April Film Reviews

Blades of Glory, Sunshine, The Lives of Others, Curse of the Golden Flower. Fracture, Pathfinder, This is England, The Painted Veil

Blades of Glory
Releases 6 April
Will Ferrell seems to have decided that the world of sport has more than its fair share of humour potential. Considering that Ferrell is well over six feet tall, and quite a chunkily-built guy, the idea of him donning tights for a spot of competitive ice dancing is inherently amusing. It’s quite a repulsive image as well, but that is, much like Borat’s hideous green over-the-shoulder thong, half the point.

This movie is effectively Zoolander on ice – just as Talladega Nights was Zoolander in race cars and Anchorman was Zoolander in a TV studio. As with those previous movies, Ferrell again plays a similarly somewhat dense character with a rival threatening to knock him off the top spot. This time, the role of the rival goes to Napoleon Dynamite’s Jon Heder – rapidly becoming a big comedy star, in the much fought-over niche of the slightly geeky oddball, previously occupied by the likes of Rick Moranis, Woody Allen and Jerry Lewis.

So, as the bitter rivals of the men’s solo figure-skating world – joint gold-medal winners, no less, so closely matched are they in their expertise – Ferrell and Heder both end up booted out of the sport following a fight on the podium. Sure enough, they find a loop-hole – by putting aside their rivalry and becoming a team they can enter the figure-skating pairs as the first male couple ever to compete at the top end of the sport.

What follows is a series of somewhat homophobic jokes, cheesy routines, awful costumes, and – almost surprisingly, given the fairly derivative premise – some genuinely funny moments. Ferrell’s found his screen persona and has got it down to a tee – whether you like it or not is a matter of taste.

Heder, meanwhile, is still evolving his on-screen character from the over-the-top hilarity of Napoleon Dynamite through the lower-key geekiness of the recent School for Scoundrels remake, to this new refinement. Although most will see this as another Will Ferrell movie, Ferrell’s danger is that he could end up eclipsed by his co-star, just as he’s trying to secure his position as one of Hollywood’s leading comics.

Sunshine
Releases 6 April

The latest offering from the successful British team of director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland is yet another new departure. Now, having gone from paradise-set thriller to London-based zombie flick, they are heading to outer space and the science fiction genre for this epic, philosophical adventure.

At first glance, the plot of Sunshine could sound rather familiar. A mismatched team of astronauts is Earth’s last hope – their almost impossible task to head into the depths of space to ensure that an astral body doesn’t destroy the planet. Yep – sounds rather like the cheesy Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay flick Armageddon, doesn’t it? Yet where Armageddon revolved around an impending asteroid strike, in Sunshine the danger is the death of the sun itself – the astronauts charged with detonating a massive bomb in the star’s heart to reignite its flames and save Earth from a slow, dark freezing.

Yet, despite the fancy special effects and apocalyptic setting, at the heart of the movie is a character study. For this, Boyle has brought in an impressive cast of tip-top actors, from veteran Hong Kong actress Michelle Yeoh through rising stars Cillian Murphy and Chris Evans (the one who played Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four), supported by a range of fine actors whose names you won’t recognise, but whose faces you will. None are big names, all are top-quality actors – which is, for a character-centred film, the most important factor.

In other words, this is a far cry from the likes of Armageddon, despite the similarities. If anything, considering the deep space philosophising, this has more in common with the likes of Solaris, Event Horizon, Alien, or even 2001: A Space Odyssey. There’s still plenty of action, excitement and explosions of the kind we all expect from sci-fi flicks, but with an underlying intelligence that lifts this neatly above the herd. And not a silly, computer-generated alien in sight.

The Lives of Others
Releases 13 April

To give some indication of why you should consider going to see a German film, bear in mind that this tale of Cold War state surveillance beat the superb Pan’s Labyrinth to the coveted Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at this year’s awards.
The critics have been all but unanimous in their praise for this careful study of the dehumanising effect of distrust – and largely because it could not have come at a more relevant time, or from a country with more experience of the issues at stake.

Germany suffered for the best part of six decades, first under Hitler’s Gestapo, then in East Germany under the communists’ own secret police – both groups rounding up dissidents “suspected” of plotting against the state and torturing them into confession or death. In the United States – and to a slightly lesser extent in the UK – many feel that we have in the last few years seen our own, supposedly freedom-loving governments follow the lead of the Nazis and Soviets in their treatment of suspected terrorists.

But, of course, The Lives of Others would not have met with such widespread approval had such parallels with present day events ever been made explicit. The filmmakers may have had a present-day political point to make, but this is primarily about coming to terms with Germany’s recent past. Set only 20 years ago – shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but too far before for real hope to have arisen – the film deals with the kind of situation which the majority of eastern Germany’s adult population will clearly be able to remember.

By focussing on an agent of the state – a surveillance man, spying on a suspected dissident couple – this film is, if it has any political purpose, about trying to help a still divided Germany pull together, by showing the common humanity that was forgotten for so much of Germany’s 20th century history.

The end result is somewhat akin to Francis Ford Copolla’s 1974 classic The Conversation, in which Gene Hackman’s surveillance man likewise comes to question his loyalties. It is about how human beings can switch off to the sufferings in the lives of others, and how this can cause them to dehumanise not just other people, but also themselves. It is about a dark period in history that has parallels to today. But most of all it is about hope against all the odds, even in the face of an overwhelming threat and power. As such, despite the dark subject matter, it will be one of the most uplifting films you are likely to see this year.

Curse of the Golden Flower
Releases 13 April

If you’ve seen the beautiful, action-packed yet philosophical Hero or House of Flying Daggers, you’ll know what to expect here. This is the third epic semi-historical adventure from Chinese master director Zhang Yimou (or Yimou Zhang, if you prefer) of recent years and, as with his previous two big-budget extravaganzas, is likely to be one of the most gorgeous films you will set your eyes on this year.

Set in the 10th century, at the time of the Later Tang dynasty, much like with House of Flying Daggers or the similarly spectacular Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this is a tale of illicit love and rebellion. As the Emperor returns home to spend a festival with his family – the palace at the heart of the Forbidden City is surrounded by thousands of golden chrysanthemums – assassins strike, lovers plot, and an army is on the march.

It never ceases to amaze how little we in the West know of China’s four thousand year history. This truly ancient civilisation had developed countless technologies centuries before they were discovered in Europe, from printing to gunpowder, advanced navigation techniques to medical cures.

At the same time, Chinese mythology remains decidedly more mysterious than Western myths, again largely thanks to our own ignorance.

And then there’s the sheer exuberant style of old Chinese architecture and dress – be it the extravagant armour and finely-crafted weapons, the curving roofs of vast palaces, or the colourful costumes of the deferential womenfolk.

It all conspires to make Chinese history a wonderful source of inspiration for the movies. It is strikingly visual, yet vague enough in the details to allow a huge amount of artistic license. The mysteries of Chinese martial arts allow for gloriously improbable action sequences which, in any other setting, would usually be dismissed as ridiculous. And, with enough of a budget, and a director with enough of an imagination, the end result can be unlike anything that Hollywood has ever been able to produce.

Yet despite the grandeur, at the film’s heart lie just two principle characters, the increasingly estranged Emperor and Empress, played by two of Chinese cinema’s biggest stars, Chow-Yun Fat and Gong Li. As plots begin to unfold, relationships are revealed, and complex characterisations give way to grand spectacle and beautifully stylised violence, it is this seemingly placid pair at the core that hold the film together. Amidst this stunningly mysterious setting, without something human to hang on to, it would be all too easy to get lost.

The end result is yet another masterpiece for a man secure in his position as far and away China’s most successful director of all time – and Zhang Yimou’s latest is yet another must-see cinematic experience.

Fracture
Releases 20 April

Let’s face it, there’s always been a bit of stereotyping when it comes to us Brits in American movies. You’ve got your stock British “characters” to start with, where unimaginative filmmakers can only conceive two distinct types of British people: the posh and the Cockney.

But when it comes to intelligent psychopaths, us Brits have got it made – and Hopkins’ turn as Hannibal Lecter stands head and shoulders above the herd. He’s also played his fair share of butlers. But since his first outing as Lecter back in 1991’s Oscar-winning The Silence of the Lambs, he must have had countless identikit psycho killer scripts passed his way. This supremely talented actor is forever, in the eyes of Hollywood casting directors, going to be associated with that one cannibalistic role.

Fans of Hannibal Lecter who were disappointed by the recent prequel that was Hannibal Rising may perk up a bit at the news of this film. No, it’s not another Lecter movie, and doesn’t involve cannibalism. What it does have, however, is Anthony Hopkins playing a psychopath again.

In other words, you’d imagine that Hopkins must be supremely reluctant to play another killer, which is where a lot of the interest behind this film comes from. For him to risk being typecast again by playing an obsessive psycho must have taken a pretty damned impressive script – for after a 40-year acting career that has won him countless awards and a knighthood, he certainly no longer needs the money. And one thing you can be certain of with Hopkins – he rarely picks dud parts, or dud movies.

Pathfinder
Releases 20 April

We’ve all seen the pitching process for Hollywood movies in countless “insider” films, from The Player to Barton Fink. Every film has to be boiled down to a one-sentence sound bite if it’s going to stand even the slightest chance of grabbing the attention of a big league producer with the money to bring it into being.

Here, however, rather than horror or science fiction elements combining, we’ve got something altogether more plausible. Or, at least, that’s how it will have been sold to the studios.

There’s now a widely accepted theory that the Vikings discovered North America many centuries before Christopher Columbus made his more famous voyage. There’s all sorts of evidence which, while not totally conclusive, nonetheless makes the idea of bearded Norse warriors landing in what is now Canada and the United States entirely possible.

So, thought the studio, what we can do is have big beardy Vikings, with their axes and their raping and pillaging, having a load of great big fights with a bunch of Native American tribesmen, with their axes and their scalping and their whooping battle-cries. And so comes the pitch:

It’s like The Lord of the Rings, but with Vikings and Red Indians! Hey, we’ve even got that Karl Urban guy from the Rings films in to tap into the market! What’s that? Plot? What’s a plot? Hey, it’s not like anyone’s going to notice the lack of story or characterisation or coherence or plausibility or anything – we’ve got Vikings fighting Red Indians! How cool is that?

This is England
Releases 27 April

Director Shane Meadows has made a strong name for himself as the champion of the working class Midlands through films like 1997’s breakthrough Twenty Four Seven, and has come to be hailed by some as a new Ken Loach or Mike Leigh. Packing his movies with a combination of blunt, depressing realism and knowing humour, they are about as far away from the standard Britflick fare of bumbling toffs and period costumes of the Merchant Ivory and Working Title set as it’s possible to get.

Meadows is of that school of indie filmmaking so frequently described as “gritty”, yet underlying his films is often a sense of sentimentality, even sweetness. This is England, despite revolving around a young boy’s growing involvement with a group of skinheads in a run-down early 1980s coastal town, is no exception.

At the heart of the film is a 12-year-old boy, apparently based on the young Meadows himself, desperate for some kind of father figure following the loss of his dad during the Falklands war, and suffering from the attention of bullies at school. Following a similar modus operandi to his previous films, Meadows has opted for a complete newcomer for this vitally important lead, in the shape of the extremely promising Thomas Turgoose, who puts in a performance on which critics have rightly lavished praise. Getting precisely the right balance between vulnerability, humour, likeability and resentment, Turgoose is perfectly cast – his uncanny resemblance to the director himself just underscoring the point.

The fact that this is a semi-autobiographical outing for Meadows shines through in the sheer love of the period and attention to detail. The montage sequences scattered throughout evoke the early 1980s better than any number of those tedious TV clip shows with their minor celebrities pretending to reminisce from a script, while the soundtrack is the kind that could only be picked by someone who was there at the time and remembers every bit of it.

What is also refreshing is the presentation of the skinheads – so often, and usually justifiably, dismissed as mere racist psychopaths – as genuinely likeable. As Turgoose’s character is gradually drawn into the gang, they are more like a new, loving family than a symptom of anything more aggressive or untoward. It is only with the return from prison of the group’s nuttiest, most racist member that things start to go awry. Yet despite this, Meadows is not making an apology for fascist thugs by any means – merely pointing out that, well, thugs are people too.

But the nature of the central characters is beside the point. This is a masterly character study, and a wonderful evocation of a period that was, for many, a dark time for Britain – but in a way seldom seen before on screen. A very different coming-of-age tale that is at once worrying, funny and heartwarming.

The Painted Veil
Releases 27 April

In the mid 1930s there was a brief Hollywood fad for extravagant epics set either in exotic parts of the world or exciting periods of history, preferably both. The novel The Painted Veil, set in the glamorous, mysterious and turbulent world of 1920s China, provided both – and had the added bonus of having been written by W Somerset Maugham, who, throughout the early years of Hollywood, was well regarded as a supremely bankable name. In 1934 the film came out, shot with a huge budget and with a massive star in Greta Garbo, then at the height of her fame, in the lead. It promptly only just managed to recover its costs, before sinking – albeit somewhat unfairly – to become a mere footnote to movie history.

Now, seven decades on, Hollywood has decided to give it a second shot – but this time with a completely new script, shot on location in full, glorious colour, and with two big name leads – Edward Norton and Naomi Watts , two of the finest, most subtle and versatile actors in Hollywood.

This is classic epic material. A rather prim English doctor (Norton) and his sultry wife (Watts) head off to China, where she embarks on an affair with another man. When her husband finds out, he determines a suitable punishment – dragging her away from the civilisation and parties of Shanghai deep into rural China, where he plans to treat sufferers from a major cholera epidemic. Along the way, the revolution of Chiang Kai-shek kicks off, sending the entire country into bloody chaos, as husband and wife begin to become reconciled to each other – but will they survive both disease and revolution?

The pitch for this film was probably something like “The English Patient in China”, and that certainly seems to be what the filmmakers have set out to do. They have also tried to be faithful to the original novel wherever possible, and have done their utmost to make the most of the truly breathtaking Chinese scenery.

So it’s a bit of a shame that the two leads will, for a British audience, spoil what is otherwise a finely-crafted and engaging film, because as good an actor as Norton is, he can’t quite manage an English accent. Watts is better at doing the voice, but still – something’s not quite right. There are some things that are, it would seem, better left to the English – and historical epics are one of them.