Shakespeare meets Sci-Fi in this 1950's pulp classic.
In 1609 the Sea Venture set off from Plymouth as flagship of a small fleet delivering supplies and bringing new migrants to the first successful English colony in the Americas, Jamestown in Virginia. Separated in a violent storm, the Sea Venture was severely damaged and deliberately driven onto a Bermuda reef to save it from sinking. Crew and passengers spent 9 months on the exotic island while their ship was repaired, before finally making it to Jamestown.
The story of this adventure captured the imagination of Jacobean England. Including one William Shakespeare, the tale influencing The Tempest. To the contemporary English, America was a fantasy land offering riches and a new future for settlers and the nation alike. Much was written about the continent by wildly imaginative writers who had never set foot there. Thus the Americas became for the 17th Century English a social fantasy of dreamlike possibilities combined with alien dangers.
A bit like space exploration for the generations of 1950s America. Forbidden Planets starts with the characters of The Tempest, and with its' opening situation. A group are (space)shipwrecked and meet some people who've been there longer. Doctor Morbius is Prospero, enabling an update of Shakespeare's exploration of the dangers of science - can it go too far!? His innocent daughter Altaira enables the 17th century consideration of nature versus civilisation, so inspired by the American discoveries. She has never been kissed, and now there are hunky spacemen around! Helpful spirit Ariel has become Robby the Robot. And who now is the deformed monster and witch's son, Caliban? Representing the dark side of nature / The New World / space? Well, you have to watch the film to find that out.
Serious fans of Shakespeare should not come to this movie expecting a deep, intellectually stimulating version of his play. Forbidden Planet is, ultimately, pulp science fiction. But what it captures in updated, 20th Century form is the atmosphere of exploration, and the ambivalent feelings about discovering the new and unknown. From 1609 Bermuda via Prospero's island to space in the 23rd Century Shakespeare's original themes are explored in an undoubtedly interesting manner.
That is largely because of an intellectual influence on the script even more important than Shakespeare, that of psychoanalysis. Freud's theories about the unconscious were popular in Hollywood scriptwriting circles in the 1940s and 1950s. It was common for films of the period to explore the significance in life and society of darker, unconscious motivations, So the real updating in Forbidden Planet goes beyond space and future and explores what it means to be human given Freud's discovery of the unconscious. What it means to us, now, the contemporary audience.
So, in short, Forbidden Planet is NOT a serious version of Shakespeare. But it is a lot of fun and does explore some of the Tempest's themes in a contemporary context.
More event details at http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/whats_on/galleryfilm/forbidden_planet.aspx
I went to see THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE CREED as it was the only show in town. Normally I avoid contemporary British films. Too derivative, too much film studies, too many zombies or gangstas, posh people in mews cottages. And don't even start me on serial Cinema Criminals Guy 'Geezer' Ritchie and Richard 'which US actress is available to play opposite Colin Fith and / or Hugh Grant' Curtis.
And a short while into ALICE CREED I began wondering what the hell will women think and feel who watch this? And do we really need yet another WIP movie - Woman In Peril? For the opening sequence is stunning in it's creation of a sense of menace. Two grim, unsmiling men appear to be collecting materials for some DIY. Then it becomes clear they are preparing a dungeon. Fully sealed off from the outside world and with plenty of chains and locks.
Soon enough it gets worse. Alice Creed is kidnapped and chained up. Scissors appear and her clothes are systematically cut off. The tension is almost unbearable as her naked body suggests a new sexual element of menace.
But this is not a routine WIP movie, nor a routine movie of any sort. A series of plot twists appears which are genuinely suprising. All sorts of the audience's assumptions about the characters' identities and motivations prove incorrect. Let's just say that Alice is not a passive victim. This is a truly intelligent suspense movie which will entertain those capable of managing the claustrophobic tension and menace. For most of the action takes place in just two rooms.
A most interesting aspect of the film is its' cast list of just three - Alice and the kidnappers. My first experience of Gemma Arterton left me disappointed. Did not meet the expectation left with me by the Guardian headline "The vertiginous rise of Gemma Arterton". She does a good job when Alice has to look scared, nay terrified. But once she opens her mouth it's like yet more mockney / posh girl's school standard modern Britfilm chickspeak. (See my previous piece about Rachel Weisz.) As a millionaire's daughter one expects some aristo vowels, but we get sentences like "I thought I was going to (posh accent so far) DOIY!!!"
The strongest performance is that of experienced British character actor, Eddie Marsan, as the long-time pro criminal, Vic. All tension and threat and tattoos. But revealing other sides to a 3 dimensional character. And providing an unexpected contribution to the ending. Give him an award.
The other star of the film is the editing, contributing majorly to the film's tension and menace. By jump-cutting within takes we seem to accelerate horribly towards that which we fear is going to happen. In similar fashion the inventive sound editing jumps brutally at times from silence to sudden noise.
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE CREED is not suitable for those of you seeking a relaxing 90 minutes. Or those recently released from kidnap. It is a very well-writted and dramatic thriller which will keep you engaged and looking for the next plot twist.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
David recommends . . . THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES, and PIRANHA 3D, and THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE
Film of the week won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film - Argentine crime procedural THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES. It's Inspector Morse meets Love in the Time of Cholera. It's 1999 and Esposito, a Federal justice agent, is writing up as a novel a rape-murder case he investigated back in 1974. So lots of flashbacks and forwards.
There's alcoholic comedy and shades of Bad Boys from sidekick Sandoval. And a romantic sub plot that runs alongside the mystery and then suddenly it's, um, not a subplot any more. Finally, as it's the 70s we are not far away from military rule. So there's a political subplot guaranteeing lots of genuinely surprising twists and turns.
Argentine cinema is where it's happening at the moment, and this is a great example. Reminscent of the best of Golden Era Hollywood, an intelligent mystery story interweaved with comedy, romance and social comment. And all beautifully filmed. Do not miss it.
Runner up features a terrifying and repulsive species that hunts in large numbers and destroys all in its' path. That's right, American teenagers. Luckily thousands of them get dismembered, killed, or just chewed up a bit in PIRANHA 3D.
It's Spring Break on Lake Somethingorother, USA, and vast swathes of semi-naked youth are partaying all night and day. Cute MILF sheriff Elizabeth Shue from Leaving Las Vegas just can't keep them under control. So when the revived pre-historic killer fish come round hungrily looking for lunch it's kind of a shame they just laugh when she screams "Get outta the water!!!"
Not a shame for the audience though. As PIRANHA 3D is a fine example of its' genre - gore fest meets teens in peril. They don't often make exploitation movies as good as this any more. So if you like lots of death, blood and mangled bodies don't miss it. The body mangling special effects are great. While many of the obnoxious teens are, of course killed, quite a few are only half eaten. Can't wait to see the Making Of to find out how they did the scenes with kids with only head and torso left and still talking. Cool!
Rarely has so much screen time been filled with attractive young women gyrating in bikinis. Far more than the plot strictly demands. Ditto when England's sweetheart and underwear model Kelly Brook gets her kit off with a fellow porn actress for some tasteful crypto-lesbian underwater swimming shots. The camera does not so much linger as loiter with intent. But don't worry, it's all feminist really as there is an excellent, um, climax involving a porn director's penis.
PIRANHA 3D is really, really, really funny. I was wincing the whole way through.
Bronze goes to THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, second in the Stieg Larsson trilogy. Bottom line is it's not a patch on the first one ( . . . With the Dragon Tattoo), but still a decent mystery thriller. If you've read the book you'll inevitably say it's a disappointment. And if you've not seen the first one, you really have to go and see the first one, first. It's even darker than it's excellent predecessor, with greater focus on Lisbeth Salander's tortured psychology and more details of the grim childhood which was the cause.
Noomi Rapace's extraordinary performance as the eponymous heroine is worth the admission price alone. An astonishing display of brooding paranoia and hate. An injured, scared and angry animal coiled to strike. Imagine the kick-ass action capability of Angelina Jolie combined with the sheer emotional suffering of an on-form and ultra-miserable Juliette Binoche. All the more amazing given that Rapace hardly has any words to say. A masterclass (mistressclass?) in movie acting - all dark eyes and terse facial expressions in close up. Being and feeling, rather than acting.
When she's not around it's a bit clunky to tell the truth. Lisbeth and Blomqvist are hardly on screen together, so their combined chemistry of the first film is just not there. And the film has an annoying habit common to movie adaptations of crime novels. We keep being given information - tons of it - via various pairs of people meeting up and one telling the other loads of stuff. So at times the movie seems to comprise scenes like that interspersed with people traveling to meet someone for another scene like that. "Show it, don't tell it" is one of the basic rules of good scriptwriting, and this film at times shows why.
But THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE is still a good thriller and one of the best films on release at the moment.
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