The Tree of Life – film review

Experiencing this film is like watching a Catherine Cookson drama on mute whilst drinking heavily… although, to the best of my knowledge, Catherine Cookson dramas haven’t got quite so many dinosaurs in them.

The reclusive Terrence Malick returns with a much less direct and linear cinematic piece about, well, I’m not quite sure. If you break it down it’s a simple coming-of-age story about a boy who grows up with a short-tempered authoritarian father and eventually begins to rebel against his very ridged, buzz-cut upbringing. But the opening half-hour or so where we learn one of the boy’s brothers will eventually die (aged 19, long after the childhood events that provide the load-bearing centre of the film) and are then treated to an astonishingly well imagined and visualised version of how the universe and Earth began serve to unbalance the delicate story that’s being set up… if indeed there’s a story at all. Malick’s ever-moving and often un-obtrusive camera makes the viewer feel like the eye of God peering at events from the sidelines and we feel moved to intervene at times. It’s an exhaustingly sombre and lyrical film and will test the patience of most viewers, especially as there’s no real conclusion of sorts or explanation as to what’s just happened. It just sort of… happens.

My theory about the film is thus (warning: I’ve had to use brackets within brackets to properly annotate my explanations, so prepare yourself for lots of “(this (this))”:

We see a young man’s parents being informed of his death and their initial attempts to come to terms with their loss. From here we see the young man’s brother, who is already dead after drowning as a child, as an adult man (Sean Penn) in heaven (which is represented as a modern day busy skyscraper and hinted at by the man’s lighting of a blue candle in remembrance (I think “blue” represents heaven and goodness)) who’s living out his father’s dream of seeing his sons achieving a successful and wealthy life, even though he’s doing it in heaven. The young man’s brother then tries to reconcile things with his family and father by viewing his and his family’s life, and the universe as a whole, from the start (we even see his father lighting a red candle at one point, assumedly to hint at the fact that the path his father is taking in life (with his family in tow) is leading him to hell and/or damnation) and trying to understand what went wrong, if it went wrong at all. By the end he realises his father was only trying to do right by his family and his aggressive outbursts were only because of his frustration and desire to protect them. Once the man feels reconciled he meets his family as they enter heaven (which is represented by a sun-drenched beach) and a happy, loving reunion takes place.

There, that’s it, that’s what I think.

To me it was never particularly clear which of the three boys dies at the start and it’s never explained how he dies, so I’m guessing it’s all open to interpretation. I think Sean Penn’s character dies when the family are at a lake swimming and the references he makes in heaven to his dead brother are misleading… I think he’s mourning the other members of his family (including his recently deceased 19 year old brother) who are, one by one, dying and joining him in heaven. So basically when the film begins we’re witnessing the second child death and when the grandmother attempts to console the mother by saying “you still have the other two” she’s actually referring to the last boy and the father (Brad Pitt).

Give it a go… you’ll either feel empty or fulfilled by the end.

I also recommend watching it alone without distraction.

3/5

Submarine - film review

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

Mylo Xyloto - Part Two

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

Mylo Xyloto - Part One

PART ONE: the story so far...

I’ll nail my colours to the mast about Coldplay now: I like them, but I’m not a fan. I don’t analyse their songs and collect their b-sides, but I have all their albums and will defend them against naysayers who see them as a bland coffee-table band with nothing to say. I thought their first two albums were good but I felt frustrated that they petered out after the first half (which isn’t to say the second side featured bad songs, it’s just the energy and vigour seemed to vanish) and their third album was wholesomely consistent and stronger but suffered a rather unfair backlash by the music press after it’s initially successful release. What I liked about Coldplay during this first-three-album period was that, although they were indeed “soft” and saccharine in places, there was still an edge and ingenuity to their musicality which I found very engrossing. Like an auteur film director they didn't always produce wholly satisfying features but their skill with framing and composition always beckoned my interest. But by their fourth album something had changed, they started introducing concepts and themes and characters into their music and turning their live shows into fancy dress parties with extravagant colour schemes and faux military garb… all the warning signs of a loss of inspiration and the introduction of gimmicks. Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends took what I liked about Coldplay and inverted it: their writing had finally become experimental and edgy and their musicality had turned soft.

What could have been accused of being a gimmick on Viva La Vida has been returned to on Mylo Xyloto with admirable abandon and the band have now fully blossomed from shy, angst ridden boys into gregarious men of the world who’s ideological and musical leanings have begun to grow more world-weary…

NEXT: the album...

Killer Sounds

You can always count on rock ‘n’ roll for a bit of bad timing: Radiohead changed it’s lyrics to The Bends’ penultimate track “Sulk” following Kurt Cobain’s shotgun-related suicide; The Smashing Pumpkins’ third single “Disarm” from their second album Siamese Dream was banned by the BBC after it’s lyrical content clashed with morbid news stories of the time; and The Strokes saw sense to omit the mocking “New York City Cops” from the US release of their Is This It? debut album in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, it goes without saying that the release of Hard-Fi’s third album Killer Sounds is flagged by none of the above records’ hype or anticipation, therefore the closing title track with it’s tale of young people taking to the streets and rioting hasn’t whipped up a media frenzy and been rushed to be replaced following the recent urban unrest that’s plagued some of England’s major cities.

It’s almost a shame for the band that such an example of prophetic poetry and life imitating art didn’t hit the six o’clock news, as a bit of bad press would have done the album a bit of good. It’s been a very muted arrival all in all and, apart from it’s slightly unsettling painted skull artwork, Killer Sounds isn’t adorned with the same inspired, but strangely controversial, No Cover Art concept that fronted their previous effort Once Upon A Time In The West. But whether it’d made the headlines like it’s predecessor or not, Killer Sounds has remained what it is: a compulsively enjoyable slice of decadent and overly ambitious pomp.

I must admit I’m a fan of some of rock’s recent much hyped flops: Second Coming, Be Here Now, X&Y, Euphoric Heartbreak. I just love a band that pushes it’s music too far in the hope of being bigger and better only to end up veering off into absurdity. In context the above albums received harsh backlashes after an initially successful release and were only considered critical disasters after the dust had settled, but they remain enduring bloated treasure troves of musical guilty pleasures.

Even though Hard-Fi have attempted to classify themselves as a politically charged band with their own personal involvement in racial equality campaigns and musical themes cantering on the mediocrity of lower middle class idleness, they’re politicizing remains far too dumb to be taken seriously by the masses and so the band are at best enjoyed for their musical merits rather than their part-time protesting. A good thing too, as Killer Sounds is by far their dumbest record to date.

Teetering somewhere between mid-80s Michael Jackson records like "Billy Jean" and "Thriller", the Manchester Hacienda club scene and 90s dance acts such as Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers, the organic rock drum beats that were the heart of Hard-Fi’s previous albums has taken a back seat to some of Killer Sounds’ more explicit electronic rhythms. That’s not to say they’ve followed the recent indie band trend of simply sticking a few synth parts onto their records here and there to keep the kids happy, quite the contrary, in fact they’ve developed their already well established rock-you-can-dance-to format into a more intense and euphoric experience without opening themselves up to accusations of compromising their rock integrity… after all, they never really had that to begin with.

It’s no secret that frontman Richard Archer can’t sing, that’s what we love him for, but for once even his atonal wailings seem fractured and under pressure, especially on opener “Good For Nothing”. It’s the one part of the album that is glaringly inconsistent and perhaps could have done with re-recording. Archer has never sounded so underconfident and tired. Fortunately for us though his vocals never veer off into the mumbling nadir of Julian Casablancas’ vocals on The Strokes’ third album First Impressions Of Earth which single-handedly destroyed the hard work put in by the rest of the band, but they do hit a few cringe-worthy speed bumps.

With this new electro confidence the DIY ethos that permeated their previous albums has gone. This doesn’t sound like the same band that built their own studio by hand or recorded tracks in the back seat of a car. Before they were making dance records as if before the dawn of synthesisers, sampling and looping. Now their music is washed with an antiseptic electronic bleach that has eroded their characteristically modest musicianship and drowned much of the instrumentation’s personality.

But even though there’s an intoxicating busyness to the album it doesn’t spoil the very skilled songwriting that’s been made to endure, and so the new production dynamics have not been allowed to become too much of a barrier between the listener and the great tunes.

Whilst Killer Sounds is by no means a musical failure it does represent a band experimenting with a sound that they’ve been flirting with ever since their debut, Stars Of CCTV, with mixed results. The new glossy production values, which will be well suited to providing the soundtrack to clips of football highlights or montages of sun drenched music festivals with young people waving their arms in the air, is a welcome change but I really hope that Hard-Fi return next time with a more bare bones release that shows them at their best. Warts and all.

3/5

True Grit (2010) - film review

The Coen Brothers’ True Grit is as stubborn as a mule. It’ll say what it wants to say in the manner in which it chooses and it’ll take it’s time about it. The film is an exercise in faithful adaptation, not in that I know because I’ve read the original novel but in that it’s in no way adapted for a modern cinema audience and makes no attempt to update vocal intonations or iron out plot longueurs and needless detours that other adaptations would surely trim, alter or cut altogether.

It’s admirably re-watchable and has been the first film that I’ve seen in some years that I can imagine myself enjoying even on the tenth viewing.

As always with the Coen Brother’s the filmmaking is flawless but the standout craft on display in True Grit is the convincingly 19th century performances. The ongoing problem I have with period pieces is that the actors all compose themselves as if they’re in the 21st century and will, after a long day’s shooting on set, drive home in their cars and spend the night on the internet or watching television. But not for a second here do you believe that Jeff Bridges’ gnarled Rooster Cogburn, Matt Damon’s proud but flawed LeBoeuf or Hailee Steinfeld’s stern and plucky Mattie Ross have such modern conveniences to while away the time… the Coen Brothers present you with the world as it was some 150 years ago and never do you doubt it.

Many other filmmakers might have been concerned about the outdated attitudes towards race and sex in the story and modernised many of the encounters, but they would not have been faithful. The Coen’s keep in LeBoeuf’s obvious attraction to an underage girl and makes it poignant rather than sinister and the various knocks, falls and scrapes the girl herself is subject to are not papered over or pulled back from. These are hard times and it’s people are even harder.

The dialogue in True Grit is sometimes indecipherably old fashioned and delivered too quick to take in on the first viewing, but there lies one of the film’s great pleasures. Like reading Shakespeare or Joyce half the battle is concentrating on what’s being said and the temptation to stray away from the narrative is often all too great. But resisting these temptations and holding your attention is rewarded by a great adventure with some very exciting and funny moments.

It’s a curious piece also for it’s truthful, but not necessarily entertaining, conclusion. Mattie, unlike Damon’s titular Ryan in Saving Private Ryan, does not “earn this” and her eventual path in life raises questions about the trail of destruction she and her counterparts leave behind in the film. But her resolve from start to end is neither sentimental nor poetic: she has a job to do and once it’s done that’ll be the end of it.

Rest assured that from titles to credits this is a film that you will love and watch over and over again for years to come.

5/5

Sucker Punch – film review

I can’t bring myself to watch Sucker Punch a second time, even though I feel I should give it a second chance. It’s probably the thought of what I’ll have to endure: that arthritic opening sequence which is as confusing as it is slow; the two dimensional portrayal of all men being slimy potential-raping monsters; the final payoff which is neither surprising, interesting, satisfying nor logical in a narrative sense.

One thing I did like about Sucker Punch which nobody else seemed to like was the dream sequences. Wonderful. If writer/director Zach Snyder could have just made an alternate reality themed sci-fi adventure about of team of sexy babes fighting monsters in different periods of history and on different planets then great, fantastic, I would have watched it over and over again until my eyes got bored of the scenery. It would have been the perfect cross between an episode of Doctor Who and a Pussycat Dolls music video. The dream sequences, or dance sequences, or flights of fancy or whatever the hell they’re meant to be are the sort of moments in cinema that inspire me to write and create more than anything else. They break the mould of what you think you can or can’t do within a fictional framework and gives you something astoundingly beautiful to watch in the mean time. Yes, the sequences are like computer games, but in the best possible way.

But then we come crashing back down to Earth with the tedious “real” story which leaves you wanting to bang each and every characters’ head against the wall for being so utterly stupid.

I didn’t feel bad about the girls being in captivity because they all seemed so daft and willing that they deserved their prison. And the evil club owner and guards? I don’t know, I’m not sure what happened to any of them and, because they’re evil men, I’m not really supposed to care. Apparently there was loads cut out of the film that made it a little more coherent… well I’m sorry but I just don’t believe it, there’s plenty more crap left in that could easily have hit the cutting room floor without anybody noticing. I get the feeling that the trouble started with the script and nobody thought to correct it until so much time and effort had been wasted.

Maybe one day somebody will make an elaborate fantasy science fiction movie that will match the great parts of Sucker Punch and not feel the need to tie it all together with a needlessly convoluted plot about girls in an insane asylum or burlesque. Which plane of reality where they really on? I don’t know and I don’t care. They were mostly all dead or lobotomised by the end anyway so their little fight for freedom was made all the more pointless and so was my time in watching it.

In fact don’t bother watching the whole film, just skip to those dream sequences… honestly, you don’t kneed the rest.

Bah!!

3/5