Toto the hero (film review)

Toto the hero (drama) (1991) (91 mins)

This remarkable film from Belgian director and screenwriter Jaco Van Dormael has a complex structure of flashbacks but is so well realised that the story remains coherent and absorbing.

The film begins in dramatic fashion with Thomas, now an old man, fantasising about killing his old friend Albert. It then cuts to a flashback of a fire at the hospital when they were both babies. Thomas is convinced that during the fire he and Albert were swapped, and that his life has been cursed as a result.

The story flits between Thomas’ childhood (particularly his close relationship with his sister Elise), his adult relationship with a woman who looks like Elise, and his current existence in a nursing home where his greatest excitement is having a secret smoke behind the backs of the nurses.

The way that these three strands run in parallel and also interweave is a great technical feat but it is not just the story that compels but also the way it is told. The film is visually inventive and also rich in sound and movement, and it also manages to weave in Thomas’ highly-developed fantasy life, including his dreams of being a secret agent (in childhood he names himself Toto the hero). It seems that this rich fantasy life is a kind of compensation Thomas has offered himself for the disappointments of real life.

As he looks back on the tragedies and disappointments of his life, Thomas comes to blame Albert for how his life has turned out. He escapes from the nursing home and sets out on a mission to kill Albert. However, things don’t quite go to plan.

This is a film of many strands. One of them is that the viewer has to account for Thomas’ unreliable narration of events. Did events really happen this way or have they been distorted by an unreliable childhood memories?

The film was Van Dormael’s debut feature film and was very well received, winning the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The music for the film, written by his brother Pierre, received much praise and the director had his brother compose the music to his subsequent films. Van Dormael’s follow-up film, The Eighth Day (1996), was also well received but his third feature, Mr Nobody (2009), which again featured a complex series of flashbacks, was less successful.

Rating: 9/10

The big clock (movie review)

The Big Clock (1948) (drama) (1 hr 35 mins)

This film noir from director John Farrow (father of Mia) is based on an excellent novel of the same name by Kenneth Fearing and boasts one of the best plots in its genre. It was remade in 1987 as No Way Out starring Kevin Costner, a film ruined by an absurd ending that undermined the rest of the film. This first film version keeps closer to the original story and ramps up the tension as the story unfolds.

George Stroud (played by Ray Milland) is the editor of a magazine called Crimeways, which not only publishes crime stories but has a team of investigators who solve crimes. As the film opens, we see him in his office building hiding from security men behind the ‘big clock’, the largest and most elaborate clock ever built. The clock dominates the lobby of Janoth Publications, the New York publishing company where Stroud works.

Stroud reflects that only two days before he could never have dreamt he could have found himself in such a dire situation as the one he now faces. In flashback we then see the events that have led up to his current predicament.

Stroud had been about to meet his wife to go on a long-postponed honeymoon when he was diverted by a mysterious woman called Pauline who turns out to be the mistress of his boss, Janoth (Charles Laughton). They spend the evening together, visit a bar and Stroud buys a painting (unwittingly outbidding the woman who painted it) and a clock. When he has one too many drinks, he goes back to Pauline’s apartment to sleep it off. He is awoken by her when Janoth calls round. He  exits by a side door. Crouching on the stairs, he is seen by Janoth but not identified.

Thinking the man on the stairs is a departing lover, Janoth picks an argument with Pauline. Losing self-control, he picks up the clock and strikes her down, killing her. Distraught, he jumps into a taxi and goes to the home of Stephen, his deputy. They concoct a plan to pin the murder on the stranger on the stairs, using the investigating might of Crimeways to track him down. They give Stroud the task of leading the investigation.

Stroud’s team of investigators are soon on the case and manage to track down the barman, the painter and the owner of the antiques shop who sold him the painting. This man sees Stroud disappearing into a lift inside the building and raises the alarm. Janoth orders that no-one be allowed to leave the building before they have passed by the antiques dealer. His security men guard all of the exits. Stroud is trapped inside the building, leading an investigation that he knows is drawing the net tighter and tighter around him. The big clock is ticking and the only way he can save himself is to find some evidence against Janoth.

The characters are hardly developed (though Laughton gives a fine turn as the sinister, manipulative Janoth) but the story is intriguing enough to hold your attention. As more witnesses are brought forward to identify the stranger on the stairs, Stroud is at his wits’ end to stay one step ahead of the encircling net. This is an impressive thriller, even if doesn’t manage to capture the rawness of the novel.

Rating: 8/10

Beyond the hills (movie review)

Beyond the hills (drama) (2012) (2 hrs 32 mins)

This is a powerful and moving Romanian drama written and directed by Cristian Mungiu which shows how vulnerable ordinary people are when they don’t have a family to care for them.

The film follows the friendship of two young woman who grew up together in an orphanage and are now trying to find their place in the adult world. Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) has found a home in a rural Orthodox Christian convent. Her friend, Alina (Cristina Flutur) has left her foster parents and moved to Germany but she feels lost without her friend and comes back to Romania to visit her.

It soon becomes clear that Alina has expectations that Voichita will leave the community and that they can be together. There are suggestions that she sees their relationship as more than just friendship, though it’s not clear whether Voichita feels the same way. In any case, Voichita has changed. She has found security in the routines and rules of her religious order and doesn’t want to lose it.

Alina, feeling rejected, seems about to take her own life by jumping down a well, and is stopped by the sisters. She reacts hysterically and is forcibly restrained. She is taken to the local hospital but they are short of beds and release her back to the convent. As she has nowhere else to go, Voichita persuades the priest to allow her to stay until she decides what she wants to do. She can join the community but only if she makes a declaration of faith and lives by the community’s rules.

As Alina struggles to regain the former intimacy of her friendship and to fit in with the community, her behaviour becomes more and more disruptive. The community want to help her but don’t know how. Voichita is told she can leave the community with her friend or stay on her own but they can’t continue to have Alina stay with them. Desperate to find a way for Alina to stay, she asks the priest to exorcise Alina’s demons, hoping that Alina can find peace as she has done. The priest reluctantly agrees, but with tragic consequences.

The film was based on two novels by Tatian Niculescu Bran about the true story of a young woman who died in a monastery in Moldavia in 2005 after a ritual exorcism. The film won Best Screenplay at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, with Fluture and Stratan sharing the award for Best Actress. It was shortlisted for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Mungiu manages to convey the real pain of two young women struggling to come to terms with the harsh realities of life. The bleak scenery reinforces the sense of isolation both women feel.  The film is a follow-up to Mungiu’s haunting 2007 film, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which told the story of a woman going through an abortion and won the Cannes Palme d’Or for Best Feature Film.

Rating: 8/10

Citizen Kane (movie review)

Citizen Kane (drama) (1941) (1 hrs 54 mins)

Citizen Kane is a great film that, like a powerful dream rising from the unconscious mind, warrants and rewards study. It is remarkable in being the first film directed by Orson Welles, at the tender age of 25. Not many directors make their greatest film at the first attempt. Probably no-one in the history of cinema has made a debut film of such quality, originality and technical brilliance.

Of course Welles was not a complete novice. He had directed in the theatre and on the radio and already shown signs of rare ability. It was this early promise that led the studio to give him carte blanche to direct any film he chose. He took his time, mulled over different scripts and in the end decided to write his own screenplay, in collaboration with Herman J. Manciewitz.

The story itself is quite compelling. A young boy is given away by his parents to be brought up by a wealthy businessman, after the parents unexpectedly come into a fortune. The boy grows up, becomes a newspaper magnate, a highly successful businessman and a man of influence in world affairs. He has hopes one day of becoming President but his political ambitions are thwarted when an extra-marital affair comes to light. He withdraws to Xanadu, a vast estate where he has accumulated thousands of works of art, which sit gathering dust as he ekes out his final years in solitude.

What makes the film even more compelling is the way Welles chooses to tell the story. The structure of the film is bold and imaginative. From the opening scene, where we see a ‘No Trespassing’ sign on the barbed wire fence of Xanadu, we realise that what drove Charles Foster Kane to accumulate and wield such wealth and power remains a mystery. A reporter is dispatched to visit Kane’s second wife, his friends and colleagues to try to find out the meaning of the final word Kane ever spoke. As he lay on his deathbed, he uttered the single word ‘Rosebud’. As the reporter digs deeper, we see versions of Kane filtered through the lens of other people’s memories. And, tellingly, nobody knows what Rosebud represents.

Welles later rather disarmingly described the secret of Rosebud as a mere narrative device but it is far more than this. In the final scenes, we the viewers see what nobody in the film sees – we see the answer to the mystery of Rosebud, and by implication the answer to the mystery of Charles Foster Kane.

Above all, Citizen Kane is a visual film. From the superb  newsreel  images at the start of the film, to the haunting camera angles, lighting effects and visual segues that distinguish every passage of the film, and the surreal settings of Xanadu, we are taken on a visual journey, one that is further enriched by the captivating soundtrack. 

As director, Welles’ cinematic virtuosity is all pervasive. If the acting performances cannot quite match the quality of the visual work, this should not be seen as a criticism. Even Welles, playing Kane with all the charisma and force of personality he can muster, cannot help but be dwarfed by the film.The one weakness I see in the film, which I also see in all Welles’ other work, is that we, the viewers, do not invest emotionally in the characters. Yes, we feel sad for Kane and for the other characters we encounter but we never come close enough to them to really care.

If one of the great tragedies of cinema history is that Welles never made another film to match the heights of Citizen Kane, the comfort is that he did, for this one film, successfully marshal all his powers of creativity to leave the world with a genuine masterpiece.

 

Rating: 10/10

Le Trou (movie review)

Le Trou (The Hole) (thriller) (1960) (2 hrs 12 mins)

This is a remarkable film. Directed by Jaques Becker, it tells the story of four prisoners sharing a cell who are planning to dig a tunnel to escape. A fifth prisoner is moved into their cell and they have no alternative but bring him into their plan. But can they trust him?

What makes this film remarkable is the way Becker manages to build so much tension simply by showing the painstaking steps the prisoners have to take to dig their tunnel and cover their tracks.

The film is based on a book of the same name by Jose Giovanni, which told the true story of the attempt to escape from the La Sante Prison in Paris in 1947. The film uses non-actors for the main roles, including one man who was actually involved in the attempted breakout. This may account for the low key realism of the story. It’s shot almost like a documentary.

We are drawn into the story very early on as, along with the four prisoners, we realise they have no choice but to tell the new prisoner about their plans. At night some of the prisoners slip out through the hole they have dug in the cell floor to look for a way to tunnel out of the building and into a sewerage tunnel.  

Even watching the prisoners’ mundane tasks like eating, getting up, squabbling somehow becomes interesting before Becker’s ever-present camera. The prisoners’ ingenuity is remarkable: creating their own makeshift tools from whatever they can find inside their cell; fashioning a key that will unlock the doors in the corridors that run below the prison; and even making their own timer so that they can keep track of how long they can spend digging before they have to return to the cell.

They manage to find a way through the sewerage tunnel to the streets of Paris but on the day before they plan to escape, they are thrown into turmoil when the governor tells the new prisoner that the charges against him are to be dropped. The new prisoner assures them that he will still take part in the escape plan but can they trust him? Dare they trust him?

 

Rating: 9/10

Spring, summer, autumn, winter...and spring (movie review)

Spring, summer, autumn, winter...and spring (2004) (drama) (1hr 43 mins)

This film from Korean director Kim Ki-Duk is a parable about a Buddhist monk and the pupil he raises. It’s a change of direction for Kim, who is best known for violent films like Bad Guy and The Isle.

Living on a floating temple in the middle of a lake, surrounded by forests and mountains, they live a simple life, attending to their interior world.

In the spring section, the monk observes the boy tying a stone to a fish, a frog and a snake. To teach him a lesson, he ties a stone to the boy’s back and tells him he must release the animals before he is released, adding that if any of the animals has died, he will carry that death within him forever. When the boy finds that the snake has died, he cries.

Summer sees the boy, now a teenager, fall for a young woman who is staying at the temple. They soon become lovers and when she leaves to return to the world, he goes in pursuit.

In autumn he returns, now a man and scarred by life.

In winter, he takes the role of the monk and the everlasting cycle of life continues. The seasons are presumably intended to show the stages of a man’s life.

There is a lyrical, reflective quality to the film which makes it absorbing. The spiritual message, if less than subtle, just manages to keep from straying into preaching. There is little dialogue but the unfolding scenes portray the major dramas of life: sin, love, suffering and redemption.

The film won the Audience Award at the 2003 San Sebastian film festival.

 Rating: 7/10