Oklahoma hasn’t entered into the collective consciousness much since the days of the Dust Bowl (the terrible bombing of 1995 being an unwelcome exception), but the state has been quietly building up one of the highest incarceration rates in America. Weirdly, it has about twice the average female incarceration rate. Who would have thought that this largely rural state would be locking up its women like there’s no tomorrow?
Also, who would have thought there was such a thing as a ‘prison rodeo’? The Oklahoma State Prison Rodeo has been running since 1940, and is one of only two left. In 2006 they let women prisoners compete for the first time, and this documentary from Bradley Beesley (director of the fabulous Flaming Lips film The Fearless Freaks) follows the girls (and one guy) taking part in 2007.
Like all the best documentaries, it will make you laugh, cry and feel like you’ve come away just that little bit more aware of the world and the amazing people in it. Added to the heartbreaking stories you’d expect of a film set in prison, you’ve got the unique spectacle of Bull Poker (which is just as sensible a sport as it sounds).
And the stories are heartbreaking. Most of the women are mothers, and the pain of separation from their children hangs heavily on their shoulders. Jamie, a murderer with a tiny little-girl voice, has had such a hard life, and Foxy hasn’t seen her family for 12 years. These are by all accounts beautiful young women, yet we know that they have done horrible things. Danny Liles, the only man featured, has taken part in 14 rodeos and has so far served over 20 years for murder. His philosophical musings make up some of the poignant moments.
Underlying the human stories is a deep uneasiness about the ‘war on drugs’, which has put most of the women in prison. But there is no moralising here. The thrill of watching bronco riding or people being gorged by bull horns in the film’s climax is secondary to the thrill of seeing hope for a better life in the future. A wonderful documentary.
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Sunday, 25 October 2009
London Film Festival review - La doppia ora (The Double Hour)
This Italian thriller successfully combines two quite distinct genres: romance and horror. Sonia (Kseniya Rappoport), a lonely hotel cleaner newly arrived in Turin, tries speed dating and meets Guido, an equally-lonely ex-policeman. The two fall in love, but their dream is shattered when some very nasty things start happening, leaving Sonia to question her sanity.
The three screenwriters (Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi and Stefano Sardo) have crafted a surprising and clever plot that manages to stay just the right side of hokey. First-time director Giuseppe Capotondi has filmed it as a serious noir picture with thoughtful cinematography and editing that really builds up tension.
What really lifts the film, though, are the performances of the two leads, which seem to belong in a gritty drama set on a council estate rather than a thriller. Rappoport (imagine a really pretty version of Juliet Stevenson) looks haunted and lost beautifully throughout, and Timi (a quintessential Italian stallion) mixes strength and subtle sadness in every scene. Both deservedly won awards at the Venice Film Festival.
Apparently La doppia ora may be remade in America, and one can only assume that Hollywood will ignore the moving psychological explorations in favour of plot, which will be a great loss; it is the spanning of so many genres that makes this film really worth seeing.
The three screenwriters (Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi and Stefano Sardo) have crafted a surprising and clever plot that manages to stay just the right side of hokey. First-time director Giuseppe Capotondi has filmed it as a serious noir picture with thoughtful cinematography and editing that really builds up tension.
What really lifts the film, though, are the performances of the two leads, which seem to belong in a gritty drama set on a council estate rather than a thriller. Rappoport (imagine a really pretty version of Juliet Stevenson) looks haunted and lost beautifully throughout, and Timi (a quintessential Italian stallion) mixes strength and subtle sadness in every scene. Both deservedly won awards at the Venice Film Festival.
Apparently La doppia ora may be remade in America, and one can only assume that Hollywood will ignore the moving psychological explorations in favour of plot, which will be a great loss; it is the spanning of so many genres that makes this film really worth seeing.
London Film Festival review - When You're Strange
One’s likely enjoyment of a music documentary is proportional to one’s liking of the music in question, however good the documentary is. Therefore I love Fearless Freaks (the Flaming Lips documentary), but hate No Direction Home (even with Martin Scorsese directing, for me Bob Dylan is a jerk with a hideous singing voice). A film about the Doors was always going to appeal to me, even just as an excuse to listen to their music, but this retelling of the band’s story using only archive footage really is spell-binding.
When You’re Strange grew from an unlikely source: Dick Wolf’s production company. The creator of the (amazing) Law & Order franchise has had the rights to lots of never-before-seen footage of the Doors for a while, but didn’t know how best to use it. Tom DiCillo, the director of Johnny Suede and Living in Oblivion has managed to weave this together with other archive material to really get under the skin of Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger. Johnny Depp provides a laid back voiceover which is highly respectful of the subject matter. It is also full of surprising facts like that Light My Fire was the first song Krieger ever wrote and that at the height of Morrison’s fame, his estranged father was commanding a fleet in South East Asia.
When I watched the film, I was convinced that new footage had been made for it. A dream sequence interspersed throughout the film which appears to show Morrison driving through the desert after his death had to have been done with actors, I felt, and this annoyed me in its unnecessariness. In fact, these scenes are taken from Morrison’s film HWY: an American Pastoral (1969), and now that I know this I am retrospectively blown away by them. They look so fresh and so starkly beautiful, showing that Morrison’s time at film school was not wasted.
These clips are just some of the treats in this film for fans of the Doors. My only quibble is that with the focus so squarely on Jim, the other members of the band do get left out. This is not surprising as he was a fascinating character, and one that death made iconic. All in all this is a masterful exploration of one of the 60s’ truly great groups and their role in the end of the hippie dream.
When You’re Strange grew from an unlikely source: Dick Wolf’s production company. The creator of the (amazing) Law & Order franchise has had the rights to lots of never-before-seen footage of the Doors for a while, but didn’t know how best to use it. Tom DiCillo, the director of Johnny Suede and Living in Oblivion has managed to weave this together with other archive material to really get under the skin of Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger. Johnny Depp provides a laid back voiceover which is highly respectful of the subject matter. It is also full of surprising facts like that Light My Fire was the first song Krieger ever wrote and that at the height of Morrison’s fame, his estranged father was commanding a fleet in South East Asia.
When I watched the film, I was convinced that new footage had been made for it. A dream sequence interspersed throughout the film which appears to show Morrison driving through the desert after his death had to have been done with actors, I felt, and this annoyed me in its unnecessariness. In fact, these scenes are taken from Morrison’s film HWY: an American Pastoral (1969), and now that I know this I am retrospectively blown away by them. They look so fresh and so starkly beautiful, showing that Morrison’s time at film school was not wasted.
These clips are just some of the treats in this film for fans of the Doors. My only quibble is that with the focus so squarely on Jim, the other members of the band do get left out. This is not surprising as he was a fascinating character, and one that death made iconic. All in all this is a masterful exploration of one of the 60s’ truly great groups and their role in the end of the hippie dream.
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
London Film Festival Review - The Men Who Stare at Goats
There aren’t many lightweight comedies about the psychological techniques employed by the American military in wartime, but in a way that is surprising. The Men Who Stare at Goats combines many of society’s favourite things: conspiracy theories, the paranormal, and the ancient conventions of the buddy road movie. Add to that George Clooney using his considerable comedic skills, and you’ve got a sure-fire hit.
This fictionalised account of true events follows a journalist (Ewan McGregor) trying to become embedded with troops at the beginning of the Iraq War and failing miserably. Then he meets Lyn Cassady (Clooney) a loopy salesman who says that he was part of a secret government programme to create soldiers with superpowers, so as to better beat the Russians. The two embark on a mission into Iraq.
Screenwriter Peter Straughan has done a wonderful job of creating a story out of Jon Ronson’s book, tying the whole thing up in a neat little bow. The farcical nature of the stranger-than-fiction truth is played up and the joke quotient is high, with a dash of slapstick thrown in for good measure. A serious message about recent military tactics slips by almost unnoticed. Both Straughan and Ronson are British, which you can tell from the use of Alright by Supergrass over the beginning titles.
It’s lovely to see Clooney getting to be funny in a non-Coen Brother’s film for once, and he plays crazy expertly (the moustache helps). Jeff Bridges reprises his delightful Dude persona as the strung-out founder of the psychic army, and Kevin Spacey hams it up as an evil psychic soldier who never fitted in with the others. Only McGregor fails to really sparkle in his straight man role. It is easy to see why he was cast (they get a lot of mileage from Jedi jokes), but his American accent isn’t really up to par.
At the beginning of the film a title card reads: “More of this is true than you would think.” By the end you will be googling to find out the real story behind this highly enjoyable exercise in silliness.
This fictionalised account of true events follows a journalist (Ewan McGregor) trying to become embedded with troops at the beginning of the Iraq War and failing miserably. Then he meets Lyn Cassady (Clooney) a loopy salesman who says that he was part of a secret government programme to create soldiers with superpowers, so as to better beat the Russians. The two embark on a mission into Iraq.
Screenwriter Peter Straughan has done a wonderful job of creating a story out of Jon Ronson’s book, tying the whole thing up in a neat little bow. The farcical nature of the stranger-than-fiction truth is played up and the joke quotient is high, with a dash of slapstick thrown in for good measure. A serious message about recent military tactics slips by almost unnoticed. Both Straughan and Ronson are British, which you can tell from the use of Alright by Supergrass over the beginning titles.
It’s lovely to see Clooney getting to be funny in a non-Coen Brother’s film for once, and he plays crazy expertly (the moustache helps). Jeff Bridges reprises his delightful Dude persona as the strung-out founder of the psychic army, and Kevin Spacey hams it up as an evil psychic soldier who never fitted in with the others. Only McGregor fails to really sparkle in his straight man role. It is easy to see why he was cast (they get a lot of mileage from Jedi jokes), but his American accent isn’t really up to par.
At the beginning of the film a title card reads: “More of this is true than you would think.” By the end you will be googling to find out the real story behind this highly enjoyable exercise in silliness.
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Review - Dorian Gray
It is perhaps fitting that the only good thing about this adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is its beautiful shell. Bright and buxom costuming cannot disguise that it is a deeply tedious film with a running time of less than two hours that feels more like three and a half.
The concept of the story, if not its details, is well known. Dorian (Ben Barnes) is a handsome and innocent young man who sells his soul so that he will never age. Instead, his portrait grows old and ugly, showing how his many sins leave their marks on his soul.
Barnes has a pretty face, but a pretty face cannot lift such an uninteresting script. Not even the presence of Colin Firth and Ben Chaplin can raise the viewers’ spirits when confronted with the same scene of gothic debauchery repeated ad infinitum. It is hard work to make opium-infused orgies boring, but director Oliver Parker has managed it. Rebecca Hall (who seems to be in everything) turns up near the end as your typical feisty suffragette type, but by this point the audience has been anaesthetised into a cosy half-nap and will hardly notice as the slow narrative trundles on to its final destination.
The concept of the story, if not its details, is well known. Dorian (Ben Barnes) is a handsome and innocent young man who sells his soul so that he will never age. Instead, his portrait grows old and ugly, showing how his many sins leave their marks on his soul.
Barnes has a pretty face, but a pretty face cannot lift such an uninteresting script. Not even the presence of Colin Firth and Ben Chaplin can raise the viewers’ spirits when confronted with the same scene of gothic debauchery repeated ad infinitum. It is hard work to make opium-infused orgies boring, but director Oliver Parker has managed it. Rebecca Hall (who seems to be in everything) turns up near the end as your typical feisty suffragette type, but by this point the audience has been anaesthetised into a cosy half-nap and will hardly notice as the slow narrative trundles on to its final destination.
Monday, 5 October 2009
Review - Sin Nombre
This film follows a young girl, Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), on the treacherous journey from Honduras, to Mexico and on to America, one of the thousands of illegal immigrants that sneak into Texas each year. It also offers an insight into the gangs that run the slums and prey on the immigrants. As you might expect, it isn’t exactly a laugh riot.
It is, however, extraordinarily gripping and tense. El Casper (Édgar Flores), a young gang member, knows that his whole life is one big catch 22. As his destiny mixes with Sayra’s, the only choices he can make are bad ones, and the audience is along for the ride on the ancient train heading for the border.
Writer and director Cary Fukunaga has obviously done his homework, and has rendered this violent and hopeless world beautifully. The gang, all full-face tattoos and homemade guns, feels particularly real. Cinematographer Adriano Goldman does a wonderful job, making yellows and oranges leap out of the screen as the camera passes through the landscape with the characters in a semi-documentary style. Low-key performances also add to the drama – Gaitan and Flores seem to show all the tragedy behind the statistics in their big brown eyes.
Slumdog Millionaire showed that films about poverty can be big hits, but only if the main character wins a gameshow at the end. Sin Nombre is by far the better film, but only offers its characters a ticket to live undercover in a Walmart- and Home Depot-laden wilderness for the rest of their lives. Depressing, then, but worth it.
It is, however, extraordinarily gripping and tense. El Casper (Édgar Flores), a young gang member, knows that his whole life is one big catch 22. As his destiny mixes with Sayra’s, the only choices he can make are bad ones, and the audience is along for the ride on the ancient train heading for the border.
Writer and director Cary Fukunaga has obviously done his homework, and has rendered this violent and hopeless world beautifully. The gang, all full-face tattoos and homemade guns, feels particularly real. Cinematographer Adriano Goldman does a wonderful job, making yellows and oranges leap out of the screen as the camera passes through the landscape with the characters in a semi-documentary style. Low-key performances also add to the drama – Gaitan and Flores seem to show all the tragedy behind the statistics in their big brown eyes.
Slumdog Millionaire showed that films about poverty can be big hits, but only if the main character wins a gameshow at the end. Sin Nombre is by far the better film, but only offers its characters a ticket to live undercover in a Walmart- and Home Depot-laden wilderness for the rest of their lives. Depressing, then, but worth it.
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