REVIEW: Pina (dir. Wim Wenders)

"Dance! Dance! Otherwise we are lost."

Pina Bausch was unquestionably the most important advocate of dance theatre in the 20th century, and her passing in the summer of 2009 led to unanimous international applause for this passionate and illustrious genius. Wim Wenders’ wonderful documentary, Pina, is an attempt to preserve the unique spirit of her work.

In one early piece of archive footage, Pina explains that during a revival of her “Café Müller” she struggled to recapture the emotions she had felt on first performing the piece. After exhaustive rehearsing she suddenly realised that, despite the fact her eyes were closed throughout, it made an inestimable difference if her eyeballs were staring straight ahead or down towards the ground. This subtlety – teasing the most exact movements from every inch of the body – is what Pina’s art is all about.

Her choreography could be epic in scope, utilising expensive set pieces and vast companies, but the essence of her craft is most evident in the stripped-down, almost stationary, individual performances. The body constitutes its own dance company of individual limbs and sinews, all forcing one another to move in a style that is at once heavy and cumbersome and yet twitching with crazed energy. In the numerous interviews with her company members, they constantly refer to “obstacles to the spirit” and how they “always felt more than human working with Pina”. Her creations were about the mind’s desperate, paroxysmal attempts to free itself from the body. The task of translating this essence to the screen is an unenviable one, but Wenders – who knows how to uncover the poetic beauty at the intersection between landscapes and music – is well suited.

An essential part of the film – aside from the staged performances, archive footage, and interviews with the company – is the series of vignettes created and performed by the individual dancers as personal tributes to their leader. These short, intimate sequences are lifted from beneath the proscenium arch and placed in wonderfully surreal locations around the industrial landscape of Wuppertal, the home of the Tanztheater. They are most often based around Wenders’ favourite landmark, the futuristic Schwebebahn, elevated above the city streets by hulking industrial girders. In one of the most exciting examples, a long shot begins with a close-up on a pair of ballet shoes “en pointe”, and in one fluid motion takes in the entire dance and eventually views the performer as one butterfly element in a rusting, mechanical landscape. It is in these sequences that the 3D technology feels most breathtaking: fulfilling Pina’s ambition of freeing the soul from the confines of the physical world, and allowing it space to breathe.

The essence of the film is summed up beautifully by one of her young dancers: “She left everything behind and was free, that’s why I wanted to give her this moment of weightlessness.”

DVD REVIEW: I Come with the Rain (dir. Tran Anh Hung)

Cast: Josh Hartnett, Shaun Yue, Byung-hun Lee, Tkuya Kimura, Tran Nu Yên-Khê

Films often disappoint us. Sometimes they fall short of our high expectations, sometimes we are prepared for poor quality but they turn out to be really terrible. But it is rare for a film to be so utterly beyond commendation – to be such an unmitigated assault on decency, sense, and aesthetic value – that it actually offends and angers us. I Come with the Rain is just such a film. Tran Anh Hung has attempted to create a psychological noir thriller that incorporates gangster elements and metaphysical, religious symbolism. He has done all of these things, but in a blinded and inconsistent way that betrays a void of artistic competence and complete disregard for the complexities of cinematic storytelling.

Troubled ex-cop Kline (Hartnett) has been employed as a private detective by a faceless billionaire whose son, Shitao (Kimura), has disappeared after moving to the Far East to help an orphanage. Kline chases a tip off to Hong Kong and meets up with an old buddy, detective Meng Zi (Yue). Unbeknownst to them, Shitao is living in a makeshift roadside bivouac, and he has discovered that he can miraculously cure people by hugging them until cuts appear all over his body. Meanwhile, crime boss Su Dongpo (Lee) is forced to watch as his own brother kidnaps his girlfriend and makes off with a large sum of money. The brother is shot, but he manages to escape and makes it to his destination just before he bleeds out… he was trying to reach Shitao.

Shitao escapes with Dongpo’s girlfriend and keeps her tied up while she recovers from drug addiction. Meanwhile Kline attempts to find Shitao by staring at pictures of his mutilated body (pictures obtained from an earlier routine police investigation). The pictures spark difficult memories for Kline, and we discover that he was let go from the police force after suffering a nervous breakdown and identifying too closely with a crazed psychopathic killer that he was hunting. Shitao allows Dongpo’s girlfriend to go back to the city, but when she decides to return to her new love she inadvertently leads Dongpo to him. Dongpo shoots Shitao repeatedly and nails him to a board of wood (if you have missed the whole ‘Christian symbolism’ thing don’t worry… it is MUCH more obvious in the film). Kline inexplicably figures out that Dongpo must know where Shitao is (despite having done nothing other than suffer a few flashbacks), and Dongpo even more inexplicably agrees to tell him! The film ends (which I honestly thought might never happen) with Kline taking Christ… sorry… Shitao down from the cross and heading home.

As far as the noir crime thriller is concerned, the bare semblance of a narrative that Tran Anh Hung does provide (and there isn’t much there, I assure you) is illogical, unoriginal, and utterly dull. As far as the religious symbolism is concerned… there is absolutely no justification for turning Shitao into some sort of Christ-figure, and it in no way fits with the tonal and thematic qualities of the story. The only remotely commendable element of the story is Kline’s psychological meltdown as the memories of his past seep back into his conscious.

To make matters worse, the director relies entirely on the wonderful music of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Radiohead to string sequences together and provide the film with some sort of emotional and tonal backbone. Both of these bands are notoriously shy and rarely allow their music to be used for films, so to see their entire discographies being butchered and abused in such a lazy way adds to the quite physical, nauseous pain of watching this film.

This could have been a taut noir crime thriller, combining the fast pace of modern Asian crime cinema with an ‘Insomnia’ story of a troubled cop who must overcome his own issues to find his quarry. Instead it is a meandering and meaningless pile of drivel that does a disservice to its many fine performances.

REVIEW: True Grit (dir. Joel & Ethan Coen)

Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin

“A stranger rides into town…” The initial spark for many of the greatest stories ever told is most recognisable as a trope of that most distinguished and iconic of genres… the Western. There has always been something of the Western in the Coen brothers’ work. However quirky and original they might appear, there are the occasional backdrops of craggy, sun-scarred canyons, or the narrator with a lilting Southern drawl, or just a general sense of lawlessness and isolation. But never before have they stripped away their signature blend of dour humour and heroic pathos to create as bare, straightforward, and open-hearted a Western as True Grit (a remake of the 1969 John Wayne classic). Even ‘No Country For Old Men’ was veiled with slow pacing, bizarre antagonists, and that nostrum ending.

The “stranger” whose arrival sparks our adventure is perhaps the only surprising element of the film. It is not a cool, quick-drawing Sheriff or a lolling, drunken outlaw; but a 14-year-old girl, Mattie (Steinfeld), who has arrived to see that her father’s body is returned safely to her family home, and to ensure that the man who shot him is brought to justice. Chaney (Brolin) has fled across the river into the lawless chaos of Chocktaw country, and few in the town would consider joining the feisty child on her mission. One man that doesn’t fit that, or any other, mould is Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) – a one-eyed drunkard who just happens to be the most ruthless US Marshall south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Another willing but troublesome ally arrives in the form of Texas Ranger LeBoeuf (Damon) – as bumbling as he is resolute – who is intent on taking Chaney back to Texas to be tried for another crime. Mattie is adamant that Chaney be hung for her father’s murder; so when Cogburn and LeBoeuf discard her with the intention of splitting the ransom money themselves, she is forced to chase them down on her startled but iron-willed pony.

While the Arkansas drunk and the spur-heeled Texan rut and thump their egos together, it falls to the beguilingly mature Mattie to act as mediator and ensure that her chaperones stick to the task. Alas, when she single-handedly discovers and attempts to contain the greasy outlaw Chaney, neither man is around to help, and Chaney’s gang quickly abducts her. Cogburn and LeBoeuf give chase, and so ensues an exciting, gun-slinging finale played out on the dusty plains of John Ford country.

If the epilogue is not an attempt at a justification, on behalf of the filmmakers, for this unusual project, it is at least an attempt to better understand their personal affection not just for the genre, but for the very real and magical period of American history that it so passionately depicts. Rooster and Mattie never hear from one another again until, many years later, Mattie receives a letter inviting her to visit Cogburn on tour with Wild Bill Hickok’s travelling show. Much as zoos have become less a celebration of nature than a monument to its rapid decline; so Hickok’s legendary show feels here like a melancholy, plastic replica of a time when people fought for what they cared about, and had the freedom to do so. When Cogburn passes away, Mattie has her old friend buried on the family plot. The final shot – depicting a lonely, wistful Mattie standing over the grave, below a jagged, creaking tree on a wind-swept, greying hill – is a resounding death knell to the fiery romance of the West.

Jeff Bridges effortlessly channels the whisky-weary stagger of last year’s Oscar-winning turn as Crazy Heart’s ‘Bad Blake’ with a less definable masochistic boredom. Cogburn is not a loveable drunk, or a hard man hiding a soft heart, he is a twisted and spiteful bastard who reluctantly carries the burden of caring about justice and innocence. But the final mention must go to the exiting and precocious talent of Hailee Steinfeld. At just thirteen years of age, she has delivered one of the most memorable performances of the year. The ‘wily and headstrong’ act does feel monotonous at times, but Steinfeld subtly exposes the chinks in Mattie’s armour. Barely moving a muscle, she momentarily reveals all the loneliness and insecurity of a lost little girl; but it is only a glimpse, and she repaints her mask, ready to do battle again.

REVIEW: Never Let Me Go (dir. Mark Romanek)

Cast: Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield, Charlotte Rampling

Kathy (Mulligan), Ruth (Knightley), and Tommy (Garfield) have grown up together at Hailsham, a remote boarding school in 1970s England. The children are electronically tagged and forced to take an assortment of pills with their morning bottle of milk. The quaint picket fences are hardly cage walls, but the rumours of what happens to children that cross them are more powerful a deterrent than any physical barrier. With no access to the outside world, the children’s flaws and anxieties breed uncontrollably. Tommy is a shy and clumsy boy given to sudden fits of howling rage; Kathy is an introverted girl, too kind and open for her own good, who befriends Tommy out of pity; Kathy’s ‘friend’ Ruth is a prissy little madam who, desperate to remain the centre of attention, decides she is in love with Tommy and begins a relationship with him that lasts into young adulthood. With nowhere to go, Kathy is forced to follow the handsome couple around like some meek and forlorn maid.

But Hailsham is no normal boarding school, and this is no normal 1970s England. Romanek’s film, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed novel, is set in a dystopian world where people are cloned and raised in isolated schools so that the state can use them for various barbaric procedures. As our beloved trio mature into young adults, they are transported to a farm where they can be kept, healthy and innocent, until their time arrives. They meet youngsters from the other schools dotted around the country, and hear rumours that in certain situations, couples that can prove they are in love are granted a stay of execution. Can Kathy and Tommy come to terms with the love that they have both been skirting around for their entire lives? Can Ruth release her poisonous grasp and allow some glimmering hope to survive? Is there any future for these “poor creatures”?

Alex Garland’s haunting adaptation remains faithful to Ishiguro’s tense and complex source material. The film manages to weave between genres and tones, leaving the viewer with a chilling and unshakeable sense of unease. Those who are unfamiliar with the source material (and who watched the film before reading this review) will be shaken to the core by the revelation that this school is little more than a farm for human organs. The hints that Garland has placed throughout the opening section reverberate back through the brain like shockwaves from a trauma, or flashbacks to a nightmare: the head teacher’s propagandist speeches about how Hailsham students are “special”; phrases like “originals” and “completion”; and those damned electronic tags and pills before breakfast, it all takes on a stark and harrowing clarity.

As we have come to expect from Mark Romanek, the film is beautiful and the tone expertly conveyed – with sweeping, melancholic landscapes, twilight hues, and brooding shadows – but the attention to small visual details is what elevates this literary adaptation into the realm of superb filmmaking. The texture and aesthetic of the film perfectly reflects Kazuo’s writing – elegance and truth, gentle, fragile, minimal simplicity.

Mulligan is the lynchpin of this film; her doe-eyed softness and melancholy smile perfectly encapsulating our heroine. Caring and patient characters are often inactive and dull, but Mulligan does an excellent job of imbuing Kathy with yearning purpose. Kathy’s narration of the film is by no means impartial, and we hear the entire story through the lens of her lingering resentment and unsteady, helpless passion. Andrew Garfield is also excellent in the role of Tommy. He is a boy that spends his life trying not to look at the things that make him scream – it is a simple and powerful root, and Garfield grasps it firmly and elicits a stirring performance.

A criticism that has been levelled at the story is the question of why the characters don’t just run away. They are allowed to live in relative freedom, even after leaving behind the picket fences of Hailsham, and could technically escape if they so wished. But this is a thoughtless and immaterial suggestion, because in real life, people rarely escape. People did not flee Nazi Germany after Kristallnacht; thousands of abused spouses remain in shivering domestic hell for their entire lives; and out-of-luck gangsters choose to fight for their meagre territory rather than fleeing town, because it is all they know. In real life, people accept their lot. We live in small worlds and we don’t have the perspective needed to rebel. And after all, what would they have been escaping into? “We all end up dying. And none of us really understand what we’ve lived through. Or feel we’ve had enough time.

REVIEW: Brighton Rock (dir. Rowan Joffe)

Cast: Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough, John Hurt, Helen Mirren, Andy Serkis, Sean Harris

Rowan Joffe is the rising talent behind the screenplays for ‘Last Resort’, ‘28 Weeks Later’, and this year’s ‘The American’. This remake of John Boulting’s 1947 original stars Sam Riley as Pinkie, a cold-hearted Brighton gangster who is forced to court and marry a naïve young waitress, Rose, to prevent her from speaking out about a murder that he committed. The original, starring Richard Attenborough in one of his career-defining roles, is one of the few British films pre-1960 that is still spoken about and enjoyed by younger generations as a ‘cool’ and spellbinding film. The first question that arises when a remake appears is, “why remake it?” That question is even more pertinent when discussing an untouchable classic, and unfortunately Joffe doesn’t have the answers.

The original was a noirish classic, filled with shadows, sweeping camerawork, and chilling melodrama. Joffe has moved the action to the 1960s and gone to great lengths to use vintage lenses and equipment to ensure a timely feel and grain. Unfortunately, this jars horribly with the nourish tone and rapier dialogue, and makes for an uncomfortable and inconsistent viewing experience. Unlike the original, you do not feel as if you are watching a genre classic, this feels more like a desperately self-justifying experiment. There is no clear reason for this temporal shift, beyond a few ‘mods and rockers’ references. Almost by accident, the shift has interesting connotations for Rose, whose rebellious streak and belief in the power of love is in conflict with her traditional values and dogmatic religious upbringing.

Sam Riley’s performance is pure mimicry. This is not his fault, but there is only really one way to play Pinkie, and Richard Attenborough already did it. Andrea Riseborough, a relative newcomer, is excellent as the timid but passionate Rose. The rest of the cast are just playing out their allotted roles; except Sean Harris who bursts with his unique brand of playful malice.

There are certainly moments where the increased capabilities of filmmakers (crane and helicopter shots and HD film) add energy and power to the sulking dinginess of the original… but sulking dinginess is what ‘Brighton Rock’ is all about! All the important moments (the skipping recording of Pinkie’s voice, etc) are all lifted shot for shot from the original. Rowan Joffe is an extremely talented artist and one of the jewels in the crown of British cinema at present, but this film is pointless and uninspiring.

REVIEW: Paul (dir. Greg Mottola)

Cast: Sean Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman,

With Spaced, the triumvirate of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright took the British nation by storm with their dilapidated, lo-fi take on cinematic conventions. Shaun of the Dead was a superb debut feature, perfectly transplanting their quirky surrealism and humble love of genre movies onto the silver screen. But the Midas touch faded and their follow up, Hot Fuzz, was given a deservingly luke-warm reception. Now that Wright has forged his own path with Scott Pilgrim, Pegg and Frost have lost their world-beating confidence and have teamed up with their American equals (director Greg Mottola and writer/ actor Seth Rogan) in an attempt to bolster the allure of their latest release.

Unfortunately, there is no escaping the fact that the unique vision of their early work relied entirely on a humility and, frankly, poverty that they no longer possess. As their budgets race away from them, the scope of their stories is forced to give chase, and their fragile muse is left huffing and panting in the background. They want to honour the wonderfully kitsch and camp genre films of their youth, but all they manage to do these days is mimic them in a style more suited to the Wayans Brothers than the toast of 90’s British comedy.

The story begins and ends at the San Diego Convention Centre – where Comic-Con is in full swing – but while the characters disappear into the heat of the Nevada desert, the story never really leaves Comic-Con at all. After the giddy excitement of the Convention, Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) board their rented Winnebago and head out into the dusty Nevada dusk on Route 375 (Extraterrestrial Highway in geek nomenclature). But they quickly find themselves taking on another passenger… Paul. Paul crashed his spaceship into a farm near Area 51 back in the 50s, and has spent the last half century as a guest of the US secret intelligence services, helping everyone from scientists to film directors better understand extraterrestrial life forms. But in that space of time he has also become a rude, opinionated pothead with a rebellious streak.

Paul is desperate to escape from his hosts, who have decided that the only way to elicit more information from Paul is to cut him open. Graeme and Clive might be the last two people on Earth you would choose to help you evade capture – two dim-witted and painfully considerate Englishmen whose survival tactic since the onset of puberty has been to keep their heads below the parapet, buried deep in a comic book; but somehow this ragtag gang stay one step ahead of the screwball government agents (Hager and Bateman), darting across the desert in search of the spot where Paul’s family can rescue him.

Unfortunately there is less synergy to be found in the real life ‘ragtag gang’ of ‘Pegg/ Frost’ and ‘Mottola/ Rogen’. Each pairing finds moments of inspired humour – and Rogen comes closest to saving the film by channelling Dale from Pineapple Express into a CGI body suit – but there is no sense that the foursome have been collectively inspired to new heights. There is something faintly but obtrusively awkward about the interaction between the British leads and their American friends. Perhaps it is the physical limitations of the CGI alien against the live action humans; perhaps it is the yawning chasm between Rogen’s lackadaisical Californian drawl and Pegg and Frost’s glitchy neurotic Englishness; perhaps it is the fact that Mottola never saw the point in offering directorial advice to the two people who perhaps needed it most, on the basis that they wrote the film in the first place. Whatever the issue, the hiccups of comedy genius feel like hollow victories in a generally average film.

Bond composer John Barry dies aged 77

One of the cinema's most unique and distinguished artists passed away from a heart attack in New York today. John Barry was born in Yorkshire in 1933 to a piano teacher mother and a father who ran a chain of theatres and cinemas. After serving in a military band during World War 2, Barry found success arranging the music for the first in Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli's 007 series, Dr. No.

Barry went on to create the theme tunes for 11 Bond films, including Gold Finger and You Only Live Twice. The Bond franchise is the most important and iconic collection of films ever created on this humble island; and for all the wonderfully camp credit sequences and droll film stars that have appeared before countless generations of film fans' eyes, it is Barry's theme music, thundering and floating past our ears, that holds the entire myth together.

Barry went on to create legendary, and often Oscar winning, scores for countless films, including Dances With Wolves, The Lion in Winter, Born Free, and Out of Africa. In 2001 he was awarded the prestigious BAFTA Fellowship for his outstanding contribution to the British film industry, and to the cinema in general. He will be remembered as a humble, unfussy, and playful man with a singular and spectacular musical vision.