The Nation that Banned Cinema

One question that seems to be raised a lot recently is on the subject of video-on-demand services, and whether studios should release their latest films on the platform simultaneously with the theatrical run. However, such a move would surely lead to the ultimate demise of cinema as we know it.

The question may not be so swiftly dismissed in Saudi Arabia though, a country that has no cinemas and is entirely dependent on the home entertainment market. This hasn't always been the case, and throughout the mid-20th century there was a thriving cinema industry. But following decades of debate and opposing views of its effect on society, all cinemas were forced to close and a ban is still in force today.

'Wadjda' (2012), Dir. Haifaa Al Mansour.

In the past 10 years there has been a rise in Saudi filmmaking, with the most recent example; the award winning 'Wadjda' (2012), being of particular note. It is the first film to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and comes also from the first female Saudi filmmaker; Haifaa Al Mansour.

Due to segregation of the sexes in the country, the director could not interact with the cast and crew directly when filming outdoor scenes. This resulted in her having to remain in the back of a van with monitors, all the while communicating with those on set by way of walkie-talkies.

The moderate success of the film, as well as the rise of production within the country has led to a fresh call to lift the ban on cinemas in Saudi Arabia. But it has also sparked debate once more, with those opposing it warning of the true cost to their way of life. It is an issue that is not likely to be resolved any time soon, but in the mean time I would recommend that you see 'Wadjda'. Not only is it a well made and enjoyable film, but it also goes some way to bridge a gap in the understanding of certain cultural and religious subtleties. Issues that are often best portrayed through the medium of film, and surely a main reason why the ban on cinema should be lifted.

When Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact

A pressing issue for the times that we are currently living in is concerning the potential risks surrounding artificial intelligience. Could the increasing rise in robotics lead to a brand new civilisation, and one that could in time turn against us in order to become the dominant species?

It's a concept that has been explored far and wide in cinema, with titles such as 'The Matrix' (1999) and '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968) often being among the first to be mentioned. However, many of these films tell a tale that is far in our future and perhaps not as easy to envisage as actually being possible. But when considering some of the predictions from one of the leading experts in artificial intelligience, Ray Kurzweil, films such as 'Surrogates' (2009), 'I, Robot' (2004) or even the recently released 'Transcendence' (2014) may not seem so far fetched. That is; if you give any merit to Kurzweil's predictions.

A much more realistic and relevant vision is portrayed in 'Colossus: The Forbin Project' (1970), a film rumoured to be on course for a remake. It tells the story of a new supercomputer (codenamed "Colossus") put in place by the US department of defence to regulate its weapon systems and detect any threats automatically. Almost immediately after going live, Colossus detects a similiar system in Russia and requests that the two be allowed to communicate. This inevitably becomes the turning point for humanity, and the rest of the film plays out as you might expect.

Though it does paint a potentially bleak vision of the future, these views are coming from the persons in the narrative that haven't fully considered the results of their own project. The humans end up feeling repressed, but any negative retaliation from the supercomputer only comes from actions where the the humans have attempted to restrict its own right to be free.

The outcome is left to our own imagination, but the film serves as a warning to those who are at the cusp of turning this fantasy into a reality.

Masculinity in a Post-Apocalyptic World

When you think of post-apocalyptic movies, the soon to be rebooted 'Mad Max' series tends to be among the first that spring to mind. They paint a bleak but not unfamiliar image of the future; with barren and flattened landscapes, oil living up to its name as being "black gold", and an aggressive male-dominated world where violence, slavery and sexual abuse are the norm.

There are many films like this of which most are, more often than not, humourously bad low budget affairs. However, one such movie in particular that I had the chance of seeing last year has remained with me, but not for the reasons that you might expect.

'The New Barbarians' (1983), set in the aftermath of nuclear war, follows a ruthless gang by the name of "The Templars"; intent on eliminating what dregs of humanity remain. Meanwhile, a bunch of lone warriors band together as a resistance to their tyranny.

The film itself is nothing special, but its protagonist "Scorpion" goes through an experience which seemed to me like quite a strange idea to explore. Towards the final third of the movie he is captured by The Templars, and in front of the entire gang is forced to bend over before being sexually abused by their also male leader; "One".

In a dystopian world where leadership tends to be determined by virility, Scorpion not only recovers from this trauma the next morning but also manages to maintain his masculinity and gain the respect of the people as their appointed leader. All of this respect is earned despite a bizarre change in his wardrobe to a slightly homoerotic suit of see-through armour.

However, One does eventually get his comeuppance during a final moderately high speed car chase, whereby Scorpion manages to drive a large pneumatic drill into his backside. His final demise being the head-on collision and subsequent explosion of his vehicle, naturally.

The Problem with Foreign Musicals

I like movie musicals; but I tend to prefer the ones that have a mixture of songs and traditional drama throughout, some examples being 'Oliver' (1968), 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory' (1971) and 'On the Town' (1949). I tend to be less keen on the films like 'West Side Story' (1961), which have very little dialogue and are almost entirely communicated via the songs. Having said this, I didn't find 'Les Misérables' (2012) to be all that bad.

I recently watched the 1964 Palme d'Or winner 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg', a musical which is played out entirely through song. Stylistically, I loved almost everything about this movie: the bold colours, the patterns and fashion, beautiful ladies dressed beautifully. It had the 1960s written all over it. But as a musical it didn't have quite the impact on me that I would have liked.

As the image above suggests; the movie is French and it is communicated in its native tongue. This I have no problem with, it's a wonderful sounding language and I am more than used to reading subtitles. But this becomes a bit of a problem when speaking of musicals. Not only for the fact that the translation naturally won't rhyme with the original words in the song, but also due to the different nature in which sentences are structured in two seperate languages.

The result of this is that those reading the subtitled translation, whilst understanding the meaning and getting the content of the story, are at a complete loss to the rhythm of the songs. I often found myself just listening to the song in French in order to get a sense of the rhyming sounds, but in doing so it sometimes took my attention away from the subtitles.

Ultimately this didn't effect my overall comprehension of the film and I enjoyed the narrative, but it served as a warning with regards to watching musicals in a language foreign to my own.

Ennio Morricone UK tour

One would think that at the age of 85, the stress and pressures that come with certain professions would be something a person would be glad to leave behind. However; famed movie composer Ennio Morricone has not let age get in the way of his work, with a career spanning over 50 years and 500 movie scores, he is showing no signs of slowing.

Though many people may not be as familiar with his name than some of the more mainstream composers, there will be at least a few of his themes that most will have heard. Probably most famous for his work on Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy ('A Fistful of Dollars', 'For a Few Dollars More' and 'The Good, The Bad and the Ugly'), in recent years he has reached a new audience with music featured in movies such as Quentin Tarantino's 'Kill Bill' and 'Django Unchained'.

In December he will be conducting a collection of his most loved pieces, as he embarks on a brief tour of the UK and Ireland. It's a rare chance to see a real movie music legend perform his finest works, but it'll set you back a penny or two; with tickets ranging from £50 to £120 each.

Goblin UK Live Score Film Screenings

Fans of the horror genre in the UK will no doubt be intrigued by the lineup of this year's Grimm Fest, as it will feature two classic film screenings with live music accompaniment from the original artist.

The event will offer the chance to see Dario Argento's 'Suspiria' and George A. Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead' on the big screen, but along with the unique aspect of having their scores performed live by Claudio Simonetti's Goblin. The event will form part of Manchester's Grimm Fest, usually held in October, but single performances of each film can also be seen down in London next Monday and Tuesday.

Earlier in the year Goblin made a rare tour of the UK, performing one-off gigs of their (or rather; Claudio Simonetti's) music from various cult horror movies of the 1970s/80s. I was lucky enough to be at the Manchester part of the tour held at the city's Gorilla venue, and it was quite an experience, so this set of film screenings promises to be something special.

Sacrifice safety and ethics for the sake of cinema?

Over the past week or so, I have been doing a spot of research on movies set during World War II. And although most of the titles were familiar to me, though I may not have seen them, there was one film that seemed to crop up on lists everywhere; 'Come and See' (1985).

I'd never heard of it. But the more I read about it, the more eager I was to seek it out. And I finally got to see it yesterday evening.

The film follows a teenage Belarusian boy named Florya. Excited by the prospect of joining the Soviet Army, the ensuing two hours depict his descent into madness as he experiences first-hand the tyranny of war.

You really do get a sense of the change in the character going into the final third of the movie, and various scenes throughout are quite vividly presented. I often found myself thinking about the actors themselves, as they must have gone through quite an ordeal to achieve what they did. And it is in this that lies the issue proposed in the title of the post.

In order to create a realistic atmosphere and performance from the actors, live rounds were used during filming of the movie. Aleksey Kravchenko (Florya) comments in an interview how these real bullets were flying just mere centimeters above his head, and that the crew also attempted to use hypnosis on him to induce a shellshocked state. Additional to this are a number of scenes which seem to suggest that some animals were harmed, and although there is no statement to clarify this it is clear to see in one instance that a horse is seemingly struggling on the ground.

So it does beg the question of how far the bounderies should be pushed for the sake of an authentic film experience. It's probably hard to imagine in the current state of cinema, and perhaps we'll never see films as gritty and dark as this one again, but those risks certainly paid for this production. I wouldn't particularly call 'Come and See' a great film, but I think it is one that will certainly stay with me for a long time.

Round up: Oscars for 'Best Animated Short'

As someone with a degree in Animation, I certainly should know a lot more about it than I do. I've always been fascinated by traditionally drawn animations as well as the magical world of stop motion, and despite a few exceptions not quite as much when it comes to contemporary 3D work.

Towards the end of 2013, I had decided that in the following year I was going to watch all of the Academy Award 'Best Picture' winners. The outcome of that particular journey will be the subject of a subsequent post, however, I also felt a desire to watch all of the animated short winners. I didn't want to overwhelm myself with lists upon lists of films to take a look at, but I knew that most of the shorts would probably only stretch to around 30 minutes at the most.

The Oscar for 'Best Animated Short' was first awarded in 1932, and in every year of that 30s decade the prize went to the same man; Walt Disney. Not surprisingly, most of the other nominees were made up of his other productions. Ultimately, he still holds the record for the most Academy Award wins and nominations by some considerable margin.

 

The Films

In order to keep this post concise and free of blubber, I will simply just mention what I felt were some of the high and low points over the past 90 or so Oscar winners. In chronical order, they are as follows:

'Winners'

'Mouse Trouble' - Fred Quimby, 1944.

'The Little Orphan' - Fred Quimby, 1948.

'Johann Mouse' - Fred Quimby, 1952.

'Speedy Gonzales' - Edward Selzer, 1955.

'Birds Anonymous' - Edward Selzer, 1957.

'Special Delivery' - Eunice Macauley & John Weldon, 1978.

'Tango' - Zbigniew Rybczynski, 1982.

'The Man Who Planted Trees' - Frederic Back, 1987.

'The Wrong Trousers' - Nick Park, 1993.

'Logorama' - Nicolas Schmerkin, 2009. 

'Binners'

'Moonbird' - John Hubley & Faith Elliott Hubley, 1959.

'Is it Always Right to be Right?' - Lee Mishkin, 1970.

'Frank Film' - Frank Mouris, 1973.

'Bunny' - Chris Wedge, 1998.

'Peter & the Wolf' - Suzie Templeton & Hugh Welchman, 2007.

With regards to the above film 'Peter & the Wolf', I really have to say that it is probably one of the most amazing and best looking stop motion sets that it's ever seen. However, for me it was vastly outweighed by the poor telling of its story. Beauty alone can't tame the hearts of the audience, the Academy Awards judging panel; maybe.

Special mentions should go to Bob Godfrey's 'Great' (1975) and John Canemaker & Peggy Stern's 'The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation' (2005) as these two films in particular inspired me as an animator in terms of what animation can really be used for in a more personalised but meaningful way.

I'll admit I was disappointed that the two animated shorts I usually consider to be my favourites were not even nominated for an Academy Award, but this is par for the course with many things. I would certainly recommened seeking them out; should you be in need for inspiration. They are William Hanna & Joseph Barbera's 'Mouse in Manhattan' (1945) and David Fleischer's 'Big Bad Sinbad' (1957), truly great animated shorts.

I shall leave you with the most recent animated short that I really enjoyed, Nina Paley's 'This Land is Mine' (2012). I happened to catch a screening of it at the Berlin Pictoplasma festival in 2013, and unlike the vast majority of animations on show there I was moved by its message; despite it being carried through a satire that had the audience in stitches.

   

The split cinema release trend

Around the time of the early to mid-noughties, there seemed to be a popular trend of film studios releasing finished back-to-back sequels at the cinema several months apart. Examples of this include 'Kill Bill' volume 1 & 2, the 'The Matrix' sequels and most notably the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy; each of which hit the big screen at Christmas time for three consecutive years. A decade later this decision has been repeated for the associated 'Hobbit' trilogy, due to conclude at the end of this; the third and final year.

However, this trend is not quite as new as you might think. There are previous examples, though more out of a need than a want to separate releases. An early Chinese film which unfortunately no longer exists,'The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple' (1928), had a total runtime of around 27 hours and had to be screened in a number of sittings over several years. Similarly, the 1957 Russian Revolution movie 'And Quiet Flows the Don' was shorter at around 5 hours but still saw a separated release.

There were also cases prior to the digital age of cinema where theatres in remote areas could only show so much of certain movie releases, due to them having not received all of the reels. In this case the cinema and audience had to resume the film at a later date when the rest of the spools had arrived. As most of the films released today are filmed digitally onto hard disk drives rather than traditional celluloid film, the cost of updating projection technology suggests that some of these areas may still not be able to see some of the latest releases.

WINNER: Bad Lieutenant (1992)

I finally got around to watching this film at the weekend, having seen the recent remake a few months back.
I enjoyed it, but half expected a comedy following the opening scene in which Harvey Keitel's character discusses bathroom politics with his children.

I only really had one problem with the film, and you may not wish to read on for the sake of spoilers.

Due to the scene early on where the lieutenant has a sex romp filled with drugs and sobbing, I had assumed that the raping of a nun shortly after was part of a porn film that he was possibly involved in. The gritty close-up shots and film quality seemed to suggest this to me, but it was only later when the rape case was brought to attention that I realised my confusion.

BINNER: The Lightor Semen

On the day that marks 100 years since the First World War officially began, I have been doing some research on the movies that document or revolve around "The Great War". It was through this that I came across a film that I haven't yet seen or even heard of, 'The Lighthorsemen'.

However; this image happened to be the first thing that I had stumbled upon, a German DVD cover for the film. I'm sure that you will forgive my ignorance when I initially assumed the title to be 'The Lightor Semen", and as one would imagine; I was very confused by this.

It was only after I had searched further that I came across the correct title, and looking back at this previous image (as someone who has designed posters and DVD covers in the past) I was quite stunned by the glaring errors in it.