Tackling a question that at first seems blunt and unbelievable, The Voice in the Head proves that the central thesis question of “If sanity and insanity exist, how shall we know them?” can be explored in a way that’s succinct.
Running at a mere 11 minutes, The Voice in the Head demonstrates an engagement with the subject of mental illness in a variety of unique ways, all the while intriguingly presented by a clear cinematic vision and understanding of form on the part of director Cyrus Trafford and his crew.
The story concerns a framing device of a young woman sitting a university exam, pondering the aforementioned thesis question. As she does so, she recalls an evening not too long ago where she had an encounter with a person suffering from a mental affliction whilst on the tube. Fascinated, she finds herself inadvertently going the same direction as the woman, and in doing so, begins to question where their differences really lie.
Told in a hypnotic fashion that combines an ever present narration voice over by lead actress Charlotte Luxford with striking visuals of snowy London at night, all presented in carefully plotted and choreographed steadicam set-ups that lull one into a sense of sleepy suggestibility. Aiding this dream-like feeling is a a haunting score by Sheridan Tongue and Mark Wind that mixes well with Luxford’s narration. All these stylistic choices are a godsend, for the film may take a different direction entirely if presented another way. The dreamlike attitude is a great way to interrogate those questions on mental health while staying fairly impartial or reserved on judgement.
The only reason why this should be mentioned is because while the intention of the piece is no doubt from a good place, it seems a little strange at points that a film concerning the plight of the mentally ill, or at least one that’s considering it in such a way that could be deemed affectionate would then go and fill the script with such undignified terms for its mentally ill character as “crazy woman”. Furthermore, since we’re listening to the story being conveyed as the answer to an exam style question, it feels odd that a university grade student such as our unnamed protagonist would use such unprofessional or unscientific terms in her thesis answer.
One can only hope that part of the film’s ‘true story’ status is that the term “crazy” is an affectionate term used amongst the real life persons that this story is based on, and that no offence is intended. And aside from these issues, The Voice in the Head is a sophisticatedly told story that manages to use some very impressive techniques to hook its audience before letting loose with the more thoughtful message underneath.
I’ll throw my arms up here, I’ve not really watched The Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. I was a kid of the ‘90’s, so I know that’s a kind of crime, I guess I was just more into the stuff on Disney mornings or CBBC. That and I thought it sucked. Whenever I did watch it as a kid I was bored and just turned it over. It really wasn’t the show for me. So, the announcement of a new movie wasn’t exactly tacking me to the edge of my seat and the screen of my computer. But I’m nothing if not an optimist, and I have found films like this that surprised me before (21 Jump Street comes to mind). So, I decided to finally dive in head first.
The Power Rangers Movie, I guess Mighty Morphing was a little too silly (which, yeah it is if we’re being honest), is about a group of five teenagers who discover five different coloured coins. These coins give them super strength, speed, agility (though not intelligence sadly) and the ability to grow an armoured skin, the armour of the Rangers of course. For these teens have just become the Power Rangers. And as the new defenders of planet Earth, they must stop villain Rita Repulsa from destroying the very life of Earth (or something like that) in her quest for power. But along the way the Rangers must battle something far more dangerous; their self-doubts, teenage angsts, the fact that they don’t fit in and the feeling of not becoming the people they want to be…that’s, actually quite profound for what is basically a mindless superhero blockbuster.
I didn’t have any hopes for this film going in, so imagine my surprise when I found myself really getting into these characters. The five teens who are to become the Rangers are actually really good characters. They all have attitudes and quirks; like one of them has Asperger syndrome, one of them is gay with homophobic parents, one skips school to care for his terminally ill mother and the other rebels because he’s sick of being seen as nothing more than the town golden-boy. But these quirks never feel like a quirk; it’s not like a Shyamalan film or a Joss Whedan show where the characters are defined by that one thing, these feel like actual people who have Asperger’s or are gay or feel the need to rebel. And their attitudes never grate and they don’t feel force or over-the-top, we all know the feelings that they are going through, and if you don’t then you will do one day and they play it perfectly. It’s not like Harry Potter, where he comes off as a whiny brat, this is understandable and, most importantly, relatable. I hope that these actors get more work from this because from what I’ve seen here, they could be phenomenal. It’s easily some of the best young adult character acting I’ve seen all year.
Alongside then, we also have our celebrity actors to spice things up. Brian Cranston (who apparently voiced some of the monsters in the show) plays Zordon, the great teacher of the Rangers. He’s mostly Cranston being Cranston, but Cranston is an amazing and awesome actor so I’m one to complain. Bill Hader voices this really annoying robot thing in the Rangers base, but to be fair he’s not in it long. And we have Elisabeth Banks as Rita, and I have a feeling she thought that this was going to be a very different film. Subtlety was only a mild suggestion here apparently, Banks over-plays every syllable and gesture. I do get it, this is what the acting in the original show was like and I’m sure Miss Banks saw this script and decided that she had earnt the right to a bit of fun now (which she has, from looking at her career), but it did feel like she belonged to a different film.
Ironically, I thought that the film was at its weakest when it was about the Power Rangers and the training to become them and the villain that they would face. It’s so bizarre because my thoughts before were that the action was going to be alright and the drama would kill it. How we got it the other way around I will never know. For those who are coming to see the Power Rangers though, be warned, because they’re not in the suits for very long at all. Remember that Godzilla film from 2014? Well you see less of the Ranger’s armour than you do Godzilla in that film. And when the action does come on, it’s very boring. The effects aren’t too great and I can’t help but feel that I’d seen this before. Back in 2009 to be exact, with a film called Transformers. And, true to the show I suppose, the dialogue is awful. The first joke of the film is about masturbating a bull, that’s how low we go. Still, give credit to these actors they took these awful lines and saved, well most of them. It’s like the original Star Wars films or Sam Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy, the dialogue has always been weak but the actors make it work.
Power Rangers
But my major criticism is something I didn’t believe I’d have to talk about. For those of you who don’t know, films like to use product placement to beef up the budget a bit. This means that some films basically advertise a product or company that has given them the rights to use the products or logos. It’s nothing new and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. It can also be used well; examples are ET had Reese’s Pieces, Blade Runner had the Atari logo and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? had numerous Disney and Warner Bros. characters (some in prominent roles). Some, like Demolition Man with its Taco Bell rights, use it as a kind of parody. But then you get films like Evolution and anything Michael Bay makes, where your film becomes a shameless advert for these companies. Power Ranger The Movie falls into the latter category. I don’t think I’ve seen such a gross use of product placement in a very long time.
So, what is it they advertise you ask? What is it that they shove down our throats, that becomes a (no kidding) pivotal part of the plot, and why my keyboard is getting icing and jam on it as I type? It’s Krispy Kreme. You know, the doughnut place. And, it is so cringe worthy! Without giving away too much, something that the villain needs in under a Krispy Kreme stand, fair enough. But then as soon as everyone finds out they keep saying Krispy Kreme. They are giving orders to go down to the Krispy Kreme. There is even (again, no joke) a scene when the villain picks up a plate of doughnuts from the stand and takes a big, joyous bite out of one of them. It makes me want to go to the rival company it’s so shameless. Shameless being the word there, it was just a shameless advert forced into a decent film.
In the end I really don’t know what to make of Power Rangers The Movie. I’m definitely glad I saw parts of it. I honestly wouldn’t be against seeing these characters without the Power Ranger’s side to the story; a teen drama about the struggles of identity. I’m not too sure what fans of the show will think of it, I can’t say they’ll love it or that they’ll hate it. As a non-fan though, I think it was a surprisingly decent film, one that blew me away with how good one element to it was, but then disappointed with an average-to-mediocre rest of it and the shameless advertising. I would take it over Life personally, and if this is the lowest of action blockbusters this year, then I think we’re in for a good one.
America has a new president. He’s hell-bent on stripping away healthcare insurance, and plunging the country into another Middle-Eastern war. Sounds familiar, right?
This is the backdrop for writer-director Onur Tukel’s bizarre black-comedy-drama with a thick vein of satire, which sees two women’s lives turned upside down following a fistfight.
In the blue corner, we have Sandra Oh’s wine-guzzling, Republican trophy wife, who sneers at her teenage son’s creative aspirations; in the red corner, Anne Heche’s weed-smoking, struggling artist, who despite all her rage is still just a rat in a cage.
The old college buddies haven’t seen each other in 20 years, but their unexpected reunion at a cocktail party escalates from slurs and snide remarks into a brutal battle that changes their fortunes – one for the better, the other for worse. Two years later, they meet again for round two, and the results are swapped.
The characters are little more than stereotypes – conduits for social commentary, essentially – and both equally hateful and obnoxious. Tukel doesn’t root for either side, with left and right jabs at both ends of the socio-political spectrum. He lays the satire on thick with occasionally hilarious results, but the emotional punches don’t land as often, instead glancing off the absurd tragedies and farcical supporting characters.
Both actresses are equally matched with committed and enjoyable performances, although Oh is given more opportunity to bring sensitivity and nuance to some heavy-handed writing.
The fight scenes are choreographed and performed with surprising violence, and there is a tragicomic novelty in seeing two respected actresses knock seven bells out of each other. But there’s also a nihilism to the film that makes for a distant watch; a sense that whoever wins, we all lose.
AVAILABLE NOW ON DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, AND DVD & BLU-RAY 24TH APRIL
David Tennant is monstrously good as RD Laing in Mad To Be Normal. For the uninitiated, R.D.Laing was a Scottish psychiatrist who became this mythic rock star like figure in the 60s and 70s culminating in establishing a community of individuals with varying psychiatric conditions at Kingsley Hall. He used LSD and promoted self healing. Aside from being a non linear biopic, the film questions what is normal; what the mainstream do?
R.D. Laing’s larger than life personality is captured David perfectly by Tennant supported by a stellar supporting cast including Laing’s lover Angie Wood (Elisabeth Moss) and patients Jim (Gabriel Byrne), Sydney Kotok (Michael Gambon). Mad to Be Normal is co-written and directed by Robert Mullan.
There will be criticisms that the script jumps around there is a lot of poetic licence taken with events that took place in Laing’s life. The answer has to be this is cinema, deal with it. There’s a definite trend in the film biopics currently being released, for example Hidden Figures, to spread the focus on both the central person and also the supporting characters so in Mad To Be Normal we see more of Angie. However, whilst there is more of Angie on screen we don’t necessarily understand her. It is frustrating not to be shown her back story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6-i3Uo05C0
I prefer biopics that aren’t linear and some people may find this hard to deal with. Laing is already famous, enjoying rock star fame. How famous is famous? Well, Laing appeared on stage with Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead. It’s refreshing not to see him as a child or young adult. We are catapulted into his story resplendent with the dense fog of cigarettes and whisky. Laing’s idea was that schizophrenia is the internal struggle between two identities. He would know a bit about this struggle as the film clearly shows him as alcoholic and clinically depressed and probably in as much need of help as his patients.
Mad To Be Normal makes for contradictory and uncomfortable viewing and that is where the power lies. Mad To Be Normal lingers well after the credits have finished rolling. You’ll have flashbacks and question what you’ve seen. Laing may have been a maverick and ostracised by the establishment yet 30 years techniques introduced by Laing are being used to treat various psychiatric conditions.
Mad To Be Normal is released in cinemas on 6 April 2017.
Exodus, the latest documentary by Elias Matar, documents the harrowing journey of Syrian refugees as they cross the Aegean Sea from Turkey into Greece. Over three thousand refugees attempt this treacherous crossing everyday, seeking asylum in Western Europe. It’s a life and death gamble that they are willing to take for a chance at a new life away from their war-torn homeland.
Exodus
Matar begins Exodus by taking a nine-hour ferry ride east from Athens to the Greek island of Chios, which lies less than 5 miles from the Turkish mainland. Chios only has a population of 55,000 but, in 2015, almost twice as many refugees landed on the island, trying to flee the horrors of the war in Syria. And more are arriving, by the boatload. Matar, who was born in the USA but raised largely in Damascus and who also shot the similarly-themed documentary Flight of the Refugees early last year concerning asylum seekers trying to reach Germany, is not only filming the arrival of these refugees but is actively taking part in the humanitarian effort to help them land their boats and dinghies safely before helping them onto the next leg of their journeys. This isn’t easy since, although the aid workers are sure of where the refugees have set sail (Çeşme, on the westernmost tip of Turkey), they can’t be entirely sure of exactly where along Chios’ coast the boats are going to land. It could be in the day, but it’s more likely to be in the cover of darkness. This tiny stretch of the Aegean Sea might be as flat as a billiard table as the refugees cross, but it might also drown every one of them. And when they land on Chios, many of the refugees are terrified, and run. It isn’t just refugees of the Syrian war risking their lives by taking this relatively short but perilous crossing, either. The boats are also full of Afghanis trying to escape the conflict in their country between the Islamic Republic and the Taliban.
Exodus
Exodus is a sobering documentary but it’s also incredibly humanising and, taking a mere seventy minutes of our time, it’s one we should all maybe try to see, if we can. Recommended.
