Best Films and DVDs
Exhibition, Joanna Hogg
Both Viv Albertine and Liam Gillick are great in this third brilliant film by Joanna Hogg (the other two being Archipelago and Unrelated), this one focusing on two practising artists living in a designer house somewhere in Kensington, I think. It’s funny and touching; I love the pretentious and yet stilted way they talk to each other about art; self importance, coupled with inarticulacy – reminds me of my partner and I.
Leviathan, Paravel and Castaing – Taylor
This is the documentary about deep-sea fishing from an American trawler (?) in the North Atlantic; staggering shots from above and BELOW the water – no clearly audible dialogue, mostly at night; hypnotic.
Leviathan, Zvyagintsev
Russian Barents Sea coast; municipal gangsterism and corruption, allied to the Russian Orthodox church, prodigious vodka, cigarette and herring consumption, firearms, violence, pathos and whale skeletons.
The Travelling Players, Angelopoulos
Classic Greek film; a travelling theatre group steer a precarious journey through the years of WW2, the British intervention and the ensuing civil war. Operatic; fantastic.
A Separation, Farhadi
Enthralling Iranian film, concerning an urban middle-class couple, their crumbling marriage and the daughter in the middle. Sounds unpromising – watched it twice (on Film4).
Inside Llewyn Davis, Coens
The film inspired by Dave Van Ronk – very loosely – downbeat, very funny, surprisingly good “folk” music; the only problem for me was a cameo from John Goodman, doing one of his huge, threatening eccentrics, for no apparent reason. My friends in the Pretentious Marxist Book Group thought it was crap because it didn’t explore the political dimension of the 60s US folk boom – fortunately, in my view.
The Great Beauty, Sorrentino
Saw it on DVD; features Tony Servillo, which puts it up there immediately; features old men dancing in an embarrassing manner, a frequent Sorrentino trope. Obvious homage to Fellini and none the worse for that.
Worst Films
Julia’s Eyes, Del Toro
Dialogue and situations seem OK in Spanish, but the subtitles demonstrate how ridiculous and cliched they are; the eyeball horror doesn’t carry it.
The Killer Inside Me, Winterbottom
This is actually a well- acted and directed film, but the violence perpetrated on the women in it is horrible and unwatchable. The ending is ridiculous.
Two Days, One Night, the Dardennes
Not a terrible film (Marion Cotillard is great), but a disappointment and not the masterpiece that the Guardian and Observer critics sat. The problem is that there is no story arc – you know she has to visit a bunch of her work mates over a weekend and try to persuade them to vote for her reinstatement instead of their bonuses. Straight away, you are thinking – or rather, I was thinking – “one down, twelve more houses to go”. It looked like a telly film too. still, the politics were right on….
Mr. Turner, Mike Leigh
Again, not terrible by any means – but a disappointment. Too Dickens-y, especially his estranged partner, who keeps popping up with her (and his) daughters, demanding quite reasonably, some support from the artist. Famous artists et al introduce each other to each other, famous incidents come along like buses, as they tend to do in biopics. It looks brilliant sometimes – the Temeraire boat trip, for instance – and Spall is great, but I think Leigh’s other historical film, “Topsy Turvy” is far better.
Happy New Year.
Life Drawings
Blackpaint, 31.12.14