Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Josh Brolin)

Filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld returns to the Men in Black films ten years after the second part and fifteen years after the original. As there hasn’t been any real sense of demand for this franchise to be continued, it does feel like an odd move. Then again, Sonnenfeld has had an odd career beginning notably as a cinematographer for Joel and Ethan Coen (not to be confused with Men in Black 3 co-writer Etan Coen) and then frequently emulating other directors. His Addams Family films (1991 and 1993) feel a little like Tim Burton works, Get Shorty (1995) seems in Quentin Tarantino mode and the Men in Black films are a bit like something Joe Dante might do. Ironically the film where a ‘Sonnenfeldesque’ visual style most shines through is Wild Wild West (1999), an attempt at Western era steampunk that is a complete mess.

Men in Black 3 returns to the fictional world from Lowell Cunningham’s comic book series, where secret agents monitor and cover-up alien activity on Earth. This instalment introduces a time travel plot, where Agent J (Will Smith) travels back to 1969 to stop an alien from assassinating his partner Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones in 2012 and Josh Brolin in 1969). The very casual changing-the-future-by-changing-the-past narrative evokes Back to the Future (1985); this time suggesting Robert Zemeckis is the director whom Sonnenfeld is taking his cues from. And sadly, like many of Sonnenfeld’s films, it doesn’t hold up to its influences. While flawed logic can be found in Back to the Future and other time travel film narratives, they still possess a suspension of disbelief and internal logic that suits the context of the film. The very confused idea of what aspects of time travel affects what recalls the convoluted Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (Jay Roach, 1999), but without the knowing winks to the audience. There is even one moment in Men in Black 3 when the time travel device is used to reset a moment, which completely breaks the logic of the film.

Nevertheless, there is still a lot to like and aspects of the time travel narrative do work well. A character who exists in the 5^th dimension and therefore can simultaneously see multiple realities and timelines is used both comically and in moments of poignancy. The previously unresolved explanation of why K recruited J in the first place is also finally explained, providing the film with an unexpected note of sentimentality that works surprisingly well even if it is overly foreshadowed. That moment plus the chance to have Josh Brolin play a younger version of Tommy Lee Jones provide the best justification for why this sequel was made. On the other hand, the promise of using the idea to send an elite African American agent back to 1969 to comment on the history of America’s civil rights movement is not fulfilled apart from one middling early scene where Agent J encounters a pair of racist cops. Missed opportunities to provide any real substance in this film are frustrating.

Otherwise, Men in Black 3 is a series of okay gags and okay action sequences, with enough elements to make it moderately enjoyable. Completely against type, Jemaine Clement is a lot of fun as the villainous Boris the Animal and Michael Stuhlbarg is great as Griffin, the creature who lives in the 5^th dimension. Emma Thompson as Agent O is mostly underused, although she does get one fun moment where she maintains a completely straight face while speaking in an absurd alien language. All the elements are there for this to be a great science-fiction/comedy, but it never truly engages. Annoyingly it continues the gag that all slightly unusual or creative people are actually aliens, which hints at an underlying conservatism. Perhaps if the film celebrated difference and strangeness more, rather than always presenting it as something to laugh at or arrest, then Men in Black 3 could live up to the potential that Sonnenfeld has always showed, but never quite delivered.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Admiral General Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Tamir (Ben Kingsley)

When approaching the films written and staring English comedian and comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen, providing commentary on the nature of offense has become the standard.  Two polarising and equally unhelpful positions often result between those who find his comedy inherently offensive, because he tackles ‘taboo’ topics and cultural stereotypes along with crass bodily functions, and those who think creative types don’t have any responsibility in the way they present material. There is no doubt that Baron Cohen pushes the boundaries of taste, but to regard The Dictator as either cultural imperialism or an attack on ‘political correctness gone mad’ would be to miss that within this often irreverent and anarchic film, is a measured and subversive piece of smartly constructed comedy.

In his previous films Baron Cohen generated most of the gags and social critique by adopting larger-than-life characters and then involving unsuspecting public figures and the general public in outrageous scenarios. At their best these improvised pranks were hilarious and revealing insights into human nature. At their worst they felt cruel and too overtly designed to generate an obvious response of anger or discomfort from the unwilling participants. By making The Dictator a scripted comedy Baron Cohen could no longer rely on the element of surprise. Instead, the humour had to be calculated and planned, yet still feel fresh and spontaneous. In this regard, Baron Cohen succeeds. The Dictator is fast paced, coherent, continually inventive and frequently confronting. Most importantly it contains jokes, which is increasingly rare in an era when many comedic films are reliant on having their personality-driven cast make cultural references and say non-sequiturs to elicit chortles.

Baron Cohen plays Admiral General Aladeen, the dictator of a fictitious North African country Wadiya, who gets stuck on the streets of New York due to an identity mix-up with his idiot lookalike. The film not only avoids situating Wadiya as middle-eastern country, but it also stays clear of religion and even states that Aladeen is not an Arab, to avoid any accusation of it perpetuating stereotypes of Arabic nations. In true Baron Cohen style, the discussion of whether or not he is an Arab is instead used to mock American prejudices towards non-Americans.

The dictator lookalike subplot and a line from Aladeen about being ‘the last great dictator’ deliberately evokes Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) where Chaplin ridiculed Hitler, Mussolini, European fascism and Nazism. Like Chaplin, Baron Cohen is using comedy to undermine dictators and poisonous ideology rather than the people suffering under those tyrants. What has changed is the sensibility of the humour. While Chaplin’s film featured slapstick, sentiment and a call for humanity, Baron Cohen’s film features savage and audacious gags where nothing is sacred. A scene involving childbirth is wonderfully cringe worthy and a superb masturbation scene that uses a clip from Forest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1996) provides the perfect context for that ideologically noxious film.

While the level of satire of The Dictator recalls Team America: World Police (Trey Parker, 2004) to the degree that no political viewpoint or belief is safe from being derided, The Dictator feels more strategic. Team America laughed at anti-war celebrity campaigners simply because it was funny to do so, while The Dictator sends up community groups and various progressive causes to draw attention to how such movements can seem so self-righteous and ineffective against the juggernauts of capitalism and political oppression. By attacking so many targets Baron Cohen avoids coming across as politically motivated, making some of the more astute observations on global politics all the more effective. All that aside, it is also simply funny to see a racist, sexist and sadistic dictator attempt to work in a food co-op.

The element that makes The Dictator more than just a film that allows audiences to cathartically laugh at horrific ideas and attitudes, is the comparisons that Baron Cohen makes between the various recognised dictatorships around the world and the USA. The moment where Baron Cohen’s comedic genius shines is when he draws direct parallels between the way tyrannies enforce social control and the way America does (and nearly all the commentary about America can be applied to Australia as well). Naming and shaming big American oil companies comments on the hypocrisy of America’s economically driven condemnation of dictatorships, plus America’s relationship with China is also mocked. The vacuous media get a drilling in a couple of sequences recalling Being There (Hal Ashby, 1979) where two news anchors provide moronic ‘analysis’ of the erratic body language of Aladeen’s confused lookalike.

The Dictator is Baron Cohen’s most successful and consistent film to date. It is more successful than the surprising tame Four Lions (Christopher Morris, 2010) in finding humour and humanity in aspects of the modern world most people would rather not think about let alone see a comedy about. And within all this are dick and poo jokes that are puerile, revolting and funny. Audiences may come to The Dictator for the tasteless humour and enjoy the clever comedic execution, timing and writing, but they may just end up with a slightly more enlightened perspective on international politics.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp)

Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows is a strange blend of old fashioned humour, the director’s trademark gothic sensibility, monster movie and soap opera. While it doesn’t come close to early 1990s masterpieces such as Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, it is Burton’s most perverse film since Batman Returns and his most playful since Mars Attacks!

Dark Shadows is based on a cult soap opera with supernatural themes, which ran from 1966–1971 and exists somewhere on the pop culture spectrum between Passions and Twin Peaks. Burton’s favourite leading male actor Johnny Depp plays Barnabas Collins, a vampire who after being buried alive for almost 200 years returns to rebuild his family’s fishing business. The film is full of Burtonesque characteristics including a blend of horror and comedy, being set in a strange gothic mansion on the edge of a seemingly normal community and featuring sympathetic monsters/loners as its heroes. While there is a mix of moods in the film, the humour for the most part is oddly successful considering how worn many of the gags are involving the film’s 1970s setting and the wacky behaviour of vampires. A lot of this is due to Depp’s performance, which is comparatively restrained and relies a lot on Burton making him resemble Count Orlok in Nosferatu with a strange haircut.

Dark Shadows is not only comedy and at times is almost feels like a post-modern parody of soap opera narratives where tone and focus shift dramatically. In terms of the film moving into moments of tragic romance story and sinister horror, this works fine but some of the radical narrative shifts feel suspiciously like poor writing. Most bewilderingly is the role of the family’s new nanny Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote) who is introduced at the start of the film as the protagonist after the prologue. In the opening scenes the film hints at her mysterious past and strange insights, which suggests that she is a classic Burton misunderstood ‘freak’. However, once Bamabas enters the main part of the film she is almost removed from the narrative entirely to become a dull romantic interest on the side.

What is most curious about Dark Shadows is its peculiarly representation of class. The Collins family is established as coming from a long line of inherited wealth that has delivered privilege and prosperity. The male head of the family Roger Collins (Jonny Lee Miller) literally steals from the townspeople during a party and Bamabas has no qualms feeding off the working class and counterculture so long as his family are looked after. Conversely the film’s villain, the vengeful witch Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) is a servant whom Bamabas had an affair with and is then cast aside. So far, Dark Shadows resembles any number of Disney animation features where a fiercely plutocratic ideology is promoted that sees the aristocracy and privileges classes as the good guys while members of the lower classes who ‘don’t know their place’ are the bad guys. What makes Dark Shadows different is that Burton is so gleefully wicked with this scenario.

Perhaps it is the commercialisation and mainstreaming of Burton’s gothic style that compelled him to make a nasty comedy in the guise of a dumb conservative film. Whatever the reason there is something gloriously irresponsible and vicious with how Bamabas is presented as the film’s charismatic hero despite being a mass-murder, somebody who all too easily falls into bed with others despite proclaiming he has a true love and so obviously possesses the despicable born to rule mentality. He’s a vampiric Patrick Bateman.

If the ‘hero’ of the film is so repugnant then that leaves the ‘villain’ to be the most sympathetic character and Eva Green does a wonderful job playing Angelique Bouchard with demented relish. She looks like a cross between Daryl Hannah in the Kill Bill films and Lisa Marie Smith’s Martian assassin in Mars Attacks! In terms of motivation and characteristics she resembles Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer who also stars in Dark Shadows) and the Penguin (Danny DeVito) in Batman Returns since they are similarly the ‘evil’ characters who have far more legitimate complaints with the world than the very rich sociopath who opposes them.

While Dark Shadows is unlikely to win Burton new fans it contains plenty to satisfy his loyal followers who are content accepting that he proved himself over a decade ago and anything decent he does these days is simply good fun. Dark Shadows is not classic Burton, but it’s far from his weakest film and while Burton has never exactly been a subversive filmmaker, he is capable of being flippantly cruel. Underneath the anachronism gags, whimsical fairy tale flourishes and impressive special effects is a mean-spirited vision of the world that’s hard not to secretly take delight in.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Governor Bestyreren (Stellan Skarsgård) and Erling (Benjamin Helstad)

It has taken over a year for the Norwegian drama King of Devil’s Island to reach Australia, but arriving in the shadow of Hunger Games and the ongoing revelations about sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church, its timing is pertinent. The film is based on a true story about events that took place in 1915, on the remote Bastøy Island reform colony for young male offenders. The film presents Bastøy as a place designed to rehabilitate at-risk youths through intense discipline, hard labour and corporal punishment. Governor Bestyreren (Stellan Skarsgård) likens the colony to a ship where following orders, working for the common good and respecting the chain of command will result in good Christian men. The reality of what happens at Bastøy is presented quite differently as the colony is more a place of institutionalised dehumanisation. Like the Hunger Gamesit is a film about children and teenagers who suffer at the hands of adults through institutions that supposedly have legitimacy and a place in society.

The film opens with the hardened older boy Erling (Benjamin Helstad) and the fragile Ivar (Magnus Langlete) arriving at the island as new residents/inmates. Almost immediately they are stripped of their identity as they are assigned numbers, made to surrender personal items, instructed not to discuss their backgrounds and given new clothes and a buzz cut. The sequence immediately evokes war films such as Full Metal Jacket and prison films where the sense of self is dismantled in order to theoretically reprogram the person into something else. Tough and headstrong Erling befriends Olav (Trond Nilssen), a boy who has been on the island for six years and has been given responsibilities and the promise of an upcoming release as his reward for being so obedient. Erling believes Olav has been institutionalised, Olav is concerned that Erling’s determination to escape is not only foolhardy but will jeopardise the order of the colony and therefore his reprieve.

Like the sympathetic characters in The Hunger Games, the characters in King of Devil’s Island gravitate towards supporting each other despite moments of antagonism. This camaraderie suggests a natural inclination towards solidarity in the face of oppression, which is markedly different from the type of social cohesion imagined by the Governor, which is based on fear of reprimand and exclusion. While the Governor attempts to present Erling as the disruptive element that is undermining the colony, it is in fact a member of his own staff, Housefather Bråthen (Kristoffer Joner) whose horrific abuse of power is doing the most damage. This dynamic reflects upon all levels of society where the ruling class attempts to scapegoat marginalised and powerless groups in order to blame them for situations that are the result of corruption, incompetence or neglect at the top. Instead of taking responsibility for poor social policy, it is easier to blame people voicing their opposition.

Throughout the film a story about a harpooned whale that doesn’t give up is continually told. Erling relates the story as if the whale is a metaphor for the authority behind Bastøy since no matter what he does to strike out at them, they keep on going. However, it is made clear visually throughout the film that the whale is really a metaphor for Erling who keeps fighting no matter what indignities and punishments he suffers. Erling may be the film’s protagonist, but the main themes of the film play out through the secondary character of Olav. Olav goes through the biggest character arc in the film, beginning as the type of person who believes that playing by the rules will eventually result in a reward. His change in attitude raises the issue of what does it take to make somebody finally rebel and attempt to destroy the system they previously lived by. Curiously the instigating incident is not a personal slight nor is it outrage over the tragic act that occurs during the film. Instead, it is the calculated attempt to cover up this act that makes Olav loose his faith in a system he believed was just and fair, despite being harsh.

King of Devil’s Island is a master class in how to present potentially confronting and upsetting subject matter in a restrained way. Abuse and violence are prominent in the film, but at no point does it revel is such acts. The most destructive actions, which drive the narrative development, are almost only implied and never actually seen. This is an impressive approach considering how too easy it is for cinema to fuel outrage by graphically depicting atrocities. It helps that the performances are also so strong from the experienced adult actors to the emerging young actors. The end result is a compelling story of defiance after hypocrisy transforms discipline and order into oppression and brutality. It’s a measured study of the nature of social control and how much a ruling group can inflict on another group before they rise up. The tensions that play out in King of Devil’s Island are about when it is best to fall in line and when it is time to challenge the system. The film suggests that no matter how powerful and influential an organisation or institution is, even its more loyal followers would rise up against it in light of it covering up horrific abuse and protecting the abusers. That’s what would happen today, right?

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Whedon is clearly a fan of the Marvel characters, and that is why he is able to write for them with such assurance and affection. He hasn’t changed the characters, but made them live up to their potential in the same way that he took characters from teen and horror films and made them so much more in Buffy.

Head over to Killings to read the full article and leave a comment.

Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Captain America (Chris Evans)

The idea of bringing together a group of widely different superhero characters from what on the surface appears to be different fictional universes with their own sets of internal logic is ambitious to say the least. When it is done in comic books the multi-layered narratives, near infinite storylines and ever-evolving characterisations facilitate such a complex and potentially confusing experiment. Even with the benefit of having established the principal characters and their diverse origins in five preceding films – Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008), The Incredible Hulk (Louis Leterrier, 2008), Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau, 2010), Thor (Kenneth Branagh, 2010) and Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston, 2011) – The Avengers film could have been a disastrous combination of fan-fiction, over hype and intense silliness. In fact, it does feel a bit like fan-fiction, but when the writer and director is a fan of the calibre of Joss Whedon that works in its favour. Who better to make something that is not only coherent, but exhilarating and fun from the teaming up of a loveably arrogant billionaire, a super soldier from World War II, a god from Viking mythology, a modern day Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde and a pair of elite spies?

When Whedon spoke at the Melbourne Writers Festival in 2010 he mentioned his admiration yet frustration at films such as The Dark Knight, Watchmen and Kick-Ass for deconstructing and subverting superhero mythology. He felt that this post-modern approach to superheros was premature and in modern cinema the superhero hadn’t had a chance to be ‘constructed’ yet. So The Avengers is his attempt at making a film that more traditionally reflects superheros and their values, and throughout The Avengers the various characters express that sometimes there is a need to be a little old-fashioned. This translates into a film that may not contain the complexity of other superhero films in terms of ideas and characterisation, but is cynicism free.

Old-fashioned doesn’t mean simplistic and the six characters are distinctive individuals who need to resolve their personal turmoils in order to work together collectively as a group for the common good. For good reason they don’t fully trust the covert organisation SHIELD, which has recruited them, and yet they are united by their opposition to the villainous Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who originally appeared in Thor. Politically The Avengers is a story of social cohesion where the extraordinary individuals work together for the good of society, or in this case to save the world. There is also an idea running throughout the film perpetrated by Loki who believes that humans prefer submission and that desiring freedom is a myth. His status as a god from another world and being compared to Adolf Hitler in one scene, presents these attitudes as belonging to organised religion and political oppression at their worst. The refusal to accept the subservient demands of a god is expressed in the film as a triumph for humanity to rise above such rhetoric, which is bluntly yet effectively expressed by a brilliantly computer-animated Hulk in a spin on his trademark ‘puny human’ line.

While Whedon does an admirable job at giving every character equal screen time to demonstrate how crucial they all are, he does seem to refreshingly favour the characters who contribute with brains rather than brawn. Indeed, the more cheesy and pompous characters such as Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) are far more enjoyable in The Avengers than they were in their original films as this time they have Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) to ridicule them. Many of the film’s classic Whedon moments come in the form of witticism from Stark towards the others, although Captain America gets a great line about cultural references and a sight gag involving Thor and Hulk is the comedic highlight of the film. Whedon also favours tormented characters or characters with a shady past so Dr Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) gets the most sympathy throughout the subplot concerning his battle to reconcile that he harbours the Hulk deep inside him. The best individual action scenes are given to Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who has a shady past not to mention being the Smurfette of the film since the only other female characters are minor roles. Romanoff is also a classic Whedon strong-female character who uses the expectation that she is vulnerable to her advantage.

Visually The Avengers adopts the same glossy look as the previous films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the exception of The Incredible Hulk, which had a grittier and far more interesting aesthetic. Whedon works well within the limited visual style and while the first half of The Avengers cruises along with the same level of good-but-not-remarkable level of competency that the previous films had, the final prolonged battle sequence at the end is extremely impressive. Spectacle and action cinema that involves mass destruction has too recently been characterised by an over-reliance on disorientating rapid editing and random scenes of carnage to create the illusion of excitement. In The Avengers Whedon delivers a large-scale battle sequence in a metropolitan environment, but makes it genuinely engaging. There is a continual effort to present the effect that the over-the-top destruction has on the characters and the innocents caught up in it all, giving the spectacle a much-needed human element. Whedon also includes moments where the characters plan their strategy so that the scope of the spectacle is defined and the action the audience sees then played out has a context. Michael Bay and those who attempt to mimic his soulless approach to spectacle cinema could learn a lot from The Avengers.

The Avengers is a good Joss Whedon film and an excellent Marvel film. It tonally fits into the previous films and plausibly integrates all the various characters and plotlines. It is another example of how much more enjoyable superhero narratives are once the origin story has been dispensed with so that the characters can properly start being explored. Whedon’s influence cannot be overstated, as without his flair for dialogue and ability to manage a diverse ensemble of characters, the film could have been a disaster. Instead The Avengers gets the combination of humour and sincerity right, pulls off a sensational sequence of spectacle as its finale and manages to keep the serious and not so serious fans more than entertained.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Harry Belafonte

The American born singer Harold George Belafonte, Jr is best known for popularising Caribbean music in the 1950s with songs such as the distinctive ‘The Banana Boat Song’. An all-round entertainer Harry Belafonte acted, sung and danced on stage, film and theatre for both adult and family audiences. He was the first ever celebrity guest on The Muppet Show. His involvement in films such as the all-black musical Carmen Jones (Otto Preminger, 1954) and Island in the Sun (Robert Rossen, 1957), considered controversial at the time due to its implied inter-racial relationship, suggest the degree in which Belafonte was aware of race issues within the United States of America. However for many, the full extent of Belafonte’s political activism and involvement in the civil rights movement may not be known, which is why Susanne Rostock’s documentary Sing Your Song is such a fascinating film.

Sing Your Song is relativity straightforward in the way it presents its material. Belafonte narrates the story of his life over archival footage and photographs, and there are extensive talking head interviews. The film is very much his story and he is the one giving weight to particular incidents in his life and choosing what aspects are of significance. With a less dynamic subject, this style of documentary filmmaking could have felt pedestrian, but Belafonte is a captivating and energetic narrator who the audience feels safe with. Moments of modesty feel genuine and moments of pride feel justified. Rostock has captured the blend of politics and music in Belafonte’s life by continually entwining both elements through the film stylistically and in terms of its narrative. The politics of showbiz are directly explored while juxtapositions between his career as an entertainer and his activism are continually made through editing and sound bridges.

One of the most interesting ways that Sing Your Song reflects the personality of its subject is the coy way it presents many of Belafonte’s achievements. When describing incidents such as swimming in a segregated pool or linking arms on television with a woman he is singing a duet with, Belafonte and the film act as if the results of such acts weren’t obvious and the statements they made were almost accidental. It’s a deliberate downplaying of actions that should have no meaning, but in the context of immense bigotry clearly do. In this way Belafonte and Rostock reclaim ordinary actions as innocent moments, while the racist reaction to such actions is exposed as being outlandish and ridiculous. Sing Your Song therefore very effectively articulates Belafonte’s furious yet no-nonsense stance against discrimination and his refusal to accept bigotry in any form or context.

One sad element of Sing Your Song is the realisation that no public figure or celebrity in a contemporary context could hope to have the same impact as Belafonte did. Cynicism towards celebrity campaigners, which is admittedly frequently deserved, has created a culture where anybody in the public eye who is seen to be too overtly promoting a cause is treated with suspicion and ridicule. What is remarkable about Belafonte is how early in his career he realised that he could use his celebrity and access to other celebrities to raise awareness and generate change, to the extent that he effectively brokered meetings between the Kennedy Administration and leaders of the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr. Furthermore, Belafonte has never stopped his campaigning and even looks beyond the boarders of America to see what other parts of the world may require his help. And while the obvious pride Belafonte has for what he has done may turn off some, it is difficult to argue that he doesn’t deserve that pride, nor could he be accused of pretending that he could have done what he did without first becoming successful as entertainer.

Like its subject, Sing Your Song is a passionate film bursting with energy, music and often fury. It’s designed to engage and entertain, but at the same time raise awareness about how injustice and discrimination takes different forms around the world. Belafonte speaks of how he wonders if he has done enough and for a moment this extraordinary moment of self-doubt could seem a little contrived. But that possibly says more about the viewer who doesn’t believe that modesty is ever genuine and who is looking for any excuse to denigrate somebody who is visibly raising awareness while they do nothing. So regardless of how much Sing Your Song reveals Belafonte the person or Belafonte the media savvy social campaigner, what remains is a man who put his career, reputation and life on the line to do more than simply entertain. The resulting film is a fascinating retelling of modern American history filled with music and grounded by a man of immense inspiration and integrity.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz)

Set in London during the 1950s, Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) is emotionally not unlike the post-World War II bombed out and gutted city. She’s married to Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale), a respected judge and a good man, but their marriage is passionless. She’s been having an affair with Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), a troubled younger man who served during the war, but she knows he does not feel the intense love towards her that she feel towards him. As the title of the film suggests, she’s caught between two unpleasant options – the devil and the deep blue sea. However, this literal understanding of how the title matches the narrative of the film isn’t nearly as interesting as the idea that Hester takes an emotional journey during the film from suicidal depression to grief. Both are unpleasant, but while one is akin to an illness, one is a natural state of being that is an essential part of being alive. It is therefore fitting that the title only references the part of the famous idiom that evokes nature, since this new adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play by filmmaker Terence Davies is about recovery and regrowth for Hester and the city of London.

The Deep Blue Sea is also a film about memory, which is a concept that Davies has explored and represented throughout his career, most specifically in films about his childhood in Liverpool in post-World War II England. His short films, Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes (1992) are impressionist autobiographical works and Of Time and the City (2008) is an experimental documentary. While Davies’s other films have been literary adaptations, The Deep Blue Sea best combines his representation of memory with a traditional narrative structure. The result is Davies’s finest film to date.

Memories of London during the blitz weave throughout the film to link the private and solitary emotional trauma experienced by Hester to the collective and shared trauma experienced by the people of London during the war. In one remarkable scene a long take pans across people sheltering on an underground train station platform; singing a popular song while the bombs fall above them. Popular music is used throughout The Deep Blue Sea to express the camaraderie and determination to maintain good spirits by the people of London during the war and re-build years, although in another scene Hester looks awkward as she struggles to join in with the sing-a-long. Surrounded by expressions of defiant good will and cheer, and needing to keep up appearances, she cannot express her anguish. While visually the film depicts her world as one of calm and order, Davies uses Samuel Barber’s 1939 ‘Violin Concerto’ to express her anguish with its dramatic and tumultuous string arrangement. It’s a very effective use of music, creating a soundtrack that is exclusively subjective to Hester.

The Deep Blue Sea also looks like a memory. Not only is it shot on 35mm film, which sadly in itself gives it the feel of a artefact from another era, but the soft focus and muted colours convey the impression of scenes that have not fully materialised and only exist in fragmented and hazy recollection. It is strikingly beautiful and recalls The Tree of Life, which presented memory in a similar way; unsurprisingly considering the affinity between Davies and Terrence Malick as uncompromising directors who challenge the scope and form of cinema to produce works of great beauty and complexity. Also like Malick, Davies is not afraid to let the camera linger on a striking image, such as cigarette smoke curling over the armrest of a chair while illuminated by the afternoon sun peaking through the curtains.

Davies also makes substantial use of fade outs and dissolves, yet he uses such editing techniques not just between shots that have large periods of time between them, which is how they are traditional used, but between shots that are happening within moments of each other. This is especially effective during the opening sequence when Hester prepares her suicide, and it conveys a dreamlike sense that time no longer has any meaning for her now that she is fully engulfed in melancholia. Like the conclusion of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Dave Bowman sees himself as an older man and then becomes that older man, time for Hester is folding in on itself, like a dream or a half forgotten memory.

Davies has made a film comparable to David Lean’s masterpiece Brief Encounter, although the advantage Davies has is that he can far more explicitly explore issues of sexuality and infidelity than Lean could in 1945. Like Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven, which is a homage to Douglas Sirk’s films, The Deep Blue Sea feels like a film from another era that no longer has to relegate its most important ideas into coded subtext (even though that coded subtext was frequently blatant). And still, rather than being a Lean homage, The Deep Blue Sea is distinctively a Davies film. If nothing else the unconventional combination of neo-romanticism and social realism makes Davies’s work more comparable to other uncompromising radicals from England, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

The final ingredient to what makes The Deep Blue Sea such a magnificent work is the performances from the three leads. As the dull older husband who is subordinate to his dominating mother, Simon Russell Beale manages to deliver a sympathetic and likeable performance as Sir William Collyer. Tom Hiddleston makes Freddie attractive, childish, damaged, contemptible and loveable, often within the same scene. Most of all, Rachel Weisz delivers a career best performance as Hester. While delivering careful and mannered lines, her true feelings are passionately expressed through her facial expressions and gestures. The audience understands exactly what she is feeling at every moment, whether it is her overwhelming desire for Freddie or an ambiguous hope that through sorrow – as opposed to depression – she may finally recover, like a city rebuilding from the rubble.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connolly) and Jareth the Goblin King (David Bowie)

In the quarter of a century that has passed between Labyrinth first appearing in cinemas in 1986 to now being digitally remastered, it doesn’t seem too outlandish to suggest it is on its way to becoming a children’s fantasy classic. Similar to the books loved by the film’s young hero, which include Peter Pan, Snow White, The Wizard of Oz and Where the Wild Things Are, Labyrinth is a wildly inventive and imaginative adventure story combined with a parable about maturity. While not a success upon release at the time, Labyrinthnow has cult status to the extent that it does feel like part of the collective folklore that includes all the fairy tales, fantasy stories and mythology that it references.

Unlike director Jim Henson’s equally magnificent previous feature film The Dark Crystal (co-directed with Frank Oz in 1982), Labyrinth is more traditionally a family film. Its young star Jennifer Connolly is Sarah Williams, who has to solve a perplexing labyrinth in order to save her baby half-brother Toby (Toby Froud) from Jareth the Goblin King (David Bowie), after she impulsively wished that Jareth would take Toby away. The presence of Monty Python’s Terry Jones as the films only credited screenplay writer (there were others) ensured that the film was filled with plenty of humour and absurdist touches. Much of the humour in the film is memorable, such as the farting and belching Bog of Eternal Stench, while other comic flairs are so subtle that they are only discovered after several viewings, such as the two milk bottles waiting to be collected outside the doors to the Goblin Palace.

Watching Labyrinth again in the cinema for the first time since its original release, the most striking aspect of the film are its visuals. Combining the puppetry magic of director and legendary creator of The Muppets Jim Henson with the concept design of fantasy illustrator Brian Froud (who previously worked with Henson on The Dark Crystal), Labyrinth is a gorgeous demonstration of ‘old school’ special effects that rely on matte paintings, puppetry and other in-camera visual effects with restrained use of post production computer generated effects. There is a tangibility to the film that makes its dream logic inspired sequences and playful manipulation of perception even more impressive.

Bowie’s presence in the film is both a complete oddity and also perfect. In terms of his music career, Labyrinth came out at a low point between the recording of his two weakest studio albums and yet the songs he performs in Labyrinth are terrific. There’s the fun ‘Magic Dance’, the darkly romantic ‘As the World Falls Down’, the celebratory ‘Underground’ and the strange and menacing ‘Within You’, which is performed during a striking scene inspired by MC Escher’s lithograph print ‘Relativity’. Bowie is marvellous as Jareth and gives the seductive yet cruel character the same otherworldly intensity that he had used for the various personae he had adopted during his music career. The only unanswered question about his role in the film is what were the filmmakers thinking when they fitted him out with those grey tights? Was the intention to provoke delighted snickering all these years on?

It is within some of the film’s more surreal moments that the underpinning themes of maturity and responsibility are best expressed. The heroic journey that Sarah must take to rescue her half-brother is a parable for the emotional journey she must take to let go of childish things and become less selfish, without completely losing her ability to imagine and dream. She has to navigate a tricky path between freeing herself from childish impulses without succumbing to adulthood cynicism and dangerous suitors. The labyrinth and its inhabitants are physical manifestations of her imagination, with the objects in her bedroom seen at the start of the film appearing throughout the labyrinth as living creatures. Sarah moves between her bedroom, the labyrinth and a sort of dreamscape world often without logic explanation. In one key scene she falls from her hallucination, into her bedroom and then the labyrinth’s rubbish tip pours in making her realise that all the material objects she has hoarded are meaningless junk.

While Sarah’s experiences in the labyrinth teach her the importance of taking responsibility, caring for family and the harsh life lessons that nothing is fair and things will always change, the film is also careful to not suggest that she should completely ‘grow up’. In fact, the greatest threat Sarah faces is forgetting about her childhood during the scene where she hallucinates herself attending a masquerade ball, which represents the world of adulthood. The other guests wear false faces and even Sarah appears distorted when she sees herself in the mirror. Despite all the tricks and traps of the labyrinth, this adult space is where people are most not what they seem. Sarah anxiously searches for Jareth, who delights in her confusion and distress, like a manipulative lover. As both tormentor and much older seducer, the truly sinister intentions behind Jareth’s behaviour is spoken at the end of the film when he confesses that all he wants is for her to ‘Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.’ It’s a classic plea/demand of a controlling, self-pitying and dangerous obsessive. Fortunately Sarah has become a much stronger character and remembers the crucial lines required for such a person – ‘You have no power over me.’

Labyrinth has stood the test of time astonishingly well, and it’s extraordinary looking back at the personnel involved; not only Henson, Jones, Froud, Bowie, Connolly and Henson’s team from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, but also George Lucas as one of the film’s producers and as people who saw Being Elmo will know, it was also the first major production that Kevin Clash worked with Henson on. The resulting film is truly a testament to the creative energies of all involved, but most of all Henson who did so much in making high quality entertainment for people of all ages that was fun, imaginative, not afraid to be subversive in content or form, but most of all humane. It was Henson’s final feature film and a wonderful gift from a person who really did make you believe that even as you got older, everything magical that you treasured from your childhood and all your imaginary friends were never too far away. Should you ever need them, for any reason at all.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen)

One of the few working directors who deserves to be recognised as an auteur is David Cronenberg and a signature element to his films is how much they invite psychoanalytic readings. So to have Cronenberg direct a film about psychoanalysis founders and pioneers Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) is something of a cinephile’s dream come true. In A Dangerous Method, which was based on the play The Talking Cure (by Christopher Hampton who also wrote the screenplay) and the non-fiction book A Most Dangerous Method (John Kerr) Jung is using Freud’s talk therapy on Spielrein shortly after the First World War. Spielrein, who later became a psychoanalyst herself, becomes a forbidden object of desire that is too much for Jung to resist, resulting in an affair. Jung is therefore a quintessential protagonist for Cronenberg.  In his 2001 book The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg, William Beard describes Cronenberg’s dominant theme from Videodrome (1983) onwards as a focus on ‘a pathfinding, transgressive [male artist/creator] figure delving into hidden or repressed realms where others do not wish to go.’ Jung is that transgressive creator and the realm where nobody else wishes to go, which is both hidden and repressed, is the unconscious mind of Spielrein.

While very much a dialogue-heavy historical film, all the recognisable elements of Cronenberg’s preoccupations can be found in A Dangerous Method. Given Cronenberg’s previous exploration of psychoanalytic concepts such as the monstrous feminine as defined by patriarchal culture, it could almost be argued that A Dangerous Method is the most obviously Cronenbergian film to date, despite the absence of visceral bodily horror that so defined his earlier films. In place of abject gore is Knightley’s portrayal early in the film of Spielrein suffering from hysteria, which has resulted from her intense self-loathing and guilt towards her own sexuality. Just as psychological conditions manifested physically in films such as The Brood (1979), Spielrein’s inner torment spills out into her body as she sits close to the centre of frame, almost looking at the audience, and contorts and writhes while Jung talks with her. Knightley is all chin and forehead, at times threatening to stab the audience with her face in a truly confronting and remarkable series of scenes.

Stylistically the film begins with a sense of melodramatic urgency to mimic Spielrein’s distressed state of mind. The music is full of dramatic flourishes as she is rushed into hospital by horse and carriage. As Jung’s methods take hold the film calms right down into the clinical style that is so common in Cronenberg’s films. The cinematography is crisp and in deep focus, carefully composed close-ups lovingly portray the different apparatus used in Jung’s tests and white dominates every scene. The hospital walls are white, the patients are dressed in white, Jung’s wife Emma (Sarah Gadon) dresses in white and all the bed sheets are white. The use of white is not only clinical, but it suggests Jung’s detachment from not only his family and work – he by contrast always dressed in black – but from his own sexuality, despite being part of a new psychosis treatment that involves talking explicitly about the sexuality of others. We never see any sense of true physical or emotional affection between Jung and Emma, and even the birth of his child is deliberately kept off screen with the baby first appearing in the film not being nursed by Jung or Emma, but by an anonymous nurse.

The main source of tension in A Dangerous Method is Jung having serious doubts about his view of sex as a somewhat functionary act, needing to be controlled and at best something that can simply be described as ‘tender’ between man and wife. Continuing Beard’s arguments about the characteristics of Cronenberg’s protagonists from Videodrome onwards, Jung desires a transgressive transformation that will ultimately prove to be destructive, although in the case of the far more subdued A Dangerous Method, melancholia is the price Jung plays rather than literal obliteration. The transformation is to become somebody who indulges in their sexual whims to the extent that it means the ultimate betrayal of the doctor/patient relationship.

One trigger for Jung’s transgression is Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel), who is the other extreme to Jung in terms of advocating indulging in every sexual desire possible and therefore both horrifies and fascinates Jung. Then there is Spielrein, the closest thing A Dangerous Method has to a monstrous feminine, whose passions twice spill blood into the pristine white colour scheme of the film and who becomes the figure that Jung spills his anxieties onto. Earlier in the film while Jung is treating Spielrein, they walk across a bridge high above a wild forest, suggesting an attempt to cross the divide between the conscious and unconscious mind. Later in the film they are depicted together adrift in a lake in a boat with suitably red sails, as if now lost together in the unconscious.

The final trigger for Jung’s transgression is his desire to undermine Freud, his father-figure type mentor whose methods he deviates from in classic Oedipal defiance. (And the Oedipal dynamic is completed by Spielrein who is first the object of Jung’s forbidden desire and then becomes a symbolic maternal figure after she aligns with Freud). Freud is differentiated from Jung in numerous ways including class, wealth and race, but it is once again the depiction of the spaces Freud occupies that combines the most interesting comparisons. While Jung’s offices and home are sparse and controlled environments, Freud works in a warmly lit cramped office that is filled with books, cultural artefacts and photos. Jung floats at sea or stands above a forest, while Freud walks through an elaborately manicured garden that allows for abstraction without loosing its sense of order and control. A statue of a sphinx stands in the garden, yet another reminder of the prevailing imagery of the monstrous feminine in folklore, mythology and psychoanalysis. Jung smokes a pipe, which requires careful preparation to arrange the tobacco in a concealed space to be respectfully enjoyed. Freud smokes a… does it even need to be written out?

A Dangerous Method is a puzzling film as despite being directly about psychoanalysis, it’s the most surface level of all of Cronenberg’s films. Rather than delving into the murky depths of the human mind, A Dangerous Method is more an opportunity for Cronenberg to stage an extended dialogue between historical figures whose work clearly means a lot to him. This is nonetheless compelling cinema, especially for audiences resigned to the fact that more questions are going to be asked rather than answered. Is sex an act of liberation, denial of the self or surrender? Strong arguments are put up in all instances and like all matters of sexuality, it seems the ones who are least comfortable with their own are the ones who make the most fuss about it.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Tangled

In 1937 Walt Disney produced Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (William Cottrell et al), the first ever full-length animated feature film. It was also full colour and the first ever film to use Disney’s new cel-animation technique to such an extraordinary extent. It was an enormous ambitious project that Disney had begun three years earlier and during its development Hollywood insiders referred it to as ‘Disney’s Folly’. However, despite the doubters Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs made cinematic history and is still regarded as not only one of the greatest animated films ever made but also one of the all time great American films.

In 2010, 37 years later, Walt Disney Studios released its 50^th feature length animated film, Tangled (Nathan Greno and Byron Howard). Based on the story of Rapunzel, Tangled is similar to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in that it is also an adaptation of a classic European fairytale; in fact both are based on Brothers Grimm fairytales. Tangled also had a three year production but this time the challenges faced by the artists were how to best utilise computer-generated and 3D animation techniques to create the characters and world of the film.

Timed to coincide with the 6 January 2011 release of Tangled in Australia cinemas, the Australian Centre of the Moving Image (ACMI) is currently displaying the Dreams Come True: The Art of Disney’s Classic Fairy Tales exhibition. Originally created for the New Orleans Museum of Art, Melbourne is the exhibition’s second location and on display are over 600 items from the last 80 years of Disney animation. Some of the rarely displayed treasures from the Walt Disney Animation Research Library include concept art, storyboards, maquettes (character models used by the animators to draw from) and original animation cels.

While the focus of Dreams Come True are the items from the Disney ARL, the exhibition also attempts to examine the fairytale origins of key Walt Disney Studio films in order to explore the rationale behind why the original European morality tales were changed so significantly for the animated films. As well as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Tangled the exhibition looks at some of the early short films that originated from fairytales plus other much-loved feature films Cinderella (Clyde Geronimi et al, 1950), Sleeping Beauty (Clyde Geronimi, 1959), The Little Mermaid (Ron Clements and John Musker 1989), Beauty and The Beast (Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991) and The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements and John Musker, 2009).

Unlike the Il Etait une Fois, Walt Disney (Once Upon A Time, Walt Disney) exhibition that was on display in Paris, France and then Montréal, Canada during 2006 and 2007, Dreams Come True is focused on presenting the evolution of artistic ideas from within Walt Disney Studios rather than looking too closely at external sources. While Il Etait une Fois looked at the inspiration that Disney and his artists found in painting and early cinema (with a fascinating examination of the German Expressionist influence on the Disney films), Dreams Come True predominantly looks at the stages in which the various characters and settings for the Disney films would change throughout production. This does provide for some fascinating insight into things like character development. For example, the early sketches of Snow White reveal that at one point she resembled an adolescent Betty Boop, which would have given the finished film a very different focus given the sexual nature of the Betty Boop character.

Another key difference between the two exhibitions is the design and layout. The French exhibition was a mixture of the objects with large wall props, atmospheric lighting and audio/visual content to create a range of moods and environments for the visitor as they passed through. On the other hand, Dreams Come True adopts a more traditional approach of simply containing artworks hung on coloured walls, objects in display cases and selected clips from the films played on screens dotted around the exhibition – some requiring headphones for small numbers of visitors to privately experience at a time and some playing publicly, which provides an effective soundtrack for the exhibition. A markedly different use of the ACMI screen gallery space to the recent Tim Burton exhibition, Dreams Come True is sparser but this does allow for larger groups of people to pass through the exhibition more comfortably.

The final difference between Il Etait une Fois and Dreams Come True that is worth commenting on is that while the French exhibition explored the various criticisms of the powerful Disney hegemony on popular culture throughout the world (even displaying subversive anti-Disney works of art) Dreams Come True carefully avoids such content. This is not surprising or unreasonable considering it is an exhibition curated by Walt Disney Studios and the exhibition does to an extent acknowledge the cultural impact of the Disney films in terms of re-packaging the fairy tale stories. Various quotes by Disney that adorn the exhibition walls grapple with this issue, such as the one stating, ‘The fairy tale film – created with the magic of animation – is the modern day equivalent of the great parables of the Middle Ages.’ Indeed, this quote displays the extent in which Disney openly embraced the idea that his versions of the fairy tales were to become the dominant ones for 20^th century audiences.

The Dreams Come True exhibition begins by showing the different types of stories that Walt Disney Studios appropriated for their short animated films, which date back as far as 1922. In what is perhaps the most interesting part of the exhibition, we see on display artwork and excerpts from early animations based not only on fairy tales but also on fables (cautionary tales such as Aesop’s The Tortoise and the Hare), folk tales (exaggerated stories of real or mythical human triumphs such as the American John Henry stories), myths (such as Ovid’s story about King Midas) and nursery rhymes (which frequently contained political and social commentary). However, Walt Disney was predominantly drawn to the European fairy tales, which combined many aspects of fables, folk tales, myths and nursery rhymes with magical and fantastical elements plus core moral lessons.

Disney certainly believed in the preserving the basic essence of the original fairy tales and the exhibition quotes him saying that, ‘The screen version must perceive and emphasise the basic moral intent and the values upon which every great persistent fairly tale is founded.’ On the other hand he also states, ‘Literary versions of old fairy tales are usually thin and briefly told. They must be expanded and embellished to meet the requirements of theatre playing time’. The various placards in the Dreams Come True exhibition that are used to introduce the artwork from the key films, discuss the extent in which the violence and horror of the original fairy tales were toned down by Disney. So how do we as modern audiences grapple with the idea that Disney changed so much of the stories to maintain his perception of their moral intent while making sure the resulting films would be as popular as possible?

In many cases the changes seem reasonable considering the brutal and sadistic content of the original stories that seemed more designed to make children neurotic rather than instil real values. For example, the cruel trials and tortures that Hans Christian Anderson subjected many of his protagonists to frequently evoke Old Testament-style morality where only through suffering and terrible sacrifice can one achieve spiritual superiority (Tatar 2002: 302). The modern Walt Disney Studios film The Little Mermaid is far more palatable than the 1837 Anderson version where the price the mermaid (named Ariel in the Disney film) has to pay for becoming human is to have her tongue cut out and endear unbearable pain while walking.

On the other hand, some changes seem naive such as changing the meaning of The Pied Piper story in the 1933 Silly Symphony short. The original versions of the Pied Piper story serve as a warning to children to not put their trust in strangers, especially strangers offering them temptations. In Disney’s Silly Symphony version the children are rewarded for following the Piper by escaping from labouring in the adult world to enter the magical Happyland. Removing the dark edge from the original variations of the story, where the children usually end up dying, Disney lost the important cautionary message behind this early stranger-danger story.

However, not all the changes that Walt Disney made to the original fairy tales were bad ones and in fact the act of adapting them to accommodate what he believed to be contemporary vales and attitudes was no different to what various other storytellers had done before him. The Brothers Grimm, for example, were so keen to preserve the sanctity of motherhood that in their versions of popular fairy tales, such as Snow White (Sneewittchen) and Cinderella, both published in 1812, they changed the original conflicts between biological mother and daughter to conflicts between a step-mothers and step-daughter (Tatar 2002: 80). So Disney was by no means the first to adapt fairy tales for audiences at the time as many of the versions of the fairy tales that may be mistaken as the originals or definitive, were accordingly adapted as well.

What is more of a concern is not that Walt Disney adapted the fairy tales by removing so much of the violence and horror, but how he used the stories to express his own values through the guise of family entertainment. His love for the magical fairy tale world also resulted in extremely questionable depictions of race, gender and class in a fantasy world where monarchical rule was frequently unquestioned and women, racial minorities and socially subservient classes knew their place. Walt Disney’s membership of the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and his allegiance with the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPAPAI), strongly indicated his conservative and fiercely anti-Communist beliefs, which are reflected in the idealised plutocratic view of the world in many of his films.

Even non-fairy tale Disney films reinforced the rightful rule by the privileged perspective, often demonising lower classes who dare to challenge the system. For example, the butler Edgar is the villain in The AristoCats (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1970) for simply acting against his mistress when she decides to leave her fortune to her cats instead of him, her loyal servant for several decades. Even Scar in The Lion King (Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, 1994) is motivated to commit his crimes due to his anger over his little nephew being first in line to the throne before him. Questioning, or even worse preventing, born-to-rule traditions is a major sin in the Disney universe.

Non-whites, or animals distinctively adopting stereotypical looks and behaviours associated with non-white races, are portrayed either as figures of ridicule or down-and-out characters who are happy in their poverty. The now rarely seen Song of the South, a 1946 feature film that mixes animation and live action, was criticised at the time of release by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for the ‘impression it gives of an idyllic master-slave relationship’ in the way it depicts the happy-go-lucky kindly old slave character Uncle Remus in the Deep South in the second half of the 19^th century (Cohen 1997: 60–68). Although sympathetic characters, the jive-talking crows in Dumbo (Samuel Armstrong et al, 1941) are an example of anthropomorphic animal characters perpetuating African-American stereotypes. It would not be until The Princess and the Frog in 2009 when African American characters were given lead roles as the heroes.

While The Princess and the Frog signalled a progression in the depiction of race for Walt Disney Studios, it still reinforces the myth of lower classes being happy in their place in class-base communities and the idea that one can only really aspire to greatness by either marrying into aristocracy or royalty, or discovering that one was aristocracy or royalty all along, as in the case of Tangled. Furthermore, this is also tied into one of the most persistent problems with the Disney films, the fairy tales in particular, where the young female heroes are frequently depicted as either aspiring to become a princess or can only find true happiness through becoming a princess.

The core message of Walt Disney Studio films of pursuing your dreams to achieve what your heart truly desires is a sound one but all too often the goal or reward is the unobtainable one of becoming royalty. Rapunzel in Tangled is yet another Walt Disney Studios lead character who begins as an unfulfilled virgin whose coming-of-age is signified by her getting married and (in her case) discovering that she was a princess all along. It is a very conservative depiction of what young women should aspire to.

The older Walt Disney Studios films are a lot more problematic as the agency is taken away from the young female heroes. Certainly in the case of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella, the lead characters lose a significant amount of what agency they had during the majority of the film when the prince characters, who are mostly kept in the background of the narrative, finally turn up at the end and supposedly win the day by agreeing to marry the girls. At least from Sleeping Beauty onwards the princes started to become fully rounded characters who actively did something to earn their credentials, as opposed to simply showing up.

The goals of wealth and status may still remain but at least in modern Walt Disney Studio films like Tangled and The Princess and the Frog, the female protagonists are assertive and active characters, making far better role models than their more passive predecessors. The modern Walt Disney Studios films also give the females heroes far more empowerment than they did in the original tales. Female servitude was a big theme in many classic fairy tales and it is believed that some early versions of Beauty and the Beast were designed to prepare young girls for arranged marriages to older men (Tatar 2002: 58). The original Rapunzel stories reflected the practise of isolating or segregating women from the male population (Tatar 2002: 105).

Dreams Come True is a celebration of Walt Disney and Walt Disney Studio’s work producing short and feature-length animated films that have entered popular culture and the public consciousness so effectively. The exhibition fully succeeds in displaying the immense technological and artistic contributions that Disney made to animation and seeing so many items from the Walt Disney Animation Research Library is indeed a unique privilege. The exhibition also makes a convincing case for the versions of the fairy tales as told by the Disney films to be regarded as the versions most relevant to today. However, the degree in which the values of the Walt Disney Studio films reflect or shape social attitudes towards class, race and especially gender is a discussion that goes beyond Dreams Come True.

Bibliography

Cohen, Karl F, (1997), Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America, McFarland & Company, Jefferson

Tatar, Maira (ed), (2002), The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, WW Norton & Company, New York

Originally published in issue 61 (Autumn 2011) of Screen Education.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

The value of a novel adaptation is primarily how well it works as a film, and to a lesser extent, how well it expresses the essence of the source material rather than how well it mimics it. The book is never better than the film; the two are incomparable. It’s not reasonable to critique a film for not functioning in the same way that a novel does. A film may fail on cinematic grounds, but it should not be accused of failing on literary grounds.

Head over to Killings to read the full article and leave a comment.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence)

The catchphrase ‘May the odds be ever in your favour’ is spoken by the powerful elite in The Hunger Games to strategically give a glimmer of hope, but not too much, to the oppressed and poor citizens who are subject each year to a brutal televised game in this futuristic parable. The phrase is uttered before the reaping where one girl and one boy from the twelve districts are selected by lottery to take part in the game, and it’s also uttered during the preparation and then right before the contest, where the 24 children are expected to fight to the death. It’s a taunting and cruel catchphrase because it implies the fate of the children is to do with luck, when in fact the games are really a ruthlessly orchestrated public event designed by the ruling class to keep the non-ruling classes distracted and fearful. When Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to become a ‘tribute’ for her district in place of her sister, she along with male tribute Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) join the 22 other tributes in the Capitol where they are taught to kill, survive and to put on a good show.

Presumably one of the challenges with making a film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’s popular 2008 Young Adult novel The Hunger Games was how to present the novel’s critique of violent spectacle without the film itself providing moments of violent spectacle. Other similarly themed films where a futuristic incarnation of the ancient Roman gladiator contests was fused with reality television faced a similar problem. The Running Man (Paul Michael Glaser, 1987), Battle Royale (Koushun Takami, 2000) and Series 7: The Contenders (Daniel Minahan, 2001) were all set in either the future or an alternate reality where disenfranchised people are forced to take part in a violent competition where they must fight for their survival. The Running Man is the simplest of the mentioned films as there is a strongly defined good guys versus bad guys narrative, and the film is unapologetically providing violent spectacle for the cinema audiences. Similarly to The Hunger Games, Battle Royale contains a scenario where the delineations between good and bad characters are not so clear cut, since they are all teenagers from a randomly chosen school class and forced to fight to the death in a large outdoor area until there is only one survivor. Battle Royale also provides moments of violent spectacle, but in a far more uncomfortable way than The Running Man since the presentation of violence in Battle Royale juxtaposed with the films’s social critique does compel the film viewer to ask themselves what it is they are enjoying.

However, the film with the most in common with The Hunger Games is the lesser-known Series 7: The Contenders since both films undermine the voyeuristic appeal of the violence. The Hunger Games spends close to an hour establishing the world of the film, its characters and the film’s themes before the first scene of conflict. It’s what is now almost an old fashioned approach to narrative development where the film spends its time building up to the main action rather than cutting to the chase as soon as possible. A film that was more overtly focused on providing the audience with a thrilling action-packed ride would have included an action scene much earlier to establish the tone. Instead, The Hunger Game waits and when it delivers it does so with disorientating quick edits and muted sound to create the sensation of the violence being sickening and confusing. For the rest of the film the acts of violence, which are crucial to the film’s narrative, are sudden and blunt, often off screen and never glorified. Thus The Hunger Game effectively establishes itself as a drama about the spectacle of violence rather than being a spectacle of violence itself.

The production design combines modern and classic motifs and references in order to make several statements about class, exploitation and social inequity. The scenario of a populace having to sacrifice its young to appease a higher authority occurred in many ancient legends, including the Ancient Greek myth of the Minotaur who was sent youths to devour.  The modern day version of this myth as depicted in The Hunger Games is the lottery based reaping, which could also be viewed as a parable for young people being conscripted or manipulated into fighting a foreign war started by the older generation. However, The Hunger Games also explores the scarified youth theme by looking at the way in which young people are groomed to conform to an idealised image so that their youth and beauty can be commodified and exploited. Not only are the tributes trained in how to kill and survive, but they are coached to be media savvy in order to project the type of image that will earn them sponsorship. They are constantly being looked at and scrutinised and the very tight cinematography often creates a claustrophobic effect by only shooting in close up and medium close up. Shots from a greater distance are often filmed from the corner of a room so that it unconsciously gives the impression of closed-circuit television surveillance.

The ceremonial aspects of the games are a mixture of Ancient Roman and Nazi German iconography with modern day red carpet events. The vast open spaces, eagle insignias and neoclassic design captures the appearance of a totalitarian state attempting to awe its people with displays of power, while the focus on the clothes worn by the tributes echoes the vacuous commentary that takes place during events such as award ceremonies. The combined effect is like that of the gladiators of Ancient Rome and modern day reality show contestants. The tributes are briefly huge celebrities, designed to win the favour of the public in the short term until they are disposed of. It’s a highly subversive critique of mass entertainment that expresses Noam Chomsky’s argument about how the hype surrounding spectator sport is used to distract people from engaging in issues of real importance and therefore keeping them subservient through ignorance.

The representation of class divisions is overt with the wealthy members of society living in the opulent Capitol city while the poorer members of society, who are selected for the games, come from the surrounding districts. The bleak and improvised rural setting contrasts with the high tech and garish world of the Capitol where the dominant fashion is a grotesque fusion of Max Headroom type designer punk and the Rococo style fashion favoured by the French aristocracy before the French Revolution.

The final ingredient in what makes The Hunger Games so compelling is Katniss. Unlike the heroes of many other Young Adult novel and film franchises, she has not got any natural gifts or special powers that have been bestowed upon her magically, nor is she simply driven by a romantic crush, and the film even self-reflexively includes a romantic subplot to comment on audience expectations. Katniss is completely self-made, the skills she possesses are the result of experience and she undermines the machinations of the games by using ingenuity, cunning and humanity to survive and care for others. The overall combination of smart social commentary, compelling narrative, clever yet unobtrusive film style and the integrity to not be what it is critiquing, results in a very impressive film.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Cyril (Thomas Doret) and Samanth (Cécile De France)

Made over 50 years after François Truffaut’s French New Wave classic The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups, 1959), The Kid with a Bike (Le gamin au vélo) is another French language film about an angry young boy who is not a child, but not yet a teenager either. Like 12-year-old Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) in The 400 Blows, 11-year-old Cyril Catoul (Thomas Doret) has little reason to care for the world of adults and is what from a distance would appear to be a ‘problem child’ or an ‘at risk youth’. Cyril is a bolt of energy, always dressed distinctively in a red t-shirt or jacket, who escapes from his foster home to find his father and his bike. While avoiding being caught Cyril grabs Samantha (Cécile De France), a local hairdresser, and the pair form a bond.

As with previous films by Belgian filmmaker brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, The Kid with a Bike is naturalistic, shot with handheld cameras and using available light. There is an unrehearsed rawness to the performances and much of the action appears to have been captured accidentally as if a camera just happened to be filming on the streets of the estate where the events take place. Part of the Dardenne brothers’ genius is how seamless their shots are, even though the frequent long takes and intricate visual elements within each frame could only be the product of careful planning and precise cinematography. The handheld camera in The Kid with a Bike is especially effective in its ability to follow Cyril, who is forever running or cycling throughout the film. There is a constant sense of movement and energy from within Cyril, both physically and emotionally, and the cinematography puts the audience in the place of the various other characters who are continuously trying to keep up with him. Because of Cyril’s unpredictability the sensation is sometimes nerve-wracking, but contrasting moments of stillness, especially in scenes when Samantha is able to connect with him, are tranquil and rewarding.

As well as a general focus on Belgian lower class characters, the Dardenne brothers have frequently explored the themes of redemption and the consequences of impulsive actions, which are again examined in The Kid with a Bike. An ongoing challenge for Cyril throughout the film is learning to take responsibility for what he does and to make better decisions. The film is never judgemental towards Cyril for his sometimes reckless and often bad tempered behaviour as he is after all an 11-year-old boy who has been abandoned by his father and has never had many reasons to trust adults.

The absent parent is another common element in films by the Dardennes and in The Kid with a Bike they cast Jérémie Renier as Cyril’s neglectful father Guy. It is a similar character to Bruno, the role Renier played in the 2005 Dardenne brothers film The Child (L’Enfant). He clearly has no interest in being a parent, is oblivious to the severity of turning his back on his own child and something of a coward in his avoidance of confronting Cyril directly to tell him that he no longer wants to see him. The scene where Cyril plays it cool around Guy while also trying to impress him is heartbreaking.

Much of Cyril’s behaviour is a result of his abandonment. The bike is the most tangible thing in his life that connects him to his father, resulting in his obsession with it. Through missing his father he is all too easily recruited by a local teenage gang leader who exploits Cyril’s desire to impress an older father figure. Most important is the mistrust Cyril has developed towards adults, resulting in a refusal to believe anything he is told unless he can see for himself or hear first hand. Samantha is able to earn Cyril’s trust as she seems to be the only character who understands this about him and as a result is completely honest and demands the same honesty from others.

Despite the film’s naturalistic aesthetics, the Dardenne brothers have included strong visual allusions to the lost child stories of folklore and fairy tales. While far subtler than the hyperactive imagery in Joe Wright’s Hanna (2011) a lot of the mise-en-scene in The Kid with the Bike evokes Little Red Riding Hood, which is frequently interpreted to be a tale about puberty and maturity. With his distinctive red top and being the appropriate age, Cyril is clearing the Red Riding Hood character while Samantha, who is frequently dressed in dark red and purple tones, acts as both his moral guide and protector. Like Red Riding Hood in charge of delivering food to grandma, Cyril is given shopping chores as part of developing a sense of responsibility. It is while on those chores that Cyril is lead off the path into the forest where he is tempted first by the wolf of the false-father gang member, and then later has to endure a far more high stakes encounter.

The slightly ambiguous ending does suggest that like Red Riding Hood emerging from the wolf’s belly, Cyril goes through a sort of rebirth in relation to a new found sense of maturity that can be directly linked to the nurturing shown by Samantha. If the haunting look Antoine gives the camera in the final shot of The 400 Blows is to question the audience about how adults should treat children like him and Cyril, then the compassion, patience and empathy Samantha displays in The Kid with a Bike may be that answer over 50 years later.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Felicity Jones)

Two people madly in love with each other are kept apart; it’s a classic bitter-sweet romantic drama scenario. In this case the couple are Los Angeles-based Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and London-based Anna (Felicity Jones). After an intense summer romance the pair begin a long distance relationship, hoping to be reunited and to overcome all the resulting communication difficulties, jealousies, temptations and doubts that they may not be the soul mates they thought they were.

Initially Like Crazy successfully conveys the rush and then crash of an intense short-term relationship. However, the stakes aren’t high enough for it to sustain the desired emotional anguish. The situation is too privileged to be truly tragic – Anna naively overstaying her student visa is the cause of the estrangement and their lives are otherwise kind of fantastic since they both achieve success and fulfilment in the professions of their choosing very quickly. Nevertheless, this likeable low budget American indi is kept fresh by Yelchin and Jones who are endearing as the star-crossed lovers.

Originally appeared in The Big Issue, No. 401, 2012

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Caius Martius Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes)

One of the many reasons for the longevity of William Shakespeare’s plays are their timeless insights into human behaviour. While many of the comedies focus on how love, desire, jealousy and pride motivate us, the histories and tragedies contain searing insights into politics, use and abuse of power, and the tension between public and private life. Shakespeare’s plays have therefore long been ideal for modern interpretations as regardless of when or where the plays were originally set or written, their content can be used to make potent commentaries on other periods and times that are more familiar and relevant to the audience. More akin to a classical Greek tragedy than most of Shakespeare’s better-known tragedies, Coriolanus hasn’t been adapted into a film until now. Its brutal and cynical depiction of politics, the military and public life renders it less accessible than the plays with a more sympathetic tragic hero or even empathetic anti-hero. However, it is the play’s brutality and cynicism that director and lead actor Ralph Fiennes explores to make this new adaptation disturbingly relevant and modern.

The setting, ambiguously written as ‘a place calling itself Rome’, is a contemporary grey, decaying industrial city. Coriolanus was shot in Belgrade, Serbia before the 2011 London riots, but the large English cast, scenes of civil upset and themes of class conflict uncannily evoke the images televised during those events. Fiennes possibly planned to make Coriolanus as a statement about a once powerful European nation in decline with allusions to war-torn eastern European states, Northern Ireland conflicts and 1980s English riots during the Thatcher era, but he seems to have inadvertently created a premonition of things to come in England.

Fiennes is an imposing figure as Caius Martius Coriolanus, the commander of the army in a time of war and civilian food shortages. With his shaved head, scarred face and bulked up physique, he’s portrayed as a fierce warrior who walks a fine line between honour and arrogant self-righteousness. He’s the ideal tool for the type of authoritarian government that pretends to be listening to the will of the people as he can be used against the starving rioters, but his war record also makes him into a national hero and therefore a political weapon to gain votes. Most interestingly is the dynamic where Coriolanus becomes championed by the actual people he previously oppressed, displaying Shakespeare’s razor sharp observations on how fickle and easily led the voting public can be, and the peculiar dynamic where the public are often persuaded to support political parties and ideologies that do them the most harm.

The middle section of the film deals with Coriolanus’s public image, and Fiennes stages many of the scenes as if they were happening during a political chat show or filmed news report. Not all of the attempts at restaging crowd forum scenes as fiery debates in a television studio work as seamlessly as Fiennes no doubt would have liked, simply because such scenes feel too small and contained to truly suggest today’s global audiences and mass media. However, Shakespeare may be forgiven for not foreseeing the scope of media influence since his observations about political rhetoric, especially the vast chasm between what public figures say and what they really think, are chillingly relevant.

Both sides of politics come across as particularly grubby, respectively exploiting Coriolanus’s perceived glories or perceived faults for the benefit of their own political careers. While it would have been easy to portray Coriolanus as an unsympathetic brute, Fiennes does a remarkable job in later scenes at making the audience momentarily understand the contempt he displays towards the public and his new political peers. Similarly, while his ruthless determination as a soldier make him a frightening presence in the civilian world, he does elicit some sympathy from being shunned for being a soldier in peace time presumably by the same society that wanted him to be a soldier during wartime. In this respect there are even traces of John Rambo from First Blood (Ted Kotcheff, 1982) within Fiennes’s Coriolanus.

It is the grimness of the world created by Fiennes that allows for a glorified thug like Coriolanus to appear moderately justified in key scenes of the film, and the uncomfortable confusion this elicits from the audience is a real strength. The character is further developed through the portrayal of his relationship to his mother Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave), which is not so much Oedipal in affection as more regressive where she dotes over him like a child, to the exclusion of his wife Virgilia (Jessica Chastain). Coriolanus’s infantilism becomes most pronounced when shunned and banished by the state he responds by joining forces with his sworn enemy Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler) to lead his insurgent-like army against Rome in revenge.

The dramatic change from loyal patriot to deadly traitor is not only the act of a child who hasn’t got their own way, but also that of somebody who is self-destructive. Previous scenes where Coriolanus appears to be opposed to hearing his achievements and glories exalted publicly suggest intense modesty, but it fits the pattern of a rage filled man who hates his enemies, hates his fellow citizens and most of all hates himself. Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare’s most damning depictions of public life and the psychology of a career soldier, and Fiennes’s adaptation is a reflection of spin, media influence in public debate, the cult of personality and the glorification of war.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Simin (Leila Hatami) and Nader (Peyman Moaadi)

Simin (Leila Hatami) wants her husband Nader (Peyman Moaadi) and their 11-year-old daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi) to leave Iran with her. Nader wants to remain to look after his father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) who has Alzheimer’s disease. The pair cannot find a compromise so Simin has requested a divorce that Nader is refusing to give. A Separation opens with a continuous shot of Simin and Nader in a family court in Tehran. The camera is fixed in position to look at the pair so that the audience take the role of the unseen judge hearing their case. In contrast to the fixed and formal opening shot, the rest of the film has a constantly moving camera to suggest a sense of turmoil in the lives of the characters. The camera frequently films through doorways or around corners to also give the viewer a sense of voyeuristic access into their private lives. However, throughout A Separation writer/director/producer Asghar Farhadi continues to place the audience in the judge’s chair; challenging them to make judgements about the characters and to acknowledge how nothing is clear cut or easy to evaluate.

Initially A Separation appears to be about the breakdown of the marriage between Simin and Nader, but the film explores other types of separations when it introduces Razieh (Sareh Bayat) and her husband Houjat (Shahab Hosseini). Razieh is hired by Nader to care for his father while he is at work and a resulting incident becomes a pivotal point that leads to another court case where the actions, motivations and morality of the various characters are challenged and questioned. Even the audience have to double think what they witnessed during the key scene and which characters’ interpretation of events best matches their own. The resulting conflicts explore the bigger separations in the film between the middleclass and presumably non-devote Simin and Nader, and the ‘regular class’ and religious Rzieh and Houjat.

A Separation introduces the themes of social divisions during the opening credit sequence where shots of passports being photocopied suggest the bureaucratisation of identity where people are reduced to a series of statistics. This opening obviously also deceptively suggests Simin’s imminent travel, which is then denied in the first scene and not pursued again for the rest of the film. Instead this sequence suggests how notions of age, gender, occupation and religion separate people. Like Carnage (Roman Polanski, 2011) A Separation explores how presumed social norms are extremely tenuous and how threats to these almost illusory ideas can threaten our sense of personal security.

Perhaps this is why A Separation has resonated so strongly throughout the world. It has received extraordinary acclaim since it’s first February 2011 screenings (its Australian theatrical release has arrived extremely late) and seems to have attracted a much broader audience than most other Iranian films. The actors are professional, the film is tightly scripted, the setting is urban, the characters are recognisable white and blue collar workers, and the film incorporates elements of domestic drama, courtroom drama and even suspense/mystery film. A Separation stylistically, thematically and narratively appeals to western sensibilities, and yet none of these elements detract from the film nor dilute its identity as an Iranian film; in fact they do the opposite.

Through its tense and intriguing narrative, not only are class and religious divisions explored but it also provides a critique of the inequality between men and women in Iranian society. Partly to avoid political censorship and partly to make an accessible yet complex film, Farhadi doesn’t provide a direct condemnation of the way women are restricted, but the entire film expresses the limited options faced by Iranian women. Simin never gives a clear reason for why she wants to leave Iran with her daughter, but it become clear that as an intelligent and aspirational woman, her opportunities at home seem small. The male characters in the film are not bad people – they are highly flawed like all the characters in the film, but they are not bad. Houjat is hot tempered, but his physical aggression towards Nadar is understandable (if not excusable) and his real outbursts are saved for himself. During a scene at a petrol station Nadar appears to even be pushing his daughter Termeh into acting more assertively, even if that defies social conventions. And yet, these men still have control over the women in their lives. They may not consciously wield such power but social values and the law gives it to them.

Tellingly there are points in the film where the separations between all the characters appear to be removed. Razieh and Houjat’s daughter Somayeh (Kimia Hosseini) and Termeh exchange glances across a room to communicate their shared distress and confusion at what is happening between their parents. This suggests how children are often the ones who suffer the most in family conflict, which becomes the final message the film leaves the audience with. Graphic matches of both Simin and Razieh putting on their hijab headscarfs link the women during a moment when they are attempting to find a solution, only for it to be undone by the men soon after. In this way, issues of honour, religious obedience and family are continually defined by the male characters in the film to the detriment of their loved ones. As a result, social norms that are supposed to bring people together are slyly critiqued as part of a deeply ingrained patriarchal culture that divides and separates not just women and children, but men too.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams)

In 1957 Marilyn Monroe stared in The Prince and the Showgirl opposite Sir Laurence Olivier, the film’s director and co-star. According to Simon Curtis’s My Week with Marilyn, Monroe saw this collaboration as an opportunity to extend her range as a serious actor while Olivier saw it as a chance to get a taste of Hollywood glamour. The result was a turbulent set of conflicting motivations as witnessed by future filmmaker Colin Clark, who at the time had just left university and was doing his first job as an assistant director. Clark’s two published accounts of his experiences, which detail his relationship with Monroe, form the basis of Curtis’s film. Similar to Me and Orson Welles (Richard Linklater, 2008) My Week with Marilyn is partly a coming-of-age/love story, partly a study of fame and partly a once-removed biopic where the famous person at the centre of the film, in this case Monroe, is viewed through the eyes of an unknown.

My Week with Marilyn begins as something of a light-hearted romp. Played by Eddie Redmayne, Clark is initially presented rather broadly as a poor rich boy, whose show-business aspirations are something of a disappointment to his upper class, overachieving and restrictive family. Once on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl he experiences both the welcoming and nurturing side of filmmaking in the guise of Dame Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench), as well as the bullying, condescending and inpatient nature of the biz through Kenneth Branagh’s portrayal of Olivier. However, Olivier is not completely unsympathetic and some of his annoyances and frustrations are understandable if not always reasonable. My Week with Marilyn suggests that Olivier was both threatened and in awe of Monroe and her devotion to method acting.

Once Monroe (Michelle Williams) becomes a central part of the narrative, the film becomes significantly more interesting. Williams captures the vulnerability, allure and transcendent appeal of Monroe perfectly. She does not mimic Monroe and Curtis seems to have deliberately avoided making Williams precisely look the part. The result is a performance that captures Monroe’s essence rather than focusing on superficial surface appearances. That essence was Monroe’s contradictory and sometimes self-destructive relationship with fame. She yearned to be taken seriously as an actor rather than be seen as a kooky sex symbol and yet, as portrayed in the film, she continually defaulted back to publicly playing the part of a coy sex bomb. My Week with Marilyn captures the great sadness of a woman who played up to her glamorous image despite despising it.

The film begins with one of Monroe’s performances, which cuts between the actual performance as it is being filmed and then shots of that projected image in a cinema, to establish Monroe’s identity as a movie star who existed for so many as a projection. Throughout the film she is constantly being photographed and illuminated with spotlights, always on display and under scrutiny. Often the film cuts to still photos of her to suggest a constant attempt to freeze a moment in time and trap her image. Even telling Monroe’s story as a snapshot from the point-of-view of Clark reveals how Monroe’s existence had so much to do with her being a public figure being forever viewed through the eyes of others.

Underneath the film’s conventional dramatic flourishes and fun references to other celebrities of the era is a sweet and melancholic story. Rather than being a full blown biopic attempting to cover her entire life, My Week with Marilyn presents the conflicting and complex nature of who she was on- and off-screen by focusing on one week in her life through the eyes of an at-the-time industry outsider. After The Prince and the Showgirl Monroe went on to deliver her finest comedic performance in Billy Wilder’s masterpiece Some Like It Hot (1959) and her finest dramatic performance in John Huston’s The Misfits (1961) before dying in 1962 at the age of 36. When Williams as Monroe says to Clark, ‘Don’t forget about me’, she’s not asking him to not forget the most famous woman in the world, but she is saying to him ‘Don’t forget me as a real person who was your friend’ and to the audience ‘Don’t forget I was a serious and talented actor.’

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

John Ottway (Liam Neeson)

Liam Neeson is John Ottway, a severely depressed man working in a remote part of Alaska with an oil drilling team. Ottway’s job is to kill the wolves that threaten the team and early in the film the symbiotic relationship he has with the wolves is established when one of the wolves distracts him from taking his own life. The isolated snow covered setting and the all male cast recall John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) where the male scientific team in the Antarctic represented humanity on the frontier of civilisation defending themselves from an invading alien creature. In The Grey the invaders are the men. Their jobs entail plundering the Earth for its natural resources and killing the local wildlife. When the plane taking the men home crashes during a blizzard, Ottway and the other survivors are in the wolves’ territory. Yet this is not a gritty realistic survival film, but a film that functions on a mythical level to explore the meaning of life, the existence of God and the hubris of humanity.

In one sense The Grey is a critique of American foreign policy and military intervention, with the men from the oil drilling team representing an invading force and the wolves representing local insurgents. The men aren’t supposed to be where they are, but due to reasons beyond their control they are in a hostile environment and under immense threat. The wolves use their knowledge of the environment and the element of surprise to pick the men off one by one, like guerrilla forces who have changed the rules of engagement to compensate for their smaller numbers and inferior weaponry. Notions of civilisation and savagery are then tested by how the men respond. While Ottway attempts to maintain the balance between acting practically and morally, he is challenged by the far more nihilistic John Diaz (Frank Grillo) whose pre-emptive aggression threatens the stability of the entire group. When Diaz graphically decapitates a wolf and holds its head like a trophy while screaming at the pack, ‘You’re not the animals, we’re the animals!’ he has committed a war crime, making him worse than the enemy he is fighting against.

Similar to Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979), and before that Charles Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel Heart of Darkness, Ottway’s physical journey is a metaphorical journey through his own soul. Many of the situations in The Grey suggest elaborate tests designed to assess his faith. Ottway may rage against God’s absence, but the cruel scenarios the men face reflect the constant presence of the insecure God of the Old Testament who constantly needs validation and evidence that his creation believes in him. The film contains symbolic moments such as a leap of faith and a deadly watery baptism, all of which test the resolve of the men and claims the lives of those who fail it. On the other hand, the Old Testament version of a harsh and judgemental God is not too dissimilar to the idea that nature is similarly unforgiving, making the film a series of punishments for the men who had the audacity to think they were the rulers of their domain when they are merely its subjects. Whether the punisher is an indifferent universe or a vengeful God, the men in The Grey suffer for their arrogance.

Or do they? Perhaps death in The Grey is the achievement of enlightenment. To push the metaphoric journey idea one step further, what if Ottway’s physical journey is really a spiritual journey in a way akin to that of the William Blake character in Jim Jarmusch’s 1995 masterpiece Dead Man. Curiously, director Joe Carnahan’s previous film The A-Team, which also starred Neeson, was a hyperactive celebration of masculinity. In stark contrast, masculinity is hell in The Grey. Prior to the plane crash, many of the opening scenes involve Ottway trying to mentally escape to a memory of being with his wife and being at peace. He is continually pulled out of that memory and back into the harsh and masculine world of the oil drilling team, visually torn away from a shot of his wife to appear in a shot set in the ‘real’ world. The memory of his wife is Ottway’s version of heaven, but the film is not ready for him to join her there – first he must journey from the hell of the all-male oil drill environment and then be tested in the purgatory of the Alaskan wilderness.

The tests in this sense are ones of moral leadership as well as faith, which involve Ottway steering the other men down the path of righteousness as much as looking out for himself. In one scene he almost functions as a Christ-like figure who shepherds a dying man into the next realm. Ottway also has to face his own shadow, the instinctive and primal part of him that challenges his moral reserve, and that element is represented in the film as the Alpha wolf. Opposing forces and yet both depending on the other to exist in terms of the film’s inbuilt mythology, Ottway and Alpha take the audience deep into America’s heart of darkness to ask what is more brutal: the hostile environment or the species that has dared to tame such an environment.

Carnahan hasn’t abandoned the elements of excitement and suspense for the sake of the film’s philosophical content, with the camera movement often mimicking the difficulty of running in deep snow, capturing the terror of the plane crash and lurking over a cliff to suggest a character’s fear of heights. As a simple survival story it is gripping cinema, but by being rich in metaphor, filled with ambiguity and widely open to interpretation, it is so much more. Even the title The Grey suggests the unknown factor, evoking the look of the Alaskan wilderness, the depressed state of Ottway’s mind and the vast space between white and black, right and wrong, heaven and hell.

Thomas Caldwell, 2012

The AACTA awards are an attempt to rise above the negativity and celebrate our local achievements. However, by focusing so much on mainstream appeal, celebrity and glamour, the ceremony and the broadcast may have lost its original audience – the people who are actually passionate about Australian film and television.

The full column is available at Killings