Mystery Train

Jim Jarmusch, 1989

The recurring theme of estrangement, predominately from a character's native land, is considered a  hallmark in the films of Jim Jarmusch, with the audience often viewing the director's America through foreign eyes, with films such as Down by Law, and Night on Earth using an alienated protagonist to give an outsider's perspective towards events. Between the successes of the aforementioned features, Jarmusch directed Mystery Train, an anthology film set in Memphis, Tennessee, that follows three separate story lines, involving characters foreign to America, that are linked by a run-down hotel they each spend the night in, various locations throughout the city, several loose character links and most notably, Elvis Presley. Unlike other anthology films, such as New York Stories or Paris je t'aime, Mystery Train's triptych stories do all follow a consistent storyline, but are told parallel to one another, showing each characters experiences in, and perspectives of, Memphis, all amounting to the same eventual climax.

Far From Yokohama, the first story in the anthology, follows a young Japanese couple, Jun and Mitsuko, on an excursion to Memphis, with the prospect of visiting Graceland during their trip across America. For the feature segment, Far From Yokohama is an inviting story, acting as an almost precursor to Sophia Coppola's Lost in Translation, a film with similar themes of alienation, loneliness, boredom and culture shock, that also follows an out-of-place couple who find mutuality also in a hotel, and perfectly blends deadpan humor with elements of drama. The second story of the movie, A Ghost follows Italian widow Luisa, astray in Memphis after experiencing trouble escorting her husband's coffin home, after becoming conned out of money on two occasions, and being confronted by two men outside a diner, she finds solace in the Arcade Hotel. Whilst falling asleep, Luisa is visited by the ghost of Elvis Presley.

The third and final feature Lost in Space follows recently single, and unemployed Englishman 'Elvis' (Joe Strummer) as he drunkenly flaunts a gun at a bar, before leaving with his ex-girlfriend's brother Charlie (Steve Buscemi) and his friend (Rick Aviles) and commiting a robbery and possible murder at a local liquor store. In an attempt to hide out and lay-low, they too retire to the Arcade Hotel. This segment could been seen as polar to the themes of the previous two features, displacing the reoccurring ambient theme of isolation, with a fast-paced use of crime and violence, most notably towards the climax of the story. Mystery Train has been influential on many other filmmakers, most notably the work of Quentin Tarantino with the three-tiered, interwoven storylines and the Lost in Space segment being more than an obvious inspiration for Pulp Fiction, using the same culmination of intense, humorous and wild events as Jarmusch's film, that is far too often associated as being an original characteristic of Tarantino's work. 

With Mystery Train being Jarmusch's first venture into colour film making, briefly abandoning his signature black-and-white bergman-esque cinematography, which he would most notably revisit in Dead Man and Coffee & Cigarettes, his employment of European-film legend Robby Müller is greatly received, with Müller capturing the beauty of everything from a cityscape, to an empty run-down hotel room. What remains, is one of Jarmusch's finest and most original works. Whilst today he is considered one of the greatest independent, cult directors in the world, staying true to his art without compromise, Mystery Train is the film that brought him out of the art house, and in front of an audience.

words by danny walker.

Une Femme est une Femme

Jean-Luc Godard, 1961

How good a Godard film is tends to be inverse to how seriously it takes itself. During his initial years as a filmmaker Godard was at his most playful, approaching moviemaking in a care free manner that led to him being, almost by accident, responsible for countless stylistic innovations (most notably his use of jump cuts) that would influence generations of filmmakers to follow. What stands as one of Godard’s best works, is also one of his earliest, and most light hearted films Une Femme est une Femme.
 
Une Femme est une Femme follows Angela (played by Godard’s then wife Anna Karina) as she attempts to persuade her boyfriend Émile (Jean-Claude Brialy) to have a child with her. When he refuses she begins to flirt with the idea of having a baby with Émile’s best friend Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo). As always with Godard, the plot is secondary with Godard using it merely as a framework throughout which he can shoehorn in various nonsensical conversations and playful camerawork.

Whereas his previous feature À Bout de Souffle can be seen as Godard’s own take on the crime films of directors he admired such as Howard Hawks, Une Femme est une Femme is his take on the Hollywood musical (further imitating Hawks by choosing to make genre pictures) and also his earliest foray into colour filmmaking. Godard’s regular cinematographer Raoul Coutard doesn’t squander this opportunity putting the use of colour at the forefront, ensuring that the film is illuminated by lighting of bright blue and red, particularly during the scenes in which Angela sings at the club. This use of red and blue is extended to both the set design and to the costumes of the characters, meaning that despite the realist elements associated with the Nouvelle Vague such as location shooting the film still possesses the fantastical appearance of a 1930’s musical.

 Whenever Godard casts a male lead other than Belmondo in these earlier pictures you can’t help being disappointed that he isn’t there, always feeling as though his replacement is simply acting as his stand in, this is also true of any female lead being considered over Karina. As he manages to cast both in this film (a feat he would only manage on only one more occasion four years later with Pierrot le Fou) the performances are some of the best seen in Godard’s oeuvre with Belmondo displaying the effortless cool that would typify all of his future roles. Karina is at her best too, not lip synching but singing the musical numbers herself and giving a great comic performance as the fickle Angela. Having married shortly before the films production, Godard appears to be setting out to make Une Femme est une Femme a tribute to his new wife and her beauty affording her numerous close ups and direct-to-camera dialogue.

After 1967 Godard’s films would begin to change for the worst, his marriage to Karina would end and his films would begin to take an ever more serious approach to their subject matter. He would focus less on technical and stylistic innovation in favour of experimenting in ways such as rejecting the narrative form of cinema, regarding it as capitalist construction, and with his most recent film Socialism even refusing to grant it English subtitles at Cannes regarding it as the language of western imperialism. With this his influence has wavered, the New Hollywood directors of the 1970’s took inspiration in countless ways from his earlier films and in turn have replaced him as the directors who the current wave of independent filmmakers look to emulate. When you think how Godard has sidelined himself it seems a shame, films such as Une Femme est une Femme, À Bout de Souffle, Alphaville and Vivre sa Vie are all still here though are all, and standing the test of time as some of the most enjoyable art house films to ever be contributed to cinema.

words by pete bond.

Electroma

Thomas Bangalter & Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo, 2007

Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo, the duo more popularly known as Daft Punk, have always had a long standing affair with film. Their first album Homework spawned numerous innovative music videos such as those for Around the World and Da Funk, giving visionary directors such as Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze some of their earliest exposure. With their follow on album Discovery they would collaborate with renowned manga creator Leiji Matsumoto on Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem a feature length animation set to the album, with the film divided up into it’s separate songs for release as music videos.

It is this point in their chronology that Electroma comes along, originally intended to simply be a music video for the title track off of their third recording Human After All, the concept soon snowballed into a feature length production with Daft Punk choosing to co-direct. Shot over the course of 11 days in the desert of Barstow, Electroma follows the robotic alter egos of Daft Punk as they pass through a world populated by robots, as they attempt to be transformed back into humans (people familiar with Daft Punk‘s mythology will be aware they were born human and only became robots when infected with the 909 virus). When this fails they head out into the desert, walking aimlessly to their certain death.
 

The film is sparse in every way, most notably in that their isn’t a single line of dialogue spoken throughout. Regardless of this the motives of the robots and their emotions are always clear, their disappointment at their failure to make the transition and their despair as they flee into the desert. The cinematography consists of extended tracking shots (with steadicam operated by none other than Chris Cunningham) with harshly lit white corridors reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Whilst it’s minimal and steady approach may leave some viewers cold, it is fans of meditative science fiction such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Silent Running that will understand and appreciate it’s approach.
 
Perhaps the most unusual stylistic choice made by a duo primarily known as musicians is the restricted use of music. A mere nine songs feature on the soundtrack, none of which are performed by Daft Punk themselves instead choosing to use tracks by the likes of Brian Eno and Curtis Mayfield instead, it’s a curious choice given that the film was envisaged specifically to accompany the song Human After All. This would seem to be to avoid Electroma being viewed as Daft Punk repeating themselves, having already made one film scored by their previous album their was no need in repeating the task.

Although no further plans to continue their directorial career have been discussed, the duo have continued a close relationship with film. They provided both a cameo and the score for Tron: Legacy (the films only saving grace) and Bangalter continued his collaboration with Gaspar Noe providing the opening theme for Enter the Void, having previously contributed the score to his 2002 film Irreversible. Making electronic music, sampling the work of other people is a large part of what Daft Punk do. With Electroma they appear to have applied the same approach to filmmaking, drawing on their influences to combine the visuals of Kubrick with a story reminiscent of Gus Van Sant’s Gerry with their own personal touch, making a film that stands alongside the likes of Duncan Jones’ Moon as one of the more mature and interesting science fiction works of the decade.
words by pete bond.

Twenty Four Seven

Shane Meadows, 1997

With the decision late last year towards the abolishment of the UK Film Council,  a non-departmental body, that's purpose was to directly fund the production and development of British-based films, and to sustain an active and successful film industry and culture, the future of the UK's output has been brought into question. One director who's work has greatly benefited from funding by the UKFC is Shane Meadows, who's films Somers Town and This Is England have broken the Independent market, and into the mainstream, with the latter even enjoying a spin-off television series last year. Arguably the highest point of Meadow's career so far is the vastly overlooked 1997 drama Twenty Four Seven.

The film, set in a Thatcheresque, working-class town, follows Alan Darcy (Bob Hoskins) as he recruits the local youths into his boxing club, in an attempt to steer them away from criminal behavior, and engage them in something they can be passionate about. This in turn merges the rival gangs together, injecting self-respect into their empty lives, but as the day of the tournament quickly approaches, the stress of home-life, drug abuse and other such realities, come to an almighty climax. Twenty Four Seven seemingly lends alot to Tony Richardson's 1962 British classic The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, not only in it's subject matter which merges a grim view of working-class England, and it's class consciousness, with youth rebellion and escapism, but in it's bold black and white imagery, that became popular in the late 50's/early 60's during the British New Wave trend.


Twenty Four Seven is often paralleled to Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, with it's similar black and white aesthetic, and dramatic content, but whereas Scorsese's picture deals more with the contrast of life in and out of the ring, Twenty Four Seven's use of boxing as a driving force behind the plot is more expendable, choosing to focus upon character development and interaction, more so than any scenes of fighting. A scene in particular, in which Hoskins Waltz's with his aunt to The Blue Danube in a social club is easily comparable to a Raging Bull fight sequence, with it's use of classical music, and razor-sharp editing.

As most director's careers develop, the output of their films tend to lose the originality of their first several features, whether that be due to studio interference or any other means, Shane Meadows is one director who's releases have  retained a unique style and voice throughout his career, and whilst the allure of Hollywood and a mainstream audience may not appeal to him unlike some British directors (Micheal Winterbottom, Danny Boyle, Guy Ritchie to name a few) Meadows joins the ranks of Mike Leigh, Andrea Arnold and Ken Loach, as one of the most exciting and original UK directors working today.
words by danny walker.

Italianamerican

Martin Scorsese, 1974

Scorsese is renowned for his two long term actor/director relationships, firstly with Robert De Niro and more recently with Leonardo DiCaprio stepping up to fill his place. One returning performer who has received considerably less attention for their work with the great director is his own mother, Catherine Scorsese. Often playing a character not far removed from her real life persona, Catherine has starred in no fewer than eight of his films (an equal number to De Niro) with speaking roles in everything from Goodfellas and The King of Comedy, to Casino. The roles she has fulfilled often centre around her cooking- whether it be in the back room of the convenience store in Casino or when she cooks a late night meal for Tommy, Henry and Jimmy in Goodfellas. In Italianamerican Catherine and her cooking get to take the starring role as Scorsese documents her cooking them dinner whilst along with Scorsese’s father Charles they tell anecdotes about themselves and their lives, growing up as second generation immigrants in New York’s Little Italy.

 
All of Scorsese’s trademarks here- the Italian family, Catholicism, New York city. Watching Charles and Catherine’s light hearted bickering you can see where the inspiration for the relationships and mannerisms of the couples in his films emerge from. Whereas Scorsese has tended to focus his narrative films on the darker corners of Italian American life with his mafia pictures and films such as Raging Bull, Italianamerican is a much more romanticized and sentimental view as his parents recount tales about their own parents romances, their journeys through Italy and spiritual visions they have witnessed, any hardships an immigrant family would have faced at the turn of the 20^th century are all but it ignored. Where the documentary truly achieves its strength is from these stories, and Charles and Catherine’s ability to express them so well to the camera. Watching them talk and imagining Scorsese growing up in their home it is easy to see where he will have obtained his talents as a storyteller. 

One of the greatest additions in this vérité style documentary comes in the extremely limited closing credits, where after the brief list of names involved with the project comes Catherine’s own recipe for the tomato sauce and meatballs she cooks in the film, it’s a quaint touch on such a nostalgic film (Catherine would even go on to publish her own recipe book, titled The Scorsese Family Cookbook).

So far the only release Italianamerican has seen was on a laserdisc titled Three by Scorsese featuring alongside the best of his short films The Big Shave and his influential documentary American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince (a review of which will one day follow) making it a hard film to obtain. It is a however a must for any Scorsese enthusiast, one of his easiest and most entertaining films to watch and quite possibly his best foray into documentary filmmaking yet.

words by pete bond.

Repulsion

Roman Polanski, 1965

For Roman Polanski the home, usually representative of safety and security, has often been the setting for his own brand of psychological horror. By subverting this idea of the dwelling being sanctimonious and invading the most personal space of his characters, Polanski creates something truly disturbing as there is no escape available from the nightmares tormenting his protagonists. Preceding both of his other ‘apartment’ films, The Tenant and Rosemary’s Baby, is his first English-language film, Repulsion.
 
Starring Catherine Deneuve (also making her English-language debut) Repulsion is the story of Carol, a beautician who resides in London with her older sister Helen. Whilst Helen appears a well adjusted young woman, Carol is altogether more disturbed possessing an intense paranoid fear of men. This manifests itself in intense hallucinations- in one scene a workman leers at her as she walks past him in the street, that night she envisions him breaking into her room and raping her. As the film progresses Carol’s mental state becomes more and more fractured, with the crumbling walls of her apartment reflecting this mental anxiety, until ultimately her hatred of men leads to her expressing it through violence.
 

The film was pitched to the studio by Polanski as a way to cash in on the success of the recently released Psycho with which it shares a number of similarities. There is it’s punchy singular word title, it’s blonde female lead in trouble and it’s themes of voyeurism, however whereas Hitchcock used the first person view to show Norman Bates spying on people in their most intimate moments, here Polanski uses it to show Carol looking out of her own personal space at a world of which she is afraid. Another loose Hitchcock connection lies in that the Cinematography was provided by Gilbert Taylor, who would later go on to collaborate with Hitchcock when he made his own return to London with what would become his last great film Frenzy. 
 
What Taylor is most renowned for however is his work on Dr. Strangelove. With Repulsion his camerawork is equally great, with extensive use of light and shadow making Carol’s apartment look as divided as her mindset, this is also portrayed through the constant use of reflections, often distorted or obscured. The set design itself is excellent too, as giant cracks suddenly appear and hands burst through the wall and enclose Carol (a scene George Romero would pay homage too in the opening nightmare of Day of the Dead). Deneuve gives what is possibly the performance of her career too, managing to play Carol in a manner which makes her to mistakenly appear shy, as the character she encounters believe she is, whilst giving the viewer an insight into the onset of her madness.

With it’s star power, New York setting, as well as being in colour, Rosemary’s Baby remains Polanski’s most celebrated horror. However a film as it may be, for a significantly more taught and tense film regarding a woman struggling to keep hold of her sanity, Repulsion is the early Polanski film worth watching. Along with aforementioned it rates amongst the directors best, and would serve as interesting watch for anyone who has been impressed by this years big psychological horror, Black Swan.
words by pete bond.

Badlands

Terrence Malick, 1973

The subject of lovers-on-the-run has been a long standing theme in film for over 70 years, from Louis King's Persons in Hiding in 1939, to David Lynch's Wild at Heart in 1990, with the standard plot consisting of a young fugitive couple, fleeing from the law, and condemning themselves to a life a crime and death on the road. In 1973, six years after the release of the immensely popular Bonnie and Clyde, Terrence Malick directed his début feature Badlands, a film that was also based on real events, more specifically, the Charles Starkweather murder spree of 1958. The film follows Holly (Sissy Spacek) a teenage girl living in a small Midwestern town, as she meets and falls in love with Kit (Martin Sheen), and becomes his accomplice as he commits a series of murders whilst travelling across the country, with police in pursuit. Holly acts as narrator, giving an innocent tone to the film that brilliantly contrasts with the harsh string of killings committed by her lover, with her nonchalant account of events and stories being read as if from a diary. 

Martin sheen's performance as Kit is far more in depth and brilliantly crafted than he has recieved credit for, exploring behavioral characteristics that precede his homicides, which reveal Kit's apparent sociopathic mannerisms such as megalomania, lack of remorse and cruelty to animals, traits which are infamous in the field of psychiatristy as early indications of psychopathy. Kit and Holly's detachment and cold manner towards the preceedings are far more chilling than any outburst of rage that is standard in numerous other movies, with Holly so seperated from reality at the hands of her lover, that she feels no remorse for the murders she witnesses. The movie creates a spellbinding chemistry between the two, juxtaposing the childlike innocence of Holly, with the reserved attitude of Sheen's persona. Kit's apathetic and emotionless state acts as a precursor for Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle, a character also swamped with delusion and paranoia, predating De Niro's performance by almost 3 years. 

Badland's influence on pop culture over the past 30 years is evident, using the romantic story of two anti-heroes driving across America as inspiration to everything from Thelma and Louise, to Bruce Springsteen. Quentin Tarantino's two screenplays for Natural Born Killers and True Romance feature similar story lines to Badlands, with the latter even mimicking a similar light, xylophone composition, but whereas Badlands uses this to affect, blending the score with Holly's childlike narration to create the illusion that this may be taking place in her head, True Romance uses it lavishly, making it seem out of place with the themes of the film. Although the film may have been interpreted into, or inspired various works over the years, Badlands remains as not only a phenomenal directorial début, but as one of the most significant films to be released in a period that is considered to be the height of film making.
words by danny walker.

How to Get Ahead in Advertising

Bruce Robinson, 1989

Of all the directors who have chosen to keep their output to a minimum there is nobody who’s criminally low number of films is more of a shame than Bruce Robinson. Aside from a few screenwriting credits he has so far managed to direct a mere three films since his debut, cult classic Withnail & I, in 1987. How to Get Ahead in Advertising sees Richard E Grant take the starring role again as Denis Dimbleby Bagley, an advertising executive faced with creating a campaign promoting a brand of pimple cream. As he battles with writers block he becomes so stressed he eventually suffers a total nervous breakdown, rejecting advertising and everything it stands for. He also grows a pimple of his own however, a pimple that grows in size until it starts to resemble a second head, complete with it’s own moustache and conflicting views on the advertising world.
 

Richard E Grants performance is every bit as good as his iconic turn as Withnail, playing Bagley with the same manic hysteria as his predecessor. Bagley himself doesn’t resemble Withnail in his character though, although both are in creative fields they are worlds apart with Bagley sharing far more in common with a character such as American Psycho‘s Patrick Bateman- his obsession with social status and brand names, only expressing greed and disgust, and his questionable mental state. As with American Psycho it is never clear whether the events occurring on screen are truly real, whilst people hear Bagley’s boil speaking (reciting slogans from popular adverts) it is only when he glances in a mirror that the human face he believes is there seems to become present.
 
Withnail & I was Robinson’s lamentation on the end of ’the greatest decade in the history of mankind’, the 1960’s, a film that raised the question of where things could possibly progress from there. How to Get Ahead in Advertising appears to be Robinson answering his own question, conceived and filmed as the yuppie culture of the 1980’s was coming to a head it satirises an era that someone of Robinson’s bohemian background must consider to be the total antithesis of everything he grew to believe in.

 
This year Robinson will be making his first foray into film since 1992’s Jennifer 8 with his adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s only fiction novel The Rum Diary. It’s been said before that Withnail & I is more like a Hunter Thompson novel in it’s spirit than any official adaptation has managed so far, hopefully it’s production will run more smoothly than it did on Jennifer 8 (it’s troubled making-of responsible for Robinson‘s unofficial retirement), and we can look forward to Bruce Robinson returning to cinema and the prolific output his early works implied he would deliver.
words by pete bond.