This is my review of Night Train To Lisbon [DVD].

The dull routine of Raimund Gregorius, fifty-something Swiss teacher of classics, portrayed by a suitably disguised Jeremy Irons in baggy jumper and pebble glasses, is transformed by his spontaneous Good Samaritan act of saving a young woman from jumping off a bridge. When she runs away, leaving only her red raincoat, he finds that the pocket contains a train ticket to Lisbon and a book containing the forty-year old writings of a young doctor turned amateur philosopher, Amadeu de Prado.

Everything about this book captivates Gregorious, from the soulful expression in Amadeu’s photograph to his insights: “We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.” “So, the fear of death might be described as the fear of not being able to become whom one had planned to be.” And so on.

On an impulse, Gregorious takes the train to Lisbon to find out more about Amadeu and his circle of acquaintances. In the process, he becomes ever more aware of the emptiness of his own life in comparison.

Some reviewers of the international bestseller on which this film is based have attacked the “cod philosophy” which clearly expresses the popularised views of the author, an academic philosopher. Apart from the fact that some of this may have suffered in translation from the original German, I agree with those who have argued that the philosophy need not be regarded as the main point. The film is very successful in providing it as a backdrop to a poignant story of how the lives of idealistic young people in 1970s Portugal were disrupted, even destroyed, by the violence and menace of the revolution in which an authoritarian government tried to suppress dissent, to the extent of using torture.

The scenes of Lisbon convey the crumbling appeal of the older parts of the city and the ferry crossing. Apart from a slightly implausible and corny love interest (without giving too much away, does the auburn-haired optician need to be quite so attractive and single to boot?) the film is well-acted with an intriguing and thought-provoking plot, and deserves to be better known.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Hail, Caesar! [DVD].

The Coen brothers have applied their trademark quirkiness to a parody of Hollywood in the 1950s, a world of glamorous make-believe masking the cynical commercialism of the studio bosses who railroad stars into keeping the show on the road at all costs, with hints of the grim background of kneejerk anti-communist McCarthyism.

The Coens have chosen a lightweight approach so that, without giving much, even any, thought to the underlying tensions and moral dilemmas, one can enjoy the slapstick and nostalgia over corny sets – guitar-strumming cowbow singing a ditty to the moon and mermaid siren emerging from a Busby Berkeley circle of synchronised bathing belles. So, when drunken philanderer Baird Whitlock, super star played by George Clooney is kidnapped, one does not worry about his safety, just as there is no pathos in a single mother star being ordered to undertake a fake marriage to preserve her reputation.

The lugubrious “fixer”, studio manager Eddie Mannix, presides over it all, unable to accept a more tempting job offer in the oil business (likely to involve far less wheeler-dealing), since despite himself he is bound to the role which drives him to chain smoke, instantly converting him when required into an unscrupulous monster of control who will stop at nothing to carry out his boss’s orders. He somehow squares this with his Catholic conscience, only feeling the need to confess “too often” to having broken a promise to his wife to give up cigarettes.

In spite of some entertaining if disjointed scenes, such as a “Nothing like a dame” sailors’ routine to rival Gene Kelly, I felt mostly unengaged, perhaps because the storyline is so fragmented as to disappear at times, the ham acting “on set” seems to extend into “real life” and I did not care enough about the characters, never doubting that it would all end pretty much as it began. It probably helps to know more than I did about the various real characters being parodied, but I suspect that the most positive reviews will come from those who simply enjoyed the entertainment, which surely cannot have been the Coen brothers’ artistic intention.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of Spotlight [DVD] [2016].

In 2002, the Boston Globe’s long-term investigative unit, a team of four journalists named “Spotlight”, uncovered a major scandal of child abuse by Catholic priests who were protected from public humiliation and criminal charges by the power and influence of the Catholic Church. This has been made into a gripping film, apart from the fact that some of the legal procedure and newspaper practice is a little hard to follow, which is frustrating, although I was able to “get the gist” of it.

It is interesting that even the Spotlight team were able to overlook the seriousness of the abuse, because respect for the Church had become so deeply ingrained. It takes the arrival of a “new broom” editor Marty Baron, Jewish and an outsider, to see the ethical imperative, not to mention simple newsworthiness of the allegations against John Geoghan, an unfrocked priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys.

The film’s focus is on the painstaking process of assembling evidence, spiced up with the questionable reliability of some witnesses, the predictable opposition from influential Catholics, the occasional impact of external events, notably the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Towers which delays progress for a few weeks, but most of all the succession of shocking realisations: according to an expert, 6 per cent of Boston’s priests were statistically likely to be paedophiles, giving a total or 90 to pursue; it had become standard practice for the Church to make settlements, not publicly recorded between the erring priests and the families of their victims, the lawyers taking a one third cut of the proceedings in what one “Spotlight” member calls “a cottage industry.”

Well-acted with the momentum of a strong plot to carry it a long way, some of the more “technical” scenes could have been made clearer, but overall this is highly recommended. I wonder what Catholics will make of this hard-hitting film.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

 

This is my review of The Revenant [DVD] [2016].

Based on a true story, this is an epic tale of survival in the bleakly beautiful lawless wilderness of 1820s America’s western frontier. When a hunting expedition is brutally torn apart by marauding Indians bent on stealing the valuable “pelts” to sell to the French settlers, the Americans rely on Glass to use his skills as a guide to get them back to the fort before the snows set in, but after he is horrifically wounded in what will no doubt become a famous “bear scene”, they have to decide whether to put him out of his misery, or leave him in the care of two group members.

The unrelenting pain and misfortune suffered by Glass, in an Oscar-deserving performance from Leonardo di Caprio, would be intolerable to watch but for the skill of the photography and direction – how on earth were some of the scenes produced? – and the stunning scenery, in particular the mountainous panoramas on a vast scale. Although, as is often the case, Glass is made both to suffer too much and yet to keep overcoming each setback against the most overwhelming odds, there is a fascination in seeing how he uses a mixture of ingenuity and what he has learned from the underestimated Indians in order to survive. Despite his toughness, he has a rapport with the Indians amongst whom he has lived, even fathering a half-Indian son by a woman he clearly loved. He seems genuinely to appreciate nature: at one point when he may be on the point of being murdered he appears to stop in his tracks to observe a dramatic avalanche in the distance. We gain an insight into the fragility of frontier life, where men are forced to compete for scarce resources and some like Fitzgerald are driven half-mad by past traumas.

The Director ends the drama in perhaps the only way possible to avoid corny sentimentality. My sole reservation is that it was not only the Indians and the French who needed subtitles. It was impossible at times to grasp what most of the Americans were drawling, in particular the villainous Fitzgerald. Although I could usually work out what had happened, it was frustrating to be unable to grasp it straight away.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of The Lady in the Van [DVD] [2015].

Already produced as a memoir and well-received play, the tale of the eccentric “Miss Shepherd” who squatted in a dilapidated van on the forecourt of Alan Bennett’s London home for fifteen years, has now become a film. It is marked out by Maggie Smith’s superb and flawless performance which captures a sense of the maddening, manipulative woman who is tolerated, and even helped in an ineffectual way, by a possibly somewhat caricatured group of comfortably off, self-styled liberal-minded middle class neighbours too polite to behave otherwise.

Commencing in the 1970s, the drama has the nostalgic air of past, somehow more innocent and less fraught times, predating the tight parking restrictions, health and safety concerns and care plans for the elderly (however inadequately implemented) of today. When the council comes round with a yellow-line painting machine, Alan Bennett caves in and allows the new van donated by a local titled Catholic do-gooder to be driven onto his driveway. It is not long before Miss Shepherd conducts her ritual of plastering the vehicle with yellow paint thickened with lumps of Madeira cake.

Alan Bennett uses the interesting device of cloning himself as the put upon resident and more cynical writer (given to talking to each other) who recognises Miss Shepherd’s potential to be milked for future publication. To some extent, the two main characters use each other, with the comic touch of Alan conducting a conversation with the old lady while his alter ego interjects “but this was never said – I made it up”. Such is the old lady's reticence that Bennett does not discover the full facts of her life until after her death, which lead him to reflect that, despite her years of confined existence, she has perhaps in some ways had more firsthand experience than he has, being forced to rely on observing others for his material.

The story is full of humour as when Alan’s assumption that Miss Shepherd’s claim to having been “followed home by a boa constrictor” is a sign of her madness is undermined by the discovery of a snake in a neighbour’s garden following a mass escape from a local pet shop. Yet beneath the laughter is the deep sadness of the wasted life of a talented pianist who was forced to give up playing following her insistence on becoming a nun, a calling to which she was clearly completed unsuited. There is also the tragedy of as society which cannot cope with an individual who is highly talented yet difficult to the point of being labelled mad – also the irony of the social services coming too little too late to the scene, and failing to understand Alan’s pragmatic, literally “hands off” support. Bennett pulls no punches over the squalor involved in van-life, and the acting captures all too accurately the indignities of old age, the incontinence, increasing unsteadiness, aggravated by poverty. So, one comes away laughing but also sad for a tale of lost promise and over intimations of one’s own fate in old age, and guilt over not helping elderly people more.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of Bridge of Spies [DVD] [2015].

“Bridge of Spies” is a reminder or insight, depending on your age, into the early 1960s when the Cold War was at its peak together with fear of nuclear war and the tensions in a divided Berlin which led to the construction of the infamous wall imprisoning the communist sector in a time warp free from western influence.

When successful American insurance lawyer James Donovan is virtually ordered to represent captured soviet spy Rudolf Abel, it soon becomes apparent that he is merely expected to co-operate in the rubber-stamping exercise of going through the motions of justice seen to be done. A stubborn man, as Abel shrewdly observes, Donovan tries to get Abel’s conviction overturned on appeal, then suggests that he should be spared the electric chair in order to provide a useful bargaining counter in a possible future exchange with a captured American spy. Donovan’s idea is put into practice sooner than he could have bargained when US pilot Francis Powers is shot down over Russian territory whilst photographing sensitive terrain from a height of 70,000 feet.

This is the kind of film we have come to expect from Spielberg: fleshing out in an entertaining if sometimes sentimental way an interesting real-life drama which perhaps went under-reported at the time. We see the ludicrous US government guidance to the public on how to behave in the event of a nuclear strike, the wave of uncomprehending public rage against Donovan’s attempts to apply the rule of law to a spy, the mistrust and jockeying for power between the Russian and East Germans, and the sense of culture shock when Donovan is transported into an East Berlin of bombed wastelands, poverty-stricken youths driven to crime and the gunning down of those seeking to scale the newly constructed wall to freedom.

Not a great film perhaps, but worth seeing for its period detail and intelligent, often wrily amusing, script worked up by the Coen brothers, and a compelling performance from Tom Hanks, with Mark Rylance playing the part of a chastened Thomas Cromwell caught spying. It is also an incentive to discover more about this recent history.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Brooklyn [DVD] [2015].

When Eilis is unable to obtain suitable full-time employment in the tight-knit, isolated Irish town of Enniscorthy, her elder sister Rose pulls strings with fixer, Irish American priest Father Flood to get her a visa and job in New York, with accommodation in a Brooklyn boarding house. Like millions of other Irish immigrants, she begins to make a life for herself after the initial appalling homesickness, but is likely to be cast into a kind of limbo, in which, when in Brooklyn, her past in Ireland seems unreal and dreamlike, and vice versa.

At first I was reluctant to see the film version of “Brooklyn” since I thought it was unlikely to capture the book’s main achievement which is to convey the shifting inner thoughts and emotions of the heroine Eilis. Yet author Colm Toibin seems happy with the film , and actress Saiorse Ronan is skilful in showing a bright yet unassuming girl who is a mix of naïve and shrewd, sensitive yet resilient, dutiful in her Catholic faith but spirited.

The film gives a vivid and convincing portrayal of life in conservative small town Ireland of the early 1950s, as opposed to the bustle of a New York street in the rush hour or Coney Island on a summer weekend.

Scriptwriter Nick Hornby keeps fairly faithfully to the original plot and dialogue, including the final ironic twist, and I can understand why a few scenes have been added, for instance at the end, to suit the visual medium of film. Yet, I felt that some minor scenes have been omitted unnecessarily, creating an overly abrupt plot development in the process. To give a a spoiler-free example, the film would have gained from more leisurely initial “scene-setting” to portray Rose as more striking and successful in her social and work life than she seems in the film, while we could have seen more of Eilis reluctantly accepting a part-time job with the ghastly Miss Kelly, reporting her days in humorous anecdotes over the tea table in an attempt to make them more bearable. Also, her initial humiliating encounter with “eligible young Irish bachelor” Jim Farrell before she leaves for Brooklyn is inexplicably left out altogether. Perhaps more could have been made of the stifling web of Enniscorthy gossip stretching its threads even into Mrs Kehoe’s Brooklyn boarding house.

Overall, the film is likely to please those who have never read the book, and have the power to move those who have, despite any reservations.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

 

This is my review of A Girl At My Door [DVD].

Young female police officer Young-nam is sent to spend a year as “chief” in a rundown coastal town set in a beautiful bay, but reliant for employment on the fishing industry, improbably organised by the brutish Yong-ha, who appears too much of a buffoon to organise anything, and also happens to be her neighbour. When Young-nam finds his young “daughter” (she may in fact be his ex-lover’s child) Dohee being bullied by other schoolchildren and subjected to extreme violence by her grandmother and father, the police officer steps in to offer the girl protection and eventually shelter. This is clearly unwise, leading one to ask about the official procedures in Korea for handling such cases.

The plot develops into a pyscho-sexual drama filled with ambiguities. Why exactly has Young-nam been assigned to this lawless backwater? Is Yong-ha Dohee’s biological father? Dohee is clearly a victim, but to what extent has she been damaged and corrupted? What are Young-nam’s true motives in seeking to help her to such an extent?

The plot sometimes seemed implausible, for instance, over aspects of police practice. Strongly influenced by western drama, the film has a distinct Korean slant of it own, which at times slips into over-acted physical violence and shouting, an extreme bleakness and moments of cruelty, all of which could be summarised as a lack of subtlety. Yet, despite this, the two leading female parts are well-acted, there are some moving scenes, moments of humour and I was left with intriguing questions to mull over.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of Suffragette [DVD] [2015].

This film adopts a somewhat unusual take on the suffragette movement by focusing on Maud, a twenty-four year old Cockney who has suffered the unhealthy fumes and gross sexual harassment from the supervisor at a laundry where she has been employed since childhood, having been taken along to work as a baby when her mother worked there before her. Married to a fellow-worker with a young son to whom she is devoted, Maud initially wishes to keep out of trouble, but is drawn inadvertently into the campaign, and radicalised by the excessive police brutality she suffers and a growing realisation of the injustice and limitations of her life. This highlights the fact that the wealthy women who led the suffragette movement, often to some extent “playing” at it because they could opt out at any time, stood to lose less than their working-class supporters who risked destitution through being thrown out of their jobs and the isolation of being rejected by family and neighbours for their “subversive” beliefs.

Well-acted with some strong character development and a good script, I was particularly struck by the interesting evolving relationship between Maud and the cynical Irishman bent on infiltrating the suffragette movement, excellently played by Carey Mulligan and Brendan Gleeson respectively. Yet despite this, together with some moving moments and impressive recreations of 1912 street scenes with horse-drawn buses, I often felt myself to be viewing the drama in dark settings through a kind of fog , which may be intentional to imitate the graininess of old film footage of demonstrations. Also many shots seem to be with a camera held too close to the characters to see clearly what is going on – as in the case of Mrs. Pankhurst’s escape from arrest.

I would have preferred a good documentary of this fascinating theme, but since every generation needs to be reminded of how recently women gained the vote which many now do not bother to exercise, and how badly they were treated “as a matter of course”, this may for many be a more effective way of making the point.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of 99 Homes [DVD].

During the recent US subprime prime mortgage crisis, young single father Dennis Nash suffers a double blow: he loses his employment as a construction worker, and is evicted from his family home. The film captures vividly how disbelief and anger turn to shock and pain – the outrage of having one’s home invaded without warning, the inability to think clearly when given only a few minutes to seize “essential” possessions before being ordered to “step to the kerb” in full view of neighbours.

Understandably yet regrettably, Dennis is sucked into working for the aptly named Carver, the diabolic wheeler-dealer who is exploiting the situation and who spotted his potential in the process of evicting him. This seems the only way Dennis can earn enough to regain his home for his young son and mother, gradually selling his soul in the process at what seems likely to prove great cost. Inevitably, making a good living by such dubious means begins to drive a wedge between him and former colleagues, ultimately even his own mother. At first, Dennis rejects Carver’s offer of a gun for protection against those driven to violence, but the fact that he changes his mind, much to Carver’s knowing amusement, is a sign of his steady sinking into corruption.

The relationship between Nash and Carver is quite subtly developed. The older man forms a liking for his protégé, taking him into his confidence, even doing him a favour by his warped standards. Nash’s initial hatred and contempt are eroded somewhat by the logic of Carver’s cynical powers of persuasion. What good has working hard done? America is the land of winners, not losers.

My only criticism in an otherwise powerful and gripping morality tale is that for a non-American (and perhaps for Americans too!) the details of the US legal system and various scams to exploit it are hard to follow, particularly when delivered in a side-of- the-mouth drawl which in the opening scenes made me long for sub-titles. So, my 4 star rating is a little shaky.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars