The last film I reviewed was the excellent documentary Shed Your Tears And Walk Away and in the review I said that the film is only showing at the ICA. The film's director Jez Lewis left a comment on the blog correcting that and left a link to the showings of the film. The link is included below so have a look and see if, in the midst of one of the worst Summers for films in recent memory, you can go out and support a genuinely good film.
Huge thanks to Jez Lewis for getting in touch. Best of luck with the film.
http://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/shedyourtears-playdates.htm
Wednesday 23 June 2010
Friday 18 June 2010
Shed Your Tears And Walk Away Review
In Shed Your Tears And Walk, documentary film maker Jez Lewis returns to his hometown of Hebdon Bridge, Yorkshire, to try and discover why so many of the people he grew up with are dying of overdoses (drugs, alcohol or both) or else committing suicide. Lewis spends much of his time in the local parks where a significant portion of the town’s population, some still in their teens, many in their early twenties, go each day to get absolutely wasted on their poison of choice. He talks to a great number of people in his attempt to get to the bottom of why such a small town should have become so plagued by a very public waste of human life but the film centres on his friend Cass, seemingly off heroin but destroying himself with alcohol and never seen without a can of Special Brew. Lewis follows Cass being given just two years to live if he doesn’t change and his attempts to turn things around for himself, some abortive, some more successful, but always on that knife edge of reverting back to his old ways at any moment.
Shed Your Tears And Walk Away (the title coming from something Cass’ friend Silly says near the beginning of the film to describe his reaction to his own brother’s death) is an affecting, genuinely upsetting film. It is a stark look at alcoholism and drug addiction and it is made all the more frightening by the fact that Lewis is simply unable to come to a conclusion as to why it has come to this. There are potential explanations certainly, the absence of a Father or significant Father figure plays a reoccurring role in many of the people’s stories. Boredom is rife, opportunities limited, education or ambition nowhere to be found and a sense of alienation hangs permanently in the air. But even collectively, these answers seem insufficient. Several people die during the course of the documentary, including at least one that Lewis introduces us to. He has had five or six funerals in the last year and the parks and public spaces are filled with young men and women drinking and injecting themselves to death. This feels like a plague without a motive and the most frightening thing about that hypothesis is that it is also therefore a plague without an apparent cure.
What was staggering to me watching the film was the way honesty and denial could co-exist. Lewis’ interviewees talk of the epidemic of deaths in the town, talk of the “fucking idiots” who do whatever drugs they are doing as they themselves slur their way through the interviews with the ubiquitous Special Brew firmly in hand at all times. The same answers come up time and again as Lewis asks them why they’re doing what they’re doing. “It’s shit here isn’t? It’s shit. There’s nothing else to do.” Lewis suggests that they could leave the town but they all then respond that they don’t want to leave their mates and a couple of people are honest enough to admit that they are as frightened to leave as they are terrified to stay. This quickly brings you to the issue of people having to help themselves at the end of the day but the film gives the sense that none of these people see a way out. There is a resignation to this being their lot, awareness that it’s grim but the feeling that it can’t change. It’s very easy on the outside looking in to scream at them to just get on a train to anywhere and start again but the atmosphere is stifling and suffocating, their pain utterly palpable and you have a very strange sense that, even if they left the place now, the town would somehow always be with them. This becomes tragically and depressingly apparent when Cass, having left Hebdon Bridge for rehab in London and managed to stay off the drink for several months, produces a can of Special Brew on the train as he takes a dreadfully judged trip back home. His reasoning is that he wants to see the old place to renew his own sense of personal growth and change but you just know he does not have the strength or the will to maintain sobriety in the face of unremitting addiction. This gives weight to the argument that these people are simply addicts and there is nothing more mysterious about it than that. That each individual is an addict is all too apparent and undeniable. But quite why a significant portion of a small town ends up dead or dying from substance abuse is a much tougher and more disturbing question. The ending of the film felt abrupt as I watched it but, thinking about it afterwards (and you will definitely think about it afterwards) there was probably nothing else to show. We have seen these people at their worst, there are apparently no answers or solutions, what is left to say?
Lewis films the whole thing himself and is a presence throughout the entire film. You get a sense of his increasing panic as, more than once, he has to intervene in Cass’s situation to bail him out. He comes across as a man genuinely desperate to get to the bottom of a seemingly insurmountable problem and, even as he threatens to walk away, you just know he won’t be able to do it. I hate describing good films as “depressing” as that immediately puts people off going to see them but there is no way around it, Shed Your Tears And Walk Away is a depressing look at the dark side of a strangely picturesque little town. In a tiny release, the film is only playing at the ICA but, if you can manage it, it is well worth your time. Tragic, heartfelt, moving, it is a difficult watch but a film that will stay with you for a long time.
8/10
Shed Your Tears And Walk Away (the title coming from something Cass’ friend Silly says near the beginning of the film to describe his reaction to his own brother’s death) is an affecting, genuinely upsetting film. It is a stark look at alcoholism and drug addiction and it is made all the more frightening by the fact that Lewis is simply unable to come to a conclusion as to why it has come to this. There are potential explanations certainly, the absence of a Father or significant Father figure plays a reoccurring role in many of the people’s stories. Boredom is rife, opportunities limited, education or ambition nowhere to be found and a sense of alienation hangs permanently in the air. But even collectively, these answers seem insufficient. Several people die during the course of the documentary, including at least one that Lewis introduces us to. He has had five or six funerals in the last year and the parks and public spaces are filled with young men and women drinking and injecting themselves to death. This feels like a plague without a motive and the most frightening thing about that hypothesis is that it is also therefore a plague without an apparent cure.
What was staggering to me watching the film was the way honesty and denial could co-exist. Lewis’ interviewees talk of the epidemic of deaths in the town, talk of the “fucking idiots” who do whatever drugs they are doing as they themselves slur their way through the interviews with the ubiquitous Special Brew firmly in hand at all times. The same answers come up time and again as Lewis asks them why they’re doing what they’re doing. “It’s shit here isn’t? It’s shit. There’s nothing else to do.” Lewis suggests that they could leave the town but they all then respond that they don’t want to leave their mates and a couple of people are honest enough to admit that they are as frightened to leave as they are terrified to stay. This quickly brings you to the issue of people having to help themselves at the end of the day but the film gives the sense that none of these people see a way out. There is a resignation to this being their lot, awareness that it’s grim but the feeling that it can’t change. It’s very easy on the outside looking in to scream at them to just get on a train to anywhere and start again but the atmosphere is stifling and suffocating, their pain utterly palpable and you have a very strange sense that, even if they left the place now, the town would somehow always be with them. This becomes tragically and depressingly apparent when Cass, having left Hebdon Bridge for rehab in London and managed to stay off the drink for several months, produces a can of Special Brew on the train as he takes a dreadfully judged trip back home. His reasoning is that he wants to see the old place to renew his own sense of personal growth and change but you just know he does not have the strength or the will to maintain sobriety in the face of unremitting addiction. This gives weight to the argument that these people are simply addicts and there is nothing more mysterious about it than that. That each individual is an addict is all too apparent and undeniable. But quite why a significant portion of a small town ends up dead or dying from substance abuse is a much tougher and more disturbing question. The ending of the film felt abrupt as I watched it but, thinking about it afterwards (and you will definitely think about it afterwards) there was probably nothing else to show. We have seen these people at their worst, there are apparently no answers or solutions, what is left to say?
Lewis films the whole thing himself and is a presence throughout the entire film. You get a sense of his increasing panic as, more than once, he has to intervene in Cass’s situation to bail him out. He comes across as a man genuinely desperate to get to the bottom of a seemingly insurmountable problem and, even as he threatens to walk away, you just know he won’t be able to do it. I hate describing good films as “depressing” as that immediately puts people off going to see them but there is no way around it, Shed Your Tears And Walk Away is a depressing look at the dark side of a strangely picturesque little town. In a tiny release, the film is only playing at the ICA but, if you can manage it, it is well worth your time. Tragic, heartfelt, moving, it is a difficult watch but a film that will stay with you for a long time.
8/10
Thursday 10 June 2010
Dogtooth Review
I actually saw Dogtooth last weekend but I’ve been holding off writing the review because I needed to give the film time to settle. I wouldn’t be much good as a professional reviewer would I? “Yes I know this film was released a fortnight ago but I’ve been letting it settle.” Actually, a quick look at Empire’s website reveals it was released April 16th… Whoops! Anyone reckon I’ll be three weeks late reviewing Tom Cruise in Knight And Day (“I’m the guy! I’m the guy!”) Liam Neeson in The A Team or Sly Stallone in The Expendables? Well who cares? The heart wants what it wants.
Anyhoo…
Watching Dogtooth, I REALLY wasn’t sure about it. It’s very, very slow, the single location stifling, its subject matter difficult and challenging. But Dogtooth has stayed with me, its many dark and disturbing moments nestling and taking permanent residence in my mind as I look back and think… who the fuck comes up with something like this?!?
A married couple (never given names) keep their three children permanently confined to the house and the garden, somewhere in the Greek countryside. The Father is the only one who leaves the house, driving to work each day. The children, two sisters and a brother, are in their late teens/early twenties but, despite being physically mature, are still basically infants in their minds, their notion of the “real world” where cats are dangerous predators and indeed the entire world beyond the walls of the house are filled with unrelenting dangers, completely manufactured and contrived by their parents. This is done seemingly to preserve the parents’ notion of their children’s innocence, although their exact motivations are never fully articulated and are open to interpretation. The son experiences the bizarre contradiction of emotional childlike innocence with the sexual appetites typical of a young man and to satisfy his desires, the Father brings home Christina, security guard at his place of work. Christina of course can’t help but bring some sense of the outside world with her and, as the children’s behaviour as a result of their upbringing intensifies and the parents’ controlling lies necessarily deepen to compensate for her influence, well, you just know that none of this is going to end well.
One of the things that strikes you watching the film is the matter-of-fact way it deals with its material. There are moments of dreadful violence, explicit nudity and sex (God bless the Europeans) and the piece as a whole is very, very dark. But there is never any hysteria, or for that matter, much in the way of the traditional cinematic build up that signals something bad is about to happen. These moments occur suddenly and spontaneously, much as most acts of sex or violence do in real life. Music is used incredibly sparsely and much of the film occurs in the beautifully sunny back garden, complete with fantastic looking swimming pool, the bright visuals serving to underscore the darkness of the story. The film definitely takes some getting into. Around fifteen minutes in I found myself becoming irritated and very much needing the film to “click” which it did do, but I wonder now if that had something to do with my reticence to jump on board for the rest of it at the time. Very little actually happens and the various things the family get up to, the sampling of anaesthesia to pass the time, play fights that would be harmless if they were children except that they’re very much not children and so real damage is done, and Christina’s visits, have an anecdotal, incidental feeling to them.
Interesting also is the sense of bone dry humour that permeates the film. Writer/director Giorgos Lanthimos finds the blackly comic in scenes that should be nothing but harrowing. Even as the world the parents have so carefully constructed begins to unravel around them, there are moments when you simply don’t know whether to be appalled or amused. It’s this sense of world that is the best thing about the film. 97% of Dogtooth occurs in one location but the characters and their situation are so believable (which is weird given how outrageous the story is) that you absolutely feel drawn into a bizarre, unsettling and completely new world. This is one of the best examples of a film that makes a distinction between its world and its setting, the world strange and uncomfortable, the setting seemingly mundane and familiar and it’s this disconnect between the two that contributes enormously to the tone and atmosphere of the piece. Whatever way you react to the film, what's for certain is the fact that you've never seen anything like it before.
Dogtooth is not a film for everyone. To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure it's a film for me. But it’s disturbing and odd in the best possible way, claustrophobic and unafraid to push buttons and provoke. It’s incredibly detailed (sometimes painfully so) completely thought through and executed with understated confidence in the most unflinching way imaginable. It’s also a film that gets under your skin, crawls into your brain, curls up into a ball and refuses to go away. The only solution? A bit of Tom Cruise grinning his way through a romping caper movie. Preferably as a super spy. Maybe riding a motorcycle while shooting at the bad guys. With a title that employs the worst pun in recent years.
Hey look, I’ve eaten my greens. Now I just want some dessert.
7/10
Anyhoo…
Watching Dogtooth, I REALLY wasn’t sure about it. It’s very, very slow, the single location stifling, its subject matter difficult and challenging. But Dogtooth has stayed with me, its many dark and disturbing moments nestling and taking permanent residence in my mind as I look back and think… who the fuck comes up with something like this?!?
A married couple (never given names) keep their three children permanently confined to the house and the garden, somewhere in the Greek countryside. The Father is the only one who leaves the house, driving to work each day. The children, two sisters and a brother, are in their late teens/early twenties but, despite being physically mature, are still basically infants in their minds, their notion of the “real world” where cats are dangerous predators and indeed the entire world beyond the walls of the house are filled with unrelenting dangers, completely manufactured and contrived by their parents. This is done seemingly to preserve the parents’ notion of their children’s innocence, although their exact motivations are never fully articulated and are open to interpretation. The son experiences the bizarre contradiction of emotional childlike innocence with the sexual appetites typical of a young man and to satisfy his desires, the Father brings home Christina, security guard at his place of work. Christina of course can’t help but bring some sense of the outside world with her and, as the children’s behaviour as a result of their upbringing intensifies and the parents’ controlling lies necessarily deepen to compensate for her influence, well, you just know that none of this is going to end well.
One of the things that strikes you watching the film is the matter-of-fact way it deals with its material. There are moments of dreadful violence, explicit nudity and sex (God bless the Europeans) and the piece as a whole is very, very dark. But there is never any hysteria, or for that matter, much in the way of the traditional cinematic build up that signals something bad is about to happen. These moments occur suddenly and spontaneously, much as most acts of sex or violence do in real life. Music is used incredibly sparsely and much of the film occurs in the beautifully sunny back garden, complete with fantastic looking swimming pool, the bright visuals serving to underscore the darkness of the story. The film definitely takes some getting into. Around fifteen minutes in I found myself becoming irritated and very much needing the film to “click” which it did do, but I wonder now if that had something to do with my reticence to jump on board for the rest of it at the time. Very little actually happens and the various things the family get up to, the sampling of anaesthesia to pass the time, play fights that would be harmless if they were children except that they’re very much not children and so real damage is done, and Christina’s visits, have an anecdotal, incidental feeling to them.
Interesting also is the sense of bone dry humour that permeates the film. Writer/director Giorgos Lanthimos finds the blackly comic in scenes that should be nothing but harrowing. Even as the world the parents have so carefully constructed begins to unravel around them, there are moments when you simply don’t know whether to be appalled or amused. It’s this sense of world that is the best thing about the film. 97% of Dogtooth occurs in one location but the characters and their situation are so believable (which is weird given how outrageous the story is) that you absolutely feel drawn into a bizarre, unsettling and completely new world. This is one of the best examples of a film that makes a distinction between its world and its setting, the world strange and uncomfortable, the setting seemingly mundane and familiar and it’s this disconnect between the two that contributes enormously to the tone and atmosphere of the piece. Whatever way you react to the film, what's for certain is the fact that you've never seen anything like it before.
Dogtooth is not a film for everyone. To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure it's a film for me. But it’s disturbing and odd in the best possible way, claustrophobic and unafraid to push buttons and provoke. It’s incredibly detailed (sometimes painfully so) completely thought through and executed with understated confidence in the most unflinching way imaginable. It’s also a film that gets under your skin, crawls into your brain, curls up into a ball and refuses to go away. The only solution? A bit of Tom Cruise grinning his way through a romping caper movie. Preferably as a super spy. Maybe riding a motorcycle while shooting at the bad guys. With a title that employs the worst pun in recent years.
Hey look, I’ve eaten my greens. Now I just want some dessert.
7/10
Monday 7 June 2010
The Brothers Bloom… well it’s not really a review to be honest
Is it possible to review a film you’ve missed a considerable amount of because you were asleep? Of course it’s not real sleep, the cinema is way too loud for a good, proper sleep. It’s like the kind of non-sleep you get on long haul flights where your eyes are closed and you’re semi-dreaming but with each little shudder the plane makes, you’re basically awake again. Even if it’s possible, I’m not sure it’s fair so I think the best thing to do with The Brothers Bloom is to say, I missed much of it and it has received lots of good reviews so take from that what you will. What I saw of it annoyed, irritated and bored me quite considerably. I’m not a fan of con movies generally and I hate quirky films (“Look at me! I’m so quirky! What will I do next?”). Brothers Bloom is meant to be “charming” but I found it very, very grating.
A late night the night before coupled with an early screening probably didn’t help but whatever. Not for me. However I probably haven’t given it a fair go so I won’t presume to score it.
On the plus side it’s better than Shrink.
A late night the night before coupled with an early screening probably didn’t help but whatever. Not for me. However I probably haven’t given it a fair go so I won’t presume to score it.
On the plus side it’s better than Shrink.
Thursday 3 June 2010
No Ellie don’t do it…You can’t make me…Think of the children Ellie…Won’t SOMEONE think of the children!!!!
The great thing about this blog is the autonomy I have to write the reviews the way I want to write them. Sometimes I forget there even is an editor-in-chief in charge of the whole affair. Until days like this. When she pounces. Like a cobra. A cobra issuing instructions to her film reviewer that go against every atom of his being.
Sigh…
Shrink is released this week.
I was hoping this cinematic abomination would just quietly yet shamefully die in a corner of the room. But I’ve been asked by SOMEONE to remind everyone that this utter waste of celluloid is getting its cinema release this week. I’m not going to repeat myself. Here’s my original review:
http://eggmagmovies.blogspot.com/2010/04/shrink-review.html
Ignore Empire’s 4 star review. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong. This weekend sees the release of The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson’s much delayed follow up to Brick) and Michael Winterbottom’s highly controversial The Killer Inside Me. If you’re escaping the sunshine for a movie this weekend try either of those. I’m hoping to have them both reviewed by next week but, even though I haven’t seen them, I’ll bet, no, I’ll GUARANTEE that they’re better than Shrink. Go see Prince Of Persia. Bollox to it, go all out and drag a razor across your eyeballs by seeing Sex and the Fucking City. Go to the beach, do a fun run, play Buckaroo, do anything, ANYTHING but go see Shrink.
I’ve done what I was asked to do! Damn you Ellie Good! Damn you straight to egg-hell!!!
Sigh…
Shrink is released this week.
I was hoping this cinematic abomination would just quietly yet shamefully die in a corner of the room. But I’ve been asked by SOMEONE to remind everyone that this utter waste of celluloid is getting its cinema release this week. I’m not going to repeat myself. Here’s my original review:
http://eggmagmovies.blogspot.com/2010/04/shrink-review.html
Ignore Empire’s 4 star review. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong. This weekend sees the release of The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson’s much delayed follow up to Brick) and Michael Winterbottom’s highly controversial The Killer Inside Me. If you’re escaping the sunshine for a movie this weekend try either of those. I’m hoping to have them both reviewed by next week but, even though I haven’t seen them, I’ll bet, no, I’ll GUARANTEE that they’re better than Shrink. Go see Prince Of Persia. Bollox to it, go all out and drag a razor across your eyeballs by seeing Sex and the Fucking City. Go to the beach, do a fun run, play Buckaroo, do anything, ANYTHING but go see Shrink.
I’ve done what I was asked to do! Damn you Ellie Good! Damn you straight to egg-hell!!!
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