Category Archives: Films

Arts, Films

Film Review: Belfast (12A, 98 minutes)

REVIEW

SIR Kenneth Branagh has never made a secret of his early life. He grew up in Northern Ireland as the troubles erupted, and left at the age of nine when his working-class Protestant parents made the decision to move the family to England to escape the turmoil.

Yet, this has always seemed like a footnote to his story. With his largely autobiographical drama Belfast, for which he won a richly deserved Best Screenplay award at the Golden Globes earlier this month, he shines a spotlight on it for the first time.

Film trailer –

The result is a warm-hearted, wholly captivating film, firmly rooted in a particular time and place. It is also bewitchingly intimate, and in a way a generic tale – that of refugees through the ages.

From start to finish, it is enchantingly done. It opens with colour shots of modern-day Belfast, accompanied, as the film is throughout, by the music of Van Morrison. As the picture proceeds, it morphs into black and white to show a contented urban scene in August 1969: children playing, neighbours in friendly conversation, a community happy and content with itself, and, a young boy, Buddy – engagingly played by newcomer Jude Hill – slowly making his way home.

And in an instant, everything changes. Rioters appear, hardline Loyalists bent on driving Catholics from the mostly Protestant neighbourhood. Branagh effects a powerful 360-degree shot around the bewildered Buddy as a nasty and violent tumult invades his innocent, carefree boyhood.

Soon there are tanks rolling up Mountcollyer Street, where Buddy lives with his Ma (Caitriona Balfe) and Pa (Jamie Dornan), older brother, Will (Lewis McAskie), and paternal grandparents Granny (Dame Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciaran Hinds).

Not giving actual names to the grown-ups gives a nod to the story’s universality. It allows the viewer to relate on a personal level.

Cleverly, we see something that is especially resonant in our own pandemic-blighted times: a new normal. Family and community life go on as before, but now poisonous sectarianism finds its way into everyday dialogue: “Daddy, are you not going to be a vigilante on our barricade?”

The essence of Belfast is this transition from peace to war in the context of a little boy’s life, and that of his family. A little like John Boorman’s charming Hope and Glory (1987). Some may be inclined to ask whether the ceiling has fallen in on Buddy’s world, except, significantly, it hasn’t.

Buddy has more pressing concerns than men with guns, such as a crush on a girl in his class and a minor shoplifting rap. The bitter strife stirring in the streets isn’t even the biggest headache for his parents; there’s an onerous tax bill to pay and growing evidence that Pop’s lungs are giving out.

The relationship between Buddy and Pop is depicted with irresistible tenderness and humour. “There’s nothing wrong with an outside toilet,” says the old man, “except on an aeroplane.”

Hinds plays Pop wonderfully, but it will likely be Dench’s performance that moves you to tears, as Granny comes to terms with Ma and Pa’s painfully conflicted decision to uproot themselves.

Dornan is terrific, too; and Balfe, beguilingly bonny even when her character is in despair, will surely be in contention to lift a statuette or two before awards seasons is done.

The seam of sentimentality that runs through the picture might be too much for some people. But it will take a hardened and stony heart not to embrace it, or to balk at the occasional whimsical flourishes, such as a High Noon-style stand-off between Pa and the Loyalist thugs trying to recruit him.

It is a very enjoyable film. Van Morrison’s mostly original score is great: Branagh contrives a nice homage by having Pa back a horse called Moondance and the decision to shoot in monochrome is a masterstroke. Not least, because when the family go to the pictures, for instance to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the screen is fleetingly suffused in colour.

The cinematography presented in Belfast is a charming and effective way to show how the cinema enriches lives lived, especially back then, in shades of grey and monochrome film.

Another joy and key feature of Belfast is its brevity: just a little over ninety minutes running time.

Verdict: A small masterpiece ★★★★★

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Arts, Films

Film Review: No Time To Die (12A, 163 minutes)

FILM REVIEW

AT the start of this month, and at long last, the new Bond film opened and premiered in cinemas, almost two years late. The key four-letter word, however, is not late or even Bond – but long. At almost two and three-quarter hours, No Time To Die is the longest 007 movie ever. Your mission is to control your bladder.

As it happens, many enthusiasts will find no time to check their watches, let alone go to the loo. The drama pulsates from beginning to end, and never sags.

Film Trailer –

Director Cary Fukunaga co-wrote the screenplay with regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, with Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge brought in to add a touch of effervescence and sparkle. Together, they fill No Time To Die with references, some direct, others mischievously oblique, to previous Bond films. Either visually or verbally, there are conspicuous nods even to golden oldies such as Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever and The Spy Who Loved Me. Devotees – a far nicer word than anoraks – will undoubtedly get a big kick out of spotting them.

As well as being fun, this self-reverence – given Bond’s background – serves a purpose: we might even call it naval-gazing. It reminds us of 007’s lineage, which is clever, because in many ways, one or two of them are downright startling. Daniel Craig’s James Bond bears an ever-dwindling resemblance to Ian Fleming’s creation, and indeed to Sean Connery’s original screen interpretation.

The transformation began in Craig’s first outing as Bond, Casino Royale (2006), and continued in his subsequent three. But for his valedictory outing, the writers, and Craig himself, have gone much further. Bond in No Time To Die is still a hardened killer but also 00-woke: lovelorn, sentimental, and every bit as touchy-feely as steely.

Yet there is plenty to enjoy for Bond traditionalists. Starting with a gripping pre-titles sequence, we are whisked back in time to a French-speaking household in rural Denmark. If you discern an anti-Brexit agenda at play, you will probably not be wrong.

Then we learn how, as a child, Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux) first encountered a creepy assassin called Lyutsifer Safin, who beneath his scary mask has a horribly scarred face. Thinking back to Spectre and Skyfall, a study of recent Bond villains could sustain a whole dermatology conference.

But there is reason for Safin’s disfigurement, and, in any case, he’s bent on ensuring that millions end up in an even worse state; he’s got his evil mitts on a devastating biological weapon that targets people according to their DNA and peppers them with bubonic boils, before killing them. Brutal.

Oddly enough, the weapon has been pilfered from an MI6 lab in London, where it was being developed for slightly more benign purposes. This is a great embarrassment for M (Ralph Fiennes), who is not at all thrilled when Bond comes out of retirement in Jamaica to lend a hand, uneasily joining forces with a new crack 00-agent (Lashana Lynch).

For the first half-hour or so of the movie, this plot may well leave you baffled: as hard as you may try to understand what is going on – try explaining why Bond leaves Jamacia for Cuba, where he finds himself in a nightclub with revellers dying all around him after the release of some sort of gas and aided and abetted by a rookie CIA agent (Ana de Armas). The exposition, however, comes later, with everything becoming clear, or clear-ish. If anyone tries to tell you No Time To Die is easy to follow, get them to take a lie-detector test. It’s a complicated script.

To help you, and hopefully without adding any spoilers, it’s worth explaining that Safin’s chief target is none other than Spectre, the shadowy organisation still run from a Belmarsh prison cell by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz).

SPECTACULAR

WHY do Safin and the incarcerated Blofeld hate each other? Well, the only person the latter will confide in is sexy psychiatrist Madeleine Swann. The cinematic playfulness of No Time To Die appears to extend beyond Bond; a reference even to The Silence Of The Lambs in parts.

Dr Swann and Bond were lovers until she betrayed him. Or so he believes.

And before that he lost another lover, Vesper Lynd. He is in emotional turmoil, which, for reasons that do take us into spoiler territory, only intensifies when he and Madeleine manage to put their differences behind them, leading to an explosive denouement at Safin’s sinister island lair.

Yes, happily there is enough Bond traditionalism in No Time To Die for the baddie to have such a lair, though it’s safe to say the ending is like nothing we’ve seen before.

What we have seen before are great stunts – and there are plenty more here, even if the most spectacular of them has already been seen by millions in the trailer. Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren, whose credits include the Damien Chazelle films La La Land and First Man, has done a fantastic job, too.

There is an abundance of talent on display, led of course by Craig, who has been a terrific 007 and will be missed. But the show goes on. Who will become the next and future Bond is a question for another day.

Verdict: Complicated and baffling, but exquisite and brilliantly choreographed ★★★★

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Arts, Films

Film Review: The Father (12A)

REVIEW

Intro: Anthony Hopkins and a top-notch ensemble may touch a raw nerve in The Father, but this Oscar-winning portrait of dementia deserves its lavish accolades

UNLESS you have been oblivious to the film screen these past two months or so, you will know by now that The Father is about dementia.

Specifically, it’s about dementia as interpreted by the Oscar-winning Sir Anthony Hopkins, who also has a BAFTA to show for his endeavours.

Film Trailer –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60wDuQMJl2Q

The driving force behind this film, however, is French playwright Florian Zeller, who adapted and directed his own 2012 stage hit for the big screen. He, too, won an Academy Award and a BAFTA, shared with his accomplished co-writer Sir Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons, Atonement). The Father is not short of lavish accolades.

For the screenwriters, the question is whether audiences will adore it as much as film critics. To do so, they will need to see it, but I am not entirely sure that, with cinemas now blessedly open again, such a heartrendingly moving but fundamental film about dementia will be a wildly popular choice.

That the film is packed with thunderous resonance for so many people might count against it at the box office. Cinematic escapism, for anyone who has watched or witnessed the mental deterioration of an ageing relative or friend, it is emphatically not.

That said, it should be watched. There have been numerous films over the past decade or so in which dementia has played a central role. But even the best of them, such as Alexander Payne’s 2013 comedy Nebraska (or on television, the lacerating Elizabeth Is Missing, with Glenda Jackson), have shone a bright light on this debilitating condition from the outside looking in.

The captivating cleverness of Zeller’s film, though it only gradually dawns, is that it projects from the inside looking out.

We first encounter Anthony (Hopkins) in a handsome flat in London’s Maida Vale. His gentle middle-aged daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman), breaks it to him that she has fallen in love and is moving to Paris, so he will need a new live-in-carer. The last two, it seems, have quit.

Anthony, though sweet and mellow one moment, can be cruel and cantankerous the next. Looking after him is clearly a challenge. Every time he mislays his watch, he is certain someone has stolen it.

But there is still evidence of his intelligence and charisma. He is soothed, too, by classical music. Then he meets a man in his flat, Paul (Mark Gatiss), who claims to be Anne’s husband.

Anthony breaks it to him that she has met someone else and is relocating to Paris. “Oops-a-daisy,” he adds, childishly amused by his own mischief-making.

Then it sems that the flat is not his apartment at all but belongs to Anne and Paul. Did she really mention Paris? As Zeller continues to undermine our certainties, he plays even with the casting as he introduces Olivia Williams and Rufus Sewell as the daughter and son-in-law, it becomes clear what he is doing.

We’re experiencing Anthony’s confusion ourselves. This device gathers pace and intensity, but never in a mannered or laboured way. It is very adroitly handled.

II

THROUGHOUT it all, it is impossible to take your eyes off Hopkins, even with such a splendid cast of characters around him. There’s an almost upbeat scene when Laura (Imogen Poots) arrives to be interviewed for the carer’s job, and Anthony dazzled by her youth and prettiness, becomes flirtatious. “Ding dong,” he says, coming over all Leslie Phillips.

He declares that Laura reminds him of his other daughter, Lucy, the one he never sees yet who remains his favourite. Then, having beguiled Laura with charm, he crushes her with cruelty.

It is a mesmerisingly powerful performance, the throbbing heart (and ailing mind) of a beautifully observed film.

The Father might not entirely resonate with everyone who has seen the pitilessness of dementia. This family, for example, is ineffably middle-class and affluent, with no suggestion that anyone needs to worry about the financial implications of Anthony’s increasing needs. Also, the Poots character, for someone meant to have a record of caring for old people, seems strangely clueless.

Despite these minor gripes, The Father is well worth all the acclaim that has been heaped upon it.

Verdict: Fully deserving of the acclaim ★★★★

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