jamesgill-1
Joined Jul 2009
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The new animated romance Chico and Rita follows the relationship of two young Cuban musicians: Chico is a gifted piano player looking to bring the sound of Havana to New York; Rita is a beautiful singer who treads the precarious path between Latin musicians and white investors looking to cash in on the popularity of this new music. Like all star crossed lovers, their journey is not an easy one – their musical and romantic tribulations will continue over 60 years against the striking backdrops of Havana, New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas.
The real strength of the film is its ability to portray a classic love story in both an innovative, sensual and sensitive way. The syncopated grace of Cuban Jazz combines with a disarmingly child-like animation to create a sparkling tribute to 1940s and 50s Havana culture.
The film exudes real passion for both the music of the period and the locations of the film, beautifully re-crafted within the animated landscape. The Cuban sound is brought to life with a truly uplifting assortment of records, including classics from Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie and Thelonius Monk. Like the heady improvisation of a be-bop trumpeter, this film bounces between soft melody and excited fragmentation, always bursting to give the audience something new and exciting.
Yet this does not mean that the film is purely for Jazz aficionados – the affection that directors Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba bring to their work ensures that this film doesn't become simply a musical tribute aimed at a conceited minority. The scale of the narrative will leave you breathless, and yet the story is all told through the seemingly innocent hand of traditional cartoon animation. In a post-Pixar world, this kind of hand-drawn animation has gained a retro charm all of its own. Chico and Rita is a delicate reminder that genuine action and emotion can still be expressed without the pixellated glossiness of CGI.
Chico and Rita really succeeds in bringing the colour and vibrancy of early 50s Havana back to life – from the delightfully evocative soundtrack, to the re-telling of a classic love story through the medium of hand-drawn animation, the film is a fitting expression of the vision and compassion of its creators.
Find more reviews at www.singleadmission.co.uk
The real strength of the film is its ability to portray a classic love story in both an innovative, sensual and sensitive way. The syncopated grace of Cuban Jazz combines with a disarmingly child-like animation to create a sparkling tribute to 1940s and 50s Havana culture.
The film exudes real passion for both the music of the period and the locations of the film, beautifully re-crafted within the animated landscape. The Cuban sound is brought to life with a truly uplifting assortment of records, including classics from Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie and Thelonius Monk. Like the heady improvisation of a be-bop trumpeter, this film bounces between soft melody and excited fragmentation, always bursting to give the audience something new and exciting.
Yet this does not mean that the film is purely for Jazz aficionados – the affection that directors Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba bring to their work ensures that this film doesn't become simply a musical tribute aimed at a conceited minority. The scale of the narrative will leave you breathless, and yet the story is all told through the seemingly innocent hand of traditional cartoon animation. In a post-Pixar world, this kind of hand-drawn animation has gained a retro charm all of its own. Chico and Rita is a delicate reminder that genuine action and emotion can still be expressed without the pixellated glossiness of CGI.
Chico and Rita really succeeds in bringing the colour and vibrancy of early 50s Havana back to life – from the delightfully evocative soundtrack, to the re-telling of a classic love story through the medium of hand-drawn animation, the film is a fitting expression of the vision and compassion of its creators.
Find more reviews at www.singleadmission.co.uk
Mike Leigh's latest film Another Year follows the story of a happily married couple approaching their retirement years. Their warm relationship offers them security as the the film progresses. Their friends and family, by contrast, all struggle to some extent with unhappiness, and a sense that their best years may be behind them.
The film is a story of ageing; the small events that can make life either comforting or unbearable; and the refuge that companionship can offer.
Rut Sheen's role as Gerri is superb. Her open, welcoming face invites her friend and colleague Mary (played by Lesley Manville) to open up to her about her drunken fears of where her life is leading. Jim Broadbent's Tom is charming and self-effacing, confident in his own happiness yet nonplussed at the failure of his friend Ken – Peter Wight – to come to terms with growing old.
The film dwells on the small, predominantly non-verbal signals that reveal emotional and social insecurity. Leigh's direction reminds us that the sharpest insights into character lie in moments where we think we at our most concealed. Faces betray what we wish were kept private – at moments where verbal communication fails, physical expression lights up hidden fears, passions, failings and desires.
Leigh treats all his characters with a certain dignity – whilst there are moments where we are encouraged to laugh at their social inadequacies, for the most part we suffer along with them, knowing that their experiences are all too near reality to take lightly. We encourage Tom and Gerri to keep supporting their despairing friends, yet knowing at the same time that their married happiness can only serve to mock their friends' lonely lives further. The four strictly partitioned seasons of the film point towards a growing anxiety that it may in fact be too late for these lost characters. The cyclical nature of the structure suggests that there is no real remedy for those left unloved and lonely at the film's conclusion.
From the opening scene, where a woman silently struggles to recollect the happiest moment in her life, to the point when the dialogue slowly fades away to leave Mary isolated and forlorn, we cannot help but be both enchanted and dismayed by the emotional honesty of Mike Leigh's characters. This is what sets out the director as a truly gifted artist – his ability to heighten the routine into the dramatic; and to make the trivial, truly tragic.
The film is a story of ageing; the small events that can make life either comforting or unbearable; and the refuge that companionship can offer.
Rut Sheen's role as Gerri is superb. Her open, welcoming face invites her friend and colleague Mary (played by Lesley Manville) to open up to her about her drunken fears of where her life is leading. Jim Broadbent's Tom is charming and self-effacing, confident in his own happiness yet nonplussed at the failure of his friend Ken – Peter Wight – to come to terms with growing old.
The film dwells on the small, predominantly non-verbal signals that reveal emotional and social insecurity. Leigh's direction reminds us that the sharpest insights into character lie in moments where we think we at our most concealed. Faces betray what we wish were kept private – at moments where verbal communication fails, physical expression lights up hidden fears, passions, failings and desires.
Leigh treats all his characters with a certain dignity – whilst there are moments where we are encouraged to laugh at their social inadequacies, for the most part we suffer along with them, knowing that their experiences are all too near reality to take lightly. We encourage Tom and Gerri to keep supporting their despairing friends, yet knowing at the same time that their married happiness can only serve to mock their friends' lonely lives further. The four strictly partitioned seasons of the film point towards a growing anxiety that it may in fact be too late for these lost characters. The cyclical nature of the structure suggests that there is no real remedy for those left unloved and lonely at the film's conclusion.
From the opening scene, where a woman silently struggles to recollect the happiest moment in her life, to the point when the dialogue slowly fades away to leave Mary isolated and forlorn, we cannot help but be both enchanted and dismayed by the emotional honesty of Mike Leigh's characters. This is what sets out the director as a truly gifted artist – his ability to heighten the routine into the dramatic; and to make the trivial, truly tragic.
Like Charlie Chaplin's Hitler, Chris Morris' 'Four Lions' shows that no subject can escape comic scrutiny; humour always seems to find the ability to expose the ridiculous in otherwise appalling situations. This satirical black comedy vents its disgust at the pseudo-morality of suicide bombing, whilst managing to portray its terrorists with an affection that allows the audience an unexpected emotional attachment with these supposed figures of violence.
The film follows a terrorist cell of blundering, inept, and impossibly stupid would-be suicide bombers on their quest towards martyrdom – we follow them failing miserably in a Pakistan training camp, trying to run through sheep fields whilst carrying bags of explosives, attaching bombs to crows, all the time creating a chaotic 'blooper' reel of attempted martyrdom videos. These suicide bombers are not the feared assassins of popular imagination, but absurd and easily led dupes who encourage laughter and ridicule – and significantly, in the end, pity.
The comedy of 'Four Lions' lies in the power of its bathos: the film reduces the dreaded spectre of suicide bombing to a ludicrous pageant of ineptitude. It's a film with fast laughs and dim wit in abundance, an absurd 'How Not-To Guide' to martyrdom.
However, the audience cannot help but feel pity for the characters as their plot reaches its climax. There is a sad inevitability to the group's last moments together; despite the horror of what the bombers are planning, the audience has been lulled into sympathising with their situation. The sadness of the film comes with the audience's realisation that these characters are regular, likable, funny, naive people – they are not monsters in themselves, but made monstrous by their susceptibility to absurd, immoral teachings.
The lead character Omar's interactions with his wife and young son are painful in their twisted depiction of the ideal family unit. At one point Omar (played by Riz Ahmed) tells his son a bedtime story about 'Simba's Jihad'. It is a scene that is touching, funny and uncomfortable all at once, a reflection of our responses to the film as a whole.
'Four Lions' is provocative in its comic parody of an emotional subject, but there is never any sense that it wishes to be deliberately inflammatory. Instead, the story is told with warmth and sharp humour; it offers us a fine concoction of derision and sympathy, pulling at our affections whilst cutting the terrifying down to the clownish.
James Gill ------ Find more reviews, news and previews at www.singleadmission.co.uk
The film follows a terrorist cell of blundering, inept, and impossibly stupid would-be suicide bombers on their quest towards martyrdom – we follow them failing miserably in a Pakistan training camp, trying to run through sheep fields whilst carrying bags of explosives, attaching bombs to crows, all the time creating a chaotic 'blooper' reel of attempted martyrdom videos. These suicide bombers are not the feared assassins of popular imagination, but absurd and easily led dupes who encourage laughter and ridicule – and significantly, in the end, pity.
The comedy of 'Four Lions' lies in the power of its bathos: the film reduces the dreaded spectre of suicide bombing to a ludicrous pageant of ineptitude. It's a film with fast laughs and dim wit in abundance, an absurd 'How Not-To Guide' to martyrdom.
However, the audience cannot help but feel pity for the characters as their plot reaches its climax. There is a sad inevitability to the group's last moments together; despite the horror of what the bombers are planning, the audience has been lulled into sympathising with their situation. The sadness of the film comes with the audience's realisation that these characters are regular, likable, funny, naive people – they are not monsters in themselves, but made monstrous by their susceptibility to absurd, immoral teachings.
The lead character Omar's interactions with his wife and young son are painful in their twisted depiction of the ideal family unit. At one point Omar (played by Riz Ahmed) tells his son a bedtime story about 'Simba's Jihad'. It is a scene that is touching, funny and uncomfortable all at once, a reflection of our responses to the film as a whole.
'Four Lions' is provocative in its comic parody of an emotional subject, but there is never any sense that it wishes to be deliberately inflammatory. Instead, the story is told with warmth and sharp humour; it offers us a fine concoction of derision and sympathy, pulling at our affections whilst cutting the terrifying down to the clownish.
James Gill ------ Find more reviews, news and previews at www.singleadmission.co.uk