Shrink wrapped
It’s oh so easy
And convenient
And it don’t cost you a single dime
Or do anything drastic
Like waste all your time
It’s custom built
To lock away your pain
And fully shrink wrapped
To be one and the same
As all of the things
You were hoping for
When you put on your chains
And bolted up your door
When you ordered plastic friends
From far away towns
To help with the parties
And the smiles and the frowns
To take away the thinking
That led you astray
That asked all the questions
That weren’t black or white
Just grey
Directive
A fresh Spring-clean and a major Fall-out
These seasons turn to mush and are one and the same
Doppler effect caught on camera
Stuck in a loop from one to the next
A smile in the mirror says it’s time to think different
To turn off the ongoing repeats
To mute the direst of diatribes
And bring a new mic to the listening booth
Amp one and amp two broadcast the news
The state of this union; ugly and bruised
Loaded with trauma from point A to Z
Directive: remember, learn, don’t forget
Through the Fire (Sauver ou périr)
My review of Through the Fire (Sauver ou périr) is over at Filmink. Avaliable to see at the French Film Festival here in Australia, it is a powerful and emotional story…
At War (En Guerre)
Playing as part of the French Film Festival here in Australia, At War (En Guerre) is reviewed by moi over at Filmink.
Waiting: The Van Duren Story
My review of the great new doco Waiting: The Van Duren Story about the Memphis singer-songwriter Van Duren is over at Filmink now.
Spoiler… I really enjoyed it!
Possum (2018) Blu-ray Review
Review of Possum over at Flickering Myth…
A memorable, surprising and darkly disturbing feature debut from Matthew Holness…
Anyone expecting any sort of light relief from Matthew Holness’s debut feature will be sorely disappointed. The writer director, best known for his comedic parody work on cult-comedy masterpieces Garth Merenghi’s Darkplace and Man-to-Man with Dean Learner, takes a step into full-on bleakness with Possum, the deeply disturbing story of a man forced to deal with long buried memories.
Focusing on the travails of Philip (Sean Harris), a children’s puppeteer forced to return to his quiet Norfolk childhood home after something awful happened at work, the film is an abstract rumination on suppressed memory and the pain of dealing with abuse. Possum refers to the hideous spidery puppet Philip keeps hidden away in a brown leather bag. He is intent on destroying Possum, but is forced to confront his sinister stepfather Maurice (Alun Armstrong). The old man is an unsettling presence never far away, either in the home or in the back garden, where the flames of a fire can do little to quieten the intensity of the puppet’s malevolent power.
Holness brings his detailed knowledge of and affection for vintage British cult programming and film-making to the fore on this journey of dread and painful confrontation. A fantastically realised soundtrack composed by the legendary sound studio The Radiophonic Workshop layers on the creepy, weird effects, and helps to hark back to partly remembered cult-classic TV and films.
It is in the long shots of the East Anglian countryside that that the film finds its true visual sense. There are shots of our lead wandering along paths and bridges that recall 1970’s public information films – the kind of Government ads that often followed a group of kids playing near a construction site, a railway or a body of water. A menacing voice-over would intone of the children’s foolishness in not paying enough attention, and something tragic would then inevitably occur.
There are also whispers of the classic ghost stories of M.R. James and the excellent Christmas Ghost Story BBC adaptations of them. One of those stories, Whistle and I’ll Come to You (filmed in 1968 and 2010), is beautifully invoked in the land and surroundings of the Norfolk location. The loneliness and sense of something monstrous on the horizon is there in hazy day-lit terror for all to see.
Possum has this sort of fear factor running throughout its running time, and Holness has spoken of his desire to create a modern ‘silent’ horror film. Harris’s work brilliantly fits in with this; the display of raw emotion and tortured memories sketching their insidious lines over his face and body language, expressing the pain of an abused child/disturbed adult in full view. As Holness says himself, real life horror is more frightening than any supernatural monster. The monster here is all too real, and Possum expertly works through it, leaving behind a ghostly memory of a tragic story beautifully told.
The Wedding Guest (2018) – Movie Review
My review of Michael Winterbottom’s new thriller The Wedding Guest starring Dev Patel is over at Flickering Myth.
I thought it rather effective – and certainly shows how good a leading star Patel is… review also appears below.
Michael Winterbottom delivers a tense thriller with The Wedding Guest. Destined in some eyes to be a calling card for Dev Patel’s eminent suitability to portray the next 007, this beautifully produced flick is far more of a subtle picture than would be likely found in the Bond franchise.
Keeping the background information to an absolute minimum, we first meet Patel’s mysterious Jay in London packing things into a holdall for a trip away. The fact that he’s got four different passports on the go is a clear indication that this isn’t going to be a normal holiday abroad.
Jay flies over to Lahore, Pakistan and, after sourcing rental cars, begins shopping for some rather unusual items in the city and in the Karachi frontier region- a shotgun being the least likely to be on most holiday-makers’s must-pack lists.
He then heads over to the titular wedding, picking up some luggage and clothing on the way. Staking out the bride-to-be’s family home, he borrows a light from the armed guard at the entrance and pauses for thought. The fast-moving pace of the movie doesn’t let up for long, however. Before we know it, Jay is inside the home and kidnapping Samira (Radhika Apte), shooting at, and possibly killing, the guard on the way.
From then on a story of rapidly shifting motivations and secrets is revealed. Essentially hired to remove Samira from her arranged wedding, Jay remains professionally calm when his client- Samira’s arrogant British boyfriend Deepesh (Jim Sarbh) – considers backing out of the plan due to the heat caused by the media picking up news of the abduction.
Winterbottom brings a solid combination of thriller and travel adventure with The Wedding Guest. Always on the move, the pace of the film is swift and the audience is only let in on the bare essentials. We only know of Jay’s name from the credits, he doesn’t reveal his real name to Samira, even as romance appears to flicker on the horizon.
The Pakistani and Indian locations are beautifully brought to the screen, with the sights and sounds of Lahore, Amritsar, Jaipur, Delhi and Goa all presented with a clarity of vision that provides a fully immersive experience. The energy of the places is well contrasted with the icy cool of Jay, whose calm exterior only begins to falter after one too many unexpected hiccups.
Winterbottom certainly has a great eye for the road-movie/travel experience with his journalistic comedy TV shows The Trip (to Italy and Spain) showcasing his way around a travelogue. But rather than improvised laughs, The Wedding Guest is built on taut set-pieces and keeping information and specific characterisation at arm’s length. The two leads produce great work with the minimal backstories they have, and the essential dilemma of a bride-to-be wanting a better life is one that is all too believable.
A Shot in Space 