| this week's TRIBUNE reviews : A.Sokurov's 'Alexandra' [6/10]; P.Morel's 'Taken' [2/10] |
|
|
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alexandra Russia 2007 Starring : Galina Vishnevskaya, Vasily Shevtsov Director : Aleksandr Sokurov ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Taken France 2008 Starring : Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace Director : Pierre Morel ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE late Susan Sontag once described Aleksandr Nikolayevich Sokurov as "the most ambitious and original filmmaker of his generation working anywhere in the world today" - but the 57-year-old writer-director-producer's work hasn't always found such ecstatic favour. Responsible for Russian Ark (2002), Mother and Son (1997), Father and Son (2003), and the so-called "power trilogy" of oblique biopics Moloch (1999, on Hitler), Taurus (2001, Lenin) The Sun (2005, Hirohito), Sokurov has been attacked his perceived pretentiousness and religiosity, and for what have been seen as reactionary subtexts in his pictures. Alexandra - which premiered in competition at Cannes last year, but whose belated UK release is topical after recent events in South Ossetija - exists on a typically tricky moral position. As played by former opera-star Vishnevskaya (also Rostropovich's widow), the title-character is a doughty babushka visiting her soldier grandson Denis (Shevtsov) in an unspecified corner of the southern Caucasus: Chechnya, we presume. Whereas Denis and his collagues remain penned in behind their fortified garrison's barbed wire, Alexandra's age, sex and indomitable mien give her freedom to roam - the camera follow in close attendance as she wanders into a nearby village and warily befriends some 'mature' Chechen ladies. Sokurov shows us bombed-out buildings, but the residents thereof are conspicuously hale and hearty - no missing limbs or shrapnel disfigurements on view here. Likewise, although one senses an attempt to be even-handed in showing both sides of the conflict, the film never addresses the fundamental rights and wrongs of the weighty issues involved (this subject isn't really suitable for fence-sitting), and seems principally concerned with the soldiers' inadequate ordinance and provisions. It could be that he's merely mirroring his heroine's priorities - her main concerns lie with her darling Denis's well-being (they share one embrace which is a tad too passionate for comfort), while her sympathies with the Chechen women, we realise, only extend so far. And there's no denying the strength of his: dust-blown, near-monochrome vistas accompanied by subdued classical music. But Alexandra leaves a somewhat troubling aftertaste in the mouth, especially taken in conjunction with the director's previous assertions that he's "not interested in ... history or politics," but in "human stories." Taken strictly on those terms, however - as an intense, intimate character-study of a fascinating individual - Alexandra can be counted an achievement, one worth a look even for those wary of Sokurov and his oeuvre. REPUBLICAN vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, it recently emerged, didn't get round to applying for a passport until 2006 - when she was 42. The contrast with her British namesake Michael (no kin) could barely be more acute, but Palin's stay-at-home preferences are, in the USA, depressingly normal. And that's hardly a surprise when scare-mongering trash like Taken infests multiplex screens from sea to shining sea. In cinematic terms, the idea of 'an American in Paris' used to conjure charming Technicolour memories of Gene Kelly dancing down the Champs Elysees in 1951. Five decades later, the City of Lights has become a zone of desperate danger for any unwitting Yanks who unwittingly stray into its lethal environs. So reckons ex-CIA-man Bryan Mills (Neeson), who panics when his teenage daughter Kim (Grace) expresses a desire to follow U2 on their European tour. Kim's mother Lenore (Famke Janssen), from whom Bryan has long since separated, reckons the benefits of such a trip far outweigh any possible hazards - and Bryan, most reluctantly, agrees. But, within hours of landing at the airport, Kim has been snatched by nefarious evildoers - and Bryan must track her down before she vanishes forever into what used to be called 'the White Slave Trade.' Taken, whose kinetic, often hand-held camerawork, fast cutting and 'realistic' fight sequences nod desperately towards the Bourne movies (Neeson, scarily fit at 55, is actually much closer in age to the character in Robert Ludlum's books than Matt Damon ever was). But whereas those pictures welded their propulsive plots to coherent characterisation and believable themes, Taken quickly spirals into from mild daftness into utter absurdity ("Jean-Claude, I will tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to!") ... and onward into offensiveness. After a mid-section in which Mills' instinctive recourse to sickening torture is celebrated (a la TV's 24) as the only sensible reaction to his situation, we then get a truly loathsome final act in which caricatured Arab lechers are shown bidding for the kidnapped (white) girls in a megabucks 'auction.' While no masterpiece, Hostel Part II explored similar terrain with infinitely more intelligence and wit. Taken is too ridiculous to even work on basic thriller terms, its idiotic xenophobia - especially its jaundiced presentation of the French - all the more mindboggling when one learns that it's actually an entirely French-funded enterprise, co-written by none other than Luc Besson. Quelle honte; quelle infamie! Neil Young 16th September, 2008 written for the current issue of Tribune magazine (nb the release of Faintheart has been delayed until 14.Feb.09)  ALEXANDRA : [6/10] : Russia (Rus/Fr) 2007 : Aleksandr SOKUROV : 95m (BBFC) : seen 23rd April 2008 : CityKino cinema, Linz, Austria : public screening (complimentary ticket; Crossing Europe film festival) : original review TAKEN : [2/10] : France 2008 : Pierre MOREL : 94m (BBFC) : seen 7th June 2008 : CineWorld cinema, Great Park, Birmingham : press show (CinemaDays event) |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
