I’m not sure how I feel about coming-of-age dramas. I suppose, like rom-coms, even if they turn out to be below-par they’re generally watcheable and pleasant enough. I guess every movie genre, be it action or thriller or fantasy, has to adhere to a certain narrative or thematic arc whilst striving to be original and capture the viewers’ imagination… basically, it has to justify it’s existence.
Submarine is adapted for the screen and directed by Richard Ayoade, known to many as Moss from The IT Crowd but, with his ever growing list of impressively subversive directing credits, is by no means content with spending the rest of his career as a comedic sidekick. What he’s proven so far with his tv and music video work is that he has a knack for making comedy visual (or is that making comedic visuals?) and isn’t afraid to have a knowing glance at the camera… cinematically speaking, of course.
So, what’s Submarine got that all the others haven’t? Well, on paper not a lot: it tells the well trod tale of secondary school hardship, first love, family breakdown and the onset of adolescence, but the key weapon at Ayoade’s disposal here is his leading man’s relationship with Ayoade’s camera. Craig Roberts as Oliver is charmingly off-beat and was able to make me laugh out loud with a simple turning of his head or with the fumbled murmur of badly timed sweet nothings. He’s a genuine find and the camera adores him and his comic timing.
Elsewhere is the oddball but delightful casting of Australian actor Noah Taylor as Oliver’s dad (who’s barely recognisable as an Open University presenter has-been who’s physical resemblance to his son is almost non-existent) and Paddy Considine who turns in yet another delightful weirdo played to subtle/unsubtle (I’m still not sure) perfection.
The story is told from Oliver’s point-of-view who seems to be directing his own self-indulgent biopic, even going so far as to drop-in editing cues into his narration. He’s constantly thinking and analysing everything that happens to him every minute that it happens (as one does as a self-involved teenager) not realising that there will come a day when he’ll stop thinking about everything so much and just get on with it.
Or will he?
Now here’s where I started to think about the cyclical nature of the story. You see, Oliver’s dad suffers from depression and has done so since, as he explains himself, he was about his son’s age. Both father and son are cerebral, maudlin sorts who end up capturing the heart of a girl who’s currently in the clutches of an unworthy oik, an endeavour which eventually comes back to haunt them. There are many circles in the visual make-up of the film: ceiling light shades, firework blooms, merry-go-rounds, bicycle wheels, tea mugs… Oliver even runs in a circle in joyous celebration of his new found love at one point. Is Submarine then a film about the inevitability of genetics and how we often inherit undesirable traits from our parents and are in no way masters of our own fates; or is Oliver really the fictional embodiment of his own father who is simply recounting his childhood back to us; or is time really cyclical and has, this time around at least, overlapped with a person embodying both father and son at the same time?
Yeah, ok, I’m reading far too much into it… but that’s what Oliver would do.
Fade to black…
4/5
Friday, 16 December 2011
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
“Mylo Xyloto” – Coldplay (album review part 2/2)
PART TWO: the album...
What’s been allowed to endure from Viva La Vida and now permeates Mylo Xyloto is an insipid wateriness to much of the production, especially on the loathsome made-to-order single “Paradise” that features one of the many examples on the album of Chris Martin’s vocals being double-tracked, duplicated as a nightmarishly sickly choir or turned into a limp atmospheric sound effect. The overall result is a band lacking in identity so much so that you can no longer imagine Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion playing their instruments alongside their frontman amidst the deluge of extravagant sonic embellishments and otherworldly leitmotifs.
But, as the tenth song on their fragile 2000 debut album Parachutes put it, everything’s not lost.
Tracks such as “Us Against The World”, “U.F.O.” and “Don’t Let It Break Your Heart” have the stripped down four-piece directness that once made the band achieve greater things and although it’s still in keeping with their newfound primary-coloured palette “Hurts Like Heaven” thrills as an exhilaratingly kinetic opener. “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” works considerably better in context with the rest of the album than it did as a stand-alone single (or was it just a free download?) and, along with the absurdly conceived but surprisingly enjoyable “Princess Of China”, represents the strength of the album’s arguably more compromised side.
It seems that the richer moments on Mylo Xyloto are those that favour simplicity and striking musicality over the Brian Eno-inspired/authored electronic flourishes and distracting overdubs that all too often serve little purpose other than to make the eyes of even the most open-minded and diplomatic of alternative rock fans roll.
But by this stage in their career I think it’s safe to say that Coldplay have chosen to stop fighting a losing battle in seducing reluctant listeners who’ve steadfastly brushed off their advances over the years. And yet by turning the other cheek the band have allowed their more showy pop affiliations to infiltrate their songwriting and perhaps even compromise their core musical values.
When Chris Martin briefly became a songwriter-for-hire in the mid-naughties to artists likes Jamelia and Embrace it was endearing to see him dabbling in charitable musical philanthropy, but the collaboration with Jay-Z on the single version of “Lost!” from Viva La Vida and the Rihanna duet here on “Princess Of China” give off the sickly scent of “feat.” credits being half-heartedly phoned-in and with the band now agreeing to appear on The X-Factor we see the inevitable turning of a once vaguely principled foursome into the worst kind of court composers/jesters.
But if Coldplay’s loyalties have now shifted from audience to advertisers then they have my sincerest empathy as the incessant and often narrow-minded hatred directed at them by an amnesiac music scene that surely owes them a sizeable debt would sour anyone’s compassion.
But fear not, for the end is in sight: the band stated that Viva La Vida was the start of a “trilogy” that would be characterised by a singular musical/artistic vision, so with two albums down we now only have one more like this to sit through before the next, hopefully less vaudevillian, incarnation of the band makes it’s welcome appearance.
2/5
What’s been allowed to endure from Viva La Vida and now permeates Mylo Xyloto is an insipid wateriness to much of the production, especially on the loathsome made-to-order single “Paradise” that features one of the many examples on the album of Chris Martin’s vocals being double-tracked, duplicated as a nightmarishly sickly choir or turned into a limp atmospheric sound effect. The overall result is a band lacking in identity so much so that you can no longer imagine Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion playing their instruments alongside their frontman amidst the deluge of extravagant sonic embellishments and otherworldly leitmotifs.
But, as the tenth song on their fragile 2000 debut album Parachutes put it, everything’s not lost.
Tracks such as “Us Against The World”, “U.F.O.” and “Don’t Let It Break Your Heart” have the stripped down four-piece directness that once made the band achieve greater things and although it’s still in keeping with their newfound primary-coloured palette “Hurts Like Heaven” thrills as an exhilaratingly kinetic opener. “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” works considerably better in context with the rest of the album than it did as a stand-alone single (or was it just a free download?) and, along with the absurdly conceived but surprisingly enjoyable “Princess Of China”, represents the strength of the album’s arguably more compromised side.
It seems that the richer moments on Mylo Xyloto are those that favour simplicity and striking musicality over the Brian Eno-inspired/authored electronic flourishes and distracting overdubs that all too often serve little purpose other than to make the eyes of even the most open-minded and diplomatic of alternative rock fans roll.
But by this stage in their career I think it’s safe to say that Coldplay have chosen to stop fighting a losing battle in seducing reluctant listeners who’ve steadfastly brushed off their advances over the years. And yet by turning the other cheek the band have allowed their more showy pop affiliations to infiltrate their songwriting and perhaps even compromise their core musical values.
When Chris Martin briefly became a songwriter-for-hire in the mid-naughties to artists likes Jamelia and Embrace it was endearing to see him dabbling in charitable musical philanthropy, but the collaboration with Jay-Z on the single version of “Lost!” from Viva La Vida and the Rihanna duet here on “Princess Of China” give off the sickly scent of “feat.” credits being half-heartedly phoned-in and with the band now agreeing to appear on The X-Factor we see the inevitable turning of a once vaguely principled foursome into the worst kind of court composers/jesters.
But if Coldplay’s loyalties have now shifted from audience to advertisers then they have my sincerest empathy as the incessant and often narrow-minded hatred directed at them by an amnesiac music scene that surely owes them a sizeable debt would sour anyone’s compassion.
But fear not, for the end is in sight: the band stated that Viva La Vida was the start of a “trilogy” that would be characterised by a singular musical/artistic vision, so with two albums down we now only have one more like this to sit through before the next, hopefully less vaudevillian, incarnation of the band makes it’s welcome appearance.
2/5
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