Little Joe (2019)

I’ve been doing a themed week focused on ‘foreign’ science-fiction, due to the recent release of French film Proxima in cinemas, but once again today’s film is one I’m rather squashing into that remit, being a British film (albeit a co-production with Austria and Germany) in English with British stars. However it’s directed by the wonderful Austrian director Jessica Hausner, one of my favourites, especially for her recent films like this one and Amour Fou. She creates a very controlled and threatening atmosphere in this dystopian sci-fi about genetically modified plants.

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I see that this film has been pulling in fairly mixed reviews, probably on account of blending Jessica Hausner’s very particular style, honed over the course of a number of inscrutable dramas about alienation and resentment, to a generic form (broadly speaking, a sort of sci-fi horror thriller). Of course, Hausner’s 2004 film Hotel has a not dissimilar general feel, but she has developed quite a bit as a director since that film, and Little Joe has a supremely polished style. The camera glides around, quite often moving in to focus on the intangible space between characters as much as the people themselves. The threat here, then, is an unseen one in the air, particularly apropos for this particular historical moment one might say (mid-2020), and feels reminiscent of Safe (along with a dissonant score and subtly alienating sound effects), though this film is more directly about the dangers of messing with Nature.

Emily Beecham (sporting a shock of ginger hair reminiscent of earlier iconic roles by her co-star Kerry Fox) is Alice, a scientist working with Ben Whishaw’s Chris on a new houseplant which they hope will promote happiness via some genetic modifications, but… things start to go awry, and eventually it just seems to be Alice who questions the potential dangers of this new plant. Unlike in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the way that others become infected are subtle and deniable, such that Alice finds herself questioning her own experiences; the allegorical danger the film raises is not simply that of interfering with nature, but implicates the recognisable contours of our own current workplace culture. It’s stylish and atmospheric, building tension impressively without resorting to hysteria.

CREDITS
Director Jessica Hausner; Writers Hausner and Géraldine Bajard; Cinematographer Martin Gschlacht; Starring Emily Beecham, Ben Whishaw, Kerry Fox; Length 105 minutes.
Seen at home (BFI Player via Amazon streaming), London, Monday 22 June 2020.

The Lobster (2015)

The end of the year is always the time to catch up with movies which, for whatever reason, one neglected on first release. I had thought I wouldn’t really enjoy The Lobster and so I spent much of the film trying my best to resist it, though there are elements which work in its favour in that respect: the deliberately stilted line readings (especially Rachel Weisz’s voiceover narration), the bleakly deadpan acting, the black comedy of a world in which people must couple off again within 45 days after breaking up or be turned into an animal of their choosing. However, once you get into the film’s rhythm there are some genuine laughs, not least at the appalling banality of some of the conversation (such as Ben Whishaw’s with his ‘family’ near the end), or the ridiculous conceit of matching people up by superficial physical characteristics (to the extent that most of the characters are identified only by these qualities). Colin Farrell, in downplaying his usual hyperactive shtick, makes for a compellingly strange anti-presence at the heart of the film, while around him are some of the leading character actors of European cinema — for this is, by its many co-producing credits, a very European film. In thinking about its satirical take on coupledom and romance, it has grown in my opinion since I saw it, and it may yet continue to do so. Whatever else, it certainly marks a distinctive comic vision.

CREDITS
Director Yorgos Lanthimos Γιώργος Λάνθιμος; Writers Efthimis Filippou Ευθύμης Φιλίππου and Lanthimos; Cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis Ευθύμης Φιλίππου; Starring Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Léa Seydoux, Ariane Labed, John C. Reilly, Ben Whishaw; Length 118 minutes.
Seen at Prince Charles Cinema, London, Wednesday 30 December 2015.

Suffragette (2015)

As one of the big cinematic releases here in the UK this autumn, Suffragette goes back to a fertile period of modern history — the 1910s shortly before the outbreak of World War I — tackling a story that’s certainly well-known to people at least in passing, if rarely thus far attempted on the big screen. Partially that may be due to the rather limited scope of the so-called ‘suffragettes’, being the militant wing of the campaign for women’s suffrage (voting rights); they were, after all, engaged in a domestic form of terrorism, albeit directed at manifestly unjust laws (not even all men had the vote in this period). Moreover it’s debated amongst historians quite how effective their campaign was, and it’s suggested that women’s involvement in work during World War I was more decisive in swaying political opinion on the matter (in 1918 women over 30, along with all men over 18, were awarded voting rights). However, that doesn’t change the fact that this is a stirring story of a small number of women who campaigned passionately for something they believed in enough to suffer abuse and imprisonment (and in some cases even death), and which continues to have resonances today, judging from the list that ends the film of when various countries finally allowed women the vote. It’s unquestionably a handsomely-mounted piece, with plenty of detail in the costumes and setting, and although most of the central characters are fictional creations, they are in some cases (most notably Helena Bonham Carter’s militant pharmacist) based on some aspects of real life figures, while there are effectively cameos from the movement’s leading lights (including Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst, and Natalie Press as Emily Wilding Davison). However, in some ways the film’s real achievement is in focusing on one working-class family woman (Carey Mulligan’s Maud, married to Ben Whishaw’s Sonny), rather than the upper middle-class ladies who are usually the linchpin of such stories. It’s her realisation of the importance of political representation, as effectively contextualised within her unfavourable working environment in an East End laundry, that moves the narrative along, and all the details of her working life are the most persuasive aspects of the drama. There are indeed many more stories of this type to be told about women in history — the past hundred years of cinema has provided rather a surfeit of tales of chauvinist political machinations — and Suffragette should be welcomed as a big-budget evocation of an important, if under-represented, story.

CREDITS
Director Sarah Gavron; Writer Abi Morgan; Cinematographer Edu Grau; Starring Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson; Length 106 minutes.
Seen at Cineworld Wood Green, London, Thursday 22 October 2015.

Paddington (2014)

Ever since a friend described this film to me as like Notting Hill or Love Actually but for kids, I’ve not been able to shake that link from my mind. Because, yes, this film is very West London in that slightly twee picturesque way so beloved of Richard Curtis and his ilk, in that people live in brightly coloured, neatly-turned-down terraced houses on rather grand streets with gorgeous big, bright rooms that no one in London can possibly afford anymore. (I suppose, for American viewers, it’s the equivalent of your struggling working folk sharing a massive loft apartment in Greenwich Village, or wherever.) The story also, for rather more obvious reasons — in that it’s aimed at families, and that it’s a comedy, after all — embraces the sentimental and wholesome in the end, as teddy-bear-out-of-water Paddington looks for a stable home life with the Brown family (with Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins as the parents). That said it does manage to shoehorn in a fair amount of furry-bear-related peril along the way, both in its opening sequences set in “darkest Peru” (as it is unswervingly referred to throughout the film) and in its later London-based caper sequences, as Paddington must fend off the advances of evil scientist/taxidermist (played with excellently gleeful maleficence by Nicole Kidman). It also makes some trenchant comments in favour of immigration, which in our modern political environment is certainly bold and should be welcomed. For all that, the initial comparison remains — and it would be damning except for the fact that, actually, I like Richard Curtis comedies (yes, even Love Actually), and once you’ve set aside the scrubbed-up locations, it’s rather sweet. It also has plenty of really rather funny comic asides (as well as stuff that will surely go over the kids’ heads); I’m still laughing about Mr Brown’s comment to the cabbie after the tourist-landmark-checking but geographically-ridiculous taxi journey that kicks off Paddington’s time in London. How it will play to children, I have no idea (there’s peril, and evil scientists, but never for too long), so don’t come to me for that. I am a fully-grown person, and I enjoyed this film.

CREDITS
Director Paul King; Writers King and Hamish McColl (based on the character by Michael Bond); Cinematographer Erik Wilson; Starring Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Ben Whishaw, Julie Walters, Nicole Kidman; Length 95 minutes.
Seen at Cineworld O₂ Greenwich, London, Sunday 7 December 2014.

Skyfall (2012)

Whatever they try to do with James Bond, however they try to update the archetype with those familiar post-Bourne trappings of propulsive action/espionage mayhem intended to reflect the modern world, there’s always that nagging sense that Bond as a character is trapped in the past — the guns, the girls, the cocktails, the sense of macho imperialist entitlement. It’s certainly acknowledged here with plenty of hat-tips to the supposed old world charms of this retrogressive character, but despite Judi Dench returning to provide a strong female presence, by the end it feels like the series has been firmly returned to its cosy blinkered stasis.

Part of my antipathy is just with the modern action thriller template, with all its chases and explosions and steely professional sheen. The laconic one-liners are still there, but they don’t really add any recognisable levity; at their worst, as during a rather grisly William Tell-like contest in a deserted island city, they become actively offensive. I don’t doubt that in this particular scene the quip was intended to be Bond trying to hide his emotions while wrong-footing his opponents, and yet with the emotional investment severely underplayed, it comes across flatly — the best I can say is that the one-liners bring to mind the classic era of this type of action hero, a grimly 1980s fantasia of Schwarzenegger and Stallone, one man armies reaffirming entrenched establishment values.

So women are returned to the sidelines; the one agent in the field fluffs her role and resigns herself to a menial secretary’s work. Bond meanwhile seems to be the sole person capable of thwarting the terrorist plot, one of those elaborate villainous schemes that hinges on the good guys doing specific things in specific places at precise times so as to allow the bad guy’s plot to be advanced (ridiculous screenwriter conceits up there with having your boffin tap some keys while muttering pseudo-technological nonsense, even if Ben Whishaw does very well as Q). However, Javier Bardem at least brings a welcome campness to the villain; it’s just a pity he doesn’t show up until more than half the film has gone by.

That overextended running time allows for lots of longueurs — mood-establishing quiet scenes, the filmmakers might have intended, but they just come across as unnecessary to this viewer (and I like slow films). To me, Bond’s character isn’t really given any depth here; there is some Rosebud-like hinting at his murky past, and yet as a character played by multiple actors over the last 50 years, the idea of a backstory and family history just seems odd. And those places where the action stops to shoehorn in a product placement: why do Bond films seem to do this so much more clunkily than others?

I didn’t hate this film, despite all I’ve said. It does what it needs to do rather well, and as a Bond film it’s one of the better recent ones. Perhaps I just feel weary at this type of film now. Certainly, by the time we’re ushered into the office of government bureaucrat Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), the series appears to have decisively stepped back into a world of old boys’ networks and chauvinist back-slapping, and that just leaves me underwhelmed.

CREDITS
Director Sam Mendes; Writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan; Cinematographer Roger Deakins; Starring Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw; Length 143 minutes.
Seen at Odeon Holloway, London, Sunday 28 October 2012 (and on Blu-ray at home, London, Wednesday 10 July 2013).