[Review] Mama - Domesticated Demon

Mama (2013)

Director - Andrés Muschietti 
Country - USA
Starring - Jessica Chastain, Daniel Kash and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Running Time - 100 minutes
Synopsis - Annabel and Lucas are faced with the challenge of raising his young nieces that were left alone in the forest for 5 years.... but how alone were they? 

The notion of motherhood is one that has lent itself completely to horror down through history. The bond between mother and child is derived from such an intense physicality that the unyielding devotion and intimacy is so easily reversed and fractured. Through nature alone maternal relationships have a degree of specific psychological conditions; envy, overbearing narcissism and reflective anxieties that are ripe for the picking for any budding screenwriter. The surrogate mother removes this physicality, replacing it with more external and social factors that also been prayed upon in the horror genre. Look to Jack Clayton's 1961 cinematic translation of Henry James' Turn of the Screw, The Innocents, a ghost story created from sexual frustrations and hyper active custodial psychosis. It implemented these factors into the Freudian qualities of the set design, the harshness of its high-key lighting and the manic performance by Deborah Kerr to give us an atmosphere of psychological-frenzy, in other words, it's an intelligent ghost story born out of step-parent anxieties.

Now in 2013 we have Mama, by Andrés Muschietti, where any symbolism and psycho-analysis has been replaced with deathly clumps of hair and evil wallpaper.

Since her breakout performance Jessica Chastain has become signified with the role of the mother figure, most obviously in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life where she became the manifestation of grace. Her face houses a calming naturalism and unquantifiable homeliness. Something that she managed to shed completely in the critically acclaimed Zero Dark Thirty, a film that highlights the unique force of the maternal instinct by it's total absence. Mia as she is known in that film, feels incomplete as a human because she has no family. So Mama then should feel like an extension of her cinematic undertakings thus far. She plays Annabel, a tattooed guitarist in a rock band hastily thrust into the role of a parent without ample preparation when her boyfriend's nieces show up five years after their homicidal father kidnapped them.

Chastain's jet black fringe and Misfits T-shirt fail to convince as she awkwardly strums a bass guitar whilst chugging down a bottle of Becks. Yet, as the burdened and disinterested carer she slips into the role pretty confidently, as if a reversal of her character in The Tree of Life - spending less time frolicking in the garden and more time pacing around the house, half-assedly doing menial chores. The film successfully rejects the formulaic responses of modern suburban horror films such as the Paranormal Activity series in which the light of day casts out the nightly bumps and the world returns to normal. Domestication is the real horror here as Annabel suddenly finds herself having to contend with snooping Aunts and accident prone kids. Chastain looks legitimately uneasy preparing dinners or loading the washing machine, and the lifeless cinematography does nothing but further our restlessness.

Inevitably, as one would expect when adopting forest dwelling children, creepiness befalls the household in the predictable fashion of monster closets and flickering lights. Not to outdo it's contemporaries for too long, it borrows a couple of floating blanket scares that no longer unite the audience through a chorus of 'Ohs' and 'Ahs.' Still, Mama has a number of tricks up it's withered sleeve, one of which being the feral kids crawling around on all fours similarly to Andy Serkis' Gollum. A base technique that manages to be pretty discomforting, especially in one early and quickly forgotten dream sequence. If only the director had taken the time to expand upon the underlying animalistic imprint that runs ingrained into our genetic code as a grotesque, outward projection of our development. But alas Mama settles for jump scares and monster closets, some well crafted, some not so much, but enough to ensure you're suitably on edge for the duration of it's running time. Yet one can't shake the feeling of directorial apathy. 

As the film's plot descends into melodramatic nonsense, including one rather harebrained psychiatrist who loses all notion of child psychosis or mental trauma in favor of trekking through the woods under the cover of darkness to contact the dastardly specter, it loses it's foothold in reality and descends into cliche. When the elongated, CGI-monstrosity that is 'Mama' begins to show up all the more frequently, most of your fear will diffuse through the overblown, over-Gothic design and silly audio effects. Though as unconvincing as the film's monster is, the ending is quite the opposite. Making a point about the unbreakable bond between child and mother at the most important age, it feels neither cheap nor out of place. But in the grand scheme of things it only hints at the ingenuity and intelligence that attracted Guillermo Del Toro to the project, just as he was The Orphanage back in 2007.

A great man once said a horror film is measured by its scares, and Mama is virtually over-encumbered with such a variety that it was sure to succeed in one way or another. Disappointingly it fails to draw upon the psychological issues that underscore the subject matter, and that have produced some of the genre's most beloved classics (see Rosemary's Baby.) It's neither as self-consciously clever as the likes last year's Sinister or immaculately precise as emerging-auteur Ti West's recent output. However the solid performances and interesting ending make sure it nestles comfortably above whatever passes for average in the American horror landscape, now isn't that a scary thought?

3/5

[Review] To The Wonder - A Valediction: For Whispering

To The Wonder (2013)

Director - Terrence Malick
Country - USA, France
Starring - Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Amy McAdams and Javier Bardem
Running Time - 112 minutes

Synopsis -  After visiting Mont Saint-Michel, Marina and Neil come to Oklahoma, where problems arise. Marina meets a priest and fellow exile, who is struggling with his vocation, while Neil renews his ties with a childhood friend, Jane.

Filmmaker turned philosopher Terrence Malick has never had what one would define as a consistent production output. Between his debut Badlands in 1973 and 2005s The New World he released just four films (with a twenty year gap in there as well.) Yet, against his character, just over a year after the critically acclaimed Palme D'or winner The Tree of Life was released, his newest film To The Wonder arrives in cinemas this week. 

Since Days of Heaven (1978) Malick's films have increasingly been geared away from conventional narrative and towards existential musings on faith, love and nature. This style built towards the grandiose The Tree of Life which charted the beginning of time itself to the end of existence through the point of view of a child growing up in 1950s Texas. Though majestically constructed and cinematically important, it wasn't a perfect film, the height of which was a horrifically misguided sequence involving  dinosaurs that would be dropped from a Land Before Time sequel. Though it was the ambition of his sentiments that firmly secured it as a fascinatingly flawed masterpiece. For me, it was the summation of these elements that should have marked the end (or at least a break) of this movement in his career.

Instead, To The Wonder sees Malick push further into poetic montage, presenting us with a story of crisis, one of love and one of faith... that is to say love and faith, as Malick conditions it. 

The film opens with what would go down in history as the most artistically shot phone camera footage as lovers Neil (Ben Affleck) and Marina (Olga Kurylenko) travel across France. Malick is known for his beautiful 35mm canvas-like compositions, so this opening is a way of playing with his established style just as to invite the audience into making personal associations with the grainy intimacy of iPhone visuals. Still, I found it hard to take seriously as an expression of smitten playfulness when Affleck is busy lining up his shots to the rule of thirds. Their voyage through France is presented with as much restraint as an over-excited Nikon advert. The graceful rolls and tilts of the camera as he moves into and passed the lovers become an extension of passions that the audience cannot share in, they feel removed and even naive. He constantly looks to the sky for answers, but is more frequently met with the loneliness of a plane cutting through the sky, as a motif it feels unwarranted and coincidental, brought in through in the editing suite as a vague way of capturing interest.

Europe ends and when Neil invites Marina and her ten year old daughter to come live with them on a housing development in Oklahoma. They spend their time frolicking gleefully through fields, curtains and supermarkets, when their relationship comes under strain the two strut round the house in silence, as if on isolated planes of existence. All the while Kurylenko's ethereal voice over rambles aimlessly about the nature of their love and her own discontent. To put it bluntly, this constitutes so much of the film that it crosses into unintended self parody. Increasingly Malick's characters have become less a defined person in their own right and more a channel for his own existential concerns, here they lack any form of identity at all. There is so little progression, development or narrative exposition that any profound point on the nature of relationships and love Malick is trying to capture is totally lost as the character's become figures, shifting weightlessly between passions, continents and partners.  

Just as The Tree of Life was led by a reflective, autobiographical tone, To The Wonder feels like a personal confession manifesting itself as a convoluted experiment, Malick splits himself between two male figures; Affleck's Neil and Bardem's Father Quintana. The former is a man struggling with committing to, and defining himself within, his relationships. He offers Marina warmth, affection and support but cannot give himself completely to her, and when her Visa expires he refuses to marry her resulting in her deportation. His attentions then turn to childhood friend Jane (Rachel McAdams) in a brief middle section that fails to offer any supporting weight to the narrative. Quintana is a community priest who's relationship with God has been strained due to the economic and social disintegration of his neighbourhood. In an interesting move Malick moves to a Neo-Realist style as Bardem moves from house to house interacting with local residents. Although the more engaging of the two, Malick fails to unite the narratives other than a few shots of Marina and Quintana together. As a result the methodical lines plucked from his sermons lack any significance with Neil and Marina's story and his resolution unmoving. Even worse, as Malick begins to indulge in scenes with drug addicts and the disabled the film moves past earnestness and into crass exploitation. 

Undoubtedly Olga Kurylenko is the central character of the piece, with Malick himself regarding it as 'her film.' His camera leans into her sensuality, capturing the curve of her neck and the elegance in her movements to the extent it borders on voyeurism. This is made all the apparent by his total disregard for Amy McAdams who is presented more flatly and distanced. In a strange scene, Malick drowns out her back story with Marina's voice over, illustrating his lack of interest in Jane's character. Yet despite this focus, she is still is nothing more than an ideal, a representation of love that Malick can only grasp at, but not retain.

In my research on the film I was enlightened to know that those invited to the Press Screenings of To The Wonder were given notes on the characters, time frames and pollution subplots which is all but brushed aside in favor of the overly enigmatic mess we are left with. Given the films problematic production with actors dropping out, characters being removed completely and shooting beginning without a finished script, it becomes clear that this is a shell of Malick's intended vision. To an extent it excuses the lack of substantial structure to the narrative, but none the less, To the Wonder is still an indulgent and overblown exercise in tedium. The whispered spiritualist romanticism's of his script fail to amount to any tangible thoughts on the fervent desires and illusions of love nor faith and therefore feels obnoxiously preachy.

2/5

The Oscar Round Up - Thoughts and Predictions [Updated]

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[Essay] - Summer With Bergman

Summer with Bergman

'The Summer Trilogy'

• Summer Interlude - 1951 / Ingmar Bergman / Sweden

• Summer With Monika - 1953 / Ingmar Bergman / Sweden

• Smiles of a Summer Night - 1955 / Ingmar Bergman / Sweden

This week I took the plunge back into Bergman with three early films that come together to create his 'Summer Trilogy' (a self-imposed title, but much like his 'Faith Trilogy' the films are connected by an underlying theme and in this case setting.) The period in which the trilogy is made, beginning in the mid 1940s to the late 1950s Bergman was in his most diverse phase, experimenting with film structure and genre before we see the emergence of the key ideologies; women, religion and art, that would define his canon. Even over the course of the four year span that this trilogy was produced there is a noticeable shift in attitude and cinematic techniques as we will come to examine. It is the series of summer films that are responsible for putting Bergman on the continental and eventual international film-making map with the initial controversy surrounding Summer with Monika eventually leading to an American release of under the title Monika: Story of a Bad Girl! by Kroger Bob (a regarded exploitation presenter) with a new running time of 62 minutes now focusing on the films erotically charged shots of Harriet Andersson. But the real success came in the 1955 Smiles of a Summer Night which won 'Film of Best Poetic Humor' at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.

The seasons are an important element of Bergman's work, they would feature again in the titles for Winter's Light (1963) and Autumn Sonata (1978). They become associations of the films thematic state, autumn is driven by an overarching mortality, winter one of crisis and ultimate devastation. In that sense they each become a stage in the life cycle that Bergman's world operates on. Although it would feature less prominently spring is a vital component in this time-scale as a figure of birth (even rebirth) and unsoiled life. This new life will grow rapidly into a fully developed, yet inexperienced sexuality exposed by the romanticism of the summer. Yet, summer is the cruelest of all seasons; marked by the intense but short lived euphoria of love, that leads us into heightened passions through the falsities of sun baked countrysides and warm midnights. For Bergman, the season of summer is blanketed in the most wretched beauty, blinding us from the hostilities of the world it offers us a freedom and optimism to its characters that it has no regard to keep.

The first two films in this series, Summer Interlude and Summer with Monika take place across the season, allowing the characters to be thrust into isolation and by extension emancipated, they lose themselves in each other and their surroundings. Interlude is defined by a state of bliss that extends into us, only to be sharply and quickly torn out. It would never return, the second entry Monika, is defined with a distrustful restraint. The final film, Smiles of a Summer Night came from Bergman at his lowest point, a period comedy of wit, it condenses the span of the season into just a single night. Though lighter in tone than both of its predecessors it uses the crisp beauty of a summer evening to install a sense of gamesmanship-based humiliation in the face of love and perhaps most remarkably, it closes the trilogy with self-deprecating, if not entirely convincing positivity.   

Summer Interlude, which he made in 1951, is undoubtedly the work of young director, one who is still reeling from open wounds. Bergman regarded this film as an important milestone in his own career as it was the first time he felt an understanding of what he was actually doing. The romance which the bulk of the film is hinged on between dancer Marie (Maj-Britt Nilsson) and student Henrik (Birger Malmsten) is one of hopes, pleasure and naivety. Yet Bergman is hesitant to share in their joy. The camera lingers closely, but it feels at odds with the two. Almost withdrawn, in one sequence as they make love for the first time, the camera pans to the boys dog looking weary and uninterested. Less an extension of their passion, it becomes a presence, observing with an almost cynical foreboding. Shot on the beautiful summer spot Dalarö, the film is drenched in an idyllic summer haze that when coupled with the films segmented structure takes the form of a visual sonnet. Wild strawberries and warm seas are presented with a pure romantic quality through high contrasted tones and defined compositions. Yet in time the mask of summer will crack and through it seeps a dark cloud, the shriek of an owl and the howling wind. Together they condemn this love to tragedy. It comes too quickly, Henrik's death leaves us winded, disarmed and confused. It culminates in Marie's outward and spoken rejection of God at the films climax. It is a rash response to a great and immediate pain that only someone as callous as God could be responsible for. 

What I viewed as a cruelly, even unfairly cynical film was made all the more effective upon learning that the film is based off an intense but short lived summer romance Bergman had at 18 with a girl who later contracted polio. The films 'dance rehearsal' framing device becomes a form of confession, Marie has distanced herself from her fellow dancers and lovers to shield herself from possible pain, focusing entirely on her art. And art, like everything in Bergman's world is marked by mortality. Her time as a dancer is limited before she is brushed aside and forgotten, as the ballet master caked in clown make-up reminds her. He is reflective figure of self-doubt, lingering behind Marie and Bergman in the mirror. The dance itself is shot with a fragile, softly lit 'music-box' tint, bringing it down to a personal delicacy. A truly beautiful sequence it success is Bergman's own, as his style is now developed and his technical understanding proficient. The film's ending is similar to the later Wild Strawberries; ambiguous, though positive in tone with Marie turning to her current boyfriend who (after reading Henrik's diary) now has a better understanding of her. Will their relationship survive? Probably not, but it is the step towards her personal catharsis that is important. The open wounds have begun to mend, though they will never heal completely. 

That spark of optimism that Summer Interlude ended on has since disappeared when we open Summer With Monika (1953). The film follows the relationship between shop assistant Harry and factory girl Monika who run away together for a summer. The film made a star of 20 year old Harriet Andersson, whom Bergman was having an affair with (one that would last three years.) This immensity of his passion for her seeps into the intense sexuality that leads his camera. He shoots her mainly at mid-shot to frame her curvy figure or in soft focus close-up, to capture the sultry sensuality in her eyes and mouth. It was hugely controversial upon release for featuring a highly erotic nude scene. Andersson exudes a natural vitality, and the film still sizzles 60 years from its release. There is a sexual emancipation brought about the rejection of society by the main characters. Yet occasionally a harshness enters Bergman's tone as a group of children run passed calling Monika 'chubby.' It is a reaction to Andersson's beauty brought out by the masculine insecurity that dominates this films proceedings and his other 1953 work Sawdust and Tinsel.

The films opening act takes place within Stockholm, which is shot with a claustrophobic and smothering vibe, silhouetting the buildings as ominous sky boxes and trapping the characters with cramped sets, dim lighting and physically and morally corrupted people. Their escape to the Archipelago comes as a visual relief, featuring a similar, although more restrained, rhythm and tone than the earlier Summer Interlude. This restraint is illustrative of Bergman's older and more distrustful gaze but also of the couples inability to free themselves from this society. The summer itself is colder and their constant need to better their situation or look for food leaves visible weathering on the faces of Harry and Monika. Yet the real reason for their return to the city and eventual cause of unhappiness is brought about by Monika's pregnancy, is Bergman suggesting this is the price to pay for fleeting passion and sexual emancipation? (He himself had five children by the time of this film.) Or is it merely the rule of his world that love is a brief performance before the curtain is pulled back on an otherwise uncaring reality. I find it quite a suspicious film, in one incredible close up Bergman condemns Monika and by extension Andersson to infidelity. He holds this shot as she turns from her lover to look past the camera, her gaze is one of acknowledgement. She recognizes the camera as our judgement, she accepts it with her guilt but it doesn't matter, this is what she has to do be free. There is a striking reflectivity Bergman imposes his desire to leave commitments behind onto Monika's flight, and our reaction of biblical damnation is Bergman's own perceived shame.

After the release of Monika Bergman found himself in a bad place, riddled with pains and weight loss, both his affair and marriage were ending, he was threatened with dismissal by his production head because of the financial failings of his work. It was while in Switzerland he decided to write a film 'just for fun' based on an ancient Chinese proverb; a son who falls in love with his fathers second wife. The result was Smiles of a Summer Night.

Though with this final entry the summer itself takes a back-foot to the main theme of 'life's a theatre', the links between the films remain as tangible. Summer becomes a stage for the events to unfold filtered through the three 'smiles' of the hazy northern light. The film echoes the structure of a 19th Century scandal comedy with the upper middle class couples trading partners throughout the course of a party in a large country mansion. (Think Rules of the Game without the politics.) Though the film is undeniably a comedy in the classical and contemporary sense; the tone is one of theatrical wit and the ending is one of perceived happiness, it is birthed from the conflicting anxieties and pain that Bergman was experiencing at the time of it's conception. Each of the characters, with the exception of Desiree (who is in a sense perfect) suffer a form of humiliation, one that is usually of a sexual nature such as Fredrik's son Henrik's failed sexual encounter with the free spirited Petra. With that in mind the film can be read as an expansion on the suspicions that Bergman was forming in Summer With Monika, the women here are seen as conspiring gods, forming alliances in order to trick their men with sex being the obvious reward by which it is measured. The film is littered with sexual connotations and imagery, from the virgin Anne being brought through the secret tunnel and into the arms of Henrik to the charged Russian Roulette becoming a vehicle for masculinity. These images amount to an insecurity on Bergman's part, one that coincides with the break down of both of his relationships. 

It is stagecoach Frid who presents us with the films key discussion of summer. His tiered 'smiles' break down the season and tie it with Bergman's earlier summer films. The first smile is for the young lovers of the world, which Frid reminds us is a curse just as much as it is a blessing once the euphoria has worn off. With this film it obviously a direct relation to Anne and Henrik but one cannot overlook this as a reflection on both Marie and Henrik from Summer Interlude and Harry and Monika from Summer with Monika. The second smile is for the jesters and fools, represented by Petra and Frid, there is an element of jealousy in Bergman's tone in this second smile. Through their lack of education and concern they achieve a sort of workmanship happiness that frees them from the problems of the middle class. This smile is something which Bergman idealized, but could never achieve as a very shrewd thinker. A fact he attests to through the falseness of Frid's proposal to Petra, is Bergman punishing the characters through his own frustrations, or does he believe that they will eventually succumb to the mortality of love just as the rest of the world? The final smile is for Bergman himself, it is a sobering dawn only witnessed by those frightened of love. It is, in essences the end of Bergman's summer. The haze that blinded us to the harshness of the world has been lifted and a bitter coldness now settles in it's place, with it will come the smog from the city and the cruelty of the world.

There is an obvious development that charts its way through Bergman's Summer Trilogy, from Marie's reaction to Henrik's death at the end of Summer Interlude, the series is marked by a complete absence of God. For Bergman love is merely an earth-based pleasure, and just like summer, it is one of mortality. The wounds inflicted upon him would never truly heal, and the negativity of Monika would begin to spiral out of control and into his personal life. Yet remarkably he channels it into a reflective and even distanced piece in Smiles of a Summer Night. Though less interesting than it's predecessors as a cinematic piece, it is an absolute necessity in Bergman's canon; the movie that allowed him to keep making movies. The summer may be a cruel season of intense passion and false hopes but one must take solace in its existence. When it ends, take the hurt, the betrayal and the humiliation and meet it with as much serenity as you can. Should there ever be a fourth summer smile, it will be another one for Bergman, a reflective smile from film watcher to film maker, one of complete immortal gratitude.


 

Valentines Day Alternative Romance Flicks

Here at The Image Loft I like to take every opportunity I can to expand on the holiday movies in order to spare the usual seasoned classics from being tiredly wheeled out time and time again. I offered some alternative spooks for Halloween and festive treats at Christmas. Yet it is perhaps Valentines Day that this little segment is most applicable for. After all since its invention the cinema has firmly been at the route of many a budding romance (myself included.)

What, if not the cinema, inspires passions so deep inside us we want them for our own? Since it was first captured by Edison in 1896's The Kiss, love has been changed by cinema. Molded by light, glamor and beauty it is been transported across entire histories, countries and worlds and we are fueled by the spark it ignites. No longer does it imitate reality, it is reality that imitates the cinema, to a monumental effect.

So amongst the falsities, the hopes and the tragic here are six wonderful alternative films that explore the true, deeper meanings of love. 

1. Sunrise: A Song for Two Humans - 1927, F.W. Murnau 

One of cinemas earliest and most classic love stories, Sunrise tells the tale of a couple who have lost their way, but through the very darkest and lowest moments find the spark that brought them together. Sunrise may look a little croaky to some with its silent era over acting and bold make up, but stick with it and this is one of the most earnest and triumphant of films. Murnau's city awakens as the lovers do, basking in light and activity, it becomes an explosive urban poem - a fever dream of love that one cannot help but be completely and utterly won over by.

2. Brief Encounter - 1945, David Lean

Perhaps putting the most famous cinematic infidelity on a Valentines Day films seems a little flawed, but I've written before on the real love that lies at the heart of Brief Encounter, one that anyone in a lasting relationship will attest to. At the heartbreaking end to middle class housewife Laura's unconsummated affair with Dr Alec Harvey she returns to her life and to her unremarkable husband, completely broken. Yet it is her unremarkable husband who saves her by giving her the most remarkable of gestures - a simple thank you for coming home.

3. Summer Interlude - 1951, Ingmar Bergman 

Although a rather cynical film, it comes from a very real place. Bergman's story of a summer romance between Marie a young dancer and student Henrik on the Swedish Archipelago is based on an intense experience the director had at 18 while vacationing with his family. The girl he was involved with would later contract polio. Therefore the bitterness that presides over the careless lovers, like a singular dark cloud against a sun soaked sky, feels much like the pain from an open wound. It is a film that exposes us of the wonders love can open us up to, but also the damage it can cause. Yet the final message is profound, Bergman urges us not to make the same mistake he and his characters did, he reminds us the pain is a necessary and worthy risk to take.

4. Paris, Texas - 1984, Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders reminds us that love is not a closed linked between two people, but an open circle that spreads itself across families, and that goes for the negatives too. A worn, tragic call to love and sacrifice for the good of a child and his mother is at the heart of this sultry road movie. Harry Dean Stanton gives one of the most weathered and romantic performances of all time as a man who now recognizes everything that went wrong and what needs to be done to fix it. This is an intimate tale of the damage a fractured love can cause spread across a grand Western odyssey, and for that reason it makes this list; it encapsulates the momentum and bravery of someone taking the first steps forward to change.

5. In The Mood for Love - 2000, Kar Wai Wong

This beautiful, vintage romance is a film made of candle lit delicacy. Love unsoiled by love. Two neighbours, who bond over their partners infidelity gradually develop a captured passion for each other. Every shot, movement and hair is composed to such a measured perfection. In the Mood for Love reignites the intensity of chaste, toying with us, excites us and eventually burns through us. In a sexually loose world (both societal and cinematically) it is both refreshing and disarming to remind us that the build up to a kiss, to a touch can be just as sensual as the touch itself. When it's over, we have to turn to any hole we can find, whisper our emotions and then cover it up.

6. Blue Valentine - 2010, Derek Cianfrance 

Although heart-throb Ryan Gosling has already starred in one of the most popular, and undoubtedly over-watched romance films of all time. One that I suspect a thousand and more unwilling partners will be subjected to by their significant other on February 14th. But if you're tired of The Notebooks rather manipulative and overblown melodrama, then I recommend Derek Cianfrance's unflinching look at the disintegration of a marriage. Doesn't sound too romantic? Well whilst it is true the films dual structure flicking between past and present does come down on the bleak side, the relationship between Gosling's free spirit and Williams committed medical student will undoubtedly strike a chord with anyone who's been in love. Yet it preaches something much more important to everyone, the antidote to many a cinematic false promise; in a relationship there is no easy fix, love doesn't conquer all, it needs support, understanding and communication.

So there you have a small handful of films that will give you a look at every side of love, they aren't something to measure yourselves by, instead let them guide you to one of the most universal and human experiences of all.

To Cinema, With love. 

 

Or should that be...

 

To Love, from Cinema? 

[Screen Log] Across the Universe Edition (Week 03/02/13 - 10/0213)

It's been an interesting and diverse week of cinematic venturing over here, one that has ranged from 2013 Oscar nominees, to Star Wars and even Heaven itself. However it all ended in a bang when my Blu Ray player died right in the middle of Jean-Luc Goddard's Weekend, he probably wouldn't have it any other way. 

Screenings:

• Argo - 2012, Ben Affleck 
• Star Wars: A New Hope - 1977, George Lucas 
• The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums - 1939, Kenji Mizoguchi
• A Matter of Life and Death - 1946, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
• The Music Room - 1958, Satyajit Ray 

All these reviews have been taken from my Letterboxd.com Profile, available here: http://letterboxd.com/mervynmarshall/

Argo - 35mm, Movie House Cinema

In the run up to the Academy Awards many of my local theaters have been cashing in on screening all of the Best Picture nominees, and I took the opportunity to see those I had previously missed (something I have come to regret.) Ben Affleck's true-to-life tale of the CIA and Hollywood collaboration to smuggle 6 escapee hostages during the 1980 Iran crisis. A rather unremarkable thriller that unnecessarily relies on artificial techniques and blatant xenophobia to raise, the already sky-scrapper high, stakes. The result is a film that looks the part with accurate period detail and awful haircuts but fails to capitalize on the incredible stranger-than-fiction event. Somewhere a more talented director could have utilized this scenario to explore the duality of film and real-life but we are left with a competently entertaining piece of Hollywood propaganda. 

In short, bland enough to be the front runner for Best Picture.

Star Wars: A New Hope - DVD Projected, Queens Film Theatre

A rather flat and frankly childish film, far from worthy of its praise or position as a genre defining piece. There are highlights here and there, particularly some enjoyable set and costume design, but this does very little to develop the political and social boundaries that run through imagination of the world.

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums - Blu Ray, Criterion Collection

Though the print is in dire shape, this is easily the best of Mizoguchi's earlier works. A second-rate actor who relies on his Father's name falls in love with the woman who is honest with him. From then it depicts their struggle to be together, and a woman who sacrifices everything to help her husband succeed, including her health. This is a long and draining film, beautifully captured through Mizoguchi's gliding takes and intricate staging. It ends on a tragic image of sacrifice, and a warning to every artist.

A Matter of Life and Death - DVD, ITV Movies

More than anything else this is a key example of film architecture. Not just in design but in its structure and textual visuals as well. The Archers and their cinematographer Jack Cardiff tell this wonderful meditation on life without love. David Niven is a WW2 pilot who jumps from his plane only to miraculously survive and fall in love thanks to an error within the bureaucratic office of the powers that be. Seamlessly moving between marvelous technicolor and sterile black and white with terrific time-stopping effects. The film opens with the horrific and saddening destruction of the war, before exploding in all its glory through the eyes of someone who is awakened to it all; someone in love.

The Music Room - Blu Ray, Criterion Collection

Ray's film is soaked in culture but remains completely human. It tells the story of Biswambhar Roy, one of the last Indian aristocrats, he spends his days staring vacantly over his eroded land and attempting to compete with the new wealth by throwing lavish parties, paid for by the family jewels. The decaying lavish setting and Ray's high contrast visual symbols move through the films text, and into the reflections, the lights and even the portraits on the wall - creating a real sense of past-time. But this is a film all about music. It is the key motif in illustrating the fading, overstretched power of the Roy and his family name. It is the last section of the film, the music turns from entrancing to disruptive and the visuals and imagery become so heightened it enters the realm of a horror film. The destruction of a once great class, through the psychological disintegration and blunt, violent death of its last patriarch.