ENTERTAINMENT cinema Reviews BY JOHN CAMPBELL
HE NAMED ME MALALA, A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE LIFE OF MALALA YOUSAFZAI, SCREENING AT BRUNSWICK PICTURE HOUSE ON WEDNESDAY AT 7PM
CULTURE
CONT. FROM p35
TONI CHILDS INTRODUCES SHERPA In 2013 news channels around the world reported an ugly brawl at 21,000ft as European climbers fled a mob of angry Sherpas on Mt Everest. In 1953, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay had reached the summit in a spirit of co-operation and brave optimism but now climbers and Sherpas were trading insults – even blows. What had happened to the happy, smiling Sherpas and their dedication in getting foreigners to the top of the mountain they hold so sacred? Determined to explore what was going on, the filmmakers set out to make a film of the 2014 Everest climbing season, from the Sherpas’ point of view, but instead, captured a tragedy that would change Everest forever.
At 6.45am, 18 April 2014, a 14-million-ton block of ice crashed down onto the climbing route, killing 16 Sherpas. It was the worst tragedy in the history of Everest. Sherpa tells the story of how, in the face of fierce opposition, the Sherpas united in grief and anger to reclaim the mountain they call Chomolungma. Presented by Crystal Castle at the Byron Community Centre on Friday and introduced by Toni Childs, who was in Nepal recording her album at the time of the disaster. 6.30pm. $28. Tickets at byroncentre. com.au.
SCREENING SCULPTURE Rachel Lane’s 30-minute documentary about the inaugural Brunswick Nature Sculpture Walk 2015 will be screening at the Brunswick Picture House, 2pm on Sunday,
alongside a small sculptures exhibition. The event is being held as a celebration of the huge success of last year’s exhibition and in recognition of the support of the local community and businesses. Entry is by donation.
MALALA'S STORY
He Named Me Malala is an intimate portrait of Malala Yousafzai, who was targeted by the Taliban and severely wounded by a gunshot when returning home on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The film gives us an inside glimpse into this extraordinary young girl’s life – from her close relationship with her father who inspired her love for education, to her impassioned speeches at the UN, to her everyday life with her parents and brothers.
TRUMAN
Beautiful people confined to wheelchairs or dying of cancer are a popular trend in cinemas, having more or less spawned their own genre. If not always sickly sentimental (Me Before You struck a fine balance between lachrymose and thoughtful), most movies dealing with terminal illness can’t help but incline to the mawkish. So Spanish director Cesc Gay’s endearing film of subtle emotional shifts and sadness held at bay comes as a relief as well as a reminder that pulling too hard on the heartstrings of an audience runs the risk of denying it that more rewarding feeling of true empathy. Tomás (Javier Cámara) flies from Canada to Madrid to visit his dear old mate Julián (Ricardo Darin), whose cancer is in its final stage. Though confronting his looming demise with stoicism, Julián is distressed because he cannot find a new owner for his beloved dog Truman after he is gone. Following their reunion – it is such a beautiful, understated moment when the two men hug at Julián’s apartment door – we join them for drinks, restaurant dinners, walks around the city and a spontaneous trip to Amsterdam so that Julián might see his son Nico (Oriol Pla), who is studying there. Gay maintains the focus throughout on his characters’ relationships – including Paula (Delores Fonzi) – on their reflections of the past and on what remains of value to them still. They all need to deal with the sad circumstance that has drawn them together again, but in confronting it they are able to draw on a well of bottomless affection and joy. If anything, the most touching scene comes when, returning to his flat with Tomás after leaving Truman for a ‘test run’ at a prospective carer’s, Julián breaks down and sobs in the back of their cab. Darin, the great Argentine actor, is superb as a man resigned to his fate but unbowed by its daunting finality. A movie for anybody who has lost someone close to them, this is one of the year’s best.
Brunswick Picture House on Wednesday at 7pm. For tickets and program info go to brunswickpicturehouse.com.
THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Whenever there is a critics’ poll of the greatest movies ever made, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) is always near the top of the list. (The most recent survey of punters’ faves that I saw had the preposterous Mulholland Drive at #1 – gawd help us!). Hollywood eventually had a crack at re-working Kurosawa’s classic for an American audience with John Sturges’s The Magnificent Seven (1960), coming up with Elmer Bernstein’s mighty theme music along the way. Cretin though I might be, I prefer Sturges’s film – possibly because it’s in English, with colour and the inestimable presence of Steve McQueen. Another take on it was released in 1972 and in 1998 there came a version which, compared to the first M7, was akin to putting a boy band up against the ‘Sticky Fingers’ Rolling Stones. Which is to say that it has been downhill for the story since its glory days, and now director Antoine Fuqua has hit rock bottom. The town of Rose Creek – in the US, not Mexico – is under the thumb of the unscrupulous Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard). Like so many lone riders of the Wild West (Cheyenne, Bronco, Sugarfoot), Chisolm (Denzel Washington) turns up to liberate its downtrodden inhabitants, although he is not so much the hired gun with a conscience fighting for the poor as a man harbouring personal issues that he needs to resolve with Bogue. As the convener of his crew of outsiders, Chisolm is dressed all in black, but without the elegance of Yul Brynner’s original leader of the pack. Bending over backwards to embrace cultural and racial diversity, Fuqua has given us a sort of Folies Bergère posse that includes Byunghun Lee’s Chinaman with a knife and Martin Sensmeier as the Indian who really does give cliché a bad name. Emma (Haley Bennett) is the girl who inspires their high moral dudgeon, and she has the cleavage that neither Kurosawa nor Sturges felt obliged to exploit. It’s rubbish, but appropriate for the Trump era that we may be entering.
36 October 5, 2016 The Byron Shire Echo
Byron Shire Echo archives: www.echo.net.au/byron-echo