David recommends . . . . . the AGNES VARDA season at the BFI Southbank

Described by BFI as "The godmother of the New Wave".

"Varda's movies, photographs, and art installations focus on documentary realism, feminist issues, and social commentary — with a distinct experimental style. Despite similarities to the French New Wave, films by Varda belonged more precisely to the complementary Rive Gauche (Left Bank Cinema) movement, along with Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Marguerite Duras and Henri Colpi. The group was strongly tied to the nouveau roman movement in literature and politically was positioned on the Left. Like the French New Wave, its members would often collaborate with each other."  (Wikipedia)

Throughout May, the BFI has a near-complete retrospective of Varda's work which began with 1954's La Pointe Courte, made without any film training and aged just 25.



Varda's work is a matter of some controversy. Regarded by many as a feminist filmmaker, others have criticised her films for reflecting traditional images of women.  You can ask her what she thinks when she takes part in a Q & A at the BFI on 6th May.

For more details, copy and paste this link into your browser.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/bfi_southbank/film_programme/may_seasons/agnès_varda?utm_source=dochouse&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=varda

David recommends . . . watching The Exorcist in 5 Seconds

David recommends . . . that you go and see AGORA

Third film in a row with a strong female central character (what's that about David?).  Rather surprisingly, this time round it's pint-sized National Treasure, that cute little Rachel Weisz from The Mummy.

Now don't get me wrong, Rachel is a fine actress. It's just that to my ear she's had a tendency to, well, sound the same. Wherever and in whichever era she is meant to be. Bit like a 4th Former at Hampstead School For Girls, just popped out for a bag of crisps at lunchtime - "Golly, hope Miss Jinks doesn't spot us!"  Soviet Soldier running round the Siege of Stalingrad (Enemy at the Gates)? "Golly comrades, aren't those Nazis beastly!" Sometimes it's a bit like she's stuck in the Mummy. 

In Agora though, Rachel is not alone. It's a Spanish film, spoken in English, with a mixed Anglo-Spanish cast.  And the English actors speak in that same sub-Lumley, lower-upper class or upper-middle class voice, honed, presumably at RADA or Italia Conti. OK, so they are mostly aristocrats, but at the start it's tempting to think we are Primrose Hill or Highgate, rather than in the Roman Empire, Alexandria, around 400 AD. 

Whereas the Spanish cast, speaking in highly accented English, somehow manage far better to send us off to a time and place and culture far from our own. 

In the crime against cinema that was Alexander, Oliver Stone tried to solve this problem by casting the hero and his fellow hunky Macedonians with Irish actors, speaking with Irish accents. To distinguish them from the effete Greeks and Persians around them.  Then there's Jim Cavaziel spouting in Aramaic in The Passion of the Christ . . . 

But in Agora, plucky English prefect Rachel pulls it off, and she carries the film as she's on screen almost all the time.  Her performance is so strong because we see her character grow, age and mature as the story unfolds. And we realise this is a very different Weisz.

Hypatia starts the film as a science nerd, teaching science and philosophy in the days when they were the same subject. Why do the stars not fall from the sky? Why do they seem to move? If the earth is round, why do the people on the sides not slide down?  More questions than answers, even though Hypatia is one smart cookie.

She is an aristocrat and a pagan, like her family and most of her friends.  She works and prays at the famous Library, one of the Wonders of the World, and repository of the written knowledge of Greco-Roman culture. Plato, Aristotle, you name it, all pagans too.

And as a Strong Woman she is determined not to yield to the many suitors who want to marry her, she being cute Rachel. Under the Roman system that would mean abandoning the pursuit of truth for the traditional role limited to house and family.  (Like most feminists, she has, of course, people to do her cleaning for her - boom boom.) Importantly for the story, she is courted from both ends of the very wide Roman social spectrum.

In those early scenes Hypatia / Rachel is largely captured in mid to long shot, making the most of Weisz's youthful looks to convey a combination of beauty and earnest, almost naive enquiry. 

Then one of those titles comes up saying "Some years later . . . "  And now on we see her more often in super close up. Revealing that Rachel / Hypatia is a mature woman.  Like all good scientists, she learns from experience. 

Which is the point of the movie - the epistemology of empiricism, or deriving knowledge from observation, experience. We see Hypatia busying herself with experiments.  As she observes and learns, we realise that neither she nor Rachel are at Hampstead School for Girls after all.  A mature actress is playing a mature woman in an excellent performance.

The alternative source of knowledge is faith, and Agora could have been scripted by atheist Richard Dawkins. For unequivocally the Bad Guys are religious nuts. For beyond the peace and calm within the library walls religious intolerance is stirring.

The Christians have just been legalised.  After 400 years of murderous persecution, suddenly the Roman Emperor is one of them.  And boy, do those worms turn. We are not talking gentle Jesus meek and mild here. No affable, reasonable Archbish of Canterbury around.

Instead it's all fanaticism and hatred, and that unthinking conviction as to a monopoly on Truth which gives organised religions a bad name. Pretty soon the stoning starts. And those Jews had better watch out . . .

The entire film is summed up in one line. Talking with a Christian and hence across the epistemological divide, scientist Hypatia says "You don't question your beliefs - I have to question mine."

Which gives the film it's contemporary relevance. The rampaging Christians have been interpreted by many reviewers as the Taliban.  All ranting and vandalising and walking on coals to prove their God is superior. Their hard core cadres dress in a fashionable all-black, calling to mind the equally murderous Shi'ite militia of modern Iraq.

But I think there's a deeper relevance here. 

We are being reminded that, long before Al Qaeda, Christians spent a millenium and a half massacring people in far greater numbers. Pagans, Jews, Moslems, witches, each other.  Far more than Al Qaeda or the Taliban thus far.

21st Century Europeans and Americans need to remember our own history as we judge the 'extremists' that symbolise 'other'.  All of whom represent formerly colonised peoples.

Traditionally, Europeans and Christians have looked down on 'pagans' whether from their own past or in other, contemporary countries. That conviction of superiority led to racism, colonialism and genocide.

But in Agora we see that, in a very important sense, the Christian revolution took us backwards. It took another thousand years for Europeans to rediscover those destroyed works of Plato, Aristotle and the rest.  And to launch The Renaissance, The Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment.  And still, today, we are having to argue the case for evolution and natural selection.

For Christian extremism is far from over. Christian fundamentalists are electing US Presidents to invade foreign countries and do battle with "Evil". Anti-abortionists kill doctors willing to terminate pregnancies. Gays and lesbians are persecuted. Women are still often deemed inferior, excluded from roles in churches. While priests of a religion based on obeying superior authority sexually abuse our children.

So Agora is not just a "sword and sandal" movie. Important questions are posed via Weisz's mature and convincing performance, the strong ensemble cast, and the swirling and soaring cinematography.  The latter has us flying over a breathtaking reconstruction of a vast, ancient city.  We see Alexandria from space, and it seems to us isolated, surrounded on one side by empty, yellow desert, and by the dark blue sea on the other.  

At the film's beginning Hypatia must feel safely isolated from the outside word's troubles, as she alternates between the hallowed library and her marbled, patrician home. But that world is penetrated and shattered by the invading forces of irrationality, hatred and, well, belief. Bringing us to a shocking climax.

So we, today, must be on guard for similar dangers. Not just from Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. But within our own Western, developed, scientific, supposedly superior societies.

Hypatia is not a creation of fiction, but a real historic figure. She taught and published works on mathematics, philosophy and astrology.  Around 400 AD she became Head of the Platonist school of Alexandria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia

One definition of Agora is "meeting place".

David recommends . . . that you go and see LOURDES

For anyone who doesn't know, Lourdes is a small town in the French Pyrenees where the Virgin Mary shows up from time to time. Consequently so do millions of pilgrims, the sick and disabled, their family members and carers. The Lourdes pilgrimage industry is big business.  All geared around desperate hopes of miraculous healing.

Enter, in her wheelchair, Christine, played by the enigmatic Sylvie Testud.  Christine has advanced multiple sclerosis. She cannot move anything below her neck. Her days are spent in her wheelchair, her claw like hands folded in her lap.  At night she is manhandled into bed.  And back into the chair each morning. Everything must be done for her. She is dressed, has her hair brushed, is taken to the toilet.  And fed.  After each mouthful, her chin is wiped. Ditto when she drools.

In the original French, her situation is semantically poignant and ironic. For a "wheelchair is a "fauteuil roulant".  But a "fauteil" normally means an "armchair",  far more comfortable than Christine's situation.

Initially she seems to display little emotion about that situation. She is an observer. While some around her are sceptical, she voices no cynicism. On the other hand, neither does she appear to be a true believer.  "Not very pious, that girl", whispers one rather bitchy fellow pilgrim to another. At dinner, she compares Lourdes with Rome, and is asked "Do you go on many pilgrimages?" She replies, without intentional humour, "It's the only way I get out". Coming to Lourdes is something to do.  Something to see.

We observe Christine as she observes what goes on around her. There are no special effects or action scenes.  Almost no moments of drama. There is no musical soundtrack. Through and with her we enter into the worlds of Catholicism, faith, and, specifically, Lourdes and the hope of cure.  Initially she is almost disinterested, as we witness with her the grief and despair and suffering of others.

But as the film progresses we begin to enter Christine's inner world. The frustration of being trapped, immobile, in a chair she cannot even propel herself. "I feel useless". Her longing for love and sexual touch. "I want to have a baby".  And as she feels more, so she hopes more and more for her own healing.

Everyone in Lourdes comes across as genuine. The priests genuinely believe. The pilgrims genuinely hope, and genuinely go along with what is required of them. Only one person is genuinely cynical, expressed via humour. "Jesus, The Holy Ghost and Mary are discussing where to go on holiday . . . " For the pilgrims, there are, though, many questions. "Why did God make ME ill?" "Why did God cure THAT man and not me?" "What do I have to do to get him to heal ME?"

The priestly replies begin with the "mysterious ways" line. Then "You must fully open yourself up to God." "How do I do that?" Silence. Cut to the next scene. Those who press further find themselves in complex and sometimes brutal theology. "God has made us all diverse - some are strong, some are clever, some are in wheelchairs. Sometimes we must accept our lot". 

The nearest to a baddie in Lourdes is head helper Cecile, who may have trained at the same place as Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Calling the dining room to order with her stern "shhhhhhhhh-ing". Then issuing the day's programme / commands in a voice both "have a nice day" and chilling.  And chiding both staff and pilgrims alike for not behaving correctly.

But Cecile clearly cares, and is committed professionally and religiously to the well-being of her charges.  And in a sudden moment her personal story hits an abrupt turning point, leaving us questioning the simple division of roles and fates in the story so far.

The brutal, fatalistic element is reflected in the events put on for the pilgrims.  A trip into the mountains is announced, but "of course this is only for the more able-bodied of you, those in wheelchairs must stay behind".  And most poignantly for Christine, the incessant flirting between the male and female paid helpers who feed them, push them around, clean them.

This is a constant theme in the film, and we feel for Christine as this must be torture for her. Her very own carer is told off for neglecting her duties as she chats with an admirer. For, again ironically, Christine is constantly touched, all day long, by her carers. Her body is allowed no privacy, no boundary. Yet the sensual touch of an admiring suitor which she so craves is absent from her life.

But Christine spots a man she likes and smiles, tries to draw him into conversation. Tentatively moving across from the world of the crippled sexless into that other world of flirtation, beseeching and encounter. Does he like her? How will he respond? Will her transgression make her torture worse?

Among all the questions, the most important for the audience is, will Christine recover? Will she experience a miracle? Will she escape the chair? Find sexual love? This reviewer entered Lourdes as an atheist, someone critical of organised religion and especially of the Catholic church. With the paedophile priest scandal so current.  And sceptical about miracles.

Yet despite all that, I felt drawn into this world of true belief, and of a true caring despite that sometimes harsh side. This is caritas, the non-sexual side of religious love. Reflected in one priest's answer that healing the soul is more important than healing the body. Does that come over as frustrating, enraging, or does it enable solace, acceptance?

Consequently I found Lourdes to be a profoundly moving experience. I did not rush from the cinema and convert to Catholicism. But my empathy with Christine seemed to put me in touch with something deep inside my own psyche.

All of which is down to Sylvie Testud, a remarkable French actress.  I wanted to write "young actress", but astonishingly she is already 39.  Testud is professionally blessed with an unusual appearance. Her slender frame is just the right side of anorexic, perfect for Christine. Her face is dominated by a large Gallic nose which is counterpointed by a tiny, pointy chin.  Not conventionally beautiful in a Hollywood, let alone Emmanuelle Beart / Sophie Marceau way. But she is beautiful as her eyes sparkle, and as she gives out those smiles which seem as if the sun has just broken out.

Like many of the great screen actresses, this gives her a powerful combination of the appealingly childlike - all big eyes and cute, cloche hat - and a mature, womanly sexuality. It is thus that Testud conveys Christine's humanity, her inner beauty. Which mirrors the film's theological theme about the relative importance of inner healing, of the soul.

What happens to Christine? Go and see.

David recommends . . . go and see I AM LOVE

which could be subtitled, Bourgeoisie Behaving Badly.

For the first 30 minutes of this elegant Italian movie I was torn between nodding off and going home. When Hollywood wants to mock European cinema it sums the films up as People In Rooms Talking.  

Talking Italian in this case. For talking is what you get, for what seems ages. Members of a super rich Italian factory owning family spend time together in changing permutations in a series of beautiful and beautifully filmed rooms in a lovely mansion, restaurants etc., wearing expensive deigner clothes and all being, unfailingly beautiful.  While saying, well, almost nothing. It was hard to care about them. Though their opulence was routinely offensive to this leftist reviewer, none of them actually did anything awful enough to raise hackles or attention.

Screenwriting manuals tell you that by minute 3 you have to have a "hook".  And around minute 15 an "inciting incident".  None of that here. Someone brings someone a cake - gosh, is this a sudden turning point?! No. Though revealed in this lengthy opening is the patriarch industrialist grandfather's decision to hand over the reins of the factory to his son.  And / but also to his grandson. Which the son is clearly not happy about.

In this opening sequence we alternate between these uneventful indoor conversations and some truly wonderful exterior sequences during which the cinematography is excellent. If anyone goes anywhere you can be guaranteed lovely wide shots of tree-clad hills or medieval cityscapes.  But which gives the film at this stage a strangely schizoid feel, like watching two separate films which have been intercut.

But then, just as I was finally ready for a nap, everything changes. Suddenly, someone married realises they fancy someone they shouldn't and is overwhelmed by desire. Rapidly they pursue - literally - the object of that lust, so cue much sweaty and passionate coupling in the beautifully filmed long grass.

Suddenly the whole film changes. It speeds up with the heart rates and panting of our guilty but ecstatic lovers. The formerly split narratives of the visual and the dialogue come together and tell the same story. The already excellent cinematography hits new heights with a series of visual metaphors. Rain drips off medieval statues as if they are crying. Insects crawl across the foliage behind which the lovers are frolicking. Lots of super close ups.  Increasingly the story is told visually, and at accelerating pace as the combined sense of transgression and jeopardy mounts.

The lovers' actions seem to have unlocked a Pandora's box as further conflicts and transgressions emerge.   A daughter announces she is in love with another woman. Father and son fall out about the direction of the family business.  The scale of conflict widens. Suddenly we are discussing tensions between owners and workers, and between poor countries and rich ones.  We learn an important family member is really Russian.  We go to London to meet with an American who is also an Indian, where we discuss global economics and development politics.  

Suddenly we can understand that languid and very internal opening half hour.  This was, like the finely shot interiors, the smooth, shiny and unflawed veneer not only of the family, and of it's central married couple, but of the bourgeoisie in it's hegemonic role as the ruling class in the oppressive system that is capitalism. The ideological basis of that hegemony denies conflict, we are all in harmony, this is the natural order, of course the rich should rule, and everything is beautiful.  

Once the two lovers cross their own sexual Rubicon this sham is ripped apart and we see the reality behind the curtain.  For the family's transgressor, lust enables escape from the stultifying atmosphere of the house, the family, and their particular bourgeois role.  Their personal journey is mirrored in the film's move from inner to outer.

But anyone who has ever seen a movie knows that when people get naughty, tragedy will follow. But what? And to whom? How will the family react?  Will we get a happy ending? Or a traditional Euro-artmovie one?

Towering over this marvellous film is a magnificent performance by Tilda Swinton, arguably the finest British actress of her generation.  A performance grounded in the physical. At times, in those dinner party scenes, she is stunningly beautiful, made up to the nines, bejewelled and draped in a series of clinging designer dresses. Her manner as elegant as her accoutrements. Just as often though she displays with devastating power the raw ugliness of the sinew-stretched human body, whether at the peaks of sexual arousal or depths of grief.

Swinton's performance justifies the ticket price alone, as does the remarkable cinematography of Yorick Le Saux.

But note carefully, do NOT leave the cinema as soon as the end credits start to roll. Or you will miss the film's real ending.  Where we see the resonance of the film's title to the existential principle, "we are what we do".

David recommends . . . go and see GREEN ZONE

Hated Bush and Blair? Love conspiracy theories? Paul Greengrass's GZ is Jason Bourne in fatigues meets Oliver Stone's JFK. There are bad guys and good guys and no confusing grey areas in between.  And I'm not saying who wins.

Liberals will love this confirmation of their beliefs about those Iraqi WMDs.  Rednecks won't watch it, because it will challenge their beliefs about those raghead cameljockey WMDs.   Pick a side and there'll be nothing morally or politically challenging for the viewer.  Though the emergence of the plot - in both senses - is well-crafted and engaging.

And the action is great. Lots of running around a terrifying Baghdad at night - looks a bit like Peckham but safer.  Rapid-fire combat enhanced by rapid-fire editing.

Matt Damon is in excellent form as Matt Damon. That fat Irish guy from In Bruges is great as a - wait for it - CIA good guy.  Best of all is the surprisingly Glasgow-born Khalid Abdallah who plays a young Iraqi man who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.  And then suddenly becomes the centre of a radical plot twist at the end.

Go and see it.

David recommends . . that you watch KICK ASS

(Unless you don't like extreme and continuous but cartoonish violence.)

Forget James Bond, Batman and Arnie. Forget even Jason Bourne.  There's a new and unbeatable action hero in town.  It's not even Kick Ass, it's his 11 year-old nemesis Hit Girl. This movie is worth seeing for her antics alone, as she takes on roomfulls of mafiosi, and they don't win.

KA is a black comedy John Woo meets the Matrix meets teenage high school rom com meets coming of age movie. It simultaneously honours and takes the piss out of the superhero genre.

It's really funny, if you like your gags, um dark.  Violence occurs throughout the movie, but, though frequent, it all has a cartoonish flavour. Still there will be calls to ban it or it will be blamed for the next untoward event on the streets. On the whole it fits in with the absurdist and ironically comic feel of the whole thing.

Best of all for me is the use of music. Not since Clockwork Orange has a score been thought out so ironically. The Banana Splits song over a mass killing? But wait for Elvis when Kick Ass appears at the last minute to save Hit Girl. Not gonna spoil it by naming the track. Let's just say it is an iconic American patriotic ditty.

If you are not a wincer, go and see this movie now.