Inside Llewyn Davis (15)

The Coen's latest unmissable gift to the world is in cinemas tomorrow (Friday 24th Jan).

Inside Llewyn Davis (15) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

Riding high on the success of their biggest commercial hit to date (True Grit), Inside Llewyn Davis is a change of tack for the Coen brothers and one of their most curious, slight and inaccessible films to date.  Following a struggling folk musician as he misses golden opportunities, chases wild geese (metaphorically) and a cat (literally), this is the story of a diamond in the rough who just can’t catch a break.  It’s very Coen-esque that this should be their next project, especially as Ethan Coen has said, “Maybe Llewyn Davis doesn’t compromise because nobody’s offering him enough money.  It’s similar to our situation.”  It’s as though they’ve shied away from success to avoid the temptation to commercialise.

The year is 1961, and Davis’ character is largely modelled on the man who Bob Dylan called his ‘first New York muse’, Dave Van Ronk.  Ronk never made it big and remained largely obscure.  For Davis, his stagnant career is largely down to his own jaded attitude towards failure.  He assumes things won’t work out, doesn’t recognise potential leads and cares more about his friend’s escaped feline than the people in his life.  After friend and fellow singer Jean (an hilariously sweary Carey Mulligan) rants at him for getting her pregnant, all he can say is he’s worried about the cat!  If he put as much effort into relationships, professional and personal, as he does into chasing the cat, then maybe he’d get somewhere.  Instead he’s dismissive and preoccupied, tortured by an inner turmoil which the Coen’s choose not to explain until half way through.

Oscar Isaac is the title character.  It’s impossible to picture anyone else filling Llewyn’s shoes; he’s the perfect blend of grizzled po-faced confusion, not to mention musical, and makes it possible to sympathise with a character who could have been very unlikable.  Any fears that pop star Justin Timberlake would mar the quality of the ensemble cast are unfounded; he plays his part as nice guy musician Jim to a tee.  He cleverly portrays how his character doesn’t realise the extent to which Llewyn feels threatened by him, and also performs one of the film’s best songs in a sequence that lets the Coens soar in their love of music and quirky madness.  It’s a non-introspective and infectiously upbeat number, which Davis makes no bones about scorning.

Regular Coen collaborator John Goodman makes a brief appearance as an insensitive handicapped codger, who manages to get under Llewyn’s skin and look deeper inside him during an extended sequence where they share a car to Chicago.  Indeed the performances are uniformly impressive, and often underplayed, giving much of the Coen’s zany, bitter dialogue a melancholy feel unprecedented in their famously offbeat filmography.  Even the cat is brilliant; apparently the Coen’s directing talents aren’t limited to working with humans!

Bruno Delbonnel more than deserves his Oscar nomination for the cinematography, with the distinct colour palette and nostalgic glow striking an alluringly atmospheric chord.  The recreation of the period is vivid yet distant, making a bygone time seem lost to history but still strangely palpable.

The soundtrack, produced by T-Bone Burnett in his third time working with the brothers, is another gem from left field that will leave you with catchy melodies, from the lively to the wistful, echoing in your mind for weeks to come.  Van Ronk’s underground classics are blended with some terrific original songs, giving the soundscape special character.

The story is structured episodically, and each scene is filled with such resonance and poignancy that you almost expect it to be over with a cut to black at any second.  Instead, the Coen’s tie things up with a thematic tidiness and mysterious elegance, bookending Llewyn’s adventures in a way that will haunt audiences and linger long after the lights come up.

Inside Llewyn Davis is both an ode to and warning for starving artists addicted to the pseudo-romance of their loser lifestyles.  Sweet and stinging, the Coens are the kings of success without compromise, and have the authority to dare and make such complex and sweeping observations on the creative types they simultaneously identify with and rise above.

Bob Dylan with Dave Van Ronk (right).

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (12A)

This Oscar nominated (Best Original Song) biographical film of the late former South African President's life is still in cinemas.

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (12A)

This review was first published in The Methodist Recorder (www.methodistrecorder.co.uk).

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, based on the late leader’s autobiography, chronicles his struggles against Apartheid South Africa, his time in prison and subsequent election as President.  It’s a rise to power uncharacterised by corruption, and famously hinging on forgiveness which has inspired millions.

The film opens with a brief but electrifying glimpse of Mandela’s childhood, as he undergoes a ritual to become a man in his home town of Mvezo.  Flash forward to his mid-twenties, and we see the respect he already commands from his oppressors, as the young lawyer proves more than a match for his white opponents.  It isn’t long before his ambitions outgrow this career, and he turns his attentions to the resistance movement of the African National Congress.

Director Justin Chadwick spends a surprising amount of time dwelling on Mandela’s love life, as a combination of affairs and overwork tear his first marriage apart.  Scenes and dialogue are included that disappointingly dismiss God, and rule out any real exploration of his religious beliefs.  This is likely more a reflection of the script writer’s worldview, and symptomatic of the supposed need to pander to audiences as Western culture drifts ever further from it’s God-fearing roots.

The film never mentions that Mandela was partly educated by Methodist schools, nor that during his almost three decades in prison was visited by a Methodist chaplain.  His grace and forgiveness of course seem as fruits of the Spirit, but being a very private man for whatever reason he kept his personal beliefs to himself.

Hackney born actor Idris Elba does a fine job in the title role, particularly in the latter half of the film as Mandela’s greying hair accompanies his ever greater pragmatism.  The stand out performance however comes from Naomie Harris as his second wife Winnie - she fills the part with heartbreaking humanity, even as Winnie eventually endeavours to humiliate her husband after his release from prison.  The tragedy is palpable as her attitudes become ever more separate from Mandela’s, and she spirals into bitterness and constant calls for violence, which the film makes clear Nelson only resorted to when all other means failed.

Long Walk to Freedom movingly dramatises key moments in Mandela’s career, investing enough in each for the film not feel like a highlights reel, whilst still giving a compelling sense of his life as a whole.  No easy feat in under two and a half hours.

Kelly + Victor (18)

This two star film is out on DVD and Blu-ray Monday 13th Jan.

Kelly + Victor (18) (This review on FilmJuice.com)

Kelly + Victor is the feature debut of Welsh director Kieran Evans.  On his search for a story that spoke to him he discovered the 2002 novel by Niall Griffiths, a no holds barred harrowing romance about young love gone bad.

Victor is something of a watered down hipster, and Kelly is a petite lost soul with a broken heart.  They meet on Victor’s birthday when he’s out celebrating, and lust strikes without hesitation.  After a hasty night filled with sadomasochism, neither can get the other out of their minds, much less the marks left off of their bodies.  After this fiery start they try something bordering on conventional, a date to a museum, where they ponder what love means to a Godless couple, and whether what they have can be beautiful.

In their own ways the two characters become afraid of what the other means to them, and they take a hiatus to lick their wounds, emotional and otherwise.  Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Julian Morris give admirably raw performances with only a paper thin script to draw on.  Tellingly, Evans removed a lot of the book’s rich narration from his adaptation, leaving Kelly and Victor as unfinished skeletons of characters crying out for flesh and blood.  Promising subplots go nowhere, and the director only demonstrates any inventiveness in the shooting of the sex scenes, which aren’t much more than eye candy for the marketing campaign.

Budget constraints meant a reduced crew and humble resources, and Evans and his cinematographer Piers McGrail admittedly do a splendid job of creating a haunting and unusual portrait of Liverpool, and it’s broken youth underbelly.  But some obvious visual metaphors bring down the level of sophistication, and the overall style is disappointingly derivative of many other better gritty British films.  The typically indie soundtrack plays it safe, and the incongruity of it’s cutesy feel compared to the film's darker side has been done before and much better in films like 2010’s Blue Valentine.

Whilst the photography is sharp and modern, the performances brave and immediate, Kelly + Victor commits the one true sin of filmmaking - being boring.  The story is so slight and the dangers it warns of self-evident; you’re left thinking did we really need another down-and-dirty Brit flick to state the obvious?

DVD & Blu-ray extras: Trailer, Q&A with Kieran Evans