First, though, a tribute to Jude Law–in a sparkling performance–who plays the playboy son of a shipping millionaire, Dickie Greenleaf, with the kind of precision and metrosexual magnetism that I thought he would be unlikely to bring to the screen as I read the novel. His performance is crisp and energetic and is (actually) so spell-binding that the film sags terribly when he departs.

It is difficult to find fault with Matt Damon’s (genuine) portrayal of Tom Ripley, for (as I will mention later) he is hampered by some fairly pointless directorial focus. He manages to capture the character from an outsiders perspective (the nervous ticks; the more obvious social faults), but doesn’t really get under the skin of Ripley’s schizophrenic illness (if ever there was an adaptation that screamed for a narrative voice-over, it was here), as Highsmith achieves (with an unnerving accuracy) in the book. In fact, I wasn’t really certain whilst watching this as to whether Ripley was a psychopath or simply someone who accidently commits murder and then decides to assume their identity (there isn’t much room for uncertainty in the novel…)

Gyeneth Paltrow also shines as Marge (who — like Law’s Dickie — brings character  to life as you would expect her to be) in the sort of manner you would expect Gywneth Paltrow to do. The trouble is — unlike Law — she is also present in the second half of the film, which is where the second major problem comes in.

Though the film largely captures the feel of the novel during the first half (largely due to Law and the fantastic sun-bleached locations)–and you feel it might be heading towards a decent homage–it plummets rapidly in the second half. What should have been a paranoid study of Ripley’s mental decline (swinging helplessly between fits of manic exuberance and reclusion) is simply a formulaic (and fairly contrived) 90s Hollywood thriller, which bears less and less resemblance to its inspired source material.

Throughout, I was disapointed that so many small details of the plot had been altered, but later on (with new characters changing the plot significantly, and the realisation that Ripley wasn’t going to be explored in anything like the depth he needed to be), I just ended up becoming annoyed (don’t film a classic novel and then fool everybody into thinking you are going to actually do it justice only for it to turn into every other film halfway through–the book didn’t really fully come alive until the point where this film dies…)

I can see why people enjoy this film: it is original (compared to most “serial killer” films). It is stylishly set up and well-acted. It just isn’t a patch on the novel, though, and (in pointlessly changing so much/leaving out so many important themes) doesn’t even really make an effort to be (it is telling that Damon wished afterward that they could film it again using the original plot).

Watch Hitchcock’s interpretation of Strangers On  A Train if you want to see a better (though still not perfect) translation of Highsmith’s unique paranoia on screen. Better still, just read her novels: they are light years better plotted than something like this.

It is more of the same, really — none-stop partying, drinking and references to popular 80s youth culture; the characters making no attempt to do anything constructive with their lives — and in some ways is a much better novel. It is funnier (Ellis is sharper and more comfortable when swinging his satirical axe — though his humour is still muted in comparison to American Psycho); it is more complicated (not just in there being three protagonists, but also in scale (the college drug sex social mess is realistically constructed) and greater covers the effects that their bohemian lifestyle has on their purchased souls). You are also left with an even bigger void of hope at the end of it all (despite the somewhat flowery title, this is no romantic comedy).

I didn’t really enjoy it as much, though. I guess, because it wasn’t new to me anymore. I think I was hoping for a greater shift towards the naked satire of American Psycho. More of this novel is filled with the same empty observations and dialogue that made Less Than Zero so effective. This isn’t a bad thing, but it takes greater effort to get into (getting to intimately know three characters instead of one), a little longer to read and doesn’t really reward you with enough new ideas.

Anyway, that is only a surface disappointment: more of Less Than Zero is a good thing and I did enjoy reading this. Fans of his first novel will feel at home here. If you haven’t read that, then I recommend that you should read it first–it is a slightly more focused and fluent example of Easton Ellis’s early work.

1965. 100 mins.

A beautiful Belgian manicurist has serious mental health problems in sixties London. That is the premise for Polankski’s harrowing and voyeuristic study of psychosis-related illness, and the more Carol’s nightmare unravels, the more you are hooked into her story (despite, due to the films unremittingly realistic account of her problems, an at times intense feeling to look away, a feeling of skin-crawling repulsion).

The film is shot in black and white, and almost entirely parched of melodrama and dramatic elaboration. It is (surprisingly, given its vintage) an unflinching and realistic dissection of a young woman’s turbulent emotions, as she gradually descends from social detachment into sexual paranoia, hallucinations and eventually psychotic madness. French actress Catherine Deneuve (Belle De Jour, Indochine) plays the lead to perfection — pay attention to her body language and mannerisms, her facial expressions and ruffled hair and distant eyes — and she does actually seem to be intensely in another world as she drifts distantly and further away from her life into seclusion — where her problems intensify dramatically.

I suppose what makes this so disturbing to view is the helplessness you feel: in most other cases of the damsel in distress (be it from prostitution, drugs or an abusive partner) you keep watching in the hope there will be a solution to her downward spiral. With the enemy inside, though (and the knowledge that mental health care in the 1960s — or even today — wasn’t likely to cure a person with her problems), there is little salvation in sight.

Needless to say this isn’t a film to watch with your grandmother. It isn’t something you will really “enjoy”, but (I suppose in a similar manner to Schindler’s List) it is something you will be glad you have seen.

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85 minutes

“What are you going to do, jump off?”
Senegalese taxi driver Solo asks a customer one dark night, after he books a one-way journey to a local mountain. The silent response says it all.

Goodbye Solo is a low-budget indie film, written by Iranian-American director Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, Chop Shop). It is, at it’s heart, a rough-around-the-edges odd-couple/buddy movie that follows the charismatic Solo (Souleymane Sy Savane) as he attempts to befriend depressed ex-biker, William (Red West), and tries to motivate him to live again (or at least to understand why William is contemplating “jumping”).

Solo is a charming character, perpetually incandescent — despite him struggling to keep his own life in order — who you instantly take a shine to. In fact, it is this warmth — juxtaposed with West’s authentic depiction of a fifties wildchild (he was the best friend and bodyguard of Elvis) in world-weary decline — that pulls you straight into the story from the first shot. At times you could be forgiven for viewing this as a simple buddy movie (the intriguing interplay between the two characters (both superbly played: one young, brimming with life, the other old and running on empty) is enough to merit viewing in itself); however, there is always that darker edge, that feeling something isn’t quite right, as William’s character slowly unravels, and you (like Solo) are increasingly made aware that he might actually do it.

Solo’s America (small-town, North Carolina) is a modern America, viewed with a gaudy, backstreet realism (street-vendors try to sell pirate DVD’s to toddlers, sex is often (though not explicitly) alluded to, and many (in fact nearly all) characters smoke); I really appreciated the director’s talent in portraying this story with an authenticity that well-suited the setting and the characters. It is a very well-rounded and mature meditation on age against youth, on Western decline and immigrant integration, that left me wanting to see more of Bahrani’s work.

Buy it on Amazon.co.uk

Buy it on Amazon.com

97 minutes,

“The Cranes are Flying” (Russia, Mikhail Kalatozov, 1957) is quite simply one of the best films that I have seen in ages.

The story centres around two young lovers – Boris, an artist and factory worker (Aleksey Batalov) and Veronica (Tatiana Samoilova) — and the devastating effect that World War Two (Russia’s “Great Patriotic War“) has upon their relationship. It also highlights (being partially set in war-torn Moscow) the losses Russian people face during this catastrophic period.

At every moment in this film I was moved. From the opening scenes of romantic innocence (as the carefree lovers frolicked around the city streets) to the later scenes of despair and terror (the Nazi air-raids and burning rubble afterwards), the direction is perfect and constantly challenges your emotional resilience. This isn’t like any fifties war film I have seen: it is more like watching a combination of French arthouse cinema and actual, gritty war footage. The lighting is stunning, the sets (including some spectacular outdoor and huge crowd scenes) are evocative, and the story binding it all together is touching. There are also several harrowing Hitchcock-style sequences (such as someone pounding the keys of a piano to drown out the roar of an air-raid) that the great man himself would surely have appreciated. At every level this surpassed my expectations, and I was left wondering why I’d never heard of this film before.

The central love-story is acted with great poignancy and passion by the two leads (particularly Samoilova, who portrays a mountain of restrained emotions for someone so young). It is through their initial romance (a memorable opening that is littered with lingering looks and touches, and ballet-like movements as they swirl adoringly around each other) that the later effects of war on those left behind are hammered home to chilling effect.

If you like a great war film, if you like foreign films, if you appreciate beautiful and character-driven cinema, then this will leave you mesmorised throughout and leave your appetite whetted for more Russian cinema. It is a simple yet powerful masterpiece that provokes all your emotions, and will sit in the pride of place amongst any collection.

Buy on Amazon.co.uk

Buy on Amazon.com

One of my favourite Door’s albums (along with the other five), Waiting For the Sun managed to overcome “third album syndrome” with a burst of creative maturity that cemented the band’s status as one of the most successful experimental bands of the sixties (or any other decade). It sparkles with energy, reveals some of their tenderest work and presented them both with their only number one album, and first chart topping single (Hello, I Love You).

Many bands suffer with their third album: they are normally signed with enough material for two albums, and then have to write fresh songs whilst touring and in the studio. Here, though, The Doors come across as confident and exuberant as ever. Morrison’s voice still has a warm, summery chime (precipitating the later-grizzled, whisky-house laments of LA Woman) but he now commands his lyrics far more majestically, a subtle shift in development away from the uncontrolled passions of his youth. The creative output is as strong as ever, and, whilst still scouring the darker sides of Morrison’s poetical consciousness, the band manage to retain the breezy summer-rock feel that distinguishes them from some of their more indulgent contemporaries.

The album was supposed to draw out with another dark epic (based on the poem, Celebration of the Lizard, of which, on this special edition, a 17-minute demo is included), though only the musical centrepiece of this (the pulsating, and harrowing, Not To Touch the Earth) was deemed fit for release. Other dark matters include: The Unknown Solider (a powerful anti-Vietnam statement, that manages to persuade through a combination of fragile subtlety and brute force) and Spanish Caravan (a stormy and subversive demonstration of Robby Keriger’s flamenco roots). To counter these shadows, Love Street (a whimsical serenade for Morrison’s lover Pamela Courson), and Wintertime Love (simply a heart-warming love song in the vein of Wishful Sinful), give us two of The Door’s most beautiful works. Hello I Love You, the albums opener, is a vibrant pop-song that was written much earlier than the rest of the material here, and it does show. The other four tracks are fun and functional (Summers Almost Gone and We Could Be So Good Together), or quirky and poetical (My Wild Love and The River Knows) little curiosities that punctuate the summery storms.

You can’t really go wrong with Waiting For the Sun, it gives you a full-blooded taste of The Doors performing in their prime and is as unique and impassioned as any of their work. It’s charming and challenging in equal measure, but always manages to raise your goosebumps and is one of my favourite “I need to sit down” albums…

Buy it on amazon.co.uk
Waiting for the Sun: Remastered & Expanded

Vanessa Paradis, Bruno Cremer

88 Minutes.

Noce Blanche is the story of a relationship between a teacher and one of his students. I first watched this about five years ago, and it is still one of my favourite films. I suspect, like most men, I bought this more due to the appeal of seeing a (then 18 years old) Vanessa Paradis flaunting around in her birthday suit than with a view to any greater understanding of foreign cinema. Ahem. Well, I’m pleased to say that the film doesn’t disappoint in this respect. The nudity is fairly subtle, though, and of an artistic, realistic, form; if you’re expecting a fantasy film you may be a little disappointed. The love scenes, also, are virtually none existent, but don’t let this spoil your enjoyment: this is a top quality film and well worth buying.

I was surprised to discover a mature and realistic drama. This is well written, and perfectly captures both the teenage and middle aged vulnerabilities and torments that ravage us all. All that pining: Oh to be mature and sophisticated; oh to be young again. This is excellent; sweet at times, sour at others, never anything less than realistic and unforgiving. The acting is exemplary (Paradis won a César award). The characters are well developed, confidently acted and mature (it has to be said, once again: it seems foreign cinema is the place to rediscover what it is like to be an adult — watch and compare this to some of the OTT childish dross masquerading as adult drama on TV nowadays). The cinematography and locations are also beautifully filmed, and the story is paced well, drawing you into the plot and leaving you… Well, I won’t give the game away but the ending is powerful and sadly believable.

All in all, I can’t recommend this enough. This is a film that will both stay with you, and find a place amongst your favourite DVD’s. If it opens the door to a more mature and sophisticated taste in entertainment, also, it can’t be too bad, can it?

Two strangers meet on a train, one bearing a grudge against his father, the other against his wife. One suggests the perfect murder: they each kill the other’s nemesis and the police would never even know that they’d met.

Strangers on a Train is the intense debut novel from psychological crime genius Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley). It focuses on a game of cat and mouse between the respectable architect, Guy Haines, and his stalker, the psychopath, Charles Bruno, whom he meets on the train of the title.

The story is a dark and brooding Hitchcockian nightmare (Hitchcock, somewhat unsurprisingly, went on to direct the film version), which unravels in painstaking (and often disturbing) detail. You can picture the scenes vividly — the creepy meeting on the train, alcoholism, paranoia in suburbia, and a trip to the a small town fifties fairground that will linger long though you’ll wish it didn’t.

Considering this was written sixty years ago, the book is still relevant and shocking. It’s a sophisticated noirish dissection of madness, of an alcoholic psychopath stalking (and taking over) an innocent man’s life, of how easily one’s life can fall apart because of someone crazy. Highsmith (in a similar — though more subtle — manner to Bret Easten Ellis), manages to access your darkest paranoias and leave you feeling both hooked and chilled to the bone. Top stuff!

A volatile Islamic critic, with links to Israeli Intelligence, is assassinated by extremists in Amsterdam. Whilst trying to cover their tracks, the secret service uncovers a larger terrorist act to be carried out imminently in London.

This is the first novel I’ve read by Daniel Silva, and I was impressed. The story is easy to read, yet realistic and complex enough to cut it above your average spy thriller. After reading The Secret Servant, I discovered that Silva worked as the Middle East correspondent for the UPI. I am not surprised. The story follows an Islamic terrorist kidnapping of the US Ambassadors daughter in London (a scintillating–though frightfully realistic–event), and the involvement of the Israeli secret service (in particular their star assassin Gabriel Allon) to rescue her. Though this thrilling game of cat and mouse is always at the heart of the story, and keeps you scrambling through the pages, there is much more going on (politics, social commentary, current world affairs), and you are left with a well written, multi faceted novel that both leaves your grey matter satisfied and doesn’t take effort to read.

The Secret Servant doesn’t really champion any political cause, choosing, wisely, to give a realistic (and at times futile) account of world affairs, that leaves you wondering what the future will hold. True, at times, it does give a fairly bleak account of modern Islam and the targets (the baddies) are always the Jihadists–almost no sympathy is given to them–but Silva also paints an equally depressing picture of the causes for Islamic terror (mainly, in this novel, the Mubarak regime in Egypt), whilst a sagely Islamic character (father of one of the terrorist ringleaders), offers a more compassionate view of moderate Muslims, and how they are as much a victim of and sickened by terrorism as anyone. This isn’t an all out early-24-like ‘crusade’ against Islam, rather a realistic and sobering dissection of conflict in the Middle East, and how it is now effecting modern day Western Europe.

Allon is a memorising central character: a dignified, intelligent and (refreshingly) mature assassin, who (whilst proving he is as unmerciful and brutal as his targets) is frequently seen to be vulnerable to the high emotional demands of his job. He not really a James Bond or Jack Bauer, but simply a man doing his job and falling somewhere between them and reality. The supporting characters and enemies are all well realised and carefully written–I particularly liked his chain smoking 70-something boss, Ari Shamron. The writing is lucid and the combination of a well written dramatic storyline and Silva’s working knowledge of the area (which he imbues into his writing with ease) leaves you feeling as though you are involved with a constantly breaking news story, rather than just reading a generic spy novel. I’d recommend this to anyone with an interest in world affairs, or just if you’re looking to read something with a bit more bite than your average thriller. I’ll certainly be reading more of Silva’s work.

photo by mdw81

***

Hector looked through the broken café windows to the empty street. An overturned hydrant sprayed water through the windows. An overturned motorcycle lay atop of the shelled out flaming car that had harboured the bomb. Beside this, a wall of sandbags lay defeated from the blast.

The sirens were still distant and he wondered if they were even coming here. He looked back to the man who sat crumpled and wincing.

“They will be here soon. Pedro. Eyes up. They will be here soon.”

Hector didn’t know the man’s name, but he called him Pedro. The man tried to talk, but couldn’t. He croaked and then tensed, and then conceded and eased, somewhat, as though, in accepting his helplessness, a great many of the tensions that were currently plaguing him evaporated.

Hector wiped a shard of china from a cut in the man’s cheek, and then placed a napkin he had doused in the fresh water which now filled the floor. He lifted the man’s hand, and his eyes squinted in recognition before limply holding the napkin against his wound.

Hector watched him for a moment. This man was only a worker, a businessman caught in the crossfire. Not his business nor suffering this. It was cruel, very cruel. The man seemed well educated and Hector hoped he didn’t perish.

He sighed and cleared a table of rubble, and lay his suitcase flat onto it before unlocking the straps. He then groaned as his shoulder hurt and wiped sweat from his forehead; he looked back out of the window, checked each street leading off from the square, before leaving the man’s side and searched around the rest of the room, scrabbling through the bodies and blast debris.

“Hector, mister Hector!”

The voice was from the Gabrielle’s boy. The boy was knocking glass from the window frame with a rock, before hanging onto it with his elbows.

“Hector, you survived!”

The boy smiled, but Hector dashed and grabbed him by the shoulder, uprooting the boy from the windowsill and making him tumble back into the running water and debris.

“Get out of here boy are you an ass? They coming here soon to finish this…”

He picked up movement in the shadows across the square.

Silhouettes. Two of them. Two men with old style army caps. Two of General Chizo’s philistine bastards.

“Boy get here. Give me your hands. Quick now hurry; there is no time to lose. Here now; no don’t look back: get up here. Pass me your hands, quickly boy.”

He’d just pulled the boy up when first a bullet and then another one pinged into the wall beside them.

Pistol fire, thought Hector, thank god they weren’t armed automatic weapons.

Hector opened his suitcase, and took out his rifle attaching the butt to the barrel and loading it quickly.

He looked up. A man in a shabby army suit was approaching carefully across the square. Hector lifted the sight to his eye and shot. The man’s ankle exploded and he fell to the ground screaming.

Hector ducked down as another bullet pinged into the café behind him.

“Hector, mister Hector,” said the boy by his feet. “We have to get out of here or more of General Chizo’s bastard rebels will arrive. We have to move, back to mine, back to Aunt Gabrielle.”

“Hush boy.”

Hector waited and listened. The man in the square was now weeping.

Hector looked around.

“Boy, Manuel, go find me a bottle of strong stuff. You know what that is boy? Good. Then go quickly.”

The boy left and Hector peeped over the windowsill. The man in the square was grimacing and trying to sit up; his ankle was limp from a large wound. Between him and the cafe, were several vehicles: parked motorcars, a vacated florists delivery truck and an empty ice cream cart on its side. Around there, were bodies and blood, and an iridescent stream shone around the truck. The petrol tank was leaking.

The boy returned.

“Got it as you asked: the strong stuff! What are you going to do?”

“When I say, you must jump and run, boy. Hear me? Jump and run. Only when I say so though.”

“Aye, Hector. What are you going to do?”

“Pass me the drink.”

Hector unscrewed the bottle, and took a good drink. He then tore enough of his shirt arm away and cursed at the waste, and then took another mouthful of the meths and then plugged the hole with the rag.

“Ready boy?”

“Aye Hector.”

“Not yet. When I say so.”

“Aye Hector.”

Hector waited, and then lit the rag and then shouted, “Hey philistine. Hey you. That’s right. Hey bastard Chizo’s man. You be very good now and take this to your boss, you hear me?”

Hector threw the bottle, and ducked. It took a few minutes, before there was second and then third and then forth explosion in the square. The man in the square started screaming.

“Wait boy.”

“Aye!” the boy shouted.

Hector said to the man, “God help you Pedro.” After the heaviest of the vehicle debris had fallen, Hector shouted, “Now boy now. Run!”

They both jumped through the window and back up the square. Hector fired a couple of covering shots, through the smoke in the direction of the man in the alley, before running behind the boy, back off into the maze of back streets. They were safe, for now, no thanks to the damn police.

***