Broken Embraces

Broken Embraces has everything that an Almodovar fan could hope for. It is a story about filmmaking that celebrates the triumphs and tragedies of storytelling: multi-stranded narratives unfold within other stories; seemingly unrelated characters are slowly revealed to be linked by deep secrets, and all the while Almodovar’s camera prowls with Hitchcockian precision, lapping up the beautifully designed sets and the equally beautiful performances of the cast (Lluis Homar and Penelope Cruz in particular). For all of its pleasures though, Broken Embraces feels too much like Spain’s greatest living director on autopilot. After the career high of Volver, which was so tightly constructed and emotionally resonant, Broken Embraces lacks focus, with perhaps too many storylines spiralling all over the place, and none of them gripping enough to really move an audience.

Make no mistake, a new Almodovar is always going to be essential viewing, and Broken Embraces offers many moments that can sit alongside his best work - a confrontation scene with Cruz mimicking her own image on a screen is stunning. But the overall sensation is as if Almodovar had laid on a delicious spread of sweet desserts, when what I really wanted was the full three courses.

Profile: Jamie Johnson

This is my profile piece on Sounds Like Teen Spirit director Jamie Johnson, from the current issue of The List.

Name Jamie J Johnson

Born 14 September 1976, Hammersmith, London

Background The son of a painter, Johnson initially followed in his father’s footsteps before deciding that moving pictures were more to his liking, and started creating flick books. He caught Channel 4’s attention with a series of zero-budget video ‘fanzines’, on subjects ranging from bad TV to mini golf, and while the films had a definite homemade feel they also established Johnson as a director of undeniable vision. His first film proper was the 2003 BAFTA-nominated short Holiday Around My Bedroom, a fantastical documentary that achieved a balance of warm sentiment and imaginative visuals akin to the work of Michel Gondry.

What’s he up to now? Having discovered Junior Eurovision and its huge cult following in continental Europe, Johnson obtained behind-the-scenes access; the result is his debut feature, Sounds Like Teen Spirit.

On the value of Junior Eurovision ‘It is a very nurturing environment – the kids do genuinely have the best week of their lives, and they go off on all these museum visits and cultural things. Also, there were loads of Eurovision-obsessed journalists there, and one in particular said “I love seeing all Europe come together on one stage after all these years of war”, and that resonated with me. I thought, “It is kitsch and silly, but it’s also got this nice element.”’

On being an objective documentarian ‘I don’t think I did a very good job. When one of the contestants, Marina, was telling me about her absent dad I started crying, and she was like, “Come on Jamie it’s fine, don’t be an idiot.” Which was kind of funny, being comforted by a 14-year-old who was actually living through it.’

Interesting fact Jarvis Cocker was approached to provide narration for the film, but he suggested that it would be more appropriate to have the director’s own voice on such a unique film. The producers agreed, and Johnson’s voiceover made it to the final film.

Sounds Like Teen Spirit is on selected released from Fri 8 May. Read my review on The List website.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine - radio review

I was a guest on the BBC Radio Scotland Movie Cafe today, and reviewed the new Hugh Jackman movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine with the show's host, the lovely Janice Forsyth. It was a great experience and will hopefully lead to more. You can listen to the review here:

Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine by paulcgallagher

Sci-Fi Spotlight #3: The Man Who Fell To Earth

This was a strange one. I should have suspected that science fiction from Nic Roeg would not be anything I could anticipate, and sure enough I’m still struggling to decide what to make of The Man Who Fell To Earth. At the simplest level, it shows an odd-looking man named Newton (David Bowie) appearing in small town America - literally falling from the sky - and swiftly becoming one of the most powerful businessmen in the country. He is a cold, reclusive type, and we eventually discover that he is an alien, come to earth as his planet has run out of water. We see brief shots of his alien family dying back home, but Newton becomes distracted by the money and entertainment available to him on earth, and never returns home.

Roeg doesn’t so much tell this story as make you work to tell the story yourself. Large chunks of time are skipped over, and you have to fill in what happens inbetween with your imagination. So we see Newton arrive on earth with nothing, and in only a few moments of screen time we are several years down the line and he’s running World Enterprise, a massive company that is leading the field in American research and technology. This initially suggests that he has unearthly intelligence or resources, but if this is the case it is never made explicit, and doesn’t seem to feature as the story progresses and Newton is ultimately overcome by the world.

Bowie’s performance is excellent, impenetrable and otherworldly. His pale skin and dyed red hair, combined with his hollow stare, make him seem more like an alien in human shape than when his character sheds the human disguise and is revealed in his ‘real’, make-up heavy form. Throughout the film, apart from a couple of scenes, he remains without emotion, and his thoughts and desires are similarly obscured. If there is reason or purpose in his actions then Roeg is not interested in discovering it.

What, then, is Roeg interested in showing or discovering in The Man Who Fell To Earth? He creates a lot of fascinating visuals, but there isn’t a lot of sense behind them; while the film certainly seems to have artistic intentions, watching it is something of an empty experience. It also feels very dated, being full of gratuitous nudity and extended sex scenes that may have been provocative in the 70s but now beg the question ‘why?’ Similarly, Roeg plays with the timeline of the film as if to challenge conventional storytelling techniques, but to no discernible purpose.

So roll on Alphaville, I say. Perhaps I can make more sense of Jean-Luc Godard. Errr…

Sci-Fi Spotlight #2: THX 1138

Fresh from experiencing Tarkovsky for the first time, the second film in my Sci-Fi Spotlight is from a director that I need no introduction to, one George Lucas. The funny thing is, watching THX 1138 caused me to question if this was actually the same Lucas I knew from the Star Wars films, as the only link between his blockbusting series and this near-avant-garde film is the sense of technical innovation. THX 1138 is something of a revelation as far as my perspective on Lucas is concerned, and it seems a shame that he has never returned to making this kind of film.

The story is very simple. In an unspecified future society where everyone is sedated to the level of emotionless consumer-drones, THX (Robert Duvall) neglects to take his prescribed drugs and begins to see the reality of his predicament. His room-mate LUH (Maggie McComie) has already broken free from her sedation, in fact she intentionally caused THX to miss his required dose, and as the two awake to emotion they fall in love and have sex; illegal activites in this society. They plan to attempt an escape, but are already being pursued by the beaureacratic system of government and its police droids.

Lucas unfolds this story using a very pared-down style, not attempting to draw the viewer in by conventional storytelling methods. Working with the now-legendary editor/sound designer Walter Murch he cuts together images and voices, often unsynchronised, in a nonlinear style. Lucas uses very few establishing shots and mostly close-ups, so the individual performances and character actions become the audience’s main guide through the story’s landscape.

While there is a simple story thread running through the film, THX 1138 is most effective and memorable for individual moments, sounds and images. In a scene where police droids beat THX with electric prods, for example, they repeat the mantra “everything will be alright” even as he cries out in pain. It is a powerful image of brutal and unfeeling authority, both disturbing and absurdly funny, and Lucas injects the film with many of these moments.

On his DVD commentary Lucas insists that everything in the film is metaphorical and refers specifically to the political situation in the late 1960s. He makes a good argument for this being the case, but I don’t think it’s necessary to identify these correlations to take anything of value from this story. Many of the images and ideas in THX 1138 are arguably even more relevant today than on the film’s 1971 release, and it seems to me a great example of science fiction’s timeless potential.

Next up, The Man Who Fell To Earth. David Bowie is an alien - I knew it!