Let The Right One In / Låt den rätte komma in (2009) * Second viewing

“Haunting blanched beauty”

The first time I saw this I was so enchanted by it that I concluded my notes with the words “If this film isn’t the best of the year, then I may not live through the one that beats it”.  I have to say that I was probably underselling it.  The first time I saw this- on a leaked screener played on a small screen- I probably didn’t truly appreciate the haunting blanched beauty of the film or its stunning soundtrack (by Johan Söderqvist).  Well I do now.

Tomas Alfredson’s film has been trailed over here as a pretty standard horror film (I haven’t seen the trailer but it is apparently very generic).  The poster, reproduced at the bottom, doesn’t give a sense of what is to follow at all.  I suppose the aim is laudable- get bums on seats and let the quality win them over- but filling screenings with people expecting eye-popping gore and sudden shocks doesn’t seem very fair upon either them or upon the people who might want to watch something beautiful and romantic and may then miss this on the basis that it is being sold as if it was The Omen Part 14 or something.  Tough call.

I’m not even sure that it is a horror film, even after seeing it twice.  There are horrific elements of course, but the film is more than that.  It is a coming-of-age film, a love story, a film about childhood and loneliness and resilience and pain and conventionality and unconventionality.  There is a theme in Sam Mendes’ overrated but nonetheless impressive American Beauty about seeing beauty where others don’t and that applies equally here.  Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is an outsider, bullied and ostracized by his classmates and misunderstood by his family but Eli (Lina Leandersson) connects with him in the same way that, we are led to presume, Eli connected with Håkan (Per Ragnar) before him.  What Eli connects with isn’t Oskar’s vulnerability or loneliness, despite this being their common ground, it is his latent rage (the first words Eli hears from him are “Squeal! “Squeal like a pig!”) and his total detachment from the conventional standards and expectations of the people around him.  When he strikes his erstwhile tormentor Conny (Patrik Rydmark), his immediate reaction to seeing the blood and pain is one of curiosity which turns to delight.  And this is the most interesting aspect of their friendship- Eli is the vampire with a capacity for violence which is tempered by a disregard for it while Oskar’s capacity for violence is latent and expressed only through his fascination with newspaper reports of murders and his knife.

The theme of seeing the beauty in unexpected places extends to the visuals of the film itself.  The icicles on the climbing frame, Oskar’s snot running from nose to mouth, dripping blood in the snow, the hand-print fading on a windowpane, Oskar resurfacing in the swimming pool- no matter how mundane the subject, a perverse beauty is created by cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema.

Something that struck me on second viewing was the possibility that the very final scene (on the train) doesn’t happen.  What if Oskar dies and this is his dying thought?  He certainly appears to die- he ceases to struggle, he doesn’t inhale upon resurfacing, he has a beatific smile upon his face- but this is purely speculation.  The only real clue is the complete lack of reaction from Conny’s brother when another boy is dragged away by Eli- his hand doesn’t react at all- but is that really a clue.  It’s dodgy territory this, where does it stop; what if the whole thing was in his imagination?  I prefer the more literal ending.  It makes more sense that, with Oskar taking the place of Håkan, the story turns full cycle.  There are signposts to this throughout the film- Håkan’s jealousy of Eli’s new friend as he watches from the window, Eli’s tender gesture when he asks her not to see Oskar that evening, the way in which Håkan targets the ‘normal’ boys who would be Oskar’s tormentors and would have been his own.

My descriptive powers are pitifully inadequate for the task of conveying my admiration of Let The Right One In.  10/10

Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)

It’s mad this.  I love it, but I’m aware of how mad it is.  Veteran B-Movie actor Eddie Constantine reprises a regular role as private detective Lemmy Caution in a Jean-Luc Godard film set in the future.  Bonkers.  Brilliant.

As with any film Godard makes the emphasis is very much on realism.  And so you have a sci-fi film noir thriller set in a dystopian future (is there any kind of future in the movies?) which is filmed in mid-60s Paris featuring actors wearing contemporary clothing and driving contemporary cars.  In fact, if it weren’t for the dialogue you would have no idea that this was set in the future.  It could almost be a French version of What’s Up Tiger Lily?  And yet, it is very realistic because Godard chose the most futuristic parts of Paris and Coutard shot them in such a way that it works.  We’re not talking a Buck Rodgers future here but a terrifying vision of a very real, very near future.  The film begins by telling the viewer that it is “24.17 Oceanic Time” which will really, really strike a chord with anyone who has read Orwell’s contribution to the genre 1984.  Or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.  And those source materials are a pretty important touchstone for the film referenced throughout- with the omniscient central government, dehumanised population and deliberate shrinking of the language.  It is telling for me that Godard’s sci-fi film is the antithesis of the gaudy, style-over-substance, effects and costume-heavy movies which dominate the genre.  Strip away the trappings, he is saying, and there must be more to the film than mere window-dressing.  He must have hated the Hollywood of the last three decades.

The film opens with Lemmy Caution arriving in Alphaville under the assumed identity of a newspaper reporter from Figaro-Pravda (that is simply delicious by the way).  The wonderful Misraki B-movie soundtrack accompany Caution as he enters an Alphaville hotel, checks in, gets the lift to his floor, negotiates the winding corridoors and arrives at his room.  This is all achieved with one tracking shot including the lift sequence (the camera goes up in one glass elevator, Caution in another alongside it) it takes four minutes in full.  Amazing.  I can’t emphasise that enough.

Alphaville is a harsh, cold, loveless and remorseless place.  Five years on from À Bout de Souffle,which was in part a love letter to the city of Paris, Godard’s view appears to have completely changed.  Caution’s disdain for Alphaville simply gives voice to Godard’s for Paris: “Everything weird is ‘normal’ in this damn town” he says at one point.  What Paris is and what it is becoming informs much of the movie thematically.  This also makes Constantine’s uncomfortable performance work really well, he isn’t a natural or polished and his clunky accented delivery and hesitant body language is perfect for the role of discomfited outsider.  He is taking the whole thing super-seriously  as a spy thriller and seemingly ignoring the philosophical or futuristic bits that he doesn’t quite get.  It’s a great case of a Director using an actor brilliantly in spite of the actors limitations, I love Eddie Constantine in this (and, in the interests of balance, I should say that he also does a pretty good job in The Long Good Friday).  Godard makes the most of Constantine, his ‘interesting’ face and world-weary manner- he is in almost every shot, certainly every scene.

And yet he isn’t the key figure in the film.  The film is, in many ways, a love letter to Anna Karina.  From the first moment that she appears- accompanied by a beautiful score for strings and lit with great sensitivity- she is objectified as being of almost preternatural beauty.  Her performance justifies this treatment too, she is sensational in this.  The moment at the climax of the film where she says for the first time and with a new understanding of the gravity of her words “I love you” is one of those heart-meltingly rare cinema moments that stay with you.  She speaks as if these are the first words she has ever said, the music swells, fin.  Truly beautiful. 

Love is one of the things which can save Alphaville.  During the execution scene- a man is executed for acting illogically- he wept when his wife died, his final words are: “Listen to me normal ones!  We see a truth that you no longer see.  A truth that says the essence of man is love and faith, courage and tenderness, generosity and sacrifice.  Everything else is an obstacle put up by your blind progress and ignorance!”.  The execution itself is odd (the prisoners are shot by firing squad beside a swimming pool and retrieved by synchronised swimmers who are applauded wildly by spectators) and this bizarre method is in keeping with the bizarre reason for the execution.  Godard is mocking the concept (and indeed the conceit) of this future.  He goes further in the following scenes and reveals that in the face of dehumanisation, poetry is the answer.  When Alphaville’s super computer (and by the way Alphaville’s super computer has a voice like a frog vomiting) interrogates Lemmy Caution, it asks “do you know what turns darkness into light?” to which he responds poetry.  And reading a book of the poet Éluard’s poetry entitled ‘The Capital of Pain’ (presumably chosen for the title as much as the content) reawakens the humanity within Karina’s character.  Yet it is here that the film falters to a degree, as with all of Godard’s work, there is a heavy philosophical element and the longer-than-it-seems sequence on anti-linguistic theory (“unless words change their meanings and meanings change their words”- that kind of stuff) is a step that the film could really do without.  The film isn’t serious enough to do such conceits justice- that’s my feeling anyway.

Aside from that interlude (which I would probably have tolerated much better if I hadn’t been too tired to understand it all) this is typical Godard, he doesn’t piss about with unnecessary pauses, he just puts relevant scenes and events on screen in an innovative way subverting everything which has gone before.  He even depicts a fight in still photos to avoid unnecessary and untidy camerawork.  A film about the resurrection of tenderness and of love.  8/10

Spellbound (1945)

Hitchcock was such an ‘of-the-moment’ film-maker that there aren’t many who compare with him today in terms of using or risking their status to try and push the audience into new and uncomfortable territory.  Some of his work ends up being timeless as a result (Vertigo is a great example, North By NorthWest being another) and some is pretty badly dated.  Spellbound with its then novel and now well-worn themes of psychoanalysis and Freudian guilt falls into the latter category sadly.  I’m not sure that it’s really fair to judge a film on the basis of how well the basic premise has stood the passing of over six decades, how was Hitch to know that daytime TV would be filled wall-to-wall with cod-psychology and blithe misreadings of Freud and Jung reducing everyone to the role of pseudo-shrink?  That said, I am really only interested in how the film entertains or informs or affects me and so, fair or not, I’ll judge it on its merits in my opinion.  There’s probably a deep psychological meaning behind that too.

And Spellbound is very good, especially when it gets going.  The opening has been a little too successfully aped by Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety for me to be really swayed by it, sadly (High Anxiety by the way, is the opposite of Spellbound as it falters after a promising start).  Opening with Ingrid Bergman analysing the neurotic, misanthropic Mary Carmichael (played with relish as a latter day Countess Dracula by Rhonda Fleming) we learn about Bergman’s emotionless professionalism and you just know that her icy exterior is long overdue for being thawed by the right man.  At this point Gregory Peck enters the fray- it is a wonderful set-up, the only disappointment being that the on-screen chemistry between them doesn’t match that between her and Bogey or her and Cary Grant.  Now, you can be churlish and criticise the idea of them falling in love in less time than it takes me to choose what socks to wear on a given day, but what’s the point?  I just consider that you accept it and see where the movie takes you and- if it is a flop- use it as a stick to beat with later.  And so the scene where Peck and Bergman first meet sees them both in close-up; her in soft-focus him depicted with the hard lines of a real man, Miklós Rózsa strikes up the string section and the whole thing is sorted in the minds of the audience.  I would usually hate this but what I find forgivable about it- praiseworthy even- is that Hitchcock is simply getting the romantic interlude out of the way as efficiently as possible in order to get on with the thriller.  The scene proceeds to do just that as a neurotic and agitated Peck- who has already been depicted as “much younger than I imagined” and being very vague on the subject of his most recently published book- overreacts furiously to Bergman drawing a picture by tracing her fork upon the table linen.  There you go in one scene Bergman and Peck have fallen in love and Hitchcock has flattered the audience that they’re so smart knowing that he isn’t who he says he is.  Brilliant.

The plot proceeds apace, frosty analyst turned giddy schoolgirl Bergman is enraptured by Peck (has anyone in celluloid history attempted to say the word ‘liverwurst’ seductively before?) and they kiss in his room.  Now, I’m a little uncomfortable with one of Hitchcock’s conceits here- close-ups of his eyes and then her eyes are followed by a graphic of doors opening.  It’s all just a little too literal, or is because of the intervening years?  Have I been conditioned to demand more subtlety when that kind of pellucidity was precisely what contemporary audiences needed?  I’ll let it slide.

Right, so it becomes clear that not only is Gregory Peck not Dr Edwardes (odd spelling that) but that he may even have murdered Dr Edwardes and taken his place.  Peck disappears but leaves a note under Bergman’s door leading to a brilliant scene where several policemen and psychiatrists are standing just inside her doorway on the note which she can see but they haven’t yet noticed.  The tension is maintained superbly for what seems like an age before Bergman is able to retrieve the note- unbearably it is handed to her by Dr Murchison (Leo G. Carroll)- and follow Peck to a hotel in New York.  From there, in typical Hitchcock fashion, the chase is on.  Peck and Bergman are always- by design or by good fortune- half a step ahead of the police as she tries to break through his psychological blockages and prove his undoubted innocence (“I couldn’t love a man who is capable of such crimes” she says, well that’s all there is to it then).  At the same time Peck has no real belief in his innocence and while the audience can’t really believe he did it- he’s the hero for crying out loud- it is the most obvious and likely explanation for it all.  And to amplify that doubt Hitchcock shows us flashes of Peck’s temper, frames him with a cut-throat razor and a zombie-like stare and casts doubt upon his story left, right and centre.

Bergman takes Peck to the home of her psychoanalytical mentor Dr Brulov (Michael Checkov, the best performer on show by a country mile) and while they wait for him to return with two strangers it becomes apparent that the men are policemen investigating the death of Edwardes.  Trapped, unable to even communicate both are struck dumb with terror as the policemen chat affably throwing their unease into even sharper contrast- it is the best sequence of the film- and the tension continues until Dr Brulov returns.  The policemen, it transpires, are unaware of Peck and Bergman’s supposed implication in the murder and are merely there to investigate the professional tension between Brulov and Edwardes which had almost escalated ino violence recently.  Now this is really clever, if this was a whodunnit the smart money would be straight on Brulov- especially when it becomes clear that he knows far more about Peck and Bergman’s arrival than he had initially indicated.  Seeing Peck with the razor Dr Brulov talks to him calmly and offers him a glass of milk.  He’s drugged him- with milk!  As if he was B.A. Baracus or something.  Brilliant.  “I ain’t getting on no psychoanalyst’s couch fool!”.

When Peck awakes, he recounts his dreams for the two Doctors to analyse and here we enter the most famous (and most unaccountably derided) sequence of the film- the Hitchcock/Dali dream sequence.  Okay, so a four year old could analyse the ‘hidden’ meanings (whoever could the mysterious ‘Proprieter’ be?) it doesn’t matter- what is important is the beauty of the sequence and, most importantly of all, the sheer chutzpah of its inclusion.  I’d defend this until my dying breath- if only more filmmakers had Hitchcock’s balls!

The climactic sequence of the film is filmed dramatically as Bergman desperately tries to undo her act of inadvertently convincing Peck and the policemen of his guilt- she is shown in stark monochrome uplit against dark backgrounds frenzied and hopeless.  And then, when all hope is lost, the truth falls into her lap by chance.  Agatha Christie once said “if you want to know who the murderer is in any crime novel, pick the most unlikely character.  He did it” and that holds true here.  Admittedly it isn’t the most unlikely person on screen, the fat cockney feller getting out of a lift in a brief cameo has absolutely no chance of reappearing, it is a convincing and plausible ending which gives Hitchcock an excuse for one last piece of bravura film-making, the big hand.

Oh it isn’t a perfect film, the ski-ing sequence (for example) is dreadfully executed and a lot of the great things here- especially the framing of Gregory Peck as a did-he didn’t-he murderer would be far better realised in Psycho but for the tension, for Rózsa’s great score (love that theremin work), for the brief-but-brilliant childhood memory sequence and for the breathless and intriguing narrative I loved it.  8/10

Great Expectations (1946)

On his fourteenth birthday young Pip (Anthony Wager) informs the reclusive Miss Haversham (a great Martita Hunt cameo) that he can no longer visit her and play as he is now of age to be apprenticed to the blacksmith, his uncle the kinder-than-credible Joe Gargery (Bernard Miles). Six years later, so the first-person narrative tells us, we see young Pip hard at work at the forge.  Young Pip, twenty years old at this point, is played by John Mills; a fine actor no doubt, but clearly middle-aged.  With that in mind it would be impossible for this film to be rated at 10/10 no matter what else happened- the casting of your central character is pretty bloody pivotal to the success of a film and the transition of Pip from a callow country lad to a snobbish city gentleman cannot be portrayed convincingly by a man in his forties no matter how fucking good an actor he is.

But everything else in the film; every single other aspect is an absolute delight.  From the brooding and atmospheric churchyard opening- all creaking branches, angular trees in silhouette, dark shadows and a tremendously sinister convict on the run (Abel Magwitch played wonderfully by Finlay Currie)- to the closing sequence with Pip returning to the house where so many of the defining moments of his life have been played out (the voices from every corner) and his confrontation with the haunted Estella (Valerie Hobson) there isn’t a pause or a wasted moment. Remarkable.

I love Charles Dickens and I do get really precious about adaptations of his work- perhaps a bit unfairly- because they necessarily chop things from the text and as I love everything in the text I find myself grimacing.  Watchmen fans might have some sympathy with this.  But this adaptation, though it does strip out from the book (not least the Miss Haversham/Compeyson twist) simply feels comprehensive.  So much is included and, to make that possible, it moves at great pace- which I love- and the brilliant minor characters like Mr Wemmick and the Aged P, Herbert Pockett, Uncle Pumblechook, Bentley Drummle and Mr Jaggers all make the most of what little screen time they have.  It isn’t a case of peripheral actors hamming it up and hogging scenes either, Lean simply creates the opportunity for each of them to create a distinctive and interesting role.

Great Expectations also looks great.  I don’t know enough about cinematography to discuss his use of deep focus or back-lighting or all of the other technical things that may make it work, but I do know that it works.  The monochrome is made to work brilliantly, contrasting the gloom of Miss Haversham’s huge house with the bright homeliness that Joe and Pip share with Biddy.  I even loved the soundtrack, the way it enhanced the drama and injected humour in parts (the musical accompaniment to Mrs Joe calling for Pip and Joe to return is hilarious).  The up-tempo music accompanying Pip’s journey to London reflects his excitement and supports the unusually rapid cutting employed at that point to build that atmosphere of immature anticipation.

If only the twenty year old Pip wasn’t played by a man old enough to be his father this would be flawless, it’s still a strong 9/10 though.

Jules et Jim (1962)

I think I can understand why Jules et Jim is revered by some and reviled by others.  It is a film which doesn’t make a great deal of sense rationally and, in many ways, I can imagine its modernist extra-contextual content could be construed as pretentious.  Truffaut’s film centres on three flawed characters and proceeds to examine the nature and shift of their relationships.  So, yes, I can also imagine people thinking that it is conceptually arid.  And some of the dialogue is barmy- “Your breasts are the only grenades I love” being a particularly fine example of that.  There is plenty here that critics can get their teeth into.  But they’re missing the beauty of the film.  It is high art, no doubt.  But it is also- and this is something I feel that the nouvelle vague usually got spot on- breezy and whimsical and entertaining and pacy and endearing.

If I was to examine the film as a purely intellectual piece, I would focus upon its exploration of conflicting love: when romantic and fraternal love come into conflict; when a person loves two people or two people love a single person; when a person loves another so much that he will endure any heartbreak not to lose her; when being in love becomes fraternal love, etc.  I would also look at the film in the context of the time it was made rather than the setting, to see Catherine’s matriarchal dominance as a reflection of the French feminist movement and read her impulsive free spiritedness as a signifier of liberation from male dominance in a wider context.  I would consider the way in which Truffaut objectifies Catherine as an ideal woman- and how that idealism includes the capacity for great cruelty and selfishness.  I might also consider what the film has to say about the affection between Jules (the German) and Jim (the Frenchman) which is their overriding concern during the war and whether this speaks of a deeper humanist disdain for national identity and patriotism- or is simply a commentary upon the fractious state of Europe during the preceding half a century.  I would also wonder about the significance of the breezy nostalgic mood which is interrupted by the harsh realities of a stupid and futile war.

On the other hand, if I was to consider the film technically I would be looking at Truffaut’s choice of camera angles and the fluid style he utilises- which would certainly have been innovative at the time.  I would consider the lighting and how this impacts upon the mood of the film- enhancing the breeziness I spoke of earlier.  I would be interested to understand more about the decision to move the films narrative (successfully, I may add) at such breathtaking pace and the exclusion of all details not pertaining to the main thrust of the story.  I would discuss the success of the narrator as a device to achieve these aims.  I would focus upon some of Truffaut’s little conceits- the intermittent freeze-frames which say to the viewer “I want you to remember this just as it is now” and especially the visual objectification of Jeanne Moreau.

But you know what, pretentious little twat though I may tend to be, I ignore all of these things and just focus on the beautiful whimsical representation of deep affectionate relationships centred around impulsiveness and the desire to be happy.  And I really enjoy Jules et Jim on that basis.  8/10

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) *Second viewing

Today being Valentine’s Day, I took my wife to see Vicky Cristina Barcelona at her request even though I saw this just a couple of weeks ago and rated it as a 7/10 film.  On second viewing I think that’s about fair- perhaps even a little on the stingy side.  What stood out for me far more this time was the cynicism behind the film- every motivation and every relationship was treated as pretentious and false in its own way.  As if Woody was simply sick of everything.  I found it  harder to engage with the protagonists- as it often is when a film is filled with spoilt people in big houses with no discernible source of income, but that’s another matter- because I was more aware of the bitterness below the surface.  I think that’s a strength of the  film, though, you can suspend disbelief and find yourself charmed by a film where for a short period of time people step out of their comfort zone and learn about themselves.  A Spanish Roman Holiday, if you will.  The easy flow and soundtrack-driven pace of the film allied to the use of a narrator (is there any better way to hint to an audience that it’s okay to switch off their critical faculties?) aids this process tremendously and is probably the reason behind the film’s relative success at the box office.

On the other hand, you can view the film as a critique of pretensions and the way that the desire to appear as a tortured artist or as a fully ‘together’ and in control are simply two sides of the same coin. Interestingly, Vicky and Cristina are shown arriving and leaving via Barcelona Airport at the beginning and end of the movie via a split-screen in which their positions are swapped- as if to represent the way in which they have to some extent swapped what they want out of life with one another.

In fact the only character to come out of the film with his ‘image’ intact is  Doug (played by Chris Messina who does this kind of dull straight-laced lawyer/broker type of role really well, as he showed in the risible Made of Honour).  I was going to say ‘come out sympathetically’, but his character doesn’t elicit sympathy- even though he’s cuckolded throughout- simply because he’s a bit of a dick.  Nonetheless, he is the only main character to have been honest throughout the film.  Even Javier Bardem’s frank and forthright Juan Antonio is portrayed as playing out a pretence of honesty as Penélope Cruz’s Maria Elena explains when massaging him to relieve a tension headache “Oh, to the world, he’s carefree, nothing matters, life is short and with no purpose kind of thing. But all his fear just goes to his head“.  Interestingly, and I say this having seen the film twice, I’m certain that during the Spanish dialogue in that scene Cruz refers to Bardem’s character as Javier and not Juan Antonio.

And so, this is definitely a film I enjoyed seeing a second time.  In fact, it had made me feel eager to re-engage with Woody Allen after sulking about his poor calibre output over the last twenty years and ignoring him for quite some time.

The Reader (2009)

So, after ‘Valkyrie’, onto the second part of tonight’s double bill of foreigners playing Germans.  This time, with accents.

I came into this film with no prior real knowledge- I didn’t even know that it was set in Germany- all that I did know was that Kate Winslet was highly regarded in her role and that my friend Tony D (a fine judge of all things cultural) really liked it and was intrigued by it.  I really liked it too, but the most intriguing thing for me is how it so nearly a truly great film, but sadly ends up not being.  It looks beautiful- as it should with the estimable Roger Deakins on board- and the sense of time and place are rendered beautifully through the settings and costumes and the script is excellent- by turns surprising and satisfying- so everything is in place for a classic.

The plaudits I’m hearing for Reading’s finest, though, are overdoing it.  She has a role that many actresses would kill for and nails it a lot of the time, but the performance is a little two-dimensional and the later scenes with Kate aged in make-up really let the performance down.  She doesn’t pull off the latter-day Hannah Schmitz at all for me because she doesn’t act like an old woman in either her movement or her speech.  I mentioned also that her performance is a little 2-D and this is something I wanted to comment on as a means of thinking out loud.  Winslet’s performance gives no real insight into the person or her motivation, the script does- a little- in the courtroom scene, but you never see these things acted out.  The character is as much a puzzle at the start as at the end because no clues are given.  When it comes to portraying her embarrassment over her illiteracy, Winslet is fine, but for the tougher stuff which would really have made the performance something spectacular I found her wanting.  On the other hand, Bruno Ganz and especially Lena Olin’s small cameos were of the highest calibre- especially her scene with Ralph Fiennes (who did his usual ‘credible Liam Neeson’ performance) and definitely worthy of greater scrutiny.  Speaking of performances, David Kross as the young Michael really stood out- he moved from callow to embittered without missing a beat.

David Kross, however, is also one of the directorial weaknesses that held the film back.  He does a fine job as Michael in 1958 and again in 1968, but the only concession to the ageing process that we see is that his fringe has grown a bit and he’s stopped wearing shorts.  When he reappears again in 1976 as Ralph Fiennes, more than a little ageing has gone on.  And his nose has shrunk.  I’m not a big fan of make up but a little on Kross in 1968 and a prosthetic nose on Fiennes would’ve helped keep things totally plausible.  In addition to this choosing Lena Olin to play a mother and her daughter is unnecessary and distracting.  Small touches like this counted against the director (Stephen Daldry).  I like to see a film where everything is deliberate and rationalised, but too many things in ‘The Reader’ were left unexplored, rather than unresolved.  It just seemed like the director sometimes felt “I’m not spending more time on ‘that’, they’ll get the message” without ensuring that the message was properly conveyed.

What hampered the film most, though, was an intangible feeling it provoked in me.  The themes explored necessitate ambiguity, but that doesn’t mean things should be left unresolved for the filmmaker.  I just got the sense that Daldry didn’t really know how he felt about his characters- young Michael and the Auschwitz survivors aside.  The ambiguity strikes you as possibly unintentional and so the power of the messages is lost.  That’s why it’s an almost-amazing film but only rated at 7/10.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

There is something a little uncomfortable about watching Woody Allen films.  You are essentially watching an old man vicariously living his lothario fantasies- in this case through Javier Bardem.  Of course, in recent years, it has also been uncomfortable watching the slow and seemingly irreversible decline of an important figure in modern cinema.  And this film shows that there is life in the old dog yet.  This isn’t a comeback of Mickey Rourke proportions- his lows were never as low as Mickey got and this isn’t a career-best as Mickey’s Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson is- but if Mickey wasn’t about, this would be the comeback of the year.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona develops an intriguing story at its own pace, it is confidently crafted and the use of a narrator to tie together the various scenes allowing the scenes themselves to develop characters with no necessity to move the story along necessarily is inspired.

In addition to this, Allen has a high-powered cast and elicits first-rate performances all-round- with Bardem being the pick ahead, slightly, of Cruz.  All too often with a number of name players the movie is unbalanced by their demands for more screen time, better lines and the hostility that results is clear for all to see on screen.  Credit to Woody Allen for what shines through the screen as a genuine ensemble piece. A word too for the soundtrack, which breathes life into the whole piece and is as good as I’ve heard since Jonny Greenwood’s minimal masterpiece for ‘There Will Be Blood’.  The repeated use of the longing ‘Barcelona’ by Giulia y los Tellarini is beautifully judged.

What stops this being absolutely vintage Allen is that it is less affecting at the finale than the likes of ‘Annie Hall’ and ‘Manhattan’.  Nonetheless, it is wonderful in its own right- 7/10.

Let The Right One In / Låt den rätte komma in (2009)

It is pretty rare for me to watch a  horror film, so watching two vampire films in succession is almost unheard of  (almost because I once watched the Hammer Dracula movies on consecutive nights).  But the two films are special cases, haunting works of art. As I said last night, I’m a bit reticent to bang on about yet another great movie I’ve seen- in my head I sound like one of those tabloid reviewers who call every other film ‘the best action/comedy/drama/love/war/horror film of the year’ just to get their name on the billboards’ (don’t get me wrong, I don’t want any fucker quoting me, but I’m wary of sounding trite).  But this is one of the great film experiences of the decade- I’m convinced of that after a single viewing.  Seriously, this is a film which is so good that I’m terrified of giving anything away and causing even the slightest hint of spoiling the film.  I’m very reverent about this film.

What I can say is that Kåre Hedebrant as Oskar (looking like a twelve-year old Danny Torrance from ‘The Shining’ in a great haircut) and Lina Leandersson as Eli perform wonderfully at the centre of the movie and they are surrounded by magnificent support actors who bring life and individuality to small parts which would be nondescript in a lesser movie.  The film looks wonderful, the soundtrack is superb (even the song by the bloke from Roxette is impressive) and the script never fails to intrigue or engage.  Tomas Alfredson as Director must take the plaudits for a film which says more in under two hours about the human condition, love, responsibility, pain, confusion, expectation, devotion and death than you have any right to expect from a horror film.  And this truly is so much more than that- it is a coming of age film, a genuinely life-affirming romance, a dark commentary on childhood and an exploration of the morality of revenge.  Shit, it has everything except belly-laughs.

I’m not saying any more, I can’t.  As soon as you get the chance, see it.  If this film isn’t the best of the year, then I may not live through the one that beats it.  10/10- easily.

Perdita Durango (1997)

Javier Bardem does a solid job, James Gandolfini provides comical support and the action scenes are well staged.  Right, there’s three marks.  But, that’s it.  This is such a very disappointing film.

The source material has enough to sustain two films but even so, this struggled to hold my attention.  I’m not saying that nothing happened, plenty happens.  Just not very well.  It all seems so contrived.  This is like  compilation of outtakes from ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ with music by a Bernard Herrmann impersonator.  The film is stuffed with support actors grasping their moment in the sun overplaying a series of wacky characters.  The small fortunes spent on a series of four-second flashback scenes would’ve been better employed replacing Álex de la Iglesia.  He was simply overambitious with this film and tried to do too much.  Too many quirky little incidents, too many humorous shots, too many amusing storyline cul-de-sacs and not enough control of the narrative of the film.  I think that he definitely has a great film in him, but this isn’t it.  Not by a long way.

One thing I want to note down before I forget is the overwhelming impression I had that I was watching Bernard Bresslaw in a Mötley Crüe wig.  Anton Chigurh’s hair was salon-fresh compared to this horror show:

Anyway, I’ve been kind to Perdita Durango and not mentioned David Lynch, Isabella Rosselini or Wild At Heart and it still only gets 3/10.  An overpriced B-movie, a Tarantino rip-off, a mess.