FILM
FILM REVIEWS THE BEACHES OF AGNES DIRECTOR: AGNES VARDA STARRING: AGNES VARDA, JACQUES DEMY, CHRIS MARKER, JEAN-LUC GODARD RELEASED: 2 OCT 2009 CERTIFICATE: 18
PONTYPOOL DIRECTOR: BRUCE MCDONALD STARRING: STEPHEN MCHATTIE RELEASED: 16 OCT 2009 CERTIFICATE: TBC
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rrrr Pontypool may be disguised as a zombie film, but it in fact offers a whole new take on the concept. More in keeping with the plague-ridden undead in 28 Days Later, the menace here is infected people, all seen - or more accurately, heard - by Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie), a wizened, grizzly radio DJ in the small town of Pontypool, Canada. Almost nothing is seen outside the radio station, instead the tension rises as increasingly hysterical reports of riots and bizarre swarms of people are phoned in. Relying heavily on casting, director Bruce McDonald (who some may recognise as the director of ultra-low-budget Canadian horror Roadkill) has found the perfect actor in McHattie, whose disgruntled performance and sleazy, growling voice are ideal for the role. With the abundance of special effects in cinema today, Pontypool is a refreshing reminder that clever shooting and a smart concept can be equally (if not more) intense than the big reveal. [Becky Bartlett] WWW.PONTYPOOLMOVIE.COM
A delightful and idiosyncratic autobiographical documentary from one of cinema’s greatest directors: Agnes Varda. The Beaches of Agnes combines clips from the director’s own films with imaginative recreations of moments from her life to create a patterned collage of memories and anecdotes (in one instance we see Varda with a cardboard cut-out of a car, recalling how in one of her homes she would have to do a 13-point turn to get her car out each day). The film is also a fascinating insight into the
filmmaking community Varda was a part of: from working with Alain Resnais and Jean-Luc Godard during the French New Wave to her marriage with director Jacques Demy which lasted until his death in 1990. It is during the moments when Varda reflects on the relationship with her late husband that the documentary reaches real poignancy. Sincere, intelligent and wonderfully eccentric The Beaches of Agnes is one of the most life-affirming documentaries of recent years. [Gail Tolley]
THIRST DIRECTOR: PARK CHAN-WOOK STARRING: SONG KANG-HO, KIM OK-VIN RELEASED: 16 OCT 2009 CERTIFICATE: 18
rrr There have been several vampire flicks in recent months but Park Chan-wook is definitely not jumping on the band wagon; his latest gorefest, Thirst, has been more than 10 years in the making. It tells the story of a village priest who offers himself up for an experiment that is hoping to find a cure to a mysterious virus. After becoming infected and almost dying he makes an unexpected recovery only to find that he is left with an unquenchable ‘thirst’. The film starts off strongly and displays all the strengths the Korean director has become known for, in particular his eye for striking images. However the story rapidly begins to run away with itself, becoming increasingly bizarre and morphing into quite a different beast by the end: a comedy, vampire romance. If you make your mind up to go along for the ride you’ll find this entertaining enough but fans of Old Boy may be left wishing for a tighter execution. [Gail Tolley]
DVD REVIEWS HERE COME THE GIRLS
LUCK, TRUST & KETCHUP
IP MAN
DIRECTOR: VARIOUS STARRING: GUINEVERE TURNER, LUCY LIEMANN, ROBERTA MUNROE RELEASED: OCTOBER 12 2009 CERTIFICATE: 18
DIRECTOR: JOHN DORR, MIKE E. KAPLAN STARRING: ROBERT ALTMAN, ROBERT DOWNEY JR., TOM WAITS RELEASED: OCTOBER 19 2009 CERTIFICATE: 12
DIRECTOR: WILSON YIP STARRING: DONNIE YEN, SIMON YAM, SIU-WONG FAN RELEASED: OCTOBER 26 2009 CERTIFICATE: 15
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rrrr A DVD showcase for lesbian short films: about fucking time! Here Come The Girls would be a welcome release regardless of content, and, despite a few false notes, it’s definitely worth sifting through. The less ambitious efforts cover cheating heterosexual wives (A Soft Place), coming out angst (Below the Belt), growing old (Congratulations Daisy Graham) and bedroom politics (Happy Birthday) – these all suffer from being just a bit, well, dull. But then Abbe Robinson’s Private Life, is, if you overlook rather cheesecakey production values, a feisty and imaginative take on gender reversal in repressed 50s England, while Dani and Alice urgently tackles issues of stereotyping and domestic violence. The stand-outs include: Wicked Desire (a Texan mother gets a shock revelation); (the star of the disk) Guinevere Turner’s mysterious Late; and Fem, a performance art montage celebrating femininity and sexuality throughout the ages, from empowerment and submissiveness to defiance against the witch-hunters. Take that Lars von Trier! [Lisa Bourke]
You may not have seen Robert Altman’s genuinely ground-breaking 1993 drama Short Cuts. But you probably have seen Magnolia, Crash or Syriana, in which case you will have unconsciously appreciated its daring and sublime approach to ensemble storytelling. This documentary provides an invaluable record of the Raymond Carver inspired production, but its also an intimate and candid insight into the methods and attitudes of one of American cinema’s true mavericks. The cast interviews are refreshingly honest and insightful (Downey’s wired presence has a poignancy given his subsequent tribulations) and the on-set footage is intimate and fascinating. But Altman is undeniably the star. Always erudite, the director never loses his cool as he describes his attraction to the material, fights his corner over the controversial nudity, gauges performances from disinterested children, gives directions like “Start the pissing!” or receives a touching gift from Carver’s widow, Tess Gallagher. As she says, it all makes you think about “the thingness” of life. [Michael Gillespie]
Grandmaster Ip Man trained Bruce Lee. Frankly, he could have done nothing else and died a proud and happy man. But he also survived the Japanese invasion of China, publicly defeated their martial artists and escaped to Hong Kong as WWII raged around him. Well, according to Ip Man he did, anyway. This action biopic plays as fast and loose with historical fact as a beating from Iron Monkey and Hero star Donnie Yen, but it scores points for asserting the master’s Confucian life philosophies and the defiance of the Chinese under occupation (thankfully without sliding into full-on jingoism). The conventional narrative eschews the slapstick humour and structural tangents of many Hong Kong films, its focus never deviating from Ip Man, his family and his frankly astonishing ability to mete out a severe doin’. Yes, the fights are brilliant, Sammo Hung’s choreography junking high wire hi-jinks in favour of ground level scrapping with real emotional gravitas. Bruce would be proud. [Michael Gillespie]
VINYAN
JACK SAID
TIME BANDITS
DIRECTOR: FABRICE DU WELZ STARRING: EMMANUELLE BÉART, RUFUS SEWELL, JULIE DREYFUS RELEASED: OCTOBER 5 2009 CERTIFICATE: 18
DIRECTOR: LEE BASANNAVAR, MICHAEL TCHOUBOUROFF STARRING: SIMON PHILIPS, DANNY DYER, DAVID O’HARA RELEASED: OCTOBER 5 2009 CERTIFICATE: 18
DIRECTOR: TERRY GILLIAM STARRING: JOHN CLEESE, SEAN CONNERY, MICHAEL PALIN RELEASED: OCTOBER 5 2009 CERTIFICATE: PG
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As the loss of their child overwhelms them with grief, a successful couple (Béart and Sewell, both on good form) retreat to a mysterious place where they hope for reconciliation, but instead find… Well, that would be giving it away. But if this synopsis sounds familiar, that’s probably because it is. After gleefully subverting every convention of the backwoods horror with Calvaire, Belgian director Fabrice Du Welz’s second feature is a much more straightforward affair, doing little to confound our expectations of how a story like this will pan out. Aesthetically owing much to the transgressive ordeal pictures of Gaspar Noé, Michael Haneke and Bruno Dumont, Vinyan skilfully establishes an uncomfortable atmosphere, as our protagonists head into a Conradian post-tsunami Burma. But the flat characterisation and cold direction mean that by the time the ho-hum climax arrives, we’ve lost interest. The film has some interesting ideas, but nothing to match the melancholy of Don’t Look Now or the naked urgency of Antichrist. [Steven Dalziel]
In a surreal cameo, snooker star Jimmy White has his fingers cut off by undercover cop Jack (Simon Phillips). Worryingly, The Whirlwind has more acting ability in his remaining pinky finger than Phillips’ entire tubby frame. The lead is snookered from the start, though, as the script for this film noir/crime thriller feels like The Bill’s writing team have gotten their talons on a new Harry Palmer film – clutching at every cliché of the respective genres along the way. Jack’s mission is to take down a London gang headed by the ‘Guv’nor’ (bizarrely played posthumously by a CGI’d Mike Reid) and his Nuts magazine model daughters. Jack must also find friend and former gang member, Nathan (played by a rather sheepish Danny Dyer), who’s forced to go underground after robbing from the stereotypical cockney gangsters. Respective stars for Jimmy White’s efforts and the cinematography, which at least make this mental torture easy on the eye. [Alastair Roy]
rrrr When Going Live Live’s Trevor and Simon constituted TV entertainment for a generation of kids, Terry Gilliam’s tour-de-force Time Bandits burst onto the screen. Dwarf burglars smash through young boy Kevin’s closet, taking him on a thieving adventure through time: escaping predicaments with a map swiped from The Supreme Being. Meeting and stealing from Napoleon (Ian Holm), Robin Hood (Cleese) and Big Tam’s Agamemnon along the way, the ramshackle troupe face a final showdown with the map obsessed Evil Genius (David Warner). As we prepare for the much anticipated CGI fest Doctor Parnassus, this nostalgic nod back to a time of painstaking set design and optical illusions reveals Gilliam’s artistry still submerges the audience in his nightmarish, surreal and hilarious take on history and fairytales. Though revisiting childhood favourites can be a demystifying experience, Time Bandits still stands on its stop-motion legs. As Gilliam says in the accompanying interview to this re-release, it is “intelligent enough for children, exciting enough for adults”. [Alastair Roy]
OCTOBER 2009
THE SKINNY 29