What I Watched This Week #47 (Nov 19 – 25)
Hit The Road
dir. Panah Panahi/2021/1h33m
Hit The Road is an Iranian road movie and the directorial debut of Panah Panahi, son of filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who is currently in prison for speaking out against the regime there. The film follows a family as they drive to the Turkish border, the reasons for which aren't made clear until late on. In the backseat, the father (Hassan Madjooni) is struggling with a broken leg whilst trying to keep the younger son (Rayan Sarlak) under control. In the front, the mother (Pantea Panahiha) is trying not to cry while the older son (Amin Simiar) quietly drives. This is a brilliantly observed family drama with each character so fully fleshed out by both script and performance that we can discern their individual relationships with each other almost instantly. Panahi manages a fine balance in tone here masterfully, as even though the family are joking and squabbling with each other in a very funny, naturalistic way, there is always an edge of danger in the background. They are never quite safe and you can always feel that. This is also expressed through the performances of Madjooni and Panahiha as the parents. The scenes with just the two of them are some of the best in the film because they perfectly convey that particular brand of parental angst and worry. But the real star of the film is the young Sarlak who steals every scene with his excellent performance – which doesn't feel like a performance at all - as the youngest son. He is a force of nature bursting into song and injecting the film with a lot of energy, which it needs as a lot of it is set in a car. I also love him in the totally unexpected fourth-wall breaking ending. 8.5/10
Carry On Screaming
dir. Gerald Thomas/1966/1h27m
The Carry On team spoof the classic Hammer horror films in what many consider the best in the series. Harry H. Corbett plays Detective Bung, investigating a series of kidnappings of beautiful young women. The women are being taken by the crazed Dr. Watt (Kenneth Williams) and turned into mannequins, which he's selling to shops. Bung is also hampered in his case by Watt's sister, the vampish Valeria (Fenella Fielding), who uses her considerable charms to distract him. I'm with the general consensus here as I think this is the high point for the series. Corbett, in his only Carry On appearance, is great as the bumbling detective, and he shows a great range swinging from incompetent nincompoop to dedicated professional to slavering beast. Williams is having a lot of fun as the mad scientist with another iconic line - “frying tonight”. Again, the production and costume design are a step above what you would expect from one of these films, and I thing the design of the monster – a kind of hybrid Wolfman and Frankenstein's Monster – is genuinely scary. We're a dozen films into this series now, and I'm still surprised at how good they are. 8/10
Casino Royale
dir. Martin Campbell/2006/2h24m
Daniel Craig takes on the mantle of the world's most famous spy in what is the first true reboot in the series' history. We go back to the beginning from the beginning as the fantastic pre-title sequence shows him earning his double-0 license. His main mission is to take on Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) in a high stakes poker game. Le Chiffre is the money man for the world's biggest terrorist organisations, but he lost it all – thanks to Bond – and needs to make back a few hundred million pretty sharpish, hence the poker game. This is a real stripped back effort that maintains the familiar traits of a classic Bond film with a modern simplicity. This is from the same director as Goldeneye and is again the best film in that actor's run. The producers of the series would be foolish to not have him direct the next one. Campbell is great at giving action scenes the time and space they need so you can appreciate what's going on, and there are some spectacular set pieces in this film, the standout being the early parkour chase through a building site. The theme song – You Know My Name – by the late, great Chris Cornell, is like the film itself, a simple, stripped back song that still has the classic elements, this is complimented by David Arnold's excellent score. Arguably the best film in the series, and depending on what day it is I may just agree with that. 9/10
Enola Holmes 2
dir. Harry Bradbeer/2022/2h9m
Millie Bobby Brown returns as the titular Enola, who has started her own private investigation business hoping to step out of her older brother Sherlock's (Henry Cavill) shadow. She is about to shut up shop – because no one wants to hire a young woman – when she gets a case to find a missing match factory girl, a case which seems to be connected to something big Sherlock is working on. I'm a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes universe, and this series is a fun addition to the mythology. The best parts of the first were when she was working together with Sherlock, and we get a lot more of that here. The actual mystery itself is decent and had me guessing up to the big reveal, and there is another big character from the mythology introduced here which I did not see coming, and I hope we get more of them in the inevitable third part. MBB is a good actor, but there's a lot of fourth-wall breaking here – like the first film – and she just doesn't pull it off very well, but other than that she's great. Cavill is brilliant as Sherlock, and I would love to see him get a film of his own, doing a slick Netflix take on one of the classic stories. It is overlong, but if I were a 12 year old girl this would be my favourite film. 7/10
Life After Flash
dir. Lisa Downs/2017/1h34m
Life After Flash is a documentary that explores the life of Sam J. Jones, who played Flash Gordon in the 1980 film, after his one big role. It also acts as a behind the scene documentary with interviews with other cast members like Brian Blessed and Topol. This is a very shallow documentary that never really digs into anything. It brings up topics, like Jones's legal battles with producer Dino de Laurentiis, but there's no follow through or resolution. Most of the Jones half of the film is made up of talking heads interviews with his friends who all think he's a great guy and deserves his happiness. It's all very Hallmark channel. The other half of the film is nothing more than a DVD extra. The Blessed interviews are great because he's such a character, we get to see Brian May play the theme on the piano, and there are some fun interviews with Flash super-fans who show off their memorabilia collections, but this is an otherwise insignificant film. I only watched this because this month's film club film is Flash Gordon, and I wouldn't watch this otherwise. 4/10
Invention for Destruction
dir. Karel Zeman/1958/1h23m
Based on several Jules Verne stories, Invention for Destruction is a breath-takingly brilliant combination of live action and stop motion that looks like illustrations come to life. The plot sees a professor (Arnost Navratil) kidnapped by a dictator (Miroslav Holub) in order to produce a super weapon. But all of that is secondary to the incredible pre-steampunk style of the film. Every single shot is full of creativity and invention and are just gorgeous to look at. This bought to mind the films of George Melies with his beautifully intricate backgrounds, and is a clear influence on the likes of Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson. This is the second Zeman film I've seen now, after The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, but I can already tell he's a filmmaker with a unique vision that is a testament to his imagination. Absolutely beautiful. 9/10
Triangle of Sadness
dir. Ruben Ostlund/2022/2h27m
The winner of the Palme D'Or at this years Cannes Film Festival, the director's second, Triangle of Sadness is a dark comedy that takes a super-yacht full of the super-rich and gives them the worst vacation ever. The film is split into three acts. The first introduces two of the passengers before they get on the yacht, the male model Carl (Harris Dickinson) and his more successful model girlfriend Yaya (Charlbi Dean, who sadly passed away earlier this year at just 32). The second act, The Yacht, is set on the yacht, with the final act set on a deserted island. This is a blunt force satire that wears its message on its sleeve, but, like the greatest writer of all time, Garth Marenghi, once said, subtext is for cowards. I don't want to say much more here because I loved this and think you should all watch it without knowing much about it. The performances are all superb, with my favourites being Woody Harrelson as the alcoholic, communist captain of the yacht, Dolly de Leon as the toilet cleaner turned island leader and Zlatko Buric as a Russian billionaire who sells sh*t. If seeing people vomit makes you queasy then maybe have a bucket on hand because there's a twenty minute sequence that you may have trouble with, and the ending is kind of ambiguous which can be quite divisive. But I always enjoy seeing rich people realise how f*cking worthless they actually are, and this delivers that in spades. 9.5/10 Lime's Film of the Week!
Quantum of Solace
dir. Marc Forster/2008/1h46m
Daniel Craig returns for his second Bond outing, which picks up just moments after the end of Casino Royale. Bond is out for blood after the betrayal and death of Vespa, which leads him to Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), who has connections to the shadowy organisation behind everything. Right from the opening scene this is a huge let down. That scene, a car chase, is one of the worst edited scenes in any big budget film ever. It's totally incomprehensible with no regard to making it clear who is who and what is happening. The villain is totally bland, maybe the worst in the series, and I actually can't remember what his big evil plan is despite watching it only yesterday. He doesn't even have an interesting henchman. Even the guy in Die Another Day had a cool looking henchman. There are good things, like Craig, who gives a great performance as a blunt force instrument bent on revenge. Casino Royale was always gonna be a hard act to follow, but they really fumbled the ball here. 4.5/10
Decision to Leave
dir. Park Chan-wook/2022/2h18m
The latest film from the director of Oldboy is a slow-burn noir thriller with a strong debt to Hitchcock. The plot follows detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) who is investigating the suspicious death of a man, with the man's wife Seo-rae (Tang Wei) soon becoming the prime suspect. The two soon form something of a relationship, but is she an innocent widow or a manipulative femme fatale? This is a comparatively understated film compared to Chan-wook's other works, with a focus more on the characters and their motivations. This is a film all about communication and things lost in translation. There are times when Seo-rae, who is Chinese, has to use a translator on her phone to talk to Hae-joon, which seems to symbolise their whole relationship. The performances are solid all round, and the direction is always crisp with some inventive framing and editing. A fantastic film with a haunting ending. 8.5/10
The Witches
dir. Nicolas Roeg/1990/1h31m
From the director of Walkabout and The Man Who Fell to Earth comes this Roald Dahl adaptation which stars Anjelica Huston as the Grand High Witch, who has a cunning plan to kill every child in England. She is holding a convention at a hotel run by Mr. Stringer (Rowan Atkinson) where she has gathered every witch in the country, but a young boy, Luke (Jasen Fisher), and his grandmother (Mai Zetterling) plan to stop her once and for all. This was a favourite of mine as a child, but watching it now I was actually shocked by how disturbing this film is. Just the make up of the Grand High Witch, a grotesquely twisted, rotten looking, slimy design would be enough, but the performance of Huston really sells it. She is brilliant here as the embodiment of pure evil, and she steals every scene she's in. Fisher isn't the greatest child actor, but he's a mouse for most of the film, so it never really becomes a problem. I'm a huge fan of Roald Dahl, and I really think this is up there with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when it comes to screen adaptations of his work. 8/10
Ulysse
dir. Agnes Varda/1983/22m
In 1954 Agnes Varda took a photograph. A dead goat lies bloated on a stony beach. A naked man looks out to sea while a child, sat on the ground, looks back over his shoulder. Nearly thirty years later she uses this photograph as a starting point for an exploration on the nature of memory. She talks about her memory of taking the photo, and also interviews the two subjects about what they can recall. She shows the photo to some children for their opinion on it. Varda is a filmmaker who can make anything interesting, and that is evident here. That she can take an old photo and make something so thoughtful and fascinating is incredible. This isn't my favourite of her documentaries, and the subtitles on Amazon were out of sync, but this film is still a testament to her singular way of looking at the world and finding stories everywhere. 7.5/10
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