Review of "Son of Saul"

If László Nemes' film "Son of Saul", set in Auschwitz in 1944, is ultimately a success, it is because before anything else it understands that a conflict spanning the entirety of the universe can be depicted on a canvas no bigger and no smaller than the human face; in fact, it understands that the human face is the perfect setting for such things. If it falls short of triumph, that's because it follows its own methodologies a little too closely to their ends, and seems slightly too preoccupied with itself as a film as opposed to what it seemed to me to be; a document, a hymn, a paean.

Opening text informs us of the "Sonderkommando", a group of Jews chosen in Auschwitz to work for a few months, before being killed. Saul (Géza Rohrig) is a member of the Sonderkommando; a startling and upsetting opening shot presents him front and centre, ushering in a new truck full of his kin, to be disposed of by the cruel guards. This opening take is remarkable for two reasons, firstly because it's an ambitious long-shot, and secondly because it establishes Saul's character in a way that fundamentally doesn't really change for the remaining 100 minutes. Red cross on his back, hollowed out sunken eyes, mouth slightly twisted, blank expression; he doesn't give anything away.

This creates a paradox which sustains the whole film; just how does Saul remain so emotionless in the face of such unspeakable horror? How can he, for example, not even give a sign of disgust as he drags corpses across a blood-streaked gas chamber floor, or as he is forced to dance for a room full of sneering Nazi guards?

In this sense we do not get to 'know' Saul in the sense that we would typically come to know a protagonist. But there are some clues thrown our way; a passing reference to a conversation from a less hellish time, a couple of moments where we sense his mind has gone blank, and the prevailing sense of his determination. And the driving mechanism for the film is a clue also; Saul becomes steadily more obsessed with a young boy who comes coughing out of the gas chamber and dies shortly after, seeking a proper burial for him. This is the plot in its entirety.

Stanley Kubrick once stated that the problem with "Schindler's List" was that it took a moment of despair in the human race, and turned into a story of hope. Kubrick no doubt would have strongly approved of this film, for it is hopeless (although not nihilistic, thankfully). It stares into the horror and does not ask us for an opinion, or a reaction; instead, to simply observe. It is a fearfully convincing recreation, and I had to look away in all the obvious places.

This is mainly due to the cinematography from Mátyás Erdély, which adopts Saul's perspective and immerses us in it, and the production design from Lászlá Rajk, which is sharp and brutalist, all dingy concrete underground rooms and long off-white corridors leading round into nameless horror (as it should be, as it was).

As the story goes on, we realise that the Saul's journey can be taken either as a Biblical attempt at redemption, or something more mundane, the last grasp of a man facing death attempting to salvage something, and going insane as he does so. In the end, ultimately, it does not matter; he is here, he is doing this, and this is what is. The chaos surrounding him is scary, but he is on a mission. The classical 1:33 aspect ratio is perfect for this, with its intimidating black bars at the side; it mirrors Saul's tunnel vision. The sound design is vast, overbearing, industrial, imposing. The final moments are staggering in both their power and their logic.

However, when I said that the film has a mechanism, I do not mean this in a positive way. For a film staged so excellently and so thematically powerful, being reminded that we are in fact watching a film is one of the last things you want; we should be immersed completely. But there are moments here and there; shots left too long out of focus, as if to say... Well, what? Technique is left to creep in where it shouldn't have done. And when the film breaks its predominant focus on Saul, as it does in a couple of scenes, I felt pulled out of it.

This is a dark and powerful piece, meticulously composed and unlike anything I've ever seen, especially on this topic. That it is so great makes its flaws that bit more jarring. Nevertheless, this is vital, devastating stuff, a film that feels like it needed to be made. And, well, good. Because it did. And, consequently, it needs to be seen too.

Review of Tyrannosaur (2011)

"Tyrannosaur", a sophomore directorial effort expanding a short film made four years prior, from that most gifted of British actors Paddy Considine, is principally a film about dichotomies. It presents two visions of hell, one terrifying, and one sad, and almost seems to let them battle it out against each other. It also concerns a man with a fractured psyche who has a deep wellspring of rage within him, but enough of a conscience to know that his actions are abhorrent. There's something Nietzschean, or perhaps Freudian, to his character, such is the intensity of the war ongoing between his id and his ego.

This man is called Joseph and is played by Peter Mullan in a naked, brave performance. The very first scene sees him stumbling out of a pub, drunken and rambling, angry at some trivial thing or another. It doesn't take much to set him off. His dog whimpers at him, and he kicks it. The dog dies. The next day, he buries it in his back garden.

Described here, one could very easily hate Joseph, but Considine seems to be telling us that to do so would be taking the easy way out. There's something to his grief, and tenderness, the way he caresses his dogs' paw after the event conveying a deep regret at his actions, and a deeper regret at his inability to stop himself from performing them.

Joseph's world is the sad vision of hell.

Events place him in the company of the timid, Christian, charity shop worker Hannah (Olivia Colman). There is no easy rapport between them to begin with, and theirs is not some love story. Her innate goodness results in her trying to console him, but he lashes out and deeply insults her. Later she returns home to a pleasant suburban house, quietly drinks a lot of wine while sat on the sofa, and when she has passed out her husband James (Eddie Marsan) returns home and urinates on her.

Olivia's world is the terrifying vision of hell. A wedding photo of the pair hangs large in their living room, almost as a reminder of how dire her situation has become and how much has been lost in her life.

Indeed, for me the film's strongest and most affecting writing came in the presentation of their abusive relationship. James decides to beat her up, and when Hannah comes into work the next day, her assertion that she "slipped in the bath" feels as well-rehearsed as an old stagehand performing the role of Banquo. Without ever, really, saying so Considine conveys the rise and fall and stagnation of an entire relationship. James' pitiful apology to Olivia, a scene I had to look away from, is so devastating because it implies a vicious ongoing cycle, and also because it subtly shows James wheedling Olivia into the perpetrator, and him the victim.

These two worlds are presented side by side, with Joseph and Olivia's relationship the focal point in the centre. They are both so hurt, and so wounded, that they see a little of themselves in each other, and hence against their natures get drawn towards each other.

They key to the film's success is that it is so accurate and rings to true about the characters and situations it depicts. I have met people like Joseph, whose lives revolve around rage, alcohol, and self-pity, with just enough humanity to know that if he really, really tried they could turn it around a little. I have met people like Hannah, who carry inside them a small glow of goodness which touches all they speak to. I have even, from afar, observed the actions of people like James, who defy understanding, in the way we can understand Joseph, and appear to have been born into this world as just pure evil.

A vision of the world this bleak needs an accompanying visual design, and thankfully Considine hired cinematographer Erik Wilson, one of the best working today, and he creates an oppressive and dreary atmosphere greyer than the M5. A couple of outdoor scenes I assumed were set indoors; that's how overcast the film is.

At this point you may be wondering why you'd want to see a film like this. A not entirely invalid question, since although this is a first-rate production it is in the service of a miserable plot. Yet... I can't say it transcends the misery, but there's so much artistry surrounding it and so much essential human truth at the centre of the film, and it conveys the themes so cogently and effectively that I can't help but recommend it most highly.

Films like this, I think, are best for allowing us to observe worlds which we may not come into contact with, and hence it deserves respect. Bad things like this do happen, and just as we should not ignore them when they do, so, too, I don't think we should ignore this film.

Review of Sightseers (2013)

It reads like some kind of bizarre story you'd get in the back pages of a shady pulp magazine; or perhaps more like something you'd find plastered on the front pages of one of those glossy, grotesque "True Life Stories" magazines you assume no-one buys, yet someone must. A happy couple, in their mid-30's, on a caravanning holiday, which would end in a string of senseless murders.

He is Chris, played by Steve Oram, an amiable, bearded man, the kind of bloke you'd happily chat to down the pub. Bearded and opinionated in that way that British men in their mid-30's often are, he seems sensible, friendly, and almost remarkably normal. She is Tina, played by Alice Lowe, and her character is a bit more complicated. She's cute, pretty, but we sense a supreme loneliness inside her. Perhaps Chris is the first guy who's paid attention to her in a while. That she lives with her demanding, overbearing mother Carol (Eileen Davies), feels like a clue.

The very first scenes, with Tina preparing for the holiday, are like Mike Leigh on downers, as Carol bitterly spits in Chris' face "I don't like you" after he promises to bring back Tina safely. It's an odd opening, lacking any big laughs to hook the audience in, but funny enough to let us know we're watching a comedy, and it does set up the characters very well. The early scenes with the holiday itself work too; Chris and Tina are genuinely in love, and seem to complete each other in quite an endearing way. I liked them both throughout.

But all is not quite right; a man drops a Cornetto wrapper (a nod to the Cornetto Trilogy, I imagine, since Edgar Wright produced this film) on a tram, and Chris gets unduly enraged. Later he runs the man over with his caravan, in front of the man's wife and child, in what appears to be a terrible accident, although you can't help but notice Chris' little smirk...

Perhaps you can see where this is going. It is not long before Chris has pushed a man called Ian (Jonathan Aris) off a rock-face, seemingly for no other reason than Chris really didn't take to him. Tina finds out, but seems nonplussed at Chris' confession; "You can't do that... You'll ruin our holiday!." The bodies begin to mount up after that, but this is not some caravanning slasher flick. It's quite a hard film to peg, actually, but certainly a very intelligent one, and that's what I loved about it. Think a British "Badlands", where the characters have doubled in age and are prone to worry about not finding the right pasta sauce in a different town..

The film has a commitment to mundanity which is quite remarkable. It was quite uncomfortable to watch in places, actually, because it skewers a number of things which are very accurate about British life. Buying mints at petrol stations; holiday itineraries; the National Trust; the Daily Mail; the way some people get really, really funny about dog crap. Again, Edgar Wright's influences are writ large, but where his Shaun of the Dead poked fun at British life, director Ben Wheatley seems to dissect it and lay it bare. The film is so effective because you could probably edit out the killings, and you'd be left with quite a touching, romantic little love story.

But the killings are there, and this marriage of the macabe and the mundane becomes more pressing as the film goes on. It would, weirdly enough, make a fantastic double bill with John McNaughton's "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer", a film I admire very much, which intercut scenes of brutality with scenes of the killers shooting the breeze and drinking coffee. I watched this film with my father, who made a fair observation halfway through that this is, probably, what a fair few serial killers live like. Certainly, the perverse normality of it all made me relate to Chris and Tina, which made me creep-y and crawl-y, and there's something to be said for Chris' complete and utter lack of guilt, or remorse, and the way he treats all this as just a fact of life.

The film goes to some darker and deeper places later on, and I won't ruin how, but I will say to keep a very close eye on Tina and her behaviour in the final act. The film itself retains a mordant, unrepentant eye on the pair's actions, and as an audience we almost feel like accomplices ourselves. It is also very funny, never in a particularly laugh-out-loud way (although there are some good laughs), but it's more... Amusing. Constantly dancing on that knife-edge between discomfort and hilarity. And that works quite well. Perhaps if it had been too funny, that would have distracted from the bigger things at work under the surface.

A final note must also go to Laurie Rose's brilliant cinematography. She worked on Wheatley's "Kill List", which was a cultish, psychedelic hitman movie, and utterly unforgettable, in no small part due to her downright freaky shot arrangements. Here she keeps the creepy compositions down to a bare minimum, but allows for a few moments of beauty. The moment where Chris kills Ian has the most effective use of chiaroscuro, and is just fancy enough to let the audience know that the rest of the films' look, which has a kitchen-sink, warts-and-all feel to it, was a conscious choice.

This is a subversive, discomforting film, hilarious in the right places, gruesome in others, and has that quality that means it grows in the mind as you think about it. The script, credited to the principal actors, has that very British ad-libbed feel to it, which is perfect here. It's just vague enough to interpret, but overt enough to let you know it knows what it's doing, and it has a peculiar mood which is hard to describe but very easy to feel. In short, it's just right, and if that sounds like damning with faint praise then think about how many films you've seen which don't put a foot wrong from the first frame to the last. This is one of those films, and it's a rarity, and it deserves to be seen.

Review of Tom At The Farm (2013)

Tom At The Farm, the latest film from the prolific and prodigious Quebecois auteur Xavier Dolan and adapted from Michel Marc Bouchard's play, announces itself with a stillness and tranquillity bordering on the unsettling. This is unlike what we have seen from him before. It is also very effective; we see Tom (Dolan) driving towards the eponymous farm, in an overhead shot that recalls Haneke's "Funny Games". He destroys his sat-nav system in a rage. Then he arrives at his destination, and walks around. The camera follows him with a Kubrickian feel to it; think a rural "The Shining". His phone is out of signal. Nobody is at home. He walks around the farm, getting his bearings. 

In short, Tom is utterly alone, and Dolan's new found restraint has exacerbated this feeling into an almost nightmarish vision of isolation. These are new notes from someone who was teetering on the edge of repeating himself. Gone are the histrionics (mostly), gone is the slow-motion (mostly), and gone are the doe-eyed relationships obfuscated by the characters blinkered self-centredness (definitely). This is Dolan on horror mode, thriller mode, mystery mode, and the result is a confounding, taut and often beautiful tale full of small erotic pulls, subversive whims, and a certain dissonant quality. This is Dolan's artistic maturity.

Tom is at the farm for his recently deceased lover Guillaume's funeral. First he meets Guillaume's mother Agathe (Lise Roy), a widow. Something in her words, and Tom senses that she didn't know about Guillaime and Tom's relationship. That was some intuition; later, Guillaume's brother Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) wakes Tom up in the middle of the night, holds him down by the mouth and tells him that he isn't going to tell Agathe the truth, he's going to say something nice at the funeral, and then quietly leave Francis and Agathe alone forever. 

Quite why Francis is so desperate to conceal the truth from Agathe is never made clear; Agathe gives off no indication of being homophobic or backwards, and seems like the accepting type. She was expecting a girlfriend to turn up, but that's only because Francis lied to her in the first place. The film toys with incestuous overtones, but not too seriously. This is simply the first of many unanswered questions.

After a funny/painful/sad funeral scene, the film consists of the ever-shifting relationship between Tom and Francis, veering from the amorous (such as in a sequence where the pair rapturously dance the tango in a barn) to what feels like Stockholm Syndrome (in a scene where Tom refuses to leave the farm). It remains maddeningly enigmatic. For example, why does Tom feel such an affinity with Francis when he is so cruel to him? Why is Tom so willing to stay in such utterly hellish surroundings? What is Francis even doing? Is he a sociopath, or worse? Is a revelation regarding Tom and Guillaume towards the end to be believed?  

There is a scene, near the end, in a bar, which I suppose could be taken as an explanation for a fair amount of the above, but to me that seems like the easy way out. This is a film that doesn't want to answer any questions in particular, and that languishes in the murkiest depths of human nature. It's never willing to stick with one genre at any given time; the film can go from resembling "Calvaire" in one scene to some kind of hellish Mike Leigh picture in the next. Everything about it seems geared to keep the viewer on their toes. 

Thematically, it does match up with Dolan's previous work in the near-Oedipal overtones and the consistent obsession with the relationship between mothers and sons. But those are just Dolan's backgrounds; such as Fellini made films about women, Bergman about God, Kieslowski about human relationships, so to does Dolan stick with that one core idea. 

But here, we see him start to spin out a new web from this core, and seeing it is as exciting and bold as the films from the masters I have listed above; company in which I have long thought Dolan belongs, sure, but here is a film which would surely prove it to the sceptic. It's a fearsome, bold move and a fearsome, bold movie. 

Review of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (2007)

That title refers to the amount of time Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) has had a foetus in her body, although the film never quite spells it out. We do not, in fact, find out that Gabita is pregnant until about half an hour into the film, after we have observed the actions of her friend Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) as she goes about, collecting money, booking hotels, buying cigarettes, promising her boyfriend Adi (Alexandru Potocean) that she will make it to his mother's birthday party at five, and meeting up with a softly spoken yet menacing abortionist (Vlad Ivanov) to finalise the details. It is 1987 in Romania; abortion is very illegal, and if the foetus is over four months old, then the abortionist will go to jail for murder, not simply abortion.

Cristian Mungiu, the director, keeps us on our toes for these early scenes, and I was reminded of a film called "Le Fils" by the Belgian Dardenne Brothers. That film, which is a masterpiece, has an opening half hour in which we see a portly, divorced man stalking a young child before... Well, I wouldn't dream of ruining it, but the Dardennes took us around the trees before arriving at the forest. The same is the case here. This film also shares a liberal use of a handheld camera, and a certain slice-of-life feeling which goes hand in hand with a realism which the film doggedly pursues.

This is an immersive film, then, which is trying to plant us firmly in the shoes of its characters. It does an interesting thing in not, actually, being about Gabita but Otilia instead. In doing so, it completely dodges any ethical consideration of the issues of abortion. This is firmly a document of what happens when someone decides to have an abortion. Any reaction, good or bad, lies firmly in the hands of the viewer, and for that matter my opinion remains unchanged (abortion is sometimes a necessary evil and each case must be taken on its own terms).

What this film most resembles is a thriller with roots firmly in the character study. We get to know Otilia, and we discover that she is a very good person who goes way, way, way above and beyond the call of duty in helping her friend. Gabita is a lot more selfish, and seems to be at least partially blind to the sacrifices Otilia is making of her. However, once more in the tradition of the Dardenne brothers, we do not feel pushed to judge one side or another. This is simply how it is; circumstances have simply fallen this way. This is how these people are. The excellent performances from all concerned inform this objectivity.

There is a certain political element to the film as well; abortion might not be discussed, bet we do know it is illegal, and the recurrent use of ID cards both as plot device and a dating/setting device recalls a police state.

The film also does an interesting thing in taking on the qualities of a thriller; for better or for worse, this is a truly nerve-wracking film. One 20 minute scene between the abortionist, Otilia and Gabita, had me genuinely tensed up, and there's a genius 10 minute still take at a dinner table which, when you take the characters frame of mind into account, becomes torturous. This is where the camerawork comes into its own; the raggedy, loose style informed by the handheld camera allows us to share the state of mind of the characters perfectly; I've long thought that the best thing a director can do is allow a camera to reflect the mental states of the characters, so we feel as opposed to simply know their plight, and this film has that in abundance.

Yet... I do not think this film is a masterpiece. I see it has 97 on Metacritic, and that's not a score to be sniffed at, yet looking over the reviews they seem to be mainly superficial; Joe Morgenstern claims it is an "elegantly crafted, brilliantly acted film". Rene Rodriguez claims it is "brilliant and suspenseful". Kenneth Turan claims it has "a commitment to reality unlike any we're used to seeing".

That's all well and good; really, it is. On a purely superficial level, this film is an astonishment. Yet there does seem to be something reductive about how it takes it's subject matter and makes a thriller out of it. I hate to sound greedy, but it could have gone deeper. I'm going to recall "Le Fils" again, because that film had scenes that were similarly armchair-gripping, and yet when I recall the final scene, I see it as a totem of the most absolute form of forgiveness, and a statement on our capabilities for empathy as a species.

Alas, no such luck. Normally I would not take such an abstruse form of criticism, but this has the form and feel of a masterpiece... What a shame, then, that it's a four star must-see as opposed to a five star enduring classic. Still, though, that does mark it as a must-see and that's more than enough for most people.