Picturenose

Code cracker
Given all the recent talk on Picturenose about alleged bad films (and Colin taking the mickey because I did in fact happen to enjoy The Bodyguard (1992)), the time seems right to present my take on a very successful film (that was adapted from a hugely successful book) that, er, didn’t go down too well with the critics on its initial release. Well, I liked it, and here’s why…

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Too black and white
Bille August (Smilla’s Feeling for Snow (1997), Les Miserables (1998)) heads up this multi-European country co-production, but his take on the tale of the relationship between a white South African prison guard and Nelson Mandela is flawed from the outset.

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A hero’s reign in Spain

In the first Picturenose contribution to our new partnership with Cineuropa.org, James finds much to enjoy in a historical biopic starring Viggo Mortensen.

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Flawed portrait

Milos Forman’s heavily contrived plot begins in Spain, during the time of the Inquisition. The artist Francesco Goya has, because of his grotesque depictions of religious ceremonies and cruel hypocrisy, come to the attention of the Holy Office, the sinister cabal which upholds strict religious morals.

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Monster performance
How can the inhuman be humanized? It’s a difficult line to tread - a very successful attempt of recent times came with Oliver Hirschbiegel’s marvellous Der Untergang (2004), which chronicled the last, pathetic days of one Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz).

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Striking back against the Empire

Ken Loach’s controversial, Palme d’Or-winning study of Republicans v the Brits in 1920s Ireland raised the hackles of several well-known UK critics (who, customarily, didn’t feel the need to actually see the film) as well as Irish commentators. It’s normally a sign that an artist has got something right when he angers both sides of a debate and claims of bias seem moot when a film comprises such lyrical beauty, steadfast portrayals and a marvellous, articulate script.

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Hell sent
Yep, well - the film title kind of gives away what the story’s about, doesn’t it? Well, I’d say yes and no, in fact. Perfume (2006) (to give its short title) was a film I came away from thinking: “I enjoyed that, but I’m just not sure why.”

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Greek gift

When I mentioned to James that I’d picked up a copy of this movie for around the price of a large beer, he threw me one of those looks that only a film critic can give. You know, the ‘ugh - what’s that on the bottom of my shoe?’ look. I took it from that and the slow shake of his head that he wasn’t, on the whole, too enamoured with it.

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Comic-book history

I took my 10-year-old son to see this last week. He’s a fairly astute and mature boy, so I wasn’t too worried about some of the battle scenes that depict violent death and bloody retribution, but if you’re a parent, you may want to do a little research first. There really isn’t a huge amount of gratuitous violence; this is just a friendly heads-up, just in case. He loved the film and the story is a well-paced and visually exciting romp through days of yore.

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Myth-building

“Myth,” the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss wrote, “is language.” Insofar as that language develops exponentially over time, so do components of a story, and can be individualized as ‘mythemes’. But, what Levi-Strauss only hints at, is that at the kernel of myth is – however murkily, and however mediated – a truth. It becomes a primal means of language to describe history and the present and the human condition.

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