Billy Liar - More Britain in the 60s

The second of a pair of 'classic' British films from the 1960s that my Dad bought me for Christmas, 'Billy Liar' is a far straighter film that 'Blow Up' that follows a couple of days in the life of Billy Fisher. Billy (Tom Courtnay) is a young adult in an un-named northern town. For Billy, work, friends, family and commitment are a frustration, an aside that get in the way of his incredible imagination.

Billy is a compulsive liar, but not because of bad intentions, rather that his imagination takes over and ends up passing his lips before he has time to veto his thoughts. As such, the people around town each believe various truths, half-truths and outright lies about him. He has convinced two girls that he intends to marry them - when in fact he hardly likes either. Billy is a nice guy, but whose active mind and over-eager tongue have got him into more scrapes and problems than he deserves to be lumbered with.

I think that Billy is supposed to encapsulate what it was to be young in the early 1960s. The concept of the teenager as a separate social group had only recently been created, and with the huge difference in incomes and opportunities offered by the modern world compared to that of only 20 years before it was inevitable that social conflict would come about. Billy has freedom of choice and opportunity, money to do what he wants and an education. Yet at the same time his parents and societal elders were brought up in an entirely alien mind-set, one of settling down and responsibly earning a wage; they expect different things from him. Without anyone to guide him through these confusing choices of opportunities versus responsibilities, Billy inevitably comes into conflict with his friends, family and the greater world.

It is only when Billy meets Liz (Julie Christie) that he sees a way out. Liz is like a force of nature, breezing through the town the locals see her in hushed awe as the 'girl who got away'. She has been to London (seen as some kind of exotic and far away place in the film - "You can't just go to London" Billy says) and walks through the town like a ghost, aware of everything that's going on but touched by none of it. Only Billy seems to understand why she refuses to be grounded in one location, and only Liz seems to understand why Billy acts the way he does. Though his love for her is obvious to the audience, he seems oblivious to it, confused and awed as much by Liz as he is by the rest of the world.

Ultimately, 'Billy Liar' is a sad film that honestly looks at how people cope with the pressure of responsibilities versus dreams, and how making the choices you want alienates the people you love. It encapsulates the teenage contradiction and ends in a poignant way that I would never have predicted. It clearly influenced Ricky Gervais' Cemetery Junction, though the overall feel of this film is much more raw and grounded in reality. Holywood this is not, this is as British as they come and I'm amazed no-one told me to watch it earlier. An excellent Christmas present!

Melancholia

The latest of my catch-up films from last year is Lars Von Trier's Melancholia. Part science fiction and part chin-stroker, Melancholia tells a story about the emotional stresses of a wealthy family and how they deal with several types of impending doom. On the one hand, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) is an emotional cripple in danger of ruining her own marriage on her wedding day, on the other hand there is 'Melancholia' - an enormous planet on a potential collision course with Earth. Doom indeed.

The central theme is sort of given away by the film's title. It's about depression, the different sorts of depression people suffer from and how people deal with it in different ways. The first hour of the film shows Dunst's character in a psychological black hole, who is only able to emerge from her mire when Melancholia the planet appears in the skies. Justine's sister is Christine (Charlotte Gainsberg), who is her emotional rock until she becomes convinced that Melancholia is going to kill them all.

Melancholia has a narrative that's far from traditional. It's opening act plays out like an ITV drama complete with small parts from famous names (John Hurt anyone?), middle class angst, lavish surrounds and nookie with the lower classes. In part 2 we switch into vague Outer Limits territory, in which Justine talks openly about some sort of precognitive powers she claims to have and a humongous Chekov's Gun is winched into place to preempt the ending. Characters then react to what has happened and is happening in different ways. Whereas Justine has known true despair in her life and faces Melancholia with a detached calm, the ever-practical John (Charlotte's husband played by Keifer Sutherland) cannot contemplate a world in which scientific certainty is snatched away from him and starts to crack.

It's difficult to know precisely what to think about this film. On the one hand it looks amazing. From the opening super-slow-mo shots to the final scene, the film has a stunningly bright and natural light running through it. On the other hand though the film barely has a plot, is full of holes (why does Justine have an American accent while all her family have British accents?) and could easily be accused of the worst kind of artsy, upper middle class navel-gazing.

Whatever side of the fence you come down on, I think it would be hard to argue that 'Melancholia' is a waste of time. The drama of Act 1 is a very well-acted insight into a family falling apart, and the lighting, cinematography and effects look fantastic. And if nothing else floats your boat about it, Kirsten Dunst does some nude sun-bathing. Which is of course 'artistic', because this is an artsy film and therefore not at all gratuitous.

Closer to the Edge - TT Isle of Man

Mark Kermode is my go-to-guy when it comes to film recommendations. He sung the praises of this documentary from the roof tops when it came out last year, probably because he loves the Isle of Man for some reason. He reconed it would win a bunch of stuff for best documentary, but only managed a single nomination at the British Independent film awards - not great.

This is a documentary about the annual Isle of Man TT motorbike race. It's a race that exists because road racing was outlawed on the British mainland in the early 20th century, and so motorbiking enthusiasts went to the Isle of Man where the law was less strict. The TT race was born and remains an event in the calendar of all motorbiking afficianados to the present day. I'm not even close to being such an afficianado, but even I was able to appreciate the speed, danger and emotion that goes into this unique racing event.

The Isle of Man TT is a motorbike road race that uses the country lanes of the island and has little restriction on what the racers can do to increase their speeds. The film's voice-over talks us through some typical corners, describing how the racers can fly through village lanes at nearly 200mph. It is a surprise then - given the health and safety fixation of the modern world - that the race is still permitted to run in the face of all the deaths and injuries that happen every year. The history of the event is littered with the names of minor celebreties in biking circles who have willingly given their lives up to their hobby, the chance to win even a single TT race.

'Closer to the Edge' took me on an emotional roller-coaster. By talking up the dark history of the race, and introducing the wonderfully colourful characters who were to race in the 2010 event, the film brings you slowly to the realisation that there's a good chance someone is going to die in the film. Real death that is, not some fake movie world death where there's catharsis and heroism, but a real death in which someone is gone. One of the real people we have been introduced to in the opening hour of the film is going to be killed - in fact, has already been killed in real life, and quite probably filmed for this documentary. Who? We don't know, but when the races get going every shot of a bike flying through a narrow Manx lane brings with it a gripping fear. When something eventually happens I was on my seat edge, on the verge of shouting at the screen for them to tell me if anyone was hurt. For nearly 10 minutes the film manages to string out its revelations about the true drama behind the incidents that happened at the 2010 Isle of Man TT race - one of the most stressful and charged 10 minutes of my movie-watching life.

Obviously Senna was the best documentary last year, but this isn't too far behind. It's an insight into the almost anachronistic world of the TT race, which seems to be stuck in a time warp as the rest of the world marches towards wrapping everyone in cotton wool.

The Guard - a very Irish comedy

After breaking the box offices in Ireland and doing kind of ok over here - 'The Guard' finally found its way into my home entertainment system a few weeks back. I had intended to go and see it at the cinema last year, but the usual combination of idiotic multiplex operators and having no spare time at the weekend foiled me.

'The Guard' is one of the most Irish films I have ever seen. Starring Bendon Gleeson as country bumpkin Gallway police officer Gerry Boyle, it plays with the stereotypes of that nation and has a lot of fun in the process. Boyle is an officer who seems to have made a career out of appearing to be an idiot while in fact being incredibly street smart. When the world-wise Wendell Everet (Don Cheadle) arrives in town as part of an FBI drugs bust, he is suddenly out of his depth in this foreign land where a veil of apparent simplicity covers a deeply complex culture. After all, this is a place where people can pretend they don't speak English to stone-wall an outsider, you can still get guns off the IRA and where a 10 year old boy knows about the Birmingham 6.

Everet and Boyle are compelled to join forces on a darkly comic investigation into the Irish drugs underworld. Boyle appears like a simpleton throughout the film, when he first meets Everet he asks him all manner of horribly naively racist questions. Of course he is merely teasing the American: "I'm Irish; sure racism's part of my culture" he says mockingly. Eventually Everet comes realise that Boyle is a man who understands much more than his outward manner would reveal - knowing when to act and when to take a day off. The central theme of the film revolves around whether Boyle is in fact a bullshitter or disarmingly clever police officer, and by the end it's left open for you the audience to decide.

When 'The Guard' finished I uttered a single word - "Perfect". With a couple of weeks of reflection I think that's over-stating the matter, but 'The Guard' remains a wonderfully simple, funny and affecting film.

Shame - as good as I'd hoped

Went down to one of the local cinemas I visit less frequently last week to see 'Shame'. The Camberley Vue is smaller than many, though if my memory's right the manager there always seems to be more willing to show smaller films so it's often a good place to head. 'Shame' is a film I've been excited about for a long time now; starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan as troubled siblings, it tells a story of adiction leading to self-destruction.

Fassbender plays Brandon, a man who is addicted to sex. As the film opens we see him paying for sex, masturbating regularly and freaking out a woman on the New York subway after leering at her for just too long. His life revolves around where he's going to get his next fix, be it online, with a prostitue or a midnight encounter with a random woman in a bar. His obsession is his life, and while he's able to live it in private he appears in control. When his estranged sister Sissy (Mulligan) arrives at his flat dragging the emotional baggage of another bad relationship, Brandon's bubble bursts.

Though by no means an arthouse film, director Steve McQueen does a lot of unconventional things to make the film exceptionally unsettling to watch. For example, he makes good use of single long takes in 'Shame'. When Sissy sings her desperately sad rendition of 'New York New York' the camera is in Carey Mulligan's face for several minutes, nowhere for the actress or the audience to escape. Brandon's failed attempt to have sex with his new girlfriend is done in a single shot. Brandon and Sissy have an emotional argument face-to-face in the same style as McQueen's brilliant argument between Bobby Sands and his priest in 'Hunger' - there is a moment where Mulligan's American accent seems to slip in the middle of this scene, but I'll give her a pass as everything else she does is amazing. The long shots give the actors a chance to achieve something special, without cuts or editing they throw the full gamut of emotions into their performances.

The film has an 18 rating, plenty of drugs as well as the relentless sex scenes make that justified. In addition there is a horrific sequence of attempted suicide in which the director refuses to allow events to happen off camera. It's not a film for people looking for a light-hearted trip to the cinema or evening in with a bowl of pop corn. This is a heavy and depressing film, but one that's stylist, interesting to watch and says a lot about addiction in general. It's not entirely a festival of depression though, there is light relief in the notable form of a waiter probably on his first day trying to get everything right but failing utterly. Again, all in a single shot and brilliant.

The Camberley Vue is not my normal cinema of choice, but of course none of the places nearest to home were showing Shame. Stupid that very few cinemas seem interested in showing a British film written and directed by British people starring young British talent? It's not as if the film's totally arthouse, Fassbender and Mulligan are big stars who do fantastically well in it. And not even a single mention at the Oscars? Seriously, how does Transformers get in before this?

Shamefull.