Year: 2017

Before I delve into Bill Condon’s effervescent and joyous Beauty and the Beast, there’s a minor confession that needs to be laid bare:  I hadn’t watched the 1991 animated classic prior to seeing the live-action version.  As it turns out, this situation worked out perfectly for it allowed the story and the musical numbers to unfold naturally for me.  Condon’s live-action version is directly based on the 1991 story, itself a revival of the French classic fairy tale, La Belle et la Bête by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.

Full of lively characters, Condon’s interpretation of this classic is part Moulin Rouge, part The Sound of Music where a flair for color and quick camera transitions to the tune of upbeat musical numbers melds with modern technical advancements showing depth and scale.  This version of Beast has a humanity and vividness about it where appearances are not everything they seem.

Despite the draw-dropping images, the story is relatively untouched from the 1991 version, which is a problem.  The one-dimensional story doesn’t truly convey the consequences of the Beast’s vanity or of Belle’s carefree attitudes.  Those choices are left to the interpretation of the actors.  Dan Stevens is the highlight while Emma Watson felt too proper for someone who should have been worldlier, though Stevens compliments her grace and style.

Dan Stevens had the unenviable task of acting twice; once for the cameras with Emma Watson and the other actors, and a second time for the motion capture systems to be computer animated as the actual Beast.  The results shine when you see the Beast on the screen, there is a much wider range of motion and emotion that was not present in the animated version.  The production went to great lengths to build real sets and what was a signature moment in the animated version, is once again so.  Cinematographer Tobias Schliessler manages to capture the epic stature that Condon intended, but the work also feels staged.

Screenwriters Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos do tap in to some elements which were only alluded to in 1991.  The most obvious difference is LeFou’s flamboyance, the first openly gay character in a Disney movie, and his adoration for Gaston, which has upset some audiences and theaters.  Of course, Josh Gad and Luke Evans play off the relationship very effectively, a compliment to Condon’s steady direction.  The dynamics of Belle and the Beast’s relationship has changed for the better giving Lumière (Ewan McGregor), Cogsworth (Ian McKellen), Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson) and Chip (newcomer Nathan Mack), Madame Garderobe (Audra McDonald), and Maestro Cadenza (Stanley Tucci) much more to do.  Each of the respective voice talents shines through and to see their human forms at the end was pure joy.  Maurice as a character has been slightly altered, giving Kevin Kline the opportunity to show his range, his child-like qualities well-suited to the character especially when he discovers that Belle has learned the truth about her mother; one of the few expanded story elements that works.

Alan Menkin returns to the work that he started in 1991 and succeeds brilliantly here, bringing on additional songs created for the Broadway musical.  Emma Thompson performs a beautiful rendition of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ originally performed by Angela Lansbury.

Bill Condon brought Disney’s classic to life with characters who leap off the screen, with touches to please most modern audiences.  Despite the advancements in technology, the story didn’t quite follow the same path, remaining one-dimensional.

Beauty and the Beast is Recommended.

 

Blood of bright red flows throughout the frames of Rod Hardy’s sublime and seemingly undervalued THIRST. An imperfect but no less enthralling gem excavated from the tail end of the 70s, this is the kind of film that oozes with all sorts of salaciously surreal potential. Midnight madness is no stranger to twisty tales of vampirism, but few come so dangerously close to evoking the quality of the feverish day-dream of a deeply disturbed flower child (one with a penchant for paranoid conspiracy and aesthetic occultism) and that’s barely penetrating the surface.

If the director’s name is at all familiar, it might be because Hardy was behind the Daniel Radcliffe vehicle DECEMBER BOYS (2007); quite an unexpected change of pace from his acid-tinged debut, which is far more interested in entertaining elements of science fiction, psychedelia, and even the legend of Elizabeth Bathory than it is in conventional empathic rumination.

 

The infamous Blood Countess provides a great deal of essential framing for the story, which concerns the kidnapping of Australian housewife Kate Davis (Chantal Cantouri) by a shady organization which refers to itself as “The Brotherhood” who later inform the distraught heroine that she is in fact a descendent of Bathory and that she is to be kept in the confines of their compound in order to undergo a series of mysterious though revealing medical experiments.

Roughly the first half of the film is soaked in pervasive ambience and ambiguity, and for better or worse, we feel about as lost as Kate. Those behind the operation seem to be harvesting the blood of their “patients” and it would also appear that Kate is unique for her hereditary ties. One of the professionals on site, Dr. Fraser (the ever-reliable David Hemmings), takes a shine to her and even makes a commendable effort to subvert the character’s increasingly grim fate.

Then, the illusion is shattered and the screaming starts; with the ingestion of psychoactive substance comes a positively remarkable phantasmagoria that segues into a somewhat underwhelming conclusion that almost seems to actively acknowledge that what came before was a uniquely hard act to follow. It is, along with the silly glowing red eye effect applied to the vamps as they make their immediate transitions, one of the only real blind spots here but it’s a biggie. It might be difficult to imagine, with a premise as unabashedly outlandish as this, that the lackluster home stretch would be borderline detrimental to its lasting influence, but here we are.

On a whole, however, this is just exquisite. The widescreen compositions are absolutely divine, just jam-packed with essential information, and some would argue the oddball ideas on display here are not quite worthy of their grandeur; but it all made sense when an IMDB search informed me that Vincent Monton had also lensed the excellent LONG WEEKEND just a year prior. Brian May, best known for his work on the first two installments in George Miller’s MAD MAX Trilogy, also provides an alternatively elegant and haunting musical accompaniment to the madness which unfolds on-screen. It’s a perfectly perverse and meticulously crafted spectacle, and one which knows all too well that not every trip – and this is certainly a memorable one – is thoroughly pleasant.

Sure, this could just as easily be chocked up to drug-addled nonsense as it could be to an effective late night entertainment but one man’s bullshit is another man’s benefit. THIRST dares to descend into the rabbit hole and emerges with an intriguing cinematic brew; and if it’s one that doesn’t entirely work, because admittedly mileage may vary among viewers, it’s at the very least an inspiring effort that does well to provide a substantial amount of audio-visual fodder for those who simply, and constantly, crave the wild side of celluloid. Nothing, and nowhere, is safe from the liquid red; not the chicken drumsticks at the picnic, not the bottle of milk delivered to your doorstep, and absolutely not the suburban shower. The nightmare certainly seems never-ending, but it remains a powerful prospect. Sometimes you gotta go get mad, and it’s films like this which just make it all the easier.

 David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike, Jack Davenport, Tom Felton, Vusi Kunene. Directed by Amma Asante. Rated PG-13. 111 minutes. 2017.

It is important, first and foremost, to remember that film is a visual medium. It’s an obvious point to make about an art form that forces its consumer to view a series of rapidly moving photographs, but it is also important to remind oneself that, when it comes to relaying a true story through such a medium, the result must not simply coast on the extraordinary nature of its specifics. This is the trap into which Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom falls, unfortunately, for here is a film whose makers seem to have believed that the story they were telling was of more importance than their telling of the story. Even the broad subject matter is fascinating for the previously uninformed, such as myself, who had no idea of the marriage between the heir to an African king and a salesman’s daughter from London.

The heir is Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo, offering a fine performance that would make a good companion piece to the one he gave as Martin Luther King Jr.), and as his parents both died when he and his sister (Terry Pheto) were very young, Seretse is ready to take the throne of rule in the British protectorate of Bachuanaland (now known as Botswana) that was previously their grandfather’s. He is soon to return from London, where he has been completing his schooling, to assume his reign, but within the final months, he meets Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike), who, unlike Seretse, doesn’t come from great wealth and is white. Their courtship is quick, and when he is faced with a return to his country without the woman with whom he has fallen in love, he asks her to marry him, much to the disapproval of his uncle (Vusi Kunene) and her parents (Nicholas Lyndhurst and Anastasia Hille). She, of course, says yes.

The situation is, to put it lightly, complicated, as it also turns out that neither the African regime nor the British government is approving of this union, especially after it is consummated. For the African tribe of which Seretse is meant to be king, it is a question of tradition: The wife of a king is also their queen, and they understandably see the rule of a white queen as another power move from colonialist England. For the British government, it is a question of decency: Sir Alistair Canning (Jack Davenport), the government’s liaison to South Africa, and Rufus Lancaster (Tom Felton), a commissioner, can barely remain discreet about his smug prejudice, which is shared by many whites among the upper class. For Seretse and Ruth, it is a question of love: Theirs for each other is undying, even in the face of such discrimination and a game of proverbial chess between countries.

The problem is that screenwriter Guy Hibbert, adapting a book by Susan Williams, doesn’t offer much insight here beyond what is on the page. Seretse and Ruth have an appropriate sweetness as a couple (Pike is also solid as Ruth, especially in moments when she realizes she has entered situations beyond her control), but they remain cyphers when treated individually. They are defined entirely by their roles as subjects of a biographical picture whose intent seems to be hitting the beats of the story without much to-do. There are scenes of individual power, such a pair of speeches given by Seretse that prove both his worthiness of a position of leadership and Oyelowo’s skill at delivering them, but the whole of A United Kingdom is too broadly drawn to garner much response beyond the kind that one has to the story it tells.

Roland Moller, Louis Hofmann, Joel Basman, Oskar Bokelmann, Mikkel Boe Folsgaard. Directed by Martin Zandvliet. Rated R. 100 minutes. 2017.

The men must scour the shore for landmines that their fellow soldiers laid down to trap the enemy. It is slow and grueling work, and the catch is that these are not actually men. Many of them are boys, these prisoners of war, and the hard men that lord over them care not a lick if they live or die. The sergeant says so, repeatedly, including after a bout of hunger in his workers and even when one of them catches ill, vomiting into the night and unable to stay awake for very long. The workers must use poles to prod the ground at intervals of roughly six inches, and the process to defuse the mines is simple in theory but unthinkably tense in practice. It’s a potentially hopeless life that is led by these young men in Martin Zandvliet’s Land of Mine, but the writer/director doesn’t wallow in it.

That’s an important achievement, because it means the characters are able to be and grow as characters, rather than needing to supply fodder for a message movie. This is, quite decisively and effectively, an anti-war polemic, but it doesn’t have the anger of the usual polemic. There are no blustering speeches raging against the System for sending these boys into a war they hardly understand. The situation is harrowing on its own terms, and it doesn’t need the burden of such acidic political statements. The realpolitik here is inherent in the story Zandvliet is telling, although the film does supply melodrama of a different kind by way of the story framing the situation. It loses some of its potency in those stretches, but that also matters less than it could have. The urgency is still present.

Some of the young men are essentially interchangeable, although a few of the interchangeable ones are afforded a personality trait (or, if they are lucky, two), such as one boy whose hands are so shaky we are never sure that he will survive. The job, after all, requires a steady hand. The ones who are not so interchangeable act as our entryway into the story. Sebastian (Louis Hofmann) wears a cross that reminds him a father whose fate he does not know, and he’s the one who readily stands up to their commanding officer on behalf of his brothers in arms. Helmut (Joel Basman) is the eldest and the makeshift leader of the young men, but his squirrelly attitude and conniving ways are a constant source of punishment for the whole group. There is a pair of twins, Ernst (Emil Belton) and Werner (Osker Belton), so one must only count the minutes until the pair are separated.

The commanding officer is Rasmussen (Roland Moller), and the focus on him is where the film occasionally stumbles. He begins with contempt for the boys, whom he sees as nothing more than another group of German soldiers worthy of death. “Better them than us,” says his own superior officer Jensen (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard), and Rasmussen’s look of concession to the point says it all. That sense of murderous superiority shifts quite radically, albeit slowly, when deaths occur (The craftsmanship in showing us the aftermath of a mine explosion is effective and somber, even after we start to expect it by way of a cleverly framed shot) and especially when Jensen abuses his power to humiliate the boys. The film essentially becomes another drama about a stern teacher who learns to warm to his students, although Moller’s performance is good enough that it doesn’t hurt the picture too much.

And that’s especially true when everything else is as effective as it is. The emotion might push a bit too hard in such scenes as a silly game of soccer, scored to some flowery compositions, but it’s a stark outlook elsewhere. Every scene in which the prisoners much go forth with their mission to find and defuse landmines is rich with tension and unpredictability. No character is safe here, and the stark presentation of the violence at hand is utterly compelling. Also effective are performances that, every one of them, are convincing and precise. There is not a single actor here that makes a misstep. The sense of focus in Land of Mine is less assured, but the drama is in the pitiable nature of a war that forces boys to fight as men and, if not fight, die without dignity.