Slow West.

Its 1870 and 16 year old Jay Cavendish travels from a privileged life in Scotland to America in search of the love of his life. Rose Ross and her father had to leave their croft in Scotland following an altercation with 16 year olds father, Lord Cavendish, John Ross knocks the man to the floor where he bangs his head on a rock and bleeds out. Completely unprepared for the journey across the prairie its not long before the naive young boy needs rescuing. Knowing more than he lets on Silas Selleck offers, for a price, to assist Jay in his search for Ross and her father. But Silas and Jay are not the only ones looking for the father and daughter.  A ruthless gang of bounty hunters led by Payne are also on their trail.

 

The naive Jay Cavendish.

This exceptional debut feature film has been directed and written by John Maclean who some may remember from his involvement with the Scottish band The Beta Band and a couple of short films he made with Michael Fassbender who also stars in this movie as the cheroot chewing Silas Selleck a man of mixed emotions. Kodi Smit-McPhee, a budding young actor who can be seen in various films that have included the Hammer remake Let Me In (2010) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), plays Jay Cavendish. We also get another wonderful lesson in ‘menacing’ by the brilliant Ben Mendelsohn as Payne.

 

Silas Selleck, a man who knows more than he admits.

The menacing Payne. 

Starkly beautiful, Slow West (2015) is a brutal film that involves a misdirected love affair that unfortunately leads many to their deaths. To John Maclean’s great credit this promising young filmmaker gives us a movie that percolates realism displaying what the people and the landscape would have been like in 1870’s Colorado. In my opinion it’s a film that demonstrates humanities greed where people are sacrificed, one way or another for personnel gain – some things don’t change. Certainly a western with a difference, unglamorous maybe, but one not to be missed. 

         

Exodus: Gods and Kings.

Based on what is said to be the worlds best selling book, and one that has been translated into more languages than any other, Ridley Scots Epic movie Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) tells how Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt to the Land of Canaan. But before he was allowed to do that we witnessed how God forced the Egyptians by cruel and foul means to let these people go.  He inflicts various plagues that include turning the water to blood, death of livestock, frogs, lice, boils, locusts and flies but what really persuades Ramesses to let the Hebrews go is the Passover, the meanest of the ten plagues which killed all the Egyptian first born. The Hebrew’s were instructed to mark the doorposts of their homes with the blood of a slaughtered spring lamb so God knew which houses to ‘Passover’.  Scot does very well to highlight the hypocrisy of Christian teachings whose main presentation tells us to love our neighbours and forgive others their sins, but only if it pleases the good Lord?

 

Beware of the high tides!

As well as Pinewood Studios the film was shot in Almeria in Spain and on the Island of Fuerteventura. It features various well known faces including John Turturro, Aaron Paul from Breaking Wind, Ben Mendelsohn, Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver. But only Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Ramesses are given roles of any depth, the rest are almost relegated to walk on parts. How does it compare with Cecil DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956), which at the time was reputed to be the most expensive film ever made, I would very much doubt if the images from Ridley Scot’s film will stay in your mind as long as DeMille’s film has. It is a spectacular film but does not really live up to the book.

Christian Bale as Mosses 

Starred Up.

This weeks Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club showing was a British Prison drama with the tag line ‘we are all different on the inside’. Prison is how society attempts to deter violence: the prospect of being locked up behind a big wall is supposed to be the cure-all. But what deters the violence of people already in prison with little or no hope of release for a very long time and share space with fellow inmates that could possible have worse anger management problems than there own? Or are these men actually in a prison of their own making?

We have recently seen various films on this subject including the gripping Danish prison-drama ‘R’ (2010), the French A Prophet (2009) If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle (2010) a Rumanian film about a young offenders institution or Steve McQueen’s directorial debut film Hunger (2008) which dramatized the events in the Maze Prison, 6 weeks prior to Bobby Sands death and the violence that surrounded that incident. But the film that cast’s the longest shadow over the British prison genre is probable Alan Clarke’s Scum banned by the BBC in 1977 and two years later Clark remade it as a feature film. And of course under the British New Wave banner we had Tony Richardson’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), which covered such subjects as class-consciousness and the incarceration of rebellious youth.

 

Eric Love is moved into his new digs.

Starred Up is a 2013 British ‘family drama’ set inside a prison, which gives you that feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach from the very start. The title is a term used to describe the early transfer of a criminal from a Young Offender’s Institution to an adult prison. 19-year-old Eric Love is transferred into an adult prison two years early after proving too violent for a young offenders' institution. A potentially explosive situation is not made easier by the fact that one of the top dog’s in Eric's new digs is also the man he holds to blame for his violent tendencies. Interestingly the screenplay for this film has been written by a psychotherapist, Jonathan Asser and is based on his experiences working as a voluntary therapist at HM Prison Wandsworth, with some of the country’s most violent criminals all of which had anger management problems.

 

Jack O'Connell reached new heights with this performance. 

24-year-old Jack O'Connell stars as Eric. An actor that served his apprenticeship in such films as This is England[1] his debut film in 2006, Eden Lake (2008) Harry Brown (2009) and recently in The Liability (2012) and Tower Block (2012). Neville Love, Eric’s father, is played by Australian born actor Ben Mendelsohn, who you may know from Australia (2008) Beautiful Kate (2009) Animal Kingdom (2010) Killer Elite (2011) Trespass (2011) Killing Them Softly (2012) The Place Beyond the Pines (2012). The prison’s voluntary therapist, a surrogate Jonathan Asser, is portrayed with some panache by Rupert Friend[2] the English born actor who is best known for his role in the American TV series Homeland where he plays the character Peter Quinn.

Directed by David Mackenzie[3] who is probable best known for Young Adam (2003) a movie set in Scotland and staring Ewan McGregor, Emily Mortimer, Peter Mullan and Tilda Swinton - a film about sex, death and barges. His latest movie was based, but not set, in Northern Ireland in two former prisons HM Prison Crumlin Road in Belfast and HM Prison Maze in Lisburn. The budget was around 2 million and it took 24 days to shoot the film. So far it has won the following awards: The British Independent Film Awards for Ben Mendelsohn Best Supporting Actor, the Dublin International Film Festival gave Jack O’Connell Best Actor and the London Film Awards recognised Jonathan Asser for Best British Newcomer.

 

Eric joins the therapy class! 

The film has been well received by the critics and the description’s I particularly agreed with were “Intense, visceral and immersive”[4]. ‘Jack O’Connell is dangerously riveting, scary, tragic, explosive an actor you can’t take your eyes off’[5]. And I would add that O’Connell is blossoming into a first class actor and that the director certainly impresses with his feel for realism and successfully shocks his audience with the unflinching brutality of prison life. Ken Loach asked recently if the best films have a significance beyond there own narrative I would say in the case of this movie that the answer would have to be yes.

 

A wee family drama?

The discussion following the screening centered on whether our young protagonist would ever become ‘rehabilitated’ the audience seemed pretty much split down the middle over this question. The prison system in general was discussed and also how in Scotland the crime level has been reduced in all but violent acts and sex crimes! The question was raised about the authenticity of the movie, most agreed that it felt genuine but had some trepidation about the ‘hanging’ scene. Our audience all agreed that Mackenzie and his cast and crew were all to be commended on producing a very tough and accomplished film.

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[1] He played Pukey Nicholls.

[2] English film actor, writer and director, who is best known for his roles as Mr Wickham in the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice, Lieutenant Kurt Kotler in the 2008 film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and Prince Albert in the 2009 film The Young Victoria. He currently plays Peter Quinn in Showtime's multiple Emmy Award-winning television drama, Homeland.

[3] His eighth feature film.

[4] Angie Errigo – Moviemail.

5 Angie Errigo – Moviemail

The Place Beyond the Pines.

When I first saw Blue Valentine (2010) I was not sure if I liked it, no so with Derek Cianfrance third feature film The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), which again features Ryan Gosling, who seems to get better ever time I see him. This new film is American film noir at its very best, a movie any serious cineaste should make every effort to see. Everything is right about it, from the wonderfully convincing acting to the feel of British born Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography, who was also responsible for another film noir The Killer Inside Me (2010) .  But its backbone is its brilliant narrative that could have been written by Denis Lahane instead of Cianfrance and his co-writers Ben Coccio and Darius Marder. Totally compelling, a story in three acts about the unbreakable bond between fathers and their sons. A film full of surprises, with just the right amount of sentimentality.

A story of fathers and their sons.

New York cop Avery Cross.

This totally captivating movie is set in the upstate New York town of Schenectady, which incidentally is where the title of the film comes from it’s a Mohawk word meaning ‘place beyond the pine plains’. The first of the two fathers that dominate our story is Luke Glanton (Gosling) who scrapes a living as part of a travelling carnival show where he performs a wall of death stunt act. Passing through Schenectady he decides to look up an old flame Romina, played by Eva Mendes who I last saw in Leos Corax’s Holy Motors. On visiting her family home he discovers he has a six-month-old son called Jason. Luke decides to give up his nomadic life style and look after his newly found family. He obtains a badly paid job as a mechanic in a rural car repair shop. His employer, the wonderfully expressive Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn, spots the former stunt mans potential and the pair carry out a string of lucrative bank robberies which places Luke Glanton within the radar of the second of our two fathers the ambitious New York cop Avery Cross, another breakthrough role for Silver Linings Playback Bradley Cooper.