The World's End

The Cornetto trilogy has sadly come to a close, nine years after Shaun of the Dead. The World’s End is yet another riotously intelligent Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg-penned film, relying not only on simpleton wit and sound comic timing but poignant social allusions to the golden age of irresponsible youth. Instead of the zombie homage of Shaun of the Dead or the police action thriller references in Hot Fuzz, the duo focus on robot-science-fiction and clever aliens. In that sense it’s sort of a Doctor Who episode only with more drinking and swearing.

Dan King (Pegg) is the immoral cad still wallowing in the hedonism of his 90s teenage heyday, attempting to get his tight-knit drinking cronies back together for a pub crawl they failed to complete in their youth. It’s an attempt to return his life back to those glory days – and one night in particular. He is a man still yearning for those days: he sports the same kind of New Romantics look as back then and listens to the same music (a soundtrack full of 90s gems from the likes of Primal Scream, Stone Roses and Happy Mondays), and pales in comparison to the successful careers and families his comrades have since embarked since then. Psychoanalysing the central character isn’t really the point though. Anyway, he gets them together (Martin Freeman, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan) and they have a pint in twelve different pubs around their home town of Newton Haven, finishing in the eponymous World’s End. But they find that their dreary home has lost its quirky locations and charisma in the face of the franchise obsessed modern society, with characterless lookalike pubs caustically mocked. Plus the inhabitants they had previously known have become alien robots with sloshy blue mechanical blood (not unlike the white stuff the androids have in the Alien films).

On a serious note, it’s a smart commentary on how the confining bureaucracies and franchises of our modern internet world have sucked the life out of towns and replaced it with the kind of vacuous, safe-for-all-ages grey yawn. On a silly note, it’s a just an excuse to smash robots and cover ourselves in blue goo and lipstick. The World’s End is also a faithful portrayal of what growing up in an English village is like – desperately dull.

Underpinned by a typically superb cast, The World’s End doesn’t immediately seem to possess the cult classic traits of the others but maybe that’s just a status it will acquire over time. There are some odd plays – like Frost playing a profession-driven square who is completely unlike any other of his weirdly foolish characters – but this is still a fine comedy worthy of its place in the much-loved Cornetto canon.

Song for the day

Melody Prochet follows me, so should you

Spring Breakers

‘Spring break, spring break forever’ is the paradox whispered throughout the second half of Spring Breakers. Although Harmony Korine’s delicious new film came out several months ago it's worth, I think, a slight reappraisal. Or at least another look. Actually the whole concept of re-examining stuff a few months after the critical hype is interesting – a feature lost in the internet age in which blogs race to get their opinions out before their rivals. Thus we see knee-jerk opinions and overly dramatic attention baiting reviews. It's a little sad maybe but understandable as we all (myself included) strive for as many clicks and pageviews as possible.

And on the subject of overly dramatic and attention baiting things we return to this film. Although initial critical reaction was largely positive, those that didn't like it really didn't like it. Glitteringly stylised photography and seemingly misogynistic, one could understand some of the misgivings. It seemed to bristle with a haughty arrogance, stubbornly sure of its thematic footing yet sniggering at the higher-than-thou irony of putting some Disney stars (Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens) in scenes of drug-use and rapacious sexuality. That core of self-amusement is stamped the whole way through Spring Breakers – calling the religious girl Faith (Gomez) is just a further example. It’s deliberately bizarre, full of absurd images and scenes like James Franco’s cornrows and being tried in a court clad in nothing but bikinis. Franco is actually superb playing the leeringly creepy Alien, a local small fry gangster with visions of misguided self-aggrandisement. His richly gangster-ised accent and materialistic obsession is utterly convincing, and yet another peculiar role choice in what is becoming an exceptionally versatile career.

What actually happens? Some girls rob a store in their college town then go down to Florida for spring break. They traipse around drinking and snorting cocaine, then accidently become involved with Alien. That’s about it. To be honest describing the premise feels like it misses the point. It’s a film of purposeful excess, highlighting the hideously ostentatious culture surrounding youthful party breaks and isn’t designed to be much more. People who like films (or rather, like to know a lot about films so that they can impress other people) are used to spending time trying to decipher the singular universal meaning behind a Terrence Malick conclusion or David Lynch ending. Korine turns this obsession with 'knowing' what something means on its head by constructing a movie that draws its tendrils from many themes - youth, drugs, sex - but without imposing any kind of commentary on it. Writers always try to apply some profound meaning to the work of someone with a cult-like reputation like Korine, a tendency that he seems to be making fun of; when in actual fact it’s just the shallow bravado it appears to be. It's nothing more than a face value film, made for the fuck of it, to irritate and draw outrage and it does so brilliantly. Spring Breakers pokes fun at the very idea of inferring meaning from art.

(By the way, I do recognise the irony of me inferring a meaning from a film designed to mock the process of inferring a meaning).

Only God Forgives

Initial reaction for the new collaboration between Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn and American actor Ryan Gosling was pretty split. Many were strongly put off by excessive violence and the generous helpings of blood and internal body parts, others found their seedy interpretation of the Thai underworld to be the staggering feat of photography that it is. Only God Forgives is controversial, not least because the previous Refn-Gosling combination was the celebrated modern classic Drive. The latter was more of a mainstream crossover for Winding Refn who is usually to be found overseeing opaque art house pictures. Though there was always a focus on luscious aesthetic, it was a feature running parallel to a distinctive and unambiguous plotline. Only God Forgives is different, chocker block with grey narrative areas – there are more dream sequences and metaphorical scenes. Perhaps this was a deliberate artistic direction change for the Dane, a chance to draw in new audiences and critics with Drive before blowing them away with the challenging surreality and dark alleyways of malice and wanton violence on show here.

The story focusses on a pair of expat American brothers Billy (Tom Burke) and Julian (Gosling) who involve themselves in the Bangkok criminal underworld, whilst running a local Muay Thai boxing ring. Billy gets killed (that's not a spoiler - it happens near the start) bringing their viciously matriarchal mother Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) from America. Julian and Crystal become embroiled with the local policeman Lieutenant Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) and his penchant for sword swinging in a never ending lust for revenge.

Scott Thomas is brilliant as the menacing and tyrannical Crystal; she glitters in her scheming, revenge obsessed way, coaxing and manipulating all around her. The relationships she has fostered with her sons are laced with Freudian nightmare: allusions of incest between Crystal and Billy are frequent. Julian appears to be outside of that, and the matriarchal fall guy for all that goes awry. He is a complex character, torn between courting his mother’s approval and the haphazard botched set of ethics he condemns Billy’s perverse antics with. His composed exterior bristles with relaxed rationality, yet there is a rage that boils red raw underneath – he is said to have murdered his father. This duality just about escapes from another withdrawn Gosling performance in which he again utter very few words. There’s no doubt that he has perfected that look of his – the esoteric half-smile and enigmatic far-away look in his eyes on a foundation of threatened hyper-violence.

Julian seems to have some kind of in-built equilibrium, a quid pro quo sense that some things must be taken in return for his criminality – hence the penitent ending. These punishments are meted out by Chang, the most fascinating character in this picture. He acts as a self-appointed moral executor in a city bereft of law or justice. Although his carnal judgements are based on his own idealistic morality, there is too little time given to his character as a person – only a perfunctory glimpse of a happy home, replete with wife and daughter. His character is carefully guarded, and seemingly beyond reproach; it’s a shame because a deeper examination of his psyche might have a laid a sterner foundation for the limb-hacking carnage he inflicts on those he deems wrong-doers. Okay so he’s probably supposed to be a kind of anarchic angel but it’s not a feature expanded upon enough, and so it just looks like gratuitous violence.

Though there are some character flaws, this is maliciously seductive: it’s a beautiful looking film, based on dynamic photography and pulsing electronic music (brilliantly soundtracked by Cliff Martinez of Drive fame). It renders the film an utterly captivating watch. Only God Forgives is a neon bleached blitz, sometimes highly stylised sometimes gritty and difficult – but always with that Refn aesthetic in mind (though he is significantly influenced by the 60s and 70s Chilean cult filmmaker Alexandro Jodorowsky – to whom OGF is dedicated to – who also dabbled in the phantasmagoric and surreal). Its look really isn’t that different from Drive: both take place in dark urban environments, lit only by the vice and torment of its inhabitants. But this is grislier fare with more obscure motives and not for the faint of heart, yet it remains wholly compelling. If anything though, it’s a darker continuation of Drive rather than a distinct move away from.

A Field in England

The release of Ben Wheatley’s new film AField in England has caused quite a stir in the blogosphere underground. Unable to fund a proper, full scale PR attack Wheatley and his producer’s decided on a unique distribution technique: the movie came out simultaneously in the cinema, VOD (video on demand – iTunes etc), DVD and on television via the British film channel Film4 (who also funded the production). It is a shrewd marketing ploy, but self-consciously so – by acknowledging the gimmicky method Wheatley utilises the attention that has surrounded individuality. A Field in England has harnessed plenty of the right kind of social media attention – respectable journalists et cetera. It is the latest development in the quest to attract attention under the all-conquering mainstream social media, and a way to commodify that interest.

Of course a strategy such as this needs a memorable film to follow through on the concept. And Wheatley delivers on that count: A Field in England is a richly disturbing exercise in cinematic psychedelia, darkly surreal and incisively acted. It manages to strike at the contemporary yet remunerate the English Civil War mental-ness it recreates. An alchemist’s servant Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith) seeks out a rogue apprentice O’Neill (Michael Smiley) in order to return him and the documents he stole to their master. The latter’s soldier Cutler (Ryan Pope) coaxes a couple of other motley men – one an idiot, the other a drunk – to find some treasure in a field. In truth though the story is but a bi-product of this insight into cinematic purpose, and thus could have taken place in any time period and made little difference.

The English Civil War does however furnish the film with sincere undertones of magic(k) and candid belief in petty superstitions. It’s a pre-Enlightenment time still dogged by religious fallacies and fear of the devil, but facilitated and intensified by copious consummation of the magic mushrooms located on the field that O’Neill seeks his treasure. There is neither analysis of the war’s politics nor much reference to it, but that is deliberate. The idea seems to be that the human psyche transcends the illusory splits of society – political boundaries are intangible and all men have the same weaknesses. A Field also reveals the duality between humanity and the nature we reside in. The bounties of nature – grass, mushrooms – still affect the course of human development, both individually and collectively. Even the title of the movie is an intertwinement of that theme: the ‘field’ of the natural; ‘England’ as a notion and product of human civilisation. But perhaps it might be best to reign back from the philosophical rut this stream of consciousness is leading me down.

The film is phenomenally interesting, with plenty of re-watch value; it is undoubtedly challenging though, particularly in respect to its photography. Shot in black and white with a penchant for the bizarre, A Field is a difficult watch. Particularly the 10 minute psych-out bit towards the end. It’s a kaleidoscopic montage of mirrored camera effects and slow motion, soundtracked by jarringly atonal noise. The impact is withering and fascinating, and remarkably efficient in conveying bewilderment. Wheatley has a talent for capturing that memorable image, the moments that are symbolic of the tone or theme he is trying to confront: the image of Whitehead gratuitously gorging himself on those mushrooms or the futile pulling of the strange rope and the excruciating turning of the stump. And yet it feels like this mercurial flair is employed just for its own artistic purpose rather than for any great overriding scholarly statement, as if he’s just doing it for a laugh. There is always a slightly tongue-in-cheek attitude to his work, a very English approach.

The script reflects this. Written by Amy Jump (who co-wrote Kill List and Sightseers) A Field is laced with a slightly stoical, slightly blasé humour – mostly provided by the idiot, brilliantly played by Richard Glover. It’s spoken in a kind of archaic manner, a little different to modern English yet satisfyingly ‘ye olde’. That it never falls into self-parody is a real achievement: different enough to be noteworthy but sufficiently unobtrusive not to distract from everything else. That is something that could be said for the entire film really. Whether the way it has been released will become a watershed moment for underground and independent films remains to be seen but the success of A Field suggests it has become a new possibility. But the work itself has to be up to scratch too, as it is here.

These New Puritans - Field of Reeds review

This is a little something I wrote for the music blog website thing Dance Yrself Clean. I look at Field of Reeds, the latest album from English band These New Puritans.

A Field In England showing

Just a quick warning for those in the UK - check out the channel Film4 tomorrow evening at 22:45 (GMT) to watch the new Ben Wheatley film A Field In England. I believe it's also streaming on their website at that time as well... but I'm only 50% that that is the case. Guess we'll find out. It should be a really interesting film, made on a tiny budget with a skeleton crew set in one field and directed by a highly intelligent filmmaker. The premise, I believe, is a group of English Civil War soldiers have some existential breakdowns in a field then take some shrooms, and everything goes hyper psychedelic. I am looking forward to this.

Review will follow soon.