TITANIC

I would normally begin reviews with a small introduction of the film, the year it was released and who directed it, but i don't really need to do that for this film do i? Everyone knows this film, everyone's seen this film and nearly everyone loves this film. I did have a small quibble with my Dad about this movie the other night after dinner, with my Dad feeling that it was a soppy, overly romantic melodrama. Ironically enough despite the argument i agree with him, and despite the melodrama, i absolutely love this movie.

Titanic sets a budding romance between a rich, attractive socialite named rose and a young, rugged worker traveling in third class named Jack. By setting a love story on board the ship, director James Cameron makes the sinking of the ship not only a physical and historical event, but an emotional occurrence as well. As Rose and Jack fall in love, so do we, we fall in love with their romance, with them as a couple and with the way in which they make each other better. As we fall in love with them, the sinking of the ship becomes heartbreaking to the audience, as we realize that if the ship sinks, they will not be together, and it's a heartbreaking, visceral experience.

Titanic also uses a highly interesting narrative structure, Rose, now aged 109 meets up with a group of scientists and discoverers attempting to find The Heart Of The Ocean, a large diamond her fiance once gave to her that might have ended up at the bottom of the atlantic. In what is essentially the 'present', Rose tells the story of her time on the titanic, how she met Jack and how the ship eventually sunk. Titanic is already a story of which everyone knows the outcome, and so James Cameron makes the smart decision to show us the sinking of the ship, via computer simulation, at the start of the film. This is intelligent as it takes any suspense out of the story, and by explaining the sinking of the ship in a dry forensic manner, the sinking of the Titanic as it is shown later in the movie becomes an almost purely emotional event, and we are also able to understand what is happening during the sinking of the ship.

The film is perfectly cast, and was once described as the ultimate date movie of the 90's. As a child of that decade i must concur, Kate Winslet is fantastic as the strong yet fragile, ballsy yet delicate Rose, a woman trapped into a future from which she can't escape, a woman engaged to a man she doesn't even know and treated like a porcelain doll by everyone around her. Leonardo DiCaprio is also fantastic, and we fall in love with him just as deeply as Rose does. Together the couple make one of the best and most iconic film pairings of all time. The chemistry between the two is palpable and visceral, and the couple have an erotic sexual chemistry apparent in 1940's romances.

The film was also a significant technological breakthrough, the film uses a large amount of underwater footage shot at the actual site of the wreck of the titanic, this was a first and is of significant interest.The Titanic is a real character in this film, and shooting at the sight of the actual wreck was a breakthrough in engineering and cinematography. The film was also a breakthrough in the fields of CGI and motion capture, many of the extras were filmed using motion capture techniques, and their actions replicated for ease and continuity purposes. The vision of the ship was also an entirely digital creation, again a first for cinema, as previously CGI had often been crude and cartoonish.

Despite all the nay say from my father, i absolutely love this movie. I love the fact that it is overtly romantic, slightly meladromatic and overtly erotic, the sexual tension between the leads is palpable and the chemistry is visceral and real. James Cameron has created a tangible world out of the myth of the Titanic, giving us a reason to care about the sinking of the ship, by tying the fate of the ship to the destiny of our leads, we have a real emotional connection to this ship, and a real reason to want the ship to survive. Titanic is a powerful heart wrenching romance, and i love every single minute of it. Rating: A+

Jack: I'm the king of the world!

Tom @ The Farm

Tom at the Farm is the fourth feature film by scarily young filmmaker and my new crush Xavier Dolan. Adapted from a french play written by Michel Marc Bouchard, the film is about an advertiser, the titular Tom, who travels to the country to go to his boyfriend's funeral, only to find that none of the family has any idea who he is or that their Guillaume was gay. Tom quickly becomes involved in an altercation with Guillaume’s brother, Francis, and becomes entangled in a web of lies, secrets and violence.

Francis quickly sets up a dangerous game in order to protect the family from knowing the truth, he tortures Tom emotionally and physically, forcing him to invite a friend to the farm, Sara, who pretends to be Tom’s girlfriend. Tom finds himself staying longer than expected at the farm, and even starts to feel things that even he never expected.

At the forefront of this picture is the relationship between Tom and Francis, Tom starts out being afraid of him, and at the end of the film this hasn’t really changed, however, whilst still being afraid of Francis, Tom starts to fall in love. He sees in Francis everything that made him fall in love with Guillaume, his smell, and his eyes, and whilst Francis doesn’t really ever act on these feelings, he knows about them, and he uses them to maintain control. The film is essentially a long dramatization of Stockholm syndrome, and despite the violence that Tom felt at the hands of Francis, he even defends him to Sara, and stays far beyond the planned weekend.

In line with other Dolan pictures, despite being a film with a gay character, Tom at the Farm is not a ‘gay’ film, it’s not defined in any way by camp or kitsch. The film’s main character is gay only because Dolan himself is gay, and because his films which are also written by him, come from a highly personal place. Dolan himself is fantastic in the title role, brooding, dark and mysterious. Managing to hold attention for nearly every shot. Also fantastic is Pierre Yves Cardinal, who plays Francis. Somehow, despite being cruel and violent, is magnetic and captivating, somehow allowing the audience to fall as head over heels in love with him as Tom does. Cardinal does so much with very little dialogue, and before he even utters a word, we know that there is something strange about him, that there is something quietly threatening and dangerous about this oddly enticing man.

Tom at the Farm is wildly different to other Dolan pictures, much more brooding, much darker and threatening. Tom at the Farm adds a sprinkling of violence to Dolan’s imagery, and the result is visceral, shocking and gut wrenching. A different direction for Xavier Dolan, but a highly interesting one nonetheless. Rating: B+

Hannibal - Bon Appétit

Hannibal is perhaps the only current network drama series worth watching, and certainly the only that stands up to shows by FX and HBO. The series is an adaptation not of the novel Hannibal, but is an original story featuring characters in Robert Harris' novels. The film follows the lead character of Will Graham, FBI special agent who was also featured in Red Dragon, and Dr Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant gifted psychologist, who helps the FBI in their investigations.

The series is fantastically plotted, suspenseful and tense, and the creators do a good job of maintaining the psychologically thrilling elements of The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon. The film is not especially gory, although there are occasional moments of gore. The series is visually highly distinctive, and everything has a certain beauty about it, even the bodies. The series plots Hannibal Lecter as a gifted gastronomist with a highly evolved sense of smell, and food is an important plot point at many moments in the series, Lecter is known for throwing extravagant dinner parties, and he prepares food much in the same way that he dissects corpses, with an almost obsessive precision and elegance.

The series features fantastic performances from it's leads, and the chemistry between Graham and Lecter is almost tangible. Hugh Dancy gives a fantastic performance as Will Graham, a criminal profiler and psychopath with an ability to empathy with serial killers that both terrifies and exhilarates him, it also makes him frighteningly good at catching killers, and useful to the FBI. Dancy is fantastic in the role, and is perfect as the obsessive, catatonic Graham, he plays the role differently to those before him, and is more relatable and empathetic than Norton or Peterson.

Also fantastic is Mads Mikkelsen, who portrays Hannibal Lecter, Mikkelsen has an overwhelmingly difficult part to play, as this role was so iconically played by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs. Mikkelsen's performance in the series is absolutely fantastic, and he differentiates his performance from Hopkins' by making his character colder, darker and more threatening. Hopkins performance was witty and darkly funny, with fast lines and crime dialogue. Mikkelsen's performance is highly different, and he is deadly serious, never smiles, and always seems to be one step ahead, every action seems to be precise and thought out, and Lecter is threateningly intelligent.

Hannibal is a stylish and thrilling series, intelligently plotted and highly suspenseful, the series remains faithful to the spirit of the original novels and the original films, and yet it expands the world of the books and adapts it for a modern audience. The series features fantastic performances and chemistry between its leading actors. Visually the series is stunning and atmospherically beautiful, and the series is the only network show capable of rivaling cable and online television series. Rating:A-

  
"Did you really feel so bad because killing him felt so good?" 

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Production Design

This is something a little new, I decided to do a post entirely dedicated to a single aspect of a film – production design – something I don’t think I have done before. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, released in 2005 and directed by Tim Burton, is an adaptation of the novel by the same name, written by Roald Dahl. The book was previously adapted into a 1971 musical with Gene Wilder, named Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Where the production design is first noticed, is when we are first introduced to the five children, the worlds in which they inhabit, charlie’s home is a broken, ramshackle hut, caricatured in its design with a concave roof, and not a straight line in sight. Violet Beauregarde inhabits a boring American house where trophies litter the walls and her tracksuit matches the décor. Mike Teavee has a boring suburban house, the kind that smells faintly of bleach and air freshener and where everything as an inoffensive shade of beige, brown and grey. Finally Veruca Salt lives in a ludicrously large cold grey mansion, looking like something out of the Addams family. Of all the children, Augustus Gloop’s house is the only one we never see, with his interview taking place instead in his fathers butcher’s shop.

As is the case with all Tim Burton movies, there is a huge amount of contrast in this movie, Burton contrasts tha world outside the factory, a world which is grey, cold an uninviting, with the bright colors (and probably delicious smells) to be found inside, Burton also contrasts Wonka himself, who dresses a little like an extra from Sweeney Todd, with the colourful environments of the factory, and the colourful children, with the dark and brooding Wonka. The world outside the factory is also intended to be deliberately ambiguous, as the novel never states where the book is set, and seems at times to be set in America, and other times in England, Burton creates an interesting blend of the two by creating a world which visually in some aspects looks a lot like England, or more specifically London, but having characters talk with vaguely transatlantic accents and cars drive down the middle of the road, and having clearly American money. The factory itself is designed using delectable art deco elements, creating a brooding and ominous atmosphere, a building which looms over the town much in the same way that the mansion in Edward Scissorhands or the windmill in Frankenweenie looms over the town.

The most obvious set in the film is of course the chocolate room, the first room that we encounter upon entering the factory, the room looks like a Tim Burton sketch if it were tinted by hand, and the colors are brighter than life. The first film had a slightly washed out look, and here the room literally looks good enough to eat, the landscape slopes and dips, there is a grass covered bridge and (of course) a chocolate waterfall. The room is actually highly gothic, and all a little weird, the trees jerk out at odd angles and the colours are scarily garish. Also important is the boat and the chocolate river. The boat looks to be made of a giant piece of hard candy, and the river is an oddly appetizing shade of brown.

The second room visited is the inventing room, not much deviation is made from the first film or the source material, and despite being a fascinating and complex space, with machines that would make any child swoon with excitement, there is really little inspiration to be found here, and the room is mostly dark and mysterious, filled with fascinating but mostly indiscernible shapes whizzing and popping.

The next room that Wonka takes us to is the nut room, and here the design is really inspired, like many of the rooms in Wonka’s factory, it is completely circular, and features a blue and white swirl design on the floor, essentially making the room look like a giant boiled lollipop, Burton has succeeded in creating a room that manages at once to be perfectly simple and highly symmetrical, whilst being at the same time deeply fascinating and oddly complex. The room looks enormous from the outside, given that there are thousands of squirrels working here, but seems much smaller after Verruca Salt steps in. There is a sense of pleasing nothingness about this room, and Burton has created a  cold and unfriendly sense of intimacy.

The final room we go to is the TV room, which looks to have been highly inspired by 2001 A Space Oddessy, the room is entirely white and entirely simple, and is built as two intersecting circles, with perfectly white domed ceilings. The room is at once highly futuristic and retro, with it seemingly inspired by 80’s science fiction films, and a perfect view of the future itself. Everything in this room is white, and the characters where white goggles, giving them permanently surprised, bug eyed looks. The TV room, despite being only one color and having no corners, is a deeply complex and fascinating space.

Also a hugely important part of this film is the glass elevator, Burton has taken the concept of a flying elevator, which was barely fleshed out in the original, and turned it into a real machine which could possibly fly. The elevator is entirely transparent, has thousands of buttons, and has a system on top whereby it can not only move up and down, but also across, transported by a system of cables, and can also fly using a quartet of jet packs each releasing a yellow flame. In the first film, the elevator was only used at the very end of the film, for Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe to escape the factory, but here it is used throughout the film, for the remaining two children to go around the factory.

Whilst travelling around the factory, the children encounter a series of rooms, which are not fully explained, but which are either nods to the books, or which can be explained as amusing examples of Tim Burton’s fascinating brand of insanity. The elevator passes an office, featuring thousands of female oompa loompa’s working at typewrighters and a room where oompa loompa’s fling gobstoppers from cannons at targets, for no apparent reason. Also seen from the elevator is a room in which pink sheep are sheared (presumably to make candyfloss), leaving Wonka to say that he’s rather not talk about it, with a sheepish grin, and a mountain made entirely of fudge, in a direct reference to the book. These rooms while perhaps not adding a huge amount to the story in the way of character development or story progression are a nice touch for fans of the book like myself.

Despite being sickly colourful and garishly bright, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of the most Burtonesque of all of Tim Burton’s films, at times oppressively over the top, the color is but a slick veneer hiding a darker and more oppressive truth. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is rich, dark and elegant.

Charlie Bucket: Candy doesn't have to have a point. That's why it's candy.

France and Queer Cinema

I have been watching a lot of gay films recently, and seeing as i live in France and have a few gay friends, I have been discussing it thoroughly with them. Saturday night after a few glasses of wine during a screening of Once Upon A Time In America, the conversation turned to Blue is the Warmest color, a film which I in fact adored but my friends didn’t. In addition a discussion earlier that night about the films of Xavier Dolan and Stranger by the Lake got me thinking about the state of LGBT cinema in the world right now, it seems to me that the best gay films being released at the moment are French, and since releasing ‘The Kids are All Right’ Hollywood has yet to release another game changing queer film.

One of the biggest voices in queer cinema at the moment is Xavier Dolan, a frighteningly young director who has just released his fourth feature film and will premier his fifth at Cannes in May, what defines Dolan’s films is that despite having gay characters and being directed by a gay man, they are not defined by being gay, all of his films could be equally successful of they had exclusively heterosexual characters, and the fact that his films have gay characters, simply adds to their richness. Dolan has a quiet observant style of filming, almost like a documentary filmmaker, and rather than showing the audience what he can do with the camera, Dolan is content to simply let the cameras roll, and the drama unfold. It is important to remember that being gay is not an esthetic or a style, it is only just an identity, and Dolan’s films are gay only in the sense that they have men who like men in them, and not due to any specific ‘queer’ orientation.

Unlike the films of John Waters (whom I love by the way) French queer films are notable for not being camp or flamboyant, this perhaps has a lot to do with the fact that they are mostly directed by younger directors. Gay youths are much less segregated than their older counterparts, and, in my opinion are less likely to advertise their sexual orientation. This explains the more naturalistic, and subtle feel of current French gay films. French cinema also feels much less censored that American cinema, and French gay films are much less afraid to show explicit sex, Blue is the Warmest Color and Stranger By The Lake both contain explicit sex scenes, and were both released to critical acclaim.

It would be unfathomable to discuss French gay cinema without fully discussing Blue is the Warmest Color. La Vie D’adèle (French title) was released in 2013 and went on to receive the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the film is about the passionate engrossing love story between two young French girls living in Lilles. My friend suggested that the success of the film was perhaps partially based on it being released around the time of the proposal for equal marriage passing, and gay marriage becoming legal in france, and while I agree that the awarding of the Palme D’Or to this was in part a political statement, that doesn’t take away from this being a beautifully passionate love story, told and acted with heart and flair.

France also has a reasonably healthy relationship with genderbending and transgender themed films, the 2011 film Tomboy about a girl who pretends to be a boy in order to fit in, and the 2012 Xavier Dolan film Laurence Anyways, both deal with this deep and complex issue with a huge amount of sensitivity. Gay cinema in the rest of the world has reached a vaguely stagnant phase, and nothing really exciting is happening right now, has released a multitude of hugely successful queer films, and it is a hugely exciting time to be a fan of gay cinema.

Heartbeats - By Xavier Dolan

Les Amours Imaginaires is a 2010 canadian-french drama film by Xavier Dolan. Les Amours Imaginaires is about a group of three friends, Francis, Marie and Nicolas, who meet at a dinner party, and who slowly start to fall in love. The film, much like Dolan’s first film “J’ai Tué Ma Mère”, deals with the theme of impossible love.

Two friends, Francis and Marie, meet Nicolas at a dinner party, and both pretend to be uninterested in him, soon they become close friends, and they often sleep in the same bed and go on holiday together. Both Francis and Marie become consumed with lust for Nicolas, Francis masturbates to the mere smell of Nicolas’ clothes, and Marie is openly disappointed  when Francis shows up during a dinner she is having with Nicolas. The tension between them culminates in a holiday to Nicolas’ mothers house in the country. While there, Marie becomes annoyed when Nicolas gives Francis a marshmallow, and tells him to eat it slowly, like a striptease. The next day Marie leaves, telling the boys that she has an important appointment in the city, Francis chases after her and they fight, meanwhile Nicolas just watches. The film’s title refers to the act of loving someone, and imagining that they might possibly love you back.

Nicolas is selfish, spoilt and entitled, and what is even more heinous about this situation is that he knows. He knows that Marie and Francis are both in love with him, and he enjoys it, as well as exploiting it for his benefit, this is first seen when Francis and Marie fight, and Nicolas just watches, enjoying seeing his friends fight over him. Nicolas feels no shame or pain at letting his friends down and telling them that he doesn’t love them, even asking Francis; “How could you think I was gay?”, despite having been openly flirtatious earlier in their relationship. Both Francis and Marie take part in damaging and dangerous behaviour, Marie writes Nicolas a love poem, sending it to him ‘by accident’, and Francis engages in numerous relationships with different, interchangeable men, which ultimately give him no joy or satisfaction.

The film is also fantastically acted, and Dolan himself gives a fantastic performance as Francis, a young man who is struggling with a love that is not forbidden or chaste, but a love which simply isn’t real, un amour imaginaire. Also fantastic is Monia Chokri, who plays Marie, a complex and at times unstable young woman who so desperately wants to be loved, that she molds her own personality to be what she thinks Nicolas wants her to be. Her performance is utterly naturalistic that she isn’t even really acting, she is just being, and it is entirely, utterly compelling to watch.

Much like ‘J’ai Tué Ma Mère’, Heartbeats as a film belongs very much to the genre of new queer cinema, yes, one of the characters in the film is gay, and the film itself is slightly campy, but this film is not gay-defined, this film would work just as well with a man and two women, and the film cannot be singularly defined as a ‘gay’ film. This film cements Xavier Dolan’s reputation as one of the most exciting and naturalistic gay filmmakers working today, and the fact that he was only 20 at the time is even more impressive, the film is nuanced, beautifully acted and filmed, and artistic, Heartbeats is absolutely an arthouse film and a film d’auteur, but Dolan allows his opus to not just be thought provoking and visually appealing, but also highly watchable and enjoyable, and Xavier Dolan has confirmed that he is one of the most appealing and exciting young gay filmmakers working in cinema today. Rating: A

Nicolas : Qui m’aime me suive.