paulmartin177 Reviews

Being John Malkovich (1999)

Malkovich? Malkovich! MALKOVICH? MALKOVICH!

[8/10 · 18 May 2006]

This is a wonderful and truly strange film, and perhaps the strangest thing about it is that it got made at all given today's Hollywood film system. The story concerns an unhappily-married, unsuccessful puppeteer (played by John Cusack), who discovers a hole behind a filing cabinet in an office block which leads 'into' the (actual, real-life) American actor John Malkovich. Those who go down this hole are then transported into Malkovich's identity and/or brain (it's difficult to explain it exactly unless one has seen the film!) for a few minutes, and then dropped out onto a nearby highway! You'd think that this would be enough to guarantee a film of tremendous originality, but there is so much more weirdness and imagination in this film that one's interest is sustained throughout. For example, the floor of the office in which this hole is discovered was deliberately built for midgets, so that anybody of normal height has to bend over to avoid hitting their head on the ceiling! The reason for this is 'explained' to the puppeteer (who lands a filing job there) in a short film for new recruits, although we (and they) are none the wiser after seeing it. Eventually Malkovich himself ends up going down the hole, resulting in one of the most bizarre and disturbing (and funny) moments I have seen in a film. What he encounters is a world (or at least a restaurant) populated entirely by John Malkovichs: men, women, babies...! This could so easily have been a completely pretentious and confusing shambles of a film, but the director (the brilliant Spike Jonze) handles things with such focus and style that one is eased comfortably into the semi-fictional universe presented. I think what make the film work is that it manages to be both surreal and very ordinary at the same time: some of the lead characters are deliberately rather shabby and dull in their appearance (Cameron Diaz in particular), and the scenes in which we the audience see the point-of-view of whoever is inhabiting Malkovich are very mundane (and strangely touching, I found), such as washing up, ordering crockery over the phone or eating toast. The whole visual style of the film is very drab and slightly under-lit, which serves to emphasise the far more bizarre aspects of the actual story. Credit must also go to Charlie Kauffman, who wrote the screenplay. Wonderful stuff.

Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

Fab Film Funny!

[9/10 · 17 May 2006]

I love Australian films, there's just something about them; unpretentious, never flashy, always with strong characters, and a deadpan, black kind of humour (I'm thinking of 'Chopper', 'The Castle' or 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' here). Well 'Bad Boy Bubby' is about as dark as you can get whilst remaining humorous and engaging: incest, animal suffocation, incarceration, alcoholism, disability, parental murder... And yet, this film manages to arrive at one of the most upbeat, life-affirming endings to a movie I've ever seen. It also, along the way, manages to touch upon issues of the nature/nurture conundrum, the way in which we acquire language/thought, the rites-of-passage we go through in becoming 'adult', issues of the 'alien' or the 'other', issues of taste concerning comedy and humour (I'm referring here to the stand-up routine Bubby does at the band's gig: one of the funniest things I've ever seen in a film) and much else besides. It's a film that, even though great on a first viewing, can be enjoyed repeatedly for the depth of its themes and for one of the most extraordinary performances (by Nicolas Hope) ever captured on film (echoes of Herzog's 'The Enigma of Kasper Hauser'...God, I'm a pretentious name-dropper!). Sure, it certainly starts off in a very dark and bleak way indeed, but if you stay with it you'll be rewarded with what, in my opinion, is a masterpiece.

Calvaire (2004)

Ordeal or no deal?

[5/10 · 13 May 2006]

Well, this was a disappointment. Being a fan of strange and offbeat movies I was expecting good things from this, or at the very least something frightening or disturbing (I like being disturbed which makes me...well, disturbed). I saw Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' and Aja's 'Switchblade Romance' recently, two rather different films but both of which nevertheless satisfied my appetite for being taken somewhere alien, scary and new. 'Calvaire' (English title: 'The Ordeal', hence my summary above) however simply tried my patience and left it unrewarded. Sure, it was pretty weird, but in a way it was too deliberately weird; weird for the sake of weirdness alone. Something like 'The League of Gentlemen' is weird but the weirdness has a deeper point: it makes it FUNNY! 'Calvaire', in my humble opinion, is neither particularly scary, funny, unsettling or thought-provoking (unless "What is the point of this film?" is a thought worth provoking), and hardly entertaining at all. On the plus side, and as a way of saying something positive about the film (as all films have at least something good about them): it's quite short...

Come and See (1985)

I saw a film today , oh boy...

[10/10 · 12 May 2006]

I have a bad habit of reading too many reviews and comments about a film before I've seen it, mainly to get an idea about whether it's going to be worth a couple of hours of my time watching it. As a result, I am often slightly disappointed with much of what I see, as all the hype that I've read about a film kind of blows my expectations out of all proportion. I had a feeling this would be the case with Elem Klimov's 'Come and See', a film I'd read a lot about, particularly here on the IMDb. (Imagine my "excitement" when, having tried to see the film for nearly a year, I discovered it was to be released on DVD a week or two ago from today!) Well, I finally watched the film yesterday and... well, nothing could have prepared me for the sheer intensity and unflinching visceral horror of the atrocities that 'Come and See' invites us to... come and see. (Has anyone commented before on what a clever title that actually is...?) This is one of those films, like, say, 'Requiem For A Dream' or 'The Magdalene Sisters' (both of which, though great films, are simply not in the same league as Klimov's film), that one does not (obviously) so much enjoy as submit oneself to. By the end of such films we are left numbed and shell-shocked, wondering what we are supposed to do with the intense emotions that have been evoked within us. Yes, I felt like the ground had been pulled from beneath me; yes, what I saw in that film made my blood boil, my head hurt and my heart pound; and, yes, it showed me things I'd seen before but to a degree of intensity and detail that I had not experienced before. The point though, I guess, is that the role of cinema (and art in general) is not to offer answers or tell us what to think but to simply show us particular events and characters and allow us to come to our own decisions about what those things 'mean'. I'm rambling now, but I'll simply end by saying that 'Come and See' is, with its outstanding technical and artistic credentials aside, a film whose very title alone demands that it be seen. It is the work of a visionary, a cry of despair from the depths of hell, and an important reminder of humanity's capacity for inhumanity Go and see...

Withnail & I (1987)

Like the finest wines known to humanity, this film gets better with each passing year!

[10/10 · 18 April 2006]

This is my favourite film but I've never really been sure exactly why: very little 'happens' (they drink loads, take lots of drugs & 'go on holiday by mistake'), there isn't much 'conflict' or 'drama', it doesn't really 'say' anything about society or whatever, and the characters aren't exactly lovable. But, but, but...I've seen the film over fifteen times and could happily sit down and watch it right now. I think this film works for me in the same way that my favourite music does: if I meet someone who doesn't like the film I know I'm going to have a hard time getting to like that person. Shallow? Maybe, but I've yet to meet anybody who doesn't love the film. (By the way, is it just me or does the 'Danny' character sound remarkably like Harold Steptoe?)