Tyrannosaur

Tyrannosaur’s plot explores the tragedies that occur in two people’s lives as they intersect with one another, both reaching boiling points in their tumultuous and tortured existences. Joseph is an alcoholic, a man with a vicious temper whose rage consumes him and eats away at everything around him. Joseph and Hannah cross paths when he is on the run from a fight in a pub and hides in a local charity shop where Hannah works. As the plot develops it becomes clear that Hannah is the victim of horrific domestic abuse and blankets her problems with alcohol and religion. Tyrannosaur is about the bond that forms between these two characters in their hours of need, helping and providing for one another in unexpected ways. Whilst this might all sound a bit clichéd the film manages to avoid such pitfalls through commanding performances, nuanced direction and a masterfully sustained tone of dissolution.

Tyrannosaur sidesteps being another film about addiction or domestic abuse by focusing instead on the decay of the world it’s set in. Joseph’s house is more akin to a tomb, populated by the ghosts and memories of his wife and murdered dog. The family home of Hannah resembles a withered, rotten mockery of domesticity-her husband’s presence a constant source of tension and violence. The Britain of Tyrannosaur is populated by thugs, alcoholics and the scorned. Violence engulfs people’s lives, for instance a subplot of the film details Joseph’s neighbours little boy being bullied by her boyfriend and his vicious dog. The child’s toy is mauled by the dog and left held together in pieces on the floor. The tethered material of the toy seems to operate as an astute metaphor for the characters of Joseph and Hannah, who need to be sewn up and pieced together in the same manner.

Paddy Considine’s directorial debut provides us with a very familiar set up, adopting the social realist/kitchen sink drama style to provide a visceral, gritty and melancholic representation of the underbelly of working class Britain. It is clear that Considine was heavily influenced by long time collaborator Shane Meadows as well as the work of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh in the construction of Tyrannosaur but manages to hold a distinct individuality through the film in the face of its derivations. The script is almost perfectly pitched; dialogue flows naturally and occasionally provides realistic moments of humour between characters which helps to create a genuine feeling of warmth amongst the backdrop of misery. The performances are however what truly steal the show in Tyrannosaur. Peter Mullan plays Joseph with such fierce intensity, managing to convey a character of terrifying rage and deep, disconsolate dissatisfaction simultaneously. Peep Show’s Olivia Colman is utterly compelling, perfectly embodying the conjunctive emotions of fear, desperation, anger and desolation at her appalling situation. Through the strength of performances I was unashamedly reduced to tears at points, expect heavy lumps in throats-this is not an easy watch.

(m8z)

Whilst the script, direction and performances are all top drawer the films soundtrack is unfortunately a tad suffocating and at points really acts as a disservice to the narrative content. The excessive use of acoustic guitar numbers stifled sequences and images that spoke strongly enough for themselves, the attempts to add emotive force through soundtrack just seemed too manipulative and excessive; almost dictating what was/wasn’t poignant. The closing sequence’s use of The Leisure Society’s ‘We Were Wasted’ in particular seemed to smother the text in a layer that wasn’t necessary, ruining what should have been a moment of devastatingly contemplative cinematic gloom.

Tyrannosaur is not without its flaws but is still a very strong piece of work, made all the more impressive through being Considine’s first feature length. This film should rightfully sit alongside other contemporary British kitchen sink masterpieces like Secrets & Lies, Sweet Sixteen and Fish Tank. Strong performances and direction hold this film together, providing a deeply emotive, scary and uncompromisingly jarring experience which is well worth a watch.

Tinker Trailer Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has been met with almost unanimous critical acclaim and rightly so. It's an enthralling piece of work which masterfully adapts the complexities of le Carré's novel to the screen. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is directed by Tomas Alfredson who brought us 2008's refreshingly gritty and surprisingly heart warming interpretation of the vampire myth Let the Right One in. Alfredson adopts a similar visual style to his previous efforts within his latest feature, minimalistic and formal framing paired against a very muted grey colour pallet. This creates a sterility and coldness to the cameras gaze which is the perfect accompaniment to the calm and emotionally suppressed scrutiny with which the protagonist Smiley, played by the ever outstanding Gary Oldman, carries out his investigation. Whilst the narrative is difficult to follow, if you concentrate and stick with it, you will find it an ultimately rewarding experience. I do not however intend to write another glowing report of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy's many merits, you can find plenty of those elsewhere which would undoubtedly provide you with a more eloquent account of the film than I could. Instead I wish to discuss something which struck me about the film prior to viewing it- the trailer.

A film's trailer is essentially a cinematic equivalent to a book's blurb. A blurb will usually provide an introductory impression of plot, narrative content and genre whilst detailing some critical opinion and background on the author. A film trailer is exactly the same only displayed through audio-visuals. The key difference is that a book's blurb is a piece of prose separate from the text itself whereas a film's trailer is comprised almost exclusively of content from within the film, and therein lies the problem with the modern day movie trailer. Far, far too often I will see a trailer for a film and through it be able to piece together exactly what happens because they simply give away too much in an effort of advertising how exciting/scary/funny/moving it's going to be. 

For me trailers for modern thriller and horror films are interesting to pair off against one another, both genres arguably rely on tension, mystery and violence as their strongest generic pleasures. With this in mind it is clear that the film trailer's of these two genres try their very best to advertise these elements the most strongly so will often litter the trailer's content with the most tense, shocking and violent scenes of the film. While I understand this strategy it seems irrevocably stupid as it gives audiences too strong an expectation of the films content in a genre which should strive to surprise, disturb and subvert audience assumption as much as possible to engender it's desired effects. A recent example of this which springs to mind is for the pseudo-documentary horror Grave Encounters, the trailer of which can be found below:

Despite the fact that the protagonist's neck is longer than his legs the first 50 seconds of this trailer do pretty much exactly what they should-providing an idea of the narrative framework and giving an impression of the creepy kind of stuff which goes on in the abandoned hospital without committing anything of importance away. If we can try to ignore the fact that their 'sophisticated ghost hunting equipment' is simply fluorescent pritt stick on the walls, blue lights and cameras with a flash function the rest of the trailers content foolishly reveals what are clearly key, climactic centre pieces of the movie. Most notably we see men flying along corridors shitting their pants, women whose skin has been mutilated (presumably by a ghost with a knife), ghosts throwing their beds around the room in a tantrum and one of their mates at the end whose face starts melting into some kind of black chasm which scares her friends. It's all very tiresome and reduces this ghost movie to simply being another string of predictable jumps and bumps in the night half of which we saw in the trailer.

Another example which drew my attention as being of particularly poor execution was for the upcoming The Thing prequel where you actually see at least 4 of the crew being infected by the alien-removing any tension and sense of paranoia from a plot whose foundations rest solely on those very things. Having grown accustomed to this sort of nonsense it came as a breath of fresh air when I sat down in the cinema a month or so ago and saw the superbly well constructed Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy promo, as displayed below:

All that is revealed about the film's plot is that Oldman's character Smiley has been tasked with discovering who the Russian mole is within British intelligence. The trailer's utilisation of fade to blacks and the disconnection of continuity between shots leaves room for the audience to attempt to fill in the gaps between them. Unlike the Grave Encounters trailer at no point are we given anything that resembles a segment of a scene from the film, more often than not simply 2 or 3 second close ups of  characters staring suspiciously off screen. The trailer holds each character under as much suspicion as the film itself does and through this the audience are tasked with deciphering the mystery before they have even sat down to watch the film itself. Interestingly the trailer can actually be seen to directly employ misdirection as a means of subverting audience expectation of the plot. We see Benedict Cumberbatch's character state "He killed our man in Istanbul", this cuts to reveal Tom Hardy's character holstering a gun in his pocket which then cuts to a body on the floor-the implication being his character killed their man in Istanbul. This is in fact not the case at all. A key theme within this movie is information, more specifically the reliability of information-what's 'gold' and what's 'chicken feed' designed to throw the enemy off the scent. The trailer itself can be seen to feed the audience this 'chicken feed' through misdirecting their gaze at Hardy's character. By unveiling negative information we are set up unknowingly so that when we watch the full feature and learn the nature of this treachery we're encouraged to hold everything that is displayed and told with an equal amount of scrutiny as Smiley. Investigating our way through the film by his side.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy's trailer can be seen as a way of actually embroiling the audience within the complexities of the narrative by confounding their assumptions and craftily misdirecting their gazes. A far cry away from the blunt and tactless exposition adopted by the advertising departments for Grave Encounters and The Thing and a clearly more effective promotional tool.

Super Gr8

For me Super 8 has been the blockbuster of 2011 that I have been most eagerly anticipating. The combination of Hollywood royalty J.J. Abrams as director, Spielberg as producer, 1970's as the temporal location and comparisons to E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind set my heart a quiver with excitement at the potential contained within this movie. Super 8 marks J.J. Abrams' third directorial feature length with 2006's MI 3 and 2009's superb Star Trek under his belt. Both films proved his worth as a visionary director who can combine narrative potential with remarkable action sequences without one negating or detracting from the other. *Insert predictable Michael Bay joke here*. I was however nervous as to whether Super 8 could live up to the hype, most modern day blockbusters can barely be whispered in the same breath alongside Spielberg's seminal 70's and 80's sci-fi classics. Often you will hear critics odiously repeat the dated mantra that "they just don't make them like they used to", Super 8 however works as a fantastic example to display that they can make them like they used to and perhaps even better them.

Super 8 is a story which centres around a group of young teenagers who witness a disastrous train crash in their small town late at night whilst shooting a zombie film for a local film festival. Strange events and disappearances start to occur after the crash and once the military start to get heavily involved with the town the group of friends start to investigate what is going on for themselves. Whilst this operates as the plot to the film Super 8's core lies more in the relationships between the friends and enemies within the town. This draws out large and emotive themes such as the difficult relationship between the protagonist Joe and his father. Another key aspect to the film which Abrams manages to capture vividly is the group of friends' passion for film making, whether it be the young director's manic obsession with production value or the plethora of fantastic posters adorned in the children's rooms- ranging from Halloween to Star Wars. Through the lens' of this group of children's passion for film you really get the impression of Abrams' own passion for film making and as a result Super 8 feels like a homage to cinephilia, a film vicariously about the joy of films themselves.

The happier aspects of the film are balanced quite harmoniously with some deeply saddening scenes which relate to Joe's coming to terms with the loss of his mother and his friend Alice's management of her father's alcoholism. The relationship between Joe and his father is particularly key to the more emotive aspects of the film, one scene in particular effortlessly portrays their lack of understanding of one another and inability to communicate after the death of Joe's mother. Whilst the interactions of the characters work as the emotional core of the film which seems to tie everything together there are some hugely exciting action sequences and relatively jumpy scenes ( I say relatively because I went to see this with my mum and she grabbed my arm in utter terror at least four times). 

One of the most rare feelings I think you can get whilst watching a film is the inkling that you are experiencing a sequence which will be remembered in the annals of cinematic history as being of importance, something to be discussed and exulted for years to come. Whether it be for depth of vision, quality of iconography, denial of audience expectation, creation of shock or simply just an incredible one liner nothing quite beats this unique sensation. For example the "E.T. phone home" scene, 2001's "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" chapter, Roy Batty's "I've seen cee-beams" speech or Apocalypse Now's opening sequence are good examples of such moments. When watching Super 8 you truly get a feeling that at certain points, particularly in the closing scene, you are watching something that will come up in "100 Greatest Film Moments". Whilst a lot of these scenes could be seen as being corny somehow I didn't really feel the regrettable pang of cliché I so often find in contemporary blockbusters. I think this can probably be ascribed to the films setting in the 1970's which gives it a feeling of pastiche or homage which perhaps makes the more clichéd scenes forgiveable. Plus I think I was potentially too entranced by how amazing the characters' clothes were to notice some of the minor clichéd foibles contained in the film. I want all of Joe's shirts.

What further intrigued me about this film was the lack of Star pull to attract audiences, the most famous actor in it that I knew was Elle Fanning who is still very much an up and coming actress in her older sister Dakota's shadow. The adoption of fresh faces is utterly invigorating and denies an aesthetically constructed expectation of character roles. I can predict big things for lead actor Joel Courtney who provides one of the strongest child actor performances I have seen in years, watch his space. The chemistry between all of the children on screen is utterly convincing and the dialogue between them feels a lot more naturalistic than you see in most films, a far cry from the awkwardly stinted dialogue between the leads in the Harry Potter saga. In Super 8 there is much more of an impression of the leads acting and talking as kids of their age actually would.

I truly could not recommend Super 8 enough, a brilliant example of competent film making where character development and exploration of theme are not compromised in the face of big budget effects and action sequences. Nothing feels crudely inserted into the film to open it up to larger audiences but it is still open to a huge audience base as it truly has something for everyone. In the face of huge production values and studio pressure Abrams has miraculously produced something which feels like a small, personal project much like his predecessor Spielberg managed to with E.T.. Super 8 is a perfect example of Hollywood film making at its best.

The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick is probably one of the most elusive and influential film makers of our time. Having never been interviewed or photographed for press material there is a mysterious aura which surrounds the man, an aura which he seems to imbue within his work. Having only made four films prior to his latest offering, incurred largely via a self imposed twenty year exile to escape the fame which the success of Badlands and Days of Heaven produced for him, he is a man whose work is eagerly anticipated both for its rarity and its refreshing originality and quality of vision. It is hard to talk about Tree of Life without extrapolating upon the context of his other works, all of which have a very clear, distinct authorial stamp whilst dealing with very different subject matter in varying time frames. The main thing that seems to link Malick’s films together would be an obsession with nature, and capturing it on screen. In every single one of his films to date entire sequences are utilised to showcase shots of animals, insects and plants in ways which initially seem fairly separate from the narrative body of the text. Tree of Life is no different and pushes this trope to unprecedented levels- often it appears visually and thematically to be more of a nature documentary than a fictional feature film. Whilst Tree of Life has a clear Terrence Malick flavoured stamp worn proudly on its sleeve it is clear that in his latest directorial effort he has tried, largely successfully, to push the envelope of what was expected from him. While his other works used specific historical periods to explore larger issues, such as the way in which The Thin Red Line uses WW2 as a backdrop to look at the war which is in the very heart of nature itself, The Tree of Life instead attempts to traverse the very notion of existence, the concept of life itself and everything it could mean.

It is actually very difficult to write on this film in a coherent manner due to its complete refusal to be comprehended with coherence. There essentially is no plot to the film, instead the narrative swoops back and forth exploring different issues and themes in a family’s life as well as lending large segments of screen time to charting the dawn of the universe, the solar system, planet earth and the birth of life. The narrative and thematic complexity of this film makes the work of Marker, Nolan and Noé look lazy and decidedly straightforward in comparison. Malick’s film refuses to be understood in the way any other film made before it has been understood. It does not matter if you don’t know or understand what’s happening, it seems more like you are expected to feel your way through the film rather than comprehend your way through it. For instance shots of children playing in the yard will cut to vast galactic landscapes, to and fro in a dizzying carousel of images that bend your expectations of where or what is going on. Unfortunately this does make the film edge, others would say plunge, into the realms of pretentiousness. However this seems like an inevitably fair trade to have created something almost unlike anything cinema has aspired to be before.

The incomprehensible depth of the narrative is paired alongside cinematography that beggars belief. This is hands down the most visually stunning film I have ever seen, not just the construction of the shots with Malick’s characteristic use of swooping tracks matched against rapid edits, but in some of the iconographic imagery the film effortlessly espouses. Characters inexplicably float and dance in the air, the solar system burns up as the sun engulfs it, a man walks along a beach surrounded by mirages of his past. I could go on and on inexhaustibly about the visuals of the film but they seem to speak more eloquently for themselves, as displayed in the trailer.

Pitt, Penn and Chastain provide dazzling performances of characteristic intensity in their respective roles but if you want to watch this film based purely on the star pull- I would dissuade you. The lack of dialogue and unconventional narrative distances their performances from being a central focus within the film. This is definitely more of a film for Malick fans than Pitt fans, not to say the two don’t go hand in hand, but if you came to see a knock out central performance from Pitt you will be disappointed. This is a film which is definitely not for everybody, the softly whispered voiceover with the odiously repeated lines of “Mother”, “Father”, “Brother” after a while gets fairly exhausting and I can completely understand why people would find this film pretentious, boring, incomplete, self-indulgent and potentially even preachy. However the visual and narrative vision of this piece of work for me dwarf the potentially alienating aspects of the film. Whilst the extremely bold ambitions of this piece of work tend to occasionally let the edges of this commanding masterpiece droop over its illustrious frame one thing is clear- Malick has made a film of unprecedented proportion, groundbreaking and inspirational. Go and see it.

p.s. If none of this has persuaded you to take a trip to the cinema let me put it this way- Tree of Life is like a cocktail containing 2 parts 2001, 1 part Fantasia, ¼ cup of Badlands and a splash of Jurassic Park. Yes, it has dinosaurs in it. I’m not even joking.