This is my review of Captain Fantastic [DVD].

This is an entertaining, by turns funny, and moving, bittersweet yarn about an anarchic, left-wing, “hippy” bringing up his six children in a remote, beautiful Rocky Mountain setting. Although the endurance programmes and survival skills training designed to develop self-sufficiency in the wild at times seem close to the child abuse of which his father-in-law accuses him, home schooling has made his offspring remarkably well-read, perceptive and questioning. Their annual celebration of “Noam Chomsky” Day, as no more ludicrous than Christmas, the bracketing together of Christianity and capitalism as the root evils of Western society, smack of brainwashing – although when one sees American consumerism through their eyes, they have a point. The nagging question is of course how they will fare if and when they have to re-enter a world in which they will often appear naïve, ignorant of basic norms and, as the eldest son at one point observes, freakish.

Matters come to a head when they receive news that their mentally sick mother who has been forced to return to the outside world for medical treatment has committed suicide.

Despite suffering from the director’s inability to resist somewhat contrived, exaggerated and extreme situations, the film causes us to question our conventional values and ways of living, and to ask how far one can and should go in forging an “alternative life style” for one’s children? To what extent is it “abuse”, even permanently damaging, to make one’s children “too different”? On the other hand, the film exposes the hollowness of our materialistic society. Why is it acceptable for children to play violent computer games, but not work as a team to kill, dismember and cook a deer for food? How can one put one’s own desire for conventional respectability above a daughter’s wish for a Buddhist cremation and ironical flushing of ashes down the toilet?

The photography is beautiful, the storyline compelling, but I was frustrated that my ear was not sufficiently attuned to quick-fire American drawl to catch all the dialogue.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

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

Middle-aged Julieta is preparing to leave her stylish, if clinical Madrid flat for a move to Portugal with her lover, when a chance meeting brings news of the daughter Antía from whom she has been estranged for years. Immediately changing her plans, Julieta sits down to write the explanatory account of past events which she has concealed but feels Antía is now old enough to understand, if she can be persuaded to open her mind to them. This device of course takes us into a chain of flashbacks, often moving or evocative.

Based on three short stories by the celebrated writer Alice Munro, the Spanish director Almodóvar has produced an excellent film which succeeds through the combination of a well-constructed plot, with hints of Hitchcock, strong dialogue even evident in the subtitles, and skilful, sensitive acting where shifting expressions and body language often reveal more than words.

“Julieta” words on several levels as entertainment, as a study of the often devastating effects of chance, grief and guilt and as pure visual art. Almodóvar is not afraid to spin an essentially straightforward yarn, rendered remarkable with visual effects and a sustained, meticulous attention to detail. The filming draws on contrasting aspects of Spanish life: an old Madrid apartment with overpowering floral wallpaper redeemed by romantic wrought iron balconies overlooking the street; roads winding in hairpin bends to mountain views of great beauty which can also be the backdrop to moments of acute misery; the striking profile of a censorious, perhaps malevolent housekeeper who knows too much about her employer.

The folds of vivid blood-red material in the opening shots made me fear that Almodóvar would slip into the melodramatic excess which is often his trademark, but in this film at least, his continual harnessing of striking images manages to stop short of hammy overkill.

My reservations are few. Antía’s abrupt change in behaviour at one point seems unconvincing, but this does not prevent the film from being very moving. The switch in casting from the young to the older Julieta and Antía is done quite cleverly, although it takes a few moments to adjust to the distraction this creates. Perhaps the understandably mournful lover Lorenzo is a little too long-suffering, but as other reviewers have noted, the men in this film are as ever mainly foils for the female characters who are Almodóvar’s main focus of interest.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of Tale of Tales [DVD].

This is Italian director Matteo Garrone’s English language (to reach a wider audience) interweaving of three fables drawn from the Pentamerone, a 17th-century book of Neapolitan folk stories compiled by the Italian poet Giambattista Basile. He provided fodder for writers like the Brothers Grimm, to give a flavour of the macabre streak running through these bizarre tales.

Apart from the quality of the acting, casting of some remarkable faces, and fabulous costumes, the film is worth watching for the superb scenery from remote parts of Italy. There is no need for Jungle Book CGI with the potential to use striking settings like the Alcantra Gorge in Sicily, or the octagonal Castel del Monte in Puglia.

Despite the fairytale characters and magic mixed with implausibility of many scenes, one can still relate to the human emotions, clearly relevant to us now: the dangers of obsession, when a barren queen will pay any price to get a child, or a bored, self-indulgent king puts his fascination for the giant flea he has created before looking after his daughter. Two sisters desire for youth and beauty gets caught up with a sexually rapacious king’s infatuation with the idea of a woman he has only heard singing, glimpsed from a distance.

Classified as “15”, this visually powerful and entertaining (if sometimes gory or violent) film is available to those of an age to appreciate the deeper ethical points beneath the superficially childish storylines.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Love & Friendship [DVD] [2016].

This film is based closely on “Lady Susan” the lesser known short, unfinished novel written by Jane Austen when she was only nineteen, and never published in her lifetime. Judging by the film, this differed from her more famous works in its focus on a blatantly outrageous and manipulative anti-heroine who uses her sex appeal and wit to bamboozle men, and to a large extent gets away with it. In today’s world, she could have employed her intelligence, charm and grasp of psychology as an independent, successful career woman, but in Jane Austen’s day an impoverished (it is never explained quite why although it may have been because Lady Susan is clearly a spendthrift) widow with a teenage daughter had little option but to sponge off relatives and seek husbands for them both. Too poor to pay a servant or her daughter Frederica’s school bills, forced to hand over her jewels when unpaid tradesmen shrewdly gang up on her, Lady Susan is obliged to use her wits to find a practical solution, hopefully having her cake and eating it by hanging on to her married lover in the process.

This production reminded me of “Dangerous Liaisons”, with the same kind of cynical amorality. Towards the end, Lady Susan pays the sweet and long-suffering Frederica a rare , inevitably backhanded compliment: “My daughter has shown herself to be cunning and manipulative – I couldn’t be more pleased.” In fact, this self-absorbed woman, unable to admit to any personal faults except as some kind of virtue or wholly reasonable behaviour, is trying to make the best of a situation she has for once failed to submit to her total control.

The dialogue is wordy, but quick-fire and funny, often more explicitly acid and less subtle than I recall Austen as being, perhaps because she did not write much actual speech in what was in fact an “episotolary” novel, consisting of an exchange of letters. Yet some of the best barbed comments have been culled word-for-word from the original: “My dear Alicia, of what a mistake were you guilty in marrying a man of his age! Just old enough to be formal, ungovernable, and to have the gout; too old to be agreeable, too young to die.” Or, “where there is a disposition to dislike, a motive will never be wanting.”

Leaping from one scene to the next, and leaving a certain amount implied and left to the viewer’s imagination, the production often feels disjointed, but at least this gives it some pace. Skilfully acted and visually beautiful, the film is highly entertaining, but did not impel me to do more than download free the original novel which I suspect will remain unread while the well-dramatised plot is still fresh in my mind.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of Our Kind Of Traitor [DVD] [2016].

Bored with his job as a lecturer in poetry and perhaps too easily led in his desire for a fresh challenge, Perry holidays in Marrakesh with his high-flying barrister wife Gail, in an attempt to repair their relationship which has been damaged for reasons revealed in due course.

Perry allows himself to fall for the persuasive charms of Dima, a larger-than-life Russian who proves, somewhat improbably, to be a financial wizard who has made himself wealthy yet vulnerable money-laundering for the Moscow mafia. Beneath his hearty exterior, Dima is running scared, aware that he is about to be liquidated, regarded as no longer required but knowing too much by his ruthless Russian boss. In desperation, Dima tries to use Perry to pass to M16 information which will gain him asylum in the UK along with his family. The drama becomes tense as it becomes clear that the only member of British intelligence seriously interested in working with Dima is the maverick Hector, obsessed with the desire to expose high-ranking UK politicians who are colluding with Russian criminals.

The John Le Carré novel from 2010 on which all this is based has proved quite prescient as regards the course events have taken in the post Cold War world. Hence the shots of a London skyline disfigured by excrescences of high-rise property development financed with ill-gotten Russian investment.

The film contains striking photography, excellent acting and some tense scenes with sharp dialogue. It combines nerve-racking drama with the raising of serious issues. Yet it ultimately falls short because in an attempt to spice up what sounds like a plausible book plot, the film script introduces too many unbelievable situations. I was left feeling somewhat irritated: if this film is meant to be taken seriously, it stretches credulity too far.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of Dheepan [Blu-ray] [2016].

Three Sri Lankans anxious to escape the horror of the failed Tamil Tiger movement for the safety of Europe masquerade as a family unit to gain asylum in France. In what appears to be a shady arrangement, the ex-fighter who has assumed the identity of the deceased Dheepan takes the job of caretaker on an estate of the giant, grim blocks of flats which blight the suburbs of too many French cities, in this case Paris. “Daughter” Illayaal is young enough to grasp French quickly and integrate into school after some initial problems. It is harder for wife “Yalini” who has no idea how to act the part of a mother, and is clearly more drawn to the young gang leader whose disabled relative she cares for, rather than the often moody and humourless Dheepan. A hard worker, he suffers in silence over the murder of his real family, and memories of his lost homeland, symbolised by blurred images of an elephant emerging from a dense mass of quivering leaves.

Apart from showing how the threesome relate to each other and the alien culture into which they are thrown, the film draws a parallel between the unexpected violence and gang warfare of the estate, and the fighting and insecurity from which they have tried to escape.

The acting by genuine Sri Lankans is good, even remarkable in view of the main players’ lack of experience. This, together with the tackling of the fraught topic of immigration may account for the winning of the 2015 Palme d’Or prize. The plot is thought-provoking, there are some moments of subtle direction and I was prepared to tolerate a slow pace and perhaps deliberately unclear “fly-on-the-wall” delivery style provided it built up to some climax. However, this proved to be quite implausible and confusing. It may seem trivial, but I was also distracted by such practical questions as how the “mother” and “daughter” so quickly obtained a variety of good quality western and traditional clothes. How did they get to know the Tamil (?) Sri Lankans with whom they celebrated in a Hindu (?) temple with a communal picnic afterwards, and why didn’t they leave the dangerous estate to live with them? The trite final scene also appears to be quite a grave artistic error, detracting from the work.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of Eye In The Sky [DVD] [2016].

British and American forces combine in the use of cutting-edge technology to locate a band of fundamentalist terrorists, with the aim of capturing them alive to stand trial in their countries of origin, making an example of those with UK or US passports. When this proves impossible, single-minded British Colonel played by Helen Mirren is determined not to let them escape, but what are the moral issues stirred up if they are to be wiped out in a drone attack by a “pilot” activating Hellfire missiles from his base thousands of miles away in the States?

Relying on moments of black humour or poignancy rather than gratuitous violence and mindless action, this at times almost unbearably tense drama presents the arguments on both sides, continually dragging the rug of certainty from under our feet, causing us to vacillate as much as the politicians and lawyers one despises for trying to pass the buck. Although it may not be technically accurate, the film highlights a troubling new aspect of war, in which one side can wreak havoc from an office desk with no personal physical risk, as if playing a computer game set in an alien environment with which one feels no connection, yet may at the same time be confronted by the image of an innocent bystander which one might not encounter as a solder in the adrenalin rush of real action on the ground. My only reservation is whether soldiers trained to be tough killers would be quite as sensitive as some of the characters.

Scoring highly on acting, direction and sets, this film is not only gripping but also provides the basis for in-depth discussion on the most effective and “ethical” use of force against extreme terrorism.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

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