Those 2000s movies .....

We have covered every decade here at The Projector, as per the labels - from the 1920s (Silents) through the 30s. 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s. Its obvious the main decades for me, coinciding with my early movie-going are the Fiftes and Sixties and that great decade the Seventies too. The new century is covered in my 2000s label, but what were the movies of that new decade and century that I really liked?

Well, there's Wong Kar Wai's deliriously romantic IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE in 2000 (above), Todd Haynes' FAR FROM HEAVEN in 2002 with its wonderful recreation of 1950s Douglas Sirk melodramas, Ang Lee's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN in 2005 and Malick's THE NEW WORLD, Paul Greengrass's compelling UNITED 93 in 2006, Quentin's INGLORIOUS BASTERDS in 2009, 2010's Apiachapong Weerasethakul's UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES, Haneke's AMOUR (which I have written about quite a bit here. French label) in 2012, Mike Leigh's ANOTHER YEAR also in 2010, 2009's I AM LOVE, and more recently THE GREAT BEAUTY, 12 YEARS A SLAVE, Marty's WOLF OF WALL STREET, plus DALLAS BUYERS CLUB and INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, 

I must around to posting reviews of some of these, and there were also DRIVE and ONLY GOD FORGIVES, EASTERN PROMISES, Pedro's audacious THE SKIN I LIVE IN and BAD EDUCATION, Ozon's and Deneuve's delicious POTICHE, Oliver Stone's ambitious ALEXANDER, the screaming BEHIND THE CANDELABRA, the mesmerising BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR and HBO's THE NORMAL HEART is that heartbreaking record of the '80s Aids era .... all of these and more are reviewed at the 2000s label. This season's feast of riches of course include the recently reviewed GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, IMITATION GAME, GONE GIRL and PADDINGTON! with lots more to see and review. 

but  what seems less important now? 

Well, Tom Ford's 2009 A SINGLE MAN for a start, which now looks like a fashionista's wet dream about Matthew Goode and Nicholas Hoult, totally mis-represents Isherwood's marvellous short novel which is a modern gay classic about middle aged people, which Ford turns into an extended commercial for perfect interiors and crisp white shirts. FAR FROM HEAVEN's Julianne Moore was also in the Ford - but a total contrast to what Isherwood had imagined ...

Final round-up of late summer repeats

That magic waterfall from UNCLE BOONMEE

A final look at some late summer/early autumn repeats from British television, before we go on to some new stuff ... there's been lots to look at again!

THE QUEEN. A  huge hit in 2006 and still great entertainment now. One just knew Helen Mirren was on course for that Oscar, while Michael Sheen and Helen McCrory are unnervingly right as Tony and Cherie Blair. The glimpses of the real Diana brings back memories of that crazy time in 1997 .....

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, 1998. S I L is a huge hit on the stage here in London now - the film though is the one for me, stupendous cast, great costumes and sets, and that endlessly witty script by Tom Stoppard. If Elizabethan life was not like this, it should have been. I particularly like one of Judi Dench's 8 minutes as Queen Elizabeth laughing at the dog.  Its a perfect romance too ....... Joseph Fiennes is one of the most attractive guys ever here. More on him at Fiennes label, and my long review of the film.

KHARTOUM, 1966. I had forgotten how good KHARTOUM is, directed by stalwart Basil Dearden, and 2nd Unit (presumably those battle scenes) by veteran Yakima Canutt (the chariot race in BEN-HUR etc). It has two towering performances - Charlton Heston, steadfast as usual, as General Gordon, and a mesmerising turn (in a handful of scenes, but dominating the film) by Laurence Olivier as The Madhi - 

he is almost unrecognisable, blacked up here. This was Olivier's great late period, running the National Theatre, films like TERM OF TRIAL and BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (where he is almost ordindary) He was also playing OTHELLO to great acclaim at the time, also blacked up as the Moor, (it was also filmed, with Maggie Smith). 
His Madhi is a stunning creation.  The film is quite topical now, showing as it does the confrontation between Western imperialism and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism - this time in the Sudan of the 19th century. Add in Ralph Richardson as Gladstone, and familiar faces like Richard Johnson, Marne Maitland, Peter Arne, Nigel Green, Michael Hordern, Alexander Knox, Douglas Wilmer, Johnny Sekka. The fascinating story of how General Gordon (a fanatic to some) manages to hold Khartoum as the Madhi's forces attack is well told here and its totally engrossing. 

SPEED. Popcorn movie time: SPEED is 20 years old now, a hit from 1994 - we loved it at the time, and I still like it now. Maybe Keanu and Sandra's best moment - well, till GRAVITY for Sandra (though I like THE PROPOSAL too). Buffed up Keanu is ideal here and De Bont's film delivers stunt after stunt on that bus, the runaway underground train, and that plunging elevator at the start. Jeff Daniels is dependable as usual and Hopper is the ideal nasty villain. As a popcorn classic its up there with Petersen's AIR FORCE ONE and the Indiana Jones movies. 

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES, 2010. If there is one director whose work is suffused with a contemporary kind of magic, something you can't quite put your finger on, its Thai art-house sensation Apichatpong Weerasethakul. This sometimes bizarre, always enchanting, film is his most accessible, telling the last days in the life of Uncle Boonmee and the importance of caring and of being cared for, as we roam over his past and maybe future lives.  

My full review (Boonmee label) goes into it in more detail. Its a meditation on death and re-birth as we see those various apparitions of his past lives as animals, perhaps that water buffalo in the moonlight at the start - the the mysterious catfish which makes love to the princess with that waterfall in the background. I like that long scene with when Huay, Boonmee's wife who has been dead for 19 years, reappears at the dinner table and they all talk to her as though she only left yesterday. 

Uncle Boonmee again ...

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES, 2010. It is fascinating reading some of the comments, or howls of protest, on this Thai film, a prize-winner at Cannes, over at IMDb. Some rail about the lack of plot or character development in this Apichatpong Weerasethakul meditation and cannot relate to its slow-paced movements. Personally I love it, and was enthralled seeing it at the cinema on its (limited) release, as per my initial review, Boonmee label. It was on television so despite having the dvd, I had to record it and replay several scenes I really like. 

It is about Uncle Boonmee who is coming to the end of his current life, and he thinks about his previous lives, as both human and animal. The narrative as such focuses on his sister from the city and her son who visit his estate in the country to help him with his kidney disease. Eventually, Boonmee retreats to the forest and to the cave where he was born, and where he dies. The (unnecessary) coda shows his relatives back in the city, in a hotel room, getting on with their lives ...  I find the opening scene of several minutes totally mesmerising as we watch a water buffalo type animal just communing with nature in the moonlight, it then breaks away from its tether and ambles away, and then when the owner comes allows itself to be recaptured. Was this Boonmee in a previous life? 

Even more mesmerising is the long central scene with the Princess and the Catfish, as we watch that waterfall in the moonlight. I could spend hours watching this – then the Princess disrobes and enters the waters, giving her jewellery to the fish, as it pleasures her. No wonder viewers were confused, this could mean whatever you want it to. Equally marvellous is the long scene at the dinner table, when Huay, Boonmee’s wife who has been dead 19 years, slowly materialises and sits among them and they all continue as usual and talk to her. His long-lost son Boonson also arrives, he is now part animal due to having mated with a monkey spirit in the jungle. 

There is also a nice affecting scene between Boonmee and Huay sitting on his bed. He wants to know how to find her in heaven when he has died. She calmly says “Heaven is over-rated. There is nothing there. Spirits are attracted to people, not places”. Some people too used to popcorn movies may and will find all this baffling and boring – but for others it remains a completely blissful mesmerising movie one can return to again and again. 
I don’t know anything about Thai cinema, but I certainly like this. Death is seen with such finality in the West that the idea of how it is percieved in Eastern cultures is certainly fascinating.

2010 - best and worst .....

We are a little behind here at the Movie Projector - I only saw UNCLE BOONMEE at the cinema yesterday, and the dvd of BEACHES OF AGNES has been sitting unwatched on a shelf for the last 9 or so months, but they are both my films of the year in that they are totally unlike anything else and left one dazed and exhilerated. Cinema then in a nutshell....

One knows one is leaving usual cinema terrain as the Thai UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES unspools: a water buffalo tethered to a tree at night breaks free and trots away and then stops for a while as we examine this strange animal as it takes in the night scene being at one with nature, then its owner enters, picks up its rope and takes it back. What is the beast thinking? Is it willing to go back? Then we join Boonmee's placid sister and his nephew as they travel to his bee farm to look after him in his final days as he is dying of a kidney disease. The pace seems very slow at first with shots held for longer than usual but then one falls into it. Nobody seems surprised when Boonmee's late wife Huay who has been dead for 19 years materialises at the dinner table and they talk to her. Boonmee, who is philosophical about his impending demise as he has lived before several times, asks her how he will find her in heaven: Huay replies: "Heaven is over-rated, there's nothing there. And anyway ghosts don't associate with places, they associate with people. We'll find each other."

Boomnee it seems has the ability to range over his past lives as he comes to the end of his current one, aided by the spirits of the forest who also include his son Boonsong who has changed into a weird creature with red eyes [from having mated with monkey spirits]. Then we come to the mesermising sequence with the Princess and the catfish, set against a stunning waterfall which one could sit and watch for hours - as the Princess disrobes and enters the water where the catfish is waiting for her... perhaps the water buffalo or the princess or the catfish are also past (or future) lives of Boonmee? - as apparantly his other lives can be male or female, human or animal.... (the connectedness of things?)



People who are not prepared for it will be left confounded but others will leave the cinema stunned at the experience of it all. It is therefore an experience rather than a conventional movie. Apichatpong Weerasethakul tells a story that doesn't ask or need to be understood. As he awaits his death, Boonmee, Huay, Jen, and Tong visit a cave with white sand floors where Boonmee reveals that this was the place he was first born. He then dies there. For me maybe the movie should have stopped here - there is a coda showing their life afterwards as they sit around a hotel room and the monk Tong takes a shower, but this really, after what went before, is rather like watching paint dry and seems superfluous. Apart from that its depiction of the enduring relationship between Boonmee and Huay, and the in images of a dying man comforted by family and friends, the film offers an experience of the permanence of love.

The permanence of love is also really what THE BEACHES OF AGNES is all about, as Fench director Agnes Varda now in her 80s makes the most unusual documentary ever about looking back over one's life and work. Her fascination with beaches comes to the fore as she and her friends (like Jane Birkin) arrange mirrors on the beaches as she recollects her parents and childhood and early career and her marriage to Jacques Demy and the films they made and the actors and friends they knew. At the end she is surrounded by her children and grand-children and she and they are the most delightful company. This is the most perfect way to get old and still remain fascinating and interested in everything. We experience the loss of Demy [who like Boonmee was nursed by loved ones], the courtyard where he and Agnes worked on their projects, clips from their movies, that New Wave era, their time at the centre of the counterculture in California in the late '60s (where they discovered Harrison Ford, but couldn't use him in Jacques' MODEL SHOP as he was not considered actor material by the studio!; Agnes was making LIONS LOVE with Viva and the HAIR creators).

As IMDB puts it: "Agnès Varda explores her memory - growing up in Belgium, living in Sète, Paris, and Noirmoutier, discovering photography, making a film, being part of the New Wave, raising children with Jacques Demy, losing him, and growing old. She explores her memory using photographs, film clips, home movies, contemporary interviews, and set pieces she designs to capture a feeling, a time, or a frame. Shining through each scene are her impish charm, inventiveness, and natural empathy. How do people grow old, how does loss stay with them, can they remain creative, and what do they remember?" (I have already written extensively here, as per French label, on Demy and Varda).

I saw Varda's LE BONHEUR when I was 19 in '65 and it was one of those films that made a very strong impression, so its been good to finally see it again now that there are Varda box-sets, and to finally discover her CLEO FROM 5 TO 7, with its delightful picture of Paris in the early 60s. That is one of my discoveries of the year, as below:

The 2000s label covers my other films of 2010 as per reviews of A SINGLE MAN, THE GHOST, I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS, THE HURT LOCKER, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS etc. I shall be turning to I AM LOVE and TOY STORY 3 shortly, 44 INCH CHEST remains a terrific comedy ensemble piece of Winstone, Hurt, McShane, Wilkinson; IT'S COMPLICATED and LETTERS TO JULIET are the best of the romcoms; disappointment of the year has to be NINE and disaster of the year SEX AND THE CITY 2 (which is not worth mentioning). Polanski's GHOST is thriller of the year but surely the East Coast of America is not as bleak as depicted here (shot as it was in Europe) while McGregor (for his brilliance in the Carrey movie) and Colin Firth are actors of the year; actress = Tilda Swinton. Firth is no longer a lightweight actor and after also finally seeing McGregor in Greenaway's THE PILLOW BOOK one has to be amazed at his daring and taking of risks.

Of the late 2010 releases as we go into 2011 I shall be looking forward to catching THE KING'S SPEECH (with that great cast including Claire Bloom), Mike Leigh's return with ANOTHER YEAR, 127 HOURS, THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT etc.

Television (here in the UK at any rate) served up some treats: classy drama (or 'heritage tv') is back with Maggie Smith leading the ensemble in DOWNTON ABBEY, the revived UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS with a splendid Eileen Atkins taking charge, classy thrillers like SPOOKS and SHERLOCK and the splendid film of Nigel Slater's food memoir TOAST, while Tom Hollander scored with his comedy series REV and Rufus Sewell as the Italian detective ZEN.



My discoveries of the year are: Visconti's 1965 SANDRA (or OF A THOUSAND DELIGHTS), Clements 1957 THE SEA WALL (THIS ANGRY AGE) (I shall be seeing the recent version shortly), BLONDE IN BLACK LEATHER (a throwaway 1975 Italian comedy for the domestic market with Vitti and Cardinale having fun) - see Italian label, Ozon's UNDER THE SAND with Charlotte Rampling (to be reviewed), Varda's CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 and a brace of early Dirk Bogarde's: APPOINTMENT IN LONDON and CAST A DARK SHADOW where he is delightfully spivvy bumping off older wife Mona Washboure and having designs on wicked lady Margaret Lockwood and splendid Kay Walsh!

2011's revivals will include that early Fellini boxset and all those Chabrols to revisit (2 boxsets!), and Gerard Philipe (as Modigliani) in LES AMANTS DE MONTPARNASSE with Anouk Aimee and Lilli Palmer, as well as some other yet-unseen Romy Schneider films.

(Previous years' discoveries here at the Projector included Cukor's THE CHAPMAN REPORT, Jean Seberg in MOMENT TO MOMENT, Lana's LOVE HAS MANY FACES, Sarah Miles in I WAS HAPPY HERE, Lilli Palmer and Jean Sorel in ADORABLE JULIA, Demy's LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT (on dvd and on the big screen), THE OPPOSITE SEX, ALL FALL DOWN, early Loren in TOO BAD SHE'S BAD and WOMAN OF THE RIVER, ABDULLA THE GREAT (Kay Kendall's missing 1955 film), Mangano in MAMBO and THE TEMPEST, Minnelli treats DESIGNING WOMAN and THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE, Linda Darnell in THIS IS MY LOVE (1954) and the 1954 KNAVE OF HEARTS as per reviews.
Right: I WAS HAPPY HERE, 1966 / below: ADORABLE JULIA: Jean Sorel and Lilli Palmer in Trafalgar Square, 1962