SOUNDTRACK FEATURE LOST STARS Artist : Adam Levine From The Film : Begin Again [2013] Written by Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois for John Carney's musical-romance drama Begin Again, Lost Stars is performed in separate versions by both leading cast Adam Levine and Keira Knightley. "It happened to me for a song in a movie that I was in, which it makes it that much more special. That's rarely the case. Usually there's some sort of separation. It feels more legitimate and pure and involved in being there," Levine shared on his excitement being involved in both the movie and music, and its nomination for Best Original Song at the Oscars earlier this year.
fiLmReviEw IN THE HEART OF THE SEA [2015, USA - English]
In 1995, Ron Howard successfully depicted the aborted 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission, dramatizing the journey of astronauts in the perilous abyss of space. Twenty years later the Oscar-winning director attempts to bring Nathaniel Philbrick’s non-fiction bestseller to the big screens, chronicling the desperate journey of a crippled whaling ship at sea, grueling with a giant sperm whale, in his latest adventure thriller-drama In The Heart Of The Sea.
The story begins with Herman Melville (Ben Wishaw) visiting ageing sailor Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson) as part of the research for his novel, to recount the harrowing and monumental event in Nickerson’s past, as the last survivor of the large ship Essex that sank 30 years ago, rumored to have been brought to wreck by a vengeful whale. So through Nickerson’s reluctant flashbacks, we are brought back to 1820 Nantucket, where Captain George Holland (Benjamin Walker) headbutts with his First Mate Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) as they sail their way into the Atlantic in hope to return as rich whale oil. Nickerson is just a fourteen year old cabin boy then (portrayed by Tom Holland). Chase is an able and experienced whaler while Holland has much to prove as he inherited his authority through his patrician family connections. As we will learn, the relationship between the two clashing leaders becomes the singular moment that delves a bit more into the characters, where both interestingly will be made neither obvious hero nor villain despite evident initial impressions. Once the sail detours deeper into the Pacific instead in search of a mythical pod of whales, the film starts to sink into a rather long journey without really achieving the required buffet it ambitiously sets out to. Whilst cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire 2008) paints us an epic of lush visuals, In The Heart somehow fails in several pivotal points of the film especially when we are brought onto the chaotic deck amidst the choppy waterlogged action sequences during the whale attacks. We can hardly see who’s doing what!
As the film progresses further where the men are shipwrecked, left stranded floating through the Pacific on life boats, whilst continuously hounded by the vengeful sperm whale, Howard does not offer much further development of the characters, making it hard for us to really care for their survival. Many critics were also pinning the film down for the lack of impact comparing it to Jaws, and to me it has a lot to do with the fact that we were never really treated with a holistic view of the gargantuan sea monster. We get glimpses of parts of the creature, its colossal tail whipping the ship into pieces, its daggering eye when it comes face to face with Chase, but it is never revealed entirely, resulting in a “Moby Dick” that suffers a physicality moment that jolts and mesmerizes audience altogether.
The latter part of the plot unfortunately focuses a hefty lot on the men’s survival being shipwrecked with very limited supplies. I quote "unfortunate" as it is neither the colourful and multi-layered journey in Life of Pi (Ang Li, 2012), nor the inspiring steel-perseverance of Unbroken (Angelina Jolie, 2014). Coupled with Hemsworth's confusing interchanging accents and rather lazy screenwriting by Charles Leavitt (Blood Diamond 2006), the film fails to deliver enough for audience to care much about the characters' development, relationships or survival. The irony of Leavitt's writing process (which actually took place ten years ago) was that whilst attempting to stay as accurate as possible, one of the main focal points he wanted to stress in the story was the hardships of these whalers back then, which he did manage, including depicting the laborious moments endured on deck and not shying away from the cold brutality of the whaling process. Beyond that, he has somehow failed in many levels to make us connect with any of the characters, even Hemsworth. All in all a visual treat, a piece of entertainment, but hardly an epic you would talk about in years to come, given its gigantic cost to make and relevance in revisiting the roots of a tale that became one of the defining texts of American literature, Moby-Dick.
RUSSELL CROWE TEAMS UP WITH RYAN GOSLING IN THE NICE GUYS
Shane Black's KISS KISS BANG BANG did not exactly make any imprint in the filming scene, but it has somehow become of an all-time classic for his fans, apart from helping Robert Downey Jr's great comeback in 2005. While Iron Man 3 is a Marvel success and became Black's biggest achievement, fans will be glad to see him returning to do what he does best, in the comedy-neonoir THE NICE GUYS, teaming up Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.
I'm a huge fan of Gosling. He's been pretty busy lately, with his comedy-drama THE BIG SHORT by Adam McKay opening soon this month, and also filming LA LA LAND, an upcoming musical comedy which also stars Emma Stone, J. K. Simmons, Finn Wittrock and John Legend.
Black calls the film a “spiritual sequel” to KISS KISS BANG BANG, describing it as “a little fast, a little funny and a little rough in places, kind of coarse. These guys are working-class dudes, they’re not really sophisticated private detectives, so it’s a chance to do the kind of thriller I don’t see too much of anymore.”
The film is set back in 1977, with Crowe as Jackson Healy, who is hired to find the daughter of a Chief Justice, played by Kim Basinger. Healy finds himself teaming up with motor-mouthed PI Holland March (Gosling), and whilst the duo get off to an awkward start, their story will be one pretty in-your-face bloody adventure.
fiLmReviEw •• Foreign Film Edition •• A NAGY FÜZET (THE NOTEBOOK) [2013, HUNGARY - Hungarian]
Budapest-born director János Szász won Special Mention at both the Chicago and Haifa International Film Festivals in 2013 for his WWII-drama THE NOTEBOOK, which was also selected as the Hungarian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards. Adapted from the celebrated 1986 novel Le Grand Cahier by Ágota Kristóf, the first in a trilogy which won her the European prize for French literature, The Notebook tells a haunting tale of the perils of wartime and the disintegration of innocence into ruthless impassivity and human induration.
Lászlo and András Gyémánt play a pair of thirteen year-old twins, jolted from the cradling of their parents' storge into a mélange of brutality, when their mother (Gyöngyvér Bognár) one day decides to take them to the dirt-poor countryside to be taken care by their grandmother (Piroska Molnar), as the Nazi occupation has made the city too perilous to live in. Instantaneously the twins know hell has just begun for them as their grandmother, known to locals as "the Witch", makes no bones about her abusive and alcoholic behavior, calling them “bastards” and locking them out until they complete their laborious chores.
Left without any news about their parents from then on, they only have a few parting words from their mother, telling them to continue learning and studying no matter what, and a notebook from their father (Ulrich Matthes), asking them to record every single thing that happens to them. And so their harrowing tale is told through their entries in their notebook, taking form in scrapbook scribblings, photos and pasted objects. Szász intends to deposit audience into the crumbling world of the twins, as we follow their journey facing the brutality of mankind during wartime.
It begins with the boys merely trying to live each day by holding on to their parents’ words close at heart, to continuously learn, study and capture everything in their notebook. Equipped with only the bible to study, they end up mastering the Ten Commandments and the rest of their lessons would have to come from real life experiences. Two coddled and empty vessels stranded amidst wartime’s desperation, their logics are constantly challenged and they start to steel themselves to the brutal new world through a series of disturbing methods. They still want to learn, but their lessons rapidly morph into survival skills mastered through an array of calculated afflictions which some will prove more disturbing than shocking.
A rather competent performance by both the Gyémánt brothers, they manage to tiptoe gracefully along the borders between bravery and savage, between callous and ruthless. Hedging their survival on the “new skills” they acquire, their journey intertwines with a string of strangers all proving to be more for the purpose of provoking rather than anything purposeful. That is my slight issue with the film. You’d be surprised with the number of lecherous souls they would encounter, from a harelip neighbor (Orsolya Toth), a pedophiliac Nazi officer (Ulrich Thomsen), to a corrupted priest (Péter Andorai) and finally a pro-Nazi maid who engages the boys in a bizarre masturbation scene.
There seems to be a central key note which remains rather overlooked based on the reviews that I’ve encountered of this film. In fact, it is to me evinced at the very beginning (a calming scene of the twins sleeping head to head like a conjoined twins), throughout as an undertone (they do everything together and even finish each other’s sentences), and finally the ending. I would interpret the almost deadly connection between the brothers as the pivotal message in what Szász is trying to deliver in this 1 hour 52 minutes drama. Culminating in a seemingly abrupt ending (argued by some as incomplete and unexplained), it makes perfect sense to me as it is actually the final lesson the twins are forcing themselves to learn, in their unrelenting quest for survival.
