Reviews

Flanders, 1940: during a bombing raid, the gates to an asylum are left open, allowing patients to drift out onto the street and blend in with the human train of refugees. Folle embellie, directed by Dominique Cabrera and written by Cabrera and Antoine Montperrin, follows several of these figures from the hospital, as they learn to cope with the outside world, and not just any world: the world during wartime. It's a movie subject you don't see every day.

Cabrera has said in interviews that she wanted to tell a story looking at how this heightened situation could bring about changes in the characters, and therefore become a vehicle for a story of social change in general. It's quite hard initially to grasp how involved we are meant to be in this story and these characters, especially as events seem to proceed in a fairly disorientating fashion. At first, Alida (Miou-Miou) and her son Julien (Morgan Marinne), separated from the others, seek refuge on a barge; later, further along the canal, they rejoin with Julien's father Fernand (Jean-Pierre Leaud) and the rest of the group. From there, it becomes a kind of road movie, except that the road is a rural backstreet and the characters aren't really heading anywhere definite.

It's intriguing to spend time with a movie whose cast of characters is not conventionally communicative: unlike, say, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (an obvious comparison), there is no Jack Nicholson character with whom the audience can readily engage, and if we could say that the nemesis role, the Nurse Ratched part, is filled by the Nazis, well, they aren't in the film that much either - although the movie does a very good job of portraying the lulled, casual threat that they pose in this landscape of stragglers and wanderers.

As Fernand, the tightly-wound and dogmatic attention-grabber, Jean-Pierre Leaud is riveting, even if it's unclear how controlled or deliberate his performance is. It's hard to watch Fernand without thinking of Leaud's own up-and-down screen persona of the past couple of decades. Perhaps Cabrera is subtly utilising our knowledge of the actor to bring edginess to the portrayal of Fernand. It would be very nice, though, to see Leaud play a role which is not, in some way, tortured, and to play it with the supreme authority that he still seems to possess. But has he ever given such a performance? He remains a frustrating puzzle of the cinema; so often has he come so close to being so good.

Morgan Marinne was, of course, superb as Francis, the teenager just out of juvenile custody in Le Fils - and yet that film appearance was also a triumph of casting; it was a question as to whether, or how well, he could do another role. In Folle embellie he may not seem strictly in-period, but with his watchfulness and concentration he is so absorbing, he manages to transcend his natural register. He also shows that he has a very sure grip on his craft: if Le Fils was a major test for actors, with its lengthy takes and movements choreographed precisely with the camera, Julien in Folle embellie is a demanding part because it's not easy to act opposite people who are aiming to be unpredictable, and Marinne proves himself equal to this challenge. His lucidity allows Julien to shine: his character arc gives a satisfying structure to the understandably meandering nature of so much of the material.

Dominique Cabrera uses the camera as an omniscient presence, more than just an observer, capable of flights of fancy (such as some Crouching Tiger-like trips through the trees) to convey the reach of her characters. She spreads an intoxicating sheen across the material, making it seem perhaps more logical than it actually is, and papering over any cracks in character development or interaction. The tone is a nice mixture of looseness and purpose, and even if it is not a totally satisfying story, it provides many striking images and a general sense that the warm moments in wartime life are hard-earned and fleeting.

Umberto Eco's novel has something of a reputation as one of the great unread bestsellers. To have it on the shelf in the early eighties was a fashion statement as much as it was a literary necessity. And yet when the film was released, it was attacked for being an ineffective adaptation. Turning the 600-page novel, a detective mystery enriched by descriptions of medieval life and semiotic ruminations characteristic of Eco's academic writings, into a mainstream two-hour movie was, of course, ambitious. Four credited screenwriters and an international co-production gave off a sense of struggle and indecision. The movie was, and remains, easy to deride.

It's true that the film, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, has to skip, or skirt, much of Eco's detail - the famous pages-long description of the doorway, for example, is acknowledged by a few camera shots - but it takes the novel's literary strengths and offers a cinematic equivalent: a vivid depiction of monastic life which thrusts the viewer into the period of the story. In this respect, the production is exemplary: cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli, art director Dante Ferretti and composer James Horner were all operating at the top of their game.

And, as Renton in Trainspotting (1996) knows, Sean Connery proved a perfect choice as William of Baskerville, the 14th-century Sherlock Holmes figure investigating the deaths in an Italian monastery. It's one of Connery's best performances, a happy marriage of character acting and star casting: he suits the physical description of William and he properly conveys the character's wisdom, caution and sense of regret. Christian Slater's Adso, the narrator of the novel, is a surrogate for the viewer, expressing bafflement at the mystery story and awe at William's deductive powers; while F. Murray Abraham works wonders with the underwritten part of the inquisitor Bernardo Gui.

The Name of the Rose is one of the most underrated movies of the eighties. That it wasn't brilliant should not detract from the fact that it's as good as it is.

It's easy to see why such high hopes were pinned on The Right Stuff - a passionate writer-director in Philip Kaufman, a talented cast, and famous source material courtesy of Tom Wolfe - and it's easy to see why it was a costly flop. Although the space race, told from the American side, may seem a stirring subject, a box-office winner, The Right Stuff fails to negotiate its way through an episodic plot and a dissipated focus. Spanning nearly twenty years from when Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) broke the sound barrier to the astronauts' first trips into orbit, the film lacks an audience-friendly shape, and there is no natural climax. Indeed, the whole film feels like a first act.

The true first act - or is it the prologue? - depicts Yeager's granite-like determination to become the first man to break the sound barrier. Here, and in the flying sequences that follow, the film is at its best and most confident. Bill Conti's heroic score accompanies the beautifully-edited sequences of airborne endeavour. After this, Yeager takes a back seat, and the rest of the film is given over to the seven men with 'the right stuff' - among them Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid and Fred Ward - and the race to get them into space before the Russians manage it with one of theirs.

The Right Stuff is a strange beast, a really curious experience. It's an absolute pleasure to look at, very expertly produced by Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, who also gave us Rocky (1976) and Raging Bull (1980), and it's well played by its bright cast, many of whom were in the relative infancy of their careers. The technical achievements of this film won four Oscars, including Best Editing and Best Sound.

Kaufman, though, directs in an uncertain tone. Is his point to critique the American space program, and to make a mockery of the contradictions between political machinations and personal pressure? Or is he, rather, celebrating the courage and vision of these far-from-everyday heroes? It's strange to find, for example, Sam Shepard (astonishingly handsome, no matter that he hardly ages a day from beginning to end) in the same film as Jeff Goldblum's slapstick official, the latter the subject of a running joke as he repeatedly hurries along the corridor and bursts into the meeting to break news that the attendees already know. On top of that, the wives undoubtedly suffer, and yet it seems as if the film is siding more with the men, joking around in the bar, oblivious to their ladies' distress.

The result of all this is that it never digs far enough below the surface to uncover any real truths. And for a three-hour film which takes in such a great many events, that's ultimately insubstantial, impressive and entertaining though it may be.

Oh, how I love this movie! Coming between The Enforcer and Every Which Way But Loose, The Gauntlet often seems to get lost in the shuffle, but it's always been one of my favourite Clint Eastwood films. It's just such...fun!

Eastwood plays Ben Shockley, a Phoenix cop who might be good at his job if only he wasn't such a slob. He's sent to Las Vegas to extradite a witness, Gus Mally (Sondra Locke), to a seemingly low-profile court case. On the way back to Phoenix, various attempts are made on their lives, and Shockley starts to suspect that he's been set up...

What we have is a rip-roaring action movie - and a very scenic road movie - and a rather sweet love story. The Gauntlet is all of these and more, as Shockley and Mally start off as captor and prisoner and soon find themselves allies against implacable enemies.

It's full of terrific characters and moments: the Commissioner (a chilling William Prince) telling Shockley that Mally is 'a nothing witness for a nothing trial'; Shockley and Mally's car ride with the lecherous cop (Bill McKinney), a sequence which is practically a short movie in itself; the night-time argument in the cave, Ben and Gus illuminated just by firelight; the encounter with the bikers; the long bus ride towards the final showdown. And check out the chemistry between Eastwood and Sondra Locke. As with all successful screen couples, even though their characters spend much of the time bickering, it would appear that they really do need each other. Shockley hardly seems to have a single likeable character trait, and yet Eastwood, at his most adorable, really makes you root for him. Mally is that oldest of film cliches, the wise hooker, but Locke's performance is so fresh in that it makes her part lover, part sister, part mother to Shockley while retaining her single-minded self-preservation. No wonder he falls for her.

Look closely at The Gauntlet and you'll spot the odd gaping plot hole or moment of downright barmy motivation. And yet somehow this film gets away with it all. It's made with such conviction, it just whisks you along, right up to the absurd, and yet riveting, bullet-drenched ending. Top marks go to Jerry Fielding's jazz score; to cinematographer Rexford Metz, who conjures up the sense of being out on the road with nowhere to hide; and to editors Ferris Webster and Joel Cox for keeping it moving with such momentum we never question its outlandishness until way past bedtime. Oh, and I have to say, I always love the sound in Eastwood's movies. There's lots of clutter, lots of background noise; in short, they sound like real life.

Incidentally, there's an alternative version of this movie, which contains different takes of scenes with the language toned down for TV broadcast. It's that version which I first saw, on British TV in the mid-80s, and, in toning down the language, it actually improves the dialogue in a couple of places. Whereas in the cinema (and DVD) version Eastwood is quite profane, it's even more menacing to hear him, in the TV version, saying 'Would you cut the tourist jazz, man?' and 'I didn't do diddley'! It would be so great if that version could be unearthed and put on a Special Edition DVD! Anyway, do seek out The Gauntlet - it's well worth it! ('Nag, nag, nag...')

Allie (Jenny Whiffen), a freewheeling photographer, comes to visit her parents Sarah (Fiona Curzon) and John (George Little) at their cottage in the French countryside. John is losing his eyesight, which affects his drawings; Sarah looks on, poised somewhere between love, habit and duty. Allie's brother Richard (Andrew Loudon) lives nearby, with his French girlfriend and her young son. Later, Allie and Richard's sister Lucy (an excellent Eleanor Martin) turns up too. What should be a relaxed time of family get-togethers is, instead, painful and agonised.

It's the pain not of a stab wound but of broken skin, constantly being irritated, never getting a chance to heal. There's ominous tension between Allie and Richard: she seems jealous of his life, scornful of his choices, while he seems uncommonly touched by her. The father is a remote figure to them, and to us; he'd probably prefer it if the other characters and the movie's audience were all to go away and leave him alone to stare at the ravishing view.

As directed by Jonathan Hourigan, Almost Home stealthily captures the sense of a family of educated, capable people diverted into inarticulacy by perplexing thoughts. Communication, it seems, deserted this family long ago. As they brush against each other, there is so much being left unsaid that the feelings can surely reveal themselves only in outbursts and drastic action; and indeed, by the film's end, we've had both.

For all its dramatic material, the movie maintains a careful (though never sluggish) pacing. And there's so much here that is, or hints at, raw hurt, it's perhaps a relief that we're not asked to delve deeper. Atmospheric and classically composed, Almost Home remains alert to the conflicts that can exist between people whose lives are unavoidably entwined.

Woody Allen fans have been having a bit of a hard time lately - particularly those living in the UK. Hollywood Ending (2002) and Anything Else (2003) haven't managed to get released here yet, either in cinemas or on DVD. And The Curse of the Jade Scorpion played only briefly on the big screen - and sank like a stone.

Yet watching it again, a couple of years later, I can't see what the problem is, really. The Curse of the Jade Scorpion is an enjoyable, if light, comedy which delivers entertainment value to rival most successful contemporary releases.

It's New York, 1940: seasoned insurance investigator C. W. Briggs (Allen) is irritated by the arrival of new employee Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt), brought in to streamline the company. She sees Briggs as archaic; he sees her as interfering. One evening, an office trip to a local club results in Briggs and Miss Fitzgerald being taken on stage by a hypnotist (David Ogden Stiers) and made to declare their love for each other, much to the amusement of their colleagues. Once out of the trance, neither Briggs nor Betty Ann remembers a thing. But when Briggs becomes the prime suspect in a series of jewel robberies, he finds he needs Betty Ann's help, and together they set about uncovering the mystery of the Jade Scorpion...

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion has beautiful period design, and Zhao Fei's gold-tinged cinematography suggests a black and white studio production of the forties, with prominent, classical framing, expressive use of shadow, and an economical use of establishment shots. And there's a group of appealing in-period performances: Allen and Hunt spar verbally to amusing effect; Stiers sends a shiver down the spine with the words 'Constantinople' and 'Madagascar'; Dan Aykroyd plays the hapless boss; Brian Markinson, as Al, gives a nice account of what it might be like to have to work with Woody Allen in an office; and Charlize Theron, as a sultry heiress, is memorable with long blonde hair and man-eater self-assurance.

Perhaps there's a feeling at the moment that Allen's filmmaking output has become habitual, that he's working a little bit on autopilot. If so, show me another director who, on autopilot, can use long takes so gracefully that their boldness only hits us later, who can retain such a sense of pace (Alisa Lepselter's editing is very nimble, and has a nice use of dissolves), and who can spin such an engaging feature-length yarn from the resolutely short-story idea of a hypnotist's act. If some of his most recent offerings feel like they could have done with a couple more rewrites - Small Time Crooks, say, and definitely Anything Else - then Jade Scorpion, while not top-level Allen, is a very agreeable movie.

Emotional Backgammon is a relationship comedy-drama set in London. Cynical Steve (Leon Herbert) instructs sensitive John (Wil Johnson) in the scheming, manipulative world of women - principally, John's estranged girlfriend, Mary (Daniela Lavender). Meanwhile, her friends, led by Jane (Jacqueline De Peza), give her similarly ruthless advice about how to deal with men. It's a familiar premise for a movie, and one which Emotional Backgammon seizes enthusiastically. The results are very mixed, but this is a film worth seeing.

The idea of 'emotional backgammon', as rather strenuously outlined by Steve in the film's on-off narration, is a pretty laboured metaphor - and an awkward title for a film: it sounds more like a comedy theatrical piece. First-time director-co-writer-co-producer Herbert might have been better off had he dropped the explanation and let the title speak for itself.

And in spite of such an overly helpful framing device, the treatment of the characters remains ambivalent. John is warm-hearted and perceptive, and yet the film seems more ready to advocate Steve's colder, stereotypical opinions. And while the structure, which in effect cross-cuts between the men and the women, might be seeking to show a balanced view of gender relations, the ultimate impression is of a male-dominated piece which ultimately doesn't break any new thematic ground.

The tone of the movie, though, is consistent throughout, and the pace never flags. It's been shot on High Definition, more, one suspects, due to budgetary constraints than through choice, but it's done quite well: the images are clean and contemporaneous, even if at times there's enough lighting that they could have shot it in monochrome if they'd wanted to. And if the directing style is often too busy - the actors gesture too much, many of the camera angles are hyper and swoon-inducing - Herbert manages to stage two scenes in which the pain felt by characters is very raw. The first such moment is when Mary walks out, leaving John crumpled on the floor by the front door. As he remains huddled there, the camera holds the moment long enough for it to become uncomfortable - and compassionate. Much later, after Jane has had sex with one of Steve's friends in a piece of heartless calculation, her scream of dismay is truly piercing.

It's moments such as these, coupled with Herbert's own rather sombre screen presence, which suggest that this filmmaker has real talents. Emotional Backgammon is unsatisfying, then, and underwhelming, but it's got energy to spare.

This is a documentary account of the development of Hedwig and the Angry Inch from John Cameron Mitchell's original idea, through the stage show, to the movie. The producer-director Laura Nix has complied interviews with all the key personnel, such as Hedwig writer-director-star Mitchell, composer Stephen Trask, actress Miriam Shor, Mitchell's parents, and others. These are mixed with terrific footage of Hedwig stage performances, all the more thrilling for having been shot by amateur filmmakers at the time, and behind-the-scenes glimpses.

John Cameron Mitchell comes across as talented, articulate, and enormously charismatic; and this documentary manages to be entertaining and informative as well as being very clear-eyed about the creative process from which Hedwig grew. I especially enjoyed the stretch which depicted the transformation of a dilapidated hotel in New York City into a theatre. This is a very good documentary which transcends its 'DVD extra' origins to become a fascinating film in its own right.

David (Pierre-Louis Bonnetblanc) is a teenager spending the summer holiday on his uncle's farm. The film depicts a special day on the farm for David: the first time his two uncles allow him to eat and drink with the men - a group of farmers and other country dwellers. David gets drunk, throws up, lazes around in the sun, and then wanders off through the fields to meet his friend Matthieu (Laurent Simon). It's a day fraught with tension and incident.

Le Souffle is the debut feature film from writer-director Damien Odoul. It is an odd, tantalizing mixture: the carefully shot (in black and white), rather straightforward storytelling is set alongside some surreal and poetic imagery, all of which hints at a bold talent preparing to flourish. So for the most part we get nicely observed, almost documentary-style shots of farm life (e.g. a farmer slits a lamb's throat in close-up) and the countryside on a swelteringly hot day. And we also see some of David's fantasies - or, perhaps more accurately, poetic extensions of his state of mind: he imagines himself covered in mud, frolicking in the woods with wolves, wrestling with his uncles and drifting on the water with a girl.

As David, the previously unknown Bonnetblanc gives a performance which is startling in the way it lacks vanity: he portrays the frustration, awkwardness and casualness of this bored adolescent's day in the sun so well, it sometimes feel as if the viewer is intruding; he's an actor to watch out for. The rest of the cast is good too, although one wonders whether the film sometimes offers a limited view of the secondary characters. Perhaps, though, it's just aiming to portray the limitations of the world in which David is being brought up: he's fatherless, and we might hope that he will have more positive influences around him than these men who seem so scornful of their own upbringings and rather dismissive towards their wives.

In general, then, Le Souffle, at 77 minutes, manages to make quite an impact, and I'm looking forward to Odoul's - and Bonnetblanc's - next work.