Reviews

I just finished this, having been drawn due to my love of Herzog's films, particularly the documentaries.

Clearly Linas, the maker of Walking to Werner, sees his film as a companion piece to Herzog's films, and tells us that he sees in his own footage something of the 'ecstatic truth' that he has seen in Herzog's films.

Well I don't see it. Rather, I think this elongated, narcissistic voyage of self-discovery bears some comparison with the work of Ross McElwee, specifically the rambling, discursive 'Sherman's March', and that is not a flattering comparison at all. Considering the breadth of history, geography, autobiography and humanity on display in McElwee's film, it is quite bewildering to imagine how Linas has managed to edit his film to feature length.

Regarding Herzog's films, the crucial difference is that Herzog doesn't make films about himself, but rather appears as a guide or commentator on the sidelines of films with a clearly delineated centre. Perhaps 'La Soufriere' contains some scenes of Herzog's blatant 'heroism', but the situation is so imminently perilous that it can hardly be helped. It certainly cannot be compared with a two month stroll down some of America's most scenic highways. When Linas talks about the dangers of his trip, and says he thinks about his death every day, it is a major misjudgment of audience sympathy.

Throughout the film, Linas appears as a self-conscious, preening egotist, completely lacking in any revelations, or insight, yet continuously placing himself as the central focus of the film. While he blatantly attempts to portray himself as a Herzogian hero doing battle with the natural world, the only hazards he appears to encounter are some light blistering and an occasional requirement to rough it in a tent. When he announces quite mildly that in coming to LA, he has 'found himself', he offers no explanation of what his 'sharper perspective' might be.

It is, in short, a con trick. Linas hasn't the intellectual rigor, or the honesty, or the balls to be a Herzog, and he doesn't have the genuine manic charisma to be a Timothy Treadwell or a Fitzcarraldo. What he offers instead is a kind of safe, slightly embarrassing student version, attempting to depict himself and his journey as interesting and extreme, but constantly happening across people far more interesting and extreme than himself wherever he goes.

It is these people that make the film bearable from beginning to end. When the emphasis shifts away from himself, Linas clearly does have a gift for developing an instant rapor with some unusual characters, but in his faux blankness as he walks away from the abused prostitute desperately trying to look beatific and pull focus back onto himself, I felt that the truth of Linas' film was not ecstatic, but actually quite self-absorbed and ugly.

Hmm....I couldn't help feeling that the people responsible for 'Brick' think (quite absurdly) that they have made a masterpiece. Some of the painfully self-conscious dialogue was almost rendered inaudible for the sound of the writer-director patting himself on the back. His misplaced desire to create a quirky 'cult' film was palpable throughout.

Yet his time wasn't entirely wasted. Several early scenes display a bold inventiveness in terms of both character and narrative which promise great things ahead. Regrettably, the director quickly destroys this initial goodwill by suffocating any spontaneity in the most tedious and stylised plot imaginable. I realise that the baroque, clandestine narrative is all part of The Big Joke About Film Noir that the film trades in, but I couldn't help feeling that the film-maker should have hung his flamboyant stylistic wares on a far simpler storyline. As it was, far too much emphasis was placed on the intricacies of a ridiculous and largely irrelevant plot. The great films noir of the 1940s may have been convoluted, but never at the expense of great characters and great scenes. Here, the characters and scenes struggle to engage the audience. Here, the plot is everything and, despite the extreme stylisation of dialogue and a terrific central lead performance, the film ultimately falls flat because of it.

Too little time is spent developing the secondary characters, especially the leading lady, the femme fatale Laura. Her role is so ill-defined and dull, (and the actress's performance so inanimate) that a torpedo of ennui hits the film every time she comes on screen. Fortunately, she isn't on for long and the whole enterprise just about stays afloat for the running time.

Overall, the film-maker shows a great deal of promise. There are some striking moments of violence and despite the faint whiff of plagiarism (David Lynch could bring a case), these scenes achieve an air of real terror and suspense.

Regarding the hugely self-conscious style, it's love it or hate it. On one hand, it's an excruciatingly embarrassing pose, but if you overcome that, there are some pleasures to be had, despite some serious misjudgments by the writer/director.

Comparisons have been made to Tarantino and Richard Kelly and neither are entirely fair. Brick's director has his own voice and his own sensibility, but in comparison with the assurance of 'Resevoir Dogs' or 'Donnie Darko', 'Brick' has to be considered a mediocre debut. I look forward to his sophomore effort.

The idea that CRASH got awarded BEST PICTURE at the Oscars makes me physically sick. A clear case of the Los-Angeles-based members of the academy assuaging their racist guilt by voting for a film that purported to deal seriously with race issues (although it was a tawdry, half baked turkey directed by a patronizing honky in metaphoric black-face) in the year that America's race divide has been horribly exposed by the grim events in New Orleans.

It's a crime that the real moral and aesthetic hire-wire act of ''Brokeback Mountain' had to suffer the ignominy of being bested by that far inferior, far shallower film and its self-indulgent crocodile tears.

Paul Haggis is an insulated millionaire TV writer and a fraud, pasting third-hand ideas together with cliché and coincidence and baking the inedible treacly pie in an emetic marinade of overblown music and sentimentality.

Shame on him. Shame on the Academy.

It's late and The Tenant has finally come to its end. I'm slightly freaked-out, having that same eerie, just-to-the-left-of-reality sensation that the best Lynch movies impart.

'The Tenant' is by no means Polanski's best film. It seems in some respects to be a minor work, a filler project hatched to keep him busy while adapting to his new environment and his new homeland.

But alhough 'The Tenant' does not compete (or attempt to) with Polanski's major works, it remains a success on its own terms. Almost wilfully elliptical and wantonly grotesque, the film finds a black humour in madness missing from so many films' treatment of the subject (including Polanski's superficially similar 'Repulsion' or 'Rosemary's Baby'). But this gallows humour does not detract from the horror of the piece. Rather it contributes to it, toying with our responses, shifting gears fluidly between creepy horror atmospheres and nervous laughter.

Overall, 'The Tenant' is a slow-burning psychological horror film that cannot really stand comparison with Polanski's finest, but nevertheless provides a rewarding and genuinely unique diversion for those with a taste for the peculiar.

Well, yes, Donnie Darko is certainly original. Well, yes, the actors are fabulous. Well, yes, Richard Kelly is a hot new talent. Well, yes, it breathes some fresh air into the fantasy reality premise.

But, when it came to the all-important climax, I felt that Kelly's sure touch failed completely. I simply didn't understand the ending. After Donnie sees the skies turning wormy over his home town and Mary McDonnell feels the bump in her airplane ride, I lost the plot.

Why was Donnie still in bad when the engine hit his house? Why was he smiling? What, in fact, was happening?

The fact is, I don't know.

Frankly, I rather suspect Kelly pulled a fast one, hoped we were so bound up in the extraordinary images and stories, we would fail to grasp this gaping hole at the centre of his film.

It almost worked, but ten minutes from the end, I thought I was watching a great movie. As the credits rolled, I wanted my money back.

Did I miss something?

Was 'Donnie Darko' just a shaggy dog (or rabbit) story?

I want the facts.

This is really one of the most honest, most genuinely unnerving films I have ever seen (and I have seen a lot, by any standards). My lady and i didn't speak the whole hour driving home, just sat in stunned contemplation of this stunning film. As we drove, I could almost not believe just how superb this film was.

Huston is an absolute revelation as Ivan, a once-in-a-lifetime performance that seems to have sprung into life fully formed and whole. His is one of the greatest faces cinema has offered, full of humanity and pathos, at once a recognisable everyman and a unique and extraordinary figure.

The narrative's initially gimmicky flashback structure become essential as we are allowed to see the fundamental pointlessness of the feckless Ivan's life even before we meet him.

Flashing back, we then see the last few weeks of Ivan's life as he finds he has terminal cancer and slowly wastes away, surrounded by the most tacky/glamourous trappings of Hollywood life.

From the early realisation of Ivan's insignificance, we are drawn to see him as fully alive and utterly human.

This is the triumph of the director's intensely humanist vision, a moving testament to the individual worth and humanity of each of us, even the most lost and dissolute amongst us.

Equally rich are the surrounding performances, the whole cast working tiny wonders, but special mention certainly belongs to Huston and also Peter Weller, the latter giving what I think must be his strongest ever role. His sleazy big-shot actor is an instant classic, utterly true and blackly comic.

I lived and worked in the industry in Hollywood and I recognised many of the characters and situations. In the whole film, not one false note was struck. The locations expertly chosen, from the Sky bar to the winding backroads around Mulholland and Hollywood Blvd at dawn, the feel of Ivan's Hollywood was exactly right.

I recommend this film to anyone looking for difficult but richly rewarding, thought-provoking cinema. It is not entertainment, but it performs the quiet miracles that few film-makers even attempt, let alone achieve with these devastating results. A triumph, a truly visionary work and clearly a labour of love for all involved, Ivan's xtc is simply astounding, quite the equal to the early works of Ingmar Bergman and I can think of no higher praise than that.

This is truly diabolical, a hideous embarrassment, shame on all involved. The performances are rigid, the direction stagey and wooden, the scenery wasted, the action risible, the sexual chemistry non-existant. This is almost so bad it's funny, but definitely not worth the time it takes, which is only 90 minutes, but seems like eternity.

I remember seeing this incredible film in 1977/78 in a double bill with 'Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger". I was three years old and yet it has remained firmly lodged in the back of my memory. The only problem was that I did not know the name of the film. I remember absolutely clearly the scene where the boy thinks the natives have cooked his dog, the boy realising that he has just eaten his only friend. I remember wailing and moaning in the cinema, traumatised by this act of impossible perversity. Finally i know the name of this film which made such a huge impression on me. i will track it down as soon as possible and I would suggest other imdb users do the same.