The Illusionist by Sylvain Chomet

The Illusionist
(L’Illusionniste)
Directed by Sylvain Chomet
UK & France, 2010
Cornerhouse, 20 August 2010

Still from The Illusionist

An enchanting concoction by Sylvain Chomet, who makes out of Jacques Tati’s script an elegiac meditation about a man who cannot quite bend the world to his will, indeed he barely survives in it.

The illusionist is a stage magician who plays the theatres, music halls and, when all else fails, even the shop windows of old Edinburgh town.

There are some terrific scenes here: the depiction of the magician’s drunken amble, the conceit of giving the pawnbrokers’ shop the name of Brown and Blair, the exuberant etiquette of the acrobatic troupe.  And the moments before the magician sat down to eat rabbit stew raised a chuckle or three.

The film should be seen, though, for its atmosphere and mood and for its several incidental pleasures, rather than for the story, which is somewhat slight.

This is a gorgeous animation, wonderful to look at, and while the comedy dances and dalliances with despair, it doesn’t quite succumb.

Mother by Bong Joon-ho

Mother
(Madeo)
Directed by Bong Joon-ho
Korea, 2009
Cornerhouse, 22 August 2010

Still from Mother

When a young man with learning difficulties is arrested for murder, it is up to his mother to clear his name.

There are some exciting turns and twists in this intelligent thriller, but more than the story itself, it is the mother-son relationship and the performance of Hye-ja Kim as the eponymous justice-seeking significant other that raises the film above the ordinary.  She is anxious and anguished, and feels guilty too for her own past actions.  Her son is the lynchpin of her life and she cannot bear to lose him or let him down.

In her every step, with each and every frame of the film, you are startled, surprised and amused; yet you also become immersed in the mother’s journey, until you’re finally fully involved, in it up to your neck.

It is very rare for a film to grab and take hold of one’s attention, and then to deepen it still further, as Bong Joon-ho’s does.  An extraordinary feat of film-making.

Corrie!

Corrie!
By Jonathan Harvey
The Lowry, 16 August 2010

The Corrie! Cast Outside the Rovers Return

Coronation Street, now half a century old, is given the ‘Reduced Shakespeare Co. treatment’ in Jonathan Harvey’s affectionate comedy.

It follows life on the Street from the ‘60s to the present day, and all the legendary women are here: Ena, Hilda, Rita, Gail…  While there are certain recondite allusions that only seven living people will know, this is basically a good night out for fans of the show.  The cast were terrific and they make it a lot of fun, with Leanne Best as Gail (a saga and a half this gal) being the outstanding turn of the night for me, amongst many riches.

In the same sense that economic competition is a form of war, so Coronation Street was a continuation of the ‘kitchen-sink drama’ tradition of British film by televisual means, at least in its early days.  Some might argue that it was, or has become, a dilution of that tradition, rather than a distillation of it.

Curiously, though, the show has retained its freshness, despite the undoubted fact that our world is so unlike the world that existed at its inception.  Is it possible anymore to live a local life, in an age of globalisation and following the advent of the internet?   

The appeal of Coronation Street now lies in its humour, rather than a nostalgia for a vanished village, and that is to its credit.  Watch the show now and it is vibrant and does not seem at all anachronistic.

Corrie! is an entertaining traipse through the show’s 50 year history.  It is at The Lowry until 21 August.  Full details are here.

Tetro by Francis Ford Coppola

Tetro
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
USA & Italy & Spain & Argentina, 2009
Cornerhouse, 15 August 2010

Still from Tetro

It is exhilarating to see Francis Ford Coppola making such epic and intense films once more.

Tetro is a tale of brothers and fathers and the tainted legacy of an artistic family.

There is a fine performance by Vincent Gallo in the title role, very much an underappreciated actor in my view.  He usually brings something special – nay, unique – to every role he tackles; and his body of work, the kind of career path he has chosen to trek, is impressive.  As Tetro, he is a wounded son who has given up on his family obligations, a writer whose nerve has failed.

The film is predominantly in black and white  (flashbacks, to memory and in imagination, and quotes from Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes are in colour) and this effects one’s perception in a curious way.  In one sense, it makes the film more naturalistic; but it also adds a layer of artifice, because filming in black and white is done from choice not necessity.  And, of course, it evokes other black and white films (A Streetcar Named Desire being one), so allowing Tetro to be placed in – and draw sustenance from – a wider tradition.

This is a great film and it is one that only Coppola could have made.

Le Refuge

Le Refuge
Directed by François Ozon
France, 2009
Cornerhouse, 15 August 2010

Still from Le Refuge

This is a beautiful and tender film about loss, bereavement, family secrets and renewal.

It centres on the relationship between Mousse (Isabelle Carré), pregnant with her dead lover’s child, and Paul (Louis-Ronan Choisy), brother of the said dead lover.

There is a lot of art present, as in all of François Ozon’s films.  When they’re on a beach, Paul places his hand on Mousse’s belly and we get a close up of her belly, together with the sound of waves crashing in the background, the ocean’s motion.  A startling juxtaposition of image and sound; and one of many that are replete throughout the film.

Isabelle Carré gives a wonderful, moving performance as Mousse, the reluctant yet determined mother, in a film that is essentially about experience, our relationship to the world: whether we embrace it’s danger or settle for a sterile safety.

Certain aspects of the story are resolved in a peremptory fashion (e.g. Paul’s relationship with his father), granted.  Yet while the ending may lack plausibility, there is no denying that it possesses a poetic truth.

Les Miserables

Les Miserables
Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer
Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg
The Lowry, 12 August 2010

Rosalind James as Eponine

It is a bit of an irony, granted, but this is a musical that is sure to cheer you up.

You’ll be out of the doldrums in no time after seeing Valjean (John Owen-Jones) turn his life around and realise his destiny.

The show was sumptuously put together and full of drama, dream and incident.  There were moments of high emotion and episodes of bawdy banter; all part of a fast-paced narrative rendered with song.

Above all, two performances stood out for me.  Fantine’s ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ was gorgeous, a gift from the wonderful Madalena Alberto.  And Rosalind James (as Eponine) was stupendous in everything she did, whether it was the lovely ‘On My Own’ or her part in the three-hander, ‘A Heart Full of Love’.  She is the girl you’d give your life and your love to, no questions asked.  Vive l’amour!

Les Miserables is at The Lowry until 21 August.  Full details are here.

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
Directed by Jan Kounen
France, 2009
Cornerhouse, 8 August 2010

Still from Coco Chanel & Igor Stavinsky

It looks great: the period detail, the way each shot is composed.

There is no doubting either the elegance of Anna Mouglalis as Coco Chanel.  But whether this great affair ever amounted to more than a fling on Chanel’s part and an itch that Stravinsky needed to scratch in order to create a new work, is open to question.

Yelena Morozova as Katarina, Stravinsky’s wife, gives the film’s best performance.  She potrays a fierce and sorrowful and loving woman.  The two leads are no slouchs, either, in the acting stakes: Mads Mikkelsen renders Stravinsky as an introverted and repressed man, yet also a fearless artist.  While Mouglalis’s Chanel is attracted to Stravinsky’s fearless integrity and also, perhaps, to the idea of inspiring an artist, being more than a mere patron.

On a deeper level, the theme of the film is undoubtedly art and its various pretenders and enemies (above all, fashion and convention) and the mystery and agony of the creative process.  A stylish, transporting experience all told, but one is left with the question: did this affair ultimately mean very much to either person?

Undertow

Undertow
Directed by Javier Fuentes León
Peru & Columbia, 2009
Cornerhouse, 8 August 2010

Still from Undertow

Not just a ‘gay film’, nah, not on your nelly.

Rather, this beautiful film is about, well, lots of things really: sexuality, ethical conflict, hypocrisy, courage, responsibility (and responsibilities that vie against each other) and above all the frightened and feral creature that is the human heart.

The underlying premise is taken from Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), the TV show that has apparently acquired a cult status in Latin America, but what is terrific about Undertow is that all the characters are fully rounded people.  And they all pretty much come good in the end, even the gossiping maiden who had conspired to land Miguel (Cristian Mercado) in deep water.  She, bless her, walks alongside Santiago’s shrouded corpse at the end.

There are some fine lighter moments too, as when Miguel’s wife Mariela (Tatiana Astengo) turns the TV over to the football.  Her fears that Miguel might be developing a crush on the male lead in a popular soap are thus for the moment allayed.  It is best to apply a policy of prophylaxis in such situations.

Undertow is an intelligent, moving film and the abundant facial hair on show will surely gladden the heart of the author of On Growing and Grooming a Beard: Some Issues around Sustainable Development.  This is the second great film to come out of Peru within a year (The Milk of Sorrow being the other one), so if the ‘buses’ model applies to films we should be due another one shortly.

Classic Pin-up Art of Jack Cole

Classic Pin-up Art of Jack Cole
Edited by Alex Chun
Fantagraphics Books, April 2010 
ISBN-13: 978-1-60699-284-5

Jack Cole was a brilliant artist and one of the most significant figures in American comics.  He invented Plastic Man, a sublimely weird superhero, writing the stories and drawing and inking the panels all by his lonesome, from 1941 to 1945.  True it is that, in a far-off time, to be plastic and supremely malleable was considered a power and a virtue.  Conformist America, where art thou?

Behind an anodyne facade, mind, dark and disturbing beasts lurked; and Cole captured some of the era’s sleazy underbelly in ‘Murder, Morphine and Me’, a story that he drew for the first issue of True Crime Comics in May 1947.  (Chun calls it issue 2 in the introduction to this book, but it was in fact the first issue.  It just says issue 2 on the cover.)  It is shocking to read this particular story even now, and the image of the syringe held before a woman’s eye, needle poised and ready to strike and pierce, retains its harrowing force.

The book under review collects together some of the risqué cartoons that Cole placed in various men’s magazines in the 1950s, after leaving the comics industry.  Some of these cartoons appeared in one magazine that, amongst a host of mostly forgotten titles, is still in existence today: Playboy, which Cole joined in 1953.

In essence, these are single panel cartoons, beautifully composed and drawn as you would expect, accompanied by a gag or punchline.  They are pleasing to look at and vaguely amusing, to be sure, but there is none of the surreal, chaotic, rollercoaster quality to be found in Cole’s comic book art.  There is nothing too objectionable either, unless you regard cheesecake as commodification.

We are in the pre-feminist world of saucy seaside postcards and Mad Men (the TV series) or perhaps simply a world of mad men, indefinite playboys who are infinitely malleable and plastic.

Jack Cole found steady work at Playboy, working there until the fateful day when he killed himself.  Chun includes all the details, and he even tells you the calibre of gun that was used.  Cole was only 43 years old when he chose to end his life, an awful waste of a gorgeous talent.  What is it Patchen wrote?  ‘There are so many little dyings that it doesn’t matter which of them is death.’

Gainsbourg

Gainsbourg
(Vie héroïque)
Directed by Joann Sfar
France, 2010
Cornerhouse, 1 August 2010

Still from Gainsbourg

Close to perfection: a film that engages the heart, the intellect and the senses.

This film presents the life of Serge Gainsbourg as an eventful tragedy: sad and bad things happen but there’s always a diversion, a new game in town, and our hero moves on.

The presence of Boris Vian (Philippe Katerine) in the film was surprising; I was unaware that Gainsbourg and the eminent ‘pataphysician were friends.  It caused me to wonder, also, whether Gainsbourg and Georges Perec, another young writer who’d taken inspiration and encouragement from Queneau, had ever met.  Apparently, they never did.  Jane Birkin did meet Perec in a London restaurant, though, and she told the author of Life: A User’s Manual that he reminded her of a character in a comic book she’d read as a child.  This film was adapted by Joann Sfar from his own comic about the singer.

Eric Elmosnino gives an outstanding performance in the lead role and he certainly looks the part, of that there’s no doubt.  A little bit more on the intersection where Jewish and French identity meet and cohere would have been welcome (Perec wrote W, a memoir of a Nazi-infested childhood not unlike Gainsbourg’s own) but there’s a terrific version of the French national anthem, which shows what a strange, curious and problematic beast it is.  There is enough food for the mind here, and Bardot too.  (Or rather a fair facsimile in the delectable form of Laetitia Casta.)