Amongst the trivia clutter that has seeped into my head over the years, there are historical figures whose names I have been aware of without really knowing precisely who they were. Having a thirst for true adventure tales, unearthing these stories through books or films is like making my own discoveries, and I feel a little surge of excitement, insignificant as it may be compared to the subjects I’m exploring. Thor Heyerdahl is one such figure, and his story, as told in Kon-Tiki, is a wonderful encounter.

Heyerdahl (Pål Sverre Hagen) is a man driven by a ruthless ambition and a desperate quest for validation from the post-war scientific community. After spending a number of years on the idyllic Pacific island of Fatu Hiva with his wife Liv (Agnes Kittelsen), he develops a heretofore preposterous thesis that the settlers of Polynesia came not west from Asia as accepted, but from the east, drifting towards the setting sun from Peru.

As chronicled in Kon-Tiki, Heyerdahl and a motley band of inexperienced but similarly determined accomplices embark on a visionary journey, following a hypothetical path some 5,000 miles across the Pacific to prove the impossible. Kon-Tiki is a considered, old-fashioned adventure yarn, with moments of heart-stopping thrills amongst an examination of one man’s obsession. 

Heyerdahl is driven to the brink of sanity in his enterprise, but rather than being a narcissistic portrayal, directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg show the anguish of the great man, who wrestles with his obligations to the men sharing his raft, the family at home in Norway, and his duty as a scientific explorer right to the nail-biting conclusion. His is a story that deserves its place among Hillary, Scott and Amundsen, and Kon-Tiki is one of the year’s most unexpected pleasures. 

Jacques Audiard’s follow up to the remarkable 2009 film Un Prophète, Rust and Bone tells the story of Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard) and Ali (Matthias Schoenarts), two people struggling for purpose who form an unlikely bond following a tragic workplace accident that leaves Stéphanie permanently disabled. 

It is a challenging film that presents its audience with two leads who aren’t exactly the easiest characters to like, with Stéphanie initially sinking into self-pity following her accident, and Ali selfishly putting himself ahead of everyone else in his life, even his young son Sam (Armand Verdure). 

However, Audiard never demands sympathy, instead choosing to simply present his characters as real people with both physical and internal flaws, and the very stark, at times overexposed look effectively puts them all on display. It is fascinating in particular to watch Cotillard bring Stéphanie out of her depression as the unconventional friendship unfolds, spurred on by the brutish Ali. 

It’s also an often surprising film, taking turns that may not work as well had the characters not been so well fleshed out through the excellent performances. There are moments of genuine emotional impact (one of which is set to a Katy Perry song of all things), both uplifting and devastating.

It’s arguable that the unfocused narrative and perhaps under-explained catalyst for Stéphanie and Ali’s relationship work to the film’s detriment, but Rust and Bone is clearly more concerned with character than story. We’re not asked to enjoy the time spent with Stéphanie and Ali as such, but rather to observe and understand the bitter loneliness of this duo who desperately support each other through the trauma of their existence. By turns gruelling and hopeful, Rust and Bone is a physical, gritty film of uncommon power. 

Just the fifth recipient of the Academy Award for Best Picture, Edmund Goulding’s Grand Hotel is, like so many early classics, a template setting picture in a number of ways. The entwining of stories from several characters is wonderfully engaging yet also deliberately trivial, a simple slice of life from a single floor in the opulent, cavernous Grand Hotel in Berlin.

Following an effortless but undeniably effective set up, John Barrymore charms as the dapper Baron Felix von Gaigern, a shadowy con man intent on relieving melodramatic ballet dancer Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) of her jewels in the hope of paying off an old debt. Meanwhile, the leering General Director Preysing (Wallace Beery) vies for the affections of his beautiful stenographer (Joan Crawford) while trying to salvage a troubled business deal, and all are somehow drawn together by the doomed optimism of the hopeless Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore). 

Every member of the all-star cast brings just the right tone to their characters. John Barrymore delivers a dashing, confident performance right up until he is thunderstruck by love for the first time in his life, and Garbo shows desperate vulnerability and a prima donna’s desire for fame and affection sharply contrasting her own intensely private life. A very young Joan Crawford plays Flaemmchen as a classic cinematic tomboy so common to Classical Hollywood, adorable and accessible in equal measure, and Lionel Barrymore serves as comic relief with work regularly bordering on slapstick.

It is a somewhat hackneyed film criticism trope to refer to location as an extra character in a given film, but Grand Hotel’s titular location is an early example of how a filmmaker can use their backdrop to subtly flesh out a particular thematic aspect of the picture. Goulding uses expansive establishing shots and sweeping pans to emphasise the labyrinthine nature of the hotel before narrowing his gaze to just one small portion. He also gives much attention to the lobby’s revolving door, returning to the image again and again and driving home the key piece of the puzzle in Grand Hotel, a place where, as one character notes in the film’s bookending monologues, “People come, people go, nothing ever happens.”

The joys of decoding the dialogue don’t end there, given that Grand Hotel falls right in the early days of the strict censorship of the Hays’ Motion Picture Production Code. The first meeting of John Barrymore and Crawford crackles with thinly veiled desire, and the lustful euphemisms of Beery are as hilarious as they are loathsome.

As is often the case when reaching back far into cinema history, Grand Hotel might seem familiar to many first-time viewers due to its influence. For those of us who appreciate the past and hunger for experience of the origins of style however, the film is an absolute treat, offering romance, wonderfully drawn characters, and more than a few surprising turns.

The following is a review I wrote for Thread, a new publication on the Kapiti Coast in New Zealand. Pick up a copy if you’re in the area, or you can visit their blog version here. Hopefully this will be a somewhat regular thing, so support a really cool new thing!

Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín’s No tells the story of René Saavedra (Gael García Bernal), the creative mind behind the scenes of the campaign to democratically oust Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1988. Using his advertising background, Saavedra crafts a campaign that runs against the grain, favouring a seemingly superficial and disposable delivery system that shakes established convention and ushers in a new era in political maneuvering.

The film documents a little seen side of politics, with Larraín employing intimate handheld camera work to create a great sense of urgency and authenticity, as the grainy video look blends seamlessly with the large amount of archival footage culled from the real campaign. Taken with the sharply detailed period dressing, the technique elevates No from the unremarkable reconstruction it could have been to something much more engaging.

García Bernal’s Saavedra is established as an odd choice for running the ‘No’ campaign, but Larraín again shows a knack for getting the most out of a fairly dry script. Saavedra is the man for the job not because of any obvious or outspoken opposition to Pinochet’s regime, but because he is something of a futurist, and understands the importance of boldly stepping forward rather than dwelling on history’s failures. To him, it seems, the campaign is scarcely more important than the new microwave oven; what matters is whether he can sell either to the Chilean people.

Impressively for a story now a quarter of a century old from a part of the world distant from many of us, No remains relevant and familiar. Much of the politics depicted is not dissimilar to what we’ve become accustomed to today, and the film is a reminder that a functioning democratic process can be ripe ground for compelling drama.

Any movie concerning the manipulation of a character’s mind is going to present an unreliable narrative. Inevitably the rug is going to be pulled from said character, usually upending the audience as well. 

Danny Boyle’s latest Trance is but one more film that tries to bait and switch us, but unfortunately the only effective twist in this tale is the rapid deterioration of an illogical but often gripping thriller into a sloppy and occasionally puerile mess, with a third act that lands with such a thud that any goodwill earned early on seems to be a hazy memory of a different film.

Trance tells the story of Simon (James McAvoy), an apparently naive auctioneer caught in the middle of a high stakes art heist who loses his memory after a crack on the head from the heel of a shotgun wielded by thief Franck (Vincent Cassel). Enter Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson), the hypnotherapist hired by Franck to break through Simon’s amnesia to reveal the location of a £25 million painting that vanished in the robbery.

The logic of the film is murky from the get go, but Boyle fires Trance out of the gate with such furious pace that allows little time to stop and pick apart the pseudo-scientific aspects of hypnotism as depicted here. Typically of the director, they style seems to take precedence over the substance, and a terrific soundtrack (all the better if you’re fortunate enough to see the film in a Dolby Atmos theatre) contributes to the slickness of it all.

Truth be told, there’s a lot in Trance that is pretty enjoyable. The cool neo-noir vibe works well despite the obvious cracks in the surface of the script.

Until, that is, the cracks become a gaping crevasse, torn open by the baffling decisions to hang a fairly significant story point on a frankly idiotic idea, and grind the relentless charge toward the climax to a halt with turgid exposition that makes little sense in the context of the story. It’s simply bad writing, and the film has no time to recover, left instead with an ending that has zero real impact beyond the crushing confusion of it all.

Trance had the potential to see Danny Boyle to get back on track after a couple of minor works (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours) that generated a lot of awards buzz but little enduring quality. It’s disappointing to see a filmmaker with such a unique and varied catalogue of work hit a rough patch like this, but if you’re waiting for a work that shakes Boyle from his slump, Trance just isn’t it.

A piece of advice for anyone thinking about seeing Oz: The Great and Powerful: the further you can get from the majestic 1939 masterpiece The Wizard of Oz, the more chance you stand of having a good time with the prequel.

For those of us that feel a strong connection to the original film, Disney’s first big release of the year is a trite, overloaded bog of cloying CG, nauseating characters, and a needlessly dark tone that betrays of the innocence of a world so many of us grew up with.

It’s nothing new to observe that many of the big summer pictures of the last decade or so have leaned towards a darker tone, and it’s also not necessarily a bad thing. What I’m going to suggest is that the technique doesn’t necessarily have to be employed in every case, and certainly not for something like this.

I simply want to ask why we are forced to endure the suggested genocide of a race of people (the porcelain villagers of China Town), or the corseted, sexed-up Wicked Witch of the West (Mila Kunis) threatening that the Yellow Brick Road, a symbol only associated with goodness and joy, will run red with the blood of Oz’s fair citizens.

Because it’s 2013, and people demand darkness in their beloved children’s tales? Where is it written that simplicity and purity can’t be part of a successful film anymore?

Why does the arrival of Oz (a leering and feckless James Franco) himself have to be tied up to some tacked on prophecy? It’s a completely unnecessary plot point that adds nothing to the character or the film. Due to the cultural footprint of the original, even people who may not have seen it in a long time, or ever, are probably familiar enough with the story that we know how this film is going to play out.

There was no prophecy about Dorothy’s trip to Oz to defeat the Witch, each of the supporting characters had their motivation set up in little more than a sentence or two, and it’s hard to deny that story turned out pretty well. The simplicity of the story is what worked.

Why, why, does Oz: The Great and Powerful need not one, but two ridiculous sassy sidekick characters? A neurotic flying monkey played by Zach Braff doing his best Woody Allen impression is cute enough until certain shots reveal some ghastly, flat CG work on his face. And the sooner we can free ourselves of Tony Cox’s wise-cracking dwarf schtick the better. It’s a character that we’ve seen over and over again, and am I crazy or is having a character exist for no reason other than so people can laugh at someone different from themselves more than a little offensive?

The tornado that serves as the catalyst for this atrocious movie’s plot just may have been whipped up by L. Frank Baum and Victor Fleming furiously rolling in their graves. Oz: The Great and Powerful is gaudy, tonally inconsistent, over-written nonsense that does its best to tarnish the legacy of one of the all-time classics, a film that will make you wish you could click your heels together and transport yourself out of the cinema, realising it was only a horrible dream.

I don’t know how he keeps doing it, but Quentin Tarantino always surprises me with his restraint.

This might seem like an odd thing to say about the man who gave us the blood-soaked extremes of Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds and, well, any of his other films, but for whatever reason I always expect his films to completely slip the leash and run wild. Django Unchained maintains the madness of the director’s earlier films, but more so than ever before, it feels like he has kept his most extreme instincts relatively in check.

Django Unchained begins with a fairly simple A-to-B narrative. Pre-Civil War era slave Django (Jamie Foxx) is acquired (in a classic Tarantino opening scene, rivaling Inglourious Basterds) by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a bounty hunter on the search for three wanted brothers. However, it soon becomes apparent that this hunt encompasses only the film’s opening third, and a much more sprawling story unfolds over the course of the close to three hour running time. For assisting Schultz, Django earns his freedom and the pair enter into a vengeful partnership in pursuit of Django’s wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), a slave sold to the sadistic Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). 

Perhaps more than any of Tarantino’s previous films, it feels like he is really trying to say something with Django Unchained. As great as a film like Pulp Fiction is, it really works on cool factor alone, and couldn’t exactly be praised for its depth. Here however, Tarantino seems to know precisely when to dial back the cool to comment on the nature of human violence. While full of outrageous gunfights packed to the brim with geysers of gore, the film features an alarming amount of up close, almost intimate brutality that is very upsetting.

Which feels to me like precisely the point. The savagery inflicted upon slaves by their white masters is shoved right in the audiences face, and is much more difficult to endure than the exaggerated violence of the guns, which draw more laughs than anything else. Tarantino has never shied away from violence in his work, but the very clear binary nature of the bloodshed in Django Unchained feels very carefully thought out, and really opens the film up for deeper analysis than anything he has done before.

That said, Django Unchained doesn’t completely escape Tarantino’s self-indulgent streak. The sheer length of the film will certainly cause some viewers to question the necessity of much of the final 30 minutes, particularly the baffling sequence in which the director makes his obligatory cameo appearance. Also, the most egregious use of a certain n-word since Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles is going to raise eyebrows with conservative audiences, opening the debate of whether Tarantino is simply courting controversy in the hopes of drawing a crowd.

Aside from perhaps the director himself, the acting is top-notch across the board, with Foxx and Waltz sharing great chemistry, and DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson (as house slave Stephen) both hilarious and frightening in equal measure. Django Unchained navigates a razor-thin space between raucously entertaining and unapologetically confronting, yet rarely veers too far either side to become either exploitative or preachy. It’s a familiar but somehow surprising effort from Tarantino, and while it may not rank amongst his most well-crafted films, Django Unchained stands out as a bold and completely assured work from a modern auteur doing exactly what he wants to do. 

After taking forever to reach us down here in New Zealand, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master finally has a limited release this week. I’m not quite sure how I felt about it, so this isn’t a review so much as just a few thoughts I had about the film.

Despite the lack of a best picture Oscar nomination, The Master is possibly the most highly regarded film of 2012. Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most gifted directors around; his previous film There Will Be Blood is right amongst the best films of the last 10 years, and features one of history’s great lead performances from Daniel Day Lewis. 

Expectations were obviously pretty high going into this movie.

In a lot of ways, The Master doesn’t disappoint. It is impeccably crafted from the very first frame. In my view, Anderson’s greatest strength is his skill at telling a story through character rather than traditional narrative, and the characters of The Master are just so richly written, and played to near perfection. If Joaquin Phoenix’s work feels a little big for most of the movie, it comes together brilliantly in the closing scenes, a complete performance. Even better is Anderson regular Philip Seymour Hoffman as the charismatic cult leader Lancaster Dodd, and as good as he always is, this is a role he will be remembered for. Holding her own against such imposing leading men is Amy Adams as Peggy Dodd, a fascinating character I would have liked to have seen much more of, and, in typical Anderson fashion, an array of excellent supporting players including Jesse Plemons and Laura Dern enrich the world of the film.

Anderson’s films are always tough nuts to crack, aren’t exactly the easiest things to enjoy, and with the exception of Punch Drunk Love perhaps, exist in some pretty murky territory. This might be the reason why, despite all of its strengths, truthfully The Master left me cold. It’s like gazing upon a huge feat of engineering. You can admire the construction of a 100-level skyscraper, wonder at the level of skill in its creation, but you can’t really connect emotionally with it. It may be impressive, but is absolutely unfeeling. That’s The Master for me. It is a film that feels like it is defying you to enjoy it, as if Anderson is intentionally keeping you at arm’s length, and I was never able to connect with it beyond an admiration of the craftsmanship.

That said, it is without question a film that demands to be seen, and seen, and seen again. I’m sure there are untold nooks and crannies to be explored upon closer analysis, and it’s likely that I will grow to appreciate it even more. For now though, I’m mostly at a loss regarding The Master, and that might be the best thing about it. Few filmmakers have the talent to provoke such an unusual reaction in me, and it’s a feeling I choose to savour and enjoy, rather than be frustrated by.

With Les Misérables (an adaptation of the stage musical, itself an adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel), director Tom Hooper had a better shot at making something great than anyone has for some time. All the pieces were in place: solid source material, a director fresh from awards glory, and a well selected cast of performers. So, after chewing it over for several days, why is it that I’m beginning to think this might be a terrible film?

What works in Les Misérables works very well indeed. First of all, the story itself is top-notch; a bleak melodrama of the French Revolution with an emotional core that still resonates and feels relevant 150 years after its debut.

The cast are for the most part excellent, committing themselves admirably to the challenge of delivering essentially all dialogue through song. Hugh Jackman oozes the nobility required for Jean Valjean, displaying a stunning voice and holding together a performance that could quickly become camp in the wrong hands. Equally good is Eddie Redmayne, playing Marius’ strength and bravery with a well-observed hint of naïveté.

The real acting drawcard however is Anne Hathaway’s sadly brief role, for which she will surely get much attention at awards time. Her performance of ‘I Dreamed a Dream,’ one of Les Misérables’ most iconic songs, is quite honestly one of the most powerful pieces of acting I can remember, and is so raw and heart-wrenching that you will be left gasping. Not quite as strong is Russell Crowe, deserving of some credit for putting himself out there, but whose voice just isn’t strong enough to really convey the menace of the villainous Javert.

Unfortunately almost everything else about the film is really handled quite badly. Much like The King’s Speech (Hooper’s previous film), Les Misérables is a victim of over-stylisation and awkward cinematography that is at times inexplicably jarring and, for lack of a better word, ugly. With all of the elaborate set design Hooper is apparently so excited about, for the vast majority of the film he insists on using very tight close-ups, making the sets and backgrounds redundant. It doesn’t help matters that, on the rare occasions when his camera does retreat enough to show a little more, the over-use of blue screen backdrops gives a ghastly, manufactured look, too flat to be anything close to believable.

Whatever Hooper’s reasoning behind the choices he makes with Les Misérables is obviously not for us to know. Adapting a stage musical such as this, I can understand the temptation to capture close-ups, offering an intimacy not possible in a live theatre, and it’s precisely for this reason that the inevitable hero moments each principal character has (like Hathaway’s aforementioned solo) are far and away the best moments in the film. 

But surely a huge reason to do this at all would be to free oneself from the restraints of live theatre and indulge the epic nature of Hugo’s original vision? Hooper, far too beholden to the play, instead chooses to merely recreate what could be easily put on stage, not taking advantage of the scope cinema can offer. The result is a well-acted but visually turgid mess, which only seems more misguided the further I get from it.

Which brings us to Life of Pi, based on Yann Martel’s introspective 2002 Man Booker Prize winning novel. A challenging story to bring to the screen to be sure, but under the expert hand of Ang Lee the film is yet one more example of how difficult material can be adapted given the right amount of time and care.

Life of Pi is at its core a tale of survival against insurmountable odds, following the titular teenager’s (Suraj Sharma) months spent adrift on a lifeboat after the sinking of a cargo ship transporting his family from India to Canada. A dwindling menagerie of animals from the family zoo are also along for the ride, including the fearsome Bengal tiger Richard Parker, representing those who managed to escape the ship and cling to Pi’s tiny craft.

Perhaps the difficulty of adapting the novel lay in keeping audience interest during long sequences involving little more than a boy and a tiger, and it’s likely the film would have dragged were it not for the astonishing visual spectacle Lee brings to the screen. He takes full advantage of all technical wizardry available, balancing the ocean’s serene beauty and unapologetic violence in just the right measure. Even the 3-D, something I personally am usually resistant to, never intrudes or calls attention to itself, but rather complements the oppressively flat horizon so much of the film plays out in front of. Life of Pi will undoubtedly be in the best visual effects conversation come awards season, with Richard Parker in particular standing out as one of the most impressive digital characters yet created.

Exploring Life of Pi a little deeper, Lee develops strong thematic currents relating to storytelling and faith, and how the two are entwined. As a story about storytelling, the film works very well from the beginning, as the older Pi (played wonderfully by Irrfan Khan) relates his tale to a visiting writer (Rafe Spall). Yet it is also a story about faith, and here the waters get a little murkier. What Lee is trying to say about faith and religion is open to interpretation (and that’s likely the point), but the film’s one major shortcoming is a lack of satisfying answers regarding what is the most clearly defined aspect of Pi himself.

The narrative seems to promote the importance of faith as a general concept, not tied to any specific religion, but more akin to a sharing of humanistic beliefs. It’s not the specifics of faith’s origins or even ultimate goals that matter, but rather how the beliefs are shared, adapted and passed on. Not the most conclusive analysis I know, but the links between faith and storytelling are there, and perhaps repeat viewings will offer up more answers.

Despite the elusive nature of some of Life of Pi’s subtext, it really is a film that deserves praise and attention. Never one to pigeonhole himself, Lee has crafted a thoughtful and moving fantasy that is beautiful to behold yet also offers much intellectual nourishment.
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