This is my review of The Railway Man [DVD] [2013].

Based on the 1995 memoir of Eric Lomax, the Royal Signals Officer who was tortured by the Japanese when deployed on the construction of the infamous Burma railway, this film uses flashbacks to show the reasons for his emotional repression with violent outbursts of post traumatic stress decades after the event. Colin Firth, a master in this kind of role, plays the older Lomax, with Jeremy Irvine putting in a strong performance as his younger self, earnest, floppy-haired and prepared with quiet bravery to take the rap for the assembly of an illicit radio receiver. Nicole Kidman assumes a convincing English accent to play the sympathetic new wife who is determined to extract Lomax from his mental agony. When Lomax discovers in the 1980s that Takashi Nagase, the young interpreter who played a key part in his torture, is still alive, working, of all things, as a guide at the Kanchanaburi War Museum (close to the famous bridge on the river Kwai) he is initially bent on revenge as a means of exorcising his demons.

I was disappointed by the first half: dialogues often seem stilted as in the "Brief Encounter" style meeting on a train between Lomax and his future wife Patti. Lomax looks much younger than the fellow officers with whom he has kept in contact, and he could have done with a few more scars and grey hairs. The sets "back home" have more of a 1950s feel than the 1980s as I remember them. Worst of all, the earlier scenes in the jungle are often confusing or hammy, apart from the final harrowing torture in the dreaded hut. Overall, the script and direction often appear wooden until the final resolution.

The film was saved for me by the second part of the film which is unpredictable, moving and well-developed. Throughout, the scenery is beautiful, both in the Kwai valley, despite the horror of the slave labour and brutality, and in the scenery around Lomax's stark grey house overlooking a golden beach and the sea at, I think, Berwick-upon-Tweed.

I have read that, in fact, Lomax had a first wife for the best part of forty years, whom he left for Patti, and two daughters, all largely omitted from his memoir. I understand why the director let this stand, in order perhaps to create a tighter and more focused drama, but this has been at the price of concealing and neglecting other lives directly blighted by what Lomax suffered.

The film may not do justice to the highly acclaimed autobiography.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of 12 Years A Slave [DVD] [2013].

Solomon Northup, the son of a former slave, was a free man living in upstate New York when he was tricked, kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. He spent twelve years working for a series of masters in the sugar and cotton plantations of the swampy Louisiana bayou country until regaining his freedom against the odds. This film is based on the account of his experiences, written in conjunction with a white lawyer called David Wilson, and authenticated, including in part by the drunken and sadistic Mr Epps, his final master.

With his artist's eye , McQueen brings out the beauty of the natural landscape, red sunrise over the river, hanging branches draped in Spanish moss, or the rhythmic power of the paddle-steamer, carving furrows through the sparkling water as it transports the captives to their harsh destiny. This film renounces any sentimentality, ramming home the fact that slaves were regarded as property so could be treated without any consideration or mercy. The only reason for keeping them alive was because an owner had paid good money for them, and they could earn more for him through their labour. We see how Mr Epps could terrorise a female slave with whom he had become sexually obsessed, whilst his wife tormented the poor woman at the same time out of jealousy.

Everyone will learn something different from this drama. In my case, it was the extent to which slaves were punished for being literate, since this was seen as giving access to knowledge and revolt. Ironically, slaves were then despised for the ignorance in which they were held. Also, when their stories were written with the help of a white people, it was claimed that hardships had been exaggerated by abolitionists to strengthen their case.

The violent beatings are hard to witness. It's debatable whether these scenes are too long, the rationale being that this brings home the intolerable brutality endured. One striking moment is when the hero has to burn, out of fear of discovery, a letter which he has taken great pains to produce, in perhaps his last chance to get help. Another is when, having resolutely refused to sing the haunting spirituals, the only emotional outlet for slaves, Northup at last gives in, belting the song out lustily in his anger.

Chitwetel Ejiofor deserves all the praise that has been heaped on him, with his expressive face conveying in turn disbelief, fear, anger, despair, hope and even loss at the point of his release when he has to leave behind to suffer alone someone for whom he has come to care.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of The Girl on the Train [DVD] [2009].

Triggered by the real-life incident of a girl who claimed to be the victim of an anti-semitic attack in Paris, this is a tale of cause and effect, the consequences of a random conjunction of events.

Beautiful but scatty, Jeanne’s half-hearted attempts to obtain work as a secretary lead by chance to an interview at the office of successful Jewish lawyer Samuel Bleistein, sometime admirer of her widowed mother played by Catherine Deneuve. Jeanne’s habit of rollerblading everywhere, red hair blowing in the wind, brings her to the notice of an enigmatic, uncomfortably direct and determined young man, Frank. Through a sequence of events, we see how Jeanne is driven to take a dramatic course of action but her motivation for this remained unclear to me.

Beautifully shot with many passing insights into human behaviour and relations, some moments of humour, shock over unexpected violence, or pathos (such as sympathy for Bleistein’s grandson Nathan with his self-absorbed, capricious parents), the film has a fragmented quality, and one observes it without feeling very moved. Although the sense of building up to some kind of dramatic climax held my attention, the rather flat, admittedly realistic ending left me feeling a little dissatisfied.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Gravity [Blu-ray] [2013] [Region Free].

This technically brilliant film contains beautiful shots of the earth viewed from space, there are some tense moments as the two space workers (Clooney and Bullock) struggle to survive when they find themselves stranded after a disaster not of their making and it is intriguing to watch them floating about surrounded by a motley collection of objects and dealing with weightlessness in a matter of fact way, at least until calamity strikes. As with most adventure films, the desire to create ever more exciting situations sends plausibility spinning into the outer galaxies and it is probably an advantage to be ignorant of some of the basic laws of physics. At the end, despite the ludicrous twists, the film succeeds in leaving you with a sobering sense of mortality combined with the strengh of the will to survive.

“Gravity” is definitely greatly enhanced if seen on a large screen in 3D.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Captain Phillips [DVD] [2013].

Paul Greengrass is well-known for his dramatization of real-life events, in this case opting for a mainstream cinema action adventure format which may give scope for more dramatic licence than the constraints of a documentary to cover the topical theme of the threats from Somali pirates.

Their target is an American container ship, ironically loaded in part with food aid for Africa, under the command of the stern, courageous but also humane Captain Phillips, who in the midst of his personal trauma is capable of feeling compassion, even sympathy for the pirates. For, beneath the suspense and menace of the plot, lies the director’s concern to show both sides of the question, understand the pressures which drive the pirates: poverty, resentment against foreign powers like America which they perceive as having taken resources from them, the tribal leaders/corrupt gang masters who force simple former fishermen to seize money through piracy, very little of which they get to keep for themselves. The two main characters are developed most fully: Phillips and the pirate leader Muse, violent when scared but clearly not innately so and capable of seeing the American captain’s decency and natural powers of leadership. He reveals in a poignant moment that all he would really like to do is escape to a “better” life in the States. However, a combination of fear and chewing of the narcotic “khat” kindles the pirates’ unpredictability, while the tight-deadlines and ruthlessness of the US rescuers add to the tension of the brew.

I was a little frustrated to be unable to hear what anyone was saying in much of the dramatic denouement, but overall this is an absorbing film which adds to one’s understanding of a serious problem. It was fascinating to see the procedures followed in the attempt to shake off the pirates, although I was left wondering why all shipping off the Somali coast does not travel in convoys with 24/7 lookouts and powerful guns for defence.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

 

This is my review of Philomena [DVD].

Depressed by the collapse of his high-flying career as a Labour spin doctor, Martin Sixsmith tries to distract himself with a “human interest story”. Philomena Lee wishes to make contact with the son taken from her nearly fifty years ago by Irish nuns, after they had allowed her to bond with him while slaving in the now notorious convent laundries to pay for their “charity” in giving shelter to an unmarried teenage mother.

Excellent as regards quality of script, acting and direction, this film is by turns unbearably sad and hilarious. Admittedly there are some stereotypes: the bigoted nun who feels that since she has kept her vow of chastity, anyone who has succumbed to sex outside marriage must pay the price for ever, or the hard-bitten editor who wants a good story at any price. There has probably been a good deal of dramatic licence in transferring the real characters of Martin Sixsmith and Philomena to the screen, but played by Steve Coogan and Judi Dench their personalities are strongly developed and complex. Coogan plays a man angered by injustice and determined to root it out, won over by the warm, frank and at times surprisingly broad-minded and perceptive Philomena, who does not hold back from commenting on his frequent cynicism, arrogance and dismissive attitude to those he regards as less intelligent. Dench portrays a still deeply religious yet fun-loving woman, whose simplicity and fondness for trashy TV series and happy-ever-after romantic fiction mask shrewd insight and tolerance. She realises the need to forgive others for one’s own sake, but is not above passing up the chance to expose wrongdoing. Greater love has no woman than to think her child might have achieved a better life without her, after worrying for decades that he might be suffering somewhere, perhaps a hopeless tramp. What counts as a “good outcome” when the essential tragedy of separation for decades has been suffered?

Philomena seems too old to have a son born in 1952 when she must still have been in her teens, but this is a minor point, the price to be paid for casting Judi Dench in the role.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars