Do You See
20 July 2011
38: Hobo With A Shotgun (Movie)
I have no sensitivity to gore. Blood can spurt out of wounds on film like Old Faithful and the more it spurts the less sensitive I am. Guts can fall out of bodies and it might even push a giggle out of me. The moment someone is getting sliced in two and sliding apart like a cartoon, well its like a cartoon. Cartoons never used to be gory, but since the toon within a toon of Itchy and Scratchy, and the gorefest that is Superjail even this is no longer true. There is nothing about gallons of fake blood that bothers me. Indeed the gallons help.
There is an interesting sequence in the faux (but tonally spot on) grindhouse quickie Hobo With A Shotgun that illustrates the difference perfectly. Rutger Hauer’s tramp has turned up in Fucktown, and has been driven to homicidally clean up all the evil he sees on display with his shotgun. Much splatter continues in such a strong cartooonish fashion that even the most egregious nonsense is clearly so far removed from reality that it hold little to no emotional attachment. Except one point where the female lead, the tart with a heart (its that kind of film), is held down by the armoured villains “The Plague” who start to hacksaw off her head. Nearly all the other gore in the film has been supplied by shotgun blasts and swift limb choppings. The hacksawing creates little blood, but is the most shocking action in the film, and proof that Hobo With A Shotgun created a character that I at least cared about a bit. more »
Pete Baran in Do You See /FT • No Comments
15 July 2011
37: The Tree Of Life (cinema)
Terrance Malick’s divisive The Tree Of Life is probably my favourite Malick since Badlands. Which isn’t saying an awful lot, me and Malick have rarely clicked, but I was much more engaged with it than I was with even The New World (which I saw in an excellent double bill with Pocohontas so I knew what was going on)*. And I cannot say I particularly liked Malick’s everything but the kitchen sink history of creation / forensic family drama. But it was very interesting, a fascinating watch stylistically but, and this is where I usually part company with Malick, also narratively. Particularly if you top and tail the film, lopping of the National Geographic and the Ten People You Meet In Heaven segments, you are left with a ninety minute impressionistic view of a disfunctional fifties family.
Or at least cinema, and cinematic technique, wants us to feel it is disfunctional. The air of dread around the dinner table and Brad Pitt’s hard, driven father figure all suggest that there is more to this scenario than meets the eye. The undercurrent of tension plays well, the kids are our viewpoint characters and as there is barely a narrative, tension fills the gaps. But even when Pitt’s father explodes, the film suffers from a difficult dichotomy. Film has taught us that aggressive dads are bad, that dramatically there is no smoke without fire and dread has to come from somewhere. But at the same time Jessica Chastain’s mother is so gossamer thin, an angel made flesh in her sons eyes that any comparison with the father will make him feel wanting. The most burning question I wanted to ask others on the way out is if Brad Pitt’s father is a bad dad? Or at least is he abusive, bullying or just the way Dad’s were in the fifties? Because it strikes me that I knew the dread around the dinner table, there was real sanction in “wait til your father gets home“, and the role of the father as disciplinarian was often out of necessity and not seen as a bad one. It was the way that, up until recently, Western families were. more »
Pete Baran in Do You See /FT • 3 Comments
12 July 2011
34: Pather Panchali / 35: Aparajito / 36: The World of Apu (DVD)
Of course I tease. Of course I am being deliberately provocative. Satyajit Ray’s trilogy is nothing like the three cack handed George Lucas toy shilling adverts, these are lovely elegaic films, of coming of age, of town and country, of sweeping understated* tragedy. Of course there is a superficial similarity with the lead character Apu losing his family, growing up with an air of mysticism and then in anger rejecting his own child until a reconciliation. Of course Apu doesn’t strictly turn to the dark side in the intermediate sections, there are no clone troopers or incomprehensible battles beyond the stars. Just Benares, Calcutta, countryside and the growing pains of a difficult child. more »
Pete Baran in Do You See • 3 Comments
21 June 2011
31 & 32: Ip Man (DVD) and Return Of The Fist: The Legend Of Chen Zhen (DVD)
The cinema shorthand, when I was a kid, was that Nazi’s were evil cannon fodder. Classic dehumanising techniques from a jingoistic media trying to make sense of years of war, and the aftermath. It was handy that the Nazi’s made it pretty easy to portrayed as such, Hitler and his Final Solution still seem objectively much more evil than most wars about territory. And as Mitchell and Webb pointed out recently, wearing skulls as insignia suggest that you might be the bad guys.
I don’t know much about Chinese history beyond some of the bulletpoint bits and Chairman Mao’s really rather versatile jacket. I do know that Japan and China were at war pre-WWII, and that Japan had significant gains within China, such as Shanghai and so on. But Japanese cinema barely touches anything resembling modern history, and Chinese cinema (depending on its provenance) also seemed to avoid films about this time too. Both national cinemas seem to play a lot more on the long history and Wuxia and Samurai type historical films (with their own codified genre tropes). more »
Pete Baran in Do You See /FT • 7 Comments
13 June 2011
Film 2Oh!! is an attempt to write about every film I have seen this year which is really quite tricky. This year I have seen 124 films, written about 25. Its tricky. So lets try and mop a few up with some thoughts on some films I have seen lately.
26: Senna (cinema)
Remarkable how cinematic a documentary made completely from grainy TV footage can be. Remarkable how much the non-stop historical cigarette advertising throughout the film made me want a gasper. Particularly Rothmans, the Williams and my Dad’s formula one cigarette of choice. I remember one Christmas at family gathering racing a packer of John Player Special against a pack of Rothmans on the dining table as we “played” Formula 1. And being mighty disappointed that no-one in the family smoked Marlboro’s.
27. Julia’s Eyes (cinema)
Dear the makers of Julia’s Eyes. I can understand why thematically it may make sense in a film about someone losing her sight, you may want to mirror her failing eyesight with dull fading cinematography. I understand it, but it is as bad an idea as associating “unremarkable” with “invisible”. more »
Pete Baran in Do You See /FT • 1 Comment
7 June 2011
25: Summer Wars (DVD)
I became aware of Summer Wars last year, flicking through some news item trying to work out why so few Japanese films were being released in the UK at the moment*. There was someone bemoaning the lack of anime releases, and in particular when would they get to see Summer Wars. I watched this trailer below I think and though it looked like a cute, if somewhat serious, Pokemon type film. But it was by the director (Mamoru Hosoda) who made The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which I liked, so on the list it went. I am glad I did as I don’t think I have been as surprised and delighted by a film I selected at a whim since Ping Pong. more »
Pete Baran in Do You See • 3 Comments
2 June 2011
23. Robogeisha (DVD)
Yesterday I filled in a questionnaire about Extreme Asian cinema which wanted to know why I might watch something that may be filed under “Asian Extreme” cinema. It was quite a thorough questionnaire, trying to pinpoint what I thought the appeal of such cinema was, as well as probing my definitions of it. I get a sense that it is trying to repeal some BBFC decisions, but its interesting area of research (though how truthful its answers will be may be unclear). If you are interested in the questionnaire it is here:
http://www.asianextremecinemaresearch.co.uk/
Anyway the point is I don’t watch an awful lot of what I might consider Asian Extreme cinema. That said I see plenty of Asian films which tiptoe into this area, and certainly in the J-Horror period saw some quite nasty stuff (fish-hooks in the fanny movie The Isle being an obvious example). I am particularly queasy about sexual violence and extreme body horror, but I do try not to self censor too much if a film seems worthwhile (Audition was tough but rewarding for example). But on the other side I do have a bit of an interest in schlocky gore horror, and just genre trash movies. Hence renting Robogeisha – from the man who bought us Machine Girl. Robogeisha has a mix of gore, splatter effects, ridiculous body horror and odd stabs at eroticism that is as enjoyable as you want it to be. I probably took it at the level of an X-rated Power Rangers episode, replete with ejaculating demons and some truly poor effects. And yet it cutely goes all the way to try and string together a coherent plot, its not just happy with Cyborg Geisha / gore / sex. Though it is quite happy with that. more »
Pete Baran in Do You See /FT • 1 Comment
1 June 2011
22: X-Men: First Class (cinema)
A film like X-Men: First Class is pretty hard to review. I thoroughly enjoyed it in a way I haven’t enjoyed an X-Men film since X2, which is to say that its an intelligent action movie for stupid people. These being the only team superhero films on the block at the moment, they manage to have issues about pacing, the amount of plot and characterisation that needs to be stuffed in and multiple simultaneous action sequences. To his credit Matthew Vaughn handles all of this pretty well and churns out a clever flick which almost rehabilitates the idea of a prequel. At least here the key sense is if being slavish to continuity spoils your story, then always go with the story. Which is exactly how it should be in every medium.
What interests me the most about the X-Men films is, once minted, how they have had a life of their own, and thus how they have mutated. Certain choices in the initial film begat continuity issues later on. So X-Men: First Class has a pretty different actual first class to the comic X-Men: First Class, many of whose first class were in the class in the first film. (I hope that made no sense). Dramatic arcs for the first were lifted from the comics, but also expanded upon – the Wolverine, Jean Grey, Cyclops lover triangle has significantly more importance in the films. And some characters, almost throwaway henchmen like Mystique, took on a life of their own. more »
Pete Baran in Do You See • 2 Comments
24 May 2011
21: Germany Year Zero (DVD)
I’m not sure what I expected from Rosselini’s Germany Year Zero. I knew it was a key Italian Neo-Realist film without perhaps knowing what that meant (my neo-realism begins and ends with The Bicycle Thief, and I come to that via the Icicle Thief). I suppose I didn’t expect dubbed Italian dialogue as Edmund slumps through the rather powerful ruins of Berlin. Now I know that Italian films were routinely dubbed, but I supposed that part of the draw of neo-realism was presenting a story in a more raw, documentary style than the forties were used to. Germany Year Zero does this except everyone seems to be speaking with a fruity Italian accent (I don’t speak Italian, but I can tell when its not German). The fact that the actors are all German and are clearly dubbed by others isn’t really the point – and the diagetic sound mix is excellent. But, my years of seeing subtitled films suggest, wouldn’t it have been better in German? Perhaps the most powerful and jarring moment of the film is when a record of one of Hitler’s speeches is played. And that is in German. more »
Pete Baran in Do You See • No Comments
18 May 2011
19: Manasse (Movie)
Earlier this year I worried that I didn’t know how to talk about silent films. That I did not feel that I had the critical toolkit to enable me to safely say if one was good or bad. And, unacknowledged at the time, was also a fear that it was difficult to see such a spectrum anyway, what with so much destroyed and only the good ones being saved.
Well never fear, I finally saw a truly bad silent film, and now I have a much better idea of what a bad silent film is. And why other ones are better. more »
Pete Baran in Do You See • No Comments
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