film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Jack Ford

  • She Is The Ocean: Review

    She Is The Ocean: Review

    According to its own publicity material, She Is The Ocean is “a full-length documentary about great women. An in-depth exploration into the lives of nine astonishing women (who) share deep love for the Ocean.” With the film itself spending a lot of its time trying to be inspirational and less informing the audience about who these women are and what they have achieved, looking at additional information can be a big help, in particular for those who aren’t familiar with its subject matter.

    Director Inna Blokhina features each of her nine subjects separately, one after another. The exception being ten-year-old aspiring surfer Cinta Hansel, competing in her first competitions, which is used as a wraparound for the whole film. It seems that this is for the young girls in the audience, to show them they can achieve from an early age in life.

    It is a bit undermined by her father, who himself wanted to be a surfer when younger, doing a lot of her talking for her. That is made up for by showing Hansel in action on the surf, but therein lies a recurring flaw of the film: what’s on-screen does not always match the subject matter at hand.

    If Hansel is the future of surfing, She Is The Ocean also profiles the past and present of women not just in competitive surfing but all manner of water sports.

    Champion tube rider Keala Kennelly talks of growing up having male surfers be her role models, then having to compete as a woman in a male-dominated sport. Anna Bader tells of her career as a cliff diver, accompanied by plenty of very impressive clips of her doing just that. They are featured more prominently than the modern-day star of surfing, Coco Ho, an annoying, plastic millennial who thankfully has just a short, token appearance early on.

    There are also some interviewees whose inclusion here genuinely makes no sense. While it has women who have made an impact in their field, ballet dancer and yogi Rose Molina qualifies just because she likes the sea and going diving. Her section really doesn’t add much to the meaning and themes of the documentary, that she is the most pretentious and mysticky of everyone featured doesn’t help.

    She Is The Ocean does spend more time with women who are impressive and inspirational. Freediver Ocean Ramsey (How could she not have a connection to water with a name like that?) overdoes it a bit with the spiritual talk, but takes an active role in the conservation of sharks. Accomplished and distinguished marine biologist Sylvia Earle gives a compelling and educating talk on the impact humans have had on the oceans, why it’s important we save and preserve them.

    The most inspiring subject is Jeannie Chesser. She has seen much tragedy in her life, but none of that has dampened her love for the water, even though some of those hardships were because of it. She still surfs in her old age, knowing the time she has left is limited. She shows an unwavering determination that anyone can take heart from.

    She Is The Ocean has the best will in the world, but its parts are greater than the whole. Everyone featured is clearly passionate about what they do, but with no real narrative or much to link them beyond they are women with a connection to water, the documentary has an uneven feel. Each of the nine segments could have worked well separately and independently of one another.

    One thing that is constant in Blokhina’s film is impressive photography both in the water and on its surface. There’s plenty of shots of the surfers doing just that which look spectacular, both at a distance and close up. Most striking of all are the underwater sequences of Ramsey swimming alongside sharks. In fact it’s possible to gauge much of these women’s enthusiasm for their work from seeing them do it much as hearing from them. It is a well-meaning and well-made but muddled and too infrequently feels like a film.

  • The Last Ferry From Grass Island: Short Film Review

    The Last Ferry From Grass Island: Short Film Review

    If you have ever been to a student showcase or short film festival, you’ll know there is no shortage of fifteen-minute films of people living in seclusion on an island. Such films almost always revel in their simplicity and can hide any shortcomings on story or character with long location shots. At least then it can be assessed on a technical level, if nothing else.

    It seems that examples of this sub-genre of sorts can be found outside undergraduate showreels or exhibits at the Encounters Film Festival. One of the busiest film industries around are also making them. With his second outing as writer and director (After Dinner with Stranger from 2018), Hong Konger Linhan Zhang explores a slice of small island life with The Last Ferry from Grass Island.

    The name comes from one of the many islands that make up Hong Kong and the boat which brings a young woman, Xiaoma (Yang Wang) from Grass Island to an unnamed, remote one. Her reason for going there? She is there to help the only visible resident of this new location, Ah Hoi (Tai-Bo), care for his elderly Ma (Yee-Yee Yeung), who is unable to do anything for herself other than watch TV.

    One thing that is undeniable about this film from the outset is how well it is photographed. Cinematographer Girogos Valsamis’ every shot is beautiful, but almost to a fault. Even though the film is short, it could have been even shorter. There are plenty of establishing shots, panoramas and close-ups which go on a bit too long. While they are all pristinely photographed, that they linger for so long is , most evident in the myriad of scenes of Ah Hoi caring for Ma.

    Last Ferry starts off so basic, but it’s not long before something is amiss. The first time Xiaoma is seen entering Ah Hoi and Ma’s house, she produces, from a laundry basket, a silenced pistol. When Ah Hoi sees her pointing the gun at him, his reaction is just a sigh. He convinces her to put it away with the promise of dinner and she sits down to eat instead.

    With everything else sticking to formula, there are questions that still hang in the air: Why did Xiaoma turn a gun on Ah Hoi? Why did he not seem bothered seeing her with the weapon? It’s this element which holds Last Ferry together and it is handled in a very sophisticated way.

    https://vimeo.com/390568272

    Linan keeps the subtext the subtext, never spelling it out for the audience, and the film is better for that. This also prevents any further interruption to the film. Early on it feels non sequential, but at the end Linhan is able to bring everything together, without interrupting the rhythm and pacing of the story, and make it all feel like a complete film.

    There are problems with The Last Ferry from Grass Island, but in the end it works. It has a simple story but it does have some ambition, it’s not just out to impress with pretty photography but leave the audience with more than just an aesthetic appreciation. It’s in its credit that it wants to more and, crucially, succeeds in doing more, which merits a viewing.

  • Make My Ninetieth: Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider

    Make My Ninetieth: Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider

    May 31st 2020 marks the ninetieth birthday of Clint Eastwood. In recognition, I went back to re-visit one of the most overlooked and undervalued entries in his filmography, the elegiac Pale Rider, which he serves as star and director.

    Eastwood clearly has a lot of affection and fascination with this genre, and not just simply as it gave him his break back in the sixties. He went on to make more westerns beyond the Dollars trilogy, with Pale Rider coming in 1985, a time when everyone assumed the genre was a long dead.

    He clearly believed there was more that could be said with the western. While at first glance his first eighties foray in the genre may, at first glance, seem like a no-thrills yarn, it’s actually far more fascinating exploration of both the genre conventions and limitations, coming long before Eastwood did so to terrific effect in 1992’s Unforgiven.

    His character, known only as The Preacher, has many traits of the archetypal western hero, but in many ways Eastwood is playing against type here. The Preacher is far more thoughtful, methodical and compassionate than characters he has played before. When he does resort to violence it is more as a last resort, after seeing that he can’t appeal to the good nature of others.

    In Pale Rider, he comes to the rescue of a small community, who get by panning for gold in a nearby stream. They are also terrorised by a rival prospecting concern, backed by wealthy miner Coy LaHood (Richard Dysart), who wants to buy out all potential competition.

    The Preacher is a model of the character that made Eastwood a star, The Man With No Name (First seen in A Fistful of Dollars). But while he was motivated by his own needs and what he could gain for himself, the Preacher is the inverse.

    His motivation here is to help those in need, he is not after anything material for himself. Also, while Clint’s past incarnations were largely about the strength of the individual, here he promotes unity and group heroics. When members of the community consider leaving, he urges them not to, as they will be stronger together.

    From the start, The Preacher is purposefully made out to be a mysterious presence: he first appears after the youngest member of the community, Megan (Sydney Penny), prays for help. He also appears to have unearthly strength, the ability to disappear and bullet marks all over his back. What’s most mysterious about him, though, is given he at no time does any actual preaching, is he indeed a man of God?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pPG6s_daY

    Eastwood, though, seems aware that the audience can work out what is being alluded to about the character. So instead focuses not on who this mysterious person is but what are his intentions and what effect does he have on the events and characters around him. In many ways, Pale Rider is evocative of High Plains Drifter, the first western directed by Eastwood, also about a mysterious gunslinger who arrives in a small town for unspecified reasons. (Though that character had more malicious motives than this one.)

    There are also shared elements with George Stevens’ Shane, and not just that both have similar plots. Much like Van Heflin in that film, the men of Pale Rider begin to feel emasculated when The Preacher arrives. In particular, Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty), who sees his intended is infatuated with The Preacher. He doesn’t respond by trying to outdo his rival, though, instead staying true to who he is, which is what ultimately makes Sarah (Carrie Snodgrass) respond to him.

    The scenes between The Preacher and Megan are the emotional core of Pale Rider. Megan is coming of age, but is in an environment where she would be unable to act on or express her newfound maturity. When her dog is killed in the film’s opening set piece she has no vessel for her affection, until The Preacher arrives.

    She confides in The Preacher how she feels about him. Whereas Clint’s characters had previously never turned down the advances of a women, this relationship will never become an intimate one. Megan feels hurt when she is turned down by the only man she has ever had feelings for, but she soon learns hating The Preacher will be more destructive than continuing to feel love for him, even if it hurts.

    As painful as it will be to live without The Preacher, she realises and accepts that she has to let him go, and her final words to him are truly heartbreaking.

    Pale Rider is a visual film, the way characters respond to one another with body language, the effect of their environments on them and how the locations serve as part of the story are all important here. Eastwood recognises that and he and cinematographer Bruce Surtees have ensured the photography is first rate to serve the visual storytelling. It is very handsomely shot and also complimented by a minimalist but effective score from Lennie Niehaus. The music is important, but allows all the room for the atmosphere to really take hold.

    Tough it may not look like it, Pale Rider is a very different film to what we might expect from Clint Eastwood. It has all of his hallmarks but the only area where he goes in guns blazing is the relationship between the characters and the events of the film. It shows that Eastwood can see the opportunity and application of a project and executes it with sensibility and intelligence.

    For its heart and soul and what it achieves both technically and emotionally, Pale Rider is a film worthy to mark it’s makers’ ninetieth special day.

  • Diablo Rojo (PTY) – Review

    Diablo Rojo (PTY) – Review

    The first things that would probably come to mind when people think of Panama would be hats, the canal, a disastrous World Cup appearance and the Panama Papers scandal. Now it seems the country is looking to branch into new territory and establish itself as a player in one of the most productive genres of cinema. This is marked by The Horror Collective’s release of Diablo Rojo (PTY), billed as Panama’s first horror film.

    It may not be the most sophisticated film out there, but coming from a place with no horror tradition to call on, the film is well-made. Directing duo Sol Moreno and J. Oskura Najera, who also wrote the script, have delivered a final product that is well crafted and made with proficiency and enthusiasm.

    It is without some tension thanks to a reliance on the usual horror tropes (Characters are picked off one by one), but it does enough by itself to rise above its flaws. Namely, it subverts one of horror’s biggest clichés, here having a group of men who are on the run, lost in the rainforest and trying to escape a coven of witches.

    Much of the action is centred around the bus of Miguel (Carlos Carrasco) and Junito (Julian Urriola), who after the former has a brief encounter with one of these witches, end up far from familiar ground, where they and the other passengers they pick up end up targets of these wild women.

    Diablo Rojo (PTY) seems well-versed in its subject matter, with inspiration seemingly taken from the works of John Carpenter, such as The Fog and Assault on Precinct 13, in addition to little nods to other genre classics such as The Evil Dead, The Shining and the many, many films that made up the cannibal boom of the 1980s. The film’s influence in American horror is visibly worn on its sleeve and the filmmakers are able to do them justice.   

    That said, this is a production determined to remain true to its roots, evidenced by Panamanian folk tale La Tulivieja playing a major part in the plot. This is one thing that makes Diablo Rojo (PTY) more interesting than most, that it is not just a series of jumpscares and kills shots (though there are plenty of them), it has a fairly intriguing story that it sets out to resolve. Najera’s script does well to recall and tie together all the film’s elements to make into an unexpectedly sophisticated plot.

    But has it done enough to gain the attention of its intended audience? Those who like more intense horror, or gore, may have to look elsewhere, but the rest  – those who are able to see the film for its ambition, influence and invention, such as a full view of a character being sliced in half – will be more at home here. Especially if they like their horror efficient, the film’s run time being only seventy-six minutes.

    There’s more to applaud Diablo Rojo (PTY) for than just being a first for Panama. It is a slick, tongue-in-cheek and well-made product of its genre that may not be to everyone’s tastes but will be brisk and amusing to those who are in the mood for something off the beaten track or are feeling quite squeamish.

  • Truths And Lies: Shutter Island 10 Years On

    Truths And Lies: Shutter Island 10 Years On

    A decade after its theatrical run, Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island remains one of his most maligned and misunderstood works. It’s more than time for a re-appraisal and re-evaluation of a film that remains so very undervalued and underrated.

    The film, based on a novel by Mystic River scribe Dennis Lehane, sees Leonardo DiCaprio play US Marshal Teddy Daniels who, along with his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo), investigates a missing inmate of a mental hospital on the eponymous Massachusetts island.

    Daniels is haunted by his past, his time fighting in World War II and the loss of his wife Dolores (Michelle Williams), supposedly at the hands of a mysterious man called Laeddis (Elias Koteas) – images of which seem to intensify during his time on the island.

    From the moment the pair arrive at the hospital, something feels off, and as the investigation gets deeper, Daniels becomes more and more convinced something much darker is going on. The film keeps giving us what may or may not be clues, and what are clues may have meaning beyond what it first seems.

    “Why are you all wet, baby?”

    When it premiered in February 2010, Shutter Island proved too hard a pill for some to swallow. Dissidents decried it as weird and confusing, the Scorsese faithful complained it did not have the true-world grittiness of his past work. (Curiously, criticisms not made against his next film, Hugo, which is about as fantastical as it’s possible to be.)

    Shutter Island is a purposefully complex film from a filmmaker constantly experimenting. Scorsese’s reputation with making gangster films is unwarranted. His is a wide and varied filmography which has seen critical and commercial success outside of the crime genre, such as with The King of Comedy, The Aviator and The Last Temptation of Christ.

    Shutter Island, then, is not a deviation for Scorsese, but another new territory for him to explore, and to throw his audience into.

    “This Place Makes Me Wonder”

    What makes the film what it is, and may have passed by many who dismissed it, is that, unlike other entries in the Scorsese canon, this film has no real application outside of itself. It has no real-world allusions such as cautionary tales from recent history Goodfellas and Raging Bull. There are also no allusions to other films like those in Taxi Driver or The Departed. It is an entirely self-contained story, everything that it is you can see on screen.

    Every shot is intricately designed, every line of dialogue is meticulously crafted to help shape the distorted and mysterious tone and keep you, like Daniels, trying to uncover the biggest truths at the heart of the story.

    The film is so well made beyond its construction. Robert Richardson’s photography in particular is gorgeous and mysterious, striking the perfect balance of colours and light for the tone of the film.

    Many loved to point out the continuity errors seen in Shutter Island, but Scorsese’s attention to detail and care for his work makes it questionable why so many slipped through.

    A more likely answer is these errors are deliberate to create a feeling of unease and distortion. This also goes for one key decision by Scorsese and music supervisor Robbie Robertson. They forwent a traditional score in favour of a ensemble of existing classical music, adding to the film’s patchwork feel.

    The feeling that this has been assembled rather than grown organically brings out much greater feeling of the film and ties in with its major themes so well. No decision about what we see in Shutter Island has been made lightly.

    “I’m Bones in a Box”

    As always, Scorsese effortlessly gets the best performances from his cast, which, as well as DiCaprio and Ruffalo, also includes Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow. The highlight, though, is Michelle Williams as Dolores, who appears in flashbacks and as an apparition throughout the film.

    Dolores is the emotional heart of Shutter Island. Whenever she is on screen, William’s heart-melting performance brings proceedings back to its human elements – loss, pain and the fight for life and the truth in a desperate situation. These can resonate with anyone, but in our hero’s case, it’s prescient on multiple levels.

    Possibly one of the biggest barriers the film’s audiences found themselves facing was that it exists between genres. It begins as a film noir, then morphs into a psychological drama, while also branching into horror. It’s not in search of a definite genre, though, it is more than comfortable sitting in every one it wishes to explore. What’s more, it balances its many different elements expertly.

    All this, of course, builds to the moment when the secrets are revealed, another site of contention between audiences. Whether or not you agree or disagree with how the film resolves itself, it cannot be denied that it sucks you in and keeps you hooked to the end. What other film can hold the attention of viewers it has long lost?

    Ten years on, other films by both Scorsese and DiCaprio have seen more recognition than Shutter Island. (The Wolf of Wall Street, The Revenant, Inception) That it has been overshadowed does not mean it is not worthy of the same attention. Everything the film gets right – atmosphere, mood, mystery, craft, themes of identity and loss – are still intact and still work today.

    Shutter Island has so much going for it that it doesn’t deserve to go forgotten. On its tenth anniversary it is time to take another boat ride back to this piece of pure entertainment masked as a near-art house, atmospheric period film – or take the trip for the first time for those who missed it first time.