Reviews

The strength of this film lies in the the fact that it has a plot - a simple one - but it attempts to tell a story which is a welcome return to old fashioned movie making. The black and white wide screen photography further places this film in the realm of something special, something so confidently realised and self-assured that it does not need to gaudily, noisily market itself to the audience. What the audience gets is a playful reworking of the conventional romance which, in its own way, reinforces the power of love and trust.

The film opens with a six-minute sequence, where Vanessa Paradis as Adele is interviewed by an unseen woman in front of an audience. It may be a TV studio, or a psychologists' convention - this is not important, but what is important is the honesty and the confidence with which the questions are answered. All this sets the tone and the mood and the theme of the film. Adele speaks about luck (all of it bad) and banal, failed, empty sexual encounters. She says, "I've never had a day where I wasn't taken advantage of." Adele, then, is like all of us in a modern society. We desperately buy into the images before us, never checking out the depth behind the facade.

On a lonely Parisian bridge at night, Adele contemplates suicide and is saved by Gabor (Daniel Auteuil) a knife thrower looking for a new target. They team up and the story begins. This is not a story of a fortysomething lusting after a nubile young thing but rather a story of people who deserve each other, people who have been damaged by society and who need more than just sex. When the couple part, they cannot function without each other - physically and mentally. The story ends where it begins, on a bridge - a perfect symbol of transience and change and also danger (what lies on the other side?).

There are some serious Jungian and Freudian symbols here, the most obvious being the phallic throwing knives and the act itself as the perfect substitute for sex. Have fun connecting with the symbols - dwarves, leopards, boats, the ocean, fire, wheels, cars - and the music from Marianne Faithfull, Brenda Lee and North African rhythms and you will not be bored by this quirky look at the human condition. A worthwhile view from this bridge.

Brian De Palma is known for his thrillers and his ability to craft a story along Hitchcock lines - Dressed to Kill, The Untouchables and the like were stories which kept the audience in their seats, paying homage to the great noir directors of the past. All this made a great deal of sense until he signed on to direct Mission to Mars, a big budget space adventure which relies on the tried but true science fiction premise of "What if?". Obviously, De Palma wanted to challenge himself with the visual pyrotechnics as he had done with Snake Eyes. Mission to Mars is not a hit - but it should not be dismissed outright. It will not appeal to the modern movie-goers who require thrills and spills with every handful of popcorn that misses the mouth. This film is slow and paced - sometimes too methodical for its own good. When the film does shine, it shines very brightly but it is let down by cardboard characterisation and too obvious references to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The year is 2020 and as the film opens, we are at a party celebrating the imminent launch of the mission to Mars. A superb single take makes up for some banal expository dialogue between Don Cheadle, Tim Robbins and Connie Nielsen all of which is meant to segue seamlessly to the angst ridden entrance of Gary Sinise. De Palma then cheats us of the actual first footprint on Mars, preferring to cut to much later when the expedition is almost wiped out by a vicious sandstorm - a teaser shot of the ‘face on Mars' and then we cut back to another sequence. Herein lies the problem with Mission to Mars - it is a series of marvellously staged set pieces, one of which builds superb tension, genuine edge of the set stuff, but is let down by some shoddy writing and dodgy exposition and characterisation - a kind of Lloyd Webber in space.

The ending is trite and is a complete let down after all that has gone before but this film looks great on the big screen and should be seen there. De Palma is a good director but his later films have all suffered from a lack of good script writing and solid characterisation. This is a disappointing film but not a bad one; it certainly beats tripe like The Haunting and The Deep Blue Sea hands down. An entertaining curate's egg.

Much has been made of the reasons behind the making of this film. Neil Jordan has been accused of misogyny and, horror of horrors, making an old-fashioned movie. What the majority of critics fail to see is the craft and the skill behind this movie - the attention to detail and the paring down of the language until we get a sublime film experience in which the notion of romance becomes an exploration of faith and trust. These characters do belong to another era; there is no doubt. Their world is one in which the rules are stringently applied and the price for rebellion is high. Modern audiences love to wallow in their supposed freedoms, but they fail to acknowledge the battles fought to win them those freedoms. Between 1939 and 1942 a love affair develops between Maurice (Ralph Fiennes in top form) and Sarah (Julianne Moore in even better form). The blitz serves as a metaphorical backdrop as these two damaged individuals consummate an affair that is lustful but lacking in spirituality. Sarah is married (Stephen Rea in a sublime piece of acting) and follows no religion ( but turns to Catholicism in a time of need) and, inexplicably, she breaks off the relationship much to the chagrin of Maurice. The story does not end there and what follows is a painful examination of trust and faith and betrayal seen from different points-of-view. Jordan gets his characters to speak through their actions and uses dialogue sparingly. Just watch Ralph Fiennes shaving and you will pick up what kind of a man he is. The way he makes love, watch his braces and his clothing. Watch Julianne Moore's hands, her walk and you will pick up the crisis of faith that this woman must endure in a man's world. The trademark Jordan touches are there; fairgrounds, lots of rain, tracking shots, flashbacks, jagged editing - all part of a perfect movie experience. This study of obsessive love, jealousy and contempt is true to the spirit of Graham Greene and a moving, intellectual and ultimately satisfying movie experience. I have seen it three times and I am still finding new things, new insights and enjoying it every time. This film is close to being the perfect film because it uses the medium of film to get the audience to analyse itself and its reactions - one to think about and talk about.

Some people will be offended by this film and they probably will not go to see it - and they should. This film has a message - that the supposed 'faithful' have screwed up, not the church. However, some people who think themselves the chosen, will find the portrayal of God (as a woman dressed by Lacroix), angels (dressed by Hugo Boss) and the end of the world as blasphemous. This film is a gem - a delightful 'what if' scenario that covers everything from the virgin birth to the films of John Hughes! The dialogue is clever and we are shown a world that has, sadly, gone astray because of patriarchy, blind faith, intolerance and lack of compassion. This film is a much needed tonic which gets one to think of why we are here and to question one's beliefs. This film squarely sides with redemption and faith and takes all the pomposity out of organised religion. Full marks to Kevin Smith and the cast - Matt Damon is great as Loki, the former angel of death, Ben Affleck shines as Bartleby the watcher but top dollar to Linda Fiorentino and Alan Rickman - their scenes together are worth the price of admission. This is a brave film and should be seen by more people - my Catholic School upbringing got a good shake up - at last! I will always treasure the scene where God does a handstand...

The story is back. The only special effect that will never go out of fashion says Sam Mendes, the director of American Beauty, a sharp-edged triumph of direction, acting and story. Here is a story about anarchy that resides not in the minds of terrorists, but in the lives of people whose every move is designed and calculated, people whose marriages are a sham, people who lack compassion and tolerance and whose lives behind their white picket fences are emotionally stunted. Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a forty-two year old piece of damaged humanity who is married to an uncomprehending, neurotic wife Carolyn (Annette Bening). They live in a pleasant, pretty house and have a daughter Jane (Thora Birch) , all gloomy resentment and dourness. This may seem on the surface to be another dissection of the human condition but it is much, much more. Sam Mendes has taken Alan Ball's script and crafted a film that is compelling and deeply moving and, ultimately, a complex and richly layered chronicle of our troubled times. Into this world come the strange young man next door Ricky (Wes Bentley) who has flashes of insight through his video camera and his parents Chris Cooper and Allison Janney) a retired colonel of the Marine Corps who harbours more than a streak of fascism and homophobia and the almost invisible mother who has all but retreated into her own personal Twilight Zone. By the time the film ends, all these characters have changed and have made their escapes in one way or another but we as an audience have been deeply shocked and moved by what has unfolded. This is a savage satire where the title of the film takes on different shades of meaning once you have seen the film and the repeated motif of red roses and rose petals take on layers of meaning that enhance and accent this story of a society in pain. Kevin Spacey brings brilliance to the downbeat, sorrowful Lester and his infatuation with Angela (Mena Suvari), a high-school cheerleader, traces the course of his redemption as he begins to sort out what is and what is not important in life. All of his attempts at "self-improvement" are pathetic but they are born out of clear, honest cleansing anger and rage as he becomes aware of his shortcomings - emotional and physical. Lester is one of the great characters of cinema. Annette Bening's Carolyn, lacquered and hysterical, has an affair with Buddy (Peter Gallagher) in a deluded desire to soak up some of his success as a real-estate king and fails to see that her husband and her marriage are in danger of imploding. Lester constantly imagines her the way she was when he married her but she is a long, long way from those times. The household has moved from mere dysfunction to anarchy. This film boasts some superb cinematography and editing - the wide-screen compositions are breathtaking - and a satirical use of music to accentuate the images. Incisive, intelligent and witty - an astonishing film - a beauty.

A very confusing film with nods to Hitchcock, some very good photography and little else. The plot involves the Hitchcock staples of obsession and paranoia but lacks the ultimate touch of the master - suspense. I was told that this film was a 'must see' and how great it was and how wonderful the structure was and how engaging it all was. Well, do not waste the time because this film is a pretentious, overlong piece of French 'style' - lots of visual cleverness and moody pouting (called great acting when it is in a French film) but little substance. At the end you could not care less what happens to these self-obsessed characters and I must have had a bad day because I could not follow a lot of this. The film uses a fragmented narrative by presenting the sequences in flashback and in no particular order. We are shown scenes several times and with new perspectives each time so we can try to make sense of the story, if one can call it that. I had to resort to looking at the characters' hair in order to figure out when things were happening. There was also a great deal of symbolism - red rose, white rose, red walls, white shirts, long hair, short hair, red shoes and on and on and on until I yelled enough! The symbols, of course, go nowhere and are presented in sledgehammer fashion so that we can marvel at how clever it all is even though it makes no sense. This is "Single White Female" meets French pretension made by a director who has studied too many Hitchcock films but failed the exam.

The horror genre relies on atmosphere and a certain amount of shock. Sadly, many directors rely on gore to get their popcorn guzzling audience to sit through their work. Tim Burton is an interesting director but he relies also on visual excess to cover up that his films often lack a plot. Sleepy Hollow is as its title suggests - a yawn. Granted, the production design is spectacular, a delight to the eye, there is cleavage to delight the soul and lots of British thespians to delight the brain, but there is little else. I was not chilled or thrilled by this pretentious, expensive twaddle. Loosely based on the Washington Irving story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", the film is badly miscast with Johnny Depp in the role of Ichabod Crane (one wonders what Jeff Goldblum - closer to Irving's idea of Crane - would have done with the role). Depp puts on some sort of accent while everone around him is touring the British Isles with theirs and Miranda Richardson has an inexplicably American twang which disappears from time to time. Christina Ricci is wasted - she does not even get good frocks, only a billowing cape, the frocks are left to Miranda Richardson who gets several costume changes, some mad-woman histrionics and a bit of rumpy in the forest (why - don't ask). Burton and his plotters play around with the original story and add some modern bits because hip, hop and happening audiences like their costume dramas with current references so they do not get lost. An uncredited Martin Landau gets his noggin lopped off at the start and then it's on, for young and old - axes fly, heads roll, Miranda glares, push up bras strain, Danny Elfman's score goes over the top, the British thesps think of the money they're making, swallow their pride and the whole thing ends with a blatant rip-off from "The Moonspinners" and "Terminator". This movie goes on and on and on - I can tell you there are few words you can make from the letters in the Exit sign. I cannot spoil the plot for you because there isn't one and the revelation about the Van Tassells cheating the Van Dammes because of the Van Halens by stealing from the Van Goghs is so convoluted and uninteresting that I concentrated on the cleavage. Incidentally, there is some sub-plot about Ichabod Crane's mum floating in a forest (dream sequence) which is a hoot - primarily because the actor playing Depp as a child is the weirdest looking kid (think Uncle Fester's love child with Monica Lewinsky) and an obscure symbol involving a red cardinal (bird). My bottom went numb watching this and the entire cast and crew should be spanked for their crimes against intelligence.

I love the work of Jane Campion and so I went along to this film expecting a multi-textured, many layered story on faith and love and being female. What I saw was certainly many layered - a stodgy pudding of so many ingredients that, while still edible, left one confused as to what the heck it was. I liked the first half of the film, I was confused by the second half. There certainly must have been smoke of some kind when the script was written - lots of it because the viewer emerges from this experience in a kind of heavy-headed hangover where more questions are asked than answered. I wish films in Australia would tell a story and forget this daft Priscillaesque montage of quirky characters in outback locations wearing kinky costumes. Yet this is exactly where Campion takes us and throws symbols at us as though there were no tomorrow. The symbolic references are sometimes so obscure (constant references to red and green for example) or just plain silly (gay men in mardi-gras cowboy outfits). Kate Winslet tries hard and even gets a good accent going but before you can say meaningful night shot, her clothes are off and she's turning Harvey Keitel into a transvestite. I loved Julie Hamilton as the mother - nice character, well meaning but she was surrounded by the most useless group of family members that gave nothing to the plot and were, frankly, an embarrassment (why make the brother a gay character?) and another of those quirky Aussie families with no taste and thick as stale bread. I don't know any outback morons but they keep cropping up in Australian films. I would have thought someone as intelligent as Jane Campion would have resisted the stereotypes and the cliche long enough to give us a damn good story. I did not hate this film; I left confused and bewildered. A group of women behind me, whooped and applauded and left giggling and in high spirits. Maybe they saw something I did not. I certainly saw Pam Grier in the most ridiculous costume playing a thoroughly superfluous character. This film is a mess - a pudding that deserves to be eaten and then thrown up and the parts analysed.

I go to film adaptations with trepidation - "The English Patient" was such a poor adaptation betraying the message in the novel that when I entered this cinema, I was not expecting much. I loved the novel and I had read it many times. What I saw was a well-made, thoughtful, innovative adaptation of a book that had many many themes and layers. If I had to praise just one thing in this film, I would say it had to be the lack of dialogue. The film relies on visual associations; objects are imbued with meaning - characters say more through the objects and settings they are near that with long speeches. Light is used symbolically - we are shown many scenes at night, characters are lit by lamps or by wildly swinging electric lights and lights are turned off or go out when we want to see more. Hicks is hinting at the murky nature of truth and memory - we get snatches of past lives, briefly glimpsed - the editing breaking up, in a jagged fashion, the non-linear narrative. This is a slow movie; the viewer will have to work, and work hard for the rewards that Hicks pays out if you stay with it. There are subtle, intelligent performances and, often, it what is not said that says so much. I loved what the story has to say - that, often, one has to let go of the past and move on; life is not perfect and there is often a subtle beauty in the imperfection within a human heart. The cinematography is exemplary and sublime - lots of cutaway shots to symbolic images (get out your Jungian glossary and enjoy) and a particularly poignant scene in which the Japanese are deported (the American shame is conveyed very effectively). The courtroom scenes are cut and layered (lots of Altman overlapping dialogue) and given less time than in the novel. All of this works beautifully to make a rewarding movie experience. I liked "Shine", I loved "Snow Falling on Cedars".

This film should be on everyone's 'must see' list. A meditative, brooding film which relies on how much is not seen or said with some truly breathtaking scenery as its backdrop. A small town with dark undercurrents is the setting and the characters are hurting, metaphorically bleeding, on the inside from the mistakes of the past. James Coburn is pure malice with his comments on "women knowing their place" while he terrorises his sons and their mother. Most of the violence is implied and the snow which blankets the town is a fitting symbol for the cold, sterile feelings which pass for affection. 'Affliction' is an apt title - these characters are not affected by the pain but afflicted with it as Willem Dafoe's character says at one point. Nick Nolte is good, very good - showing a range and subtlety, working with the other actors to create a moody ensemble piece which has one thinking long after one has left the theatre. A lot of this film takes place in the mind, echoing intrusive thoughts which drive a man to his ultimate tragedy. This has Shakespearean undertones - the chaos of the natural world, the sins of the past rearing up to claim those in the present and the sheer waste of love and tolerance on recrimination and cruelty. A fine cast - Sissy Spacek, Mary Beth Hurt, Jim True all help to make this movie memorable. The film, however belongs to James Coburn, Nick Nolte and the impeccable direction of Paul Schrader. Part thriller, part psychological study - this is a great film and worth a second and a third look.

It was great to see true satire up on the screen after all those films proclaiming themselves as "black comedies" and failing to deliver. This movie was brash, acerbic, gritty and caustic - a comment on our white bread society and all its "Ikea boys". This is arguably the best film to come out of a major studio in 1999. David Fincher is a brave director who plays with the iconography of film to reinvent the language of film. True, the themes of alienation and despair are not new but Fincher takes a new slant on these problems and delivers a metaphysical, brooding tale on the nature of existence, death and one's place in the grand scheme of things. From the production design to the flawless acting, this is a must see - more than once to pick up all the movie references and the symbols. Fincher keeps reminding us that we are watching a film - at one point he shows us the sprocket holes - here, the ideas are important to knock us out of our comfortable seats in the dark. Brad Pitt delivers as does Edward Norton who is fast becoming an actor of discernment and skill. Helena Bonham-Carter finally rips her bodice and throws it away to play the vacuous fantasy toy of the disillusioned male. I loved this film because it does not give easy answers - the Ayn Rand solution rings hollow but Fincher is forcing us to think out our predicament by an assault on our comfortable viewing practices bred by years of films with no vision.

After a long wait, "Bedrooms and Hallways" made it to Perth cinemas - not a commercial one mind you - and I thought it was fun, honest and took a swipe at those 'tribal scream' groups running around trying to find meaning in rocks and 'what's behind my eyes'. It is playing to full houses over here because it tells a story, has terrific acting and says something about the human condition.

I had stayed away from this film because so many people had said negative things about it. The reviews are often scathing and refer to it as 'lame'. When I finally got to see it, I realised that most people do not get the satire and the witty send-up of screen writing and movies. William Holden gives a memorable performance as the script writer and Audrey Hepburn positively sizzles as the typist proving that she could hold her own against any leading man. I loved the in-jokes (Mel Ferrer in an uncredited cameo, Marlene Dietrich and Christian Dior, Noel Coward camping it up, Tony Curtis sending himself up etc, etc). This film is memorable because it sends up movies, and the process of making movies. It has countless movie references from "Funny Face" to "Casablanca" and for anyone who considers themselves a movie-buff, this is a must. For the average movie goer, this film may seem fragmented and slow but once you are in on the joke, it is pure movie magic. Audrey, we miss you!