Reviews

Seriously, tense is not a strong enough word. This movie was absolutely terrifying. In the cinema I was thinking, Whilst this is a good movie and I would recommend it to anyone, I will probably never watch it myself again. It was just too intense. I do have a few problems with it. The plot for one; it starts off very plausible for a sci-fi and continues to be very believable until the last half hour or so. The mood is established enough that by that point you should really be into the film enough to go along with anything (see Alien for what I mean here), but there are a few factors which just create this huge gaping plot hole. I won't spoil anything but if you watch it just pay attention to the situation and remember the time frame that is mentioned.

I've got to say, the acting and direction were spot on. Cillian Murphy is brilliant as always, as is Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada and Cliff Curtis, but all are outshone (ignore the pun please) by Chris Evans. Yes that's right, the Human Torch. The role was so different from his previous roles and he handled it ridiculously well. That was the biggest surprise of the movie.

I am still quite speechless. Overwhelmed by how utterly compelling the story was and by how emotive the acting story was. Floored by the unbelievably great character development. This film is close to perfect. It is a spiritual cousin to 2004's magnificent Downfall and shares a lot of similarities with Paul Verhoeven's stunning Black Book from last year, not just because these films share two actors. This multi-faceted character driven masterpiece really is as good as it's hype says.

Sebastian Koch in particular absolutely shines. He is one of the best international actors working today and he follows the brilliance of his role in Black Book with the lead here. With his bohemian, dishevelled good looks and brilliant charisma, he's the best German-speaking actor since Bruno Ganz. But he is far from the only good actor in this movie, Ulrich Mühe as the State Security (Stasi) agent whose task it is to monitor Koch's suspiciously free thinking playwright, brings another near perfect performance to the movie. Agent Wiesler initially appears to the audience as the polar opposite of Koch's character. With his grey button down clothing, closely cropped hair and consistently emotionless face he symbolises everything about the overbearing untrusting Socialist government of East Germany that is wrong. He could easily have remained that character throughout the whole film but he becomes the surprising emotional centre of the story and the line between heroes and villains is significantly shifted (something which extends to the supporting cast as well. Truth be told there are probably only two characters in this film whom I didn't have to rethink my opinion of). Weisler reveals himself as a lonely, isolated man who risks his entire career as his attitude to his subject changes from one of mistrust to one of near-adoration. There is an undeniable link between the two characters even though they never share a single scene and Georg Dreyman (Koch) doesn't even find about Wiesler until the last 10 minutes of the movie, which leads us up to what should go down as one of the greatest endings in cinema history. Just thinking about the final spoken lines brings the tears to my eyes.

As I said, without a doubt one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. And as much as I adore Pan's Labyrinth, this one really did deserve it's Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year. An absolute masterpiece.

Regarded as a masterpiece by some, including Dennis Hopper, the late John Lennon and George Harrison, this is the very definition of a cult film. A violent, surrealist, allegorical underground sensation upon its release 37 years ago, the film has been out of print since - existing only in poor quality bootleg videos. Now the film is finally being released on DVD and is currently on an exclusive cinema run around the UK.

To me, it's not very easy to love surrealism. It's easy to respect it and even easier to hate it all. But one things for sure, it certainly makes quite an impact. Many images from this surrealist Mexican pseudo-biblical western will stay with me for a long time, no matter how ridiculous I thought it was at first. The images contained in this film include a man being buried in dead rabbits, a man with no legs being carried on the back of a man with no arms, several dozen black and Mexican men being branded with hot irons and sold as slaves, a group of deformed and disabled people being mercilessly gunned down by a group of morally-twisted cross-dressing townsfolk, a man catching a bullet in a butterfly net and throwing it back at his opponent, and a nail-bitingly tense game of Russian roulette in a church. As with all surrealism, for every image to laugh at and ridicule, there is one to be utterly floored by due to it's undeniable power.

The imagery and symbolism permeate every scene of this film, sometimes bluntly and sometimes more subtly. Elements of Judeo-Christianity include the four duellists representing the four prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel) and El Topo himself as Jesus Christ, whilst the latter half of the film can be seen to show the reincarnation beliefs of Tibetan Buddhism.

As the round of applause from the audience at the end of the film tonight showed, this is a profoundly powerful and daring film but it is definitely not for everyone. It is somewhat dated and perhaps a little flawed. But as El Topo himself says, "Too much perfection is a mistake."

Darren Aronovsky's beguiling time-travelling hallucinatory love story The Fountain. You may have read some of the polarising reviews of this movie already. It has been described as everything from new age pseudo-intelligent pointlessness to a peerless cinematic beauty.

The plot is in three parts: the first of which chronicling Hugh Jackman's 16th century conquistador Tomas' journey into the heart of the Mayan empire to locate the mythical Tree Of Life and reward himself and Queen Isabella with eternal life so as to escape from a dying Spain, the second is set in the 21st century and sees Tommy as a scientist trying to cure his wife of her cancer and, with help from a strange South American tree, stumbling across a potential cure to ageing. Ageing, but not death. The third plot sees a futuristic Tom escorting a dying Tree Of Life (who would have thought that the Tree could die?) into the heart of a dying nebula where both the tree plan to be reborn.

The relationship between the plots is blurred and certainly open to interpretation. There are however certain constants throughout each act as it were. Not counting the obvious themes of life, death and love, there are repeated elements of tragedy and noticeable splashes of shared dialogue, imagery and colour (especially gold) throughout each different time period. The romance between Tommy and Izzy, particularly in the 21st century time period, is an heart-breaking portrayal of love and loss.

Jackman and Weisz both turn in the performances of their career and give even the more absurd elements of the film a startling believability and honesty.

The film is one of scarcely believable beauty. Practically every scene is the cinematic equivalent of a classic work of art and the whole thing is strengthened by the musical work of Aronovsky's regular composer Clint Mansell. The film is thought-provoking, debate-raising and jaw-dropping and includes everything from religious spiritual journeys, philosophical and moral realisations and scientific miracles. It remains a very divisive and polarising movie, but it is a work of absolute artistic passion and a fabulously beautiful movie to watch.

This is a truly disturbing film, yet is also one of the most wonderful films I've ever seen. I don't think I can say anything that's already been said, so I just want to say to everyone who likes deep, thought-provoking, emotive movies should watch this... and have a pillow to hand to hide behind.