Film Reviews by RJ

This is one of those occasions where I don't have to go to the trouble of writing a review, because two other Paradiso members (NP and Count Otto Black) have already written helpful, insightful reviews to which I would add nothing.

I will say that it took me two viewings to appreciate this film, having gone in knowing almost nothing about it and expecting a more conventional narrative. After the first viewing I did a bit of reading about the film (including the two reviews I mentioned above) and on second viewing it was like I was watching a completely different film.

A delightful, imaginative meditation on fairy tales - I loved it.

The high-concept premise of this film sounds irresistible - H.G. Wells uses his time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper from Victorian London to 1970s San Francisco - but it turns out to be less fun than you might imagine.

It starts promisingly enough, with a satisfyingly unconvincing evocation of the streets of Victorian London, during a prologue in which the Ripper is unmasked before making his escape via Wells' homemade time machine. Luckily, as he does not have the "non-return key" (yes, really), the machine automatically returns to its starting point and Wells considers himself duty bound to pursue the escaped murderer.

Sadly this early promise is not sustained for long. Once the characters have arrived in the contemporary setting, the filmmakers seem unsure what kind of tone to adopt and how seriously they intend the material to be taken. There are a few half-hearted bits of fish-out-of-water comedy, one or two desultory attempts at social commentary, and also what seems to be a genuine attempt to make a tense, exciting thriller. Overall, it isn't directed with the zest and energy required for such a self-evidently bonkers plot.

This lethargy is largely reflected in the acting as well. David Warner and Malcolm McDowell are both good actors, but they seem oddly subdued here. Warner's Ripper is tame and bloodless so there is no real sense of menace, whilst McDowell's Wells is a dull hero. Mary Steenburgen is better as Wells' love interest, but unfortunately her character, initially quite interesting, gradually diminishes to that of damsel in distress.

The final nail in the coffin - the curse of most, if not all, time travel narratives - is that it keeps tripping up on its own logic. To accept the sense of jeopardy that the narrative attempts to create, you have to ignore the fact that Wells could just use his machine to go back in time over and over again, in the manner of Groundhog Day or Source Code, until he achieved the required outcome.

There were a lot of things I liked about this film - the icy atmosphere, the eerie score, the set design, the performances. Some of the individual scenes have lingered in my mind since watching it. The trouble is, I just don't think that it ultimately adds up to very much, or that there is any great level of intellectual depth to it.

The plot of the film, a MacGuffin about convicts on a mission to harness energy from a black hole, doesn't stand up to scrutiny, which doesn't necessarily matter all that much, but I do think it weakens the film because the situation the characters find themselves in is so vaguely explained that it becomes difficult to properly engage with their plight.

I watched the film twice, but I remain unconvinced that there is any serious intellectual enquiry going on here, whether it be into the ethics of how prisoners are treated, or existentialism, or gender roles etc etc.

I don't know for sure, but my guess would be that the genesis of this film was in images rather than ideas, and there is certainly some memorable imagery. But impressive cinematography and a glacial, claustrophobic atmosphere can only carry a film so far, and I found that after about an hour the sense I had was that the film was drifting as aimlessly as the ship. Ultimately, it ends with the inevitable ambiguous ending, leaving the impression of a superficially very enjoyable film which could have been a true masterpiece with a bit more substance.

In terms of the history of cinema, this is an extremely valuable collection. It's little short of a miracle that nearly all of Chaplin's Keystone films survive at all, and it is testament to the painstaking restoration efforts of the various parties involved that they exist in the state presented here.

But what can the viewer expect from sitting through all 35 of the films in this set, including the feature length 'Tillie's Punctured Romance', constituting more than 9 hours of viewing? Frankly, they can expect a test of patience and endurance, and slim pickings when it comes to entertainment. You will need to be either seriously interested in Chaplin, seriously interested in the history of cinema, or just very stubborn indeed to make it through the entire set (or, like me, a combination of the three).

I went into this having never really seen anything earlier, in terms of film comedy, than Chaplin's feature films (starting with The Kid in 1921) and some of Buster Keaton's short films, like Sherlock Jr (1924). I'd certainly never seen a Keystone film, despite being vaguely aware of the concept of the Keystone Cops. The films presented here were all made in 1914, and I was genuinely taken aback by how crude, repetitive and unsophisticated they are. It's a relentless stream of kicks to the backside, people falling over and waggling their legs in the air, chucking bricks at each other and falling into lakes. On one hand it is mystifying to think that audiences at the time howled with laughter at these antics, which undoubtedly they did - on the other hand, it would hardly be difficult to make a case to say that modern mainstream audiences continue to flock to the cinema to see extremely repetitive films (Marvel, Fast and Furious, endless sequels and reboots etc).

It must be remembered that this was Chaplin's first foray into film, and at the beginning he had little or no creative input, having been hired primarily to replace the outgoing Ford Sterling (seen here giving a ghastly, gurning performance in 'A Thief Catcher). It's well documented that Chaplin did not think much of Keystone's frenetic, chaotic approach to comedy. It's also worth acknowledging that these films were churned out at an unbelievable rate - all 35 films presented here were made and released in 1914, and these are only the films featuring Chaplin - I am sure a great many more not featuring him were made in the same period. So, for me the main point of interest in making my way painstakingly through all of these films was to look for evidence of how Chaplin tried to work within the restrictions of the studio's requirements, how, if at all, he was able to subvert them, and to look for evidence of his development towards the figure of the Little Tramp that he would later become so famous before.

I say that he would later become the Little Tramp, because although the embryonic beginnings of the tramp character are in evidence here, it is a far cry from the character you would recognise from Chaplin's feature films. In these early shorts the tramp is a rather unlikeable character, with a cruel, vindictive and violent nature.

After a while, Chaplin begins to get some creative control, being allowed to write and direct the films himself, and from that point onwards there is some evidence of creative growth and an attempt at least to move away from Keystone's conception of comedy. But it is a gradual, faltering process, and the necessity to keep churning these films out means that plenty of the Chaplin-directed ones are just as tiresome and forgettable as the earlier one. But there are glimpses of light: 'Dough and Dynamite' is still reliant on slapstick but it is at least slightly more refined and artful; 'The New Janitor' is probably the best film on here and the clearest indication of where Chaplin was heading.

For the rest, enjoyable performances from the likes of Chester Conklin and especially Mack Swain help to lift the spirits.

I only have myself to blame for the two hours I wasted on this. From what little I knew about it (I always try to go into films as unspoilt as possible), I didn't think it sounded like something I would like, but I allowed myself to be swayed by the almost unanimous praise it received upon release.

So, as stated in pretty much every review I have seen of this film, it is a 'perfect homage' to cheap exploitation horror films of the 60's/70's. Anna Biller is the very definition of an auteur on this film - in addition to writing, producing and directing it she also did the music, the costumes and the sets. I gather it was seven and a half years in the making and it clearly must have been a painstaking project into which Biller poured all of her creative heart and soul. The question that kept occurring to me was - why?? Why so much effort to create a tonally perfect copy of any number of cheap horror flicks? Is there anything beneath this artificial veneer?

The depth that so many critics seem to have found here is supposedly to do with a feminist subversion of traditional gender roles. As far as I could see this amounted to a couple of the male characters being portrayed as infantile idiots unable to deal with having real emotions and..... that was about it.

The Sight and Sound review of this film opens by saying that this is a film that 'demands more than one viewing' in order to appreciate the 'razor-sharp subtext'. I am absolutely willing to believe that might be the case - I've misjudged plenty of films on first viewing before - but it will be a long while before I could consider sitting through this again.

Update 18th Feb 2020:

Just thought it was interesting to note that as of today, 2 out of 2 people have marked my review as 'Not Helpful', and the other review has 3 out of 3 'Not Helpful' ratings - why are these people not writing reviews of their own I wonder?

Booksmart is not a work of dazzling originality - then again, I would be surprised if anyone renting it was expecting it to be. I confess that I am a bit of a sucker for American high-school-coming-of-age films, and for me their familiarity is part of their appeal. There are many films I watch because I want to be challenged, so for a bit of balance I like to watch the occasional film that absolutely doesn't challenge me, but does entertain me - Booksmart fits that bill.

It has a plot you have seen before; characters you have seen before; situations you have seen before - therefore it lives or dies on the strength of its script, performances and direction, all of which - in my opinion - have a pretty high success rate here. At a nice, concise 98 minutes it is punchy, energetic and just about manages to avoid sagging too much at any point. The crucial chemistry between the two lead characters worked well and there are a lot of fun performances from the supporting cast. I was consistently entertained as the film took me on a familiar journey down well-trodden paths - which is all that I could possibly ask of a film in this genre.

Ikarie XB 1 is a spaceship en route to Alpha Centauri, its mission to discover extraterrestrial life on the mysterious white planet. The crew of around 40 people must deal with the dangers and existential consequences of travelling through deep space, light-years away from Earth. The dangers include an ancient 20th Century (the film is set in the 22nd Century) derelict spacecraft which carries nuclear weapons, and a dark star which emits radiation powerful enough to impair the crew members' normal biological functions, threatening to send them into a sleep from which they will never wake. The existential aspects include the knowledge of a time dilation phenomenon meaning that when they return to Earth, everyone there will have aged 15 years more than they have themselves, as well as the extreme boredom inherent in their long journey.

It is an austere, understated film, in which even the most dramatic situations are not sensationalised. It reflects the optimism of communism which still existed behind the Iron Curtain at that time (1963) - aside from the occasional minor conflicts which are unavoidable in their isolated, claustrophobic situation, the crew is presented as a harmonious group working together, and their mission is one of peace.

It's a fascinating curiosity and it is thanks to the excellent Second Run DVD company that this film (and a great many others) has been saved from obscurity and can be seen is this lovingly restored state. There are some nice extras on the Blu-ray as well: an illuminating discussion of the film by Kim Newman; an interesting short film about mathematics from the same era as the film; and, best of all, alternate opening and closing scenes from the dubbed American version, complete with a tagged-on Planet of the Apes ending.

I'm going to start this review with a warning, for those who are affected by such things, that this film begins with footage showing the unsimulated slaughter of a pig (to make matters worse, this footage is then immediately rewound and shown again). I mention this because it is an emotive topic and I know some people would not be able to continue watching. I'm not sure exactly where I stand on this issue - I'm a vegetarian on the grounds of animal cruelty so this was hard for me to watch, but I did carry on watching. Although, as I said, I am vegetarian, I don't make it a habit to adopt strict ethical/moral stances on many issues because the water is normally murkier than one might think at first glance, and trying to be black-and-white about complex issues is problematic. Apparently in a later Haneke film, The Time of the Wolf, there is unsimulated slaughter of some horses - and as I've already bought the Haneke box set, I will have to confront this issue again when I get to that film.

For now, I'll try to get back to reviewing this film. I loved Haneke's first film (The Seventh Continent - my gushing review is available for your pleasure on this website) and as I'm working (slowly) through his films in chronological order, I can't help but review Benny's Video in comparison to the earlier film. Long story short, I found Benny's Video slightly less engaging and interesting on just about every level. The Seventh Continent seemed to me to have absolute clarity of both purpose and execution, whereas in Benny's Video the themes, ideas and storytelling techniques seem a bit jumbled. Thematically, like The Seventh Continent, it is concerned with a perceived moral and spiritual void at the heart of bourgeois, middle-class life, with the main addition being a contemplation of how both the consumption and the creation of video imagery affect this situation. I don't think it is straightforwardly didactic in the sense of 'blaming' mass media consumption for the act of murder that Benny commits - there are too many intentional ambiguities in the film for it to be taken that way.

I enjoyed the subtle suggestion that Benny's parents are secretly quite excited by the prospect of having a murder victim to dispose of, and the trip that Benny and his mother take to Egypt, filmed mostly on Benny's video camera, is hauntingly strange. But the ending is predictable (even if Benny's motives remain debatable) and overall I just didn't engage with it especially deeply. It's worth remembering that this film is now nearly 30 years old, and the mass consumption and creation of imagery has reached levels way beyond what is depicted in it, so maybe it has suffered a little bit from becoming dated in that aspect.

A worthy narrative and uniformly good performance aren't quite enough to sustain this film. The first 45 minutes are quietly effective, with a simmering intensity. Some of the earlier scenes - in particular the one in which Tish's family break the news of her pregnancy to Fonny's (mostly) disapproving family - really crackle with drama. Unfortunately, around half way through it all just starts to fizzle out. There is no variety to the narrative methods employed here as Barry Jenkins maintains a languid, quiet tone for the full duration. Many of the more interesting secondary characters drift out of the film as it progresses, and the themes introduced in the first half of the film are not really developed any further. A watchable drama but not likely to live very long in the memory.

I think the conclusion I have come to after watching this is that it is a film with plenty of merit but maybe just not quite to my taste. It has good performances, particularly from Sandrine Bonnaire as Suzanne and from the director Maurice Pialat as her father. It reminded me superficially of a more recent French film I watch, Jeune et Jolie, as both deal with the turbulent sexual awakening of teenage girls. I definitely think this is a superior film, with warmth, empathy and humour which, so far as I recall, were rather lacking in Jeune et Jolie.

There are plenty of interesting themes/ideas here: there is the coming-of-age/sexual awakening aspect; extremely dysfunctional family dynamics; how/if sex and love can be combined; a touch of Jung's Electra complex; what people are willing to sacrifice to attain money and/or fulfil ambition. I could go on - yet for all this, I somehow couldn't find a way in to this film, something to really grab hold of and identify with. Maybe it is always going to be difficult for me, a nearly-forty-year-old man, to fully engage with the emotional turbulence of a teenage girl, but there is also something in the style of the film that kept me at arm's length. It's a restless film, going off at tangents and with many narrative ellipses - this is not a criticism, because given the story being told here, the form is suited to the content - but I did find, particularly towards the end when the narrative seems to jump forward in time almost every five minutes, that I was spending more time trying to work out how much time had passed and what was going on in the new timeframe than I was engaging with the story or the characters.

I suppose in the end my conclusion is that I haven't really come to a conclusion. I have my particular tastes, like everyone else, and I think that for all its merits A Nos Amours currently falls just outside of them. It wasn't wasted time by any means and I would happily watch another of Maurice Pialat's films if one happens to come my way, but I wouldn't actively seek them out.

The high concept premise of this low budget sci-fi film is that a spaceship ferrying passengers from the dying Earth to a colony on Mars ends up adrift in deep space following an accident that leaves them without fuel. It's a compelling scenario, albeit a rather implausible one - it is never convincingly explained why, in an era of such technological advancement, the ship has no ability to communicate with Earth/Mars/other spaceships after the accident, even though everything else on the extremely hi-tech ship is working perfectly.

If you can take a leap of faith and get past the plausibility of the situation, then it is without doubt rich in potential. With no hope of rescue, the ship essentially becomes a colony in itself and society must adapt to its new way of life. The implications and possibilities of the situation are varied and complex - in truth probably far more complex than any 90 minute film could hope to explore satisfactorily, which turns out to be the case here. What plays out is an episodic narrative full of underdeveloped ideas without any compelling characters to anchor them. It touches on artificial intelligence, consumerism, totalitarianism, the use of political lies to pacify and control the population, religious cults and plenty more besides. Unfortunately these themes are not explored in any depth, and the characters suffer from a similar superficiality. Throw in a crass, tasteless and unnecessary lesbian sex scene (surely conceived of solely for tantalising inclusion in the trailer) and the overriding sense is of filmmakers who probably started out with grand ambitions and good intentions but who sadly lacked the creativity, imagination and discipline to deal with such potent source material (the film is based on an epic Swedish sci-fi poem which I suspect is more successful at exploring the existential possibilities of a human colony drifting through space).

All of which is a shame because it is not entirely without merit. The set design and the special effects are good and they create a convincing environment for the action to take place in. It is ironic that these elements - those most likely to be affected by the evidently low budget - are convincing, whilst the elements that should not be affected by budget - creating interesting characters, developing ideas, basic storytelling - are the ones which ultimately let the film down.

Ray has gradually descended into alcoholism since being made redundant. His physical environment has shrunk from a terraced house, to a council flat, to a single room. His emotional environment has diminished too; his two sons are gone (one into adulthood, the other into social care) and his wife, Liz, has left him. Scenes of Ray eking out his lonely existence, subsisting on the 6 litres of home brew which his neighbour delivers to him on a daily basis, frame two memories from days gone by. They are not really Ray's memories, but those of his son, the film's director Richard Billingham - although large parts of these memories concern events that Richard did not directly witness and they are therefore hybrids of memory, imagination and stories told by other involved parties.

In the first part, Ray and Liz take Richard out shopping, leaving Ray's brother Lol, who has learning disabilities, in charge of their two year old son, Jason. Whilst they are out, their young lodger Will, who apparently has psychopathic tendencies, manipulates Lol into becoming paralytically drunk. Will then leaves again, setting everything up to seem that Lol ended up this way by himself - for which he ends up suffering brutally at the hands of Liz. This section is tense and deeply uncomfortable to watch and features a truly brilliant performance from Tony Way as Lol. I had seen him in many things before, usually in small, comedic roles but I had never seen him in anything like this. The innocence and terror that he brings to the character makes the unjust brutality of his punishment so hard to witness.

The second part takes place eight years later and concerns the events leading up to Jason being placed into social care. By this time, Ray and Liz have truly sunken into 'the passivity of poverty' (I'm borrowing this phrase from the Sight and Sound review, which itself takes its cue from Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier). They are barely even aware of the whereabouts of their young son, who eventually ends up nearly freezing to death after spending a winter night in the shed of a friend's neighbour, having become frightened and/or lost whilst attempting to make his way back home at night. There are some extremely touching scenes as Jason is temporarily taken in by his friend's mother - although not rich, they have many luxuries (and indeed basic necessities such as heating) that his own family do not.

Although undeniably bleak this is also a beautiful, poignant film and not by any means entirely devoid of humour. The cinematography is extraordinary and I was not surprised to find out after watching it that it was shot by Daniel Landin, who similarly found beauty in the unlikeliest of places in Jonathan Glazer's brilliant 'Under the Skin'. Despite the subject matter I would not classify this as being gritty, realist, kitchen-sink drama; the whole film is suffused with the poetry and melancholia of memory, which makes it something else altogether.

I found it fascinating, engaging and moving. Like another reviewer on this site, I will be remembering the name of its director, Richard Billingham - albeit for different reasons.

I only recently discovered the films of Karel Zeman - this is the second I have seen following 'Journey to the Beginning of Time'. If the most obvious comparison (albeit only superficial) to that film was the work of Ray Harryhausen, Munchausen is much more in the mould of Georges Méliès. It combines animation and live action to tell the fantastical tale of Baron Munchausen's adventures with 'Tony', an astronaut from Earth who Munchausen mistakenly assumes to be a native 'Moonman' (understandably, given that they meet on the moon, where Munchausen happens to be dining with characters from Jules Verne's 'From the Earth to the Moon' as well as 17th Century French poet Cyrano de Bergerac). The early scenes on the moon immediately recall Méliès' 'Le Voyage dans la Lune'.

Munchausen takes Tony back to what I would confidently describe as 'olden-days' Turkey (Wikipedia tells me it's 18th Century). The ironic joke running through the film is that although Munchausen believes himself to be a great hero, it is the unassuming Tony who almost unwittingly takes on that role, rescuing the damsel in distress Princess Bianca from the clutches of the sultan. The more serious theme of the film is the ability of science to put the imagination of man into practice. Munchausen (and his moon-based associate Cyrano de Bergerac) inhabit the world of poetry and fantasy, where the notion of the moon is pure imagination. During the course of the film the baton is essentially passed from these figures to Tony, who represents science and the ability to make these dreams real. Man first set foot on the moon at the end of the decade this film was made in.

The combination of live action and animation is really delightful and it has a great score/soundtrack (there were parts of it that reminded me of the score Air made for 'Le Voyage dans la Lune' a few years ago - I don't know if this is coincidence or whether they drew on this soundtrack for inspiration). It's also genuinely funny throughout and brilliantly performed by the whole cast.

I was not even remotely aware of the films of Karel Zeman until I spotted them whilst browsing in the surprisingly good World Cinema section of my local HMV a few weeks ago. The descriptions on the back of the Blu Rays sounded quite interesting and the mention of mixing live action with animated creatures had me anticipating something in the mould of Ray Harryhausen's films, but in actual fact this film is like a distantly related cousin to Harryhausen's work. Yes, there are stop-motion animated creatures but there are also puppets, 2D animation, even a few actors in suits I think. More significantly, however, is the difference in tone and mood. Whilst Harryhausen's films generally involve high melodrama, extreme peril and a sense of epic adventure, Journey to the Beginning of Time is a quiet, understated film. Although it has the plot of a Boy's Own style adventure, it is presented more in the manner of an educational wildlife documentary.

The fantastical elements of the plot are depicted in a wholly matter-of-fact way. No explanation whatsoever is given as to how or why the boys are able to row down a river that takes them back in time; they simply desire to do so and that is quite enough. The boys travel back through various time periods, observing the flora and fauna of each one as they pass through. With a couple of brief exceptions, the creatures they encounter do not represent a direct threat to the boys; they just roam their habitats, minding their own business whilst the boys record their observations in their log book.

The mixing of live action and the various forms of animation is not always seamless, but in my opinion this does not in any way diminish the film. I just cannot help but admire the creativity and imagination involved in making films like this. The young cast all give surprisingly natural performances which are entirely in keeping with the calm, observational tone of the film.

These days I seem to find myself less interested in categorising the films I see as 'good' or 'bad' - instead what I am always on the hunt for are films which I find interesting, unusual, memorable or different in some way to what I have seen before, and this certainly fit the bill for me. The poignant, melancholic image of a wounded Stegosaurus taking its last few breaths whilst watching the sunset is just one of quite a few moments that I think I will remember for some time.

In my opinion, Yorgos Lanthimos has never bettered his 2009 film Dogtooth. That film had a real impact on me back then, but since then he seems to have been repeating the formula (wacky high-concept scenario with stilted, deadpan delivery) with gradually diminishing returns. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) was verging on self-parody. After watching that I wondered where he could go next. The answer, provided in The Favourite, is more or less into the mainstream. Although this is clearly not a typical period piece, it seemed to me far more conventional than I expected. On the one hand I was relieved that he had left some of his more tiresome quirks behind but the downside is that The Favourite has ended up as a fairly bland and not especially memorable film. I really liked Olivia Colman's performance as Queen Anne. She plays her as petulant, vulnerable, paranoid, bored, capricious - for me she was the best thing about the film and the main reason I just about managed to maintain interest all the way to the end. The rest of the cast were good as well, but ultimately they are all engaged in a fairly routine tale of courtly intrigue and personal jealousy familiar from numerous other films and TV programmes.

I think it would be a fair criticism of Lanthimos to say that his films generally lack emotional engagement, relying instead on their surreality and occasional shock value for entertainment. Olivia Colman's Anne in The Favourite might be the closest Lanthimos has come to portraying a genuine human character - maybe this is the direction he needs to try and take in future to avoid being pigeon-holed as 'quirky, art-house director'.