Reviews

The Milk of Sorrow. It's a bit like a very long bus trip to a far away destination, through a barren, deserted landscape. You drive along for hours, and nothing much happens. You gaze out of the window at the rocks and dirt, the dirt and rocks. Then whoosh, out of nowhere, a man on a white stallion, wearing a sombrero and carrying a machine gun gallops past in the opposite direction. You only see him for a few seconds, then he's gone, and you're left wondering if it really happened.

Well, perhaps that's a bit unfair. But The Milk of Sorrow is slow. I've nothing against slow films. In fact, I usually prefer them, but even by slow film standards, it's pretty slow. And although it's only 95 minutes long, it could probably have been done in an hour.

It's a peculiar little story. Set in present day Peru, there is only one main character, a young Peruvian peasant woman called Fausta. We open with Fausta witnessing the dying moments of her mother. She is now a very old lady, and she recounts through song how her husband was murdered, and she was raped while pregnant with Fausta. The real-life historical context to this is Peru in the 1980s, when Shining Path terrorist activities were at their height, and peasants were subject to their brutal violence. Now in her early twenties, and living with her uncle, Fausta is infected with the milk of sorrow. The milk of sorrow is believed to be a disease she contracted through drinking her mother's breast milk, and has caused her soul to be lost.

The only emotion Fausta feels is fear. Consquently, she won't go anywhere alone, and that is a problem. She wants to take her mother's body back to her village so that she can be buried with her father. But that costs money. Her uncle is already poor, and his priority is taking care of the living. Fausta is forced to face her fear and go out to work. She takes a job at the Big House, where she meets Aída, the sympathetic Lady of the House, and Noé, the kindly gardener. However, the only results of Aida and Noés' gentle attempts to coax Fausta into a more normal existence are long, empty minutes of gazing into space, leaning against walls, and watching television.

While the script is horribly thin, The Milk of Sorrow does have several redeeming features. The photography is usually beautiful and manages to show both the romance and desolation of Peru. The portrayal of day-to-day life for your average working class Peruvian, is completely realistic in its banality. The insight into the superstitious beliefs of peasants is convincing. There are wonderful flashes of ironic humour. And as a tiny cameo of a piece of real history it is very moving.

I wish it was better. It can't be easy being a filmmaker in Peru. Given the limited budget, and few resources, The Milk of Sorrow is a remarkable achievement. But, much as I want to like it, the script doesn't offer much to get hold of. I'm sure that the nomination in the 2010 Oscars for Best Foreign Language film will have given the film industry in Peru an enormous boost. That is A Good Thing. But is this really one of the world's best foreign language films of 2009?

It's in German, and it's black-and-white. So we're not off to a good start in terms of mass popular appeal. At least it's not about The War. Or is it? War never seems to be very far away in German films, especially black-and-white ones. And this one doesn't disappoint.

The White Ribbon is set in a small village in rural Germany before The War. Very specifically, in the year immediately preceding the start of the First World War. The story is narrated through the eyes of an elderly School Teacher, told as the events of his youth. The 31 year-old version of himself lives in the up-til-now, sleepy village where life is dominated by the harvest, and three men - the Baron, the Pastor, and the village Doctor.

The story opens when the Doctor, returning home, suffers a riding accident. But this is no ordinary riding accident. His horse trips over a wire deliberately strung between two trees. This incident marks the beginning of a year in which the village sees many more such mysterious and disturbing events. People and property are attacked, a man dies and before long, we have not one whodunit, but a whole collection. So who did do it? Was it the Baron's wife who suffers at the hands of her authoritarian and unsympathetic husband? Perhaps it was the Pastor's wife, who has to watch her husband beat and humiliate their children? Maybe it was the Midwife, the 40 year old neighbour, secretary, nanny and spurned lover to the Doctor? It could have been the children, fighting a war of attrition against their puritanical and domineering fathers. Or any one of a number of other villagers who have reason to carry a grudge. Who knows? That is one of the elements that make this film fascinating.

Director and writer Michael Haneke ('Funny Games', 'Caché') builds a world where on the surface, everyone has reason to be a happy camper. The harvest is good, there is food for everyone. However, behind closed doors, characters are slowly revealed who we have plenty of reason to hate. The Baron, the Pastor and the Doctor rule their wives, their children and the village with an iron hand. Each in his own way is supremely selfish, controlling and brutal. The women have little opportunity to protect themselves or their children, and the children, brutalised by their fathers, have to find their own way to thrive.

As a simple vengeance tale the film is excellent, but The White Ribbon also works on a whole other level. The film ends with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand (for younger readers, the event that precipitated the beginning of the First World War). This, together with the fact that while the children are named, all of the adult characters are only identified by their roles (Chaucer-style) creates a powerful metaphor. The implication is clear. People like these, in a place like this, were amongst those that fought the war and created the history of Germany. Despotic authoritarianism on the village scale was recreated on the world scale by history.

Performances are excellent. In a cast made up largely of children, there aren't too many familiar faces. The only one I recognised is Pastor Burghart Klaussner as the Judge from 'The Reader'. The sixteen year old Maria-Victoria Dragus excels as the Pastor's eldest child and ringleader.

Despite being in German, in black-and-white, long, somewhat slow and a bit about The War, I recommend it. Although I kept stopping to do other things, I made sure I didn't miss a word. It will never appeal to the mass market, but to those who do watch it, it offers a lot of food for thought. It's also worth watching just for the amazing line the Pastor throws his soon-to-be-ex lover as he dumps her - "My God, why don't you just die?". Wow! That's definitely up there with "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn".

The White Ribbon was one of five contenders for the 2010 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Just to remind you, the other contenders were Ajami, A Prophet, The Secret of Their Eyes and The Milk of Sorrow. If you can only watch one, make it 'A Prophet', then this one.

I was surprised to see that 'Un Prophète didn't win the 2010 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Not because I'd seen all the others, but because it is such a good film. So it was with anticipation that I sat down to watch what, in principle, is an even better film. I wasn't totally disappointed.

It's Beunos Aires, Argentina in 1999, but the story opens 25 years earlier, with the murder of the beloved young wife of bank clerk Ricardo Morales. A murder in the first ten minutes usually means we're in for a whodunit, and El Secreto is no exception. Enter our young hero Benjamín Espósito and his lovable, if alcoholic assistant Pablo Sandova who have been assigned by the Beunos Aires Justice Department to investigate. Also enter their even younger boss, the lovely Irene. And now we're all here, what next?

Flash forward to 1999 where our hero Benjamín, now retired, drops in on the 25 years older, now senior lawyer, Irene, to tell her he has decided to write a book about the case. And so, flashing back and forth, the two ends of the story get to meet.

It's pretty good stuff. From the unremarkable beginning, the plot moves along at a nice, if leisurely pace. The murder case gets solved quite early on, although whodunit isn't obvious, and it takes a while to track him down. There are some fantastic football (soccer) stadium shots (sorry, pet love of mine), then some other unexpected stuff happens, followed by a satisfying twisty end. Sandwiched into this are the developing relationships between the various participants. There's the almost Laurel and Hardy partnership of our hero Espósito and his drunken comrade Sandova. The unspoken respect of Espósito for the bereaved Morales. But most especially the unexpressed passion between Espósito and the unattainable Irene.

In El Secreto, where character arcs are as important as the plot, nobody lets the side down. Acting - from a cast unknown to me (Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Pablo Rago in the three major roles) is competent, believable and engaging. The sub-plot reaches a satisfying conclusion (albeit with echoes of 'Love in the Time of Cholera'). All in all, an engaging and competent piece of work.

So how it won the Oscar over 'Un Prophète', whose subtlety, depth and complexity of both plot and character make it a vastly superior piece of work, is a mystery to me. They're not even in the same league.

And I have to add a postscript. Our hero, Benjamín Espósito is played by Ricardo Darín (born 1957). And not, imagine this, by Javier Bardem (born 1969, No Country for Old Men, Love in the Time of Cholera, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Penelope Cruz's latest squeeze). Who, I remember in particular from the superb 'El Mar Adentro' (The Sea Inside, 2004). Check out their pix, they could be brothers.

Set in the present day, Eden Lake is the name of a remote lake in Southern England. It is the location Jenny (Kelly Reilly) and Steve (Michael Fassbender) have chosen for a romantic weekend away camping. They arrive, setup and a lovely weekend begins. So far, so good.

However, it doesn't last long. When a group of feral teenagers turn up, things very quickly go very wrong. Annoyed by their anti-social behaviour, Steve challenges them, and the place they have chosen for their romantic dream becomes a hideous nightmare. Just so you know, what happens next is:

The dog belonging to the gang leader is stabbed and bleeds to death. The gang turns on Steve and Jenny, captures them and ties Steve's hands together with barbed wire. We see this in close up. He's stabbed four times by different members of the gang, and we see close ups of his wounds. Later he's set alight - although at this point it's not clear if he's alive or dead. It is clear that the youngest member of the gang, a boy around 10 years old is burnt alive. He's doused in petrol, a tyre is thrown over his head and he's set alight. We don't see him burning, but his screams can be heard. Another child is stabbed in the neck and bleeds to death. And there can be no doubt that Jenny's foot is impaled completely as she runs and steps on a spike on the ground.

If this is the kind of stuff that floats you boat, then you'll love Eden Lake.

From a purely cinematic point of view this film is excellent. The plot is taught and compelling, the acting (from the mainly teenage cast) superb, the message brutal and clear. In contrast to the vast majority of horror movies, there are very few but-nobody-really-does-that moments. And that is the major problem I have with it. It is so realistic that I find it difficult to see how it can classed as a horror film. I'd call it a documentary.

The English seem to excel in films that aim to show British life without any gloss. At one end of the spectrum, Ken Loach uses it for comic effect. At the other end, films such as 'The Football Factory' (2004) and 'This is England' (2006) are less easy to stomach. Like them, Eden Lake, is an accurate commentary on contemporary British society. However, the graphic violence puts this film almost in a class of its own. Although there is one film like it - 'A Clockwork Orange'.

Apparently Miriam Karlin (Catlady) defended 'A Clockwork Orange', by saying that no normal human being would be influenced by it. And she's right. No normal person would be influenced by it. So I guess we don't need to worry about the influence it had on the abnormal human beings who carried out the copycat crimes where normal people were killed. Fast forward forty years to Eden Lake. Did we learn nothing?

Eden Lake is rated 18 (adults only) in the UK by the BBFC (British Board of Film Censors) for its violence. I would have banned it, except that would only turn it into a cult classic. I'm not going to rate it at all. Like 'A Clockwork Orange' it should never have been made in the first place.

It's 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his sidekick Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are on the ferry to Shutter Island. The island could be Alcatraz, except that instead of criminals, it houses the criminally insane. One of their inmates has apparently escaped, and Daniels and Aule have been sent to investigate. But the investigator turns out to be the one being investigated.

Shutter Island gets off to a fairly good start. It does a competent job of building the apparently normal, but-you-know-something-is-going-on atmosphere. Ben Kingsley is nice and creepy as the frosty psychiatrist Dr. Cawley. You just know that he and his team are hiding a Dark Secret. However, it quickly goes downhill, and like Daniels, I was also searching for a way to abandon the island at the half-way point. It picks up again in the second half, but just around the point where you think it's going to get interesting, you realise you've seen it all before. That said, even though the dénouement is predictable, it's done well enough to stick with to the end.

Acting-wise, the only one worth watching is Ben Kingsley. He plays the ambiguous Dr. Cawley to perfection, and sent a little shiver down my spine each time he appeared on screen. Leonardo DiCaprio never rises above his usual 'Hello I'm Leonardo DiCaprio playing a character in a film' performance (apologies to his fans, but I just don't rate him) and Mark Ruffalo as the sidekick is unremarkable.

It's 20 years since Scorcese made Goodfellas (1990), 22 years since 'The Last Temptation of Christ' (1988), 30 years on from 'Raging Bull' (1980) and 34 years since 'Taxi Driver' (1976). I can't help feeling he's losing his touch. This has all the hallmarks of a film churned out just because those concerned needed to make a bit of money.

Shutter Island is at best mediocre. There's nothing new or original in it. Go see 'A Beautiful Mind' instead.

Normally a film that includes graphic shots of a man getting his throat cut in the first half hour would have a hard time getting more than a 0 rating from me. But this one is different.

Tahar Rahim plays Malik El Djebena, a naïve 19 year old French (probably French/Algerian) guy who ends up in a tough French jail for assaulting a policeman. We don't get to find out much about what brought him to this point, although there are hints that he didn't get the best start in life. We do get to see how prison changes him.

With echoes of 'Papillion' and 'Midnight Express', he finds himself in a prison world divided into two camps - the Corsicans and the Arabs. The Corsicans hate the Arabs, and the Arabs hate the French. Malik is hated by the Arabs for being French and hated by the Corsicans for being Arab. That is, until the Corsicans find a use for him.

Un Prophète is one of five films nominated for Best Foreign Film in the 2010 Oscars, and there are many aspects that makes this film deserving of the nomination.

First, it is many different stories-within-a-story - and each one works. It is a political commentary on the relationship between Corsica and the French mainland, and on the tension between Arab and Corsican populations in France. It is also a story of friendship, loyalty, and conscience. And at the heart of it all, it is the personal journey of Malik, who evolves from an innocent boy into a street-wise man. Second, Un Prophète does a great job of describing moral complexity. Jail is supposed to rehabilitate offenders, but Malik commits far worse crimes in jail than out. He learns to read and write, but he also learns the drug trade. He enters prison with a single note, and leaves a relatively rich man. He begins the film as an isolated outsider, but leaves with friends and a family of sorts. There is a third, interesting thread running through it which explores how someone who doesn't fully fit into any part of society can make this work to their advantage. Finally, all of the acting is excellent. The unknown Tahar Rahim is totally convincing as Malik evolves from naïve inmate to master criminal. Niels Arestrup (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) is completely believable as the Corsican mafia boss. It's almost unfair to single them out because the supporting cast is also excellent.

Despite the violence I would give this film a 10. What brings it down to a nine is that I lost the plot part way through (Godfather style, there were too many characters being played off against each other for my brain to cope with) and perhaps the supernatural element that gives the film its name, but didn't really seem to go anywhere.

I haven't seen any of director Jacques Audiard's other material (most recently De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (2005) and Sur mes lèvres (2001)) but I'll be looking out for them.

Crazy Heart is the tale of Bad Blake, a washed-up country singer, who's life is transformed by the woman he falls in love with.

It's a simple story. We've heard it all before, and in theory, it has 'boring' written all over it. Well, it's true, there's not much action. And it's also true that at the half-way mark I was wondering what they were going to fill the next hour with. That turned out to be not very much, but it didn't really matter.

It takes a great actor to carry a film to the point where you don't really care what, if anything, happens, because you just want to hang out with him. Even if he all he does is sit down and drink beer, you'll still be watching. Jeff Bridges in the lead role of Bad Blake carries it off. You might remember him from 'The Big Lebrowski' (if you don't, you've missed another great film). More than ten years on, he hasn't lost his touch. Like Mickey Rourke in 'The Wrestler', he's on screen in almost every scene, and like Mickey Rourke, he's riveting.

Maggie Gyllenhaal (she was apparently in 'Away We Go' but I don't remember her), plays the love interest, Robert Duvall has a couple of great scenes and tasty Colin Farrell is thrown in for good measure.

The soundtrack is also worth a mention. As you might expect from a film about a country singer, it's country music all the way. But don't let that put you off. It's pretty darn good.

The 'The Wrestler' meets '200 Days of Summer' with a bit of' 'Leaving Las Vegas' thrown in. No guns, nobody gets shot, nobody dies, and I cried, just a bit, at the end. This is my kind of film.

White Hunter Black Heart is loosely based the true story of the making of The African Queen (1951). The screenplay is based on the book by Peter Viertel who worked with director John Huston during the making of the film.

Clint Eastwood directs himself as an actor, playing the director John Wilson (a.k.a John Huston). With me so far? The story starts in the United Kingdom, where the irascible Wilson/Huston is trying to get funding for a film set in Africa. Sidekick Pete Verrill is drafted in to work on the script and eventually the whole shebang makes it to Entebbe (Uganda). However, it rapidly becomes apparent that Wilson/Huston has little interest in making a film, and his real reason for being there is to shoot and kill the biggest elephant he can find. Suffice to say, it all ends in tears. And that's about it for the plot.

It's pretty feeble stuff. And sadly, the lack of a plot isn't made up for by fantastic performances from the cast. The main problem is Eastwood himself. Wilson is written as a complex, egotistical, inconsistent, selfish character, and Eastwood just doesn't have the depth or weight to carry it off. The performance isn't helped by the fact that in places he looks physically frail. Eastwood's performance borders on an impersonation of John Hughes - a caricature more than a characterisation. Because of this, the film takes on a cartoonish, somewhat comedic air at times (but it's far from a comedy).

Eastwood isn't helped by the script. Given the whole thing revolves around a man who wants to kill an elephant, we never really understand why. Halfway through, there is a lengthy monologue where Wilson/Huston takes a moral stand against a woman who declares that Hitler was right to try to kill the Jews. It's followed by another long scene where he ends up in a bare knuckle brawl with the hotel manager who he sees mistreating his (black) staff. Wilson/Hudson explains his behaviour with 'We fought the preliminary for the k*kes; now we'll fight the main event for the n*ggers' This valiant supporter of human rights is the same man who harbours an obsessive need to kill an elephant? It seems the inconsistency doesn't make sense to the cast either. When challenged to explain his bloodlust, Wilson/Huston's answer is: 'It's not a crime... it's bigger than that... it's a SIN'. And that's all we get. It just doesn't add up.

What does make White Hunter worth watching is the beautiful photography of the African landscape. Also good is the unexpected appearance of Timothy Spall (of Auf Wiedersehen Lads fame) as Hodkins, the eccentric Bush pilot. He's not great either, but he does his best. Finally, Marisa Berenson, in the minor role of Kay Gibson (a.k.a. Katherine Hepburn) doesn't show up very often, but when she does, she's somehow riveting . Oh, and there's a really, really cute baby elephant.

Clint Eastwood directed this film two years after he directed the excellent Bird (1988). Watch Bird instead.

This is one of those films that makes me think that watching films is a just a waste of time.

I honestly thought this was never going to end. I fell asleep twice but, like a bad hangover, it was still there when I woke up. About half way through I started watching cartoons at the same time (to stay awake), and didn't miss a thing. Even when I thought it was finally all over and the credits were thankfully about to roll, there was still yet another ten minutes of apparently meaningful, artistic nothingness to get through.

The best thing about this film is that I've always had difficulty telling John Cusak and Kevin Spacey apart, so having them both on the screen at the same time has helped a lot :0)

Although desperately slow, it's pleasant enough - put it in the background while you're cooking dinner, but don't sit down to watch it.

This isn't just awful. It is possibly the worst film I've ever seen. I am completely baffled by the reputation it has. Everything is horribly staged, everybody speaks faster than is humanly possible. The plot is all over the place. It's all tell, no show. It is just terrible. If I was giving a scriptwriting class, I would use this film as a great example of what not to do.

I realise that, made in 1941, it is of its time. But isn't that the point? For a film to be called a classic, it should still be relevant to audiences today? I really wonder if the people who rate it so highly have actually sat down and endured the whole painful experience. Or is it sufficient that everyone else says it's a classic, so it must be.

People, it's time to let this one die.

'Ordinary People' won its Oscar nearly thirty years ago, and I saw it for the first time yesterday. I thought I'd seen all the great films of my lifetime. How did this one slip through the net?

The script, the acting and the direction set a benchmark. I can't really add to the praise of others, except to say that, apart from the 80s haircuts and outfits, this film hasn't dated at all. It's still superb, even thirty years on. What makes it special are the characterisations - all of them. No-one is completely blameless, or completely at fault, and even the minor characters have a depth and breadth to them that you don't see very often.

Just an excellent film. Go see it.