Three Steps to Heaven

Monday August 4, 2008

Christopher Petit’s Radio On was made in 1979 and has achieved status as a cult, and extremely obscure, British road movie. Filmed in black and white and featuring a soundtrack including David Bowie and Kraftwerk, it’s a moody and experimental piece that offers a fascinating snapshot of England at the end of that troubled decade.

Radio On

Radio On has escaped my clutches until now, so thanks to the BFI for finally releasing it on DVD. I’ve been interested in catching up with this film for what seems like an eternity; for its acclaimed soundtrack and the use of the twin locations of London and Bristol, my two home towns. The film is probably most well known for featuring Sting in an early acting role, although don’t let that put you off – his performance is far superior to the one in his other 1979 film, Quadrophenia.

Hearing of his brother’s death, a man called Robert (David Beames) embarks on a journey from London to Bristol in his unreliable Rover, encountering several odd characters on his way. A disturbed army deserter (who he wisely ditches by the roadside), a petrol punp attendant (Sting) living in his caravan shrine to Eddie Cochran (who, by no coincidence, died in a motorbike accident on the A4 where Radio On is mostly set), and a mysterious German woman looking for her daughter. Throughout the film Robert appears unable to communicate with others, left in his own thoughts he descends into a drunken spree that leaves him – literally – on the edge.

The snow covered landscape of the South West roads with their seedy filling stations and grimy cafés appears very far removed from the pristine Marks and Spencer Motos of today. Petit’s world is almost an alien one, both from the almost bygone era it represents and for the fact that it is so unlike any other British film of the period. The monochrome shots of the Westway tower blocks look distant and almost East European, and the director does like to dwell on this. There’s also the Kraftwerk tracks and Bowie screaming Heroes in German, and the suggestion that the brother has died as a result of involvement with a European porn ring. But this is no Get Carter. Robert isn’t out for revenge, he isn’t sure what he’s out for at all and the film asks more than it answers. In this way it’s extremely demanding, and what at first appears inconsequential turns out to be a deeply thought provoking look at people stranded in a tired and wasted landscape. As a period piece that looks at Britain on the edge of Thatcherism it’s as good as, if not better, than Stephen Frears’ Bloody Kids.

Yes, there’s an undeniable strange taste to much of Radio On, but it really is a work of art; and the soundtrack is so memorable because it sits so oddly with the film’s content. During the opening scene a camera roams nervously round an empty flat to the accompaniment of Bowie’s Heroes, eventually settling on an apparently dead body in a bath. Workers on a factory shop floor listen to Ian Dury’s Sweet Gene Vincent in a scene that out-weirds David Lynch. Robert lurches drunkenly in a bar to the background of Lucky Number by Lene Lovich and there’s a stunning driving scene to my favourite Bowie song, Always Crashing in the Same Car. Not everyone admires the strange beauty of the Westway or the M4, but you’ll certainly see it in this film. It’s beautifully shot and very, very strange – but well worth a look.

Comment

Films I Haven't Seen Meme

Friday June 27, 2008

From The Pickards.
Are there any extremely famous, worthy or acclaimed films that you’ve never made the effort to see? I’ve seen all of Hitchcock. I’ve also seen most of Truffaut. But I have a lot of gaps. In the days of video recorders I would tape worthy films, keep them for years and eventually tape over them. I kept The Mission starring Robert De Niro for years and never watched it. Films I have simply never seen and have never had the urge to see include:

I’d also like the time back I wasted on trying to understand the Bourne films.

Comments [4]

Dog Days

Saturday June 14, 2008

Six months ago I read Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend. Around the same time, a new film version of the 1950s novel appeared starring Will Smith. Now I’ve finally seen the film on DVD so I can write a belated sequel to my original post.

I Am Legend

It’s often quite refreshing to come late to films. I Am Legend received mixed reviews, at least I remember it doing so. There’s also enough time passed after reading the book to prevent me from comparing it too closely, and it’s years since I’ve seen the 1970s cinema adaptation The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston. I Am Legend is no Omega Man, although it’s not really I Am Legend either. It is nearer to the three great science fiction virus-disaster movies of recent years 28 Days Later, its follow up 28 Weeks Later and Children of Men. It’s not as good as any of them, but I was pleasantly surprised nevertheless.

Firstly, Will Smith has improved tremendously as an actor. Thankfully he has left the jokey persona seen in Independence Day and Men in Black at home. Age is on his side, and the grey-stubbled Smith shows some real promise now as an actor. Secondly, it looks like brainstorming sessions in the movie planning stages quickly concluded that, whilst Matheson’s novel is a great piece of sci-fi writing, audiences have moved on. So talking vampires just don’t wash any more, and abandoned post-apocalyptic cities full of slobbering nasties has been done to death in the cinema, so be careful. The vampires, prominent in Matheson’s novel, therefore don’t take centre stage in the new film until way into the story. Instead we see the empty city, shoulder high grass and prowling wild animals. Fittingly, all of the same things seen in a recent Channel Four documentary that attempted to predict how our cities would look if all the people abandoned them. Add to this Smith, proving he can act quite well as the last non-slobbering man on Earth, although he is almost acted off the screen by a very good, semi-slobbering, Alsatian.

Perhaps I Am Legend could be criticised for attempting to pull all of the right emotional strings. Lovely dog. Lovely dog dies. Cute family glimpsed in flashbacks. Shop dummies to highlight Smith’s loneliness (although providing a good plot device). The radio message broadcast to the empty world. Smith, away from human contact for so long, talking in sync to a DVD of Shrek. And so on. Perhaps it just caught me in the right type of mood. But I enjoyed it, and if I now went back to revisit The Omega Man I might judge this the superior film.

For purists, this film is Richard Matheson’s novel in bullet-point form only. A general idea of what the book was about, although an ending that, although still suitably downbeat, results in a completely different effect from the novel (and searching on YouTube will result in an alternative upbeat ending to the movie which is worth catching). Happy/sad, up/down, who knows? But they could have made worse choices about the overall direction of this film during the early brainstorming, and top marks to the man who said “keep the dog!”

Comments [2]

Room for One More Indiana Jones Review?

Friday May 30, 2008

In an attempt to explain its flaws, the new Indiana Jones film has been described as a popcorn movie. But I’d like us to just hang on a minute. I really don’t like this. Why has this suddenly become a derogatory term? Point A is that, when he really tries hard, Steven Spielberg is a cinematic genius. Go away and watch, or watch again, Jaws and Close Encounters and we’ll discuss. Point B is that Jurassic Park is probably the ultimate popcorn movie. It’s also terrific. It’s as good as Jaws and far better than many of Spielberg’s more worthy films like Schindler’s List. The first three Indiana Jones movies, to a lesser extent in that they are full of terrific bits rather than being terrific films, are pretty good popcorn movies. So I’m afraid that when I hear popcorn movie I am expecting something outstanding. Or at least pretty good.

cast and crew of Indiana Jones

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has many reasons to be a great movie. Spielberg, or course. It’s also got John Hurt and Ray Winstone it in. And for a movie star, I don’t think Harrison Ford is a bad actor. On the less positive side is the involvement of George Lucas. I’m really sorry, but Mr Lucas should never be allowed near films. Steven, didn’t you notice what a balls up he made with the Star Wars sequels? (okay, I know they were prequels, but I like to deliberately annoy Star Wars fans). And anyway, unless you are aged five the original Star Wars is a really bad film. So the partnership with George Lucas always made the Indy films my least favourite of Spielberg’s popcorn stuff.

From what I’ve read and heard, Harrison Ford’s age at 65 has received much comment. It’s amusing because, when Raiders of the Lost Ark first came out, I remember saying to my friends “did you know that Harrison Ford is about forty?” So he has always been old in my eyes. The film begins by telling the audience loudly that we’ve reached the 1950s and Jones is almost two decades older. In fact Spielberg decides to shout this from the rooftops. An Elvis soundtrack, period cars and costumes, secret army nuclear testing sites – and all before the titles have finished rolling. Indiana Jones is now under the spectre of McCarthyism, not only fighting off Russian baddies but himself suspected of Communist leanings.

The opening scene of the film is very impressive and Spielberg and Lucas cleverly won me over with little effort. Cate Blanchett as a heavily accented villainess, Ray Winstone in top form as a greedy turncoat and some excellent magnetic tomfoolery involving Roswell alien artefacts. It never really slows down from there. More reminders of the fifties before Spielberg bores of the attention to detail, including an homage to Brando in The Wild One, lead us swiftly into more familiar Jones territory. Cobwebbed caverns, skeletal remains, treasure, stone passageways and the rest. It’s really another collection of terrific bits, but they are all superb. Very hungry ants, an exhausting car chase, disappearing spiral staircases … but it’s purely a visual feast and beyond description.

Performance-wise it’s good too. As mentioned, the excellent Winstone, and John Hurt delivers the really barmy role that’s been missing from his career. Ford carries it off rather well, and the family business that’s introduced is much less of a drag than I would have thought. Jim Broadbent’s there too, as a doddery academic, and, despite some of the criticisms she’s had, I found Blanchett a fine nasty. What’s slightly out of place is all the alien and atomic stuff, although it’s interesting to see Spielberg’s attempts to blend Indy with ET and Close Encounters. And my favourite scene was probably the weirdest, where Jones runs across a fake 50s sleepy town, complete with family mannequins who are populating an eerie bomb test site. If you’ve already seen the film, you’ll agree that they really made those old American fridges to last.

So Lucas you’re forgiven, at least for the moment. And Spielberg – as for you, good marks but you’re coasting. And you know it. Is it a good popcorn movie? Yes it is, although we had a big box of sticky sweets shared between yours truly and two nine year olds. And it’s more like that; sticky, sugary with various yet familiar flavours and it will spoil your appetite for more of this kind of stuff for a while. But it was good while it lasted.

Comments [2]

Eastern Promises

Friday February 29, 2008

2/5

I’ve had something of a love-hate relationship with David Cronenberg over the years. The Brood, Scanners, The Dead Zone and The Fly are all great films but I found myself distanced from his later work. It wasn’t that his films were too sickening in their content, I just got sick of Cronenberg wandering into pretentious and unfathomable territory. Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch and Crash didn’t press the right buttons for me. Lately, however, Cronenberg has moved into a new phase of film making. It started with Spider, an unfairly ignored film starring Ralph Fiennes as a disturbed man living in London. The director appeared to be moving away from surreal, experimental and gut-churning imagery to something more naturalistic (although no less disturbing). This continued with the excellent History of Violence, starring Viggo Mortensen as a man haunted by his ugly past, and Mortensen and Cronenberg have recently collaborated again on Eastern Promises, with the actor being Oscar nominated for his performance.

Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises

Approaching Eastern Promises by heralding a new, mature phase for David Cronenberg was an unwise thing for me to do. Unfortunately the film was a disappointment, leaving me particularly baffled as to why Mortensen has been praised so much. London is criminally underused as a setting, and the tale of Russian gangsters is totally unconvincing. Even the already much celebrated fight scene, where Mortensen fights off two would be assassins in a steam room, is incredibly overrated. Naomi Watts appears unsettled as the young English nurse drawn into a dark and violent underworld, and many of the supporting actors are miscast and consequently unbelievable.

But Eastern Promises does feature many Cronenberg stamps, where his individual style of film making shines through, and where you think this could only be David Cronenberg. There are some very subtle touches throughout; a new born baby really does look new born, blood soaked and alien to the world. Later this contrasts chillingly with a wasted prostitute, curled into a foetal position. And when he does use London effectively as a backdrop it is very memorable. The dead body washed up by the Thames barrier is one such scene, framed with macabre precision. The best things are all visual, and Eastern Promises makes it clear that Cronenberg doesn’t work particularly well with actors, so when he does settle down into plot and characterisation he fails.

Eastern Promises is therefore an oddity, a new phase for Cronenberg indeed but one he’s not altogether comfortable with. Part of him wants to experiment with the horror genre and part of him, I suspect a much smaller part, wants to make films like this.

Comments [4]

Pages

Subscribe

Blogroll

Reading

Listening

Tags