Author: Jason Day

The Debt (2010)

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Director: John Madden.

Marv/Pioneer (15)

DRAMA

Producer: Eitan Evan, Eduardo Rossof, Krys Thykier, Matthew Vaughan. Writers: Matthew Vaughan, Jane Goldman, Peter Straughan. Camera: Ben Davis. Music: Thomas Newman. Sets Jim Clay.

Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas, Ciaran Hinds, Jesper Christensen, Romi Aboulafia.

SYNOPSIS

A ménage a trois develops between Mossad agents Chastain, Worthington and Csokas when they are charged with capturing a notorious Nazi war criminal and bringing him to trial in Israel. Years later, as Chastain’s daughter Aboulafia launches a book about their heroic act, a dark secret between this now mature group (Mirren, Wilkinson and Hinds) surfaces that threatens to wrench them apart.

REVIEW

Goldman and Vaughan, if nothing else, have a wide range of interests when it comes to making movies. From the tongue-in-cheek fantasy of Stardust, the blockbuster comic books Kick-Ass! and X-Men: First Class to this, a remake of an obscure 2007 Israeli drama that is about as serious as you can get, they certainly get around the block in terms of genre. Here, they persuasively explore the rocky foundations on which hero worship can be built.

The Debt is a little like a revisionist Marathon Man, but although it lacks that film’s scenes of extended dental torture, it more than makes up for it as the vile and unrepentant Nazi Christensen (clearly based on Josef Mengele) is force-fed gruel for what seems like the entire of the middle part of the movie. It’s during these sequences that the script comes to life as Christensen uses psychology to divide the group and conquer and utters distasteful anti-semitism.

Christensen adds further grit to an already superlative raft of performances from a cannily cast group of actors. Mirren and hot young thing of the moment Chastain (The Tree of Life, The Help) were clearly chosen not just for their acting but also their close physical resemblance, though it is more of a stretch making us believe that the relatively diminutive Worthington would grow up to be the strapping Hinds. The characters’ nationality also gives the cast a chance to flex their chameleon vocal talents.

Madden, a director who has achieved some success with thoughtful drama (Mrs Brown, Shakespeare in Love, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin) was a sure hand for a difficult subject matter, but still manages to inject some startlingly gruesome moments (we open with a man being run over in bone-crunching detail) and stomach-knotting tension (catching the Nazi doctor; and the surprise climax will have you on the edge of your seat).

Mania: The History of a Cigarette Factory Worker (1918)

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Director: Eugen Illes

Projektions-AG Union (Unrated)

SILENT

 

Writer: Hans Brennert. Camera: Eugen Illes. Sets: Paul Leni.

Pola Negri, Werner Hollmann, Arthur Schroder, Ernst Wendt.

SYNOPSIS

Mania (Negri) is a free-spirited, popular worker at a cigarette factory in WWI Germany. She is selected by the boss to pose for an artist who is making an advertisement poster for them. Whilst there she meets talented, burgeoning opera writer Hans (Schroder) and the two fall in love. But her beauty also attracts the attention of renowned arts patron Morelli (Hollmann) and he ruthlessly pursues her. He propositions her to become his mistress, or else he will destroy Hans’ fledgeling career. Mania reluctantly agrees, on one condition – they spend their first night together only after Hans’ cherished debut is premiered. It’s a decision that leaves her horribly conflicted.

REVIEW

For 90 years, not many people new that a film called Mania (pronounced Mar-nee-ah) even existed. Now available to see for the first time ever in the UK, she elicits in the reviewer an almost manic depressive response.

There is the elation at the discovery of a new silent film. Even more exciting when you find out it’s a complete feature length film, starring one of the biggest stars of this period and was hardly seen outside of the country that produced it.

But for every up there is a down, in life as in the hunt for rare cinematic gems. For a depression soon sinks in when you realise that, despite the awesomely effective restoration employed to exhume her from the ravages of time, the film is itself completely disposable.

And that restoration work must be given special mention, as a stand alone documentary accompanying the film illustrates. This explains, in beautifully succinct detail, the meticulous (and certainly expensive) work put in by the Polish National Film Archive. We see how new life has been breathed into tired and dusty film stock. No easy feat as nitrate film is the most precious of materials to handle, decomposing after a few decades.

The biggest round of applause at Mania’s London premiere at The Barbican may have gone to composer/conductor Jerzy Maksymiuk for his appropriately operatic score, but the technical staff should take a bow for their dedication, persistence and sharp eye for detail.

Back to the film itself, there are two main aspects to applaud; the design and the star. Leni was at this time a designer, but would become a noted and influential director of Expressionist films such as Waxworks and The Cat and the Canary. Here, he uses an array of curtains, veils, painted backdrops and window panes to conjure up an atmosphere of hedonistic opulence and artistic poverty.

The look of film is, in the main, attributable to him.

Cinema during this period was undergoing a series of important changes in terms of editing, acting, lighting and camera angles. Everyone was influencing everyone and early filmmakers were challenging themselves, slowly developing the markers of an wholly unique form of artisitc expression. Mania, however, is a stilted and impotent piece. There are some blessed close-ups of Negri, but these are used more to show her lovely face rather than as a way to tell the story. The film is further hampered by the default, static camerawork and wildly uneven acting of the lesser WWI silent film.

Negri, the main attraction, transcends these limitations with an entrancing performance. Years before she decamped to Hollywood to become, without argument, the most famous Polish film star of all time, she shows how she could effortlessly command centre stage. Her heavy eyelid mood swings, burst of passion and sensual dancing prove not only how versatile and limber she was (she was a trained ballet dancer in real life and believed dance should be central to a performance), but also how gloriously frenzied she could be.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

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Director: Rupert Wyatt

Twentieth Century Fox/Chernin/Dune. UK Certification: 12(a)

SCIENCE FICTION

4 out of 5 stars

 

Producers: Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver. Writers: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver. Camera: Andrew Lesnie. Music: Patrick Doyle. Sets: Claude Pare.

James Franco, Frida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton, David Oyelowo, Tyler Labine, Jamie Harris, David Hewlitt, Andy Serkis.

SYNOPSIS

A precursor to Pierre Boulle’s original novel La planète des singes and the series of films featuring Roddy McDowell that followed; scientist Will Rodman (Franco) arrives at a breakthrough with an Alzheimer’s vaccine he has been developing, following a series of experimental trials on chimpanzees. The vaccine causes an increase in intelligence and memory recall. Unfortunately, violence also seems to follow as a side-effect and Rodman’s cherished project is declared dead by the big pharmaceutical company backing it. Discovering that his favourite test subject had secretly given birth, Rodman takes the baby home to hide it from the company, as all other test subjects are to be destroyed, and names him Caesar. Caesar’s mother carried him whilst receiving the vaccine and he develops an astonishing intellect. Caesar becomes curious about his chimpanzee kind and is torn between this and his human family, which eventually leads him to start an uprising.

REVIEW

Just when one thought Fox couldn’t drill any deeper into this well-excavated movie mine, they smartly think up another seam to plumb for riches – the events that precipitate the famous rebellion of servile chimpanzees against their human masters.

Director Tim Burton may have stumbled, epic style, with his “re-imagining” in 2001 (a straight remake of the original film, wherein astronaut Charlton Heston astronaut crash lands on a planet where cultured apes are in charge and humans are aggressive, grunting animals) but writer/producers Jaffa and Silver are on surer ground by paying only lip service to the events that will transpire in this future, fictional Earth and focus purely on the creation of a new world order.

However, just like Burton, they can’t help some cheekily alliterated dialogue. Felton’s gleefully psychotic villain paraphrases Heston with “Get your damned paws off you dirty ape!” and they also name-check the lead Orang-u-tan Maurice, styled on actor Maurice Evans, who played lead Orang-u-tan Dr Zaius in the original film.

One can only wonder how long this current flow of inventiveness will last – with box office grosses over $100million what it cost to make, you can be sure this new injection to the franchise will not be the last.

Of course, there are derisory, almost corny aspects – Franco’s scientist is determined to rid the world of Alzheimer’s all because his beloved Pa (Lithgow) is conveniently afflicted with the condition (do scientists ever just work for love of the discipline)? In the time honoured tradition of all movie scientists diminished to a screen duration of only 2 or so hours, he also happens rapidly upon his cure, before the opening credits have finished rolling in fact. Within five years he’s moving toward human trial stage which is jumping the pharmaceutical gun ad absurdium.

The smart idea of having Caesar understanding sign language (the apes at this part of the series have not evolved voices) to communicate with humans is carelessly discarded during the scene where Franco takes Caesar to the lab where he was born and explains his origins. Franco relates this without signing, but Caesar seems to understand every word uttered, even when looking away from his master.

There are precious few things to savour in the modern American blockbuster, but the gracefully ageing Franco’s attractively furrowed brow is one of them and he is seriously determined throughout. Pinto’s boring and forgettable eye-candy Veterinarian reveals only how she unaccountably continues to accept woefully underwritten female roles. She is suitably outclassed by the meatier support performances of Lithgow and in particular Serkis, as the computer generated Caesar. Peter Jackson’s King Kong (in which Serkis played the title role of the monstrous gorilla with terrifying aplomb) proves to be ample training here as he dominates the film as a tortured ape soul with a devastating humanity.

Beyond the Rocks (1922)

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Director: Sam Wood.

ROMANCE

 

Producer: Jesse Lasky. Writer: Jack Cunningham. Camera: Alfred Gilks. Music: Henny Vrienten (reissue).

Gloria Swanson, Rudolph Valentino, Alec Francis, Robert Bolder, Edythe Chapman, Gertrude Astor, Mabel Van Buren, June Elvidge

SYNOPSIS

Young Theodora (Swanson) marries a rich older man (Bolder) so her poor, beloved Father (Francis) doesn’t have to go without in his dotage. But she falls in love with a handsome English aristocrat (Valentino), who loves her just as deeply. Recognising her duty to her husband, she tells the hot-blooded lad to cool his heels and stay away. But he chases her across Europe on her honeymoon trying to convince her to change her mind. When her husband finds out about this mutual attraction, he leaves on an exploration to Africa, so the young lovers join a search party to bring him back and beg his forgiveness.

REVIEW

Only a romance filmed in the silent era could be so breathlessly paced, ravishingly photographed, splendidly costumed…and completely dumb in every other regard.

Considering the mighty star wattage on display from two of the era’s biggest and most sexually dynamic personalities, this is a comparatively limp and dusty affair. Swanson was at the peak of her Hollywood powers after a series of titillating social sex comedies with director Cecil B. De Mille and Valentino’s star was on the ascendant after his lusty turn in box office smash The Sheikh.

Cunningham provides a ‘Swiss Cheese’ plot being, as it is, full of holes. With scant regard to logic, humour or excitement, it’s not the most perfect of bases with which to construct a solid movie.

To list a few of those holes:

  • When Swanson nearly drowns during the film’s opening reel, the boat she falls out of remains upright and ship-shape and she is clearly only a few feet from shore
  • Valentino goes climbing in the Alps clad in day wear and no gloves
  • Valentino’s intended fiancée Astor steams open Swanson’s letters to the two men in her life and then deliberately posts them to the wrong people – breaking up the unhappy marriage and paving the way clear for her rival
  • Bolder’s “dangerous” expedition to Africa takes him only a few days, so is more of a posh back packing trip.

Considering this, it was not surprising that even the talented Wood (one of Swanson’s favoured directors and who would later go onto helm some major Hollywood classics in the sound era, such as Goodbye Mr Chips) was unable to stir up anything more than a pot-boiler drama, but he should have checked his pacing and scene numbers as the action certainly drags.

The film seems hurriedly made, produced to satisfy movie-mad audiences hunger to see more of the same with their favourite film stars, irrespective of the quality – the so-called ‘Star Era’ of Hollywood.

The story comes from a novel by the celebrated, racy romance author Elinor Glynn, so at least the Mills & Boon melodrama has an understandable provenance.

Posterity has seen that Swanson is held in high regard as a technically sophisticated actress who could underplay the silent movie camera with finesse and splendid timing, but here she overacts with annoying regularity. Befitting her status as a fashion icon, she seems happier parading in the most elaborate clothes and hairstyles of the day. Valentino could be a sensitive performer when the occasion called and here he is sweet and very affecting as a young stud who suddenly falls deeply in love. Cast as an English M’Lord, the titles beautifully explain away his exotic Latin looks by way of a conveniently “highborn Italian Grandmother”.

An important film in terms of film preservation, it was lost for more than 80 years, Swanson even appealed in her autobiography for people to come forward with any copies of the movie for her to watch again. Alas, she died long before a nitrate copy was found in the Netherlands Film Museum in 2003, spruced up and given a gala premier two years later, though some sections still show irreparable damage.