mcalwell

This film limps from self indulgent moment to self indulgent moment, promising to develop into something worth hanging on for. But it doesn't. It's flat, self conscious, unimaginative and tedious.

A series of set images and backdrops don't make a film, they make a calendar. This kind of pitiful socialist pseudo drama documentary ("It's TRUE it REALLY happened") not only fails to entertain, it fails to convince, so it doesn't even function as social history. Clichés co-mingled with bad acting make this a film very difficult to finish, the amusement factor wearing off fairly quickly. The characters are one dimensional, never developing to the extent that one feels for them. The director's ego is the largest character in this film.

Lost in Translation didn't offer much in the trailers, but delivered so much more on the big screen.

It is a highly sensual film, laden with texture, light, reflection and colour. I felt that the one scene (hopefully not giving too much away) involving carpet samples was a very clever allegory. You can reach out and touch Tokyo in this film, you can smell the air.

The relationship that develops between Scarlett Johannsenn and Bill Murray is intriguing and touching, tense and emotional, and both appearances are superb - Bill Murray is gripping.

The only potential criticism of this film is that it is racist, portraying the Japanese in a one dimensional manner and Japan in an unfair light.

This is a technically brilliantly executed film from all perspectives, but I feel it would lose much on the small screen.

This film promised so much, a warm and sincere study of the enduring force of love. Yet what it delivered was insincere, badly presented, scatty and unfulfilling.

If I had been a fat person I would have found the constant references to obesity deeply offensive. This film tragically reinforces the message to more impressionable viewers that there are two basic classes of people - the thin, attractive ones and the fat ugly ones. I found the film divisive, shallow and empty as a result. It's a sad fact that if the negative references were about race or height, there would have been an outcry, and the film would never have made it to the big screen.

Fortunately, this film will be forgotten, not least of all because it is incoherent. It is impossible to have 40 main characters and expect to deliver a punchy, memorable film. There are some good performances, some funny scenes, but basically it is a poor film that did so little with so much.

"Location, location, location" might be a winning formula for property buying but it isn't for film production.

"Swimming Pool" views too much like a cross between 'The Holiday Programme' and 'French for beginners' to be a serious piece of film making. It looks too much like TV drama in its filming and direction for the big screen, and the script reads like it has been written by a committee - it stutters rather than flows, and is laden with virtually undeliverable lines and cliches.

Which is sad, because the acting performances are rather good, and there is a genuine sensuality bubbling underneath the surface. Technically, only the lighting stood out as above average.

Another thing that let the film down was its insidious heightism - which kicks off with a short character being referred to as 'a little sh*t' and continued with the depiction of taller people as inherently superior and the casting of short people as subordinate and ineffectual.

Nor did the film really uncover or expound any real issues about the craft of writing or the boundaries between fiction and reality, which I felt it was ostensibly supposed to.

Despite these flaws, I enjoyed the film, and didn't resent paying the entrance fee, though it's certainly not a great film.

If a film is to be about people, their lives and interactions, then it can't possibly be about a small army of dullards. If a film is to keep your attention, it cannot switch haphazardly between an infinite aggregation of sub-plots. If a film is to engage the eye, it cannot be shot like a third rate instructional video. If a film is to keep you on your seat, then it cannot ramble on and on and on without any conclusion.

Sometimes, you walk away from a film thinking "if only the editing/camerawork/script had been better - it could have been brilliant". But with this film, there was nothing of merit. Even the actors give the impression that they couldn't be bothered to try their best, almost as though they were watching the clock along with the audience.

I saw this film last night, and I can barely remember it. I couldn't spoil it for you if I tried. We tried to work out how the cast were tempted to appear in this film, and we came to the conclusion that they were lured by the weather. That shouldn't be enough to lure an audience though.

Luhrmann realises one important thing. That if you want to evoke a

powerful response from an audience you can achieve that not by

pursuing the representation of reality, but by abandoning reality

entirely.

It's a clever device, and used well in Moulin Rouge. As the

audience is led through the opening curtain, it is invited to

abandon the rules and regulations of the real world. Once the

audience is in Luhrmann's world, he can do anything he wants.

As a story, it's good, though not remarkable. But as a film, it is a

celebration of what's best about cinema. The use of colour, scale,

motion, and clever editing, the use of contrast, light and dark,

make for a film that seduces you and sucks you in, and keeps you

watching.

Another clever device is the use of music. Luhrmann knows that if

a character speaks a few words of a famous love song, the scene

and the film will inherit the emotional response engendered by

that song. This magpie approach is true of many of the props and

costumes in the film. He taps into our psyches and into our myths,

and uses them to great effect.

It is very much an internal film. It is set in a closed, dark, shady

world, but one in which the diamonds of people and personalities

shine bright. It's a lovely backdrop for a simple love story, and a

struggle between carigatures of good and evil. It's got a delicate,

innocent comedy that gives the film a pleasant balance.

You can't really fault the casting or the acting, and you come out

with a greater respect for the actors involved. In all, a good film,

and a film with big director visibility, and arguably a genre in its

own right.

'Le Secret' is a frustrating film. You know it must be doing something right because you walk away emotionally exhausted, and with the sense that you have seen something of the human condition expounded. At the same time it is wanting in enough ways to undermine its claim to greatness. It is wanting dynamically to such a large extent that, whilst it is a good script and a good story, it it is not a good film. And as a piece of narrative, it is inconclusive, and not in the sense that it terminates with a poignant and provocative question. Arguably this is a film which could be remade, utilising the same script and the same cast, but using different artistic and technical direction. The camerawork adds nothing to the film. It creates no tension, no atmosphere, does not enhance the mood or emulate the powerful experiences of the characters. It is flat, weak and pedestrian. The film lacks any geography and fails to resound the timing of events (essential in a film about this subject). In short, its elements are powerful, but its construction is poor. It lacks focus. The film treads a clumsy path between an intense emotional struggle that borders on the surreal, and an ambivalent realism. It achieves neither. The direction needs to be more decisive, it needs to choose one over the other; and it needs to employ the camera more effectively to realise it. There is no differentiation in the filming between the house of the lover and the family home. Additionally we get no sense of atmosphere of either one. There is none of the seduction in the former, or of tedium in the latter, that the protagonist might be feeling. Are we supposed to believe that Marie is having fantastic sex with Bill? If so, it is only through her inadequately exposed acting. What keeps Marie coming back? Only she knows. What is driving her to maintain this relationship? We can only speculate, because the film gives us little insight into the personalisation of her experience. Additionally, the conclusion is weak and vacillating. However, this film will undoubtedly touch a nerve with anyone who has been in a similar situation. It powerfully depicts the insidious destructiveness of infidelity on both the individual, the family, and to some extent society. To conclude, a wasted opportunity, with much unrealised potential.

I find it hard to believe that this is not a fairly blunt, reactionary critique of alternative lifestyles, and of the attendant half-baked ideologies that accompany it.

The use of the contemporary film technique of 'fly on the wall documentary' rewound to the 1970s was interesting. It gave the the film an air of realism that was necessary in underlining the film's serious point.

The reason that the characters are all so likeable and intelligent reinforces the message; if they were not it would undermine the credibilty of the message that their 'system', albeit an alternative one, was as flawed, if not moreso, than the system against which they are raging. This is a film about systems and ideologies overpowering people.

But Moodysson not only presents the problem, he presents the solution. You do not tolerate your partner sleeping with other people. You do not watch your marriage fall apart. Either way you ultimately reach happiness by conforming to the time tested, western, Judeo-Christian model of monogamy as the framework and the basic building block of a happy, stable society. But Moodysson does not suggest that that conforming to that model, in itself, is sufficient. Effort has to be made, and sacrifice has to be conceded. It was healthy to see children portrayed as the losers in the game of fickle, immature adults. This could easily have been an adult film about adult problems, but the injection of childrens' perspective into the plot gave the film context.

Ultimately, though, this isn't a particularly sophisticated film. It blurs the edges as an excuse for exploring the problems, and it's a bit simplistic. A bunch of flowers and a pile of promises don't solve all marital problems. But ultimately a well made film that will serve as a reference for a time largely passed, where the alternative vied with the mainstream for credibility, and where there was a higher cost than was anticipated.

Battle Royale is a dystopia in the same vein as 1984, Animal Farm and Lord of the flies, though what it lacks in depth it makes up for in violence. It borrows elements from all these works.

The obvious point about this film that many commentators have missed is that the first death is not a killing by the children but the suicide of the main character's father. He kills himself because he cannot survive in a ruthless, capitalist world.

The ruthlessness of the outside world is simply echoed and distilled on the island, where the children are similarly differently equipped to survive. The brutal message is, however hard you try to out-think the system, or fight it with co-operation or compassion, you will always be undermined, as long as there are no rules.

On another level, the children have been made scapegoats for a system that has failed them. Leadership, as represented by the teacher, has abdicated responsibility, and has taken his charges down a blind alley. In doing so he has sunk the future.

I suspect the director is trying to send a warning to Japan that unless it exercises more moderation, compassion and intelligence in its dealings between the individual, the state and the economy, the result will be dystopic. Demonising children is not the answer.