The Decalogue

Dekalog | Poland | 1989 | Directed by Krzystof Kieslowski

Logline: Ten modern fables loosely based on each of the Ten Commandments, all set within different apartments in the same high-rise block.

When Polish filmmaker was commissioned to make a series of hour-long dramas for Polish television little did he know the impact his work would have on cinephiles and dramatists around the world for years to come. In fact, Stanley Kubrick described The Decalogue as the only masterpiece he could name in his lifetime. Now, that’s a compliment!

Dealing directly with the emotional turmoil suffered by humanity, when instinctual acts and morality conflict, when the pressures of society burden and overwhelm, when the little ironies and bittersweet joys and sorrows of life’s rich tapestry connect and disconnect, the tales told within the framework of The Decalogue are universal, but with a quiet (and disquieting) religious zeal. The stories may be based on each of the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments, but in the bigger picture – and more importantly – they are about the very fabric of our emotional and psychological being. At their very basic these ten tales are about life and death, love and acceptance, confusion and betrayal.

Each of the perfectly-pitched screenplays are co-written between Kieslowski and long-time collaborater Krzystof Piesiewicz, who co-wrote the masterful Three Colours trilogy with Kieslowski, as well as the melancholic Double Life of Veronique, and the Heaven/Hell/Purgatory trilogy which was to be directed by Kieslowski before his untimely death. A number of different cinematographers were employed, including Piotr Sobocinski (Three Colours: Red) and Slawomir Idziak (Three Colours: Blue), but each of them maintains a key palette and Kieswlowski’s distinct visual grammar.

The sombre, austere tone (with the exception of The Decalogue 10) and narrative efficiency of the series is firmly established in The Decalogue 1: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me”, and it’s also one of the stand-out episodes: A university professor trains his young son in the use of reason and scientific method, using a computer to analyse data and predict circumstance. The boy’s aunt worries he is neglecting his spiritual education. The ten-year-old boy is delighted when he is given ice-skates for Christmas, especially since the computer delivered data stating the frozen lake beside the house was safe to skate on …

The entire cast is excellent, each tale only uses a handful of actors, some of which appear in more than one episode, with a mysterious figure (a young man) appearing in all of them as a kind of heavenly observer. His role changes in each of the episodes he’s in, but always a silent bystander of sorts, and his repeated presence is never properly explained .Two of the most powerful episodes (5 & 6) were completed as feature-length movies the previous year and released as A Short Film About Killing (“Thou shalt not kill”) and A Short Film About Love (“Thou shalt not commit adultery”). Both episodes were truncated for inclusion in the television series with Love having a different ending, but still retain all the dramatic and poetic potency.

Kieslowski’s subtlety and beautifully-balanced nuances of storytelling are a testament to the power of visual storytelling within the constraints of television (all episodes are shot in the 1:33.1 ratio). He delivers delicate, yet hugely dynamic elements with the hand of a consummate artist, never a shot or line of dialogue feeling out of place. There are few directors who commanded the level of respect Kieslowski garnered in the years following The Decalogue up to his death in 1996. Although curiously (and bemusedly) he saw himself as only a so-so director, content to puff on his pipe, and relax in a big armchair. It’s a shame that he died before being able to complete his final project, and his early passing was a great loss to world cinema.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

USA | 2011 | Directed by Sean Durkin

Logline: A young woman is reunited with her older sister and husband after escaping the insidious clutches of a cult, but plagued by paranoia and abnormal social conditioning she struggles to re-assimilate.

Elizabeth Olsen, once just the younger unknown sister of famous child stars-turned-tycoons Ashley and Mary-Kate, bursts with maturity beyond her years and real conviction in Sean Durkin’s debut feature, a stunning portrait of dysfunction that begins like a domestic drama, but steadily becomes something far more sinister eventually transforming into a frightening psychological thriller in its last moments.

The movie begins with beautiful young Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) stealing away from a household full of sleeping people. She makes it to a local café but is confronted by an acquaintance that attempts to persuade her to return to the fold. He leaves her, but Martha makes a fateful phone call to her sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson), who hasn’t heard from her in two years. Soon Martha is in the safety of Lucy and Ted’s (Hugh Dancy) large upstate New York holiday house. It is here where Martha’s life really starts to fall apart.

Sean Durkin’s superb screenplay inter-cuts Martha’s struggle with trying to live a normal life with flashbacks to her time spent within the confines of a cult run by charismatic, but inherently creepy leader Patrick (John Hawkes). The brilliant editing weaves these two narratives like two snakes coiling around each other, partly in passion, partly in confrontation. Her fellow cult members sculpt Martha’s emotional naivety, whilst Patrick, who initiates a dominating sexual role, manipulates her adolescent yearnings. Her understanding of appropriate behaviour has been twisted and perverted, and Lucy and Ted are quick to pick up on this.

Lucy is distraught that her sister is acting in such a reckless fashion, and she tries her darnedest to steer her fragile sister back onto the right path. Ted, however, has less patience. But neither of them is fully aware of the damage that has been done, nor the source of her trouble, they see only the tip of an ominous iceberg.

While a deep distrust steadily rises inside poor Martha, who has also garnered the names of Marcy May and Marlene by the Manson-esque Patrick, and the young Watts (Brady Corbett), who is part of Patrick’s inner sanctum, the real dirty work is yet to come. 

It's an excellent debut feature, with fantastic performances and vivid direction, delicately balancing sensuality within the framework of something very sinister, plus a great score, and one of the best abrupt - and totally unnerving - endings to boot. 

Damage

UK/France | 1992 | Directed by Louis Malle

Logline: A married politician’s sexual infatuation with his son’s fiancée turns into a dangerous obsession which ruins his life and his family’s.

Louis Malle was fascinated with relationships, both firm and fragile, and power, both internal and external. Damage would be his penultimate cinematic dissertation on the power of attraction and the ruinous effects of obsession. Malle died in 1994. Damage features one of Jeremy Irons most affecting performances (after his dual turn in David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers) as Dr. Stephen Fleming, but the Oscar went to Miranda Richardson for her role as Fleming’s devastated wife Ingrid. Caught in the crossfire is adult son Martyn (Rupert Graves), while Anna Barton (Juliette Binoche) escapes with only minor scratches.

Malle directs with a spare elegance, allowing his cast to work the mise-en-scene with their delicate nuances of performance. Dr. Fleming seems to have it all; an excellent position in Parliament, a loving attractive wife, a devoted grown son, and a lovely young daughter Sally (Gemme Clarke). He has a spacious home and a comfortable routine. But he is restless; a creeping ennui is threatening to consume him. Enter Anna, his son’s new girlfriend. Anna has a dark and manipulative agenda, born from a terrible family secret that bears down on her like a ton of bricks.

The scene where Anna approaches Stephen at a function and stares intently into Stephen’s eyes, her own burning with a cold fierce lust, Stephen is completely thrown, yet instantly mesmerized. It is this hypnotic effect that will drive the good doctor to doing very bad things. Jeopardising, not only his career, but his family too. All he can think about is Anna, who does little to dissuade him. But when Stephen decides to turn up in Paris where Martyn and Anna have gone for a lover’s weekend, then Anna pays it on the line. Her upcoming nuptials to Martyn are the perfect foil to continue her clandestine affair with Stephen. But Stephen can’t bear hiding. He’s prepared to leave his wife. Things can only go pear-shaped, which they do, rapidly.

For a film about intense sexual desire the sex scenes are urgent, awkward, rough, even repellent. Yet there is an undeniably erotic undercurrent. Stephen and Anna bang up against furniture, grunting and panting, pushing and contorting. It becomes quickly apparent Malle is more interested in presenting these two philanderers as less than human, animalistic even (according to one report Juliette Binoche walked off set when Jeremy Irons became too physical). They are both intelligent creatures, attractive and sophisticated. But the secret union they’ve formed has turned them upside down. They have become base and destructive. For Anna her psychological baggage comes from struggling to deal with the death of her brother who she was very close to. For Stephen years of poker-faced, chilly presentation as a political figure has resulted in his emotions finally running away from him, his composure collapsing, his guard down.

As Stephen and Anna continue to pursue their sexual dalliances it becomes obvious only a catastrophe can occur to drive a wedge between them. There’ll be more than tears before bedtime. There will be blood. There will be damage, and much of it will be collateral. In Malle’s homeland the movie was re-titled Fatale (as it was also called in Canada), which indicates just how disastrous the denouement is. But the narrative doesn’t end with blood on the floor. There is Miranda Richardson’s Academy Award-winning breakdown, and finally an epilogue, a further integral part of the aftermath which shows where the disgraced doctor has ended up; lonely and alone with only memories, regret and a stale baguette.

Was the affair worth the tragedy? A silly question, of course, but in the heat of fevered desire it can be hard to dispel the harsh consequences that will inevitably present themselves. The kind of intense immoral passion harnessed by Stephen and Anna, regardless of their own reasoning, can only bring sorrow, heartbreak, and despair, as witnessed by Ingrid’s abject shock and hysteria, and as predicated by Anna’s mother Elizabeth (Leslie Caron), who warns Stephen to pull away. Anna, like some kind of beautiful androgynous demon, dissolves into the background; “Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.”

Shame

UK | 2011 | Directed by Steve McQueen

Logline:  A thirtysomething man has his carefully cultivated private life – and sex addiction – disrupted when his emotionally fragile and needy younger sister arrives unannounced.

Steve McQueen’s second feature after the harrowing prison movie Hunger, also starring Michael Fassbender, is just as simple, just as confronting, just as powerful. Whereas religion and survival formed an uneasy relationship in Hunger, in Shame sex and love share the same bed, as entwined as they are at each other’s throats. McQueen co-wrote the screenplay with playwright Abi Morgan. Originally intending to shoot the movie in the UK, McQueen couldn’t get the financing, and instead moved the production to New York City where he shot principal photography in just twenty-five days.

Michael Fassbender delivers a career performance as Brandon, an ad rep creative by day, and a rampant sex addict whenever he can squeeze it in, either masturbating in the office toilets, in the shower at home, undressing strangers on the subway with his eyes, watching live chat sex on his laptop, fucking strangers in alleyways, paying for hookers in hotel rooms, or indulging in random sexual activity at underground clubs. Immaculately presented, smart and charming, but underneath, inside, Brandon is damaged goods.

When his troubled sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) bursts his lifestyle bubble, old wounds are scratched. The audience never finds out their background, but one can assume there was probably abuse. Both Brandon and Sissy have intimacy issues. They have a problem with self-control and self-esteem. A pivotal and key scene has Sissy performing a torch version of New York, New York whilst her brother, and his opportunist boss, sit at a nearby table sipping martinis. A tear escapes Brandon’s eye. Sissy sings with her heart on her sleeve. The scene has more subtext than you can shake an olive branch at.

Shame is a complex portrait of success and failure, a study of human need and desire, of loneliness and despair. Steve McQueen has a spare, yet utterly compelling style. Not much seems to happen, but everything does. McQueen is an actor’s director, but one with visual flair to spare. It’s fascinating to watch a movie so steeped in sex, yet the carnal knowledge portrayed on screen is remarkably refined. It’s intense without being overly graphic, although that said, Shame will no doubt be remembered for Michael Fassbender’s full frontal parade during the movie’s opening scenes.

Raw experience and human frailty, all of it captured brilliantly on Brandon’s face in one of the movie’s latter scenes when he orgasms during a swinging threesome; his face is etched in anguish and his glance barrels down the camera. It’s disturbing and honest, the man’s truth and lies colliding and ricocheting, no happy endings here, joy lies in tatters, the pleasures of the flesh are only fleeting, the repercussions of desperation continue to ache.  

Of course there is still the denouement to come, where Brandon’s shame will overwhelm him, and the epilogue where the dark circle comes full. Some truths are hard to bear. Shame is jagged serenity laid bare, bold, and brilliant. There hasn’t been a more profound journey of self-discovery and resignation, captured with such beauty and ugliness, on screen since Mike Figgis gave us Leaving Las Vegas twenty-odd years ago. 

Sonatine

Japan | 1993 | Directed by Takashi Kitano

Logline: A jaded, but suspicious Yakuza in Tokyo is assigned to take his men to Okinawa to help settle a dispute between two factions, but several of his men are killed, so he retreats to a remote beach to contemplate the situation and plan his revenge.

Beat Kitano, as he’s nicknamed, has been making his own brand of mob movies since the late 80s. Minimal, with a deadpan comedic edge, his style of realism is laced with a poetic undertone. It is with Sonatine that his preoccupation with the themes of loyalty and honour, and his penchant for sudden extreme violence come to a spearhead. The title refers to a style of folk music associated with the Okinawa region.

Kitano (who nearly always features in his own movies) plays Murakawa, the world-weary Yakuza who is embroiled in a series of incidents leading to a set-up to take him out of the powerful gang equation. It’s not until he has taken shelter at an isolated coastal property with his remaining clan that Murakawa takes stock of his predicament and slowly, but surely lays the obtuse foundations for retaliation.

Sonatine plays with rhythms, and pulses with a steady heartbeat of implicit violence that occasionally explodes with rage. There is vivid colour and spreading darkness in equal measures. Kitano doesn’t have all his cards on the table; he has a few aces up his sleeves, but you never know when you’ll whip them out. Just as his violence is unpredictable, so is his eccentric sense of humour.

Joe Hisaishi’s melancholic score is highly memorable, which frequently marries magnificently with Kitano’s stark and lonely visual narrative. I must make mention here of the striking movie poster which has lingered with me ever since I first saw it at the Wellington Film Festival when the movie was first released; it’s a brutal, yet strangely beautiful, and iconic image which seems to work both existentially and metaphorically.

Kitano’s movies rarely finish on a rounded or uplifting mood, and Sonatine is no exception. The tone of the movie is detached, yet it is also one of his most affecting movies. Murakawa is arguably one of Kitano’s most sympathetic roles, despite his inherent fatalism and nihilistic approach to life. In one of the movie’s many memorable scenes – possibly even the movie’s penultimate moment – Murakawa forces his two closest gang members to play Russian roulette after he watches them playing silly William Tell buggers compounding the fragility of life.

Sonatine is the gangster movie twice removed; a left-field transgression that bears much of the genre’s traits yet takes side-steps and behaves like a wild card. It satisfies, yet infuriates, it rewards, but leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Ultimately the movie remains stoic and disquieting; the ironic resolution of gangster life is played to the hilt.

Romeo Is Bleeding

USA | 1993 | Directed by Peter Medak

Logline: A duplicitous NYC sergeant’s dangerous career as both witness protection guard and Mafioso informant, begins to catch up with him when he’s bribed to kill a seductive Russian assassin to prevent her from testifying.

“People think that Hell is fire and brimstone and the Devil poking you in the butt with a pitchfork, but it’s not. Hell is when you should have walked away, but you didn’t,” narrates Jack Grimaldi, as his best laid intentions for “feeding the hole” start to go seriously awry. He’s been making $65 grand a pop for playing the corrupt cop, stashing the tainted moolah in a rubbish bag in a blocked drain at the base of his garden. Jack wanted it bad, and he got it worse.

The story goes that screenwriter and co-producer Hilary Henkin’s neo-noir tale was one of the ten best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, drifting around until eventually it landed in the hands of journeyman director Peter Medak, responsible for mostly television work. He shone darkly with this flawed diamond, providing Gary Oldman with one of his more memorably screwed-up characters.

The superb support cast has Annabella Sciorra as Grimaldi’s long-suffering wife, Juliette Lewis as his young ditzy mistress, Michael Wincott as his slick middleman, Will Patton as one of his colleagues, Roy Scheider as a cucumber cool Mob boss, and Lena Olin as the fabulously malicious Russian contract killer. Not forgetting Ron Perlman in one brief scene as Grimaldi’s attorney.

This modern noir drips with melancholy and is laced with all the best elements of the genre, from the reflective, engaging narration which has Oldman taking about his character in the third person (he’s in the witness protection program) to the lonesome jazz trumpet score from Mark Isham which fits the movie hand in cracked leather glove. The ending, which ties the story back to the movie’s prologue (everything has been a flashback), is surprisingly sorrowful. You feel for Jack, despite the fact that he was a cheating asshole.

Such a downbeat denouement where justice and virtue is trampled asunder and the protagonist seems to be doing everything in his power to scuttle his own future is not the kind of movie Hollywood generally makes, especially with a cast this incendiary. I’d kill to make a gangster thriller as rich, stylish and uncompromising as this. Well, perhaps I wouldn’t murder, but I might eat my weathered boots.

Romeo is Bleeding (the title is borrowed from a Tom Waits song) is dark and twisted and bitter and sweet, hitting you like a hefty swig from a bottle of stale over-proof bourbon while you chain-smoke past the midnight hour, absent-mindedly rubbing that slow-healing scar, and wondering if she’ll ever call you back …

Scarface

USA | 1983 | Directed by Brian De Palma

Logline: The rise of Tony Montana, a Cuban refugee who becomes an immensely wealthy, powerful and ruthless drug lord in Miami, Florida during the early 1980s, but falls prey to greed, paranoia and betrayal.

Along with Coppola’s The Godfather (Parts I & II) and Scorsese’s Goodfellas, this is the finest cinematic portrayal of American gangsters hands down; they form the movies’ holy trinity of organised crime. I’ve watched Scarface many times, and it always delivers, always packs a punch, so … “Say ‘allo to mah lil’ fren’!”

Originally intended as a straight-up remake of Howard Hawks’ 1932 classic set in Chicago, only modern day, but budgetary constraints re-directed the setting to Florida (although most of the exteriors were shot in Los Angeles). Hollywood veteran Sydney Lumet was originally slated to direct, but backed out, however it was his suggestion to make the characters Cuban and use the 1980 Mariel harbour boat lift as the movie’s starting point.

Oliver Stone wrote the blistering, powerhouse screenplay whilst battling his own cocaine addiction, and it was this expletive-laden script that compelled Brian DePalma to come on board (he was set to direct Flashdance!), stating later that the combo of Al Pacino (as the fictional Tony “Scarface” Montana) and Stone’s screenplay was the high turning point of his career (and few critics can deny that). With a stellar cast that included F. Murray Abraham, the late Paul Shenar as scary Sosa, and Robert Loggia, but also excellent performances from then unknowns Mary Elizabeth Mastranioni and Steven Bauer, and most famously, a very young (and dangerously thin) Michelle Pfeiffer.

Brian De Palma has often been criticised for a visual style that rips off Alfred Hitchcock. This stylistic is no more apparent than in Scarface, but I hardly criticise De Palma for it. It’s a director using a deliberately dynamic and hyper-real mise-en-scene (incl. close-ups, vivid colour, and rear projection), which Hitchcock happened to pioneer. It’s pure cinema, and it works brilliantly in telling the dark and dangerous tale of Tony Montana.

Pacino’s Cuban cowboy is mesmerising, from his convincing accent and dialect to his garish wardrobe. But it is the atmosphere of dread and doom permeating the movie that really resonates; an unctuous evil that seeps from the very pores of all the dodgy characters on screen. Violence is both implicit and explicit; one notorious scene involving a chainsaw and Tony and one of his men, Angel (Pepe Serna), handcuffed to a shower rail caused major controversy at the movie’s time of release. Although it leaves most to the imagination, it is far more horrific than you expect.

Giorgio Morodor’s pulsating synth-driven score provides a constant backbone of lush sleaze, whilst the mountain of cocaine – “Yeyo” as Tony calls it – on Montana’s massive mahogany desk is one of the greatest iconic symbols of utter greed and hedonism in the history of movies. Not forgetting Tony’s M16 assault rifle armed with a M203 40mm grenade launcher. The home invasion which occupies the movie’s last twenty-odd minutes is over-the-top, ballistic mayhem; an audio-visual assault of menace and brutality.

Scarface is a long and exhausting movie, but beautifully constructed and executed; a tour-de-force of direction, acting and screenwriting, but also fabulous production design. So many amazing scenes, and arguably the penultimate has a very drunk and stoned Tony at a flash restaurant embarrassing his wife Elvira (Pfeiffer) and his closest buddy Manny (Bauer) as he spouts a diatribe to the dozens of stunned patrons …

“What you lookin’ at? You all a bunch of fuckin’ assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say, ‘That’s the bad guy.’ So what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There’s a bad guy comin’ through! Better get outta his way!”

Oldboy

South Korea | 2003 | Directed by Chan-wook Park

Logline: An ordinary man is kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years, then suddenly released, confused and bewildered, only to be informed he must find his captor in five days.

“Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone.”

Adapted for the screen from a Manga comic, Oldboy is a tour-de-force of cinematic storytelling, a stunning darkly poetic vision of identity and revenge. It is not for the prudish, nor is it for the squeamish, as it burns itself onto your weary retina and scalds itself through your tender skin like a nightmare dream of grotesque beauty.

It is the middle installment in the director’s revenge trilogy (after Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and before Kindhearted Ms Guem-Jar AKA Lady Vengeance); however its story is completely self-contained. It begins part-way through its story, and later we return to this scene, and it the movie finishes amidst the alpine pine and snow of New Zealand’s magisterial Southern Alps.

Min-sik Choi is brilliant as the tortured soul Dae-su Oh, an ordinary businessman who is abducted and held prisoner for fifteen years, never once meeting his kidnappers. Then as swiftly as he was first abducted, he’s released. The world has changed, and so has Dae-su. But he has a mission bursting inside of him. Along the way he meets a young bartender, Mi-do (Hye-Jeoung Kang), who takes pity on his plight and desperate quest, only to find herself slipping in over her head (as much as Dae-su is drowning in the deep end of a dark mystery).

Woo-jin Lee (Ji-tae Yu, quietly exceptional) is the mystery man, the man who seems to hold the answers to Dae-su’s questions, but not without running a gauntlet. Dae-su finds himself in a predicament with only five days to solve the reasoning of his imprisonment. Dae-su realizes he must plunder the past to uncover the truth. But some truths cut deeper than lies.

“Like the gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like the bird from the hand of the fowler, free yourself.”

Everything about Oldboy is beautifully constructed and executed; from the production design and art direction (at times highly stylised), to the editing and music. There are extreme moments (eating the live octopus) and scenes of graphic violence (most of which happens off-screen), but there’s a controlled chaos, a deliberate sense of order and symmetry. Oldboy ricochets with a fierce intelligence, despite its perverse machinations.

You can’t help but be impressed with a movie as provocative as this; both sensually and viscerally. A sense of humour exudes, oily and gleaming, glistening and congealing like the crimson blood spilled on the pristine marble floor of the villain’s penthouse. But just who is the villain and who is the hero? Who is the victim and who is the culprit? The character shades are grey like the timber wolf stalking the rabbit in the snow.

In 2004 Oldboy won the Jury Grand Prize at Cannes, was nominated for the Palm D’Or, and won Best Film at the renowned Sitges Festival in Spain. In its home country festival, the Grand Bell Awards it won Best Actor (Min-sik Choi), Best Director, Best Lighting, Best Music, and Best Editing. It went on to win a further ten international festival awards and another ten nominations. 

Oldboy’s thematic treatment of vengeance suggests that revenge is a dish best left uneaten as it will only destroy everything. No one escapes unscathed; the collateral damage wrought by the wrath of vengeance is wickedly cruel. Cruelty, indeed, is a significant element within Oldboy. Irony, too, casts a long dark shadow. While the serenity of the movie’s final sequence in the snow only reinforces the tragedy of the tale; a tragedy borne from the double-edged sword of a reckless adolescent desire.

The House Of Sand

Casa De Areia | Brazil | 2005 | Directed by Andrucha Waddington

Logline: The plight of a woman, and her feisty daughter, over the span of nearly sixty years, as she tries in vain to adapt to a life in a desolate landscape of shifting sand dunes.

This is a stunningly realised character study of mother and daughter, juxtaposed against a harsh, unforgiving, yet beautiful geography that reflects and absorbs the personalities of the lead characters; a meditative terra cosmos. It feels like it’s based on a richly-etched novel (echoes of Marquez), but is based on a story idea from director Waddington and Luiz Carlos Barreto, with the screenplay by Elena Soarez.

There’s both simplicity and complexity within the narrative and the way the director has cast that becomes apparent soon enough; his two lead actors, Fernanda Torres (also his wife) who plays Áurea, and Fernanda Montenegro (his mother-in-law), who plays Dona Maria, (daughter and mother respectively). However, Waddington then has Montenegro play Áurea when she’s middle-aged, and Torres then plays her young daughter Maria as an adult. Then Waddington has Montenegro play Áurea as an elderly woman and opposite herself as the middle-aged Maria. Confusing? Not so once you’re immersed in the movie’s hypnotic rhythms.

The story begins in 1910, and then moves to 1919, then 1942, and finally 1969. The territory is Maranhão, Brazil, a massive, sprawling ecosystem of huge sand dunes and lagoons that are constantly crawling and shifting. It’s a wilderness that overwhelms its characters, but never completely consumes all of them. Not a lot actually happens, but everything does. There is anguish, there is joy, there is frustration, there is hope.

Initially it is the madness of Vasco de Sá (Ruy Guerra) who has brought his pregnant wife Áurea and her aging mother from the city to Maranhão. He dies in an accident leaving the two women to fend for themselves. The striking son of a former slave, Massu (Seu Jorge), supports them with his goat herding skills. He and Áurea become involved, although she desires to leave the Godforsaken place and return to her urban roots. Chances come and go. She is destined to stay it seems.

The acting is first rate with real-life mother and daughter shining in their roles, but surly Seu Jorge is also excellent, even if he says very little. The cinematography is the real star, or perhaps it’s the landscape. It is a mesmerizing panaroma, captured gloriously in widescreen. The opening and closing images taken from the sky of the giant sand dunes stretching endlessly is like a magnificent surrealist painting, or even a photograph of a moon. The sound is terrifically evocative too, the wind rushing, the sand trickling, the human calls echoing across the expanse, while the extreme heat and cold of the desert makes a commanding presence.

House Of Sand is a sad tale, heartbreaking with a soft caress. Yet there is quiet happiness, scattered to the winds of time. A deep sensuality embraces the whole movie, at times it is raw and mischievous, other times it is innocent and playful. Waddington is a visionary director making a bold, evocative, but distinctly wistful statement of time and place seldom indulged in the all too cynical climate of modern cinema.

Only Lovers Left Alive

UK/Germany | 2013 | Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Logline: Two vampire lovers, living worlds apart, are reunited, but find themselves at the mercy of their lifestyle.

A new Jarmusch movie is a welcomed event at Cult Projections, as he is one of my very favourite directors. That doesn’t mean I adore every movie he’s made, but I relish and savour his approach to filmmaking; the atmosphere, tone, mise-en-scene are all entwined in a deliciously moody, dreamy package. He is a true auteur, if such a thing still exists in this high-concept indie ocean of cynicism and automation.

Would Jarmusch been the king of mumblecore had he begun his career in the last ten years?

Tilda Swinton plays Eve, supposedly a 2000-year-old vampire (according to Jarmusch’s first draft), living the quiet life in Morocco. She is kept out of trouble by the purloining of pure blood from one Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), the playwright who Shakespeare stole the limelight from. Marlowe and Eve are dear old friends indeed. 

Meanwhile in downtrodden Detroit Eve’s lover Adam, several centuries young, is wallowing in depression. He is a talented musician holed-up in a decrepit old house in a deserted neighbourhood, pining for days gone, disgruntled over the current state of humanity, or “zombies” as he refers to mortals.

After a phone conversation Eve leaves Tangier for Detroit to make sure Adam doesn’t follow through with his suicidal project. Not long after they are disturbed by the arrival of Eve’s obnoxious younger sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska), also a vampire, and trouble erupts. With zombie groupies lapping at Adam’s door, it’s time to scoot.

Jarmusch has fashioned a romance in his typically droll style, with pitch perfect performances. It’s the horror movie when you’re not wanting a horror, the love story that lingers, the drama masquerading as a deadpan comedy, the metaphor for life’s bittersweet ironies. It’s probably his best movie since Dead Man (1995), certainly one of my five Jarmusch favourites, and easily the most original vampire movie since Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction (1995).

Curiously Jarmusch was asked to include more action set pieces by his European financiers (the project took many years to fund), and in response he removed the few existing ones. To add to his frustration Jarmusch was forced to shoot with digital cameras, but managed to get a filmic look through the insistence of low lighting. He’s a dying, but oh so admirable breed Mr. Jarmsuch; a purist, through and through.

Only Lovers Left Alive is very much an acquired taste. And that’s exactly how I like it. Fingers crossed Jim Jarmusch continues to find the independent funding to enable him to continue to make movies on his terms. 

Nancy, Please

US | 2012 | Directed by Andrew Semans

Logline: A PhD candidate’s life unravels after he discovers his crucial study book is in the custody of his former, seemingly-impossible-to-reason-with roommate.

Paul (Will Rogers) finds himself in a Dickensian scenario, with no easy way out. Instead he digs himself deeper. But it’s only a book that he’s lost. Well, misplaced. It turns out Nancy (Eleonore Hendricks) has it. Well, she has the book in the house Paul once shared accommodation with. So, it should be easy to get it back. Wrong. Devil’s Law resides here. Nancy has sprouted horns and hooves and there’s a red gleam of cruelty in her eye. Paul is not going to get his Little Dorrit back so easily. He’s going to have to run the gauntlet to get his sweaty palms back around its dog-eared, note-strewn pages.

Paul fashions himself into the role of victim with a kind of masochistic glee. His friend Charlie (Santino Fontana) just rolls his eyes. His girlfriend Jen (Rebecca Lawrence) quickly finds her patience wearing thin as Paul’s behaviour become increasingly obsessive, and let’s face it, downright frustrating.

We’ve all been in this kind of situation; something that is valuable to us has become caught up in the vice of someone or something else and we’re working ourselves up into a right lather trying to get it back, acting irrationally even. It is this empathy that works in Paul’s favour. Nancy appears to be a right bitch. But we’re inclined to agree with Charlie. Just get it back and stop dicking around.

What makes Nancy, Please more than just an ordinary light-hearted drama is the hints, the nods, the leanings into other genres; chiefly horror/thriller territory. There are some great moments as the fabric of Paul’s sanity begins to tear a little. But Andrew Semans holds back, never pushing too far into that realm of fantasy, but just enough to make his lead character seem unhinged enough to continue his quirky path to deliverance.

Nancy, on the other hand, is an enigma wrapped up in an icy glare. Her story is revealed right at the very end, and it adds satisfying dramatic weight, especially combined with Paul’s own final reaction. That cigarette inhale/exhale never looked so perfectly placed.

Great performances from what is essentially a four-hander, with Will Rogers holding fort, but most notably Eleonore Hendricks, who with very little screen time essentially commands the movie; both as her elusive character, and the actor’s innate screen presence. As a title alone, Nancy, Please is this indie weakest link, but as an inky comedy of errors it charms with subtle delight.

 Nancy, Please is released in Australia through Curious Film.

Filth

UK | 2013 | Directed by Jon S. Baird

Logline: A corrupt, manipulative, drug addict cop is in line for a promotion, but finds his own schemes and plans to be scuttling his chances at everything.

Despite being the fourth of Irvine Welsh’s books to be adapted for the big screen, Filth is by no means any easier to digest. In fact, this is one of the hardest to generate any empathy, but that’s not surprising, as Welsh relishes creating lead characters that are deeply unsympathetic, usually with addiction problems, and often infused with a sarcastic, cynical sense of humour. Baird, who also penned the screenplay, has not toned down the central character of Welsh’s novel; to put it bluntly, Bruce (James McAvoy) is a cunt.

Brown-nosing for a promotion, Robertson will stop at nothing to clinch this higher position within the precinct. The murder of an Asian teenager has Robertson pulling out all his dirtiest tricks and grubbiest tactics to upset and foil his colleagues, all of whom are keen on the same promotion. The problem is: Bruce and the arena of the unwell. This man has issues. Serious.

Robertson is a whiskey-swilling, coke-addled, sex-abusing, foul-mouthed charmer. He’s his own worst enemy. And the battlefield is his playground. The real trouble starts when his bad habits begin to lap at his blistered heels. There’s only so far you can climb up the ladder of deception before the rungs start to splinter. Robertson’s grip on the reality show of life is starting to slip and slide. Soon enough this little piggy who had roast beef is the little piggy who ran all the way home with his wee tail between his legs …

The first half of Filth is tough going; it’s as chaotic and intense and obnoxious and heady as snorting a gram in a short space of time because it’s almost lockout time and you’d better be on the floor before that happens. It’s hard to find anyone to like. And those accents are impenetrable! But James McAvoy is brilliant, arguably in his most affecting performance to date, certainly his most bold and compelling.

The rest of the cast are uniformly excellent, and it’s a well-heeled bunch too: Eddie Marsan as Robertson’s hapless buddy Bladesey, Martin Compston as hoodlum Gorman, Imogen Poots as police colleague Amanda, Jamie Bell as rival cop Lennox, Shirley Henderson as randy Bunty, Pollyanna McIntosh as the office size queen, John Sessions as Chief Inspector Toal, and last, but not least, Jim Broadbent, as Robertson’s Ocker psychiatrist Dr. Rossi.

Filth is an identity crisis wrapped up in a brown paper bag. It’s a cracked portrait of a hedonistic descent into self-inflicted delusion. It’s a morality tale disguised as a full-blown bender; the violent seduction of power and the tragic effects of mental illness. A hell of a cocktail. 

I’ve not read the novel, but I get the impression Jon Baird’s remained quite faithful to the tone and intent of the novel. He’s certainly got visual flair. But this is not a cute carousel cruise; it’s a fucking bronco billy ride. Wake up and smell the coffee sunshine, the future’s not bright, its pitch black, like wicked medicinal comedy. 

Filth is released in Australia on DVD & Blu-ray through Icon Entertainment on April 3rd. 

Blue Caprice

US | 2013 | Directed by Alexandre Moors

Logline: A lonely teenage boy finds himself befriended by an embittered man, who steadily embroils the boy in his own deadly contempt for humanity.

The so-called 2002 Beltway sniper attacks shocked America and ricocheted around the world. Nothing as brazen and as shocking had confused both the innocent and those who serve to protect them. Over three weeks across the States of Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. ten people were murdered and three others critically injured. The victims were gunned down, at random, by a sniper with a high-powered rifle, along the interstate highway, in parking lots, and at gas stations.

The culprits were eventually caught; an African-American adult, John Allen Muhammad, and a seventeen-year-old ex-pat “orphan” from Jamaica named Lee Boyd Malvo. It was the boy who had been coerced into doing the shootings, mostly through a tiny hole drilled in the boot of a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice sedan. The pair was linked to another seven killings, and in 2003 Muhammad was executed and Malvo was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences.

Blue Caprice paints a dark and sombre portrait of their deadly drift.

This is a very impressive debut feature from Moors, working from a spare, but intelligent screenplay from the curiously named R.F.I. Porto, also on their debut feature. Blue Caprice is very much a mood piece, an oneiric study of manipulation and corruption, of loneliness and despair … but ultimately of a disquiet that burns like the Devil’s furnace.

Isaiah Washington is superb as Muhammad, pulling the brooding adolescent under his tortured wing and cultivating his confusion at the world. This is a nurturing of the darkest kind. Tequan Richmond as Lee doesn’t have many lines, but his screen presence is solid. Good support in bit roles from Tim Blake Nelson, Joey Lauren Adams, and Leo Fitzpatrick.

The sleeper stars of the movie are Brian O’Carroll’s slide reversal-esque cinematography, and the score from Sarah Neufeld and Colin Stetson, both of which enhance the movie’s elusive edge. This is a drama that seethes like a slow-burn thriller, but never explodes; hardly even boils, yet it resonates like the after-shock of an earthquake.

Knowing this actually happened is chilling. That while pushing your trolley at any shopping market parking lot, or casually filling up your car with petrol, you could be shot through the head by a sniper five-hundred metres away who’s been having a bad hair day. A really, really, really bad hair day.

Blue Caprice is the (dis)quiet achiever of the year. 

Blue Caprice is released in Australia through Eagle Entertainment on March 19.

All Is Lost

US | 2013 | Directed by J. C. Chandor

Logline: After a lost shipping container damages his yacht, an elderly, but resourceful sailor finds himself battling the elements and struggling to survive.

“13th of July, 4:50 pm. I'm sorry ... I know that means little at this point, but I am. I tried, I think you would all agree that I tried. To be true, to be strong, to be kind, to love, to be right. But I wasn't. And I know you knew this. In each of your ways. And I am sorry. All is lost here ... except for soul and body ... that is, what's left of them ... and a half-day's ration. It's inexcusable really, I know that now. How it could have taken this long to admit that I'm not sure ... but it did. I fought 'til the end, I'm not sure what this worth, but know that I did. I have always hoped for more for you all ... I will miss you. I'm sorry.”

A disembodied voice speaks in a somber, resigned tone. A red shipping container sits half submerged in a still ocean. Then we are taken back in time, eight days. A salty seadog is awakened from his cabin slumber aboard his elegant 1978 39-foot Cal Yacht by a loud crunch and splintering of wood. Something nasty has just smashed a gaping hole in the side of his sloop, and the water pouring in has ruined both the CB radio and his laptop.

Bugger.

Still, Our Man (Robert Redford) is a dab hand with the fiberglass sealant, so after rescuing his vessel from the evil freight clutches of the Chinese “good fortune” and repairing the hole with an impressive display of sea-savvy he is back navigating the steady swell of the ocean, albeit on a temporary lean as he allows the sea-line sealant to set.

Ahoy! Tempest on the horizon!

Yeah, that’d be right.

From his own script, J. C. Chandor (whose only other feature is the corporate thriller Margin Call) directs with a mighty hand, never once over-stepping into anything other than serving the action as simply and effectively as possible. There’s a rare European grace and lack of pretention that exudes from this tale of one man’s increasingly desperate plight.

Robert Redford, aged 77, is amazing. He barely utters a word the entire film. He is also the sole actor. It is without a doubt the best one-man show in quite some time. But it's a humbling show; a show of courage and strength, of endurance, and finally, most importantly, of hope. Mortality is cast asunder, as the waves of Murphy’s Law crash down.

All Is Lost is another of my year’s favourites. If this trend continues 2014 will shape into a great year in cinema. 

Blue Is The Warmest Colour

France/Belgium/Spain | 2013 | Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche

Logline: A frustrated high-school student meets and falls in love with a girl several years older, and finds her love-life becoming an emotional rollercoaster ride.

Attraction is a stolen glance.

Attraction is a lingering gaze.

Flirtation is asking what you’re thinking.

Flirtation is saying you’re always hungry.

Desire is everywhere.

Love is elusive.

Because there’s no such thing as love and adventure, there’s only trouble and desire.

Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos) loves books and the prospect of teaching. But the most profound learning will come from her relationship with Emma (Léa Seydoux), a dyke with short dyed-blue hair.

Adèle has experienced frustration after dating a senior boy at school. The spark lies elsewhere; St. Elmo’s fire passes her on the street, and catches her eye. The flame of intrigue burns a passage, fuels a sexual fantasy.

Fate hands Emma to Adèle in a gay bar. Strawberry cocktail aside, Adèle is in heaven. This university student is a painter, and Adèle becomes her muse. The two women embark on a passionate relationship that spans several years.

The title that appears at the end of the movie is La Vie d'Adèle - Chapitres 1 et 2 (The Life of Adèle – Chapters 1 and 2). This is the movie’s original title. However the international title, Blue is the Warmest Colour, is taken from the original French graphic novel the screenplay is based on.

800 hours of rushes was shot. The screenplay, by Ghalia Lacroix and Kechiche, was only read through once by the lead actors, as Kechiche encouraged them to improvise as much as possible, and much of Adèle Exarchopoulos’s screen-time was lifted from the B-roll camera.

Her performance is a revelation.

This is a movie, much like Wong Kar-wai’s brilliant Happy Together (1996), where the gay/lesbian orientation of the relationship isn’t as important as the emotional nuances and profundity of the character’s psychological arc.

In fact, the controversial sex scenes are the movie’s most contrived sequences; explicit, yes, graphic, no, and not especially erotic either. It is the moments “in between” that are most memorable; Adèle lost in her own thoughts.

Blue is the Warmest Colour is dramatic romance awash with melancholy. It is utterly unpretentious in its production values, yet utterly compelling with its central performance.

And I will savour Bolognese even more than I already do. 

RoboCop (2014)

US | 2014 | Directed by José Padilha

Logline: A police officer, critically injured and rebuilt as a cyborg cop by a corrupt conglomerate, seeks revenge.

This is one of those remakes where to give it any kind of chance you need to remove yourself from the original as much as possible, and if you know and love Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop (1987), a dark satire that seethes with cruelty and bristles with conviction - arguably the director’s finest work - then it will be hard. Verhoeven’s RoboCop is one of those cult movies that had a lot of people upset when it was announced a remake was going into production.

José Padilha’s calling card is his political action thrillers; Elite Squad (2007) and Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (2010), but also of note is his excellent documentary on a hijacking, Bus 174 (2002). When I found out he was going to helm the remake my interest was raised a little. Still, I knew it was a slim chance Padilha would (be allowed to) make anything remotely as ultraviolent and dark as Verhoeven’s powerhouse original. And I was right; it’s a PG-13 in the States, and an M in Australia.

The re-booted RoboCop has a screenplay re-fit by first-timer Joshua Zetumer, who uses very little of the Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner original screenplay. They get credit, but hey, it’s token for the most part. For starters five major characters have been jettisoned, or recreated; the white-collar criminals Dick Jones and Bob Morton have been merged into Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton), also absorbing OCP’s CEO The Old Man. The creative part of Bob Morton becomes Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman), and he’s rendered as anti-hero support to Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnerman), our officer with the most.

Murphy’s partner Anne Lewis becomes Jack Lewis (Michael K. Williams) and is shunted into the background, whilst Murphy’s wife Ellen, virtually a featured extra in the original, is brought to the fore as Clara (Abbie Cornish). Gone is one of the great villain nasties of the cinema, Clarence Boddicker, and there’s no one to replace him! But most significantly, Alex Murphy is not killed in this new version, and he is out for revenge for those that tried to kill him, unlike the Murphy of the original, who was killed, rebuilt, and subsequently has memories from his soul triggered, causing him to become a rogue.

In a nut(-and-bolt)shell, this RoboCop lacks the original’s soul. Yes, there, I’ve said it. It’s a cold and mechanical story that, whilst it sports slick production values, and is not without a few choice moments, like Alex Murphy having his RoboCop self revealed to him, it fails to provide any real empathy with the lead, or his wife’s anguish. Without splitting hairs, the central villain simply isn’t enough of a cunt to give the movie’s denouement any real punch.

The movie is bookended with an incongruous attempt to re-capture the original’s television news-style immediacy with Samuel Jackson playing a political broadcaster and all-round Grumpy Old Man with a conservative bone to pick. The infamous ED-209’s from the original have been emasculated, and only one original line of dialogue remains intact; “Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.”

I’d rent this for a dollar, but I wouldn’t buy it and have it sit next to Verhoeven’s original on my shelf.

Her

US | 2013 | Directed by Spike Jonze

Logline: A lonely professional love letter writer falls in love with his new artificially intelligent computer operating system.

There’s something to be said about watching a movie you know next to nothing about. The only information I had gleaned going into this com-rom (that’s comedic romance, rather than romantic comedy, and the comedy is on humour’s darker side) was Joaquin Phoenix was starring and Spike Jonze directed it. I hadn’t watched a trailer, certainly hadn’t read any reviews, and, thankfully, hadn’t conversed with anyone who had seen it and unintentionally blurted out spoilers. 

Her is a movie that is rapidly finding its way onto critics’ best of the year lists. And it’s still only January. Her is a movie that is bound to appeal to the same demographic that loved Gravity, bridging across a divide between offbeat love story, and hip futuristic trends of technology and social media culture. I can’t help but feel slightly irked that I’m not in a minority, but that’s just the way I roll. Gravity didn’t do it for me the way it did for the majority, but Her has rubbed me up in all the right ways. 

Enough of the rambling critic idiosyncrasies, let’s get down to silicon tacks. Her is the best movie of Spike Jonze’s career. Jonze's first feature, Being John Malkovich, was a superb black comedy; surreal, novel, and endearing, but Her is his crowning achievement in terms of direction. He also wrote the screenplay, and it’s a brilliant study of love’s fondness and love’s fickleness. Her is, quite simply, a wonderful tale of melancholy.

Set in a not-too-distant future in a Los Angelefiles that looks more Asian than American (exterior city scenes were shot in Shanghai) it tells the story of Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a man dealing quietly with the break-up of his marriage with Catherine (Rooney Mara). By day he writes professional love letters for those who haven’t the heart or wit. By night he yearns for intimacy with a woman.

Cue: Samantha. OS One. A brand new operating system that is the first artificially intelligent software designed to really get to know its owner/user, and service their every desire. In this case, Theodore’s aching heart. Within days of installing her Theo has fallen for the husky-voiced Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). And who wouldn’t? She sounds sexy, and she’s smart and funny and imaginative and provocative. The only thing missing is … a body. But Theo doesn’t mind.

It’s only going to end in tears.

Joaquin delivers a finely nuanced performance, and his support cast, along with the atmospheric cinematography, help construct a terrific platform; Amy Adams, in her daggiest, but most endearing role to date, as Theo’s neighbour Amy, and Olivia Wilde as a blind date. Although she doesn’t have much screen time, Rooney Mara is once again a scene-stealer (those Mara sisters are something else!), but it’s Scarlet Johnasson that commands every scene her dulcet tones emit from.

Her is one of those delicate movies on a balancing act. The premise alone is one that many will scoff or guffaw at, and yet, there is a remarkable astuteness to Jonze’s portrait of our very likely future. Artificial intelligence is not to be taken lightly, and whilst Her floats on a poetic cyber-feather, there is an inherent sadness that, like an emotional weight, steadily brings it down to earth. The final scene is both uplifting and heartbreaking at the same time.

And yes, I too will be bold enough to state that Her is definitely in my year’s top ten favourite movies. And it’s not even February. 

Kiss Of The Damned

US | 2012 | Directed by Xan Cassavetes

Logline: A female vampire turns a male mortal as they embark on a love affair, only to have their romance disturbed with the arrival of the woman’s jealous vampire sister.

Vampire movies are a dime a dozen, these days probably not far behind zombie and found footage flicks. So it is with an undead weary and fang wary eye that I approach yet another bite on vampire lore. But don’t get me wrong, I’m always up for one that gets the balance fresh, offering something curious, atmospheric, creepy, sensual, sexy, brutal, nightmarish, or a tasty combo!

Kiss Of The Damned is the best vampire movie since Let The Right One In (2008). It’s an American production with a European edge. Set in Connecticut and Manhattan, it’s a love story that appears to head toward a certain dawn, only to finish, most satisfyingly, at another.

Striking strawberry blonde Djuna (Joséphine de La Baume) lives in a huge white mansion with her maid Irene (Ching Valdes-Iran) making periodic visits. She feeds on the blood of animals, and is part of a community of modern vampires that do not dine on humans, and prefer to keep it that way. Lonely Djuna is drifting around the local video store when she catches the eye of a handsome bearded fellow (Milo Ventimiglia). She feels the tug, and swiftly leaves the store, but it is raining so heavily she is forced to stare into the void … “My name’s Paulo.”

Before you can say “Nosferatu, a symphony of horror” they are back at her pad, but Djuna is resisting Paulo’s advances. She gets him back onto the porch, and they finally kiss passionately, awkwardly, and Djuna bites his tongue. She slams the door shut. But Paulo will return. That’s certain.

Enter dark Mimi (Roxane Mesquida), Djuna’s hedonistic, reckless, and sly sister. She arrives unannounced, intending to stay for a week. There is no love lost between the sisters. Mimi is an old school vampire: manipulative and predatory. She has an agenda, and she is driven like the snow. There won’t just be tears spilled before bedtime …

Here’s another from the clutch of talented daughters of famous male American directors, Alexandra “Xan” Cassavetes, on her debut feature, having previously made the documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (about early cable television), and it’s obvious she’s inherited an eye for provocative cinema. Kiss Of The Damned takes inspiration from lush cult faves, such as Daughters of Darkness (1974) and The Hunger (1983), adds a Brian De Palma-esque erotic thriller vibe to the look and feel, and yet maintains a distinct female sensibility. 

Great performances from all involved, especially Roxane Mesquida who nails the femme fatale role, but also Joséphine de La Baume and Anna Mouglalis as vamp artiste Xenia (despite their thick French accents, and knowing English is not their first language). Combined with stylish cinematography, a pulsating score, ardent sex – especially the first one between Djuna and Paulo – and some solid effects work entwine to make Kiss Of The Damned a throbbing hot affair of the dangerous undead heart. 

Kiss Of The Damned screens as part of Monster Fest, tonight, Sunday, December 1st, 7.30pm, at Cinema Nova.

Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla

Australia | 2013 | Directed by Stuart Simpson

Logline: A lonely ice-cream van driver, obsessed with a local soap starlet, starts a video diary as he builds up the courage to ask her out.

Warren Thompson (Glenn Maynard) is a case study time bomb of rage. He lives alone. By day he is the driver and operator of an ice-cream van seeling just enough cones to get by, parked on the edges on of an industrial zone where a pimp hangs out under a train bridge. By night he eats cold baked beans on bread for dinner and masturbates to videotaped episodes of his favourite daytime soap, Round the Block, featuring his obsession Katey George (Kyrie Capri).

Warren keeps everything in check with his mundane routines, whilst harbouring his pipedream of meeting and dating the pretty star from televisionland. And before you can say “knickerbockerglory” Warren’s dreams seem to be coming true! Katey George is filming just around the corner and she comes to his van for an ice cream cone!

From a story by Addison Heath, Stuart Simpson has made an engaging, very funny, black comedy (oh, yes, it's dark alright), shot on the smell of an oily rag, with a clutch of extreme moments to keep the mainstream at bay, about one man’s descent into the self-destructive pit of loathing. Warren’s fragile world is about to come crashing down, thanks to the sharp ugly reality that pushes at the thin fabric of his sheltered existence.

All Warren wants is to offer those three magical flavours and be loved.

Be loved by Katey George.

Warren fantasizes he’s the vengeful Man With No Name, or better still, a studly surfer whom Katey can’t resist. But like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976) Warren has a distorted view of the world, and that perspective will soon be shattered. Hell hath no fury like a melted ice cream van driver.

Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla is a superbly realised character study of loneliness and abuse, similar in tone to Tony (2009) and Bad Boy Bubby (1993). In almost every scene, Glenn Maynard gives a terrific performance as the wallflower in a uniform, capturing the joy, sadness, and rage of a simple man at the end of his tether. Simpson, previous feature was the rockabilly creature feature El Monstro Del Mar! (2010), and it’s great to see he’s matured as a storyteller, yet straddles the limitations of a low budget without obvious compromise.

Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla screens as part of 15th Melbourne Underground Film Festival, Friday 19th September, 9pm.

Top Of The Lake

Australia/NZ/UK | 2013 | Directed by Jane Campion and Garth Davis

Logline: When a pregnant 12-year-old girl is recovered from a freezing lake, then disappears into the wilderness, a troubled detective returns to her old hometown and becomes embroiled in the township’s dark secrets.

Jane Campion has a distinct style and is not afraid to throw caution to the wind. Returning to the small screen to direct a mini-series, twenty-three years after her magnificent portrait of Janet Frame, An Angel At My Table, she has created a small-town crime mystery with more than a few nods to David Lynch’s masterful Twin Peaks, but without the supernatural element.

Garnering a top-notch cast of Australasians, but giving the top roles to Americans and English, Top Of The Lake is set in the beautiful rugged mountainous landscape of New Zealand’s South Island. It is here in this village brew that the scum rises to the surface. Young Tui (Jacquiline Joe) has been raped and has escaped into the bush. Who is the culprit? Detective Robin Griffin (Elizabeth Moss), a child specialist, is called in to investigate and uncovers more than she’d care to.

The mood and vibe is cool, sensual, yet detached, and very typical of Campion. The cinematography is icy, serene, and stunning, sensational work from my favourite Australian DOP, Adam Arkapaw. A brooding, melancholy score from Mark Bradshaw keeps the vibe in check, and uniformly excellent performances from the large cast keep this mystery on a compelling slow burn.

Scots actor Peter Mullan is the standout, as Tui’s dangerous and volatile father Matt.  He steals almost every scene he’s in. David Wenham is superb as the dubious police inspector, and there’s strong work from American Elizabeth Moss as Det. Griffin, although her Australasian accent was a most curious distraction.

It’s a shame the script, by Campion and Gerard Lee, is so full of character inconsistencies and strange, and sometimes annoying, narrative deviations, including a rushed and rather unsatisfying denouement. The sub-plot of Holly Hunter’s guru-of-sorts “GJ” and her posse of women in plight was almost entirely unnecessary, and only served as comic relief, much of it unintentional. It was as if Campion and Lee had transplanted this story element from an entirely different screenplay.

Despite its frustrating script problems (and a lame title), Top Of The Lake is still well worth viewing for some of its more intense dramatic moments, the lush scenery, and the colourful performances, all hallmarks of Campion’s best work. 

Top Of The Lake is released in Australia by Transmission Films.