The Railway Man

This film is based on the memoirs of a British prisoner of war under the Japanese who was tortured while being used as a slave to build the Thai-Burma railway.  Years later back in Britain he continues to suffer from post-war trauma and this endangers his recent and late marriage to Patti (subtle and credible portrayal by Nicole Kidman). Even his friend Finlay (talented Stellan Skarsgaard, playing Welsh with a Norwegian accent) doesn’t know what to do.  Finally, he learns that his torturer is giving tours of the site and he returns to Thailand to confront him. The message is forgiveness and compassion and also about being able to confront one’s fears and demons which was not what most returned servicemen did.  In that respect this film set in 1980 probably reflects reality very well.  All the same, the film does seem rather orchestrated at times in the hands of Aussie director Jonathan Teplitzky.  It is less to the great Colin Firth and Jeremy Irvine as the younger Lomax to provide the depth and authenticity to the story that makes it watchable, although not perhaps as incisive or as moving as it could have been.

★★★

The Past (Le Passé)

Ashgar Farhadi made the excellent A Separation and comes close with his latest, The Past.  Set in a fairly run down part of Paris it is about Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) who has returned to Paris from Iran to be present at his divorce from his ex-wife Marie.  A simple procedure ends up being overshadowed by the atmosphere he finds in the home.  Marie has two elder daughters from other relationships and one of these, Lucy (great performance from Pauline Burdet) is vehemently opposed to her mother’s plans to marry new bf, the rather dry Samir (Tahar Rahim).  Samir’s wife it turns out, is in a coma after attempting suicide.  Samir’s young son Fouad is in the middle of this and he and the younger daughter Lea are affected by the emotional instability around them. Marie wants Ahmad to help sort things out and he does his best but it is really a mess all round.

Bérénice Bejo, looking somewhat like Angelina Jolie, is the main cause of all of this – she seems to be a magnetic but dissatisfied woman who can´t rfind herself or others in a relationship and is trying to keep house and home together.  Hers is a strong performance as is that of Mosaffa.

These split families and divided responsibilities, the shifting landscape of what is family these days and many more current themes are addressed here along with elements of mystery in what is a sad and troubling movie about the way our past decisions can cause real headaches today.

★★★★ +

Museum Hours

Gentle and thoughtful independent film only for those who can cope with a minimum of plot.  An American woman is visiting Vienna to see a cousin who is in a coma in hospital.  To fill in her spare time in this unknown city she wanders the streets and ends up in the city’s main art gallery.  There she meets a helpful guard and a quiet friendship ensues as he accompanies her to the hospital and on sightseeing walks.  Bobby Sommer is great at Johan, while Mary Margaret O’Hara is less convincing but has a great singing voice.  For me, the best part is in the museum as Johan observes the people visiting and tells us something about the paintings.  We get a free lesson on Brueghel too.  Sumptuous photography and a pleasing look at aspects of life not often brought to the cinema.

★★★ +

Le Fils d’Autre

French film set in Israel and yet another example of the impossibility and ridiculousness of the current situation.  Yacine and Joseph were switched at birth and now at nearly 18 Joseph’s family discover an incompatibility in blood types as he is about to do his military service.  ADN tests follow and yessirree – Yacine is not a Palestinian high-school graduate but Jewish and Joseph is no longer Jewish but an Arab from the west Bank.  Like similar stories from the same region or any other place where people are artificially separated we begin to see what a momentous issue it is, thanks to the hospital’s negligence.  Lorraine Levy takes a sensitive and personal approach to the topic.  Basically the religions are no help, nor the entrenched positions of the males of each family.  The mothers, Orith (the always great Emmanuelle Devos) and Leila (Areen Omari) begin the contact between the families and the boys themselves who are open and thoughtful kids decide that their best bet is to find a way to make the situation work.  Jules Sitruk and Mehdi Dehbi do good work here.  There are odd slightly clichéd moments but for the most part the discreet direction and assured acting makes this film a hopeful and inspiring piece of work.

★★★ +

At Middleton

A pleasantly sophisticated comedy with its bittersweet tone about two parents who meet at a university open day for prospective students that they have brought their kids to.  Edith (the luminous Vera Farmiga) is not so keen on the guided tour led by the wacky Justin (Nicolas Braun) and she plays hooky with another parent, nerdy cardio surgeon George (Andy Garcia).  The fact that she is unconventional and outspoken sweeps George up and before we know it she and George are having a day like no other in which they have adventures on the campus and live like they haven’t for years.  They even improvise a scene as a married couple falling out of love in the drama school which of course represents their real lives and is the core of the movie.  Their children also have revelations during the day.  The script is smart, the acting carries a lot of the improbability along and while it is no worldbeater, this is a satisfying debut film from Adam Rogers.  Nice cameo from Peter Riegert (Local Hero).

★★★

The Monuments Men

A monumental bore!  The fact that it is a true story and that the Nazis tried to get away with hundreds of thousands of works of art is quite something and the scenes which show the salt mines and other caches of the Nazis are impressive here.  Apart from a couple of scenes with Bill Murray and the never quite realised expectation that Cate Blanchett will do something to ramp the film up, the rest drags on terribly slowly and even the race against time to save art from the incoming Russians seems like a completely fake artifice.  What a waste of talent: Clooney, Damon and many others going through the motions.

★ +

Funkytown

Canadian film recreating the disco days of Montreal and based around Le Starlight, a Studio 54 style disco.  The main character is Bastien, a DJ and frontman for the local disco TV show and how his life becomes a spiral downwards into cocaine, etc.  Patrick Huard does a very good job and holds the film’s centre with this.  Around him floats attractive model Adriana (Sarah Mutch) who wants a singing or presenting career and will do anything to get it, her amusing hard-headed manager, Tino, who might be gay and his girlfriend Tina who are the star dancing pair in the club, the club owner and his son who are constantly at war, the local gossipy socialite Jonathan (Paul Doucet) and others.  The recreation of the period is good, the soundtrack is great but ultimately the stories seem rather hackneyed and the dialogues have very little originality. The political issues of the time: Quebec secession, etc get somewhat lost or are just for aficionados of the local scene.  Have seen worse by far but no great inspiration here.

★★ +

The Fault in our Stars

The sort of film I would normally run a million miles from but it was watchable enough to get involved in.  Safely summed up as teen romance between two cancer victims with an unhappy ending, it is a sort of “seize the day” in action.

What saves it are: a fairly witty script, the determination of the characters not to feel sorry for themselves, the talented Shailene Woodley in the lead role with able support from beau, Ansel Engort, Laura Dern as the Mum and Willem Dafoe as the obnoxious writer they go to Amsterdam to visit.  There are some rather iffy scenes too and the end gets mawkish but what is hard to avoid most of all is a sense of manipulation of the audience throughout.  Nonetheless, many will enjoy this attempt at going direct to the point in this area.  Woodley does look far too healthy most of the time to be terminally ill!

★★ +

 

The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu

This three-hour documentary of pieces of official TV archive spliced together with the odd home video footage is quite an achievement although it runs too long.  There is no narration so you have to know something about Communist Romanian history to really appreciate it.  Nevertheless, it hangs together well to create a solid story and picture.  It is also fair to say that it leaves a lot out, namely the suffering of the people and some of the terrible decisions he made which almost ruined his country.

The real merit of this film is however the way it shows how a population can project cult status onto a rather ordinary leader and his wife and create monsters that they later find inexplicable and threatening.  Ceausescu and his wife Elena were ordinary people who are treated like royalty and were allowed to wreak havoc with very little opposition.  And not only was he revered inside Romania but also abroad in this conniving world of political diplomacy where world leaders smile in photo shots with those who deserve no such respect.  This is a film which honours our capacity at self- duplicity and our need to believe in stories which can often turn out to be ghastly lies.

★★★ +

The Walker

A low-key but engaging political crime movie from Washington.  Carter Page (ably portrayed complete with Southern drawl by Woody Harrelson) is a gay son of a political family from Virginia who spends his time in Washington squiring bored political wives to events when their husbands can’t be there.  He is a witty gossip and rather naïve until he is sucked into a murder enquiry with political overtones and has to protect the wife of a senator (Kristin Scott Thomas). Then he realises that nobody has any real friends and could end up taking the blame for the murder.  Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin and Willem Dafoe do good turns in the minor roles.  Nothing great but I quite enjoyed this 2007 film from Paul Schrader.

★★★