Film
Five shortlisted directors will go head to head this week at the Student Film Event of the Year: Oxford University Film Foundation Cuppers. The potential spoils include valuble work experience and year-long subscriptions to Empire. Their efforts will be judged by a panel of industry experts. Three intrepid reviewers give us a sneak preview of the battle to be the next bright young thing...
First up is Bus Terminal - the darkly comic tale of an obsessive wannabe bus driver - a character not dissimilar to Taxi Driver's menacing protagonist Travis Bickle. Director Tim Hancock adds an air of realism by using authentic bus personnel in his cast and by integrating fake radio and television broadcasts into his narrative. With a delicate balance of menace and humour kept throughout it builds up to a delightfully twisted sting in the tail. A definite contender.
Liv Palin's effort Shopping List is a short comic skit in the vein of the Pink Panther cartoons. A burglar indulges in a spot of hide and seek as she attempts to steal a television from the dozy owner. Despite its attractive black and white photography and cool jazz soundtrack the film lacks substance and comes across as a relatively pointless affair. You can cross this film off your shopping list.
Next on the agenda was The Brotherhood of the Red Rabbit, directed by Simon Lord from Balliol. A bizarre cult based on the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms apparently found on the New College mound has shaken our heroes out of their lethargic student existence. Despite the encouraging echoes of Donnie Darko, the film's initially humorous charm soon degenerated into tedium. Unfortunately it had the air of an in-joke from which the audience was excluded. Dialogue, which included phrases such as "the soul's midnight", was mercifully drowned out by a well selected soundtrack.
This was followed by Luca Giberti's Local Habitation, a BBC Learning Zone-style journey into the obscure territory of metaphysics. Our two guides, one speaking English and the other Italian, pontificated about "our sweet spontaneous Earth" against a black background accompanied by ethereal music and mysterious yellow plastic balls. The film intriguingly informs us that genius leaves "only tiny paw prints like a hare in the snow", but it still possesses a strangely hypnotic quality, and succeeded in entrancing us.
The final film, Richard Tibbles' Bearing Fruit From a Prohibited Source, was remarkably imaginative. This dark claymation tale included incest, murder and talking fingers in matchboxes, while its sinister characters spoke in a language akin to Russian spoken backwards. Although highly disorientating, the film was remarkably inventive and its unsettling qualities meant it stood out from the competition.
In this hypnotic elegy to doomed youth, Gus Van Sant reminds us that whilst he may have been responsible for lukewarm tripe like Finding Forrester he was also very much the man behind cult classic My Own Private Idaho. In making the spellbinding Elephant, a film inspired by the spate of massacres in U.S High Schools in 1999, he has literally set a match under the whole genre of the high school movie and sculpted something stunning out of the ashes, picking up the coveted Palme D'Or at Cannes in the process.
Devoid of the polemic that has marred other attempts to transfer this tricky subject matter to the big screen, Elephant makes the otherwise admirable Bowling for Columbine look myopic and clumsy. This is perhaps because Van Sant alone has understood what others are too afraid to contemplate: there can be no easy or single answer. He teases his audience with meticulous precision: the two killers prepare for their killing spree by watching a Nazi documentary and picking out Ludwig B. on the piano; they order their arsenal from the internet and fine-tune their skills with the help of video games; and most incendiary of all, we watch as they share a final shower and a kiss. And in so doing, we are shown such explanations for what they really are - mere red herrings.
For most of the film, however, the camera stalks the potential victims - beautiful teens who each fail to truly connect - in and out of the long corridors, playing fields and cafeteria of their suitably generic school. Shots of the stock characters - the jock, the arty loner, a trio of vacuous bulimics - are interwoven with those of swirling autumn leaves and a sky that you know is just about to be broken. Cinematographer Harris Savides' painstaking composition is underscored by a haunting soundtrack, and the cast of unknowns (the characters take their own names) are superb. Elephant, a cinematic tour de force, is as about the most chilling mixture of violence and beauty that you will ever see. Miss it at your peril.
The term 'horror' is used far too frequently to describe films these days. Call me naïve, but one might be forgiven for thinking a horror film should be in some way scary, chilling, haunting, or horrifying. Placing the word 'haunted' in the title of a film along the lines of The Haunted House on a Haunted Hill in the Haunted Village of Hauntsville does not a good horror film make. Calling piss-poor franchises like Final Destination and Jeepers Creepers worthy additions to the horror genre is like honouring the Chuckle brothers for their contribution to comedy. I Know What You Did Last Summer? Yeah: you went to see shite horror blockbusters. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer? Yep: failed to learn your lesson.
This week, the Phoenix late shows are providing a master class, and for anyone who hasn't seen The Wicker Man, it's about time you learnt a formidable lesson. Edward Woodward gives an excellent depiction of the Christian policeman sent to a Scottish island to investigate a missing girl, only to discover a disturbing community that practices the old religion of Paganism and the occult, notably the ritual of sacrifice. Those of you who sorely missed Christopher Lee's Saruman in Return of the King will delight in his role as Lord Summerisle, the commanding leader of the Pagan people, where he excels to provide a haunting focus for a hugely unsettling story.
Lee, along with the producer and screenwriter, had such faith in the picture they worked for free, with Lee explaining simply "sometimes you do things for love." The film achieved cult status after a difficult progression to screen saw its distribution fudged before critics unanimously rallied behind what one labelled "the Citizen Kane of horror films." What they realised then is still true today: The Wicker Man is a masterpiece not to be missed, or else "You'll simply never understand the true nature of sacrifice."
Last Chance Saloon: Don't Miss...
It's All About Love
3 Stars
Joaquin Phoenix and Clare Danes look for love in a nearfuture world on the brink of collapse.
The Phoenix
Buster Keaton Double Bill
Two classics from the master of comedy, with live piano accompaniment from the BFI's Andrew Yondell.
Magdalen, Saturday, 3pm
TV Film of the week:
Apocalypse Now
5 Stars
Coppolla's celebrated journey into Vietnam's heart of darkness.
Channel 4, Saturday , 10pm
DVD of the week:
Intolerable Cruelty
4 Stars
CZJ and Clooney star in the Coen's brilliant romantic satire.
26th Feb 2004