Paul Verhoeven is best known for blockbusters like Total Recall, Starship Troopers and Basic Instinct, but not perhaps for moving drama. In Zwartboek he takes his mastery of glossy suspense and action and combines this with a genuinely affecting story to produce a grown-up film that crosses genres. This is a dazzling rollercoaster of a thriller, producing a complex vision of a complex time in European history.
Set in Holland in the final months of the Second World War, the story focuses on Jewish singer Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten) when she is forced to flee her hiding place. After her family is brutally murdered in front of her, she joins the Dutch Resistance and goes deep undercover in the occupiers’ headquarters. What follows is a labyrinth plot with many twists and turns. It is an unusual film because it sometimes has the feel of a Hollywood thriller, yet is in Dutch and German. It has moments of shocking violence, but also many deeply emotional and poignant scenes. It is also unusual for producing a very morally complex story. No-one is shown as wholly good or evil as an empire crumbles, and peace holds as many problems as the war. Verhoeven even produces that rarest of things, a sympathetic Nazi; Müntze (Sebastian Koch) is a lonely man who has also suffered, and his relationship with Rachel really is the film’s suprising heart.
The world Verhoeven has created is fully realised. The sets and costumes range from grimy and squalid to lush and luxurious, always looking exactly right. It is not surprising to learn that this is the most expensive Dutch film ever made. But the best thing about this film is undoubtably van Houten, who creates a wonderful heroine. Carice van Houten looks like a grown-up Kirsten Dunst, if Kirsten Dunst could act. She is radient in the party scenes, wearing stunning red satin as she partakes in caberet and espionage. Films often purport to have strong female characters, but they end up like something from a computer game, all high-kicking karate and tight jumpsuits. Rachel, unhampered by American cinema’s backwards view of feminism, is a truly brave and intelligent woman who thinks on her feet and is fighting for what is right. She uses her sexuality to her advantage and is always in complete control, even in the most tragic circumstances.
My only criticism would be that the story is told as a flashback, meaning that we already partly know the outcome of events. Leaving the ending a mystery would have kept the audience even more on the edge their seat. No matter, for this is still an extremely exhilerating ride through Europe at its darkest moment, full of double-crossing, intrigue, and love.
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 February 2007
Review - Bobby
Emilio Estevez’s film is obviously a labour of love on the part of the director, a peaen to the time when everything seemed possible for America, and a haunting account of the moment when all hope disappeared. The historical background to events, and their significance to today, is hammered home effectively; you only wish that he’d been able to wrap it around a better film.
The action takes place on that fateful day of June 4th 1968, and in the fateful place of the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. We follow a large selection of characters pulled from the staff and guests of the hotel in the run up to the senseless killing of Robert Kennedy. They are carefully selected to tick all the issue-boxes of the period, so we get ethnic tensions in the kitchen, emerging feminism in the bedroom, and anti-war sentiment in the wedding chapel. And of course the obligatory hippy. This is a portrait of a group of people in pain, a network of hurting individuals that we are supposed to get involved with; the musical interlude (to the excellent ‘Never Gonna Break My Faith’ by Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige, the only new song in a great contemporaneous soundtrack) evokes P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia, an altogether more effective member of this genre.
The starry cast produces great performances, but they are let down by a lack of focus and memorable dialogue. There doesn’t seem to any point to it all. It is never made clear who Martin Sheen and Helen Hunt’s couple are or why they are there (it’s certainly not to entertain or move you). Demi Moore’s alcoholic singer is very miserable, and that’s her whole story. Estevez gives himself a part as her husband, the role consisting only of walking a small dog in a daze.
Of the myriad storylines, there are some that work: the love triangle surrounding William H. Macy, with Sharon Stone’s world-weary wife and a deliciously doe-eyed Heather Graham as the Other Woman, is sensitively portrayed. Anthony Hopkins gives a lovingly gentle and naturalistic performance as a retired doorman who can’t bear to leave the hotel, and Freddy Rodriquez is adorable as a decent and hardworking bus boy. The scenes with Lyndsay Lohan as the selfless bride saving her friend from the jungles of Vietnam are very affecting, until one realises she’s marrying Elijah Wood, permanently stuck in that 14 year-old awkward stage; this is bad casting that doesn’t ring true.
Bookending the film are montages showing the immense social upheavels of the period, the heart-breakingly moving words of Robert Kennedy, and the devotion he inspired in the American people. These are so effective that one wonders whether Estevez’s time would have been better spent making a stirring documentary, rather than trying to get his point across by throwing lots of characters at the screen and hoping they’d stick emotionally with the audience. They all pale in significance to what should have been the focus of the film, Bobby. This is a campaigning piece of work, and one that will do nothing to counteract the Sheen Clan’s bleeding-heart Pinko image, but Kennedy’s words are so painfully pertinent to today that it would be a hard heart that could fail to be moved. All this seems quite divorced from the main meat of the film, making it a strange concoction that has its charms and its moments, but ultimately doesn’t produce a satisfying whole.
The action takes place on that fateful day of June 4th 1968, and in the fateful place of the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. We follow a large selection of characters pulled from the staff and guests of the hotel in the run up to the senseless killing of Robert Kennedy. They are carefully selected to tick all the issue-boxes of the period, so we get ethnic tensions in the kitchen, emerging feminism in the bedroom, and anti-war sentiment in the wedding chapel. And of course the obligatory hippy. This is a portrait of a group of people in pain, a network of hurting individuals that we are supposed to get involved with; the musical interlude (to the excellent ‘Never Gonna Break My Faith’ by Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige, the only new song in a great contemporaneous soundtrack) evokes P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia, an altogether more effective member of this genre.
The starry cast produces great performances, but they are let down by a lack of focus and memorable dialogue. There doesn’t seem to any point to it all. It is never made clear who Martin Sheen and Helen Hunt’s couple are or why they are there (it’s certainly not to entertain or move you). Demi Moore’s alcoholic singer is very miserable, and that’s her whole story. Estevez gives himself a part as her husband, the role consisting only of walking a small dog in a daze.
Of the myriad storylines, there are some that work: the love triangle surrounding William H. Macy, with Sharon Stone’s world-weary wife and a deliciously doe-eyed Heather Graham as the Other Woman, is sensitively portrayed. Anthony Hopkins gives a lovingly gentle and naturalistic performance as a retired doorman who can’t bear to leave the hotel, and Freddy Rodriquez is adorable as a decent and hardworking bus boy. The scenes with Lyndsay Lohan as the selfless bride saving her friend from the jungles of Vietnam are very affecting, until one realises she’s marrying Elijah Wood, permanently stuck in that 14 year-old awkward stage; this is bad casting that doesn’t ring true.
Bookending the film are montages showing the immense social upheavels of the period, the heart-breakingly moving words of Robert Kennedy, and the devotion he inspired in the American people. These are so effective that one wonders whether Estevez’s time would have been better spent making a stirring documentary, rather than trying to get his point across by throwing lots of characters at the screen and hoping they’d stick emotionally with the audience. They all pale in significance to what should have been the focus of the film, Bobby. This is a campaigning piece of work, and one that will do nothing to counteract the Sheen Clan’s bleeding-heart Pinko image, but Kennedy’s words are so painfully pertinent to today that it would be a hard heart that could fail to be moved. All this seems quite divorced from the main meat of the film, making it a strange concoction that has its charms and its moments, but ultimately doesn’t produce a satisfying whole.
Review - Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Peter Süskind’s bestselling novel was long thought un-filmable, both by the many famous directors that passed on it and the writer himself. Its reliance on the description of scent, that most transient of the senses, made it a very challenging prospect, but thankfully one that Paul Tykwer (best known for directing 1998s techno-actioner Run, Lola, Run) took up. The graphic use of imagery evokes all sorts of smells, both sweet and putrid, very effectively, and this beauty contrasts wonderfully with the disturbing and riveting storyline.
The film centres on the very strange tale of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan in 18th Century Paris with a supernatural sense of smell and absence of social skills. Played with a creepy innocence by newcomer Ben Whishaw (who I last saw on TV playing the put-upon Pingu in the great Nathan Barley), he is a man obsessed with capturing and preserving the scent of everyday things, and especially those of beautiful women with praeternaturally red hair. His quest takes him from the hell of slave labour in a tanning factory, to an up-market perfumer, to the beautiful country town of Grasse, leaving behind him a wake of death and destruction.
Whishaw is quite bland in the role, but I believe this works for the film, rather than against it. Jean-Baptiste has no discernable emotions and is more animal than human; he is able to skulk in the shadows unnoticed by everyone. The showboating is left to old pros Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman, who relish their supporting roles; the powdered wigs of the period make hamming it up the only option. Hoffman is great fun as the has-been perfumer whose business is given new life due to Jean-Baptiste’s skills, although his mid-lantic accent taking the place of Italian grates slightly. Rickman’s portrayal of a widowed father desperately trying to protect his daughter is surprisingly sensitive, though still grandiose.
The cinematography and score (composed by the director) are suitably lush, and the dirty beauty of Paris is beautifully realised. My only gripe is that in deciding to film the story in English, this German/French/Spanish co-production has had to make all the lower-class supporting characters have distracting mockney accents. It would have made a better film, though I’m sure a less economically successful one, to film it in French (or even German, since the writer of the novel and the director are both German). This is a small point, though, when Perfume still all adds up to a very enjoyable and deliciously mean-spirited dark fairytale.
The film centres on the very strange tale of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, an orphan in 18th Century Paris with a supernatural sense of smell and absence of social skills. Played with a creepy innocence by newcomer Ben Whishaw (who I last saw on TV playing the put-upon Pingu in the great Nathan Barley), he is a man obsessed with capturing and preserving the scent of everyday things, and especially those of beautiful women with praeternaturally red hair. His quest takes him from the hell of slave labour in a tanning factory, to an up-market perfumer, to the beautiful country town of Grasse, leaving behind him a wake of death and destruction.
Whishaw is quite bland in the role, but I believe this works for the film, rather than against it. Jean-Baptiste has no discernable emotions and is more animal than human; he is able to skulk in the shadows unnoticed by everyone. The showboating is left to old pros Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman, who relish their supporting roles; the powdered wigs of the period make hamming it up the only option. Hoffman is great fun as the has-been perfumer whose business is given new life due to Jean-Baptiste’s skills, although his mid-lantic accent taking the place of Italian grates slightly. Rickman’s portrayal of a widowed father desperately trying to protect his daughter is surprisingly sensitive, though still grandiose.
The cinematography and score (composed by the director) are suitably lush, and the dirty beauty of Paris is beautifully realised. My only gripe is that in deciding to film the story in English, this German/French/Spanish co-production has had to make all the lower-class supporting characters have distracting mockney accents. It would have made a better film, though I’m sure a less economically successful one, to film it in French (or even German, since the writer of the novel and the director are both German). This is a small point, though, when Perfume still all adds up to a very enjoyable and deliciously mean-spirited dark fairytale.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)