Paris

This never quite hangs together unfortunately. It's clearly meant to be a panoramic view of modern-day Paris and it's inhabitants, but it only sparks periodically which is a shame considering the quality of the cast. That inveterate scene-stealer Fabrice Luchini is by far the most entertaining even if his plot strand is that old cliche the May-December romance. Just watch him dance! Alas Francois Cluzet is underused, characterised as a sensitive soul (in contrast to his brother played by Luchini) by his tendency to become tearful and Romain Duris mopes around his apartment while waiting for a heart transplant. Luckily Juliette Binoche makes it watchable as a feisty, though lonely, single mother whose shy encounters with a market stall holder run through the film. When they finally link up, it's a wonderfully sweet moment.

Summer Hours

I enjoyed this far more than I expected, not being a huge fan of Olivier Assayas. It's a simple story centred around a handful of lengthy family set-pieces but raising questions about culture, heritage, preservation of memories, and what it means to be French. When their mother dies, three siblings have to decide what to do with her rambling country house and the works of art that it contains, including the sketchbooks of their artist great-uncle. The eldest wants to preserve it all, in order to pass it on to the next generation. However, his brother and sister no longer live in France and their lives are not centred around their childhood home anymore. Their futures lie in China and America. As for the works of art, they get dispersed to museums or sold at auction. Rather than being the domain of one select group of people, they now become visible to many more. A nice touch is when the eldest son allows his mother's housekeeper to select a keepsake. She doesn't want to take advantage so chooses a vase which she alone has ever liked. He agrees despite just learning that it is in fact very valuable. It's a comforting thought that while one of the vases will be behind glass in a museum, the other will still be containing flowers somewhere.

Exhibitions

Another Saturday, another trip to London to see a couple of exhibitions. The Vilhelm Hammershoi at the Royal Academy certainly counts as enigmatic. You would never call his paintings colourful, with a palette of black, brown and white, and it often feels like you are looking at them through a haze. Some of the interiors brought to mind Vermeer, in the arrangement of rooms and the way light falls through windows, and one painting of a woman sewing immediately made me think of the Vermeer seamstress in the Louvre. Mostly the interiors are unsettling: deserted rooms, or a solitary figure with her back to the viewer. It feels slightly voyeuristic. My favourite work was a pencil and oil sketch of boats at Christianshavn Canal, which felt less claustrophobic and controlled than the rest.
In contrast the De Bray Family exhibition at Dulwich is vibrant. I'd seen some of the portraits at the National Gallery's Dutch Portraits exhibition a while back so it was interesting to see more work by the family. Salomon's delightful portrait of the new-born twins Clara and Albert de Bray is a highlight but his sons were equally talented. Jan's group portraits of various regents in Haarlem sit alongside paintings of his own family (most of whom were to die of the plague), while both Joseph and Dirck painted still life. Dirck in particular playfully juxtaposes items in stark contrast to the cornucopias of Jan van Huysum which are on display elsewhere in the gallery.

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight is a movie riven with bitter ironies and harsh truths, where ends start to justify means and the good end up corrupted. The glittering surfaces of the city mask the darkness lurking in the depths, which erupts into full view via the actions of the psychotic Joker. He claims to make no plans, to merely be the agent of chaos, and his irrationality makes him truly frightening. Yet the beautiful simplicity of the initial bank heist, where each of the gang kills one other member until there's noone left, verges on genius and he seems to have an unerring instinct for what will cause the most mayhem among the forces of good (a relative term in this film) Perhaps most impressive of all, not for one moment did I sit there thinking "that's Heath Ledger". The character grips the attention from the start and never lets go.
In one sense, the film is structured around a series of triangles that bring the moral conundrums into focus: Batman/Joker/Harvey Dent; Bruce/Rachel/Harvey Dent; Batman/Gordon/Harvey Dent; Bruce/Alfred/Lucius. Harvey Dent might be Bruce's rival for the affection of Rachel, but Bruce has hopes that the crusading DA might also allow him to put aside his alter ego. In fact, so many hopes are vested in Harvey Dent that at key moments the only thought of other characters is to save him. Batman goes to tremendous lengths to rescue him from the prison van and ends up sacrificing Rachel to save his rival/ally (although that was manipulated by The Joker), and Gordon's one thought during the hospital explosion is for Harvey Dent's safety, although by that stage it's too late. The Joker has intervened to "save" his enemy for the forces of evil. Where the Joker worships chaos, Two-Face will put his faith in chance as he hunts out those he blames for his fate including those who only ever wanted to save him.
The finale of the film undercuts the brief moment of optimism when decency triumphs on the two boats (and it's a lovely touch that it's only the hardened killer who has the common sense to throw the detonator overboard) only for the city's White Knight to fulfill his earlier prophecy. To maintain Harvey Dent's reputation in order to save the city, both Gordon and Batman must promulgate a lie. He died a hero and Batman is now little more than a loathed and hunted vigilante. The lies extend further of course. Alfred ensures that Bruce will never know Rachel finally chose Harvey Dent, leaving him his illusion of true love lost. It's a dark film where the sense of danger is palpable, although the violence is frequently off-screen or happens so quickly (the Joker demonstrating a point to the mob, using a pencil and a gangster's head) that the viewer can imagine the worst. The most horrific image it provides is Two-Face's burnt and ravaged features, a visual indicator of everything lurking elsewhere in the film.

Couscous

A meandering French drama centred around an extended Franco-Arabic family in a run-down port city. Refreshingly, religion doesn't rear it's ugly head once. The film's far more concerned with social and familial relations. There's great joy in the lengthy dinner sequence where the numerous family members and their partners gather to eat, talk and bicker, but it also reveals the fractures within the family unit. The eldest son is a womaniser cheating on his fragile Russian wife, whose brother seems to take more care of their baby than either parent. The mother harbours resentment towards her ex-husband, and the aunt and her French husband don't really teach their son Arabic. In general the women are far more forceful personalities than the men. Slimane, the father, is a rather passive figure, especially compared to his abrasive daughter and the independent-minded daughter of his new partner. Nevertheless, despite all these differences the plot ultimately revolves around a sense of community, encompassing the family, fellow dock workers and the group of elderly exiles living at the hotel. It might not have a traditional happy ending but you're left with a vivid sense of this group of characters.

DVD roundup July

Another month, another batch of DVDs which I shouldn't have purchased ...

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - this was the best film of last year and shamefully overlooked. OK, so it was a long film which always deters some people, but the running time flies by even on a second viewing. The one disadvantage of catching up with it on DVD is that you can't fully appreciate the sheer beauty of the cinematography. On the big screen Roger Deakins' images are luminous, and bring to mind Terrence Malick. What still remains are the terrific performances, especially Casey Affleck as Robert Ford. You start off finding him just as irritating as the rest of the James Gang - he's ingratiating and desperate to be noticed - but gradually the humiliation heaped upon him makes him a more sympathetic character. When the key moment arrives, you feel he's been left with only one option, which will ultimately destroy both him and his brother.

Pan's Labyrinth - the Spanish language films of Guillermo Del Toro are always far more interesting than his English language films. His commentary draws out the parallels with the equally wonderful The Devil's Backbone, which likewise focuses on a child protagonist faced with fantasy crossing over into the harsh reality of Civil War Spain. Del Toro also elaborates on the highly detailed mise en scene, drawing the viewers' attention to aspects that aren't immediately obvious. This is a man who plans his films to the minutest detail, though it definitely pays off. Not that he then neglects the actors. No, he gets top class performances from them all, and Sergi Lopez is more scary than anything in the fantasy sequences - and yes, I'm including the Pale Man. And it *still* makes me cry.

The Truth About Demons - quite why "Irrefutable" was dropped from the original title I don't know (too many syllables? too controversial for fundamentalists?) I've always enjoyed horror films having grown up watching those BBC2 Saturday double bills. They used to mix Univeral and RKO classics with stuff from the opposite end of the quality spectrum. I didn't mind. This New Zealand horror isn't bad and has some nice one liners. The plot though is all over the place but at least it mostly disguises the low budget effects. And of course there's a young Karl Urban to enliven proceedings ...

Shotgun Stories

The title makes it sound like a macho shoot-'em-up but in fact this film is a low-key, slow-moving meditation of violence and a family feud. There's a surprising amount of humour, both verbal and observational, but the real focus is the long-standing hatred between two sets of half-brothers. The background is sketchily filled in via hints in the dialogue although some things, such as the scars of shotgun pellets on Son's back, are left intriguingly vague. Ultimately it's even a hopeful film, despite the economic poverty of both sets of brothers and the lack of prospects for the majority of the characters. The feud hasn't been resolved, but two of the half-brothers have had the courage to back away from the violence that has already wrecked both families. That counts as a huge victory offering hope for the next generation.

Man on Wire

Quite why anyone would want to wire-walk hundreds of feet above the ground is something that I've never understood. The mere thought makes me feel ill. The subject of this documentary, Philippe Petit, on the other hand has spent his life doing just that. Not content with walking above Notre Dame and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, in the early 1970s he set his sights on the newly-built World Trade Center. A combination of talking heads, reconstruction and actual footage shot by his associates tells the story. Petit's obsession butted against the slightly more rational concerns of his friends (do we really want to be partly responsible for th death of our friend?) although there was only ever going to be one winner. Miraculously 9/11 is never mentioned once. It doesn't need to be. It's there in the mind of every person in the audience, especially during the archive footage of it's construction and an eerie of photograph of Petit on the wire with a plan flying overhead.

WALL-E

Ah, an animated film that *doesn't* feature cute talking animals, or awful "showstopper" songs. Thank heavens for Pixar. No other animation outfit would make the first 30 minutes of their tentpole summer film almost dialogue-free, relying solely on the electronic noises of two robots. Meet WALL-E, a ridiculously adorable little waste disposal unit on caterpillar treads, and EVE, a high-tech i-Pod with a blaster. It's difficult to convery the sheer amount of pleasure derived from the interaction of these two. WALL-E's the last of his kind, trundling around still doing the job he was given 700 years ago. He repairs himself from the remains of his fellow robots and has developed a magpie sensibility. Cutlery, a Rubik's cube, Christmas lights, a whisk: whatever grabs his attention is taken back to his home. What he doesn't have is company, apart from a cockcroach (see, indestructible!) and this is driven home every time he watches his prized tape of Hello, Dolly! Enter EVE, and cue some neat visual comedy as she does the Rubrik's cube in mere seconds, pops a sheet of bubble wrap in record time and inadvertently sends WALL-E crashing into the ceiling. Amusement lies in little details such as WALL-E removing his treads before going to bed or the fact that he's not a morning robot as he needs to power up from the sun. There is also the wonder of how much expression is conveyed simply through the use of what passes for the robots' eyes and body movement. You know immediately how either feels. Once the action moves to the Axiom, home of the remaining humans, it becomes slightly more predictable although still highly inventive. The first time we see the row of photos of the ship's captains we notice the decline of the human race to little more than a blob, the second time we notice the ominous encroachment of the ship's autopilot. This isn't to say that the film doesn't pack an emotional punch too. The mere thought of this last lonely little robot on Earth is heartbreaking and the sequence at the end when a repaired WALL-E seems to have lost his personality is a terrible moment. But there are good tearful moments too, such as EVE and WALL-E dancing in space (with the aid of a fire extinguisher) and the most beautiful image of all - WALL-E brushing his hand along Saturn's rings and sending stardust swirling.

La Antena

This is quite possibly the strangest film that I will see this year. An Argentine sci-fi/thriller filmed in black and white and in the style of a silent film (because the city's population have had their voices stolen), it references some of the most famous images in cinematic history. There's Fritz Lang in there, Melies, early Soviet sci-fi and even James Whale as well as hints of Expressionism and Surrealism, and more imagination than any Hollywood blockbuster can manage. Not that it's all fluffy pastiche. Far from it. The strange deformed and hooded monkey-like henchman could give any child nightmares and the entire concept of people being robbed not only of their voices but ultimately of words is deeply disturbing. Lang would be proud of it's vision of a totalitarian society, feeding on itself.

Radical Light: Italy's Divisionist Painters

I had never heard of the Divisionist painters until this exhibition and I had certainly never seen any of the paintings before. None will ever become my favourite works of art, although the Longoni paintings of glaciers are rather lovely, as are the Grubicy landscapes and a Boccioni Lombard landscape. The style is related to both the Impressionists and pointillism, but with thin streaks of paint instead of dots and dashes. On some works the paint is applied incredibly thick, and on others, the brushwork isn't too discernible. By the time Cara paints The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli, you can see that Futurism is the next step. Oh, and it doesn't matter what is the country of origin, Symbolist painting is still hideous.