Anna Karenina

This week we'll be screening Anna Karenina, a film which I missed while out on general release, but which was definitely on my "must see" list.

Here are my notes:

Anna Karenina

 UK 2012                      130 minutes

Director:                      Joe Wright

Starring:                        Aaron Johnson, Keira Knightley, Jude Law, Domhnall Gleeson, Matthew MacFadyen

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for four Oscars (including Cinematography and Soundtrack)
• A further eight wins and 19 nominations (including BAFTA nomination for Best British Film)

 “Wright's movie is a dazzling affair, a highly stylised treatment of a realistic novel, superbly designed by Sarah Greenwood and edited by Melanie Ann Oliver, with rich photography by Seamus McGarvey, sumptuous costumes by Jacqueline Durran and a highly romantic Tchaikovskian score by Dario Marianelli, all previous Wright collaborators.”

Philip French

Anna Karenina (Keira Knighley) is an aristocrat in Russian high society at the end of the nineteenth century.  When she meets the affluent Count Vronsky (Aaron Johnson) she enters into a love affair that has life-changing consequences.

There have been numerous TV and film adaptations of Tolstoy’s novel, with actresses as diverse as Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh, Jacqueline Bisset and Nicola Pagett all having played the title role, and the resulting adaptations have borne a greater or lesser degree of fidelity to the original story.  Tom Stoppard’s objective, as he worked on his adaptation of the  800 page novel,  was to produce a script that would “deal seriously with the subject of love” as it applies to several pairs of characters: not just the relationship of Anna and Vronsky, but also Anna’s relationship with her husband (Jude Law) as well as the parallel shy relationship between Levin (Domhnall Gleeson)   and Kitty (Alicia Vikander) which Tolstoy himself intended to run as a quiet counterpoint to the passion of Anna’s affair.  Joe Wright filmed the script that Stoppard had written, but having failed to find authentic locations for the Moscow and St Petersberg scenes, decided to set these scenes within a dilapidated 19^th century Russian theatre which became a large-scale image of the upper-class tsarist society amongst which Anna and Vronsky carried on their affair.

After beginning his career in television Joe Wright made his name in the cinema with an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (2005) which won him a BAFTA for Most Promising Newcomer and which starred Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet.  He worked with Knightley again on the multi-Oscar nominated Atonement (2007).  The Soloist (2000), the true story of a homeless classically –trained musician, marked a clear change of direction.  His previous project was another change of direction: Hanna is the story of a 16-year-old girl, raised by her father to be the perfect assassin, who is dispatched on a mission across Europe, while being pursued by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives.  Following Anna Karenina Joe Wright is about to make his debut as a stage director with a production of Pinero’s Trelawney of the Wells which is about to open in London.

Here's the trailer:

Oscar Winning Films

I wouldn't ordinarily link to The Daily Mail, but this article, which shows the Oscar for Best Film redesigned to reflect the content of the winner for Best Film each year, is rather good:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2278046/Tribute-Best-Film-Academy-Award-winner-shows-movie-given-unique-Oscar.html

The Best 49 British Films Of All Time

Barry Norman has produced a typically idiosyncratic list of the best 49 British Films of all time.

After reading the list I carried out a quick calculation and realised that I had seen 34 of them.  Many of the others are on one or other of the many mental lists I have of films that I've read about and would like to see at some point - perhaps a long trawl through the DVD section of eBay and some quiet nights in could help me boost my score.

The Daily Telegraph has produced a BAFTA special photo gallery covering all the films:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/9848319/Bafta-special-the-49-best-British-films-of-all-time.html

In truth I wouldn't mind seeing any - or all - of them again.  the real challenge would be to nominate the fiftieth film.  Possibly something by John Boorman?  Excalibur?

The Intouchables (Intouchable)

This week's film is our first with subtitles in a midweek slot for quite a while.  Does The Artist, as a silent film, really count?   Before this I can only think of Let The Right One In, and that was several years ago.

Anyway here are the notes:

The Intouchables (Intouchable)

France 2011                 113 minutes

Director:                      Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano

Starring:                        Francois Cluzet and Omar Sy

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for Golden Globe (Best Foreign Language Film)
• A further 13 wins and 31 nominations including Best Actor Award for Omar Sy in the Cesar Awards in France

“The premise of Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s comic drama is not unlike The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and it, too, is based on a true story. Unlike Julian Schnabel’s rarefied exploration of paralysis, however, the film itself is as broad, accessible and trombonishly unsubtle as a subtitled Driving Miss Daisy.”

Robbie Collin

Philippe (Cluzet), a quadriplegic Parisian millionaire hires a strapping black immigrant from a broken home in the bainlieues as his live in career and the men strike up a mischievous camaraderie.

The film is based on a the true story of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo and Abdel Sellou depicted in the documentary film A la vie, a la mort.  

The Intouchables was an enormous box office and critical hit in France where Omar Sy unexpectedly won the Cesar for Best Actor rather Jean Dujardin for his role The Artist.  In September 2012 it was announced that the film had been selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the 2013 Academy Awards, but ultimately it was not included as one of the final nominees.

 

Here's the trailer:

 

 

 

Carnage

One of my jobs within our Film Club is to email our members to let them know what we will be screening and to send them copies of my notes to give them some background to the film.

My usual email title is [film title] at Village Hall but this week, as we're screening Carnage, I had to make sure I had inverted commas in the right places:

"Carnage" at the Village Hall

Here are my notes:

Carnage

USA 2011                    79minutes

Director:                      Roman Polanski

Starring:                        Christolph Waltz, Jodie Foster, John C Reilly and Kate Winslet

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for two Golden Globes (Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet as Best Actress)
• A further four wins and 13 nominations

“Carnage is a film about four people who hate each other and are unable to leave the room. Sometimes they make it far as the door and once or twice to the lift, though on each occasion they are pulled back by the unfinished business of their exquisite loathing and bitter contempt. With this stealthy adaptation of the Yasmina Reza stage play, director Roman Polanski has rustled up a pitch-black farce of the charmless bourgeoisie that is indulgent, actorly and so unbearably tense I found myself gulping for air and praying for release. Hang on to your armrest and break out the scotch. These people are about to go off like Roman candles.”

Xan Brooks

Following an incident in  a playground in which one boy hits another with a stick and knocks out several of his teeth the two sets of parents meet up to discuss the matter.  Over the course of an evening the meeting disintegrates as each set seeks to assign guilt for an event that seems to have arisen as a result of an accident.

The film is based on the play God of Carnage by the French writer Yasmina Reza which won an Olivier Award for Best Play for its London production and a Tony for Best Play in 2009 following its production on Broadway.  Reza worked on the screenplay with Polanski who kept the American setting of the play, although the film was made entirely in Paris because of Polanski’s legal status: the script does not open out the original script and the main action takes place entirely in the apartment of Penelope and Michael Longstreet (Jodie Foster and John C Reilly).

It is interesting that Polanski has cast the film as a US actor couple versus a non-US actor couple, but all four performers are superb: Foster, Waltz and Winslet have all won Oscars and Reilly has been Oscar nominated, and in the course of a relatively short film Polanski allows all four actors to hurtle through a whole gamut of emotions.

At the age of 79 Polanski shows little signs of slowing down.  In the last ten years he has directed The Pianist (2002), Oliver Twist (2005), The Ghost (2010) and Carnage (2011).  Following the release of Carnage to wide critical acclaim he is currently filming Venus in Furs, based on a play by David Ives, in which a young actress tries to convince a director that she’d be perfect for a role in his forthcoming production.

Here is the trailer:

Moonrise Kingdom

Now that the distractions of Christmas and the New Year are finally over we can get back to the serious business of screening films - and this week's selection looks a real treat.

I'd missed the reviews of this when it came out, but then noted it when it appeared in the Top Ten Films of 2012 lists that many critics poduced last month.

Here are my notes:

Moonrise Kingdom

USA 2012                    94 minutes

Director:                      Wes Anderson

Starring:                        Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel and Tilda Swinton

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for 2013 Golden Globe (Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy)
• Nominated for Palme d’Or at 2012 Cannes Film Festival
• A further 11 wins and 27 nominations

 “The success of Moonrise Kingdom depends on its understated gravity.  None of the actors ever plays for laughs or puts sardonic spins on their material.  We don’t feel that they’re kidding.  Yes, we know these events are less than likely, and the film’s entire world is fantastical.  But what happens in a fantasy can be more involving than what happens in life, and thank goodness for that.”

Roger Ebert

In 1965, on a small island called New Penzance off the coast of New England, a young boy and girl fall in love, make a secret pact, and then run away together into the wilderness.  The people of the town are mobilised to search for them as a violent storm is brewing off-shore; as a result the peaceful community is turned upside down, which turns out not be a bad thing. 
The film is an original story by Wes Anderson who co-wrote on the script with Roman Coppola, who had also worked with Anderson on The Darjeeling Limited (2007), his previous film.  Anderson’s films often include an interesting and often surprising choice of music.  In Moonrise Kingdom young children listen to an extract from Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in which the various instruments are separated and identified while the film closes with the fugue section that reunites all the instruments, suggesting the society being taken apart and then brought back together.  Meanwhile Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis), the lonesome policeman listens to rueful country songs by Hank Williams while the romantic 12-year-old heroine loves the music of Françoise Hardy.

Wes Anderson made his name with the quirky comedy Rushmore (1998) and the comedy-drama The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).  In all his films he likes to work with the same cast and crew: amongst a number of regular players including Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson, Bill Murray has appeared in every film that Anderson has made to date and this has secured his reputation as a star of independent cinema. The current film also includes an eclectic cast list that includes such diverse talents as Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand (best known for her Oscar winning role in Fargo (1996)) and Tilda Swinton (who started her career by appearing in a number of films by Derek Jarman before moving to more mainstream films although still working with directors such as the Coen brothers in Burn After Reading (2008)).

The film received its world premier in competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.  It subsequently opened to unanimous critical praise from critics and appeared in many lists of the top ten films of 2012.

Here's a link to the trailer:

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

This is our last screening before Christmas.  I've not had a chance to read the book or to see the film so my notes - of necessity - are somewhat briefer than usual.  Hopefully they will provide enough of an incentive to bring in an audience.

 

Here are my notes:

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

UK 2011                      112minutes

Director:                      Lasse Halstrom

Starring:                        Amr Waked, Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas and Rachael Stirling

 

“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen has a similarly soft-tummied feel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel; it’s perhaps best described as a second-tier Ealing Comedy shot by the Boden catalogue.”

Robbie Collins

 

Dr Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), a salmon expert in the British fisheries is engaged by Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked) to introduce 10,000 salmon into a river in the Yemen so that he can go fly fishing in his own country.  Jones sets to work with Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) a management consultant employed by the Sheikh, and as the project progresses they become emotionally entangled.

The screenplay by Simon Beaufoy is based on the debut novel by Paul Torday which was an unexpected best-seller in the UK.  However Beaufoy, who also wrote the scripts for The Full Monty (1997) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008) loses the eccentricity of the source novel and refashions the central relationship into one familiar from other romantic comedies: it is clear from their first meeting what is destined to happen between Jones and Chetwode-Talbot.

Director Lasse Halstrom made his international name with My Life as a Dog (1985), made in his native Sweden, although prior to that he had directed more than 30 music videos for the pop group ABBA.  Following the success of My Life as a Dog Halstrom has worked in the US where his films have included The Cider House Rules (1999), from the novel by John Irving and Chocolat (2000) from the novel by Joanne Harris; both of these films received Oscar nominations for Best Film.  His next film is a thriller called The Hypnotist which is to be made in Sweden.

 

Here's the trailer: