Kelly's Heroes

Kelly's Heroes (1970)

Starring Clint Eastwood and Telly Savalas
Directed by Brian G. Hutton

Whilst it would make few people's "All time top ten" lists, I'm hard pressed to think of a film which is so relentlessly enjoyable as "Kelly's Heroes". Part war movie, part comedy, part bank-job caper flick, the different elements combine seamlessly to produce a distinctive and memorable film.

Clint Eastwood, who owns the screen arguably more than anyone in American Cinema in the last 50 years, gives in an unusually subdued but nonetheless commanding performance, playing the leader of a platoon of restless GIs in the chaos of post D-Day France. When he captures a German officer who just happens to be in possession of a solid gold bar, Kelly (Clint) extracts the necessary information and before you can think of an appropriate war-based robbery movie, he's hatched a plan to make it 30 miles beyond enemy lines to nab the $16 million stash.  He can't do it alone, of course, but has no trouble in convincing his fellow troops that if they're going to be killed in this war, the reward for them should be worth the risk.  Enlisting the help of Quartermaster "Crapgame" (Don Rickles) Sergeant "Big Joe" (Telly Savalas) and Sherman tank driver "Oddball" (Donald Sutherland) among others, Kelly and his platoon of ironic "heroes" are soon on their way to an eventual showdown with the German Tiger tank unit guarding the bank...



All too often cross-genre pictures can be let down if the balance isn't right, but that's not the case here because each element is as good as it can be. The action and battle scenes are well executed, especially that in which Oddball and his delapidated Shermans attack a German depot. The comic relief is genuinely funny rather than cheesy, and includes a beautiful scene at the climax of the movie which gently parodies Clint's spaghetti-western days, complete with the strains of cod-Morricone music. The suspense is well maintained where necessary, such as the scene where the platoon is caught exposed in the middle of a minefield with a truckload of Germans bearing down on them. And of course there is the ensemble cast, which is uniformly excellent. Keep an eye out for a young Harry Dean Stanton, and Len Lesser, who is better known as Uncle Leo in "Seinfeld". Sutherland's proto-hippie, and Carroll O'Connor's manic General Colt are just two performances which live long in the memory, alongside the ever-reliable Eastwood and Savalas.  Eastwood, of course, maintains an understated control of proceedings at all times.  It's also dripping with quotable one-liners, mostly from the mouth of Sutherland's Oddball.  "Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves...?"



There are a few points made about the madness and futility of war if that's what you're looking for.  Bearing in mind that the film was mad right in the middle of the Vietnam War.  Anti War films would be easy to pull off and strike a chord, but cynical and funny anti war films are a different matter.  People think of Altman and "M*A*S*H", still 2 years off, and rightly so, but this is arguably up there.  Accordingly, allied bombers knock out bridges by day, German mobile engineers rebuild them by night... neither the Americans or the Germans seem to know what's going on or where their lines are supposed to be... behind the lines our heroes are attacked by their own aircraft... General Colt mistakes Kelly's gold-inspired push for a patriotic determination to end the war, and mobilizes his army to follow him, chastising the staff officers around him for failing to show the same spirit...

But ultimately, this movie is about entertainment rather than political comment. And as such it is one of the most successful examples of its type, coming near the end of a procession of highly successful "guys on a mission" movies (both warbound and not). The script by Troy Kennedy Martin ("The Italian Job") is tight, and direction by Brian G Hutton ("Where Eagles Dare") equally assured. Perhaps regarded as lightweight in comparison to other, more serious "men on a mission" movies such as Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen" or Hutton's aforementioned "Eagles", the film has nonetheless been influential. For example, although David O Russell's "Three Kings", a sharp vehicle for George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube, veers off on a tangent and makes more of a serious comment on the US role in the Gulf War, its matchbook plot (ie that which can be written on the back of a matchbook) is the same as "Kelly's Heroes".  And in the speakers mounted on the side of Oddball's tanks, used to blast music at the enemy and freak them out, there is more than a hint of the Wagner-playing helicopters in Coppola's "Apocalypse Now", still some nine years hence at the time of this film's release.

Operation Overlord, the liberation of Europe, the Second World War as a whole, are not to be taken lightly.  But every once in a while it pays to take a breather from the horror and laugh at the stupidity of it all.  "Kelly's Heroes" does just that, and is a supremely enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.  It doesn't intrude on the legitimacy of something like "The Longest Day", nor in retrospect does it diminish a film as straightly aimed as "Saving Private Ryan".  You will be doing yourself a favour if, next time you get the chance, you take a look.  It's rare that I see a film and don't think at least once that I'd change something about it, but if there is something to change in "Kelly's Heroes", I don't know what it is. 

"To a New Yorker like you, a Hero is some kind of weird sandwich, not some nut who takes on three Tigers."

SB

Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron
Co-written and Directed by George Miller

When is a sequel not a sequel?  When is a remake not a remake?  When is a "reboot" not a reboot?  Come to think of it, what exactly constitutes a reboot anyway?  "Mad Max: Fury Road" is all of the above, but also none of the above - only turned up to eleven.  It doesn't directly follow on from or refer to the events depicted in the last film in the series, "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", which was released 30 years previously.  It doesn't retell the story of 1979's original "Mad Max", nor does it embark on a different version of that tragic 'origin' story.  It simply exists in the same fictional universe as that first trilogy, features the same eponymous hero, and drives the same violent dusty highways.  Tom Hardy takes on the role of Max Rockatansky, the part which gave Mel Gibson his big-screen break, and there are no contrivances to link this directly with the originals, suggesting that this is the other Max's son, for example.  We're just given the character and it's up to the filmmakers to convince us that this is the same person.  Largely, they succeed.

Complexity of plot was never a hallmark of this series.  Emphasis was instead placed on atmosphere, tension, exhilaration, and a vivid creation of a desperate environment and existence.  Latterly the films became celebrated for their elaborate, extended vehicular chase scenes, akin to automotive running battles.  "Fury Road" most resembles "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" (see review below).  Or, more specifically, the final third of it.  This film opens with a thumbnail introduction to the protagonist, roaming the wastelands alone, dishevelled, and reduced to eating raw lizard.  His world, he tells us in voiceover, is one of "fire and blood".  He is a "road warrior, searching for a righteous cause... it was hard to know who was more crazy, me... or everyone else."  Almost immediately he is set upon by a band of white-skinned scavengers, dragged away, and taken to their base location, a miniature city of sorts.  This is the Citadel of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played the Toecutter in the original film), a ruthless overlord who rules over a community of survivors.  Encased in a respirator mask decorated with animal teeth, and body armour which hides his pox-scarred body and face, Immortan keeps the populace in check by rationing their water, warning them against becoming addicted to it, whilst he and his lackeys live in luxury.  The white-skinned young men are the 'War Boys', Immortan's troops, whom he controls with tatantalizing promises of eternal glory at the gates of Valhalla.  As a physically healthy universal donor, Max's fate is to be used as a 'blood bag', as he is hooked up to a sick War Boy, Nux (Nicholas Hoult).  Immortan has dispatched Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) in a 'War Rig', a fearsome, heavily armoured tanker, to collect precious gasoline from the neigbouring refinery at Gas Town.  But she has turned off her course, heading into hostile territory, smuggling Joe's five breeding-wives with her.  An army of War Boys sets off after her to reclaim the women, one of whom is pregnant; Max, still plugged into Nux, finds himself along for the ride too.  Thus, pursuit is essentially the order of the day for the rest of the film.  But what spectacular pursuit.

Were it simply a lengthy car chase movie, there wouldn't be much to take from this film.  Certainly, those chase scenes are amazing, a wild storm of flamethrowers and firebombs, crossbows and bullets, grinding wheels, fearsome juggernauts, and an incredible array of hybrid vehicles.  But these sounds and images are broadcast in the context of a unique, thrillingly realised world, one that is utterly bizarre.  It's a world in which a man washes his bloodied face not with water, but with mother's milk.  Where the chasing pack has room for a bank of drummers beating time like slaves on a Roman galleon, and for a masked musician called The Doof Warrior (iOTA back in the real world) whose electric guitar shoots jets of flame as it booms out through phalanx of speakers mounted on the back of the truck, augmenting the techno-laced score by Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL).  And where the last-act allies turn out to be a gang of geriatric bikie chicks.

This emphasis on visceral thrills and spills does not discount that this film belongs to the actors.  Tom Hardy, yet again, shows why he is unquestionably one of the finest actors working today.  He fully invades this role, and within minutes the thought that it was made iconic by another actor is gone.  He invokes Gibson just enough and at just the right times, but this Max is all his.  He doesn't have much to say, no great soliloquies here, but Max never did (16 lines in all, in "The Road Warrior").  So when he does speak, it counts.   But it's typically nihilistic; "hope is a mistake", he tells one character.  "If you can't fix what's broken... you'll go insane".  It could be argued that for all Max's minimalism, the true protagonist is Theron's Furiosa.  One-armed, sporting a mechanical prosthetic, crew-cut, black grease smeared in a mask around her eyes like war paint, Furiosa is a sight to see and a force to be cautious around.  She's the instigator of the action and the dominant presence, especially in the first movement of the picture, at a time when Max is largely impotent, muzzled and chained.  There's a wonderful game of oneupmanship (onewomanupmanship?) between Max and Furiosa shortly after he is brought on board the rig, as they both by turns seek to dictate the terms of their common flight.  A gradual shared arc develops between them, as they go from outright animosity, to cautious acceptance, to determined collaboration in search of a mutual goal.  Furiosa's driving aim is to return to the place where she was born, the 'Green Place', from which she was taken as a child, and to provide sanctuary for the unfortunate young enslaved girls; Max... well his is just to get to the next place, wherever that is.  Nic Hoult, superb and barely recognisable as the wild and frantic Nux gives an amazing performance (to add to his brilliant turn in "Warm Bodies").  His character is probably the one that thinks and changes the most over the course of the story.



And then there are the wives.  They may be somewhat under-dressed (it is the desert, after all) but this is no glamour magazine photo shoot.  They are, essentially, sex slaves, but these ladies are hardened by their environment, as they have to be, and use their wiles to survive.  At one point, The Splendid Angharad (Rosie Huntington-Whitely), heavily pregnant with Joe's child, thrusts her bulging belly at her pursuers, shielding and protecting her companions.  The film's feminist credentials have understandably become something of a talking point.  Certain - male - critics have dismissed "Fury Road" as nothing more than "Trojan Horse" feminist propaganda, gatecrashing the testosterone party.  "No one barks orders at Mad Max", bleated blogger Aaron Cleary, impotently.  Other commentators, such as Sasha James take a different perspective, one which feels much more appropriate.  Ultimately it gives pause for thought, which is always an added bonus in a summer blockbuster, but it's not worth obsessing over because it doesn't interrupt the rush of blood to the head that this movie provides.  So what if Furiosa uses Max's shoulder as a rest for her gun (when he's just wasted vital bullets on a missed killshot)?  It's essential to the story that it's she who leads the wives towards their liberty, not Max; he never was a knight in shining armour, no matter how much other characters might have wanted him to be.  His gradual acceptance of the people around him here speaks volumes.  Hardy's is a mellower Max than Gibson's; maybe he's just wearied now that he's further down the road.  

As is to be expected from a film in this franchise, the off-kilter nature of this world is enlivened no end by the deliciously off-the-wall character names, from the Wives - Angharad's companions are Cheedo the Fragile (Courtney Eaton), The Dag (Abbey Lee), Capable (Riley Keough) and best of all, Toast the Knowing (Zoe Kravitz) - to Immortan's array of underlings, Rictus Erectus (Nathan Jones), Slit (Josh Helman), The Organic Mechanic (Angus Sampson), The Bullet Farmer (Richard Carter) and The People Eater (John Howard).  Max, it seems, is the only sanely named character on show.  All are set against an almost tangible backdrop.  The stunning cinematography by John Seale (whose credits range from "Witness" and "Rain Man" to "The English Patient" and beyond) renders the desolate Namibian landscape, standing in for Australia, in vigourous ochre by day, and electric blue by night.  To say that the film is slightly too long is not the point; it's doesn't feel too long, and the pace barely lets up - even in the quiet moments it's tense.  Rather, given its comparatively slender narrative, it feels as if there are many more ideas bubbling away here which could have borne closer inspection.  Presumably - hopefully - the worldwide box-office takings have secured a future for this incarnation of our anti-hero, in which further corners of his world can be explored.  "Mad Max: Fury Road" is unlike anything else seen in cinemas this year.  Counter-intuitively, its DNA is familiar, but at the same time it is utterly original.

SB

Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Starring Jessica Chastain and Jason Clarke
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Telling the story of the decade long search for Osama Bin Laden following the terror attacks on September 11th 2001, "Zero Dark Thirty" is an interesting film, in many ways.  It's interesting on one hand because there was always going to be a significant level of attention paid to what the first female winner of the Best Director Academy Award would choose to make next; Kathryn Bigelow won in 2009 for the Iraq-set bomb disposal drama "The Hurt Locker".  It's interesting because although there is obviously a narrative threading through the film, it's told by necessity in a very different manner from most "mainstream" films.  And it's interesting because it could potentially serve as a historical document of some sort in years to come, depicting as it does, with the usual disclaimer about the names being changed and certain characters being fictional composites, the quest for the most wanted man on Earth; this was the closing of a significant chapter in contemporary American history.  Bigelow, along with her "Hurt Locker" screenwriter Mark Boal, had originally been planning a film about the battle of Tora Bora, the allied offensive of December 2001, an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to capture Bin Laden from his suspected hideout in a cave complex within the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan.  When news of Bin Laden's death was announced, the script was completely re-written to tell that story.  It's an achievement in itself that the film premiered on December 19th 2012, barely 19 months after Seal Team Six's successful mission.

Considering the subject matter it's unsurprising that a certain controversy abounded.  The debate mostly centred around the CIA's use of torture, or "enhanced interrogation techniques", to obtain information vital to Bin Laden's eventual location, the film's depiction of it, and the question of whether it justified or even glorified that use.  To a lesser extent there was discord that the film opens on September 11th, with a mosaic of audio clips from the day, civil authorities interspersed with recordings of victims' frantic phone calls to loved ones, playing over a black screen.  On this point, the objections and accusations that this is needlessly manipulative are understandable, but dramatically and factually it feels necessary in providing a stunning context to the narrative set to unfold.  From that brief 9/11 exposure the viewer is thrown immediately into the first of many of said torture sequences.  A young, female CIA operative named Maya (Jessica Chastain) observes an interrogation carried out by Dan (Jason Clarke) on a terrorist financier.  These scenes are not for the squeamish, and they are curiously rambling and unfocused; but this points to the CIA, despite the bluster, essentially having no viable leads and no idea what they were doing.  Maya watches, devoid of emotion, a counterpoint to Dan's (nervous?) constant chattering and air of confidence and superiority.  It's an in-the-room-out-of-the-room apparent long game, but comes over as quite desperate.  There can be little doubt that waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and other methods of torture employed by the U.S. in recent years are unethical or barbaric, but the fact that they were used is not the question.  What is in question is whether the film's depiction of them implicitly or explicitly condones those methods.  Many argue that it does, because the eventual success of the mission relies largely - but not solely, it should be noted - on them.  The counter argument, on a moral and political level, says that they were a necessary evil.  The "artistic" view is that they are depicted as a matter of fact, without any moral standpoint.   Bigelow herself stated that "confusing depiction with endorsement is the first step toward chilling any American artist's ability and right to shine a light on dark deeds, especially when those deeds are cloaked in layers of secrecy and government obfuscation"; essentially, she's saying, don't shoot the messenger.  Unless one brings a political agenda to viewing, this has to be the approach to take.

Maya, based, by some accounts, on a real agent, named as "Jen" in the book "No Easy Day" by Mark Bissonette aka Mark Owen, is the closest the film comes to offering an emotional touchstone for the audience; but even then it's a struggle, because she's an emotional blank page.  She calmly takes in the happenings around her and sets about her task with ice-cold abandon.  It's only much later - years later, in the timeframe of the film - that she starts to show stress, frustration, exhaustion and anger.  So to that effect it strengthens the claim that the film doesn't endorse torture, it just shows it happening.  Having the characters treat the whole process so matter-of-factly backs this up; they don't stop to debate the morality of their actions, the makers leave it to the viewer to take away and consider.  There is even a case to be made that the film hints at the pointlessness of the whole process, or at least the need to employ other methods of information gathering, as a key clue is discovered as having been on file all along, but on the back burner.  Potentially the case could have advanced without the need for "enhanced interrogations".

Wisely, the story is broken into chapters, marked by title cards.  This is no Tarantino-esque indulgence, however, it's a skillful way of marking the distinct phases of the ongoing quest.  Starting with "The Saudi Group", and progressing through "Abu Ahmed" (bin Laden's courier), "The Meeting", and "The Canaries", the latter referring to the SEALs who will carry out the raid.  The film also uses place and time-line captions, marking out the passing of time and location with forensic detail, creating a documentary-like air of realism.  Such a sense is heightened further by the predominance of hand-held camerawork, not in a distracting "shaky cam" manner, but just enough to imbue in the viewer a vaguely unsettling sense of being a hidden observer. 

Aside from the torture, moments of physical violence are few and far between, and come mostly, shockingly out of the blue; only the London bombings of July 2005 are given any obvious visual signpost in the moments before the explosion, although another scene depicting a suicide bomb attack is agonizingly, grimly foreseeable.  These moments are all the more unnerving because, for the most part, the narrative depicts very slow progress in the investigation.  That's not to say it's hard to follow, but it does feel slightly bogged down, particularly in the middle section.  However, this is offset to spectacular effect by the final segment, in which the compound in Abbottabad is identified, argued over, and eventually attacked.  Mercifully, the build up to the mission is largely glossed over.  When the go-ahead is given, there's an exchange between Maya and the SEALs; Justin (Chris Pratt) and team leader Patrick (Joel Edgerton) express their skepticism as to whether it really is bin Laden they'll be going after, as they've chased ghosts before, and lost friends and colleagues on similar mission.  Maya bluntly says she'd have preferred to drop a bomb on the compound, but has to send this group of soldiers in as "canaries", to find and kill bin Laden for her, and has stated that she is "100% certain" it's him.  

The raid sequence, when it comes, is nothing short of breathtaking.  Some of it is hard to make out, shown in almost total darkness, some sections are shown in the bright green images seen through night vision goggles.  Only a few of the SEALs have been given any degree of characterization by this point, so the viewer isn't particularly given an anchor from which to experience the action, rather a number of men sweeping through the buildings with swift efficiency.  It's disorientating, chaotic, and frenetic.  The only real criticism seems to be that the troops talk too much, and that no-one called out Osama's name, but surely this can be forgiven for the sake of dramatic license; total silence and hand signal communication only may have been more authentic, but would have made the events much harder to follow.   Despite the outcome being foregone knowledge, there's a sense of danger - as when a crowd of locals gathers, advancing on the compound - and an increasing apprehension as room after room is cleared with no sign of the ultimate target.  And when, at last, the kill shot is taken, it's almost an anticlimax.  The body is photographed so it can be identified, but the dead man's face remains tantalizingly unseen.  There's no valve to release the tension, as the unit has limited time to gather as many files and as much information as they can in the few minutes before they have to evacuate.        

  

And then it's all over.  Back at base, Maya nervously makes the ID, and seems to go into a state of shock.  Later, she boards a transport plane, and sits, numb, as the crewman calls out to her; "You must be pretty important, you've got the whole plane to yourself", and asks "Where do you want to go?".  Maya starts to cry.  There are no flag-waving triumphalist scenes of patriotic Americans wildly celebrating the death of their greatest foe.  Nothing.  The film has shown her obsession, and presented a wide range of supporting characters along the way (including Mark Strong as a CIA superior, the Kyle Chandler as the Station Chief in Pakistan, James Gandolfini as the CIA Director, and - bizarrely - John Barrowman, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo), but none of them are there at the end.  Indeed, none of them, with the partial exception of Dan, are indulged with anything approaching backstory or character-arc; they are purely functional.  Having progressed through the film becoming gradually more animated - frustrated, angry, determined - Maya is suddenly deflated, and blank again.  Is she shocked that her actions have landed a dead man in front of her (Bisonnette writes "people at (her) level never had to deal with the blood")?  Is she grieving for the sudden hole in her life and purpose, or something more?

One can choose to focus on the negative aspects of what occurred during the period addressed, and indeed many commentators were positively outraged by what they took from the movie, whether conservatives complaining that President Obama is presented in an overly favourable light (he's not) or liberals decrying its glamourization of torture (which isn't there).  Ultimately, it's unlikely that this film, or any other, will decisively sway anyone or settle the argument on such a divisive topic.  To focus on this element is to overlook that "Zero Dark Thirty" is a rare achievement.  Politics should be left at the door, if at all possible.  Technically brilliant, it is by turns, compelling, absorbing, vaguely depressing,  thrilling, slightly overwhelming, but never less than thought-provoking.  It's a cold, essentially heartless film, about a grim, unpleasant matter from start to finish.  As such, it's a film which has a great deal in and about it to admire and appreciate, but one which is very difficult actually to like.  But then, that's the point.

A last word: "Violence is taboo.  Not only does it produce answers to please, but it lowers the standard of information." - Colonel Robin 'Tin Eye' Stephens, Commandant of Camp 020, British Interrogation Centre, Latchmere House, World War 2.

'71

'71 (2014)

Starring Jack O'Connell and Paul Anderson
Directed by Yann Demange

 "The Troubles."  What a typically British euphemism for a bloody, 25 or more year conflict which saw violent sectarian paramilitary factional groups wage war over the issue of independence for Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, and by inference, union with Eire (the Republic of Ireland).  The conflict at times spread to the ROI, included bomb attacks on mainland British soil, and stretched away to Europe.  Overt hostilities all but receded in the mid 1990s are are thought, ostensibly, to have been brought to an end by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.  The period saw British Army troops deployed in Ulster, and ultimately resulted in at least 3,500 civilian and military deaths.  Tit for tat murders continue to this day. "Troubles" indeed.



Understandably, such a momentous political event in the UK's contemporary history induced a reaction from the country's artistic community, somewhat quicker off the bat and less bombastic than, say, America's cinema's response to the war in Vietnam.  Of course, that involved much more devastation, but it wasn't on home soil.  In the film world, some memorable pictures have been produced.  I would not claim to have seen a huge number, but some standouts are in particular Paul Greengrass' "Bloody Sunday" (2002), Jim Sheridan's "In the Name of the Father" (1993),  and I have a strange fondness for the Clive Owen / Andrea Riseborough / Gillian Anderson starrer "Shadow Dancer", based on ITV Political Correspondent Tom Bradby's novel.  Some have missed the mark - I never really thought Neil Jordan's "The Crying Game" was any good at all.  But the most heinous examples occur when the subject crosses the Pond, and with due respect to our transatlantic colonial cousins, I think they have almost uniformly missed the boat in large part.  We have the ridiculously muddled politics of something like "Patriot Games" (see the Jack Ryan review below), the awful homeliness of the IRA assassin presented in the "The Devil's Own", just for a couple.



So comes a  UK flick, set against that backdrop.  "'71" concerns a young British soldier named Gary Hook (Jack O'Connell)  We first see him in a pugilistic combat with a friend, a fellow recruit, and an ensuing harsh training session.  They are both deployed with their unit to Ulster on an "emergency basis".  "Don't worry, you won't be leaving the country", their CO tells them (true but disingenuous).  Once in Belfast, caught mistakenly in hostile territory after assisting the RUC in a house-to-house  search in the Falls Road which goes bad, due to a mess up by his green, new Commander, Hook is  left adrift in "Enemy Territory",  Subsequently therein film depicts his attempts to survive a night in a neighbourhood of Belfast in which almost every person he meets will be keen to kill him.  This starts with an absolutely thrilling footchase between Gary and some IRA hoods, through back streets, alleyway and every which way.  He survives, but, hiding in an outhouse, he still needs a way back to base.  The film transforms his journey not from merely something that simple, but into an almost mystical, treacherous Odyssey.



Night falls, and in the careworn streets, lit by burning cars, Gary comes across a young loyalist, cocky (and foul-mouthed) beyond belief, who leads him to a "friendly" pub, where he encounters two undercover British operatives, recognised from his base, who appear to be upto something extremely dubious, with disastrous consequences.  Suddenly it seems he's witnessed something he shouldn't have, and even his own side are out to get him and everyone in sight is banging heads with each other.  The air of tension, mistrust and fear on all sides is palpably realised.  There isn't much heft to the plot - Gary tries to get back to base with death and danger all around - and it doesn't feel as if the film has a political point to make.  Everyone knows how messy this whole situation was, and that the British forces weren't necessarily above acting nefariously.  Hook seems blankly unaware of the complexity of the situation, or even what it's all about; self-preservation is his primary goal.  There's a priceless, laugh-out-loud funny moment when Gary is taken in by Brigid, the daughter of Eamon, a Catholic doctor (and former Army medic).  Making small talk he mentions that he's from Derbyshire, and she counters that they have cousins in Nottingham.  Gary grimaces: "It's just Derby and Nottingham don't really get on."  True, but in this setting it's an amusing comment.



If there were any doubts after "Starred Up" that Jack O'Connell is going to be huge, this film squarely banishes them.  He's simply immense.  It's an all the more remarkable performance, as he has barely ten lines of dialogue.  It's a brooding, physical turn conveying elements of confusion and fear, he comes across like a wounded animal, as he cowers, kneeling beneath the barrel of a young terrorist's gun.  The (largely unknown to me) supporting cast are good too, in particular Richard Dormer as the sympathetic Eamon, Sean Harris as the shady Captain Browning and Sam Reid ("Belle") as the young, out-of his depth Lieutenant Armitage.  But this is Jack's film.



"'71" is high on atmosphere and tension without adopting any overt political stance.  It doesn't take sides or attempt to moralise or rationalise the situation.  It's just a thriller, and a taut, highly effective one at that.  One is put in mind of Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out" starring James Mason as a young IRA gunman - so on the other side of the fence - in a similar situation in Belfast.  What a double bill that would make with this fillm.  There's almost a dreamlike quality on show here, enhanced by David Holmes's slightly off-kilter score, and striking cinematography by Tat Radcliffe (who also shot "Pride" last year).  First time feature director Yann Demange brings a neutral eye to the nightmare, making "'71" on of the most interesting - certainly most memorable - British films of the last few years.  Definitely worth a watch.



Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Mad Max 2  - aka The Road Warrior

Starring Mel Gibson and Bruce Spence
Co-written and directed by George Miller

Here's one of the less prevalent posters for "Mad Max 2", found online,  Marketing-wise, the film might have suffered something of an identity crisis, as it was re-titled simply "The Road Warrior" for its US release (audiences there probably wouldn't have been familiar with the original "Mad Max" of 1979 as it hadn't been widely received there), and was therefore mostly known by that name. And in retrospect that's no bad thing, because this film, whilst taking place definitively within the world created by the original film, and featuring the same central character, stands perfectly independently as one of the great action adventures of its time.  It's vastly different to the first film too.  With "Mad Max: Fury Road" currently roaring onto screens and tearing up box-offices, it's worth looking back at its origins.

The movie opens with a narrated, potted history of how civilization came to fall apart, and how we arrive at this state of anarchy depicted onscreen, with savage gangs roaming the outback, and survivors desperate to make it.  In the original film, the title card wisely pitted it as "a few years from now."  (I hate it when futuristic movies put a definitive date on their vision, because it's never right.)  So the viewer can heed the warning despite, or because of, the lack of a definite date and time... it just means, this could happen any time soon. This film slyly uses archive, black and white footage of civil unrest in the post WW2 world to depict the crisis which let to the apocalypse in which we have arrived.  It's brilliant, because it clearly projects something non-specific from the past into this imagined future, so doesn't suffer the temporal jar encountered by many dystopian works... it says, this is where we are, the past is messed up, it could have been 1960 or yesterday... but this is our world.  It's such a strong point for the film's environment.

There follows a stunning, wordless, eight-plus minute sequence depicting our anti-hero Max attempting to acquire some petrol (gas) from a ruined tanker which he discovers whilst riding the wilds of the desolate Australia.  He encounters a hostile group of scary, threatening raiders, led by the strikingly red-mohicaned Wez,   Max faces them off, and sees them off, and returns to the road.  But Wez's departing screech commands a future encounter between the two...   Petrol, it's established, is the most valuable commodity around, because it allows for mobility, and the potential escape from the barren world in which the characters find themselves.  Max encounters, is captured by, but shortly outwits an oddball fellow survivor, pilot of an antiquated gyrocopter.  Bruce Spence's portrayal of "Gyro Captain" - latterly named as Jedediah in the film's sequel - is fantastic, full of quirky tics and sly looks behind Max's back, and allows for some of the funniest and most human moments in the film, what with his harlequin multi-coloured costume sprites the screen.  Having taken him captive, Max one night chows down on a tin of dog food, some of which he spares for his dog... Spence's creeping attempts to get some food for himself are at once hysterical and tragic.

The pair happen upon a community which seems to sit upon a petrol refinery; so they are in charge of a huge stock of the most valuable thing around.  Wez's companions, the wasteland raiders, led by a character named "The Humungus" who are intent on a battle to retrieve the gas, and destroy the little community.  There has been some speculation that "Humungus" was actually originally meant to be Steve Bisley's character, Jim Goose, from the original film.  This could have worked, but in the context of this film it's maybe safer to avoid specifics.  The plot, as it were, is essentially threadbare, but that really doesn't matter, because it's a two-part thrill ride which comes completely out of the blue.  The first half of the film is surprisingly bereft of dialogue, it's actually striking how few lines of dialogue Gibson has in the first half of the movie.He is, however, excellent in the part.  Mostly silent, brooding... he does this really neat little thing where he licks his lips, showing he's thinking... it's a great performance.

There are huge amounts of humour in the film too., mostly involving Max's interaction with Jedediah.  There's a brilliant moment when they are both spying on an atrocirty being carried out by our antagonists, Max regarding though a small pair of binoculars, Jed watching through a giant telescope... Max just looks up and grabs the telescope, no questions asked... A smile evoked during a moment of horror.  There's a great deal of silent comedy too, which is perhaps missed on first viewing.

There are so many tiny parts in the film also which give it huge memorability.  Spence, obviously, is the mainstay, as he essentially plays second-fiddle to Gibson's titular character, and plays off as the comedy sidekick to Mel's decidedly dour (and rightly so) straight man.  Most notable is Emil Minty as "the Feral Kid", a tremendously outrageous savage who has associated himself with our band of heroes, and who has a truly awesome line in razor-edged boomerangs (no, really). His guttral grunts of pleasure at an opponents demise are a thing to see.  Mike Preston is grave, serious, and brilliant as Pappagallo,  Vernon Wells' Wez is one of the most memorable villains of 80s Cinema.  And as for Humungus... how can you top a leather-masked microphone-talking bad-guy dressed as a gimp...

Where the film really kicks into gear, however, and takes its opponents to town, is in the final third, when the chase sequence kicks in.  Max relents and decides to rescue the tanker full of fuel from the camp, and undertakes a spectacular mobile battle with his enemies.  This is an exercise in action cinema at its finest.  I can't think that it has been rivaled in the realm of automotive chase sequences ("The Cannonball Run" gets an honourary bye though), unless arguably until this year with another film in the same franchise... .  There are some brilliant set-pieces... as the raiders attack the refinery, the inhabitants defend with spectacular flamethrowers.  The elongated chase scene at the climax is about as spectacular as they come. Miller's direction is unquestionable; Brian May (not that one) provides a score which initially seems excessively melodramatic, but settles in nicely on repeated viewings; and the use of silence on the soundtrack is equally effective.  Perhaps most importantly, the scene created a definitive look.  Cinematographer (and future Oscar Winner) Dean Semler paints a red-brown desert landscape which lives long in the memory.  The budget is obviously limited, and once or twice noticeably so, but what's created is a huge achievement, and the limitations might even have benefited the film, particularly in the area of costume (keep an eye out for a cricket glove on one of the survivors!).  Some comments are thrown around regarding Max's integrity... is he noble and a good man, or is he just wasteland garbage?  It doesn't matter.  He reminds me in a way of Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit".  It adds a dimension to the film which prompts thought.  And it makes it a step above the original, and indeed most adventures of 80s cinema.  Where the film in retrospect seems most inventive nowadays, in light of the current trend of "reboots" is that it takes things from the first "Mad Max" and does something new with them, so it's not really quite a sequel, more of a progression.

Hugely hugely recommended.

The Exorcist

The Exorcist (1973)

Starring Ellen Burstyn and Jason Miller
Directed by William Friedkin

Frequently touted as "the best horror film" or "the scariest movie" of all time, "The Exorcist" brings with it some heavy baggage, not least 2 Academy Awards (for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound) and 5 further nominations, along with 4 Golden Globe wins (including Best Picture).  So looking back at it, over 40 years after its release, one has to cut through the hyperbole and try to assess it on its own terms; it shouldn't be compared to films of the genre made today, or since, or even to its source novel.  

There have been several different versions of the film released over the years.  There was the original, theatrical version, obviously, but subtle tweaks and additions were made over the years, from a toned-down tv version to a 25th Anniversary re-release, to a "Version You've Never Seen", which was released on DVD a few years back.  I think this is the version I watched lately. 

The film opens in Northern Iraq, with a sequence well and truly setting the tone for what is to come; that is, atmospheric, mysterious, and very very slow moving.  It features Catholic Priest Father Lankaster Merrin, working on an archaeological dig, where he uncovers a small carved figure, which reminds him of a pagan demon (we find out in sequels and prequels that he had done battle with this demon before).  The presence of the demon is felt throughout the sequence, even to the extent of seeing a deformed local blacksmith, enigmatically staring at the priest.  We then cut to Georgetown, Washington DC, where a prominent actress, Chris MacNeil (the ever wonderful Ellen Burstyn) is shooting a movie, living away from her home in L.A.  Her 12 year old daughter Regan (Linda Blair) lives with her, her husband is estranged, and in the early scenes Blair is brilliant - charming, funny and everything a 12 year old should be.  But Regan starts to exhibit odd behaviour.  She mentions to Chris that she has played with a Ouija board and contacted a spirit she names "Captain Howdy".  It's never explicitly stated that this is the cause of what's to come, but the implication is clear.  A rather jarring jump in the narrative shows Regan undergoing a series of medical tests, due to her apparent odd behaviour.  The doctors think she might have a lesion on her brain but the tests prove inconclusive, as the strangeness in the house mounts up.  Chris hears strange noises in the attic, and Regan complains of her bed shaking at night.

Parallel to this story, we meet another Catholic Priest, Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller), whom Chris spots a few times at a nearby church.  He is a psychological therapist, and when the medical staff despair of finding a cause for Regan's maladies, they suggest seeking help from a psychologist.  Chris seeks out Father Karras and implores him to help her.  Father Damien is losing his faith, and wants to leave the priesthood.  His ill Mother has recently died, adding to his sorrow and disillusionment.  But Regan is deteriorating, and Chris begins to believe she is possessed by something otherworldly.  Karras is against the idea of exorcism, but his examinations suggest there might be something to that theory.  The two stories are interwoven masterfully, and we come truly to care about the characters.  Karras agrees to attempt an exorcism, but his superior insists he have help from someone with more experience; re-enter Father Merrin.

Friedkin directs with a naturalistic style familiar from "The French Connection".  However, there's a certain amount which sits unwell with the fantastic atmosphere.  The glacial pace sorely tempts one's patience.  And there's the utterly pointless introduction of a homicide detective, Lt. Kinderman, (Lee J. Cobb) who is investigating the mysterious death of the director of the film on which Chris is working, Burke Dennings.  Dennings was with Regan before he fell down a long flight of steps outside the house, breaking his neck.  It's clearly suggested later on that the demon possessing Regan was responsible, but Kinderman adds nothing to the plot.  His questions add up to nothing concrete, and bar an amusing aside with Karras, they yield no evidence.  He just slows proceedings down and I can't understand what his presence adds to the film.  The character was to make a wearisome return in the second sequel in 1990 in "The Exorcist III", played by George C. Scott and based on a mangled version of original author William Peter Blatty's novel "Legion".  He still wasn't worthy of any screen time.

Where the film utterly falls down is in the exorcism scene itself.  It forms the climax of the piece, and is supposed to be the shocking moment which brings things to a head, but it singularly fails to be in any way convincing.  I've read often that folks think that the special effects in the film are amazing. But I disagree. I think that the makeup is brilliant; Blair gurgles and swears under her increasingly rotten looking garb, but in the key scenes, the SFX is just woeful.  The "spider walk" scene, restored for the later release, is simply ludicrous - and it's obvious why it was taken out in the first place.  Nothing can point the finger, though, more than the famous "head turning" scene, which is laughable.  I can't think of a film which has had its gripping sense of atmosphere and mood so utterly destroyed by a bad special effect.  One can't be scared when one is laughing.  Frank Oz, show yourself.  At that moment, one comes out of the film totally, and none of the dramatic resolution to come can be absorbed because things have descended to comedy. The film is also very serious and earnest in its promotion of the Christian religion, portraying as it does the very real notion that demonic possession, and by definition, that the Devil itself is real.  This is a reflection of Blatty's own Catholicism, but it could have been better served.

Leaving aside the exorcism, the direction is solid (even if things do move rather very slowly).  The growing atmosphere of dread is wonderful.  The actors and actresses without exception all turn in fantastic performances.  Burstyn and Miller are great in the central roles, and Max von Sydow performs brilliantly in the small but pivotal role of Merrin.  Linda Blair deserves special mention for playing Regan, she brings a real humanity to a character whom essentially spends three quarters of the film in bed being antisocial, and it's a shame that she was forced into making that sequel.  There are some neat cues throughout in which subliminally suggest the presence of the demon in the house, flashes of a ghostly face here and there. It feels creepy.

As a side note, it seems to me that there is a sly dig at the religion of Islam which is slightly distasteful.  The film finishes and (almost) opens with adhan, the call to prayer.  It seems to suggest that the devilish possession, which arises in a Muslim country, is somehow Islamic in origin.  It's  unfounded and un-necessary.

Whiplash

Whiplash (2014)

Starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons
Directed by Damien Chazelle

Amongst the crop of films considered "award worthy" within the last year, "Whiplash" seemed to be somewhat unfairly over-looked in the wake of the quirky but over-rated "Birdman", the essential but maybe-a-bit-too-Downton "The Imitation Game", and the indelibly great years-long achievement of "Boyhood".  For sure, it did win numerous awards, including editing and sound editing at the Academy Awards, and J.K Simmons took home a statue or two for his already iconic performance, but one can't help but feel that this is a timeless movie, to which people will be coming back for years to come.  The film is certainly not as towering as some of the aforementioned in the acts it depicts, but what it does depict is done with gripping power.  Conversely, it's a deep, intense, close-quarter character study of two men's battle of will.  It tells the story of Andrew Neimann (Miles Teller, soon to be seen as Reed Richards aka Mr Fantastic in Fox's "Fantastic Four" reboot), a talented and ambitious young jazz drummer, student at a fictional New York Conservatory of music by day, and listening to Buddy Rich on repeat by night.  One evening, staying late to work on his routine, he catches the ear of famed - infamous - conductor Terence Fletcher (Simmons), stalking the hallways, who invites him to join his prestigious band.  Their exchange marks the opening salvo of a contest which will run and run.  Andrew joins the rehearsals, and finds that Fletcher lives up every bit to his fearsome reputation.  Clutching imagined musical notes from the air with his fist if his robot-like antennae detect that a student has missed a beat, or played a bum note, his sole aim seems to be to subdue his charges to the extent that they either better their work, or give up in subjugation.  "Not my tempo", he barks, whenever a mistake is felt.  Fletcher delights in recounting - and exaggerating - a story of how Charlie Parker was once humiliated by a bandmate, throwing a cymbal at his head when he wasn't up to scratch; Parker went away, and came back as the immortal Bird, arguably the greatest saxophonist there ever was.  In a quiet moment Fletcher elicits some personal information from Andrew, which he later uses to humiliate him in front of the whole band.  Andrew's determination to succeed grows stronger, to potentially damaging lengths, but the question the film raises is whether perfection would be his reward, or Fletcher's triumph.

"Fame" this isn't.

The idea that a film about jazz drumming could be so electrifying, mesmeric, and thrilling, seems faintly ludicrous, and just wouldn't have been my tempo a few months ago.  But "Whiplash" is all of those things.  But then, "Whiplash" isn't a film about jazz.  It's a war film.  With drums and saxophones.  Curiously - or perhaps by design - it's reminiscent of Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket", with Andrew taking the place of a beleaguered Boot Camp Marine, and Fletcher in the R. Lee Ermey Sgt Hartman role.  Andrew's climactic solo is like a gun battle.  The sense of conflict, in this case mainly psychological, but with physical consequences, is palpable.  The film takes its title from a composition by saxophonist Hank Levy, which gets several partial airings itself.  Music drives the drama, and when the full band is allowed to play more than a few bars, the tracks are fantastic.  But this music isn't joyful.  There's no casual riffing or jamming here, playing for the sheer fun of it.  This is serious business, and the tension can be seen etched on the faces of the students filing in for rehearsal, and silently enduring another of Fletcher's abusive outbursts.  The payoff for this lack of, for want of a better word, fun is that when things go right, the release of that tension is explosive (and there's another war-word,)

The movie is arguably - but not particularly - heavy handed in carrying home the message that one must suffer for art, and for perfection, that the emotional collateral damage affecting performer, friends, and family, is unbearable for all but the most dedicated.  But Chazelle nimbly makes the isolation of these characters visual.  The rehearsal room, the stages on which the band performs, and the very corridors of the Conservatory are dark spaces; characters are bathed in gold or bright white pools of spotlight, often cut off from one another.  Fletcher's "uniform" consists of black trousers and a tight black t-shirt, offset by Andy's slightly brighter wardrobe.  Every scene seems to  take place at night, or in the darkened rehearsal room.  Virtually the only scene which does take place in daylight occurs in a diner, and contains a moment of emotional upset for one character.  This is about light and dark, silence, such as when Fletcher suddenly halts proceedings, as much as music.  Good and evil - or at least nice and not-so-nice. .

Simmons has surely laid to rest the ghost of J. Jonah Jameson with his lauded and awarded turn.  But Teller matches him every step of the way, in a much more understated and less obviously scenery-chewing manner.  I believe he appears in every single scene; it certainly feels like it.  Fletcher gets all the best lines as the villains always do, but Neimann is the quiet, driven heart of the film, a personification of ambition and frustration.  Essentially this is a two-header, but (beyond the other bandmembers) the small ensemble supporting cast are excellent too.  Paul Reiser is warm, touching and concerned as Andy's father; their movie watching sessions together serve as a gentle counterpoint to the fraught atmosphere of the conservatory.  A scene at a family dinner, featuring Suanne Spoke and Chris ("Twin Peaks") Mulkey as Andy's Aunt and Uncle, goes a long way to showing how Andy feels misunderstood and distant from even  his closest relatives.  Despite only appearing in three scenes, Melissa Benoist ("Glee", and forthcoming as "Supergirl") as girlfriend Nicole is particularly impressive, charming and likeable, but ultimately insecure and heartbreaking.

As with any film about any "specialist subject", there are some disgruntled jazz-heads around who seem to miss the point that this is a work of dramatic fiction, and as such an endeavour it is successful.  Moreover, it leaves the viewer with something to take away and ponder.  It ends on an ambiguous note; Fletcher tries once more to humiliate - crush - his pupil, on stage in front of a large, influential audience, but Andy defies him, producing the performance he's been seeking all along.  Having failed to destroy him, Fletcher conducts him up close, nodding and encouraging, reveling in his charge's achievement.  So there is dramatic resolution, catharsis for both characters, after a lengthy, vitriolic journey.  Is Fletcher's approval because he has found what he was looking for all along?  It's a satisfying "feelgood" moment, and without the hugely predictable riotous applause and standing ovation.

It's perfection.

(this is the price of perfection)

The Babadook

The Babadook (2014) 

Starring Essie Davies and Noah Wiseman
Directed by Jennifer Kent 

MILD SPOILER ALERT 

This low budget Australian-made horror doesn't so much take swipes at the established genre, as knowingly eat up chunks of it only to spit out a captivating new take on things.  The unusual, memorable, title is immediately vaguely unsettling, because it doesn't mean anything or give away anything of the content of the film.  The poster drops a few hints of what's in store.  

The film opens with a brief fragment of a dream, of a woman falling; as she lands in her bed she hears a little boy repeatedly calling out "Mum! Mum!" She comes to, to find her son shaking her and trying to wake her.  He's been having bad dreams - again.  It's a disorientating introduction to what will turn out to be an unsettling tale.  The boy, Sam, is a troubled and fearful child; his father was killed in a road accident whilst taking Sam's mother, Amelia, to the hospital to give birth to him.  So their household is one which bears Amelia's stress of having to raise a child on her own, and Sam's fragility and guilt at being fatherless.  Sam is clingy, often waking in the night, sleeping in Amelia's bed, and needing to be read bedtime stories almost constantly.  He's keen on, and an accomplished performer of, magic tricks; but he has a habit of rigging up home-made weapons.  He is disruptive in class at school, which adds greatly to Amelia's stress.

One evening Amelia tells Sam he can choose any book from his shelf as his bedtime story.  He picks one called "Mr. Babadook", which puzzles Amelia as she hasn't seen it before.  It begins:  

"If it's in a word, or it's in a look, you can't get rid of the Babadook.  

If you're a really clever one and you know what it is to see, 

then you can make friends with a special one, a friend of you and me.  

His name is Mr. Babadook, and this is his book.  

A rumbling sound, the three sharp knocks.  

Ba ba-ba DOOK! DOOK! DOOK!  

That's when you'll know that he's around.  

You'll see him if you look."  

The cartoon imagery accompanying these pages shows a menacing black figure, top-hatted, with pointed fingers, emerging from a wardrobe towards a small child.  At this point Amelia decides against Mr. Babadook, and stops reading.  But it doesn't end there, because once the Bababook  knocks, knocks, knocks, you have to let him in, in, in... The image of Mr. Babadook, with his enlarged fingernails, evokes every demon from "A Nightmare on Elm Street" to Struppelpeter. It's clear that this creature - whatever it is - has a hold on this two-person family.  Sam insists they read on.

"This is what he wears on top, he's funny don't you think.

See him in your room at night, and you won't sleep a wink."

Amelia stops reading out loud, to Sam's increasing panic, but she reads the following, disturbing,  pages to herself.

"I'll soon take off my funny disguise,

(take head of what you've read...)

And once you see what's underneath...

YOU'RE GOING TO WISH YOU WERE DEAD"

Amelia places the book out of reach, on top of a wardrobe; but Sam obsesses about the Babadook, freaking out his school-mates to the extent where he is expelled, and hurting his peers at a birthday party.  Amelia's wits begin to fray; it seems she can't even pleasure herself at night without an interruption from her son, climbing into her bed.  Sam's violent streak grows more prominent, and he is caught breaking into his late father's study.  But, touchingly, he promises to protect his Mother.  The book impossibly reappears in Sam's room.  Amelia tears it up and burns it.  But it reappears on her doorstep, taped back together.  Despite her increasingly frustrated and angry assertions that there is no Babadook, Amelia begins to wonder, to doubt, and her uncertainty spins out into a wonderful second-half of the film, as it becomes apparent that maybe the problem doesn't lie with Samuel, but maybe she herself is having serious grief issues about her husband, the grisly nature of whose death is hinted at in a vision she has...  Therein lies the sheerly beautiful skill of the storytelling in the film; the focus changes so gradually and subtly between the main characters.  Amelia's friends distance themselves from her.  Lights start to flicker for no reason, and things start to go bump in the night...  Peppered throughout are seemingly insignificant touches - look out for a television news report, for example - which turn out to be relevant to Amelia and Sam's predicament.  As with the best Monster films, the Babadook is seen outside of the pages of the book only fleetingly; the terror is implied by mood, lighting and some amazing sound design..

The film is tremendously assured not just in its unfolding narrative, but in its all-round production.  The majority of scenes take place within Amelia and Sam's home, itself a strangely timeless, cavernous, Victorian-terrace style house.  Polish-born Radek Ladcuk's cinematography plays with light and shadow tantalisingly, and has the disorientating effect of making the house feel simultaneously vast and claustrophobic.  The home is supposed to be a place of sanctuary, so its violation adds to the distinct sense of unease.  As the actors spend a large part of the film in their night clothes, in the house, at night, there's also a strong feeling of vulnerability absent when they're out and about in town, in the daylight.  Ultimately the film succeeds or fails on the strength of its central performances.  Essentially it's a two-hander; besides a few subsidiary characters - a kindly old neighbour, a concerned and romantically tentative co-worker - the film rests squarely on the shoulders of Essie Davies as Amelia, and Noah Wiseman as Sam.  Both give remarkable performances.  Davies chillingly captures the aggression, mental, emotional, and physical deterioration of a woman haunted in the extreme - in the latter case, at one point she starts losing her teeth, as Sam has, creating an unquantifiable bond between Mother and Son.  Wiseman, too, is impressively mature; amusingly / glibly (* delete as applicable) described by one reviewer as a cross between Danny from "The Shining" and Kevin in "We Need to Talk About...", he is so much more than that.  Reflecting his mother's maelstrom of anxiety and emotion, he effects by turns playfulness, anger, aggression, violence, grief (for the unknown), mania, terror, and ultimately tender concern care and love.  Child performers are notoriously hit-and-miss and can easily let a piece down, but Noah Wiseman proves well up to the task.  I know that what ends up on screen is very different from what goes on on a film set, but some of the climactic confrontation scenes are so raw and intense to watch, one wonders how he could not be affected in some way.

It's commonly held that horror films "aren't for women" but if ever there was an exception to prove that rule, "The Babadook" is it.  Not only is it written and directed by a woman (Jennifer Kent), and its protagonist is a woman, but there's good cause to say that its central concerns - birth, motherhood (the first word spoken is "Mum"), protection, abandonment, wifehood, bereavement, strength, love (the last word spoken is "Sweetheart") - would speak strongly to women.  For a film so permeated with dread, the coda is disarmingly bright, and upbeat - albeit with a little twist.  This is the final trick the film has up its sleeve, to wrongfoot the viewer with something of a tonal shift when they've barely caught their breath from what's just unfolded on screen.

A deserved winner of Best Film at the Australian Film Institute awards this year - a co-recipient alongside Russell Crowe's stirring directorial debut "The Water Diviner" - the film has also been nominated for and won a host of other critics awards, not least walking away with the Best Horror gong at the UK's prestigious Empire Awards!  It's unique, disturbing as well as being scary - note the difference - and ultimately deeply moving.  It is a brilliant metaphor for a character's mental state, along similar lines, arguably, to Jeff Nichols' superb 2011 film "Take Shelter".  It is without a doubt one of the most memorable films of any genre, let alone horror, of recent years, and just the thought of hearing three slow knocks in the middle of the night is enough to send shivers down the spine...

You may even want to check out the lovingly-created book at http://thebabadook.com/ 



This is the mild spoiler, by the way:

How can you not simply love a film in which the cute dog gets it?

SB