Exit Through The Gift Shop

This film is a sort of documentary about a French man's journey from a family man who happens to be obsessive about filming anything and everything with his video camera, through his discovery of street art, to his own rebirth as a celebrity pop artist. The reason I say it's a "sort-of" documentary because I'm not sure how much of it is partial or total fiction, because it's supposed to be a film made by Banksy. I love a lot of street art or graffiti (the sort that looks or feels like someone has put a lot of work or thought put into it, rather than what appear to be wanton acts of boredom) so it was fantastic to see a lot of great street art being created (despite the interventions of the police).

Thierry Guetta, the main focus of the film, is a very intriguing man. It's clear that he's incredibly driven by his passion for filming the everyday world around him, but when he finds the underworld of street art, he becomes obsessed by it, and forms friendships with graffiti artists in the US. It's through a particular artist, Shepard Fairey, that Thierry is introduced to Banksy and ends up following him around, assisting Banksy in constructing art and filming him (well, his hands at work, mostly!). Eventually, encouraged by Banksy, Thierry becomes an artist in his own right overnight and even hires the massive CBS studios in LA and has his own "art show". This is the bit where is all goes a bit fairy-tale-ish, but cheeky and entertaining nonetheless.

I've seen this film described as a "faux documentary" and a "hoax" of Banksy's... which may or may not be true. What I do know, is that it's a very entertaining look at the art world, and a great story. There are probably lots of critics over the world who are getting their knickers in a twist over the questions that this film might raise, around what actually IS art... Well, at the risk of sounding a little bit pretentious, my own personal view is that art is something that someone has made, and that they have some sort of emotional attachment to... but let's keep the lid of that can of worms tightly shut - life's too short!

Official Site: http://www.banksyfilm.com/ - this tells you where you can see the film - I saw it at the Showroom, Sheffield.

Discover more about graffiti and street/guerilla art: http://www.woostercollective.com/

Let's not forget my own favourite graffiti artist, Sheffield's (and Lutterworth's, where I went to school) very own Kid Acne:

nighty-night!

Joey xx

Rudo Y Cursi - film review

Rudo Y Cursi is a comedy about two half-brothers in Mexico who are spotted by a talent scout and rise from rural obscurity to become professional footballers. I'm not into football at all but I really liked this film. It was great for a Friday night; very funny and I don't think i've read as many subtitled swear-words before! Which is entertaining in itself, in a juvenile sort of way. I do like Gael Garcia Bernal (who played Tato, nicknamed Cursi, above left) which is one of the reasons I wanted to see the film.

The story starts with them working on their banana plantation, with Cursi playing his accordion in any spare moment he gets, and Rudo (played by Diego Luna) struggling to make ends meet to support his family. From desperate poverty, they are lifted to stardom as professional footballers (Cursi was a striker and Beto/Rudo a goalkeeper) in different teams, which adds fuel to their ongoing resentments with each other. However, their rise to fame isn't long-lived or simple, and they each go through their own life-changing journeys.

What I think was particularly good about this film was some great acting, from Bernal and Luna and also Guillermo Francella who played Baton, the talent scout (Francella is apparently big in his home country, Argentina). I really warmed to Tato and Beto because like many of us, they have high goals, but their human weaknesses (lust for one, gambling for another) quickly and cruelly bring them back down to earth.

I'd recommend Rudo Y Cursi for anyone's Friday night entertainment, football fanatic or not.

Violent Films Double Bill: Let the Right One In and Bronson

I don't usually make a point of watching violent films but these two caught my attention and I just needed to renew our Showroom membership to see them... I'm glad I did because they were both really good!

First was 'Let the Right One In', a Swedish film about a 12 year-old boy, Oskar, who is bullied at school and finds a very unusual friend. Oskar's world is a cold one, both in the constantly falling snow, and in the treatment from his abusive schoolmates. Eli, the girl who moves into the flat next door is also cold, but in a different way. These two loners soon become close friends and we start to learn Eli's secrets, including the fact that she isn't really a girl...

What I particularly liked about this film was how the relationship between the two teenagers developed and endured the strangeness of the situation they found themselves in. This is essentially a love story, albeit punctuated by some very gory and disturbing moments, and it's the love story that I remember most.

The second film, Bronson, although violent, was quite different. A British film, this gives the life story of Michael Peterson, or better known by his 'fighting name' Charlie Bronson, a Luton man of whose 34 years in prison, 30 have been spent in solitary confinement. Charlie is a man beyond comprehension and almost beyond containment.

The film portrays him as a man addicted to violence for violence's sake. From school violence he progresses to serious crime, in the form of armed robbery in 1974 for which he received 7 years, however because of his behaviour and the prison authorities' inability to understand and contain him, he is still in imprisoned in solitary. Tom Hardy plays Bronson brilliantly, at times deeply menacing, then gleeful and fun-loving, but always intense. Hardy also put on 3 stone in muscle for the role, an impressive feat indeed. This was a fantastic portrayal of a complex man who was likely to have been deeply mentally disturbed and the way the prison system influenced his behaviour.

Two Very Different films: Easy Virtue and Waltz With Bashir

It's taken me nearly a whole week to review these two films... whoops!





Easy Virtue

Adapted from the Noel Coward play of the same name, I expected an enjoyable comedy, and I wasn't too disappointed. The Whittaker family live in a large English country house of the 1920's. The son (Barnes) returns from his travels in the US with Larita, a blonde American racing-driver bombshell (Biel) and announces to his family that she's his new wife. The mother (Scott-Thomas) and two sisters are shocked at this American invasion, with Larita's shiny clothes, modern ideas and cigarette smoke, but the father (Firth) seems amused by this breath of American fresh air.

It's an entertaining story and I enjoyed the comedy moments but it seemed to try too hard to shoehorn a side-story about the father's involvement in the first world war and this just didn't work. Who wants to watch something heavy on a Friday night? I need a laugh to start off the weekend!

It would be interesting to see a performance of the play, and Hitchcock's silent 1928 version to see how the story has been interpreted by different people. It's worth a watch, but don't get too excited, it's just a bit of fun.





Official site: http://easyvirtuethemovie.co.uk/


Waltz With Bashir



Although I was at school in the early 80's when the Lebanon war was going on and I remember the regular news reports of the fighting and footage of the devastated city of Beirut on t.v., this arresting animated film showed me how little I actually know about it.

We find Ari in the present day, listening to an old friend from the Israeli army they served in together, discussing what they remembered about the war they both fought in. Ari is distressed to find that he cannot remember the same details which his friend does, so he goes on a journey to find out what his other comrades remembered, to examine his own memories and feelings about the war.

It's a surreal and disturbing journey and the stark, comic-book graphic style of the animation is well suited to the grim subject-matter. It works so well as an animation; the strange and horrific images are simplified and stylized to direct our attention. This is an engaging film and although it was a view from an Israeli perspective, this didn't obscure the power of the story it told.



Official site: http://waltzwithbashir.com/home.html

Fear(s) of the Dark

Fear(s) of the Dark is a magical mixture of dark dreams, dark thoughts and dark places. It's a collection of six French animated films about a little girl's horrific dream, a man who finds shelter from the snow in an abandoned house, a young man's first girlfriend and others. The darkness theme twisted and bound the six separate stories together very well and they complimented each other, although they were made by six different animators.

The animation itself wasn't great as they were all computer animated which tends to look quite clumsy, but the graphic monotone design of all the films was beautiful and there were plenty of bits to make you jump or make your skin crawl. This is a world of weird creatures, strange shadows and depraved lunatics.

The film felt like a comic-book, from the visually arresting red and black title sequence, through a gritty, flickering pencilled world to stark black and white ink drawings.

This is a wonderfully chilling collection of films which will horrify you in a very delightful way.

Click for: Fear(s) of the Dark - official site

UK Trailer

I've Loved You So Long

Juliette (Kristin Scott-Thomas) returns from 15 years in prison and everyone has their own ideas and opinions about her and what she might have done. This film, although very sad, is very watchable, as it shows us what it may be like for people who are the 'black sheep' of their families. It is not an enviable position. Juliette is a vacant space where someone used to be, but it seems that her soul has left her, and all that remains seems to be a dark, lonely void. Her little, but grown-up and successful sister, is the only family to whom Juliette can return to after all the solitary years. However, her sister seems to be the only person at first who can bring herself to give Juliette a warm welcome.

I thought the film was not a little hard-going and emotional as we are shown the sadness, embarrassment, guilt and regret of the two sisters, but this is where the film's interest lies. I found the two sisters and their relationship, completely absorbing. If I wanted to be picky, I would say that the story fits together a little too neatly, which seems to go against the spirit of showing family life for 'real', warts and all, but then this wasn't reality, it was a story about an unbreakable bond between two sisters.

Requiem - on BBC 4

I found this to be a very moving but disturbing story. This is the sort of film which, once you start to watch, you cannot turn off because you need to know what happens next. Michaela, who, like the rest of her family, is a very devout Catholic and also has an illness. You immediately warm to this quiet, unassuming but troubled character who struggles to be independent from her parents. The story starts when Michaela moves to University, much to the displeasure of her mother, who is afraid that Michaela’s illness will cause her trouble while she's away from her protection. Michaela however, is certain that her strong religious faith will help her through any difficulties which life throws at her.

It was Michaela herself (played by the wonderful Sandra Hüller) which made this film particularly fascinating to me, if not exactly 'enjoyable'. Her illness is referred to as epilepsy but she is also very mentally disturbed in many ways, and we see her go from polar opposites of happiness to consuming anguish and mental torment. Michaela has a very sweet and calm expression but Hüller contorted it into a hellish gargoyle-face during Michaela's darker moments when her stability crumbles completely. This seemed to provoke a feeling that the 'devil' within her was finally breaking free, and Michaela was consumed by her illness and finally broken apart by the cruel 'exorcism' which she was submitted to. The fact that the film was loosely based on a true story makes it all the more compelling.

A fascinating, sad and memorable story, beautifully made.

Trailer on YouTube: Requiem

I'm a Cyborg But It's OK

I went to the cinema to see this, as you would. But this was the first film i've seen in a classroom which was pretending to be a cinema theatre. Yes, there were classroom-style chairs, a pull-down screen and light streaming through the gaps around the window blinds. It was being shown in "Showroom 5", according to a reluctant member of staff, because the film company Tartan has gone into receivership and they couldn't get a print, so they were showing the DVD instead. And indeed, there was the DVD's selection screen with looped soundtrack and clips from the film. They could have shown us the DVD extras if they wanted to! The whole strange situation affected the whole audience, and made for an excited, relaxed and chatty atmosphere. I just wish the seats had been more comfortable...
Tartan Films, RIP

Anyway, onto the film itself!

The film's heroine, Young-goon starts off life with her mentally unstable grandmother, who thinks she's a mouse and so eats radishes and stinks up the air... Granny is cruelly torn away from Young-goon to a psychiatric hospital and this event shatters Young-goon's own mind. She starts to think she's a cyborg, devoid of emotion, and an accident (she tried to charge herself up via the mains electricity) leads her to being admitted to a psychiatric hospital too.

The film is very funny and tragically sad in turns. Mental illness is manifested in this film as bizarrely humourous behaviour and beliefs, such as the beautifully-illustrated, albeit imaginary book of 7 deadly sins for cyborgs which Young-goon tries to live by ("no sympathy"). The way the film seemed to glamourise mental illness did make me wonder whether we should be finding the various events funny. Like how Young-goon didn't eat because she believed it would harm her machine organs, which brought her to the point of starving to death; the girl who could only look at people in a mirror; and the man who thought that everybody's misfortunes were all his fault and spent his days apologising. But this was made like a fantasy, and with a fantasy you tend to forgive a lot of inaccuracies and artistic licence. And if we didn't laugh, we'd cry, perhaps...

Plenty of attention has been paid to the look of the film, with some entertaining special effects and eyecandy supplied by Young-goon, played by Im Su-jeong and Il Sun (played by pop star-turned-actor Rain).

A slightly disturbing but delightful confection of a film.

Watch the trailer with English subtitles: YouTube English Trailer

Memories of Matsuko

This was a beautiful and very moving film, so I can't believe I've taken a whole week to get around to writing about it. But, the mark of a fantastic film for me is that I can actually remember it a week later! So here is what I thought...

Memories of Matsuko is the sad story of a woman's journey through a hard life, full of disappointments, betrayals and broken dreams. We follow Matsuko through her 60's childhood where she was overshadowed by her ill sister and tried constantly to impress her dour father. Then we follow her career path from school teacher to prostitute and porn star to hairdresser, and see her in prison along the way. The common thread which runs through her life is a succession of abusive boyfriends, and she's drawn to them like a fly to you-know-what.

In some ways, this was an incredibly harrowing and bleak melodrama, but I haven't said yet that it was a musical. Yes, a musical! With pop songs and Busby-Berkeley-esque dance sections which elevated the mood of the film. Just when you think that all hope is lost, along comes another song, and Matsuko is singing and dancing again. One of the highlights is "Happy Wednesday", with our heroine dressed like a 50's housewife in a bright kitschy kitchen with day-glo flowers all around. It's the sharp contrast of the bleak hopelessness of Matsuko's situation, against her faithful and forgiving approach to life, that makes the film so touching. It steers away from sentimentality, by showing her as a normal, flawed human being, who tries to deal with everything the world throws at her, slips into a downward spiral and strives to crawl back up.

If you don't shed at least one tear at some point in watching Memories of Matsuko, then you have a heart made of stone.

Watch this on YouTube for some of the best bits: Memories of Matsuko on YouTube

Happy-Go-Lucky

Oh my goodness, I haven't written anything in this blog for such a long time! I've been sewing, going to "real" work and generally wasting time! But I must write a bit about this lovely film I saw last week, directed by Mike Leigh and starring Sally Hawkins as the irrepressible Poppy.


It's a story about a very lovely primary school teacher who has an amazingly positive outlook on life. She starts driving lessons with an instructor who is the polar opposite of her; narrow-minded, negative and angry. While the instructor shouts at Poppy about her habit of wearing inappropriate driving footwear, she laughs and enjoys the moment... because anger just doesn't seem to be part of her. But she has a great empathy for any vulnerable person, and shows a lot of love and understanding. I would love to be like Poppy, she is incredibly joyous and bright, like a golden ray of sunshine! There are plenty of funny moments in this film and I think its the best comedy since last year's Little Miss Sunshine, because it shows people coping with life's setbacks and difficulties with humour and love.


The film showed how Poppy wanted to see happiness and light and that's what she saw; and the driving instructor only saw bitterness and hate in the same situations, because he didn't want to see anything else. The film seemed to say that we can, to some extent, decide what our world is; the world isn't just outside our bodies, its just as much made up of the feelings that we create in our own heads.

If you see this, you'll be chanting, "En-Ra-Ha" too!

You, The Living

The 25-minute walk to the cinema last night seemed far longer in the cold, insistent rain and wind, but i'm glad to say that this film was worth every icy drop!

You, The Living is set in a city and tells many stories about some of the people living there, their hopes and dreams, their troubles and anxieties. I was taken on a dream-like journey through the sadness, loneliness and warmth of the people who inhabit this curious place. The film is made up of lots of short scenes which show different aspects of the human condition, from loneliness and frustration to joy and pleasure.

It opens with a man lying on a small uncomfortable sofa in a tiny, austere room. The man eventually awakes and addresses us, the audience, directly. I'm not that sure how I can describe the feeling that gave me, but the size of the cinema screen and the way the room had been shot, made me feel that I was actually in that room, like a guest in the house rather than a far-off spectator. This claustrophobic feeling continues as a theme throughout the film, as do many unexpected moments of surreal comedy and the muted, beige-coloured streets, people and

interiors.
This is a film that I want to keep remembering.

You, The Living - YouTube trailer

Imaginary People - Lars and the Real Girl and The Orphanage

Hooray for the member's discount at the Showroom cinema on Fridays! Only £2 per ticket, not bad! So I just HAD to see another two films this evening. These two films were both enjoyable in their own way but each was very different. There was a tenuous link between them, though; both featured "imaginary people".

The first was Lars and the Real Girl. The story is of a young man with a mental health problem which leads him to buy Bianca, an "anatomically correct" lifesize doll to fall in love with, and the reactions of his brother, his sister-in-law and the rest of the town, to this bizarre behaviour. This film was trailered as a comedy, and it certainly had many comical moments, however I found it to be a powerful account about a troubled man who goes through a difficult emotional and psychological journey, but with the love and patience of others, comes out the other side a stronger person. Lars treated her so much like a living breathing human that i'm sure I almost saw her move a couple of times... This film used humour to lift what may have otherwise been quite emotionally draining. It was tender, moving and uplifting.

Official Trailer

The second film was The Orphanage, a chilling but moving ghost story produced by Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Cronos, The Devil's Backbone). It was beautifully made in a wonderfully creepy and massive mansion, with outstanding performances from all the cast and plenty of heart-attack-inducing moments where EVERYONE in the cinema jumped in their seats. The film used suspense to disturb, rather than gory horror, of which there was only one scene. Mathew and me discussed the suspense it gave but also the suspension of disbelief it required; so many things were left unanswered about the mystery, which made some of the story unconvincing. But, as the medium in the film, Aurora, says to Laura, "if you believe... you will see". The plot-holes though, do not detract from the fact that this is a great film.


YouTube Trailer

An Evening of Cinematic Song - We Are Together and Sweeney Todd

I've just seen two very different films this evening at our local cinema (the Showroom in Sheffield, South Yorkshire) but they share one thing in common: singing!

The first film is actually a documentary called "We Are Together", about a group of South African orphans who use their beautiful talent for singing to change their own lives. We follow the making of their CD, their trip to the U.S. and the highs and lows of their lives. It is an incredibly powerful film, and I was moved to laughter, then tears, then back again to laughter. The children's voices are wonderfully angelic, and it was so great to see them dedicating such a lot of effort into their talents. And the best thing was, that they sing all the time! Everyone sings and dances, and this is a joy to see and hear, against the bleak backdrop of family members dying from AIDS, and great poverty of the area. You must see this film, it will warm your soul.

The second in my musical double-bill was Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter, and was far from heart-warming. It was incredibly gruesome and deserves its 18 certificate, I was squeamishly scrunched-up in my seat, not wanting to see yet another throat being sliced through! However, the dark violence was contrasted against the colour of the wonderful songs and a few black comedy moments; it was very funny at first to see Johnny Depp singing (Mathew said that he sounded like a slowed-down David Bowie!) but after a few minutes you get used to it.

The sets were wonderfully shadowy and atmospheric; very evocative of Victorian London, and fitted the tone of the whole film beautifully. The colours had been toned down, so everything had a dreary, grey look to it, which seemed to emphasise Depp and Bonham-Carter's sickly-looking eye makeup and ghostly-pale skin.

Lurid, thrilling and magnificent is how i'd describe this immensely entertaining film.

The Saragossa Manuscript

Me and Mathew often go to our local independent cinema, Showroom, as it's only 20 mins walk away and they tend to show an interesting variety of new and old films. Tonight (i'm writing this in the early hours of Saturday morning) we saw a Polish film from 1965 called "The Saragossa Manuscript", which is currently enjoying a re-release due to a new print.

I don't want to give a synopsis of the film here because this has been done elsewhere on the Internet, and far more precisely than I could manage.

However, what I liked about the film was the other-worldly atmosphere and labyrinthine plot. We see the film's protagonist, Alfons, experience repeat encounters with two sisters (together they seduce him many times) and two hanged brothers. These are both scenarios which are "recorded" in the book of the title, and pop up again and again and again.

At 3 hours, this is a long film. You really need to be prepared for a moderate amount of subtitles to read (so no dozing!), and I found my eyes were a bit sore afterwards. It makes use of that length by creating lots of deja-vu moments and repeating themes. In the second half of the film, stories and flashbacks are told, in which more stories and flashbacks are layered. This creates a dream-like feeling - you recognise repeated scenarios, but the tales are so long and meandering that you often find yourself beconing lost in the maze and confused at being taken on yet another circular side-story. Mathew and me looked at each other during the film a few times to confirm that we were both confused - but also amused - by the complicated stream of events. But it gradually starts to make sense - well, sort of - and there's an interesting twist at the end which I won't spoil for you. The unhinged, minimal soundtrack enhances the unreal, unsettling feeling of the film and is also a nice contrast to the lighter, slightly comical moments.

I'm glad I saw this memorable, absorbing film with its many layers of events, real and imagined.