Byzantium.

Clara argues the case for women's rights. 

Going to the pictures in the middle of a weekday still gives me that feeling of delicious naughtiness and to sit in the imposed darkness on a lovely sunny day to watch a British vampire movie makes it seem all the better. On a visit to Edinburgh I decided to watch Irish director and writer Neil Jordan’s latest movie:  Byzantium (2013). Before this he has directed some 16 feature films over a thirty year period building up quite a varied body of work including such memorable films as Mona Lisa (1986), The Crying Game (1992), Michael Collins (1996) and Breakfast on Pluto (2005). His latest film has been written by Moira Buffini, who was also responsible for another Gemma Arterton vehicle Tamara Drewe (2010), and was based on Buffini’s play A Vampire Story. It’s set in of all places (H)astings (it’s a silent H were I come from) on the South Coast of England. Aptly described in the movie as ‘the last place on the road to hell’ and certainly looks like it with its rather sinister burnt out pier.  Not the first British seaside to be as a backdrop to a movie, for example Margate in the Last Resort (2000) and Brighton in Brighton Rock (2010).

 

Even vampires need mobile phones!

This contemporary vampire tale stars the afore mentioned Gemma Arterton as Clara and Saoirse Ronan as her 16 year old daughter Eleanor, in vampire years there 200 years old, in fact Clara keeps body and soul (do vampires have souls?) together by engaging in one of the oldest professions known to man: prostitution. Mother and daughter end up in the seaside town after they are forced out of London when Clara kills a man who has been hunting them, something to do with the fact that vampire women do not have equal rights with their male counterparts! Seducing a loser called Noel (Daniel Mays) whose mother has just died leaving him a run down sea front hotel called Byzantium, now its all falling into place I hear you say, Clara turns the bankrupt establishment into a successful business, a brothel. Common sense really, lots of rooms with beds! Any way, Eleanor meantime has fallen for leukaemia stricken Frank (ideally cast Caleb Landry Jones who really does look ill) and joins him in his studies, which consequently courses problems. Although Eleanor feeds on blood she only indulges in mercy killings of elderly people and if there was a vampire heaven she would probable end up there. Suffice to say the forces of evil are closing in, in the form of Sam Riley and his coven partner of which I’ll say no more as it will spoil the story for you.

 

Clara stops for a spot of lunch.

Director of Photography Sean Bobbitt brings to whole thing to life, you may remember Mr Bobbitt from his camera work from such movies as Hunger (2008) Shame (2011) and The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), making the location, the hotel and the pier look ideally spooky. Although it boast’s some great stars, a slightly different approach to this over used genre and some interesting flash backs there’s something missing that I can’t really put my finger on. Perhaps its because it does not really feel that exciting or particularly gripping but it does get better the further into the film you get, so stick with it, unlike one lady who was sharing my midday decadence and walked out!

Don't be put off, theres some great B&B's on the South Coast.

On the Road.

It’s 1947 a struggling young writer Jack Kerouac has his life shaken and ultimately redefined when he meet’s one Neal Cassady a free-spirited, fearless, fast-talking Westerner and his girl, Marylou.  All three set out on a road-trip of self-discovery across America. It was this journey that developed the template for the middle class hippy life style and a book that made Kerouac famous. 

After watching Walter Salles's film of the same name I now realise why I only ever reached page 71 of Jack Kerouac's novel of ‘sex, jazz and freedom’ On the Road (2012). The Characters in Kerouac's mind numbing novel are collectively described as “riding the rails, hitching lifts, driving borrowed cars at a crazy hundred miles per hour. Wild parties, girls and drink and drugs. Uncertainty, loneliness and dreams synthesized by bop” More akin to a rootless bunch of criminal drifters!! These people are essentially dull and boring whom, I’m afraid, will not evoke an ounce of your empathy.

Kerouac with Neal Cassady.

The three main characters in the story are Sal Paradise a young writer played by the dreary as dishwater Sam Riley, put to better use in Control (2007) where he played Ian Curtis the singer of the late 1970’s English band Joy Division and in Brighton Rock (2010) where he portrays Pinkie, a role originally played by Richard Attenborough in the 1947 adaptation of Graham Greens novel. Secondly Dean Moriarty, a lazy feckless individual played with some conviction by Garrett Hedlund and lastly Moriarty's girlfriend Marylou portrayed by a very under-utilized Kristen Stewart (The Runaways 2010, Snow White and the Huntsman 2012)

Marylou.

It a story I felt I should have really liked, it’s influence is seen in a whole load of road movies including Easy Rider (1969) and of course Salles’s far more rewarding film The Motor Cycle Diaries (2004) about a journey taken by pre-revolutionary Ernesto Guevara. It has been said that On the Road was unfilmable; I just don’t think the story was interesting enough to film. Like the character’s, the movie loves itself too much but does not encourage the viewing public to do like wise.   

Brighton Rock

The question is of course did Pinkie Brown really grow to love Rose Wilson? Answers to be submitted to The RBC Film Club, I’m joking but you must admit it would make a good discussion.

Pinkie and Rose.

Rowan Joffe adapted for his first feature film Brighton Rock (2010) the 1938 novel of the same name by Graham Greene a story previously adapted by Greene and Terence Rattigan for the 1947 version of the movie directed and produced by the Boulting Brothers and starring Richard Attenbourgh as Pinkie a role he had performed in a West End play three years before. This film version sits at number 15 in the British Film Institute 100 List of great British films. The new Joffe version has changed the original timeline from 1930’s Brighton to the Mod and Rocker era of 1964.

Ida Arnold

Sam Riley (Joy Divisions vocalist Ian Curtis in Control 2007) plays the menacing and moody form that’s Pinkie Brown, a young murderous thug who has designs on the leadership of a low life criminal gang. Andrea Riseborough (Made in Dagenham 2010, Never Let Me Go 2010) is Rose a waitress, touching and vulnerable but with a hint of something harder, who witnesses the first steps in the demise of Mr Fred Hale. A love affair shrouded by a cloak of criminality forms between Rose and our guilt riddled Catholic, Pinkie. Ida Arnold, Fred Hale’s companion on the day of is death, is determined to solve the truth behind his murder and save the young waitress from the clutches of the evil Pinkie. The always-alluring Helen Mirren plays Ida with great panache. Other distinctive members of the cast include Andy Serkis, John Hurt and Phil Davis

This brooding British noir was very entertaining and I especially enjoyed the fact that it had been updated to an era I was familiar with and for me strengthening the narrative. My only grumble was the ending, Joffe, who also wrote The American the 2010 thriller directed by Anton Corbijn and starring George Clooney, bottled out with his sticking gramophone needle, when you see the film your know what I mean!