Surveillance

Okay, so I sort of spoiled this one for myself by reading the synopsis in Sight & Sound a few months ago, back before it had a UK distributor. I think I thought I'd never get to see it, so what did it matter, right?

Surveillance is the latest picture from David Lynch's daughter Jennifer. Yes, she of Boxing Helena fame. Those of you who saw Boxing Helena may have decided to give this a wide berth. I, though, have not seen BH, so I dived straight in.

Basic premise is that two FBI agents are in Hicksville to help the local dumb cops after a series of violent roadside homicides. So far, so formulaic. The Feds are played by Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman. Most of the rest of the cast are more or less nobodies, with the exception of Michael Ironside as local cop chief.

To get to grips fully with the situation at hand, Pullman watches over three simultaneous interviews of survivors: one cop, one young woman, and one girl.

The story then unfolds in flashbacks up until the point that some fresh bodies are found in a nearby motel. There follows the denouement.

I found the movie to be nicely shot and edited. Well played. The problem is, truthfully, the storyline. While not bad, it is incredibly slight. And once you've seen it once, you'd have very little reason to watch it again. Which, of course, is directly the opposite feeling from the one I get when I watch a David Lynch film...

It's a long time since my last review, so I'm out of practice on scoring. Let's say 53 out of 100. And that might be being a bit generous.

The Departed

This has been a long time coming... Back in 2003, I guess, I heard a lot of buzz about a film that was about to revitalize the Hong Kong movie scene, which had been flagging after a flurry of interest in its "heroic bloodshed" genre in the early 90s, thanks largely to much name-checking from the likes of Quentin Tarantino.

The film that was set to have us all stoked up again was called Infernal Affairs. At the time I heard about it, it had done great things in China but was awaiting release in the UK, so I ordered the DVD straight from the Orient. In truth, I was underwhelmed. It was good, sure; but it was no A Better Tomorrow II, no Hard Boiled, no God of Gamblers...

Then a while later I heard it was going to be remade by Martin Scorsese. I groaned. Not because I dislike Marty -- that would be ridiculous -- but because I dislike remakes.

The Departed arrived in cinemas, and very little was seemingly said about its origins in Hong Kong. That annoyed me. I ignored the movie. It arrived on DVD. I ignored it. Last week, it finally came to terrestrial, or network, TV, so I figured, "What the hell?"

A cop goes deep undercover in a criminal organization. Another cop with close ties to said organization works his way to the top of the team investigating it. A mole on each sides.

The premise is great -- just as it was in the Hong Kong original. But, truthfully, I was unmoved by any of the relationships. And I despised Jack Nicholson as the "big boss". Man, he's such an old ham! Some of the other performances were okay, once you overlooked the odd accents, but I was just not interested. It was just blah.

Oh, and that terrible song that kept playing, about "Sailor Peg and I lost my leg". Jesus Christ on a bike... Give it a rest.

On the plus side, it did make me want to watch Infernal Affairs again, so...

I give The Departed 50 out of 100 and wish I'd departed before I got to the end.

The Punisher (2004)

I watched this on TV about three nights ago, and until I saw it on my list of films to review just now, I'd forgotten I'd seen it. So, totally forgettable, I guess. Points: 16 out of 100

Come and See

A few months ago, I went through a few days of watching war movies. It wasn't intentional as such, but the cards just happened to fall that way. One of those films was the 1985 Russian WWII film Come and See (Idi i Smotri).

I'd seen a clip of this movie in a documentary about war films some months earlier, and it was praised for its reality, so I was looking forward to it.

It started slowly, with two boys digging in the sand for guns that were seemingly left behind after previous battles, then playing war games. Later, soldiers arrive at a small village and take one of the boy aways to the army, leaving behind his mother and siblings. The camera angles and close-ups and facial expressions were all disconcerting, seemingly weird for the sake of weird, and frankly it was not doing much for me.

After about half an hour of this, my better half decided she'd had enough and went to bed. I decided to stick with it -- for another half an hour at least.

And boy, am I glad I did. Maybe the weirdness subsided; maybe I merely acclimatized to it. Certainly as it progressed I felt there were certain Lynchian qualities.

There were many disturbing scenes, too, as one might expect in a gritty war movie. Not least among these is a burning-barn sequence. But several others are not much fun either.

The lead actor has pain and confusion etched on his face for almost the duration of the picture. And it seems clear at some point the confusion gives way to insanity.

Probably not for everyone, Come and See is a slow burn of a movie, and it runs a good 140-odd minutes. The camera is often very much in the thick of the action, adding to the feeling of horrifying claustrophobia. Some have spoken about its technical achievements, but I noticed that less than I felt a degree of technical imagination on the part of director Elem Klimov and his crew. It felt like they really wanted to get the film made, even if it might be a little rough around the edges here and there.

On the whole, I like to try to review movies reasonably soon after seeing them, since it is so fresh in my mind that I can go into more detail. But sometimes, a film needs to burn in your heart for a while, I think. Every once in a while since seeing it, I think back to it and want to see it again. One viewing is almost certainly not enough.

I give Come and See 82 points out of 100. Those who are interested, a decent article on the film and DVD can be found here.

Once

Apt name. You wouldn't want to watch it more than ... once. Lawdy, what a bore. It's basically like a promo video for an album that you wouldn't want to buy, with a few little dialogue bits thrown in.

She was kind of appealing; he was a dick. And those songs... So, so dull. I got nothing more to say except the numbers: 12 out of 100

Mamma Mia!

How do I follow my review of California Dreamin', which was better than any other film I've seen in the past couple of years? How? By reviewing Mamma Mia!, that's how. From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Mamma Mia!'s paper-thin plot revolves around the looming wedding of Sophie, the daughter of single mum Donna. The pair of them live on a Greek island. Neither Donna nor Sophie know who is the father of the latter, so she invites all three possibles (taken from her mother's diary) to the wedding, in the hope she will know him when she sees him.

Cue much hilarity. Much hilarity, that is, if you are over 60, for clearly this is the target audience for this piece of fluff masquerading as cinema.

It is, of course, just a showpiece for some of Abba's best-loved tunes and is based on the successful stage musical of the same name.

Granted, I don't much care for musicals. And I've never cared for Abba either. But even by the low standards I'd set for this film in advance of seeing it, it still failed to deliver.

The acting was pretty poor given the talent attached (Streep, Brosnan, Skarsgård et al), and there was barely an acceptably pitched note to be heard in many of the "singing" parts.

Slight, predictable, insulting, embarrassing. Truly awful. Avoid at all costs. The only moments I laughed were at the terrible acting and singing. I award Mamma Mia! a dismal 19 points out of 100.

California Dreamin’ (endless)

Please ignore the utterly horrendous poster for this film. Why, why, why?

Some might say that the "endless" in parentheses in the title California Dreamin’ (endless) is simply a mistranslation that should read "unfinished". While this may not be the case, it's a debate not without merit, given that director Cristian Nemescu was killed in a car accident before he was able to complete this, his debut feature.

It's a shame that we won't get to see his talent grow, as surely it would have done, but it is wonderful news indeed for all lovers of cinema that someone somewhere saw fit to release this movie as it stood at the time of Nemescu's death.

Set in 1999, at the time of the Kosovo/Yugoslavia conflict, in a village in the middle of nowhere-ville, Romania, the story centres around Doiaru, the man who runs the railway station. He has lived in the village his whole life and, among other things, is something of a smalltime gangster, keeping the villagers poor while lining his own pockets (though you wouldn't guess it to look at him).

One day, news arrives that a train carrying US Marines and the equipment they need for a job in Serbia must pass through. They must be given permission to proceed unhindered. "Not in my town," thinks Doiaru. "The law's the law, and I must see their papers." Of course, they have no papers. And so starts a long wait for the correct documentation...

This synopsis is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg here. Black-and-white flashbacks to World War II introduce us to an unnamed boy and his family. Cuts between various governmental/ministerial offices tell a tale of total disorganization and unwillingness to cooperate at every level. Social uprising. Family relationships. The clashing of cultures...

This is a rich tapestry. In some ways you could consider it a Romanian Short Cuts or something of that ilk. It takes a while to get going: it may be that half an hour has passed before you really start to grasp what is happening and who is who. But once the film eventually lets you in, as though you have to earn the right, it then hits you with an almost omnipresent air of looming disaster. The tension is palpable. And then once in a while you get some light relief, and you laugh out loud. An early example of the latter is the Pavlov's dog-style response of the Marines as the local military band unexpectedly begins playing the "Star-Spangled Banner" as a welcome gesture.

At 155 minutes, this is not a short film, and maybe Nemescu would have tightened it up had he lived to complete it. But that may have done away with some of the beautiful pacing of the film. The large amount of translating between people who don't speak each other's language might have been some of the first to hit the cutting-room floor, perhaps. But it all adds to the chaos of the situation. Perhaps it would have been trimmed to appear like fewer days passing; but those of us familiar with both cuts of the original Wicker Man know that this can be unsatisfactory. We need to be with these people as long as it takes, to sense their impatience, to feel their frustration.

The cast here are, to my eyes at least, almost entirely unknown, with the obvious exception of Armand Assante. Many of the non-speaking parts would appear to be "non-actors", too, which adds to the sense of realism. As does the verité style adopted for the photography: focus shifts and wobbly cam aplenty. Personally, I adore this style of shooting, so it was great for me.

There is really very little I can say in criticism of this film, especially given that it is, essentially, a work in progress. Yes, it could be shorter, but there may be a cost. I think I need to see it again. And maybe even again after that. It could be that it's already one of my top 20 movies of all time. It left me feeling something I almost never feel at a film anymore, unfortunately, and yet it didn't seem to be manipulating me. I was moved. As the final scene cut to the credits, I felt an incredible sadness, melancholy. Maybe it's the real tragedy of the film-maker, but I'm pretty sure not. I think, actually, it had a real truth to it.

If you have read this to the end, I hope it's piqued your interest enough to hunt down this film. Watch it now so you can say, in five years' time, when everyone is talking about it, "I knew this was going to become a classic when I saw it way back when."

I give California Dreamin’ (endless) a huge 90 points out of 100, which is the highest score yet awarded to any film fully reviewed on this blog.