DVD REVIEWS VIDEODROME
THE GUARD
WHISPER OF THE HEART
DIRECTOR: DAVID CRONENBERG
DIRECTOR: JOHN MICHAEL MCDONAGH
DIRECTOR: YOSHIFUMI KONDO
STARRING: JAMES WOODS, DEBORAH HARRY RELEASED: OUT NOW CERTIFICATE: 18
STARRING: BRENDAN GLEESON, DON CHEADLE RELEASED: 16 JAN CERTIFICATE: 15
STARRING: YOUKO HONNA, KAZUO TAKAHASHI RELEASED: 9 JAN CERTIFICATE: U
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In the paranoid Cold War coke comedown of the early 1980s David Cronenberg unleashed this unsettling masterwork, now on Blu-ray. James Wood is Max, a sleazy cable TV president looking to feed the dark desires of his ravenous audience. As Debbie Harry’s kinky character states: “We live in over-stimulated times... we always want more.” And this is what Max aims to provide, even if that more is torture and murder. What he finds, however, is Videodrome, a mindaltering experience leaving him with a soluble sanity fizzing away to nothing in the bottom of a glass. Replace video with dot com and this disturbing parable relates directly to our own digital age where beheadings and hardcore sex are readily available online. Cronenberg goes beyond body horror and delivers horrific mind mutilation, leaving us with a twisted psychological spasm of a film which directly tackles TV, the demon in the corner of the room. Long live the new flesh. [Alan Bett]
John Michael McDonagh – forever cursed to be billed as brother to In Bruges’ writer-director Michael – tries his hand at directing in this scalding debut. Starring Brendan Gleeson as foul-mouthed, small-town Garda Sergeant Gerry Boyle, Irish humour mixes with dark overtones to create this wise-cracking black comedy. Don Cheadle co-stars as uptight FBI agent Wendell Everett sent to get to the bottom of a high profile drug trafficking scheme off the coast of Galway. A trio of mis-matched gangsters, including Londoner Mark Strong, run rings around the Garda in a cat-and-mouse game along winding country roads and a perishing coast. Like Gleeson, it’s a little flabby around the middle but its roughand-ready approach creates a medley of ridiculousness that somehow hits the right notes. Despite some over-stretching, its dialogue pays off. High-brow references and small-town idiosyncrasies clash in rib-tickling fashion, leaving us to ponder whether The Guard’s subjects are really mother-effing dumb, or really mother-effing smart. [Nicola Balkind]
Making a welcome debut on Blu-ray, Whisper of the Heart is a minor classic from Japan’s legendary Studio Ghibli, home of the award winning Spirited Away and Princess Monomoke. A young schoolgirl is determined to prove herself to a talented maker of musical instruments and starts writing stories about a mystical cat known as The Baron. Losing herself totally in the creative process we join her in some spectacular flights of fancy, which help her make big decisions about what to do with her life. Visually the film does not disappoint, and it’s always beautiful and often breathtaking, but some might be disappointed that not a great deal happens. It’s really quite a simple story about finding inspiration from the one you love. And what’s wrong with that? It may be quiet and even slow at times, but it’s so sweet and sincere that it’s hard not to warm to it. A little treasure. [Scotty McKellar]
PUNISHMENT PARK
HEARTS OF DARKNESS
THE BURMA CONSPIRACY
DIRECTOR: PETER WATKINS
DIRECTOR: FAX BAHR, GEORGE HICKENLOOPER
DIRECTOR: JEROME SALLE
STARRING: PATRICK BOLAND, KENT FOREMAN RELEASED: 23 JAN CERTIFICATE: 15
STARRING: ELEANOR COPPOLA, FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA RELEASED: 9 JAN CERTIFICATE: 15
STARRING: TOMER SISLEY, SHARON STONE RELEASED: 23 JAN CERTIFICATE: 15
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Through a combination of radical politics and formal experimentation British director Peter Watkins has pushed the limits of the docudrama since the 1960s. Available on a Blu-ray/DVD dual-format for the first time, Punishment Park is his controversial 1971 feature released at the height of the anti-Vietnam protests. Using non-professional actors, improvisation and documentary techniques, this ambitious, if rough-and-ready film portrays a fictional world in which the Nixon administration has declared a state of emergency and is forcing an assortment of student radicals, black militants, and pacifists to choose between a prison term and playing a deadly game in which they are pursued across the desert by armed soldiers. In these postBush times its portrayal of the ruthless use of presidential decree and trial without jury seems more relevant than ever; yet, with its cast of freaks and squares, over-the-top acting, and obsolete rhetoric it has also become a fascinating period piece. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]
Deriving its name from the book that gave Apocalypse Now its story, Hearts of Darkness is perhaps the world’s best-known “The Making of...” documentary. Narrated by Francis Ford Coppola’s wife, Eleanor, it’s the source for much of the lore about the interminable production of the flamboyant director’s Vietnam War Film to end all Vietnam War Films. Hearts of Darkness follows the 238 day, $20 million shoot for Apocalypse Now, faithfully recording its legendary mishaps: from replacing its original lead (Harvey Keitel) two weeks in, through sets destroyed by monsoon rains and helicopters borrowed from the Filipino army recalled to fight rebels in the middle of filming; to the nightly, frenzied script re-writes. All these fed a media storm back home, so that it was probably no wonder Kramer vs. Kramer won the Oscar for Best Picture – everyone must have been sick of hearing about the Apocalypse out East. But 90-minutes of selfindulgence makes it a cinephile favourite. [Nicola Balkind]
Episode 1
The Burma Conspiracy is the second film based on Belgian comic series Largo Winch. It features a Bosnian hero who lives in Switzerland, has more European co-producers than Greece has bad debts, and dialogue that switches between French and English. Unlike our PM, this film seems steadfastly for European unity. But it is also an action thriller which wants to beat Hollywood at its own game. The film takes in a series of decent action sequences and a wide range of exotic locations in an attempt to out-Bourne the Bourne series, but it suffers from the usual underdog flaw of having to try too hard. The producers draft in a well-preserved Sharon Stone to add star power, but their budget evidently didn’t stretch far; she vamps it up in a few minor interior scenes, her character existing mostly in parallel to the main plot. The closest she comes to full European integration is her single line in French: “Calmez-vouz, Monsieur Winch!” [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]
Thu 19 — Sun 22 Jan 2012 CCA, Glasgow
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Frame montage tracking Shot cloSe Up Film StrUggle Diagram a propoSal Declaration Statement
EvEry aspEct of EvEry film is always about morE than just film. this is a fEstival of ExpErimEntal, artists’ film. it concErns film as a way of thinking (about thE world). it’s a sEriEs of variously intErEsting, intEnsE, challEnging, thoughtful EvEnts; a kind of convivial social spacE.
co-producEd by:
jEan-mariE straub, hartmut bitomsky, ayrEEn anastas and rEnE gabri, karEn mirza and brad butlEr, lutz bEckEr, nina powEr, graham harwood, chto dElat?
supportEd by:
W W W .T H E S K I N N Y. C O . U K PHOTO: EUAN ROBERTSON
JANUARY 2012
THE SKINNY 49