Massive amounts of movie watching, thanks to Biff and no BB.
The Bank Job was very good. I treated myself to this as a consolation when I found out the Biff screening of "In Bruges" had sold out before I got a ticket. Jason Statham as an east end thug in an Italian suit is always done well. He has the grace and menace of a great white shark and no Zachophile could observe the cut and drape of his clothes without emotion.
I think he is a bit too smooth and graceful to be convincing as a navvie, trying to earn an honest living, but that is a fault he shares with more than one of the supporting cast. He is also not quite convincing as a family man - although, strangely, more convincing when he is not with his family...there is not much chemistry between him and his 'wife', a little between him and the eldest daughter, none at all between him and the youngest but when he is with the ex-girlfriend (another strangely glamorous cockney) you can see the concerns of a family man writ large across his features. I would say this is his best acting to date, and hope he has more well written multi-dimensional thug-in-Armani roles to play in the future (and I am sure I will get a chance to see them later).
The story is good fun, and could probably been made more fun if they were less concerned with the facts and more interested in the possibilities - the plot doesn't have too many convolutions. I am sure the true story it was 'based' on, involving a Royal, a madam, a porn impresario, spies, bent cops and black liberationists was much more twisted than this story - especially the tie-ins with MI5 (or six) in Trinidad in that interesting time after the collapse of the West Indian Federation and before the nation became an outright republic, during the "No Vote" election (this was the time of the rise and rise of Reggae in the UK as a result of immigrants escaping political violence and economic hardship).
There are a few anachronisms in the props and costumes - beautiful, subtle paisley scarves tucked neatly into beautiful subtle greatcoats in a very '90's way, with no purple velvet, no brothel creepers, no button-down ruffles, no bow ties, no massively wide bright orange ties, no cheesecloth, no tie-dye to be seen (not even in the wedding scene). And I saw a Visa logo on a door, too. Not very 1971.
On the other hand the transistor technology (an important part of the plot) is all faithful to the era, and there are some stunning views of Hidden London. The story is well written with some wry nods at our twenty-twenty hindsight (One of my favorite lines is a minor character, when asked what he would do with his share "I am going straight back to Cyprus").
In short it is one of the better heist movies I have seen, the best I have seen in a long time.
Then I went to the BIFF. I skipped the opening film because I really dislike highly scripted 'Reality', and figured I could see it cheaper, elsewhere, later, if someone else insisted Morgan Spurlock's latest was really worth my while watching.
Still, this year it is the post 9/11 BIFF, with everything I have seen so far relating in some way to the terrorism theme. And there is a lot of biff in the BIFF, too.
I started with The Battle of Algiers- a French production, subtitled (the script is in both French and Arabic), black and white, made in 1966. It is horribly bloody and realistic, and relevant. Just change the location to Indonesia, Gaza or Afghanistan, (or even keep it in Algeria) and it could be the story on tonight's news. It was banned in France until 1977 because of it's "even-handed" approach - showing the racism of both the colonists and the nationalists, the brutal military tactics of both Colonel Mathieu (commander of the regiment of paratroopers sent in to quell the insurgency) and Ali La Pointe (of the FLN - the national liberation front of Algeria). There are some hideously real water-boarding scenes, and suicide bombings, and lots of shades of gray.
As Mathieu (a composite character, based on several officers in the French counter-insurgency force, and played by an actor who had previously served in the French resistance, as a paratrooper in Indochina, before becoming an actor, and a leftist)points out - "We aren't madmen or sadists, gentlemen. Those who call us Fascists today, forget the contribution that many of us made to the Resistance. Those who call us Nazis, don't know that among us there are survivors of Dachau and Buchenwald. We are soldiers and our only duty is to win."
There are heaps of great quotes (Mostly from Mathieu) - for example " The word 'torture' doesn't appear in our orders. We've always spoken of interrogation as the only valid method in a police operation directed against unknown enemies. As for the NLF, they request that their members, in the event of capture, should maintain silence for twenty-four hours, and then they may talk. So, the organization has already had the time it needs to render any information useless. What type of interrogation should we choose, the one the courts use for a murder case, that drags on for months?"
and "Monsieur Ben M'Hidi, don't you think it's a bit cowardly to use women's baskets and handbags to carry explosive devices that kill so many innocent people?
Ben M'Hidi: 'And doesn't it seem to you even more cowardly to drop napalm bombs on defenseless villages, so that there are a thousand times more innocent victims? Of course, if we had your airplanes it would be a lot easier for us. Give us your bombers, and you can have our baskets.' "
This movie I can't fault for authenticity anywhere- I guess I could cavil at the sound track by Ennio Morricone, because, while the music is supurb, it is in the heavy, grandiose, theatrical style that was popular at the time (think "Fantasia").
It is a really good film, but very serious, very old, very violent.
It is not likely to be on the Big Screen again any time soon, so I will move on.
I followed this bloodbath up with Hunger, a modern movie based on the death of Bobby Sands and the 'blanket protests' at the Maze prison in Dublin , in 1981 (When members of the IRA were demanding to be treated as prisoners of war, and refused to wear prison uniforms). This being BIFF, there were no ratings on the film. If this ever gets rated for TV, they are going to have to invent more letters than the mere four they give Big Brother. There is violence, nudity, adult concepts, coarse language, and there are worse horrors the children should be protected from. For instance, there needs to be a 'H' - sectarian hatred, and a 'M' - Margaret Thatcher sound bites (may trigger nasty flashbacks in adults over the age of eighteen), and 'BO' - Really bad hygiene, warnings on this grim piece.
It is a documentary of real events, but it is done in a way that is very art-house. The MC who gave a little preamble on the screening pointed out that the director started out doing installations in art galleries, and experimental films. Fortunately, I did not walk out right then and ask for my money back. It is one of the few times when art-house works. It hits the mark, truly represents the heart of what it is attempting to show, in an unpretentious and compelling way.
There is very little dialog, almost none, for the first half of the film, and no Bobby Sands either (after all, he is just one man). We start with another man enmeshed in the Troubles - Ray Lohan, a prison guard in the Maze prison, silently enduring his personal part.
The script, when it does happen, is good though. The longest dialog is between Bobby Sands and a priest, covering the "suicide or martyr" issue. Like the cinematography, the script is stylized, and where it could have been dreadfully boring, it works, elegantly stripping off all the external elements and getting right down to the central points, so you are hanging onto every word.
Like the Battle for Algiers, it is even-handed. Sands is not portrayed as a hero or a martyr, nor as a criminal thug. There are no kind, blind eyes glossing over the violence of the IRA, the Government, the prisoners, the prison officers, the whole bloody thing.
It is worth watching just to witness the frightening amount of weight loss Michael Fassbender achieved in the lead role. And it is a bloodbath, literally. It has another screening at BIFF, but it will probably be in cinemas later this year sometime.
After this grim start, Man on Wire was a refreshing change of pace. It is also a documentary, from the seventies but this time, lighthearted, of Philippe Petit, a French guerilla tightrope walker, and his stunts; walking the wire between the towers of Notre dame, across the north pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and finally, his dream since he knew of its construction, between the North and South towers of the World Trade Centre.
It is a lovely uplifting film, recasting the Twin Towers as a beautiful, lusted after, built for a purpose that is not bleak and grim, even if it is somewhat less than legit. Of an innocent age when an illegal but non-violent act of trespass by a foreign citizen could be seen as something other than an assault on the homelands, something other than terrorism. It is anything but bleak or violent, poignant in hindsight, although if you want to see it you will have to be quick - it is showing for its second and last screening at the Melbourne Film Festival on the 5th August (at 3:15pm at the Forum theatre cnr Flinders and Russell) and at the Brisbane Film Festival on Sunday 10th August (at the Palace Centro, in the Valley). It might also screen at the Adelaide film festival, if you are lucky.
If you are in Sydney you had your chance, and missed it. Everywhere else, as usual, had no chance and missed out.
Anyway, I have a film to go to ("A Complete History of my Sexual Failures"). It doesn't look political, but I'll let you know when I have seen it.
