Scary Monsters, Super Freaks

Let's be honest here- despite the fact that I'm studying Digital Film and Television, there's no way I'm going to be handed the keys to the kingdom straight away when I graduate. I'm not going to be given control of a big-budget blockbuster. Just like with any other industry, you have to be willing to put the work in and be willing to start at the bottom. Still, it's nice when every once in a while, a little indie comes along that holds its own with the big boys.

We found ourselves with a few spare hours in between class last week and decided to saunter across to Cineworld and see what was on. It was a week of slim cinematic pickings- hence why once again I haven't made as much use of my Cineworld card as I told my mum I would when she got it for me. But anyway. We opted for Monsters, which I didn't know a great deal about... but the poster put me in mind of The Crazies, which I really enjoyed, so I figured it couldn't be all bad.
I haven't yet seen Cloverfield- well, that's a lie. I've seen about 15 minutes of the third act. It seems to be the recent yardstick by which all recent monster movies are based, which is most irritating. It really infuriates me when speights of films jump on the genre bandwagon, as every new one which comes along is always a little bit worse than the one which came before it. I put this to the back of my mind since I knew literally NOTHING about what we were about to see, and for this I think I was actually able to enjoy it alot more. The opening scene, of a group of US soldiers in Mexico, is all night-vision shaky cam and for a while I was worried we were about to see Cloverfield Part 36. Thankfully though, once we met our protagonists, all was resolved.

The Mexico of this film is a country divided- but not by any political means. Six years prior to the film's opening, NASA sent a space probe to Mars to look into evidence of extra-terrestrial life. The probe broke apart over Mexico, and shortly new life forms began to appear. Half of the country is quarantined as an 'infected zone'- but unfortunately for US photographer Andrew, it's the half that lies between him and going home. When Andrew's boss asks him to escort his daughter to the ferry back to America, he begrudgingly accepts. One drunken regret later and they have no choice but to head home the long way.

The rest is more of a road movie than a shlocky creature feature, which made for a pleasant surprise. There are only really two members of cast, Andrew and his 'ward' Sam. The two characters have a really natural charisma between them and their relationship develops really naturally. Sam is engaged, but she seems unhappy, Andrew is estranged from his young son and they're both stuck in a foreign danger zone alone. Even though the outcome of their relationship is obvious, you also really want it to happen because it feels like it should. There is a tangible chemistry between the two characters and their initial caution soon gives way to playful banter. I'd have felt cheated if they hadn't gotten together- and I was even more impressed to learn that the script was, for the most part, non-existent. The pair were simply given a brief description of the scene and played it out as they felt it should be. (An effect ruined slightly by learning that they're actually a real-life couple...but still, good on them).

The dialogue isn't the only thing that's ad-libbed about Monsters, mind you. The supporting cast were all locals who volunteered to take part, and locations were used on-the-run. The professional crew consisted of only two people too. I find something really appealing about this guerilla type of film making- it makes the medium far more accessible. Director Gareth Edwards is an established visual effects artist, true, but the 'monsters' are actually almost secondary to the developing relationship of the characters. That said, when they do turn up they're impressive- relief! They sort of look like giant electrical squids... and despite the title suggesting otherwise, they don't take up alot of screen time. The problem with other monster movies such as Jeepers Creepers is that the build up is better than the actual creature- when you see it you wonder what the hell you were waiting for. Sometimes no screen time is better, but thankfully with Monsters this isn't the case.

So not your typical horror then. The film is unique in that it launches you into the middle of the action, then the rest is a bit of a slow burner, but it works. The slightly-shaky camera never looks cheap or gimmicky, and there are plenty of gorgeous shots of the Mexican rainforest. One particular favourite shot of mine was when Sam and Andrew are sitting on a pyramid looking at the wall between them and home- it just looks stunning. If you're looking for something a bit different from your creature features, this is it. I just hope it doesn't spawn too many rubbish imitations... but then again, the one good thing about them is how much better they make the original look. Now, I'm off to find myself a Super-8 camera and a dog sized Godzilla costume. Think it'll work...?

A Dozen Ragin' Dudes, One Hell Of A Movie

There's alot to be said for super-long, cripplingly dull bus journeys. When I had to make the 4-hour journey back and forth between Aberdeen and Glasgow, it gave me alot of free time to read the kinds of books I'd normally only buy just to look 'cool'. Sadly my childlike attention span meant I never got much further than however much I'd read on the journey, although some did stick with me... Peter Biskind's sort-of-trilogy for one (three?). Seeing Is Believing was mostly concerned with the 1950s, which I felt MUST be important since it was full of references to very important films I'd almost heard of, but never seen.

I read the chapter on Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men then immediately watched the film. I loved everything about it, especially after reading about it, although I did categorise it alongside Citizen Kane- one of those films you watch only every once in a while, to remind you of why you like it. Recently, Auld Sid's name has popped up in our Cinema History classes with Andy too, so I geeked out and got his book Making Movies out of the library. It's really interesting, concise, and Lumet comes across as a very likeable- but knowledgeable- guy. Once again, I skimmed some things he said about 12 Angry Men, which got me all excited to see it again. I knew the outcome, but I'd left it long enough between viewings that I'd totally forgotten how everything played out.

The basic plot involves a jury deciding the fate of an 18 year old Hispanic boy, from a poor slum area of New York, who is being tried for the seemingly open and shut murder of his father. We only see one shot of the boy's face, as the twelve jurors are escorted from the courtroom, and we know nothing about him. In fact, we know nothing about any of the characters. The next 90 minutes take place within the confines of one room, as the men try to reach a decision on the boy's fate. Eleven of them opt for 'guilty' straight away, after a few hurried introductions and small talk. Crucially though, none of the jurors' names are ever revealed. One dissenter (Henry Fonda) argues that since a 'guilty' verdict will entail the death penalty, they should at least discuss it.

I know, doesn't exactly sound thrill-a-minute huh? Well, surprisingly, it is. The film tricks you, kind of... It's an 'alternative' courtroom drama, focussed on the behind-the-scenes preconceptions of the jurors. Twelve men in one room, for 90 minutes, is a tricky thing to keep fresh, but the film pulls it off with aplomb. The dialogue and tautly-wound structure ensure that we only learn information as the characters do. Looking back on the first week of term with Richard, we learned about the importance of 'who knows what'... and here, we don't find out anything easily. It's a brilliant move that means we don't have any preconceptions either. We know the accused boy as well as the jurors do, and we know them as well as they do each other. As the story unfolds and personal prejudices and backgrounds are brought to the fore, tempers and patience begin to run thin. Henry Fonda's eloquent dissenter never loses his own temper, but tries to coax the remaining men using logic and dispelling prejudice.

The 'trick' here is that it ends up being completely different to what we thought we were in for... once you've seen one courtroom drama, you can tell how the next one's going to go. Here, however, we have no idea whatsoever. The performances are uniformly excellent, despite not being familiar with most of the cast. Each character is so firmly rooted in their own beliefs and opinions that it's hard to see how one man will be able to convince them all to have a change of heart. In a sense, it's a mystery/thriller too, the whole way through I was on the edge of my seat despite having seen it already. As each of the men begin to come round to Fonda's logic, it is revealed how their own backstories have influenced their decisions, opinions or lack thereof. The biggest revelation is Lee J Cobb who's feverish backing of the 'guilty' verdict stems from his fractured relationship with his only son. Nothing is played out for sympathy, and we're not given huge spoonfuls of exposition...

...instead we are given no more information than what any juror usually would. This is part of the film's brilliance, I think, as it means we are left to make up our own minds. There is a subtle shift from courtroom drama/whodunnit to in depth character study; each of the complex personalities of each of the jurors, and how they interact with one another, reveal why they've come to their respective decisions. It's seemingly simple, but despite a potentially dull premise my attention never wavered once. Subtle changes in the different lenses also helped with the shifting focus between all of the jurors. Admittedly I probably wouldn't have noticed this fully unless it had been pointed out to me, but thankfully it had. The room stays the same size yet to us gets bigger, more claustrophobic, contains twelve men or is focussed on one. Despite the characters not being distinguishable by name, we're never unsure about who's making a point.

OK, so it's perhaps not light viewing, but as a piece of film-making this is a classic. The tension cleverly mounts for the whole duration of the film, meaning the climax has an emotional gut-punch that takes you by surprise, even if you've guessed how it might end. Confusing? Maybe. But then, so is the intricacy of human nature and personal belief, and that's what is really on trial here. The morality of the film is not thumpingly heavy-handed, but played out with clever reason and logic, and for that reason this is a film which rightfully deserves its place as an all-time great.

Production, Or Why I Couldn't Do An Office Job

Oh, the weather outside is frightful... and I'm getting a bit bloody sick of all this snow. Honestly, I don't care if I never see another flake of snow again. In fact, if Bing Crosby himself were to chap my door and start singing White Christmas he'd be getting a severe case of door-in-the-face.

Still, being snowed in has meant I have some time to catch up on blogging in between turning 24 (sob!) and standing about freezing bus stops desperately waiting for a bus that will never show. I've fallen behind on the old reflective blogging which I have absolutely no excuse for- especially now that it doesn't seem like I'm going to be going anywhere for the time being!

This year has been a bit of a frantic catch-up, since half of us spent the first month of term in Delhi. We've been getting full-on weeks of classes, starting with writing with Richard, then editing with Aldo and finally production with Abigail. I'll start with production, since it was the most recent...

It was never my strong point last year; it seemed to me to be like the film equivalent of an office job. Still, working on the grads, plus ours and the 2nd years' end of term films showed me first hand how much work producers actually have to do. It's alot of running around after people and requires an incredible amount of patience- plus having a car helps too, I'd imagine.

I don't want to be too quick to dismiss anything that could potentially be a career path for me in the future- after all, the other week I even managed to log all of my clips from last month's fashion show ALL BY MYSELF. Proud of myself or what! It just shows that if you put your mind to something and look pathetic enough that tutors think you need help at every turn, you can really do it. This year, though, production classes seemed to focus more on production 'management'... which involves a hefty amount of paperwork and seemed more like a crach course in using the various programmes on OfficeWorks than anything else. We mostly went over everything we did last year, and I found the whole thing incredibly dry.

We had to go into groups, pick a script and make a production folder consisting of a synopsis, production requirements, script breakdown, stripboard schedule, budget, paperwork checklist... SERIOUSLY?? A checklist for PAPERWORK?? Obviously working on a feature film, or even a short film, is a huge organisational undertaking, but I simply don't have the patience for it. When it comes to things like script breakdown sheets, I can do them no problem, so it's not a case of competence- it's just that it's SO repetitive, once you've done a few you can do an entire script's worth in record time. It just doesn't seem to leave much room for creativity- when I was about halfway through my stack of script pages I was so bored I wanted to claw my own skin off.

I do feel like if I were out in charge of this side of a production I could do it, and probably do it well. It's one of the few things I picked up quickly, but it reminded me of being in school. Whenever I'd finish something and find it relatively easy I'd get bored and start acting up. As much as I like to think I've grown up from being the class clown of my high school, I felt the same need for a challenge. At the end of the week we had an assessment, which for the first time saw us cloistered around a table in the library frantically reading over notes. Luckily for me it was essay questions- I was always good at these in school since I'd write paragraphs of spiel to make sure I'd covered EVERYTHING. If it were multiple choice I'd have probably been sitting nose-deep in a brown paper bag.

Overall then, I can safely say that this particular migraine-inducing class, while it may be an essential job, is not one for me. I'd just feel frustrated at outting so much work into something that I wouldn't have a huge deal on creative control over. Plus, I found it hard to even put all of my tips from work into a coffee jar to try and save them up- anyone who expected me to be able to produce a budget and manage to get funding secured would be as crazy as I feel after a week of ripping paper into strips.

Edit This!

Editing. One word guaranteed to strike fear into my heart right up until the end of last year. After spending an afternoon teaching myself Adobe Premier in college before editing our 5-minute, production-value-free film, I thought I'd be able to pick up new software in my stride. Dead easy, I thought. But nooooo. Last year I had migraines for the first time in 3 years- once after our question & answer editing assessment, and the second after our practical assessment. Then in the second term, our classes kind of... dried up. I sort of assumed that'd be it, as follow up classes never really happened and before long we were involved in other projects anyway.

I was quite happy to learn that Final Cut was getting launched in favour of Avid this year- for me, if I don't understand something, my preferred option is to start all over again and TRY not to fall behind in something new. We also had a new tutor, which was a double bonus because he wouldn't know how I was the last to leave on both nights we were editing our 'Home' films and it's STILL not finished.

The first two days of editing were a nightmare. I didn't 'get' anything, the 9am start was a sucker-punch to my insomniac system and trying to keep up I felt like I was running through mud. At the end of Monday and Tuesday I felt behind, which made me feel really horrible... like I was especially thick and couldn't understand something that no one else looked like they had a problem with.

By Wednesday however, things started to fall into place for me. I had tapes that needed captured and I was determined to learn how to do it on my own. I felt if I could do this for myself it would be a huge achievement for me. Cue inspirational montage music and images of me frantically pointing, clicking, nodding and taking notes.



After a most heinous start to the week, I finally started to keep up- or at least, I knew what to do a few seconds after it had been done on the big projector screen, rather than several minutes/weeks. It helped that Aldo seemed really enthusiastic about what he was talking about, and his knowledge on the subject was crazy. Plus he threw in a nice wee picture of Charlotte Gainsbourg in one of his slideshows- never a bad thing, IMHO. We also covered audio-editing a little bit, which was interesting for me. The Ross studied music technology at college and I think I may have bored the rear-end off him in trying to impress with my new-found knowledge.

On Friday, we had our third-ever sound class with Cammy. For this we were split into three groups, ours being the first up. After some confusion of time, my group (Me, Lucy, Meg, Dilara and Murray) finally got underway and we got to have a wee fondle of the equipment. Sadly because of time constraints we didn't have time to actually go out and practise with it, although the smaller class certainly made a difference. I felt as though it was easier to ask questions and I wasn't holding anyone back by doing so. I think sound is pretty interesting, if it involved getting to work on sound FX and things like that- but no way could I see myself being able to hold a boom-pole for lengthy periods of time. Unless I figured out some way to hold it underarm, thus freeing up my other hand for cigarettes and coffee. Despite our weeks of training in Delhi, sadly I have lost pretty much all the tone that tose three weeks of constant running about gave and I've gone back to being 'soft'... if we'd had sound on our first week back, I guarantee I'd have TOTALLY rocked it. Sadly, we'll never know...

As for those tapes I had to capture... Well, after a good 2 hours sitting in the DTU cringing at some shots. congratulating myself on others (although I'm sure our tutors would have other words to say about this... I hope not though!) and generally squinting until I could barely see in an effort to focus/concentrate, I managed to get them all logged! :D cue overly-enthusiastic victory dance and air-punching. Sadly since Gav was away that week, I couldn't get the external hard drive off of him to they're still not fully captured. For now though, I'm more than happy with myself for what I've done so far. And only a year behind everyone else!

You'll Need An Exorcist After This...

You know you're onto a bad thing when you watch a sequel to a film that you weren't aware had a sequel. Especially when it's a bonafide classic. I wasn't aware until after watching The Omen that it was actually a trilogy. I didn't know there were sequels to Jaws. And I most certainly wasn't aware that there was an attempt to follow up what has been deemed as the Scariest Scary Film Of All Time- The Exorcist.

Now, I personally found The Omen to be far scarier than The Exorcist and I thought it was pretty overrated in the horror stakes. But it's still a good film, and I imagine my lack of being scared is only due to the none-more-1970s special effects. If I hadn't been brought up in an age of more advanced special effects and CGI, I'd probably have been terrified. I still like it though, and I can see how it would've been controversial on its release. With Exorcist II: The Heretic, the only controversy comes from asking why it was allowed to be made.
It had been recommended to me by a friend who's possibly one of the biggest horror buffs I know. I naturally assumed it was some kind of unsung lost classic, waiting to be discovered. It had Richard Burton, aka The Man With The World's Greatest Voice, and Paul 'Casablanca' Henreid in it, plus a return from Linda Blair and even James Earl Jones dressed up like a giant locust. Louise Fletcher, whose Oscar-winning turn in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was voted A.F.I's 5th greatest villain of all time, was taking over the 'mother' role. All of this was directed by John Boorman, the guy who changed the way we feel about hillbillies and banjos in Deliverance. What could possibly be wrong with it?

It didn't take long for me torealise that there was a reason why no one really mentioned this follow-up in the same breath as the original. Or any breath, for that matter. It took me as long as it took to watch the original 1977 theatrical trailer on the DVD...



Take that, horror fans!!

As you can see it's... it's not great. But being the persevering soul that I am- not to mention it was a slow TV night- we decided to stick the film on anyway and see how we got on. This was our first mistake. Everything in the trailer told me there was nothing good about this film... but surely it's unfair to judge an entire movie by two minutes of trailer?

Well, sometimes, it is. This sequeal takes everything that was original, frightening and, y'know, WATCHABLE about the original and throws it out the window. The story itself is pretty standard sequel fare. Reagan Macneill is now 17 and seemingly fairly normal, given her less-than-traditional childhood experiences. In fact, she doesn't even remember them, dismissing them as "being really sick and having nightmares". Her mother is away on business, since Ellen Burstyn wisely decided to opt out, so in her place Reagan makes frequent trips to see psychologist Dr Gene Tuskin. Initially Reagan fails to see the point in the therapy sessions but goes to appease her mohter, until her nightmares begin to come back. In between tap dancing, pigeon-keeping, bending spoons and curing a girl of autism (seriously), she decides to take the doctor's advice and use a new-fangled machine to draw out her memories using hypnosis. Meanwhile, Richard Burton is Father Phillip Lamont, who's been sent by the Cardinal (Paul Henreid) to investigate the death of original exorcist Father Merrin. He gets to know Reagan, before his quest takes him to Africa to meet another victim of possession.

So far, so 'part two'. The problem with this film is that it tries far too hard to be serious and po-faced, but all the while its scientfic trump card is the good doctor's own invention- the 'synchronizer'. Basically, it involves Reagan and the doctor wearing silly-looking headbands with wires hooked up to them. Reagan then stares into a lightbulb listening to some kind of whale sound which gets deeper and deeper until her eyes roll back into her head. This apparently means she's under hypnosis, and Dr Tuskin can similarly put herself under and see into Reagan's memory. It's a tricky process which goes a little like this...
"Can you see your room in Washington, Reagan?" "No" "Look deeper. Can you see it now?" "Yes"

Pictured above- Science.


The hypnosis reveals that the demon which possessed Reagan- named Pazuzu, because presumably the film wasn't ridiculous enough- is still lurking inside her. Not only that, but it bumped off poor Father Merrin by FINGERING HIS HEART TO DEATH. Yes, this apparently great man who had fended off heinous demons in far off lands was killed by being tickled into a coronary. After this, Father Richard Burton makes his way to Africa to meet a young boy cursed by the worst edit point I have ever seen.. I mean eh, afflicted by a demon. I can't find the clip online, but trust me, following a shot of a 'possessed' face quickly spliced with a 'normal' face does not make up for a lack of good special effects.

Rather than trying to 'juxtapose' science and religion cleverly, this film's way of doing so is rather like having neeps and tatties and mashing them with a fork like a child. As you can see from the picture, the doctor's room is all glass. When the demon appears reflected in the glass, we also see Father Lamont's reflection next to Dr Tuskin's actual physical presence. Do you see? It's because science is PHYSICALLY GROUNDED IN FACT while religion is METAPHYSICAL. Imagine someone beating you around the face with Darwin's Origin of Species and The Bible at the same time.

Usually films with seemingly ludicrous premises can be made passable if the performances are good, but as you probably expect, they are not. Linda Blair has certainly done a good job growing up, but she seems aloof and weirdly childlike. Richard Burton at least has the good grace to look embarrassed, and is responsible for many of the film's most unintentionally hilarious moments. Fair enough, since he only signed on because he was contractually obliged to. His reactions to seeing an exorcism first hand involve some world class sweating and gasping though, I'll give him that.

For all of its many...many...flaws, there are some good things about this film. One scene involving a plague of locusts is particularly impressive, despite being stuffed in between what looks like some stock photos of Africa. The music is also effective, composed by the legendary Ennio Morricone who scored, among other thing, The Untouchables. Sadly, this isn't enough to make this film any better than a poorly executed, horribly acted and frighteningly un-scary pile of old tosh. From now on I'll stick to the originals... I heard that The Exorcist 3 is pretty scary too, but I'm not willing to try it out to see if this is true. I don't think my poor eyes can take anymore car-crash cash-ins. As far as sequels go, this is as far removed from the original as it's possible to get. In saying that, I'm a tiny bit intrigued by The Omen 2... it can't be any worse than this surely?

Mad, RED And Dangerous To Know

It's always disappointing when a film fails to live up to the sum of its parts. One of the many, many films I watched over the summer, Cop Out, seemed like it was onto a winner- directed by Kevin Smith, the slacker-comedy King of the 1990s, and starring Bruce Willis- no stranger to a witty smirk/action comedy- and Tracy Morgan, from the brilliant 30 Rock, it came with quite a pedigree. And then it started. It didn't take me long to realise that someone had forgotten to put any jokes into this comedy. Not only that, but I had the sudden sad realisation that Kevin Smith just isn't funny anymore. He's not even particularly relevant anymore. Tracy Morgan's shouty man-child act has been done to death by Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence, and Bruce Willis phoned in a one-note side-smirk performance that indicated he wasn't there to play anyone other than Bruce Willis.

Brucey Baby followed this up with a(nother) smirking, self-referential cameo in The Expendables, and when I first saw the trailer for Red, I wasn't exactly brimming with excitement. Still, when I read that it was based on a graphic novel and also starred Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and John MALKATRAZ, I was definitely hooked. Even if Bruce relied on his usual 'good guy having a bad day' schtick, the rest of the cast would more than make up for it.
It's good to know that even in these times of economic hardship, there is still work available to those who are willing to look for it. Even those who are past 'working age', as it were, are still more than capable of flower-arranging, putting up Christmas lights and... assassination? Not exactly something you'd picture your granny doing, but that's the beauty of comic books- anything can happen.

Bruce is Frank Moses, an bored ex-CIA agent who spends his days reading romance novels chatting on the phone to Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a call centre worker who deals with lost federal pension cheques. Of course the cheques aren't lost- Frank just likes the company, and when we meet them, the pair have clearly struck up some kind of over-the-phone rapport. His neighbours in suburban Cleveland, Ohio think he was just an analyst for the CIA. So far, so normal.

Frank's idyllic, albeit stiflingly boring, retirement plans are rudely interrupted when a gang of masked assassins break into his house in the middle of the night, and shoot the place to pieces. Quite literally. Annoying, no? Frank's reaction is to drive to Kansas and pick up Sarah, as their frequent conversations have made her a target too. Something in Frank's past has made him a target- he knows something, and he knows too much. He sets off on a road trip of sorts, recruiting his old crew along the way. Joe (Morgan Freeman) spends his time ogling young nurses in his retirement home, Marvin (John Malkovich) is hiding out in the Florida Everglades living underground, intensely paranoid about satellites after 11 years of secretly being given LSD, and Victoria (Helen Mirren) is running a B&B and enjoys flower-arranging. And, in her own words, 'taking on the odd hit on the side'.

Needless to say age hasn't dimmed their special skills at all and the gang are only too happy to hop back on the bandwagon and kick ass one last time. As they find themselves deeper involved in old government secrets and up against their former employers, the body count and cameos come thick and fast- also joining in are Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfuss (wow, is this guy irritating or what?) and even Ernest Borgnine makes an appearance. It may not be the most intelligent thriller and the storyline seems a little on the slight side- in fact it mostly seems to be there as a convenient way to pass time in between high-octane set pieces. Still, the cast put their all into their performances. Bruce seems far more comfortable here than in the aformentioned awfulness of Cop Out, and it's worth ticket price (ahem) alone to see The Queen taking down bad guys with a machine gun. Despite the ridiculous premise Dame Helen still manages to bring a touch of class to the proceedings. It's John Malkovich who is having the most fun of all, and every scene with him is a total riot. He's like Cyrus the Virus's non-evil grandad... with years of hallucinogenic abuse thrown in.

So, it's maybe not the most conplex storyline and in fact it seems like the plot is there merely to move from set piece to set piece... But the action and performances are what lifts the film from so-so to full-on action/comedy that fulfills both without compromising on either- and when do you ever really see that? As much as I loved the balls-out manliness of The Expendables, it never really seemed to let the audience in on the joke- if there was one. Red gives a knowing 'nod and wink' to the viewer and the lightweight fluff of the script is given a boost by this and the central performances. It's familiar enough to be comfortable, but there's enough going on to make you care if the characters get to the bottom of what's going on- if they make it at all. See it, unplug your brain and smile. Unless you're Kevin Smith.

L-O-V-E Spells L'amour

The festive season has pretty much passed me by this year. By festive season, I am OF COURSE referring to Hallowe'en. It's like Christmas for goffs, but without the presents. I had a stroke of last-minute genius with my costume, but an incapacitated hospital-bound boyfriend meant that half of it would be missing. Yep, we were doing the 'couples costume' thing, and the only silver lining is that I now have the majority of my costume for next year. It just wouldn't have been right to go out myself, ya know?

ANYWAY, since our plans for a messy Friday/Saturday followed by a horror movie marathon on Sunday went awry, I decided to go for something completely different. Also, I was feeling a teensy bit emotionally fraught so it wouldn't have been the best. We've been given the task of trying to write a 10-minute short film for Richard this year, and containing short films within a time limit is something I have a bit of trouble with. After wandering around HMV clutching a copy of Silence of The Lambs for about 15 minutes (I was thinking about tension...and bad trannies), I ditched the much-watched (but never owned) favourite, in favour of Red Road and Paris Je T'aime. Harry had told me about the former aaaages ago and I'd put it on my List Of Films To Watch but inevitably never did. A quick glance at the cover told me it was some kind of gritty thriller, and that was most definitely not what I needed. Instead, I opted for a collection of short films about love, set in the most romantic city in the world.

I know, I know- not something I'd usually have opted for, huh? I loved Coffee & Cigarettes, the Jim Jarmusch film, which was basically a series of short vignettes connected only by the eponymous black gold and happiness sticks. Paris Je T'aime had a similar theme, in that every 10-minute short was connected by the setting and the fact that they were about luuuurve. I must have been feeling particularly emotional, because I sat glued to the whole thing and my attention never wained once. There were 18 shorts in total, from a host of directors including Wes Craven, Gus van Sant, Alfonso Cuaron and the Coen brothers.

The format is quite simple- it covers all the different areas of Paris, from le Marais, to Montmatre, to the Bastille and everywhere in between. Each segment tells a different story of love and relationships, whether they be romantic, familial, happy, tragic or curiously quirky. Aside from the obvious common themes, each story was linked by the same beginning and end frame- that is, the beginning of one scene was the same as the end of the previous story. It seems really obvious but it was really clever in that it made the whole thing flow alot more seamlessly. There didn't seem to be any awkward transitions and it made each individual story follow on alot more naturally.

As is the case with films like this, some stories were alot stronger narratively than others, and sometimes it felt as if they ended as soon as they were getting interesting. The benefit of this, though, is that it constantly holds the viewer's attention and even if the current short isn't working for you, the next one will be along in a minute.
Thankfully, there were more shorts that worked than ones that didn't. Gus van Sant's 'Les Marais' was an early highlight, telling the tale of a smitten young assistant, Gaspard, talking to printers' assistant Elie, in rapid fire French about soulmates. It's a lovely little story and, when it seems like poor Gaspard's affections are going unrequited, it's revealed that Elie in fact doesn't speak any French. Also, this story featured an appearance by Marianne Faithfull, and she's just COOL.

I also loved Wes Craven's 'Pere le Chaise', for so many reasons... It's based around a young engaged couple finding Oscar Wilde's grave, which I visited when I was in Paris aged 18. Me and my flatmates spent a whole afternoon walking around the place and I found it to be really interesting and magical, in a macabre kind of way. The dark and autumnal look of the segment reflects this and it was kind of exciting seeing on film the place I'd been sitting myself. And yeah, I was looking for my own lipstick mark... I'm almost sure mine was there, although I'm certain I'm not the first person to think black lipstick would leave the biggest impression...

Obviously with such a huge roster of directors, never mind actors, the quality of performances is bound to vary a little too, but admirably most of it never falters. Probably the most affecting was Juliette Binoche as a mother who has recently lost her young son in 'Place des Victoires'. Her inability to move on, coupled with her shaken belief that there is a God, is heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time.

On the flipside of this, there were a few times when I wished I hadn't lost my fast-forward button. 'Tour Eiffel' is about a lonely mime who finds love after driving around Paris in an invisible mime-car... It's sort of funny, but the guy's face and mime make-up was really creepy and the odd slapstick tone didn't really work for me. I thought I'd love 'Quartier de la Madeleine', a vampire effort starring Olga Kurylenko, but sadly it just didn't seem to work for me... It had a kind of Sin City, hyper-real comic book look to it which jarred really oddly with the rest of the film and also, Elijah Wood is a creepy looking man-child.

I'm not gonna sit and synopsisize every other story in the film. One, because it'd be the dullest thing ever and way long; two, because I just made up the word synopsisize; and three, because the true beauty of this film is watching each individual story unfold and link together with the next. Each relationship, regardless of its context, is beautifully portrayed, lovingly shot and shows a snapshot of Parisian life that is as eloquent as it is fascinating.
Despite the fact it might come across as quite twee and mushy, it's a little gem of a film that shows that romance isn't dead- it's everywhere around us as long as you keep your eyes open to it.