Author: BRWC

Christianity is a subject rife for film making, and has been for decades.  Anything from hard-hitting documentaries to nativity stories and comedies to action films, the holy book seems to provide a limitless breeding ground for movies in almost all genres.  But it’s hard to make a comedy about about the hypocrisies and contradictions of organised Christianity in a post-Dogma world.  Kevin Smith made such an iconic cult film about Catholicism that anything of that vein has to work hard to break free of it’s shadow.

Rockin’ Reverend is the story of Robert (Scot Michael Walker), a wannabe actor who’s struggling to get legitimate gigs outside of dressing as the Statue of Liberty on a sidewalk.  He struggles with his goal whilst juggling fatherhood, financially supporting his son through his divorced wife and building a relationship with his new girlfriend.  At the beginning of the story, Robert is dragged to church by his girlfriend and suffers a sermon in the ilk of the pained and self-flagellating stereotype.  He’s not impressed, ridiculing the reverend and the messages he preached until he realises that you can make a lot of money in the business of the clergy.

And this, sadly, is the story to the end.  The character goes on a journey of acting in the “gig” of being a reverend, challenging the messages people receive from conventional churches and giving them a guilt-free sermon on not being a “douche.”  The character goes on no journey but to make money from the faceless congregation, mocking religion in the process and eventually succumbing to all the vices that wealth bring.  We don’t love the character and we see no growth in him as a person nor development.

What’s missing is any real understanding of the religion at hand.  There’s no nuanced conversation about the subject, as we see in film’s like Dogma, nor the brazen challenging we see in Holy Grail.  With Scot Michael Walker as director, writer and star there’s a chance that the film was blinding by its singular direction, I’ve seen more interesting performances from teenagers antagonising street preachers during the sumer holidays.

Reviewing a silent film is … tricky. What the forefathers of cinema achieved, experimenting with an infant art form and essentially creating the rules for a whole new means of storytelling, cannot be underestimated. However, a century of change in filmic technology, storytelling techniques and, as a result of those, the subconscious way an audience expects to receive a narrative, has not been kind to silent cinema. Silent films were spellbinding simply for existing; a new and astonishing novelty. However, what would mean little to a person captivated by a moving picture, can essentially break a movie watched through modern eyes. The pantomimic acting, flat angles, endless, often repetitive orchestration, overextended shots, jagged edits, these can constantly break modern audiences” sense of immersion, halt storytelling momentum and prevent our investment.

Sure, images endure and brief moments of spectacle survive – watching Buster Keaton”s stuntwork, for example, is still astonishing – but taken whole as stories, experiences of narrative engagement, silent films have aged awfully. Take Nosferatu for example.

Released in 1922 as Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror (or eine Symphonie des Grauens in its original German), it”s heralded as one of the masterpieces of the genre. Having never seen it before, I was shocked by how much of it I recognised; a sequence here, and image there, all of which I”d encountered before via reference, parody or homage over years of pop-culture. It”s influence, not only in crafting a certain vampire aesthetic for decades to come – no Nosferatu, no Buffy – but also in creating enduring symbols of horror – the vampire rising from its coffin, the shadow on the wall as a creature climbs the stairs, bulging white eyes, clawed fingers – is indisputable, but is it scary? No. Not even a little bit. For a masterpiece of horror to be not only not frightening but also plodding and even laugh-out-loud ridiculous in places, is problematic.

In terms of plot, it”s a ripoff of Dracula. I don”t mean that flippantly. The studio who made it, Prana-Film, told screenwriter Henrik Galeen to write a film based on the plot of Bram Stoker”s novel and change the names because they hadn”t managed to secure the rights. The Harkers became the Hutters and Count Dracula became Count Orlok. So similar were the tales, Stoker”s estate successfully sued Prana, bankrupting them and forcing all copies of the film be destroyed. In true horror tradition, one survived.

Some have argued that the word Nosferatu is derived from online casinos the greek “Nosophorus”, meaning “bringer of plague” and much is made of the count”s likeness to a rat – protruding frontal fangs, long clawlike fingers, pointed nose, pointed ears, he”s a grotesque creation. Much of the film is strikingly gothic, gnarled creatures prowling the shadows of germanic castles, paper-white damsels fainting in the moonlight. The odd stark shot of Count Orlok, or footage of rats scurrying from a coffin, can be profoundly disturbing and in conjunction with the orchestral score – beautifully restored from Hans Erdnmann”s original – the film occasionally conjures a palpable atmosphere of dread, but the problem is that it”s never maintained.

Max Schreck”s Count Orlok is striking when cast in shadow, but sat eating dinner, shot at a flat angle or strutting like a creature from Michael Jackon”s Thriller, shoulders hunched high and rigid, mad eyes gleaming, he comes across as impossibly camp. Erratic pacing often halts momentum, the acting starts at musical hall, figures “why stop there?” before degrading quickly to bug-eyed, scene-chewing cackling, and a number of stop-motion camera effects, no doubt groundbreaking at the time, appear so jagged and clumsy that they immediately jolt you out of the film.

It”s impossible to be objective here, to divorce myself from my circumstances and watch the film as it was originally intended. I have been explicitly told by every corner of the movie-watching community, that this is a classic film, but it”s also ninety-one years old and watching it with modern eyes (what other choice do I have?) I found it hard to sit through.

Often cited as The First Vampire Movie, Nosferatu”s importance is clear and its legacy undeniable. Like any relic, its fascinating to examine and shows us just how far we”ve come, even if its age has rendered it more than a little broken.

Last year The Hunger Games introduced us to a world with a, frankly, fucked-up status quo.  A post-apocalyptic society where a geographical caste system is pushed to it’s extreme, where poverty is rife at one end and opulence is indulged at the other (Occupy eat your heart out) and, each year, 24 children are snatched from their families to fight to the death live on TV.  All this to remind everyone that rebellion is bad and they should be grateful for what they’ve got.

In the previous instalment Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence), a confusingly healthy looking girl from the poorest district in the nation of Panem, volunteers to protect her sister after she is picked for the 74th Hunger Games.  What unfolded was a film made mostly of exposition, exploring the concept of a dystopian society where the desensitisation to violence and obsession with reality television is taken to it’s natural nadir.  Within this landscape, we followed Katniss’s story of struggling with this society, fighting for her life and deciding if she really does love her teammate Peeta (Hutcherson) or was just playing him to win.  The film culminated with Peeta and Katniss winning the games and sticking two fingers to the Man in the process.

Catching Fire picks up after the 74th Games with our winners on a tour across the districts where citizens are forced to spectate or watch the presentations in a ratings goldmine that Simon Cowell could only dream of.  Katniss, Peeta, Haymitch (Harrelson) and Effie (Banks) reunite to perform this pantomime of political pandering, but something is amiss.  After her actions in the Games, Katniss has become an unwitting icon for freedom for the people and the tour serves not to reinforce the fear of the government, but to ignite the spark rebellion against them.

The film opens to a slow start, setting the scene once more for our characters and the backstory of what is supposed to happen post-games, but ramps up quickly once the tour starts.  Scenes of protest that were hinted at in the first film are explored in darker detail here, and the violent arm of the establishment is seen striking at its subjugated people with tact and deft direction from Francis Lawrence – the only punches this film pulls is to keep it’s rating a 12A.  As the story develops we play witness to a game of chess where as a piece is taken, often so are lives in President Snow’s  (Sutherland) quest to destroy the image of our heroine and extinguish her flame.

The film’s challenge is it’s source material, the popular novel where it revisits an identical framework as the original.  The opening act simply sets up another year of the Hunger Games, and many scenes in the film are almost replicated frame-by-frame.  But don’t despair, pay close attention and dig a little deeper and you’ll be rewarded by stronger performances from the cast, deeper development of the characters and action that far outclass the former movie.  And remember, this film is the bridge in the trilogy (think Empire without the droids) and does a fantastic job of moving the pieces into place for a fantastic culmination.  You’ll not want to miss a beat of this movie, and the finale will leave your head spinning, baying for more.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is in cinemas on the 21st November 2013.

There Will Be Ick.

Cornelia (Luminita Gheorghiu) is a wealthy woman who loves her son. Really loves him. As in rubs his bruised back with ointment and a rubber glove for longer than is an appropriate amount of time. Yeah, she loves him THAT much.

Cornelia’s world of fine dinners, recitals and generally being overbearing in peoples lives is tested when her son Barbu (Bogdan Dumitrache) is involved in a collision. A group of teenagers die and the blame is pointed at Barbu. Cornelia springs into action using her local power and influence to exact her control over the case and keep her son out of jail. We see Cornelia’s influence over all people in her life as she manipulates at will, changing her temperament and approach to deal with each situation. Ultimately we see the power she continues to exude over Bardu, a man who is frustrated by his over-bearing mother but still acts like a petulant teenager because of her mothering.

Having heard good things about Child’s Pose I was looking forward to it. Word of a sparse, slightly twisted drama with award nagging performances sounded an intriguing proposition, not unlike something Michael Haneke would put his lens too. In the end the film left me as cold as Cornelia’s view of the world. Shot with a voyeurs eye, the camera sits in odd corners of rooms, wobbling. The camera feels it has been placed where it has due to logistics rather than setting up the best possible shot. Director and co-writer Calin Peter Netzer should be applauded for making a film that feels so much like non-fiction, along with the camera there is little in the way of music and the dialogue flows. It should be noted that the actors all turn in wonderful performances. Buzz about Luminita’s chilling portrayal isn’t wrong. Her ultimate goal of keeping her son from jail shows her twisted love. Is it for him or for her that he stays out of prison? Her manipulation of the bereaved families disturbing. Bogdam too is the embodiment of frustration. For the most part he is a spoiled brat of a man, having never heard the word ‘no’ from his mother he struggles to cope with the idea that he may be locked away against his will. What ultimately left me cold to the films  efforts was that I didn’t particularly care about anything that was going on. On this occasion I know that is me, not them. Everything’s there to enjoy a good film but as much as I tried I really couldn’t give a damn about anything I was seeing on screen.

Perhaps it was the characters. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood to spend my time with annoying people winging and weaseling their way out of responsibility. Maybe it was one of those times where I couldn’t enjoy observing the characters as presented and suddenly felt indignant about their lives so my brain switched off. All I know is that at the half way point I became disinterested and as it finished my first thought was “good now I can get a sandwich”. Has anyone else felt completely detached from this film? Or should I come back to it with an open mind and a heart bursting with love?