Over and Done With
November 16, 2015
Spectre (2015).
D: Sam Mendes. DP: Hoyte Van Hoytema. W: John Logan, Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & Jez Butterworth. Starring: Daniel Craig/Christoph Waltz/Léa Seydoux/Ralph Fiennes/Ben Wishaw/Naomie Harris/Andrew Scott/Monica Bellucci/Rory Kinnear/Jesper Christensen/Dave Bautista. (NOTE: Based on Ian Fleming’s characters from his James Bond series)
Oh how the mighty do fall. The newest entrance into the James Bond cannon, Spectre, is quite literally a mess. Its theme song, title sequence, premise, script, and execution are all vastly inferior to 2012’s Skyfall. If Daniel Craig felt done with his portion of this franchise you will feel done with it as well after two and a half hours of this film.
Let’s start with the opening. The first sequence is actually strong. Dropped into the middle of Mexican festivities for the Day of the Dead our Bond (Craig) is already hot on the pursuit, no introductions needed. Yet this opening gives way to a scatterbrained title sequence that lacks any coherent theme or look even. The best visuals are of women made out of wispy smoke, but this is reminiscent of the sand and smoke of the title sequence of Quantum of Solace so not entirely new. Sam Smith’s song ‘Writing on the Wall’ is sadly made worse by the visual confusion of the credit sequence. The octopus imagery, which anyone would already be aware of from the trailer, is just too simple and by the end of the film lacks any significance. For a franchise whose theme songs and title sequence are legendary this is a major misstep.
Next we are subjected to rogue Bond on the run who quickly and superfluously seduces Monica Bellucci to gain minimal intelligence. Bond quickly learns that there are bigger forces at work that perhaps have been puppeteering his life recently. This is the first of many times the writers blatantly remind you of Craig’s bond films as a set and the time line of his character. Christoph Waltz’s villain lacks any originality as he merely serves this purpose of stringing all the films together. In other words, ‘hehe, it was me the whole time!’ Sadly Waltz becomes a caricature in this world. Some great hand to hand combat happens, but none of the action really comes from the villain. The final action act is a video game conclusion, save the princess and get out of the building in time. What a bore.
Bond is still supported by an excellently serious Ralph Fiennes as M and Naomie Harris as Money Penny. Ben Whishaw’s Q finally gets his do and breaks to the surface of the spyage with his gadgets and gizmos galore. Andrew Scott’s C is quite literally a less complex Moriarty, his character from the BBC Sherlock series. Type-casting if it ever needed a definition. Even gorgeous and brainy Madeleine Swann (Seydoux) cannot save Spectre. A character that could have been a cryptic comment on the Bond brand of misogyny gives way to Bond romance that sprouts in a matter of days. It’s so unbelievable it appears stupid rather than old fashioned. But what is bond without women who lay down for him? Maybe this character cannot work anymore.
Spectre is uninspired and slogs on so long you feel you have watched a few different films. Mendes is not coherent on a look or a story. like he was in Skyfall . Craig phones it all in and considering his publicly vented boredom with this character you wonder if the film should have been made at all. Also there is the inevitable comparison with the recent Bond homage Kingsman which narratively addresses technology and surveillance as weapons. This is simply bad timing, but really what everyone is waiting for the announcement of who the next Bond will be as Idris Elba rumors continue to spiral. I for one would love Elba as Bond, if you don’t believe me watch the BBC’s Luther. We shall have to wait and see, but maybe we all need a break anyway?
+ Add Your Relationship Status
November 8, 2015
The Lobster (2015).
D: Yorgos Lanthimos. DP: Thimios Bakatakis. W: Yorgos Lanthismos & Efthymis Filippou. Starring: Colin Farrell/Rachel Weisz/Ben Wishaw/John C. Reilly/Léa Seydoux/Ariane Labed/Olivia Coleman/Jessica Barden.
Whether or not you are in a romantic relationship is maybe just the question of the ages. No matter the time or place the availability of a woman or a man spawned and spawns gossip, books, films and songs. From ‘Jessie’s Girl’ to Pride & Prejudice love and the people we lust for is a theme heavily indulged. The constructed nature of the couple through legality as a means of owning land and/or power is long lost in most modern cultures, but the status of that union is not. The Lobster, from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, so searingly ruminates on modern culture’s near fetishisation of ‘the couple’ that it may well be one of the best films of the year.
David (Colin Farrell) now divorced and the caregiver to his former brother who is now a dog checks into a hotel where he is given 45 days to find a romantic partner. If he fails he is to be turned into his animal of choice. David picks a lobster, ironically an animal that notoriously mates for life, but he appears to make this choice because they live for over one hundred years and well, he likes the sea. The film follows his days as he meets fellow hotel guests, hunts loners in the forest, and eventually mis-partners with a woman. Heading out into the loner world David discovers someone new.
The Lobster speaks to our culture’s growing obsession with coupling. Although social media does not play a role in the film, coupling as filtered through these apps and websites is clearly an element of influence. The film also shows the other side of this coin, the aggressive loner whose path is just as ridged and includes digging their own grave. These communities with David moving between the two allows the film to create a journey without ever revealing David’s intentions. The emotional registers of the performances are all so carefully checked that words lose inflection and simple actions protrude as gleaming truths.
A decently chubby Farrell gives tremendous dead-pan to David whose outlook is bleak and crisp. Not quite robotic, but so straight forward you can hear the silence in Lanthimos’ world which built on order with sex and romance as calculations, not experiences. Farrell is surrounded by a trove of good actors in Ben Wishaw, John C. Reilly, and Léa Seydoux. When she finally appears Rachel Weisz is a great match and brings the second half of the film to life. Her voice-over nicely bookmarks the film although continuously reminds us of her pending arrival.
However, The Lobster appears to end a few times and slightly drags itself out. A key action sequence does not cause any affect in action or in emotion for the characters, stalling out the momentum of the final act. The hanging ending made me gawk, but the whole film was an exercise in laughter, disgust, and poignancy. An exercise that thankfully never endorses anything, but rather imputes the cyclical patterns of how we construct who we value. Or even how we value ourselves and each other based on public affirmations of worth through coupling. The film will surely be an Oscar contender.
Rebel Hearts
October 19, 2015
Suffragette (2015).
D: Sarah Gavron. DP: Eduard Grau. W: Abi Morgan. Starring: Carey Mulligan/Helena Bonham-Carter/Anne-Marie Duff/Meryl Streep/Ben Wishaw/Brendan Gleeson/Romola Garai/Natalie Press/Adam Michael Dodd.
As award season looms the first of many strong contenders hits theaters. Suffragette bowed at the London Film Festival and enticed domestic violence protesters to lay down on the red carpet and call for greater funding. The cast donning shirts with ‘I’d rather be a rebel, than a slave’ caused outrage back in the US. But here in the UK, as the quote is part of Emmeline Pankhurst famous speech to the British suffragettes, the promotion went unfazed. Perhaps context these days is even more important than ever.
Suffragette follows Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) whose dingy East London life in a launderette has little solace but parenting her young son George. Maud is so down she doesn’t even get an ‘e’ in her name, deprived from her very birth. As her fellow laundress Violet (Anne-Marie Duff) recruits her to join the movement Maud’s home and work lives are threatened as she takes on the cause of women’s right to vote and equal pay. She eventually joins action master Edith (Helena Bonham-Carter) who takes Pankhurst’s (played in one sequence by Meryl Streep) call to rebellion seriously.
Screenwriter Abi Morgan, who wrote the fabulous BBC series, The Hour, along with The Iron Lady and Shame, keeps a tight pace in her work. The film clips along not leaving time to over sentimentalize too much. Domestic violence and work injuries are part of the landscape here, Maud’s upper arms covered with burns never explained or referenced to. This subtle hand from director Sarah Gavron helps Mulligan carry the film with tenderness and restraint. Mulligan’s Maud is fragile, but her clear eyes let the practicality of her world shine through. A nice turn especially when help up to last years Far From the Madding Crowd.
Mulligan is surrounded by the best with Streep swooping in much like Judi Dench did in Shakespeare in Love. Bonham-Carter provides the group determination that helps balance a nice performance by Duff as beaten and baby tired Violet. Natalie Press is no newcomer, but her part here is pivotal. You should see Andrea Arnold’s Oscar winning short Wasp to see what she’s capable of. The men are few here, but Ben Wishaw and Brendan Gleeson provide a cadence of reactions needed against Maud’s cause.
Suffragette is in the middle of a current heated debate about the white washing of feminism in cinema. The lack of any non-white representation in the film is clearly apparent, but yet can every film represent everything or everyone? I am not defending the film’s choices, but nevertheless Suffragette ultimately takes on Maud’s story as someone so close to Emily Wilding Davidson. Surely there were class and racial distinctions within the suffragette movement, but what is to be celebrated is the message. In this scenario I do not think there is a right choice that would appease everyone. Nonetheless the discussion is a fruitful one, no one was talking about this ten years ago. Let’s hope the film’s success is a call to arms.