Author: BRWC

Beauty (aka Skoonheid) is the sophomore feature film from director Oliver Hermanus, a story of repression, jealousy, obsession and un-requited love. Both visually and thematically this is a dark movie with frequently starkly contrasted scenes framing the exploration of main character François, played by Deon Lotz, and his carefully constructed life of self-loathing.

Based in Bloemfontein, South Africa, François is a respected local business man, husband, and father who struggles with his repressed sexuality through a controlled system for meeting and engaging in sex acts with a group of similarly minded men – the rules are “no fags and no coloureds”. A stark portrayal of homophobia, racism, and violence this movie brashly deals with difficult subjects and the dislocated identity associated with living a lie. Unable to reconcile his desires with his reality François is always the voyeur and we frequently see from his eyes as his covetous observations of men betray his true nature. The opening sequence is a long pan and slow zoomed shot of a wedding party that is eventually revealed to be the beginning of his obsession with Christian, the son of an old friend.

A sense of isolation from the disparate aspects of François’ personality is evident in the filming style, often distanced implying François’ own detachment from his life; the tension of his dual nature manifesting in aggression towards his family, particularly his daughter. Chiaroscuro lighting is frequent throughout adding to a sense of tension whilst also mirroring the blunt contrasts of François’ character. Prevalent also is the contrast of old and new, at the age of 45 François is a product of furiously conservative beliefs caught between different governments with the oppressive prejudice of Afrikaner minority rule overthrown in favour of a more equal system.

With great direction, concise and well considered in its framing, Beauty features recurring scenes of voyeuristic tension as we are pulled into François’ self-delusions. Christian is a catalyst for obsession, representing a ‘beauty’ that François wants to be and wants to have whilst simultaneously highlighting everything that he hates about himself. Inciting a change to his previously established routine, his newfound fixation consumes him, leading to increasingly more irrational acts; following Christian, turning up in Cape Town where he lives, having him rescue him from a bar, and ultimately full moral collapse. The tension eventually erupts as his desires and violent repression manifest in a brutal and punishing hotel scene wherein the otherwise sparse soundtrack (dialogue/background rather than score) is savagely unavoidable and painfully visceral. Beauty is not easy watching, but it is compelling.

A complex portrayal of bottled up desire, Beauty is a haunting picture of a man whose systems of restraint collapse under the weight of infatuation. Ambiguous in its conclusion we are left feeling almost as desolate as François; the fault of the movie may be in its lack of resolution, or it’s unabashed refusal to impart any suggestion of a solution to the problems it raises. The film does succeed at being an ugly portrait of social and psychological anxiety, astutely written and skilfully acted.

8 out of 10

Beauty is released in theatres April 20.

Billed as Jackie Chan’s 100th* movie 1911 Revolution marks a staggering achievement of cinematic output from Chan but ultimately fails to live up to the legacy of such success. In tribute to the Centenary anniversary of the Xinhai revolution in China this historical political drama depicts, with an overwhelmingly unnecessary amount of data, a summation of the revolution that lead China from two millennia of feudal society to the formation of it’s communist government.

(*The figure is probably more in deference to the 100 year anniversary as his output is listed as already being above 100 before the completion of this movie.)

1911 Revolution dives headlong into the action that began revolution without setting up the story, relying instead on a system of text heavy overlays to fill in details – something that continues throughout the movie with an alarming constancy. The name of every Politician, General and Janitor present in most any scene is displayed on screen, often in addition to both the setting and information required to understand the sequence. During these moments dialogue rarely abates leading to a screen filled with contextual overlays as well as subtitles for the Mandarin, generating the effect of watching a Powerpoint presentation rather than a movie. The attempt, of course, is to portray the drama of the event as close to a documentary style as is possible without being a straight documentary – but in a movie sponsored by the Chinese government who knows how much fact there is behind what we are seeing.

This attempt at historical accuracy in detailing the corruption of the ruling Empire and it’s oppressive European allies results in the movie coming across as alarmingly dispassionate. Too much information passes across the screen, and too quickly, for the audience to engage with. By about the 30 minute mark you shut off, no longer caring who is who, as it’s confusingly difficult to follow any of it. There is no room to develop the characters involved in this revolution, and yet the movie tries to throw in fragments of background information, brief allusions to relationships, or impassioned speeches in the vain hope that it’s resonating emotionally with the over-arching theme of imperial hegemony, industrial age relocation, fractured ancestral roots, or martyrdom for a cause. It’s like the social tension, national upheaval, and emotional dislocations associated with revolution are a perfunctory afterthought to a prescribed list of events.

Despite this, 1911 Revolution is beautifully shot with some really playful use of light and contrast during battle sequences. It is in these brief scenes of battle that the movie works, a significant portion of the budget must have been allotted to creating a realistic portrayal of trench-style combat. These action scenes are also immersive and engagingly scored with a bombastic soundtrack that really made use of the whole 5.1 surround soundstage come alive.

Also, for the most part, the film is well acted with even Jackie Chan (who was always far superior in his native language) giving a commanding performance as the leader of the revolutions armed forces. Joan Chen, remembered fondly from Twin Peaks, and Bingbing Li, soon to be seen in this years zombie ridden sequel Resident Evil: Retribution, both show up in supporting character roles. The one caveat to the acting on display in this movie is any appearance by a western character, in particular an American who fights for the revolution who can only be described as disturbingly atrocious. Whilst the action is primarily engaged with guns there’s also a token, approximately 30 second long, martial arts sequence that sticks out like a sore thumb as being superfluous blatantly included just to confirm that this is indeed a movie with Jackie Chan.

1911 Revolution was perhaps the wrong choice for Chan to celebrate the milestone of (arguably) his 100th movie. A monotonous, soulless affair that relentlessly bombards the viewer with a textbook level of information that is neither required nor absorbed. Even for Jackie Chan completists this might be one to avoid.

4 out of 10 – A couple of well shot moments interspersed with hours of tedium.

1911 Revolution is out on Blu-ray and DVD March 19.

So begins another cinema blockbuster season chock full of action, explosions, shallow plots, spotty acting and 3D gimmickry in tow. John Carter, based upon the Barsoom series of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is an action adventure following the eponymous character finding himself transplanted from post-civil war America to Mars (or Barsoom to the locals) and embroiled in an ongoing war between the native populations of the red planet. Think Avatar set in a desert, by way of Planet of the Apes minus the time travel, and you’ll be on the right track.

Flawed as it may be, which we will get to, there are some very entertaining aspects to this movie. The action is constant and exciting, the effects are for the most part very well produced, the sets and costumes (or lack thereof) are grand and consistent, and the 3D creates depth – helping to fully immerse you in the film’s world, rather than resorting to flinging debris or bullets out of the screen. Directed by Andrew Stanton, previously responsible for directing the fantastic Pixar films Finding Nemo and Wall-E, here making his live action debut. Taylor Kitsch in the title role of John Carter has the gruff masculinity, yet pretty boy, look required for a Disney blockbuster and Lynn Collins stylishly looks the part of the scientist/warrior princess, Dejah Thoris, although she becomes increasingly grating as the film wears on.

Wearing on is a very apt description as, rolling in at 2 hours 30 minutes, this isn’t a brief movie and it does get a bit lost in the middle, becoming very dialogue heavy, before picking up again towards the final action sequences. As is sometimes the case with blockbusters John Carter tries, and fails dismally, to involve the audience emotionally and delve too deeply into the characters backstories so as to better entice the viewer into narrative. It would have done better to eschew the poor attempt at depth and accept style over substance. There’s a whole middle chunk of the movie concerned with trying to flesh out the characters; a horrible moment of which pits Carter against an entire army, intercutting the fight sequence with the death and burial his family back on earth and the result is so tacky and lacking in sincerity that each second it continues is like having an army of baby Tharks stabbing you in the eyes.

But this is a movie involving a 19th century American army officer transported to Mars who, given the differing gravitational force, has enhanced strength (that translate mostly as an obscene ability to jump) so going in you can only expect the ludicrous. John Carter falls into the category of schlock films that allow you to sit down, shut off the brain and watch the pretty moving colours and in this function is performs well. It is nonsensically ridiculous, at times funny, constantly action-packed, maddeningly stupid but, for the most part, a fun ride. Should it have been better? Yes, given the directors previous animated output the pacing, characters, and script should have been better but shut off your brain and forgive it is follies and you might leave the theatre entertained.

6 out of 10 – you can tell by the trailer is this is going to be your sort of thing.

The Sniper, or Sun cheung sau in its original Hong Kong release in 2009, is a tale of revenge whose story is centred around a team of police snipers that go head to head with a former colleague recently released from prison and on a mission to enact his own brand of justice.

The Sniper is a fairly standard action movie, one that’s really neither good nor bad. Richie Ren plays Hartman, the chief of the police sniper squad, and Xiaoming Huang plays Lincoln his former colleague bent on revenge. Principally the story explores the constantly competitive relationship between these two characters, often through exploratory flashback sequences. This non-linear narrative does help to try and keep your attention in what is quite a slow paced film outside of the action sequences.

Plot-wise it does feel like several aspects of the story are missing as relationships between Hartman and his wife and Lincoln and his girlfriend are shown briefly but not explored. The character of OJ, played by Edison Chen, is introduced as a hotheaded recruit caught between the differing styles of the two leads – again a relationship that seems somewhat underdeveloped. Plot inconsistencies abound. Why OJ would suddenly doubt Hartman, his superior, in favour of Lincoln, whom he only knows from rumour of his sniping prowess, isn’t really qualified. Also, Lincoln starts off seeming clear and reasoned in his revenge whereas in a later scene he’s depicted as hallucinating and being completely mentally unstable.

From the start the film exudes an almost unhealthy tendency towards macho gun worship. Certain lines of dialogue overtly romanticise the act of shooting, linking the gun to the heart. Things aren’t really helped by the constant and unnecessary amount of topless posing the snipers and recruits seem to engage in that borders on gun-based erotica. Some of the actors also seemed to subscribe to the James T. Kirk school of line delivery with fractured pauses breaking up natural dialogue flow.

Ignoring a couple of shocking CGI cut ins, the action is for the most part quite entertaining. The crowing achievement of which being the end sequence which is a shooting gallery style bloodbath, as fun as it is absurd, coming complete with an inspirational soundtrack that would make Rambo proud.

The movie is reasonably well shot but it does suffer from some severe editing during which presumably several of the previously mentioned story aspects ended up on the cutting room floor. In this way The Sniper certainly looses its way more than a couple of times with some disjointed scenes and entire subplots left unexplored. But if you overlook that and are a fan of Asian cinema or gun toting action movies then The Sniper might be for you.

5 out of 10 – points given for the decent action scenes, others taken for the murky plot development

The Sniper is out on DVD March 12.

What can I say about this film that hasn’t been said before? Amélie isn’t without it’s praise from film critics all over the world. It took home two BAFTAs and was nominated for five Oscars. When it comes to films that would try to imitate its style, pacing, and atmosphere, it went untouched. Amélie holds its place and its delightful quirks will never be duplicated. It’s unique, and always shall be to those who’ve seen it.

Amélie was released in 2001. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and written by him as well, along with Guillaume Laurant. It stars the wonderful Audrey Tautou as the titular character. It’s been labeled as a romantic comedy, but please just throw that idea out. It is so many things more than that. It has mystery, comedy, drama, and classical romance. Visually, the film is beautiful. One of the first films I remember seeing that had an art style that was clear but still subtle. And of course, a perfect score by Yann Tiersen, who’s music in this film can spark emotions in the viewer.

The story of Amélie Poulain stars off while she is a little girl with perhaps the most imaginative perspective of daily life. Watching her experience those moments, which for plenty of us are all too familiar is something that when done right, can make us emotional. Many of us had a pet we had to give away, or a parent we lost too early on. It also reminds us of the incredible imaginations we had as children. When we didn’t know how something was made, in our heads we just pictured it was made with some form of magic. Amélie is no different. She warps the world with her mind to keep it interesting, and luckily for her, she manages to keep this wild imagination as she grows up.

Her adult life is a simple one. She works at a restaurant where she gets along well with her co-workers and the familiars, who all have their own interesting histories and personalities. Amélie’s life goes on, but she is suddenly shocked with the sudden death of Princess Diana. It sparks a series of events that leads to her wanting to help people, without anyone knowing she was helping them. With the help of an elderly neighbour who is usually locked up in his apartment due to having weak bones, she is able to track down a past tenant of her apartment and return to him a box filled with mementos from his childhood. It triggers something in her and it takes her on a beautiful adventure.

The film is a bundle of fun, and that can’t be said enough. I could sit here and write out everything that happens, but I feel for a movie as great at this, it just needs to be experienced. It is one of the most pleasant feel good films I have ever seen. I couldn’t recommend it enough. Take a chance, and watch Amélie. With the subtitles, not the English dub. Have a great time with it.