Predator

Predator - 1987, John McTeirnan

When people ask me to name my favourite film, I often pause before saying ‘The Big Lebowski’, when the honest answer is really ‘Predator and The Big Lebowski equally’.

Lots of people turns their nose up at Predator, but pointing out that it was directed by John ‘Die Hard’ McTeirnan is enough to bring most of them round.

Predator can be appreciated for the same reasons as Die Hard, but it generally isn’t. Schwarzenegger and all the other meatheads in Predator put the discerning viewer off. Arnie takes his shirt off and fights an alien in the jungle. It’s far less embarrassing to watch Bruce Willis take his shoes off and fight Alan Rickman in a skyscraper. The problem is that watching a lot of crap action films is a prerequisite to appreciating Predator, and who the hell can be arsed to do that (apart from me)?

Predator gets right all the things that can go unnoticed in a film; pacing, structure, casting and cinematography. Predator, like most action films, sticks rigidly to conventional three act structure:

Act I: 33 minutes. Ends with 10 minute action set piece where they attack the enemy base.

Act II: 44 minutes. Concludes with 18 minute sequence that begins with the team setting traps for the Predator and ends with Arnold getting covered in mud and becoming invisible to the Predator.

Act III: 22 minutes. Schwarzenegger vs Predator.

Predator was only McTeirnan’s second film so he wasn’t going to try anything radical, and the studio would have never let him try to be too clever anyway, but few other films have pacing as good as Predator. A lot of the first two acts are taken up by Schwarzenegger and his team trekking through the jungle, which could easily become boring, but there is a high enough frequency of events to keep it interesting. This is helped by the cast, who hold the audience’s attention just by the way they creep through the leaves. Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Carl Weathers. All bad mothers. That guy who wrote Lethal Weapon ain’t such a badass, but he tells a couple of pussy jokes to lighten the mood, and the short guy was a genuine Vietnam vet, so there.

The cinematography of Predator is vastly underrated. When people think of good cinematography they thing of epic films featuring incredible landscapes. Films that appear claustrophobic aren’t impressive. It’s difficult to make a film shot in a jungle look good. In Predator the horizon often ends a few feet away from the camera, other than the actors, all that is in each shot are leaves, yet it still looks exciting and it fits the story perfectly. The Predator spends the first two thirds of the film as a camouflaged blur in the jungle, but then, everything is camouflaged. The entire pallet of the film is green and brown, but green and brown have never looked better on film.

Equally impressive are the visual effects. They may look dated now, but I think they still stand up to a lot of modern efforts. What you have bear in mind is that they are pre-digital. Every shot of the Predator in camouflage or of its heat vision was laboriously created by shooting on film with a beam splitter and a thermal camera, then creating the effect using traditional editing techniques.

On the surface, it’s a film about Schwarzenegger and his huge guns wandering around a forest flexing and looking greasy, but there is so much more depth than that. If another actor had played the lead, and the ending had been a bit cleverer, Predator may have been given the respect that the first two Alien films were given. Then again, without Schwarzenegger it would never have been made. Arnold was the second choice to play the Terminator, but only he can take on the Predator single handily and win.

Wings Of Desire

Wings Of Desire – 1987, Wim Wenders

Can you say ‘Arthaus’?

Wings Of Desire is good, but it will try the patience of even the most seasoned watcher of independent film. About a quarter of the two hour length is given over to progressing what little plot there is. The rest of the film is an exploration of the main idea behind the film and a kind of love letter to Cold War era Berlin.

The German title of the film ‘Der Himmel über Berlin’ translates more accurately to ’Heaven over Berlin’. The film presents the concept that angles watch over the human race, observing all that we do. They are invisible and completely passive. They can be seen by children but they cannot interact with anyone.

The loose plot follows two of these angels (one of whom is played by Bruno Ganz who played Hitler in ‘Downfall’) as they sit next to various citizens of Berlin and listen in on their thoughts. We hear what the people are thinking. The thoughts of the various minor characters make up a kind of narrative that runs through the whole film. Unfortunately, not a lot of what these people have to say is very interesting. It could be that it’s all lost in translation, but I doubt it. Listening to the trite ramblings of a few ‘interesting’ characters borders on boring.

Fortunately the film is very well shot. Pre-reunification East Berlin was a grim place, but it is made very compelling by the excellent cinematography. Parts of the film have a real 1940’s pre colour vibe to them. It’s hard to tell if it was intentional but it looks good. The scene shot in Berlin State Library House 2 stands out in particular. Not just the building itself, but the incredible tracking shots. It makes me want to visit the place.

Knowing this film has got to go somewhere kept me just interested enough. When the story picks up in the last half hour (Bruno’s character is tired of having spent thousands of years watching, he wants to get involved) the film suddenly becomes interesting.

Wim’s great achievement is reaching the limit of where a film can go without a clear direction or purpose, and doing just enough not to lose his audience. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have a musical cameo, and Peter Faulk (aka Columbo) plays himself, which is pretty cool.

Pretentious guff?