arts & entertainment
Top cast makes the most of India “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” (PG) TO film Deborah Moggach’s gentle novel about dealing with major culture change in later years, director John Madden took a top British cast to India. The result is delightful, warmly humorous, centred on old age yet un-assertive about it, glowing with India’s urban colours and motion, not didactic about its social stratification or its culture yet respectful of them. At the no-longer-new Marigold Hotel, young manager Sonny (Dev Patel) greets his first guests, seven no-longer-young Brits. Recently widowed Evelyn (Judi Dench) remains enthusiastic about life. Xenophobic retired housekeeper Muriel (Maggie Smith) travels in a wheelchair, takes comfort from complaining and won’t eat anything she can’t spell. The marriage of Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton) is declining. Madge (Celia Imrie) and Norman (Ronald Pickup) seek carnality but not with each other. Retired judge Graham (Tom Wilkinson) has good reason to be a loner. With this cast, you can trust “Marigold Hotel” to deliver good value. Its humour is well-populated with quick one-liners in an unstressed plot that goes nowhere in particular in dealing affectionately and perceptively with newly-met characters
Dougal Macdonald cinema
interacting not only with each other, but also with Indian folk whose lives touch theirs. That it revolves around retired Brits in India to pass their final years should not define its target audience or prevent younger adults from getting a full bowl of satisfaction from it. At all cinemas
“The Hunger Games” (M) THIS futurist actioner continues a mass-entertainment tradition extending back more than two millennia. Citizens thronged to Rome’s Coliseum to enjoy the violent deaths of lesser people in the arena, behaviour for leading a slaves’ revolt against which Kirk Douglas got crucified in “Spartacus”. More recently, “Logan’s Run” told a story about a society in which everybody on their 30th birthday played a game to the death. The US in 2076 consists of 12 districts from each of which, to expiate the sins of the populace in past years, a young man and woman are selected to compete in the annual Hunger Games, a TV spectacular in which the last contestant
remaining alive receives honours and benefits. Jennifer Lawrence plays Katniss who volunteers to replace her younger sister selected to compete. The film is about Katniss’ dour determination to return home as the winner. She has few friends. But coming from a deprived rural region, she has outdoors survival skills. The film’s profoundly-discomfiting aura raises questions about brutal oligarchic policy in which the populace acquiesces. Sequences resembling Nazi rallies show the panoply and passion of the opening ceremony and dedication of the competitors. I cannot know whether writer/ director Gary Ross wants “The Hunger Games” to serve as a polemic against the kind of public policy it depicts. I suspect however that if enough people pay to see it, this filming of the first volume of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy might lead to a sequel. At all cinemas
“The Raid: Redemption” (MA) IN a flat in an Indonesian city, Rama (Uko Iwais) wakes before sunrise, does a strenuous workout, kisses his pregnant wife’s belly, says goodbye to his unborn
son, then goes to work. Those are the only calm moments in Gareth Evans’ super-violent actioner as Rama leads his SWAT team into the highrise apartment building where landlord Tama (Ray Sahetapy) keeps a gang of toughs to operate his narcotics business and protect it from police intrusions. “The Raid” is uncompromisingly violent. Cops and crooks using machetes, rifles, handguns, fists and feet do battle among the building’s rooms and corridors with admirable energy, delivering images conveying blood, pain, death. The film’s minimal plot is repressed until everybody’s dead except for Rama, his brother and a senior cop who unexpectedly joins the team as it arrives at the building. Offsetting that shortcoming, Evans’ choreography of high-speed combats and directing their filming is impressive. Some of the one-on-one combats are less than convincing, more like prize-fights than mortal combat, arms furiously delivering windmill blows against arms. That’s what the public wants to see, I guess. Opportunities to end it sooner by intercepting a kick and delivering the coup de grace to a man thrown face-down to the ground come and go despite no referee being on hand to call a foul. At Dendy
‘Breaker’s’ deep acting talent EVERYMAN Theatre’s “Breaker Morant” showcases the depth of male acting talent (along with one female, Andrea Close) in the ACT. Director Jarrad West has assembled a strong cast to shape the tensions of this engaging play. Driven by Duncan Ley’s Morant and the constant provoking of Duncan Driver’s Major Thomas, the language and drama of this notorious historical event hold the audience in awe throughout the whole performance. The Courtyard Studio provides an excellent venue for the minimal set which focuses very much on the characters. The relationship between the men in a stressful wartime situation is most effective in the connection created between
20 CityNews March 29-April 4
theatre
“Breaker Morant” By Kenneth G Ross, directed by Jarrad West at The Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, until March 31. Reviewed by Joe Woodward Robert DeFries’ Lt. Peter Hancock and Ley’s Morant. Their spontaneous responses to the constant threats and momentary victories are highly entertaining. In a production with many highlights, Graham Robertson provides beautifully constructed cameo appearances as Doctor Johnson and Pieter Van Rooyan. Jasan Savage provides the suitable antagonism that drives the action of the play.
Paul’s answer is blowing in the Winds Helen Musa reports
PAUL Kildea is a big-picture man and, right now, the Canberra-born conductor and next director of Bermagui’s Four Winds Festival is busy considering the long-term future of the Easter musical summit. This year, apart from a packed program of classical recitals, there will be a new Sound Shell, to be launched by the Gondwana Chorale and commissioned works from Julian Yu and Damian Barbaler. But when Dr Kildea spoke to “CityNews”, his mind was on the festival from 2014 in a new permanent building and amenities that will house bigger and wider audiences. The former St. Edmunds College student, with a doctorate on Benjamin Britten from Oxford, divides his time between Berlin, England and his native Australia, where he will soon conduct Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” and Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for Opera Australia. “I feel very fondly towards Canberra,” he says. His parents and sister still live here and he got his early musical training from trumpet teacher John Thompson and piano teacher Keith Radford after seeing an announcement on the school notice board calling for “anyone who wants to learn to play an instrument”. Now, at 47, he can look back on a career that includes the directorship of Paul Kildea... a Aldeburgh Festival and Wigmore Hall big-picture man. in England. Two years ago, the present Four Winds director, Genevieve Lacey, invited him down to Bermagui. “I was blown away by the site,” he reports. Then Four Winds chair Sheena Boughen asked if she might phone him in Berlin, and the rest is history. He takes up the appointment in May. Dr Kildea’s mind is not just on Easter, but on summer proms, an outdoor cinema, residential schools, international commissions and educational programs, especially in light of the fact that “the population swells enormously in summer”. The organisation is largely staffed by volunteers who “forge a relationship with the community”, but he now wants to expand its infrastructure. In his view the future lies in “our real diversity of cultural expression”. “I’m interested in what the festival becomes,” he enthuses to “CityNews”, explaining that the “amazing” world-class ocean views in buildings would be hard to find anywhere in the world – “it’s a very inspiring place”. Four Winds Festival, April 6-8, Bermagui/Barragga Bay, information and bookings to www.fourwinds.com.au