Paris, Je T'aime ****
Tales From The City of Lurve ...
This is that rare thing: an innovative, brave and beautiful idea which actually worked when translated onto celluloid. The idea originally came from two Frenchmen: Tristan Carne and Emmanuel Benbihy, and basically went like this:
"How about we, like, get some of the best directors working today, right, and get them each to make a short film about Paris, and then put them all together ..."
And then, somehow, in a bizarre Blue Brothers-like fashion, they managed to get some of the most innovative, talented directors around to each write and contribute a five-minute film. These included Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run; Perfume), Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho; Good Will Hunting), Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham), Joel and Ethan Coen (Fargo; Barton Fink), Wes Craven (90s schlock-horror king, credits including The Hills Have Eyes and Nightmare on Elm Street) Alfonso Cuaron (every interesting film of the last six years or so ... including Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Big directors meant big names and big names meant widespread release, and suddenly eighteen quiet, unassuming films became one long, beautiful, star-studded extravaganza.
Not all of the segments work, but the ones that don't (the final tourist monologue, the bizarre dreamlike sequence set in the Chinese quarter) are few and far between, and short enough that you never really get bored. Standout sequences include the Coen brothers' short set in a metro station, starring Steve Buscemi as (surprise!) a slightly pathetic, humble but loveable loner, alienated in a strange city; van Sant's touching story of a love which transends the boundaries of language and Tykwer's fast-paced, hectic love story, which stars Natalie Portman as an American actress (that must be a stretch). Other big names include Elijah Wood, playing moody to perfection in Vincenzo Natali's dark and mystical vampire sequence; Juliette Binoche giving an amazing, subtle performance as a bereft mother; Maggie Gyllenhaal as a spoilt American film star doing drugs in her trailer, and Emily Mortimer and Rufus Sewell in Craven's bizarre but oddly warming piece set beside Oscar Wilde's grave in Pere Lachaise. But my favourite piece is Cuaron's (I am nothing if not predictible): a charming, well-planned love story with a twist.
It's the Paris of the people, with few shots of the Eiffel Tower and many of the cobbled streets; the people are undeniably French; even the tourists have an odd, bohemian charm. It makes you want to pack up your things and take off for the city of love, convinced that once there you will find the missing part to fill your loneliness.
CONCLUSION: There are too many great shorts here to mention them all, so see the film and choose a favourite for yourself - you will fall in love with Paris all over again.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Elizabeth: The Golden Age ****
Like A Virgin ... Touched For the Second Time
Director: Shekhar Kapur
Writers: William Nicholson, Michael Hirst
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Abbie Cornish, Samantha Morton, Clive Owen, Rhys Ifans
The first Elizabeth is epic filmmaking at its best: it reinvented the staid costume drama with an enema of sex, poison and jolting violence. Blanchett and Rush are both on the record as saying they would never consider a sequel unless a great script came along, and it is a full nine years afterwards that we see this: reportedly the second in a trilogy about the Virgin Queen.
The film opens a good twenty years after the previous one ended; technically the Queen is in her fifties (although Cate Blanchett is looking mighty good) and still refusing suitors left, right and centre, most notably from Germany and Spain. We see that has grown into herself since the last film; where there she was bewildered and tentative, here she is wise, whether playing the Amazonian warrior (complete with armour and somewhat inexplicable hair extensions) or holding court. It is in matters of the heart that we see her conflict: in order to maintain her power and peace in the kingdom, she has sacrificed personal relationships, and her closest friendship is with one of her ladies-in-waiting, Bess (Cornish). Then Walter Raleigh (Owen) returns from across the seas: tanned, buff, bearded, buckled ... and bringing gifts of potatoes ("you eat it"), tobacco ("you smoke it"), and syphillis* ("you ... never mind...") As he sweeps the Spanish ambassador out of the way (yes, really ...) begins to tell the tales of his journeys, violins begin to play (yes, really ...) and the Queen and Bess are both transfixed by the swashbuckling hero.
For a film about Britain's most beloved sovereign, the cast boasts a lot of Antipodeans, with three of the four lead roles held by Australians. Rush is, as ever, charismatic, seedy and powerful reprising his role as Walsingham, and it should really go without saying that Blanchett is commanding, tempestuous and conflicted as the mighty Virgin Queen. Cornish, a magentic screen presence in Australian indies Candy and Somersault, is very beautiful but a little insipid here, which may be down to a hastily-sketched character rather than her own shortcomings as an actress. She is also the only of the Aussies not to get the accent quite spot-on.
The script is preposterous at times but the epic scale of the film and the talent of the actors masks the clunky dialogue. The writers have played hard and fast with history (the affair and marriage between Bess and Raleigh happened long after the Armada, and in fact Raleigh was safe on dry land and nursing a cold while Sir Francis Drake led the British navy to victory). They have included several nods to the myths of the time (Raleigh's first meeting with Elizabeth, in which he sweeps down his cloak to cover a puddle, is the stuff British myth, as is her address to the troops in Dover) and the audience is carried along at a thrilling pace.
* This is, obviously, a lie. Syphillis was around long before Raleigh made it popular... Elizabeth's father himself actually died from it.
CONCLUSION: Overblown it may be, but this is still a rollicking good ride, full of intrigue, passion, conflict and treachery. The heroine is sharp and the performances all strong, but you can't help but think the first film deserved a more worthy successor.
Like A Virgin ... Touched For the Second Time
Director: Shekhar Kapur
Writers: William Nicholson, Michael Hirst
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Abbie Cornish, Samantha Morton, Clive Owen, Rhys Ifans
The first Elizabeth is epic filmmaking at its best: it reinvented the staid costume drama with an enema of sex, poison and jolting violence. Blanchett and Rush are both on the record as saying they would never consider a sequel unless a great script came along, and it is a full nine years afterwards that we see this: reportedly the second in a trilogy about the Virgin Queen.
The film opens a good twenty years after the previous one ended; technically the Queen is in her fifties (although Cate Blanchett is looking mighty good) and still refusing suitors left, right and centre, most notably from Germany and Spain. We see that has grown into herself since the last film; where there she was bewildered and tentative, here she is wise, whether playing the Amazonian warrior (complete with armour and somewhat inexplicable hair extensions) or holding court. It is in matters of the heart that we see her conflict: in order to maintain her power and peace in the kingdom, she has sacrificed personal relationships, and her closest friendship is with one of her ladies-in-waiting, Bess (Cornish). Then Walter Raleigh (Owen) returns from across the seas: tanned, buff, bearded, buckled ... and bringing gifts of potatoes ("you eat it"), tobacco ("you smoke it"), and syphillis* ("you ... never mind...") As he sweeps the Spanish ambassador out of the way (yes, really ...) begins to tell the tales of his journeys, violins begin to play (yes, really ...) and the Queen and Bess are both transfixed by the swashbuckling hero.
For a film about Britain's most beloved sovereign, the cast boasts a lot of Antipodeans, with three of the four lead roles held by Australians. Rush is, as ever, charismatic, seedy and powerful reprising his role as Walsingham, and it should really go without saying that Blanchett is commanding, tempestuous and conflicted as the mighty Virgin Queen. Cornish, a magentic screen presence in Australian indies Candy and Somersault, is very beautiful but a little insipid here, which may be down to a hastily-sketched character rather than her own shortcomings as an actress. She is also the only of the Aussies not to get the accent quite spot-on.
The script is preposterous at times but the epic scale of the film and the talent of the actors masks the clunky dialogue. The writers have played hard and fast with history (the affair and marriage between Bess and Raleigh happened long after the Armada, and in fact Raleigh was safe on dry land and nursing a cold while Sir Francis Drake led the British navy to victory). They have included several nods to the myths of the time (Raleigh's first meeting with Elizabeth, in which he sweeps down his cloak to cover a puddle, is the stuff British myth, as is her address to the troops in Dover) and the audience is carried along at a thrilling pace.
* This is, obviously, a lie. Syphillis was around long before Raleigh made it popular... Elizabeth's father himself actually died from it.
CONCLUSION: Overblown it may be, but this is still a rollicking good ride, full of intrigue, passion, conflict and treachery. The heroine is sharp and the performances all strong, but you can't help but think the first film deserved a more worthy successor.
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