svenrufus Reviews

Behind the Candelabra (2013)

Glitzy, but drab

[6/10 · 30 December 2015]

Let's get the good bits out there first. I thought Matt Damon and Michael Douglas were both very good in their roles, Douglas especially going against type. That was impressive. It was well filmed, and the sets were every bit as striking as you'd expect given the subject matter.

But despite all the glitz of what I was looking at, the overall was rather drab and workaday. At first I was thinking that was perhaps a reflection on the fact that the rich and famous also live fundamentally normal lives, the same stories played out in terms of relationships and human weaknesses, so the mundane nature of their experience can't really be hidden by the shiny baubles and jewellery, but in the end I feel that there was something else missing from this.

A bit like Liberace himself perhaps, this is a film that depends more on style than substance. 'It looks fabulous, so maybe no-one will notice how thin and meagre the rest of the work is' appears to be the underlying ethos for the film, and that's disappointing given the personnel involved.

I can't quite get my head round why that is. It could be that the source material is not the full picture given how one sided the account really is (I only found that out after seeing it and that struck me as a possible issue straight away.) Perhaps the fact that it was supported by HBO rather than a more experienced film studio gives it a more televisual, functional feel than might have been achieved elsewhere, but I don't really know why that should be the case, other than the fact that I don't watch any TV any more, partly because it leaves me feeling like what I watch lacks something vital, similar to the way this film makes me feel.

I was looking forward to the film, and am glad I've seen it now, but it didn't live up to my expectations.

Once (I) (2007)

A wonderful quiet love story

[8/10 · 17 December 2015]

I've just watched this again yesterday after a few years since I first saw it, and then watched it again tonight because I was so completely captivated by it. This is exactly what happened when I first saw it too, and now I know I'll be listening to the soundtrack on hard rotation for a few days at least.

For me, this film doesn't put a foot wrong. It's perfectly paced, to match the pace of the developing love story. The music is mesmerising at times, heartbreaking at others. The acting is subtle, but spot on. The filming is beautiful, even with the jerky camera work, it matches the rough edges of the lives of the characters. All the things that I've seen people criticise this film for, I would argue are things that work perfectly for this film, this story, the love affair and the struggles.

There is something about this that puts me in mind of Brief Encounter - I don't hold it in such high esteem, but it is a wonderfully pitched story, that asks you to look deep into it to understand what the characters aren't saying, what they aren't doing, and to be able to reach an understanding of their choices while feeling the turmoil their own brief encounter puts them through.

Life rarely gives us the Hollywood plot line. The twists and turns of our daily encounters mean that choices aren't always clear cut, but are so often compromises. Guy and Girl here face those compromised outcomes - what might have been, have they got all they could or could have hoped for. All of this is clear when you look at them through the film, and the music supports that understanding, sometimes driving the point home like a knife. This is genuinely one of the most beautiful and gut wrenching films I have seen.

Brooklyn (2015)

Ronan owns this films, terrific performance

[8/10 · 1 November 2015]

I was lucky enough to get tickets to a preview of Brooklyn last week, and in a rare change from the normal routine, I went into a film knowing absolutely nothing about it.

It was such a full house, that I ended up staring up at the screen from well outside my usual comfort zone at an awkward angle, too close to the screen, and away from my girlfriend which wasn't a great start, but once the film started I was quickly caught up in the magnificence of Saoirse Ronan's performance and forgot about any of those minor gripes.

Ronan owned this film, from first to last. The storyline itself is a somewhat thin and a follows a well-trodden path but Ronan gives it such heft, and brings the intensity of her character's experience and development full force such that any deficiencies of the story seem inconsequential. It was only after leaving the screening that I really looked back at some of the plot points and realised how contrived it had been in places, but for the time I was watching it, I was simply living it through the potency of the acting. Ronan was brilliant in this, and I struggle to think of any recent performances that can match this for the confidence and sure-footedness that she showed. I think she's in with a good shout for an award or two for this role.

It's worth mentioning Julie Waters as well, who reliably entertains and impresses in all she does. Between her and Saoirse Ronan, they made sure that Brooklyn passed the 6 laugh test – and also the 6 cry test. I laughed, and cried, and laughed as I was crying, and cried as I was laughing pretty much throughout the whole film. A thoroughly enjoyable film, where the central performance takes the audience on an engrossing and emotional trip through an otherwise somewhat slight storyline.

A Message from the Future (1981)

A Perfect Storm

[1/10 · 26 March 2015]

You know how you sometimes watch a film which has a great story, but really shonky acting. Maybe it's well sot, but the script is all over the place. Or weak in concept, but the special effects pull you through. It's quite possible to like films with all sorts of flaws if there in enough to redeem it in other areas, and you leave it with an OK feeling, tinged with a 'If only...' frame of mind.

This film isn't one of those. I watched it as a podcast I subscribe to is about to discuss it. I haven't heard that yet, but I'm seriously questioning their wisdom in that choice. Presumably they find some redemption in it, and it will be interesting to see what that is, because I find none.

Where to start...? The acting? OK, that could barely be worse. It was so bad that I could only wonder at times if they were doing it deliberately for some effect. One newsreader character read her lines as if she was asleep, there were the hammiest of evil villain laughs, the worst ever Margaret Thatcher, amongst scores of weak performances. I really am not exaggerating when I say that at least one of the kids in my 8 year old daughter's school is a better actor than anyone in this.

What else? The camera work/directing/set? OK, let's be clear, this was made on no budget, the sets were a bit rubbish, but they did what they could to make it look good I guess. I'm actually OK with it's low budget look. But the camera was more wobbly than the set, the director focused in on the random and extensive nudity in a way which had me worried for a while that it might descend into some kid of tawdry soft core. (I've got absolutely no problem with nudity btw, they looked great, but it starts to make you wonder what's going on in the director's mind after a while. At times, the camera work was so poor it was like watching some French New Wave jump cut sequence, but that wasn't what was happening.

What about the story? Hmm. At best, Hmm... Without giving plot details, the nugget of story at the heart of this was left floundering amid a morass of irrelevance. Was there another theme that was being explored through the film, a subtext - time, society, power...? No, there wasn't. If that was their intent, we didn't see it expressed, lost in the attention we were forced to pay to boobs and eating chocolate bars.

And one glorious non sequitur sequence, where I nearly cried through laughter, deranged laughter as I lost the will to live. A random band plays a whole song in the middle section ("Radioactivity, It's a hell of an activity") which served no purpose, was sh!t, and unbelievably trashy.

No. Really. I can't think of a redeeming feature of this film. If you are still thinking of watching it, my advice is get some mates round, get drunk, get something to smoke ready, get the munchies sorted, then go out and do something else.

Man alive! One of the worst things I have ever seen. 1/10 only because I ca't give zero

Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997)

Tawdry and exploitative

[3/10 · 18 September 2014]

While clearly this is visually captivating, there is an unpleasant sense that we're being taken on a tour of YouTube clips of death and loss, rather than being given any proper analysis of events, or even a decent exposition on the supposed theme of this film.

I get that this was made as an art installation, and that it's not always necessary for a documentary to be a huge political and sociological examination of events, but this doesn't even succeed on the terms which it itself establishes. Juxtaposing the footage of terrorist incidents with other news reels and random moments from TV, interspersed with monologues and discussions from a book (I think), it still seems to be trying to make a point, perhaps about the way we view such incidents as just one of the outputs from our modern media, but it lacks any coherence in the way this is done, and fails to deliver on it's own objectives.

The exploitative nature of the film is brought sharply into focus when we're shown footage of fatal plane crashes that have absolutely no connection to hijacking or terrorism. Whatever other arguments it may want to make are destroyed by these random inclusions. It lacks credibility. It's little more than a version of 'Faces of Death'.

The Double (2013)

Flawed, but too much criticism given for the wrong reasons

[6/10 · 9 April 2014]

So many of the reviews I've seen for this focus on the fact that The Double seems to reference so many other films - one particularly scathing one dismissed it as a trawl through the director's DVD collection. I always feel that how I feel about a film has to be based on whether it looks good, makes sense and stands up to viewing in it's own terms, not in relation to other films that I may or may not have seen. It's unfair to dismiss this simply because of the obvious nods to Brazil, or the Fight Club-esque aspects of it. (I was only 7 when Eraserhead came out, and saw it as a young teen, so can't even judge whether that comparison is valid) The real question is 'Does it stand up as a film in it's own terms, notwithstanding these references'? The design and visual feel of the film are quite striking - yes, I've seen it before, but that doesn't stop it being effective in it's own right. You could almost say that the monotone palette/low lighting are becoming shorthand for some kind of dystopic view of the world. I can live with that.

The pacing and direction of the film are also pretty strong. I particularly enjoyed the use of sound tricks such as footsteps not stopping when people stopped walking - it doesn't jar, it more adds to the sense of overbearing lack of control for the main character, unable to stop or control events around him. The photography was great, I really enjoyed 'watching' the film. I've got no problem with The Double from that side.

However, where it does fall flat for me, and in this crucial respect does not stand up as a solid film in it's own right, is that the story just does not seem to be robust enough to withstand much scrutiny. With the other films that have been used as comparisons to this, the story catches you off guard, but when re-examined, still holds a logical consistency, or at least maintains the capacity for offering an interpretation that makes sense in that respect. But for The Double, there is a big gap in the film's internal coherence, so that on leaving the cinema I was just left thinking 'No, but for that to work, then this would need to have happened, and why did they behave like this when that happened, and ...' etc.

It's not just that there may be some ambiguity to it, which I'm fine with - more problematic is that whatever kind of interpretation that you look for doesn't seem to fit throughout the film, and different interpretations, different narratives are needed at different points of the film. If you try to chase through to the end with any one interpretation, you are left hanging.

So for me, the criticism that focuses on the referential nature of the film are missing the more crucial weakness that it presents us with. The direction, style and tone are all great, and it was a treat to watch, but the lack of attention to the presentation of the story, to offer it in a way where even unanswered questions could possibly have a logical albeit uncertain answer, undermines what was otherwise a good film.

It's a real pity. This gets a 6 from me - it could have got 8 or 9 if the whole film had matched the quality of the directing, but the weakness in the storyline drags it right back down into mediocrity.