Birdman

This is Alejandro Iñárritu's fifth film after Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Bable and Biutiful. He is without doubt a gifted film-maker.

It is the story of an actor, Riggan, who is directing his adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story, dealing with all the difficulties, including a star actor, Mike, played by Edward Norton, who has ideas of his own.

Twenty years previously Riggan was the star of a movie franchise called Birdman, in which he played a - birdman, but he refused to make Birdman 4. After years in the wilderness he has adapted a short story for the theatre and is producing it - his attempt at 'quality' after success in popular cinema. This film is an account of his frustrations and humiliations, and his insecurities as expressed by his inner voice in the shape of Birdman, who often taps him on the shoulder and makes remarks that express Riggan's doubts. Also he copes with the criticisms of his daughter, his ex-wife and his current partner. Throughout the film Riggan is harassed, in motion, busy, abstracted, and I felt that I had not had a chance to get to know him. I would have like a quiet scene for that. All this is a feast of cinema and cinematography with rich, characterful images and a very mobile camera.

This film is not constrained by realism, and the first scene had Riggan floating in mid-air in a room, as though on an invisible magic carpet. In other scenes he soars vertically into the sky, wearing his raincoat, and flies along the street, his arms outstretched as though he thinks he is a bird. One of the challenges of this film is to understand what happens and what is fantasy a bit like in Black Swan.

I participated in a discussion about this film and saw that many struggle to understand it, and so do I. There are scenes I could not explain. I think the film is ambitious and it struggles to embody and express its ideas, using scenes of supernatural events to do so, such as Riggan floating off the ground, flying down a street, and having his previous incarnation as Birdman appear to make remarks to him. I can only speak for myself and, maybe due to my limitations, these scenes did not work for me. I was reminded of Bob Fosse's All that Jazz, which is also about the frustrations of putting on a production and I suddenly realised that has a supernatural eIement - Death in the shape of a beautiful woman, and seemed natural and seemless to me. When Riggan suddenly rose vertically into the air, wearing his raincoat it was abrupt and bizarre. I did not struggle to understand IIñárritu's previous four films.

I am reminded of Wim Wenders who made several good films culminating in Paris, Texas, and then he made Wings of Desire, with poor Bruno Ganz standing on top of buildings with angles wings stuck on his back, looking down at the people. Then we didn't hear much from Wenders after that until he stormed out of an awards ceremony for not getting an award for Buena Vista Social club. It has happened many times that film makers find success and access to larger budgets, with fewer people who can tap them on the shoulder, and they become over-ambitions and less disciplined. I hope Birdman is not Iñárritu's Wings of Desire.

Whiplash

Whiplash is a horrible story about horrible people, but of course this does not make it a bad film; other things do that.

It is the story of a drum student, Andrew, and his teacher, Fletcher. Fletcher insults and humiliates Andrew, calling him names and using cheap humour and foul language while the rest of the class cower in silence. This is the army transposed to a music school. We have seen those scenes where the sargent humiliates his troops. Music has never been so joyless and filled with fear. Later Fletcher justifies his behaviour expressing the belief that musicians achieve their best only when they are pushed, and it was all to make Andrew a better drummer

There is a romance story who's only function is to show us that Andrew is only a little less unpleasant than his teacher.

There is the scene where Andrew is on a bus late for an important session and the bus has a puncture (sigh....), so he hires a car and has a crash (sigh again....). he crawls out from the inverted car, his face covered in blood and goes to the session and performs. I was not sighing then, I was rejecting this overcooked rubbish. This may be dramatic for those who buy all this schtick.

It is easy to imagine this scene:-

"This is an important drumming scene and we need to something to make it really dramatic."

"How about he's drumming so hard that his hands bleed and the blood splatters all over the drums?"

"Wow! That's great! Let's do that."

And, my God, they did.

In a quieter scene Fletcher explains his belief that great artists are capable of performing beyond their expectations when they are encouraged and pushed, but I know that that is not how Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra rose to prominence. No-one drove them to the limit of endurance in a rehearsal room. I don't like the idea that art is like athletics, where effort is so important. Technical facility is not all: think of Miles Davis.

This is a film that does not entertain, it does not please us with its music or the wit and truth of its dialogue, and who's most profound ideas are false.

As one critic wrote "this is a film about jazz for people who don't know much about jazz,"

Night Train to Lisbon

I am not religious but I do occasionally pray. During this film, already able to guess the time very accurately, extrapolated from many glances at my watch, trapped in the middle of a row, I prayed for it to end. Stop. Anything. The film has marshaled many well-known actors for a farrago set in Lisbon; a Lisbon I don't know, where everyone speaks in English with a funny accent. The signs were ominous from the opening scene, which had Raimond (Jeremy Irons - the only 'English' character in the film, and let off his accents) alone in his room in Switzerland playing chess with himself, moving from one side of the chessboard to the other. This had the subtlety of a red arrow on the screen, pointing at him, labelled 'lonely intellectual'. In an early scene he was dithering on the railway platform as to whether to get on the train that was pulling out. At the last minute he jumped on, so it was fortunate that the train was setting off with its doors still open!

The film has quite a starry cast - with Jeremy Irons there are Tom Courtenay, Melanie Laurent, Christpher Lee, Charlotte Rampling and Bruno Ganz, all present and correct and doing 'accents'. I had difficulty concentrating on the narrative, so it was some time before I understood that the older characters were the younger ones in another time. The film proceeded at a steady unmodulated pace with far too many mind-numbing words and explanations, and to little cinema. The music was awful, washing around in the background, neither loud enough nor silent enough. I don't know if this film is an example of Euro-soup, but it is difficult to describe the music without using the word 'soup'. Normally interesting actors were awful, particularly poor Bruno Ganz. The cinematography wasn't bad, with lovely Lisbon, with all its steps, photographed with an atmospheric, golden hue.

A reviewer quoted on Rotten Tomatoes summed up this film well, saying 'take the last train to anywhere but here." while another wrote "after barely stirring to life, Night Train to Lisbon mercifully expires." I needed a couple of strong drinks and a good night's sleep to recover from it.

Grand Central

This is a romance set in a nuclear power station and set in a resolutely working-class context. It stars two flavour-of-the-month actors, Tahar Rahim, who made his name in Jacques Audiar's A Prophet, and Léa Seydoux, who had blue hair in Blue is the Warmest Colour. At the beginning of the film unqualified Gary (Rahim) is looking for work and finds it in a nuclear power station. Karole becomes one of his colleagues there, and there is an affinity between them.

Karole is already involved and the romance becomes complicated. There are many scenes in the work place, presenting it as dangerous, and Gary is told that if he exposes himself to too much radiation he will lose his job.

I am not convinced that A nuclear plant is a particularly dangerous place because there are so many cautionary procedures, unless, of course, something goes seriously wrong, which is rare. In the film there are no managers or senior people and the film gives the impression that this working-class group of workers depend more on their wits and experience than on supervision. Even when Gary is reprimanded it is done by someone who is manifestly working-class.

The film uses electronic music, which is reasonably effective.

Rahim gives a particularly good performance, communicating youthful charm, innocence and gullibility, with an underlying toughness. I find Seydoux quite sour-faced.

I was sceptical about this depiction of  life in a nuclear plant, and I think that to fuel its drama the film used the modernistic appearance of the work, with workers performing their tasks in 'space' suits, to give a lay audience the impression that it is more dangerous and dramatic than it is.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

This is a film that will please many audiences - those looking for a summer blockbuster and those who enjoy a story that resonates with socio-political issues. It is a sequel (I didn't see the first one) set in a future where a simian virus has wiped out most of the human race and caused a sudden increase in the intelligence of apes. The few surviving humans are struggling in decrepit and broken cities, while the apes occupy rural areas. There are amazing scenes of huge communtites of apes, and of numorous apes swinging rapidly from tree to tree to tree through the forests. The early scenes with the apes are subtitled, but this segues into the later scenes where the apes speak in a sparse, croking English.

The story concerns one human enclave, lorded over by a benign and well-intentioned Dreyfus (Gary Oldman), which is running out of power and needs to repair a nearby dam. It sends an exploratory party to the dam. This is a group of callow americans straight out of TV drama, with a politically-correct regulation female, Ellie (Keri Russell) and a regulation negro, Foster (John Eyes) and they set off up the mountain in an English motor-car, a Landrover. The group is captured by the apes and we have the scene, which I have seen in other films, where they are taken to the heart of the ape community and the apes argue about what to do with them. The apes are led by the thoughtful and well-intentioned Ceasar (Andy Serkis), who listens to the group's leader, Malcolm (Jason Clarke) and allows him to go to the dam. During this scene there is a tense moment when it is revealed that one of the group has secretly brought a gun. It is striking that both the human and simian sides have well-intentioned and thoughtful leaders. When I watched the film I didn't know how the apes were rendered so I'm interested to see in writing this that they were actors.

There is contention on both sides: on the human side there are those who say "they are just animals, we must shoot them", and on the simian side there are those who say "humans locked us in cages and did experiments on us!" and some of them still have the scars to prove it. Ceasar and Dreyfus try to calm things down and maintain an uneasy coexistance, but the gun incident sowed mistrust which spread through both communities leading to deterioration on both sides and finally to disaster. Ceasar is challenged by the agressive and human-hating Koba and Dreyfus is dragged down by those seeking a more war-like posture. The apes are well-characterised, and we need to be able to recognize different apes to follow the story.

It is not hard to see the parallels between this story and many situations in the present world and in human history. The film could also be re-imagined as a cowboys 'n' Indians film with the Indians replaced by apes.

There is plenty of spectacle and the cinematography is very good, with images in a dark, grungy, sepia-ish brown, and plenty of spectacle. I saw the 3D version of the film and the 3D effects are well-controlled not too in-your-face.

There are a few moment when the narrative wobbles in the direction of cliched sentimentality, particularly when there is a baby ape that triggers the maternal instinct in Ellie.

This is an intelligent, enjoyable and thoughtful film that I do not hesitate to recommend.

Her

This is a film set in the future when computers will be able to simulate human intelligence and emotions. At the beginning of the film Theodore, played by Joaquin Phoenix, installs a new "operating system" in his computer. Just as with my satnav, Theodore is able to choose whether he wants his computer to have a male or female voice, and he chooses female. Theodore is in the process of divorcing his wife, who was his childhood friend. His new computer is very helpful and he has many conversations with it. He finally admits that he has fallen in love with his computer, and it seems that his computer has fallen in love with him. Yes, this film requires that one suspends one's disbelief very high. At one point the computer says as an aside that it belongs to a book club, and at another it wakes Theodore up in the middle of the night and says that it just wanted to hear his voice.

One problem, of course, with falling in love with a computer is that sex is impossible. However, the computer, being very clever, has thought of that and assigns a woman - a real living female - as a surrogate to do sex with Theodore. Theodore tries, but his heart is not in it and he gives up (the sex, that is). Things happen. There are ups and downs, and misunderstandings, as there must be in any good romance. At one point the computer admits that it is stringing along over 8000 people in the same way that it is engaging Theodore, (although it does not mention whether they are all being assigned the same surrogate). He is understandably upset but he does have a shoulder to cry on, the understanding Amy, played by Amy Adams, a friend who has her own emotional difficulties.

All this takes place in a very stylised futuristic world. The cinematography and mise en scène are stunningly beautiful with an attenuate palet of reduced contrast and pastel shades, with some lovely images. The people in this film are mild, well-intentioned, and nice. With the pastel shades it is as though they are adult children inhabiting a nursery. The un-nurserylike characteristic of the interiors is that they are all immaculate, tidy, and clean. This is the opposite of grunge. I was amused to see that in an attempt to make the computers look different in a futuristic way, computer displays are actually thicker than those I would see in any contemporary computer shop. To hear the voice of the computer Theodore wears a small plastic earpiece, a bit like a hearing aid, in one ear. He never had to say "Hold on, You're breaking up, I'll go over by the window." and he never complained about the signal. A perfect world. The protracted conversations about emotional difficulties made me think, briefly, of Woody Allen. The sanitised world reminded me of Peter Weir's The Truman Show.

My difficulty with this film is that it is very insubstantial and I thought that it has no point. Joaquin Phoenix is an actor for whom I would go to see a film, and in this film is, as ever, very good. He, together with the mise en scène and cinematography are this film's strongest features. It is just that I'm not sure that these strengths justify the two hours it takes to see the film. At one point I realised that I had looked at my watch four times, and at the end of the film I was cuddling my watch in my hand and was pleased to leave the cinema. We live in a world with many political and other difficulties and I do not understand why anyone should want to make a film about nothing.

Blue Is the Warmest Colour

This is a film that demands and justifies very close attention for the whole of its three-hour duration, and it left me emotionally drained. The performances of the two leads, Adèle Exarchopoulos as Adèle, and Léa Seydoux as Emma, are astonishing. The film follows very closely Adèle's life from schoolgirl to the beginning of her adult life well engaged on her career as a teacher. What impresses is how all the forces and influences to which she is subject are scrupulously and thoughtfully marshalled into a credible person's story. The main event is her first serious emotional engagement (aka 'love affair') which, as is so often the case, ended painfully for her. At the end of the film she is a wiser, more thoughtful, and slightly scarred woman.

Many of the elements that will form Adèle as an adult are here in this film, thoughtfully and subtly present - family, class, sex, peer pressure, ambitions and professional demands. Much work and thought went into this screenplay, and it easily justifies its long duration. The film was directed by Abdellatif Kechiche, who also adapted it from the source graphic novel. The transformation of Adèle from puppyish teenager to confident professional in the course of the film is gradual and astonishing.

Many discussions of this film are really discussions of the sex scenes. Being located in the UK, I expected this because I know how taboo mention of sex is here in polite conversation. The only rule is - if one must mention sex don't confess to being interested in the sex or enjoying it. I have heard no discussions of the pasta-eating scenes (there are three!) One should not go to this film on an empty stomach!

Much of the cinematography is hand-held, with Adèle being on screen for nearly all of the time with a camera not much more than about nine inches from her. This is not normally my preferred filming method, but I was happy with it here. Blue is a unifying motif throughout the film.