Film is one of the most powerful forms of media that we have in our society. It can be used to challenge our assumptions, perceptions and open our minds to the voices of others. It is important, therefore, that we understand film and the messages they often express.

Tuesday 24 April 2012

The Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists: A Review


Aardman have done it again, they have produced a fantastically funny, visually stunning, plasticine, stop motion production that will have audiences laughing out loud.

From the maker of Wallace and Gromit comes, the first in a series of children’s books by Gideon Defoe, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (Lord, UK). Hugh Grant plays his first animated role as the Pirate Captain, as this hapless crew sail the seven seas on the hunt for a booty fit to crown the Pirate Captain as the Pirate of the Year and beat his rivals, Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek). But with a crew consisting of Number Two (Martin Freeman), Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate (Ashley Jensen), The Albino Pirate (Anton Yelchen), Pirate with Gout ((Brendon Gleeson), a pirate that is really a fish with a hat and a parrot named Polly that is really the last existing Dodo, that all consider the best thing about being a pirate is ham night; we are definitely in for a treat.

This undoubtedly hapless crew, who are useless at plundering and looting, are run by a Captain who only has his super luxurious beard to offer as a symbol of his status as a Pirate, which brings a lot of comedy and an enjoyable plot. Along their quest to steal a bountiful booty the crew encounter Charles Darwin (David Tennant), who happens to be only concerned about the fact that he is unlikely to ever get a girlfriend, and the evil Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) whose pet hate is Pirates!

With five years in production this film was definitely worth waiting for, just for the laughs. With its punchy one liners, this film is definitely worth watching if you enjoy Aardman's subjective humour.




Beyond the Edges of the Frame


With a year full of superhero action, what is actually going on?

Films are products of our society and, therefore, express the views and concerns that are prevalent in our society. Due to this cultural and social attachment, genres are cyclic, as various genres are able to express certain anxieties and opinions in a more inadvertently direct way than others. Thus, when a particular cycle of genre raises its head, one has to wonder why?

We are all eagerly awaiting the release of The Avengers Assemble, The Amazing Spider-man and The Dark Knight Rises, therefore, this year is proving to be a big year for the superhero genre and will definitely go down in history.

However, I can’t help but think that there is more at play here. The superhero genre is a breeding ground for adolescent anxiety as the main characters are often teenagers, dealing with the coming of age and in most cases the lack of a father figure, which is considered to be the reason as to why these teenagers decide to work on the edges of society.

This adolescent theme seems to be prevalent in this year’s films, as The Hunger Games dealt with a dystopian society in which the adolescents where having to change the way in which society is being run. Other films, such as Mirror Mirror, which is out know, and Snow white and the Huntsman, also deal with adolescents and their journey towards adulthood. But why the focus on adolescents? It will be interesting to see what these films suggest about our society today.

However, this is not the only theme that the superhero genre takes into account. This particular genre, with its costumes, is able to playfully negotiate gender identities. Therefore, I am eagerly awaiting the release of these films in order to establish how much things have changed since the last cycle, in particular of the Batman films from the early 1990’s, and what is being suggested in these films of today. 

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Source Code: A Review

From the director of Moon (2009, USA), Duncan Jones, comes a gripping sci-fi thriller that will leave you questioning your own illusion of reality.

Source Code (2011, USA) follows Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), a military fighter pilot who was in a plane crash and awakes to find himself on a commuter train headed for downtown Chicago. However, as Stevens sees his reflection in the window of the train he soon finds out that he is in another man’s body, Sean’s. Stevens soon learns that he is part of a futuristic program, known as Source Code, run by military officials, which allows him to enter the last 8 minutes of a dead man’s memory that is projected into an alternative reality. Stevens is sent back again and again to find the person who bombed this train and stop another imminent attack on Chicago. With not much time, Stevens soon learns that all is not as it seems as he unravels conspiracies and starts to question his own condition of his existence. It would seem that one death is no longer a sufficient price for a soldier to pay for serving his country.

Stevens is an alienated man trying to figure out his purpose of existence. Alienation is a common theme found in Duncan Jones’ films. Stevens did not get to choose his fate and the job he now has to do, as he is being controlled by authoritative forces that he, and the audience to begin with, does not understand. The job that Stevens must do involves finding the bomber of the train, however as he only has eight minutes to do so Stevens soon finds that he must die multiple times in order to gather the information to stop the attack from happening. Thus, the film plays with existential views of mortality, as death becomes a means to an end and by the end of the film Stevens is able to defy his bodily death in his reality. The film also plays with existential views of reality with the idea that we are controlled by an authority that governs us and makes choices for us. This idea defies the views of existentialism, in which a human being is responsible entirely for the choices they make. Stevens however, did not choose his fate but awakes in it.

It would seem that the film makes many comments on our reality, including our relationship with technology. The computer program, source code, allows a person to be in two places at once, which is much like our experience of virtual reality that we get from the web. This plays with the Cartesian idea that we can exist in two places at once, one where our mind is and another where our material bodies are. It would seem that Stevens is able to lose himself, like we are able to, in a virtual reality.

This fantastic film is filled with suspense and takes you to a new level of reality. It will leave you truly amazed and thrilled and definitely wanting more. 

Monday 16 April 2012

Carancho (The Vulture): A Review

Pablo Trapero’s Carancho is a harrowing portrayal of the endless cycle of corruption, where the only escape from society is death. This film noir is set in the dark corners of Buenos Aires, where vultures prey on the innocent and corruption runs the state. With 8,000 people being killed in road traffic accidents every year in Argentina the film is set up with a dark undertone of death. The anti-hero in this film noir is the vulture, Sosa (Ricardo Darín). Sosa is a seductive, yet, predatory character who chases ambulances to the scene of the crash in order to swindle the victim out of their insurance payout. His seductive characteristics seduce the audience into accepting his shady morals.

Sosa must work for the “Foundation”, an organisation that poses as a charitable law firm that is accompanied by police, paramedics and shady lawyers, as he is a disgraced lawyer and has lost his licence to practice. It is at one of these crash scenes that Sosa meets Luján (Martina Gusman), a paramedic training as a doctor. It is here, in this chaotic warzone filled with noise and confusion that their tragic love story begins. Luján disagrees with Sosa’s work and, therefore, in order for them to be together, Sosa must give up his corrupted practices. However, freedom comes at a price and Luján and Sosa find out the price they have to pay to be together when Sosa must take on one last job.

The “Foundation” represents a corrupt society that is unforgiving, as the closing scene represents how there is no escape from the system, except death, as it is a continuous cycle of events. The audience is thrown into this claustrophobic thriller as they too can feel every punch that is thrown and every crash that happens due to the small spaces in which this film was shot. Carancho offers a gritty envisioning of the shattering nature and fragility of the flesh. The opening sequence with the black and white still shots of the shattered glass with a hand and then a foot foreground this fragility. There is a lot of pain in this film, both caused by the characters themselves but also by circumstance.

However, these intense violent scenes are also accompanied by moments of black humour that occur in a contradicting situation. For instance, a fight breaks out between two supposedly injured men lying on hospital beds that Luján is in the process of assessing in a small hospital room. This fight leads to a riot and Luján and her colleagues must lock the doors to prevent the hoards from bursting through. Gun shots are then fired which leads to a moment of calm again. This unexpected outbreak of violence acts as a way of letting off steam, as the audience is released from this tense thrilling film for a moment.

Carancho is a portrait of a moment of chaos within a warzone where loves blossoms from extreme situations. Trapero’s Carancho is definitely a film worth experiencing.