Frozen - That's right, I watched Frozen

It will not come as a surprise to people who know me that I didn't really know anything about the animated Disney film Frozen until just the other day.  Apparently many of the songs from the film (it is a musical) have permeated into the current zeitgeist and are widely recognised by even those who don't have small daughters badgering them to watch it again and again.  For me - being the pop culture waste land that I am - all of this was new.  My Mum insisted on lending me her DVD of Frozen when I visited Ilford in November, I was rightly skeptical.  But, you know me, Friday evening is DVD night - and so it was that last Friday evening as the cold permeated around Crowthorne, my DVD player got Frozen.

It is times like this when you have to throw your preconceptions of film out of the window.  Though I call myself a film junkie, I maintain a distinct taste for the horror and science fiction genres.  One might think that Frozen - an animated Disney adventure in which a princess has to save her newly-crowned elder sister queen from her own hidden magical powers, aided only by a handsome woodsman, a talking snowman and goofy elk - would be the type of film I wouldn't get along with.  Not so.  In fact, who am I kidding, not just 'not so', but emphatically 'not so'.  Frozen was bloody brilliant.

The plot is thus: Elsa is the heir to the throne of the magical medieval land of Arendelle, where all the sassy characters we're meant to like are Americans and all the weirdo locals we're meant to laugh at are some sort of generic Nordic breed.  Elsa and her sister Anna have magical powers that allow them to control the elements.  When Anna is involved in an accident that nearly kills her, to save her life her magical powers are removed and all memory of magic is purged from her (don't ask why - it just is).  The snag is that Elsa's powers will grow as she ages, as will Elsa's guilt at what her powers did to her sister.  Fast-forward several years and the sisters are grown up, Elsa is an isolated queen avoiding contact with anyone and closely guarding her magical secret.  On the other hand, Anna is carefree and furious of her sister's aloofness.  It can only be so long before Elsa's secrets are revealed and all sorts of icy shit hits the fan...

This is a film that's classic Broadway.  The story is told through a series of pretty catchy songs, all leading up the extremely chirpy 'Let it go' - in which Elsa throws off her self-imposed shackles and embraces her magical powers / womanliness, building a castle of ice around her as she makes a statement about herself / girl power / liberation.  The graphic design in this scene is amazing, and the production of the song spot-on.  It's a great example of how to make something that appeals to everyone at the cinema - something Disney has always excelled at.

The film's about family, love and respect; with an ending about the meaning of love that should probably bring a tear to the eye.  It has excellent comic asides and the music is great (though I could have done without the song that Olaf the Snowman sings - complete filler that one). However, does Anna really need to punch the 'bad guy' out at the end?  Do we want to teach young girls that it's OK to punch men in the face if they're naughty?  C'mon Disney, you can do better than that.

So it might be riddled with cliché and the story might not make that much sense, but it's a film that has an unbridled sense of fun with visuals that look amazing.  I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't enjoy themselves watching it.  So to anyone out there sticking their heels in the tundra and refusing to give Frozen a go, put your preconceptions aside and let the magic of Disney wash over you like it hasn't done since you were a kid.  Just let it go.

Films of the Year - 2014

Got a couple of films in right at the end of 2014 last week, but they weren't good enough to make it into my top 5.  Once again I'm taking some liberties with my definition of 2014 - after all I'm not a proper film critic, so I don't have to do it properly!

5 - The Grand Budapest Hotel

The best thing Ralph Fiennes has been in for ages.  It's funny, anarchic and makes just enough sense to keep you paying attention even for people who might get frustrated by Wes Anderson's method of story-telling.

4 - 12 Years a Slave

Deservedly walked away with a bunch of Oscars in the 2014 awards season, this film is a landmark in telling the story of industrialised slavery in the USA.  The film deserved its Best Picture Oscar, and Michael Fassbender should have got one too for his role as the sadistic slave-owner Edwin Epps.

3 - The Babadook

Mark Kermode's film of the year is third on my list.  Didn't see many horror films this year, but this was clearly a long way ahead of a pack consisting more and more these days of bland shock-horror.  It's part psychological thriller and part horror, but it's tense, edgy, looks dark and intimidating and tells a simple story extremely well.

2 - The Imitation Game

It's an anti-establishment film about maths.  How could I not love it?

1 - Her

Technically from 2013, but I'm putting it in my 2014 list because it was up for Oscars in 2014 (and won for Best Original Screenplay).  Her is a classic science fiction story, a brilliantly told story in a world that is brilliantly created and realised.  In my review I described it as Solaris for the modern age, and I think that as time passes more people will come to agree with me.  Film of the year - easily.

The Hunger Games - Part 3a

The last film I watched in 2014 was the film that was meant to be the final Hunger Games film, but because of wanting to make more money artistic reasons the producers of the franchise have decided to split it into two.  This seems to be a part of life these days.  In the future will we see the middle parts of franchises also split into two films?  If they can split The Hobbit (a 200 page book written for children) into 3 films then surely anything is possible?

Hunger Games Mockingjay - Part 1 is the proper title of this film, one that starts the end of the story of Panem and Katniss Everdeen - played once more with no end of gusto by Jennifer Lawrence.  It is pleasing to see the Oscar-winning Lawrence carry on in her role in this franchise, I can imagine other actors with snobbier opinions of themselves leaving such material behind now that they've graduated into the A-list.  This is clearly a film with a lot of pull for top actors though, with Julianne Moore joining a cast that already contains Lawrence, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Reading's very own Natalie Dormer even turns up too, sporting an American accent and keeping her top on for once!

This third instalment moves the action permanently away from the actual Hunger Games, loses much of the science fiction from the first part and replaces it with a propaganda war between two factions in Panem's growing civil war.  On one side are the elites in the capital, led by Sutherland's President Snow, on the other are the insurgents of District 13, led by President Coin (Moore).  Each wants to use its own 'victor' of the games to lead a propaganda war to win over the other districts.  Katniss is wheeled out by District 13 as the heroine who stood up to the system and represents freedom - aka the Mockingjay.  The story largely revolves around their attempts to build her up as a heroine of the people and how she reacts to being put on such a pedestal.

I don't want to have to say this, but I didn't think too much of this film.  It was interesting enough because it advanced a story that I found captivating over the previous two instalments, but it felt like it was mechanically checking off the plot points rather than building a narrative.  The tone of the film didn't feel right either.  There is a slightly silly scene in which Katniss can't act, and although it does wonders to showcase Jennifer Lawrence's acting talent, it does little to make the war feel real.  When the action does ramp up and Katniss finally gets into the field and gives an impassioned speech about fighting the capital to the end, the script kills its own momentum by sending her off for a semi-romantic stroll in the woods with Gale.  I can only imagine that this is what happens in the book, and so the script-writers felt compelled to include it, but it doesn't really fit.

I have not read the original books, but I am told that nothing is being left out now, and sequences that were short paragraphs in the book are now being dragged out into elongated segments.  There is a rescue sequence that goes on for a good 20 minutes, in the book this is merely mentioned to have happened outside of the main narrative.  A screenplay should be a different thing to a novel, film and print are very different forms of storytelling and you can't just import one into the other.  It's this sort of milking of a story that can kill a franchise or turn off the casual viewer - not good.

As I've said before, this will all come down to the way it ends.  Everything so far has pointed towards Katniss making the ultimate sacrifice to save Panem.  She sacrifices herself to save her sister in the original reaping.  She is prepared to sacrifice her life rather than kill Peeta at the end of the first games.  She is the 'girl on fire'.  Joan of Arc might be a saint in France, but things didn't end well for Joan herself - look it up.  Despite all this though, I am eagerly looking forwards to part 4.

Under the Skin - Thoughtful Science Fiction

It took me a long time to get there, but I finally watched the much talked-about Under the Skin when I got back from my Christmas break last weekend.

This is an artistic science fiction film that stars Scarlett Johansson as a mysterious alien.  She and her accomplice, a male alien always seen riding a motorbike, travel southern Scotland in search of lonely men.  These men are lured back to a strange and oblique alien dreamscape where they appear to be consumed in an inky fluid, apparently unaware of their fate and for reasons unknown.  Much of this was advertised heavily when the film was released, and so isn't any sort of spoiler, but I wont give away anything else about the story, as the less you know about it the better.

The film is cleverly made in a way that emphasises the themes in the story.  Scarlet Johanssen is undoubtedly a Holywood A-lister, and the disconnect between the world we normally see her inhabiting and the world of southern Scotland is used to best effect.  Amateur and non-actors are used as bit-part characters.  Hidden cameras are used for street scenes.  All of this means that Johansson looks even more alien, as the people acting against and who see her seem ever so slightly star struck and awed by her presence, and the glamour she is normally associated with is striped back to a harsh earthy reality.  Kudos to Johansson for her English accent throughout the film, absolutely flawless - though admittedly her lines are sparse.

What we have then is an extremely thoughtful science fiction film, that's all about humanity and what it means to be a human.  This question is more easily-asked by an outsider, and so it is that Johansson's inhuman alien struggles to understand what humanity is.  The people that she encounters on her travels are vastly different in appearance, motivations and mannerisms, yet they are all humans.  It's the kind of science fiction that I enjoy, with a simple set-up that explores simple philosophical questions about the world.  No messages from the future encoded in a watch by a 5 dimensional being in a bookcase here.  When the special effects do come in though, they're excellent and work even better being their unexpectedness.

I cannot recommend Under the Skin to everyone.  It is a slow burner, and for many the oblique resolution will annoy rather than satisfy.  If you're a fan of real science fiction though, and you don't mind thinking about what you're seeing, then you should watch this film.

Unbroken - Second last film of 2014

Saw my second last film of 2014 last Tuesday afternoon.  It's great to be off work and take advantage of cheap matinee performances starting at 4pm.  Unbroken is directed by Angelina Jolie, her first time behind the cameras.  In interviews she seems to think that she's going to be in contention come Oscar season, I do not agree.

Unbroken tells a true story of one Louis Zamperini, who was the son to Italian immigrants into the US, ran at the 1936 Olympics and then served in the US air forces in the Second World War as a bombardier.  Zamperini was captured by the Japanese after his plane went down in the Pacific ocean in 1943 and spent many years as a prisoner of war, his minor celebrity status sometimes granting him recognition and better treatment, sometimes granting him the opposite.

Now interesting though this man's life may be, I don't really understand why anyone would think it's particularly cinematic.  2 hours and 15 minutes is a long time to drag out a 1500m race, being stranded in the Pacific Ocean and then tortured in a series of Japanese POW camps.  I guess it's meant to be about human spirit, or strength in the face of torment, or maybe a reminder to everyone out there about how terribly the Japanese treated their prisoners of war.  This account of a massacre of US POWs at Palawan certainly provides evidence that there were Japanese prisoner camps where extra-judicial murders took place, but the film's focus on the injury and suffering caused by sadistic guards is interesting.  It seems to turn it into the central theme of the film, one that doesn't really make interesting watching.

Overall then, I'm not really sure what to say about Unbroken.  The true story of the central character's life is interesting enough, but interesting in a way that you might want to read about rather than watch on a big screen.  Jack O'Connell is a good actor and does a good job of looking grimly determined, but that's all that's required of him.  I wasn't really impressed by Jolie's direction; there's a really bland establishing shot at the start of the film of the pilots in the cockpit of Zamperini's bomber, and towards the end she insists on doing a Jesus-shot where Zamperini looks like he's on the cross.  It's very unimaginative stuff.

I think that's the take-home from this review: interesting but unimaginative.  Maybe one to see on the small screen.  Maybe.