Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir

One of my earliest memories of late night film watching was viewing an intoxicating interview on BBC Two's Moviedrome between the presenter Mark Cousins and the film director Roman Polanski. The interview covered most of the Pole's illustrious career whilst touching on the controversy that has engulfed his life and led to his self-imposed exile in France away from Hollywood.

The interview was spellbinding in the sense that Cousins did not relent from a tough line of questioning almost leading to a butting of heads due to the difference of opinion between the two.  Twice, if memory serves, the interview had to be stopped due to Polanski's consternations.

Polanski is a polarising figure, a genuinely talented filmmaker but fundamentally a maverick who has banged his own drum.  This documentary A Film Memoir is based around a series of interviews between Polanski and his long-time collaborator Andrew Braunsburg when under house arrest at Polanski's home of Gstaad, Switzerland in 2009 and 2010.

The interview covers all of the milestones of Polanski's life from his early work in Poland including his international calling card Knife in the Water, his move to Paris, Chinatown, the murder of his wife Sharon Tate by Charles Manson, his subsequent arrest in 1977 and his eventual triumph of winning an Oscar for Best Director for The Pianist which recalled his own horror of growing up I'm he Krakow ghetto.

Recollections are interspersed with film excerpts, news footage, press coverage, private photos and documents.  Whilst is does offer a rare glimpse into the world of Polanski you nevertheless feel there is always more to the story, and maybe that is his lasting appeal, you never know the full tale.

Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir is released from Network Distribution and will also be available to rent from Curzon Home Cinema via BT Box Office now

www.networkdistributing.com

No - review

The much heralded Chilean director, Pablo Larrain (Tony Manero (2008) and Post Mortem (2010)) completes his Pinochet trilogy with the critically acclaimed No starring Gael Garcia Bernal.

No stars Bernal as a cynical young advertising executive, Rene Saavedra asked to spearhead the 'No' campaign for those opposing the dictatorial regime led by General Pinochet, and attempt to bring democracy to Chile.

Larrain uses his methodical eye and observational style to bring to the screen a perfectly rendered 1980s set film; pleasingly the film harkens back to the start of the campaign as we follow them using scant resources and being under constant scrutiny from colleagues and the Pinochet regime.

At stake for the dissidents is a chance for freedom and to be as affluent as they wish they could be.  The irony is not lost on the audience when we first me Rene who is pitching a campaign for a new soft drink, called 'Free'.  It is telling though that in the country, everyone speaks in whispers, scared to say anything against the totalitarian regime and end up dead like so many before them.

Larrain cleverly mixes scripted and imagined scenes with carefully selected archive footage, and kudos to cinematographer Sergio Armstrong for shooting with a 1983 U-matic camera so we cannot distinguish between the imagined and the real 1980s footage.

Credit also to Bernal for taking a role that is neither built on his in-built charm, nor a man who is a charmer - Rene is the son of a dissident and yet he remains honest in his pursuit of the campaign and the ultimate victory.  The contrast and similarities with Ben Affleck's Argo are noticeable - the beards, the anti-totalitarian regime, the faithfulness to the era the film is set in.

No is one of the most compelling and visually daring films of recent memory.

It is released on DVD (£19.99 rrp) and also on iTunes (£13.99 HD rrp or £3.49 to rent) and the Curzon Home Cinema, courtesy of Network Releasing.
Special features include an interview with Pablo Larrain; a conversation with Gael Garcia Bernal at Curzon Soho; a Q&A with Larrain from the 56th London Film Festival and image gallery

My thanks to Network Releasing for the opportunity to review this title.

The Story of Film

When I first began to really take notice of film as a cultural phenomenon and an artform, there were few good cinema shows on television.  This in a time when there were still just four terrestrial channels and little form on the satellite channels, beyond the cringing red carpet interviews and fawning behind-the-scenes footage.

There was however two esteemable men; the quintessential Barry Norman on BBC One's Film whatever the year was and the other was much younger, but just as knowledgable, Mark Cousins.  Cousins, a young man with a hypnotic Scottish voice, presented BBC Two's Moviedrome - a late night showing of a rarely screened film either Robert Siodmak's The Killers or something from Japan or Iran.  It opened my eyes to the work of Akira Kurosawa and Abbas Kiarostomi.  I also remember his ability to interview legends and get some great material, the best being his going to Paris to inteview Roman Polanski which touched upon his career and personal background.

Cousins has continued to be a writer, essayist and curator of many film programmes and festivals.  Now he has embarked upon his largest work to date and his own personal love letter to the art of cinema.  The Story of Film is Cousins' epic journey around the world encompassing the art form from all cultures, the evolution from silent cinema to sound to the most popular of cultural formats today.  Filled with passion and researched to the hilt, the documentary is produced by Hopscotch Films.

Originally screened on More4 last year, it is garnering a huge DVD release on 23rd April in a five disc, steel case limited edition for £49.99.

Whereas other critics who are more egotistical and arrogant (Kermode maybe) would be front and centre to any documentary, cutting back to him in front of a global landmark talking about that countries milestone moment.  Cousins takes the approach as an omnipresent narrator guiding us with little nuggets of information and research to back up the classic footage, as if it is the ultimate directors commentary on the history of film.

The roll call of people interviewed is a who's who of cinema - Robert Towne, Jane Campion, Stanley Donen, Lars Von Trier, Claire Denis, Buck Henry, Kiarostami, Paul Schneider - again there is no sight of Cousins but like any auteur his voice is all over the work.

The best insight is reserved for the moment when Cousins reflects on the two paths taken by Hollywood cinema in 1939 from John Ford's Stagecoach to Orson Welles' Citizen Kane how these two filmed are unified by the deep focus cinematography of Gregg Toland; and the new film language of Italian neorealism and the work of Rosselini, De Sica et al.

That is but my favourite piece, yet Cousins has so much to talk about thanks to the richness and uniqueness in the 100 plus years of film history.

The old adage of there is something for everyone has never been truer said than in this.  Whilst bound to be consumed en masse by film students and scholars up and down the country, it can also be treated as a cheats guide to all those films you haven't got to see yet.

THE STORY OF FILM: AN ODYSSEY is released from Network Releasing on 23rd April 2012 in a five disc format, 15 hours running time with a £49.99 RRP

www.networkreleasing.com
www.hopscotchfilms.co.uk/story-of-film

Absent

Marco Berger is one of those rare beings, a voice in queer cinema, who wants to be heard upon the conscientious and stereotypical musings of homosexual cinema.

His latest work, Absent, inverts the teacher and pupil dynamic of seduction.  In this case it is the pupil, Martin (Javier de Pietro) acts upon or teases the reactions of his swimming teacher, Sebastian (Carlos Echevarria).

Martin is much like a femme fatale, a person who will not stop at anything until he has crossed the unholy line - and once that line is crossed there is not turning back.  As the twists and turns occur, so the expectation of desire and lust is lost, as regret and loneliness takes hold.  Martin can still grow into a man, whilst for Sebastian a career and reputation can lay in tatters.

The real-time first half of the film is shot quite brilliantly, using the naturalism and testosterone filled air of a male changing room to good effect; however, the effect is somewhat lost once the changing room is left for the outside world, so to speak.

Whilst the professional Echevarria delivers a soulful performance as the emotionally fraught teacher, the newcomer de Pietro, shows himself to be a novice and does not quite convince on the basis of this performance.

However, there is a smoothness about Tomas Perez Silva's cinematography - yet for me the film was not as definely told as a German counterpart, Sasha another piece of queer cinema which dealt with the proceedings with a bit more tongue in cheek and had an all around better resolution.

Yet, Berger (who also edited and wrote the screenplay) remains a distinct Argentinian auteur to watch out for in the coming years and works.

Absent is released by Network Releasing on DVD and is out now.

Bonsai

Based upon the award-winning cult novella of the same name by Alejandro Zambra, fellow countryman Chilean Cristian Jimenez has described his second feature, Bonsai, as a tribute to the art of lying.

The film centres on Julio (Diego Noguera) an introvert who wants to be a writer, however when he is turned dow by Gazmuri - an established novelist - to transcribe his latest oeuvre, Julio decides to write his own to impress his next door neighbour Bianca (Trinidad Gonzalez), however Julio is easily distracted and he ends up entangled with his memories of the past illicit affair he shared with Emilia (Natalia Galgani) some eight years previously.

Jimenez uses this device of looking back at one affair in order to kick start a new one with a simple flashback/flash forward device - whilst Julio is an unreliant narrator he nevertheless is unable to decipher the difference between the two source material, and so becomes the subject of his own book. 

The profoundity of the situation should not be lost on Julio who we meet first reading Proust, after initially saying he had already done so.  This existentialsim will also be lost on Julio ultimately, as he loses sight of the present by focusing too much on the past.  There are two funny jokes about Proust at the film's beginning - Julio lies about reading it, gets a copy, goes to a beach to read it and falls asleep in doing so after three pages and then endures a suntan on his chest of the books outline having fallen asleep.

Bonsai is a film about memory and how the past intrudes upon your present and inevitable future.  Jimenez cleverly gives the two women - Emilia and Bianca - different tones when we see their stories when with Julio.  Emilia is dark, morbid and full of shadow harking her emotional fragility, whilst Bianca's world is bright, sunny and full of optimism and promise for Julio, the tone is helped by the work of cinematographer Inti Briones.

There are few surprises though when it comes to it, as in the opening sequence the film's narrator states, 'Emilia dies and Julio will remain alone.  The rest is fiction', and Jimenez joyfully has fun with his free adaptation of Zambra's novella with the arrangement of the film in chapters to make this an objective love story for a besotted soul, who takes his eye of the ball to focus on unrequited love.  Not to say that Julio  is a fool, Jimenez does adore him and the doe-eyed performance of Diego Noguera is key to winning our affection and sympathy.

Bonsai is out on Friday 30th March on limited release from Network Releasing.