Film
Apparently the buzz was on the street that Á Ma Soeur! contained hot and dirty underage sex, because the Phoenix was full of men, sweating like the proverbial paedophile in a nursery. Romance, the previous film by director Catherine Breillat, caused a stir by being the first feature film to show an erection, but the controversy surrounding this movie has been even greater.
The film describes the summer holiday of 13 year old Anais (Anais Reboux) and her older sister Elena (Roxane Mesquida). Anais has a weight problem - "she eats like a pig," says Elena; "it's her glands," says her mother - and harbours morbid thoughts about the beastliness of men. Elena by contrast is beautiful, fresh and Geri-thin. Right at the start of the movie we see them discussing how they intend to lose their virginity, and a pattern is set which comes to dominate the story. Whereas Elena has the looks and the ability to seduce men, her younger sister has a sardonic distrust of male sexuality coupled with the need to affirm her desirability through sex. At one point she watches rapt as an ageing feminist discusses De Beauvoir on television. This is contrasted with the relative innocence of Elena, who seems hungry for love and eager to 'become a woman'. When she is seduced by an Italian law student and takes him to their shared room, we're treated to Anais pointedly feigning sleep, but really looking on tearfully as Fernando (Libero De Rienzo) convinces Elena to "take it up the back way - that way you can say you never slept with anyone."
As the line suggests, Fernando is a complete knob. Matter of fact, there isn't one sympathetic male character in the entire movie; Fernando pulls every trick in the slimy-book to take Elena's virginity, whilst the girls' father is weak and unable to understand why his daughters are unhappy. For all that Á Ma Soeur! tries to present itself as a film about girls growing up, the agenda of Breillat is clear. This is a film with a message, and the message is crass: girls, all men are bastards. If they find you attractive, they'll screw you over, and if they don't, well, they won't even want to screw you, how about that?
Breillat's previous film Romance was also undermined by the extent to which the lead male character was portrayed as a complete asshole. In that film, it's hard to see why the girl even stays with him - it just isn't believable - and whilst Á Ma Soeur! gives a reason, namely Elena's youth and hunger for adult love, Fernando remains a horribly caricatured and one-dimensional man. Anais is presented as a Polanski-esqe tragic heroine, suspicious and repulsed by the power sex can wield, except that she herself lacks the figure and face to wield it. So she looks to her sister to show her the way, but Elena is too naive and trusting; the only winner is the generic male libido, which stomps its way across the screen, wrecking the flower of womanhood.
I don't want to give Á Ma Soeur! a complete whipping. Fernando's grotesqueness comes with some great dialogue - he seduces her with the line, "My father, he is an inter-nazzio-nale advo-caat. Inter-national lawyer." And the tension between the sisters is sometimes genuinely touching. One scene in particular, in which Elena slowly feeds Anais a loaf of black bread whilst telling her she's "a lump" and "a pig," is superbly well acted and quite affecting.
Still, Á Ma Soeur! is a hard film to like. It clearly wants to be hailed as uncompromising and bleak, but it winds up gauche, sentimental and didactic. However many erections it waves about.
It's a jungle out there on the streets of LA. LAPD Narcotics Officer Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) has exactly one day to prove he can make the streets his own. He is placed with officer Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) and told that if he makes the grade, he'll make Detective. But this ain't no panda-car doss - in LA, "you gotta be a wolf to catch a wolf".
The film reflects a conflict of morality and ambition as Alonzo coerces Jake into felony - memorably, he trips on angel dust as they drive though the city. We watch the outside scenes pass through his blurred vision, and get a sense of the hazy line between right and wrong. This is a world where we see dignity and pity in criminals - and are shit-scared of the cops.
Unfortunately, Training Day cops out of its complex moral ambiguity to pack into a traditional good-guy/bad-guy ending. It starts to feel forced: Washington takes off like a tidal wave, drenching the bemused Jake with some of the film's sharpest dialogue, but Alonzo begins to feel like a caricature of his muthafuckin' nigga-assed self as he lurches around in 20 kilo chains and black leather.
However, the cinematography and Hawke's performance give the film moments of brilliance. Shot with an illuminating depth of focus, every detail is liquid and bright, creating the 'urban jungle' effect where Hawke seems to move through his background, not against it, and we watch him mould into the streets, becoming a wolf.
Worth seeing for the questions it asks, even if the answers are unsatisfactory, Training Day is a pacy and addictive thriller. The odd stunningly-shot scene, the landscape, and Ethan Hawke all raise the stakes. This just makes it more of a shame that the film can't finally deliver.
This week sees the UPP launch a season of Kevin Smith films, and the first film in the programme also happens to be the best. Clerks tells the story of Dante Hicks (O'Halloran), convenience store monkey with an urge to break free. Comic books, Silent Bob, Star Wars and sexual bewilderment all feature as you'd expect with Smith, but with a novelty and freshness which has worn thinner with each of his subsequent movies.
You'll have a lot of fun with Clerks if you don't expect it to make you think, or to look good, or to touch you in any way. It doesn't do much except make you laugh, but it does that pretty well. It's best compared to watching three episodes of a funny sitcom, one with blue language, slacker tendencies and a gen for annoyingly self-referential jokes. I don't have any truck with the ninny-knockers who complain that Clerks has become crap, just because fourth-year physicists tend to have the entire dialogue memorised and ready to pull out at the drop of a problem sheet. Hell, they'd have to disown The Simpsons! Morons! Clerks is a cleverly written and enjoyably stupid geek movie, and let's leave it at that.
As for the plot, well, it isn't really important. You'll only remember the set-pieces, anyway, but you'll enjoy them more if you haven't had them spoiled for you by a fourth-year physicist film reviewer. Briefly, though - and this is only to fulfil my obligations, mind - Dante goes into work on his day off, hooks up with his friend Randal (Anderson) who works at the video store across the street, plays hockey on the roof, and tries to resolve his complicated feelings for blow-job buff Caitlin (Spoonhauer).
Clerks is a hoot, ultimately. I don't know about you, but I'll be spending February 14th on my own in the Ultimate Picture Palace, dribbling slightly with popcorn all over my fingers.
14th Feb 2002