Thursday, August 30, 2007

No Country For Old Men

by James McNally on August 30, 2007 · 1 comment

in Film Festivals,TIFF

No Country For Old Men

No Country For Old Men (Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen, USA, 2007): Based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, No Country For Old Men is a wel­come return to form from the Coen brothers. The West Texas set­ting and the noirish storyline recall their first film, Blood Simple (1984), but with more than twenty addi­tional years of film­making exper­i­ence as well as strong source material, this is a much more accom­plished film. Josh Brolin turns in an excel­lent per­form­ance as Llewellyn Moss, a pre­ma­turely “retired” welder who stumbles upon a crime scene while hunting in the desert. It’s obvious that it’s a drug deal gone bad, and among the bodies and shot-up pickup trucks is a suit­case full of cash. Finding the tempta­tion too strong, he takes the money. From there, he is pur­sued relent­lessly by Javier Bardem, sent in as “the per­fect tool” to retrieve the money. Tommy Lee Jones is the inef­fec­tual but philo­soph­ical sheriff whose des­pair finally gets the better of him.

Bardem’s per­form­ance, while seem­ingly over the top, is remark­able. He is less a person than a force. While Tommy Lee Jones rep­res­ents the law, Bardem is law­less­ness, chaos and death all rolled into one. And yet he fol­lows his own twisted logic, tying up all loose ends according to his own code of ethics.

The film fol­lows a very simple storyline, and the lack of a musical score keeps the sus­pense at almost unbear­able levels. Bardem’s intro­duc­tion also leaves the viewer unsure what he will do in any given scene for the rest of the film. Brolin is the not quite inno­cent but still sym­path­etic victim-hero of the story, and as he mem­or­ably says to his wife early in the film, “Stuff hap­pens. I can’t take it back.” Indeed, stuff hap­pens. And you won’t be able to look away while it does.

Trailer
Official site for the film

9/10(9/10)

Tagged as: filmnoir, TIFF

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Venice Film Festival 2007

by James McNally on August 30, 2007

in Film Festivals

Manuela Velasco
(image cour­tesy of image.net)

The 64th annual Venice Film Festival is underway, and although I haven’t been fol­lowing what films will be there, I was delighted to find this cheeky photo of Spanish beauty Manuela Velasco on the red carpet. She’s there to pro­mote the Spanish horror film [Rec], which shared the opening night bill with Atonement, adapted from the Ian McEwan novel and star­ring Keira Knightley.

Tagged as: venice

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Control

by James McNally on August 30, 2007 · 4 comments

in Film Festivals,TIFF

Control

Control (Director: Anton Corbijn, UK/USA, 2007): My fears about this one were mostly jus­ti­fied. Anton Corbijn began his career as a rock pho­to­grapher and is per­haps best known for shooting the covers of U2’s albums. From there he moved into dir­ecting music videos before taking on this film as his fea­ture debut. Corbijn has crafted a pretty con­ven­tional biopic about the life of Joy Division’s singer Ian Curtis, who com­mitted sui­cide by hanging him­self on the eve of the group’s first US tour in 1980. All of the form­ative moments are checked off: Ian as glam-loving teen­ager singing in front of a mirror, Ian meeting and mar­rying his wife Debbie, upon whose memoir (Touching From a Distance) the film is based, Ian’s first epi­leptic seizure, Ian’s affair with Belgian groupie Annik Honoré (played by an impossibly gor­geous Alexandra Maria Lara). As with most biopics, time is com­pressed to a ridicu­lous extent, making it dif­fi­cult to feel any depth in par­tic­ular scenes before we’re rushed off to the next major event. As well, Corbijn films in black and white, and instead of making late 70s Macclesfield look like the grim indus­trial suburb it was, he almost makes it look pretty. In the same way, he pho­to­graphs Curtis (played ably by young Sam Riley) like the rock pho­to­grapher he can’t leave behind. Samantha Morton does a fine job of por­traying the for­gotten wife, but given that she was hardly acknow­ledged by the mem­bers of the band, it’s hard to trust much of the script, which must by nature deal in speculation.

However, the actors por­traying the band mem­bers played all their own music, and did a won­derful job. And the film drove me back imme­di­ately to listen to my Joy Division records, which must mean some­thing worked. I thought the scenes leading up to Curtis’ death were handled sens­it­ively as well. But per­haps my favourite moment was one of the lightest. The pres­ence of John Cooper Clarke (playing John Cooper Clarke!) per­forming his inim­it­able spoken word piece “Evidently Chickentown” made me long for the days when someone like Clarke could open for a band as “dark” as Joy Division.

Curtis’ story reminded me vividly of another reluctant rock star. Someone hungry for fame but then dis­dainful when it arrived. Someone who mar­ried and had a child only to doubt his abil­ities as a hus­band and father. Someone who struggled with health issues to the point of des­pair. Yes, I think if there is an after­life, Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain are sharing a cigar­ette somewhere.

Trailer
Official Site

8/10(8/10)

NOTE: I saw this film before the film fest­ival started at a spe­cial press screening. I’ve actu­ally revised my numer­ical rating upward in the days since I first saw the film.

UPDATE: The film opens in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver on October 23rd.

Tagged as: #tiff07, music, suicide, TIFF

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TIFF 2007: Early Picks

by James McNally on August 30, 2007 · 6 comments

in Film Festivals,TIFF

And yes, it was extremely dif­fi­cult to narrow it down to just ten films. Toronto Screen Shots cor­res­pond­ents Jay Kerr and Jason Chu will post their early picks in the com­ments to give you an idea of what we’ll be cov­ering during this year’s fest. A few of us got to see some early press screen­ings as well so there will be a few more than just our “offi­cial” films.

Tagged as: #tiff07, TIFF

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