| For TRIBUNE : A Prairie Home Companion; Babel; Esma's Secret; 2006 top ten |
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| Sunday, 03 December 2006 | |
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written for the year-end edition of Tribune magazine... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A Prairie Home Companion [7/10] USA 2006 Starring : Garrison Keillor, Meryl Street Director : Robert Altman (released 5th January) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Babel [4/10] USA/Mexico 2006 Starring : Rinko Kikuchi, Brad Pitt Director : Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (released 19th January - late release-date change from 5th January!) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Esma's Secret (aka Grbavica) [6/10] Bosnia 2006 Starring : Mirjana Karanovic, Luna Mijovic Director : Jasmila Zbanic (released 15th December) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE shadow of death is such a palpable presence in A Prairie Home Companion, the valedictory atmosphere so unmistakably pungent, that it's surprising to learn the film wasn't in any way intended the recently-deceased Robert Altman's "farewell to cinema" - indeed, the octogenarian had several tantalising projects in his in-tray at the time of his death in late November. Based on Garrison Keillor's long-running radio-programme of the same name, Prairie proves well up to the standard of Altman's most recent work, half a notch above the overrated Gosford Park, a similar distance below the absurdly-underappreciated The Company, and all told represents a rather nice way to bow out. This is partly because the director's trademark woozy camerawork, overlapping dialogue and razor-sharp editing are duly present and correct; and due to the way the film pleasurably references many of his "greatest hits," including Nashville (abundant country-music; Lily Tomlin) and The Long Goodbye (Kevin Kline's lurking, blithely anachronistic private eye); while the recurring, homely radio-adverts (jocularly interjected live during the course of the evening by Keillor and company) echo the near-incessant background-noise of Thieves Like Us. Those ads are one of the film's many sources of reliable delight - and serve as benignly capitalistic counterpoint to the (pointedly) Texan-based, rapacious "corporation", whose purchase of the show's home theatre signals the imminent demise of both. The company's soulless representative - known to the Prairie gang as 'Axeman' (Tommy Lee Jones) - has even turned up to catch the show's final night, looking on from a soundproof both decorated with a bronze head of local-boy-made-good F Scott Fitzgerald... Come to think of it, just how many acts are there in American lives these days? Plot is minimal, mood is all: taking its cue from the avuncular, aged-schoolboyish Keillor (a marvellous performance in his belated big-screen debut), the film lopes along at its own rhythm, giving time and space to each and every one of its sprawling ensemble cast. A feature film career that began 50 years ago with The Delinquents and The James Dean Story thus concludes with 21st-century 'delinquent' Lindsay Lohan and her rousingly ribald version of 'Frankie and Johnny.' Lohan, like everyone else (Altman included) seems to be having a whale of a time; and so will you: seldom has being 'borne back ceaselessly into the past' felt like so much fun. 'FUN' is emphatically off the menu in Babel, the latest gruelling collaboration between director A G Inarritu and scriptwriter Guillermo Arriaga. This Mexican pair broke into the international limelight with Amores Perros and then cemented their A-list status with 21 Grams - while Arriaga went on to write the script for Tommy Lee Jones's droll neo-western The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Like all of Arriaga's previous work, Babel is a chronological and geographical jumble - and this time the scale is international, global... perhaps even cosmic. Three stories unfold simultaneously: the travails of a tourist couple (Pitt, Cate Blanchett) in Morocco, after one of them is injured by a semi-stray bullet; the traumatic experiences of the couple's children (Elle Fanning, Nathan Gamble) back home in California, entrusted to the care of their Mexican housekeeper (Adriana Barraza); and the painful post-adolescence of a hormonal Japanese teenager (Kikuchi) with severe hearing and speech difficulties, not to mention a tricky relationship with her widowed father (Koji Yakusho) - not long returned, as it happens, from a hunting holiday in northern Africa... The fiercely topical, aggressively humanistic intentions behind the film are plain and admirable... such a shame, then, about the execution. While the well-observed Japanese section would work just fine as a self-contained short - thanks partly to the efforts of Kikuchi, in the closest thing the film has to a lead performance - the Morocco and California 'tales' prove increasingly problematic. These two sections end up fatally hamstrung by the wildly melodramatic way various members of the same family endure situations of dire extremis at exactly the same time, for totally different reasons. This makes Babel come across as an flashy exercise in convoluted, histrionic shenanigans, delivered with an offputting portentousness which easily outweighs the pleasures of Rodrigo Prieto's planet-hopping cinematography. And it's very hard to approve of a film in which the shooting of a white Westerner is treated as an earthshatteringly traumatic event, whereas a similar but more serious incident involving a Moroccan boy is whizzed over with unthinking haste. SURPRISE winner of the top prize at this year's Berlin Film Festival, Bosnian low-budgeter Esma's Secret examines the painful recent history of the former Yugoslavia in solid, compassionate - but, it has to be said, scarcely award-worthy - style. It's the angst-ridden story of putupon fortysomething Esma (Karanovic) and her teenage daughter Sara (Luna Mijovic), who live together in a cramped flat in Grbavica - the working-class suburb of Sarajevo which provides the film with its original title. As the new title suggests, the plot revolves around the awful secret which Esma has always withheld from Sara - one which is also withheld from the audience until very late in proceedings, though there are plenty of hints and clues dropped along the way. Indeed, one could perhaps take offence at such a harrowingly serious subject being dealt with in such a teasing fashion - almost everything in the film builds up to and hinges on the fateful moment when the daughter finally demands to be told the truth. That Sara does so while wielding a loaded gun (rather handily confiscated from the girl's on-off boyfriend) also counts as a melodramatic step too far - but on balance writer-director Zbanic perhaps deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt. She warrants significant credit for the way she makes both the main characters far from entirely sympathetic, and for taking us through the key moments in the development of their relationship without any undue verbiage or sentimentality. Indeed, as with the subplot tracing the mother's tentative friendship/romance with sympathetic bouncer/semi-gangster Pelda (Leon Lucev), if anything Zbanic and her editor Niki Mossbock go a touch too far in the direction of economy: their briskly no-nonsense approach leaves us with the impression that a couple of extra scenes here and there wouldn't have gone amiss. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRIBUNE'S TOP TEN UK RELEASES OF 2006 1 United 93 (Paul Greengrass, US/UK) Not merely film of the year, this astonishing dramatised documentary set on September 11th 2001 - partly based, for obvious reasons, on speculation and conjecture - will surely stand as one of the most remarkable cinematic achievements of the entire decade. A work of such scope and skill simply demands to be seen on the big screen, but is a must-see on DVD - even for those who fear the subject matter will be very tough to bear. 2 Volver (Pedro Almodovar, Spain) Winner of five European Film Awards and surely a safe bet for some kind of Oscar recognition, Almodovar's superbly-judged minor-masterpiece examines the impact of the past on the present, and the ties between (female) family members - by means of the craftiest and wittiest screenplay of the year. 3 Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, UK) 2006 was a banner year for British cinema, and this thunderously gripping, technically mindblowing sci-fi thriller was perhaps Blighty's best - the fact that it was directed by a Mexican (Harry Potter refugee Cuaron), and co-funded with American money notwithstanding. 4 Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, Mexico/Spain/US) A ferociously tough wartime fairytale in the finest Grimm traditions, much too disturbing for young children, but admirably true to its blood-soaked convictions. Coming soon to an arthouse near you! 5 Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell, US) Relax, it's just sex: and much more besides, as this journey into Manhattan nightlife gloriously shatters cinematic taboos to craft the warmest and wisest of fables. Rated 18, inevitably, but only the most prudish could possibly take offence. 6 Dave Chappelle's Block Party (Michel Gondry, US) The documentary boom continues apace, and perhaps the pick of the recent crop is this deliriously enjoyable record of a free mega-concert in a rainy New York City: infectious, bodacious, and capable of lifting even the gloomiest of moods. 7 Good Night, and Good Luck. (George Clooney, US) Justifiably showered with Oscar nominations, Clooney's heartfelt tribute to old-school journalistic values rang like a crisp warning-klaxon at the start of what turned out (encouragingly) to be a turning-point year in American politics. 8 The Queen (Stephen Frears, UK) Flying the flag in regal style at the box office, with the critics, at the awards ceremonies (Mirren's Oscar seems all but nailed on), this deliciously well-judged speculation blended fact and fiction with astute - and often surprisingly uproarious - results. 9 Transamerica (Duncan Tucker, USA) Felicity Huffman's justifiably-lauded turn as a pre- and post-op trans-sexual drew the headlines, but there was so very much more to like (and even love) about this wonderful road-movie. 10 The History Boys (Nicholas Hytner, UK) Last of the three British pictures in Tribune's top ten for 2006: at least as good as Alan Bennett's original play, a showcase for some truly breathtaking acting, and that rare movie to appeal to funny-bone, heart and brain in equal measure. and at the other end of the scale: This year's turkey : An American Haunting (Courtney Solomon, USA) : those terrific veterans Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek need to have a strong word with their respective agents after finding themselves stuck in this woefully inept ghost-story-cum-possession-tale set in 19th century Tennessee. Shocking, but not in a good way. Dishonorable runner-up: Click (Frank Coraci, USA) : the latest absymal vehicle for Adam Sandler, an utterly mirthless 'comedy' which manages to waste an intriguing premise and, worse, cheats its audience with a jaw-droppingly shameless denouement. Additional wooden spoons go to: Aeon Flux (Karyn Kusama, USA), American Dreamz (Paul Weitz, USA), Breakfast On Pluto (Neil Jordan, Ireland), The Dark (John Fawcett, UK), Heading South (Laurent Cantet, France), Mischief Night (Penny Woolcock, UK), Stay Alive (William Brent Bell, USA) and The Weather Man (Gore Verbinski, USA). Neil Young written for the year-end edition of Tribune magazine reviews adapted from the original film-festival reports -
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