Film
Writers' lives often provoke more interest than their work, and Iris Murdoch is no exception. Although her books are read in translation all round the world, in Britain it was the publication and more recent radio serialisation of her husband's diaries that got the country talking. All doomed artists arouse the romantic in us, but here does our interest ever really move beyond a prurient and voyeuristic curiosity?
This film takes us with her, as she develops from being a lusty young student at Oxford into an artistically mature author, before descending into that particular hell which Alzheimer's Disease engenders. On paper it seems a perfect plot, but does it work on film? The vitality of her student days are vividly portrayed with bright contrasts and warm reds, very unlike the later scenes, where we watch her mental decline in bleak, muted tones. In this film we really do see it all, from a take-me-as-I-am full frontal of the young Iris (Kate Winslet) to the strain placed on the couple by her inevitable demise. In this, no punches are pulled: there is no saccharine "I'll be with you forever, whatever...", instead, we have a harsh confrontation scene where her husband, John Bayley, shows that now, for the first time in their relationship, he has the power to reject her.
The later scenes in the film are lent depth and dimension by Judi Dench, who, as always, manages to transcend all possible pitfalls and here prevents the film descending into sheer indulgent prurience. As well as the strong cast it has an experienced production team behind it. Although it has been a while since we heard from director Richard Eyre, this looks promising - slick, modish touches abound. Likewise it is good to see editor Martin Walsh back on our screens, after his interesting work in 1997 on Welcome to Woop Woop and in 1999 on Mansfield Park.
In spite of these technical strengths, where the film fails is not in execution, but in conception. It is well cast, and thoughtfully made, but there are gaps. We get very little sense of Iris as a writer, rather than as a woman; perhaps this is because it is based on her husband's diaries; perhaps because the written word cannot easily be transferred to the screen. Does it really matter that this Iris is the same as the Iris on all those book covers? The film does nothing to convince us, or to ease the conscience of anyone doubting why they have been included in moments that seem at times far too personal and just plain intrusive. The cynical might just suspect that the same idea would not have found financial backing, had it not been tagged to a well known figure. Whichever way you read it, we have here a moving account of one woman's life, a life that ended unpleasantly, messily. A testament to what life is, and what death can be, but not a fitting epitaph to a great writer.
They're large, they're scary, they were extinct, but they're back and this time ... on video. You don't need me to tell you what happens in Jurassic Park III. It's quite like Jurassic Park and The Lost World, but nothing like The Land Before Time, and not even a glimpse of a fur bikini (The Land That Time Forgot). Dinosaurs, Americans, and precocious child(ren) who don't die. The big difference with this film, now out on video, is that some of it takes place in the air. Not aboard planes or helicopters, but on the wings of a pterodactyl. This is a good thing, as the initial dinosaur concept was a bit of a one trick ponysaur and they needed a couple of new ideas.
Unfortunately they only had one new idea, so it's only an average film. Adventure to the max, but sadly ruined by the ending, which I won't spoil for you. Sam Neill saves the group of unlikely, but nonetheless intrepid adventurers by hooting at a velociraptor. Now call me picky, but I just don't think this would happen.
Despite this, Jurassic Park III is an enjoyable film that loses nothing in on the small screen. Rent it. Watch it. Return it and then hoot at a velociraptor, but don't hold me responsible for the consequences...
No-one has a bad word to say about this film, so I went into the cinema desperate to find fault. I left, along with 100 other people, beaming, with fantasies of myself being married to a complete stranger in an orange tent in the pouring rain. I was charmed.
Monsoon Wedding is funny and full of life;; the hand-held camera captures that home video feeling of any huge chaotic family get-together and presents a situation you can't help but empathise with, especially after Christmas: a drunken uncle, a misunderstood teenager, and thousands of skeletons just waiting to come out of the closet under the strain of the family wedding.
All this takes its toll on the Verma family, putting pressure on every relationship and potential problem. From the many love affairs to the slowly revealed paedophilia, everything is given time to open out until even the most unwilling among us care about these lives. It centres around the father of the bride, struggling to hold onto his family and a delicate balance of tradition and modern life. In the seductive mix of sari's and Cosmo, TV and ritual singing, Mira Nair draws skillfully on her own upbringing in India and America.
To some, the final affirmation of family love might seem a little cheesy. And, ok, the plot can be a little confusing: while you're getting used to the mix of English and subtitles you do miss out on some names and family connections. And I haven't got a clue how accurate the amazing and exhausting wedding rituals are, but the film is full of passion, sincerity and beautiful shots of Delhi streetlife. But I promise it will make you laugh. You'll love the music, be captivated by the the film's beauty and characters, and enjoy the sheer realness of a very English humour. Just go along and try to be a cynic.
Black Hawk Down is by no means an easy film to watch. The story, the title sequence tells us, is set in the war-torn Somalia of 1993, where famine and the stranglehold of warlords have led to a humanitarian disaster. In fact, the title sequence is about as meditative as the film gets. All we need to know is there in the first five minutes: the best of Americas special forces are going in there to capture the evil warlord so that famine relief efforts can continue - yee haa!
Yet director Ridley Scott does not do a Top Gun, glorifying combat and U.S machismo. Instead this is much more in the Spielberg "oh the horror of war, oh our poor, brave boys" vein. The cast pads out the drama with moments of brotherhood under fire and even tragicomedy when one goes deaf. Yet beneath the graphic and disturbing depiction of war, behind the eulogy to the fraternity among the troops, there seems to be something far more dubious, not to say sinister, going on.
The rhetoric of the opening titles is disturbingly familiar: "the world responded"; yet the subtext of the film criticizes the limiting rules of engagement, and the UN is turned into a bumbling bunch of do-gooders. 'Leave us to it,' the film seems to be saying, 'and we'll get the job done'. Like war films in and out of Hollywood, this is a whitewash, teetering dangerously close to propaganda. The film proclaims "when you're out there the politics go out of the window" and "it's all about the man next to you", while upholding prevailing U.S ideology that the Americans are in there for the sake of humanity. The much murkier reasons for US interference in Somalia (oil drilling rights) go unmentioned and there is no attempt to understand why a crowd of civilians turned on them.
Apart from a token scene where a Somalian gun runner tells the Americans to fight their "own wars", the film is utterly one-dimensional in its perspective: the Yanks die in bloody, close up slow motion; the 'Skinnies' (as the soldiers call them) are figures dropping dead in the background. This is Zulu remade, in all its fine, unapologetic, tasteless glory. They attempt to show the hideous nature of warfare and at the same time try to underpin that with some kind of ethical justification.
Essentially they funk the big one - they criticise the waste of human life (so long as it's on their side), but pull out anywhere near criticising the decisions taken by those who put the troops there. The battle sequences disgust and horrify, America may need hot-blooded patriotism now, when the planes start flying home to roost, but this film fails either to rouse you to battle or to turn you into a pacifist.
24th Jan 2002