don't, drawing people together. You're a person. You're drawn in too. They want you to be a part of this, right? You might find some of their dishwasher antics a bit bonkers but this is warts and all, man. Take the good with the bad, the dark with the light.

Take Kym, for example- the former drug addict sister. She looks a bit messy, like she hasn't washed her hair for a while, and she smokes like a chimney- Mom doesn't like that, but then what jurisdiction does she have anyway, she's never around- and she always wants everything to be about her. Check out her rehearsal speech. I'm sure the good intentions of honouring the happy couple were there somewhere, but like the best of us the only one on Kym's mind is Kym. Fair enough, really, she's been shoved off to the end of the table- not really a place for family members. But anyway, yes, light and dark. This is a woman- a girl, still, maybe- who recognises her own failings, pities herself, has illusions that somehow she can make them funny, and as she stumbles her way through her words you're not sure whether to laugh, cry or hide behind your own fingers. But at least now you have the option- all those Wheelers want is for you to leave with tears streaming down your face. B+

What's that you say? You'd rather see nuns be outrageously ambiguous? Sorry, I don't think there's a film like that showing right now...

Undoubtably Not Very Good

Cuddle the ambiguity. Bathe in it. Hell, you might as well have sex with it while you're there, because that's what John Patrick Shanley is doing. He's so in love with ambiguity he's built it it's own house so he can visit it on weekends. There's really nothing better than not knowing a fucking thing about your characters, is there? I mean, I, for one, like nothing better than leaving a cinema knowing nothing more than when I entered it. Such unilluminating storytelling is what everyone dreams of participating in. Meryl Streep knows this. Philip Seymour Hoffman too. They know you don't need to fully understand these characters, or have them make any coherent sense. That's why they shout; it dilutes your brain function, wills you into submission.

Oh, I'm sorry. I think me and sarcasm got a bit too involved there. But I've kicked him out in his underpants now, so don't worry. It's perfectly obvious that Doubt relies on ambiguity like a crutch, but the problem is that it does it in all the wrong places. Check Shanley's trash, because I'm sure that somewhere in there he's disposed of a checklist of all the Big Points that he runs around checking off within the film. Gender politics, check. Racial tension, check. Sexuality, check. Modernity versus tradition, check. Some of these points are so broadly telegraphed that it's almost absurd, and worse, removes the actors even further from any kind of full characterization. Streep and Hoffman eventually give in entirely to this idea, maybe because in the second half the film basically becomes a yelling duet between the two of them. Not hard, since the film famously only really has four characters of any substance whatsoever, and Amy Adams' precocious young nun has already vanished and Viola Davis' mother already swooped in for her one remarkable powerhouse scene.

You can't blame the two headliners too much, though. I hate to point the finger of blame, but this is Shanley's film and Shanley is the problem. For all I know, his original Broadway play is an utter masterpiece, but Shanley is all too conscious that this is a film and he is all too set on opening it out. Intense focus on wild, dangerous weather is alarmingly foregrounded and feels utterly pointless, while his gathering use of canted angles makes the dialectics feel even more self-consciously unbalanced than they already do. One repeated trope of shouting- both from Hoffman and, in her most interesting scene, Adams- blowing the bulb in Streep's office feels particularly blunt in its intended irony. Since Shanley adapted his own stageplay, too, it's easy to blame him for the script's shortcomings.

But even Shanley knows that this is an actor's film, and therein lies both success and failure. Problems with Streep and Hoffman do not, sadly, lie solely in their denigration into a shouting volley- the accent she adopts easily tends towards hamminess, and too often that's the route Streep takes. Hoffman flips so sharply between the kind, caring and hip priest and the verbose, bellowing self-righteous priest that he's basically a priest with a split personality. But Philip, where's the ambiguity?!

But at least we have some superior people to back them up. Amy Adams is given a thankless role; or rather a thankless task, because where at first Doubt might even seen to be about her precocious, confused young nun, it throws her overboard with such sudden flippancy that it's sad to see such strong work go to waste. Adams' struggling against the script's continual insistence that Sister James is a wholly innocent fool mangled into suspicion by Streep's Sister Aloysius doesn't always come off, but it's fascinating to watch her embuing some depth to the character, shading ordinary moments with a more subtle approach that brings to mind, if in a much lighter way, Sally Hawkins' lauded Poppy from Happy-Go-Lucky.

And then there's Viola Davis. I could give you some romanticized backstory about how I already loved this formidable character actress, but I'll just throw out the title Solaris and be done with it. I think the nub of why the part of Mrs. Miller works as well as it does- and that's very well indeed- is because there's no hankering after ambiguity here. Indeed, it's the opposite- what we get from Mrs. Miller is a truth so surprising and naked that it takes both Sister Aloysius and the audience aback. Which is not to say that there is no ambiguity, no subtlety in Davis' performance itself. Mrs. Miller is warring with herself, wondering at first what the Sister wants and then what she should say in response. And further- this performance succeeds where the others don't, where Shanley doesn't, in anchoring the film in a recognisable universe, in a world we can connect with and understand. In Davis' remarkable ten minutes there are embued histories- of racial struggle, of gender struggle, of family struggle- and they are all mingling together as we watch her. It's hard not to tend to hyperbole when remembering this scene, because it sticks out so boldly, and although this is its design it is no less effective.

But sadly, once Mrs. Miller vacates the film, Shanley's muddy ambiguous wallpaper starts to curl up and he basically abandons Streep and Hoffman to try and yell it back onto the wall. Alright, so enough with my bizarre metaphors and whatnot, but I was actually alarmed by how, in pursuit of such delicate ambiguity Doubt could end up being so crashingly unsubtle. Maybe if Sister Aloysius existed as a coherent character beyond one scene I'd care. Maybe if you made any attempt to anchor this school in a world that doesn't function like a horror movie, I'd see these dilemmas as real. But maybe you're relying on Viola Davis a little too much, eh? She can't hold both ends of your wallpaper. C-

It's A Slum Dog Life For Us

Actually watching Slumdog Millionaire- after my expressions of pre-formed hatred- was a strange experience, because it meant I actually found legitimate reasons to dislike it. And, perhaps, come to terms with the fact that it wasn't quite as dreadful as I was expecting.

I mean, don't get me wrong. It was still bad. Dreadfully cliched and inconsistently photographed. Inanely predictable and dully acted. But it was hard to get riled up against. One of the friends I went with was repeatedly checking her watch for the last half hour or so (and she liked it!), which basically points towards the inevitable conclusion: it was boring. Sure, all the rubbish about destiny might have got up my nose, but it also robs the film of any impetus: of course they're going to end up together, and of course he's going to win, because it is written. And when you don't particularly care about the characters- which it's hard to do when Dev Patel and Freida Pinto (okay, so she's pretty. And?) play them so uncharismatically (the preceding child actors were mostly good, though- why not award them?).

Structurally, there are big problems. If it had gone strictly down the route of THIS is where I got THIS answer from, it might've been easier to swallow the laughable generalizations and alarmingly shallow dips into this cultural pool. You can't throw it tidbits about child labour or gangster's whores or whatever without also expressing where these things come from. According to Simon Beaufoy, it seems, they simply come from the world's desire to kick poor Jamal's ass as hard as it possibly can (so you love him so much more). It's a fable, maybe. But it can't also throw it obviously real details like that early attack on the Muslims and still use the fable excuse. How shallow and naive do you want to be? You might as well have killed his mother via spontaneous combustion.

Early on the energy is good. Some of the camera framings are alarmingly clumsy and I didn't really appreciate the subtitling going all over the map (is this a comic book? No!), but the sharp, frenetic editing kicks the film off at a marvellous pace. The score- bar some awkward placement issues with M.I.A.'s marvellous Paper Planes- also adds to this hyper-kinetic feeling. But it also dissipates as we progress through the story with the second versions of the kids. It's hard to pinpoint where, exactly, but everything just slipped away. If I could've fallen asleep, I probably would've (uncomfortable cinema alert). And when that phone call occurs- was anyone surprised? I figured it out as soon as he said he was phoning a friend. It was probably easy to figure it out as soon as the phone was passed to the recipient of the call (this is me being deliberately vague).

And there's the nib. It may be written, but in that case why do we need to watch it? (I did like the dance at the end, though. Fun.) C-

In the Far Reaches

Sometimes a film gets lost in the shuffle. Shoved out at the end of last year, I wasn't even aware of Far North's existence until the trailer popped up at the university's art cinema recently. But I've been struggling over what to say about the film- indeed, whether I should say anything at all. This isn't because I haven't got anything to say- rather that I'm not sure whether I should say what I have ultimately decided to say. You see, I think my job as regards this film is encouraging you to seek it out, since you probably haven't seen it. But there are two very distinct ways I could get you to do that, each appealing to a totally different type of person. So here are two mini-reviews.

1. Far North is the kind of film rambling, poetic descriptors were made for: the cracking ice over the seas we swoop over; the stadium-like mountain we camp under; the crisp, pristine snow we trudge through- all are captured through beautiful photography, contrasted with the barren sonic planes and the reserved, unnervingly quiet glances of Michelle Yeoh, who leads a minuscule cast with one of the best roles she's ever been given (at least on this side of the world). Shame for Sean Bean, then, who's really let down merely by an accent- knowing where this man has sprung from is quite important, really, and when you find out he's a Russian traveller your illusions of a lost Englishman are shattered. But never mind. There's all kinds of criss-crossing thematic threads about family, solitude, lust, nation, and just plain survival that Far North remains mystifying fascinating throughout. And another Michelle- the younger, stunning Michelle Krusiec- proves a match for her elder namesake with a wary, charismatic performance as the love triangle's third point. For a film where all three characters remain intentionally unknowable, Yeoh and Krusiec, at least, make these mysteries a transfixing felicity, right down to...

[If the above explanation is enough to make you interested, I implore you to stop reading. But if all that silent beauty and reserved glances makes you yawn, read on, and highlight, for this contains what's sort of a spoiler...]

2. Blimey if Far North doesn't have one of the most surprising, baffling, utterly lunatic endings I ever did see. Out of a story of psychological sufferings and quiet connections and rejections comes a true horror film ending, one that manages to remain integral to the interior maneuverings of the characters while simultaneously being completely bonkers. If you want to exit the cinema having been shocked, repulsed and befuddled- in a good way- this might be the film for you.

And there you go. B

Der Goldene Mann

There's been a tendency in recent German cinema- or, at least, the recent German cinema that is deigned good enough to be internationally distributed- to look back and reexamine the country's troubled past century. Obviously this primarily focuses on the Second World War- it sticks out like a sore thumb, dontchaknow?- and I can't help wondering if this is because the filmmakers are now, probably, at least two generations removed from those who were directly affected by the war. We're surely getting to the stage now where direct connections to the war in families are lost before this new generation of filmmakers was born- the war is, slowly, becoming consigned to history. And, if there's one thing we know the Academy loves, it's history.

The Reader- which, I hasten to add, is not a German film but an American-British co-production, although it heavily features many German actors- is indeed all about a generation that were not directly involved in the war. Central character Michael Berg (David Kross/Ralph Fiennes) is part of the first post-war generation- born, it would seem, during the war, but living in a time where the loss smarts so keenly on the older generation that he himself remains freewheeling and content. It's only as he grows up, having had an affair with a reticent but enigmatic older woman (Kate Winslet), that he becomes engrossed in the politics and morals of his country's past. Particularly when his former lover appears as a defendant in a War Crimes trial.

Stephen Daldry's third film- following British ballet fairy-tale Billy Elliot and the elaborate, confounding The Hours- clearly wants to dig deep into the moral maze that is the war and the spectral shadows it cast, but, to twist a phrase, it's all talk and the wrong kind of action. For a film that is fraught early-on with nudity and intimate sexual happenings, The Reader is remarkably cold- even these scenes are presented with almost clinical precision, not the nervous anticipation that should surely be accompanying young Michael's first sexual encounters (for the film is undeniably aligned with him- Winslet's Hanna remains a distant mystery). Expecting these films to solve the moral dilemmas is surely ridiculous- if we could, then such crimes would become thinkable, the one thing they are surely not- but The Reader offers up stultifying classroom discussions and expects them to be readily applied to its simplistic offerings up in the courtroom. I've heard it said, predictably enough, that The Reader isn't about the Holocaust, and while it is obviously a personal story of being forever haunted by a lost love and a betrayal, to negate the aspects that refracting that story through such a damaging period such as the war is basically insulting. Any deftness the film manages vanishes completely towards the end, as Hanna is miraculously excused from her wrongdoing with an ill-concieved (or at least ill-portrayed) plot point, and Fiennes' older Michael connects past and future in a painfully rendered moment with his daughter (Hannah Herzsprung). The Reader feels distant and cool about something that surely deserves so much more life and passionate inspection. C

Likely bound for a Best Foreign Language Film nomination in just under a week is The Baader Meinhof Complex, which, despite no explicit statements to highlight this, is the story of a group of people whose paths in life are born from the collective guilt The Reader so bluntly explores. Mostly students- with the glaring exception of the Meinhof of the title, Ulrike (The Lives of Others' Martina Gedeck)- the Red Army Faction protest and bomb against the political forces they see as fascism, particularly the support of the American war in Vietnam. Parents are, with the exception on an early scene that mirrors the moment Michael has with his family in The Reader, neither mentioned or seen, but their spectre is hanging over the new generation: these are people who either feel guilty for what their parents did, or else still harbour anger against those who did things to their parents.

The film, though, has within itself various generations- as the founders flounder in prison, a second generation rises. By the time we get deep into this second lot's activities, it feels like an entire film has passed just with our following the now-enprisoned originals. While the obvious effect of our emphasized unfamiliarity with this new generation of militants is to telegraph the idea that this is a neverending, spiralling circle that will spin further and further away from the very point of the faction's point, it is inescapability deadly for a film to spend at least an hour (time lost all meaning, I'm afraid to say) with a bunch of people we don't know and therefore can't care about. Of course, we never cared all that much about the founding members themselves, and when they prove themselves to be even more distancing and fragmented as they crumble within prison walls, the problem doubles, because the film decides to abandon the philosophizing and politics (excepting occasional check-ins with Bruno Ganz, saddled, as in The Reader, with telling us Everything We Need To Know) and hang its forward thrust on the tragic unwinding of their lives. This split is, again, between words and actions: too consumed with explosions and naughty sexual inserts and flashes of documentary footage in its first half, the film then expects us to care when it switches to talk about the increasingly muddled political angle of the group, and worse, their personal struggles. At the point of one tragic event, I suddenly got the feeling that the film was only progressing in this manner because history told it to: it had lost any interest in itself. And an audience can hardly expect to care about a film that's given up on itself halfway through. C

The Baader Meinhof Complex isn't likely to win the Oscar, even if it is nominated- Waltz with Bashir is, you feel, too strong for that- but another film mining Germany history proved to be last year's victor (albeit in the conspicuous absence of both Persepolis and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days). The Counterfeiters is actually an Austrian production, and that factoid certainly helps account for the strangely nostalgic attitude the film holds towards what it's depicting. That isn't as bad it might be- although set in a concentration camp towards the end of WWII, this is a camp, as the prisoners note, with soft beds and blankets, a light and polished canteen, and a row of shining ceramic sinks. Why would prisoners get such cushy treatment, you ask? Well, these are prisoners with skills- skills, that is, of counterfeiting. Money, passports- it's what Himmler wants and it's what Himmler will get.

You can kind of see why The Counterfeiters attracted Oscar attention- it's professionally, slightly too slickly done, deals with a dark historical time without really dealing with it and it balances the drama with a touch of humour and that rather odd dash of nostalgic I mentioned (note the bluesy harmonica music. A weirdly incongruous decision.). Thing is, it's a perfectly pleasant film, but despite finishing as a bizarre cross between Schindler's List and Ocean's Eleven, it doesn't leave you with much to say about it. Like The Reader, you feel as though it should treat such a delicate subject with a bit more... well, delicacy. Moral debates exist through the central character (Karl Markovics) and his clash with Burger (August Diehl), the latter of whom continually sabotages the countfeiting line's efforts to succeed, but they feel gratuitous and ring hollow. Sure, it's an extraordinary story, but overload something with cliches and it'll quickly become rote. C

These films- not, as noted, all German productions- all display a strange, and dispiriting tendency- they have the impetus to delve head on into Germany's complex, difficult past, but peter out remarkably quickly, either because they are unsure about what they want to be saying, or simply because they have nothing left to say. Here's hoping that future films mining Germany's past century have the courage to tackle them with the passion and sustaining introspection that it necessitates.

The Poetry of War

Contains spoilers.

Should a film try to approximate other arts? Watching The Edge of Love sent me momentarily back to 2005 and the poetry-on-film double-whammy of Sally Potter's Yes- which was literally told via poetry- and Terrence Malick's marvellous The New World, which I said at the time was the closest thing to visual poetry film had ever come. The question of poetry comes up in relation to The Edge of Love because it ostensibly centres around a poet, Dylan Thomas (here played by Matthew Rhys). Director John Maybury doesn't seem to be- unlike Malick and Potter- making this story into any kind of poem, and indeed, the use of Thomas' words is surprisingly sparing and generally aptly-placed. But in the way that poetry- at least in the vein of Thomas' work- uses words and imagery to mean something other, so does Maybury approach the story of Thomas' entwinement with two women: his wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller) and his childhood sweetheart Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley).

What I mean is that this is a story about images and the falsity they create and present. The Edge of Love has four central characters- our additional one being Vera's eventual husband William Killick (Cillian Murphy)- and it ultimately proves not to have a romanticized view of any of them. But their descent into disarray and unhappiness occurs because, in the midst of the panicked, suspended existence that WWII brought, these are four people that don't really know each other at all. The film's first half is full of laughter between bombings, suggestive trios on a bed and cigarettes passed between the women wearing gauzy bohemian clothing. But all this jollity is emblematic of people who are, by necessity of the situation surrounding them (the war), ignoring interpersonal problems. Thomas kind of gets sidelined here because the picture's true 'love story' is actually between the two women- the two characters who, perhaps naturally, understand each other the best, and indeed, it is the breakdown in their trust that spins the two couples away from each other in the end.

The question of who is centralized in this story is both fascinating and perhaps completely irrelevant. Miller and Knightley dominate both press coverage and the posters; but in terms of the thematizing of imagery and poetry, it is perhaps Dylan and Vera's picture. His poetry, when it appears, dominates the soundtrack by blocking out diegetic sound; but this is similar to the repeated occurrences of Vera's underground singing performances, where Maybury focuses his camera close up and square on her, the cinematography misty and gauzy like nowhere else, making her (rather vocally pedestrian) performance central to our understanding of Vera, where otherwise it would have been a momentary distraction. Vera is, if you want, our heroine, and her singing is the way she has forged an identity, which is then squashed by William's insistence on their rushed marriage, and the ultimate requirement of motherhood. The rather damp conclusion is staunchly melancholic- Vera says goodbye to Caitlin across the bonnet of a car, implicitly including Dylan in her goodbye because the Thomas's were her only way to retain her freedom.

All this is to say nothing of how well The Edge of Love achieves these impactful themes. At one point, the thought flashed through my mind that this was kind of like a poem, because the story seemed so loose and the images so translucent that it was not so much a linear narrative as a circulating, elliptical mystery. This is, perhaps, a fitting description for most of the first half, but the move to Wales loses both the visual beauty and the elusivity of the narrative, and becomes more drab and wearing as the characters slip into unhappiness. Knightley, too, gets lost in the second half, her mixture of Vera as pointed yet vulnerable falling into a glut of glum facial expressions and a ripe Welsh accent that basically shouts 'fake' at the top of its voice. Rhys, though, retains the charming arrogance that makes Thomas so hatefully fascinating, and best of all, Miller continues to justify my championing of her by making Caitlin's wilful, acidic personality become slowly eroded by confused, hypocritical misunderstanding. To say little of Maybury- whose direction becomes gradually more unfocused- is perhaps apt, because this is an actor's film that gives its performers the task of unlocking characters trapped behind romanticized or otherwise false images of each other, kept at the edge of love by lack of communication. B-

Stop steering, and start driving.

Speed Racer is really too amazing to describe in words, so, instead, I present my review in pictoral form. (I cheated a little.)

I'll leave you all to figure all that out. (Except that Speed Racer was probably the best summer blockbuster and I'm angry that it all went so awfully wrong.)

Boxes ticked by Marjorie Morningstar

Film initially appears to be about girl but is actually about man.

Virginal, beautiful ("The Most Beautiful Girl I've Ever Seen")teenage girl dreams of being on the stage.

Teenage girl is held back by her family's prudish/religious morals and their own ideas for her future.

Girl is made to look virginal even when her family disapproves because she's not as bad as her SLUT of a friend.

Girl falls in love with handsome but caddish older man.

Man changes his usual character and actually falls in love with her ("You're not like the others.").

Man takes girl away from her usual sphere of activity.

Girl gives up dreams for man.

Man's unsuitability is highlighted by more suitable but boring/unattractive male's presence.

Someone's death causes friction within couple.

Man and girl are made to look better because they are in love despite ethnic/religious/class differences, highlighted by use of either family's disapproval.

Girl appears at least once looking like a Scottish Widow (except miserable).

Girl renounces man only to remain passionately in love and return to him almost immediately.

Man conceals his whereabouts to protect girl.

Man fails in his quest for success because he's a Great Artist.

Man fails in his quest for success because he's a drunk.

But Marjorie Morningstar lets the side down by failing to check off the following.

Girl achieves enormous, acclaimed success while man fails.

Couple live happily ever after.

And because it rebels, even if just a little bit, I'll let if off with a C.