Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise

Director: Richard Linklater.

Written By: Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan.

Photography: Lee Daniel.

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Andrea Eckert.

Year: 1995

Country: USA, Austria, Switzerland.

 Richard Linklater, a figure whose impact on American cinema is often understated, stunned everyone in 1995 with his simplistic and charming romance of two strangers finding love in Europe. 

 Jesse, played by Ethan Hawke, is an moneyless American travelling from Budapest to Vienna by train when he encounters a French beauty named Céline (Julie Delpy) making her way back to Paris. The two engage in discourse and strike an instant affinity for one another. When the train pulls up in Vienna, Jesse takes his chance and ask her to get off with him. Although they both know that he needs to make his flight back to the US in  the morning so they only have the one night together. 

 In their exploration through late night Austria they meet an assorted array of idiosyncratic characters, including avant-garde actors, fortune tellers and poetic bums. Raising similarities  to the film that made Linklater famous, Slacker. It's essentially the same film only giving it a story and changing the location from Austin to Vienna.    

 The film is written with a great deal of intelligence but not in a contrived way; it's apparent that the writers of the film (Linklater and Krizan) are both smart and it comes through naturally in the screenplay. The two characters, Jesse and Céline are likeable and well acted, unlike the unbearably cocky characters you get in most contemporary romances like the horrible The Notebook. 

 Before Sunset has one of the strongest female voices in cinema, developed from Kim Krizan and Julie Delpy's involvement in the film. Yet there is only one named female character in the whole film, so it's helps prove how little weight the The Bechdel Test holds.

 Guaranteed to make you laugh and likely to make you cry, Before Sunrise isn't another unrealistic and ostentatious romance film; it's a slice of real life and a showcase of real love. 

 Score: 5/5

   

Where The Wild Things Are

Where The Wild Things Are

Director: Spike Jonze 
Written By: Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers 
Photography: Lance Acord
Starring: Max Records, James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker.
Year: 2009
Country: USA, Australia, Germany.


 Beastie Boys music video director and Charlie Kauffman collaborator, Spike Jonze, creates an autearistic adaptation of the beloved Maurice Sendak children's book.

 Max is an eight year old with more anger and imagination than he has friends. One night he gets so frustrated with his home life after an argument over frozen corn and learning that his Mum is banging Mark Ruffalo, he runs away and charters a sail-boat to a mysterious island, where the wild things are. The wild things don't take long to crown Max their king and he takes even less time to being the wild rumpus.  

 I did read the book, not in my childhood but, possibly ironically, in my mid-teens. I don't really remember it so I can't say how dedicated the film is to its source material. I would imagine not very

 In the lead up to this film, Spike Jonze was quoted as saying  "I'm not making a film for children, I'm making a film about childhood". As you would expect from the auteur director behind Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, the film takes a melancholic artistic approach, raising questions about its suitability for junior audiences.  If you ask me I think it is, it's not like Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, which was trying so hard to be a kids' film it had George Clooney contemplating out loud philosophical theories that would go over most adults' heads. 

 Where The Wild Things Are adopts themes that some people may label as 'adult', but I don't think any of these themes will be completely lost on children. You underestimate them too much.   The only fear that you should have as a parent is that some of the scenes are legitimately scary. If I was to give a recommended age it would be upwards of six.  

 The film looks stunning both through Lance Acord's cinematography and these beautifully designed Wild Thing suits with what I imagine are CGI faces to sink up to the voice talents of James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O'Hara and Paul Dano.    

 Where The Wild Things Are is an aesthetically pleasing and sentimental tale of childhood that should tug at the heart strings of anyone, despite their age.   

Score: 3.5/5 

Johnny Mad Dog

Johnny Mad Dog

Director: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire

Written By: Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire

Photography: Marc Koninckx

Starring: Christophe Minie, Maxwell Carter, Anthony King.

Year: 2008

Country: France, Belgium, Liberia

 I remember the night I first saw Boyz 'n the Hood I was left so traumatised by the film that I struggled to get to sleep that night. Not just from the tragedy of the film, but knowing also that the subjects and settings in which the film took place are in fact very real. 

 My experience of Johnny Mad Dog was not much different. Johnny Mad Dog follows a group child soldiers and their titled leader as they fight, rape and pillage their way to the capital of a deliberately unnamed West African state. Parallel to this it also follows Laokole, a teenage girl trying to protect her brother and disabled father. When the Johnny meets Laokole and witnesses her bravery and struggle, it might be enough to change him.


 Although the setting is undisclosed, the film was shot in Liberia and was the first ever feature film to be made there. The cast is made up of veteran child soldiers of the second Liberian War. The neorealism tone to the film sometimes makes you forgot you're watching a piece of fiction and not a unsettling piece of cinéma vérité. 

 Despite being anything but, stylistically the film feels a lot like modern day Hollywood war films, it's yet another movie to use the almost documentary style shaky-cam that we've been seeing in almost every war movie since Saving Private Ryan in 1998. 

 A difficult watch, but it rewards you for sticking it out through its insightfulness and an edifying tale of a human's ability to change despite the most extreme circumstances.  


Score: 4/5  

Paprika

Paprika

Director: Satoshi Kon

Written By: Satoshi Kon and Seishi Minakami 

Cinematography: Michiya Katou 

Starring: Megumi Hayashibara, Tôru Furuya and Kôichi Yamadera

Year: 2006

Country: Japan

 One of the most acclaimed animes of recent years and the film that inspired Inception, Paprika is the final film of Satoshi Kon before his untimely death in 2010. 

 Based on Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel, Paprika is set in the near future where a machine called the Mini DC allows dreams to be recorded and entered. But the story really starts when this machine is stolen. 

 If the plot synopsis triggers thoughts of Inception, that's because this film was the catalyst for it, which Chris Nolan openly admitted to. I knew this going in but I was still surprised by just how much Nolan took from it. It's not completely derivative, Inception had it's own themes and concepts and the stuff Nolan took he used constructively.  

 Not that I want to keep comparing it to Inception, but I know that one of the common criticisms of Inception was that the scenes set in dreamworlds felt too real world and lacking any imagination. This is definitely not the case with Paprika, the dreams in this are l lot more imaginative and surreal. I found it reminiscent of films by Federico Fellini. Obviously being anime Paprika can accomplish things that Inception, being live action, can't.   

 Paprika doesn't have the same exploitation feel that some anime does. It's not overly gory and all the female characters body parts are in realistic proportion. This partnered with with an intelligent and strong female protagonist means Paprika will appeal to larger female audience than a lot of other anime films will. 

 Where a lot of people had trouble understanding Inception, I didn't. I can't say the same for Paprika though which is for the most part insanely incoherent. For one It's hard to tell when and when they aren't in the dreamworld. 

 It features an outstanding original electropop soundtrack from Japanese composer, Susumu Hirasawa. Which works perfectly in the film and also works as stand alone music. 

 Paprika is an above average anime. It excels in imagination, even if does lack in coherence. I didn't completely understand it  but I did enjoy it, I think. 

Score: 4/5
  

Private Fears In Public Places

Private Fears in Public Places

Director: Alain Resnais
Written by: Jean-Michel Ribes 
Photography: Eric Gautier 
Starring: André Dussollier, Sabine Azéma and Isabelle Carré. 
Year: 2006
Country: France 



 Private Fears in Public Places is the 2006 film from French New Wave director, Alain Resnais. Adapted from the play by British playwright, Alan Ayckbourn.


 Private Fears is another one of those films that follows the at first seemingly separate but all interconnected stories of individuals living in the same city. Although Private Fears doesn't have the same self-importance and grandiose that Magnolia or other films of this narrative style often do.   


 The film takes place in a Parisian deep winter, where six individuals deal with plights of loneliness and relationships. 


 Although the film is set in Paris and you get the required backdrop of the Eiffel Tower in the poster, there are no exteriors of Paris in this at all. It's made up entirely from interior sets. The art design on these sets though is spectacular, the entire film is sleek, colourful and modern. 


 The ensemble cast does a good job. For me the highlight performance is André Dussollier, who plays an estate agent who becomes infatuated with his secretary. 


 The photography from Eric Gautier is great. He's done stunning work before on movies like Into The Wild and The Motorcycle Diaries, which are mostly exterior based film, so this is somewhat different to what he's done before.   


 The biggest problem with Private Fears is that the whole film feels inconsequent, it doesn't say or mean anything which leaves you feeling frustrated at the end. 


 Private Fears passes the six laugh test, which is good for a drama that doesn't claim to be a comedy, too. In fact, it works better as a comedy than it does as a drama.  


 Private Fears in Public Places looks beautiful but it lacks in substance, although it will raise some smiles and some laughs.  

 Score: 2.5/5