CFF '06 Reviews: Visit Palestine

Visit Palestine (Katie Barlow/2005)

“Life is ephemeral,” states Caoimhe Butterly, a 24-year-old Irish peace activist, toward the end of Katie Barlow’s emotionally searing documentary VISIT PALESTINE. These three words sound resolutely frank yet hopeful coming from a woman who has spent years tirelessly aiding innocent Jenin civilians under attack from Israeli soldiers. Butterly knows just how temporary human life can be, having witnessed first hand the deaths of innumerable Palestinians (some of whom were her close friends) and by being a victim of the conflict herself; she was shot in the leg whilst leading groups of children to safety.

Death is an everyday occurrence in Jenin. Barlow critically and unflinchingly depicts this with an honest, responsive immediacy. But VISIT PALESTINE’s tone is also wishful; its message one of future hope. Numerous shots show how Butterly’s work has made a direct and integrally positive impact on the families, who see her not only as a friend, but also a saviour. The admiration is mutual, with Butterly being both tenderly loyal and fiercely protective of the people she’s committed to helping. The film sensitively relays deeply saddening testimonies from many victims’ families: one woman talks of her husband’s death with sincere candour - loss etched into her face. Barlow’s camera, like Butterly herself, intently absorbs every word; the moment is quietly devastating. VISIT PALESTINE is an important and much-needed film. It stands as a necessary testament to a singularly courageous person with an unwavering mission to do work that matters; one reason, of many, why the film should be seen.

CFF '06 Reviews: Goblin Wars/The Great Yokai War

Goblin Wars/The Great Yokai War (Yôkai daisensô) Takashi Miike/2005

Take the best parts of The Dark Crystal, splice in some of the more sinister scenes from Labyrinth, then add the surreal vision of Japanese director Takashi Miike and you end up with GOBLIN WARS/THE GREAT YOKAI WAR, his first foray into family-orientated filmmaking. Tadashi (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a boy with an unsettled home life, becomes blessed by a festival dragon to be the Kirin Rider - a mystical title rendering him the chosen one to release a netherworld of goblins from the clutches of a vengeful force, the Yomotsumono, which is intent on creating hell on earth. Like a budding Camelot in Harry Potter clothing, Tadashi goes on a quest with a band of forest-dwelling Yôkai (spirits) to retrieve a sword and bring peace to the world.

Miike’s film is a visual, illusory treat. It uniquely pits gigantic scrap metal CGI robots against a bizarre army of half-human/half-puppet creatures through numerous exciting confrontations in a warped variation of the Good vs Evil story. Dazzling photography - which illuminates apocalyptic reds in the inkiest of night skies - creates a fantastical arena in which childhood adventure is vibrantly turned on its head. It’s a strange, beguiling fairytale, sure to thrill adults and children alike - though it mixes some gory moments in with the comic escapades. GOBLIN WARS shows Miike as adept at youthful adventures as he is with his usual, darker fare. It contains a trace of knowing charm, too, with some cheeky references to both Indiana Jones and samurai films. Its lightness of touch delights even when it scares - especially in the moving and monumental final battle.

CFF '06 Reviews: Safety Last!

Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor/1923)

Hurray for Harold Lloyd! Eighty-three years after making it to the top of DeVore’s department store - in one of the most audacious comedy stunts ever filmed - he’s made it to the CFF. The much-loved 1923 silent classic, SAFETY LAST!, is screening in a rare print this year. It was Lloyd’s first full-length feature, made after a decade of shorts, and it’s still an indelible classic of pitch-perfect comic timing. The story is simple: Lloyd, as The Boy from Great Bends, gets a job in the city making big bucks for his new life with his girl. He chances upon a publicity stunt to scale his workplace that could net him an easy $1000 - a cinch for our desperately love struck, hapless hero, surely. But a multitude of unforeseen, and nail-biting, obstacles up the twelve-floor building might almost just prevent him from reaching the top.

Lloyd was an endearing screen presence; his circular black glasses amplifying the innocently expressive eyes behind them - but always letting the audience in on the japery, with a quick wink and a nudge. When he gets into comic scrapes, we slip and slide along with him, not quite knowing where he will land, but each time gasping, then giggling, at the always-witty and inventive outcomes. SAFETY LAST! stands as a testament to his ingenuity as a performer, never better than in the famous, death-defying clock sequence. Lloyd was the grand fool of slapstick, but always an artful and creative one. He inspired instant wonder - all with just a pair of glasses and a smile. 

CFF '06 Reviews: Akeelah and the Bee

Akeelah and the Bee (Doug Atchison/2005)

AKEELAH AND THE BEE follows in a refreshing way the vogue for films that explore the often tense, but rewarding world of the spelling bee. The 2002 documentary Spellbound - along with this year’s Bee Season - set the stage, but Doug Atchison’s new film - receiving its UK premiere at the Festival - rounds out the competition by adding a rose-tinted glow to the trend. Bright 11-year-old Akeelah (Keke Palmer) lives with her single mother (Angela Bassett) in South L.A. and is caught up between hanging out with friends and achieving good grades at school. Gifted with a vast vocabulary, she is persuaded by her principal to enter a local spelling bee under the tutelage of philosophical former spelling champ Dr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne). After she wins, Akeelah feels the pressure to go national with her linguistic talent, but the path to success is littered with obstacles. 

Revelatory life lessons abound for the characters, and the film has a nicely relaxed feel, helped by the sharply lyrical script. At times events feel drawn from well-used formula and veer close to being uplifting-by-numbers - with many montages of Akeelah selflessly guided by her extended community - but the film is unfettered by its own sentimental charm. The tone is blissfully good-natured, aided by the diffuse, golden-hued cinematography and Palmer’s vibrantly confident performance. The film winds its way into the affections all the same; so confident is the film you can’t help being carried along on Akeelah’s journey. And for what it does - in a simple, heartfelt way - it's almost word perfect.

CCF '06 Reviews: Sympathy for the Devil

Following on from yesterday's slapstick post from the Cambridge Film Festival, here are a few film reviews, jazzed up with a few retrospective edits and tweaks here and there, again for fun and posterity. The aim with these reviews was to be as concise as possible (max. 300 words), to promote the films (i.e. assist in the selling of tickets) and give a flavour of the films in question (hopefully).

Sympathy for the Devil (Jean-Luc Godard/1968)

It’s no surprise that two of the twentieth-century’s most idolised bands both extended their musical proclivities to the silver screen. 1968 saw the Beatles explore tripped-out animation in Yellow Submarine, whilst the Rolling Stones - often considered the artier, grittier band - opted for this documentary essay by Jean-Luc Godard. Godard wanted to work with either band on a film; the Beatles declined, the Stones accepted. SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL - a UK premiere screening in a new print - intercuts scenes of the Stones rehearsing the eponymous song with vignettes exploring themes such as race, societal (in)difference, sex and cinema itself. Godard lays out a cultural map and draws allusive comparisons between the nature of performance and political environments, addressed through ideas of revolutionary imbalance that surround progressive artistic creation. Or something to that effect, anyhow.

SYMPATHY is an enticing film for hardcore devotees of Godard or the Stones, but more discerning viewers may feel discontented by the film’s drawn-out, fragmented structure. As the rehearsals proceed, more of the song is tantalisingly revealed, but it’s often abruptly halted for lofty polemical assertions - though perhaps no bad thing with Godard in charge. More than anything, the film’s photography is vibrantly assured; Godard’s camera highlights bloodied streaks on a white robe (flagging it as a beacon of despair) and interwoven scenes of a woman spray-painting political street slogans (Cinemarxism!) are filmed in bleak, misty hues. The Stones’ green and orange-panelled recording studio seems almost homely in comparison - with the Gallic auteur himself handing the Stones cups of tea in the penultimate scene. It’s no Medium Cool, but tepid Godard can still hypnotise.

Addendum: for the record, I personally hated Sympathy - it was one of Godard's most tedious, self-involved and lazy films. But, in accordance with the brief I was set at the time, I had to attempt to be as fair as possible, and help the festival lure in Godard-loving punters and general audiences alike. Maybe some of my dislike showed through, who knows. Note the back-handed use of the word 'hypnotise'. As in 'induce sedation'.

CFF '06 Slapstick Profile

I've been scouring my (digital) archive files and stumbled upon a few pieces I wrote for the Cambridge Film Festival a few years back (a profile on slapstick, many online and print film reviews, interview with a documentary filmmaker). They were, variously, used on their website, touring presskit and in the festival brochure. These pieces aren't still up on the website (obviously, it's been a while) so I wanted to post them up here for posterity, fun and, well, because - why not.

Below is my profile on the CFF's 2006 strand of slapstick movies. The brief was to make mention of a few key films included in the strand and to, hopefully, drum up a bit of interest in slapstick and several other films linked to it. (I've made a few retrospective editorial tweaks here and there because a bit of time and distance can throw up the odd shameful grammatical/spelling snafu in need of revision.) It's not the most in-depth or expansive analysis on slapstick - but nor, if I remember correctly, was it intended to be - and if I were to write it now I'm sure I'd change a fair bit. Hindsight, eh. It was a giggle to write (and a blast to research) none the less.

Buster Keaton in The General (1926)

I remember as a kid watching Tom & Jerry cartoons. Every Saturday they had me rolling on the floor, giddily laughing, with wide eyes fixed to the telly. They were usually shown before or after some old black & white film starring, say, Charlie Chaplin or Laurel & Hardy. It wasn’t until I got older that I realised that these old films and Tom & Jerry had a lot in common, of course: both double-acts shared an unwavering desire to entertain; and both were, by and large, denied a voice. 

Actual jokes weren’t always necessary to create big grins and belly laughs. It was the slip-ups, the frantic chases, the paint tins precariously balanced above doors and the pies in faces that had us in uncontrollable fits of giggles: Hardy slapped Laurel, Jerry bettered Tom - it was the same smile-inducing thing.

Slapstick, as with all great comedy, often works best as a series of individually remembered moments. One-off gags, goofs and pratfalls come rushing back to us at the mere mention of our favourites films' titles. That’s not to say the whole films aren’t memorable, but slapstick is joyfully made up of the sum of its parts: with Buster Keaton’s THE GENERAL we surely recall him frantically attempting to throw the sleepers ahead of the hurtling train whilst pinned to its front; in Chaplin’s THE GREAT DICTATOR we see his Adenoid Hynkel playfully bouncing the illuminated, plastic globe in the air; and any of Groucho Marx's one-liners in DUCK SOUP can surely be summoned up in a heartbeat by his longtime fans.

Charlie Chaplin in The Immigrant (1917)

An entire strand at the Festival – SSSH! IT’S STARTING! – is devoted to showcasing the most hilarious shorts and features made during slapstick’s golden period: three Chaplin greats (THE PAWNSHOP, EAST STREET, THE IMMIGRANT) provide a chucklesome triple bill; and Buster Keaton in GO WEST and Harry Langdon in THE STRONG MAN all receive revivals. Most exhilarating of all, Laurel & Hardy and friends get into more fine messes in the strand SHORT FILMS, BIG TROUBLE! and Harold Lloyd scales delirious heights in SAFETY LAST! Tears of joy are compulsory.

It’s not always the silents that instantly breakout mile-wide smiles or split those sides. Slapstick finds a home in a variety of its antecedent performers: Steve Martin - in the wake of the likes of Jerry Lewis - took the best of Chaplin and co. and posited it within his own absurdist worldview in films like THE JERK and ALL OF ME. So, too, did Woody Allen; his early comic masterpieces SLEEPER and BANANAS contained enough surreal sequences to call him a truly practised devotee of slapstick’s finest tradition. It continues to be a core comic staple.

Check out Michel Gondry’s THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, also showing at the Festival, and find out anew why his fantastical stories - deeply-rooted in the slapstick style - make indelible comic marks on the brains and hearts of contemporary cinemagoers. Silent or with sound, it’s ongoing proof that with great comedy comes great variety; often best thick and fast, skidding to an unbalanced halt in front of our eyes - and ending with a custard pie slapped squarely in the kisser.

I'll post up the other pieces (reviews, interview) soon.