Panic Room

After directing 2001’s cult classic Fight Club, David Fincher decided to direct something smaller and simpler. Thus Panic Room is set almost entirely in a New York brownstone mansion, occupied by a wealthy divorcee and her daughter.

There is something highly theatrical about this piece and it could easily be adapted for theatre, the entire spectacle takes place over a night in which, after Meg Altman and her daughter, Sarah move into their new home, criminals break in looking for something hidden in the upstairs safe, they are surprised to find that the new occupants of the house have already moved in, and after the occupants lock themselves in the panic room where the safe is hidden.

Fincher and screenwriter David Koep were inspired to make this film after watching a news story about how wealthy suburban WASPs were building panic rooms to protect against interlopers. The second and third acts involve the intruders trying to coaxe the family out of the panic room in order to access the safe.

Although it was originally conceived as a standard popcon thriller, in typical Fincher style it is, in reality, far more complex than that, the film plays upon themes of mortality, suburban paranoia and the insecurity of wealth.

Throughout the film the panic room is frequently compared to a coffin, and Sarah relates being trapped in the panic room to being buried alive, this is an interesting comparison, and especially true given how the phone is disconnected and they have no way of contacting the outside world, the way Sarah compares their situation to being buried alive shows that she is losing hope, and that she feels a sense of finality in their situation.

The film also touches on themes of suburban paranoia, the very presence of a panic room shows a paranoid fear of interlopers and tresspassers, and the numerous high security features in the room, feel unnecessary, and show the paranoia of the previous owner.

FInally another theme frequently explored in this film, and throughout many other of Fincher’s works is how insecure wealth can be, although Meg, being a divorced woman is obviously fabulously wealthy, and can afford to buy such extravagant security features as a panic room and CCTV, it is apparent that her wealth, in addition to being useless in the situation in which she finds herself, actually makes her a target, and that the unnecessarily large house she buys makes her highly vulnerable.

The film stars Jodie Forster as Meg, and Kristen Stewart as her daughter, Forster manages to bring gravitas to a film which could appear frivolous in the hands of a less capable lead actress. And Kristen Stewart proves that she is capable not only of some pretty decent acting, but also of closing her mouth occasionally. This film proves that before she was artistically raped by the sheer awfulness of the Twilight Saga, that she was actually a pretty decent actor, and as child stars go, she’s really bloody good in this film.

As the three interloper who try and break in to the panic room, Forest Wittaker plays Burnham, the most compassionate of the group, and Jared Leto plays Junior, grandson of the previous owner of the house and a hardened criminal. Finally Dwight Yoakam plays the third archetype of criminal, a hardened and rutheless and mechanical assassin who rarely shows his face and who kills with little compassion. These three men represent three stereotypes of criminal, and it is interesting that they all share the same fate, in spite of their different outlooks.

Whilst it may appear to be just another popcorn flick, Panic Room is a theatrical and thought out thriller, which makes a great statement on the notion of security and mortality in an era directly after 9/11, and which features fine performances from it’s leads.

Pornography and Cinema

“It is becoming clear to me that pornography and cinema are becoming irreversibly closer”-Philip Josse

 Beginning a post with a quote from oneself seems a little like the blog version of referring to yourself in the third person, but no matter. I reiterate my point, we have reached a fork in the road, in which as some films become more family friendly, and studio heads attempt to make every film a 12A, other, art house films are becoming darker, more serious and more sexual.

A prime example of this is Lars Von Trier's opus Nymphomaniac, a film about a sex addict discussing her past. The film is sexually highly graphic featuring copious amounts of unstimulated sex. The only actual difference between Nymphomaniac and a porn film, is that this film is not intended to be erotic or arousing, it is a film intended to be more intellectually stimulating than physically stimulating, however the content of the film is nonetheless highly graphic.

Last year also revealed a surprising amount of graphic gay content, Blue is the Warmest Colour, a lesbian drama was highly graphic and shocked audiences when it premiered at Cannes with it's graphic content. Stranger By the Lake also featured highly graphic content, and was an erotic thriller about a cruising site, situated on the shores of a lake in france.

The increased use of graphic content in film means perhaps that film audiences are losing their hypocritical puritan values, and are willing to see films with sexual content, even if in the past these films were banned or outlawed by the production code. I enjoyed many of these films, and a liberalization of the cinema industry is certainly called for.

AHS: Freak Show

The fourth season of anthology series American Horror Story is subtitled Freak Show, and takes place in the town of Jupiter, Florida, where an aging German ex-patriot is attempting to keep one of the last freak-shows in America afloat. Jessica Lange plays Elsa Mars, secretly an amputee who tries to keep her show in business. Starring alongside Lange is a diverse cast of AHS regulars and new actors, who play the sideshow's various 'freaks'.

Sarah Paulson plays both Bette and Dot Tattler, a pair of conjoined twins who become embroiled in murder after their mother is found dead in their kitchen, they are visited by Mars in the hospital, who takes them in, and who protects them from the authorities. Kathy Bates also returns to the show playing Ethel, the shows resident bearded lady and Evan Peters plays her son, a man with fused fingers who performs as 'the lobster boy'. Amazon Eve is played by trans actress Erika Ervin, a woman who is abnormally large.

The show is visually very different to other iterations of the show, whereas both Coven and Asylum were cold, dark and stylish, Freak Show is much softer, the camera is less focused, less sharp giving the whole show a 1950's movie style. Overall the show feels a lot warmer than previous versions, both Coven and Asylum were set in highly hostile environments, the atmosphere of Freak Show is warmer, with the show actually being a place of safety for most of these 'freaks'.

Despite this change in atmosphere, the show is actually the scariest version yet, the antagonist of this season is a terrifying clown, who wears the bottom half of a mask featuring a horrific wide smile, which contrasts with his dead eyes, the clown is responsible for a number of murders which have rocked the small town, leaving four dead. The opening of the first episode is atmospheric and dark, and the entire episode is one of the most chilling the show has yet seen.

The entire cast, many of whom were used in previous seasons is superb, Jessica Lange is fantastic, in what will be her final season on the show and the entire cast is excellent, many of them are favourites, and it is fantastic to see them back on the small screen, albeit playing different characters. Rating: A-

Factory Girl

Factory Girl is a 2006 biopic of actress, model and muse Edie Sedgewick, and her relationship with Andy Warhol. Sedgewick first met Warhol whilst working as an art student in cambridge, she moves to New York City in order to pursue her career as an artist, she ended up appearing is a number of his films during the 1960's and became his muse for a while. Her relationship with Warhol led to her becoming a worldwide celebrity and icon, and she tragically passed away in 1971 at the age of 28.

The film is shot very much like a documentary, the camera, whilst always being in the right place at the right time, is never flashy, and never overbearing, this gives the whole film a cinema verité feel, where the camera is simply observing, and is never a feature of the film. The narrative of the film is also documentary like, as in Grey Gardens, the cameras simply roll and watch the drama play out, there is no attempt to streamline the film into a distinct and linear narrative, whilst the action is all chronological, there are huge jumps in time and narrative and the film takes place over an indeterminate period of time.

The film features undeniably fine performances, and Sienna Miller is surprisingly good in the leading role, i will admit to not having seen a lot of her work, and knowing of her largely from her relationship with Jude Law, her affair with Daniel Craig and her featuring in The September Issue, however she is oddly perfect in the role of Edie Sedgewick, a woman who is fragile, vapid and foolish, who places all her trust in Warhol at the begining of the film, and whose blind faith will ultimately lead to her being cast off and left for ruin. Despite the film being filmed and told in a cinema verité style, the film is nonetheless very much told from Edie's point of view, the audience is expected to understand and empathize with her despite the carelessness of her actions, and we are supposed to blame her entourage for her situation, and her subsequent decay.

However the real star of this picture is Guy Pearce, who plays Andy Warhol, few actors have the confidence to take on such a hugely iconic and challenging role, and yet Pearce pulls it off with style and panache. What is so impressive about his performance is that we really feel like we know him, despite the fact that he rarely, if ever takes off his sunglasses, Pearce's performance is so deft and powerful that he takes an icon down from his pedestal, and makes him human, he penetrates the sunglasses and the wigs, the blind stares and ironic glazed voice and makes a real character whilst remaining faithful to the status of such a powerful and influential artists.

Factory Girl is a film which succeeds on the strength of it's performances and its visual pastiche, whilst the story suffers, and is reduced to a mere series of vignettes, the lack of narrative is interesting to follow and gives the film an interesting flair, however the film is simply unable to craft a convincing or understandable story from it's wonky narrative. Rating: C+

Edie Sedgwick: To me, New York was Jackson Pollock sipping vodka and dripping paint onto a raw canvas.

Marina Abramovic - The Artist Is Present

The Artist is Present is a 2012 avant garde documentary which first aired on HBO, detailing the serbian born performance artist Marina Abramovic and the performance at the MOMA in 2011. At the MOMA Abramovic performed a 736 hour and 30 minute static and silent performance art piece which featured recreations of seven of her previous performances by upcoming performance artists and a piece in which Abramovic sat immobile in the museum's atrium and visitors were invited to sit opposite her to feed from her energy.

The Artist Is Present was the largest exhibition of performance art ever featured at the Met, and was the first true retrospective of Abramovic's work. This documentary covers the genesis, creative direction and preformance of Abramovic's piece. What was so groundbreaking about The Artist Is Present was how Abramovic gave equal time and attention to each visitor, whether they were famous or not, the presence of Lady Gaga, James Franco and Sharon Stone was of little or no consequence. The documentary does largely the same thing, Gaga and Stone are not shown, and Franco, one of Abramovic's personal friends features only shortly in the video.

What is interestinng about this documentary is that it focuses as much on the spectator as it does on the artist, although the film is definitely an exploration and a celebration of Abramovic's work, the film centers largely on the people visiting the exhibition, what motivates them, how does Marina inspire them, and why they are there. the first part of the film is largely a look back at past Abramovic works, such as her works with Ulay and The Lovers, a piece in which she and Ulay each walked from opposite ends of the great wall of china in order to say goodbye to other and to end their relationship, a beautifully poetic piece.

Marina's sheer power is shown in this film, and her ability to project her emotions are show even through the lens, many patrons discovered themselves bursting into tears in her presence, and the sheer power in her eyes and her face is enough even to make those watching this film cry, Abramovic has the ability to see directly into the soul of those sitting opposite her, this ability is what makes her so powerful and limitless, and this documentary is a success simply because it show off it's greatest asset stunningly, Marina Abramovic is portrayed as one of the most defining performance artists of all time.

The Artist Is Present is a surely made and fascinating documentary, it showcase the incredible performance ability of it's star, Marina Abramovic and it is able to answer the decade old question that has always been asked about Marina; 'why is this art?'. Rating: B-

Marina Abramovic: When you perform it is a knife and your blood, when you act it is a fake knife and ketchup.

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+

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.