No Man's Land

Two opposing soldiers, trapped between the lines, and a third man lying on a land mine. Hilarity ensues? Far more tense than funny, but utilising satire effectively to make a point about the futility of modern war.

When Yugoslavia broke down from 1990-1992, several factions formed in its place, each fighting for its own territory in the former state. The Balkan war ensued; from 1991-1995, bitter struggles raged between a formally united people. Ultimately the conflict was resolved, and a section of land now belongs to each of Bosnia/Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. But somewhere in that time - on the front lines between Bosnian and Serb soldiers - the events of No Man's Land may have occurred...

No Man's Land is a grim comedy about the absurdity of modern warfare, and a vicious satire of the international community, and their oft shallow or vain attempts to intervene (in the form of both the UN and the Media). Caught between the two front lines, Ciki (a Bosniak) takes refuge in an abandoned trench in the middle of no-mans-land. Stuck with him is a Serbian called Nino, a nervous wreck after his superior is shot by Ciki. Complicating matters is Cikis friend Cera who, presumed dead, has been lain atop a spring-loaded mine by Nino's superior. He awakes to discover that if he moves more than an inch, they are all dead.

Good Bye Lenin!

Good Bye Lenin! is a celebration of nostalgia, and gives a warm farewell to the socialist East Germany. It does this in good humour, with some clever takes on actual historical events, wrapped up in a very human story about a boy who deeply cares for his mother.

It's October 1989. Germany has been split in two - to the West democracy and capitalism reign, while the East remains under communism. But change is coming; in East Germany, the GDR is beginning to crumble, as its citizens yearn for the freedom of life on the other side. While young Alex Kerner is arrested in a student protest, he catches sight of his mother as she collapses to the ground. Christiane - the mother - has been 'married to the fatherland' since her husband escaped from it years ago. She lives and breathes socialism, and retreats into a coma for 8 months at the shock of seeing her son at the event.

Fact can be stranger than fiction though - in the course of those 8 months, the Berlin wall is destroyed, socialism falls, and East Germany becomes Westernised. When Christiane awakens miraculously, the doctors warn Alex that any kind of shock could set off another heart attack... including the revelation that her entire world has been revolutionised in her absence. So begins an extended charade, with Alex trying to hide the truth from his bedridden mother. From the clothes he wears, to the brand of pickles she eats, he meticulously reconstructs her world to be as it was less than a year ago - a mammoth task, given how fast things changed!

(The following may contain spoilers)

2001:A Space Odyssey

Ambitious is too small a word - Kubrick has crafted a film that attempts to capture all the essence of humanity in a few short hours. This staple of sci-fi films is also a captivating experience, that engages deep questions of life, and like life, leaves them largely unanswered, but better explored.

C.S. Lewis describes pride as 'the great sin' - the greatest flaw in humankind.

"There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others" (Mere Christianity)

I know Stanley Kubrick wasn't a Christian, and probably disagreed with Lewis on many things,  but I bring this up because when I watched his film this week, that quote stuck in my mind throughout the dialogue scenes. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a film very much about the human condition; it was poorly received when it first screened to critics, but over time has become known as one of the greatest films ever made, partly for it's groundbreaking effects, and partly for its unconventional narrative that touches on some of the biggest questions of life...

Holiday Movie Madness

15 Movies in review...

Since I've spent so much time this week lazing around on a couch when I’m not at the beach, here’s a list of movies I've watched, and a paragraph-length review of each of them! 

This is an eclectic mix of films. Most are, if not great, worth a watch. Some deserve an entire post to themselves, so maybe if I find some time I’ll go back and do them justice. More likely I’ll be too busy to get around to it, so I’ll just heap them with a lot of praise while I can...

Insomnia

This thrilling drama draws you in to the mind of a detective deprived of sleep, burdened by guilt and dazed by the endless sunlight in far northern Alaska – and it’s a gripping crime story to boot!

From the mind behind Memento comes another film that deals with loaded psychological issues. The hook here is the setting – the town of Nightmute, Alaska, where the sun shines 24/7 in the warmer months. The issues are ones visited by Nolan time and again - guilt, justice, responsibility. Al Pacino plays Will Dormer, a detective of legendary stature sent north to assist local police on a particularly puzzling case, while back in LA he is under the scrutiny of Internal Affairs.

The film is basically a straightforward crime drama until half an hour in, when a chase through the Alaskan fog leads to an accident that changes the course of the investigation, and the film. The majority of the film deals with Wills struggle against the murderer, Walter Finch, despite his deteriorating state as he fails to sleep, night after night.

The performances here are fantastic, particularly Al Pacino as the bad-ass cop slowly coming apart and Robin Williams as a surprisingly chilling villain. The editing is nice, with recurring flashbacks that add to the mystery and atmosphere, especially the very creepy extreme close-up of blood drops soaking through a piece of fabric. For lovers of crime films, this is a must-watch thriller, with heavy atmosphere and surprising plot turns.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

The fourth instalment in the 15 year spy series, leading man Tom Cruise brings back the action with spectacular flair. Balls-to-the-wall from start to finish, this spy adventure delivers the thrills, especially on the big screen. Watch this film, and enjoy.

First a few changes to my blog: Spoilers will now be placed 'after the jump'. Everything on the front page of the website, and the front page will be much more compact. Hopefully people are interested enough to click a single button to get to the meatier bits of whatever I'm talking about. Also, I'll write a summary of the film and my opinion at the head of each post, before the picture. I need to work on creating a hook for the post, and encourage people to start reading rather than blabbing on about never getting time to watch movies. Speaking of watching movies, I actually got up off my lazy arse and made it out to the cinema this week! Here's a review of something that's actually screening right now...

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. MI4, some may call it. If they keep at it a few more films, this series will be verging on Bond territory. In short: I loved it. In long: think The Incredibles in live action, with real(ish) people. Or Bourne, with high-tech gadgetry. Or Bond, with failing gadgetry. I'm not in a position to comment on how this film stands with the Mission series as a whole, but from what I've read, this is undoubtably the best of them. The pace is frantic, as the narrative thrusts us from one action set piece to the next, via some short expository interludes. The breathless pacing is matched in every scene by visceral and frenetic action, and more broadly by the urgency of the world-ending threat. This is something close to a perfect action movie. 

Characters have arcs, and a little time is given to each of them, but that's not the point. There's just enough backstory to understand where each member of the team is coming from, and to establish them as a tight group - with a dynamic that ranges from hilarious to occasionally tense, but consistently watchable and entertaining. Given the lack of character moments, the actors contribute hugely to creating this tight sense of belonging in our small group of hapless heroes.

What did I not like? Well, spoilers...

Paul

This post is late; I'm surprised how strongly I reacted to this film.

I'll say upfront that I haven't (yet) seen any of Simon Pegg and Nick Frosts' other collaborations, but by the sounds of it they are funnier than this one, and I definitely look forward to checking them out... eventually.

As for Paul, I'll keep the review brief then share a few thoughts about what stuck with me after the movie. A short history: Paul is the result of yet another collaboration (the third, I believe) between Nick Frost and Simon Pegg - although it is not counted in their 'Blood and Ice-cream trilogy' alongside Sean Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. This is probably appropriate, as it doesn't appear to have garnered such high praise and classic status as those films. This may not be entirely their fault; reportedly there was some heavy studio intervention during pre-production on this film, in an effort to make it more 'mainstream', possibly to justify the cost of the CGI. The end result, however, still seems aimed squarely at a narrow audience of sci-fi nerds. The film is, essentially, a love letter to geekdom. And that's probably how it was originally intended.

Sadly, the film is just above average - with hints of potential greatness in some of it's ideas. It's funny, but I never laughed out loud (granted, I watched it alone). It drags a bit in the middle, although the last 20 minutes suddenly get very exciting. It's loaded to bursting with references to science fiction and pop culture, at least half of which went straight over my head. The way the alien is integrated into the the world of the story is extremely clever - in such a way that leaves the filmmakers free to rip off any alien movies they like, and have it make absolute sense. The concept is so great, and the execution is mostly adequate but there's something just a little off... I think Roger Ebert summed it up best: the problem lies in the character of Paul; he is, essentially, Seth Rogan with green skin.

SPOILERS FOLLOW:

Ok, so the main thing that resonated with me in the film was the subplot involving Ruth, the stereotypical naive fundamentalist christian girl, suddenly encountering this alien, and absorbing his knowledge in a faith-shattering experience. As a Christian, it's a little disappointing to see my faith on screen being represented as reprehensible, unlikable, unagreeable, narrow minded... The sort of things atheists accuse Christians of being over the internet, when they're more interested in stirring up a fight than having an actual argument. I'm not saying that all Christians are above this, but it's frustrating to see such deep and important issues reduced to Straw Man and Ad Hominim arguments (look them up).

This film has an overtly atheistic slant, poking fun at the extremity and hypocrisy of some christian sects (Jesus shooting Darwin??) and more generally poking fun at the idea of God, in a universe clearly driven by naturalistic mechanisms that have produced life separately, on more than one planet; Paul himself being the clearest evidence for this.

So my first reaction was just to be annoyed. Later, I found myself wondering about the themes of the film. Risk might be one of them; Paul encourages Graeme to 'roll the dice'; to take a chance. I thought it kind of surprising that Paul turns out to be... exactly who he says he is. Graeme puts his trust in him at the start - for no real reason other than to take that chance - and in the end finds his trust rewarded. His faith rewarded. That was it, this movie is about faith. That got me thinking.

Take the character of Paul; a being from another world, who imparts knowledge and demonstrates fantastic powers. He heals the blind, and sets the girl free from her confined life. He's persecuted by authorities, trusted by a few friends. Ultimately, he puts his life on the line in order to save his friend from death and ascends from earth... Need I go on? He's a perfect Jesus allegory! Down to the point that Ruth paraphrases the Bible, saying "Now I see". She means this literally in that her eye has been healed (Jesus reference) and metaphorically in that he has opened her mind to the reality of the universe, delivering her from the set ways of her old religion and, dare I say, freeing her from sin.

But I get the feeling that's not what they were going for. In bringing up God and aliens, though, it seems the film was going for a discussion of faith. These two nerds have a religion of their own, and Paul appears to them like a saviour. I'm sorry! Enough with the allegory. If we just examine the idea of faith from this film, what we see the 'true' faith of the nerds is rewarded completely. Paul is everything he claims to be, and becomes a great friend as well as a cool guy to hang out with. And it's this that makes the film, as almost every reviewer has called it, a 'sweet' film. There's no deception, there's no bitterness or cynicism; just a couple of dudes hanging out, with this other dude with green skin. This is about faith gone completely right. It may be overtly anti-religion, but underneath it seems to carry a different message; sometimes it pays to just have faith.