Tag Archives: film

Marley documentary is gripping viewing

17 May

Some people make an outstanding impact on many in a relatively short life and singer/songwriter/musician Bob Marley is one of those. The documentary Marley directed by Kevin Macdonald encapsulates Marley’s life from his very humble beginnings in Jamaica until his death at age 36 as a superstar. The film is crafted together using a mix of interviews with the star himself, conversations with people who knew him and performance footage.

To me you can see how from an early age that Bob was a genius with engaging words that reach deep into the heart of a situation. He was dedicated to his music and to bringing people together. The early Bob Marley and the Wailers were a formidable band, including the great musician and performer Peter Tosh. The film features an amazing piano version of No Woman No Cry. Still the inspirational music combined with stirring lyrics continued through other line-ups of the group.

One of the controversies about Bob was that though he was married at an early age to Rita, he had many affairs while she was still there singing in his band. You imagined the great strength it must have taken for her to carry on through that situation.

Marley was also swept into political rivalries in Jamaica. His life came under threat and he had to play a key role in striving for peace. All the while the film inspires an empathy for Bob’s passion for mankind and reggae music, right up until the documentary’s sad conclusion. It is definitely a film for music lovers and people who want to learn more about the charismatic figure that Bob Marley was. It’s out at cinemas now.

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Film review: The Help

24 Oct

Director Tate Taylor’s adaptation of the best-selling novel The Help by Kathryn Stockett is a reminder of the conditions and struggles black people in the USA contended with during Civil Rights movement in the sixties. White graduate Skeeter (Emma Stone) returns to her southern hometown with aspirations to become a great writer. The only job she can get in town to kick her off on her aims is a job writing the housekeeping column in the local paper. She asks her friend if she can enlist the help of her housekeeper Aibileen (Viola Davis) to get the answers to problems. From there she starts to absorb the ill-treatment of the black maids just because of their colour. When Skeeter has the opportunity to be published by a mainstream publisher if she tells the stories of the maids, she takes the challenge. Aibileen writes her own accounts and gradually persuades her friend, the feisty Minny (Octavia Jackson) to also contribute. Passion at the wrong-doing the maids encounter eventually inspires contributions from more women. Viola, Octavia and Emma all give outstanding performances. The film is a tear-jerker but also make you laugh. You will become immersed in the lives of the women, the friendships and cruelty that they are subjected to. The Help is out this week.

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Film review: The Runaways

20 Sep

Back in the seventies before the global hit I Love Rock n’ Roll, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) started out in the all-girl rock band The Runaways with Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) as lead the singer. The girls were 15 with a passion for music. Managed by Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), the band, especially Cherie were encouraged to flaunt their age and sexuality to a potential fanbase to sell their growling, rebellious music.

The film follows the Runaways on tour indulging in a world of sex, drugs and of course rock and roll. Jett and Currie also fell for each other in the intense conditions they travelled in. But the lifestyle eventually took it’s toll on Cherie.

If you ever had a hankering to be a rock star, the film will reignite a little excitement. However at the end of the day, though the Twilight saga stars Stewart and Fanning kick ass you feel that Floria Sigismondi’s film based on Currie’s biography was a slight tale to bring to the screen. But it was good fun while it lasted.

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Film review: Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky

5 Sep

You may expect, with a biographical movie about a fashion legend such as Chanel (Anna Mouglalis), to see much of her fashion but this isn’t the purpose of the movie directed by Jan Kounen. In this French production set in 1913, there are scenes that hint at her powerful place in fashion but this really looks firmly at the affair she had with the great composer Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelson).

The Russian composer is struggling financially and the affair starts when Chanel offers a home to him and his family, including his sick wife, at her villa just outside Paris. In Chanel’s gloriously stylish black and white decor home, he is able to make progress with the Rite of Spring, a ballet which controversially eventually causes a riot as some feel it is too modern for it’s time.

Chanel has a strong physical attraction for the composer and he for her. They embark on a sexual relationship with no boundaries and seemingly no conscience while Stravinsky’s wife (Elena Morozova) is but a few rooms away with her children.

We gain no real insight into what they feel for one another apart from a strong physicality but I took from it some hints. Psychologists say strong romantic relationships need to have a good mix of friendship, respect and the sexual side or else the partners will feel something is missing. With Chanel she seemed to eventually feel the respect was missing and maybe even the friendship – the result of rushing into an addictive physical interaction without even knowing how much they truly like each other as people. For Stravinsky he misses the friendship and support of his wife who understands his relationship to music more than anyone. You could argue that he may never have turned to Chanel if his wife hadn’t been ill. You feel most sorry for the wife who, though her husband still loved her, was turning to someone else for his intimate physical needs. This made her feel worthless, unattractive and isolated. Of course there was only so much of this that she could take and she felt driven to leave the situation – the rejection eventually being too much to bear no matter how much she loved him. The friendship and respect wasn’t enough to sustain her as it wouldn’t be for most. The affair itself was doomed and apparently only lasted a few months in reality.

However these are just my interpretations of their feelings and it certainly did make me think about the structure of relationships as I wrote this. What makes a happy balanced relationship? However, this is just guess-work as none of the insights were quite so direct in the film. This is one of the failings of the movie – that we have to guess and we really do not know what they felt so it makes us also feel a little dissatisfied though it is beautiful to look at and the acting is compelling.

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Film review: Gainsbourg

8 Aug

I chose a quiet Friday afternoon to visit my nearest Picturehouse cinema and see which films were on offer. If I’m going to see a movie in a weekday matinee, Friday is my day of choice. I opted for the biopic Gainsbourg about the controversial French singer.

The cinema in the afternoon is a very different beast to the weekends and evenings. It seems to attract people who are watching on their own. Each of us was spoiled by having our very own row. You think to yourself – where shall I sit? Seat one? Seat five? Seat eight? I can safely say the atmosphere was very quiet, serious and grown-up.

The film starts with Lucien Ginsburg’s (later to be Serge Gainsbourg’s) childhood and his surprising dislike of the piano, the challenges and fears of being Jewish in the seond world war and his precociousness with women even as a boy.

There was a dreamlike feel to the film with this oversized character called The Mug following him around as a portrayal of his confidence, tempting him to be daring. We see his change from artist to musician, the steady stream of women in and out of his life and his battle with alcoholism towards the end. Eric Elmosnino played him with uncanny likeness as an adult. British actress Lucy Gordon played his lover and wife Jane Birkin. One sad event was that Lucy committed suicide after making the film.

If there was one complaint, it was that the music didn’t feature as much as I’d like. One dear friend of mine has mentioned one of his albums as a key influencer to bands like Air. However, there were snippets of Je t’aime moi non plus and the excellent Bonnie & Clyde. In all it was worth taking the impromptu trip to catch a film.

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