DANNY ELFMAN: The 15 Best Non-Tim Burton Film Scores #15-11

Ever since 1985's Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, composer Danny Elfman has been the leading musical voice for director Tim Burton's vast filmography of Gothic goofiness and somber beauty.
From the spooky roller-coaster zaniness of 1988's Beetlejuice to the fairytale elegance of 1990's Edward Scissorhands to frightening old-fashioned grandeur of 1999's Sleepy Hollow and right up to the minimalistic pluckiness of 2014's Big Eyes, Elfman has scored all but a small handful of Burton's films.  Much akin to director/composers Steven Spielberg & John Williams, Alfred Hitchcock & Bernard Herrmann or Christopher Nolan & Hans Zimmer, the duo's working relationship is a match made in heaven.

However Elfman hasn't remained exclusive to just Burton and has worked with a vast array of other directors, including Sam Raimi, Gus Van Sant, Joss Whedon, Clive Barker, Guillermo del Toro and many more.

I've selected fifteen of my favorite non-Tim Burton film scores, and included YouTube links to suites I edited together, so you might get a different taste of what the composer is capable of. 

Let's start with #15-11:

#15- CHARLOTTE'S WEB (2006)
Director: Gary Winick

Known for light-fare comedic films like Letters to Juliet and 13 Going on 30, director Gary Winick chose Elfman to compose his 2006 adaptation of E.B. White's classic children's novel Charlotte's Web.
A delightful mixture of childlike innocence and playful Americana, Charlotte's Web relies mostly on light strings and plucky pianos, with a soft layer of choir and highlights of a guitar & fiddle.  Fans of Elfman's lush early 90's work, such as Sommersby and Black Beauty will find this a wonderful companion, only here we get a style that's less dramatic and brimming more with joyful friskiness  It's not the sort of score to stir one's emotions with memorable themes but more so with constant inoffensive charm and confidence to never overwhelm with unnecessary flair.

CHARLOTTE'S WEB Suite

#14- THE WOLFMAN  (2010)
Director: Joe Johnston

The story behind Danny Elfman's score for director Joe Johnston's 2010 adaptation the 1941 horror classic The Wolfman is just as messy as the actual film itself.
Fortunately the composer's morbidly melodramatic oeuvre as a standalone listen is a delightfully vicious experience.  Elfman made it no secret that his primary influence on this assignment was Wojciech Kilar's deeply heavy operatic score for Bram Stoker's Dracula.  This is lush Gothic romanticism as some of it's best with it's bold bass-heavy strings almost overpowering the pounding brass and percussion.  While most film scores would assign individual themes for each character, setting and emotion, Elfman opts to cleverly reconstruct the leading theme into whatever sentiment it's coinciding moment in the film calls for.  Search no more for good ol' fashioned cinematic horror music at the top of it's game.

THE WOLFMAN Suite

#13- WANTED (2008)
Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Being a big fan of Russian-Kazakh director Timur Bekmambetov's dark fantasy Night Watch duology, Danny Elfman jumped at the chance to work on the stylish comic book action-thriller Wanted.  

The composer brought a unique voice to the action scoring genre with a dense, bass-heavy, Eastern European flavored thrill-ride.  It's grungy electronic accents mesh so well with the adrenaline-fueled orchestra it never distracts from the actual compositions, unlike a few other modern composers who can't seem to get the balance right. Even though it's not your stereotypical action music, this cleverly textured score still manages to get the heart racing in all the right places.

WANTED Suite

#12- THE UNKNOWN KNOWN (2013)

Director: Errol Morris

Being the openly liberal minded composer that he is, Danny Elfman couldn't pass up scoring Errol Morris' scathing documentary on former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known.  

Utilizing the a string section, a piano and the occasional choir & marimba, Elfman juggles a dramatically solemn and playfully ominous score that reflects the shady yet chipper former Cabinet member to a tee.  A great deal of the score echoes that of Philp Glass' minimalistic rhythmic approach to scoring and that comes as no surprise, considering director Morris' number of collaborations with Glass in the past.  At first listen the music is sparse and overly serious but upon closer inspection you'll find a fascinating array of textures and techniques all done with a subtle scathing smirk.

THE UNKNOWN KNOWN Suite

#11- JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017)

Director: Zack Snyder & Joss Whedon

After taking over for director Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon promptly let composer Junkie XL go from composing duties on Justice League.  In turn, he recruited his Avengers: Age of Ultron collaborator, Danny Elfman, who was no stranger to olde tyme orchestrated super-hero music.  Sadly none of this helped the quality of the film and still ended up being a complete stinker but fortunately we got a pretty damned fun score out of the bum deal.
It's your pretty standard superhero composing with bold brass, string ostinatos and muscular fanfares a plenty, however it's solid writing with good old orchestral power merging with a clever use of modern textures and rhythmic techniques.  What got me squealing like a child in a candy store was Elfman making use of John Williams' Superman theme, Hans Zimmer's Wonder Woman theme and of course his own 1989 Batman theme.  Whether or not it truly works for this incarnation of the characters is debatable but it sure makes for a highly entertaining stand alone listen.

JUSTICE LEAGUE Suite

See #10-6 HERE

Sunshine (Dir. Danny Boyle. 2007)

Britain does 3 things well.  1. Bad weather.  2. Movie bad guys.  3. Science Fiction film.  I’ll be focusing on the 3rd while watching the 1st through my window.

Danny Boyle has never been afraid to reference his influences and pay homage to his peers and they’re starkly obvious this time around.  Sunshine is the illegitimate child of 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) and Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979).  It’s not unfair to say that Sunshine wouldn’t exist in its current state without those two films.  It gels Scott’s sense of entrapment, his cold, hard spaceship design, his internal camera movements and sense of displacement with Kubrick’s low angle corridor shots, his sense of exterior grandeur, the majesty of space and the desperate need for adaption when faced with the loss of control.  It shouldn’t work, it should be called a blatant act of egotistical plagiarism but somehow it not only works, it excels.
I’ll not elaborate much but need to also say that it also owes a debt to Dark Star (John Carpenter, 1974) but since that was the skeletal basis for and was written by the author of Alien it’s another easy comparison.

The plot of Sunshine is simple.  Our Sun is dying and a permanent solar winter threatens the future of mankind.  A vessel, the Icarus II (this naming is perhaps the only intentional humour in the whole film) is launched with a ‘Stellar Bomb’ onboard.  The bomb has a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island, and when fired into the Sun could theoretically cause a chain reaction that sets everything right again.  I’m not giving spoilers - this is where the film begins.

The Icarus II has an eight man crew, all of whom are the protagonists.  The physicist Robert Cappa (played by Cillian Murphy) is the closest thing we get to a traditional main character type.  Cappa is the compassionate and logical one; he acknowledges his emotions but isn’t ruled by them.  He’s the kind of person we want to be at heart so we readily sympathise and connect with him on a subconscious level.  We want Cappa to succeed, we want a hero.  It’s a tough choice as the characters care about little beyond their fields of expertise. When the tears come it’s not for the individual, it’s for the failure to perform and the feeling of being cast in the shadow of someone else, and of being judged.  They need to be basking in the shining light of their own self-image or they get depressed.  I've heard people that say the human element is missing from Sunshine but I would argue that they simply weren’t paying attention, or perhaps they refuse to accept their own selfish desires and failings and recognise what it is that makes us human.
 
Cappa has his detractors onboard the Icarus, most notably Mace (Chris Evans) who is the closest thing to an antagonist crew member the film has for the most part; those two have a dynamic that again reminds of Scott’s Alien setup: the small crew that respect each other but are equally as happy to get some peace away from each other.
The remainder of the crew are equally well cast.  They react to threats and stimuli differently and effortlessly keep their character in check.

We spend our time on the ship experiencing the same sense of seclusion as the rest of the crew; we’re the ninth crew member.  There are no happy cuts back to earth to give us room to breathe, no gathering of NASA brains in a room full of computers, ties pulled to the side, name tags tilted, waiting for that camaraderie moment when they can cheer and throw Styrofoam cups in air, thankfully.
The sense of space inside the Icarus II is best described as claustrophobic, an overused device in sci-fi but one that we accept, chalking it up to realism.

Elsewhere the set design, set dressings and props are functional and lifeless; inside the ship there is little colour.
In contrast, outside the ship is a blinding brilliant golden hue.  Being so close to the Sun means the light can kill, it can burn you to a frazzled crisp.  It’s unusual to see light as something threatening, as a menacing force, usually darkness or more correctly the unknown things that lurk in darkness are what filmmakers use to scare and unnerve us.  When sunlight can kill you it takes on a more ominous aspect.  It’s the opposite of what we expect.

The universe is full of unknowns; the mission is based on theory which can be perceived as another word for unknown so the fear of not knowing coupled with the horror of the light is very real for the crew.  When the ship you’re on is slowly inching toward both those things, the tension is sure to cause rifts and perhaps even conflict between thought and action; Mace and Cappa personify this.

Returning to the visuals for a moment, the first glimpse we get of the stylistic space suits is like something from a bad music video.  Once the scene changes the suits begin to make sense within the context of the film aesthetic but it’s hard to shake that initial feeling of fail each time they reappear.  They do manage to highlight the crippling claustrophobic nature of something that is both designed to keep you from dying and causes you to fear your own personal space, so they aren't all bad.

There was some significant post production colour fixing on the imagery but it actually works to the films advantage.  The visual splendour is reliant on the backdrop of space; ordinary studio lighting could never have achieved the same outcome no matter how much money was spent.

The final third of the film will leave a lot of people wondering what happened during the writing process which is something I’ve thought more than once of Alex Garland’s work; he is able to set up a situation with tension and an insistence on strong characters making strong decisions beautifully but when it comes time to providing a satisfactory conclusion he’s like a trout out of water.
It’s not confusing, if you pay attention to the story in the run up to the final act it makes perfect sense, the people that claim otherwise are talking when they should be listening, the problem is the sharp left turn the film takes before it takes us there.  There is a “we’ll add this because we need it” attitude that sits uncomfortably alongside the earlier insistence of pretentious science.  If you make your audience work to appreciate your clever science and then throw in a genie in a lamp it tends to stick out like glow in the dark stitching.

The score by John Murphy (with occasional help from Underworld) is for me his finest moment; it sits in the shadows until needed and when the rousing build hits its peak my heart is in my throat every time.  It’s undoubtedly Boyle’s film but there are three or four special moments during the 107 minutes running time where Murphy steals it from him.  I’m not saying the visuals take second place, they work in tandem with each other beautifully, I’m saying that Murphy makes those moments unique, emotionally draining and achingly memorable.


Sunshine is nothing more than a variation on a theme, it’s 80% homage and only 20% unique but when it’s done with such favourable results and openly acknowledges the constituent parts then I’m happy to go along with it.  Accounting for its flaws and despite Garland’s hokum script towards the end Sunshine succeeds where almost every other English language sci-fi film of the past 20 years has failed.  I will never tire of it's staid charms.
Kubrick gets a final nod in the final scene; you’ll see what I mean.  It made me happy clap.

***** out of *****

Nadja (Dir. Michael Almereyda. 1994)

Note:  If Nadia appears in italics it’s the film I’m referring to, any other instance is the titular character.

Vampires used to be scary, monstrous and dangerous predators.  Then Hollywood made them sexy and enchanting, darkly seductive but still dangerous.

Lately they’ve been sparkly and twee.  Occasionally they are arthouse.  Tony Scott’s wonderfully dreamy The Hunger (1983) springs instantly to mind.  Nadja is arthouse, yet it’s a house not in the same zip code as Scott’s.  It was written and directed by Michael Almereyda back in 1994.  I know it’s not current, I rarely do current.  I have to confess to having never viewed an Almereyda film before so I don’t know if this is typical of his style or not.

It’s a style that left me with contradictory feelings.

The film shifts through various locations in its 93 minute running time.  Initially set in Manhattan and Brooklyn, the cities teem with a sense of hurried nightlife.  

In contrast to the animated city, the characters are drifting, distant, dreamlike and drugged as they move through life or un-life.  Even the married couple, who one supposes the viewers are meant to more readily identify with, are living in a disconnected, self-indulgent, bordering on clinical depression, cloudy haze.  It’s damn depressing.  Every person in the film is living in a self-created fictional reality.

I wouldn’t want any of them at my house for tea and cake.

The characters have names that most viewers will be familiar with as they are taken from Bram Stoker’s original.

Van Helsing.  Lucy.  Renfield.  Count Dracula.  In many ways it’s a modern retelling of the same story, yet they aren’t as alluring as they should be and all have an unlikable dysfunctional existentialism that puts them at odds with their environment.  Vampires are supposed to be ill-fitting in their milieu but usually they sit atop it, not buried underneath its filth.  They are usually isolated from it by self-imposed alienation not their own shortcomings.

Clearly the film has something new to say by taking this stance but does it present it effectively is the burning question.

Our first real insight into Nadja (Elina Löwensohn) comes near the beginning of the film; we play voyeur as she seems to chat candidly with someone.  It’s an interesting scene, putting the viewer instantly in mind of Interview with the Vampire, which coincidently Neil Jordan released as a film that same year.  We listen furtively as the other person feigns interest in what Nadja has to say.  “I want to simplify my life, even on a superficial level,” she tells him.

And that is essentially what the film is about.  Nadja is beautiful on the surface but hopelessly lost inside.  Her life is complicated, but much of the complicated nature is a result of her own neuroses.  Superficial is in her blood (no pun intended).  The consciousness inside her wants escape from the dark clutches and the madness that controls her.

She longs to be free of the insanity and the dysfunctional family she is a part of, and yet she is forever bound to them by her condition.

The film can be seen as reflective of that, it too is fighting with itself.  Visually and thematically it is great but the pacing and the script are terrible.

As the film progresses it repeatedly goes back to Nadja telling her story to anyone that will listen; she craves an audience that she can use to help define her.  Nadja is playing a role.  She even wears the long dark ‘look at me, I’m a vamp’ cape when out walking.   

The brief scene with David Lynch was interesting.  It seemed to be homage to the man himself.  He is sat at a desk with a paper coffee cup, it’s dreamlike, it has a similar ambient industrial sound that he and Angelo Badalamenti are known for and it utilises a slow zooming camera reactionary shot.  It’s a shame it’s only 42 seconds long. 

The most effective element of the film was Jim Denault's seductively low key black and white cinematography.  For most of the film it resembles a beautifully constructed painted canvas from a palette of cold light and velvet dark; shadows fall upon walls and give pathos to faces wonderfully.  It gives them a depth and an intensity that is reminiscent of the classic horror films from which Nadja draws much of its story inspiration.

Very occasionally it reminded me of old Bela Lugosi films, with the symbolical climbing of the stairs from a fixed camera position, and the eyes looming omnisciently over the action in a cheap double exposure effect.  Those moments were fantastic.  The director even includes a scene of Lugosi from White Zombie (Victor Halperin, 1932).  However, these moments are few; more of them would have been a welcome addition.

Unfortunately, Denault occasionally sets aside his beautiful 35mm film stock with its dramatic lighting in favour of what appears to be a child’s toy camera with a horrible pixellated image.  As the film unfolds you should come to understand why he chose such a stylistic approach but personally I found it irritating, almost hateful.  There were a dozen other ways he could have achieved the same result without making it look so amateurish.

I watched the BBC adaptation of Gormenghast (Andy Wilson, 2000) directly before Nadja, and while the two productions have absolutely nothing in common with each other, the former served to highlight the poor casting of the latter.  Gormenghast was perfect casting, flawless, faultless, whereas Nadja was just plain terrible.  Nadja herself was well cast, and Elina Löwensohn photographs beautifully in black and white but Renfield, Van Helsing, and the rest of the ensemble were not well suited.

Poor Peter Fonda gets some of the worst dialogue in the film.  He plays the Van Helsing character and he does his best with the material but at times he looks embarrassed to be there.   “Blood is like chewing gum to these creatures!” he says.  I’ve always believed that chewing gum is not supposed to be swallowed.  It’s what we use in place of our real craving and then spat out when no longer needed.  And if that doesn’t make you cringe there is always the “...psychic fax.”  It’s remarkable how Jared Harris manages to keep his dignity as he describes it, and yet he does, only just.  Peter Fonda was spared that one.

I have to admit that 50 minutes into the feature my attention began to drift and I found myself wondering what I was going to make for lunch.  I tried to picture the contents of my fridge the last time I had peeked into it.

And that's when the Portishead moment drew me back into the film.  It was the highlight of the whole film for me and it gelled beautifully.  The music of Portishead is used twice, the second instance accompanies Nadja as she walks the streets in her vamp cape.  It's an avant-garde, sombre and creepy scene that would have sat beautifully in a French New wave film, if they had dabbled in such things.

It was ethereal, dreamy, creepy, pressing, and ultimately fantastic.

In conclusion, the psychology of Nadja is much more interesting than the film itself but is underdeveloped and left hanging in the air, even at the films end.  It does make pains to reference that first insight, “I want to simplify my life, even on a superficial level,” but the symmetry is unbalanced.  It tries to be multi-faceted and deeply spiritual but I really don’t think it achieves either of those.

It tries to add depth by adding interwoven relationships but it’s handled so clumsily that I was left not caring at all.

Nadja can be seen as a study of our post-modern world and of the need of the individual to transcend it, or it can be seen as an avant-garde vampire film with some really shitty dialogue.  And for me that’s the crux of the problem I had with the film.  Is it deep, or do we project deepness upon it?  Is it clever or is it empty?  I hate that uncertainty.

I love ambiguity but uncertainty is a different kettle of fish.

I wholly admit that maybe I missed the point entirely but something inside me tells me there was no clear point to begin with.  It’s open to interpretation, so make of that what you will.

* 1/2 out of 5

You can watch the trailer here.

Cashback (Dir. Sean Ellis. 2006)

Cashback is a little gem of a film albeit with some very visible flaws when held up to the cold light of criticism.  I don’t know how many of these films get made each year (too few) but I do know that most of them fall under the radar due to a lack of promotion.  Large studio films often achieve a profit due to their extensive promotion, even when they don’t have the substance to warrant such success.  This type of film has no such resources and its best hope is to achieve cult status through word of mouth and late night TV screenings.

The film was written, co-produced and directed by onetime fashion photographer Sean Ellis.  It focuses on Ben Willis (Sean Biggerstaff), an aspiring young art student whose life is not as simple as he’d like it to be.  A less than amicable break up with his girlfriend Suzy (Michelle Ryan) threatens to overwhelm his very soul.  Suzy screams at him menacingly but the sound of her anger is muted.  Instead we get the beginnings of a lengthy voice-over from Ben, a narrative that sounds like a diary entry read aloud.  The breakup crushes him and throws his life into a pattern of chronic insomnia and personal displacement.  He drifts between moments of imagination and dark reality.  As Ben tries to come to terms with the world that he has found he must now reluctantly be a part of we get to go along for the ride.

The introspective v/o narration isn’t the only film technique that director Ellis has used.  A number of flashbacks are also employed to show the young Ben in his formative years.  Some of these are hilarious, male viewers will likely appreciate the humour more.  During these times there is some full nudity so if that offends you stay well clear.  In fact, there is quite a lot of nudity in the film but it’s not presented in a sleazy way.  Ben is art student; the naked form is part of his world and crucial to his perception.  He doesn’t come across as creepy even when undressing women in the supermarket.  (Not recommended outside of movie-land.)

He drifts solemnly through the daylight hours and exists in a state of self-induced limbo during the night, fearing what he calls “the haunting period, the time when the demons of regret come for you.”   In order to fill this void in his existence and the sleepless nights Ben takes a nightshift at a Sainsburys supermarket. For those of you not familiar with the supermarket chain, think mop & bucket, stacking shelves, tedium and a very low wage.

His boss and co-workers are colourful character stock types but they are portrayed and played with such passion and obvious enjoyment by the actors that they are fun to watch.  Much of the cast will be familiar to British audiences but may well be a group of unknowns to overseas viewers.  We have Jenkins (Stuart Goodwin) the supermarket boss whom no one respects; he is an idiot but thinks of himself as a genius and a demiurgic love god.
Also present are the stereotypical comedy duo, Barry and Matt (Michael Dixon and Michael Lambourne respectively), two loveable clowns that reminded me so much of two of my college buddies that I got a little nostalgic.  And finally, the silver lining in this dark cloud, the beautiful wallflower checkout girl Sharon Pintey (Emilia Fox); unlike Ben, Sharon is fully grounded and a dedicated realist, she is his opposite in many ways.  I’ve always liked Emilia’s work and she didn’t disappoint here either.  She never comes out of her comfort zone as an actress but that’s okay as the film doesn’t require such a Cinderella moment.

It would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention that there are similarities in Cashback to some of Kevin Smith’s films but thankfully it shows more restraint and the similarities aren’t enough to drag it down to that juvenile Kevin Smith level.  It also made me think of Donnie Darko (Kelly. 2001) more than once, it too being an enjoyable mesh of ideas stitched together to become something greater than the sum of its parts.

Ben spends his time in work daydreaming about the nature of love and imagines he has the ability to stop time, to freeze a fleeting moment and examine it from his godlike vantage point outside of time’s constraints.  He determines that in order to see the real beauty in people the hustle and bustle of the world needs to be put on pause.  It’s an interesting twist on that much used technique in film when the hero meets the soft focus maiden and time slows to a crawl.  These moments are the real meat of the film.  In the frozen time Ben walks the aisles and ponders his own existence and the lives of the late night shoppers.  The shoppers become a still-life under the artists gaze.  The realisations and reasserting idealisms of the character are never more poignant than at these times.  Some of his observations are beautiful and emotionally stimulating pieces of prose.  While it’s appealing to exist there permanently he soon finds that there is something in the real world that still calls to him and the film shifts to explore that side of a dreamer’s existence.

Much of the action takes place indoors but when we do get outside the external scenes are welcome additions, which is not to imply the internal scenes are bad.  There is no substitute for natural light in film, especially for low budget productions like this but cinematographer Angus Hudson does a good job with the tricky supermarket lighting and it never feels too harsh or unrealistic.  Lighting is something that is often overlooked and it’s nice to be able to mention it and make it relevant to an audience.

The editing is a little schizophrenic, sometimes it’s sublime and sometimes it’s almost amateur.  One particularly great example where it succeeds involves Ben as he moves from the telephone to his bed, and simultaneously from one emotion to another.   The change in location is achieved in a single wonderfully fluid movement and was done completely in-camera; it needs to be seen to be understood.  It took a whole day to shoot.

The film has elements of slapstick (the soccer game) and outright belly laughter but it’s the subtle and often sarcastic dialogue that shines the most.

The success of Cashback ultimately depends on your ability to empathise with Ben and his situation.  If you’ve had a similar relationship breakup and are now far enough removed that you can laugh at it then the film will likely resonate on a much deeper level with you.  If you engage with it on an empathic level you’ll reap more from it.  Watch it passively and you’ll get bored when the comedy wanes.

Which brings me nicely to the flaws I mentioned earlier, they aren’t new or exclusive to low budget independent film.   Cashback falls into the same pit of predictability that its bigger budget American counterparts succumb to, that after the first hour the comedy falls away and the story all of a sudden is forced to stand on its own two feet, quite often it fails and is only saved by the feel-good finale.  To a certain extent this happens to Sean Ellis’ film also.  It helps that the speed of the film has been slow throughout so no great loss of pace is evident.  It stumbles at the usual time but stick with it and you’ll see it recover.  The ending is too abrupt but not unsatisfying.  It’s one of those endings wherein what is not said is more important than what is.

I found out after viewing that the film started life as an 18 minute short that got an Oscar nomination in 2005.  I found the original short on veoh for comparison and discovered that almost all of it all is included in the full length feature which was completed two years later.  It’s an amazing achievement to keep the film looking consistent after such a length of time.

I would recommend not watching the short unless you have first seen the feature length.  It doesn’t ruin the ending but it’s a different entity without the back-story.  For those of you that have seen the full length or those that may want to see only the short it can be found here.  

The film uses some classical and some pop music throughout but also had an original score written by Guy Farley.  Farley is clearly a talented composer and his ability to help bring a scene to life is without question.  His score reflects the highs and lows of the characters emotions and adds to the comedic moments brilliantly.  You can hear excerpts from the film and many of his other works at his official site.

To sum up, what Cashback lacks in finesse it makes up for with ideas in a delightfully sharp and poetic script.  At times the editing is a little clumsy and at others it’s inspired with clever transitions from scene to scene. The feeling you get when the credits roll will hopefully be one of contemplation.  If not then you’ve either missed the point or the director has missed his target.  It’s not perfect but I hope it makes that cult status I mentioned before.  Watch it, tell your friends and tie them to a chair so they will watch it too.

It’s not high art; it’s a British rom com that isn’t a Four Weddings and a Funeral clone.  Thank god.

*** out of 5

Monsters (Dir. Gareth Edwards - 2010)

Monsters is an independent British film from first time film director Gareth Edwards and it’s one of the better films to come out of Britain for a very long time.  I’m allowed to say that because I live there.  Edwards worked in TV for some years before moving into film and he carries that TV ‘get the job done as inexpensive as possible’ attitude with him.

He wrote the script, he storyboarded it, he was the DoP, he did the visual effects and he directed the feature.  No small feat for one man and the final result deserves some attention.

So how does one make a film with very little money?   Take the Easy Rider (D Hopper - 1969) approach and improvise like hell.  Get a camera (Sony EX3 with a Nikon 50mm lens) and carry it yourself, hire a sound man, go on location and shoot without permission, utilise the natural light so no need for lighting rigs etc, use real people as unpaid and unscripted extras and hire a real life couple to be your stars, don’t bother with a full script because the actors can wing it on the day.  Now we’ve got ourselves a movie.

Afterwards apply visual effects using Adobe Premiere and edit with Adobe CS4.  Job done.

Six years prior to the films beginning a NASA probe had been sent into deep space to collect a sample of a newly discovered alien life.  The probe crashed upon re-entry and the alien life forms it had been carrying now occupy the northern regions of Mexico, just a little south of the United States border.  They are breeding and the two governments are struggling to keep the area safe for human habitation.

Andrew Kaulder (played by Scoot McNairy) is a photojournalist in the area seeking that one essential shot that will kick-start his career but he is ordered to escort his boss’ daughter Samantha Wynden (played by Whitney Able) to safety, up through Mexico and into America.  The border has been sealed and a giant wall built, designed to keep the aliens out.   In order to get into the country the couple have to navigate through an ‘Infected Zone’, an area that the aliens use as a migration lane.  Andrew is reluctant to do so but he gives in and so he and Samantha set off together.

The plot steals from H.G Wells’ The War of the Worlds (1898) and John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids (1951) and mixes them together into a kind of post apocalyptic road movie, albeit one informed by Jean-Luc Godard’s film form, John Cassavetes’ love of improvisation and some of Steven Spielberg’s more commercial monster moments.

It’s a documented telling of an imaginary event.

Considering the differing influences it shouldn't work but it does.  Approximately every 15 minutes the script throws something quite philosophically profound at the viewer, something that will fuel the conversation on the ride home from the theatre or the debate over a pint at the bar.

The two protagonists are from different backgrounds and have developed a very different outlook on life.  Samantha is a rich girl with a silver spoon upbringing and Andrew is a bit of an impatient cynic with a cold journalistic nature that threatens to engulf him.  I should really say three characters as the cameraman is a 3rd unacknowledged character; he is us and we are him, witness to each characters thoughts.  Despite being the ‘little rich girl’ Samantha has none of the prissy self-important clichéd attributes one would expect. 

Tragedy brings people together, we’ve all witnessed it and some of us have even lived it.  It’s no great spoiler to say that the couple begin to develop feelings for each other.

The relationship develops clumsily, awkwardly like in real life.  Samantha has a fiancé waiting for her back in the States so things aren’t as black and white as Andrew would like.

Characters drift in and out of the story; they interact with the two leads and then move on with their own private lives.  Like Apocalypse Now (F Coppola - 1979) we are aware that the journey is equally as important as the destination.  (We even hear Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries on more than one occasion.)

Each new area we travel through offers some new visual clue that we are going headfirst into the very heart of the beast.  The perimeter town is chaos filled with people trying desperately to get away, all except the locals who seem to accept that life is something to be lived and not escaped from; they accept the migration of the aliens as they would accept a storm, it will pass and life will go on as normal.

The jungle area is next and here we get one of the best scenes of the entire film, it’s powerful emotionally and visually and perfectly timed.  We get a visual indication that things are not as they seem just prior to it, a bloody hand print on the side of a passing boat and the presence of militarised locals tell us something is not right.  The director gives a number of visual and audio cues like this.

The keen viewer will be drawn into the world and the slow pace will be seen to be justified.  From this point onward (from about 45 minutes in) the film is pure gold.  The slow beginnings begin to mature and the characters know what they must do to survive.

When the titular monsters return for the inevitable finale it’s a definite Spielberg moment, think Jurassic Park (1993) but on a more personal scale.  Unlike Spielberg’s Hollywood sensibilities however the scene does something unexpected which had me enthralled.   For some viewers this ‘action’ moment may come a little late in the proceedings but I found it to be perfectly timed and perfectly executed.  I can’t say any more as it will be spoiler.   It may seem like I have laid out a lot of the story in this review but it’s nothing that you won’t have predicted from the first 15 minutes.  Believe me when I say there are much more important things to be found in the film that I have avoided mentioning.

The score is by musician Jon Hopkins, another Brit whose previous film experience was in helping Brian Eno score The Lovely Bones (P Jackson - 2009).  The mostly electronic score floats in and out at opportune moments, seeping into the atmosphere of a scene like soft waves caressing a deserted shore.  It’s effective, functional, and unobtrusive and it fills the empty spaces in the dialogue well.  Thankfully it never explodes into the bombastic monster movie fare that Hollywood would require of its compositions.

For the film student I would highly recommended a viewing of Monsters and I’d award it a three and a half or maybe a four star rating but for everyone else I don’t think it will sustain interest, and for those people it’s maybe closer to a two star rating.  So let’s split the difference and call it a:

*** out of 5.

Tetsuo I, II, III (Dir. Shinya Tsukamoto)

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989, 67 mins)

Summary: You’re a regular metal fetishist.  You like to cut yourself and insert bits of metal into the wound.  Hey, it’s a crazy world, right?  You are minding your own business, walking down the street enjoying your own private and harmless perversion when some fool messes up your day with his car.  What do you do?

My first thought after viewing Tetsuo: The Iron Man over a decade ago was, “How did this film ever get made?”  Not because it was bad but because it was so very unorthodox.  I was familiar with weird anime but Tetsuo was to me even more bizarre than Urotsukidoji.  

The backbone of the story isn’t new; it’s been around for hundreds of years, as far back as the Greek tragedies.  A victim takes revenge on his malefactor (known hereafter as the salaryman) with an apt and fitting punishment.  No matter, if the plot involved Tigger in a pink hockey mask bouncing on pumpkins I’d still have watched it.  Why?  Because in writer/director/editor/actor Shinya Tsukamoto’s hands this trite and clichéd plot device exists merely to serve the visuals, not the other way around.  The plot is secondary.   Usually when I have such a realisation I would begin reaching for the stop button but the frenetic cyberpunkesque visual assault that Tsukamoto burned into my retina was a welcome, and moreover, engaging one.

Oh, and there is some of that famous Japanese tentacle porn.

Still reading?

The punishment takes the form of a gruesome transformation.  The flesh of the salaryman is slowly changed into something less organic.  I would say less human but his actions up to this point haven’t really painted him as very humane.  The effects are amazing considering the obviously shoestring budget.

Stylistically Tetsuo: The Iron Man is harsh; it’s an avant-garde greyscale nightmare wherein both the architecture and editing are clearly designed to disorientate the viewer.  Shot on 16 mm film it looks grainy and at times either underexposed or overexposed.  The inclusion of stop-motion photography, probably due to budgetary constraints but perfectly suited, only serves to make it even more anarchic.  It seems to want to make you hate it while at the same time it draws you in with its unique aesthetic. This duplicitous nature is its greatest asset however for there is a beauty to 16mm film that most modern digital cinematography has destroyed and despite the severity of the image that nostalgic beauty shines through. 

Just as the freaks in Cronenberg’s Crash (1996) get aroused by their unhealthy desires so too do the salaryman (the fool in the car) and his wife bring sex into their transgression.  Yes, the two films couldn’t be more different on the surface but the man-meets-machine eroticism that Cronenberg has dealt with in the past is similarly explored in Tetsuo so such a comparison is not as inapplicable as it may initially seem.  The more grotesque the man’s transformation makes him the more his wife desires him.  This attraction to the grotesque was a trait exhibited by, and is a curse inherited from, the metal fetishist.

The sexual union between the couple is an unforgettable scene.  It’s frightening and blackly humorous at the same time and is worth the price of admission alone.

So it’s a film about change and it’s a film about sex and relationships?  Right?  Maybe.

It’s also a film about the individual, and choice, and private secret longings and the potential repercussions of avoiding culpability.  Or is that just throwing labels hoping some will stick in a bid to make sense of it?  Does it even need to be pigeonholed?  While not totally incomprehensible it sure is complicated and it both invites and shuns critique.  I could pick away at it all day and still not have anything concrete.  This film raises more questions than it answers, even after repeated viewings.  If that lack of clarification frustrates you then Tetsuo is not for you.

At times the acting is simply ridiculous, often resembling bad theatre.  The movements are OTT and the expressions exaggerated and comical but once you realise that is all intentional (isn’t it?) that quickly becomes another plus.  At other times it reminded me of the wonders of silent era cinema.  I loved that.  I half expected some intertitles to pop up with something weird like:

The music serves the action admirably; they fit together like two pieces of the same warped jigsaw.  (Note: A link to cuckoo’s review on the music of all three films can be found at the end of my ranting.)  Outside of the score the non-diagetic sound often erupts into a torturous white noise or a cacophonous metal on metal screech.  Think Merzbow deconstructed and remixed by Merzbow’s evil twin.  At times it’s excruciating to listen to.  It also complements the imagery perfectly but a cheese grater on your nervous system would not be an unwelcome trade.  Your ears may well cry for solace but your brain will grin with understanding.  Personally, I loved every agonizing minute of it.

When the salaryman encounters what I like to call ‘the platinum bride of Frankenstein’ things get very strange.  Urotsukidoji’s tentacle antics spring to mind once again.  I shuddered.  And I giggled.

Without going into detail, the final third of the film is a crazy montage of sound and imagery that for some viewers may go on a little too long.  I beg you to persevere because the final scene is one of the most kinetically charged, relentlessly energetic air-punching moments of WTF and awesome combined that I have ever seen.  I was clapping like a happy seal at that point.  

It’s an infuriating and intoxicating visual experience and a beautifully grotesque and engaging trip.  It also features the best tasteless use of a power drill this side of barely acceptable.  Do your eyes a favour and seek it out.

A cyberpunk rocking **** out of 5

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Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992, 80 mins)

Summary: You’re a regular Joe salaryman.  You like family dinners and typical boring clichés.  You are minding your own business, out walking, enjoying your happy joy family time when two fools mess up your day with their actions.  What do you do?

Despite featuring the same metal fetishist as before, the second film is not a direct sequel; rather it shares and explores similar themes as the first, hence the similar summary above.

This time the madness is in colour which I thought would bring in a whole new dimension for Director Tsukamoto to play around with.  Unfortunately it loses a lot of its impact.  In many places there is either a blue filter over the lens or some colour correction during post-production; I was unable to determine which.  Elsewhere it is often poorly lit, the aesthetic black and white of before forced the scene to be lit a specific way and it managed to keep the effects looking good but here the transformation isn’t quite as interesting nor as effective.

Tetsuo II: Body Hammer also tries to introduce a proper narrative structure and ends up drawing attention to itself which only serves to highlight and expose the flaws.  It’s still far from conventional but it seems less effective than before.

The plot this time involves a father with a memory block.  The reason for this is revealed as the film progresses so I won’t say any more.  The surfacing of the hidden memory and the big reveal are some of the better aspects of the film.  Certain key scenes from the first film are played out again almost verbatim, either in direct reference or as a means to add some easy gravitas to the plot without having to make it explicit.  I liked those moments.

The transformation this time is fuelled by anger and concern and also fear but I can’t say fear of what without spoilers.  In this respect the transformation can be seen to echo the emotional state of the individual.  He is a product of his environment and not wholly in control of his emotions.  (Aren’t we all?)  The film can be summed up in one sentence: The will to kill versus the will to avenge, fuelled by the insanity of loss.

There is a very overt reference to H R Giger which makes a mention of his biomechanical designs all but impossible to avoid this time.  I’d rather not dwell on that, though.  If that film is to be made it should be the Swiss artist himself that green-lights it (and soon, he’s 71 years old now).  Perhaps he could get Tsukamoto to direct it and just handle production and design duties.  I would vote ‘YES’ to that.

There is one scene which I found very disturbing.  A couple indulge in a very private kind of sex play.  Others may get excited by it.  It was like the scraping of fingernails down the blackboard to me.

I’d like to be able to give Tetsuo II the same praise as its predecessor but the simple fact is it’s not worthy of it, for me at least.  It stumbles where it should have leaped and coils where it should have sprung.  Nevertheless, it should still be applauded for being so downright weird and daring.  Ultimately, the film is a bold experiment that didn’t really payoff second time around. 

A misfired squib ** out of 5

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Tetsuo III: The Bullet Man (2009, 79 mins)

Summary: You’re a regular Joe salaryman.  You are minding your own business, walking down the street enjoying your time with your son Tom and talking to your beautiful wife on the telephone when some fool messes up your day with his car.  What do you do?

Twenty years after the first film, Tsukamoto made a third.  And my summary is again almost identical.  So, is Tetsuo still relevant in today’s society?  Can the man/machine concept still shock us like it used to now that we are all more familiar with technology and cybernetics etc?  I’d say yes.  Furthermore, Tsukamoto’s film technique definitely can.

The screen ratios of the previous films were both 4:3 so it’s a joy to finally see Tsukamoto use the 16:9 format.  And from the onset it’s clear that he has grown as a filmmaker and obtained some higher quality lenses.  It’s shot on digital and looks great.   In fact, it looks amazing.  The budget for this must have been more than the other two combined.  The post-production trickery on the image is a welcome addition this time.  

The first major difference you’ll notice between this and the other two is that this one is in English.  No subs.  Personally I would have preferred subs because there are times when it was hard to hear exactly what was said, the voice is low in the mix and the characters mumble a lot.  I had to turn the volume up louder than usual to make sure I heard everything.  Conversely this meant that when the music kicked in it was like a wall of sound that engulfed me and totally drew me into Tsukamoto’s twisted world.

The use of sound is again fantastic.  This time it no longer just complements the imagery, it is inseparable from it.  The noise of the car in the first 10 minutes of the film roared out of my speakers like a demon’s war cry and put my nerves on high alert.  That bit scared the crap out of me.  Then the opening credit sequence rolls like a perverted Talking Heads video and from there I was totally hooked.

The setting is the big city and Anthony, our main protagonist, a half-American, half-Japanese salaryman is alienated by its size and its cold sterility.  The city is a malevolent entity.  We see very little of it but more than once it made me feel like I was watching a J G Ballard novel come to life; a concrete hell filled with personal demons, waiting for their moment to strike.  Most of the action is internal shots so despite the larger frame the action takes place in close quarters; the prison like environments are perhaps reflective of the Tetsuo’s mind.  The lighting is again stylised but much more appropriate to the setting than the second one.  At times it was lit like a horror movie but those moments are themselves a little scary so that works fine.

Tsukamoto once again plays the guy that is the catalyst for the transformation.  I was afraid there would be lots of CGI in place of the stop-motion but I’m happy to say that there isn’t.  Most of the effects are achieved through careful editing or in-camera.  As a result the transformation is neither as invasive nor as violent as before but it’s still unsettling.

Things get freaky in corridors a lot and it’s unnerving to watch; for some it may be downright irritating.  I personally hate lengthy shaky-cam shots but I found the camerawork in The Bullet Man to be acceptable, it sustains the visceral atmosphere and didn’t outstay its welcome.  

Anthony attempts something that the other Tetsuo’s haven’t.  You’ll have to watch the film to find out what I mean as it’s a major plot point.  He is characterized a lot more than the others have been and his journey is a lot more scripted and has more purpose.  The exposition is a little awkward and interrupts the flow but it’s brief.  There is still much repeated from the other films with only slight differences.  The salaryman’s wife takes a more active role and even tries to influence the Tetsuo this time around.  She gives the film something the second one sorely lacked, and even with her poor English language skills I found her to be a welcome addition to the madness.

This is the film the second one should have been; it’s the spiritual sequel to the first one.  It's possible to watch it without having seen the second at all.  if you do, you won't really be missing out on anything.

An on target ***1/2 out of 5

For further interest see Cuckoo77's extensive review of Chu Ishikawa's unique score for all three films via this link.

BLACK SWAN (Dir. Darren Aronofsky. 2010.)

Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) needs a passionate and beguiling ballerina to play the lead in his newest Swan Lake adaptation.  His former “Little Princess” is out of the running and some new blood is needed.  Enter Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) whose virginal qualities make her a perfect fit for the fragile White Swan.  However the production demands that the White Swan also become the troubled Black Swan and Nina has a problem embracing (or releasing) that part of herself.  She is required by Thomas to exhibit a lack of control that is at odds with her upbringing and is forced to make a decision that will have consequences not only for her but for those individuals that get caught up the maelstrom that surrounds her.  To complicate matters further the rivalry that such a prime position invariably brings is not so black and white itself.

Nina is a difficult protagonist to identify with; if we look at her objectively we see an introverted two dimensional cliché so from the very beginning we are required to either accept this as a plot device or paint everything that follows with the same brush strokes.  I chose to accept it because I had faith in Aronofsky’s ability to give with one hand and subversively turn things around with the other without warning.  Having said that and after letting the film do its work, Natalie Portman, looking every bit the ballerina, gives what I think is her best ever performance.  She is perfect for the role of Nina and even if, like me, you’ve never really been impressed with her career choices since playing the young Mathilda in Luc Besson’s Leon (1994) there is much to admire in her presentation here.  I’m no ballet aficionado and a professional may well disagree but I felt her dancing was extremely convincing and I didn’t doubt for a second that she could do the same off camera if asked.  Careful editing undoubtedly helped sustain the momentum but I can’t fault her vivacity.  The dance characterises her more than her actions elsewhere.  It’s only while dancing that she transcends the two dimensional.

The director manages to blend the cinéma vérité style that won him recognition in The Wrestler (2008) with the chaotic and unsettling imagery he freaked us all out with in Requiem for a Dream (2000), and he does it almost perfectly.  I say almost, as the pacing is a little awkward at times, particularly in the first third of the film.  It seems as if he is purposefully holding something back, or is he giving us just enough hints that something is awry?  That’s for the individual to decide.  Either way, this duality beautifully mirrors the text and the subtext of the film.

Aronofsky has a breathtaking ability to place his camera on a subject and have them become the centre of a crippling duality.  In the aforementioned The Wrestler we spent a great deal of time behind Mickey Rourke’s character, following passively as he drifted from place to place.   Similarly in Black Swan we follow Nina from a vantage point, closer than with Rourke, placed just behind her shoulder, she fills the frame and the world around her blurs into insignificance.
Then the camera will abruptly shift its point of view and through precise timing this flipped perspective puts the subject at odds with their surroundings, lost in a sea of increasing dementia and unease.  Nina again fills the frame but the advantageous position she had in her own private view of the world is now fractured.   It’s a wonderful technique that he relies on a little too often; nevertheless it has the desired effect on the viewer and along with his quick edit has become his signature move.  Look back through Aronofsky’s career and you will see it time and again.

The director uses space masterfully.  The tightly controlled home life which Nina shares with her overbearing mother is claustrophobic and the camera is given less freedom to explore whereas the open stage, a microcosm of the real world and for Nina the only one that really matters, is free and fluid and the camera flies elegantly around the energetic dance as effortlessly as if it were carried on the breeze of Nina’s pirouette.  We rarely see the audience or even care if they are enjoying the performance but they may as well not be there anyhow, Nina is the centre of her own universe in those times and that universe is spiralling out of control.

Take a moment to applaud the camera operator during those scenes as he/she does an outstanding job.  Praise should also be heaped on Mila Kunis who gives a fine performance as a colleague of Nina, and the multilingual Vincent Cassel who never fails to impress whatever the role demands of him.

Aronofsky achieved auteur status long before Black Swan but he’s neither too arrogant nor ashamed to openly reference his influences.  He is channelling not just the obvious influences (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) but look a little deeper beneath the fractured surface and there is a lot of Polanski onscreen, or rather, at the edges of the screen, in the dark corners, behind the dressing room doors and in the mirrors that seem to be everywhere.

Music is again by Clint Mansell (their fifth collaboration) and is deceptively complex.  His reworking of Tchaikovsky's original composition locks with the visuals beautifully not only during the ballet scenes where it conveys an urgency and grace simultaneously but off-stage when an ominous and portentous sensation is requisite.  Aside from the famous “Swan Theme” I’m not familiar with Tchaikovsky's composition so I was mostly unable to tell if the original had been changed by Mansell or built upon or simply played differently but for me that wasn’t essential, it was the feelings conveyed and the gravitas they lent the scene and those qualities were abundant.  Parts of it would not be out of place in an Argento horror film.

Another essential Aronofsky film.  Seek it out and engage with its duplicitous beauty.  Or be left cold from the onset and wonder what all the fuss is about.  View the trailer here.

For me, it’s a ...

**** out of 5

For further interest see Cuckoo77's review of Black Swan's score via this link.

INK (Written & Dir. Jamin Winans. 2009.)

Good people do good things and bad people do bad things, or more often than not bad people get someone else to do it for them.   Ink is such a person, or thing, sent on an errand by a higher power to kidnap an eight year old girl as she sleeps seemingly safe in her bed.  And despite the combined efforts from a number of strangers, he succeeds in snatching little Emma.  His motivations for this act are revealed to us as the story unfolds.  However, it’s not as straightforward as that.  The part of Emma that is stolen is in the dream world, where Ink resides, while her physical self remains in the real world in a comatose state.  If the two parts of Emma are not reunited within a given time, disaster will befall her.  What follows is the journey undertaken by the kidnapper, the kidnapped, and those trying to save her, both in the dream world and concurrently in the real world.  And it’s (mostly) a joy to watch.

Ink is a fantasy movie that dares to do things a little different from the norm, it dares to fail.  It’s a self-financed venture, the brainchild of primarily two individuals, Jamin Winans and Kiowa Winans.  Jamin wrote, directed, edited, and composed the original soundtrack for the film, and Kiowa was responsible for the Art Direction, Costume Design and Sound Design.  They were also the executive producers, and subsequent distributers.  Ink is their baby.

The direction is stylised, a little overly stylised at times and at others it seems almost amateurish.  More than once it reminded me of a British Public Information film, about the dangers of excessive drinking or about taking care while driving.  The editing is often clumsy, bordering on irritating; especially the fight scenes where it’s clear Jamin has compensated for a lack of experience in these matters by moving the camera too close to his subject to keep the viewer’s attention away from the poor choreography.  While the fighting is essential to the story, it is undoubtedly its weakest aspect.  Not what you want on your CV.  However, what the film lacks in finesse it makes up for in ideas.  It is literally bursting at the seams with plot, both attended to and left unexplored; and quite often the plot is implied as opposed to being revealed in the conventional manner.  In order to get the most from Ink you have to engage on a conscious level with it.  The best cinema uses this as a device.  Films that wash over you are often instantly forgettable affairs.

At times it reminds of a Neil Gaiman fairytale, putting me instantly in mind of Gaiman’s own failed Neverwhere project (1996 BBC series, may be unfamiliar to non-UK audiences) and the occasional bronzed lighting effects remind of Gaiman’s long time collaborator, Dave McKean (Mirrormask.  2005).  The sound is competent, often inspired.  When the protectors appear they are accompanied by an audible “click/pop” sound, like a light bulb blowing out, crossed with the sound the hinge of a Zippo lighter makes.  It sounds weird, but it works.

The soundtrack, being conceived by Jamis, as you would expect fits the scenes perfectly and at times it raised my sympathies so much that my heart took up a firm residence in my throat.  Especially towards the end, it integrates beautifully heightening the emotional impact of the narrative.

Whether the viewer realises it or not, cinema is a medium of thirds; from the pre/production/post to the lighting (3 point lighting) to the very frame itself (rule of thirds), this is the case.  Ink, the film not the character, is split into a three-way fight with itself.  Initially intriguing, it stumbles into mediocrity a third of the way in, leaving it’s actors to carry the story; a task for which they are not wholly capable.  At times it seems as if they are fresh out of acting school.  As mentioned already the action scenes are clumsy, and it is this middle section of the film that all my criticisms are directed.  Sadly, this is also the point many people will decide to hit the stop button.

Persevere, and the final third of the film is a complete turnaround.  It not only redeems its existence, it excels in all the right ways.  The editing is tighter, the direction is inspired, and even the fighting seems more accomplished.   The threads of story that have been dangled before us begin to weave and knit together beautifully.  The scenes with Emma and her protector are fantastic.  Along the way Ink has tasks of his own that he must complete in order to deliver his cargo.  The Pathfinder, a stranger employed to help track the girl, ceases to be an annoying fool with black tape over his eyes and takes on a whole new relevance and essential role.  The beat of life becomes the beat of the film, and the urgency which was previously lacking reaches its potential.  The final third of the film is the finest of its kind I have seen this year.  Like well crafted music it reaches a crescendo right before the final act, leaving you grinning like the Cheshire Cat with a fish the size of a bus.

Wikipedia tells us (don’t read the Wiki article before watching the film, it has major spoilers) that no major studio picked up the film for neither theatrical nor home distribution; this doesn’t surprise me, they don’t have such insight and many of them need a diagram to find their own ass.  Double Edge Films, Jamin Winans and Kiowa Winans’ own company, pitched the movie directly to independent cinemas and to the DVD, Blu-ray and online distribution markets themselves. After the release it became the most downloaded movie in file sharing torrent history, 400,000 times in a single week, and this helped expose the film to a large audience, leading to higher DVD and Blu-ray sales in return. It’s a fairytale success story.  The filmmakers claimed to have "embraced the piracy" and are "happy Ink is getting unprecedented exposure."  More power to them.

All that remains is for me to tell you to seek it out and watch it right to the end before forming a lasting opinion.  And to give it a mark.  Without hesitation I give Ink...

***** out of 5

To purchase go to the Official Ink site HERE

MARNIE (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. 1964)

“You’re a cold practiced little method actress of a liar.”

Marnie Edgar is a beautiful but disturbed young woman with an aberrant fear and mistrust of men, thunder and lightning, and the colour red. Marnie is also a career criminal, who charms her way into jobs only to steal from her boss at the first opportunity, and then moves onto the next town and the next identity. And yes she is blonde, has a grey suit and a bag, but this is not your typical Hitchcock movie. In fact, it deals with subjects that were, and still are even today, not easy to watch.
Hitch himself had this to say about it, “One might call Marnie a sex mystery. That is, if one used such words.” Well, I’m less restrained than the fat man and I’m telling you now to beware, the film has very strong themes of implied sexual abuse and rape, which may offend some viewers. The rape scene is handled tactfully (if such a thing can ever be said to be so?) and as an interesting side note Hitch fired the first screenwriter because the guy removed it from the script, and hired a woman (Jay Presson Allen) to put it back in.
It’s debatable as to whether the film needs it, or recovers from it; nevertheless it remains.

Marnie continued Hitchcock’s proclivity for adapting suspense novels for the screen. It is based on the novel of the same name by British author Winston Graham and was originally perceived as a vehicle for Grace Kelly, with whom Hitch was keen to work with again after the successful Rear Window. However, Grace Kelly was too busy playing the pretty Princess of Monaco and so Hitch abandoned the project and thankfully went on to shoot The Birds instead, where he met Tippi Hedren. Despite their much publicised tussles, Hitch was impressed with Tippi and I for one am glad she got the role rather than the simpering Grace Kelly. The project was reborn with Tippi onboard as Marnie Edgar, and further casting began.

The leading man in Hitch’s movies is always superbly dressed and charismatic, but it’s not unfair to say they are usually very similar, almost stoical, “man on the run and on a mission” stock types. Here Sean Connery gives us his only Hitchcock performance, playing a man named Mark Rutland, a widower who owns a large printing company and is not only wealthy but also well educated. And for a change he’s not a man on the run, though he does have a mission. Fresh from his stint in Dr No, Connery was far from being typecast and he not only relishes such a challenging role, he throws himself into it completely. I was sceptical at first as to whether he was the right man for the job, but my doubts were assuaged when I saw him fit the shoes Hitch had provided for him. He has his detractors but reviews are subjective, so I make no apology.

Mark Rutland (Connery) likes to gamble. He likes to play dangerous games and is fascinated with animal instincts and behaviourism, which brings us back to Tippi Hedren. Rutland sees Marnie as a pitiable wounded animal that is crying out to be helped, and in his arrogance he concludes that who is more suited to help such a beautiful creature than he? Marnie, however, is reluctant to let him into her hermetically closed world, but can any woman resist the advances of Sean Connery for long? The sexual chemistry between the two leads is a little lacklustre when compared with, say, Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart, but there is a reason for that, and their complex relationship is about more than just attraction.

Some of the key scenes are classic Hitchcock moments. A theft is especially suspenseful, where through an open door we are witness to a robbery on one half of the frame while unbeknownst to the thief a woman is on the left hand side of the frame, outside the room, cleaning the floor. So while one cleans out a safe and one cleans a floor both are oblivious to the other... but for how long? I’m not telling.
A scene between Hedren and Connery in his office as a storm rages outside is also notable. The angry storm, being both a trigger for a deep rooted memory and imbued with an associated and unwelcome symbolism, frightens Marnie but it also saves her from further enquiry. Ironically the storms only seem to appear when she needs them, or rather when the story needs them to advance.

I said previously that this not a typical Hitchcock movie, however it does have a number of the famous Hitchcockian moments that he used in previous films. Colours are a trigger for memory (Vertigo), there is a sexual fascination with the criminal (To Catch a Thief), we are the subjective observer taking a long and slow descent down a stairway (Notorious), we are the watcher, watching a man watching something off-screen (Rear Window) and finally the famous “zoom in / dolly out” he used in Vertigo to show Scotty’s disorientation surfaces again here. There are dozens more examples but I won’t go on, except to say that the camera movements are as beautiful as ever, and the editing is sublime.
Hitch’s goal with all his movies was to achieve what he called the “Pure Cinema” and with Marnie he almost nailed it. It’s been criticised by many people, and it performed poorly at the box office, but I believe they missed the point. It’s not a mirror for real life; it’s not supposed to be. It’s about filmic storytelling in its purest form. There isn’t a scene that isn’t necessary, perfectly timed, or played out to perfection. Forget the all too obviously painted backdrop and set based fake exteriors, and the often subdued performances, they don’t matter, for this is a film about form and about creative goals. (There is the theory that Hitch was so in love with German Expressionist cinema that he wanted the backgrounds to reflect that, this is certainly true for the lightning scene but I have studied the Expressionists and I’m not convinced Hitch was aiming for that at all; I would guess he was simply reluctant to go out on location.)

The final 20 minutes are heavy viewing and while initially unable to relate with what I was watching, I found Hedren’s believability in those last moments to grow more credible with repeated viewings. But the performances take second place to the technical side of Hitch’s filmmaking processes, and it’s this technical aspect that gives Marnie the classic status it deserves.
I would argue that Marnie is in fact the last great Hitchcock movie; what followed, while still of interest to aficionado’s, was under par for the great man. This too was the last time a film score by long time collaborator Bernard Herrmann was used, for more on that see cuckoo77’s music review.

I’ve tried here to show the importance of the film in the Hitchcock cannon without delving too much into the plot, for to see it unfolding before your eyes is how it should be appreciated. In closing I will simply say this: If you have ever enjoyed a Hitchcock movie, WATCH Marnie.

NOTE: The version I own is the Universal edition presented in a 4:3 ratio, but if you hunt online you can also find it in its proper 1:85 ratio. I would recommend that one.

***** out of 5.