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.

Nightcrawler.

The strength of this movie is in the star performance from Jake Gyllenhaal as Louis Bloom, a character that is so very disturbing that’s he’s impossible to like. Lou Bloom earns his living by being in the wrong place at the right time. A single-minded stringer that will go the extra mile and beyond to get what he wants. Motivated by money he learns very quickly how to exploit a local news station. 

When we first come across Lou I suppose you could describe him as a ‘chancer’ that is someone that can utilise a situation to enrich his own ends. Armed with only his motor mouth he witnesses a freelance camera crew, led by Joe Loder (Bill Paxton), filming a near fatal car crash. Questioning Loder he finds out there is money to be made getting to a ‘disaster scene’ before any other news hounds get there and selling the resulting video footage to the highest bidder for broadcast on the early morning news, “If it bleeds it leads” Loder tells him.  Trading a stolen racing bicycle for a camcorder and a radio scanner, Bloom films the bloody aftermath of a car jacking. Offering it to Nina Romina, a Los Angeles morning news director, who agrees to purchase his recording and the story headlines the following morning broadcast. She recognises his fortitude and encourages him to continue to spend his nights trawling the police airwaves to get footage. She explains that the material must include violent incidents that referable take place in affluent neighbourhoods, explaining that this type of material can increase the stations ratings. Hiring Rick (the excellent British actor Riz Ahmed[1]) as a rather naïve assistant on $30 dollars a night Bloom sets off on his new, hopefully lucrative, career. But its not just Lou Bloom who pushes the realms of decency but his new boss played by the extremely attractive 60-year-old Rene Russo who constantly drives him ever harder to get just the right footage. 

 

It looks even more real on Television.

Screened at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre as part of this season Film Club, Nightcrawler (2014) was introduced by our host for the evening Rachel Findlay who told us a little about freelance press agency’s in Los Angeles. It was the American broadcast reporter and scientist Robert Tur who is credited with designing and building one of the first modern news helicopters used for ‘live’ reporting. With the help of his former wife Marika Gerrard, Tur founded the Los Angeles News Service in the 1970’s. This agency is said to have been one of the first to film a high-speed police chase but really came to fruition during the LA Riots, known as the Rodney King Riots, which took place between April and May 1992. Gerrard was also the first to locate and televise O. J. Simpsons infamous slow speed chase in 1994.

 

Lou Boom and his assistant tackle another cringing assignment. 

A surprisingly high percentage of the audience stayed behind after the screening with an in depth discussion following, including the lack of empathy we all had with both main characters and how we were undecided about who was worse, the ultra creepy Bloom or the unscrupulous Nina Romina, with both living off human misery and turning it into ratings and money. But I believe the true culprit in all this is the ever more demanding television audience’s without whom this type of ‘shock value news broadcasting’ would not be necessary! 

 

The morning news director Nina Romina.

This polished neo-noir type thriller has already been nominated for a whole bundle of rewards including an acting Golden Globe for Gyllenhaal and its difficult to believe that Nightcrawler is Dan Gilroy’s first outing as a feature film director and writer, who to date has been best known for his co-writing on films which have included Real Steel (2011) and The Bourne Legacy (2012). He is also the husband of Ms Russo.

 

The RBC audience shared a lack of empathy for Louis Bloom.

In conclusion I would highly recommend this movie if for no other reason than to witness an actor (Gyllenhaal) at the very top of his form. 

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[1] You will recognise Riz Ahmed from various films including Shifty (2008) Four Lions (2010) Trishna (2011) and ill Manors (2012).

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. 

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time.

Dastan Prince of Persia.

As if remakes in general aren’t bad enough what about a remake of a 2003 video game? Shot on location in Morocco and at Pinewood studios. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2010) is set in the sixth century and is about a magical dagger with powers to turn back time and of course if it fell into the wrong hands could evoke world shattering chaos!!! The villain of the piece is the Persian Kings brother, played with some style by Sir Ben Kingsley. Using all the standard text book villainy he gets hold of the dagger which is known as the Sands of Time. The only person capable of defeating this tyrant and saving the world is the Kings adopted son Dastan assisted by the plucky Princess Tamina.

The two main leads, Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton, are totally unconvincing as Dastan and his eastern princess who is lacking even the slightest hint of a suntan! It’s a cross between a very bad remake of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Spider Man’s outtakes. Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire 2005) directs this tolerably entertaining swashbuckler, but don’t expect any real substance or depth.

Source Code

Poster.

The 40-year-old Duncan Zowie Jones certainly could have a successful career in TV with a revamped series of Tales of the Unexpected! His first feature film the 2009 science fiction thriller Moon told the story of a solitary Lunar Industries employee who experiences a personal crisis at the end of his three year stint overseeing the extraction of Helium 3, a source of clean energy for earth, as I have said previously it would have made a good first episode and his latest motion picture Source Code (2011) would make an even better second episode. Again it has a suitably outrageous story line with a twist at the end.

Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a helicopter pilot flying missions in Afghanistan who becomes part of a top-secret experimental government programme investigating a terrorist attack. He finds himself in the body of a Sean Fentress a teacher and regular commuter on a train that a terrorist plans to blow up. Stevens/Fentress have to constantly relive the harrowing train bombing until the person can be found who is responsible for the attack. It’s on these train journeys that he meets Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan) with whom he falls in love.  Vera Farmiga, who you will probable recognise from Up In The Air (2009), plays the part of Stevens indifferent controller who develops a computerised relationship with the pilot.  Jeffrey Wright plays Dr Rutledge the cold obsessive inventor of the Source Code.

 This techno-thriller could have been so much better if it had not been overly sentimental, dissolving a decent story in to some kind of techno romantic drama, cut down to fast paced 60 minutes it would have been terrific.  I would like to see Mr Jones try his hand at something with more backbone next time, A Matter of Life and Death its not.

Part Two!