Carol

Seen at the lovely 1930s Empire cinema in Bowral, NSW

Cecil says: Lesbian love in the 1950s. Starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. With its slow build-up and sense of forbidden feelings about it, this film had as much the feel of Brief Encounter as anything else more recent.

I actually liked it less than I thought I would. There was something about the relationship that didn't ring true for me, and it was more to do with social class than gender or sexuality. How likely was it that women from such different social backgrounds would be attracted? What actually attracted them to each other? From the way the characters developed (or didn't), you'd be excused for thinking the attraction was based purely on lust or physical attraction, though perhaps I'm being unfair and wouldn't judge a film portraying a heterosexual relationship in the same way. I'm not sure.

Cate Blanchett's character Carol was not attractive, that's for sure: very much the lead in the relationship with the come-ons and not so subtle hints about where they might go next. But she was also the person with more to lose, in a conventional way of looking at life, as she had the lady-of-leisure, kept woman lifestyle. Was it well acted by Blanchett, so we are not supposed to like her, or was it actually mis-cast?

Therese was the one who started with nothing, serving on the counter in a department store, wearing bohemian clothes with great style. But we didn't really learn much about her background, her family, her loves (except that she had played with train sets as a little girl).

I did like the 1950s setting, though: the cars, the clothes, the shops. And this was early 1950s so really not far into the great consumer society and the 'never had it so good' world.

***

Bea says: 

I liked this more than Cecil did, unexpectedly so, as after reading a couple of reviews and seeing some trailers of it I felt ambivalent about the older woman/younger woman relationship and, like Cecil, could immediately see in those trailers that the Carol character was rather unlikeable.

What I didn't expect, and what really made me enjoy the film, was relating so much to Therese - the younger character.  Therese's young life in the city reminded me - nostalgically - of my own young life in my early years of living in London.  The first few years I was there I lived alone in a staff accommodation bedsit-type set up, and it seems the mid 1990s was remarkably not unlike the 1950s.

I too made and received emotionally laden phone calls from the corridor phone.  I too had young men calling, both on the phone and in person (although unlike Therese I didn't have older women calling - however, for me this film was rather more about first "love" than it was a lesbian relationship).  I too have had the experience of spending a Sunday (which can be a long, lonely and quiet day when you have no family and only new, not well-established friends in a big city) with a new love, and having all go rather wrong and have ended up crying all the way home to my depressing, empty bedsit and the prospect of a working week to come.

I did not like the character of Carol - and like Cecil am not sure if this was an intentional device from the director or not.  Not liking the main character of a film can make it difficult to care what happens as the plot progresses.  Blanchett seemed to play Carol in a removed way, as if observing from a distance, so it was hard to get under the skin of the character.  As a result, I enjoyed Mara's performance much more, and like Cecil loved the costuming and styling, although I thought the stylist borrowed much too heavily from Audrey Hepburn in their styling of Therese - at least one of the outfits (the tartan pinafore), if I am not wrong, is a dead ringer for something Hepburn wears in one of her films.

And, if I'm not mistaken, one of the final scenes in which Mara walks through New York on a misty evening and hails a taxi is quite a lot like the one of the final scenes of Breakfast at Tiffany's.  Not a bad thing to do, just derivative.  Now, I haven't read the book nor checked to see if Breakfast at Tiffany's is an influence or reference-point for the book, or whether it was just that the plotline of the young ingénue in the city reminded the styling and directorial team of the film.

If you like Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, vintage styling or if you've ever lived alone in a city as a young person and made your way in the world from there, you might enjoy this film.

***

The Dressmaker

Seen at the beautiful old movie theatre in Roseville on Sydney's North Shore

Cecil says: Great opening shot, looking down on a coach heading straight up a dry road alongside the striated lines of dry fields. You can tell a film’s going to be good when it catches the attention so immediately. And don’t miss Kate Winslet’s fantastic opening line about a minute in…

I loved this film, which we saw in the wonderful old Roseville Cinema on Sydney’s North Shore. I want to see it again, it was that good and had so many layers to it. One person we went with thought it reminded her of Unforgiven, but for me it was more Strictly Ballroom, with its period piece setting and its tragi-comic story.

The audience was 95% women, which rather surprised me. Sure the costumes were mostly aimed at making the women in small country town Australia look glamorous, and dress-making was a major theme of the film, but there was so much more to it than that.

I loved some of the icons of 1950s Australia. The Golden Fleece petrol sign was still a feature on Australian roads when I was a little kid here in 1967 so that was a nice memory jolt for me (when did Golden Fleece disappear?); the ‘elixirs’ people used to consume were still around too when I was small, though they were on their last legs in the way Almanacs and hand wringers were.

Kate Winslet is brilliant in the main role. The ever-present Hugo Weaving looked to be enjoying himself as the cross-dressing copper, though maybe taken a little bit OTT by Jocelyn Moorhouse, who wrote the screenplay and directed.

Sarah Snook was wonderfully disguised as Gertrude Pratt at first and it took me a few scenes to realise she was the same actress as the one playing Anna in the excellent ABC drama on TV at the moment The Beautiful Lie.

Schools are probably just as cruel places today to be different from the crowd as they were back then, and the film does a good job with black & white to take us back to Tilly’s school days 25 years earlier. But the film shows how school playground cruelty extends out into the community too, so the people of Dungatar are an evil bunch, upon whom Tilly slowly takes out her revenge.

****.5

Bea says:  

I went in expecting a gentle period drama, and was very surprised to find myself watching a quirky, rather dark, fairytale-style story of revenge, sorrow, laughs, and laying the past to rest. 

Kate Winslett as Tilly (with an excellent Australian accent) returns to the home town in the country she left years before under a cloud, moving back in with her elderly, feisty mother (fantastic to see Judy Davis in fine form again), who at first appears to be demented but as the film develops shows herself to be in full possession of her faculties.  

As the story unravels in layers we meet the characters of the town, and find out what really happened to send Tilly away all those years ago.  A romance is kindled, but ends tragically, and Tilly's return acts as something of a catalyst in the lives of many of the women and men of the town with all sorts of unexpected consequences.  Once all the ghosts are laid to rest, Tilly leaves again in spectacular fashion.  

This is a great Australian film in the tradition of Baz Luhrmann and all those quirky, slightly dark tales (like Cecil I was reminded of Strictly Ballroom and Muriel's Wedding) - and like Luhrmann and those films, it won't be for everyone (there were definitely mixed views in our group!.  It was perhaps in danger of  being too lurid at times, and the town definitely looked like a set to me, which rather detracted from entering into the suspension of belief.  Still if you like dark and interesting, it's a great watch.

***1/2

Everest

Seen at the Roxy Cinema, Nowra, NSW

Cecil says: I saw a TV documentary of this story a year or so ago, though it took me a few minutes into the film to realise that this film was based on the same ‘true-story’.

I have always held a fascination for Everest climbers, though actually less so since the whole experience became so commercialised and opened up to every Jack or Jill who fancies doing it. And that is really what this film is all about: the disaster struck because there were just too many organised groups attempting to reach the summit at the same time.

We focus mainly on the group led by experienced New Zealander Rob, who has climbed Everest lots of times and earns a living from taking groups up every year.

He is portrayed as the most professional of the group leaders on the mountain that year, and yet as the group hits bad weather and disaster strikes, he makes decisions that are based on emotion and sentimentality rather than professionalism. That is what is left over for me at the end of the film – sure, in many ways the group was unlucky, but – without wanting to do a spoiler on the film – why did Rob make one decision in particular that would cost him so fundamentally?

What I didn’t like about the film was the boring formulaic way all American films of this type – see Apollo 13, for example – have to go domestic, and while our heroes are in difficulty up in space or up a mountain, we are shown the everyday life (why does it always involve pouring cereal???) of his (always he, isn’t it?) family back home. It’s no doubt supposed to trigger the emotional empathy in us, but it’s just such a cliché now, it simply annoyed me.

Emily Watson was good in a very Emily-Watson-style (I really must one day go to see Wish You Were Here, the film in the 1980s that launched her – surely there she can’t have played the same sort of Mumsy character); Keira Knightly had a relatively small role for Keira Knightly.

I did enjoy the mountain scenes. They seem to have been filmed partly in Nepal and partly in Italy (too dangerous and costly to go up Everest to film, though the mountaineer friends we went with did say there were genuine images of Everest in the film).

But, actually, I’d far rather see a film about the two climbers who first got me interested in Everest: Murray and Irvine. These are the guys who got way up high in 1924 without oxygen and may even have made it to the summit, but died on their way down. Now that would make a great film, and I’m sure we’d get no kids back home eating cereal with them! But because it’s not a story in the public eye nowadays, nobody would put the money up to make it. Such a shame.

***

Bea says: :  I also enjoyed the mountain scenes, and the fleeting views of Kathmandu, and I enjoyed watching the struggle for survival – in terms of enjoying the drama, and imagining myself in that situation and what I would have done.  Like Cecil, I hope I would have stuck much more strongly to the time schedule, and paid attention to weather reports.

In reality although I don’t mind either cold or altitude, I have a horror of heights so I don’t think I’d be ideally suited to go up Everest, and what the film of course brings home is that actually, very few people are really experienced enough to climb the mountain, and all they do is endanger everyone else of they do, experienced guide or no.

I did however say to Cecil that if he had been stuck above the ice flow, I also would have sent in a helicopter for him… so he could come home and pour his cereal in the morning with me.

Action packed, might be a bit of an emotional one if you’ve lost anyone climbing.

*** 

Last Cab to Darwin

Seen at the Roxy Cinema, Nowra NSW

Bea says: I knew very little about this one except that it was a current Australian film, which I always like to support, and that it had a good soundtrack (a recommendation from a friend) - thanks to Ed Kuepper, who did the music.  I had no idea that the film was about euthanasia.

It is also about ageing, loneliness, friendship and partnership, death and journeying through life - all themes I am interested in and relate to, so I enjoyed it.  Without giving too much away, Michael Caton plays Rex, an ageing cab driver from Broken Hill, who is diagnosed with cancer, in an advanced stage.  Rex lives alone, but has an enduring relationship with his neighbour Polly, played by Ningali Lawford, which the diagnosis makes him both explore more and run away from simultaneously, as he drives his cab to Darwin to seek out a doctor who is looking for people to pilot her new euthanasia mechanism.  I won't say any more except that the issue is presented in a relatively balanced way, and Rex is able to complete his journey fully.

I am a fan of the road trip genre, and loved this journey into the interior of Australia, quite a lot of it through my own home state of South Australia.  Rex picks up some companions on the way, and although they are rather stereotypical, in the case of Tilly, played by Mark Coles Smith, and convenient, in the case of Julie, played by Emma Hamilton, they do add interest to that section of film.  Later, Jacki Weaver's portrayal of Dr Farmer was interesting - it was difficult to entirely understand the character's motivations.

This screenplay was adapted from a stage play and it certainly had that depth to it, and left us needing to talk, and so we did, sitting on the riverside in Nowra.  It is a good film that makes that happen afterwards. The only things that did slightly clang for me were the music - I related to it, but I thought it was too young for Rex, and the rather poorly developed attempt to address race relations - Polly's character was better developed but Tilly's was very stereotypical indeed, although did enable the film to point out a number of issues in Australian society.

Recommended.
***1/2

Cecil says: Actually Bea has said it all, really. It was a very engrossing film, yet again a film about a long journey both metaphorically and physically, and those sorts of films usually set us up for a pensive and reflective conversation afterwards.

Death is really hard to deal with, both as the one involved personally (what a great line from Rex, when he says: 'It's really hard to kill yourself') and the loved ones who are about to lose somebody precious. The film really gets inside this topic that just won't go away, ever, in anyone's life.

Also a great portrayal of travelling in Australia's deepest interior. The roads I took in 1986 are all covered now, but I can well remember how hair-raising it was to travel, even in a big Greyhound bus, up the road from Adelaide to Darwin on uncovered roads, and one of the most alarming moments is when old Rex's car has its windscreen blown out by a passing truck.

I felt very moved by this film and give it a resounding ****

Keeper of the Flame

Seen at the Roxy Cinema, Nowra NSW as part of their Tuesday morning vintage series

Cecil says: I went alone to this one.

A rare chance to see a movie classic from 1942 starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey thank to the Roxy Cinema in Nowra's weekly 'seniors' classic double-bill on a Tuesday morning.

They don't make films like this anymore! Not just because it's in black and white, but also because the film gains its strength from plot, script, lighting and great acting. No sound effects, no noise, no guns until very late on in this one, but drama and tension builds as the plot develops and we gain more and more insight into the main characters.

The plot: national political hero dies in car accident (almost Chappaquiddick, though that Kennedy escaped unharmed); journalists swarm over the area to get the 'story' but feature writer Tracey wants the real story of political hero's life. 

Trouble is, when he gets to meet hero's wife (Hepburn) and talks to some of the peripheral characters round the house, he starts to build a completely different picture of the guy who died.

There's a moment when the dialogue suddenly switches to talk of Hitler and Fascism, and it slightly jars at that point, making me wonder if the WW2 censors got involved in the screenplay at that point.

And there's something in the RP accents and stentorious tones that reminded me in some horrific nightmare way of Margaret Thatcher at her worst ('There is no Alternative'; 'No, no, no'; 'The lady's not for turning'). Almost made me wonder if he she studied the sinister tones of the more threatening actresses of her childhood to develop her voice when she became Prime Minister.

There are some great reminders of daily life in the 1940s: those were the days when men all wore hats and would stand in the pouring rain with the hat and their raincoat keeping them dry underneath (ladies had brollies, but only a few men); when journalists would bash out their copy on portable typewriters, tearing the page out when that opening line didn't read right; when television didn't yet exist so you'd sit by the fire and read a book or knit; and when telephones came in two bits, and you'd ring the operator to get a call through to New York - or wherever, and there were party lines (ah who remembers them, when you'd be frustrated by those talkative neighbours who'd never free up the line). Ah, when did operators and party lines take their final bow??

I loved this film and so wish there were more opportunities to see films of that era. Nice that there were about 25 of us in there, and a big queue to get in for the second movie (which I didn't have time to stay and watch). 

The Roxy Cinema in Nowra is doing great things here. It's a model other cinemas could usefully follow. 

****

Orry-Kelly - Women He's Undressed

Seen at the Palace Nova cinema in Adelaide CBD

Bea says: We had been wanting to see this film, about a local hero from our current home town of Kiama, and had been hoping to see it there too.  But alas, we have no cinema here and vague plans to put on a screening seemed to be coming to nothing.

So on a chilly, grey afternoon, when we had time to kill after lunch with friends and before a flight home from Adelaide, we headed down to the East End to see it.

Done in a very sub-Baz Luhrmann style, this docu-drama won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it does entertainingly relate the colourful and largely unknown (to us at least) life of Orry Kelly, boy from Kiama, who became costume designer to the stars during the real Hollywood heyday of the 30s until about the 70s or so.  Every leading lady, and many supporting actresses you can think of were dressed by him at one time or another and as a sewing enthusiast myself I loved the focus on how he worked with their individual faces and shapes, and also emphasised the stories they were portraying.

Like most of us, Kelly's life had ups and downs - he was gay during a period when it was illegal and in conservative Hollywood (as opposed to the stage theatre world he had begun in) kept very much in the closet.  Relationships foundered under the strict management of the studios, and Kelly, like many of the era, used drink, probably drugs, and gambled excessively, losing his fortune, getting sacked, getting hired again, but pretty much maintaining his unique and brilliant work throughout with a few lulls for time in rehab.

Rather a lot was made by the film of his relationship as a young man with a big Hollywood star, firmly in the closet; and I also felt the film's title was rather oddly, and inappropriately, titillating - surely it should more accurately be "women he's dressed"?  The story was strong enough, and interesting enough, not really to need these two elements played upon quite so much.

A very interesting watch - highly recommended, an interesting alternative Australian hero to the usual suspects.
***1/2

Cecil says: What I did like about this film was the reminder of how many great films are never shown anymore. All those wonderful black and white movies with great storylines and classic actors of their day just never get shown anymore. There's no TV channel showing Turner Classics as in the USA and the old Saturday afternoon matinees on UK TV - which I never wanted to watch when Grandstand was my preference - are long consigned to history.

This film made me want to get to see all the old movies from the time when Orry Kelly was designing clothes. And fortunately our local cinema in Nowra does do a weekly double bill of oldies, so I must start going.

I also learnt something about the old film studios of those early days of cinema. I hadn't realised that Warner Brothers' early films focused on grittier, more day-to-day characters, whereas Paramount and MGM (?) went for the more glamorous, high-society settings. Makes me want to get hold of a list of those Warner Brothers films and try to see them all.

What I didn't like was the very staged start and end of the film, with Orry-Kelly rowing his boat on placid seas. It felt too much like a set designed for stage rather than screen and just didn't work for me. Why couldn't they have filmed that on real water in Kiama Harbour, or even Wollongong?

The story was captivating, though, and the time passed very quickly.

***

Far From The Madding Crowd

Seen at the Roxy Cinema in Nowra, NSW

Cecil says: I read this book for English 'O' Level some 40 years ago, so I have to say I forgot the plot and have no idea how closely this film version of Thomas Hardy's novel stays to the original text.

But I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Carey Mulligan was excellent in the role of Bathsheba, though I couldn't help feeling her portrayal was a bit too modern and her accent surely a little too Received Pronunciation even for a middle class girl if she lived down in Dorset.

Mulligan is an actress I am enjoying more and more since she first broke into the big time with An Education. She's become a great character actress and this role was ideal for her. Interestingly, both Bea and I noticed her profile, which for some reason was filmed almost as much as her face, though some would argue it is her most beautiful aspect.

Michael Sheen was also brilliant as Boldwood. Some of his mannerisms and the way he speaks reminds me increasingly of Anthony Hopkins, and in a sense this is the kind of role that would have suited Hopkins perfectly some 30 years ago.

As always with Hardy, this was a heart-rending tale of love spurned and lovelorn characters; of fortunes made and lost, sometimes through inheritance and sometimes through misdeeds like gambling or plain bad luck, as with a flock of sheep going over a cliff.

I can't help wondering if the move through the social classes was really quite as fluid as this storyline makes out, though I can imagine that farming in those days was very vulnerable to the physical dangers and the weather events that came up in this film.

Interesting also to see all the work going on in the fields without machinery. This was set in 1870, before the mechanical engine was invented. Funnily enough, we saw very similar farming scenes when travelling through Romania and Vietnam in 2014!

One final note of pedantry: shame they had to begin the film with the words 'Dorset, England'. I know Americans like to be sure it's not some county in some mid-west state, but really. Was that necessary? And why then also add '200 miles outside London'. Hardy would not have approved, I'm sure.

****

Bea says:  Hardy is one of my favourite authors, but like Cecil I read this one many, many years ago so my hazy memory of it wasn't at risk from a bad adaptation - although I plan to read it now to see how true to the novel they were.

What more can I add to Cecil's thoughts?  It was well acted and obviously well directed from that, beautifully filmed and costumed, all the things I love about historical drama.  I became nostalgic for my adopted country of England while watching the Christmas scenes in church, and also nostalgic for a time long gone (that I have never known), a time when people sang folk songs around a harvest feast table...

But this is Hardy, so no twee nostalgia-fest for us viewers.  The darker themes of love lost, bad timing, grave life choices poorly made, crime, and of the plight of women in Victorian times (owned by men, no rights to property, ruined if they engaged in pre-marital sex or conceived a child out of wedlock) were as usual the backbone of the story, and although this one ended well, they don't always.  I am always amazed by how well Hardy portrays the issues of women in his novels.

Cary Mulligan was very good indeed as the lead, although she looked rather slight (and often very lightly dressed) to be hauling hay and dipping sheep on a Dorset farm - I also want to re-read the novel to see what kind of description Hardy gives her.  Her acting skills quickly made me forget my initial doubts.  I am rather glad the movie world has moved on from casting Keira Knightly in all these roles.

A perfect Sunday morning film.
****