film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: BRWC

  • I’m So Excited – Review

    I’m So Excited – Review

    Pedro Almodovar is an Oscar winning director, creating artistic and often supremely dark pieces of engaging cinema. His previous film, The Skin I Live In, was a hauntingly tragic tale that wowed critics with it’s powerful tone and even bagged the Spanish director an Oscar. So when I heard (from the Graham Norton show no less), that his latest was a cabaret like campfest about a doomed flight to Mexico and its eccentric cabin crew, it was pretty obvious Almodovar felt it was time he had some fun with his craft, and expressed more of his personality as a person, rather than just a film maker.

    Set almost entirely in the cabin of a commercial aeroplane, and after a couple of cheeky cameos from the Almodovar alumni, the film kicks off how all flights do; with an overly animated emergency demonstration. With this, the film’s tone is laid out right from the off and everything about I’m So Excited is as colourful and extravagant as its fun time 60s style title sequence. Cleverly limiting the cast to just the front end section of the plane, it becomes something of a one set stage play with an ensemble of actors having as much fun as the director himself. As a result, everyone in I’m So Excited is great, but great in a pantomime sort of way that often feels like you’re watching Carry On Espana. The delightfully flamboyant trio of Javier Camara, Raul Arevalo & Carlos Areces lead proceedings throughout, offering a constant stream of comic relief with pretty much every word they utter, including a completely ridiculous musical number that camps it up to the level of Liberace.

    The ensemble cast are all great.
    The ensemble cast are all great.

    Although a bit of blue is a common theme in Pedro Almodovar’s movies, it’s really not subtle here and to the wrong audience, the humour will be seen as a bit crass. Raunchy innuendos come as common as a limp wrist, limiting the appeal to only the most liberal of people. Put simply, readers of the Daily Mail will not be amused by the frivolous frolicking of every single character on the plane and the frequent casual use of narcotics. The director clearly isn’t being serious at any point of his latest movie, freely championing his own sexual orientation without feeling the need to censor himself, or homosexuality in general. As a result, he forges an overly raunchy 90 minute free for all that is just good old fashioned fun with tongue firmly in cheek for as long as the plane is in the air, but knowingly targeting a specific sort of audience. There are a few tender moments between the more serious passengers and their family/loved ones back in Spain, but these are only fleeting, offering nothing more than padding to flesh out the rest of the characters a little more. On the whole, the film is completely stupid, and while not being a patch on any of his previous output in terms of narrative, his abundant technical prowess is still evident throughout. Visually it’s as vibrant as an Elton John 50th birthday party, and the space is utilised impeccably, never becoming claustrophobic or repetitive despite such a confined setting.

    Feeling like a modernised, relevant and ultimately funnier version of a Carry On film, I’m So Excited is a hilariously camp and fantastical farce of a movie even if a little childish. If you’re quite the prude, or a Westboro Baptist, then this film definitely isn’t for you. It’s by no means a blokey film, or even one you’d watch on a date, but I can definitely imagine my Mum and her 5 sisters having great fun watching the filthy fun unfold…I just wouldn’t watch it with them, that would be weird.

    3

  • The King Of Pigs – Review

    The King Of Pigs – Review

    Warning: This film may ruin your day.

    The first feature length from South Korean director Sang-ho Yeon is… a bit heavy. I don’t just mean heavy as in the subject matter. Everything is somewhat depressing. The animation. The sound design. The atmosphere. Even the voices have been recorded at unrelenting ear-piercing level. This film feels like a slog to get through. But sometimes slogs can be good. Just because a film is unremittingly depressing doesn’t mean it isn’t good. I love Breaking the Waves but I never want to see it again.

    A woman sits dead at a table. A man stands sobbing in a shower. He then sees an odd-monster creature and then the title pops up. Intriguing. Depressing. Good, good. We meet Jong-suk a ghost writer who’s not very good at ghost writing because he can’t find the truth in things is being chewed out by his boss. He goes home and takes his frustration out on his wife. Deeply troubling. He meets with naked, sobbing man Kyung-min who has now put on some clothes and corked his eyes. As it turns out the men went to school together. Oh my did they go to school together. They went to a school that is like a conglomerate of Sleepers, Miik’s Young Thugs and Scum – but with rich kids. The school they went to was run by the rich kids who were also inherently the smart ones. A cultural difference between Korea and the UK. Here it’s often the intelligent who are picked on because they did something was dickheadish as to pick up a book when they could be playing with their dong. Jong-suk and Kyung-min make for a sorry pair until a mysterious third child Chul stands up to the bullies. This leads to more physical, psychological and political (within a school system) torment. This all builds to a wonderfully delightful climax.

    I found The King of Pigs are hard film to enjoy. By the end I found it hard to appreciate. It begins well enough, the animation feels a little too sparse at first – I did keep giggling everytime somebody walked – but it grew on me as it fitted in with the films bleak feel. The death we’re greeted with is terribly mysterious and hooks you in but then as the film descends into it’s fucked up Stand By Me flashback it becomes increasingly hard to follow. Films about bullying are always difficult watches. People who have been bullied may want the gratification of film fantasy violence to befall the villains, when they don’t get their commupence this can be annoying. It may also bring back a few sore memories.

    Sang-ho Yuen has done a fine job in creating a film that fully portrays the harsh lives of people who suffer bullying at school, particularly the South Korean system and it’s probably my own issues with the film. But by the end it became unrelenting, the misery, one act of violence after another that if anything became tiring. A few moments of violence can be powerful shock agents and a host of them can be numbing. As the three young boys slowly loose what left of their dignity and sanity the film begins to move into near-hysterics where even the vocal recording of the actors become ear-split-tingly shrill. It doesn’t help that most of the school kids are clearly voiced by women.

    The problem is that for all my moaning this isn’t actually a bad film. It’s actually quite good but in it’s desire to focus on the torment of it’s main characters Sang-ho Yuen’s film begins to torment the viewer to the point where you may want to turn it off through frustration, boredom or annoyance. Whichever way it won’t make you a happy person.

  • Flying Blind: An Interview With Katarzyna Klimkiewicz

    Flying Blind tells the story of Frankie, an aerospace engineer who embarks on an unlikely relationship with young student Kahil, throwing her into a spiraling world of suspicion and prejudice. The film is a feature premier from director Katarzyna Klimkiewicz. BRWC spoke to Klimkiewicz about her full-length movie debut.

    How did you go about getting the role as director?

    Flying Blind is my first feature film. I had my first short Hanoi-Warszawa shown at Encounters short film festival in Bristol where I met Alison Sterling. She liked my piece so she pitched me the idea at the festival and that’s how we started to work on this together. So the idea came from her originally.

    What was it like collaborating with the other writers? Also, did you enjoy working with Alison?

    It was great with Alison. From the beginning we had an amazing working relationship. We both like similar films and we have similar ambitions about what we want to do as film makers. With the writers, we had a few problems. We had to split with the first one so we ended up with several: Caroline, Bruce and Naomi. It was great to work with them but over all I think it was a slightly difficult process to collaborate with such a variety. In the end it came together, but because I had not had experience before with this, there were a few struggles.

    How did this project differ from your previous work? Was it intimidating jumping from the independently made short films to a full length feature?

    Yes, it was intimidating in many aspects because it’s a bigger film and it was much more complex than my shorts. Flying Blind is very ambiguous. Because we wanted everything to be open so the viewer could interpret scenes in different ways, it was more complex from a directing point of view. Everyone was very helpful and supportive but I felt I really needed to stand up to the mark; I didn’t want to disappoint them. However, over all it was an amazing opportunity to work with these people and I have learnt a lot. So on the one hand it was intimidating and on the other it was very inspiring.

    Looking at your past work such as Wasserschlacht: The Great Border Battle and Hanoi-Warszawa, they’re quite politically charged and again this movie has a post-9/11 context. Is that something that inspired you to work on the film?

    Yes, I think I’m really interested about how politics influence our lives and how we are formed by politics. So when Alison pitched me the idea and mentioned how it was about this woman who has a strong character with a political context it really intrigued me.

    Aside from the political aspect the movie had some very erotic scenes which I personally thought came across as very tasteful. How did you deal with these parts of the film? Was it a very new idea for you?

    Yes it was a very new thing for me. I had this idea that I’d approach every erotic passage as if it was a dialogue scene but without dialogue. I thought of these two people who are having an intimate connection who didn’t use words, but instead tried to communicate something to each other using their bodies. For me I think it was the only place that they were free of outside issues: the difference of age, language and culture. So I tried to look at each section and portray what they were saying without using words.

    How was it working with Helen McCrory as the main actress?

    She’s been very involved from the beginning and so she’s had her input on the script. She’s very tough and demanding and I like that because it’s a lot like her character. She was very brave in the way she revealed her body and also with her feelings. The emotional journey of Frankie was very moving, I think, because Helen really showed her vulnerability and personality. I also really appreciated the way that Helen trusted me as a first time director. Sometimes it can be difficult for actors as they can be afraid when they have a new person to work with. So I feel very grateful that she relied on me and I am happy that I got this opportunity to work with her.

    How did you find directing in Bristol?

    I found it great because Bristol is a really nice place visually but also because it has diverse scenery; the city is very complex. It has this beautiful Georgian architecture and also a more gritty eastern neighborhood with an anarchic energy. It all worked together to make an interesting place of location.

    How long did the movie take to shoot? Did you have much of a budget to play around with?

    No, the budget was quite limited. We had £300,000 and we had 24 days of shooting which is quite short. So we tried to prepare as much as we could which meant on set we couldn’t really improvise. There were some ideas that we had before that didn’t work as well on stage but there was no time to change that. Over all I think with this type of budget you really have to do a lot of preparation.

    The movie was selected for the National British Cinema Quarterly (NBCQ). Could you tell me a little more about what this project does?

    NBCQ is part of Soda Pictures which is a distribution company that issue a release of four British films, one film each quarter. The aim is to release in cinemas smaller, British films from new directors that probably would not have a chance to compete with big productions. What they try to do is to bring those films to screens but to have a different strategy for marketing. Rather than invest in imposters and ads which would probably be more than the budget of the films themselves, they invest in organising tours of the film. So last week I’ve been traveling up North, through cities in the UK, covering Q & As and attending audience screenings. I think what is great about this is the promotion doesn’t cost a lot so the film can reach the audience. Also, from a director’s point of view it’s great because, talking the audience, I can understand and meet the programmers of the out house cinemas and see how the other end of the film industry works.

    Now that the movie is completed and out, have you got any other plans or projects you will be working on in the near future?

    I am in part-production of a short movie commissioned by the Danish Film Festival. It’s a sort of experimental film based on a poem regarding an afternoon of a family who don’t know that one member has had a car accident. We shot this in March and it’s in production. At the moment, I’m back in Poland, and I begin shooting a TV Drama in June. I’m also starting to develop two scripts, one here in Poland and one where I am collaborating with a producer to adapt a book, so I have lots of different plans in the pipeline.

  • Flying Blind: Review

    Flying Blind: Review

    Flying Blind is the ambitious new erotic-drama from budding director Katarzyna Klimkiewicz and producer Alison Sterling, combining post-9/11 cinema with sexual themes to create a politically charged film with a seemingly heartfelt punch.

    The story follows middle-aged Bristol-born Frankie, played strongly by British actress Helen McCrory (Harry Potter, The Special Relationship) and her passionate love affair with French-Algerian student, actor Najib Oudghiri starring as Kahil. The plot line is essentially an unlikely love story, and yet what is gradually uncovered, by Frankie’s aerospace military involvement and the hints of Kahil’s “mysterious” past, is a politically fueled battle that unfolds to raise some quite poignant issues regarding prejudice in modern UK society. As Kahil gets more involved in Frankie’s life, so does the input of others, including the Security Force and her life takes a downward spiral of suspicion and accusation as she is left questioning the judgment against her true and well-portrayed craving for Kahil.

    When it comes to Flying Blind, what really shines through are the actor’s roles within the narrative. In true Art House style, it’s what is not said that does most of the talking and this is where the movie’s various erotic scenes are favored. As Klimkiewicz mentions herself, she wanted to, “create dialogue without dialogue” within these passages and show a time when the two characters were really communicating without any outside influences. The sexual content certainly suggests this and in fact comes across as very tastefully done. The casting seems to be a very tactful move, with McCrory and Oudhiri rendering an intense and believable performance of their evolving relationship.

    In addition to this, Keneth Cranham (Valkyrie, Layer Cake) gives a sterling performance as Frankie’s father, Victor, as he interferes her relationship with some paternal concerns. What’s great about his character is that he truly does depict to the viewer a rather typical, rather lovable father and yet his prejudice is quite blatant throughout the narrative, which seems to sharpen the idea of the accepted and masked judgment that remains strongly within UK society today.

    Even though the filming was done in just four weeks on a seemingly modest budget, the movie does not come across as rushed. Although at times a little obvious, the plot contains some clever and considered dialogue in between the long moments of silence and sex and smoothly presents a life-like discourse between new lovers, especially Frankie’s curiosity over Kahil’s Arabic language. Even the setting appears planned as the dreary Bristol weather, although by chance, echoes the storm that is constantly brewing throughout the film.

    Flying Blind is certainly one to watch out for as a combination of new and maintained talent. It’s a well-made British drama that, although criticised for it’s commonly covered ground, is original in its storyline and cinematic style, merging political with erotic in an Art House font.

    The remaining tour dates are as follows:

    Ipswich Film Theatre, Ipswich (Friday 10th May – Sunday 13th May)

    Derby Quad + Q&A (Saturday 11th May)

    Curzon, Soho (Tuesday 14th May )

    Hebden Bridge Picturehouse, West Yorks (Wednesday 15th May & Thursday 16th May)

    Plymouth Arts Centre (Friday 31st May – Thursday 6th June)

    Stoke Film Theatre (20th June)

    The DVD of Flying Blind will be out on 15th July.

  • iSteve: An Unlikely Biopic

    iSteve: An Unlikely Biopic

    When it came to a biopic movie of Steve Jobs’ career, I would not have immediately jumped to the idea of a parody comedy done by Funny or Die. Coinciding with this I would not have thought Funny or Die’s first feature length movie to cover such a, what could have been, serious topic. However, creator Ryan Perez decided to write and produce this ambitious production and do it in no less than five days, a risky deed amidst the two other supposedly more accurate Jobs productions currently in the pipeline.

    Calling this movie a documentary would be a loose mistake; even with no real background knowledge of Steve Jobs myself, I was still very aware of the fanciful nature of the story. Upon research it seems that there are some factual snippets such as the release date of the Macintosh, the hiring of John Sculley and the development of the Apple 11 (although in reality Jobs was probably not finding his inspiration from acid tabs retrieved from Asia). In between these connections to the truth, Perez weaved into it a rather comical, rather hilariously typical plot line with clichés such as Job’s downfall from the villain Sculley, his fight back to the top amongst an intertwined love story, his mentor George Lucas and the many amusing and, quite obviously, computer based montage scenes. The blatant mockery of such against-the-odds style films is reminiscent of the stupid humor found in likewise parodies such as Airplane and Walk Hard, which could, combined with the universal appreciation for Steve Jobs and the Apple line, be the reason for the release generating such mixed reviews.

    Latter to the extended release date, the movie received some harsh criticisms relating to the silly humor and inaccuracy of the plot, as well as the shoddy and rushed production. One of the harshest of all being the review in Wired magazine, describing the movie as “profoundly unfunny” and going on to say, “this movie is worse in every way than a sidewalk dentist in Bangkok sans anesthesia.” A little harsh some may say, and also probably coming from someone who was expecting a factual or even a more mature account of Jobs’ life. The problem for critics seems to be the context of the movie more than the actual entertainment value. For many it was a disdain and almost an insult to the late and universally admired Steve Jobs and the imprecision of facts and lighthearted humor made many viewers angry. However, coming from a person who watched the film without such a setting, I think it was pretty enjoyable, not to mention impressive for the amount of time is took Perez to compose. What’s important not to forget is that this is essentially an extended tape from the website Funny or Die; it’s not meant to be an epic production but more of a buoyant take on what could be a rather dismal subject.

    So let’s talk about the more funny moments such as the fight scene between “good friends” Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, preceding the cleverly orchestrated Mac and PC adverts that originally featured actor Justin Long, who is in the film playing Jobs himself. Along with the virtual reality sex sketch and the various Apple Acid montages, moments like these in fact reminded me of the silliness in more recent South Park episodes, which is never a bad thing.

    Although many critics felt strongly adverse to the impreciseness of iSteve, I amongst others found it to be an entertaining watch, which I was not expecting. It’s trivial, it’s rushed and maybe it’s not ideal for hardcore Jobs fans but taken out of context or with a pinch of iSalt, it is an engaging and funny look at the life of the creator of Apple.