Under The Tree

Released from Eureka Entertainment, Under The Tree is a tale about how relationships can break down quickly in today's society.

Directed by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson, Under The Tree is a dark surburban tale that tells the story of a man accused of adultery and forced to move in with his parents. Whilst a custody battle ensues for the daughter, the male Alti (Steinhor Hroar Steinthorsson) is sucked into a dispute between his parents and neighbours surrounding a prominent tree that puts his parents deck in a permanent shadow.

The Icelandic-language film was first premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was Iceland's entry into the 2018 Oscars in the Foreign Language category.

In recent years, European cinema has become this bastion of minor events becoming of greater importance to individuals; as world events become more and more importance on a socio-political scale. This takes a misanthropic approach to the relationships between people and especially neighbours.  In cinema much like life, you cannot get to choose your neighbours; and this film explains how you avoid people in this age of continual communication.

From the outset, there is an ominous air pervading the film; from a father who seeks pleasure in online porn to credit sequence that takes place in a shooting gallery with an eerie violin score playing underneath.

Cleverly, the film juxtaposes this bleakness of tonality by having all the narrative take place over a sun-drenched Icelandic summer full of sunshine and warmth; the characterisation is clear the dispute ferments long brewing resentment within neighbours coupled with a simmering jealousy between generations.

Shot with assured confidence and helped with great naturalistic performances by a unified cast in the majority of hand-held medium close ups, Under The Tree is a clever film full of enrichment and reward that packs an emotional punch.

Under The Tree is out from Eureka Entertainment on 10th August.
My thanks to them for the review opportunity.

Arq

'An ark is a mysterious vessel full of wonder and untold magic. In effect, if you were to take a chance on this Arq you would be pleasantly surprised.'

Tony Elliott - writer for Orphan Black - in his directorial debut has written a time loop film in the same vein as Source Code and Edge of Tomorrow, where our hero,  in this case Renton (Robbie Amell) keeps waking up each morning after a nasty end to the previous day.

Renton wakes up in the same bed with Hannah (Rachael Taylor) next to him and is then attacked by three masked men who after his scripts (digital money) in this dystopic future world where there are two sides to the civil war in America; the rebel Bloc and the corporation known as Torus.

Renton used to work for Torus but left after he built an energy generator which is actually a time machine. While that is an implausibility there is nothing wrong with the execution of the screenplay, Elliott uses his minimalist production values - same set throughout and small cast - to his advantage.

Other reviews have dropped derision on the film for its shortcomings, which they put at the feet of its on paper limitations. Whereas this reviewer feels it handles the problem of time travel cleverly and ends with a nice message from Renton's character, Elliott's script helps by placing as much emphasis on character development as the narrative functionality and gimmick of time looping.

Robbie Amell is having a bad day

Arq is a taut gripping thriller that slowly gives you different nuggets and changes of direction that are both surprising and thrilling. Featuring good performances by Amell and Taylor (from Netflix's Jessica Jones) and a superb electronic score by Keegan Jessamy and Bryce Mitchell which is reminiscent of the best works of John Carpenter. Arq has enough charm

Arq is available on Netflix around the world now.

The Great Museum

Out on Monday from Matchbox Films, this documentary The Great Museum directed by Johannes Holzhausen garners a release that may well push it to a wider audience.

This document is about the reopening of Kuntzhistorisches Museum in Vienna and it shares a bit of limelight with a similar film in this instance to Frederick Wiseman's National Gallery, which took the viewer behind he scenes of the London National Gallery.

Whereas the latter film is marshalled by a veteran director, this film is shepherded by a director who is trying to show you things behind the scenes in a 'look at what I happened upon' and Wiseman has this way of being shot so unobtrusively the effect is far greater albeit both films are thematically the same.

That may do a discredit to the film which does have its moments such as when a worker speaks up at a meeting saying she has never met people from different departments, there is the potential for the director to follow that lady and make a socio-political comment on office politics and class hierarchies in the workplace and yet that employee is quickly forgotten about.

 

Nevertheless the film should not be thought of as the Deep Impact to Wiseman's Armageddon or an Infamous to someone else's Capote; but rather another edition to the pantheon of documentary film about important buildings and what they stand for.  A document about life, art and the passion for both available in one place.

The Great Museum is out on DVD from Monday 9th February courtesy of Matchbox Films

Serena

 

Directed by Susanne Bier and starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in their third film collaboration together following Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, Serena sees J-Coop go further back in time to the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina in 1929.

Cooper plays George Pemberton a timber merchant who wants to keep making money despite the onset of the crippling Great Depression, whilst fighting the government for the timber land he owns that they want to save to construct a national park in the nearby region. Pemberton owns land also in Brazil, he wishes to sell the land to the government for $1million dollars and then retire to South America.

However, Pemberton is a lonely man. Lonely in the sense that he has no wife, although he does not mind making women in town pregnant and then forego child support nor any notion of responsibility.  On a business trip to Boston and encountering his sister at an equestrian event he spies Serena (Lawrence) and in a kismet slow motion shot, Pemberton is smitten.  Although he goes to quite some extremes to make his feelings known, his first words to her, 'I think we should be married'. Whilst Serena guffaws, we the audience do something else.

Serena returns to the timber yard with Pemberton and she knows a thing or to about timber having grown up in the business, she sets her stall out by wielding an axe in the field to demonstrate a notch for the workmen. However, all is not well with Pemberton's business partner Buchannen (David Dencik) who takes an instant dislike to Serena much in the same way any first mate on a ship would do when the Captain falls in love with a native.

Shady business dealings foreshadow one characters premature end, and the way that death is handled with such a cold hand and heartlessness means that this film will not end well for all involved. Illnesses, lies, betrayals are all visitors to this timber merchants where the fog descending from the hills have this ominous quality. Phallic imagery and symbolism abound throughout the film, the men controlling guns and knives are never far from the old shadow, you live by the sword you die by the sword.

Bier is a renowned filmmaker but like her contemporary Lasse Hallstrom comes from Scandanavia, where the sense of melodrama is never far from view.  This is a problem for a film like Serena, it means well and with the sumptuous costume design and set production, the picture looks wonderful, it is such a shame that the film has muted ambition in terms of not telling us anything new of the era. The Depression was a terrible time, but why is there no message about the current economic climate perhaps or political allegory as say John Sayles did with Matewan during the 1980s amidst the Reagan administration.

It seems the ambition was restricted to the notion of dressing Ms. Lawrence to the nines in clothes of a wonderful bygone era, and yet it is not her fault that she is horribly miscast in the picture.  Serena strikes me as someone who should have been closer to Pemberton's age and not the mere nymph she appears to be here, Lawrence unfortunately is still very young in her own right and has nowhere near the life experience required for a role such as this, full of complexity and turmoil. If he hope was to dress Lawrence up and make her appear to be Carole Lombard then they succeeded, they just should have attempted to get the ambiguity of Barbara Stanwyck.

However, J-Coop do make a good fist of it and with their obvious chemistry handling the Pemberton's a constant simmering of passion in an otherwise lukewarm situation. Featuring able support from Toby Jones as the town sheriff, Rhys Ifans almost unrecognisable as a hand on the mill and Sean Harris, all providing the essential need of gloom amidst the mist in North Carolina.

If you want to see better work from this director seek out In A Better World from Bier's native Denmark, a startling portrayal of troubled individuals set against the changing tide of political correctness.

Serena is out on DVD from Studiocanal on Monday 23rd February

Manakamana

Out on DVD and VOD from 9th February 2015 from Dogwoof, Manakamana is a stunningly original cinematic experience.  The film follows pilgrims as they make a journey to an ancient Nepalese temple by way of cable car to worship.

The journey up and down takes a total of 11 minutes, therefore the directors Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, take the approach of positioning a stationary 16mm camera in front of the varying commuters.

 

From an ageing grandfather and his grandson, to a young married couple, to a trio of elderly women who tellingly comment on how much things have changed, 'It used to take me three days to get up here'; to a herd of goats.  The first half of the film follows people going up, and the second half follows travellers going down with an eventual selection of passengers to book end the film.

Some critics have commented on the cyclical nature of the cable car being documented in this film, whereas I would prefer the more appropriate gesture of the film being literally about how life can be up and down, and how easy it is to forget to enjoy the ride.

Reminiscent of artistic installations but another step forward in the work offered by James Bening (13 Lakes/ RR) this film is nevertheless just as meditative in forcing the audience to accept the period of quiet and contemplation in a dark space.

At the start of every 11 minute segment, there is a moment of dark when the cable car is being loaded up with next passengers and as it pushes out into the light we are blinded by the light and then have to adjust to the new characters presented towards us; these changes initiate a response in the audience to participate in the journey.  Sometimes though the journey is reward in itself.

This is an intelligent movie that coupled with stunning landscape cinematography must be seen to be believed.

Manakamana is out on DVD and VOD from Dogwoof from Monday 9th February

Erebus: Into The Unknown

Out in selected cinemas on 9th January and available DVD/VOD from 12th January, Erebus: Into the Unknown tells the true story of the men who came face to face with one of the world’s worst aviation disasters and became part of one of the most extraordinary police operations in history.

On November 28th 1979, a jet with 257 passengers went missing during a sightseeing tour over Antarctica. Within hours eleven ordinary police officers were called to duty to face the formidable Mount Erebus. But as the police recovered the victims an investigation team tried to uncover the mystery of how a jet could fly into a mountain in broad daylight, did the airline have a secret they tried to bury?

Directed by Charlotte Purdy, who cleverly mixes the format of documentary and factual cinema, she uses face to face interviews with key men from the search and rescue team - Stuart Leighton, Greg Gilpin, Mark Penn and leader Robert Mitchell. Mitchell led the team from the ground while the three other gentlemen along with other policeman, mountaineers and volunteers led the investigation of the crash site to save bodies.  Of the 257 passengers, 214 bodies were brought home for burial, this remains the highest percentage return from an aviation disaster.

 

The film makes clear though that due to the cold climate there was a greater chance of reclaiming more bodies, however, the harsh reality of the elements come to the fore in the recreated scenes and the testimonies of the heroes.

Leighton was 22 when he went to Antarctica, and you can still see the fear in his eyes when he recounts the memories.  Gilpin was fearful of never seeing his two daughters again, while Penn was the gun ho individual who saw it as a great opportunity for his career.  Many people reacted to things differently, even when facing the same challenge of constant daylight, huge emotional turmoil and the chattering of birds that keep you awake.

Purdy does take moments to reflect upon the beauty of the surroundings by having characters sit and look upon the landscape and juxtapose the devastation of the crash site with the beauty of the snow, there is some poetic lyricism somewhere out in the wilderness.

However, the methods used in the middle of nowhere by Mitchell and co-ordinated by Gilpin led to those same methods to be used in crash sites from there on. The work led to some answers for the bereaved families and the discovery of the pilot's log led to the realisation of the wrong co-ordinates being relayed.  

Hence, this could be considered the first big business cover up of an aviation disaster.  And in this day and age of airplanes missing and more answers required for more bereaving families, this film could offer hope to those related to the crashes involving Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and Air Asia QZ8501.

EREBUS: INTO THE UNKNOWN is in cinemas 9 January and DVD/On Demand 12 January

The cinemas the film will be showing in are the Genesis Cinema, Mile End and Lowen Cinema, Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire

Electricity

 

After having reviewed the trailer, it was my pleasure to watch and review this new British film Electricity by director Bryn Higgins, and featuring a star making performance by former super model Agyness Deyn.

Deyn plays Lily, a small town girl who works on the seafront arcade but suffers from epilepsy, which causes her to have severe blackouts. She is a popular girl and friendly with the police constable who takes her home after her most recent episode.  The story moves to London, when Lily gains advice that her absent brother, Mikey, is alive and well in the Big Smoke. The pair were close when younger before they were split up and put into care.As Lily steps off the train at Kings Cross, she is full of that same ambition, and then promptly mugged and beaten up. 

Obviously in this day and age it is easier for Lily to go to London than it was for those angry young men of the kitchen sink, but what she finds is a scary world full of people as afflicted as her due to social constraints (homelessness) or sexual identity, the relationship with a lesbian is delicately portrayed when it could have been titilating.

The reason the tone is so thoughtful is the restrained direction of Higgins who saves his visual flair for Lily's internal attacks when we get the floating and hallucinogenic point of view camerawork; yet the most credit goes to Deyn who gives a performance not only of unexpected surprise but fulfilled potential.

Having quit the runway for the filmic red carpet, Deyn has appeared in several British flicks like Pusher, here the opportunity to bite her teeth into a role of real substance instead of objectified women in roles of lap dancer or prostitute.

Deyn herself is a working class girl from Rossendale, Lancashire who made good, so her connection to Lily is apparent and it is refreshing to see a beautiful woman portray herself and her character in such unflattering positions, such as when Lily has an episode and has urinated herself.  The little trait of always having clean underwear in her bag in case is a credit to her research in preparation for the role.

The film is built around Deyn's performance and it is a shame that the adapted screenplay by Joe Fisher based on the novel by Ray Robinson did not have the belief the performance warranted, not helped by those same characters conflicted by sexual identity, the lesbian who lets her live with her free of charge. This is London right?

Yet go see Deyn in a very convincing performance, one this writer hopes gains award attention in the new year,  and to think Deyn has had no formal acting training. In the words of Noel Gallagher, another Northerner like Deyn, 'She's Electric'

Electricity is out in Friday 12th December on a limited release from Soda Pictures.

Hello Carter

 

HELLO CARTER is in cinemas 5 December and on DVD & Digital 8 December

Hello Carter, is the debut feature of writer/director Anthony Wilcox, this independent London set production tells the tale of Carter (played by Charlie Cox) who wants to get back in touch with his ex-girlfriend Kelly (Annabelle Wallis), an American who he split up with sometime a year previously.  Carter attempts to get her phone number from various avenues, and as luck would have it he bumps into her brother Aaron (Paul Schneider) on the tube. 

However, a night out with each other leads to all sort of problematic situations involving illegitimate children, possible romantic connections with a receptionist at a job interview Jenny (Jodie Whitaker) and eventual realisation of the life's journey.

Filmed with a crispness and lightness of tone not often seen in London set films (lighness in contrast to the grey drabness of Carter's wardrobe and surroundings) which usually inhabit a gritty urban milieu, the spirit of this film is meant to be one of economic charm. From the genuine nature of Cox's Carter and his belief to get a job, to the winning combination of neat dialogue and the subtle injection of panache with Aaron into the fray - the film does not falter with its conviction of making a passable attempt at doing a one night in London nightmare film.

Influences on the film range from Martin Scorsese's After Hours to A Fish Called Wanda with the idiot American attempting to take centre stage.  Cox channels his best Hugh Grant from Four Weddings and a Funeral, a bumbling leading man who is beguiling and put upon yet comes out of it smiling. He is matched by Whitaker's Jenny, a tireless worker who may just be the person he is looking for.

However, it may well be Schneider who gets the plaudits as Aaron the B-list American actor who is all gruff and the sheer force of nature that forces the nights events to take hold.  Schneider a veteran of David Gordon Green films reminds us here of the talent he clearly has at his disposal, and his casting is a victory for Wilcox and his production team.

Yet for all this tale of impossible love together, the film is also about aspirations of the characters. Aspirations to be better than they are when we meet them; a better job, a better father, a better life in general.  The reason this film may well connect with audiences, in spite of the West London locale, is that like all good comedies before it in the vein of Wilder and Sturges, it shows us characters who have hope above all.  

Executive Produced by Michael Winterbottom, and produced by Julian Bird, the cinematography is by Andrew Dunn (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) whose crispness helps in the condensed running time and decisive nature of the film, in stark contrast to the unsure being of Carter.

Making the leap from short films to this his debut feature, Wilcox promises to be a talent to watch out for. One that has an ear for good dialogue and for the way life appears to his characters, his collaboration with his production crew is worth mentioning as a credit to getting good work out of tight constraints.

Hello Carter is out on limited release this Friday and to download from Monday from Revolution Films, it is a small gem of a movie that will be worth your attention; engaging, direct and proof that there is talent in the British independent film industry.

HELLO CARTER is in cinemas 5 December and on DVD & Digital 8 December