28 Weeks Later

There won't be many big films this summer inspired by Aristotle. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, director 28 Weeks Later, says his is. The philosopher wrote that "rage occurs when a person gives back their own suffering". Whether you think that's mildly pretentious for a film of this nature is not the point; you like it or not, survivor guilt is all over this film in spades.

The sequel to Danny Boyle's 2002 hit 28 Days Later, this picks up the story in a Britain being slowly reconstructed after the deadly Rage virus has wiped out life in the country. The American army leads the operation, and inevitably it all goes wrong. Such things sequels are made of. This one, though, was made at the encouragement of the British director, suggesting his successor on the basis of what Boyle felt to be a unique vision. He was right. Wanting to shoot London 'as an outsider', Fresnadillo riffs creatively on the first film's now famous images of a deserted central London - particularly in the haunting aerial shots of a DLR train carrying refugees to the 'safe' zone of the Isle of Dogs. Survivor guilt is everywhere; not least in Robert Carlyle, who failed to save his wife the first time around. This all leads to a disturbing route back for the mutating virus, whereby some victims take their rage out on those who they perceive to have cause their suffering. (I'll leave out the details for the sake of saving a plot spoiler).

If it's not surprising, then, to discover that the director has felt guilt since the day as a child in Tenerife he witnessed a fatal plane crash, neither is it a shock to learn the parallels with Iraq were deliberate. Arrogant self-assurance of the military? A situation out of control? A people who feel like foreigners in their own land? All there, and more - you may say it's a rather trite parallel, but then Iraq has rapidly become the lens through which we view so much. It may not be entirely convincing, but did we really expect anything else?

We should be grateful. There will be precious few more big films this summer that seek to treat an audience like adults, and look like they have been made with this flair. It's brutally effective, utterly compelling and stays true to it's pessimistic convictions. It's in the nature of such things that I left this film glad to be alive and reflecting that the world is a better, more grace-infected place than I often allow a glance at the news to let me think. This isn't quite the achievement of the original, but it comes close and deserves to stand alone. If you have the required strong stomach and nerves, then you may find it a strangely lightening experience.

Grindhouse Review

Movies can achieve many things – they can wrap a warm blanket of comfort around you, they can help you escape, they can enable you to see things you would never have dreamt of seeing, they can open up large vistas of new ideas and experiences, they can take you back to a time when life was better and more simple, they can recreate the feelings of a happier time of life….

They do different things for different people, and in some cases such experiences and feelings lead an individual into a career in the cinema. Quentin Tarantino is one such person – the Pulp Fiction director’s heritage is now the stuff of legend; his time working in a video store, his encyclopaedic knowledge of films, his obsessive referencing of other films throughout his work. For myself, there are a few films I remember and rather less films that I remember how I feel when I first saw them – and in the case of both Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, I can still remember, years later, the unique sensation of cinematic shock that I left the cinema with having seen the films on their original release. Morally questionable, undeniably gripping and audacious, technically astounding; they were nothing if not unforgettable.

It’s fair to say that Tarantino’s career has been inconsistent since then, which has meant the stakes on his next film were always going to be huge. Never one to shy away from a challenge, he hasn’t exactly played safe with Grindhouse (released in June in the UK, and experiencing a lukewarm box-office reception in the USA). Clocking in over 3 hours, it’s a ‘tribute’ to the experience of watching over the top B-movies in the ‘grindhouse’ cinemas of 70s New York, where seedy exploitation was the purpose and sum of the films’ experiences. There was no real British equivalent, but think B-move sensibility with a building to watch them in to match.

The first thing to say about Grindhouse is that, as you would expect, it’s technically brilliant. There are actually 2 films here, one directed by Tarantino, one by his friend and Sin City creator Robert Rodriguez, as well as trailers for films that don’t exist directed by other guests. As any practioner of any art form will tell you, it’s one thing to be bad, it’s quite another to be deliberately bad. There can be little doubt that the deliberate tackiness and the unbelievable tenor of the piece are the signs of those who are masters of their crafts. The performances are just about all perfect as well – just the right side of self-parody, they are note-perfect for the context. Of the two halves, Rodriguez’s is the weaker – a mutant/zombie action movie given a contemporary war-on-terror twist, there’s just too much happening for anyone to get really involved with it. Tarantino’s segment comes across like an updating of Spielberg’s Duel, with the tables being turned and turned again on viewers and characters alike. Here, at least, the characters are what you remember.

So it’s a mixed bag, lit with technical brilliance. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. It’s also an insulting waste. Is all that’s left of Tarantino’s undoubted talent to hark-bark to something that will never be fully revisited? It seems that he’s yearning for a time when – like standing on the terraces at British football games – comfort wasn’t everything in the viewer’s experience. He wants something vital and visceral, in contrast to the anti-sceptic experience of current-day multiplex viewing; in that there may be something to hearken to. But Grindhouse isn’t it; gripping and impressive as the second-half may be, the whole thing little more than three hours of one potential genius and a less-gifted friend disappearing down a blind alley while showing stunning contempt for the audience. The films may have ‘missing reels’ and ‘authentic’ scratches, but the film’s lack of success in America seems to show that audiences want entertainment and stimulation, not the self-indulgent fantasies of the clever kids in the corner.

All this, and we haven’t even touched on the film’s non-existent moral compass and context. That may again be the point, but at least in his early films and, to a lesser extent the Kill Bill saga, it was possible to construct an argument for moral interpretation. Here that’s probably out of reach.

I have a memory – possibly a false one, but it’s mine and I’m sticking to it – of an early interview with Tarantino where he talks of his wish to make a film about the way the break-up of a romantic relationship seems to those involved like the centre of the world, the only thing worth talking or thinking about, while for everyone else life carries on as normal. That interview may never have happened, or he may not have meant it, but all the same that is a film I would like to see. I want to see Tarantino prove beyond doubt that he is the consummate film-maker many know him to be but struggle to convince his detractors to believe. For now, we are left with Grindhouse; occasionally entertaining, frequently disgusting, technically brilliant and utterly empty.

Yes, that’s the point; but it’s not good enough.

Sunshine

It shouldn't have to be said that science-fiction isn't solely the preserve of role-playing games enthusiasts and anoraks; but to many that's still the case. At it's best science-fiction asks deep questions about what it means to be human and the search for the transcendence. It may be that the genre allows more of these questions to be asked openly; something to do with the perceived unreality of the setting allowing some questions in 'under the radar'. Films like The Forbidden Planet, Bladerunner and Alien all, in their own ways tackle foundational issues.

Which brings us to Sunshine, the latest from British director Danny Boyle; the man responsible for Trainspotting and 28 Days Later. Set almost exclusively on board a spaceship, it's tells a story 50 years in the future when the sun is dying and a crew has been sent out to launch a bomb at the sun in order to restart it. So far, so Armageddon.

This, however, is an ambitious and symbolism-laden film. The atmosphere is claustrophobic and sections of dialogue spend time debating the nature of existence. Much of the first hour is more akin to the slow, considered complexities of Solaris than an effects-laden blockbuster. Even though the film looks fantastic, this didn't have an unlimited budget. It's a $40 million picture that looks much more than that.

As the director has stated in publicising the film, the constrained budget encouraged rather than limited creativity, and it shows. The first bulk of it is never less than gripping - even, or especially, when characters are sitting around a table talking. The scene where two characters go out to repair the damaged ship against the encroaching tide of unbearable sunlight is frightening, gripping and awe-inspiringly beautiful all at the same time. The symbolism is neatly ironic too; the ship's sun-shields are consist of the major portion of the world's gold reserves melted together. The wealth of the nations boiled down in a last ditch survival attempt, to protect a ship named Icarus 2. More could have been made of this, but such restraint allows the point to hibernate in the viewers mind and come back to haunt like virus in hibernation.

In the final act the film takes a turn into Alien territory, while still trying to talk about God. This comes as something of a surprise, and the plot development feels forced. I heard more than one or two confused comments as we left the cinema, all saying that they weren't entirely sure what had happened and why. The British director is clearly in thrall to Ridley Scott's masterpiece, and while he clearly thinks the transition to more traditional - if stylish - thrills is of a piece with what has gone before, it still jars.

None of this stops Sunshine from being one of the likely films of the year. Danny Boyle is one of the most stimulating directors around, and every film of his shows a new dimension and a willingness to take risks. Here, though, it's hard to shake the feeling that the confusion of the final third is an attempt to play-it-safe and lure in the popcorn munchers. Of course there's nothing wrong with that wish; but his other films like 28 Days Later and Trainspotting have proved that sticking to your principles can mean both artistic and commercial success. As a result, Sunshine is merely excellent rather than dazzling.

Can you hear it?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Life’s too busy; London’s too noisy; there’s always far too much going on. I never have time to…; I can’t see you until…; I haven’t had the chance to…

If city life is so bad, why do so many people live there? Why do city draw people so helplessly, relentlessly if they cause nothing but strain and stress and misery and disappointment and illness to those who live there? It’s self-evident, surely, that there’s good and bad about everything and city life shouldn’t be immune to that. There’s plenty that’s wrong with what goes on there.

But who, apart from those who make money from their existence, celebrates cities now? That seems somewhat contradictory to me; cities are growing effortlessly, continually; and they will always do so. Why?

I’ve always lived in or near cities – the last 10 and a half years in a variety of parts of London; I’ve never dreamt of living apart from them. I’ve always trotted out clichés along the lines of: the diversity, the opportunity, the ease of getting places. But there’s something more – walk with eyes open in the city, and you might say you are never more than the glance of an eye from a miracle, from the beautiful and the echo of eternity.

Jon McGregror spends a whole, breathtakingly beautiful book examining this in “If nobody speaks of remarkable things”; a novel, yes, but also a breathless hymn to the endless beauty, the everyday moments of transcendence of city life. It’s a plea to open eyes, to listen, to stop – to all city-dwellers to become archivists, interacting with the things, the places, the people all around.

There are many who bemoan cities – London especially – as places of darkness. But when did you last listen?


If you listen, you can hear it.
The city, it sings.
If you stand quietly, at the foot of a garden, in the middle of a street, on the roof of a house.
It’s clearest at night, when the sound cuts more sharply across the surface fo things, when the song reaches out to a place inside you.
It’s a wordless song, for the most, but it’s a song all the same, and nobody hearing it could doubt what it sings. And the song sings the loudest when you pick out each note.

(Jon McGregor: If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things. Pub. Bloomsbury, 2002. Page 1)

Holier Than Thou

"Really quite clever".

So goes the latest advertising slogan for British TV channel More4. It's a big claim for a station that seeks to both intelligent and entertaining. This week the channel broadcast the feature length comedy drama "The Trial Of Tony Blair", subsequently airing on Thursday on parent station Channel 4. Set in the near future after a belated hand over of power from Blair to Gordon Brown, it charts Blair's new life after power and the slow subsequent build-up to a prosecution for war crimes in Iraq.

It's a bleak piece, with a lightly black comic tone; Blair is a figure of fun, to be equally pitied and despised. Skillful as some of the performances are, though, this is not a clever piece of television. On the contray, it's a deeply unpleasant work. Smugly self-righteous, it's about as appealing as spending Christmas afternoon listening to a drunk uncle hold forth at great length on the blindingly obvious.

It's not the politics of the piece that's such a turn-off; it's just the smug tone of self-righteous wish-fulfillment that is so off-putting. In addition, the fact is that it is difficult to watch for 90 minutes when there's not a single character presented as route into the drama for the audience; there's no-one to sympathise with, no-one to act as the moral conscience, no-one to like.

The writers evidently consider themselves and the audience to be that conscience or that moral centre; but all that leaves is a bad taste in the mouth, that has the unmistakable sense of the moral judgementalism of 'reality' television.All the programme does is replace debate with caricature, hard work with lazy generalisations. Instead of adding to the debate, it trivialises issues by making one man a figure of fun and an object for moral superiority. Such an approach honours no-one and not unlike the war in Iraq, leaves us all worse off.

Blockbusters: The Good News

Blockbusters are bad news. That’s the received critical wisdom. Star Wars, while undoubtedly an iconic movie, is credited with inventing the modern summer event movie that dominates the high concept world of the packed summer (and other holiday) schedules that we now live with. Blockbusters are effects dominated, money driven and are at best the cinematic equivalent of a roller-coaster; exhilarating while you’re on it, but pointless as soon as you’ve finished.

However there’s another side to it. Consider this: Jurassic Park – perhaps the definition of a 90s blockbuster – enabled the production of one of the 90s’ masterpieces, Schindler’s List. This was, as now well recorded, the project Spielberg waited years to make after acquiring the rights to Thomas Keneally’s book. When he finally felt ready to do so, he took his proposal for a three hour black and white documentary style film to MCA president Sid Sheinberg who agreed with one condition – that Spielberg make Jurassic Park too. He obliged, and the fact that he worked on the special effects for the latter while shooting the former in Poland is the bizarre truth. That one financially guaranteed the other is clear; that it maintained the director’s emotional sanity is possibly a reasonable assumption.

It’s said by many that Schindler’s List is beyond criticism because of its subject matter. However, as I approached the DVD re-issue, ‘appropriate’ criticism lurked in my memory. Don’t I remember being told that the film makes Schindler too simplistic and one-dimensional? Isn’t the girl in the red coat a touch too far? Isn’t it just a little, well, sentimental?

These questions remained unanswered on viewing the film itself. I was angry and tearful at times, yes. But it wasn’t the devastating experience I remember as a student. It’s good, of course, but I left thinking time had played a trick on me and that the few critical voices that had remained in my head had something to say.

Then we come to the main extra on the DVD. It’s a compilation of accounts from survivors. As you listen, you realise you’re hearing the film in the first person. There’s the boy who escapes the ghetto liquidation by telling the SS he’s been ordered to clear the road of debris. There’s Goethe’s servant girl, saying she knew how many people he would kill that day by the hat he chose. Here are the women who huddled into a large room, waiting to see if they’d be gassed or showered. You realise as you listen, that Spielberg simply put memory on film as faithfully as appropriate.

What you realise next is that the masterstroke is indeed the black and white documentary style of the film. One survivor describes the concentration camp as having “no colour”. This, then, was more than an artistic choice. He simply recorded what he heard. Some of it - you hear words in this documentary from survivors that make it clear that Spielberg left out some things that should never be put on film. Some things, he realised, we don’t need to see. We should only hear some things first person, because, to be honest, we just wouldn’t believe it. What he gave us is enough.

So the DVD package, while light in the number of extras, gives us enough to remind us that what we’re seeing is indeed more than a film; in a sense, it should be beyond criticism. On reflection, the choices that Spielberg made seem appropriate, helping us to absorb all that we need to. Who in their right mind can talk about this the same way we do about American Beauty or Casablanca, however great they are? – one of the survivors talks of the importance of individual names going on the list, being called out and singled out. The film shows us lives, with names and histories and (in the haunting colour epilogue) futures. Without Jurassic Park’s money, millions of people may never have heard them.

One last thing came to me after pressing stop on this DVD. My father’s mother was a Jew who converted to Christianity. She and her young family escaped invading German forces by the skin of their teeth. As a child, when my father told me this, I often had a dream. I heard boots racing upstairs. Silence. Then shooting. I survived because I was secured to the bottom of a mattress, out of sight. There’s a boy like that in this film. I don’t recall right now if he survived, and I can’t bring myself to check.

These are lives. With names and histories. And thanks to one man, with futures.

(This article first appeared on http://www.joyofmovies.com )