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Reviews
When Darkness Falls (2022)
Simmer, bubble, boil!
Two girls from America go hiking across the Scottish Highlands. Meanwhile two ne'er do wells are travelling across, robbing remote mansions and roofying local ladies. Of course both pairings will meet. Something about the immovable object meeting an unstoppable force? Starting with shades of American Werewolf without the werewolf, this then ventures into And Soon the Darkness meets Vanishing, before descending into a twist filled 90's cable thriller (in the best possible way). All it needed was Eric Roberts.
Despite a low budget, the film achieves its goals. A lot of micro budget cinema tends to feel very non-descript with their locations, often confining the action to a few cheap places and feeling like you could be anywhere. Not so here, as When Darkness Falls slowly builds, displaying sprawling Scottish backdrops (a rare abundance of drone shots which don't feel unnecessary) that are sparse and rugged. When Andrea disappears, Jess must find her in a landscape near devoid of people (and the few she meets are less than friendly). I won't say too much as the second act kicks off into a twisty turny pot boiler. Michaela Longden does a great job, as does Emma O'Hara. Director/producer/actor/editor/caterer? Nathan Shepka checks every role off with flying colours. The film looks great, the score is pleasingly Carpenter-esque, and despite the kind of rough edges that are unavoidable on something that was apparently shot for 25k (though looks substantially more), this really did entertain. The artwork and trailer intrigued me and I'm glad I took the punt.
Beoning (2018)
Ambiguity at its finest.
Korean cinema has been killing it since the turn of the century, dipping out of worldwide fashion after an Oldboy lead surge, and coming back to the fore after Parasite. A year prior to Bong Joon-ho's modern masterwork of metaphor and allegory, Lee Chang-dong delivered the acclaimed Burning. It didn't quite hit the mainstream western attention it warranted, but then again, it doesn't have the showier elements of Parasite.
Burning is a willfully paced, slow burn which is brimming with ambiguity. Chang-dong's masterfully crafted film is almost uniquely contradictory. The film has three main acts. We have Jongsu reconnect with Hae-mi, his old schoolmate and neighbour. She's changed, having undergone plastic surgery (common among South Korean girls), and she has more memory of him than vice versa. They connect, a brief romantic spark threatens to ignite after making love and then she leaves to travel in Africa. Act two introduces Ben, whom Hae-mi returns with. Now with have a strange love triangle and a mutual fascination between Ben and Jongsu that negates any potential bull horning. Chang-dong ruminates on class, culture and the listless youth of Korea, personified by the polars in Jongsu and Ben. Hae-mi is clearly crippled with a deep seeded depression, longing to find her identity. By this point, Chang-dong is also attaching his core characters to the ideas of little hunger (a need to fulfil basic desires, food, clothing, physical urges) and great hunger (a need to find a deeper meaning).
Then the film turns from a complex character drama, seen from the perspective of Jongsu, to a slowburn thriller once Hae-mi mysteriously disappears. Jongsu is increasingly obsessed with Ben, forming the idea in his mind that Ben has killed Hae-mi.
The brilliance of Chang-dong's intricately weaved script, is that he unveils clues. He subtly divulges information that all has a plausability. We are given this from the perspective of Jongsu, who becomes increasingly unreliable as a narrator, and thus this could skew your own reading, but a clue will point to the fact 'A' happened, and later another clue, also perfectly feasible, will point to 'B.' Come the end you'll have thoughts on what happened to Hae-mi, but likewise, the films storytelling, ambiguity and intricacy will stick with you a long time. It won't be for everyone, but if you like complex, thought provoking cinema, then Burning might be one of the best of the last decade.
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Messy, erratic, overlong, but entertaining enough.
Entry three in the Tom Holland Spiderverse continues where the last left off, immediately in fact. Not just in terms of story, but it carries over similar issues with an abundance of narrative messiness, tonal shifts and a feeling that the film is shoehorning too much into the mixer. I enjoyed the first entry due to the relative simplicity and a focus on Parker's everyday teen struggles. Holland was okay, if a little lacking in charisma, but as an on screen Parker, he was probably the most accurate depiction. He just lacked the nuance of Garfield and Maguire. By the second film, subtlety was thrown by the wayside, the jokes overwhelm the drama and No Way Home begins in the very same way. A beginning that should have Parker in a state of shock and anguish, his world torn apart, is loaded with silly gags which do disservice to the drama. This continues throughout the film. Drama builds, goofy humour, the MCU wont, takes over.
Is the MCU running short on ideas? Is the Sony factor a negative? To be honest, despite this being a transitional film, it's every inch a Feige formula movie. I found so much of this frustrating, even if said humour still had enough in it to make the film a breezy viewing. The key strength however, comes in the form of the three Spidermen coming together in unison. It's a short film concept that is great, shoved into the second act of this film that makes it (finally) interesting. It also only serves to show us that, whilst Holland lacks the gravitas to give his two dimensional role gravitas, Garfield has no such problems. He's the heart of the picture, albeit brief, and almost (almost...) makes me ponder revisiting the films that weren't up to his level. Maguire comes a close second and he just seems happy to be back in the spotlight. Still, this diversion, can't make up for what is mostly a messy chore but Spidey's aside, Willem Defoe lights up his scenes as only he can.