Love in the Time of Cholera

have to say, I thought the book was much older than it is: 50s or 60s instead of 80s. I’ve never read it, only excerpts, and I was surprised that it was a very straightforward, down-to-earth story, a subversion of typical love stories, but realistic nonetheless. Given his reputation for magical realism, I had expected outlandishness, but it seems that must be only within his prose style. The story of unrequited love enduring, yet twisting in an unsightly way, over decades, it was very cleverly done, treading a fine line between giving a fairy tale depiction of love and equating it with the darkness of obsession and showing the unfulfilled and callous existence it can create.

I’m a little surprised the film has such poor reviews – The Sunday Times even rated this ** and the dreadful Spiderwick Chronicles ****! Yes, it was a little turgid and overlong, a little too self-assured and certain that its audience will be rapt by such a worthy subject no matter what, but it was still an excellent film. It felt odd, being in English, but retained a lot of Latin spirit, its setting certainly believable and evocative. Having actors speak in heavy accents may mean we accept their acting more readily than if searching for the nuances of natural speech, but there were some excellent performances regardless of language, from the mother’s encroaching madness to excellent depictions of various ages from the principles. Part of the story’s appeal is its broad simplicity, the huge exaggeration of the gestures that define its characters, but there was subtlety here, and overall it was well-made, well-acted and rich, as well as that little bit more realistic than expected, given its story, which was a point in its favour.

Y Tu Mamá También

watched Y Tu Mamá También, and failed entirely to see why it garnered such critical acclaim. It’s just a very flat and uninteresting movie about two teenaged boys, one affluent and one not, who go on a road trip with an older woman and end up having sex. It’s supposed to be gritty arthouse, but it’s totally unrealistic; if you can accept the sex and the homoerotic undertones as laudable, what about the plot’s huge coincidences or the totally contrived fate of the woman? The boys talk about farting and get naked a lot, and Mexico looks dirty, so we’re supposed to accept that this is extremely realistic? The boys converse like the lazy middle-aged intelligentsia would like to think adolescents converse, and act in kind. The woman would have been called a demeaning Latino caricature in an American film. The truth is that I cannot conceive of any reason to like this film unless the sex-appeal of teenaged boys are what titillates you (though it’s surprisingly lacking here) and you wish to imagine yourself in the woman’s place. I would find it hard to explicate what this film says that pornography does not, and yet because it has subtitles and a throwaway line or two about politics, it’s heralded as ‘for the intelligent’. Fuck off. Times have changed; this is where the new bourgeois hides, in lazy, self-congratulatory, soulless, irresponsible and insipid filmmaking. So sad that I’ll be called a prude just for not liking this.

The Devil’s Double

If Dominic Cooper could still be called forgettable after his Captain America turn, this will bring him up to the A-list, if there’s any justice. A somewhat ponderous and repetitive film, it was bourn aloft by his superb performance(s) as both Uday and Latif – the son of Saddam Hussein and the man chosen to act as his double.

The story rattles along, loosely bolted to reality – army man Latif is coerced into becoming Uday’s double by the threat of his family being killed. Uday, it soon becomes apparent, is power-drunk and utterly psychotic, perfectly happy to rape schoolgirls he picked up from the streets and kill anyone he takes a dislike to. Latif, despite the close resemblance to Uday enhanced by plastic surgery and false teeth, remains aloof of the decadent party lifestyle, and begins to find he can defy Uday more than most, as Uday seems quite infatuated with this second form of himself. Eventually things come to a head with Latif unable to continue, and in a rather bewildering sequence of events, he attempts suicide, is returned to his family, summoned back, has a shoot-out with his insane doppelganger, then manages to flee the country – before returning for an assassination attempt as a climax to the film.
Overlaid on this is a rather contrived love story, in which Latif secretly begins a relationship with one of Uday’s favoured women, who knows that he will one day tire of her and leave her dead. It’s all rather unlikely and artificial, and I spent most of the film wondering where I’d seen her before (it was as Tinkerbell in Peter Pan), but I suppose it gave a bit of respite from the violence and paranoia.

With graphic violence and gratuitous drug use, it is at heart a gangster film, and the absurd nudity towards the end takes it too close to a cheap exploitation flick, but the basis in a real story and the dilemma Latif must face make for compelling viewing. Uday is interesting at a distance, because while his character does not progress, that’s rather the point: he is forever a child, self-centred and unhinged, dangerous and unpredictable. It is his relationship with Latif that becomes so interesting, as well as the brooding, powerful figure of his father.

Not the best-written film of all time, but very interesting, timely and with a superb central performance. |

The Oxford Murders

The Oxford Murders was quite disappointing. It really felt like it was directed by someone whose native tongue is not English – the dialogue was horribly stilted, every single performance except John Hurt’s remarkably wooden and the pacing lurched and shuddered about.

There was some weird overdubbing for the Russian guy, meaning his lips weren’t quite matching his voice, and possibly the most unconvincing sex scenes I’ve ever witnessed. And the story wasn’t much good either, reminding me of The Rule of Four, only less clever. For all the talk of Wittgenstein and allusions to Fermat’s Last Theorum, the script totally failed to seem intelligent, the philosophical aspect totally lacking (the Cogito, Laplace’s Demon and the designer universe argument all really ought to have at least been raised in the context of Wittgenstein’s attempts to ascertain what can be known with certainty) and the crime thriller really sloppy, with a huge reliance on coincidence and a final conclusion that seems less like a reflection on chaos theory than a weak writer’s expedience.

Everything felt extremely juvenile, like a GCSE drama production – our avatar gets to show his brain-power, get a LOT of easy (bad) sex and the loose ends get tied up anywhere they’ll fit. This stinker was as bad as The Da Vinci Code.

Iron Man

Well well, Iron Man actually turned out to be probably the most satisfying superhero movie in recent memory. Perhaps it’s partly because Iron Man has always been one of my least favourite Marvel leading characters (though his part in the Civil War storyline was quite impressive), and so I wasn’t expecting all that much, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The story of an arms dealer having a crisis of conscience after seeing first-hand what his weapons are responsible for has never been more relevant, and generally it was just a well-paced, well-crafted, neatly-constructed and well-acted piece. It was safe, and in many ways obvious, and there was nothing startlingly original to be found, but it was satisfying and ticked a nice range of emotional boxes. The improvisational dialogue felt nice and natural, there were funny moments with machines, Robert Downey Jr made Stark believably arrogant and also likeable and humble in his reformation, Jeff Bridges pitches his comic book baddie well, just silly enough without being unpalatable, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Moneypenny knock-off Pepper Potts was ingenuous enough for the whole thing not to seem horribly patronising, and the fact that we had hints at not only War Machine, but a rather famous actor coming in after the credits as a certain head-of-operations with an eyepatch, bodes well for the sequels, and an Avengers project (if Captain America and Thor can get good adaptations…).

Great classic hard rock from the likes of AC/DC and of course Black Sabbath, some truly outstanding shots and great CG, a grittier feel to the first half that just managed to work, good performances and a general feeling of exuberance and good intentions, this was a movie without much depth, but certainly enjoyable. Roll on Batman, as well as a fair few other middle-to-lowbrow but enjoyable movies to come, especially Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones.

(written May 4, 2008)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt II

The final Harry Potter film was as expected: glorious eye-candy with a stellar cast, numerous niggling plot annoyances and overall a rather hollow feeling. Continuing where the seventh film left off, the eighth sees our intrepid dropout trio continuing their collection quest for horcruxes. The first is in Gringott’s banking vaults, where our heroes seem completely indifferent to the several people they end up killing for doing their jobs. The next is in Hogwarts, so there is a rushed homecoming before the search is interrupted by Voldemort himself arriving. All-out war erupts under the banner of Potter, and during the chaos Harry finds and destroys the penultimate horcrux (not counting the twisty accidentally-made one). Here, what Voldemort should do is go ‘oh, hay, I only have one more horcrux, my snake. What I should do is fly him to some remote jungle and hide him away, not take him to battle with me and let him slither around while I’m busy.’ Alas, he makes a fatal mistake, and because of the lame concept of magic wands having allegiances, he loses.

There are some excellent moments here: Snape’s flashback montage told its story with elegance and brevity, teachers getting to show their power is oddly satisfying, and Fiennes pitches Voldemort with the right amount of madness, cruelty and vulnerability. The three central actors have learned to produce convincing, if not ranged, performances, and Helena Bonham Carter’s best moments are acting like Emma Watson accurately enough it’s easy to forget she’s a completely different person.

But the final showdown is so anticlimactic, the book’s hard-hitting deaths are presented with an affecting starkness but then don’t have any discernable affect on the characters and Oscar-winning thesps show up to be totally underused.
I’m not sad to see the end of the Potter movie franchise. The only one of Rowling’s stories I think was good was Prisoner of Azkaban, and that’s a very long way off now. A hollow blockbuster certainly no better than any other fantasy around it.

Mongol

Mongol was very interesting, telling the story of Genghis Khan with some superb acting, beautiful cinematography and startlingly effective music. The characterisation was just brilliant, that gruff staccato language matching wonderfully the curt, aggressive and yet poetic way of communication the Mongols have, if the film is to be believed. A man from such an empty sort of a lifestyle, and he went on to begin what would become one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. Surprisingly, the film focused on Temujin’s life before his days as a warlord, his times being persecuted by enemies of his father, locked away as a ridiculed slave and bonding with family, rather than on fighting with powerful neighbours. Thus the narrative became somewhat turgid at times, and the film was definitely overlong, then felt rushed at the end, but there were some superb moments between characters, and the tone evoked was so authentic and yet otherworldly that it was a shame when less believable aspects, like monks who can see the future and visits from expressionistic wolf-gods detracted from the sense of veracity, even though I’m sure they are very much authentic parts of Temuhin’s legend. According to news articles, though, people from Mongolia are not impressed at the portrayal, and claim it is very inaccurate. I also see this is the first part of a planned trilogy, which explains the focus on his early life.