Liam (2001)

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Coming of Age, Drama, France, Germany, Italy, Theatrical, UK

**½/****
starring Ian Hart, Claire Hackett, Anthony Borrows, David Hart
screenplay by Jimmy McGovern
directed by Stephen Frears

by Walter Chaw Liam is an Irish coming-of-age story that has more in common with John Boorman’s The General and Hope and Glory than it does with Alan Parker’s Angela’s Ashes. It balances the deprivation and desperation of growing up with crippling unemployment, a peculiarly sadistic brand of Irish Catholicism, and rising anti-Semitism with a good sense of humour and a lively feeling for pace that better captures the seesawing emotion of childhood than unrelenting horror or unleavened bliss. The truth of childhood, after all, lies somewhere in the grey liminal spaces between William Blake’s songs of innocence and songs of experience, though liberal time is spent in both extremes. In other words, the true power of Liam is not in the now-familiar images of scrounging for bread and cigarettes while enduring whippings at the hand of Sadeian priests, but in the shame of a little boy who walks in on his mother bathing and the embarrassment of a stuttering child unable to say his own name.

Together (2000)

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Denmark, Drama, Italy, Romance, Sweden, Theatrical

Tillsammans
**/****
starring Lisa Lindgren, Michael Nyqvist, Emma Samuelsson, Sam Kessel
written and directed by Lukas Moodysson

by Walter Chaw A cross between Lars von Trier’s The Idiots and an irritating home video made by flower children, Swedish phenom Lukas Moodysson’s Together (Tillsammans) is an aggressively affable, ultimately simplistic film that displays almost nothing in the way of the craft or sensitivity of an Ingmar Bergman, his mentor in spirit and most vocal supporter. It is a film that defies criticism by beating critics to the punch: “These people are unlikable hypocritical idiots? My point exactly,” says Moodysson. “It’s filmed with almost no knowledge of even the basics of filmmaking? What better way to show the rawness of real life?” But I don’t buy it, not when we’re eternally two steps ahead of the gutless screenplay and consistently pulled from the drama by the same repetitive series of establishing zooms and shaky framing. Tillsammans looks as bad as any Dogme 95 film.

Bread and Tulips (2000)

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Italy, Romance, Switzerland, Theatrical

Pane e tulipani
**/****
starring Felice Andreasi, Vitalba Andrea, Tatiana Lepore, Ludovico Paladin
screenplay by Silvio Soldini & Doriana Leondeff
directed by Silvio Soldini

Breadandtulipsby Walter Chaw There are great chunks missing from Bread and Tulips, story transitions that appear inconsequential until one finds them neglected. An action is announced and several scenes later we are left to presume that the action has been performed; an event occurs and several scenes later we give up waiting for the reaction. Nowhere is that discrepancy more jarring than at the conclusion, when our heroine is spirited away from her family and loved ones and deposited in the middle of a different movie. There is a considerable problem with a film that insists on holding your hand through score or ham-handed direction; on the flipside, there is a considerable problem with one that discards basic narrative cohesion in favour of a calculated whimsy. A film like Bread and Tulips.

The Black Cat (1981) – DVD

Posted in1980s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Italy

Gatto nero
*/**** Image C+ Sound B
starring Patrick Magee, Mimsy Farmer, David Warbeck, Al Cliver
screenplay by Lucio Fulci, Biagio Proietti, Sergio Salvati
directed by Lucio Fulci

by Walter Chaw Ostensibly based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story of the same name, Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat is actually more akin to John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos (brought to film twice under the name Village of the Damned), with the titular feline taking the place of the telepathic tykes of Wyndham’s apocalyptic fable. Like the children of Wyndham’s tale, the evil cat is a physical by-product of the Freudian id, in this case a creature/familiar that, predictably, runs amuck. Fans of the “Godfather of Gore,” Lucio Fulci, and the Italian horror genre (and specifically the giallo sub-genre of the same) will doubtless be disappointed in what amounts to be a staid amalgam of lurid Hammer Studios plots and settings. Patrick Magee’s performance as the human counterpart to the evil pussycat constitutes the best reason to see an otherwise lifeless gothic horror film. A role Vincent Price or Christopher Plummer would have played once, Magee is appropriately fervent and pitched to campy perfection.

The Others (2001)

Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, France, Horror, Italy, Mystery, Spain, Theatrical, Thriller

***½/****
starring Nicole Kidman, Elaine Cassidy, Christopher Eccleston, Fionnula Flanagan
written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar

by Walter Chaw The Others is an intricate character drama that takes turns shifting its suspicions on any number of scenarios and suspects. It subtly considers each of its small troupe of players as alternately worthy of mistrust, and its fantastic cast is more than equal to director Alejandro Amenábar’s quiet attributions of innocence and diabolical attributions of wickedness. Throughout, Amenábar maintains the unnerving possibility that, despite the spectre of a hoax or a plot ever-looming in the sometimes-inexplicable actions of one or more of its characters, something paranormal might, in fact, be at work.

The House by the Cemetery (1981) – DVD

Posted in1980s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Italy

*½/**** Image B+ Sound B
starring Catriona MacColl, Paolo Malco, Ania Pieroni, Giovanni Frezza
screenplay by Lucio Fulci, Giorgio Mariuzzo, Dardano Sacchetti
directed by Lucio Fulci

by Walter Chaw Released in 1981, the same year as his superior The Beyond, Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery is an unintentionally hilarious film that nonetheless manages to provide a few cringe-worthy gore showcases on its way to collapsing in on its own shaky foundation. The score, by Walter Rizzati, is an entirely inappropriate homage to the melodramatic histrionics of Hanna-Barbera's "Scooby-Doo" organ flourishes, and the horrifically bad dubbing only goes partway towards explaining the awfulness of the acting and the pointlessly gimmicky direction. The only time that The House by the Cemetery is something other than an alien soap opera, in fact, is when Fulci does what Fulci does best: leer at Gino De Rossi's (Cannibal Ferox) superbly discomfiting make-up effects.