Jamie passion and passionfruit!

The comedy sensation of the year in the northern hemisphere and a film that reminds you of those fake tour guides to places that exaggerate all their worst features but are sufficiently accurate to be recognisable.  Here we have a snapshot of a backward Kazakhstan through the eyes of our host Borat, a local TV reporter.  It looks like a pretty ghastly place.  And then we have his trip and report from the US where he hopes to get some tips on how to benefit his country culturally.  This section sees him interview and meet loads of ordinary candid Americans who naively describe their country to him and their likes and dislikes.  It gets to be hilarious at times but also gives us an insight into where the lines are between acceptable and taboo behaviour and the differences between generations and social groups.  There is a lot of material to chew on in this film and you have a good time watching it if you like studying people.  Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat is a star and creates a most watchable character.  However, when the 90 minutes were up I had strangely had enough.  I could watch it again but it is a movie for small doses and it does require some suspension of belief.  Very perceptive and well made, it falls short of great but I did laugh out loud and for a film these days it is a real plus.

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Robert Altman’s swan song and a fictional film version of a real life mid Western radio show complete with live guests singing ad jingles and singing cowboys with jokes.  It is all good fun and a typical Altman choral production.  Not too much of a story – the film depicts a fictional last night of the programme and how the various performers cope with it in between the songs and gags.  We also have a strange private detective, a mystery angel of death (tough part for Virginia Madsen), the new owner who comes to see the last night and the make up ladies, stage managers, sandwich sellers, etc.  Part of it is a nostalgic look back at the past and how it inevitably must die off – the show is like a person in this respect.  Garrison Keillor, the real-life presenter of the show is the centre of the film, he sings and MC’s in an affable country style.  Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep do a fine routine as singing sisters with plenty of comic timing, Woody Harrelson and John C Reilly are risque cowboys and Lindsay Lohan, Kevin Kline and others give us their talents.  It is a pleasant film about living for the moment, being yourself and honouring the past but being ready to move on.  I liked it without raving about it.

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This may not be the most monumental film ever made but I had a ball and liked it better than almost anything I have seen for ages.  Would I see it again? Yes, yes, yes!!!

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Clint Eastwood can be depended on to serve up a good film and even more so these days when he adds certain messages of wisdom as he does in  this one.  The film has a very interesting approach to war.  One is the issue that often returned servicemen refuse to talk about their experiences, partly because of the horror they experienced and do not wish to remember or because it is too difficult to recount in a digestible way for the public.  Another issue is society’s desire to make heroes of the soldiers when they often feel they no more deserve this than their dead comrades.  All this is seen in Eastwoods retelling of the battle for Iwo Jima (very good battle scenes) and the aftermath when three of the ‘heroes’ are swept back into a sickening  parade across the country recreating the flag raising and encouraging the public to buy bonds.  These entertainment showpieces are common today and Eastwood subtly questions the morality of this.  The acting, special effects and direction are all fine with Adam Beach as the Indian member of the trio who sees through all the sham being particularly convincing and Ryan Philippe giving us a sober performance.  The down side would be some over repetitive dialogue and one or two mawkish scenes at the end – you can’t avoid Hollywood and Spielberg as the producer.  But there is no denying the importance of this film as a point of debate and as an addition to the interpretations of the military history of the US.  It may not be Clint’s greatest but it is a worthy addition to his work.

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Oscar winner for South Africa about the change of heart in the mind of a young Soweto thug.  I can’t say that I was so enthralled by it as some of its critics.  The story is OK (adapted from Athol Fugard’s only novel and updated to today) and there are some good scenes but there are also parts that I found a little irritating like the rather overblown finale and the use of sepia brown to shadow in all the shanty town scenes.  On the other hand, there are some great moments as Tsotsi, who in his robbing ends up with a baby on his hands, has to go off looking for a ‘surrogate mother’ for the boy and when he gets into an existentialist debate with a legless beggar he was planning on mugging.

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I think this is the first Senegalese film I’ve seen although the credits suggest it was shot in Burkina Faso.  It tackles the topic of female circumcision and was filmed by Ousmane Sembene, the 80 year-old leading  director in the country.  The action takes place in a village when 4 young girls seek refuge in the house of an older woman to avoid this garish and common practice which results frequently in their deaths.  She has to protect them while they are in her care unless she decides to encant a prayer that lifts this state.  As she is a fervent anti-circumcision supporter she decides to keep up the protection which brings out over half the village against her and especially all the men who cling to tradition and their interpretation of Islam to support it.  What they can’t bear is women getting the upper hand and they have confiscated radios in the village so the women can’t get information even from the religious elders over the radio.  The film is really then a feminist movie and it does have a pretty graphic and dark side which does no credit to the view of the oppressive men.   We also get a look at African village life and all this has wider ramifications for what we uphold in life and in the world today.  Beautiful African music, colourful setting and photography and a well acted and told universal story, this film is one to remember and cherish for its stand and its energy.

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Suspend disbelief a little and this one is a winner.  Patrick/Kitten is a gay orphan left on a minister’s (Liam Neeson) doorstep in Ireland.  His childhood is full of fantasy and dressing up and once he becomes old enough to leave home he heads off in search of his mother who was last heard of in London.  This means a whole lot of adventures as Kitten struggles to survive on the streets but he is always ready with a quick quip.  The cultural references (the wombles of Wimbledon included), the great music (Bobby Goldsboro’s Honey is repeatdly played and the mother was supposed to resemble Mitzi Gaynor and the guest actors (Bryan Ferry and Stephen Rea as a hilarious magician) all delight.  The story has its pathos, its humour and its social points all made with great lightness and with the wit expected of Neil Jordan.  His and Pat Mc Cabe’s script is excellent and Cillian Murphy shines in the lead role.  It may not be a masterpiece but this is a most refreshing and entertaining piece of cinema.

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An interesting set-up in which to explore the concept of betrayal.  The film features an outpost in the French colonial war in Algeria in 1960 when French forces fought against the independence seeking rebels.  In the French camp are four Algerians who are expected to translate and help the colonisers evict families from country settlements suspected of sheltering the rebel forces.  Are they betraying their own countrymen?  As the film progresses the group becomes increasingly isolated from the rest of the Army.  Are they untrustworthy?  Or is the suspicion unwarranted and simply racist?  Does the Army betray them or are they plants in the army to sabotage their acts.  The film is about this and seen largely through the eyes of a lieutenant Roque who wants to think the best of his men but is obliged to take some tough decisions.  The photography is excellent and the acting of Vincent Martinez and Ahmed Berrahma is all that you could expect.  Trouble is the film grinds along in a minimalist way with verrrrrrry  slow pacing at times and the dramatic tension is largely dissipated.  A pity because it wastes a good subject.

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A look at a group of police investigating crime in an inner-city Parisian police station with a particular focus on the head of the unit, recovering alcoholic Caroline, (Nathalie Baye) and the newcomer of petit lieutenant of the title Antoine (Jalil Espert).  This is a no nonsense realistic police film on the one hand and an exploration of human relationships on the other – in the context of the force.  How does a woman fit in, a Moroccan (the excellent Roschdy Zem), a newcomer from the provinces?  To what extent can the rules be bent?  Where is the line between work and leisure?  How do you unwind from some of the awful sights you see?  These are common fodder for police movies but the difference here is that there are no pat answers, life’s awkward situations arise and just as awkwardly people learn to deal with them.  It is a well-shot film, with perhaps the slow initial pace being to its disadvantage.  The film reaks authenticity and the director followed a police team around for months before writing it.  Apart from the very competent acting of Espert and Zem, the honours belong to Nathalie Baye, a deserving French César winner for this part in which she gives us a portrayal of a contradictory and yet compassionate woman with a long history behind her.  All round a good two hours spent in the cinema.

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Seen after Babel, I liked this a lot.  Again it is not perfect and as a slowish moving movie which does not resolve all its issues it is unlikely to get nearly the same public acclaim as Babel but in many ways I found it far more authentic and moving.  It remains to be seen if audiences grasp the multiple questions that director and writer Anthony Minghella offers us up for debate. Jude Law plays very well in an ambiguous human role as Will, a landscaper who becomes a sort of local vigilante when his offices in a part of London under gentrification is repeatedly broken into.  When he discovers that the culprit is a young Bosnian refugee, he ends up having an affair with the boy’s mysterious and vulnerable mother (excellent Juliette Binoche).  This causes its own repercussions both with respect to the crime and to Will’s relationship with his partner Liv (also excellent Robin Wright Penn) who has a semi-autistic thirteen year-old daughter creating mayhem.  There are various subplots which relate to the Serbian thieves, an understanding cop, Will’s business partner and a Romanian prostitute (hilariously played by Vera Farmiga).  For me, it all fitted in together well and I found myself gripped by the story and the issues it raises with respect to property and theft and theft of time and emotions.   It is a rich film with a look at modern London and the dilemmas we face today.

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Whoa!  This one is a hard one!  With huge handfuls of award nominations and reviews from damning to effusive, whatever you say about this film is likely to upset someone.  Certain points were clear to me and certain things I liked and disliked.  It is definitely a contrived film with storylines written to convey messages about our inability to communicate effectively.  As most things in the film it both serves the film and works against it.  Gonzalez Iñarritu is a great constructor of images and of dramatic scenes which at times become almost overly graphic.  Did I like the three stories aspect?  Yes and no.  At times it seemed that leaving one story to focus on another was unfair.  The Japanese story could have been told on its own as it had far less in common than the others and I actually enjoyed it more.  Rinku Kikuchi is a great find in a very difficult role as the deaf mute.  The link between her father’s gun and the mayhem in Morocco is purely symbolic and unnecessary.  Not many people mention it – a few on blogs do – and that is that apart from the issue of communication, there is another theme in the movie.  The issue of stupidity!  It is a little blunt to mention it but the dramatic tension of the movie is partly built on the fact that people make stupid decisions.  The maid’s decision to take her charges out of the US without their parent’s approval and without her own papers in order is stupidity and nearly every other action taken on the fateful return is stupid.  Fair enough, we take wrong decisions in moments of crisis but is this a good base on which to construct a message to learn from?  Stupidity is also present in the Moroccan part – the parent letting his boys use a gun that is clearly too much for them and then the stupidity of the governments which prevents an early resolution of the problem with the injured wife.  Selfishness goes hand in hand with this and it is amazing to see that none of the passengers has any concern for the injured woman.  This stretching to extremes by the director and writer undermines their credibility in parts.  Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal all do good work in their roles and as the maid Adriana Barraza is fine.  Rodrigo Prieto’s photography is very beautiful in a slightly cliched way, Gustavo Santaollala’s music accompanies the film well but at the end of the day, the contrived nature of the story and the way our emotions are artificially manipulated by the director detracts from its overall effect.  When he is good, as in most of the Japanese part and in some other scenes, Gonzalez Iñarritu is excellent.  The rest of the time, it is like watching an accomplished director of advertising.

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