22nd July (2018)

Based on a very gruelling true  incident, this Paul Greengrass movie is an attempt to tell the story of the  massacre of innocents in Norway on the 22nd July 2011 by a right wing fanatic. Andres Behring Breivik, played with a unnervingly cool countenance by Andres Danielsen Lie, detonated a van full of explosives outside a government building in Oslo which housed the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenborg resulting in eight deaths. Shortly after this attack he travelled to the Island of Utoya posing as a police officer and stating that he had come to the island to protect members of the Workers Youth Camp. For the next hour he hunted down the youngsters on their summer retreat and killed 69, one as young as 14 years old.

Breivik was captured alive on the island, confessed to the killings and gave his reasons for carrying out these attacks ‘was to save Norway and Western Europe from a Muslim takeover and the Labour Party had to pay the price for letting down Norway and the Norwegian people’ a sort of Brexit with explosives and bullets!

A tough watch reinforced by the fact that you know what your watching is not fiction?

Captain Phillips.

Films based on books always seem popular at our local cinema and the story of the hijacking of the cargo ship the MV Maersk Alabama in April 2009 was no exception. Based on a book written by the captain of the cargo vessel Richard Philips, A Captains Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy Seals and Dangerous Days at Sea, and adapted for the screen by William ‘Billy’ Ray, best known for writing the screenplay for the Hunger Games (2012), it tells how four poverty stricken Somali fishermen between the ages of 17 and 19 manage to highjack the ship along with its crew of 20 and 17000 metric tons of cargo bound for Mombasa, Kenya.

 

Four Somali Fishermen looking for recompense.

As purely a docudrama, Captain Phillips (2013) is another exciting outing for the Surry born Paul Greengrass, director, screenwriter and former journalist who specialises in dramatisations of real life events for example Resurrected (1989), Bloody Sunday (2002), United 93 (2006) and 2010’s Green Zone. Strangely enough it was Ron Howard who was originally down to direct Captain Phillips and Greengrass was due to helm Rush (2013) but they ultimately swapped projects to the improvement of both movies I would suggest.  

 

Taking over the vast ship and its twenty crew!

In probably what is the best role of his long career Tom Hanks, who plays Phillips, is superb and its his acting that gives this movie a tension that keeps its audience on the edge of it seat for over two hours. But also mention must be made of the Somali born actor Barkhad Abdi in his debut role as the charismatic leader of the fishermen and the new Captain of the hijacked cargo ship.  Along with the wide screen cinematography by regular Ken Loach DoP Barry Ackroyd, and the battle of wits between the ‘boy’ and the middle-aged sea captain are worth the admission price alone. Obviously this movie will be compared with Tobies Lindholm’s A Hijacking (2012), which unlike Greengrass’s film is ‘not about an actual hijacking but about the people involved and how it affects them, the technicalities of negotiation and the monitory value of human life’[1]. Each was shot on water and in real ships that gives both a special type of authenticity.

 

One sided negotiations continue.

As usual with an American budgeted film it makes only minimal effort to explain why the Somali’s go to such extremes, concentrating on the ‘heroic’ actions of the ships Captain ‘although some crew members have considered him as reckless’[2] Various reports and several news sources have suggested that piracy off the Somalia coast is due in part to illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste along its remote shoreline by foreign vessels. In response to this the fishermen began forming armed groups to stop the foreign ships. But because of the unlawful actions, which severely restricted their ability to fish and earn a living, they were forced to look for an alternative income. By turning to piracy the fishermen believed ‘that they were protecting their fishing grounds and exacting justice and compensation for the marine resources stolen’[3].

Tom Hanks with Richard Phillips.

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[1] Movie Ramble 13^th September 2013

[2] New York Post October 2013.

[3] Wardheernews.com January 2009.

Resurrected.

Paul Greengrass began his film-making career at Granada TV in Manchester in the 1980’s where he made the highly regarded documentary series World in Action known for it’s important news stories. This experience encouraged his interest in the Falklands war and the story of a young 18-year-old soldier, Philip Williams who 6 months after joining the army found himself at the height of battle. With the encouragement of Film 4, which was happy to nurture new talent, Greengrass went to visit Williams after he had left the army and the young man related his story of torment and bullying to the director who decided that this human account of a someone coming back from the dead who was initially excepted as a hero and then as a deserter, would make a great subject for his debut feature film. At this time Greengrass was filming The Live Aid Concert at Wembley and pitched his idea to Adrian Hughes and Tara Prem the producers of the concert who decided to produce what was to become Resurrected (1988). Based on the directors ideas Martin Allan wrote a screenplay that was to be a fictional tale but based on what Williams had related to Paul Greengrass.

This raw imaginative story of our time, filmed on location in and around Huddersfield Yorkshire, has David Thewlis, in what he counts as his debut feature film, playing Kevin Deakin the young soldier posted missing presumed dead in the Falklands who has a memorial service with full military honours back in the Lancashire village where he grew up. Seven weeks after going missing, to the embarrassment to all concerned, he turns up, confused, but very much alive. Fuelled by tabloid press stories accusing Deakin of desertion he is ostracised by the villagers and treated abysmally by his fellow soldier on returning to barracks.

Thatcher war cemented her power.

The Falklands conflict cemented Thatcher’s power over her party and parliament, encouraging the country to adopt a type of triumphalism which can been sampled in the powerful but unpleasant scenes of institutionalised bullying melted out by soldier’s in Deakin’s unit. Greengrass had previous experience of this subject when he made a World in Action which involved the suicide of a young soldier who been bullied. Maybe a little televisual but a very worthy debut for the director who went on to make more dramatisations of real life events including Bloody Sunday (2002), United 93 (2006) and Green Zone (2010). He was quoted as saying that he was very proud of his first film but would have made it slightly differently if he were to make it today.  Thewlis is superb as Deakin making the young soldier totally believable with great support from Tom Bell as his father and Rita Tushingham as his mother.