Piercing

PIERCING

Nicolas Pesce, 2018, USA

Nicolas Pesce’s follow up to ‘The Eyes of my Mother’ is another oddball affair and likely to prove unequivocally divisive. But if it’s one thing that seems clear just from these two features is that Pesce is following his own agenda and doesn’t mind being an acquired taste. His explorations into horror are the ingrowing kind, thoroughly opposed to the mainstream. 

“Can we eat first?”

‘Piercing’ begins with a striking montage of building miniatures. Like the Onetti brothers’ ‘Abrakadabra’, its aesthetic is clearly a homage to the ‘70s giallo, another growing genre trend after the wealth of ‘80s reverences. This means it also reuses music from ‘The Red Queen Kills Seven Times’ and ‘Tenebrae’: I guess that maybe we can thank Quentin Tarantino for making reusing the soundtracks from other films a trend – sometimes incongruously.* 

And then it becomes instantly queasy arthouse horror with a twitchy man hovering over a toddler with a knife. He doesn’t do it, but the urge is strong, so he rents a hotel room with the intention of murdering a prostitute. Like performance art, he mimes the murder for practise.  But then Mia Wasikowska turns up at the door and… things don’t go as planned. 

Christopher Abbot seems about to deliver a consummate performance of the meek-seeming killer, but Wasikowska then introduces something more playful and equally dangerous. If not dangerous, then unpredictable. The actors relish turning the tables on one-another within Naomi Munro’s sumptuous, slightly unreal art design. And all the time, the tone of Seventies giallo frames it all, the bold colours, the simultaneous perversion and flippancy.

Based on Ryū Murakami’s novel, ‘Piercing’ plays with assumptions until the audience is in the submissive role of wondering just who’s in charge. Rarely has S&M been played so openly and brazenly with the viewer as Pesce artfully removes one block after another from underneath until we are left as uncertain as can be. This is sly, adult material and very stylish. Steve Abrams is frustrated by 'Piercing' and that's as it should be, surely.  Of course, the ending will be the decider in dividing opinion, but it is completely in keeping with the S&M agenda and leaves the audience teetering on the edge of satisfaction. 

• Yes, I am aware that Cattet and Forzani’s ‘Amer’ utilises the music of other films but that feels more in the service of giallo mash-up that ‘Amer’ is and not in the service of their vinyl collection.

10 Shocks & Scares

Here are 10 of my favourite shocks & scares, both drawn out and skin-jumpers.

1. SHOCK 

(Mario Bava, 1977): 

Boy-into-man jump-scare.

So simple but so effective.

2. WILLOW CREEK 

(Bobcat Goldthwait, 2013): 

In the tent.

When I saw this at FrightFest, a woman screamed and usually this might encourage a chuckle from others, but by that time the tension had us wound so thoroughly that nobody murmured a thing.

3. The OTHERS

 (Pedro Amenabar, 2001)

The curtain.

Just a little thing, but thoroughly chilling.

4. TERRIFIED 

(Damien Rugna, 2017)

The man under the bed and/or the corpse at the table.

A truly effective and fun dispenser of fright scenes.

5. JAWS 

(Stephen Spielberg, 1975)

Shark reveal.

Well, not seeing Bruce has been pretty damned scary up until that point, and then...

6. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON 

(John Landis, 1981)

Home invasion dream.

Never fails to unnerve me and scared me shitless as a boy. I mean, I was already freaked out by the moors scene, but then...

7. Dr WHO: The Talons of Weng-Chiang 

(David Mahoney, 1977)

Mr.Sin.

Old-school scary puppet. Terrified me as a kid and once Mr. Sin’s true nature is revealed – something to do with being a pig-creature – as an adult I found something viscerally repulsive in him too.

8. The HAUNTING

(Robert Wise,1963) 

Whose hand? 

Well, the whole thing really, but this one moment is a classic.

5. THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL 

(Mike Flanagan, 2018, NetFlix series)

The car jump-scare.

This is a jump-scare in the tradition of “Boo!” that the ‘Insidious’ and ‘The Conjuring’ franchises pedal, but this one actually caught me out. And that’s because it seemingly comes as a reaction to sibling squabbling and thereby also has resonance. It’s headlong to disappointment from then on and therefore far inferior to the other entries here. But it gets a mention because it fully worked on me and I jumped mile. 

10. SUNDAY’S CHILDREN

(Daniel Bergman, 1992)

The swinging ghost.

Directed by his son, but written by Ingmar Bergman whose work has always seemed just a shadow away from horror. These moments often come without warning in otherwise perfectly realistic domestic dramas, and they’re all the more shocking and scary for being unexpected. 

Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary

Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Wydmyer, 

2019, USA

A generic loving family buy a huuugge piece of Stephen King real estate, which means their land also includes an old Indian Burial Ground that brings the dead back to life. Within minutes, they’re experiencing jump-scares – a passing foreshadowing truck – and are quickly alerted to the “Pet Sematary” when a procession of horror kids marches through their land for a burial. It seems the estate agent missed out mentioning the “semetary”. These horror kids wear creepy masks and are all over the trailer, but actually, once they have proven their worthiness as memes and Halloween dress code, they disappear from proceedings. The burial ground has a wall of fallen trees that looks just as fake as the “scary tree” from ‘The Conjuring’, and beyond this is where the true zombie-making dirt lies, in the immense misty swamp and Native Land beyond.

Another remake (surely “reboots” are for reviving old franchises?) of a middling favourite, but it seems redundant to complain when Horror has always been the most cannibalistic genre, constantly reviving and regurgitating old titles. The trailer is, in fact, one of those that tells you everything and kind of misleads at the same time. We know it’s not Gabe as the zombie-kid this time because of the trailer and the poster, so the fake-out in the film that puts him peril is made somewhat redundant. In fact, there’s an underlying feeling that the whole enterprise seems to be ticking points off instead of getting under the skin. It’s a fair distance from the condescension of the aforementioned ‘The Conjuring’, but it’s on the same post code. The theme of grieving-leading-to-horror doesn’t feel more than a trope being perfunctorily marked so we can get on with the horror set-pieces. The only truly chilling moment is the bath-time corpse staples, and that’s in the trailer anyhow. Oh, and also the final moment and its implication, even though any chills are subsequently blared out with a cover of The Ramones' ‘Pet Sematary’.

With a little more emphasis on theme the horror would have been deepened. This is how films like ‘Hereditary’ and ‘A Hole in the Ground’ create more resonance and praise. For example, the death of a student and Amy Seimetz’s flashbacks and visions of her dead sister are almost affecting but give way to just being horror jump-scares. Being brought back from the beyond apparently makes the dead – who are seemingly an interconnected resentful mass – metaphysical and homicidal and therefore potentially intriguing, but this avenue also gets stunted. For a spook-kid given a low horror-voice to angrily lament and goad, there is the sense that Jeté Lawrence is capable of far more and therefore underserved: Jeff Buhler’s screenplay seems to be giving her generic horror kid dialogue but Lawrence’s performance seems far more soulful and insidious. The adults are solid but unremarkable. (But Peter Bradshaw is more positive.)

Kölsch and Wyndmeer’s previous film, ‘Starry Eyes’, is far more convincing in its psychology and, of course, there’s plenty of room to argue if Mary Lambert’s 1989 ‘Pet Sematary’ is better. There is a sense that a more troubling and vivid film is trying to emerge. And, just like King’s novel, it bails on truly expanding on the consequences of all this (it’s nasty but where does it go?).

Kin

KIN

Josh and Jonathan Baker, 2018, USA 

Against a backdrop of low-income struggle and a scenery of deserted buildings, black teenager Eli goes scrapping and finds an alien rifle. Meanwhile, his white brother returns from prison to a tetchy father’s homecoming but still has issues with local and lethal lowlife. 

A Tough Love father, a wayward but fun older brother and a stripper with a heart-of-gold. A hint of “chosen one” syndrome. And a ray-gun. With all these elements, the Baker brothers’ ‘Kin’ acts as a full-blooded young male adult fantasy. In this sense, it’s best evaluated as young adult fiction that still has a lot of maturing and self-reflecting to do.

Besides this, the problem seems to be for many commentators that it’s also made up of a blend of genres and the argument is that it satisfies none. Part indie crime drama, part road journey, part sci-fi, part coming-of-age family drama. But such a mash-up is fine by me and keeps things on its toes. It reminds me of such eighties favourites as ‘Tron’, ‘The Last Starfighter’ and ‘Flight of the Navigator’ where a slightly dull and tatty real world gives way to special-effects and Chosen One excitement. I’m far more likely to raise an eyebrow buying into the idea that a ragtag group of bad guys would attack a police station; or that it probably stays too long in the nudity free strip-club where Jimmy (Jack Reynor) acts like an asshole and gets them into trouble. But the genre-blending that might not quite gel and yet marks it out as likable entertainment is surely a central pleasure of genre b-movies: the lack of genre mainstream conformity often redeems the failings and rough edges.

I’m amused at ‘Kin’ acquiring a “not present” grade on commonsensemedia for “consumerism” as we spend a long time in a strip club (but no actual stripping): surely the selling of objectified women qualifies? And then, of course, the central theme of “a magic gun makes boy heroic” is greatly problematic. The film is weak in self-reflection in these areas and leads Glenn Kenny to see it as “insufferable, self-seriously combining shut-in nerdiness with wannabe macho pyrotechnics.  It’s Bro Cinema in all the worst imaginable senses of the term.” Well, I wouldn’t say insufferable, more that it has b-movie charm despite these obvious flaws. I certainly found it less obnoxious than McG’s ‘The Babysitter’ (2017, NetFlix), another male teen fantasy (again, ‘Kin’ reminds me of those eighties young adult flicks). I also probably find it a less stupid male teen fantasy than ‘John Wick’. It helps that it is boosted by the inclusion of two veterans that know this turf well with Dennis Quaid and Jesse Franco, but it’s the unassuming appeal of Myles Truitt as young Eli that grounds the freewheeling drama.

Even with its streak of immaturity, ‘Kin’ still contains comic fun and charm, even if it is distinctly less than its promise.

Bird Box

BIRD BOX

Susan Bier, 2018, USA

The high concept end-of-the-world scenario this time is Sandra Bullock is pregnant but seemingly not quite the maternal type, preferring to paint and stay home rather than go out and start mothering (it’s the art/motherhood conflict). Then the apocalypse happens and people start seeing something that makes them either suicidal or homicidal. So don’t look… although it seems that whispers of temptation from your subconscious has a lot to do with it too. Soon Bullock is holed up with a house of mismatching and bickering survivors, including the archetypal John-Malkovich-is-an-asshole type.

It’s like the Talk Talk song ‘Happiness is Easy’  which points out that a part of religion’s key allure is the faith that the afterlife is better – so why not kill yourself? The threat in ‘Bird Box’ seems to be not only that the vision is sublime, but also the appeal of an (empty?) promise that you get to see your deceased love ones. Which casts Bullock’s trajectory to motherhood as a struggle against violence – to herself and others. The family dynamic becomes literally blindfolding yourself and trusting to luck. Or to the kindness of the narrative. And it plays on the themes of kindness and empathy whilst also check-listing that no-good-deed-goes-unpunished. But as the cast is whittled down, all this is filtered to Bullock opening her eyes to motherhood.

‘Bird Box’ was/is a NetFlix phenomenon, the self-perpetuating kind made possible by social media and memes and the “Bird Box challenge” (where you can play at being blind!). It’s just dangerous enough to mark genre credentials and yet safe enough to be a crossover hit – for the big screen, it was rated “R”, but it’s average stuff for a horror fan. More than many NetFlix originals, this feels like a TV movie.

Based on Josh Malerman’s novel, this will inevitably be compared to ‘A Quiet Place’ in that survival depends more-or-less upon denial of one of the senses. But blindness is surely harder to convince with because, even if we accept the rapids, when they are fleeing through woods and not constantly tripping or running into trees it relies more on suspension of belief. Perhaps the “blind” car expedition for food is the best horror set-piece as it taps into something truly unpalatable – as well as being great promotion for proximity sensors. Bier doesn’t take us close to the detail of being blind, mostly rendering the experience from mid-shots or in brief cuts, such as small moments of blindfolded camera; she never truly finds a way of solving the problem of characters not being able to see in a visual medium which deflates any terror.

‘Bird Box’ is serviceable and slick then, if average, and the blindfolds provide a vivid meme that audiences have already run with. But there’s not enough in the execution to overcome its obvious weaknesses –where it differs crucially from ‘A Quiet Place’ – or the questions that Amy Nicholson lists: 

"However, the back of the audience’s brain is stuck trying to figure out things like: are the monsters hunting their prey, or is it just impersonal? How do the roommates get rid of the corpses? And how offended will the American Psychiatric Association be that Bird Box’s secondary fiends are mental patients who, according to the film, can’t be driven crazy by the creatures because they’re already insane?"

And now falling into the mode of cheesy reviewer’s-punning-punchline: you’ll be looking for more.

Us

Us

Jordan Peele, 2019, USA-Japan

Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’ starts with the Reagan-era commercial for “Hands Aross America”  playing on a tv set with ‘C.H.U.D.’ on the VHS pile beside it, and this juxtaposition proves a big clue to the film’s agenda – ripping the trick from ‘Climax’. Oh, should I then write that as ‘U.S.’? The focus of many reviews will be on the film’s sociology and politics, and Amanda Marcotte provides a useful and direct analysis that ‘Us’ concerns the uprising of the consequences of Reaganism. Peele says ‘Us’ is not about race this time, and it’s true that its metaphors are set more on class, but of course class will always feature race. The director of ‘Get Out’ is unlikely to ever be able to escape the shadow of that debut, but it is also unlikely that he would want to. Just to say that having a black family as central protagonists in a horror film seems quietly ground-breaking enough (see Shudder’s ‘Horror Noire’ for a fine run-through of the dearth of black representation in the genre). 

But why both ‘Get Out’ and ‘Us’ will have longevity beyond being attuned to their contemporary contexts, their eras and political climate, is that they deliver their horror wholeheartedly and with panache. ‘Get Out’ had the don’t-go-there premise, the dark secrets of a superficially benign community and the mad scientist trope. ‘Us’ has the doppelganger, the monsters underground, home invasion, the bodysnatchers and repressed coming up from the tunnels. Both films are stuffed full of all this horror stuff so while all the social commentary and poignant analogies are taking most of the attention, these tropes are providing all the fun. And they are fun films too: they are good with the natural humour. Maybe ‘Get Out’ suffers from having an obvious comic relief, but the humour in ‘Us’ is far more organic and fulfils much of the crowd-pleasing. 

I saw a Twitter witticism by someone that he had just overdosed on ‘Us’’s metaphors and had to lay down. Surely some will accuse Peele of trying too hard, of being too full of itself, but going off the rails and reaching too far is what horror does and Peele has a fine sense of the balance between fun and symbolism. After all, it’s not as if Romero’s ‘Dawn of the Dead’ is subtle. Peele is obviously wallowing and enjoying the tropes so if you read this as cliché, it’s not going to exceed disappointment. And there are all the references and rips from other films – there’s ‘Climax’ at the start, there’s ‘Funhouse’, even the red of ‘Don’t Look Now’, if you like, or Myer’s boiler suit, and the glove that is both a reference to Freddy and Michael Jackson – and on it goes. Typical of contemporary horror, the Easter eggs for fans are plentiful. 

And that Peele delivers good, solid and relatable characters that are far above the genre standard shouldn’t be undervalued. One of the notable touches is how he has characters in such outrageous scenarios talking in a more realistically casual manner that isn’t quite typical of the genre. It helps the whole cast deliver memorable performances whilst still working as archetypes (the man-child horny husband, the indifferent teen, the unfulfilled trophy wife, etc.). Lupita Nyong’o especially gives exceptional lead and support performances, proving again that the genre is giving women some of the best roles around ~ but everyone gives great twin performances.

The doppelgangers are, of course, the Ids of the characters: the brutish father, the creepy grinning daughter, the animalistic and destructive son. It is with the son, Jason (Evan Alex), that there is perhaps one of the films greatest subtleties: at a crucial moment, he seems to realise that Pluto (his double) is the worst of him, but that they come from the same stock and so intuits Pluto’s trap, that he can control his “tethered”, then apparently melding with Pluto to thwart him. And although everyone gives fantastically physical and otherworldly Id-performances, it is surely Evan Alex’s scrambling around like a monkey or a spider that remains most memorable, and so at odds with the more prosaic character of Jason. Even Umbrae’s (Shahadi Wright Joseph) smile-like-a-horror-icon and Red’s horror-croaky voice are pulled back just at the moment of being over-done. 

But like ‘Get Out’, ‘Us’ almost sabotages itself with an unsubtle moment where everything stands still for exposition. These moments are untypical of the fluid flow and fine judgement on display before and after, but it seems there is so much to get in that Peele hasn’t yet quite figured how to avoid these moments of obviousness. But nevertheless, much else is so strong that surely this weakness can be forgiven. 

It’s not so much about the twist which any genre-savvy viewer will suspect/know – so it’s barely a twist at all, maybe – but how the film plays with that throughout and what it goes on to say: it’s about how, given the chance, she came from the underground and learnt all the signifiers and mannerisms to be the thing above ground, in a comfortable middle-class and loving family. Did we think she was just playing a part, because she really did seem to care about the kids, etc.? No, she undoubtedly really meant it. Give the underclass a chance and they’ll be indistinguishable from the privileged. Hell, they might even achieve “Hands Across America” where the privileged failed.

It's a little uneven, a little mumbled, but‘Us’ is a far more open work, far

more willing to let the audience pile in with interpretation where ‘Get Out’ was more definite. It’s chock-full of social commentary and symbolism that can be parsed long afterwards. It helps that there are many striking images to hang it all on and that it’s all nicely and sharply filmed – already I note costume companies are taking the film’s get-ups as Halloween options. Peele offers another meal of genre tropes to interrogate another perennial topic of sociological horror, but does so with humour, vigour and with a sense that the genre can stab and viscerally reveal subjects in ways that others cannot. 

"Lonely Decoy" - Buck Theorem album #2

Here is my second album, "Lonely Decoy". I was asked years ago to do something for an open mic in Manchester, and at the time I really didn't have much to perform and thought spoken word was the way to go. That's where the track "Lonely Decoy" comes from. But then there's a cover of Orbison's "In Dreams", which I reckon to be my oldest favourite song as I have loved it since I was very young and going through mum's collection of 7-inches, And then there's a track about a seance, and then other ambient tracks to fall asleep to.

If one track does nothing for you, I say try the next... just in case...

Capernaum

CAPERNAUM

Nadine Labaki, 2018, 

Lebanon-France-USA

This is the tale of Zane (Zane Al Rafeea), who is apparently around twelve or thirteen (they can’t quite tell). Zain has a tough life, struggling to exude masculine confidence and dominance over the surrounding chaos of his family and the outside world, all whilst looking younger than his age. When homelife becomes unbearable – like Zvyagintsev’s ‘Loveless’, the parents are too obsessed with their own misery to impart real affection to their kids – he takes to the streets and strikes up an unlikely babysitting job with illegal immigrant Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw).

Labaki directs with her focus always on her subjects, although there a couple of occasions that it descends into annoying blurry and unintelligible shaky-cam, or there will be a breath-taking birds-eye view of Beruit. Her husband produced, giving her a freedom from studio demands. Mostly it has the naturalistic, quasi-documentary feel that many bildungsroman focusing on poverty utilises (‘Pixote’, ‘Kes’, for example) rather than the magic-realism trend (‘Tigers Are Not Afraid’ comes to mind). Robbie Collins says, 

“…Capernaum is closer in both texture and spirit to the Brazilian crime epic City of God: it teems with the same excitement and danger as Fernando Meirelles’s film. The sensation of being right there on the ground stems from the nimble camerawork, which darts after Zain through the city’s markets and slums, and also the incidental colour vividly woven through the story itself.”

There are plenty of tentpoles where it could hang its drama upon, but even the courtroom framework where Zane is suing his parents dissipates once the characters speak their piece. It’s the kind of conceit that promises the most tabloid of structures and narrative, but the verdict is not the point. Many moments that could have made for high-drama are played out off-screen to allow the sorrowful struggle of the desperate and disenfranchised to play out mostly unruffled by cruder demands of narratives. The film doesn’t want for emotive and heart-tugging moments, but they’re as clear-headed as they are manipulative. It also navigates around something more lurid and grimmer (I’m thinking of ‘The Golden Dream’ and ‘Helos’ (both excellent)): for example, the sequence where Zain is trying to sell to various groups on the street and often getting beaten up is delivered as a montage rather than dwelt upon. In this way, it retains understatement whilst trawling through its tragedies and absurdities. 

In a world of mostly belligerent and manipulative adults, Rahil provides empathy and softness. You will wonder that the toddler playing her baby (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole) seems to be giving as much of an affecting performance as the adults (which is evidence of masterful editng). Zain Al Refeea’s look of constant resolve and defiance is the film’s guiding force, charging forward, until it becomes a mask for an irreparably hurt kid. Anyone familiar with the tricks of these things knows it is likely to culminate in Zain finally smiling as he has spent the entire film morose and never cracking one – even during the somewhat hilarious encounters with “Cockroach-man” – but even when it comes, there is a moment just before when you doubt if he can even achieve it.

You Total Cult - my podcast debut.

Well, I was recently ambushed to appear on the most entertainingly nerdish podcast “You Total Cult”. I wasn’t expecting it, but it proved most fun. I was in the usual fine company - the YTC host, Mike, and James Eastwood and Rich Byrom-Colburn - and we were in a pub in Lewes as a most atmospheric mist crawled and glowed outside. 

Mike knew to catch me unguarded, priming me earlier by texting “Think of some of your oddest and most obscure films – I’ll tell you why later.” I had never been on a podcast before. I was a little taken aback that he declared I had some influence on his taste, but then we got on talking as we usually do about films and I felt on much safer ground. And then he punningly named the episode after me…

You Total Cult

iTunes

@You_Total_Cult 

Burning

Burning

Lee Chang-Dong, South Korea, 2018

Hangul: 버닝 – RR: Beoning 

Maintaining and leaving a thorough sense of ambiguity, when done correctly, can create the most haunting of fiction. For this reason, for example, Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ will always be a Rorschach test and it seems to me that no line of Henry James’ ‘The Turn of the Screw’ can be trusted; or maybe it’s just perhaps something you can’t quite put your finger on, like the early works of Nicolas Roeg. Lee Chang-Dong’s ‘Burning’ is all about ambiguity: for example, is there a cat/well/killer? 

Lee Jong-su (a rivetingly disarming Ah-in Yoo) is a loner looking for a story to write. But he mostly seems aimless and friendless. Also, his dad is on trial for violent behaviour, leaving the farm for his son to look after. Then one day he runs into an old a neighbour, Shin Hae-Mai (a charmingly shambolic Jong-seo Jun) … or is she? After all, he doesn’t recognise her as she says she had plastic surgery to now make her beautiful. Like everything else, there indeed seems to be some truth in there somewhere: she does seem to recognise the old neighbourhood, for example... 

She asks him to look after her cat when she’s away, which he never sees. Nevertheless, it’s obvious he’s becoming obsessed with her, so when Hae-Mi returns with rich-boy Ben (a mesmerisingly opaque Stephen Yeun), Jong-su is put out and even more repressed than before. Ben’s behaviour seems more and more like that of a sociopath, and Jong-su starts to suspect him of being a serial killer. Or maybe he’s just privileged and shallow?

Maybe Hae-Mi just disappears because the last thing that Jung-su said to her was staggeringly rude and she no longer wanted to play? Maybe the watch is in the drawer because she deliberately left it behind because she didn’t like it – maybe she dropped it? And maybe the thing about Ben and burning down greenhouses is just a pretension, a fancy? After all, there does seem to be some fabrication going on. And who can trust a cat's reactions? Everything is circumstantial, which means bewildered Jung-su’s escalation of assumptions and conclusions takes a more chilling and tragic turn. The more you try to pin down the film’s certainties, the more they tend to the subjective. It’s all in Hae-mi’s pantomiming: just believe it’s there. 

It’s the mystery that lingers, but as well as precisely staged, ‘Burning’ is beautifully filmed in slightly washed-out colours that verge on film noir, wallowing in slow reveals until it has fully planted its questions in you. Like everything else, the sound design and music also take time to show how meticulously placed and riveting it is. Based loosely on Haruki Murakami’s short story ‘Barn Burning’, it’s as much based upon its lacunas and ellipses as what we see. There’s the gamut of issues of violence, class, repression, sexual longing and rivalry informing this troubled central love-triangle: big game is being caught here, even if motivation is often obscure. There’s the sense that the elusive centre is just within reach, calling from a distance like the propaganda blared across the border to the Lee farm. 

The three leads are exceptional, all playing a little abstract and yet thoroughly human. Yoo gets so much from silences beneath which sexual jealousies and class resentment is festering; Jun is the life and soul of the party, both bubbly and slippery and it’s easy to see why she would be the object of infatuation. Yeun is rivetingly all surface and slick, unknowable; saying so little but seemingly doing so – unlike Jung-su – out of arrogance and a superiority complex. ‘Burning’ is firmly anchored by these performances while taking its time distributing its clues and secrecies and pantomime. 

Is Jong-su looking for the truth or a story? But that’s a little disingenuous: he’s looking for both and the question is of how much the latter obscures the former. Then again, perhaps things are just what they seem. And we’ll never know because all we are left with are assumptions. And also a great film about how those assumptions and our need to impose narratives dictate our obsessions and behaviour. And class war, and sexual jealousy, etc...

Amusements

Nicolas Rapold on how 2018 film was representing progressive hope.

For those who like sci-fi panoramas, here's Fan Gao's portfolio:

Feathered dinosaur tail!

The Jam's "A Town Called Malice": That one-two punch of Bruce Foxton's opening bassline that demands that you lose your cool immediately and then followed by that opening line that reminds you that your life is all your troubles makes for one of the great beginnings to any song.
And here are Weller and Foxton on it's conception.

And one of my favourite Kate Bush songs. Somehow, for me, it just effortlessly conjures up the canon of English literature. 

The Spy Who Loved Me

Lewis Gilbert, 1977, UK

Coming after the much derided “The Man With The Golden Gun”, “The Spy Who Loved Me”, along with the subsequent “For Your Eyes Only” are generally seen as the best of the Roger Moore Bonds. Whilst it is true that Moore owns the role here and convinces adequately both as combatant and seducer, knowing when to look serious and when to put his tongue in his cheek, this is still pretty much “Carry On Up Yer Spying”. The most expensive Bond at the time (Biggest! Best! Beyond!), it works best as a weak parody of itself. 

Bond is never one exotic location away from getting laid – Bond is here; he’s there; he’s everywhere – and never one woman away from trite innuendo, occasionally tied into the rote patriotism that makes him a national icon. The biggest joke of the film being that Bond has to team up with sexy Russian agent XXX, Major Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach… and is that kisses? X-rated?), and ... well, you know how men and women are different, yes? Even when fleeing death, Bond will pause to raise an eyebrow at the efforts of a lady because, well, you know how women are? See how agent XXX has trouble getting a van going to escape danger? Women drivers, right? See agent XXX pursue a lethal killer in a sleek evening gown, high heels and clutching a handbag. Etc.

The plot is a tracing over “You Only Live Twice” and we are firmly in science-fiction land and a long way from, say, Harry Palmer and John Le Carre. Okay, so that realism is not what the Bond franchise was engaging with and Bond is far more Flash Gordon than George Smiley, but it seems a shame to have Bond just a sequence of weak gags and innuendo until harder-edged action steps in from a far more convincing if no less silly film. But there has always been a part of Bond films that want to be all things to a mainstream audience. It’s a grab bag of generalisations held together by leading man charisma, gadgets and girls. Oh, but Richard Kiel as definitive henchman "Jaws" steals the show.

The Favourite

Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018, Ireland-UK-USA

writers: Deborah Davis & Tony MacNamara

There was something about Lanthimos’ previous features ‘The Lobster’ and ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’ that didn’t quite hit that final mark for me: good play but no last-minute goal or touchdown or whatever sports analogy you prefer (perhaps another viewing will change my mind). But there is none of that feeling of the point not quite being made to ‘The Favourite.’

In interviews, Olivia Coleman tells of how Lanthimos likes to leave things open and unrequited, to let the actors find their own answers – and doubtless the audience too. This reaps rewards in ‘The Favourite’ in that the three lead women eschew Lathimos’ previous deadpan style and give full-blooded performances that undoubtably makes this that most unlikely beast: a crossover Lanthimos film. Lured by the promise of the cosy tropes of costume drama, audiences get something far odder. It operates with the elegance associated with period drama and the iconoclastic sensibility and dirty words of a sketch show. 

Through the vast rooms and corridors of court, everyone wants the Queen’s favour: the men for politics, the women just to thwart oppression. There’s the surface tomfoolery and absurdism, but always the tragic underpins it all; not least in the ever present seventeen rabbits representing the children Queen Anne has lost (when interviewed by Simon Mayo, Coleman said that Anne was entitled to be as mad as she pleased after such loss).  But it’s also there in the background details of what the women must do to survive; Abigail’s fall from grace, for example, and her determination to rise again. Don’t come for historical accuracy (those rabbits are a fabrication, for example, but Screenrant provides an overview of the true story) but there’s plenty of emotional truths here. And always the hint of danger (the shooting range) as well as a topping of a little uncomfortable slapstick (watch for “Nude pomegranate Tory”).  But mostly there is also a litany of one-liners and bon mots to savour – “You look like a badger.” “…and something called a ‘pineapple’.” – and the cast relish them. 

The regal period drama has always been a home for dry wit and satire, and 'The Favourite' brings a slight lampooning of the genre and of history that opens it up without recourse to total veracity. It’s a woman’s film predominantly and Coleman and Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone wallow in the opportunity and captivate and delight without Lanthimos’ direction getting in the way. It’s three brilliant performances plus probably a career best from Nicholas Hoult. The screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony MacNamara provide a great script for them to get their teeth into. It gives Lanthimos a solid through-line that is at once playful and cruel but with a wide streak of empathy and sympathy that hasn’t previously been part of this director’s provocations. It also has a final note that, although it’s apparently all games and one-upmanship, no one wins. A thorough delight with a sour bite. 

Beautiful Boy

Felix van Groeningen, 2018, USA

screenplay: Lucas Davies & Felix van Groeningen

Although based on both the memoirs of David and Nic Sheff – ‘Beautiful Boy’ and ‘Tweak’ respectively – Groeningen’s adaptation, written with LukeDavies, tilts more towards the father, making this mainly a paternal viewpoint of a son’s addiction. 

There is a streak of obviousness in ‘Beautiful Boy’ where it uses a Notebook of Exposition or is too on-the-nose with the song choices, but just like it’s choice of Neil Young’s ‘Heart of Gold’, it is equally sentimental and clear-headed and ultimately moving. It is not working in abstraction or even subtlety, but this is where the aesthetic stops it falling into addiction-of-the-week TV movie. The mosaic of memories and incidents undermine much of the sense of cliché to allow the performances and mood to dominate. And dominate they do: Colin Farrel and  Timothée Chalamet are both excellent. Chalamet is a fine physical actor which reaps rewards when he is overdosing in a toilet. Farrel is more quietly affecting in his confusion and determination to support his son, excelling when he cracks up and cries. 

Josephine Livingstone finds ‘Beautiful Boy’ lacking as an expression of the truth of addiction: “Homelessness isn’t Timothée Chalamet draped handsomely across a diner; it’s contemptuous glances and shame.” For such films, Livingstone points out, the devastating effects of drugs is just a starting point for family drama and dysfunction, and that’s true. But the slight remove from the details of Nic’s experience meant that I never felt his tale or that druggy miserablism were predominant: that is, it’s the father-son dynamic as the family looks on baffled and helpless that drives the feeling rather than a grim truth of addiction. That is, this isn’t ‘Christiane F.’ or a film that casts the addict as an anti-hero, rebelling against the tedium and hypocrisy of the mainstream. And his problems cannot be located in social context: Nic is seemingly just as confounded by himself as everyone else: he’s a child of privilege from a split but loving home and can go back to that at any time, but drugs have a solid grip on him. 

There may not be detailed insight to crack addiction but the evocation of its effect on a family feels sincere enough. You may find, suddenly and unexpectedly, that it has tapped into real feeling. I certainly abruptly felt that I had been truly stirred at something incidental about halfway through rather than an obvious emotional moment, because I had been affected by the culmination of the overall experience. Particular note for the sound design and choice of songs that guide and glide over the collage and tonal shifts like stream-of-consciousness. There’s nothing new here, but it reaches genuine feeling in its pot pourri of colourfully photographed vignettes that make it an but undeniably emotional experience, whatever flaws it may have.