Belle.

Scone Palace is one of the finest examples of late Georgian Gothic style in the UK and is the family home of the earls of Mansfield whose family name is Murray and who still reside in the Palace apartments for part of the year. In the Ambassadors Room in the Palace you will find a painting commissioned by William Murray the 1st Earl of Mansfield, who was at the time Lord Chief Justice of England. The painting by Johann Zoffany is of two young female members of William Murray's family. One of which is Lady Elizabeth Murray daughter of David Murray the 2nd Earl of Mansfield the other, more interestingly is Dido Elizabeth Belle. Born in the West Indies she was the illegitimate mixed race daughter of Williams’s nephew Sir John Lindsay who acknowledged her as his daughter and took her to the family home at Kenwood House in North London and begged his Uncle and Aunt to take her in to their guardianship. He died shortly after.

 

The original main entrance to Scone Palace.

The film stars, amongst others, the British born stage and screen actress Gugo Mbatha-Raw as Belle, Tom Wilkinson as William Murray, Emily Watson as his wife, Matthew Goode as John Lindsay and Sarah Gabon as Dido's cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray.

 

Scone Palace.

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Very little is known about the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle but to their great credit writer Moissen Sagay and director Amma Asante manage to weave an enjoyable and moving story based around the famous painting. Period dramas are not always my thing but the story of Belle (2014) has a certain depth because its based on true events about the emancipation of slaves and the 18th century social order of wealth and privilege as well as benefiting from a social consciousness.

The Imitation Game.

When is a British film, albeit about a very British subject, not a British film? Venturing an opinion I would say when its financed with American money, directed by a Norwegian born director (Morten Tyldum best known for his adaptation of Jo Nesbo’s Headhunters in 2011), the cinematography is handled by a Spanish DOP (Oscar Faura), the screenplay is adapted by an American (Graham Moore) and the soundtrack is by a French composer (Alexandra Desplat). But one must admit as far as I know the actors are British! (These include Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode and Mark Strong). Does it make much difference? Well certainly not to the quality of the film. Although I’m not sure if this is the story of Homosexuality, before the water shed that was 1967, or the story of an attempt to save the British Empire. My candid suggestion would be to go and see The Imitation Game (2014) for yourselves and make your own mind up, but either way I’m sure you will agree it’s a cracking film, from which ever of the two-view point’s you choose to see it from.

 

The Team.

Benedict Cumberbatch, who did nothing to enhance one of my own personnel favourite characters in literature Mr Sherlock Holmes, gives an award winning performance as Alan Turing the pioneering British computer scientist and mathematician.  The movie covers Turing’s life back from 1952, when he was prosecuted under the archaic act that governed sexual relationship’s between people of the same sex, essentially back to the time when he worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park where he was credited in breaking German ciphers known as the Enigma Code which it is said shortened WW2 in Europe by two to four years. Although I believe the Soviets had a lot to do with that as well!

 

The Turing 'computer' that broke the German codes. 

The most sickening part of the Alan Turing story is how he was basically forgotten, unrecognised for his work but persecuted for his sexual orientation when, as I have said, he was prosecuted for homosexual acts between consenting adults. Accepting chemical castration, as an alternative to serving a prison sentence. The film intimates that this affected his brainpower and therefore his continuing work. Two years after his sentence the forerunner of the modern computer died mysteriously from cyanide poisoning. But the Turing family had to wait until 2009 before an official public apology was made by the then British Prime Minister Gordon ‘the Vow’ Brown and in 2013 the Queen of England, the one whose son is alleged to have chased underage girls in America, gave the scientist a posthumous pardon, which was very generous considering he did not break any ‘real’ laws?

Stoker.

Allyson Paton admitted that Park Chan-wook was one of her favourite directors, during her very accomplished maiden introduction as host at this weeks Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre Film Club which was showing the South Korean directors latest film Stoker (2013).

 

Mother and Daughter.....

Born in 1963, Park, known for his violent, dark psychological thrillers, is one of the most significant talents to emerge from South Korea’s new wave cinema. He studied philosophy at Sogang University, where he founded a film club and developed a strong interest in film theory and criticism. Working first as an assistant director and then in 1992 he went on to make his feature film debut The Moon is the Sun’s Dream. The film that brought him to world prominence was Joint Security Area (2000) a drama focusing on a murder in the demilitarized zone highlighting the volatile political relationship between North and South Korea following this he went on to make what has become known as his vengeance trilogy. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) was followed by Old Boy (2003) which tells the tale of a man who has been incarcerated in a room for fifteen years, and who on his release attempts to determine the identity of his captor and why he has been imprisoned. The third part of the trilogy is Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) the film opens with our heroine serving a 13-year prison sentence for the abduction and murder of a child. After her release she plan’s to carry out vengeance against the man who was really responsible for the murder. Other films of note have been I’m a Cyborg, but that’s OK (2006) an offbeat screwball comedy described as a madcap fantasy, made so that his young daughter was able to see one of his films. This was followed in 2009 by Thirst, in which a priest becomes a vampire!

 

.....Uncle Charlie with the widow......

Allyson then went on to tell us that tonight’s film was the first time Park had made an English-speaking movie and it’s also the first writing credit from Prison Break star Wentworth Miller. Sadly it was the last film co-produced by Tony Scott who died shortly after production.  This British-American psychological thriller stars Mia Wasikowska as eighteen-year-old India whose father dies in a car accident. Matthew Goode is her father’s brother Uncle Charlie, a mysteriously charming man whom India never knew existed, who comes to live with her and her emotionally unstable mother. Nicole Kidman plays the mother who finds Uncle Charlie irresistible.  Our host also told us that the film was not a reference to Bram Stoker and that we would find little or no product placement in the movie that she said was deliberate to make the film seem in a world of its own.

 

.....the grieving daughter with Uncle Charlie.

The group discussion that followed the screening agreed that the film was very effective with its gradual build up and a narrative that was always threatening to break out into violence action, which is a trademark of Park’s work. This is a wonderfully dark and disturbing movie with its underlying gothic theme but set in modern day, and along with Chung Chung-hoon’s sumptuous cinematography, which included a superb visual pun involving Kidman’s hair and a field of long grass, makes it a movie well worth seeing again.