Outline for a proposed film : Dario - or The Mandrake Consignment

Outline for a proposed film : Dario - or The Mandrake Consignment

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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16 July

Outline for a proposed film :
Dario - or The Mandrake Consignment

'Reap what ye shall sow'

For Rosy and Brent

1. Luigi Mandragora and Nancy Hope meet at a performance of Verdi's Otello, and, talking during the interval, become friends : she is in Verona for a year during her degree (Italian and French), and he is older, and did not go to university, but has already established himself in business, buying and selling rare recordings

2. They are close, but never lovers - something holds her off, even at romantic operas in The Arena, and she never quite trusts Maria Argenta, Luigi"s mother, who was widowed early, after the birth of his younger brother Dario (away, in London, at The Guildhall)

3. Nancy and Luigi write to each other when she returns to the family home in Suffolk (where she sings in a church choir), before completing her degree

4. Several years on, Luigi is visiting Dario in London (who chose to stay there, despite giving up on becoming a professional singer) and, to see Luigi again, Nancy (who has never met Dario) is invited to a party that he is throwing in Luigi's honour

5. Nancy works for a company in London that makes travel arrangements for musicians, and Dario works in music publishing

6. Unknown to her, Luigi and Maria (who is also visiting, but not in evidence at the party) contrive for Dario and her to meet (of which Dario is also unaware), and bewitch them both with love-potions

7. The effect is such that they abandon their wontedly cautious behaviour and disappear to the roof-garden, where they kiss and pet heavily, then return to the party separately

8. As the party continues, so does the effect of the love-philtres, and Dario (having told Luigi how struck he is on Nancy) manages to ask Nancy privately to stay the night, who, without her usual level of reserve, agrees

9. One of the last to leave, Luigi has seemed to slip out of the party and to have brought back a chilled bottle of a quality Italian sparkling wine for Dario (and Nancy), but, in fact, he gets the bottle from Maria, and lets her in (to hide in the roof-garden ?), when he returns, the bottle will knock Nancy and Dario out soon after they take it to bed, and, when Maria has seen that they are unconscious, she will let Luigi back in, who rapes Nancy to orgasm while she watches / listens next door, afterwards emptying away all but a small rresidue in each glass (and leaving the empty bottle as if the couple had consumed its contents)

10. FF through a montage or other telling of Dario being mortified that he does not remember the vigorous love-making, without protection, that proves to have made Nancy pregnant, and that, although she does not have any conscious memory of that first time, she seems never to find him or his love-making exciting, and yet they marry and stay together because of Lucia, with the distant attentions of her grandmother and apparent uncle, except for family visits

11. The suggestion that, although they are a couple out of duty, they do not even find themselves blessed by Lucia (or vice versa), and that, not just through teething, etc., they have never been able to rely on undisturbed sleep, and that they move to be near Nancy's parents to have their support with childcare and a detached property where tensions with neighbours no longer arise

12. Yet they repeatedly happen, when Lucia pesters and pesters to be allowed to play in the garden, but invariably wreaks destructive wonders on it, as soon as anyone's back is turned (which behaviourally mirrors their life with her in microcosm), so that Dario finally fences off the garden and gives Lucia her own patch of the garden near the house, where nothing that she plants is not soon uprooted or trampled on - until three seeds that are given to her by Nancy's old choir-master for Lucia's at Christmas, all of which, now oddly assiduous, feeds and waters into vigorous life, as ahe approaches her seventh birthday

13. Lucia's screams and rages at night have finally subsided, but Nancy and Dario, driven mad by a shrieking of unidentifiable origin at night, have resorted to heavy-duty ear-plugs at night, which means that they are unaware that, after arriving on an early flight, Maria and Luigi have been greeted by Lucia on her birthday and proudly shown her three established plants - which so repulse and horrify Maria, at some gut level, that she wrenches them out of the ground, unaware of their shrieks, and that first Luigi, and then Lucia, fall down dead behind her, and we see her, as if at the end of Mozart's Don Giovanni reached for by arms and pulled down, through the patch of soil, and into Hades


ENDS


© Copyright Belston Night Works 2020


However, Rosy [#UCFF's esteemed editor at TAKE ONE] then gave these notes... :

Gender flip all the characters and I’ll exec produce. And don’t come back to me with a Considine attitude.


[In obedience to which dictates [which assuredly reference #UCFF's Q&A comments on Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur (2011)], we then derived version 2.0...]

NB Now superseded by version 2.1 - fully corrected, and with preliminary ideas for casting

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Don’t you dare waste it !

This reconsiders Pride (2014) after a screening plus panel discussion

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
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8 January

This reconsiders Pride (2014) in the light of a screening, plus panel discussion, at The Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge, on Monday 8 February at 6.30 p.m.

Looking forward to watching Pride @CamPicturehouse & Q&A with Gethin Roberts tomorrow 6:30pm https://t.co/d379qLiuWa pic.twitter.com/xwvmaHQvMT

— Amnesty_UK_Cambridge (@AmnestyCambridg) February 7, 2016

NB As this is not just in the nature of a review, it assumes knowledge of the film, i.e. *containers spoilers *

One of the touching aspects of the closing captions, watching Pride (2014) again, is that Sian James (Jessica Gunning) did take that advice from Jonathan Blake (Dominic West) [given in the title of this posting], getting a degree, and becoming an MP in 2005 : the film leaves one in a little doubt whether a preceding scene with Jonathan / Sian had been shot (but had to be lost to get down to 119 minutes), because the film’s style is generally not really just to tell you what it includes, but also to show it¹.

[Since Bromley / Joe (George MacKay) is fictional, we have to imagine what happens to him when he abruptly leaves home, and whether, as the film shows Gethin Roberts (Andrew Scott) being¹, he is reconciled to his family, although, at Onllwyn, Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) gives him advice that we see him follow.)


In the post-film discussion, the real-life Gethin Roberts suggests that the film is, which it is, about solidarity (in oppression), and that there are not [not his exact words] goodies and baddies. However, quite opposite to that latter view, and with the benefit of watching a film unfold and know (roughly) where it is going², there are actually clear elements of pantomime :

* Most obviously, the combination of a malign character egging on her stupid sons as her agents (Lisa Palfrey, as Maureen Barry)

* The same woman, tricking those whom she opposes by catching them unawares (moving the time of the meeting)

* Before that point, generating the bad press that causes the meeting to be called : although screenwriters adhering to a conventional model of a film’s development will have a difficulty arise, and the action develop from overcoming it (and, of course, seeming not to be able to) [and that is not what one happens here], one could almost imagine Maureen Barry talking to camera, saying what she is planning, and inciting the audience to hiss and boo her

* Almost where else, but in musicals, does someone win over affections or hearts by dancing² (as Jonathan does, at the Onllwyn Miners’ Welfare Hall ? – a spectacular moment from Dominic West, even if it was but, as Gethin Roberts told Screen 3 at The Arts (in describing the left-wing credentials of the real location), one of those plot-obstacles just alluded to above)

* Probably for no very good reason, and not that Paddy Considine (as Dai) is not on top form in the film (as are so many others – please see below), not least when he makes a superbly scripted speech of thanks about Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, his character seems like Buttons, almost too good for this world

* Much as one should disregard any notion that it really means much, when reading about a film, to have something described as happening in the third act… (save that some films can, all too easily, be more programmatic than theatre, and fall into patterns already mentioned, with the initial situation, difficulties in the way, and a resolution), shots of The River Severn and one of its crossings (one forgets which, but one bridge did not exist then) do serve to punctuate, both giving us a breather (with some stunning aerial and scenic views), and mentally effecting the repeated transition from a city with an openly gay and lesbian bookshop (although not always well received) and how Pride chose to portray The Dulais Valley (Gethin gave us some facts about inclusivity³ in Onllwyn, and its not being as remote) to tell its story


One could go on, and risk just becoming more tenuous, but there is something about the way in which the characters are drawn (those of Dai and Maureen have already been caricatured a little) that lets them make an impact. From the start, Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer), to whom Joe / Bromley (George MacKay) looks up, is a committed campaigner for rights, seeing the connections / the similarity with others³, not the superficiality that separates.

One on one level of memory, one might recall this film for (the role of) MacKay’s character (and as an innocent, gay, coming-of-age story, grafted onto the historical narrative), with him gingerly going up from Kent to London to see what the Gay Pride march is all about. In fact, Bromley / Joe sticks in our mind because, structurally, he is really our way into (the life of) this film, and the way in which it unfolds is quietly pinned onto his being present :

He is there right from the first, stumbling out of the Underground station and into the parade, instantly to be met by Mike (Joseph Gilgun) – and at the end (with a brief hiatus of house-arrest by his mother (Monica Dolan), despite, after her husband has shouted at him, her work of seeming relative sympathy), as the marchers are assembling, stunning people such as Mark Ashton by how he now expresses himself. It is through Joe, in between, that we see the founding steps of LGSM (Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners⁴), as someone intrigued, but shyly confused and on the margins, who sees how people’s support drops off, and stays in, a little by default. For its purposes of concentrating on this group of people⁵, what the film does not show - until, at the end and by implication at least, it has to - is that there grew to be LGSM groups in eleven cities.

Indeed, as one of the panel of speakers told us, Cambridge had been one of those cities, with volunteers, and those who donated money and food, etc., providing support to mining areas in Nottinghamshire (and, also, South Wales ?) : a memory-project, where those who remembered that time had been invited to submit their contributions to a record of its history. (It is now written up, as Cambridge and the miners' strike, on the Internet here [www.cambridgeminersstrike.com].) Gethin Roberts, and the local representative (@AmnestyCambridg) from Amnesty (@AmnestyUK), talked about showing the film elsewhere in the world to those involved in strikes or political struggle.

If, say, Dancing in Dulais *were* on YouTube, @CamPicturehouse, it's a short film about when / where Pride is set... https://t.co/0vnOzuGHF4

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) February 8, 2016

It has been cheekily suggested (above) that Paddy Considine’s Dai might be seen as a bit of a pantomime goodie, but the role, as Stephen Beresford’s screenplay has given it to him and Considine has played it, is to the latter’s credit, as a portrayal of someone not afraid to stand up for what he believes, and to face a difficult situation with courage. In his way, for self-belief and leadership qualities, Dai is a structural counterpart in the film to the part of Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer), with Dai’s speech at the gay club mirroring the reception that the party from LGSM seems set to receive at Onllywn, even when Ashton has announced them…

On another level completely, away from the impact of set-pieces, there is a very affectionate moment (and also one of nicely underplayed humour) with just Bill Nighy (Cliff) and Imelda Staunton (Hefina), making sandwiches together in the kitchen at Onllywn : it might be that we are more engaged with the dialogue, and how Matthew Warchus has directed it, when Cliff tells her that he is gay.

If so, we might not see not only that these are hard times, so they are filling-less sandwiches, but also realize that, when she tells him how to cut them, he had been doing them that way at first, before his utterance. The comedy in her pretending to recall when she realized, and telling him that it was around the end of the 1960s, shows that she has cared about, and for, him that he thought that he had to keep a secret all that time, and that they know each other well enough that she can make making him know that she knew a little joke. Both actors play this short scene beautifully and tellingly.


As a whole, the screening was full of good spirits – even if, without being trite, Pride finds the positivity in the situation (with an engaging and appealing lightness of tone and approach), but does not play out what the NUM’s losing the strike was to mean (leaving that to films such as Still The Enemy Within (2014) [review still to come…]). Nearly the biggest laughter must have been when Hefina (Imelda Staunton) claims that she is driving the LGSM minibus to take them to Swansea [?] for a big ‘lezz-off'.


End-notes

¹ Gethin’s being attacked, which is what brings Sian and Jonathan to be in the same place, for obvious reasons is not (the film is rated 15), and, until the same place in the film, we are kept in suspense how he was received when he calls on his mother.

² Though one knew that there was that stupendous dance-scene, it occurred where, but not when, one recalled it…

³ One is reminded, as brought out by hearing from Gethin Roberts about the long-term links of the miners in South Wales with those in Spain, and their involvement with The Spanish Civil War and the efforts of Paul Robeson, Snr, for equality, of a documentary at Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (@camfilmfest / #CamFF) : Héroes Invisibles (Invisible Heroes) (2015), which is subtitled Afroamericanos en la Guerra de España (and one might interpret that as ‘The part played by Afro-Americans in The Spanish Civil War’).

⁴ Since Gay Pride, in the UK, had its roots in protests in the States, there is a certain irony that the American-Scottish Ian MacGregor, the nemesis chosen by Nicolas Ridley / Margaret Thatcher for the National Union of Mineworkers, was another US 'import', but one that LSGM opposed… (Rather puzzlingly, MacGregor’s Wikipedia® entry claims : Margaret Thatcher herself felt that he had handled the public relations aspect of the miners' dispute poorly, failing to empathise with the British public's widespread sympathy for the miners and their communities, and the pair were on cool terms after his departure from the NCB.)

⁵ Another consequence of eliminating our having an awareness of what LGSM was doing elsewhere is that the issue that is made to cause difficulty for the miners’ group to receive LGMS’s money artificially has to be made a local one about, literally, bad press and its ill-effects.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth ?*

This is a review of Macbeth (2015)

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
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3 October (End-note / Tweets added, 4 October)

This is a review of Macbeth (2015)

With Tweets added, and owning that Paddy C. is better than Marion C. than Michael F., a review of Macbeth (2015) : http://t.co/O7wKA6jMOg

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 5, 2015

Some of the inventive ways in which the Shakespeare play has been transmuted in this film simply will not have people seeking out the original, because they probably will not conceive that the play (in the form, at any rate, in which it has come down to us) has here been (in places) very much abridged, or that material has been relocated within it (sometimes within an immediate context, sometimes scarcely so, and even to the extent of introducing repetition) : at other times, it will be clear that, under licence, painting with images or with poetry are part of this endeavour. (This will be evident without anyone needing to know that it is those who have edited Shakespeare, over the centuries (and by a process of inference and deduction), who have given us both scene-locations and some of the usual printed stage-directions (e.g. as to who is on stage during a scene, and when he or she enters or exits), and thus that a licence to do something different, if it were needed even in the theatre, can be claimed.)

Of Macbeth (2015), @FilmDivider says : It’s the curse [...] that the audience [spend...] time considering [how] the source has been adapted

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 4, 2015

Where many are most likely to come unstuck, however familiar they may be with the text that we have from the so-called First Folio of 1623, is with the bewilderment that is the film’s ending : none, almost needless to say, of the pat wrapping-up, in however mournful rhyming-couplets (which we might also recall from the close of Lear), but instead much confusion of image and action – of thought, word and dream.

Thereby pursuing, relentlessly and acceleratingly, the blurring of sleeping and waking that builds across the film : just as the verse-speaking, simply gorgeous at the start (and therefore bringing tears at its beauty), becomes more and more degraded by fury, frenzy, and fire. Just, likewise, as Jed Kurzel’s score**, which began with so much heart-breaking keening and Celtic intonation, ends – through partway beginning to incorporate electronica – in quite another mood, and place. [He is sure some relation to director Justin Kurzel, being credited with scoring his Snowtown (2011) (amongst others) ?]).

Initially, battle-scenes in Macbeth (2015) reminded of Mel Gibson as Wallace, but much more like the immersive visuals at @N_T_S Culloden ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 3, 2015

On all of these levels, then, Macbeth (2015) both is and mimetically embodies a journey into night, and it slips further and further into it, whereas Shakespeare’s protagonist will have it that sleep has become elusive to his ambitious quest :

Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:
'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!'

Act II, Scene II, 40–42

Except that, in fact, what distinction is there between whatever ‘reality’ is and the distracted snatches of the world that come to us as part of and, to some significant extent, filtered through the medium of Macbeth’s mind, mood, and soul ? (Which makes the screenplay, and its approach to the text itself, quite sympathetic (as, with some musical instruments, ‘sympathetic strings’ are), in wanting to make interpolations and transpositions within it.) Nonetheless, the direction may have strayed, by trying too hard to give us a visible basis for others’ opinion, such as reported here (as well as co-opted from Macbeth’s attempts at self-diagnosis), in the form of montage ? :

Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.
Some say he's mad ; others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury

Act V, Scene II, 12–14

With some material, such as the case of merely truncating the interchange between Ross and Macduff (at the end of Act IV) to concentrate on one principal topic, the screenwriters give us Macbeth pretty straight ; with other parts, they bend them very much more to their will, and for a broad variety of purposes, such as :

* In the opening (crimson) captions, as well as explicating the origins and significance of - and forces behind - the conflict that we see, even naming a battle (that of Ellon)

* To clarify how it is that Macbeth becomes / expects to become king (which, it is arguable, is not the strongest element in the idea of eliminating Duncan / committing regicide)

* In doing so, and almost certainly on no naturalistic level (but rather on that of will (again***)), characterizing Malcolm’s impulse to flee – which is exemplified in the text, and at its peak, at the moment when Macbeth puts the witches under obligation****

* To expand Lady Macbeth’s familiar scene with the doctor into the general theme of sleep-walking into the future (which not a few ages have liked as an idiom), and thereby dis-locate time and space****

* In a linked way, to widen the scope and role of the witches so that they permeate the totality : in their two-handed Macbeth (in the building in Cambridge that is known as The Leper Chapel), Richard Spaul and Bella Stewart of in:situ made enchantment and being bewitched central to the production

Is there danger in the fog of intense screenings at Cannes, and could @FilmDivider's review have gestated longer ? : http://t.co/rJFwZwUab8

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 4, 2015

End-notes

* Quoting the title of the essay by L. C. Knights, ’How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth ? : An Essay in the Theory and Practice of Shakespeare Criticism’ (Explorations, New York University Press, 1964, 15-54).

** It would be so useful to pause the credits (during which so many others, blocking the screen and chattering, leave), because there are also ones for improvisation...

*** Endlessly shown in train, in literature and religious writing (which, from Paddy Considine’s Banquo, one feels that he well knows), from the Cabbalistic tradition of The Golem, and the creation of Adam, to that of Svengali and Trilby (in Trilby), or Frankenstein.

Macbeth (2015) is at its / his most interesting when seen through the prism of Banquo's life - which he then seeks to break, and splinter...

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 3, 2015

**** We do not directly, audibly witness these words in the film, but perhaps we already know that Macbeth demands information (openly calling it a form of conjuration), even at the cost of chaos – which is what the film, by other means, has us see, sense, and feel :

I conjure you, by that which you profess,
Howe'er you come to know it, answer me :
Though you untie the winds and let them fight
Against the churches ; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up ;
Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down ;
Though castles topple on their warders' heads ;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations ; though the treasure
Of Nature's germens tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken, answer me
To what I ask you.
Act IV, Scene I, 50–61


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Accented to good effect

This is a review of Pride (2014)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
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21 September (updated 19 October)

This is a review of Pride (2014) (which screened at Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (#CamFF), but was seen later)

Ours will be a pint of @PrideMovieUK (4.1%) from Moonshine Brewery please. Solidarity and cheers :)X pic.twitter.com/PKfXuZPrDn
— Arts Picturehouse (@CamPicturehouse) September 15, 2014

At a greater remove (or distance) than when we first saw The Full Monty (1997) or Brassed Off ! (1996) (with, respectively, Tom Wilkinson (steel) and Pete Postlethwaite (coal) – and both films, perhaps, made in anticipation of New Labour coming to power in May 1997 ?), various film-makers have returned to the political struggle that was fought out, on the ground and in people’s lives and homes, between British Coal (in full (according to Wikipedia®) the British Coal Corporation) and the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) :


In addition to Pride (2014), we have had – at Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (@Camfilmfest / #CamFF) – Still the Enemy Within (2014) (write-up to come of a Q&A soon...), about the struggle to save pits / collieries, and references in Tony Benn : Will and Testament (2014), quite apart from the equally political We Are Many (2014) (dealing with the Stop the [Iraq] War campaign).

Yet the major influence on the content, look and characterization of Pride, and which had four screenings at the Festival, is Dancing in Dulais (1986) (NB, possibly through format issues / successive copying, the image-quality is not always good), where, in their own film, we see, for example, now identifiable members of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, we hear how and why Lesbians Against Pit Closures broke away, and we can listen to the real Mark Ashton explain the affinity with and solidarity for the miners’ position that led to LGSM (words / sentiments that are used in the film).


What Pride has done, however, is to seek to be maybe too entertaining / too comedic, whilst at the same time wanting to educate us about what happened (although, of course, that leaves us free to seek out material such as that contained in Dancing in Dulais for ourselves, if we want to look beyond the film) – to be too independent of the facts, when needed to drive the plot, but otherwise being close to them, so that there feels to be a compromise :


* Paddy Considine (Dai) has a free stage, and not so much as a heckle, in which to allow his words to reach out – yet it is supposed to be (so we have just been told) a potentially difficult crowd, but he does nothing special to begin with that would have made them accept him

* A mirrored Tom-Jones-like display of exuberance* has the standoffish miners won over in five minutes – both this one, and that with Dai, seem unnecessarily easy victories, if one really wants to build tension that is later released

* The opposition to LGSM’s involvement (is this just an invention to give the plot a turn ?) being focused on a trio of evil-minded people (members of one family) – as if, at one stage anyway, dazzling dance movements had converted everyone else to miners, lesbians and gays working together (as long as no one knew about it ?)

* Bromley / Joe (George Mackay) and Mark Ashton (Ben Schnetzer) having a conveniently similar impulse, which gives the latter the occasion to tell the former what he needs to do with his life to make a real difference (on this day, we are made to focus on following a personal story, ignoring the relevance of what is happening to the battle that both men had been helping to fight – please see below)

* When the Gay Pride march in 1985 at the end turns out to have a greater significance, the film again serves its purposes by having us believe in surprise (as against planning and knowledge, which could have explicated the national NUM repercussions of events typified, for us, by our visits to The Dulais Valley)


Of course, we can accept these things for the sake of the fact that this is not a documentary, but is trying (albeit in an often comic way) to show LGSM’s story (and, within it, Joe’s, Mark's and Gethin's steps for maturity and independence), and how the miners and they influenced and affected each other for the better – and because, unlike Tom Hardy’s wandering attempt in Locke (2014), the Welsh accents, and performances, seem pretty good from the likes of Considine, Bill Nighy (Cliff), and Imelda Staunton (Hefina).

Snow, The Severn Bridge from unusual angles, and the local scenery complete the establishment of Wales as one locus, with London as a second, and make for the necessity to demonstrate that physical separation*** has effects – the aspect that is most clearly drawn out in the film. When those from the locii do combine, we see them receiving welcome, hospitality, and invitations to participate in social activity, and so engaging with life in the other locus.

In that it partly concerns workers' rights, Pride (2014) reminds of Made in Dagenham (2010), but the latter is as amusing, but more telling.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 16, 2014

Pride occupies a very different space on the continuum from Made in Dagenham, which, although also a film of positivity, feels closer to what Ken Loach is doing both in The Spirit of ‘45 (2013) and, arguably with even more political effectiveness, in Jimmy’s Hall** (2014). Dagenham also dares conflate several real people in the one figure of Sally Hawkins’ character of Rita O’Grady, whereas Pride, almost with veneration, chooses instead to give us mostly real individuals amongst the miners, their families and the supporters from LGSM :

Pride’s approach roots the story in actuality, so (in Dancing in Dulais) we hear marchers for Lesbians Against Pit Closures singing the chant ‘Every woman is a lesbian at heart’ (which the film locates on a minibus trip), and Dulais shows us the actual vehicle donated to the miners (and the caption / heading ‘Dulais wears our badge on its van’)).

However, it then means that the artificial ploys cited above by which Pride’s script gives rise to dramatic movement rely on non-historic developments : so, although LGSM’s film acknowledges that there was trepidation from the community before the first visit, it then asserts that, as Ashton had hoped, barriers were broken down between people who had both been oppressed by government and the police (probably not because one gay man amazed them with his prowess…)

That is a key message, and the fact that The Labour Party Conference (although it had debated them before) then officially embodied support for gay and lesbian rights shows that the links made between the striking miners and LGSM proved a commonality in their causes.

Nearly finished, a review of Pride (2014) - good, but maybe too busy making sure that it covers various points to cohere as a story ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) September 22, 2014

That said, at maybe too many times, it feels as if the film both has its cake and eats it, for it does not even outline in its written closing statements about Ashton and some of the others what the outcome was, in South Wales and other mining areas, for the NUM and its members – maybe Pride’s makers wrongly assume that everyone knows that part of the story (for it concentrates, in its ending, with the encouraging side, that of miners, gays and lesbians getting to know and value each other beyond The Dulais Valley) ?


End-notes

* Which one could object to both as an early deus ex machina that invokes Billy Elliot (2000) (another film that combines the miners’ strike and personal development), and as stereotyping the talents and interests of gay men (which ABBA capitalized on in ‘Dancing Queen’ ?).

Yet, according to what we hear in Still the Enemy Within, the apparent delay to LGSM's being welcomed, at the Onllwyn Welfare Hall, was actually only a momentary, hesitant quietening on their arrival - followed by a round of applause...

** Reviewed here.

*** The film cannot even resist having Gethin (Andrew Scott), again prompted to do so as Joe is by Mark, being shown visiting his mother, then rushing us on, only to return to the fruit of that contact at a testing time… That may have happened, but the film generally both wants to give the message that things can change, but rarely to show that happening in a credible way (with Gethin, we are not even shown that).


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Going for the double

This is a review of The Double (2013)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

5 April

This is a review of The Double (2013)

Anyone who is familiar with the trailer for The Double (2013) (though we should know that trailers are not made by the film-makers) is not going to expect Dostoyevsky’s novella to be any more than a jumping-off point for the film (as Thurber’s story is for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)), but what the trailer does do is to suggest misleadingly* that the latter is also a benign, and less dark, study in the nature of inadequacy.

Particularly at the start (before we meet Simon James’ double), it feels as though co-writers Richard Ayoade (who also directs) and Avi Korine (from that family whose members brought you, amongst other things, Spring Breakers (2012)) have ‘mashed up’ sources such as those that follow (although that feeling of making reference, or borrowing, does dissipate somewhat over time, as the propulsive nature of the telling takes over (please see below)) :

* Gogol’s story ‘The Overcoat’ (some see Dostoyevsky’s work, four years later, as a rebuttal of Gogol’s works)

* Yury Tynyanov’s Lieutenant Kijé (as popularized in Western Europe by Prokofiev’s Suite, Op. 60, distilled from his film-music)

* Brazil (1985)

* Rear Window (1954)

* Elements of Lynch (not least the feel, look, and sound of the world of Eraserhead (1977))

* Even The Apartment (1960)


Without saying more, one will see – unless one guesses – what aspects of the film correspond with the earlier material to make this disturbing whole, driven along by the Glass-like rapid string arpeggios of Andrew Hewitt’s score, or the low-frequency rumbling that makes the corridors seem so unnerving …


And that apart from other disturbances in James’ life of the kind given by Sally Hawkins in a nice authoritarian cameo, let alone the increasingly hostile security guard (IMDb puzzlingly says that it is ‘rumored’ that this was Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s role), or the grumpy service in James’ local café (asked why he comes back here, he says that he is ‘loyal’ – and one cannot conceive of James doing anything very domestic in his flat, with utensils that look to be of grandmaternal origin).

In an early scene, in an underground train equally devoid of comfort (or a sense of the common good), we imagine that it must be a nightmare of the type in 8½ (1963), or a parody of one – James is, in what is established here, seen to be so labile that we have to hope hard that he can show himself as in the Mitty film, and maybe wonder whether he is more in the vein of Ronnie Corbett’s Timothy Lumsden in Sorry !.

In this film, partly because we are influenced to identify with Simon James (Jesse Eisenberg), partly because we look for an emergence into real life of The Replicator** (in the form of Paddy Considine), which James says is his favourite t.v. programme, we invest a hope in what might happen. We believe that Hannah (Mia Wasikowska) might respond to James (whose interest in her is reminiscent of that of Josef K. in Fraülein Bürstner in Kafka's The Trial ?), if he knew the right thing to do, and we believe in the notion from Roxanne (1987) (and its more illustrious antecedents) that he might he helped to, and for, his own good.

It might have been fun if Wasikwoska had doubled the part of Melanie, played by Yasmin Paige, to mimic Eisenberg’s duality : as it is, we are offered an insight into her character’s fragility, which has been exploited by a knowledge of that of James, and we see her torn, although not in a way that is not unusual in cinema (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) ?), between what attracts everyone else and the likelihood (which, with Marilyn’s Lorelei, fatally attracts, or at least fails to repel) of getting hurt.

Of course, the theme of betrayal by a seeming friend is an age-old one, pre-dating Judas, and which has resonated ever since, in, for example, the tables being turned on K. in Kafka’s The Castle by his assistants (themselves a form of substitute). Here, far more was possible with the topic of identity theft than the film encompasses, and it prefers to stay within the general bounds of what is a person and what about a person is perceived to make him or her worthwhile.

In the end, subverting the messages of James’ powerlessness (as we provisionally thought that it had to), it offers the sort of Pyrrhic victory*** that we know, for Ray, from In Bruges (2008). It is not unlike many other endings (e.g. from episodes of Star Trek (original series only, please) or Dr Who, amongst others), and so concludes the piece, nowhere near Dostoyevsky (unless we make some massive inferences), because there had to be some ultimate resolution.

That said, principals Wasikowska and Eisenberg are both excellent, and the film is not without an effect from how it contrasts the homeliness and colour of her flat with that of his, as well as from Hewitt’s score, and the levels of tension that it gives to this cheerless universe.



End-notes

* NB Contains a spoiler As does IMDb : A comedy centered on a man who is driven insane by the appearance of his doppleganger (sic).


** Shades of The Reprisalizer from Matthew Holness’ A Gun for George (2011) ?

Here, the t.v. series is a sort of Orwellian distraction from the predominant greyness of life in this place and time, though it is less clear that it is a degraded world of the kind that Gilliam’s referenced film gives us, or a reimagined instance of the early computer age a parallel for the world of the pre-Soviet government department.

The real Replicator in the film is Hannah (probably in more senses than one), because she is a junior member of the copying department, operating what some might describe as a steam-punk take-off of the large and clunky Xerox® machines from the late 1970s : James and she are amongst the few of an age in this organization. Her boss tells James that any sensible person would want two copies (which proves to be astute, although James does not want another he), not just the one that, as a pretext for being there, he keeps coming up and asking for.


*** You could even posit a reference to the scene with the Patronus across the lake in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)…


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Any time soon

This is a Festival review of Now is Good (2012)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


18 September

This is a Festival review of Now is Good (2012)

The words of the film's title, Now is Good (2012), come as a reply when Tessa (skilfully played by Dakota Fanning) is asked on a date, and shortly before something unexpected happens. Knowing that she isn’t, she has been treating herself as if she were indestructible, much to the dismay of her father (Paddy Considine), who would have wanted her to persevere with having leukaemia treated.

He may no longer be seeking an answer that would save her for a while longer, but he has not given up thinking that things other than medical science may preserve her or that there is a sense in which he almost owns her remaining life. Much to her irritation, he is always trying to speak for her, whether to a radio-show host or the medical staff (and those people collude, as anyone who uses a wheelchair would tell you that they would).

However, tellingly, when Tessa asks the Macmillan nurse (with whom she had previously been a little abrasive, as if she represented not help for her, but an embodiment of what she was battling) what her last days have in store, they are alone. By contrast with her father, Tessa’s mother (Olivia Williams), from whom he is separated, does not seem much interested (though turns out to have her reasons for that appearance), and both parents ‘get to’ Tessa by failing to understand her needs and motivations.

Adam, the boy next door (who has had his own life affected by his father’s death in a crash), meets her when she stalks out with things from her bedroom wall that she wants burnt and starts putting them in the lit brazier of garden waste. Excellently played by Jeremy Irvine in dialogue that, of high quality throughout, reaches its peak of expressiveness when Tessa and he are talking, there is a sense of advanced maturity in Adam, which postponing study and acting as support to his mother probably has brought out in him.

The frailties that surround talking about and confronting death are fully explored (as when younger brother Cal, quite honestly, asks if they will go on holiday when Tessa is dead, because he doesn’t remember the previous trip to Spain), but, for all the tears that come at so many points in the second half, this is also a joyous film.

It makes you gasp at what people are capable of, as when Adam sets out to make Tessa famous, or surprises her by taking her up onto the cliffs. Tessa does not want to be thought of as brave, but she shows that she faith to reach out beyond and disregard the limitations of physical strength, and of the norms and mores that her father would have her obey.

Ol Parker has brought his own script beautifully to the screen, with cast and photography all of a piece in locating Tessa’s story in and around Brighton. And I think that it would be no less strong the second time, because the film is built around not what must happen, but about the relationships that make it something no longer to fear.

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Tyrannosaur and Another Earth

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

23 December

* Contains spoilers *

Both hailed at Sundance, but how Paddy Considine's direction won a best award is beyond me, whereas Brit Marling / Mike Cahill's film did deserve all that it got (and probably more):


Did Tyrannosaur tell a story? Yes.

Was it pretty much a linear narrative? Yes.

Was the story shocking or innovative? Well, a man kicking his canine best friend to death because angry at someone else did jolt, but it just set the tone, only slightly offset as a stereotype by Joseph's (Peter Mullan's) being someone who can give a fuck (sometimes).

What was innovative about the direction? Yes, what was innovative about the direction?


In interview at Cambridge Film Festival, Considine was clear that: his script was the script; he is on the Autistic spectrum; and there was no role play / improvisation in sight.

For my money, he wrote a decent enough script, given what he wanted to tell a story about, but all of these actors* - Peter Mullan, for God's sake! - were quite capable of delivering it with minimal direction.

And the title and the poster image that incorporated and reflected it? Sheer red herring, as far as I can see.

Just part of this comfortable myth that Joseph had enough humanity to go with his brutality and bullying that he would be self-aware when telling Hannah (Olivia Colman) that calling her that name (i.e. 'the Tyrannosaur') was how he mocked his late wife's clomping around because of her obesity or disability (I forget which).

So I know which film praised at Sundance I'll be rewatching - on a screen, if I get the chance!


* Incidentally, a factor links the three main figures:


Peter Mullan

Olivia Colman

Eddie Marsan


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Tyrannosaur - rex or regina?

This is a Festival review of Tyrannosaur (2011)

This is a Festival review of Tyrannosaur (2011)

More views of - or at - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

25 September

This is a Festival review of Tyrannosaur (2011)

I couldn't get director / writer of Tyrannosaur Paddy Considine interested in the idea that his lead man (a role for Peter Mullan, seemingly written for him, by my judgement) could have been female, and his key opposite number (beautifully played by Olivia Colman) not Hannah, but Henry - Joseph (Peter Mullan's male) would have been, say, Josephine.

For him, a separate film - not the film that he had made - end of answer. (OK, I agreed in the question that the dynamics would have been different, but wondered whether he had ever considered wbat I was suggesting - he didn't say that he hadn't, but he clearly hadn't.)

A separate film that he would watch, if I made it. I told him that it was showing the next day.

At the moment, much as I thought Tyrannosaur was a good piece of work, I still view it as following on from the same actor (same name, even!) in My Name is Joe - oh, it did say different things, but it was a similar sort of world, a similar sort of desire to get out of it...


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