Coherence
(USA/English
dialogue/89 min)
A group of friends are having dinner while all over the
news people are talking about a comet passing close to Earth. The evening is
soon interrupted by a power cut. At first they think this is normal, until
people are heard wandering outside the house, banging on doors and windows
before vanishing into the dark. As their situation becomes more frightening,
paranoia sets in, personalities clash, and relationships begin to fracture.
If this summary of James Ward Byrkit’s science fiction
thriller sounds like nothing new, that’s because I’ve tried not to spoil what
happens. The less you know about Coherence
and its plot, the more you’ll enjoy it. If you want a better way to describe
Byrkit’s first feature film, try this: Coherence
restores your faith in low budget science fiction.
You can tell the script, which Byrkit also wrote, has
been through countless re-drafts; this is ninety minutes of pacy, intelligent
entertainment. There are moments where you think you know what’s happening,
only for Byrkit to throw in a twist that puts a massive, great line through
everything you thought you knew. Fortunately this isn’t the sort of film where
you’re struggling to work out what you’re watching. Byrkit knows what he’s
doing; he knows how to keep up the tension without leaving people behind,
scratching their heads.
While the cast (which includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Nicholas Brendon) are all typically
young and good looking, they’re not your usual stereotypes. A large part of the
thrills comes from the secrets that are revealed within the group and the
different factions that are formed. The characters onscreen are recognisable
for the right reasons, the different ways people would behave in scary
situations such as this. During filming, much of the dialogue was improvised,
which gives a sense that you’re watching real people and their reactions, but
you also get some quick-thinking one-liners thrown in, most of them delivered
by Brendan (“Help yourself; we’ve got cheese, wine, ketamine!”).
Considering Byrkit’s background has been in music and
theatre, as well as working as a designer for Gore Verbinski, you can tell he
made Coherence with an endless amount
of confidence. It’s tricky to keep thrilling your audience when, for the most
part, your film is set in one room, but Byrkit and his cast make it look easy.
If Coherence doesn’t end up being a
cult classic, then there’s simply no justice in this world!
4 out of 5
Cold
in July (USA/English dialogue/109min)
Dexter’s
Michael C. Hall plays Richard Dane, a family man who avoids confrontation. He
owns a gun, but has never fired one. When he shoots and kills an unarmed
burglar, Dane realises he can no longer trust the local police, who seem
determined to cover up what happened at his home, turning vigilante in his
search for answers.
Director Jim Mickle doesn’t do typical,
seen-it-all-before thrillers. Stakeland
was a vampire horror that was playful in its bending of the rules, whilst
making its undead monsters both savage and frightening. We Are What We Are is arguably the greatest horror remake since
Hollywood started the craze back in the early noughties. Mickle’s latest, Cold in July, starts off as a revenge
thriller, but veers wildly into conspiracy, Spaghetti Western and even Coen
Brothers comedy.
Mickle has always been obsessive over detail, and with Cold in July he pays homage to the
violent thrillers of the eighties. Night time shots are bleached in neon signs
and street light, all scored by Jeff Grace who, having never heard the phrase
“Less is more,” almost pummels you with tense, lingering, John
Carpenter-inspired synths.
The performances from the three leads could all be
classed as career best; Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard and Don Johnson feeling
like they shouldn’t belong in the same film, yet somehow get away with it. Hall
is an ordinary man who shakes and struggles to breathe when we first see him
hold a gun, but as the film goes on he becomes this cool, scowling man who is
all-too comfortable when dishing out ferocious violence. Sam Shepard, as Ben,
starts off as a snarling, grizzled man who is also looking for answers. Mickle
and co-screenwriter Nick Damici give us an interesting character arc when Ben,
who you would expect to shrug off the sordid secrets that are uncovered,
becomes increasingly unstable, while Richard ends up resembling Ben from early
on in the film. Miami Vice’s Don
Johnson steals the show, chewing the scenery in every scene he’s in, as
Stetson-wearing, fiery-red convertible driving, foul-mouthed one liner spewing
bad ass, Luke (a pig farmer turned private detective). Luke is there to provide
the comedy and while you could argue that most of Johnson’s scenes descend into
slapstick, jarring with the rest of the film, you don’t mind or don’t care
because of how cocky, assured and effortlessly cool he is.
Not everything in Cold
in July sits well, and the script doesn’t wrap things up as neatly as you
would like, but like Johnson’s convertible, it’s a hell of good ride. Mickle
steals from all sorts of films, but manages to come up with plenty of surprises
thanks to three of the strongest performances you will see all year, a
hot-blooded script and a gleeful, fan boy level of detail.
4 out of 5
A
Dangerous Game (UK/English dialogue/98 min)
From the get-go, it’s clear that Anthony Baxter’s
follow-up to his previous film, You’ve
Been Trumped, is a one-sided, Michael Moore affair. A Dangerous Game scrutinises billionaire Donald Trump’s golf course
at Meine, Aberdeenshire, and the damage he has caused to the local environment,
as well as widening the scope to Croatia and America, interviewing
environmentalists and local residents.
While A Dangerous
Game is far from unbiased, it’s hard to agree with anything Trump has to
say, the business giant coming across as arrogant and a bully during interviews
and confrontations with Baxter. Michael Forbes, whose farm backs on to Trump’s
golf course, his fishing business now ruined, is vilified by Trump (in 2012,
Forbes won Scotsman of the Year at the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards).
Demanding to be included in a committee meeting at the Scottish Parliament, an
MP asks Trump what he has to back up his evidence, Trump quick to reply, “I am
the evidence.” When Trump sits down with Baxter during an interview, it’s
all-too-obvious that here is a man who does not like to be questioned or told
no, preferring to raise his voice or say the same thing over-and-over when
Baxter points out another example of Trump being a hypocrite.
Baxter is going for the jugular, but he makes a
convincing argument against the development of luxury golf courses. An
excellent example of real life, on-going David and Goliath clashes, A Dangerous Game restores your faith in
the so-called “little people” taking on supposedly untouchable multi-billion
dollar corporations.
4 out of 5
Doc
of the Dead (USA/English dialogue/82 min)
Alexandre O Philippe (director of The People vs. George Lucas) gives us another documentary on
popular culture, this time… Zombies! Thankfully, this isn’t a didactic, five
hour documentary on the history of the sub genre, it’s a fun, tongue-in-cheek,
concise look at zombies and how they’re more commercial than they ever have
been (World War Z and Warm Bodies both being zombie films that
avoided an 18 certificate).
O Philippe has an impressive guest list of horror legends
including George Romero, Bruce Campbell, Max Brooks, Simon Pegg, Robert
Kirkman, Sherman Howard and Tom Savini to name just a few. There are plenty of
highlights here including a discussion on what the best course of action during
a zombie apocalypse would be, as well as a zombie wedding conducted by The Evil Dead’s Ash himself!
Doc
of the Dead goes on a (thankfully brief) tangent to
examine the science behind whether a zombie virus could really happen. O
Phillippe interviews a number of scientists and shows us stock footage, only to
come to the conclusion that, while there is a virus that turns ants into
cannibals, the chances of something like this ever happening to humans are
remote to none. O Philippe could easily have cut this from the film as it’s a
jarring shift in tone, the rest of the film feeling like a party for zombie
fans, plus you already know what the answer’s going to be.
Doc
of the Dead is a broad look at zombies as a cultural phenomenon.
It asks plenty of questions rather than coming up with any definitive answers
(what can you read into people’s obsession with the undead?), but it is well
researched, looking at how zombies have shuffled their way from films, toys,
TV, video games, to real-life survival horror events. O Philippe’s latest
documentary should be watched by anyone who enjoys watching flesh eating
corpses biting chunks out of the living.
4 out of 5
Garnet’s
Gold
(UK/English dialogue/76 min)
Garnet of the title has spent his life daydreaming. He is
a bright, gentle man with a dry sense of humour and plenty of get-up-and-go.
His life has never been predictable and he rarely follows the rules, but over
the years he’s let plenty of chances slip by. Ed Perkins’ documentary follows
Garnet as he comes up with the idea to search the Scottish Highlands for Bonnie
Prince Charlie’s gold.
It’s not really spoiling anything by saying that Perkins’
film isn’t about Garnet’s search for buried treasure, it’s about a humble man
looking back on his life and searching for some kind of hope or encouragement
for the future.
Garnet’s
Gold
is astoundingly shot, Perkins not only able to convey the splendour of the
Highlands, but how daunting they are, how isolated they can make a man feel.
The real star of the show is Garnet himself; he’s remarkably honest about his
failed ambitions and how conflicted he is. Garnet is wonderfully eccentric, but
also child-like and fragile. He has spent virtually his whole life living with
and looking after his mother, yet still confidently believes that one day he
will find his true love.
Garnet’s
Gold is moving and wonderful to watch, Perkins having come up
with his very own treasure.
4 out of 5
The
Guvnors (UK/English dialogue/92 min)
I’m going to put my hands up and say I’m not a big fan of
British urban thrillers, the reason being that they tend to stylise gangland
culture, make it look like something straight out of a comic book, when the
truth is that being in a London gang is far from glamorous or exciting.
Personally, despite being a horror film with plenty of tongue-in-cheek black
comedy, Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block
has the most to say about Britain’s teenage gangs. During the opening minutes of Gabe Turner’s The Guvnors, I thought, “Here we go
again.” The leader of a teenage gang cuts a girl’s face for talking to the
police. So far, so done to death. Yet as you keep watching, you realise that The Guvnors is very different to
London-set gangland thrillers that all seem to have the same characters and the
same plot.
The narrative centres on two generations of gangs; the
aging Phil Mitchells who were hooligans back when riots on the terraces were
all over the tabloids, and the hoodie, trainer-wearing gangs who routinely
feature on today’s news. When Mickey (David Essex) is murdered in his flat by a
teenage gang, “The Guvnors”, now car dealers, office workers and property
developers, reunite to seek bloody revenge.
The performances here are fantastic to watch. Doug Allen
is an ex-hooligan and gangland hard man who ran away from that life to protect
his family. He realises returning to that world will only end badly, but he
wants revenge for Mickey, his father-figure. Allen starts off with calm negotiations,
trying to avoid bloodshed at all costs, but soon gives up hope when violence
seems to be the only way to resolve things. Harley Alexander-Sule (one half of
British hip-hop act, Rizzle Kicks) is
startling as the leader of his own gang, obsessed with controlling what he
calls, “His square.” His eyes are blank and he speaks in a slow, soft tone,
never raising his voice. Unlike The Guvnors who see each other as a family and
look out for each other, Alexander-Sule isn’t afraid to take a knife to one of his
gang members, just so he gets what he wants.
The
Guvnors has more to say about London gangs than virtually all the
home-grown urban thrillers released within the last decade: how crime is
changing and the police are struggling to cope with this change; a legacy of
violence that moves from one generation to the next, begging the question of
how to make it stop; can someone born and raised in this violent, anarchic life
ever truly change their ways? There’s a lot here that most films in this genre
simply don’t bother to discuss. The
Guvnors is thrilling, original, occasionally delivering the odd smart
one-liner; a major stand out amongst this year’s entries at EIFF.
4 out of 5
Hardkor
Disko (Poland/Polish dialogue with English subtitles/87 min)
Marcin (Marcin Kowalcyzk) meets Ola (Jasmine Polak), a
beautiful young woman obsessed with drink, drugs and all-night partying. The
two of them begin an on-off relationship, but it’s clear from the outset that
Marcin isn’t interested in Ola, he’s using her to get to her parents, driven by
a murderous grudge for reasons unknown.
Hardkor
Disko has an intriguing premise; a man arriving in a city with
murder on his mind, yet we’re oblivious as to what’s going on inside his head,
why he has this urge to kill. Trouble is, screenwriters Krzysztof Skonieczny
and Robert Bolesto don’t do anything or go anywhere with this idea. I’m not
spoiling anything by saying that you never find out why Marcin wants Ola’s
parents dead. This would be fine if the script explored themes such as what
makes a man hate a family so much that he will become part of their lives,
spend time with them, and then, when nobody is around to stop him, commit
murder? Skonieczny and Bolesto’s script doesn’t even do that. Instead Hardkor Disko coasts along at a
wearisome pace, taking far too long before Marcin gets to kill someone. Perhaps
Skonieczny and Bolesto thought this was build-up, but a ten-minute scene
involving Marcin sat with Ola and her parents at breakfast, listening to their
trivial, middle-class views, is far from build-up, it’s tedious. There’s no
tension here, no sense of unease. Instead you know Marcin is going to kill
someone and are sat waiting for this to happen, but because this takes so long,
most scenes adding nothing either to the narrative or the characters, you wind
up bored. When Ola’s father is eventually killed off, you’ve lost all interest
in what you’re watching.
Skonieczny previously worked on music videos and this
shows in Hardkor Disko’s visuals. The
nightclubs and house parties of Warsaw are edited together at an intense pace
that makes MTV look tame, shimmering colours such as golds or whites used to
make you feel just as much of an outsider as Marcin does. This is contrasted
with lingering shots during car journeys, or when Marcin and Ola sit
side-by-side in the countryside the morning a house party, Kacper Fertacz
deliberately setting up the camera so you feel like a voyeur, an accomplice to
Marcin’s violence.
Marcin Kowalcyzk is a believable psychopath, even if the
script doesn’t give him all that much to do. He’s unnervingly emotionless
except for his eyes, which hint at a supressed hatred and conflicting emotions.
If Hardkor Disko’s
narrative was anywhere near as creative as its visuals then Skonieczny’s film
would be a career highlight. Not knowing why Marcin commits his crimes feels
like a cynical excuse to keep you watching something that is tenuous and
overlong.
2 out of 5
Life
After Beth (USA/English dialogue/91 min)
Zach (Dane DeHaan) is inconsolable when his girlfriend
Beth (Aubrey Plaza) dies. When he turns up at Beth’s parents’ house to find her
wandering around as if nothing happened, he is ecstatic to be given a second
chance, to make up for the mistakes he made during their relationship. Yet Beth
begins to change, both personality-wise (she becomes temperamental, aggressive)
as well as physically (she starts to decay); Zach quickly putting two-and-two
together: his girlfriend is a zombie.
America has, once-or-twice, tried to come up with a
comedy horror that equals Edgar Wright’s Shaun
of the Dead, and while some of them have come close (Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland), they’ve not managed to
recreate the witty observations and endearing laughs of Wright’s feature film
debut. Jeff Baena’s directorial debut, Life
After Beth manages to be just as clever and comical as the Cornetto
Trilogy’s first entry.
Baena’s script is perfect, it doesn’t do a single thing
wrong. It’s a constant mix of roar with laughter humour and thoughtful,
poignant observations; none of it jarring. There’s plenty of insane, Ghostbusters-style humour and original
ideas here, such as the zombies listening to smooth jazz because it helps calm
them down, as well as one of the best visual gags you will see in a comedy all
year, which involves an oversized oven. Alongside the
so-funny-Baena-makes-it-look-easy comedy are some complex questions about love
and life. Now that Zach has Beth back, he realises that she’s not as perfect as
he remembers; she’s controlling, whatever she says goes. No longer having Beth
around has romanticised Zach’s memories of her; he only remembers the good
things, not the bad.
Dane DeHaan and Aubrey Plaza give performances that can’t
be faulted. DeHaan, known for playing the bad guy in Chronicle and The Amazing
Spider-Man 2 is a natural comedian, both in his delivery of some fiendishly
sharp dialogue or his reactions to some of the more insane situations he finds
himself in (Beth deciding she likes the taste of Zach’s car’s upholstery). He’s
also movingly honest in how he depicts heartache, resorting to ever more
desperate measures to ensure the love of his life doesn’t leave him a second
time.
Plaza looks like she’s having a hell of a lot of fun
playing Beth, but her portrayal of Zach’s undead girlfriend is a subtle one,
slowly changing from sweet and innocent girl next door to a bad-tempered,
flesh-eating corpse. Baena has clearly given a lot of thought in to what would
a zombie say if it could talk, as well as the problems of having a relationship
with someone who’s dead. Life After
Beth’s script is a challenging one for any actress and Plaza does a
fantastic job with everything she is given.
The supporting cast is just as noteworthy. John C. Reilly
and Molly Shannon make a brilliant duo as Beth’s parents, both dishing out
plenty of laughs in their attempts to keep the truth hidden from their
daughter, as well as being pitiably tragic; they’ve got their Beth back, but
haven’t given a thought to the consequences. Considering Matthew Gray Gubler,
as Zach’s big brother, a police officer both at work as well as at home with
his parents, only appears in a handful of scenes, he is given an absurd amount
of one-liners.
A special mention has to go to the film’s score, written
and performed by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (the band’s first instrumental
album), the ominous, droning feedback going hand-in-hand with Life After Beth’s more thoughtful
moments.
Jeff Baena’s first film in the director’s chair manages
the tricky task of being both tears streaming down your face hysterical, and a
charming, sensitive commentary about death and love. Life After Beth is flawless; the cream of the films I saw at this
year’s EIFF, as well as being the best film so far this year.
5 out of 5
Miss
Zombie (Japan/Japanese dialogue with English subtitles/Black and
white/85 min)
A doctor and his family receive an unusual package in the
post: a zombie. Inside the crate is a gun and a note saying the creature, a
young woman, is harmless so long as she keeps away from raw meat. The family
decide to keep her around doing the housework. After an accident in which the
young son drowns, the boy’s mother forces the zombie to feed on her child, bringing
him back from the dead. This is when things start to turn gory and very, very
complicated…
Miss
Zombie is not your typical zombie film, more of an arthouse take
on the undead. For virtually the whole of its running time, Daisuke Souma
shoots in black-and-white, giving every scene an eerie, uncomfortable feel, the
make-up for the zombie looking even more grotesque, especially her black,
emotionless eyes.
There are lots of ideas here that you don’t usually see
in a zombie film (Sabu having written and directed Miss Zombie): people’s reactions to seeing a corpse walking around;
the bond between mother and child and how this bond continues after death; the
living’s desire to be loved and is it possible for a zombie to feel love? Miss Zombie is a thinking man’s zombie
horror, much like Romero’s Dawn or Day of the Dead.
What stops Sabu’s latest from being one of the very best
zombie films is the pace, the build-up taking far longer than it should. There
is a sense of unease throughout Miss
Zombie’s hour-and-a-half, you know that something bad is about to happen,
but it takes a long time before any flesh gets chewed on.
Miss
Zombie is a strong entry in the zombie sub-genre; fans of
horror films and the living dead should keep an eye out for it. The problem is
that it’s almost too reflective for its own good; too much brooding and not
quite enough to get the pulse raising. A solid enough ninety minutes, but as a
half-hour short film, it could have been something really special.
3 out of 5
A
Most Wanted Man (UK, USA, Germany/English dialogue/122 min)
A Most
Wanted Man
has hit written all over it. It’s adapted from a John le Carré novel directed
by Anton Corbijn, whose first feature film Control,
a biopic of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, won massive critical acclaim, and
stars the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, and Willem Dafoe. There
are plenty of spy films out there: people stood around looking moody
(constantly smoking or drinking), about to chase after someone down a dim back
street alley. To its credit, A Most
Wanted Man does try and do something different with the predictable genre.
After 9/11, one of the key men behind
the attack was found to have been living and planning the attacks in Hamburg.
German Intelligence had no idea that this had been happening. Since 2001,
America has had its eye on Germany, with tensions running high between the two
countries; German Intelligence not wanting to make the same mistake again.
There’s plenty here that you won’t
have seen in a spy film: post 9/11 paranoia, attitudes towards Muslims (most people
see Muslims and immediately think terrorist), and questioning how much damage
America causes by wading in every time there is even the slightest, unfounded
suggestion of an attack?
Nobody puts a foot wrong, acting-wise,
but this is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s show, reminding us just what a peerless
talent he was. Americans tend to do a ropey job when it comes to accents, but
here you would think Hoffman lived in Germany all his life. Hoffman has always
done a sterling job of playing tortured souls, and he does the same here as
Gunther Bachmann, head of a German Intelligence agency, still haunted by his
operation in Beirut, where a mistake by the Americans cost the lives of Bachmann’s
team. Bachmann knows all-too-well that who’s good and who’s bad is rarely
clear; he is a brilliant mind coupled with a weary soul, spending most of his
time drinking in shabby bars.
The problem with the film is that a
twist you don’t usually see in spy films, especially those centred on the
Muslim community, kills the tension early on. There is very little jeopardy
here. What follows is absorbing enough, but it’s not “Find the mole or several
operatives will have their cover blown”, or “The heads of a terrorist network
are all meeting and we need to find out what they’re planning”. You get more
than your fair share of surprises, but once you find out that there is no
immediate threat, what started out as a gripping film suddenly loses its punch.
A Most
Wanted Man
looks polished enough, thanks to Benoit Delhomme’s cinematography revealing
Hamburg’s underbelly, you just wonder how much of the narrative is straight out
of Le Carre’s novel, and how much has Andrew Bovell tinkered with in order to
bring it to the screen? Anton Corbijn’s latest is an above average spy thriller
which shoots itself in the foot by changing the rules within the first
half-hour. It’s worth seeing for Philip Seymour Hoffman alone, but will only be
remembered for being one of the last, possibly even the last, films he starred in.
3 out of 5
My
Accomplice (UK/English
dialogue/92 min)
The best way to describe what goes on
in Charlie Weaver Rolfe’s film is that it’s a love letter to Brighton, to all
the different and eccentric characters who live there. Frank and Ilse are the
stars of the show, who start dating, but are both cautious as they’ve been hurt
in relationships before.
Most of My Accomplice feels improvised, Rolfe telling his cast to do what
they like so long as they stick to the bare bones of the story; a good and bad
thing. While a large part of the film is funny to watch, thanks mostly to
Stuart Martin’s cheeky chappy charisma, having a one-liner ready for every
situation, not all of the jokes and madcap humour hit the mark. There are
several minutes where you’re waiting for the film to raise a smile or make you
chuckle.
Rolfe gets several local bands on
board (The Mountain Firework Company, Bob Wants His Head Back, Transformer),
their songs accompanying – the band members even appearing in – several scenes,
which helps give Brighton that sense of being a quirky, unique place to live,
as well as being enormously likable stuff to listen to.
Visually, the film is basic, run of
the mill. So long as the lighting’s half decent and everyone and everything is in
focus, then that’s good enough. Rolfe gives us some postcard shots of Brighton
and its cheerfully coloured streets, but otherwise the visuals do just enough
to tell the story, and that’s it.
My
Accomplice is
unusual in the sense that very little happens, yet it still manages to be
enjoyable. It’s unlikely you would own it on DVD, but as an off-the-cuff piece
of film making, (you get the sense that Rolfe got hold of a camera and thought,
“To hell with it, let’s make a film!”) it puts a smile on your face, whilst
persuading you to pack up your bags and move to Brighton.
3 out of 5
A
Practical Guide to a Spectacular Suicide (UK/English
dialogue/85 min)
When you read the summary for A Practical Guide, it sounds like it’s well worth a watch. Tom
Collins (Graeme McGeagh) has tried to kill himself numerous times, but partly
due to how clumsy he is, partly due to some seriously bad luck, he’s failed
miserably. Forced into therapy and meeting fellow patient Eve (Annabel Logan),
Tom begins to realise that there are people in this world who actually care
about him.
When you see the film, directed by Graham Hughes, you
realise that virtually everything about it is amateurish. The script (a
three-hander written by Hughes, McGeagh and Keith Grantham) is supposed to be a
comedy, yet almost all of the jokes sound like they came out of a Christmas
cracker; you’ll be stone-faced throughout most of A Practical Guide’s running time. The performances are stilted and
awkward; it feels like Hughes got his friends involved instead of having
auditions and getting proper actors on board. There are a couple of witty
lines, but due to poor delivery, they pass by without so much as a smile. A Practical Guide’s biggest and
unforgivable problem is the sound. Audiences will put up with workmanlike
visuals, even the odd poor performance, but they won’t tolerate muffled, tinny,
occasionally unfathomable dialogue. Even without a budget, decent quality sound
isn’t too big an ask. A Practical Guide has
the worst sound I have ever heard in a supposedly professional feature length
film.
The worst thing about A
Practical Guide is that there would have been plenty of other films, far
better than this one, that could have had their UK premiere in Edinburgh.
Bizarrely, the jury picked this one. If A
Practical Guide was set anywhere other than Scotland, my bet is it would
never have been given shown at the EIFF. There are student films out there that
are better written, better acted, and with far better sound. Almost half of the
audience in the screening walked out, which tells you just about all you need
to know.
1 out of 5
Scintilla
(UK/English dialogue/94 min)
Billy O’Brien’s Scintilla
and Noel Clarke’s The Anomaly share
one-or-two things in common. They’re both low budget British thrillers that put
their own spin on all-too familiar genre conventions, yet while Clarke’s film
manages to keep you entertained thanks to its polished production, Brien’s Scintilla feels like a tired old rehash.
It’s the usual plot: British mercenaries infiltrate an
underground research facility in the former Soviet Union to kidnap a renowned
scientist. Trouble is, there’s something lurking down those pitch-black
corridors…
The performances are all decent enough. John Lynch (of TV
series The Jury and The Fall-fame) heads the cast as the
mercenaries’ cool-headed leader, Powell, but every character here is a walking,
talking cliché. Misfits star Antonia
Thomas is basically Vasquez from Aliens,
while Beth Winslet (Kate Winslet’s sister) is your typically unfeeling
scientist who puts her research well above human life.
Scintilla
looks impressive thanks to production designer Paul Inglis (who previously
worked on Children of Men, Prometheus and Skyfall) giving the visuals a desolate, atmospheric, dirt under the
nails feel. The film is set in present day, but often feels like another world,
similar to early British science fiction such as X the Unknown and The
Quatermass Experiment.
What badly lets Scintilla
down is the script. Considering this is a horror film, for the most part
it’s not scary. There aren’t enough jolts; you get plenty of shots of the
mercenaries looking moody, wandering around with their guns pointed, and what
scares you do get are the usual wandering down a dark corridor and something
loud and nasty grabs them. There’s no tension here as O’Brien relies on set ups
that have been done before and better (The
Descent, Rec. 2, Pitch Black). The only person who will
sit through Scintilla, squirming and
fidgeting, is someone who doesn’t like, or doesn’t watch horror films. When you
are finally told what’s happening in the underground laboratory, Beth Winslet
recites what feels like a non-stop, ten minute monologue. If Family Fortunes asked a hundred people
to name things you would normally associate with a science fiction film,
virtually all of them turn up in Winslet’s speech: genetic experiments, alien
DNA, unlocking the mind’s potential, and so on. It’s tiresome, heavy-going
stuff.
Scintilla
recycles the usual science fiction yarns and thinks it can get away with it
thanks to some scrubbed up visuals. O’Brien tries to make his own old-school
British horror, but ends up with a film that is dull and outdated.
2 out of 5
Snowpiercer
(South
Korea/English, Korean, Japanese and French dialogue with English subtitles/126
min)
Having had a flick through EIFF’s programme, Snowpiercer was one of the first that caught
my eye. It stars Captain America’s
Chris Evans, Jamie Bell, Tilda Swinton, and John Hurt, has a massively original
premise, and both public screenings sold out more-or-less straight away.
The world has frozen over. What survivors are left have
been crammed onto a gigantic train which circles the globe over and over; the
poor are at the back, living in filthy, dreadful conditions, while the rich
live a life of luxury. Curtis (Chris Evans) plans a revolution to move through
each carriage until they get to the front of the train, the engine room, and
confront its mysterious, never seen driver.
Director Bong Joon-ho makes the most of Snowpiercer’s central idea, that as you
open the door to the next carriage, anything could be behind there. There are
imaginative visuals from beginning-to-end, one of the many highlights being a
fight taking place as the train goes through a tunnel, people fighting with
flaming torches and night vision goggles. Most of the violence is heard rather
than seen, with brief glimpses of blood splattering against walls.
All of the performances, as you would expect, are
impressive. Tilda Swinton steals every scene she’s in as the train driver’s
right-hand woman/skivvy, putting on a broad northern accent, staring wide eyed
through huge glasses and licking her yellowish, oversized dentures. Chris
Evans, famous the world over thanks to Marvel’s films, plays a completely
different hero here as Curtis. While he leads his friends, always doing the
right thing, he deliberately avoids talking about himself and his past. It’s
all too clear that this is a man who has done terrible things in order to
survive.
It feels as though most recent science fiction films or
blockbusters start off with a good five-to-ten minutes of exposition before
things get started. Cleverly, Mark Cousins and Maria Akbari’s script drip feeds
us information. As Curtis and his rebels move from carriage to carriage, we are
given tiny details about the train and its severe social class divide. Sadly
Cousins and Akbari can’t manage this for the whole of Snowpiercer’s two hours; the last twenty minutes feel like The Matrix Reloaded, when Neo meets the
Architect and you are force-fed exposition. When we find out what’s really
happening on the train, as surprising as some of the twists are, it’s talking,
talking and more talking. Not so much “Show, don’t tell” as “Talk you into
submission.”
The rest of Snowpiercer
is thrilling, intelligent stuff, yet the ending, how Cousins and Akbari try and
explain what’s happening, is badly handled. By the time the film picks up the
pace again for the last few minutes, it’s too late, you’ve stopped caring. It’s
almost as if that solid fifteen minutes of pull-the-rug-from-under-you dialogue
is from another film, it doesn’t fit with what you’ve been watching.
Snowpiercer
deserves to be seen and is certainly one of the better science fiction films
released over the last few years, but it’s not the breath-taking, take the box
office by storm blockbuster that Bong Joon-ho was trying to make.
3 out of 5
Still
Life
(UK/English dialogue/87 min)
John May (Eddie Marsan) works for the council, searching
for friends and relatives of the deceased who were alone when they passed away.
Due to downsizing, May is told that he is being made redundant. Usually,
despite his best efforts, May is unable to find anyone willing to go to the
funeral, and ends up making the arrangements himself. For his last case, May is
determined to find someone to claim the body, and track down loved ones to
attend the funeral.
Marsan is famous for taking hateful characters and making
them complex and credible. For Uberto Passolini’s Still Life, Marson is gentle, quietly despairing at people’s attitudes
towards the dead (like his boss, who sees May’s job as a waste of the council’s
money: the dead are dead, they don’t care if no one shows up at the funeral).
While he is not a passionate man, May’s passion is shown through how thorough
and considerate he is. Marsan is a criminally underrated actor; he has a huge,
impressive CV, yet rarely gets a look in when it comes to award ceremonies.
This year, Marsan won the EIFF award for Best Performance in a British Feature
Film for Still Life, which nobody
could argue with. You both root as well as feel sorry for May; the only people
who appreciate how hard he works are not around to tell anyone. Also, you soon
recognise that May’s life shares all too many similarities with his clients.
Like its protagonist, Still
Life is a quiet film that takes its time, with plenty of subtle humour;
smile or chuckle to yourself laughs, where you think, “I’ve done that,” or “I
know someone like that.” The script, also written by Passolini, is similar,
both in tone and themes, to Graham Swift’s novels, Last Orders especially: the difference an ordinary human life can
make and how this goes unnoticed, the different generations within a family and
how easily they end up distancing themselves from each other.
If this was a mainstream Hollywood film, Still Life would be overly,
cringe-makingly sentimental. There’s something very British in how respectful
and restrained Passolini is with his subject matter, preferring brief nods
here-and-there to get his message across (May searches his client’s flat and
notices that an armchair leg is broken, a pile of books keeping it upright.
When May pays his client’s daughter a visit, she does the same thing with one
of her chairs). Still Life is another
highlight at this year’s festival. Too many of Eddie Marsan’s films have not
attracted the audience they deserve, being fondly talked about by film buffs
and that’s it. Passolini was producer on the worldwide box office record
breaker that was The Full Monty; Still Life warrants the same level of
success.
4 out of 5
Violet
(Belgium, Netherlands/Dutch dialogue with English subtitles/82 min)
On paper, Violet sounds
like it could be worth a watch: Teenager Jesse murders his best friend and gets
away with it. What follows is how Jesse deals with his grief and his guilt, his
friends in the BMX biker gang he belongs to trying to help him as well as
understand what happened.
Violet is
a perfect example of a film that thinks it’s more profound than it really is.
The film is less than ninety-minutes, yet it’s largely made up of shots that
are held for an excessively prolonged amount of time.
Bas Devos’s film is about grief
through the eyes of an adolescent, yet it barely scratches the surface of its
premise. Instead, much of the film has César De Sutter sit around staring into
space (again, the camera staying on him for far longer than is needed). At
times Violet is shoddy stuff, a
number of scenes featuring tracking shots of the BMX gang as they cycle through
the town’s streets. While there’s nothing wrong with improvised scenes, there’s
a massive issue when characters are talking to each other, but they’ve cycled
off screen so you can’t see them.
There are a handful of well thought-out
shots, such as Jesse going to a heavy metal concert. The camera starts off out
of focus, we can only make out dots of light. Very slowly the camera focuses in
on Jesse, swallowed up by the crowd, everyone having a good time except him.
Another scene has Jesse and his father driving back home, not talking. After a
long period of silence, Jesse shuffles across the seat and rests his head on
his father’s shoulder. Tragically, scenes like this are rare. Violet may have made an interesting
short film, but as it is it’s overlong, pretentious and borderline unwatchable.
While I’ve not seen every film at this year’s EIFF, Violet surely has to be one of the worst being shown at this year’s
festival; it’s easily one of the worst films I’ve seen in a long time.
1 out of 5
We Are
Monster
(UK/English dialogue/88 min)
We Are
Monster
shows us what led to the murder of Zahid Mubarek, who was killed hours before
he was to be released from a young offenders institution by his cellmate Robert
Stewart, in what was a racially motivated attack.
Leeshon Alexander, who plays Stewart
and also wrote and produced the film, makes no apologies for We Are Monster being a theatrical,
arthouse prison drama; this is far from David Mackenzie’s Starred Up. While Mubarek’s murder could have been shown in a
linear, scene-by-scene fashion, this would have been a half-hour film at most
and, more importantly, it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as compelling.
It was too little, too late, but after
Mubarek’s murder, Stewart was diagnosed as having dual personalities. With We Are Monster, what plays out is a
two-hander, both roles played by Alexander; the skittish, meek Stewart, and the
other version of him inside his head, the fearless, violent man who comes up
with all the ideas. Alexander is outstanding; Stewart isn’t a mindless, racist
murderer, he’s a contradictory, brooding man, a constant battle between right
and wrong going on inside of his head. Alexander perfectly shows us all these
sides of Stewart; you can’t take your eyes off the screen whenever he’s around.
Alexander admits that facts had to be
changed in the script, as otherwise no one watching the film would believe just
how negligent the staff at Mubarek’s young offenders institute were (rather
than the underside of a table that was broken – easier to miss – it was one of
the table legs that Stewart hacked off and went unnoticed).
It’s hard to find anything wrong with We Are Monster. Cinematographer Simon
Richards proves that a limited budget doesn’t mean a limited number of ideas
going on behind the camera. While the majority of the action takes place inside
Stewart’s cell, the film looks smart throughout, pulling off a number of smart
visual tricks with both the good and the bad versions of Robert Stewart. We Are Monster is not for the meek and
mild, you are forced to listen to a virtually endless barrage of racist
dialogue, but the language used is exactly how Stewart wrote in his letters to
the outside world (in interviews, Stewart denied being a racist).
Well researched and astoundingly well
made, We Are Monster’s message is one
that deserves telling and should be seen by everyone.
4 out of 5
We’ll
Never Have Paris (USA/English dialogue/95 min)
As the tag line for We’ll
Never Have Paris goes, “This is based on a true story, unfortunately.”
Quinn Bermann (The Big Bang Theory’s
Simon Helberg) has a mid-life crisis in his mid-twenties. Shortly before
proposing to his girlfriend, Devon (Jocelyn Towne), co-worker Kelsey (Maggie
Grace) confesses her love for him. Without much thought, Quinn leaves Devon and
tries to work out what he wants from a relationship. Realising Devon is his
soul mate, he travels to Paris where she is “finding herself”, only Devon is
now seeing a French violinist. Quinn decides he will go to any shamelessly
desperate lengths to win his not quite fiancée back.
Simon Helberg and Jocelyn Towne have been married since
2007. We’ll Never Have Paris, which
they both wrote and directed, is based on their relationship. It’s a romantic
comedy and, while you won’t work up too much of a mental sweat trying to work
out the ending, there are one or two surprises thrown in as well as a number of
big laughs. Unlike the big budget American rom-coms where the leads get
everything right and not much happens to them, We’ll Never Have Paris is set in the real world, with plenty of
true-to-life, awkward moments.
As Quinn Bermann, Helberg is fixated, overanxious; he
speaks first and thinks several hours later. Fans of The Big Bang Theory will already know how extraordinary he is at
conveying blind panic, which he gets to do numerous times here, as well as
being able to deliver Woody Allen-style monologues, overthinking trivial things
in amusing detail. While you often stop and wonder whether someone could
actually be this naïve and stupid, if you put these thoughts to one side then
Helberg is always funny, sometimes howl with laughter hysterical.
While he only appears briefly, Zachary Quinto (Star Trek, Heroes) gets to deliver some of the film’s best one-liners as
Quinn’s hippy-ish, slightly bonkers, but always talking sense, best friend.
We’ll
Never Have Paris will have audiences laughing throughout.
What stops it from reaching the heights of Bridesmaids
or Knocked Up is that its comedy is
light, chuckle quietly humour, the big laughs are too spaced out. There are
some set pieces, such as Quinn and Kelsey’s disastrous first attempt at sex, or
Quinn arriving in Paris and gate-crashing Devon’s grandparents’ dinner. The
latter is a neatly written scene which gets more uncomfortable and more raucous
the longer it goes on for. Just as you think things couldn’t get any more
embarrassing for Quinn, he manages to outdo himself.
We’ll
Never Have Paris is a welcome addition to the overcrowded
romantic comedy subgenre because of how it avoids the usual clichés; Helberg
and Towne know that, in real life, what people plan in their heads is far
different from what actually happens. It could have done with a few more laugh
so hard, you struggle to breathe gags, but girlfriends, as well as boyfriends,
will walk out of the cinema having enjoyed it.
3 out of 5
Zip
& Zap and the Marble Gang (Spain/Spanish dialogue with
English subtitles/92 min)
Zip and his brother Zap are the school rebels, but after
one too many pranks they are sent off to the Hope summer school, where anything
fun is strictly off limits. Up to their old tricks, the boys form a gang to
cause as much trouble as possible for their tyrannical head teacher,
Falconetti. During one stunt, they find a treasure map leading to diamonds
hidden somewhere within the school. The Marble Gang embark on an adventure to
be the first to find the treasure.
Director Oskar Santos is clearly a big fan of The Goonies and your old fashioned boys’
adventures. Zip & Zap might feel
familiar, but it’s a good familiar rather than rehashing ideas we know all too
well. Thanks to Josu Inchaustegui, the film looks like a sumptuous gothic
fairytale; Guillermo del Toro if he ever decided to make a children’s film.
There’s no chance of either children or adults getting bored here, Zip & Zap’s ninety-two minutes
hurrying along at a breakneck pace.
While the Marble Gang are all characters we’ve seen
before in other adventure films (the tomboy girl, the nerdy one, the rebellious
leader, the fat one who loves food), all of the child actors give confident
performances; their comic timing and quick one-liners are half the fun of Zip and Zap.
Oskar Santos has come up with a nostalgic, massively
entertaining film. Despite being made for a fraction of Hollywood’s
blockbusters, the special effects stand head-and-shoulders with the likes of
the Harry Potter franchise. Unless
you’re a cold human like Falconetti, you’re guaranteed to have a beaming grin
on your face after watching Zip & Zap.
4 out of 5
Usually with EIFF, the majority of films are fine,
they’re watchable, but there are only one-or-two must-see, add it to your DVD
collection, classics. This year felt different. While I may have been lucky
with my film choices, it felt like EIFF 2014’s programme was showing great
films, one straight after the other.
Top of the list for me was Jeff Baena’s Life After Beth. For those out there who
aren’t keen on horror, don’t be put off that it’s a zombie film, this is 2014’s
best comedy so far. It’s not about the gore, although the make-up effects used
on Aubrey Plaza are brilliantly grotesque, Baena’s film is an impossible to
fault mix of laughs and regrets that manages to keep up the pace throughout.
There are plenty of other films to keep your beady eye
on: Still Life, Cold in July, We Are Monster,
Coherence, The Guvnors, Castles in the
Sky and Zip & Zap should all be
seen. Never mind EIFF, they’re some of the best films you’ll sit down and watch
at the cinema over the next twelve months.
I mentioned in last year’s Review of the Year show that I
don’t go out of my way to watch documentaries, and when I do, I have to be in
the mood for one. Saying that, the three documentaries I saw at this year’s
EIFF were all massively impressive: A
Dangerous Game, Doc of the Dead,
and my favourite of the bunch, Garnet’s
Gold.
Of course, you can’t show such a colossal number of films
at a festival without there being one or two stinkers. Violet felt like a senseless hour-and-a-half, that what could have
been an interesting idea ended up being wasted. I chat to people about EIFF and
they’re put off because they think that, for some reason, it’s all experimental
films, nothing they would go anywhere near. That’s not true at all! There are
rule-breaking, mind frazzling, no narrative to speak of films included in the
programme if that’s something you fancy watching, but they’re few and far
between. Violet does nothing to
convince people that Edinburgh is a festival for anyone and everyone who loves
film.
With A Practical
Guide to a Spectacular Suicide, the more I stop and think about it, the
more hacked off I get. Never mind that Graham Hughes’s film was picked to be
part of this year’s programme, it was also chosen as part of EIFF’s Best of the
Fest. A Practical Guide was on the
list; Life After Beth never got a
mention. That’s not just criminal, that’s embarrassing. That suggests A Practical Guide is easily as good as Castles in the Sky, We Are Monster and Snowpiercer
(all shortlisted for Best of the Fest), as well as saying that it is way
ahead of the films that failed to make it into the festival. A Practical Guide is so poorly filmed,
you wonder how nobody picked up on this during editing? EIFF was originally set
up to discover and promote new filmmaking talent. Nobody needs to know about A Practical Guide; nobody needs to see
it.
These are two blips in an otherwise strong line-up of
films, the best programme I’ve seen over the last seven years of making the
trek up to Edinburgh; a well-judged mix of independent cinema and big names
arriving on the red carpet. It felt like almost every film I sat down and
watched deserved a second viewing, that there were plenty of titles to add to
my DVD shelf.
I will happily wave the flag for the Edinburgh
International Film Festival. So many
films that I keep mentioning on-and-on to friends, I got to see at the
festival. I’ll hold my hands up and admit that Edinburgh is the only major film
festival I’ve been to, but it feels like the programmers go out of their way to
track down films that can stand side-by-side with what’s on at your local
cinema, the difference being that they’re not Hollywood films with a
multi-million dollar marketing campaign, they can be a low budget,
funny-as-hell British horror about giant tentacled aliens attacking a remote
Irish pub (Jon Wright’s Grabbers) to
brooding Mexican science fiction, which asks more troubling questions than the
majority of films in its genre (Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer). The beauty of EIFF is that if you’re willing to step
out of your comfort zone, where you have your expectations about a film and
virtually know scene-by-scene what’s about to happen, then you will be glad you
gave it a go. EIFF is over for another year, the signs and banners across
Edinburgh have come down, but I’ve already got my eye on their Facebook/Twitter
page, planning what I’ll be watching next year.
Matt
