Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) dir. Tomas Alfredson
Starring: Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and Colin Firth.

***

By Blair Stewart

Espionage writer John le Carré created one of fiction's finer bureaucrats in George Smiley, a grey splotch of a man you'd think nothing of challenging to a duel until you've found he's outwitted you out of all your bullets. Forcibly retired from the early 1960's spy trade due to circumstances similar to the plotline, le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy rebuffed the good-times fantasia of Ian Fleming's James Bond series. Spy work in Cold War-era Britain was lousy business-Agent 007 never had to take a red-eye flight to East Berlin in winter, and he likely would have snapped and killed a few of his superiors from paperwork-induced boredom in the 'Circus' (le Carré's affectionate term for the HQ of the British intelligence arm MI6). In bald contrast to Fleming's more well known creation, George Smiley isn't a very dapper or handsome gent, and yet he's the dog to pick in a fight between the two. Smiley is gifted in memory and anticipation, all sangfroid calm, and loaded with connections throughout the branches of government intelligence-he's a worthy adversary for the the KGB foil of the Circus, the Russian spymaster Karla who hovers just out of reach.

Less a remake of the original BBC serial of Sir Alec Guinness' career-best Smiley, Tomas Alfredson's new release is more so its own stuffed adaptation of the book, compacting the spycraft jargon and labyrinthine relationships into a concise narrative that nearly satisfied my inner "Tinker" fan. Based on what they've managed to retain from the book the script by Bridget O'Conner, Peter Straughan and Peter Morgan has similarities to a clown car with enough space to successfully fit a full troupe.

Gary Oldman stars while looking as anemic as he did in Bram Stoker's Dracula, his Smiley having been shuffled off to early retirement when the operation to out a Russian mole within the Circus by his boss Control (John Hurt) nosedived. Despite Smiley's suspicions about Control's failed trap that devastated his department he can't nose around further until the appearance of the prodigal field agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) on British soil confirms the Circus has indeed been compromised. Smiley enlists the help of other forcibly retired Circus staff (Kathy Burke, Stephen Graham) and his now-downtrodden former protege Peter Guiliam (Benedict Cumberbatch) to reveal who's the fink among the bureau's top brass: Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds), and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), with Control once having suspected Smiley as well.

While successful in Scandinavian film for some time Tomas Alfredson came to light in the (English-speaking) mainstream with 2008's Let the Right One In, his superb take on the John Ajvide Lindqvist novel linking a forever-pubescent vampire in early 80's Stockholm with a sheltered boy in need of schoolyard protection. Alfredson was not only competent enough to hire the correct technicians to believably recreate and capture the fluorescent plastic dourness of Eighties state housing but he also communicated a sweetly-creepy sense of adolescent love/lust between the two leads. As a director Alfredson is capable of establishing le Carré's mood of Red Scare secrecy through his expansive framing and chilly Scandinavian colour palette (this is his second collaboration with DOP Hoyte van Hoytema) while making do with his cast of a Murderers' Row of English acting talent who mostly fit except for Graham and Mark Strong performing while appearing unintentionally hilarious in 70's threads and hair - no fault of their own, it was just a lousy decade for menswear. Oldman, despite seeming to speak all of three words in the first thirty minutes, is nearly equal to Guinness as Smiley, especially in scenes of contained fury when he's interogating the culprits of MI6's downfall.

Despite Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy being finely made adult entertainment that's pretty much catnip for year-end 'Best of' film lists a few problems emerge: while the script's inclusions of period music is damn fine (Julio Iglesias's "La Mer", Sammy Davis Jr.'s "The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World") the score by Alberto Iglesias is underwhelming, especially in comparison with the use of Danny Elfman's 'Wolf Suite Pt.1' for the film's first trailer. Another problem is the choice made by director Alfredson in several instances to extinguish suspense from the film, particularly in the climax, which is an admirable approach to an anti-Hollywood spy movie yet still left me dissatisfied, the audience has been patient for two hours, might as well give them something. Overlooking flaws with the adaptation there's still a great deal of quality in quantity with le Carré old-school espionage classic, a Smiley's People follow-up to Tinker by Alfredson would be most appreciated. Karla would approve of it.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy opens theatrically in Canada on Friday from EOne Films.

TIFF 2011 - Shame

Shame (2011) dir. Steve McQueen
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale, Nicole Beharie

***

By Greg Klymkiw

There is absolutely no question that director Steve McQueen is the real thing. Filmmaking is hard-wired into his DNA. He not only composes dazzling imagery, he is ALWAYS thinking about how to tell his stories using every available visual flourish. It’s not overtly showy like, say, Darren Aronofsky, but equally vital and exciting. McQueen is one of a very few contemporary directors who propel the medium into dangerous, compelling territory.

Directors like McQueen are rare breeds in these dark days of feature film – they restore one’s faith in cinema’s power to be more than a rollercoaster ride. That said, he’s still as much a showman as any great filmmaker should be. He cascades and careens you along the track with gusto. McQueen, for all his panache, chooses to tell stories not aimed at 15-year-old boys. His two features, thus far, have delved into lives of experience and, thrust themselves unashamedly at audiences – wearing darkness on their respective sleeves as a badge of honour.

Shame is about sexual addiction. It follows its central character Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a successful, reasonably affluent single urban professional as he devotes virtually every single waking honour in the pursuit of sexual gratification. He’s killer sexy and malevolently charming and he can pretty much sleep with any woman he sets his sights on – and does.

Unlike the sexually addicted 70s female counterpart, Theresa Dunn (Diane Keaton) in the Richard Brooks film adaptation of Judith Rossner’s novel Looking For Mr. Goodbar, this is not a tale of sexual awakening transforming into sexual addiction. Right from the get-go in Shame we’re plunged solidly into the trajectory of someone who not only needs to constantly gratify himself with bar-pickups, but prostitutes, online peep shows, a gay bar blowjob and just plain unadulterated masturbation. (Sex, to coin Woody Allen, with someone he truly loves.) In fact, when Brandon finally meets a woman he genuinely likes (Nicole Beharie), he can’t get it up, tosses her from his pad and hires a whore to sodomize with gusto against the picture window frames of his high-rise.

Brandon’s only real friend is his boss Dave (James Badge Dale). The two of them prowl bars together, but Dave’s approach is far too obvious and in spite of tutelage from Brandon, he ignores it and follows his own less successful approach. In fact, the only time we really see Dave score is with Brandon’s messed-up, suicidal sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) who has insinuated herself upon Brandon’s space in order to get her head together.

It’s the relationship between the siblings where McQueen’s film really soars. Screenwriter Abi Morgan in collaboration with McQueen makes a wise choice to not specifically reveal the obvious pain the brother and sister have both shared at some point in their past. The hurt is there in spades, but never literalized. There’s nothing more annoying when this sort of background is ladled out ad-nauseum in order to provide easy answers or justification for aberrant behaviour. In fact, it is when a story takes on the heavy weight of morality, it becomes an easy way out for the characters to become pawns for us to sit in judgement based upon the storyteller’s own jackhammer point of view. This moralistic approach works in Looking For Mr. Goodbar as it is set at time when “aberrant” behaviour was a response to post-war repression from a previous generation and ties in with the character’s lapsed Catholicism and the notion of being punished, or doing penance for one’s sins. In Goodbar, the punishment is rape and murder – the snuffing out of a life not-well-lived. (I doubt I shall ever forget the image of Diane Keaton’s life-drained face bathed in the light of a strobe that clicks incessantly and ever-slowly.)

If I have a quibble with Shame, it’s two-fold. Firstly, the movie races to a “shocking” climactic moment that is inevitable. This might be the point, but it’s not dramatically satisfying. Secondly, I wish McQueen had a more pronounced sense of black humour and just a wee-bit of a trash sensibility to juice his dark tale up even more. Ulrich Seidl, for example, with Dog Days, drags us through a veritable sewage treatment plant of aberrant behaviour, but it’s often extremely funny. Rather than temper the despair, the humour actually heightens it. As for a pulp sensibility, I don’t think I’m asking for a Paul Verhoeven Showgirls approach, but Shame is about sex – a bit of snigger-laden Brian DePalm-styled exploitation could have done wonders to goose things up a bit, but also give even more power to McQueen’s tale of addiction and obsession.

Shame is as dark as McQueen’s previous film, Hunger (which starred Fassbender as IRA prisoner Bobby Sands), but where that film was physically claustrophobic (while being wildly cinematic), here McQueen opens up his palette to a myriad of locations. The result? More claustrophobia. This is not a failing.

In fact, it’s kind of cool.

Shame is receiving its North American unveiling at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2011) and will be released in the USA by Fox Searchlight and in Canada by Alliance.

Archipelago

Archipelago (2010) dir. Joanna Hogg
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Lydia Leonard and Amy Lloyd

**1/2

By Blair Stewart

Featuring a family that's adrift from each other while periodically acting windy and volcanic, Joanna Hogg's Archipelago in hushed tones drags up memories of that most peculiar endurance test over minefields and barbed fences – a family holiday in tight quarters.

On the English Isles of Scilly, the stiff-lipped trio of adult son Edward (Tom Hiddleston), daughter Cynthia (Lydia Leonard) and mother Patricia (Katy Fahy) reunite to see Edward before he's off to Africa for missionary work. The exterior surroundings of weathered, broken trees hemming in the unstable nuclear family are far more hospitable than the interior of their summer house; not for the first time, father has gone AWOL and Patricia is on the phone in the other room talking about it. While his mother's banshee caterwauling seeps through the walls, Ed has sunk into a post-everything ennui with AIDS work as a balm for his stunted growth. And in the next room over, Cynthia's depression has settled into misanthropy. They're joined within the stuffy chamber of mutual acrimony by Rose, the sensible cook (Amy Lloyd) who will no doubt have an anecdote to tell at her own family gathering, and Patricia's painting teacher (Christopher Baker), who toddles about to offer gentle wisdom on dull ears.

The environment of the kitchen becomes damp with Ed's awkwardness when he develops a half-hearted shine to Rose, but just as well, as he could be passing the time until the poisonous fumes clear upstairs (which is unlikely to happen). If the mood was any more unpleasant, the rental car stuffed with my bickering relatives from a traumatic childhood road trip to Disneyworld would arrive - pass me the comic books and kiddie asthma inhaler from the glove compartment please.

A window briefly illuminated with sunlight until the clouds obscure the dark rooms once more, the emotions of Archipelago flutter about without culmination. Patricia and her brood have been stuck in repressive silence for ages, and we're just witnessing the present lousy vacation until future lousy weddings/funerals/reunions. Hogg's interest isn't in mainstream emancipation of the soul but the aesthetics of simmering resentment in off-kilter surroundings, with close-ups avoided for locked-in middle-distance framing heavy on indoor shadows, somewhere between Haneke's interiors and an upper-class fishbowl. The acting, some of which is performed by non-professionals, is uncomfortably good, with Tom Hiddleston's Edward a fine specimen in impotence and Leonard's Cynthia a powder keg bitch. It also helps that the siblings are the strongest written characters in the film.

Archipelago isn't for all tastes despite the intelligence of its construction. Outside of the craggy, inspired setting on the island, the story seems better suited to the stage, where an audience can sweat it out in the same room as the miserables. Otherwise, the work is lacking essential drama. We have walked into the middle of a protracted dispute of mutterings in long-shot, and I was in need of some shouting and a revealing close-up.

Archipelago is a skillfully made film of detail, but one that underwhelmed in ambition.

Brighton Rock

Brighton Rock (2010) dir. Rowan Joffe
Starring Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough, John Hurt, and Helen Mirren

**

By Blair Stewart

Youthful Pinkie Brown has a pretty boy smile with a heart and soul like a burnt-out piece of meat, nothing left on the plate but some gristle. As the razor-thugs of Brighton cannibalize each other for the protection money and racecourse stubs Pinkie peeps opportunity after his mentor cops it to their rivals. The lad might look a small fry in a sordid haunt but once implicated in gangster payback by a good-girl Catholic witness our wee Pinkie becomes a shark in blood-waters.

Graham Greene's Brighton Rock clawed at the squirmy underbelly of England between the Great Wars, a filthy country stewing in vices and religious angst with Pinkie's teenage psycho on a moral see-saw across from the dull, virtuous Rose flagellating for the Virgin Mary. A 1947 film adaptation by John Boulting not only introduced a memorable creepshow Sir Richard Attenborough in his breakthrough lead role, but the film itself now resides on the same shelf of British film standards along with The Third Man, A Matter of Life and Death and Great Expectations.

Rowan Joffe, son of Roland, who was responsible for The Killing Fields, takes a ballsy step in his debut by updating a classic with Pinkie in the middle of the 1960 Mods and Rockers youth riots of Quadrophenia lore. Sam Riley (who previously made for a bang-on Ian Curtis in the Joy Division biopic Control) steps into Pinkie's shoes, a thirty-year old acting as a teenager more admirably than most people, namely my own broken-down ass. As the Irish waitress, Andrea Riseborough plays an oblivious small-town Red Riding Hood as she mistakes Pinkie's skulking for courtship. Hovering about the curdled love story is Helen Mirren as Rose's knowing boss with raised hackles around the boy, and together with an elegantly wasted John Hurt they play junior detectives. In a cameo, Andy Serkis leaves a trail of resplendent Brylcreem sleaze as the local heavy.

The desperation of scrubs on the margins of the criminal trough produces a yearly crop of worthy film subjects, with David Michod's recent and most excellent Animal Kingdom coming to mind, but this remake (or 're-imaging' or 're-invigorating') of Greene's work has too much starch to it and just ends up poorly baked. Although I can believe Mirren and Hurt as wastrels killing time off the clock in the local pub, the rest of the main cast has a sheen of fakery around them, with a pivotal riot sequence sticking out artificially in example. The 'rampaging' Teddy Boy extras look like they're just going through the motions, and I couldn't buy into Joffe's version of the time, place, or as mentioned, most people. Riley and Riseborough simply don't inhabit their characters, and no amount of vintage set decoration could distract from the dearth of mortal guilt in their eyes when their mouths were saying otherwise.

I came away from Brighton Rock with the impression that the story was updated by three decades for the simple reason of Pinkie on a 60's Vespa looks cool, which just doesn't cut it. Style can only go so far when you fuddle about with the classics. Classics might have heaps of style, but it's the substance that gives a work longevity.

Bomber

Bomber (2009) dir. Paul Cotter
Starring: Shane Taylor, Benjamin Whitrow, Eileen Nicholas

***

By Greg Klymkiw

A terse, tight-lipped old Brit and his seemingly vivacious wife coerce their touchy-feely layabout son into driving them to a village in Germany to fulfil Dad's decades-old obsession of finding a building dotted on a 60-year-old aerial photo and in this odyssey on the backroads of Europe, the family reaches new understandings about each other and Dad finds redemption in the unlikeliest of places.

Road trips in the movies are certainly not without merit. Tried and true, this is a genre wherein an old chestnut of a story premise will not trouble anyone due to familiarity with the narrative backbone if the ride itself proves rewarding.

Given the title Bomber, one has a fairly good idea what the "secret" revelation and need for redemption will be in this film written and directed by Paul Cotter, but again, that's less important than the journey itself. For such yarns to still have punch, there are several questions that need to be answered in the affirmative. Is the pilgrimage rife with drama and emotion of the highest order? Is it compelling? Is it plausible? Are the literal twists and turns in the road carefully and evocatively mirrored with twists and turns of the thematic and psychological kind? Are they layered, original and, most importantly, entertaining and thought provoking?

These then, are the challenges, not only of the filmmaker in general, but frankly, the reviewer who must assess the worth or lack thereof in this specific film. And the answer to each question above is, rather maddeningly - yes... and no.

Bomber is certainly a film worth seeing, though the whole is definitely not equal to the sum of its parts. Granted, with any film, one takes away individual moments, scenes, sequences and the like, holding on to them long after we've seen the picture, but I think what separates the good from the great in cinema (we can leave the mediocre and merely wretched behind in discussing this work) is when everything comes together in the actual process of watching the film - when what we see while we see it is as seamless as possible, so that questions about character, motivation and plot are answered in due course as the picture unspools. Questions should (almost) always come after. Analysis and thought about what we've seen is richer when the picture delivers a narrative that has as few speed bumps as possible to take us out of the drama, unless taking us out of the drama is an intentional tool to enhance the drama as the film progresses.

For example, Bomber has an uphill climb in gaining our avid interest. This is not a case of a film leisurely giving us necessary information in order to lull us into acceptance of the narrative and/or tone and pace, but rather the fact that the picture seems to start off on the sort of footing that strains credibility in the actions of the main character - who, as it turns out, is not necessarily the father figure, but the son.

At the outset, we are introduced to the son as he tries silently waking while his live-in girlfriend sleeps. Alas, she wakes up and he needs to explain to her that he's popping out to see his parents off on their trip to Europe. The girlfriend reminds him they have an important commitment and that he must not blow it "again". He emphatically assures her he won't, but just as forcefully insists how important it is he visits with his parents.

So far, so good.

He shows up at Mom and Dad's house, helps them pack their car, says his goodbyes and offers his well wishes. We're given an excellent series of clues and character traits about all three characters and their relationships with one another. The son hugs and kisses Mom. When he goes to give Dad a hug, it's rebuffed in favour of a handshake. It's true-to-life, intriguing and entertaining.

And then... Dad and Mom start the car, back out of the garage and... KAPUT! The car dies.

This is where you start to get a sinking feeling as the next series of shots are of the son transporting Mom and Dad to Germany in his van - accompanied, sadly, by some horrendous up-tempo folkie tune. We don't actually see the son's decision to screw things up with his girlfriend (presumably yet again) and drop everything to drive his parents which, in and of itself is not a big problem, but because considerable running time passes with ho-hum driving shots and scant few clues as to how the son agrees to let this happen, all one thinks while watching is, "Why the hell is he doing this?" and "Oh, give me a break, I'm not buying this." Not only is credibility being strained, but also we're not given enough clues for quite some time as to why the son would do this. All the while, we're taken out of the narrative and left with borderline cutesy-pie quirkiness.

Annoying as hell, really. Here we are at the beginning of the road trip and we're NOT buying it, but instead are forced to feed upon a few jaunty dollops of whimsy. Ugh!

Eventually, we come to understand the son's motivations, but frankly, this has taken far too long to occur and it becomes a real chore to stay with the movie. Once we eventually do, there are considerable pleasures to be had, but they come in fits and starts - the entire film being marred by either lapses in credibility or forced quirkiness.

All that said, when the film is clicking, it's funny, bittersweet and often very moving. The trio of performances from Shane Taylor, Benjamin Whitrow and Eileen Nicholas are uniformly fine. Whitrow, in particular offers up knockout work. The scene where he finally encounters what he's been looking for sees him deliver such a moving monologue that we're riveted and though his "audience" in the film is finally less than enthralled, we're moved and shattered to see this character redeem himself. When he discovers the real truth behind the thing he's been haunted by for over sixty years of his life, I defy anyone to control the opening of their tear duct floodgates.

Bomber is without question a flawed work, but in spite of this you'll experience any number of moments so profoundly moving that you'll be grateful to have experienced the parts, if not the whole.

"Bomber", a SXSW 2009 Selection, is now available on DVD from Film Movement.

Centurion - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (2010)

Centurion (2010) dir. Neil Marshall
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Dominic West and Olga Kurylenko

**

By Greg Klymkiw

Neil Marshall is one terrific director, and he comes to every film he makes with the pedigree of being an editor - in fact, two of his directorial efforts, Dog Soldiers and Doomsday were edited by himself. Sadly, it is the editing that fails his latest picture Centurion.

Marshall's brawny screenplay, loosely based on a historical record that is itself a bit murky, focuses on imagining what might have happened to an entire Roman Legion in what is now Great Britain in the early part of the first millennium. It's a solid, simple script that should have yielded a much better picture.

It tells the story of a brave centurion, Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender) who promises his superior, General Titus Virilus (Dominic West) that he will lead a small group of Roman soldiers to safety after the entire legion has been savagely decimated in a guerrilla-styled offensive perpetrated by the merciless Picts. The rest of the movie is one long chase scene punctuated by dollops of vicious fighting. Leading the Picts is the sumptuous near perfection that is Olga Kurylenko as Etain, a warrior goddess who had her tongue cut out by the Romans when she was a child.

Kurylenko is quickly becoming one of my favourite actresses. Not only is she mind-blowingly gorgeous, the camera loves her like nothing else and I appreciate the diversity of roles she takes on. She could be an action star on the level of her Ukrainian compatriot Milla Jovovich (and probably even bigger), but if she plays her cards right, she also has the stuff to take on more roles in non-genre pieces and still deliver bigtime. In Centurion, she conveys a wide range of emotions even though, and perhaps especially because, she is forced to present her character without the benefit of dialogue. She conveys everything through action.

Speaking of "action" (in the Jerry Bruckheimer sense of the word), with a picture like Centurion, how the action scenes play out is virtually the whole shooting match. Unfortunately, much of the film feels as if it were edited with a series of multiple rapid golf club swings and slices. The first 20 minutes of battle and exposition is so choppily cut, that it's almost hard to believe the film comes from such a precise craftsman as Marshall. One only has to recall the superb craft in Marshall's The Descent where the cutting was measured for maximum impact. Even worse in Centurion, is how the relatively easy-to-follow setup is rendered utterly confusing and takes far too much effort to piece together while watching the movie. (This takes some doing considering how simple it all really is.)

It's obvious Marshall had more than enough coverage to allow for a cutting style that could hang back a bit, yet the movie's story and set pieces are foisted upon us using the currently fashionable quick cutting. Where this annoying cutting hurts the most is in the action scenes. For all of the great fight choreography and Marshall's exceptional eye, it's pretty much all for naught. The only sequence that packs a wallop the way it should is when the handful of centurions are on the run from Kurylenko and her bloodthirsty Pict warriors. The sequence works because Marshall's compositions are exquisite and the less frenetic cutting style allows the action to play out in ways that are both emotional and rooted squarely in narrative.

I detest this wham-bam-thank-you-mam style of cutting because it has little regard for how a cut can not only move things forward, but, in fact, disregards the fact that a cut is in and of itself - inherently dramatic. The cutting here has little drama - just noise and fury. One of the few directors who knows how to make this kind of cutting work is the extraordinary Paul Greengrass with his Bourne pictures, Bloody Sunday, United 93 and his latest thriller Green Zone. But with his pictures, they are designed from the get-go to be cut in this fashion and you can even tell that he knows exactly where his herky jerky shots are going and how they'll cut together. Alas, when the cutting style is employed in such a haphazard, all-over-the-place fashion as in Centurion, one fells that its makers are trying too hard - the , effect is visceral, but seldom works in service to the narrative.

The photography, production design and performances are all fine, and Marshall's distinctive approach to onscreen violence remains as vivid and original as ever. Unfortunately, the cutting - aimed at the ADHD-challenged not only sucks the life out of everything that could have worked beautifully, but in fact, for all the whizbang slicing and dicing, the picture becomes exhausting and as such, is often borderline boring. This is the sort of cutting one expects to see in a J.J. Abrams or Christopher "One Idea" Nolan effort - filmmakers who are not really born filmakers and make movies anyway in spite of having no idea how to make them.

In spite of all this, I remain a steadfast champion of Neil Marshall (hell, I'm probably one of the few people who genuinely likes Doomsday - a really fun ode to the George Miller Mad Max pictures) and I very much look forward to his next picture with considerable anticipation.

I just hope it will be better than Centurion.

The full schedule for the Toronto After Dark Film Festival can be found HERE