Villalobos

Enter the Void 

The Disappearance of Alice Creed

Life During Wartime

Boy

More to follow…

I was more than looking forward to this new Australian release for a number of reasons. Australia does crime rather well- both the thing and the genre. Think Ned Kelly onwards. The hype machine for this film has really built at a pleasant rate suggesting it’s actually worthy of the praise. Plus it won at Sundance, which unlike SOME (not sure who I’m actually getting at here) Festivals, still has a pretty reliable taste barometer. AND it stars Ben Mendelsohn (swoon).

On the whole, it was a rewarding film, with satisfying twists and really great performances. REALLY great actually. The best (in ALL fairness) had to be Ben, who played the terrifying ‘Pope’ not just with a menacing intensity but also a careful slowness to his actions that left you wondering exactly how the character was impaired. Which made him MORE terrifying and unpredictable. 

Problem was that for a script that had so much lauding, there were some real clunkers. Lines about feeling invisible when you can’t set off a hot air dryer in a bathroom? I’m no expert, but I just don’t think Hard Hitting Blokes would say that. Nor is it necessary AT ALL. Try some Simpsons-level subtlety. I nearly lost it though when you saw Mr Good Guy Cop (not the world’s MOST complex of characters) sitting and playing with his Down Syndrome daughter. Not okay.

Likewise the last half hour made little chronological sense. And maybe wasn’t the ideal time to introduce a more complex edit. It really needed a serious pruning. Having said that- it was a very good ending. 

On balance- it pretty much did what it said on the can. But it seemed initially to want to reach for a lot more. And almost got there. Direction was pretty flawless, and with a more judicious script editor, it could have been great.

Rather then focusing on the slow, grinding car crash that was SATC 2, I thought it might be interesting to also look at the other film I saw recently- Gillian Armstrong’s excellent Love, Lust and Lies. Amusingly and interestingly, each could (almost) subtitle the other.

So, the films. Well, one follows three working class (OH WHATEVER ‘No-Class-System-In-Australia’) Adelaide gals through the trials and tribulations of life, when frankly, there isn’t anything too awesome on offer. The other is a big pile of ugly, and tells the valuable tale of four women who have too much.

An interesting feature of Love, Lust & Lies, and indeed the series of films that precede it, is the rather charming presence of the director. Much like British doc-series 49-Up, directed by Michael Apted, the films check in with their subjects at semi-regular intervals to find out about their lives. In a terribly British way, Mr Apted never appears. He does have a rather lovely quote to explain his project though, a Jesuit principle: “show me the child at seven, and I will show you the man”. 

Fatalistic ideas of predestination aside, here’s my only criticism of L, L & L- while Gillian Armstrong is shown in her film chatting with the ‘subjects’, bringing them flowers (brought me RIGHT BACK to my Documentary Masters class in which we advised to bring our subjects gifts) and at dinner with them, there isn’t any discussion of her career- her BRILLIANT career- and of her subsequent financial success. Maybe a missed opportunity. 

Conversely, in SATC 2, success seems to be all that is discussed. The pursuit of it, how to retain it, who else has it, how to measure it, and all of the wonderful things that it can be traded for. And it’s like looking at someone’s holiday photos. You weren’t there. You imagine the sun was warm and the pool was cool. But really, HONESTLY, isn’t the dominant emotion here plain and simple resentment?

It would be far too basic here to look at the fact that one film is made by men and one by women. Too, too easy. Likewise, it’s too simple to pick feminist holes (so to speak) in the ‘plot’ of SATC 2. I mean, Liza appears to remind us all of the importance of rings, (spoiler) Carrie is naughty and strays (in the DULLEST way possible), and her husband puts a ring on her, thus bringing her back into line. 

And without sounding like a Red Shoe Diaries loving pervert, but there wasn’t even any sex. Apparently the happy, married sex life is the ultimate taboo. Now, I’m no expert but I have it on reasonably good authority that sex still happens post marriage. 

It definitely seems to for the ladies of Love, Lust and Lies who have a good number of children between them- and maybe even more marriages. And maybe I’m not playing along nicely, but I actually think I’d rather marvel at the dedication of two bus drivers, working opposite shifts and managing to stay deeply in love. 

Almost 20 hours out from seeing Precious (I’ve imposed a 24 hour limit on these reviews) and I really don’t know. I think I got what I bargained for- a semi depressing, semi uplifting tale, with some incredible performances AND a Mariah cameo.

So the issues… Some sequences- the fantasy sequences in particular- are shot beautifully. Others are shot in a sparse style that (dare I say) appears to borrow from the finest tradition of Mumblecore. And then you get the awkward, jerky camera, uneven zooming and uneven framing. And there’s no point. This is a film that uses dramatic changes in style very well to illustrate how the protagonist manages to survive in surroundings that are mind-numbingly bone-crushingly awful. My feeling is that the ‘real life’ segments of the film don’t need anything else to hammer in how nasty they are. They shouldn’t be hard to watch for any other reason apart from the content.

The fact that it is set in 1987 seems to be largely ignored, except for the treatment of the presence of AIDS. The fashion looks alarmingly current- which maybe isn’t the fault of the Designer. To me, the fantasy sequences seemed very rooted in contemporary ideas around celebrity, they were much more Perez Hilton than American Psycho. And overall, sometimes the direction could have been a bit tighter.

Issues Over. The performances are incredible. Heartbreaking. Incredible. You can’t fault them. The casting is intelligent, and off beat.

I did come out feeling like I had been through the wringer. I actually thought it could have been a bit shorter- and I wondered if (inspired by the title) the writer had been forced to stick to a very literal adaptation where nothing from the book was left out. Having not read it, this could be a totally unfair idea. To compare it to classics like To Sir, With Love or (I KNOW) Dangerous Minds (shut up, it is a classic, I cried when Emilio got shot and so did my entire Third Form class) is justifiable. It holds up and holds up well. It might not say anything especially new, but again, it’s the performances. Amazing.