REVIEW: Miss Julie (2015)

Twenty-four years have passed since Thaddeus O’Sullivan drew a potential connection between an emergent Northern Irish cinema and those of the countries of Northern Europe, particularly Sweden, with his minimalist December Bride. That Northern Irish cinema, and Irish cinema in general (a distinction is at best difficult), ultimately went the way of largely action comedy thrillers with the likes of Man About Dog and Whole Lotta Sole was a disappointment – not least due to the fact that O’Sullivan’s own subsequent films, particularly Ordinary Decent Criminal, were in much the same vein. Welcome then is the genuine thing, an adaptation from August Strindberg’s Swedish play ‘Miss Julie’, written and directed by Liv Ullmann, one of Ingmar Bergman’s closest collaborators, and produced by and filmed in Northern Ireland – primarily within the grounds of Castle Coole in Enniskillen, Fermanagh. Ultimately, the film is not without its flaws and, like December Bride before it, will most likely prove not to influence a new wave of serious cinema in Northern Ireland.

Set in Ireland in 1890, Miss Julie is a three-hander, which examines the power relations behind both gender and class. Miss Julie (Jessica Chastain) is a bored member of the aristocracy, first seen escaping her claustrophobic country house via a drawing room window only to wander within the walls of her estate, who finds some small respite in the classless freedom of the celebrations of Midsummer Night. However, her openness is treated with unease by her servant John (Colin Farrell) and cook Kathleen (Samantha Morton), who have some secrets of their own.

One immediate criticism of Miss Julie that has been thrown around is its apparent staginess. This is not a fair complaint, given that several films are just as stagey without equal criticism i.e. 12 Angry Men and because the film’s aesthetics have a purpose. The film is powerfully claustrophobic, intimately revealing the stagnancy of both sides of the class divide. Julie has more societal rules restraining her than John or Kathleen, though they are trapped within the narrow confines of their station. John and Kathleen are deeply terrified of the apparently unhinged Julie, whose willingness to ignore class puts them at risk of ridicule and dismissal. During the first half of the film, it is Julie who appears to be in control, using the authority and respect due her because of her place in the world against both Kathleen and John, who can only meekly obey and respectfully protest. John reveals that he was deeply in love with her when he was a child, his talk eloquent of the limits imposed on a young working class boy before he can even understand them. This breaks through Julie’s cruel exterior and they finally (albeit joylessly) consummate their relationship – Ullmann fading to black, acknowledging both their need for privacy and emphasising the obvious risk and pain that this lovemaking will immediately entail. This handling is reminiscent of Tolstoy’s similar ellision of the affair in ‘Anna Karenina.’

The second half of the film reveals then that, after sex, the power relations in the house shift to favour John. Though Julie still has her class against him, he now has a moral superiority (in 1890 terms) since he has degraded himself less than she. It is now his turn to be cruel and to threaten. The rest of the film details these three characters’ attempts to come to terms with their social, sexual and class transgressions.

Ultimately the film is about the various ways that each character is trapped and how they deal with it. The conversation regularly shifts as each character achieves a feeling of superiority over the others only for some other concern to bring them right back down again. Kathleen, a working class woman, is unexpectedly the most staunchly conservative with regards to the class system. However, there is an interesting shift towards the end when we realize that her devoutly-held faith is what gives her a feeling of self-satisfied superiority and complacency, since Jesus had said that the last will be first and the first last.

The film concludes then with Kathleen going to mass to pray for normalcy, John shaving and putting back on the uniform of his class and heartlessly encouraging Julie – the ultimate transgressor, against both her class and her sex – to cut her wrists. This she does by a river.

The original play was written by August Strindberg, who holds a central influence in Swedish theatre and cinema – this film indeed has a Bergman feel, which must mean that Bergman has a Strindberg feel. Liv Ullmann presents the play critically, revealing both the stultifying values of the time that the play criticizes and also those that the play may uphold. The film’s final shot, in which Julie lies dead in the river, could intentionally or unintentionally recall John Everett Millais’ painting of Ophelia and could intentionally or unintentionally be pointing to an inherent sexism and patriarchal hegemony in Western culture in general, then and, quite possibly, now. Equally the film’s late examination of Kathleen’s faith reveals that faith to be just as self-serving as the rules of class which give the aristocracy their place in the world – if not one of the primary forces for keeping the working classes in their place. Ullmann’s film has an intriguingly critical and open quality that all of these criticisms can be inferred without the reading feeling too close.

The film has a couple of great moments. The film is bookended with the image of flower petals drifting along a stream. We first see this from the perspective of the young Miss Julie after she has escaped from the confines of the house (possibly for the first time) and again later when Miss Julie is about to kill herself. Initially a symbol of the wish for freedom, the second time, however, Ullmann shows us the leaves getting stuck up against some jutting rocks, an eloquent and quietly heart-breaking evocation of the impossibility of even this small, vicarious escape. In another moment, Julie invites John upstairs. He follows her but suddenly stands still, as if he cannot physically cross the threshold between the servant’s quarters and the rest of the house without his livery – a nice Bunuelian touch. Also, look out for the moment when Kathleen rushes to the back entrance of the house to lock it against a marauding band of revellers – a powerfully haunting and deeply cinematic sequence. And the moment when Kathleen leaves the house for Mass – betrayed by John – and stands out in the bleak sunrise and starts to cry. Ullmann keeps the camera behind her and we can infer Kathleen’s tears from the slight shudders of her body, but it is an equally powerful and emotive scene, all the more so for its sheer economy.

That said, there is no getting beyond the fact that Chastain and Farrell’s performances are not particularly great. Both of their accents falter – Chastain doesn’t seem to be going for one at all whereas Farrell’s Northern Irish accent is lost in the emotional scenes. Neither performance is good enough to hold the film. This may be primarily a fault in the script. The dialogue feels a little over-written and a lot of the lines are difficult to believe and Chastain and Farrell definitely have difficulty making them work. Equally the always altering power relations between the two of them are too sudden and apparently without transition or cause, making it easy to get a little lost with the characters. It often has the feel of a rambling monologue (or soliloquy) rather than an authentic conversation. Sadly, all of this means that a large part of this otherwise powerful and maybe even excellent film just does not work.

Miss Julie then is far from a great film, though it has a seriousness of purpose and an engaging multiplicity of meaning and some unforgettably evocative moments. It does not ultimately work because it is badly written and overlong, but, for the moments where it grabs you, it is the real deal and Northern Irish cinema, if not European cinema in general, needs much more of this.

REVIEW: Force Majeure (2015)

Force Majeure (or Turist) is the new film from Ruben Ostlund and it is very much the kind of film that should cause all sorts of conversations and arguments on the way home. Not just about which character was in the right, but also that old favourite, “What would you do?” But while all of that might mark it as an interesting and rather fun film to watch, is there something darker and less constructive about the film?

Some of the fun of the film is in not quite knowing where it might initially go, though if we are intending to go to see it then you probably already have some idea. A Swedish family are on a skiing holiday on the Swiss Alps. At lunch, however, what seems to be a controlled avalanche, as it gets closer, starts to look dangerous. Self-appointed head of the family Tomas (Johannes Bah Kuhnke) starts to panic and he flees the table, leaving his wife and children behind. They all survive unharmed – the avalanche was never technically out of control – and the rest of the film is about how the family attempts to confront and overcome the shattering experience of seeing Tomas run away from them.

The film sounds fun in a nasty, cynical kind of way – and the trailer and the shrill, mocking use of Vivaldi’s Concerto No. 2 bares this impression out. It is also disturbing by implication since the subject of the film is a nasty, uncompromising one – particularly when one hears of the stories that inspired Ostlund to pursue this idea. As it is then it acts as a valuable reminder that humans are not too far from the animals whose own selfishness can shock us so much. It is a well-constructed, well-made and very precise, discomforting examination of a vulnerable side of humanity that is rarely addressed, as well as being a critique of some of the self-created myths that sustain our lives, families and marriages. It can also be very funny.

That said, the film has a great subject (indeed, the subject is so good that little really happens in the film beyond expanding and exploring this central concept) and it really knows it. There is something slightly smug about the film, as if it is picking out little imperfections in all of us whilst remaining immune from criticism itself. The film is made up of long takes and steady frames (it is European arthouse so what other aesthetic could it have?), shots that linger over the mundanity of its character’s lives in a rather cold and analytical fashion. Force Majeure is a film about a very human animal trait and yet it does not seem to have much humanity in it. It is a gleefully cruel and nasty film, though it is unclear why it needs to be so cruel and so nasty.

A well-paced, involving, thought-provoking film but one marred slightly by a cynical and negative view of humanity. Such a view is hardly unwarranted, but there are hardly any positives in the film, or even valuable criticisms – the film seems content to point out that we are all animalistic and that we should stop pretending that we are not, and goes little further – as if the best way to deal with all of the manmade problems in the world is merely to accept their inevitability. It has been said that all great art should engage critically but constructively with the human experience, offering its audiences new experiences and new perspectives with which to engage with the world and its people. A film like Force Majeure is all about negation, and while it is indeed fun and interesting, it is nonetheless a film that leaves an unpleasant taste – and not entirely for the right reasons.

SHORT REVIEW: In Order of Disappearance (2014)

This review appeared on The Upcoming website here.

‘A Scandinavian crime film’ and a ‘Crime-comedy in the vein of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers’ are two of the least appealing descriptions in modern cinema. Such things are now ten a penny and rarely worth sitting through. However, In Order of Disappearance (Kraftidioten) manages to transcend these simplistic descriptions by being, well, good.

After his son is murdered by gangsters for something that he did not do, his father Nils (Stellan Skarsgård) decides almost immediately to take revenge. Despite there being nothing in his past to suggest that he should be any good at this kind of thing, he proves remarkably able. It is not long before kingpin Greven (Pål Sverre Hagen) takes notice. However, his inability to figure out who it is that is killing his men leads to a series of further misunderstandings and more bloodshed.

The last high body count gangster comedy with arthouse cachet was the late Aleksey Balabanov’s tiresome The Stoker, so there does seem to be little precedent for the success of a film like In Order of Disappearance. Yet it does. Aakeson and Moland seem to have decided to shove in all of the tropes of crime cinema. The story goes along at a very fast pace – writer Kim Fupz Aakeson and director Hans Petter Moland are either much too eager to get to the shootouts or they are mocking the too familiar plot points of this kind of film. The film is slightly mocking throughout, with lots of stupid laughs. Characters appear only to very quickly be dispatched and the intertitles displaying the names of those just killed along with the symbol of their respective religions are a constant presence. The film largely maintains an off-kilter and unpredictable feel, and it plays out with great verve.

Sadly, it has no characterization whatsoever. Skarsgård is given very little to do throughout and most of the other characters are barely discernible beyond slight details speedily presented and tangential conversations about the joys of Norwegian prisons and how no country has both sunshine and welfare.

Though the film is amusing throughout and quite a good parody of its genre, which is too often used as a simple framework for gruesome violence and bad writing, it is difficult to work out why it exists. It is a good deal of fun, but the film really could have used a point.

SHORT REVIEW: Of Horses and Men (2014)

This short review appears on The Upcoming website here.

Of Horses and Men posits that man and beast are closer than they realize and, in a series of bizarre vignettes, sets out to prove as much. The film is a series of near-silent sketches about people and their relationships with their horses and they range from funny to cruel to poignant to downright strange.

The best of the stories is probably the first, in which two randy horses spoil a tentative romance between their owners by pointing out all too clearly what the two humans really want. This supposed symbiosis between the humans and their horses is represented in various odd ways – in one, a young Swedish woman gains her horse’s trust by managing to chase him down while in another, the way a man uses his horse to survive while stuck in a snowstorm is deeply suggestive. It is not entirely clear whether the film believes that this trade-off is particularly fair – the horses would seem to get a raw deal most of the time – and there seems to be a suggestion that this isolated Icelandic community is in a state of decline, since nearly everyone one of them has a petty gripe or engage in some form of substance abuse. The ending is intriguingly ambiguous on these points as the camera pulls back from a fair in which humans are barely distinguishable amongst the horses on show.

Quite what the ultimate point of the film is will remain open to debate and may even be somewhat moot, since the pleasure of the film is simply in the beauty of its photography, the way it captures the dignity of the horses and the film’s wholly unique and unexpected nature. It is enjoyable, challenging and offers an interesting insight into a strange world that is really quite recognisable.

REVIEW: The Act of Killing (2013)

In 1965, a military coup crippled Indonesia. Begun apparently to thwart a communist coup in October, the military, under General Suharto, slaughtered half a million people with the active support of both the USA and the UK. Suharto violently suppressed all opposition and led a corrupt government. Thatcher visited in 1985, later writing in “The Downing Street Years”, “though there have been serious human rights abuses, particularly in East Timor, this is a society which by most criteria ‘works.’” This was Indonesia’s invasion and occupation of East Timor between 1975 and 1999, which killed a further one hundred thousand people. Since a society ‘works’ despite human rights abuses, Callaghan, Thatcher and others continued to sell Suharto arms. The murderers in Indonesia live on with impunity and they are still in power – still able to intimidate their neighbours and still honoured on national television for crushing the communists. Essentially, they are mass murderers who won, their crimes ignored (two and a half million killed) and their country running along thanks to the support of the capitalist West.

The Act of Killing follows a number of these murderers, particularly Anwar Congo, a self-proclaimed gangster and sadistic murderer, who looks back on his crimes with pride and nostalgia. They were leaders of their local Pancasila Youth paramilitary death squad. Initially, we see Congo and his old colleagues describe their killings and their love of cinema. These two interests go uncomfortably hand-in-hand when Congo describes going to see an Elvis film and then swaggering across the road to kill more prisoners. The documentary follows them as they attempt to recreate their tortures and killings, turning genocide into spectacle, offering insights into their thoughts and motivations.

The film’s main novelty is the fact that it contains interviews with wholly unrepentant murderers and a lot of the most shocking scenes are both evil and banal. These people make jokes about their murderers (one recounts an incident wherein he walked down a street, stabbing any Chinese person he found and he is sure to finish with a punch line) and are frequently honoured as war heroes and patriots. In a break during filming, one killer boasts of how many women he used to rape during a raid of a village and, in particular, his pursuit of fourteen-year olds to a group of laughing cohorts. However, as the film progresses and the re-enactments, ranging from gangster movie pastiches to musical numbers, continue, the façade cracks and some of the murderers, particularly Congo, begin to express regrets.

This is not to say that the film lacks contemporary insight since many of these ‘gangsters’ – frequently translated as ‘free men’ – are still active. One even stands for election into a corrupt government. We see them travelling through their neighbourhoods, extorting money from local businesses and forcing mostly quiet and distant people, for fear of showing disobedience, into participating in their epic, violent visions. One actor reveals himself to be a child of one of the murdered and yet participates nonetheless. These scenes are disturbing and enraging and they also point to the ongoing lack of justice in Indonesia, but they are also part of where The Act of Killing falters.

The film is very short on context. The text at the opening of the film is brief and not very detailed. It is also unclear whether director Joshua Oppenheimer initiated the project of re-enactments or whether he is merely following a pre-existing phenomenon. As a result, we are given very little insight into Oppenheimer’s dealing with these people and, hence, his own culpability with the evil we see and hear. Congo and his friends are clearly acting for Oppenheimer’s camera but what about the local people and the business owners who are filmed being threatened. Is Oppenheimer’s camera observing or instigating? When we see neighbourhood children (with, very possibly, relatives who are/were victimised by the Pancasila Youth) crying, clearly disturbed by the violent nature of the re-enactments that are being filmed, may our own outrage not justifiably be directed at Oppenheimer for encouraging Congo et al.?

Similarly, there are too many scenes that feel a little too convenient. At the film’s end, Congo, having shown a re-enactment of one of his tortures to his grandchildren, suddenly starts to show real remorse. He says that he now understands how the victims were feeling since he had the same feelings during the filming. Now, and only now does Oppenheimer challenge him – saying that it is incomparable since Congo was being tortured for film and his victims were being tortured for real. Then, we cut back to the rooftop were Congo strangled so many of his victims to re-do a too-light hearted previous demonstration of his methods. Suddenly, Congo seems to be violently, physically suffering from the enormity of his guilt, loudly retching and visibly shaken. This sequencing is unexpectedly moving and offers a harrowing reminder that these mass murderers are not, after all, monsters. However, since Oppenheimer hides the nature of the documentary’s production, these scenes feel manipulated and deeply untrustworthy. Conclusions are too easily drawn and their honesty and ultimate truth is difficult to come by. It is not clear if we are seeing everything and if the editing choices were made in the pursuit of verisimilitude or merely a good story and drama.

The Act of Killing is valuable in demonstrating what Indonesia is today but also the kind of state that the West is prepared to support for their own economic interests. It is valuable for its undeniably real scenes – such as the talk show honouring the murderers broadcast on national Indonesian television and interrupted by frequent applause from the audience for each barbarity mentioned, a clip that really has to be seen to be believed. It is awkward formally and depends on withholding, manipulation and subterfuge much more than is comfortable. Its key message is damaged thanks to its untrustworthy and unsophisticated presentation. However, this message, either explicit or implicit, of full impunity for murderers in Indonesia and of the West’s culpability in mass slaughter, is worth telling again and again.

See also: Into The Abyss: A Tale of Life, A Tale of Death (2012)

REVIEW: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (2010)

  The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest is the final film in the late journalist/ author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. With Hollywood already working on its own adaptations, there is little doubt that this series has had an impact. Despite this, it remains to be seen how these Swedish versions will stand the test of time.

  The plot picks up immediately after where the second film left off. The uninitiated will struggle to figure out what’s going on as Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) and Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) investigate the conspiracy that allowed Salander to be locked away and abused for years. It soon becomes apparent that the schemes reach as high as the government. The loyal Millennium magazine staff is under threat and attempts are made on both Salander and Blomkvist’s lives. On top of this, Salander is being tried for attempted murder and Blomkvist has to help clear her name. Meanwhile, Salander’s half-brother Niedermann (Micke Spreitz) rampages across Sweden in search of revenge.

  Those who aren’t fond of these films will not be swayed by this two and a half hour closer, while ardent fans will get more of what they loved in the first two. Otherwise, it’s just a reasonably diverting thriller with a lot of convoluted plotting to keep things moving. One restaurant shoot-out has a build-up that is as suspenseful as any above-average recent thriller and with a well-shot action sequence to follow. This film, like the series in general, is entertaining but not anything particularly special.

  The best feature of this film remains the visuals. The big budget is clearly on display, creating a distinctly Hollywood feel. The visuals go beyond mere mimicry, however, effortlessly conveying a corrupt and dangerous society. This has always been the strong suit of this series, even if things always comfortably wrap up by the film’s end. The happy endings always seem out of place in such a predatory and unsympathetic landscape. Unfortunately, the film’s inability to sustain a dark and foreboding tone means that it will take itself deadly seriously when you cannot.

  Unintentional comedy has both plagued and saved this thriller series. On one hand it ruins the mood but on the other, it keeps it entertaining. Ultimately, these films are guilty pleasures rather than great thrillers. They require so little emotional investment that they will never rise above the level of an entertaining potboiler. In the end, these films are good while they are on, but entirely disposable when they are gone.

  The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest is for fans of this series. It is good, but it is doubtful whether it will be remembered for long, or if it will make any of the critics’ forthcoming Top 10 of 2010 lists. But for those waiting with bated breath for the Hollywood versions (directed by David Fincher, now due a bad film after the great The Social Network): why bother? The Swedish ones are as good as this kind of thing gets.



REVIEW: The Girl Who Played With Fire (2010)

  The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second in the Millennium Trilogy, a Swedish series of adaptations from the novels penned by the late Stieg Larsson. These films, as well as the novels that inspired them, have caused something of a storm all over the world and are currently being remade in the US. Less a sequel than a continuation, the film is, for better or worse, more of the same.

  The film takes place about a year after the end of the first instalment, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. After some time in hiding, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) returns to investigate a sex-trafficking ring with her loyal sidekick Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), editor of watchdog magazine Millennium. Various shady characters conspire against the couple, and its not long before Salander is framed for three murders. Salander and Mikael follow alternate lines of investigation, with Mikael simultaneously getting deeper into the investigation and trying to clear Salander’s name. As the investigation continues, Salander finds things getting a little too close to home. By the end, many of the mysteries behind this most vague of lead characters are revealed.

  Many of the surprises that came with the earlier The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and which made the film a pleasing diversion, are missing here. The novelty value of a big Swedish production mimicking the conventional Hollywood thriller is exhausted. The Girl Who Played With Fire has no such saving grace and, unfortunately, it is noticeably the lesser of the two films.

  However, the film does retain much of what made the first film an enjoyable watch. The plotting is intricate and somewhat engaging, while the moody atmosphere and good use of scenery are both features that keep the film interesting. The often stark countryside and the bright but empty city evoke both a palpable realism as well as a vicious criminal underworld. While the first film is much more hard-edged, with a rape scene that was hard to watch and some genuinely chilling moments, the second is less successful in maintaining a sense of evil.

  The problems are more pronounced than in the first film, mainly because they are repeated. The film really isn’t as clever as it thinks it is, and is certainly not above the most screeching of plot machinations to get characters to where they need to be. The unintentional comedy makes a somewhat welcome return, giving the film an entertainment value it might otherwise have lacked. There is the sudden appearance of an entirely unnecessary and rather schlocky lesbian sex scene and as well as the long-awaited reveal of a scarred bad guy. This is possibly the film’s funniest moment, being both an unexpected reminder of splatter classic Braindead and an Airplane-style example of straight-faced madness. These moments are the sequences that remind you of what it was you liked about the Millennium series in the first place. A certain silliness played entirely seriously, which can’t help but be a little fun.

  All in all, The Girl Who Played With Fire is an entertaining film with a good sense of humour, even if it doesn’t know it itself. The visuals remain the best thing about it, possibly being the one feature that holds this ramshackle but enjoyable series together.

  

REVIEW: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2009)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first of the Millennium trilogy, a big-budget adaptation of a series of books by Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson. The story centres on both disgraced journalist Mikael and the violent and troubled young Lisbeth who, through alternate paths, become embroiled in a 40-year-old mystery- the disappearance of a young woman. They investigate with an entire extended family of suspects over their shoulders. Needless to say, things get more mysterious as they get more dangerous.

Going in, having never read the books, I had no idea what to expect. Being a Swedish adaptation rather than a Hollywood translation, I was prepared to like it on principle. The fact that it was made in Sweden was a good sign as my only previous experience of the recent Swedish crime fiction boom had been a turgid series of Kenneth Branagh-starring adaptations of Henkel Manning’s Wallander series. I found an entertaining film, though one that could easily have been a Hollywood film if it wasn’t for the fact that everyone was speaking Swedish.

It’s disposable-fun while it lasts but gone from your mind once it reaches its end. The spy thriller-like score, the picturesque Scandinavian landscape and the obvious high budget all help to create a good, speedy murder mystery. There’s something likeably old-fashioned about it and it does have a sense of humour. Indeed, the violence that lifts the film to an 18 rating feels slightly out of place, as the audience that may appreciate this film the most may be 15 years old. This is, however, a small qualm in this entertaining yarn, which uses its big budget not in the spirit of excess but to heighten the film’s visuals. Best are its chilling sequences in which photographs are analysed and murderers and victims found, which brings to mind Antonioni’s Blow-Up.

Regrettably, however, there are some problems. The film continues much too long after its denouement, losing its way and struggling to find a punchy note to end on. Here, things get a little schmaltzy and, at times, unintentionally comedic. The corny ending undercuts the sense of the seedy and violent underworld that the film had manages to convey so well earlier. Hollywood romanticism creeps into this dark realist tale, allowing for total closure. The fact that the world that this film creates does not allow loose ends is hard to believe. A peek into Lisbeth’s childhood via flashback may raise more mirth than empathy. Her younger self and her dad have the exact same grimace: an excellent bit of casting or a funny accident.

If these sound like quibbles, it’s probably because they are. All in all, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a highly enjoyable thriller and well worth seeking out. I look forward to the next two instalments of the trilogy (The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) both coming out later this year.