Strange New Places

After almost a year of blogging (if you include the facebook origins) I decided I'd like to have a go at editing together some footage of my own. Just a short story, something frivolous. And so, inspired by the Youtube videos of Patrick Boivin I present Spartan-II Review Episode 1



How whimsical. Here is a 'Making of'.



What I like about this Patrick Boivin fellow is that he makes incredibly professional stop motion animation using the resources available to anyone (anyone who can afford a digital camera and a computer). He's also kind enough to show us how he does it:



Flick through his Youtube channel and you'll find a lot of excellent animation, but all of them are missing something: narrative. The majority of Patrick's animated films involve fighting or dancing or skateboarding, but no story beyond the activity taking place. This is a petty criticism considering the quality of his work and bearing in mind they are just short films destined for Youtube, but it's a reminder that story is more important than spectacle - Aardman and Pixar don't win Oscars just for the quality of their animation.

As I have been discovering, shooting and editing footage in stop motion is tricky enough without having to worry about a coherent narrative. My story is simple enough: three toy Halo figures appear in my front room and start watching DVDs, the next few episodes will be a review of a film by each of the cast (I plan to make three more but we'll see how that goes). Animating the figures was straightforward enough but once I separated them from each other and they were no longer all in the same shot, it became problematic. I hope it makes sense that the yellow one climbs up onto the TV and then onto the DVD shelf. Animating it would not have been impossible, just very time consuming. Shooting against a green screen makes it easier but there's no way of knowing how it will tun out, and a lot of work can be for nothing. Ultimately, it's a question of how much time is worth putting in for the end result.

Hopefully I'll finish episode 2 sometime in January. Check out my Youtube channel.

Abandon Film

It's not often that I'll give up on a film. I'm the eternal Movie Optimist; I can almost always find something to like about even the worst films.
But sometimes a film will defeat me.

Kingdom of Heaven - 2005, Ridely Scott
I almost regret not sitting through this one, and one day I might try again because I didn't even make it as far as Edward Norton who I like a lot. I watched the first hour or so on the TV recently, I'm not even sure which version I was watching; the original (and derided) cinematic version or the supposedly much more coherent director's cut (good old Ridely and his director's cuts). It's too easy to blame Orlando Bloom for KOH, even if he is woefully miscast. I don't mean to knock the guy, but there is a definite place for Orlando in the Cinematic world, and the lead role in historical epics is not it. I think the reason I so disliked KOH was because I so adore Troy. Orlando's performance in Troy is awful (along with Eric Bana's) but the whole thing is just the right level of camp for it to work. KOH also has an ensemble cast of famous 'great' actors, but it takes itself very seriously. If you get a load of well respected British actors to grow beards and dress up like knights to deliver po faced performances, it had better be Shakespeare, else it could easily be rubbish.

I'm Not There - 2007, Todd Haynes
I can handle pretentious bullshit, sometimes I even like it, but four/five actors all playing 'Bob Dylan' with varying degrees of self satisfaction was too much. A bunch of famous actors sitting around talking out of their arses may actually be the best way to represent the life and works of Dylan, but it ain't half boring.

10,000 BC - 2008, Ronald Emmerich
It was a while ago that I watched/abandoned this one and I have almost no memory of it, which is a surprise because I normally have a good memory for film (in place of being able to remember useful things). Something to do with cavemen mumbling to each other about someone who was kidnapped, and maybe a dinosaur. The action sequences were very boring and very expensive looking. It must be a massive disappointment for a director (and his financial backers) to watch the sequences he so carefully storyboarded, shot, and CGI-ed to the max, only to realise that the final shot is desperately uninteresting. 'Oh no' they must cry, 'This is meant to be the good bit'.
Some of Ronald's early low budget West German sci-fi films look quite interesting though.

Rocket Science - 2007, Jeffery Blitz
Soulless Indie Comedy by the numbers.

The Zombie Diaries - 2006, Kevin Bates and Michael Bartlett
Stop getting the Zombie Apocalypse wrong!
I love zombie films and the whole Dawn of The Dead zombie scenario in general. In fact, I sometimes fantasise about the dead rising and society falling. I'd relish the zombie Apocalypse, I think I could make it. For this reason I hate it when characters in zombie films start screwing up. I enjoyed The Walking Dead series on FX recently, but I still get annoyed when they get angry and shout at each other. Stop making so much noise. Stop wasting ammo. How could you not notice that zombie slowly staggering toward you?...and so forth. The Zombie Diaries is full of such stuff, but there was something else that put me off. TZD is a low budget British film (something to be applauded and supported) made with (I assume) amateur actors. At least I hope they were amateurs because they were all awful. This is the problem I have with home grown super-low-budget film; bad British actors seem worse than bad actors from other countries because I'm so used to British accents that I can easily tell when someone is 'acting' because it sounds staged and insincere (like the actors on Hollyoaks). Bad acting in non domestic films doesn't seem so bad to me because it's unfamiliar and so doesn't seem so obviously like acting. I suppose a zombie film where everyone creeps around in silence and never loses their heads might not be much fun to watch though.

Little Otik

Little Otik – 2000, Jan Svankmajer

Known as Otesanek in the Czech Republic (and given the incredibly lame title ‘Greedy Guts’ in some territories), this creepy little film is based on some Eastern European fairytale about a childless couple who, in their desperation to have a baby, raise a tree stump.



It’s not as dynamic as that trailer makes it look, but it’s certainly disturbing (the version I saw on FilmFour had no English dialogue, I assume it was just put on the trailer). An infertile couple are having a miserable time coming to terms with the fact that they will never have children. In an attempt to raise his wife’s spirits the husband presents her with a ‘baby’ fashioned from a tree stump he dug up from the garden of a cabin where they spend their weekends. The wife immediately starts treating the stump like it’s a real child and wraps it up in a blanket to take it home with them. Thus begins the downward spiral of a woman’s passion for motherhood. The wife tells the neighbours she is pregnant and the husband resigns to taking her to the cabin on weekends to see ‘the baby’, until one day, a mothers love (and obsession) brings the stump to life.

Baby Otik is animated by stop motion and puppetry. It’s creepy but it never gets as scary as it threatens to, it’s certainly not gruesome. The part of the film before the stump comes to life is probably the best. The husband’s despair at his wife’s delusion is affecting because it’s so believable. A genuine horror that his wife has gone mad and loves a stump like it’s her own child (what will the neighbours think?). The fantasy elements become more humorous than horrific as the film progresses. The animated sequences and creature effects (such as they are) have clearly been achieved on a budget, but it’s all been very lovingly made, which makes the anticlimactic ending all the more disappointing.

Considering the film was made in the Czech Republic a few years after the break up of Czechoslovakia, there are a couple of interesting subtleties; there is a lot of food in this film. It’s easy to associate Eastern Europe with queues outside shops where food is in short supply. Come to think of it, the use of food in Little Otik isn’t really very subtle at all; probably a comment on the other base human compulsion after reproduction – feeding. Otik’s a hungry baby, so hungry in fact that nothing and no one edible is safe.

I know there’s a lot more to the history of the former soviet block than rationing, but the shortage of food seems to have had an effect on the psyche of these film makers; there’s a lot of goulash in Lille Otik. Also, when Little Otik’s appetite extends to include a craving for human flesh and people start disappearing, there is a moment where they might be making a comment on the bad old days. I don’t know how bad Czechoslovakia was as far as other post war Soviet states, but there were at least a few purges apparently.

On the whole it’s a good one, but don’t watch it if you’re pregnant.

Shutter Island

Shutter Island – 2010, Martin Scorsese

Spooooooooooooooooooooooooky!



There are a handful of authors who are, or have been, very popular in Hollywood. Top of the list is Stephen King who has a list of media based on his works as long as both his arms and growing. King’s ‘great work’ the Dark Tower series will inevitably be adapted for film or TV or both.

The late Michael Crichton was equally prolific and would no doubt still be writing for the screen if he were still alive and now Dennis Lehane is setting himself up as the next Crichton (with less science fiction): Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, a couple of episodes of The Wire and of course 2010’s warm up to Inception; Shutter Island.

I can only assume that it is a coincidence that two films were released within a few weeks of each other, both starring Leonardo DiCaprio and both having such a strong ‘it’s a film about films’ vibe. SI is an ode to classic 40’s thrillers and mysteries, Inception a tribute to Hollywood movie convention and a demonstration of how it doesn’t have to be all bad. Inception is of course open to, and subject of, intense debate about its meaning. A lot of people tired of the praise, then the backlash, and the following argument (summed up best here), but I’ll never tire of Inception or the great debate.

Shutter Island was lauded as a great film and rightly so, but it was never the beneficiary/victim of as much hype as Nolan’s film and so never sparked much debate. The other thing about Shutter Island is, without giving too much away, it is not open to interpretation. It’s a mystery, but all is revealed unambiguously at the end.

It’s precisely because it is not open ended that SI is so entertaining. Scorcese’s not-so-subtle-but-not-quite-obvious touches compel the audience to really pay attention. Some of the necessary elements that allow the viewer to form a theory about what is really going on are a tad obvious, but this is definitely a film that warrants a second viewing to go back and spot all the clues.

SI is one of the best ‘spooky thrillers’ I’ve seen (I’m desperately trying to think of a similar film...The Others maybe?) DiCaprio’s character’s motivation is clear and his behaviour is believable. I find that the most annoying thing about a lot of thrillers and horrors is the unbelievable or inconsistent way the protagonist behaves, all for the sake of moving the story forward of setting up the shocks, doing dangerous or ill judged things for no reason. In SI, all the secrecy and strangeness that surrounds Leo compels him to probe deeper into the events on the island, putting himself at greater risk, but not without reason.

I found to be a Shutter Island is a satisfying film. Some may think that the big twist at the end is either predictable or unoriginal, and they’d have a point, but they’d also be missing the point. Shutter Island is a popcorn movie. It’s a big budget studio picture starring an A-Lister in the lead and directed by a successful and well established director, and it’s as good as such movies get.

I suppose the only negative is the ‘they had too much money to spend’ factor that can effect films nowadays. The film looks very good but it’s very obvious that a lot of shots were filmed in front of a green screen.

The theory behind extensive green screen shooting is that it is cheaper to create stunning exterior locations digitally. Why bother scouting a location then setting up a shoot and waiting for just the right light when The Magic Hour can be created on a computer? It’s good, but not completely believable. It doesn’t detract from the experience, but there are a couple of scenes that look out of place because of the awkward transition from location to studio within the same scene. This is just nitpicking, Shutter Island is well worth a watch, and proof (as if it was needed) that Scoresese can do more than just Gangster Montage. It would be interesting to see what Guillermo del Toro would have made of it.

NB.
It’s very easy to mistype the title of this film.

Afterschool

Afterschool - 2008, Antonio Campos

I often count myself lucky that I went to school before WEB 2.0

Can anyone remember what the hell they did online before Facebook, Youtube and Wikipedia? I have a vague memory of reading funny stories on poorly designed websites that my dial up connection could download without too much trouble, and trying to find a decent NBA news website.

Enough has been written about the internet and its effect on kids to fill a thousand blogs, so I’ll keep my observations brief:

I’m sure that if I was in year seven or eight at school today, I would be a huge Facebook bully. I’ve never experienced any aspect of cyber-bullying, but I think it would have appealed a lot to me as a youth. The internet seems to have created a two-tear system of bullying. Poor rough kids don’t have the internet so they bully kids at school. Nice middle class kids have the internet so they bully other kids online, sometimes they don’t even do it anonymously. I was a nice little boy at school, and my educational experience was a pleasant one, but if I had had the opportunity to live out a second life, to carry out online whatever petty adolescent vengeance I may have harboured, who knows how I might have turned out.

Rob, the central character in Afterschool, is a nice upper middle class boy who has become an internet voyeur. He doesn’t need to do any bullying; he is satisfied just to watch. He likes to watch violent porn and real videos of school kids fighting. The internet allows him to become withdrawn and detached without getting bored or feeling like he’s missing out on much.

The well-to-do mixed boarding school where Afterschool is set is populated with teenagers who appear not to really like each other, but this may just be Rob’s perception. Rob is a bit of an outcast but he’s not completely friendless, he still manages to pull a nice girl, but no one else he hang’s about with seem like they care for him much.

Whilst shooting some footage for a video arts class, Rob is the only witness to the drug induced death of two beautiful senior twins who are the most popular girls in school. Their death is caught on tape. The bulk of Afterschool follows Rob as his video project becomes a memorial to the girls, officially sanctioned by the staff.

The popularity of the twins and the way the staff at the school turned a blind eye to their drug use, and that of other pupils, is a subtle critique of the way glamour and any level of celebrity is seductive, even to those who should know better. Specifically in the way the staff put the reputation of the school above the wellbeing of the pupils.
Rob’s failing is that he is a voyeur, but this is no greater fault than of those who find glory by mere association with the popular twins.

The only character who seems to have a shred of sincerity is the school counsellor, but to begin with he seems creepier than the other members of staff because he’s so keen to talk to Rob about his thoughts. This reflects the modern notion that any adult who displays any concern about the wellbeing of a child should be treated with suspicion.

Reviews for Afterschool are very mixed. It’s a slow film, but it’s incredibly atmospheric. Very uneasy from beginning to end, it’s very well shot and directed; one of the best debut films I’ve seen. Scenes are often framed with the actors just out of shot and with an economy of camera movement that reflects Rob’s apparent detachment from the world, even when he is involved in a very serious situation. The young cast provide understated and believable performances.

The original cinematic cut of the film was 107 minutes long. Unfortunately the DVD version (the one available on LoveFilm at least) is 142 minutes long. The slow pace is therefore drawn out to a degree that makes parts of the film a tad boring. I enjoyed and recommend it, but I’d definitely prefer to watch the shorter version if I get the change to see it again.

Antonio Campos hasn't made any other films since. I hope he has something in the works though, as he’s clearly one to watch.