Month: February 2019

The Nun

Rated: MA15+The Nun

Directed by: Corin Hardy

Screenplay by: Gary Dauberman

Story by: James Wan & Gary Dauberman

Produced by: Peter Safran, p.g.a, James Wan, p.g.a

Starring: Demian Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Bonnie Aarons.

After first making her presence known in, ‘The Conjuring 2’, audiences were left wondering where the demonic being, Nun Valak originated.  Here, ‘The Nun’ is set in 1952 in Romania where screen writer Gary Dauberman (“IT,” the “Annabelle” films) explores the beginnings of this force dripping with evil, leaking its way out of the chasm beneath the cloister where nuns worship isolated from the rest of the world.

Director Corin Hardy makes full use of filming in the dark 14th-century castles of Romania, including the Abby of St. Carta, with tunnels beneath the surface creating shadows and inescapable hallways as Father Burke (Demian Bichir), novitiate on the threshold of her final vow, Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) and local villager Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) investigate the suicide of a nun.

The more they dig, the more horror they find buried beneath the surface (so to speak).

I had high hopes for, ‘The Nun’ after the introduction of this terrifying creature in, ‘The Conjuring 2’ (where many in the audience left because it was so scary!) but instead of the build-up and surprising evolution of terror, here we have moments of panning like pregnant moments in a day-time soap opera.  Instead of building to climax, the moments are just… left…

The flowing shadows of spectres and bell-ringing from graves set the scene and the believable and wide-eyed Sister Irene answered some of our questions about The Nun.  But I was left with more questions unanswered about the murder of nuns who were left murderous without explanation.

I’m glad we weren’t left with a psycho exorcist film which really could have been a focus here, with all the Catholicism and crosses and well, possessed nuns.  But there were red-herrings and loose threads that just didn’t pull the story together well enough to be truly scary.  Long moments left to drift didn’t make suspense.  And the overreliance of the scare-factor of evil nuns made the nuns not so scary.

I liked that there was no digitisation used to create the spectre of The Nun; and there was some clever camera work using a Steadicam for Sister Irene versus handheld for Father Burke.  But there was none of the subtle, corner-of-your-eye moment where The Nun appears like she’s been created out of your subconscious.   So there was that missing creeping under the skin that Wan manages to create with the early instalments of Insidious and The Conjuring series.

Weaving back to the Conjuring verse made The Nun feel more like the Annabelle series than a Conjuring Part 3 – which didn’t make it terrible, just not as good as it could have been.

McQueen

Rated: MA15+McQueen

Directed by: Ian Bohôte

Co-Directed & Written by: Peter Ettedgui

Produced by: Nick Taussig, Andee Ryder & Paul Van Carter

Composer: Michael Nyman

Featuring: Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen became a fashion icon for his confronting sabotage of tradition, his haute couture fashion shows exhibiting the visions from his tortured soul.

Bruised, battered and embraced by the industry, McQueen rose from humble beginnings growing up as a lad in Leeds to become head designer for Givenchy which led to backing from Dior; his label, McQueen rising as much from infamy as from his genius to create.

His shows were made to provoke emotion: revolt, repulsion, revelation.  As long as there was a reaction: “I would go to the end of my dark side and pull these horrors out of my soul and put them on the catwalk.” ― Alexander McQueen.

McQueen is a documentary pieced together like tapes from his life.  Recordings of old footage taken by friends and McQueen himself to archived interviews of the designer and those closest to him: his mother, his industry supporters such as his mentor Isabella Blow close like family, to current interviews made for the film from his older sister and nephew and colleagues including stylist Mira Chai Hyde and assistant designer Sebastian Pons.

We’re given a back-stage pass into McQueen’s life from his beginnings as a youngster obsessed with drawing dresses to his drive to succeed in a world shockingly different to the tubby, shabbily dressed boy who used his dole money to buy fabric while going back to his parents for tins of bake beans.

I’m not a fashion obsessive but it was fascinating to see the man work, to see his process and gain insight from those closet to him.  But more than anything I enjoyed seeing his creations, his fashion shows like theatre, his work like sculpture, his vision unique.

McQueen’s ability to turn garbage bags into dresses by waving his magic hands was absurd and genius.

And he was cheeky: As Detmar, Issie Blow’s husband, remembers McQueen telling the models, “You’ve got to put your pubic hair in Anna Wintour’s face. It was just very naughty behaviour.”

The film follows his life through the themes of five major works, displaying his morbid fascination of the dark with titles like, “Jack the Ripper Stalks His Victims,” his 1992 graduate college collection and “Highland Rape.”  His shows were inflammatory and macabre.

McQueen rose to fame because he didn’t care what people thought.  He rose because he took risks.

As one model states of his finale in his collection of beauty and madness in, “Voss”: ‘Fat birds and moths – isn’t that Fashion’s worst nightmare?!’

But when he became famous, that’s when his personal life began to unravel.

Director Ian Bohôte (producer of, 20,000 Days on Earth) gives us a documentary that allows the work of McQueen to speak for itself by focussing on his life through each collection – his anger after, “Search for the Golden Fleece,” his first collection designed for Givenchy, to his rebellion in, “Voss”.  We see his grief in “Plato’s Atlantis” and we see his final show before his death.

We see the tortured soul of the man as he reveals everything in his work.

As the timeline of his life moves forward, his rise to fame equals his personal downward spiral as those close to him discuss what they could see happening to McQueen.

Yet, his expression continued to amaze – his honesty and grief sometimes ethereal.

The documentary takes you on that journey showing the sensitivity of what made the man.

It’s a sad story that challenges while informing – not a celebration but more a documentation of his life: honest, like the man.

Hearts Beat Loud

Rated: PGHearts Beat Loud

Directed by: Brett Haley

Co-Written by: Brett Haley, Marc Basch

Produced by: Houston King, Sam Bisbee, Sam Slater

Original Songs/Music: Keegan Dewitt

Starring: Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Ted Danson, Toni Collette, Sasha Lane, Blyth Danner.

 

Hearts Beat Loud is one of those films that can really go either way – a father and daughter who write songs and play together in a band?!  Cheesy!

But when I saw Nick Offerman was starring, I knew I was in for a treat.

Featuring the original songs and music by Keegan Dewitt, there’s an indie flavour as one-time musician and record shop owner Frank plays melody on guitar while his daughter, Sam sings and plays keyboard.

When they record a song and Frank uploads the track to Spotify, suddenly becoming a band for real is now a possibility when their song is selected to be part of the ‘New Indie Mix’, reaching thousands of listeners – a success at a time when Frank’s future at the record store looks bleak while Sam’s about to leave to study Pre-Med at college.

Director Brett Haley wanted to make a musical where the songs are grounded in real-life situations, so it’s not narrative made of song but rather the music being a mode of communication.

Rather than an awful saccharine musical, the soundtrack makes the film work because the music is gold.  As Frank (Nick Offerman) says of Sam’s (Kiersey Clemons) song and hook for the film, Hearts Beat Loud, ‘it just has to have a feeling – this has feeling’.

Sure, OK, it does get a bit cheesy near the end with enthusiasm as ‘We’re Not A Band’ plays their first ever performance… But I was already pretty emotional by that stage with Frank’s store, Red Hook Records about to close and seeing him struggle with a resistive teen daughter on his own and an ailing mother Marianne (Blyth Danner) and the acceptance of what will never be…

And there’s some gems here like Frank telling Sam, ‘When life hands you conundrums you turn them into art.’

It’s all very life-affirming and inventive and creative and sweet.

We see the relationship between father and daughter and their community of friends from bar-owner, Dave (Ted Danson), landlady Leslie (Toni Collette) and Sam’s girlfriend Rose (Sasha Lane) all part of the growing process of father and daughter as they look to their next stage in life while remaining close.

It’s an accepting, bitter-sweet story that had me, I admit, crying happy tears because it’s hard to move on and grow and change.  But it’s also healthy and good.

Director and co-writer Brett Haley states, ‘Given the level of anxiety in the world right now, it was very important to make a film that makes people feel good, and that reminds people of the simple goodness in the world and in ordinary life.’

You Were Never Really Here

Rated: MA15+You Were Never Really Here

Directed by: Lynne Ramsay

Screenplay by: Lynne Ramsay

Based on the book by: Jonathan Ames

Produced by: Rosa Attab, Pascal Caucheteux, James Wilson, Rebecca O’Brien, Lynne Ramsay

Director of Photography: Thomas Townend

Music by: Jonny Greenwood

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Judith Roberts, Ekaterina Samsonov, John Doman, Alex Manette, Dante Pereira-Olson, Alessandro Nivola.

Winner of Best Actor & Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival, 2017, there’s already a buzz surrounding the release of this film – and, You Were Never Really Here went beyond expectation.

This is a grisly and astounding crime film where director and screen writer, Lynne Ramsay (We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)) has brought together disjointed elements of different sounds and disjointed time to create something more.

Note the music by Jonny Greenwood AKA lead guitarist and keyboardist of, Radiohead and creator of the soundtrack of, Phantom Thread which I also gave five stars.

Flashbacks and hallucinations show the fragile mind of Joe (Joaquin Phoenix), ex-military, gun-for-hire, as he works jobs as an enforcer – ‘brutally’ if necessary.

With hammer in hand Joe delivers a fatal blow to henchmen who get in his way like he’s striking a blow at the demons who continue to haunt him.  He’s like an avenging angel – a theme built upon through-out the film.

This is a brutally beautiful film based on the book by Jonathan Ames where little girls need to be rescued from very bad men.

When Joe’s asked to meet a senator whose daughter, Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), has been taken, we see just how brutal Joe can be and how deep the darkness reaches from the men who hide evil behind power.

This is a visceral and gritty crime movie with a magnetising performance from Joaquin Phoenix – I just couldn’t look away from this guy.

There’s something fascinating about Joaquin as he perfectly imbodies this hitman haunted by his past.

I was tempted to draw comparisons with, Léon: The Professional (1994): the older assassin who befriends the young girl.

But You Were Never Really Here is more than the relationship between a bad guy doing good and a troubled young girl who understands – this is more about Joe haunted by his past; about the mother he cares for (Judith Roberts) and a mind lost in memory.

With the dislocation of time, the past and present blur only to be brought back into focus with Joe grounding himself by asking, ‘What the fuck am I doing?’

Images sign-post the story: the dilated pupils of a girl’s blue eyes; the silence of a black and white security camera video; broken glasses, the eye glass with blood-stained jagged edges; the disintegration of a green jelly bean, the fracture of sugar a signal of the darkness to come.

There’s a crime story here but the weight of the film lies in the showing of how Joe sees the world as we look at him as his eyes are reflected in a car window looking back.

Astounding performance, gritty story and visually, brutally poetic.

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