Miss Bala

A gutsy, loud and brutal film that tells the story of 23 year old working class Lara a Mexican girl who along with her friend Suzu enters a local beauty contest called the Miss Bala California Pageant hoping to earn some much needed money. When the pair visit a night club they find themselves caught in the crossfire of local drug gang feud which results in a devastating massacre, killing most of the people in the club including Suzu. When Lara goes to the police as a witness she is handed back to the gang and becomes engulfed in the corrupt underworld of Mexican gangs and drug cartels much against her will.

The loverly Stephanie Sigman plays Lara.

Gang violence, class and corruption are issues that are often addressed in Latin American cinema and Miss Bala (2012) is no exception. A gripping and bold thriller from director and writer Gerardo Naranjo who portrays his story, which is loosely based on a series of real-life events surrounding a beauty pageant scandal and law enforcement corruption, through the eyes of our unwilling heroine played by former model Stephanie Sigman who gives a credible performance as Lara. My only problem with the film is that it tends to be a little disjointed at times leaving the viewer a bit mystified as too who’s who.

I'm Gonna Explode.

Although this was Mexico’s 2012’s official Academy Awards entry its probably not Naranjo’s best known film. That got to be his sharp 2008 Mexican thriller I’m Gonna Explode that took for its inspiration such films as Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973). Filmed in the historic city of Guanajuato, a Word Heritage site, it tells the story of Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago) and Maru (Maria Deschamps), two troubled teenagers attempting an impossible rebellion against the adult world. Maru, a sullen pouting 15-year-old loner, meets Roman, the reckless son of a corrupt right-wing politician. United by their desire to fight the apathy that they feel surrounding them, the two embark on a revolt against everything and everyone when they decide to runaway to be free of other people’s expectations and demands. With the police and their parents in hot pursuit, this leads them to a new intimacy and the discovery of their sexuality, which in turn unites and confuses them.

It was produced by Gael Garcia Bernal (Amores perros 2000, Bad Education 2004, Motorcycle Diaries 2004, Babel 2006) and Diego Luna (Milk 2008, Rudo Cursi 2008) the film was the breakout winner at 2009’s Guadalajara Film Festival, the national showcase for Mexican film. Naranjo describes this movie as ‘a diary of ideas with music, written word and internal dialogue’ As with a great deal of modern Mexican cinema, this film is well worth seeing, with two young stars that hold your attention throughout, superb shooting and cutting, along with a soundtrack that beautifully frames and enriches your enjoyment of the screen images.  

The Whistleblower.

Girls working the Streets of Bosnia. 

You can never do enough to raise peoples awareness of the despicable traffic in women and girls when they are transported from one place to another for the sole purpose of sex and making money for ‘pimps’ and ‘gangsters’ on the back of the misery generated by this evil trade.

Larysa Kondracki is a Canadian film director and screenwriter her debut feature film tackles this subject once again. Canada/German coproduction The Whistleblower (2010), similar to Sex Traffic (2004), bases its narrative on a true story. An American police officer Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) takes a job working as a peacemaker in post-war Bosnia. Although she expects to be involved in the rebuilding of this war torn country her good intentions are dashed when she uncovers ‘a dangerous reality of corruption, cover-up and intrigue amid a world of private contractors and multinational diplomatic doubletalk’[1]

Rachel Weisz with Kathryn Bolkovac.

It was this realization and her need to confront the truth that put Bolkovac in a precarious position. “For me it was really shocking,” Bolkovac, explains, “because I felt that my motives were genuine and I was here to help. I wasn’t here to hunt down police bad guys…when I began investigating the internal corruption involvement of our own police forces and our own internationals in the sick world of trafficking, I didn’t expect the backlash that I got.” As she dug deeper and deeper, the situation became untenable and because she was a threat to the face of the rebuilding project in Bosnia, the powers that be found an excuse to fire her. Bolkovac, being the person she is, filed a wrongful dismissal case against her employers and finally cleared her name in 2001.[2]

Rachel Weisz as Bolkovac.

Tagged as the movie the United Nations would prefer you didn’t see because of accusations that the U.N. top brass, the US State Department and again similar to Sex Traffic, a corrupt major US contractor who is contracted to supply American police for U.N. missions are all heavily implicated. Indecently the same company is still raking in US dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan under contract to the State Department. (Nothing ever changes)

As well as Weisz the film stars Vanessa Redgrave, Monica Bellucci and David Strathairn. It was filmed mainly on location in Romania and my only gripe with the movie itself is that some of the dialog was pretty difficult to understand which always tends to impair your enjoyment of what is potentially a worthwhile film.

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[1] Synopsis

[2] Production notes

The Raven 2011.

The Raven.

It worry’s me greatly when two very intelligent young men, who views I normally respect, declare, during the Film Club’s discussion, that cinemas are no longer able to sell tickets for a good quality adult movie! They also informed us that the biggest market is for youth orientated movies and the ‘safe’ type of film that appeals to what’s referred to as the ‘grey pound’. The only reason for this ridiculous state of affairs is obviously brainwashing!  Indoctrinating the young popcorn demographic into accepting more and more second rate American unintelligent rubbish until they think this is all that’s on offer. A successful movie for the over sixty fives is know judged purely on whether or not they leave the cinema smiling? On leaving the cinema where I first saw The Deerhunter in 1978 I was in tears does this make it a bad film? Thankfully there are still filmmakers about, mainly from Britain and world cinema that can still make a descent imaginative, intelligent, challenging and creative movie.

This weeks Robert Burns Centre Theatre Film Club movie was The Raven (2012) and was hosted by one of the RBC’s young programmers James Pickering who wasted no time in getting through his introduction so the paying audience could get on with the film. An American thriller set in Boston in 1849, its a fictional account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life, in which the author, poet, editor and literary critic pursues a serial killer whose murders mirror those in Poe’s tales of mystery and the macabre particular The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Pit and the Pendulum both of which have been made into feature films. 

John Cusack plays Edgar Allan Poe.

Directed by James McTeigue an Australian whose directorial debut was V For Vendetta (2006), before this he was an assistant director on various feature films including Star Wars II (2002) and The Matrix Trilogy (1999-2003). The rather puzzling Edgar Allan Poe, whose actual death was probably shrouded in more mystery than that shown in the film, was played by John Cusack who seems to have lost his way since great films like Being John Malkovich (1999), The Thin Red Line (1998) Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) and the award winning The Grifters (1990). The English actress Alice Eve, who you may remember from Starter for 10 (2006), plays Poe’s love interest Emily Hamilton with her father portrayed by Brendan Gleeson whose best role amongst many is Sergeant Gerry Boyle in the excellent Irish black comedy The Guard (2011), now there’s a film that makes you leave the cinema with a broad grin. Welshman Luke Evans (Tamara Drew 2011, The Blitz 2011, The Three Musketeers 2011) plays the dynamic Inspector Emmett Fields.

The murders mirror Poes stories.

As my esteemed colleague remarked if you suspend your disbelief The Raven is a moderately entertaining gothic thriller with some great period detail and was generally enjoyed by the film club audience. There were one or two reservations the main one being that the villain was not signposted as the film evolved and was not revealed until the very end, something that did not spoil my enjoyment of the film as I felt that is was more a study of Poe’s psyche than a murder mystery. We all agreed that language was used to great effect by the main character, enriching the film. It was compared with the two recent Sherlock Holmes films, which in my opinion were not as good, full of stupid and unnecessary banter between Holmes and Watson. The only thing that spoilt this film was the completely out of place end credit that would have been more at home included in a Bourne or Bond film and not in a period drama.

Thought you may be interested in this press article that involves the country that last weeks movie was set in, people should read this before they see the film! Yemen on brink of food crisis.

Mamma Roma.

Mamma Roma with her son Ettore.

The tragic Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini continues to inspire filmmakers, even after his violent death in 1975 prevented his career from reaching its full potential. Pasolini, like Fassbinder a generation later, lived at the cutting edge of scandal be it his private life, never denying his sexual orientation or his oeuvre which never shied away from depicting the darker side of humanity.  

The wonderful Anna Magnani.

Pasolini’s second feature film Mamma Roma (1962) is probable his least known but considered to be his most accessible and like most of his films was banned upon its release in Italy for obscenity. Written by the controversial director, novelist and poet it tells the story of Mamma Roma, a middle aged hooker who moves from the country to the big city (Rome) to start a new life with her son Ettore (Ettore Garofolo in his debut feature film). Attempting to leave behind her sordid past she sets up a fruit and vegetable stall in the local market.  When her ex pimp turns up unexpectedly it sets her life spiralling back into disarray.

Things don't always go as we would like!

This wonderful neo-realist movie allows us an unflinching look at the struggle for the marginalised and dispossessed in post-war Italy.  The film will always remain a classic for the fabulous performance from Anna Magnani as the mother that will literally do anything to protect her teenage son. Pasolini, not known for his work with established actors, had conceived this part for the fine-looking Magnani. Religious imaginary is always present in this director’s work and Mamma Roma is no exception with the Last Supper wedding scene at the beginning of the movie and the barely concealed crucifix imagery at the film’s conclusion. This is a great place to start if you’re not familiar with Pasolini’s diminutive body of work.