Bea says: We have been caught up in busy lives and have been remiss about seeing films and blogging, but we took advantage of the long Easter weekend and took ourselves off to the Renoir in Bloomsbury to see this much commended French film. A teacher/pupil film, it refreshingly defies the standard formula (inspirational teacher wins students over with catchphrase such as carpe diem, or Bob Dylan lyrics etc etc) and simply shows the ups and downs in the school lives of a teacher and his students - the students are mostly challenging, although occasionally a chink of something else shines through, and the teacher is usually quite good although he gets tired and worn out, and makes mistakes. It's a very real film - it reminded me both of my own school days in a very average comprehensive in a working class neighbourhood with lots of students (myself included) who were the children of migrants, and it struck a lot of chords with my current teaching role, although that is also different in many ways. At the end, everyone has survived the school year bar one pupil. Life goes on. I liked the message.
***
Cecil says: Language is a big part of this film. And let's begin with the title: for me, the French title ('Between the walls') captures the essence of the film far more than the English. The furthest we get from the classroom walls is the playground; we get no sense of any of the characters' lives outside the school - the teacher manages to glean a little information from his pupils through a 'self-portrait' exercise, but for the rest the focus is totally on the intensity and relentlessness of the classroom relationship. The camera work adds to that constant 'in-yer-face' feel, with lots of close-ups and that active, fly-on-the-wall style we associate with so much reality TV these days.
Language is also important because the main character is the French teacher, who uses wonderful methods to try to throw light on some of the words his students don't understand, especially with half his class being non-native speakers. But that's also why I had a problem with the cause of the main conflict between the teacher and his class: he loosely uses an insulting word 'petasse' to describe two of the girls, but for someone with such a feel for language, it is hard to believe he would have opted for this expression in the circumstances (and by the way, where did the subtitler get that word 'skank' from ? Presumably American, it is not even in my Oxford English dictionary...).
For me personally, the film took me back to my days as a language assistant in France 30 years ago (oh my God!!) in a high school; and 26 years ago in a Paris university. My school in the industrial north of France was basically white, working class so had little in common with the class in the film. The flickers of recognition came for me in the staff room morning handshake (yes, you really do have to go round every teacher in the morning and shake their hand) and in the whole structure of head-teacher and admin committee, though I think the concept of student participation in such things may have developed in the last 30 years.
My Paris university teaching experience gave more of a hint of the reality we see in this film. Far more multi-ethnic classes, but the difference being that my students had made it to higher education. It was amusing to see the teacher's problems over the use of names like 'Bill' - the students asked him to use more common names like 'Khoumba' or 'Souleymane', and I can well remember my innocence and ignorance when half my class in 1983 had similar names reflecting their ethnic origins - all quite usual now, but catching me by surprise at the time.
All in all, this as a gripping film - two hours flies by. It is very intense, however, and never lets you relax for more than five minutes. So don't go and see it for light entertainment. Having said that, I thoroughly recommend it...
***1/2
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Revolutionary Road
Cecil says: We saw this at one of our local cinemas in Beckenham. Before the film started, I remarked to Bea how the average age of the audience was quite a bit older than when we went to Ritzy in Brixton last week - probably in part because Brixton is a more youthful, trendy place, but also possibly, as Bea said to me: because this is a film about a marriage and most of the kids at the Brixton cinema would not relate to that...It was telling, therefore, that the two young teenage girls next to us in the Beckenham cinema fidgeted and talked through most of the film and said audibly at the end: 'Well, that was the most depressing film I have ever seen'. So, if you're 23 or younger, maybe Revolutionary Road is not for you...
If you're into 50s design, it's a fantastic film: wonderful images of massed men in trilbies heading off to work on the commuter trains; great furniture in the rooms; fantastic cars (where did they find all those 1950s beauties? Havana??); and great dances...
But the film is not really about the 50s, or anything else social or historical. It is a film about a relationship, and actually the issues and conflicts, dilemmas and solutions could all happen in any relationship today. It's about desires, goals in life and realising that the person you are with may not be the one you should share these with. When is a dream best left as just that: a dream? Whose dream was it, anyway? How do you juggle great career opportunities with fulfilling dreams that take you elsewhere? Is it best to talk about things or leave things unsaid so that those cans of worms are not opened?
These are the questions - and Kate Winslett and Leonardo di Caprio do a great job of living through them. Top marks to them both.
By the way, spot the similarity between the sex scene in the car and the Titanic sex scene (same director, same leading players) - is that a hand I see sliding down the window of the car???
***.5
Bea says: A cheery film - not. But for all its downbeat take on life and marriage, it is truly absorbing. A very intelligent piece of writing, many aspects of it rang true for Cecil and me, both in our current relationship, and past ones. Like walking together after a row, but feeling miles apart, for example. Like saying "I don't love you any more". (Had to reassure Cecil that was about past relationships!)
And to me it had some real depth; dredging up my classics and English "A" levels, I thought the character of John not unlike the Greek chorus, or the Fool in Shakespeare - the "fool" who tells the most insightful truths, and the messages about communication, as the couples who stay together are the ones who don't talk and don't listen.
I was however slightly less enamoured with Winslett and DiCaprio's performances, and Sam Mendes' direction. Whilst very good, I've seen this theme before, and better dealt with, by Ang Lee, Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kostner, in The Ice Storm. If you like this, you'll love that.
*** .5
If you're into 50s design, it's a fantastic film: wonderful images of massed men in trilbies heading off to work on the commuter trains; great furniture in the rooms; fantastic cars (where did they find all those 1950s beauties? Havana??); and great dances...
But the film is not really about the 50s, or anything else social or historical. It is a film about a relationship, and actually the issues and conflicts, dilemmas and solutions could all happen in any relationship today. It's about desires, goals in life and realising that the person you are with may not be the one you should share these with. When is a dream best left as just that: a dream? Whose dream was it, anyway? How do you juggle great career opportunities with fulfilling dreams that take you elsewhere? Is it best to talk about things or leave things unsaid so that those cans of worms are not opened?
These are the questions - and Kate Winslett and Leonardo di Caprio do a great job of living through them. Top marks to them both.
By the way, spot the similarity between the sex scene in the car and the Titanic sex scene (same director, same leading players) - is that a hand I see sliding down the window of the car???
***.5
Bea says: A cheery film - not. But for all its downbeat take on life and marriage, it is truly absorbing. A very intelligent piece of writing, many aspects of it rang true for Cecil and me, both in our current relationship, and past ones. Like walking together after a row, but feeling miles apart, for example. Like saying "I don't love you any more". (Had to reassure Cecil that was about past relationships!)
And to me it had some real depth; dredging up my classics and English "A" levels, I thought the character of John not unlike the Greek chorus, or the Fool in Shakespeare - the "fool" who tells the most insightful truths, and the messages about communication, as the couples who stay together are the ones who don't talk and don't listen.
I was however slightly less enamoured with Winslett and DiCaprio's performances, and Sam Mendes' direction. Whilst very good, I've seen this theme before, and better dealt with, by Ang Lee, Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kostner, in The Ice Storm. If you like this, you'll love that.
*** .5
Frost/Nixon
Bea says: Seen at a favourite venue of mine, the Ritzy cinema in Brixton, late on a cold, wet Sunday afternoon. The cinema was rammed with people going to see "Milk", but "Frost/Nixon" was our choice, luckily. Before seeing this film I knew a few things about Watergate - mostly that it involved President Nixon in a not very flattering way, and I knew of David Frost as a fairly serious political interviewer (imagine my surprise when I saw the lightweight TV he was doing prior to the interview). That's about it - sketchy. I think this film was probably made for people of my generation; it filled in the gaps in my knowledge, and I found the story gripping from start to finish. Frost as a character doesn't really come out of it very well, despite the interview being his idea originally; he comes across actually as more of an ideas man, without the necessary tenacity to follow things up, and without his crack research and production team the interview as we know it would never really have happened (although that is probably true for many key television interviews in history). A few scenes stay with me - Nixon's phone call to Frost which changed the direction of the interview entirely; intentional on Nixon's part perhaps?? Late in the film, the scene where Frost watches Nixon leave the filming, knowing what has just happened, and knowing what he has just done - a slightly bitter victory. And toward the end, and I probably paraphrase here: "people only remember Watergate because every political (and other) scandal now has a -gate attached...". That is, I am afraid, true for me.
***.5
Cecil says...For me, the Watergate hearings conjure up memories of the TV being on all day - something we were definitely not normally allowed as kids - and dominating a summer holiday (at my uncle's?); and the famous Nixon sweaty-armpits moment...The whole episode is one of the early big political moments in world politics at a time when I was gradually becoming more politically aware. Fascinating for me, therefore, was to hear from Bea after the film how little she really knew about Nixon and the Watergate story. Even more fascinating was to meet Bea's cousin after the film: this guy was not even born when Watergate happened so it is part of his educated awareness but not something that has any personal resonance for him. It made me think that for someone of his age, Watergate must be a bit like Suez for someone of my age: not quite born so no sense of the time or the people involved, but aware through education and listening to older people of just how significant this moment was in history.
So 'Frost/Nixon' didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know about the events of the time; nor did it give me any real insight into Nixon, who was pretty well laid bare at the time. As Bea says, the only intrigue in the film was this mysterious phone call from Nixon to Frost on the night before the final interview. Did it really happen? Why does Nixon have no memory of it, or why does he pretend it didn't happen?
But it is Frost, whose characterisation interested me. As a small boy, Frost was famous for me as one of the men who did 'That was the week that was' (a kind of Have I got News for You of its day, but in sketch-format rather than a quiz); his time as a trivial TV presenter is lost in my memory, but then he returns in more recent years as the presenter of the BBC's main Sunday morning political programme. He was never seen as a real hard-hitting political interviewer in the Brian Walden, John Humphries mode, though - in fact, in my vaguely political circles in the 1990s, I seem to recall him being considered a bit of a soft touch.
I hope one day the BBC do a more substantial profile of the guy. How did he progress from satirical comedy to trashy trivia to interview with Nixon to his own Sunday morning programme? Was the Nixon interview really his only punchy interview which broke new ground? Certainly he comes across in the film as a rather dislikeable character, more interested in glamour than substance, and only really working for a few last-minute hours on the preparation of this Nixon interview which gave him all the fame when, as Bea says, it is unlikely he'd have got anywhere without his researchers.
The final credits to the film amused me - and showed, I guess, that the film - as all US films - is targeted at an American audience. They gave a little list of 'what are they doing now'- style mentions, and Frost apparently has an annual summer party, which is 'still one of the big events on the London social scene' - well, this may impress an American audience, which probably sees the 'London social scene' as something to be in awe of, but it's not on my to-do list and somehow, I don't imagine I'll be getting an invite soon - but with a character like that, would I want to be invited?
**.5
***.5
Cecil says...For me, the Watergate hearings conjure up memories of the TV being on all day - something we were definitely not normally allowed as kids - and dominating a summer holiday (at my uncle's?); and the famous Nixon sweaty-armpits moment...The whole episode is one of the early big political moments in world politics at a time when I was gradually becoming more politically aware. Fascinating for me, therefore, was to hear from Bea after the film how little she really knew about Nixon and the Watergate story. Even more fascinating was to meet Bea's cousin after the film: this guy was not even born when Watergate happened so it is part of his educated awareness but not something that has any personal resonance for him. It made me think that for someone of his age, Watergate must be a bit like Suez for someone of my age: not quite born so no sense of the time or the people involved, but aware through education and listening to older people of just how significant this moment was in history.
So 'Frost/Nixon' didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know about the events of the time; nor did it give me any real insight into Nixon, who was pretty well laid bare at the time. As Bea says, the only intrigue in the film was this mysterious phone call from Nixon to Frost on the night before the final interview. Did it really happen? Why does Nixon have no memory of it, or why does he pretend it didn't happen?
But it is Frost, whose characterisation interested me. As a small boy, Frost was famous for me as one of the men who did 'That was the week that was' (a kind of Have I got News for You of its day, but in sketch-format rather than a quiz); his time as a trivial TV presenter is lost in my memory, but then he returns in more recent years as the presenter of the BBC's main Sunday morning political programme. He was never seen as a real hard-hitting political interviewer in the Brian Walden, John Humphries mode, though - in fact, in my vaguely political circles in the 1990s, I seem to recall him being considered a bit of a soft touch.
I hope one day the BBC do a more substantial profile of the guy. How did he progress from satirical comedy to trashy trivia to interview with Nixon to his own Sunday morning programme? Was the Nixon interview really his only punchy interview which broke new ground? Certainly he comes across in the film as a rather dislikeable character, more interested in glamour than substance, and only really working for a few last-minute hours on the preparation of this Nixon interview which gave him all the fame when, as Bea says, it is unlikely he'd have got anywhere without his researchers.
The final credits to the film amused me - and showed, I guess, that the film - as all US films - is targeted at an American audience. They gave a little list of 'what are they doing now'- style mentions, and Frost apparently has an annual summer party, which is 'still one of the big events on the London social scene' - well, this may impress an American audience, which probably sees the 'London social scene' as something to be in awe of, but it's not on my to-do list and somehow, I don't imagine I'll be getting an invite soon - but with a character like that, would I want to be invited?
**.5
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Australia
Bea says: Although made slightly nervous by poor reviews, I never like to let reviewers influence my film-going, so Cecil and I went along to see this much-hyped epic from my home country - and I loved it. I like Baz Luhrmann's quirky style anyway, and he didn't disappoint here. Like all Luhrmann's films, tongue is firmly planted in cheek, and if you get into the spirit it's just great, great fun. A sweeping love story etc etc, it draws cleverly on lots of Australian experiences rather than only the big Hollywood blockbusters like Gone With The Wind, but the Australian classics of the 70s and 80s (all the same actors reappear, and all the stockmen, droving, Aboriginal mysticism of films like Storm Boy, The Man from Snowy River and Breaker Morant is drawn upon), and also some funny little observations (no women served at the front bar, everyone rushing out into the street in celebration when it rains). The cinematography is fantastic, particularly the bombing of Darwin, which was kept hushed up if I'm not mistaken, so I certainly don't have a visual memory of photographs or film footage from that event. Nice to see David Gulpilil again - he features in one of our first blog posts of course, in 10 Canoes. Yes, the story is hackneyed, and defies belief, and glosses over what would really have happened - instead, it's the magic of cinema.
***1/2
Cecil says: I too was drawn along by the epic drama of 'Australia' - the 2h45 really flew by and I was actually quite surprised when the credits began to roll at the end. Many of the reviewers seemed really critical of Nicole Kidman; some said she was wrongly cast in the role - I actually thought she played the English lady rather well, whereas I found Hugh Jackman a bit of a caricature, a kind of Crocodile Dundee meets Richard Gere, if that's possible. The actors that stole the show were David Gulpilil, though he did little more than stand on one leg and look mystical most of the time, and the young boy described as 'creamy' by the Whites because of his mixed blood - fantastic performance and someone I hope we see as much of as we have of David Gulpilil over the years.
When the film was first previewed - you know, with those deep-voiced Americans who do the voice-overs for all the previews we see in the cinema - there was a suggestion that this was a film was defining the country, that went deep into the 'soul' of Australia. Having seen it, I'm not convinced (though far be it for a non-Aussie like me to try to judge this) - I have a hunch this was the marketing line both for the film producers and for the Australian tourism industry. I don't think this film goes to the 'heart' of what is 'Australia' any more than Rabbit Proof Fence, 10 Canoes or Picnic at Hanging Rock for that matter! Having said that, as Bea says, it was good entertainment and maybe that was all Baz Luhrmann was trying to achieve?
***
***1/2
Cecil says: I too was drawn along by the epic drama of 'Australia' - the 2h45 really flew by and I was actually quite surprised when the credits began to roll at the end. Many of the reviewers seemed really critical of Nicole Kidman; some said she was wrongly cast in the role - I actually thought she played the English lady rather well, whereas I found Hugh Jackman a bit of a caricature, a kind of Crocodile Dundee meets Richard Gere, if that's possible. The actors that stole the show were David Gulpilil, though he did little more than stand on one leg and look mystical most of the time, and the young boy described as 'creamy' by the Whites because of his mixed blood - fantastic performance and someone I hope we see as much of as we have of David Gulpilil over the years.
When the film was first previewed - you know, with those deep-voiced Americans who do the voice-overs for all the previews we see in the cinema - there was a suggestion that this was a film was defining the country, that went deep into the 'soul' of Australia. Having seen it, I'm not convinced (though far be it for a non-Aussie like me to try to judge this) - I have a hunch this was the marketing line both for the film producers and for the Australian tourism industry. I don't think this film goes to the 'heart' of what is 'Australia' any more than Rabbit Proof Fence, 10 Canoes or Picnic at Hanging Rock for that matter! Having said that, as Bea says, it was good entertainment and maybe that was all Baz Luhrmann was trying to achieve?
***
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Of Time and the City
Cecil says: This was billed as a portrayal of Liverpool on film through the ages, with a personal commentary from Terence Davies. I was thoroughly disappointed.
First the film footage: you'd have to know some of the back-streets of Liverpool pretty well (before they were pulled down) to actually recognise this as being a film about Liverpool, rather than any other northern city; OK Liverpool Catholic cathedral is pretty iconic, but for the rest, I didn't really get any feel from the film footage of the city we were supposed to be viewing. Being from the other great port across the Pennines, I kept thinking: this could just as easily be a film about Hull - why couldn't we have had lots more people being interviewed or extracts from people's conversations? Then, we might have got more of a feel of the unique place we all know Liverpool is.
Then there's the Terence Davies monologue. Dear oh deary-me. This felt more like social egotism than social realism. After a while, his suppressed anger just seeps through in every sentence he utters. OK, it must have been tough to be gay and Catholic and cultured in a rough, tough working class town, but I'm sorry Terence, I resented paying my £10 to sit through your ramblings, which said everything about you and very little about Liverpool.
I know it was Terence Davies's film, so he can choose to do with it what he wants, but there are soooooo many more interesting characters from Liverpool who could have provided us with insights and historical anecdotes about the place, which could so easily have matched the footage he had chosen. No, really, a waste of time and money
*
Bea says: We saw this after Hunger (see previous post), so in a way I found it soothing to have the images, music and sounds of this - film? documentary? montage? wash over me. I was however, like Cecil, disappointed. It was clearly a personal representation of what Liverpool means to Terence Davies. Unfortunately, if you're not Terence Davies, it's unlikely to speak to you and it didn't really to me. I kind of felt it missed a trick; liberal use was made of the romantic poets and classical music - but when the film really worked the music and the spoken word behind the images were about the city itself - "Dirty Old Town", and the narrative of a 14 year old left to take sole charge of her younger siblings in the 1930s. I appreciate that Davies may have wanted to leave behind the working class image Liverpool has, but isn't that its reality to some degree (and I speak as the granddaughter of Liverpudlians). I did enjoy the images - the glamorous 1950s cinema opening nights, the holidays on the shore, and the footage of the cathedral (for which my grandfather did the electrics), but probably because this is the Liverpool I know from stories told to me when I was young.
* 1/2
First the film footage: you'd have to know some of the back-streets of Liverpool pretty well (before they were pulled down) to actually recognise this as being a film about Liverpool, rather than any other northern city; OK Liverpool Catholic cathedral is pretty iconic, but for the rest, I didn't really get any feel from the film footage of the city we were supposed to be viewing. Being from the other great port across the Pennines, I kept thinking: this could just as easily be a film about Hull - why couldn't we have had lots more people being interviewed or extracts from people's conversations? Then, we might have got more of a feel of the unique place we all know Liverpool is.
Then there's the Terence Davies monologue. Dear oh deary-me. This felt more like social egotism than social realism. After a while, his suppressed anger just seeps through in every sentence he utters. OK, it must have been tough to be gay and Catholic and cultured in a rough, tough working class town, but I'm sorry Terence, I resented paying my £10 to sit through your ramblings, which said everything about you and very little about Liverpool.
I know it was Terence Davies's film, so he can choose to do with it what he wants, but there are soooooo many more interesting characters from Liverpool who could have provided us with insights and historical anecdotes about the place, which could so easily have matched the footage he had chosen. No, really, a waste of time and money
*
Bea says: We saw this after Hunger (see previous post), so in a way I found it soothing to have the images, music and sounds of this - film? documentary? montage? wash over me. I was however, like Cecil, disappointed. It was clearly a personal representation of what Liverpool means to Terence Davies. Unfortunately, if you're not Terence Davies, it's unlikely to speak to you and it didn't really to me. I kind of felt it missed a trick; liberal use was made of the romantic poets and classical music - but when the film really worked the music and the spoken word behind the images were about the city itself - "Dirty Old Town", and the narrative of a 14 year old left to take sole charge of her younger siblings in the 1930s. I appreciate that Davies may have wanted to leave behind the working class image Liverpool has, but isn't that its reality to some degree (and I speak as the granddaughter of Liverpudlians). I did enjoy the images - the glamorous 1950s cinema opening nights, the holidays on the shore, and the footage of the cathedral (for which my grandfather did the electrics), but probably because this is the Liverpool I know from stories told to me when I was young.
* 1/2
Hunger
Bea says: Although this film was on our list, Cecil and I ended up seeing it off the cuff, as the session time for a different film we had planned to see had changed. The film is a deeply, deeply disturbing portrayal of the regime of the Maze prison in Northern Ireland in 1981, and recounts the hunger strike of Bobby Sands in that prison. I was prepared for the images of the hunger strike - what I wasn't prepared for was the sheer brutality of life in the Maze prison. It was at times unbearable to watch, and I am neither particularly squeamish or naive. It was however an extremely compelling film - possibly in part because I was a still a child at the time the events took place, although I remember Bobby Sands' name well from hearing it on the 6 o clock news, and the film filled in some detail for me, although perhaps detail I would rather not have known. I came away feeling shellshocked and traumatised (and that was just watching the events, not living them - how people, and those close to them, survived it I cannot imagine). The horrific events have stayed with me, as have the interspersed speeches of Thatcher from the era, and a sense of despair at what humans are capable of.
***
Cecil says: I am kind of glad my work trip to Belfast was a few days BEFORE I saw this film rather than after. As it is, it's very hard not to make some sort of mistake in apparently favouring one side of the sectarian divide rather than the other as soon as you do anything organised in Northern Ireland. But, if I had gone there with this film still clouding my vision, I don't think I could have chatted to the taxi driver, or the librarian or the hotel manager without wondering what they were doing during the worst of the Troubles.
What this film did for me was to transport me back to those horrible days of the early 1980s. The music may have been great then but the politics of the UK was descending into the nasty, divisive state epitomised by events in Northern Ireland. The thing I disliked most about what Thatcher did for me was the way she instilled such deep hatred in me - I have never before or after felt that constant anger and hatred I lived with throughout her time in power; she managed to divide this country into the minority who loved her and constantly voted her back in, and the - sadly smaller - minority who hated her with as much passion as I did.
And this film somehow epitomised the divided society we lived in then. In the rest of the UK, the divide was political; in Northern Ireland it was sectarian, but the emotions felt the same, watching this film.
I don't know how accurate the portrayal of events in Hunger is (I tried afterwards to find blogs by Unionists who may have had a different take on events, but didn't really find any); but in a sense, it doesn't matter how true to reality they were, because what the film did succeed in doing was to depict that divided society and the hostility that was felt across that divide.
By the way: we actually went to this film because we were intrigued that Steve McQueen had turned his Hollywood dollars to a film about the IRA. I got home and tried to find out more about when McQueen might have become interested in Northern Irish politics only to remember that the Hollywood great died in 1980 (before this film's events even took place) and this particular Steve McQueen was making his film debut with Hunger. I'm not sure I'm desperate to see his 2nd film...
**
***
Cecil says: I am kind of glad my work trip to Belfast was a few days BEFORE I saw this film rather than after. As it is, it's very hard not to make some sort of mistake in apparently favouring one side of the sectarian divide rather than the other as soon as you do anything organised in Northern Ireland. But, if I had gone there with this film still clouding my vision, I don't think I could have chatted to the taxi driver, or the librarian or the hotel manager without wondering what they were doing during the worst of the Troubles.
What this film did for me was to transport me back to those horrible days of the early 1980s. The music may have been great then but the politics of the UK was descending into the nasty, divisive state epitomised by events in Northern Ireland. The thing I disliked most about what Thatcher did for me was the way she instilled such deep hatred in me - I have never before or after felt that constant anger and hatred I lived with throughout her time in power; she managed to divide this country into the minority who loved her and constantly voted her back in, and the - sadly smaller - minority who hated her with as much passion as I did.
And this film somehow epitomised the divided society we lived in then. In the rest of the UK, the divide was political; in Northern Ireland it was sectarian, but the emotions felt the same, watching this film.
I don't know how accurate the portrayal of events in Hunger is (I tried afterwards to find blogs by Unionists who may have had a different take on events, but didn't really find any); but in a sense, it doesn't matter how true to reality they were, because what the film did succeed in doing was to depict that divided society and the hostility that was felt across that divide.
By the way: we actually went to this film because we were intrigued that Steve McQueen had turned his Hollywood dollars to a film about the IRA. I got home and tried to find out more about when McQueen might have become interested in Northern Irish politics only to remember that the Hollywood great died in 1980 (before this film's events even took place) and this particular Steve McQueen was making his film debut with Hunger. I'm not sure I'm desperate to see his 2nd film...
**
Monday, 17 November 2008
W.
Bea says: I really, really like Oliver Stone, so I knew even before I went in that I would like this. And I did. With a light touch and Stone's impeccable attention to detail, the film tells the story behind the man who until very recently has held one of the highest offices in the world via the docudrama format. Oddly, when his rise to presidency is considered, W. comes across as a failure. Perhaps there's nothing odd about that really - he has been spoofed and mocked so often I haven't been able to take him seriously for years - but somehow the film managed to remind me what a powerful position he has been in, arguably the most powerful, and yet he remains a failure. And that's kind of the key to the film; casting my mind way, way back to A levels the word "pathos" comes to mind, although it perhaps too strong a word... W. is almost likeable, and much more understandable after watching this, and although Stone does not spare him he doesn't go in for the kill either.
The actor playing W. is just a little too attractive (being attracted to W. felt strangely disturbing!) to be quite believable, although this is possibly on purpose. Thandie Newton does an interesting turn as Condaleeza Rice, who unlike W. is spared nothing and comes off very badly in the film. Intelligent librarian Laura Bush is the most interesting character portrayed - I just kept thinking "why"?
A must see.
****1/2
Cecil says: What is it about George W. Bush speeches that makes them so incomprehensible? It's surely something to do with how he delivers the words; something to do with the complete lack of emphasis on any particular word; or is it the speed of each sentence he utters, with a pause in between; or maybe it's his eyes never looking like they mean it; or because you always get the feeling he is just reading out the words somebody else has written? I ask all these questions because that's what I've been wondering for the last 8 years, and the problem with the actor playing W. was that he was too understandable, too clear in his speech-making. Yes, the way W. apparently scoffs his food seemed believable, but as Bea says the actor is too good-looking and too articulate to be the man we have had to watch for the 2 presidential terms...
Now, I've never met either George W. or Condoleeze Rice, so I can't say for sure how accurately they were portrayed, but surely nobody who has been Secretary of State for so many years can possibly really have been so puppet-like? I mean, her mannerisms on the screen became so annoying by the end that all I could think of was some sort of character from Thunderbirds; and her contribution to solving the world's problems was portrayed as little more than picking up the phone to put in a call for W. to Tony Blair or Jacques Chirac. I'm not SUCH an admirer of Oliver Stone to believe that this has not been exaggerated a little. Surely??
What was missing for me, since so much of the film was about family relationships, was some sort of treatment of the 'hanging chad' affair in Florida in 2000 and the way this affected or was affected by W.'s relationship with his brother Jeb.
And in a funny way, this film reminded me of how I felt about "The Queen" when I saw it a couple of years ago: I had assumed "The Queen" would be some sort of portrayal of her life or at least her reign; I was rather disappointed that it basically dealt with a few days in her life around the time of Diana's death. So with W., there seemed to be so much missing: I don't mind that the actual reaction to 9/11 was missing from the film, but there were so many relationships I felt could have been delved further into throughout his life that I left the cinema feeling a little bit cheated.
** 1/2
The actor playing W. is just a little too attractive (being attracted to W. felt strangely disturbing!) to be quite believable, although this is possibly on purpose. Thandie Newton does an interesting turn as Condaleeza Rice, who unlike W. is spared nothing and comes off very badly in the film. Intelligent librarian Laura Bush is the most interesting character portrayed - I just kept thinking "why"?
A must see.
****1/2
Cecil says: What is it about George W. Bush speeches that makes them so incomprehensible? It's surely something to do with how he delivers the words; something to do with the complete lack of emphasis on any particular word; or is it the speed of each sentence he utters, with a pause in between; or maybe it's his eyes never looking like they mean it; or because you always get the feeling he is just reading out the words somebody else has written? I ask all these questions because that's what I've been wondering for the last 8 years, and the problem with the actor playing W. was that he was too understandable, too clear in his speech-making. Yes, the way W. apparently scoffs his food seemed believable, but as Bea says the actor is too good-looking and too articulate to be the man we have had to watch for the 2 presidential terms...
Now, I've never met either George W. or Condoleeze Rice, so I can't say for sure how accurately they were portrayed, but surely nobody who has been Secretary of State for so many years can possibly really have been so puppet-like? I mean, her mannerisms on the screen became so annoying by the end that all I could think of was some sort of character from Thunderbirds; and her contribution to solving the world's problems was portrayed as little more than picking up the phone to put in a call for W. to Tony Blair or Jacques Chirac. I'm not SUCH an admirer of Oliver Stone to believe that this has not been exaggerated a little. Surely??
What was missing for me, since so much of the film was about family relationships, was some sort of treatment of the 'hanging chad' affair in Florida in 2000 and the way this affected or was affected by W.'s relationship with his brother Jeb.
And in a funny way, this film reminded me of how I felt about "The Queen" when I saw it a couple of years ago: I had assumed "The Queen" would be some sort of portrayal of her life or at least her reign; I was rather disappointed that it basically dealt with a few days in her life around the time of Diana's death. So with W., there seemed to be so much missing: I don't mind that the actual reaction to 9/11 was missing from the film, but there were so many relationships I felt could have been delved further into throughout his life that I left the cinema feeling a little bit cheated.
** 1/2
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