Black Coal

Seen at Les 3 Luxembourg in Paris.

Cecil says: We joined ten or so people on a wet Monday afternoon for this first taste of Chinese cinema on the big screen; a chance to have a bit of an insight into a country we’ll be visiting before we know it, and a chance to see just how much Mandarin I’ve learnt in the last 12 months…

Black Coal was labelled as a ‘policier’ film by the local magazine Pariscope, so we figured this could be the kind of plot we could follow in spite of any language issues. I’ll let Bea say how she got on with the plot in the absence of Mandarin and limited French.

It’s a bit of a grim film, showing the rough side of urban China, but it’s a gripping story and with the kind of plot we THINK we worked out between us at the end. No spoilers here, though.

The ‘hero’ is a kind of Chinese version of McNulty (for anyone who’s a fan of The Wire), a divorced cop who turns to drink and gets himself shot in an early scene as he tries to arrest some young gangsters, but who perseveres in trying to solve the mystery of the body parts that turned up all over China hidden among coal trucks off the back of goods trains.

The plot centres around a dry cleaners, where a young woman appears to be connected to virtually all the men who die through the film, and a skating rink (significant also because half the bodies seemed to have ice skates on them still…).

There’s lots of apparently gratuitous violence (police slapping the face of suspects; murderers hacking victims to death – JUST off camera, though); and a couple of sex scenes, the first of which is quite disturbing and involves our hero’s soon-to-be ex; and the second a steamy affair in a big wheel, which evoked memories of both The Third Man (no sex there of course, though) and Titanic.

I enjoyed this film, though, and the two hours flew by, even though I only recognised two or three lines of Mandarin and was alarmed at how little Pinyin (or Roman alphabet) appears on Chinese streets.

One funny observation: whereas in the UK we are often the only people to stay behind for the full credit roll at the end, for this film the credits were all in Chinese script and we left the room fairly quickly, but this Parisian audience stayed faithfully in its seats as the credits rolled at the end. How different is the cinema-going habit between Britain and France

***

Bea says:  I like detective films and books, and when Cecil suggested this one I thought I might be able to manage despite having no Mandarin and limited French – and I was right.  Although I didn’t entirely follow every twist and turn in the plot, I did get enough contextual and visual information to combine with the bits of French subtitling I could read to work out what was going on, and who the killer (or killers) might be. 

The film is mostly set in northern China during the winter of 2005, and everything is covered in snow – but not that magical Christmas movie-type snow, this is the long, frozen haul of January or February when everyone is cold and sick of it.  Quite a lot of the action takes place around bleak housing estates, back alleys, the Chinese equivalent of cheap working men’s cafés in Britain, and run down shops, railways lines and fairgrounds.  As such, it’s also an interesting insight into ordinary Chinese life – how people live and work.  It’s gritty, but recognisable, and rather reminded me of Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie books actually.

Highly recommended for something different – particularly if you are a Mandarin speaker or it is subtitled into a language you are confident in!

***

Hector and the Search for Happiness

Seen at Stockton Teesside Odeon

Bea says:  Of those that I have read or seen, the reviews for this film have been mixed – but I loved it.  Perhaps it is because Hector reminded me of Cecil, but it was definitely also the key theme of the relationship of change to happiness in life – something that really spoke to me.

This film – not particularly originally - tells the story of two successful, but rather stuck and bored/boring people; the male in the couple (who is a surprisingly believable psychiatrist) decides to research the secret of happiness and travels the world to find it – I won’t tell you where he does find it, but it’s not hard to guess! 

Despite this rather hackneyed storyline Simon Pegg puts in a charming performance as the eccentric but very likeable Hector and his wife, played by Rosamund Pike, partners him well.

It does have some weaknesses in the writing – the sequence involving Hector being kidnapped and imprisoned was too OTT for my taste; what that was trying to show could have been done with a lighter touch, but overall a lot was made out of a story that in the wrong hands (writers and actors both) could have been really cheesy.  The drawing and portraying of the characters as rather cold and stiff – but not too much (Pike) and eccentric and bumbling – but not too much (Pegg) saved it from that actually.

This film made me feel happy for about a week afterwards – it worked for me!

***

Cecil says: Part of me is worried that this rather geeky intellectual type reminded Bea of me, but there is, I guess, something endearing about him, too.

This is a fun film, with some almost Mr Bean touches as Hector sets off on his first flight, sitting next to the rather uptight businessman heading for China. As Bea says, there are some weaknesses to the plot – surely even someone as geeky as Hector wouldn’t be THAT gullible? And the whole section of the film in ‘Africa’ (big place, that) was rather unbelievable.

But as Bea also says, there were many chords struck for our own experiences and our own journeys through life, though thankfully I don’t hold a candle for any old flames myself (the right thing to say, says Bea behind me as I type… but it’s true, honest)

Simon Pegg carries off the role of Hector really well. He’s got one of those faces you think you’ve seen in lots of films or TV, but when I checked his career the only thing I’d definitely seen him in was Hot Fuzz.

A really nice feel-good film, definitely recommended, and I can’t believe more people weren’t in the cinema in Stockton on that Saturday afternoon.

****

Grace of Monaco

Seen at Northallerton Forum

Bea says: Princess Grace died when I was about 12 or so – not long after another glamorous young woman had married a prince and I was rather enamoured with the idea of princesses at the time.  My mother was probably about 12, or even younger, when Grace got married so she had always been interested in her life.  As a child and teenager, there were always old movies on at our home, so I have seen some of Grace’s films too.  This film was poorly reviewed, but that never puts Cecil and me off, so we popped over to a nearby town to see it recently.

It tells the story of a brief period of Grace’s life when - after 3 children and the romance of marrying a prince has well and truly turned into a gilded cage – she is offered the lead role in Marnie.  There are major political issues in Monaco at the time; she doesn’t really feel part of Monaco anyway, and (like many mothers of small children I suspect) feels distant from her husband, and very hemmed in by court life in the location and era.  Tradition dictates that it is out of the question that she take the film; but she thinks about it while Monaco lurches into crisis – and then she plays a key role in resolving that crisis, and her decision is made.

It is a rather sobering story though – in some ways the person of Grace disappears as the princess evolves; and of course she dies young; just like that other princess I was so enchanted with back in 1982.  Like all films about living, or relatively recently departed royals, it had that rather staid feel of things and events left unsaid and unexplored (The Queen, Diana) as protocol and security stop fuller portrayals. 

Nicole Kidman is an accomplished actress who is sound in the role (and can at least raise her eyebrows now although her face is still a bit too frozen for my liking – I so wish these Hollywood actresses would leave their faces alone, although I understand why they don’t) but I did think that someone more suited to the role might have been January Jones; perhaps that’s because I am used to seeing her in 1950s period costume. 

I also appreciated a bit of a history lesson in the politics of Monaco of the 1950s and 60s which I knew nothing about.  As a film, perhaps one for fans of the era (I am), but interesting nonetheless.

**1/2

Cecil says: When a film gets almost universally bad reviews and I still go and see it, but find it’s not that bad after all, the conspiracy theorist in me begins to wonder why the avalanche of negativity began?

Even if people were bothered about historical inaccuracies, there are enough biopics out there which have had a generous dose of dramatic licence. And who are the people out there in a position to know it is historically inaccurate? Presumably those with a bit of a vested interest in keeping Monaco, the principality and its privileged position intact…

Personally I was fascinated by the context: France in the 1950s/60s, with de Gaulle back in power trying to make his nationalistic mark and the Algerian War in full swing.

I really enjoyed this film, though I didn’t warm to many of the key characters portrayed: the Prince himself, Onassis, even Grace. As Bea says, Kidman does a pretty good job, though I agree that January Jones had more of a resemblance from her portrayal of Betty Draper in Mad Men.

The film also made me regret there aren’t more old black and white movies shown on British TV these days. The UK really needs an equivalent to the US Turner Movie Classics, though whether we’d get to see any more old Grace Kelly movies that way, I’m not sure. Some people say the Crown Prince wouldn’t allow it…But surely they’re the conspiracy theorists too?

***

Locke

Seen at the Electric Cinema in Birmingham

Cecil says: We saw this film quite by chance as it was the cinema we were keen to visit, the Electric being the oldest working cinema in the UK, having first shown films in 1909.

We happened to be free for the Thursday matinée, so we decided to see whatever was on; always a risky business to do that, and I wasn't sure we'd enjoy what was described as a 'one man film' as the lone actor drives his car and deals with life on the journey.

It sounded somewhat similar to the notion of Redford's All is Lost, with not much potential for interaction and a focus on survival. I enjoyed Redford's film but didn't feel ready for any road version of the same.

In actual fact there were hardly any similarities.

Locke was thoroughly engaging right from the start, and there's quite a cast - of voices, at least - as Ivan Locke drives his car from somewhere north of Birmingham (felt very appropriate for this cinema) down to London and takes phone call after phone call to try to deal with the string of crises that have suddenly hit his life.

It's only as the film develops and you realise more about Ivan's life that the opening scene becomes significant. Keep an eye out for the moment when he sits at the red light with the big lorry behind him and clearly makes his decision.

On one level we see how resolute Ivan is: once he has taken this Decision, he will follow it through no matter what the consequences, and there are potentially dire consequences for both his personal and professional life.

But he is also basically a good man, who wants to do the right thing by the people he interacts with. The trouble is that his very linear logical approach to things works well in dealing with a major building project at work, but is less useful when it comes to emotional issues.

I loved Ivan's resourcefulness at solving the work issues, and learnt a fair bit about cement in the process (!), though I'm not sure I'd have taken the same decisions or said the same things as he did in the emotional situations. In fact, I don't think I'd have made that car journey at all if I'd been him, but I don't want to say too much for fear of plot-spoiling...

Tom Hardy was brilliant as Ivan Locke; I loved the character of Donal (voiced by Andrew Scott); and I could feel empathy for all his family back at home (Eddie, Sean and wife Katrina).

And thanks also to the Electric's manager for the day who chatted to us at the end about how Director Steven Knight had done a Q&A on the opening night, and revealed that they had sat Hardy in a car 16 days in a row, with the actors sitting on phones in hotel rooms making the calls; they ran through the script 16 times straight and then edited the final cut from those 16 takes.

Brilliant! And loved the result. Oh, and great cinema too (though fewer old fittings in the room we saw it in than in Thirsk's Ritz Cinema - 1912 - for example...)

****

Bea says: 
When Cecil outlined the plot for this film I didn't feel a great desire to see it, as I was worried it would be too "male" - about one man driving - and I would be bored.

As Cecil says above though, nothing was further from the truth and in fact this is an engaging, narrative-led film about marriage, mistakes, mid life, parenthood, and work.  These are themes that most of us can relate to, and in fact the way they are presented and portrayed means that there is significant space to think about other options and ways of doing things - this is something I really liked about the film.  As Ivan speaks on the phone, and occasionally to himself, the very lack of action on screen means that there is time to think "would I say that?", "would I decide to do that?".

Ivan's character is quite likeable, and in fact I recognised in the desperate unravelling of his life moments when my life has felt like that - suddenly everything sliding out of reach.  Really well-written.  Sterling job from Tom Hardy.  Highly recommended.

***

The Book Thief (Die Buecherdiebin)

Seen at the Northallerton Forum

Bea says:  From the opening scenes of this film I was entranced and spellbound.  It is beautifully shot throughout, and as a steam train puffs its way through a snow-bound landscape we begin to follow the story of Liesl (Sophie Nelisse) - at the time about 12 years old - and the people who experience WW2 with her in a German town.

I related strongly to this film, as my own German grandmother was probably only slightly older than Liesl when war broke out, and the details in the film (the kitchens, the laundry work, the food, or lack of it) were all very reminiscent of the stories she used to tell me.  And my family were, like these people, in the most part ordinary Germans who got through the war by keeping their heads down.  They neither spoke out (and I am not excusing that) nor absolutely supported what was going on, except by silence.

Like the family in the film they - until the horrors of WW2 began - lived alongside Jewish people, had them as friends and neighbours, used the shops and services they ran.  But the family in the film do more than this - they take in a Jewish man (Max, played by Ben Schnetzer) and hide him in their house for two years.  Hans Hubermann, Liesl's adopted father (ably played by Geoffrey Rush) speaks out when a Jewish neighbour is arrested - and the crippling fear that results after his name is taken by the Nazi officer is a terrible reminder of what those times were like.

This is a film adaptation from a novel, and all the characters are well developed.  When Liesl goes to live with her new family, my heart sank as Rosa Hubermann, her new "mother" (brilliantly played by Emily Watson) initially seemed to be a cliched wicked stepmother type. However, we see many sides to Rosa's character as the film progresses, and come to understand her more deeply.

There is a great deal of sorrow and death in this film, as befits the times it is set in, sadly.  But it is a film about the things that connect people beyond race and religion - a love of books, and a promise made in the trenches of WW1, and it does have some hope.  Absolutely wonderful.  Not quite perfect - as sad as it is to say, it is very unlikely indeed that Max would have survived after leaving the Hubermann's house.  While that reunion scene was very lovely after all Liesl had lost, it was the only bit of the film that did not quite ring true for me.  There were a few other points, but I know that Cecil will  mention them so I will not.
****

Cecil says: There isn't much I can add to Bea's thoughts this time. This was a totally absorbing film, which made me realise how few films we see - at least in the English-speaking world - dealing with World War Two from behind a German family's front door. We've seen films about French and Danish resistance lately but never much to look at how it was to be an ordinary German family through those years.

I was just not sure about the accents.

I mean, why cast a film full of Aussies, Brits and other English speakers if you are then going to get them to speak in a strong German accent and throw in the odd fragment of German language?

I can almost picture the auditions now, with Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson (both brilliant, as Bea says) struggling to master their comic-book caricature of zee cherman aksent vee orll used to mimic at school.

There must have been some logic for it, but I couldn't fathom it. Having said that, it did kind of work, though I wonder how a German audience would react to it (except that they won't hear it because in Germany they dub nearly all their films).

And there were smatterings of German dialogue through the film, along with the opening credits referring to the film in both its English and German title.

I also wasn't sure about the Voice of God (or the Grim Reaper), who introduces the film and draws it to a close. There's a little bit of Wenders (Himmel ueber Berlin) or Von Trier (Europa) here, but I preferred those and again wondered what the narrative voice added.

Liesl was great, though, and enchantingly played throughout.

****

Her

Seen at Cines Trueba in San Sebastian (Donostia)

Cecil says:  To be honest, the trailers in cinemas hadn't made me rush to see this film. After all, the story of some geeky guy falling in love with a voice on his computer didn't really sound like my kind of movie.

But when you're in a foreign country - especially a country like Spain where the vast majority of foreign films are dubbed rather than subtitled - you sometimes have to go with the flow and see something you wouldn't normally choose to back home.

Actually, I enjoyed this film.

Theodore is far from geeky, though I'm not convinced that moustaches will come back into fashion a 'few years into future' when this film is supposedly set. He has a very creative job working for the wonderfully named BeautifulHandWrittenLetters.com, where his job is write very intimate letters for customers who clearly have better things to do in this not-too-distant future.

But his problem is that he is going through a divorce and he is feeling lonely, while struggling to separate fully from his estranged wife.

The film plots his growing relationship with an Operating System (OS), called Samantha (with Scarlett Johansson's voice), whose computer learns more about him the more they talk and gradually takes on human-like emotions, leading the two of them to fall in love.

On one level it's quite a plausible premise, when you look at a busy tube station or bus stop and everybody is glued to their smart phone these days, probably engaging with real friends, but who knows?

And on some levels, a computer that is programmed to meet all your needs and to adapt to any it can't quite meet is bound to seem quite alluring. But of course, although they have 'sex' together, there is the gap of real physical intimacy, which Samantha rather bizarrely suggests overcoming by calling in a 'surrogate' to play the part of a body. Things don't quite work out and, although to keep the plot going, Theodore somehow wants to maintain the relationship afterwards, as a viewer from that moment on it does seem doomed, and I couldn't help thinking that that was the point where he would stop things by saying: Hold on, No, this is not real.

But hey, the film needed to keep going another 45 minutes so instead they threw in a storyline where it's the Operating Systems (not just Theodore's) that move on and distance themselves.

This idea reminded me of that much scarier Dr Who episode where the aliens quickly learn how humans operate by copying and repeating everything, at first slowly and then faster and faster until they end up saying things before the humans have, and they go on to control humankind. So, although I enjoyed my evening in San Sebastian with this nice psycho-romance drama, I actually preferred the Dr Who version of a computer takeover.

But maybe in the not-too-distant future there will be more and more films like this...

***

Bea says: 
I have always been a fan of Scarlett Johansson - ever since Lost in Translation which I really, really liked (although thousands didn't), so although like Cecil I had my reservations about the plot, I was prepared to give it a go. Instead of Dr Who though, the plot reminded me of a terrible ?1970s ?1980s sci-fi movie called Demon Seed - anyone remember that one? - in which a computer tries to take over the world by impregnating a woman.

Associations aside however, this was a rather nice film about being lonely in the middle of life, in the midst of a city, and despite every available form of communication known to man in place.  Loneliness is an enduring theme that everyone can relate to, and has frequently been explored in this type of winsome romantic city-set film (Breakfast at Tiffany's, Frankie and Johnny, to name a few).  This just does it with a quirky twist - the use of an OS instead of a person - and maybe through that tries to tap into what it means to be human, or maybe doesn't quite get there.  Joaquin Phoenix is superb, and carries the film as he is in nearly every scene and often alone.  The writing is excellent, the cinematography wonderful and music and soundtrack is well used.

Definitely recommended - even if you think it's not for you.  A particularly good option if you find yourself in a city, on a Sunday afternoon, with no friends around and on your own.

***

Dallas Buyers Club

Seen at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle

Bea says: I have worked in health care my whole working life, so I was interested to see this retro film about HIV/AIDS and the drugs that treat it, and have been intrigued that despite subject matter usually deemed unappealing (unless given the Hollywood treatment, like Philadelphia) it has been doing well at the box office and getting some good reviews.

Now having seen it, I can say unreservedly that it is the quality of the acting that is drawing people in - both Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto are just so, so good in their respective roles as the protagonist Ron Woodroof and his business partner, Rayon.  They were both amazing to watch and for me this review could almost end there - go and see it, just to see them act.  We have been busy seeing all the big Oscar contenders this year, and if one of these doesn't get a best actor/best supporting actor for this it will be the gritty subject matter and not the performance that is to blame.

The story is (apparently very loosely) based on fact - Ron Woodroof did exist, did have HIV in the early days of the disease, and did set up the Dallas Buyers Club, importing alternatives to the highly toxic AZT doses being given at the time, for people who couldn't get AZT, or didn't want it, or needed something else - particularly for the cognitive changes that AIDS results in.

So part of the storyline gives us a bit of an insight into the pharmaceutical companies' relationships with government, although perhaps not in a very balanced way.  The other part of the film is us getting to know Ron better, and the different shades of his character and personality as his old friends and life become irrelevant in the reality of living with HIV and AIDS.  Ron becomes more likeable through this, more tolerant perhaps, and we see the different facets of his character - probably already there but not shown in the initial scenes - like loyalty, compassion and vulnerability.  So it is a great character study, as it is but to a lesser degree with the character of Rayon.  McConaughey is unrecognisable from his rom-com days, not least because he shed 3 stone to play the part.

It is also, for people my age, a somewhat grim reminder of those early HIV days when people thought you could get AIDS and die from just touching someone, and when we were all told that it was going to be the 20th century plague - and of course in some parts of the world it has been, but that is not the story of this film.

Wonderful. Uplifting, but not in a cheesy way. See it.
****1/2

Cecil says: As Bea says, Ron looked fantastically 1980s, wonderfully Texan and dreadfully ill almost from the start of this film. If you look at posters of the actor and how he normally looks, you can see what a great job McConaughey did.

I never really warmed to the Woodroof character, though, in spite of his mellowing personality and dogged determination to beat the system. There's something awful about the sleazy world of coke sniffing, beer boozing homophobia, alongside the reckless rodeo-loving Texan lifestyle he portrayed. And I was unconvinced by the way Eve, his doctor, 'befriended' him to the extent of going for dinner with him later on in the film.

Rayon, the transsexual, was by far the most believable character in the story, and the one who came across warmly from the outset, though her last moments were perhaps the most distressing in the whole film, and the scene with her father, where she pleads for financial help the most moving.

I'm no health expert, and as a user of homeopathy alongside conventional medicine, you might expect me to be drawn in to the storyline of dreadful pharmaceutical industry management of the drugs industry in the States and feel the same outrage as Woodroof at the FDA regulatory system in America. But his outburst in the public health meeting towards the end, if my experience is anything to go by, would only lead to ordinary members of the public shunning the angry eccentric rather than joining his campaign. The scene felt like an instruction from the director to empathise with Woodroof though.

In fact, in health terms, the character I'd most empathise with was the doctor struck off the US register, who ends up doing wonderful work in Mexico. He comes out of the story far more positively than Eve or Woodroof, in my view.

I did enjoy this film, but it had a sense of foreboding to it virtually from the opening scene (some sordid sex on the fringes of a rodeo show). And, incredibly, it is the 5th film in a row I've seen in 2014 which is really about survival. How many takes on survival will we have in 2014 and is this somehow a message for our time?

I think I need a more positive film next time we go out

***.5