Furious on Film 01.12.06: Issue #27
Posted by Arnold Furious on 01.12.2006
You aint from around here, are ya boy
The aim of this ongoing column was simple. I've been watching films for a long, long time but along the way I've somehow found myself watching some absolute crap on a regular basis. I've seen every episode of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and Halloween. Is there any real need for that? Should I have seen The Bogus Witch Project? Speed 2? Cannonball Run 3? I'm appalled at my own decisions. So I'm now on a crusade to try and be more adult about my film watching. It's time to spread my wings and watch a wider range of films. The biggest problem I've encountered when taking on this challenge is my choices of viewing material aren't always at the level I'd hope for. There are times when I abandon my high and mighty campaign and instead watch whatever my brain decides I need. This can happen at any time but I'll still try to keep up a turnover of films that are challenging in some way.
Warning could well contain minor spoilers throughout. Films are rated on a ***** scale. This week we have
A collection of films from other countries. Well unless you're from Mexico, England, France or Argentina.
Amores Perros, The Football Factory, L'Appartement, Jean de Florette, The Motorcycle Diaries
Amores Perros (2000)
EXPECTATIONS Directed by up and coming directorial star Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. He went on to make 21 Grams and is currently working on Babel. This won a tonne of awards although not the foreign language Oscar despite being nominated in 2001. Not that the Academy ever gets the foreign language winner right. It did however win that honour at the BAFTA's the following year. Although by that point it had become quite clear that Amores Perros was something very special indeed. It also won Critics Week in Cannes.
PLOT A car crash connects three separate groups of people in entirely different ways. Firstly we have Octavio who believes he is in love with his bank robbing brothers wife. He decides to raise some cash to run away with her quicker than his brother can by betting on dogfights. Secondly Daniel has left his wife to be with a famous model called Valeria. They move into a new flat together with their new dog and everything is going fine until a freak accident. Thirdly we follow El Chivo, a psychotic former revolutionary and current scruffy Hitman. His love isn't so much for another woman in the same sense as the others but rather for his daughter who believes him to be dead.
OPINION The first thing that struck me about Amores Perros was the fantastic soundtrack. The exhilarating soundtrack matches the exhilarating pace of this film. Especially Mexican rap group Control Machete's "De Perros Amores", which plays over the opening credits and really sets the pace with it's soulful anger. Next is the title, which translates to "Love's a bitch", which references the dog fights as well as the general nature of the film and the struggle that all the characters are having with love. Even when it works out, it's still a bitch. The best thing about Amores Perros is that after 2/3rds of the film has gone by and it seems like they've run out of things to do they come up with an entire concept for the last third that's entirely different to everything they've done before AND in the process tie up all the loose strings that had been left hanging during the first two parts. Without giving too much away a lot of the film ends up revolving around the decisions made by El Chivo who appears largely as a background character who just likes dogs until we discover his true identity in the latter stages.
BEST BIT The car crash. Each of the three times is better than the one before.
RATING - ****3/4. Enthralling and violent Amores Perros is easily one of the best films of the 00's thus far. It's a memorable experience from start to finish. Highly recommended.
The Football Factory (2004)
EXPECTATIONS Having watched I.D. (*** FoF#26) a few weeks ago I thought it was time to check out the newest film about football hooliganism to see if it fared any better. Some of the problems that I.D. suffered from were; bad acting, a lack of reality and an unconvincing all round vibe. I.D. did have a brilliant script but that was somewhat undermined by classically trained actors trying to play thugs. With The Football Factory the cast is largely unknown. Danny Dyer heads up the cast. He's not got worldwide recognition despite performances in Human Traffic, Is Harry on the Boat (which I hated him in) and High Heels & Low Lives. Director is Nick Love, whose only previous major credit is Goodbye, Charlie Bright. That started Paul Nicolls and generally didn't get good reviews. Dani Behr was in it. Yeah.
PLOT Tommy Johnson (Dyer and also the name of a former Celtic, Derby and Everton striker) is one of the street soldiers for Chelsea football club's "supporters" group who plan rucks against opposing fans on a week-to-week basis. Among the fellow fans are "thieving little cunt" Zeberdee (Roland Mankoonian) and, my favourite, Billy Bright (Frank Harper). He's a 40 year old who can't seem to grow out of his ways despite being married with kids. He also has zero sense of tact and is spoiling for a fight at every opportunity. Johnson is plagued with nightmares about him getting a kicking from a rival group of Millwall supporters. It makes him increasingly paranoid as the big game with Millwall approaches.
OPINION Where I.D. was successful due to a killer script Football Factory falls somewhat short. Yes, it's got great dialogue but the plot is lame. The whole build up to one scrap between two sets of supporters is ridiculous and nothing seems to make any difference anyway. The whole point of Tommy spending an age trying to convince his mate Rod to be there because he might need him watching his back didn't actually go anywhere. The sub-plots were all weak and obvious. If Football Factory didn't have its great dialogue it wouldn't have much at all. I must admit I spent much of the day after watching this telling people to "jog on" and encouraging them to not "mug me off in front of my pals". Beyond the style there isn't much in the way of substance though, which is disappointing.
BEST BIT Billy decides to fight a group of guys in the pub when they won't keep quiet during the FA Cup draw. He's actually there to spend a rare evening out with his ever-suffering wife.
RATING - ***. Much like I.D. it comes up short but while I.D. suffered from a lack of acting skill this comes up short in the plot department. There really isn't much of a plot at all nor does anyone seem to learn from anything that happens. Although that's frustrating it helps add to the realistic feel that the Football Factory has. Making a different and realistic film is one thing BUT in general good films have beginnings, development and an ending (very similar in vibe to this would be Trainspotting expect that had a start, middle and conclusion). This has none of that. What it does have however is the odd huge cliché, which I could have just lived without. I don't want to throw out any more spoilers than necessary but the one character's death is utter cliché and done in an obvious manner. You can't have it both ways. You can't be realistic and then choose to use Hollywood movie clichés in the process. In short plot bad, performance good.
L'Appartement (1996)
EXPECTATIONS First off this was down on my list of movies to see because it has two of my favourite actors in it. 1. Vincent Cassell for one of his earlier performances. You probably know him from La Haine, Joan of Arc, Irreversible or Oceans Twelve and 2. Monica Bellucci who you almost certainly know as Persephone from the Matrix sequels. It's not so much that I love her acting it's more that Bellucci is possibly the most attractive actress in the business today. Director here is Gilles Mimouni who rather bizarrely only ever made this film. He's got a writing credit on Wicker Park (the Josh Hartnett movie) but only because it's a re-make of L'Appartement. No idea what happened to him. Rumours have him returning to direct Monica Bellucci in a vehicle made entirely for her but there's nothing concrete as yet.
PLOT Max (Cassell) is on his way from Paris to Tokyo for a business trip when he spots what he believes to be his long lost love Lisa (Bellucci). This somewhat disrupts plans for the trip and his subsequent marriage to Muriel (Sandrine Kiberlain). But it's really not that simple as Max finds that Lisa isn't that easy to find and there's another Lisa running around who may or may not be the right one. In the middle of all this is Lisa's best friend Alice (Romane Bohringer) who's coincidentally is dating Max's best friend Lucien (Jean-Phillipe Ecoffey).
OPINION The first thing almost everyone seems to say about L'Appartement is that although they enjoyed the film they hated the ending as Max struggles to come to terms with being involved with three separate women who he can't choose between. The film up to that point is fantastically well shot for a rookie director. The way the film moves between present day and flashback as Max investigates his missing love and we slowly learn about the story from different people's perspectives is nothing short of brilliant. It's become very fashionable to shoot a movie from different people's perspectives but more often than not it's one after another. This film complicatedly intertwines everything into one coherent piece of narrative but due to the mixing in of flashbacks we can re-live a scene from two or three different directions. Back to the ending though as that's the crux of most complaints. I admit I was screaming bullshit at the screen. I can't see how Max can make the choices he makes at the end of the film if we've been privy to all the information about these characters. And the neat elimination of one of the characters is just weird and seems totally out of place. Having said that the entire rest of the film is terrific and entertaining.
BEST BIT The most common question I get asked about various foreign films is relating to the nudity of the female leads. Well here you do get Romane in the all together but not Monica so that's not the best bit. The best bit would be Lucien's introduction of Alice to Max as the puzzle begins to slot together in the minds of the characters.
RATING - ****. Solid French flick. It worries me somewhat that all the French cinema I see is really good. It's kind of annoying after years of dispelling it so routinely as art house nonsense. This is just a good story tremendously well told. Acting across the board is great and I've no complaints.
Jean de Florette (1986)
EXPECTATIONS It's French, which used to fill me with a sense of dread but recently my tune has been changed by a string of good to great French movies ending with L'Appartement just a few days ago. The downside to this is Gerard Depardieu stars as the titular Jean and I've never been a big fan of his work although I've only ever seen the American stuff he's done like Green Card, 1492 and My Father The Hero. Actually Green Card isn't that bad but I put that down to Andie MacDowell who I have a huge soft spot for courtesy of Groundhog Day.
PLOT Cesar (Yves Montand) and his nephew Ugolin (Daniel Auteuil) eye up their neighbours land in an attempt to grow flowers across the valley when he unfortunately meets his maker. The problem is that the heir to the land is hunchbacked tax collector Jean de Florette (Depardieu) who's determined to not sell and instead wants the land to raise rabbits on.
OPINION Jean de Florette is a quaint story of simple country folk based almost entirely around farming techniques. If that sounds like a pretty dull way to spend 2 hours then you probably should avoid this right from the get go. They stole the music and the general vibe for the French countryside style Stella Artois adverts, which was really my only point of interest during the films duration. I did quite enjoy the sneaky nature of many of the characters and it's finally a chance to see some French people act like complete and utter assholes. In general it's considered that Jean de Florette is inferior to its second part Manon Des Sources, which followed in the same year. You'd hope so really as Jean de Florette is almost universally bland. The only thing that isn't bland is the acting, which is totally over the top and hammed up to the max. Especially Depardieu as he's rambling about rabbits. Maybe I shouldn't be judging the film until I've seen Manon Des Sources, which is what I intend to do to complete my viewing experience.
BEST BIT Jean decides that dynamite and wine would be a good mixture in order to get well "dug".
RATING - ***. While it's not bad it's very insipid. Perhaps it'll come off as better as the first half of a film (much like Fellowship of the Ring did) when I check out Manon later.
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
EXPECTATIONS Kind of like Charlie Borman and Ewan McGregor's the Long Way Round only with severe political overtones thanks to one half of the travellers being Che Guevara. Director here is Walter Salles who prior to making this was most famous for 1998's Central Station, which I still haven't seen. He's since made US horror flick Dark Water and next he'll be tackling a similar tale to this called On The Road, which was originally penned by Jack Kerouac as his travelling journal around America.
PLOT Ernesto "Che" Guevara wrote a journal in the early 1950's when he travelled South America with his biochemist friend Alberto Granado. During his travels Che learned much about life, which resulted in him changing courses from a life in medicine to being a revolutionary in Cuba.
OPINION The Motorcycle Diaries is a fairly dense piece of work. No doubt Che provided the director with a great deal of editorial choice during his 6 month journey around the Americas. As a result there's a lot to get into the film. Firstly the feeling of freedom that came with their trip but also the sense of distance. Something that I felt was really well conveyed in Lawrence of Arabia. But like Lawrence TMD has a lot of repetition in terms of what we get to experience. Journeying by motorcycle isn't the most thrilling way to see anywhere. Ernesto even says himself once "The Mighty One" has broken down that he'd rather see the country on foot anyway because he has more time to soak up the views. The problem with that as a viewer is that after the bike is knackered the pace slows up even more. The stop offs become less fun and more political like with the mining couple or the leper colony. Increasingly it becomes a political film but what I did enjoy about the transition is it can explain how any random young man could easily become a political leader or a revolutionary given the right set of circumstances. Ernesto is just a normal young man with a girlfriend and a desire to travel. But when he discovers the injustices of the world he feels he should effect change in a positive manner. That's how the film develops as Ernesto goes from the kid next door to a powerful public speaker.
BEST BIT The first time they fall off "The Mighty One" into a water filled ditch. According to Granado in an interview included on the DVD they fell off 50 times on the first leg of the journey alone.
RATING - ****. It perhaps over romanticises Guevara and drags on a little too long but it's still a solid and enjoyable film with some nice road trip set pieces. It can be a little pretentious at times particularly with the closing scenes as Che completes his transformation. The swimming across the Amazon was particularly forced upon me along with the celebrations that followed it. That's why it's not a great movie but merely a good one.
Seeing as it was Christmas I've actually seen a bunch of movies besides these five but I really don't have the time to type anything else up. You'll just have to find out how bad Gothika is for yourself. Oh, and for those fans of Super Troopers, Broken Lizard's follow up Club Dread is nowhere near as funny.
NEXT Fantastic Four, The Door in the Floor and some other bits and bobs. As you can see Christmas has left me even less organised than usual.
