In The Loop was released on DVD in Canada on November 10 by Alliance Films and will come out January 10, 2010 in the US. You can help Toronto Screen Shots by buying it from
Amazon.ca or
Amazon.com.
In The Loop (Director: Armando Iannucci): On this side of the pond, the name Armando Iannucci likely doesn’t ring a bell, but for fans of British comedy, the man is considered a genius. His collaborations with Steve Coogan include the classic Alan Partridge shows (The Day Today, Knowing Me, Knowing You, I’m Alan Partridge). Most recently, he’s been writing and directing a blazingly fast and funny series called The Thick of It, which mines the comedic territory of political media handlers working for the British government.
In The Loop takes almost all the actors from that show, mixes up the characters a bit, and places them in the midst of the run up to the (unnamed but blindingly obvious) Iraq war in 2003. Peter Capaldi returns as Malcolm Tucker, the whipsmart press secretary with a mean streak. I’ve never heard more creative swearing in my life, and if you’re offended by “f-bombs” then this film is definitely not for you. But it’s my firm belief that no one can curse more creatively than our friends from the British Isles, and every character reaches for the stars in this very funny movie.
Simon Foster is the minister for international development who puts his foot in his mouth by making off-the-cuff remarks about the possibility of a war. The press runs riot and Malcolm Tucker tears young Foster a new backside. The rest of the film follows the bouncing minister as he’s used by pro– and anti-war factions in both the UK and the US. He continues to fudge his “lines” and the resulting mess makes for some very funny situations. While The Thick of It confines itself to English politics, In The Loop creates similar characters on the American side, with James Gandolfini clearly enjoying himself as a peace-loving general who nevertheless threatens to kill several of his political opponents. It’s nice, too, to see Anna Chlumsky (best known for 1991’s My Girl) return in the role of a young aide to an anti-war assistant secretary of state.
Overall, though, the Brits get the best lines (as might be expected) and one of the funniest scenes is when Malcolm Tucker the angry Scot actually brings in an even angrier Scot to handle yet another press leak. Steve Coogan has a small cameo as an irate local man trying to get his mother’s garden wall fixed in the midst of an international crisis. Though I would have loved to see more of him, giving him a bigger role might have unbalanced the mostly star-free cast. In The Loop will be riotously funny to anyone with even a passing interest in the workings of politics. Though it’s not anything special cinematically (think a longer episode of The West Wing), there’s enough crackling dialogue to keep you laughing all the way through. In fact, it’s a perfect film for DVD since you may find yourself having to rewatch certain scenes, either because the accents are slightly unintelligible, or because you were laughing so hard you missed the next piece of dialogue.
This was a film whose trailer let it down because it had to cut out all the swearing. So I’ve included instead an actual clip. Be forewarned, though, that this contains some many naughty words.
(8/10)
Tagged as:
politics,
satire,
uk,
war
The Hurt Locker (Director: Kathryn Bigelow): I have only seen one other Kathryn Bigelow film, the oddly miscast Strange Days (1995), so I’m far from an expert on her work, but other critics have pointed out that she’s a first-rate director of action sequences. The Hurt Locker is not really an action film, but it somehow is able to ramp up suspense and maintain it for the entire length of the film, and so I came out of the film with the same sense of release as if I’d just seen lots of stuff blow up.
In fact, it’s the job of the characters in this film to make sure stuff doesn’t blow up. They are the three members of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Baghdad. The team leader is the absurdly macho Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner), whose predecessor was killed by a remotely detonated bomb as he was trying to defuse it. Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are cautious and emotionally scarred men just hoping to survive the 38 days left of their unit’s rotation in Iraq. They don’t appreciate the recklessness of their new leader, and at one point nervously discuss whether they should “frag” him.
But as the days go by, his recklessness seems to inspire something like confidence, or at least it reduces their fear a little. We accompany this small group of men on their daily rounds, and the level of tension never lets up. The difference between James and his subordinates is that he seems to thrive on the rush of danger his job gives him. As the days are ticked off, we feel relief for the men wanting to go home, but James never seems to change. Toward the end of the film, there is a very brief scene of him back home with his wife and infant son, and he looks completely out of place. He mumbles something to his wife about the need for trained bomb techs back in Iraq, as if it’s the war that needs him, rather than the other way around. The final scene doesn’t come as a surprise, James striding confidently off the helicopter back into the hellish streets of Baghdad, but I was glad that at least I was not going to have to accompany him on another bomb-defusing mission.
Bigelow’s direction is excellent throughout, with some of the images approaching the surreal, especially when James is inside the special armoured suit that is meant to protect him from bomb blasts. He looks like an astronaut on the surface of a very dangerous alien landscape, which is exactly what he is. Where the film isn’t so strong is in its overly expository dialogue. It seems completely unnecessary to tell us something that is obvious from the actions of the characters, which is why the quote that introduces the film, from Chris Hedges’ book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning is also unneeded. Sergeant James’ character, like many of the memorable characters from war films, seems almost like a caricature, because he so single-mindedly pursues the high that war gives him. Jeremy Renner is well-cast, projecting a square-jawed lumpishness that hides any complicated thoughts he might be having. When Sanborn asks him why he doesn’t seem to be scared, he honestly seems not to know. He’s almost bemused by his lack of knowledge. Perhaps there are people who are just born to fight wars.
Apart from a few short cameos, The Hurt Locker is mercifully free of “movie stars,” and it’s refreshing to see characters first, rather than actors. All three of the lead actors are fine, but I think Renner will be the one we’ll be seeing more of very soon.
Official site of the film
(8/10)
Tagged as:
iraq,
war
Editor’s Note: I’ve decided to begin posting some reviews of films screening at Hot Docs 2009 early, hopefully helping anyone attending make some decisions about what to see.
Paris 1919 is screening on Friday May 1 at 7:00pm and Sunday May 10 at 11:00am at the Isabel Bader Theatre.
Paris 1919 (Director: Paul Cowan): Having read the book by Margaret MacMillan on which this documentary is based, I was a little dubious upon hearing that director Cowan would be using re-enactments to create the atmosphere of the Versailles Peace Conference. But wisely, he chose to use these strictly as atmosphere, letting the archival footage and especially the strong narration by Canadian actor R.H. Thomson carry the weight of the story.
In the early months of 1919, the world, weary of fighting, gathered in Paris to hammer out a peace accord. But the Great War ended in an armistice, not a surrender, and so there was much at stake for all the parties. The old empires had collapsed and into the vacuum stepped a man promising self-determination for all the peoples of the world. US president Woodrow Wilson offered his own version of Obama-like hope, especially to the smaller nations of the world who had heretofore been the pawns of imperial powers. The defeated Germans also hoped that Wilson’s steady hand would deliver peace with justice. Alas, it was not to be.
Instead, Britain and France were determined to bleed Germany dry for war reparations. Both countries had suffered enormously, especially France, and they had little regard for the sufferings of Germany. Voters in both countries were putting enormous pressure on their leaders, David Lloyd George of Britain and Georges Clemenceau of France, to bankrupt Germany as punishment for her guilt in starting the war. In contrast, Wilson was obsessed with the idea of establishing a League of Nations, a body that would arbitrate disputes between nations in the hope of preventing war. His idealism and naivete were soon challenged, and gradually he made many compromises in order to secure support from the other leaders for the League.
The end result was disastrous for Germany and ultimately for Europe and the world. Maps were redrawn displacing millions of people, assets were seized and monetary damages demanded. The German delegation went home angry and humiliated. In the years that followed, the German people’s resentment was ripe for exploitation and rising nationalism soon engulfed the whole country, leading to Nazism and another world war.
Cowan’s film couldn’t have encompassed all the various negotiations that went on at Versailles, and huge chunks of MacMillan’s book are simply passed over, including the fate of countries like Poland and Turkey. But he captures the essence of the power struggle between the leaders, and makes some great choices in the re-enactments. By focusing on minor characters like Harold Nicolson and especially economist John Maynard Keynes, we get a real feel for what it was like for the bureaucrats labouring in smoky rooms to untie the Gordian knot of European grievances, especially when they felt their leaders were pursuing the wrong course.
I think the best compliment I can pay to Cowan’s film is to say that it left me wanting more, and for that, I will return to Margaret MacMillan’s excellent book, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World.
Official web site of the film
(8/10)
Tagged as:
#hotdocs09,
history,
war,
worldwar1
Editor’s Note:
Doc Soup is a monthly documentary screening programme run by the good folks at
Hot Docs. It gives audiences in Toronto (and now Calgary and Vancouver!) their regular doc fix each year from the fall through to the spring, leading up to the Hot Docs festival itself.
Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders (Director: Mark Hopkins): Judging by the title alone, I was a little apprehensive that this film would be nothing but a slick promo for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), the Paris-based crisis medical charity, but I’m happy to say that Mark Hopkins’ film is a many-shaded portrait of some of the bravest and most dedicated people in the world.
I’ve always respected the work that MSF does, and the film does a great job of showing the actual conditions that these volunteer doctors work in. But it goes well beyond that, showing the effects of the strain of working a six-month “mission” in places where there may be no other medical infrastructure for miles around. We follow several doctors on assignments in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, including two who are on their first mission. The staggering statistics say that fewer than half of all doctors return for a second mission, and it’s not hard to see why. Conditions are never ideal, but lack of medical supplies compounded with communication difficulties, and a suddenly increased load of responsibility all take their toll. Some of the veterans speak openly of “running on empty” and everyone smokes and drinks too much. One of the veterans, Dr. Chiara Lepora, encourages everyone to have as much sex as possible, since they’re surrounded by death all day long and that “sex is life.” During one scene, an intoxicated Dr. Chris Brasher boasts that MSF accomplishes more than UNICEF, with its endless meetings and plans. MSF volunteers are doers, and they all seem to share that unfussy attitude.
But the mandate that encourages that spirit of doing also has clear limitations. MSF operates solely as a crisis medical provider, as in war zones and after natural disasters. When those conditions cease to exist, MSF close their bases and move on. Given that many of these countries don’t have functioning medical infrastructures, this can seem heartless, but keeping their mission focused on emergency help has maintained the organization’s edge and responsiveness.
We do witness the closing of a base in Liberia, and Dr. Lepora’s going-away party is bittersweet for the local medical staff being left behind, but MSF has stubbornly refused to expand their mandate into development work, leaving that to other NGOs and the local ministries of health. As Dr. Brasher bluntly points out, though, every person they help with emergency surgery or other intervention is someone who likely would have died without their help. And though this good work takes a toll on the volunteers, it also has immediate rewards. So although many of the doctors don’t return for second missions, the ones that do often spend the rest of their lives in one far-flung and ill-equipped outpost after another. And they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Hopkins’ film drives home the point that no matter how much money we in the West donate to charity, there still need to be people on the ground actually doing something to help in these emergency situations. I can’t think of anyone getting closer to the situation than a doctor or nurse up to her wrists in gore, putting yet another broken body back together. It’s not an easy sight to look at, but that doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful.
I had only one small quibble with the film and that is that with so many people speaking accented English, the sound mix was too muddled. In the post-screening Q&A, director Mark Hopkins promised a better sound mix on the theatrical/DVD release, as well as better use of subtitles.
Official web site of the film
Here is the Q&A with director Mark Hopkins from after the screening:
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Duration: 15:02
(8/10)
Tagged as:
africa,
congo,
doctors,
healthcare,
liberia,
war
Waltz with Bashir (2008, Director: Ari Folman): I think calling this an animated documentary might be stretching it a bit, but director Ari Folman has created something really interesting. He’s used animation to go where documentary filmmaking hasn’t been able to take us before, into the memories, dreams and nightmares of its subjects. The film starts when Ari (looking uncannily like Italian film diarist Nanni Morretti) shares a drink with an old army buddy who describes his recurring nightmare of being chased by 28 dogs. After finding out that this relates to specific incidents from the 1982 Lebanon war, we discover that Ari Folman has little recollection of his participation in that conflict. But after this meeting, he begins having a strange recurring dream and after consulting a psychologist friend, he decides he needs to try to figure out why his memory seems blocked.
As he interviews other participants in the war, he begins to piece together his part in a larger narrative, that of Israeli compliance in the massacre of thousands of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut. “Christian” Phalangist militias entered the camps and massacred men, women and children for three horrific days, killing more than 3,000. Despite the militias’ stated aim of rooting out Palestinian fighters, the vast majority of these fighters had been evacuated weeks before. The bloodbath was widely seen as revenge for the assassination of the Phalangists’ leader, the recently-elected President Bashir Gemayel. Although Folman’s memory is never completely reliable, he seems to remember his army unit firing flares so that the militias could carry out their work at night.
The most shocking moment of the film comes right at the end, when the animation suddenly snaps into real-life video footage of the carnage, leaving a dramatic impression. Despite the unreliability of memory, and the nature of guilt (both survivor guilt and that of someone who killed other human beings) and its effect on the mind, this footage is evidence of a real atrocity, and Folman and his comrades have had to live with their part in this tragedy for more than twenty years. It’s no wonder that he used animation; it’s the perfect way to recreate nightmares.
Unfortunately, the director flew home after the film’s opening screening and wasn’t present for a Q&A.
Official site of the film
Trailer
(8/10)
Tagged as:
#tiff08,
guilt,
israel,
lebanon,
memory,
palestine,
war
