Enemy.

This is probable one of the best example’s of a film made more interesting by a discussion that followed its screening. The film in question was Enemy (2013) showing as part of the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club Season. Introduced by our host for the evening Julie McMorran, but as she admitted it was more of what was not said rather than what was said because of giving to much away that she feared would spoil the enjoyment, if that’s the right word to use! But she did inform us that the film split both critics and its audience with its ‘non signposted’ narrative. She went on to say that the films screenplay, written by Javier Gullon, was based on the novel The Double by Jose Saramago, which was first published, in Portuguese, in 2002. The French-Canadian Denis Villeneuve directed the movie whose best known films to date have probably been Incendies (2010), where twin brother and sister go on a journey of discovery to unravel the mystery of their mothers life, and Prisoners (2013) a thriller about the search for two girls after they have been abducted. This last film also stared Jake Gyllenhaal who in this latest movie plays both main parts. The film club recently screened one of the actor’s best works in the form of Nightcrawler (2014). His role of Lou Bloom gained him a well-deserved selection of Best Actor nominations. Julie told us that this popular actor already had four more films in the pipeline. 

 

Adam and Mary.

Enemy is an extremely confounding psychological drama about a sexually repressed college professor, Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal), who quite by chance discovers that he has a doppelganger in the form of an actor called Anthony Claire (Gyllenhaal again) who like himself lives in Toronto. Although the two men are physically identical they couldn’t be more different in personality! Other than to say this strange discovery leads both men into some very dark places I will not say any more to avoid any chance of a spoiler. The film also stars Melanie Laurent as Adams girlfriend Mary, Sarah Gadon as Helen, the pregnant wife of Anthony and Isabella Rossellini in a ‘blink and your miss her role’ as mother.

 

Anthony and Helen. 

When this film was premiered at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival it mysterious ending left its audience in a stunned silence and I for one am not surprised. Its obscure story is rather ponderous and I’m afraid did not draw me in, it has been alleged that its source novel is just as difficult to comprehend. Our discussion that followed the movie led to all sorts of assumptions as to what the film was really about and who exactly Adam and Anthony were. Were they two different people; are they really one person or maybe identical twins separated at birth and is Rossellini the mother of both?  Perhaps when you go to see this film, or if you have already have seen it, perhaps you could let me know your theory and I’ll pass it on to the RBCFT Film Club?

 

The End.

Prisoners

Canadian director and screenwriter Denis Villeneuve’s first English language film Prisoners (2013) asks the question that has been put to audiences in various movies including Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River (2003). When is a crime not a crime, is it when you kidnap and torture or kill a suspected paedophile?

 

Happier times for the Dover family.

In a suburban street in Pennsylvania there’s a sinister RV parked. The Dover and Birch families have come together to celebrate Thanksgiving. When six year old Anna Dover and Joy Birch go missing along with the RV, a loner called Alex Jones (Paul Dano an actor that really does a believable ‘weird’) the driver of the vehicle is suspected of abducting them.  Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) arrests Jones but has to let him go for lack of evidence.  Ann’s father Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) believes that the mentally defective Jones knows were the two girls are hidden and abducts and imprisoning him in a deserted block of apartments where he carry’s out a violent interrogation with the help of Joy’s father (Terrence Howard).  

Joy and Ann.

Villeneuve’s previous film Incendies (2010) was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The mystery/drama film follows the journey of twin brother and sister as they attempt to unravel the mystery of their mother’s life. This was an extremely powerful film with a most intriguing and complex narrative, almost like a detective story, a thriller or a Greek tragedy that revealed it’s hidden secrets gradually. This latest film is equally powerful and deals with another very emotive subject, the abduction of young children. Cinematographer Roger Deakins highlights the bleak nature of the films subject matter and its settings, evoking a mood of dread that never seems to let up. It stars a great ensemble cast with a stand out performances from Gyllenhaal as the twitchy buttoned up police officer pitting him self against the hot headed carpenter Dover. The cast also includes Viola Davis and Maria Bello as the distraught mothers and Melissa Leo as Holly Jones. Mr Villeneuve is beginning to build quite a reputation for strong adult cinema.

The suspect is questioned. 

Incendies.

Writer and director Denis Villeneuve’s latest feature film starts with a beautiful opening shot that goes from a lovely pastoral Middle East scene into a room in a undisclosed building where young boys are waiting to have their heads shorn. A wee lad is coming to the end of what we used to call a severe haircut and stares straight into the camera with a look your never forget. This short scene, accompanied by the Radio Head track You and Whose Army, becomes entirely clear at the end of the film increasing its potency. We move quickly to an office in Quebec Canada, in this room are three people, Jean Lebel (Remy Gerard) a notary and the twins Jeanne and Simon Marwan (Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette) who are there for the reading of the will of their recently deceased mother, Nawal Marwen (Lubna Azabel). They are handed two sealed envelopes and informed of the funeral instructions laid down by her, and told that her wishes must be followed explicitly.  She is to be buried face down, naked, with no memorial or headstone unless certain conditions are met. The sealed envelopes are to be delivered by hand to their father, who they understood to be dead, and an elder brother they had no idea existed. This task leads them to a fictionalized Middle Eastern Country and their journey enlightens them about their mother’s enthralling life, about which they had no previous inclination.

Brother and Sister study their Mothers will.

Adapted by Villeneuve from Wajdi Mouawad’s three and a half hour stage play called Scorched, Incendies (2010) is shown in flashbacks between modern day and the 1970’s and 80’s war torn Middle East where we are told a civil war is taking place between the Muslims and the Christians allegedly based on the Lebanese civil war that was taking place during that period. 

This extremely powerful film has the most intriguing and complex narrative, almost like a detective story, a thriller or a Greek tragedy that reveals it’s hidden secrets gradually. A film helped by its wonderful central female character, strongly portrayed by Lubna Azabel (Coriolanus 2011) mainly seen in flashback. The French-Canadian director also used non-professional’s that had actually experienced some of the brutal incidents seen in the film, giving the screenplay an authenticity.