Bone Tomahawk.

This infuriating nonsense starts when two particularly unpleasant bushwhackers get disturbed during there bloodthirsty work and run off into the surrounding wilderness only to stumble into a sacred Indian burial ground which these two ignorant human beings desecrate. In the following fracas one is killed while the other flees to the nearby town of Bright Hope and is subsequently jailed by the sheriff. During the following night strange things happen and it ends up with the deputy sheriff and Samantha, the assistant doctor, being abducted. The local token Indian recognises an arrow that the abductees have left behind and informs the sheriff that it belongs to a nameless tribes of troglodytes, which incidentally means 'cave dwellers', from somewhere called the 'Valley of Starving Men'. Up pops a posse to form a rescue party that has to include Samantha's husband who spends the rest of the film hobbling about on one leg due to an accident.

The slowness of the film gets worst when the posse lose their horses and have to walk to starving men's valley. Once they arrive all sorts of nasty things happen, with various members of the party getting their comeuppance for appearing in this daft movie. Normally i like westerns but not this one. I suppose to be fair the cast doesn’t make a bad job; mind you most are seasoned performers that include Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins, Patrick Wilson and Matthew Fox. Directed and written by S. Craig Zahler who also composed the films soundtrack. If I'm correct this is the former cinematographer’s debut directorial outing and whose next movie goes by the title of Brawl in Cell Block 99, maybe I’ll give that a miss, and please don’t be fooled by what’s written on the Bone Tomahawk (2015) poster!

Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

When asked why he made a documentary about the lives of vampires What We Do in the Shadows (2014) New Zealand director and writer Taika Waititi responded by saying  ‘I always liked the idea that vampires were a metaphor for marginalised groups; immigrants, homosexuals, anyone who’s had to live in the shadows of society.’  His latest movie Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) is also about people marginalised by society.

Child Welfare!

This time we are in modern day New Zealand, a police car draws up outside a remote farm on the edge of the bush country, a young 13 year old boy Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) emerges from the vehicle along side the child welfare officer Paula (Rachel House) and Andy (Oscar Kightley) a police man. Ricky has been in foster care all his young life after his mother abandoned him, never really settling into any of his foster homes and is described by Paula as a troublesome juvenile delinquent. This latest placement is with the kind hearted Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and her rather grumpy husband Hec (brilliantly played by the great Sam Neill). The bond between Bella and Ricky develops at a pace and the young boy begins to settle into his new home. That is until Bella suddenly passes away and Child Services informs Hec that because of the change in circumstances the lad must be returned into their care. Ricky fakes his death and runs away into the bush along with Tupac the dog that Bella has given him for his birthday.  He gets lost and is unable to cope until Hec finds him with the intension of returning him to the authorities but when Hec injures his leg the pair have to rest up in the bush for some weeks. Meanwhile Paula has returned to the farm to look for the boy and finds the place empty and the barn burnt down. She immediately jumps to the conclusion that Hec has become unstable following the death of his wife and has abducted the boy. A national manhunt ensues with a reward being offered for the return of Ricky.

 

Ricky meets the kindly Bella.

Hec and Ricky go walkabout. 

Adapted by the director from a book Wild Pork and Watercress by author Barry Crump it’s a story about human nature and how two very different lost souls, one an institutionalised child who thinks he’s a budding young gangster and the other a bush hardened old man who can’t read and write and would rather be on his own and not have to speak to anyone, who form a respectful and loving father and son type relationship. This is a gorgeous movie that allows compassion and feeling while entertaining its audiences with a brilliantly funny dialog and a wonderfully over the top climax. This can be seen on Netflix as well as DVD so there’s no excuse not to see this wonderful rare feel-good movie that does not need a sick bucket. 

Les Invisibles.

It took French director Sebastien Lifshitz 18 months to interview the people involved in his documentary Les Invisibles (2012). This dignified piece of filmmaking involves eleven men and women born between the end of WW1 and the beginning of WW2. These people are now in the latter years of their lives and openly relate their personnel histories to camera. 

Seemingly having nothing in common - other than their sexual preference. All these interviewees grew up in a period of intolerance towards homosexuality, a less open period towards honesty of feelings. The revealing nature of their personnel experiences is done in a very dignified manner and does not lack sincerity. What we get is a portrait of gay and lesbian life from an older generation that we are unused to hearing from, which in its self makes this documentary a refreshing change. But in the end it’s a rather sad portrait about people who were forced to live their lives as a lie, unable to tell family or friends about their true feelings and afraid of admitting there preferred sexuality. One of the things that arise out of the filmed interviews is the loneliness of most of those taking part. Although at times very fascinating the documentary tends to labour the same point because the participants had more or less the same story to tell. The run time of nearly two hours could have a little shorter and a little more archive footage would of helped.

-->

Trainspotting 1996.

21 years ago a very black comedy drama film was released that was said to have captured what it meant to be Scottish for a generation of twenty something’s which is summed up in Mark ‘Rent Boy’ Renton’s famous Rannoch Moor speech:

“It's shite being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by. We're ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference!”

 

The famous Rannoch Moor speech.

This movie could never be mistaken for anything other than a Scottish film and was adapted by John Hodges from the Irvine Welsh 1993 novel of the same name, never an easy task. Trainspotting (1996) is a starkly bleak warning about the drug culture at that time offering very little hope for the youth of Edinburgh let alone the rest of Scotland. At that time most of the rural small towns and villages were having problems with drug taking and in some instances serious addiction. You only had to glance at a local paper to see the results of drug related crime, possession and even the obituary column included the death of young people due to excess drug taking and related illnesses.   

The nightmare of drug addiction.

Unless you have been living on a far away planet for the past twenty plus years I’m sure your quite familiar with the story which revolves around various character’s involved in or on the periphery of Edinburgh’s 1980/90’s drug scene. The main man is Mark Renton known as Rent Boy (Ewan McGregor in what I still think is his best role) an addict who tries desperately to give up his habit, the problem is he shares his life with like minded people who will do anything for a hit. There’s casual dealer Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and Spud (Ewen Bremner) a natural born loser.  Also involved is the psychopath and small time villain Begbie (Robert Carlyle) a man who gets his kicks from acts of violence. 

 

Can we really run away from our responsibilities? 

Never my favourite director Danny Boyle must be given credit for what was at the time angry cutting edge cinema with a soundtrack to match that included some grand pop tunes from the 1980’s and 90’s including Iggy Pops Lust for Life, Lou Reeds Perfect Day and the Underworld anthem Born Slippy.  It’s a cinematic experience that makes you bulk at the disgusting, ‘the worse toilet in Scotland’ and the ultra sad death of a baby at the same time as admiring the wit that eases out of Hodges non-judgemental script. It has a great supporting cast including Kevin McKidd, Peter Mullan, Shirley Henderson and Kelly Macdonald in her first film role. Now quite rightly regarded as one of the best British films of the nineties and certainly worth a revisit if for no other reason than to realise how the wankers are still treating the Scottish people. Hopefully the new film T2 is just as brilliant and gives us more hope?

Ali: Fear Eats The Soul.

Following nearly a year spent working on TV series; TV films and theatre Rainer Werner Fassbinder made what is now regarded as one of his most critically acclaimed and best-loved works and one which won the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Fear Eats The Soul (1974) is basically a simple story involving a North African 'gastarbeiter' who gets romantically involved with a much older woman. But what we really get is a study of racial and sexual attitudes that have not really changed much over the years. In fact RWF sets out to prove two things, happiness is not always fun and love gives you the strength to rise above everything - did the director succeed and does happiness lie outside of society? I think that is up to viewers to decide for themselves, and at the same time ask the question: does any generation actually learn from its past sins?

Emmi, the wonderful Brigitte Miral, is a widowed hard working cleaning lady in her sixties who has three grown up children. When she takes shelter from a rainstorm in a local bar frequented by Moroccan immigrants she meets Ali (El Hedi Ben Salem) who is in his thirties. Egged on by his friends Ali asked Emmi to dance and immediately this lonely pair have feelings for one another. Shortly after this first encounter they get married.

 

Will outside pressures spoil the happiness of the couple?

This simple act of companionship leads to outrage from her family, her friends and her work colleagues that RWF brilliantly relates on the screen. The most moving and outrages scene is when Emmi calls for a meeting with her children and son in law (played by Fassbinder) to introduce her new husband. The aggression shown by her family is bigotry displayed at its very worst. We also witness open racism from a local shopkeeper, how she is sent to Coventry by work mates that have known her for years and the ignorant folk she shares her apartment block with. This relentless barrage eventually gets to her and the married couple decide to go away on holiday together hoping that things would have changed by their return. Things do change but not quite in the way that Emmi envisaged.

 

Emmi and ....

.... and Ali.

Allegedly based on the premise of the Douglas Sirk film All That Heaven Allows (1955) which is about a love affair between an affluent widow (Jane Wyman) and her much younger gardener (Rock Hudson) again much to the disgust of her family and friends. Fassbinder used this as the basis of his script but introduced a wider age gap and the racial element making it an all round stronger and more poignant story line.  RWF had previously used a similar story to Fear Eats The Soul in The American Soldier (1970) in which the chambermaid’s story involves our two main characters.

RWF is well known for writing his scripts with a cast in mind adjusting the characters to fit the actor who plays the part, which I suspect is similar to what Ken Loach does when casting his films.  Therefore we get a sense of character realism.  According to Viola Shafiks documentary My Name is Not Ali (2011), that forms part of the Blu-Ray release of the film, El Hedi Ben Salem m'Barek Mohammed Mustafa, actually the actor’s real name virtually plays himself. She also tells us that he first met Fassbinder in a Parisian cafe in 1972 and shortly after become his lover. But as with Fassbinder's relationships did not end well hanging himself in a French prison cell in 1977 after receiving a sentence for stabbing three people in a fit of rage in a Berlin bar shortly after he finished making Fear Eats The Soul. The 1982 film Querelle was dedicated to the director’s former lover.

An interview with DOP Juergen Jurges reveal's that after three weeks of meticulous planning the movie was shot in between13 to 15 weeks on a very limited budget of 260000 DM. Which in no way detracts from the genius of the auteur's direction. The truth of this movie, as I have mentioned previously, is how relevant this film is today. With a kerb on migrants coming to live and work in the UK being the main reason given by the English for wanting the leave the EU. Are we going to improve our attitudes? Its certainly doubtful with the surge in popularity of right wing politics across the world, the election of Donald Trump in America and English media employing openly bigoted people like Nigel Farage on LBC radio and Katie Hopkins a columnist in The Sun newspaper who described migrants as "cockroaches" and "feral humans" and no mankind never learns from its past sins.  

Victoria.

If there is a problem with Sebastian Schipper fourth feature film its the movies plausibility, if you can ignore its rather incredible plot then I’m sure you will enjoy the movie. Victoria (2015) is really the story of how a wee Spanish girl, Victoria of the title, who loses her innocence over a 24 hour period. She has recently moved to Berlin and has got a job doing the early shift at a coffee shop in Mitte area of the German capital. When this rather lonely young woman leaves a nightclub in the early hours of the morning she meets up with four young lads who are out on the razzle and offer to show her the 'real Berlin' One of which Sonne (Frederick Lau who you may of seen in Die Welle 2008 or 2012's Oh Boy) takes an immediate liking to her. The five of them steal alcohol from an all night shop in which the owner has dropped off to sleep and then go on a tour of the late night city streets and visit their rooftop hideaway to smoke some dope. The movie now develops a change of pace when one of the four lads, Boxer (Franz Rogowski) an ex-con has to repay a debt to a gangster who protected him while he was inside. They are tasked with an armed bank heist in which Victoria (played by the wonderful Spanish actress Laia Costa) is persuaded to drive the getaway vehicle.  When the robbery inevitably goes wrong we witness how this shy lonely young girl take's command of the situation during a bloody shootout with the German police.

 

Victoria and Sonne.

Other than being an enjoyable cinematic experience, well acted by a great young cast where most of the dialogue is improvised, winning lots of awards in a country that makes great movies, it's main claim to fame is the fact that it was shot at night in one long continuous take by Sturla Brandth Grovlen, certainly a difficult task for a film that has a running time of 138 minutes but it work’s and draws you into the story and does not let you go until the credits appear. But as the director has said his movie was intended as a film not a stunt and in my humble opinion he has succeeded.