KILLER JOE - in which Matthew McConaughey is, for once, not just a pretty face.

This review is brought to you by Alex:

Killer Joe’s US movie poster features a bloodied piece of fried chicken. This probably tells you all you need to know about what to expect from the latest piece by William Friedkin (director; The Exorcist, The French Connection). Based on Tracey Letts’ play and screen adaptation and exploring the seedy underbelly of American society, this film does not disappoint.

The Smith family are archetypal trailer-trash, bit parts straight from an episode of My Name is Earl or Eastbound and Down. The best thing that can be said about father Ansel Smith (Thomas Haden Church) is that he knows he is stupid. Gina Gershon is masterfully cast as his second wife Sharla, as feisty as she’s slutty, and no fan of Ansel’s hapless son Chris from a previous marriage. Juno Temple plays Chris’ younger sibling Dottie.  They concoct a plan to pay off debts owed by the hapless loser Chris to a local loan shark, by arranging for “Killer Joe” to rub out Chris’ mother Adele. Chris plans to collect her life insurance in Dottie’s name. Matthew McConaughey is counter-intuitively cast as Joe, a local policeman who moonlights as an assassin.

Surprisingly, McConaughey doesn’t disappoint and manages to step outside of his typical Rom Com repertoire to play the title role memorably, one part smooth-talking gigolo-cum-southern gentleman, the other part malevolent predator.

Of course, in true film-noir style the plan goes very wrong, and we see the family twist and swing, throttled by the Gordian knot of their situation as it worsens each time they try to fix it once and for all. It’s very enjoyable to watch, and tension builds to a climactic final scene where we learn exactly how sadistic and evil Joe really is.  Violence is unflinching but interspersed with humour, and characters turn on a dime, one moment charismatic, the next skin-crawlingly vile. Friedkin, who I was fortunate enough to hear in Q&A after the premiere, has said that his work is about the thin line between good and evil in us all. It’s a theme the film forces us to reflect upon.

His examination of the subaltern world of the South-Western United States, where even policemen are crooked and feared, suits the director’s tonal nod to Grindhouse cinema. In fact several scenes seem to have come with specific acting direction towards that genre.

Indeed, Kurt Russell’s unexpectedly good turn in Tarantino’s Grindhouse homage “Death Proof” is reminiscent of McConaughey’s role here as the eponymous Joe. Friedkin has really managed to bring something new out of the actor, and he is fun to watch.

The rest of the cast fits snugly into this hybrid noir-trash flick genre, especially the feral Emil Hirsch as Chris (worth checking out in “Into the Wild”). Relative newcomer Juno Temple (soon to be seen in “The Dark Knight Rises”) portrays Dottie superbly, Lolita-like in her innocence and subversive sexual power. It is Dottie’s control over Joe that is the lynchpin of the plot and as such Temple carries a heavy weight on her shoulders. She acquits herself fully.

Richly deserving of its NC-17 rating in the US, Friedkin’s oddball approach to directing will be called violent and misogynist by his critics. I’ll leave that to the reader to decide, but he has managed to imbue inanimate objects (a tin of pineapple chunks, a fried chicken-leg, a watch carefully removed and laid on a table as foreplay to brutality) with trauma in such a way that the viewer can’t fail to be reminded of the roles they play in this film long, after they have left the cinema. This is part of what makes Killer Joe refreshing. I’m sure I’ll be watching it again soon.

KILLER JOE played Venice, Toronto and Sitges 2011, and SXSW 2012. It opens this weekend in the UK, and on July 27th in the USA. It opens on August 10th in Finland; August 23rd in Russia; September 5th in France; September 26th in Belgium; and in the Netherlands on November 8th.

The Mirage Flower (あんてるさんの花, 2012)

Tonight the 13^th Japan FilmFest Hamburg is hosting the world premiere of The Mirage Flower (aka The Mysterious Flower of Anteru / Anteru-san no hana, 2012) directed by up and coming young filmmaker Tadaaki Horai.  The film is set in Kichijōji, a bustling neighbourhood of Musashino city. 

Shigemitsu Ogi (Paradise Kiss, Always: Sunset on Third Street 2) plays Teruo Ando, the quiet unassuming proprietor of an izakaya (Japanese-style bar) which he has named using his own nickname “Anteru”.   While doing a guest spot on a local radio station to promote his izakaya, Anteru learns about a mysterious flower from Peru whose petals can cause realistic hallucinations for up to three days.

On his way home, Anteru spots a flower fitting the description at a florist, purchases it on a whim, and takes it back to the izakayato show his wife Namiko (Misato Tanakaof Bride of Noto).  Namiko suggests that they test the flower’s powers out on three of their regular customers: Kusanagi, a divorcee with a young son; Chisato, a recently signed musician trying to make a name for herself; and Takayuki, a part-time security guard with a meddling little sister.

After having contact with Anteru’s flower, each of the central characters encounters an important figure in their lives – someone who has been haunting their dreams and whose relationship with them is unresolved.  Kusanagi (Hidenori Tokuyamaof Slackers 2) is still suffering from the pain of his recent divorce and struggling with being a single father to Shuichi.  The sudden reappearance of his ex-wife (Megumi Satoof Happy Flight) forces him to confront his conflicting feelings towards her.

Chisato (Megumi Yanagi) now considers herself a professional musician on the up-and-up, but her new record producer is pressuring her to change her style in order to become more successful.  After coming in contact with Anteru’s flower, Chisato’s former band mate Naomi (Yukina Kasai) reappears in her life.  Naomi reminds Chisato of her roots as an artist and causes her to question whether or not she has become a sell-out.

Unlike his two friends, Takayuki (Ren Mori) doesn’t seem to have any skeletons in his closest – apart from a troubled relationship with his parents – but he does have secret fantasies about the kind of girl he’d like to meet.  One day while on the job the beautiful girl of his dreams turns up and engages him in conversation.   Remembering his encounter with Anteru’s flower, Takayuki immediately presumes that this girl must be a hallucination.  Real or not, Takayuki is happy to go with the flow for as long as this trip lasts.

The film unfolds in a dream-like fashion with some scenes shot overly bright to add to the ethereal quality.  The multiple plot lines weave in and out of one another in a manner reminiscent of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours Trilogy with a colour scheme similar to that of The Double Life of Véronique. The line between what is real and what is hallucination is so thin that we start to realize that even the envelope story of Anteru and his wife may not be all that it seems.  The references to Hans Christian Andersen remind us that this is not a realistic story but a more of a fable about life.   It is a film about unfinished business and second chances, not to mention love, loss and forgiveness. 

The Mirage Flower will be released in Japan on the 16^thof June at the Baus Theatre.  For more information, check out the film’s official websiteor the website of the production company Musashino Eiga.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

ALL IN GOOD TIME

ALL IN GOOD TIME asks you to suspend your disbelief that a young couple could reach their wedding night as virgins.  It tries to make this easier by setting the film in a second generation Asian community.  As a member of that community, I was still incredulous.  Still, if you can force that issue from your mind, what you get is a genuinely funny, rewardingly spiky bittersweet drama about love - between husbands and wives, and parents and children.  These issues - miscommunication, the setting of boundaries - make this a movie with far wider appeal than a specialist Brit-Asian film. 

For the first half of the film the movie is a solid comedy and centres on the young virginal newlyweds, Veena and Atul, trying to get their end away in a cramped family home. But as we move into the second half of the film we the comedy dissolves into drama, as their marital difficulties prompt their parents to reconsider what their early married life was like, and what married life has settled into. I love how even in the early, explicitly funny laugh-out-loud scenes, we can always see the undercurrent of tension, and that even in the second half of the movie, which is far more emotionally tense, we still get wonderful flashes of humour. This speaks to the skill of the two playwrights - Bill Naughton of the original and Ayub Khan Din's adaptation. And I particularly admire the director, Nigel Cole (MADE IN DAGENHAM) choosing to end on such a conflicted, bittersweet note.

The casting is good all round. Vina (Amara Karan - ST TRINIANS) and Atul (Reece Ritchie - PRINCE OF PERSIA) are suitably gauche and sincere.  Meera Syal is brilliant as always, as Atul's mother Lupa. But it's Harish Patel as his father Eeshwar who steals the movie. As in BRICK LANE, it falls to Patel to play a character who is at once ridiculous but also deeply felt, and the emotional anchor of the piece.  He is quite simply outstanding.  

ALL IN GOOD TIME will be released in the UK and Ireland on May 11th.

Sundance London 2012 - LUV

LUV is an earnest film with flashes of brilliance, but ultimately it stretches credulity too far to be taken seriously. Written by Justin Wilson and directed by Sheldon Candis (YOUNG CAESAR), it tells the tale of a young kid called Woody living with his uncle and grandmother in Baltimore. The opening scenes clash with every preconception we have from watching The Wire. His clothes for school are neatly laid out and he's getting a proper breakfast.  But Woody's day takes a wrong turn when his Uncle - an ex-con ex-dealer trying to go straight - decides to take Woody under his wing and teach him about "real life".  This, it turns out, encompasses a quick lesson in firing a gun and driving a car - clumsy foreshadowing anyone?  Woody doesn't actually do much for half the film. He just watches his Uncle get drawn back into the game.  They share some sweet moments but the relationship is always slippery and slightly sinister - and I love that delicacy of writing.  

The problem is in the second half of the film when Woody becomes a Mary Sue figure, and the finale is quite simply absurd.  At the Sundance London screening, the director asked us to accept the film as a fable rather than as a realistic portrayal of events, but frankly there wasn't enough in the stylistic choices within the film to support this reading.

On the positive side, the film contains strong performances from Common as the Uncle and Michael Rainey Jr as Woody.  There's also some nice cameos from Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover and the legendary Michael K Williams.  The tech package, however, leaves something to be desired. A lot of the film takes place outside at night at the Red One's inability to capture true deep black is a problem. 

LUV played Sundance and Sundance London 2012.

This is not a review of - 2 DAYS IN NEW YORK

Because Sundance projected the film for 30 minutes without subtitles, then faffed about for 10 minutes, then cancelled the screening. In all my years of going to LIFF and watching c50 films per fest, I've never seen something like that happen. Just sayin'

Sundance London 2012 - FOR ELLEN

So Yong Kim's anaemic "drama" is a cinematic dead end, in which very little happens and I cared even less. The first hour of this short 90 minute flick forces unto spend time with a feckless loser called Joby  (Paul Dano) a wannabe rocker and deadbeat dad who's suddenly realised that he's about to lose custody of his kid and is looking for everyone else to fix a situation he's gotten himself into.  But even that description sounds too energetic for a film that doesn't deign to trade in mere dialogue and narrative arc. The only thing the poor viewer has to cling on to is e occasional flash of humour and awkwardness from Jon Heder (NAPOLEON DYNAMITE) as Joby's lawyer.  By the time we see Joby interact with his kid, the Ellen of the title, there's precious little screen time left, and we really get is crass sentimentality. I really can't find anything redeeming in this entire exercise.

FOR ELLEN played Sundance, Berlin and Sundance London 2012. The run-time is 94 minutes.

Sundance London 2012 - NOBODY WALKS

NOBODY WALKS is a beautifully made drama in which very little happens and yet the viewer feels intimately connected to each character, and invested in the emotional response to a new situation.  The performances are subtle and brave, the visual design of the film stylised and impactful: the overall effect one of establishing and maintaining an uneasy tone where seemingly banal occurrences hide emotional crises.

The single plot point that sets the movie off is the introduction of a newcomer to a family that is playing at being beautiful and privileged but evidently isn't functioning at some basic level. The newcomer is vibrant, sexy Martine (Olivia Thirlby) - a young experimental filmmaker from New York. The family consists of Julie (Rosemarie Dewitt), her daughter Kolt (India Ennenga), her husband, Peter (John Krasinki) and their son.  Peter is a sound designer helping Martine out with her film, but while he feels an attraction to her its her that initiates a relationship.  This doesn't go unnoticed by Julie, who is also facing temptation from her inappropriately keen patient (Justin Kirk). Meanwhile, the daughter, Kolt, is envious of Martine's flirtation with Peter's assistant David; equivocal about dating the sweet but unexciting Avi; and sleazed upon by her Italian tutor.

What I love about this film is that characters do things that may or may not be morally reprehensible but their motivations and the morality of their actions is always ambiguous and the more interesting for that.  Is there something more honest in Peter's reaction to Martine than in Julie's response to her parent?  And what are Martine's real motives? Is she consciously exploiting her sex appeal or a victim of men projecting their desires and assumptions onto her.  It's this kind of provocation that makes NOBODY WALKS such an elusive and fascinating film.  I hope it gets the distribution it deserves.

NOBODY WALKS played Sundance and Sundance London 2012. The run-time is 83 minutes.

iPad Round-Up 8 - ALBATROSS

ALBATROSS is a nicely observed British coming-of-age drama by debut director Nial MacCormick and writer Tamzin Rafn.  It stars Felicity Jones (LIKE CRAZY) as Beth, an earnest intellectual teenage girl living in her parents seaside boarding house. Her mother (Julia Ormond) is the put-upon wife of a one-hit wonder author (Sebastian Koch).  Into the mix comes Emelia (DOWNTON's Jessica Brown-Findlay), a teenage tearaway who conducts an affair with the father, and befriends the daughter, leading rather predictably to a confrontation about the implicit betrayal staged over Beth's Oxford entrance interview weekend.  There's nothing massively new here, but I liked the performances, and there was something convincing about both Beth and Emelia - both girls aware that they are sexually attractive but not yet in control of it. I also liked Sebastian Koch as the wastrel father. ALBATROSS isn't a stand-out film by any means, but it is an interesting enough watch, and I look forward to MacCormick's next feature. 

ALBATROSS opened in the UK and Ireland in 2011 and is available to rent and own.

iPad Round-Up 7 - SLEEPING BEAUTY

Deeply dull, pretentious art-house flick about a bored young girl who gets paid by fetishists to sleep, drugged, while they do anything they want to her except penetration.  The debut feature from writer-director Julia Leigh, the movie never explores the full creepiness of what is happening, or even who is exploiting whom. It wants to be subversive and provocative but is more uncomfortable because of the amateur-ish acting that because of any explicit content. This is a movie without about as much understanding or interest in sexual fetish as Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT. And one can only be thankful that promising young actress, Mia Wasikowska, dropped out before this piss-poor indie hit besmirched her career.

SLEEPING BEAUTY played Cannes 2011 and opened in 2011 in Australia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Estonia, Hong Kong, the UK, Japan, France, the USA and Philippines.  It opened earlier this year in Belgium, Singapore and Brazil and opens in the Netherlands on July 12th. It is available to rent and own.

iPad Round-Up 6 - WARRIOR

WARRIOR is a movie that stands in the shadow of THE FIGHTER and looks pale by comparison. It also features two brothers as competitive fighters, one of whom is a "troubled", and a parent who is poisonous and controlling.  And is with THE FIGHTER, the fighting in the ring is secondary to the emotional conflict outside the ring, leading to an eventual reconciliation.  Moreover, both films show the impact of an intrusive media.  Where THE FIGHTER is steeped in an authentic locale, and powered by three superlative performances, WARRIOR feels contrived, emotionally manipulative, and powered by brawn rather than brains.  Nick Nolte, as the alcoholic father, received an Oscar nomination for his role, but this felt undeserved to me.  And as for the two brother, Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton have both done better work.  This is the kind of movie in which two brothers enter a mixed martial arts contest and, no shit, they end up facing off in the final.  Puh-lease.

WARRIOR was released in autumn 2011 and is available to rent and own.

BEL AMI - corruption and decadence in fin-de-siecle Paris

Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod, better known as theatre company Cheek by Jowl, have brought a gorgeous new adaptation Guy de Maupassant novel, BEL AMI to the big screen. Rachel Bennette's adaptation is faithful to the spiky, scabrous, but ultimately tragic tale of a a young man's corrupt rise to power in decadent, politically slippery late nineteenth century Paris.  The result is a film that begins as a beautifully costumed frothy, sexy, jaunt but slowly and satisfyingly develops into a much darker, deeper film.  I thoroughly enjoyed it - luxuriating in Odile Dicks-Mireaux's wonderful costumes and Stefano Falivene's cinematography.   But most of all, I enjoyed the quality of the ensemble cast.  Robert Pattinson is genuinely impressive and charismatic as social-climbing, narcissistic, capricious George Duroy, an ex-soldier who arrives in Paris without a penny and shamelessly uses his contacts, and their wives sexual frustration, to his advantage.  (It is a far more credible transition to post-franchise adult drama than Daniel Radcliffe achieved.)  But the real fun comes with the three women who Duroy exploits. The first is pretty little housewife Clotilde, played with infinite vulnerability and subtlety by Christina Ricci in heart-breaking performance.  The second is Kristin Scott Thomas' pious, pathetic Virginie, wife of Colm Meaney's newspaper editor.  It is rare to see Scott Thomas look undone by love, as opposed to her characteristic froideur and supreme control, but she is completely convincing.  And finally, there is Uma Thurman as the beautiful, brilliant Madeleine Forrestier - in what is surely a career-best performance. Thurman is simply maginificent.  She perfectly articulates the constrictions placed on an intelligent political woman in an era when she had to exercise her influence through men.  The resulting film, and tragedy, is as much Madeleine's as Georges', and I would love to see Thurman offered more roles like this.

BEL AMI played German 2012 and is on release in the UK, Portugal, Belgium, Lithuania, Ireland and the UK. It opens on the 22nd March in the Czech Republic, it opens on 29th March in Russia, Singapore and Estonia, on 5th April in the Netherlands, on 13th April in Italy, on 26th April in Germany, on 24th May in Australia, on 8th June in the USA, on 27th June in France and on 18th October in Argentina.

Wild Berries (蛇イチゴ, 2003)

There are many theories as to how the Asian variety of mock strawberry hebi  ichigo (Duchesnea chrysantha) – quite literally “snake strawberry” got its name.  The name is so old – the Japanese adopted the name from the Chinese – that no one knows its origin for certain.  This pretty little flowering plant of the rose family is found growing in the wild all over Japan.  It resembles a wild strawberry, but disappoints when eaten for it is bland.  After watching Miwa Nishikawa’s debut feature film Hebi Ichigo (Wild Berries/蛇イチゴ, 2003), I had to think of the English idiom “snake in the grass”, for in her film the members of the Akechi family  are like the hebi ichigo: on the surface they appear as lovely as wild strawberries but it is all a façade.  In fact, the more we learn about their true personalities, the more they appear to be a den of venomous snakes. 

The Akechi family have mastered the art of tatemae(建前,  the public face one is expected to uphold for the sake of family/work) to such a high degree that not even other members of the family are aware of each other’s honne (本音, one’s true feelings and desires).  The father, Yoshiro Akechi (Sei Hiraizumi), has lost his job as a salaryman but puts on a pretense of going off to “work” each day in the desperate hope of finding a job so that he does not lose face with his family.  His wife, Akiko (Naoko Otani) plays the role of dutiful housewife, taking care of the household and her increasingly senile father-in-law Kyozo Akechi played with terrific comic timing by the great rakugo storyteller Matsunosuke Shofukutei.  Akiko never complains, despite the fact that her situation has become intolerable. 

When their daughter, the straight-laced school teacher Tomoko (Miho Tsumiki), brings her boyfriend Kamata (Toru Tezuka) home to meet the folks, he is totally taken in by the Akechi family’s apparent normalcy.  Having been raised in a privileged family of inherited wealth, Kamata thinks that he has found a potential wife from the ideal family in which the mother and father selflessly sacrifice themselves by working hard for the good of the family.  This public façade (tatemae) comes crashing down at the grandfather’s funeral when one-by-one the members of the Akechi family begin to reveal their true selves (honne).  The greatest family secret of all is Tomoko's disowned brother Shuji (Hirayuki Miyasako), the proverbial black sheep of the family, whose unexpected return brings even more chaos. 

On the surface, this sounds like an absolutely depressing tale, but Nishikawa has written a brilliant black comedy on par, in my opinion, with the classic Alec Guinness vehicle Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer, 1949).  It’s the kind of humour that has one cringing and laughing at the same time.  On the Japanese DVD release of Hebi Ichigo the acerbic dialogue has been excellently translated by Linda Hoaglund (director of ANPO: Art X War) for the English subtitles.  It is rare for a debut feature film to look and sound so terrific, but Nishikawa was fortunate to have the guiding hand of Hirokazu Koreeda (After Life, Still Walking) as her producer.  Not only did the film go on to win Nishikawa the Best New Director award at the 2004 Yokohama Film Festival, but it marked the beginning of a directorial career that has been brilliant so far with Sway (2006) and Dear Doctor (2009) bringing her much critical praise.

Hebi Ichigo is available via cdjapan:

Hebi Ichigo (English Subtitles)

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE is an offensive film based on a faithful adaptation of an offensive novel. To that end, the blame for this exploitative, incredible (literally) movie lies with Jonathan Safran Foer - the novelist who exploited 9-11 to further his narcissistic fictional stylings.  It's hard to see how screenwriter Eric Roth could've adapted the film while minimises the absurd central conceit that powers the film.  And as for Stephen Daldry - once again, is it his poor judgement or his inability to disentangle himself from the mawkishness and self-indulgence that pollutes the novel?

The Big Idea is that a kid called Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), borderline autistic, is so traumatised by his father's death in 9-11 that he obsesses over the idea that his father might have left him one last puzzle - a key with the name "black".  So he roams Manhattan interviewing every black, looking for the lock that his key will fit - some of the time, accompanied by a mute old man call The Renter (Max von Sydow) who turns out to be his grandfather (no real spoiler there).  Eventually, he finds the lock, and we discover why his mother is being so apparently irresponsible, but none of it really feels credible.  And, as with all high concept films, the incredible nature of the premise truly undermines our empathy with the characters. That said, even without the ludicrous concept, EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE would stretch any viewers patience.  The characters either fall between the downright irritating (Oskar Schell and his mother) or the unbelievably good-hearted (Oskar's father - surely the most attentive screen dad in history).  One can only assume that it's the presence of Hanks and Bullocks - Oscar sweethearts - that got this film nominated.  Max von Sydow is sympathetic - sure - but his nomination looks like an end-of-career pat-on-the-back rather than a specific acclamation.   

All I can say is that this is hands down the most irritating, exploitative film I have seen in quite some time. I discard it.

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE is already on release in the USA and Canada. It will play Berlin 2012. It opens on February 16th in Germany, Portugal, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, the UK and Japan. It opens on February 24th in Argentina, Australia, Chile and Finland. It opens on February 29th in Belgium, France, Singapore and Brazil. It opens on March 8th in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands; on March 16th in Italy, Spain and Turkey; and on March 22nd in Slovenia.  EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE has been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and Max von Sydow has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. 

THE GREY

Joe Carnahan (THE A-TEAM, SMOKIN' ACES, NARC) delivers a raw, pure, man versus nature thriller that delivers on every level - empathetic, tense, emotionally affecting, beautiful, brutal. Based on a short story by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, the movie follows a group of workers in the arse-end of Alaska. Their plane home crashes into the snowbound wildnerness, leaving the handful of "survivors" to battle against extreme cold and some hard-core mean wolves. Against such extreme stakes, we learn a little about their past lives, and a lot about their characters. We start to care about them just as it becomes clear that the Joe Carnahan is not going to pull any punches. A lot has been said about how this is a classic "man versus nature" epic, wrestling back Hollywood from the pretty boys. But to me, it played more like a character study set against some awesome landscapes and with a lot of genuine scares. Particular kudos to the cast of "B-listers" who add real pathos to the film - Joe Anderson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Nonso Anozie, and in particular Dallas Roberts (Alicia's brother in THE GOOD WIFE.) But no-one's going to deny that this is really Liam Neeson's film. His transformation from Irish character actor to Hollywood action hero is surprising until you see him in action. There is no actor who drips more integrity, competence, and - in a stunning final scene that drips into a post-credit shot - more bad-assery. I loved every minute of it. 

THE GREY was released this weekend in the USA, UK, Canada, Ireland and Turkey. It opens on February 3rd in Lithuania; on February 16th in Australia and Poland; on February 23rd in Belgium, Denmark, Singapore, Romania and Spain; on February 29th in France; on March 8th in the Netherlands; on March 20th in Norway; and on April 12th in Argentina and Germany.

Sway (ゆれる, 2006)

Is all that we see or seem

But but a dream within a dream?

- Edgar Allen Poe

The human mind loves to try to bring order to chaos.  That is why readers are drawn to classic detective fiction like that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie where we marvel at the ability of Sherlock Holmes or Hercules Poirot to solve the mystery conclusively by bringing together threads of clues and witness testimonies.  The modern detective; however, will tell you that such eyewitness testimony is often not very reliable.  Not only can it be coloured by prejudice, but the human mind can sometimes play tricks on us.

The first sign in Sway (ゆれる, 2006) that Takeru Hayakawa (Joe Odagiri) is not a reliable witness comes when he returns to his home town for his mother’s funeral. The self-anointed black sheep of the Hayakawa family, Takeru barges late into the funeral services dressed head to toe in red, inciting his father (Masatō Ibu) into a rage over his lack of filial piety.  The root of the bad feeling appears to be Takeru’s decision to reject joining the family business – a non-nondescript gas station – to become a big shot photographer in Tokyo.  Yet, Isamu Hayakawa’s extreme reaction to his son suggests the strife runs even deeper into the family’s history.

The older brother Minoru (Teruyuki Kagawa), tries to bridge the yawning chasm between them by giving Takeru their mother’s Fujicascope projector and old 8mm home movies she took when they were little.  One of the 8mm reels contains footage of a family outing to Hasumi Gorge, where Minoru recalls fondly fishing there with their father.  Takeru does not remember ever going to the gorge and Minoru teases him, telling Takeru prophetically that he has selective memory made cloudy by the Tokyo smog.

Sway (Yureru) (English Subtitles)

Order from cdjapan

The camaraderie between the brothers sours when Takeru decides to seduce his old girlfriend Chieko Kawabata (Yōko Maki).  Chieko has been working for the Hayakawas since the company she used to work for went under.  She had a friendly, flirtatious relationship with Minoru and he’d been hoping she might take a fancy to him.  Chieko joins the brothers on a trip to visit Hasumi Gorge, and her shocking sudden death at the old suspension bridge is the mystery that sets into motion the remainder of the film.  However, whether or not Minoru was responsible for Chieko's death is really just a red herring.  The true question is whether or not this tragedy will bring the brothers closer together or tear their tenuous relationship apart forever.

Director Miwa Nishikawa has a deft hand for creating dramatic tension in her screenplays.  Whereas the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, would create it by showing the audience more than what the characters know, Nishikawa creates suspense by withdrawing visual information from us.  We only see as much of the events on that fateful day as Takeru can remember, and we are drawn into his struggle to find a way to help his brother avoid being sentenced to prison for murder while remaining true to himself.  We share Takeru’s frustration at not knowing all the details of what led to Chieko falling from the bridge.

Sway is an extraordinary film which at turns recalls the themes of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashōmon(1950), the mysterious beauty of Peter Greenaway’s Picnic at Hanging Rock(1975), and the withholding of information narrative structure of Atom Egoyan’s Exotica (1994).  The colours in Sway are muted, but beautifully done and like Hitchcock and Kurosawa one has the impression that every frame of the film was carefully composed ahead of the filming.  It’s the type of film one needs to watch more than once in order to appreciate the subtle nuances of expression and meaning. 

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

The Japanese DVD release of Sway has excellent English subtitles for the feature, no subs for the extras.  The film was so well received at festivals that it also got a US release.

Directed and Written by Miwa Nishikawa

Cinematography by Hiroshi Takase

Original Music by the Cauliflowers

Cast 

Joe Odagiri as Takeru Hayakawa

Teruyuki Kagawa as Minoru Hayakawa

Masatō Ibu as Isamu Hayakawa

Hirofumi Arai as Yohei Okajima

Yōko Maki as Chieko Kawabata

Japan in Germany 7: Oshima (大島, 2010)

“This story makes no sense,” a frustrated German police officer says at the beginning of Lars Henning’s dark tale Oshima (大島, 2010), and asks the Japanese language interpreter to have the haggard and bruised-looking salaryman before him to repeat his story one more time from the beginning.  The man introduces himself as Taburo Oshima and says that he just arrived from Tokyo on business.

The opening credits are positioned over the clouds and a girl’s voice tells us that this is the story of her father, who in October 2002 came to Germany on business with plans of continuing on to the United States.   The tale that he told to the police is the last official record of his existence.  He disappeared without a trace.  The girl mysteriously goes on to explain that while her mother never told her what happened that night, she nevertheless knows what happened that night.

Oshima, played by Japan-born/Germany-raised actor Yuki Iwamoto, arrives in Germany in a haze.  In addition to jet lag, Oshima may be experiencing extreme side effects from the depression medication Opipramol that he consumes on the flight.  He passes out upon arrival at the airport, and is looked after by an airport employee (Hakan Orbeyi).  He somewhat recovers and stumbles out of the baggage retrieval area into the arms of an eager-to-curry-favour German businessman, Herr Kleinschmidt (Devid Striesow), and his interpreter, Frau Izumi (Nina Fog). 

Oshima’s wooziness continues in the car journey to the hotel and over the course of this half hour dramatic short, he passes in and out of consciousness due to a mixture of over-medication, alcohol consumption, and just plain exhaustion.  Oshima seems disinterested in his business dealings with Herr Kleinschmidt and barely even aware of his surroundings for most of the film.  In an off-hand comment to Frau Izumi, which she curiously does not translate to her boss, Oshima reveals that he has lost his entire family in an accident.   Izumi is drawn to him, but at the same time suspicious that this man may not be who he says he is.   Are we witnessing the mental collapse of a salaryman or is there something more going on here?  Oshima’s vision of a white unicorn on the darkened streets of this anonymous German city suggest deeper layers to this man’s story which the viewer must unravel for him/herself. 

The ambiguity of the storyline could have been disastrous if not for the sensitive and subtle acting performances of Iwamoto and Fog.  Their faces are very expressive and hint at a deeper emotional story than is implicit in the dialogue and narration.  Lars Henning (b. 1976, Hamburg) is the director of the much acclaimed short Security (2006) which won prizes at the Avanca Film Festival and Lübeck Nordic Film Days.  He pursued a postgraduate degree in television and film at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln) between 2006 and 2010.  This is his fourth short film.  It is a melancholic tale with beautifully executed transitions.  The cinematographer, Carol Burandt von Kameke, and crew have done a remarkable job of lighting these very dark night scenes with great skill.  Many scenes have a masterful chiaroscuro look. With most young filmmakers today opting to go digital for budgetary reasons, it is a real delight to discover a short film shot beautifully on 35mm funded by cultural institutions.  Oshima is a rare gem that showed on arte before Christmas and at Japan Week in Frankfurt in November.  Looking forward to seeing more work by this director.  

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Credits

director: Lars Henning

screenwriter: Lars Henning

cinematographer: Carol Burandt von Kameke

production company:  Radical Movies  / Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln

producer:  Ulrich Otto

34 minutes / 35mm

shot on location in North Rhine Westphalia

Cast

Yuki Iwamoto                    Taburo Oshima

Nina Fog                            Frau Izumi, the Interpreter

Devid Striesow                    Herr Kleinschmidt, the Businessman

Karolina Porcari                 Laika, exotic Dancer

Hakan Orbeyi                     Momo, man in airport

Jens Wachholz                    Police Officer 1

Markus Haase                    Police Officer 2

Remo Hofer                        Night Porter

Tanja Desen                       Airline Staff

Rosa Bergmann                  Girl with Wings / Naoko / voice over narration

Melanie Kühn                     Exotic Dancer

Pia Passion                         Exotic Dancer

Marie Iguchi                       voice over

Lars Henning Filmography

2005   Koslowski (15‘)

2006   Security (13‘)

2009   Driving Elodie (19‘)

2010   Oshima (35mm, 34‘)

MARGIN CALL - the best film to date on the Great Crash

MARGIN CALL may well be the first Hollywood movie that doesn't elevate investment bankers into glamorous devils. It comes as close as any movie I can think of to depicting the reality of working in financial services. The key concept that behind the gravity-defying numbers are a bunch of normal people, with the same frailties and smallness of vision. People want to believe that Wall Street is run by a bunch of cackling, Mr-Burns-like speculators. But in reality, it's just a bunch of insecure kids who are good at maths. Sure, there are tails of mega-bonuses and luxurious off-sites. But what the movies never got until now was the dreary drudgery of the trading floor, the long hours, the self-aware sacrifice of family-time, the awful truth that no matter what you earn, you'll always be made to feel that it isn't enough. That there's always a bigger house, that isn't quite as big as the senior partner's. The absurd fact that you can earn millions at thirty and still feel stretched for cash. You never feel like you have a choice at the time, you probably don't even realise how much you've sacrificed until it's too late. These aren't Machiavellian geniuses but prisoners of the Game as much as the poor schmuck consumers who loaded up on cheap debt and are now trapped in negative equity. We were all conned into living a lifestyle that, in our hearts, we knew we weren't earning - we couldn't afford. 

Debut feature director J C Chandor depicts this pathetic and soul-destroying world with an authenticity that is breath-taking. There are some minor slip-ups - no security guard would allow a sacked employee to pass a USB key to a retained employee in plain sight; there is no killer margin call made in the film. But the crumpled messy trading floor, the tired crumpled traders, the coded conversations in which workers fearful for their jobs jockey for position - these things are actually pitch perfect. There are no Gordon Gekko grand-standing speeches in defence of capitalism. No adrenaline-fuelled boardroom shouting matches. Decisions are taken by tired men in boardrooms at three am. Dialogue is measured, non-actionable. But in a few short sentences, laden with unspoken meaning, a career can be an ended - a business shut down.

The movie takes place over a 48 hour period on the commercial mortgage backed securities trading floor of a Lehman Brothers type investment bank. The first day starts with the brutal sacking of half the floor - eerily similar to what you'll see in any FS firm in a down-turn. The relief, the guilt of the survivors - the repressed anger, acceptance of the shafted. After work, a talented young analyst (Zachary Quinto) figures out that the wild gyrations in the market have pushed the bank to the point of bankruptcy. He escalates the matter up the scale, through his direct line manager (Paul Bettany) to his boss (Kevin Spacey) to his boss (Simon Baker) until we get to a 3am board meeting where the super-boss (Jeremy Irons) decides to offload the toxic assets before the rest of Wall Street figures out that the party has ended. This of course means shafting everyone the bank has every traded with, doing it quickly, and for the people actually executing the trades, an end to their jobs. 

The second half of the film shows each character dealing with the ramifications of this decision. The senior trader (Kevin Spacey) has to trade-off loyalty to his firm with decency toward the street. The had of risk management (Demi Moore) has to come to terms with the end of her career. And in a superbly written and executed scene with Stanley Tucci's sacked risk analyst, where she asks if he has kids, you realise that she really has nothing now. Tucci's character has his dignity, his family, but is going to lose his house. Penn Badgley's young trader, the guy who bought the Wall Street mythos, has to come to terms with the fact that he's going to be sacked, and that The Street is dead. Only Paul Bettany's character seems to emerge unscathed. He had no illusions about The Street or his own lifestyle - he's been through market crashes before - and he's unsurprised by the super-boss' ruthless self-preservation.

Paul Bettany's character also has the best, most insightful, most lucid speech about the nature of the credit bubble and the ensuing popular backlash against bankers - the 99 percent who want fair pay and fair reward but still took three holidays a year and had a flat screen TV in each room on credit. "I take my hand off and then the whole world gets really fuckin' fair really fuckin' quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do but they don't. They want what we have to give them but they also wanna, you know, play innocent and pretend they have know idea where it came from. Well, thats more hypocrisy than I'm willing to swallow, so fuck em. Fuck normal people."

I love that speech. I believe it. Problem is, it's the best and worst thing about this movie. Because the only serious flaw with this film is the editorialising. I'm sure that many a sacked Lehman Brothers employee, many a current investment banker, has thought the same things, but in the months and years that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers - not in the moments when it was actually happening. That kind of soul-searching happens when the dust has settled. It feels too prescient to have those speeches while the bank is still alive. 

Still, for all that, this is an amazingly well written and perfectly acted film. It explains, empathises, never glamourises Wall Street. It has tension and stakes, without ever using cheap tricks, grandstanding, flashy trading scenes. Jeremy Irons and Demi Moore are easily worth Best Supporting Actor nods. But I guess the lack of pyrotechnics means this film never really had a chance. 

MARGIN CALL played Sundance and Berlin 2011 and was released last year in Germany, Russia, Estonia, Spain, the USA, Romania, the Netherlands, Canada, Hong Kong, Lithuania, Turkey, Brazil, Greece, Poland and Singapore. It is currently on release in the UK and Ireland. It opens on January 19th in Israel; on January 25th in Belgium and Portugal; on March 16th in Sweden and on April 4th in France. It is available to rent and own in the US.

Departures (おくりびと, 2008)

In the modern world we have become quite estranged from the natural process of death.  When my grandmother was growing up in rural Ontario death was accepted part of life and bodies were laid out on the dining room table to be cleaned and dressed before being laid in a simple coffin in the living room for visitation.  Today, when loved ones die strangers take care of preparing the body for funeral services.  People who work in funeral services are often stigmatized for it, as was revealed on the US program The Bachelor when a beautiful young funeral director vied for the prize.

In Japan, the stigma is even greater because of the history of people who worked with the dead being ostracized as burakumin(untouchables).  The descendants of the burakumin are still the victims of oppression in Japan and people who work with the dead still risk being stigmatized in their community as “unclean.”  Yōjirō Takita’s Oscar-winning film Departures(おくりびと, 2008) tenderly explores this issue with the tale of Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a young cellist who suddenly loses his job in a Tokyo orchestra.  He decides to return to his home town in Yamagata prefecture with the support of his wife Mika (Ryōko Hirosue) to look for work.

Soon after their arrival, Kobayashi answers an advertisement in the newspaper for a company looking for someone to assist with “tabi” (旅) which he interprets as “travel”.  However, the “travel” that is meant in the ad is not to do with a physical journey but a spiritual one and Kobayashi finds himself employed as the apprentice of a man called Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki) who ceremonially prepares the dead for their journey into the next life.

Okuribito Sheet Music for Piano and Cello

The pay for this work is generous so Kobayashi gives it the old college try, but it takes some getting used to and his emotional turmoil is amplified by the fact that he is afraid to tell his wife the truth about what his new job entails.  It turns out that Kobayashi is an ideal candidate for the job because he understands what it means to suffer loss.  His father walked out on his family when he was six and he missed the funeral of his mother two years earlier because he was too busy to return home.  The film follows Kobayashi’s acceptance of his new work as his vocation with warmth and depth and his story is bolstered by cleverly written subplots concerning his lost father, the family that runs the local bath house, and Kobayashi’s co-workers. 

Okuribito Original Soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi

Cinematically, the film does not really stand out from the crowd, which is why it was such a shock to many that it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film over the Israeli animated documentary Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, 2008).  In terms of subject matter, it was very brave of the filmmakers to take on the taboo subject of preparing bodies for death.  The strong storyline and superb acting is complemented by the glorious location shooting in Sakata, Yamagata.  If I were still living in Japan I would be immediately planning a getaway to the region for some hill walking. I am also quite partial to the violoncello and the score by Joe Hisaishi is beautifully written and performed (available from cdjapan).

I watched the German DVD release of this film Nokan: Die Kunst des Ausklangs which has a 16 minute interview with Takita as an extra.

The DVD is also available in the US, the UK, and elsewhere.

George Ghon comments on MARGARET

Kenneth Lonergan’s long-awaited follow up to YOU CAN COUNT ON ME has – after a four-year-long editing squabble, and a final edit by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker – finally been released. It seems to attract considerable attention among a British audience - a diverse crowd filled the outdated screening room at the Odeon Panton Street just off Leicester Square on a recent Sunday afternoon to watch the GANGS OF NEW YORK writer’s contemporary take on Upper West Side city life. MARGARET is a daring coming-of-age tale that lets the 17-year old Lisa (Anna Paquin) become witness of a traumatic accident that proves to be formative on her young life. During the 2.5 hours of the final edit we watch the different emotional states the troubled teenager goes through during her rite de passage of becoming an adult. The woman who got rolled over by a bus after a quick meeting of the eyes by its driver with Lisa, is a sacrificial victim to the development of the main character, who, in turn, is searching for different ways to overcome her guilt.

Differing from an American school of teenage drama (Larry Clark & Harmony Korine) that almost solely relies on casual sex and the abuse of illegal substances within a culturally impoverished environment, Mr Lonergan’s MARGARET aims high and interweaves the quotidian, classroom life and family trivia with high brow references. The title is referring to Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem spring and fall, dedicated to a young child. The outlook therein is bleak:

‘...Ah! As the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you will weep and know why.…’

Growing up is not an easy business; plenty of tears will need to flow before a certain level of emotional maturity can be reached.

My take on this film is, furthermore, that it aims to assert the role of so called high culture and allows a largely disenfranchised society to rebuild its values according to those guidelines drawn out by classic drama and poetry, to some extent. The Met plays an important part in the movie. Bellini’s Norma opens her heart to Ramon (Jean Reno), which has a profound effect on his relationship with Lisa’s mother Joan (J. Smith-Cameron). La nuit d’amour in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmanntriggers the cathartic reunion of mother and daughter. The classroom is a frequent topic, where contemporary politics in the aftermath of 9/11 are juxtaposed with the musings of King Lear. Avoiding the pitfalls of intellectualization, Mr Lonergan does not use those references to show off, or distract from the story he is telling, but just melds them into his trope of big city life.

An ode to New York and its culture it is, but not an unambiguous one. 

MARGARET went on limited release in the US in September and in Canada in October.  It is on such limited release in the UK that it's only playing on one screen in Central London! Catch it while you can, or wait for the French release in August 2012.