Spotlight.

One of my favourite films and one I've seen many times is Station Agent (2003). It involves a quiet withdrawn unmarried man with dwarfism who has a deep love of anything connected to railways he even works in a model train hobby shop. When his boss passes he discovers that he has been bequeathed an abandoned railway station along with some stock. This wonderfully evocative movie was Tom McCarthy’s debut film and one that won him a number of awards. Four years after this initial film McCarthy won more plaudits for his second feature The Visitor (2007) which starred the great Richard Jenkins, who plays a lonely middle aged man who finds himself having to face up to life's problems when he meets a Syrian refugee he finds living in his New York flat. After making two such wonderful films McCarthy next two feature films Win Win (2011) and The Cobbler (2014) did not quite get the same acclaim. But all has changed with Spotlight (2015).

 

The Spotlight Team. 

This biographical drama deservedly won McCarthy an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and another for Best Picture. Similar to Truth (2015) it deals with investigative journalism but this time it's the Roman Catholic Church and its involvement in the covering up of widespread and systemic child sex abuse that comes under the microscope. Based on a series of stories by the actual Spotlight Team that earned The Boston Globe a Pulitzer Prize for ‘courageous, comprehensive coverage in its disclosures of sexual abuse by priests in the Roman Catholic Church’ in 2003.

An engrossing fact based story that keeps you on the edge of your seat for its full 128 minute running time and again like All the President’s Men (1976) and Truth it highlights the power of journalism where in its true form investigates facts, verifies its sources normally to stop unlawful practices and all for the benefit of the wider community.  I cannot recommend this film highly enough and its another of these splendid movies where the action is in the dialogue all acted out by a stellar cast that includes Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdam, Leiv Schreiber and Stanley Tucci each of whom give a career best performance.

A Most Wanted Man.

One of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last roles as Gunther Backmann

This adaptation by Andrew Bovell of a John le Carre’s 2008 post 9/11 novel of the same name is one of Philip Seymour’s Hoffman’s last films and just goes to prove how much we will miss this great actor. Hoffman plays Gunter Bachmann the hard drinking, heavy smoking head of a German anti terrorist team based in Hamburg which is charged with developing sources within the Islamic community to assist with counter intelligence work. Tension’s run high after the World Trade Centre attack so when the half Chechen, half Russian 26 year old Issa Karpov turns up at Hamburg airport looking a little worse for wear not only is Bachmann interested in the young man but also is the head of Hamburg intelligence Dieter Mohr (Rainer Bock) and the CIA in the form of Agent Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright).  Karpov claims to be in Germany to collect an inheritance worth tens of millions of euro’s left to him by his father and kept in a safe deposit box under the watchful eye of the Head of Bank Tommy Brue (Willem Dafoe). The only person that seems to believe Karpov is the human rights lawyer Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams).

Annabel Richter with Issa Karpov.

A Most wanted Man (2013) is a contemporary tale of intrigue one in which the modern intelligence agencies are shown to be completely paranoid about any one that even slightly resembles what they assume to be Jihadist and therefore by default a terrorist.  This was my final film of the 2014 EIFF and I was tired and found the film a little to long so I will not be too judgemental and just comment that the acting was as you would expect from such a good cast very good and Anton Corbijn’s (Control 2007, The American 2010) direction and Benoit Delhomme (Lawless 2012) cinematography brought the story to life. A movie I'd like to see again. 

To the Wonder.

Mont St. Michel enriches the romance of Neil and Marina.

Normally I would not give away too much of a movies plot, but in the case of To the Wonder (2012) I feel a little prior knowledge could help understand what

 transpires on the screen!

Neil (Ben Affleck) is an American traveling in Europe who meets and falls in love with Marina (Olga Kurylenko), a Ukrainian divorcee who is raising her 10-year-old daughter Tatiana in Paris. The lovers travel to Mont St. Michel, the island abbey off the coast of Normandy, basking in the wonder of their newfound romance.  Neil makes a commitment to Marina, inviting her to relocate to his native Oklahoma with Tatiana. He takes a job as an environmental inspector and Marina settles into her new life in America with passion and vigour. After a short while, their relationship cools. Marina finds solace in the company of another exile, the Catholic priest Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), who is undergoing a crisis of faith. Work pressures and increasing doubt pull Neil further apart from Marina, who returns to France with Tatiana when her visa expires. Neil reconnects with Jane (Rachel McAdams), an old flame. They fall in love until Neil learns that Marina has fallen on hard times. Gripped by a sense of responsibility, and his own crisis of faith, he renews his association with Marina after another trip to France. She returns with him to Oklahoma, resuming her American life.[1]

 

Neil and his childhood sweetheart Jane on the plains of Oklahoma.

Although Malick is credited with writing the script for this movie, it has been alleged that the cast worked without a screenplay. Not difficult considering that this abstract romantic drama has no real dialog. It consists mainly of narration spoken in French and Spanish from two of the films main characters, the Ukrainian divorcee Marina and the Catholic priest Father Quintana. The film certainly does not fall into what could be described as a normal narrative format and anyone expecting to see a plot driven romance: forget it!

There is no doubt that the seventy year old Terrence Malick is a very unique filmmaker and like his last film Tree of Life (2010) his latest cinematic offering is a joy to look at. Mexican born Emmanuel Lubezki is the Director of Photography on both these films and they certainly benefit from his masterful touch. It brings to mind Antonioni’s Red Desert (1964).

 

A conflict of faith for Father Quintana.

Malick’s film was the final review of the American film critic Roger Ebert before his death on April 4^th from which I borrow a quote ‘Malick, who is surely one of the most romantic and spiritual of filmmaker, appears almost naked here before his audience, a man not able to conceal the depth of his vision’[2] I could not agree more, the movie does appear autobiographical and encourages the viewer to feel the pain of the protagonists. A movie not necessary for every one, but one that does emphasise the craft of an immensely skilful filmmaker.

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[1] Written with the help of the synopsis from the press notes that do give a clear outline of the story.

[2] Roger Ebert 6^th April 2013 Chicago Sun-Times 

Midnight in Paris.

Allen's whimsical love letter to Paris.

I refer social realism rather than upper middle class whimsy; this is probably why I cannot warm to the recent films directed by my old movie adversary Woody Allen.  The only film I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed was Radio Days (1986) because it dealt with ordinary people in a fairly normal situation. Monday nights Robert Burns Cinema Film Club tortured my viewing sensibilities once more with the showing of Mr Allen’s latest cinematic offering to a full house.

The evening started well enough with a first rate introduction to the evenings “entertainment’ by Rachel Findley, who I know appreciates the work of the Brooklyn born director. Midnight in Paris (2011) involves Woody Allen; oops I’m sorry I mean Owen Wilson, who plays the Hollywood screenwriter Gil, who along with his snobbish fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) are holidaying in Paris. Gil is working on his first novel and after a disastrous meal with Inez fascist parents he goes on a solitary walk around the streets of the city. As the clock strikes midnight he’s whisk back in time to the 1920’s and meets all sorts of famous cultural figures who give him advice and therefore the confidence to edit and finish his book and see the error of his miss matched relationship.

Admittedly I was in the minority going by the after film discussion, most of whom were pretty keen on the movie but I personally could not buy into the films time travel concept or the constant bombardment of ‘oh so clever’ artistic references.  Owen Wilson’s impersonation of Allen was annoying and most of the modern day characters in this film were extremely disagreeable. Allen love letter to the city of Paris, just like London in his last four films, was dreamlike and artificial. Sorry Rachel, sorry RBC Film Club perhaps I’ll like his next one, I heard it was going to be a western “The Return of the Magnificent Allen”