The Ipcress File (1965)

3 STARS

General Information:

Information below is taken from the following link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059319/

PG    109 min                          –  Drama  | Thriller                 –              March 1965(UK)

Director

Sidney J. Furie

Writer

W.H. Canaway; James Doran

Stars

Michael Caine;  Nigel Green;  Guy Doleman

Plot:

Scientists working for the government mysteriously quit their jobs, and some even more mysteriously, disappear. Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) investigates.

Review:

The Ipcress File (1965)

The film opens like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes. Two, perfectly innocent men step aboard a train. One of them leaves as he remembers that the other forgot a possession of his that was left in the car. When returning, his friend mysteriously vanishes. So begins this strange and oddly unnerving little thriller.

However, unlike a Hitchcock, where we know more information than the characters, here, neither us nor the characters know much at all. When the ‘villain’ (if you can call it that) is revealed, it never really comes as a surprise – not because we already guessed – far from it – but because the film is so subtly crafted and plotted that it is hinted at that what we are seeing is a mere simplification. Villains don’t exist in the world which The Ipcress File inhabits – instead we have eluvious men in trenchcoats who use eye-contact and meetings in bandstands to communicate; quiet forty-somethings who manipulate and deceit with a smile and backstab with a quintessential stiff-upper-lip attitude. It’s all rather British and sarcastic.

The film unfolds glacially as we observe Michael Caine’s concise performance as Harry Palmer, a well-humored individual that won’t be smiling when the film reaches its inevitable climax.

The plot’s subtleties draw you in. We discover the number plate of one of the main lead’s car and where that car usually parks. Palmer then follows this lead to the library. He asks the lead questions to which there is a humorous exchange about having to be quiet when in such a public place as a Library. The lead gives palmer a leaflet – an invitation to a bandstand, where is all is revealed. It’s only around fifty minutes in when we discover why the movie is called The Ipcress File – and its important to note, that these events that I have just mentioned don’t flow like an ordinary thriller would. In an ordinary thriller, each segment of information would follow another in a smooth quickly-paced manner – due to the fact that in each and every scene, something else is uncovered.  The Ipcress File doesn’t work like this, there are ten minute sequences in between each moment where information is retrieved.

What happens within these ten minute sequences? Nothing really. So why does the film work? Well, because it unfolds like a normal investigation would: long periods of silence followed by brief bursts of clues and knowledge. If anything, this makes the film more thrilling as it is ambiguous.

Rather than there being so much information that the mystery is impossible to decode, The Ipcress file, instead, gives us merely nothing.

What’s also interesting about the film is the way it made me feel. The film withheld a chlaustophobic hold on me, and I’m still intrigued to how it did this. I got a sense – to use that tireless cliché – that ‘something wasn’t quite right’. This is rather strange. None of the characters ever seem to communicate this notion, and there are no real overt cinematic signals which would suggest that the film was driving towards something deeply sinister.

On a blunt level, I associate this feeling of chlaustrophobic unnerve with that of the horror genre – because it is a ‘negative feeling’ as opposed to a positive one. It is important to remember that horror cinema is more about style than it is about content. Thus, if I look at the film on this level, my feelings acquire a sharper clarity. The film uses obscure, jaunty, bizarre camera angles. This may not seem like much – but this motif is consistent throughout the film – and thus, it felt like it was ‘digging away’ at me.

Perhaps the only fault of the film is shown by it’s merit. I found it strangely unnerving. However, the final act, not so, even though it really should’ve been. I think this is because the final act relies more on content than it does on style – but, I might be wrong.

Every now and then comes a film which challenges me to understand my own emotions. Perhaps the majority of the interest in this film comes from the fact that I should detest it and find it utterly dull, but instead, I feel the exact opposite.

Verdict:

A strange and interesting film which works on a very psychological level. Meticulously slow in its pacing, yet never bland. However, the final Act isn’t as effective emotionally as the initial two.

Horror Fest: DAY 12

Sorry about late posting! The day before yesterday was supposed to be ‘day 12’, but I picked a film from my 50 horror boxset, watched it and it wasn’t even a horror! If you’re curious about it, it was a film called The Fatal Hour and stars eyebrow-wizard, Boris Karloff.

Ju-on: The Grudge (2002):

http://www.imdb.co.uk/title/tt0364385/

Plot:

A curse is inflicted upon a house, and whoever enters it is left terrified or dead.

Review:

Ju on: The Grudge (2002)

This psychological horror has some interesting set-pieces in terms of how effective ‘jump n scream’ horror should be directed. It’s a horror film which is very good at surprising you, or catching you out with the child-monster coming out somewhere you didn’t expect. The child in this is remarkably quite sinister: he’s small, thin, has an innocent round head and adorable large eyes – yet with a painted face, blank expression and completely sterile-of-emotion-black-eyes, all of the ‘adorableness’ is sucked away. He’s called Toshio, and he usually lurks in corners, or behind windows or in the nooks and crannies of the house, and is the creepiest child in a horror film I’ve ever seen. Woop-woop.

The film has a different approach to the conventional horror structure. Rather than following one character’s journey, it follows several, so the film unfolds in a very episodic structure. Each chapter of the film allows us to see how that specific character(s) has been affected by the events, and tells its own story, and provides its own scares. However, jumping from one character to the next, doesn’t give us enough time to develop a relationship with any particular character, so the film feels more like a lot a horror-film-cum-sketch-show. This is at once an insult and a compliment: the film could have been more sinister if it stayed with one character, but the structure is very refreshing.

Perhaps another criticism of the film is its style of being creepy and sinister. It involves a lot of ‘jump’ moments, which are fine after the first half hour, but soon I got tired of them or managed to guess when they would come. Good ‘jump n scare’ horror manages to sustain this style throughout – Halloween for example – this, not so much in my opinion, it feels like its scare-factor weakens towards the end.

I usually despise the comparison of horror and comedy, because they – to me – anyway are complete opposites. However, they work in a similar way in terms of emotional reactions. Comedies – to be really successful – have to employ lots of different styles of jokes, otherwise you become immune to them. Constant one-liner gags get dull after a while, as do constant ‘jump n scream’ moments.

Verdict: 3/5

Prometheus (2012)

**LAST PARAGRAPH CONTAINS SPOILERS**

3 STARS

General Information:

Information below is taken from the following link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/

124 min  –  Action | Horror | Sci-Fi  –   1 June 2012 (UK)

Director

Ridley Scott

Writer

Jon Spaihts; Damon Lindelof

Stars

Noomi Rapace; Logan Marshall-Green; Michael Fassbender

Plot:

A team of explorers find a series of cave paintings on earth which suggest that extra-terrestrial life created mankind. They then travel to the infinite to gather more information only to discover that the people who created them, now want to destroy them…

Review:

The internet seems to be utterly baffled by what Prometheus is: is it a prequel? Is it a sequel? Is it part of the Alien series? What is it? Type in: “Is Prometheus a prequel” into Google search and you get a tonne of blog pages written by obsessive cinephiles and Ridley Scott fanboys trying to decipher what this movie actually is. Ridley Scott claims that it’s in the “same world” as Alien, but not a direct prequel. Questions other than “what is this movie?” are also posed: who created the human race? Who created the people that created the human race? Is there a God? What makes us human? What’s the point in life? Is this movie as pretentious as me? Do I even care? Of course, there’s one final, and more important question: is this movie any good?

Let’s ignore the long-running debate about where this film slots into the Alien franchise, and just look at the movie itself.

The opening shots of this movie are utterly beautiful and awe-inducing. We pan past vast intimidating  landscapes which are truly breathtaking. We watch the camera smoothly glide over still lakes, mountains, snowy plains, rocks, trees, flowers. We are at awe with nature. If you are going to see Prometheus, go to see it for its sheer dazzling visuals. I’d compare them to the visuals in the mind-blowing headtrip that is Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. After these opening titles, we gracefully glide towards a waterfall. At the top of the waterfall we see a blue alien, of humanoid shape (yet clearly bigger, 7 foot?). The alien picks up a small silver shaped curved cylinder, opens it, and drinks the black fluid that comes from it. The alien begins to mutate, we quickly see his back turn from blue to black, and the camera then performs a David-Fincher-esque CGI zoom which quickly yet smoothly tracks into his back; we go deeper and deeper, into skin cells, until we see the alien’s spinning DNA suspended in cell fluid, it turns from a bright orange into an electric black.

Prometheus is gorgeous to look at, and it’s clear that Scott understands how to produce an appealing image.

Poster for Prometheus (2012)…

Later on, when our crew members land, they discover a cave. At the back of the cave is that huge head (which you can see on the poster designs for this film), and littered across the floor, are those silver cylindrical objects which we saw our big blue alien friend drink at the beginning of the film. These cylinders seem to ooze a black liquid, which mutate and form a creature which causes harm to one of our characters. The creature pops out from the black liquid, it has an octopus shape, and every time you cut one of its legs off, it gets angrier and simply grows a new one. These legs like to go into people’s mouths (and yes, all the way down their oesophagus as well). Do I need to say that this film has excellent body horror moments which will make some viewers squirm in their seats? (Also, there’s a brilliantly disgusting section where we watch Shaw (Noomi Rapace) go inside a machine to perform a caesarian section on herself…surprise…surprise, the octopus-like alien is inside her. Another reason, why you should never have sex when in a horror film. If anything, this operation scene, in my opinion, is the best scene in the film).

Caeserian’s usually leave quite bloody results…

However, what the film lacks is in the basics of narrative storytelling and being original. I know when the gotcha! moment is going to occur even before it occurs. (A gotcha! moment is a moment when tense music plays and suddenly a loud beat will occur matched with something popping up to make us jump.)

Character’s say inane and unintentionally-funny dialogue (“I like rocks!”). I don’t particularly care about any of the characters, and this is key, because this is an Alien film, so I know from the start that characters will die. The character’s don’t feel real. Of course, I appreciate the fact that this is a horror/action suspense film, so I know that Scott is more concerned with the action on-screen as opposed to back story. But none of the characters hit me or form a distinct shape. There’s one character called Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), and all she does is: be miserable.  She treats her co-workers like employees, is constantly harsh and snide. We only see one side to her. She is horrible. She is merely a caricature as she essentially plays one emotion; if the script allowed her to play differing forms of emotion, then yes, she would feel real. (**SPOILERS IN NEXT PARAGRAPH**)

Also, if we dig deeper, Prometheus is quite formulaic and predictable. Horror fans will know that the cocky sexy guy always dies first and the innocent girl survives/dies last. Any action/thriller fan will now that the character we hate most dies near the end and gets the most gruesome death. Surely if I walk into a film and know who’s going to die and in what order, I might as well read the script for the film.

Verdict:

Prometheus is in the middle for me. Beautifully shot and so visually enticing you’ll want to sit at the front row, and some strong scare-moments. However, all of this is underpinned by it’s clear formulaic structure and underdeveloped characters. Sure such narrative devices mentioned are conventional and cliched, but didn’t we expect more from a movie which recieved such a hype?

GREAT MOVIES ESSAY: Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

***CONTAINS SPOILERS***

The twisted nightmare that is Eyes Wide Shut

Eyes Wide Shut is an enthralling movie with an appeal almost impossible to describe. It’s an unerotic movie about sex, a mystery film where there may not even be a mystery, a slow-paced thriller, an unromantic film about love, a realistic dream. It’s a puzzling paradox of a movie bursting with ideas, intrigue and captivating images that linger in the mind. Well, it is for me anyway; I say that because Eyes Wide Shut is Kubrick’s most misunderstood, hated film which never got the praise I think it deserves. Critics called it boring, and claimed it to be not what they expected it to be. The film got bad publicity in the sense that whilst the film was being made, critics made wild speculations, they expected a sleazy erotic thriller, Kubrick’s version of Basic Instinct. Eyes Wide Shut is very far from it, it’s a complex mediation on fidelity, desire and sexual obsession.

What makes Eyes Wide Shut a complex movie is that it oozes slight subtleties from the very start. Around 40 minutes in, it’s obvious that Bill and Alice Harford (excellently played by then married Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise) are facing problems with their marriage and their sex-life. Of course, it is obvious at the party they go to when Alice dances with another man and Tom Cruise has ever-so-slightly suggestive conversations with two girls. It’s all very subtle, but we see the subtext. The man Alice is dancing with wants to have sex with her. And it is evident that the two girls are fancying a threesome. Of course, such subtleties come off excellently as it is clear that flirtations are occurring even when it’s not in the dialogue. Chemistry is excellently shown in the performances, and realism is created almost instantaneously. Subtleties are even shown in the first 2 minutes of the film, when Alice and Bill are getting changed and prepared for Ziegler’s party, Alice says “How do I look.” Bill then replies, without looking at her “You look perfect”. Obviously this took a second viewing to realise this, but such a subtlety shows their developed relationship and suggests that Bill and Alice are drifting apart on an emotional and sexual level.

Also, the most obvious subtlety in the whole film is emphasised in one particular shot which in essence sums up their relationship. This shot was used in the poster campaign for the movie, and if we observe carefully, we see that Bill is in the moment, and enjoying it, whereas Alice isn’t, she has no eye contact with Bill, and looks bored.

Posters of the film has the best shot of the movie on it

However, even though this film may have a seemingly realistic edge, the edge soon becomes softer as the surrealism and dreamlike aspects of the film fade into the forefront. This isn’t merely brought about by the style of the film and the way the film is shot, but perhaps, the film’s narrative structure. After Bill is told by Alice that she almost cheated on him, he goes on an all night sexual odyssey. He encounters many people, and as he moves from person to person, we forget how he got there, like a dream. Dreams are all about the moment, you never remember how you got there, and Eyes Wide Shut feels very much like this.

Of course, the most surreal moment of the film is in the infamous orgy which takes around 70 minutes in. Hands out of your trousers boys, it’s nothing to get excited about. It’s shot in a very mechanical way, we glimpse past moments of very ritualised sex acts, whilst dreamlike eastern music drifts on in the background. It’s not erotic at all. It’s hypnotic yet at the same time disturbing.

Your casual pre-orgy ritual…

Tom Cruise is also surprisingly very good in this movie. He doesn’t ‘dialogue-facilitate’ like he does in most films, he doesn’t just say the words. He is Bill Harford, and he’s quoted on saying that Kubrick brought out this performance in him, he’d go home every night in the mind of Bill, and apparently, that’s not the best place to be. There’s a natural intensity he brings to it. At no point does he ever scream, shout or raise his voice, very rarely in the film does he break down. Yet, we can see him teetering on the edge throughout. He does that rare thing which only some actors can do, where we see the intensity brought out in his eyes.

Stand out performance from Tom Cruise

Nicole Kidman’s performance has often been commented upon, yet she has two big monologues which effectively allow her to engulf herself in the role and develop her character. Cruise is the true star here. Now for the objectivity. Yes Eyes Wide Shut is well-directed, well-shot, well-acted, yet it suffers from one flaw. Length. Kubrick has often been criticised for making long movies (2001 and Barry Lyndon immediately spring to mind). The film is too long, by around 30 minutes, and towards the end it feels as if the dream of Eyes Wide Shut is just dragging itself along. However, Kubrick finished editing the film and died three days after the initial screening of it. It is said that even after the first screening, Kubrick would meticulously keep editing away at it, even when the trailers were being put out. Could this movie have been better if he didn’t unfortunately die of heart failure in his sleep? Either way, Eyes Wide Shut is an intriguing, visually stimulating movie which feels like a sucker-punch to the mind due to the amount of ideas it puts forward and questions that it poses. Oh and the last word of the film, said by Nicole Kidman is perhaps the best final line of dialogue ever.

Titanic (1997) – 3D RE-RELEASE

4 STARS

General Information:

Information below is taken from the following link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/
12  194 min  –  Adventure | Drama | History  –   23 January 1998 (UK)

Director

James Cameron

Writer

James Cameron

Stars

Leonardo DiCaprio; Kate Winslet; Billy Zane

Plot

The ‘unsinkable’ ship The Titanic hits an iceberg. All of the crew members and passengers then fight for their lives. But will Jack and Rose survive and be together?

Review

As I queued to watch the 3D re-release of Titanic – having paid more for food than for my ticket – there were around 20 if not more teenage girls singing Celine Dion, and a few more shouting out the famous line “I’m the King of the World”. Their boyfriends had been dragged along, and their faces were glum and seemed to telepathically scream into my face  “why the bloody hell did I agree to come to this?” 

They probably just wanted to see Cabin in the Woods.

Titanic has been labelled as a romantic film which produces tears in all of the audience’s eyes by the end. A great shame. The boyfriends imagined they were going to see such a thing, but by the end, I overheard one of them say “Actually that was quite good, it was more than just a love-film…” This stranger who I never spoke to had an excellent point. Titanic is a merge of genres and this is a reason why it’s very good.

It’s a comedy. A social-satire on the upper-classes. A thriller. A disaster movie. A historical-epic. And of course, a tragedy.

The first half is a lot of fun. It’s joyous, hilarious and heart-warming. We see Rose (Kate Winslet) progressively fall in love with Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio). For her, it’s almost like taking revenge, like revolting against the stiff-upper-lipped “let’s-make-a-jolly-good-impression” part of society that she belongs to. Her fiance, Cal Hockley (Billy Zane) is a snob to say the least. He constantly mocks Jack, and when Jack saves her from jumping off the boat (due to her having enough of the society that she’s part of), Jack is invited to dinner, to which Cal says under his breath in a jovial public-schoolboy-esque way “This should be interesting.” The majority of Titanic is actually more fun than tragic. There’s a humorous irish-dancing sequence, and endless scenes where we laugh at the absolute snobbery of the rich. Oh, and Jack and Rose have such passionate sex in a car that the windows steam up. Quite literally a ‘hot’ session.

Indeed, Titanic is a film which makes us like lower-class life more than upper-class life, we laugh at the rich people and root for the poor. subtly satirical of class values.

Of course, all of this fun, comedy and romance is simply what Alfred Hitchcock would call “playing the audience like a piano”. We know what happens. The boat will hit an iceberg. Water will flood the boat: pouring, gushing and sliding up from the lower decks and into the upper decks. There will be too much weight, and the ship will then crack in half like a child splitting a mars bar in two.

The last 90 minutes of the movie is an epic, spectacular thrill-ride. Water gushes at an incredibly fast rate down tight corridors, with crew-members running away from it. I was reminded of the boulder-chase sequence in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc. There are sequences where we pan out and see the entire ship and see the amount of chaos that is occuring: all the people look like ants, and we see some running for their lives, some tightly packed together attempting to escape their fate, and some plunging to their deaths as they accidentally fall off.

There are some scenes in this last section of the film which may unsettle audience members despite the film’s 12 certificate. “Women and children only!” is constantly screamed out. Men have to stay on the boats whilst they watch women and children escape via the life-boats to their safety. Husbands and wives are split up, mothers and sons are split up, and we pan dramatically past sobbing, crying faces and people experiencing feelings of utter desperation.

And if a man attempts to get on one of the life-boats, he is barged back with force via the aid of a boat oar, or a bullet plunging into his heart.

Unfortunately, James Cameron goes overboard. These thrilling, powerful, moving, shocking scenes examining human nature and the battle for survival quickly descend into less intense moments, due to the films sheer length. Perhaps the film is called ‘Titanic’ not because of how big the boat is but because how long the film is. It’s around 3 hours and 15 minutes. The film drags on endlessly. Scenes of panicking and screaming are closely followed by more scenes of panicking and screaming…which are then followed on by more scenes of…panicking and screaming.

If anything, Titanic should by 2 and half hours and nowhere near 3.

Then we come to the 3D which this (originally 2D) film was retrofitted for. I am no big fan of 3D, I usually pick the 2D option because: a) It’s cheaper  b) 3D isn’t famous for the quality of its brightness. However, it has been well-fitted into 3D, and the film feels somehow enhanced. Nothing really flies into our faces like with most 3D films, it’s more a case of detail and texture which is enhanced by the 3D. We feel closer to the ship, but not immersed in the world of Titanic. It’s been said that 3D reduces brightness levels by 20%. So why has James Cameron released it in 3D? Why does any director release a film in 3D? Cash. Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time, and it is directed by James Cameron, spot a pattern?

Overall, Titanic 3D keeps afloat throughout the first section and then sinks slowly due to its length and it’s 3D, it has only been released in 3D and not 2D, just so that James can make more cash. Con?

Verdict:

Thrilling, funny, powerful, visually stimulating, Titanic is a film of unforgettable force which unfortunately sinks towards its ever-so-slightly long and boring end.