| UK NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK : 'Climates' [5/10]; 'For Your Consideration' [3/10] |
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| Tuesday, 06 February 2007 | |
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written for the next issue of Tribune magazine (both films are released in the UK on February 9th) EYES ON THE PRIZE(S) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Climates Turkey/France 2006 Starring : Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Ebru Ceylan Director : Nuri Bilge Ceylan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For Your Consideration USA 2006 Starring : Harry Shearer, Catherine O'Hara Director : Christopher Guest ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A disappointingly tepid follow-up to his justifiably well-received 2002 international breakthrough Uzak, Climates (Iklimler) sees director-writer-producer Ceylan also now stepping in front of the camera to take up leading-man duties. Such a move often leaves film-makers open to accusations of egotism and narcissism, and Ceylan doesn't quite do enough to get himself off the hook. He gives himself no shortage of soulful close-ups in the tricky central role of Isa, a fortysomething academic who, as the film begins, is in the process of breaking up with his long-term partner (wife?) Bahar (Ceylan's own spouse, Ebru Ceylan). In double-quick time, the greyingly virile Isa has found 'consolation` in the arms of his sometime girlfriend Serap (Nazan Kirimlis) - but as the weeks pass, he finds himself drawn back to the woman he realises is his one true love... As if casting himself as his film's randy protagonist didn't saddle him with enough of a problem, Ceylan is also asking for trouble by tackling such familiar thematic terrain. Marital discord has long been a favourite topic of arthouse directors, and anyone venturing down this particular route must ring some new variations on the hackneyed material. Ceylan doesn't really manage to pull that off either, resorting to long, wordless sequences in which folk stare frowningly into the middle-distance, mutely wrestling with their emotional turmoil - often accompanied by a soundtrack of moaning wind and/or distant thunder. When in doubt, Ceylan has his characters contemplate the bruised skies that hang over their heads - and later revisits the snowy wintriness which helped make Uzak so refreshingly distinctive. Second time 'round, however, Ceylan merely feels like he's recycling his own 'greatest hits.' And by the end of what feels like a rather long movie, we haven't really come to much care about any of the characters or their relationships. The impression is that Ceylan has taken perhaps a little too much notice of his Uzak reviews, and has tried to come up with what he thinks critics, awards juries and film-festival programmers will fall for. The ticket-buying public, however, may prove much harder to seduce. WHEN the Oscar nominations were announced late last month, one notable omission was For Your Consideration's Catherine O'Hara. The veteran Canadian comedienne - whose performance had attracted considerable "Oscar buzz" for her role, including a prize from the influential US National Board of Review. In a way, however, O'Hara's non-nomination was eerily ironic - as the film itself is all about how Oscar campaigning can disastrously interfere with the movie-making process and grotesquely inflate the egos of all those involved. While shooting a low-budget, Jewish-themed family-drama entitled Home for Purim, Hack is casually informed by a crew-member that her work has been mentioned on a website a plausible nomination-candidate. Before long, similar speculation is mounting over the chances of Hack's co-stars: laid-back has-been Victor (Shearer); highly-strung Callie (Parker Posey) and greenhorn Brian (Christopher Moynihan). This leads Hollywood executives to sense the potential for unexpected box-office success - if only the movie's director and scriptwriters can be persuaded to make a few, very minor changes... Hollywood's bloated, solipsistic, self-congratulatory "awards season" is a cherry-ripe target for satire. And writer-director Christopher Guest (A Mighty Wind; Best In Show; co-wrote This Is Spinal Tap), is capable of hilarious material when he's on form - he's worked well in the past with O'Hara, Shearer, Posey, Eugene Levy, Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge, all of whom are prominently cast here. Watching the actual film, however, you have to wonder what on earth can have gone so wrong. For Your Consideration is, a couple of stray chuckles apart quite mystifyingly mirthless: Guest's repertory-company all conspicuously below form (to the extent that it's the director, not the talented cast, who must be at fault) and 'guest star' Ricky Gervais similarly off-key. The picture looks off-puttingly drab, clocks in at a skimpy 80 minutes (not including the end credits, which are conspicuously lengthy and slow-rolling), and, fatally, seems to have been made by people with only the vaguest idea of how Hollywood, the Oscars, and awards-campaigning actually work. As for prizes, the notorious Golden Raspberries would, sadly, be the most appropriate reward for this thoroughly disappointing misfire. Neil Young 29th January, 2007 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CLIMATES : [5/10] : Turkey (Tur/Fr) 2006 : Nuri Bilge CEYLAN : 102 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Kinomaja cinema, Tallinn (Estonia), 7th December 2006 - press show (Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival) original review FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION : [3/10] : USA 2006 : Christopher GUEST : 86 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Ambrosio cinema, Turin (Italy), 18th November 2006 - public show (Torino Film Festival - 'surprise film') original review |
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