Lady Macbeth

William Oldroyd's feature length debut feature following an extensive career in opera, is an adaptation by Alice Birch of a 'Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov. They have transplanted the story to 1865 Victorian England where women were marginalised.

Katherine (Florence Pugh) has been bought to be a wife to an unlovable coal miner's son, Alexander (Paul Hilton) who is drab and hates his tyrannical father, Boris (Christopher M).  Katherine is a much younger women in comparison to her new husband, and in the first twenty minutes she is treated as more of a prisoner as she wanders around this ghastly home with no means of escape - no piano to tinkle and no book to read unless she is partial to the bible, which she is not.

One morning she walks across the Pennines and feels free in touch in nature returning to a period before she had been purchased.  She even has no social outlet except her black maid, Anna (Naomi Aike), who is not a confidant more a rival.

When both men of the house are away on business, Florence hears noises from the stables and Anna being victimised by the stable hands and servants.  Upon saving her from further embarrassment, Florence asserts a flirtation with a new groomsman, Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis) which ultimately becomes a dangerous affair which will have serious consequences on the household.

Once the men return, and it becomes clear that Florence has been sleeping around, she slowly morphs into an angel of death on all those who will keep her and Sebastian apart.  This leads to moments that are both harrowing and traumatic to witness yet perhaps due to the gothic nature of the period it encapsulates the psychology of the protagonist feeling imprisoned.

Oldroyd marks himself as a talent due to the deftness of shot composition coupled with some sumptuous cinematography by Ari Wegner showcasing the beauty of Northern England landscapes.

Along with some intense performance especially by Pugh who benefits from the chronological order of shooting, her development of the character arc from naïve ingénue to malevolent femme fatale is delicately handled in a production of genuine efficiency.

Lady Macbeth is distributed by Altitude Films and is out now.

Berberian Sound Studio

Peter Strickland turned many heads in 2008 with his debut feature, Kaitlin Varga, a film that premiered at the Berlinale and was memorable for the bold use of naturalistic lighting throughout the production of a film that was in essence a rape revenge thriller.

Strickland has comeback to the fold with an even bolder and more ambitious project, but this time produced at Three Mill Studios in West London.  Strickland was teaching English as a foreign language in Hungary, and found money for his first feature by using his family's inheritance.  This time he has found backing through the UK Film Council and Film4 for this his second feature.

Strickland has written a piece about Gilderoy (Toby Jones - in a rare leading role) an English foley artist, who has been transported to somewhere in Italy to work on post-production of a giallo horror picture directed by Santini (Antonio Mancino) where he works under the watchful eye of producer Francisco (Cosimo Fusco) a man who would love to be in charge but does not have the vision.

From the off, Gilderoy is on the back foot.  An Englishman in a foreign land without a grasp of the native language, he is told to be more polite and courteous to his hosts.  Santini is affronted by the notion of Gilderoy stating the generic context of the film, 'Never call my picture a horror picture.  It is a Santini picture.' as he angles for authorial residency alongside Dario Argento to whom this is an audiovisual love letter.

Strickland does wonderful things with his script, we never get to see any of the actual filmed footage of The Equestrian Vortex ('I thought it was about horses?') instead we are treated to actors screaming on cue adding additional dialogue to the scenes, seeing in their eyes the colours as they watch the footage back.  Strickland also employs two mute technicians as the worker bees who do all the destruction and damage to create the bludgeonings, stabbings and burnings that occur in the studio.

Slowly however, the wheels start to come off the post-production process as the director Santini attempts to bed an actress, Silvia (Fatma Mohamed) which ends in sabotage.  This leads to them re-hiring and again messing up the process, apparently it was hard to find a solid screamer in mid-1970s Italy.

Gilderoy also slowly descends into a period of depression and alienation prompted by the letters sent to him by his Mother in regard to some birds in his garden shed.  Gilderoy usually works alone in said shed, so working in a much bigger studio is a big deal for his career, yet he is one of these humdrum button-downed Englishmen who are scared to spread his wings himself, much like the baby birds his mother has found in his garden.

Whilst the film is expertly produced in terms of sound design, and visually stunning thanks to the work of Nick Knowland cinematography; yet there are at times lots of ideas in the film that are never fully pursued.  The motif of a spider in Gilderoy's apartment leads him to look at something from his window, something which we never see; the repeated pictures of rotting fruit lead to nothing in general apart from fresher fruit being added to the pile and Gilderoy's numerous attempts to gain reimbursement for his flight is somewhat shot down by the insinuation that the flight never existed - why is this, does this make our Englishman a liar, or worse a madman who is not who he says he is.

A lot of these narrative threads are either tossed aside too quickly or rashly dealt with to maintain a short running time - itself a mystery as the first hour does seem to drag in spite of the evocative beauty of the piece in general.  The third act which brings us Gilderoy being dubbed in Italian and with the film breaking into a piece about Surrey fields, is somewhat unwanted and distracting.

This is a shame as the film is masterly put together by Strickland with a lot of faithfulness and respect to the slowly forgotten art of sound editing and design.  Yet the ending comes somewhat abruptly with Gilderoy staring at nothing in particular, meaning that the sound editor is probably just as blind as all.

Berberian Sound Studio is out now on limited release from Artificial Eye

ill Manors

Plan B the maverick singer and songwriter is born and bred in East London.  He is a proud Londoner, loves his city and the people in it.  Yet Ben Drew (his real name) can be thought of now as a renaissance man; a man of many trades.  He sings, acts (is about to star opposite Ray Winstone in the forthcoming Sweeney remake), produces his own music and now is a writer and director also.

Drew has written and directed ill Manors, a film set in and around his East End neighbourhood with a whole host of shady characters.  The film is just over 90 minutes long, but it uses a convincing labyrinthe plot where all the characters intersect and collide together.  At times the film can be very funny with its off the cuff remarks about authority and politics, or from the sharp angle of character themselves.  But Drew is not afraid to paint his characters in dark tones, at times the film is quite horrific in what some characters do - the prime example being when our hero Aaron (Riz Ahmed - Four Lions) and Ed (Ed Skrein) use a prostitute who they believe to have nicked Ed's mobile and use her to pay off his debt by sleeping with kebab shop owners.

Throughout this scene when the grubbiness of these late night kebab shops seeps off the screen, Aaron refuses to want to be any part of it.  Yet he has to remain by Ed's side like some lackey.  Aaron is the moral core of the film, a man with ambition to be true and get a career away from drugs and gangs of his youth.  We first meet Aaron as he meets Ed getting out from a night in prison, Ed sits there listening to people arguing (Drew's first funny scene is showing a verbal argument between a white man and a black man without showing them - instead focusing on their footwear as representative of who they are.  White trainers for the caucasian, and huge colourful trainers for the black youth), and from the outset Drew is attempting to do something different with the story.

Often he will focus on a character who you think will be the main character, but suddenly they are dispatched with by means of narrative or intervention by the soon to be character.  Yet Aaron remains for us to be the moral authority, by constantly doing the right thing.  In contrast to the sheer lack of authority figures visible in the piece, you need one character (like Spike Lee's character Mook in his own Do The Right Thing) to stand up for what is right.

Drew also does the soundtrack for the film, giving himself the chance to narrate as his alter ego, Plan B, gives his political slant on the action happening.  Plan B is very critical of the government and blaming them for the children of the nation being lost.  The film was being made during last summer and then the riots of Tottenham burst into the national consciousness in August, Plan B released his protest song 'ill Manors' and this vein of anger and resentment has grown into this message film.

The idea of a singer doing a film can sometimes be awful, but Drew has been keen to use popular film influences as a signifier, and they are not bad ones - Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction - are both films that showed you a harsher side of the perceived reality of city life. Whereas Scorsese used hyper-violence on occasion, and Tarantino had the benefit of plot devices.  Aaron flexes his muscles in front of a mirror with a gun a la De Niro.

The best thing to say about the film is that people will probably have low expectations going in to it, meaning that people will be pleasantly surprised by the funny, creative and refreshing film that is on the screen.  Helped by a fine performance by Riz Ahmed as Aaron, that should increase his profile definitely - hence why the poster has Aaron front and centre; the cinematography feels fresh, the music is good as expected.  Expectations may be low, but it is good to see Ben Drew/Plan B stick to his guns and come out with such a gratifying and pleasing film.

ill Manors is released by Revolver Entertainment and is out now.

Shame

Steve McQueen's critically applauded and culturally polarising film Shame that was released in the UK in January of this year, receives a DVD release this coming Monday (14th May).

Starring Michael Fassbender (in all his glory) as Brandon, a seemingly straight-laced young man who works in a healthy office environment yet harbours a dark addiction of sex-related stimulation.  His laptop is full of porn, he masturbates at work and numerous times a day.  He has unprotected sex with women he meets in bars, and never sees them again.  Brandon is a sex addict.

Brandon is happy with his life, he has a routine.  He works hard at work, to fund his addiction and his lust for sex.  Yet he lacks a certain amount of intimacy with his day-to-day contacts due to his still exterior, yet inside he is awash with shame from his behaviour.  Hence the title of the film.

Brandon's routine and level of comfort is turned upside down when his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) comes to visit.  They are the only siblings from an Irish family, yet Sissy does not know of Brandon's addiction/problem and she feels compelled to help him or cement their relationship as stronger than it should be.

There is a real commitment by the two actors in their roles; Fassbender showed potential in McQueen's film debut Hunger, yet he goes further here with this performance; he appears in every scene of the film, and the arc of the character with its fair bit of dips and troughs must have been emotionally exhausting for the actor.  It is a credit to the performer, that a really nasty piece of work is turned into a sympathetic character by the film's end.

Mulligan is the opposite of Fassbender; her character is extrovert and keeps a lot out there; whilst Brandon is an introvert until he becomes involved with a sexual act.  Yet for such a small-ish role, she sparkles on screen and has a highlight when singing a stripped down version of 'New York, New York' which allows Brandon to have a moment of reflection and even well up at the sight of his sister singing.

A telling piece of the film is when Brandon attempts a date with Marianne (Nicole Behaire) from his office, there is a connection and chemistry between the two.  And when they attempt to have intercourse, where they feel the moment and Brandon attempts tenderness he is unable to fulfil the act.  The timidity and recklessness of the character is amplified when he then calls a hooker, and screws her in the window of his multi-story apartment.  Brandon is in control with the hooker, whilst with someone he could care for he is not and so unable to commit.

Brandon's journey gets worse and it comes to a head when Sissy needs his help and he is unable to.  By journey's end he is at the end of a dock and starts crying, the last scene revolves around a chance encounter with a girl Brandon saw at the film's beginning.  These two scenes that bookend the film are intriguing; the first one shows Brandon as a sexual predator as simple eye-flirting becomes more for him, and less for her.  The concluding scene has a certain sense of ambiguity to it, does Brandon smirk his Mona Lisa smile at the thought of being able to have sex with this woman finally, or the sight of her wearing a wedding ring mean his words to his sister about his boss feel hollow now.

Shame is a film that feels longer than it is, thanks in part to the installation pace of the work, the compelling hold the performances have on you and the message of the film will stay with you; and it is brave to film something about an addiction that is prevalent in this day and age of immediacy and emotional highs.

Shame is out on DVD from Momentum Pictures and Film4 on Monday

Parked

Darragh Byrne's feature debut tells the story of Fred Daly (Colm Meaney) who having returned to Ireland after working in England has no fixed abode and so takes to living in his car in a seaside car park.  He seems settled and contented enough, while still winding up the local welfare services hoping for help with housing and benefits.

Then a young drug user, Cathal (Colin Morgan), arrives in his beaten up yellow car and they slowly bond and build a friendship.  They take to going to the public swimming baths, where Fred befriends a Finnish woman, Jules (Milka Ahlroth) and they have a sort of romantic courtship - whilst Fred is eager to engage with her, he is nonetheless shy about his current living environment.

Cathal is convinced Fred can sort his life out, and it works with Fred's story garnering some press attention; and so Fred wants to return the favour but his ever worsening drug habit starts to hit Cathal as drug dealers come in search of money.

Ciaran Creagh's first feature length screenplay is a brilliant work of characterisation and place - so little is told to us about the character's reasons for being were they are and why they are here that it is given subtexts of mystery and enigmatic qualities.  It is no surprise to hear that Byrne counts as his influences the two films from Tom McCarthy, The Station Agent and The Vistior

The film is helped in no small amount by the superb pairing of Meaney and Morgan as the male protagonists, Meaney that warm hearted soul and Morgan all fire and hostility - Fred and Cathal should not be friends, and yet sometimes in adversity the strangest friendships can ferment.  Both actors are able to shed themselves from their most famous roles; Meaney and his Star Trek association and Morgan and his eponymous role in BBC's Merlin.

Shot with a stream of lo-fi independent quality, lots of close-ups shot by John Conroy but Byrne is able to really shoot a sensethe cold environment and there is this lovely piano led melody - composed by Niall Byrne - searing throughout the film, a nod to Jules' character as a piano tutor. Yet this tinge of melancholy reminded me of Aki Kaurismaki's Lights in the Dusk (2006) - a story of impossible friendships with a tinge of bitterness.

It may not be original and the third act may go against all the goodwill of the previous two acts yet Parked's narrative about homelessness and outsiders from this angle is produced with a real tenderness and conviction rarely seen in British and Irish productions.

Weekend (Andrew Haigh, UK, 2010)

Renowned editor of Gladiator, Haigh breaks out with his feature debut that tells the romantic coupling of a young gay couple in surburban Nottingham, Russell (Tom Cullen) is a little bit down at a friend's party and having said he would go home stops in a gay bar on the way home hoping to boost his esteem, there he indulges in a one-night stand with Glen (Chris New), a would be artist who is extremely more self-confident than the less introverted Russell.

Russell wakes up and makes coffee, and in a clever bit of editing and directing, we do not know if it is Glen (the guy he had his eye on) or the unfortunate hobbit we last saw Russell talking to whilst Glen watched. From there, Russell and Glen start talking about life, work, the size of each other's penis. Russell leaves for his work as a lifeguard, Glen meets him after his shift finishes and they talk some more. Glen asks if Russell is out to his parents, from this we learn that Russell is an orphan, and that the friends he was with at the start of the film is Jamie his life-long friend who is supportive of his lifestyle.

They then engage in some lovemaking on the sofa, Glen invites Russell to a party that evening - a bon voyage party as Glen is leaving for Oregon to study conceptual art. The inevitability of his leaving and the time constraints thrust upon the characters by the film's title means that the constriction of time allows a full blossoming of the relationship to take hold of you.

Unlike other gay films, the film does not over-do the explicitness of the film's overt sexuality, here you have two men coming to terms with their sexuality and the difficulty after having come out; at times you forget that it is two gay men talking but instead two people conversing about the difficulty of their relationship and feelings. This is a credit to the openness of the performances by the two leads Cullen and New, who embue a sense of naturalism into the roles, Cullen all full of guilt and confusion, whilst New handles the extrovert Glen well, never making him over-the-top when he could easily have been in your face.

Russell is the more romantic of the two, and yet this never becomes oversentimental even when they have their 'Notting Hill' moment at the end when the full exploration of the relationship reaches its crescendo.

Haigh's use of the tower block as a character is also important using some great landscape shots of the city at nighttime, and the naturalistic feel of the film flows fluidly throughout in pace with the freedom of the performances that elevate another boy-meets-boy film to the echelon of worthwhile movie in its own right.  There are some lovely shots such as when the camera is fixed on the pair whilst they talk on the tram on the way home on Saturday night, the camera holds and lets the two hold our attention whilst the tram is moving - that is a great element of faith and trust in the two leading men for a small film and from a first-time helmer such as Haigh.
 

Hopefully this film finds a far wider ranging audience, one that it deserves and needs to see it for all its worth.

The film is distributed by Peccadillo Pictures and is to be released in the UK on 4th November 2011.

www.weekend-film.com
http://www.peccapics.com/