35 Shots of Rum

Here are my notes for tomorrow's screening.  The film sounds fascinating and I'm really looking forward to the screeening.

35 Shots of Rum


France 2008 100 minutes

Director: Clair Denis,

Starring: Alex Descas, Gregoire Colin, Ingrid Craven, Jean-Christophe Folly, Julieth Mars Touissant, Mati Diop and Nicole Dogue

Nominations and Awards

• One win and four nominations (including Best Director, Best Film and Best Ensemble Cast)

“There are no big, jarring cliches here; change is something that happens slowly, something to be thought about. Letting go isn’t easy, and this excellent, nuanced film refuses to pretend otherwise. It's a film you have to lean into, pay attention to and, careful now, think about”

Phelim O’Neill

Lionel (Alex Descas), a widowed train driver, has retreated in to a controlled and insular life, looking after Gabrielle (Mati Diop), his university age daughter and is almost isolated in his Paris apartment block apart from a small circle of friends. He knows that it’s time for a change and that Gabrielle needs to cut the apron strings, and then the catalyst arrives in the shape of Ruben (Jean-Christophe Folly), a worldly-wise student.

Clair Denis was born in francophone Africa and most of her films have been set there or concern people from these former colonies now living in France. In 35 Shots of Rum she also takes a few cues from the understated family dramas of Yaujiro Uzu, placing her actors as if she is setting up a still photograph and using long takes with a stationary camera, and with a tendency to frame scenes in long shot.

Clair Denis has made ten films since 1988 and the best of her early work is Beau Travail (1999), a loose transposition of Melville’s Billy Budd to a Foreign Legion barracks in Djibouti. Her most recent film is White Material (2009) starring Isabelle Huppert and Christopher Lambert which is set back in Africa and concerns a white French family struggling to save its coffee plantation in the face of political uprising among the local population.

She is also Professor of Film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

The Lovely Bones

As a result of the Christmas break we have two screenings in one week.  These are my notes for Thursday's film:

The Lovely Bones


USA 2009 135 minutes

Director: Peter Jackson

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Stanley Tucci and Susan Sarandon

Nominations and Awards

• Nominated for an Oscar (Stanley Tucci) as Best Supporting Actor

• Nominated for an BAFTAs (Saoirse Ronan) as Best Actress and (Stanley Tucci) as Best Supporting Actor

• A further seven wins and 18 nominations

“...an uneasy mixture of crime thriller, horror flick and religious inspirational, with borrowings from Always (the remake by The Lovely Bones producer Steven Spielberg of the wartime ghost movie, A Guy Named Joe), Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Molnar’s Liliom (or at least the musical version, Carousel).”

Philip French

After her murder Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) watches over her parents (Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz) as well as George Harvey (Stanley Tucci) – her killer – from heaven. She wants revenge on the man who murdered her, but she needs to weigh this against her desire for her family to heal.

The film is based on the award-winning and best-selling novel by Alice Sebold. Film4 Productions initially acquired the film rights to the novel before it was published and by 2001 Lynne Ramsay (acclaimed director of Ratcatcher (1999) and Morvern Callar (2002)) had been hired to adapt the novel and make the film. Following the closure of Film4 Productions Steven Spielberg expressed an interest acquiring the film rights, although finally it was Peter Jackson who was successful in negotiating a deal to develop the project using the same writing team he had used for The Lord Of The Rings to produce the screenplay; Steven Spielberg joined the project in the role of Executive Producer.

The subject matter of the story, the rape and murder of 14 year old girl, posed certain problems for the film makers: Jackson had originally expected that the film would appeal to a “sophisticated, adult audience” but after average reviews the studio began to redirect the film towards females aged 13-20 as this was the demographic that had favoured the film most; it is this same demographic that has made the Twilight franchise such a success.  Consequently Jackson softened and omitted the nastier elements (the rape is only implied in order to achieve the 12A certificate) of the story. Critics gave the film mixed reviews, but were generally unanimous in their praise for the actors, especially Stanley Tucci and Saoirse Ronan.

Peter Jackson made his name with the critically successful Heavenly Creatures (1994), a story of two young girls who become psychologically driven to commit murder, but achieved global fame following the commercial and critical success of his three film adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings (2001-2003). His current project is to take over the direction of two films based on JRR Tolkien’s early novel The Hobbit, after Guillermo del Toro (director of Pan’s Labyrinth and the Hellboy series) had to withdraw from the project which Jackson had initially only agreed to produce.

A Serious Man

Welcome to 2011!  Here are my notes for our first screening of the New Year:

A Serious Man


USA 2009 105 minutes

Director: Ethan and Joel Cohen

Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Sari Lennick, Richard Kind and Fred Melamed

Nominations and Awards

• Nominated for two Oscars (Best Film and Best Original Screenplay)

• A further eight wins and 28 nominations including BAFTA nomination for best original screenplay


“If it is possible to imagine a Woody Allen script with all the schtick exfoliated, and then filmed by Lynch, that master of conveying the under-the-skin bizarreness of small-town America, you have A Serious Man. Although perplexing and unnerving, with a finale that will not satisfy all tastes, the Coen brothers' latest film is the most daring project they have ever undertaken. It is mordant. It is philosophical. It addresses all the big questions. It is frequently hilarious. And it feels like somewhere along the line David Lynch took over.”

Joe Queenan

Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a professor of theoretical physics in Minnesota in 1967 is planning his son’s bar mitzvah when his wife (Sari Lennick) tells him that their marriage is over: she wants a divorce so that she can marry Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), a smug and wealthy widower. Larry has never been particularly religious, but with his life suddenly in pieces he becomes convinced that only the local rabbis can help him.

Joel and Ethan Coen grew up in a Jewish household in Minnesota in the 1960s and in A Serious Man they have produced a story that for the first time is set both in the location and at the time in which they grew up. The film is quite different from any of its predecessors and their decision not to cast established film stars (Michael Stuhlbarg was cast on the basis of his stage work in New York and has very few film credits, even in minor roles) means that it is difficult for an audience to get its bearings as the story develops. Also the film begins in an entirely unexpected way, with an unsettling folk tale drenched in mortality and fear that may – or may not – be linked to the main story. The Coens have always produced films which contain a brilliant mix of bright comedy and bitter darkness, and when as in A Serious Man they get the balance right the result can be marvellous.

In a career of more than 25 years the Coens have produced a series of brilliant films that have been successful with both festival and multiplex audiences. In recent years they have reached new heights of success: No Country for Old Men won four Oscars, including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film, A Serious Man received two Oscar nominations, and their most recent film, a remake of True Grit with Jeff Bridges in the lead role, has just opened to rave reviews and whispers of potential Oscar nominations.