Friday 20 May 2011

Mother (Madeo) (2009)

She'll stop at nothing.

"Mother" is an unusual character-based murder mystery set in modern day South Korea and featuring a superb performance by Kim Hye-ja, the actress playing the title character, a single mother of a mentally backward, memory-impaired, young man of 28 years of age accused of killing a local school girl. Finding precious little support from the law, Hye-ja, desperate to identify the real perpetrator, is herself forced to turn amateur detective.

The story begins with the son, Do-joon (Won Bin), being led into a needlessly violent confrontation with a group of elderly people by his best friend, Jin-tae (Ku Jin). Later, at the police station, facing a sizeable fine for criminal damage, Jin-tae exploits Do-joon's foggy recollection of the event to trick him into taking the rap. Of course, it is Do-joon's mother, Hye-ja (Kim Hye-ja), who will have to try to find the money to pay the fine from her meagre income as a herb seller and unlicensed acupuncturist. Later, when the body of the school girl is found, and the finger of suspicion points to Do-joon, based on circumstantial evidence (possibly planted by Jin-tae), Hye-ja begins a solitary struggle on behalf of her son.

Stripped to its essence, and in the hands of lesser filmmakers, perhaps, this would be just another stock genre murder mystery with an amateur sleuth. But the sly way the story is set up by director, Bong Joon-ho, and screenplay writer, Park Eun-kyo, edging the mother unexpectedly into the role of investigator, is so fresh and clever in its execution that it seems quite novel.

The script is brilliant, with the plot taking various surprising turns. People are not always what they seem at first, and there are some unsettling reveals. Along the way, a harsh light is shone on the investigative powers of the police and the moral fibre of the legal representatives, not to mention the cruel world of Korean schoolchildren, and there are episodes of strong suspense and violence. An intriguing secondary mystery clouds the nature of the relationship between two important characters. Is the one still a small child in the eyes of the other, or is something less savoury involved? Perhaps I missed some vital clues, but in my mind this puzzle was only satisfactorily resolved days after watching the film.

The script is great, but best of all is the outstanding performance by Kim Hye-Ja as the mother, a master class in method acting, her incredibly expressive face able to communicate a range of conflicting emotions within a matter of seconds. The enigmatic temporal bookends in which she features linger in the memory. Very good performances as well by Jin Goo and Won Bin as the two young men.

  • Director: Bong Joon-ho
  • Writers: Bong Joon-ho, Park Eun-kyo
  • Starring: Kim Hye-ja, Bin Won, Ku Jin, Yoon Jae-Moon, Mi-sun Jun, Young-Suck Lee, Sae-Beauk Song, Mun-hee Na, Woo-hee Chun, Byoung-Soon Kim

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Sunday 8 May 2011

Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961)

Audrey Hepburn plays Holly Golightly, the craziest heroine who ever crept between the pages of a best-selling novel!

Breakfast at Tiffany's, based on the novella (1958) by Truman Capote, is a romantic comedy drama with a very dark heart about identity, self-delusion and ambition in New York City, featuring a mesmerising central performance by Audrey Hepburn.

Holly Golightly (Hepburn) is a bubbly kooky glamorous fun-loving girl whose life seems to be constant swirl of nightclubs, late night parties and men. A handsome young author, Paul Varjak (George Peppard), moves into an apartment above, and is willingly drawn into the carousel of Holly's chaotic existence.

The stage is set for romance, or would be but for one small hurdle. Varjak has long-term writer's block and seems to subsist on handouts from a wealthy patroness, Emily Eustace Failenson (Patricia Neal), while Holly has set her sights on marrying a man rich enough to validate her current life-style, a millionaire, and puts a kind of magic ring-fence around Varjak, nicknaming him "Fred" after her older brother.

The two leads are likeable characters, and we wish them well. Will the fixedness of Holly's ambitions prevent her from finding true happiness? Will Varjak ever find sufficient lead for his pencil (actually ribbon for his typewriter)? As the story unfolds, the happy-go-lucky world of Holly Golightly begins to develop serious fault-lines, as the world-conquering self-image that she has created for herself becomes increasingly difficult to maintain against the intrusion of inconvenient prosaic realities from her present and past lives.

There are strong parallels between the two lead characters, relating to their sources of income, indicated early on in the story. In the small hours in the apartment building one night, escaping from an insistent drunken date, angry that the $50 "restroom attendant tip" he gave her has got him nothing in return, Holly slips up the fire escape to Varjak's window and sees Failenson inside, adjusting her clothes and leaving a $300 gift on the bedside table before exiting. Holly's main income, it can be inferred, is in the form of "gifts", money or otherwise, from men at clubs, where she presumably serves as some sort of escort or companion. Wikipedia's entry for Capote's novella states: "Holly Golightly (age 18-19) is a country girl turned New York café society girl, who makes her living as a companion to society's most prominent men." Varjak has had a book of short stories published, but nothing else recently, so it seems very doubtful that he could be getting sufficient royalties to pay for an apartment in Manhattan. Judging by the decor, it seems more likely that the apartment is provided for him by Failenson.

While watching, I suspected that Holly Golightly was a stand-in for Truman Capote himself, casting himself, metaphorically as an aspirational "media whore". Wikipedia, however, draws parallels between Golightly and Capote's mother, who carved out a new life for herself in New York City in a similar way to Golightly: "both left the husbands they married as teenagers and abandoned relatives they loved and were responsible for in order to make their way to New York City, and both achieved Cafe Society status through relationships with wealthier men".

The best thing about the film is the character of Holly Golightly, the glamorous tart rejecting her heart, and Hepburn's wonderful portrayal of her. Wikipedia says that Hepburn herself "regarded it as one of her most challenging roles, since she was an introvert required to play an extrovert", and also that Marilyn Monroe was first choice for the role, which would have been different, but also probably very effective. The great song "Moon River" by Henry Mancini was apparently written specially for the "limited vocal range" of Audrey Hepburn, whose singing of it, according to Wikipedia "helped composer Henry Mancini and lyricist Johnny Mercer win an Oscar for Best Song."

Peppard, by contrast, 33 years old at the time, was surely too old for the role. (Hepburn was 42 32, but always looked young for her age.) Admittedly, he does have the intelligence and sensitivity for the role, but to attract a rich sugar mummy, surely his character would need to be a slimmer, more handsome, more waifish younger man, a young Warren Beatty or Anthony Perkins, for instance, not this stolid buttoned-up suit-wearing type.

Sources:

  • Director: Blake Edwards
  • Writers: George Axelrod (screenplay), Truman Capote (novella)
  • Starring: Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Martin Balsam, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Mickey Rooney, John McGiver, José Luis de Villalonga

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Amendments: Following good comment from @anonymous, deleted "more waifish" from description of the young Warren Beatty. Added ranking image. Following comment by Wanderer, struck through the whole of last paragraph, which has been pretty much blown out of the water.



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True Grit (1969)

The strangest trio ever to track a killer.

A very enjoyable character-based western, directed by Henry Hathaway, and notable for the remarkable strength of will and general audaciousness of its female protagonist, teenager Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), who propels herself into a brutal male-dominated world of violence and death. As in the Coen brothers' 2010 remake, Mattie embarks on a quest to bring her father's murderer to justice with the help of two very different law enforcers, a grizzled hard-drinking US Marshall, Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne), and a charismatic young Texas ranger, La Boeuf (Glen Campbell).

This 1969 film has more back story than the Coen brothers' remake, introducing Mattie and her father, Frank Ross (John Pickard), at home, and showing the context of the murder and the murder itself. From then on the plot follows fairly similar paths, driven by Mattie and her mission. Finding that the local sheriff has no jurisdiction in the Indian Territory to which the murderer, Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey), has fled, Mattie, on her own initiative, hires the meanest licensed federal law officer she can find, Cogburn. La Boeuf also turns out also to be in pursuit of Chaney, for an earlier crime, and in fairly short order, Mattie, Cogburn and La Boeuf enter Indian Territory all bent on the same goal.

As in the Coen brothers' version, the main delight of the film is Mattie Ross herself: the way she interacts with the range of people she encounters and the character of her responses to events. She is an amazing person, only 14 years old but clever and audacious, whose personal courage and readiness to engage in violent action, as the story develops, is tested to the extreme. Perhaps in those days (1880 according to Wikipedia, not that long ago really, around the time my father's grandfather was running around in short trousers), children were less sheltered. Near the start of the film, the filmmakers deliberately show how public executions were treated by many townspeople as a fun day out, with snacks for sale, and small children apparently free to mingle with the watching crowds, and even, from their playground swings opposite the town square, getting the best views.

Hathaway permits his young protagonist more emotion than the Coen brothers do. He shows, from the outset, how Mattie is taken with La Boeuf and briefly shows her crying (privately) over her late father's possessions. Possibly related to this, but less satisfactorily, is the use of the musical score, which to modern ears seems rather unsubtle at times.

Another delight, of course, is the debauched but doughty character of Cogburn and the great performance of Wayne (despite being 20 years or so older than the character in the book, he received an Academy Award for Best Actor), contrasting strongly with the characters of the strictly brought up Mattie and straight-arrow La Boeuf. According to Wikipedia, Wayne did his own stunts, including the final jump.

There's so much fun to be had, especially, in the first reel, in Mattie's interactions with other characters. When she comes into conflict with La Boeuf, their brief flirting turns to verbal sparring, and she stands up to him just fine, as she does with everyone else. Her dealings with the horse dealer, Col. G. Stonehill (an outstanding performance by Strother Martin), show her to be a wonderfully feisty resourceful person.

Speaking of supporting characters, others of note include Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper, who play their roles relatively sympathetically, showing that criminals are more than simple monsters.

My only criticism is that Glen Campbell, hand-picked by Wayne, according to Wikipedia, seemed too old for the role (he was 33), or not quite vulnerable and good-looking enough for Mattie to take a shine to him, or maybe just not an expressive enough actor. I never felt there was any chemistry between the two of them.

Sources:

  • Director: Henry Hathaway
  • Writers: Marguerite Roberts (screenplay), Charles Portis (novel)
  • Starring: John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Jeff Corey, Dennis Hopper, Strother Martin, John Fiedler

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Amendments: corrected some links. Added ranking image.



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Friday 6 May 2011

Funny Face (1957)

'S Wonderful! 'S Marvelous!

Here's a romantic musical comedy with the most promising ingredients:

  • featuring winsome Audrey Hepburn in her first musical outing and legendary dancer Fred Astaire
  • directed by Stanley Donen, uncrowned king of Hollywood musicals and director of the glorious classic "Singing in the Rain"
  • music by George and Ira Gershwin
  • choreography by Eugene Loring
  • set in New York City and Paris

Sadly, what should be a light and airy soufflé turns out to be a bit of a pudding.

The film starts well enough with a sprightly musical dance title sequence in a modernistic Mondrian-like style, apparently designed by photographer Richard Avedon, in which Maggie Prescott (the fabulously talented Kay Thompson), editor of Quality fashion magazine, throws out the design for next month's edition, and demands a bold new look, all in pink. Lead photographer, Dick Avery (Astaire), a character apparently based on Richard Avedon himself, seeking inspiration in a Greenwich book shop, happens upon fashion-eschewing philosophy-loving sales assistant, Jo Stockton (Hepburn), and convinces Prescott that Stockton has the fresh new look the magazine needs. Stockton, though somewhat smitten with Avery following an impromptu kiss on the lips, is at first reluctant to be involved. But, on the strength of a free trip to Paris, where at last, in her free time, she can attend lectures by her idol, Emile Flostre (Michel Auclair), professor of empathicalism, she finally agrees to work as Quality magazine's featured model, and they all fly to Paris.

The setup is a bit like a fifties' version of The Devil Wears Prada (2006), with Hepburn pre-figuring Anne Hathaway's fashion-ambivalent journalist Andrea Sacks, and Thompson trailblazing the tyrannical reign of Meryl Streep's ruthless Runway magazine editor, Miranda Priestly. It is a setup with fantastic potential for subtly exploring issues relating to the role of women in the modern world via the conflicting external and internal forces acting on the character of Stockton, a woman who, rejecting conventional gender stereotyping and espousing the world of ideas, nevertheless, has temporarily agreed to compromise her ideals by working in the fashion industry.

A great setup, yes, but a very unsatisfying payoff, where the issues posed in the setup, even the relatively minor issue of the questionable value of fashion (which The Devil Wears Prada addresses very smartly), are pretty much left by the wayside. Instead (without dropping specific plot spoilers), Stockton's behaviour becomes irrationally, even selfishly capricious, leading to peculiar plot developments, all apparently serving to maintain the conventions of the genre. Could this lack of bite in the script have resulted from a failure of nerve when facing up to the popular modern monsters of feminism, intellectualism and anti-materialism?

Forgetting the film's questionable morals and character development, taking it purely in terms of entertainment, the film is simply rather dull. Despite being awarded a Golden Laurel nomination for "Top Male Musical Performance" at Cannes Film Festival (1957), to my unschooled eyes, Astaire seems rather subdued and does not really do anything very impressive in dance, except when pretending to be a French beatnik, and his singing isn't that great, either. My teenage daughter, who has had a good deal of dance training, commented that his dancing was boring. The songs by Gershwin are quite unmemorable. The view provided on the bohemian Left Bank culture looks stereotyped and unconvincing. That said, the Paris-based Bohemian dance numbers by Hepburn, Thompson and Astaire are pretty funny. The best performers are Hepburn who does a funny modern dance routine to express herself in a French dive, and her boss, the head of Quality magazine, who is a hugely entertaining dancer.

Astaire was terribly miscast. (According to Wikipedia, Hepburn insisted that he be cast. He had starred with his sister Adele in the stage version years before.) Hepburn was 28 but looked younger. Astaire was 58 and looked it, especially in his frequent cardigans, a 30-year age gap, too wide. There seemed to be no reason why she should fall for him, except that he took the liberty of kissing her on the lips a couple of times, and also that he was the one that saw her potential as a model and chose her for the magazine feature.

According to Wikipedia, only a year or so after the release of this film, the bottom fell out of the musical film genre, and Donen had to change to other kinds of work. On the evidence of this film, I'm not really surprised.

Sources:

  • Director: Stanley Donen
  • Writer: Leonard Gershe
  • Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson, Michel Auclair, Robert Flemyng, Suzy Parker

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Amendment: Added ranking image.



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