Cinema
The story, on the surface at least, is apolitical and concerns a thirteen-year-old heroine Valerie (played by the beautiful Jaroslava Schallerova) and her loss of innocence in a world of vampires and wicked grandmothers. The overall effect is built up poetically rather than through development of action.
For Valerie, becoming a woman seems to mean discovering all manner of strange secrets. It begins when a young man presents her with a pair of magical ear-rings and develops with the unmasking of the strange, vampiric bishop who presides over her hometown. There suddenly seem to be vampires everywhere, and even Valerie's grandmother has been keeping some striking truths hidden. To add to the more magical surprises, Valerie finds herself having to contend with the plain and simple advances of the lusty local men.
Rich in imagination, colour, and sensual textures this elusive, elliptical folk-tale could only have come from Eastern Europe. It is worth noting that the film was made only a few years after the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, and is filled with images of corrupting innocence, rape and the betrayal of youth by those who should be protecting it. These themes are perpetuated both in the story line and in the film's images -pure white clothes being stained with blood. Aside from the titillation of seeing a lithe young woman with not very much on, Czech audiences could identify, at some deep level, with the correlation between the film's plot and the way they perceived their nation as being defiled and abused by a foreign aggressor.
Director Jamil Jires said of the film that he wanted to explore "the connections between reality and dream, horror and humour". Drawing on the traditions and narrative conventions of children's fairy tales, B-movie horror flicks and soft porn, he certainly created something unique.
Brendon Connelly
Kill or be killed. The Contenders is the highest rated reality show on U.S television. The aim of the game is to kill them before they kill you. A Hollywood blockbuster this isn't. Arnie does not blow them up them before they get him. He does not get the girl and live happily ever after. In fact he isn't even in the film. The reigning champion is eight months pregnant and already has ten kills to her name when she returns to her home town for series seven.
The contenders are not the highly trained kills you'd expect. They are drawn from random by a government lottery and consist of Tony a Removal worker whose family is falling apart at the seams, Connie a devoutly religious emergency room nurse, Lindsey, an all American student with overbearing parents, Franklin an elderly conspiracy theorist and Jeff an artist dying from testicular cancer.
This isn't a Dogma95 film but similar techniques were involved in its production; the use of handheld cameras, natural lighting and minimal number of takes per scene all combine to give it a more tele-visual than cinematic feel.
Running parallel with the contenders' vicious efforts to do away with one another - we see Lindsey join her parents in the chant, 'kill, kill, kill' before they send her out of the car with a high powered assault rifle to try to gun down Franklin - is the love story between Jeff and Dawn the pregnant mass murderer. The mixture of the realistic camera work and a gravel-voiced narrator gives an interesting insight into the relationship; it is both movingly troubled and over dramatised by the show hosts. This problem is symptomatic for the whole film: the viewer experiences an amalgamation of styles and tone in the film. It is parody of American gun-totting, religion and TV, but at the same time it is enjoyable as an action-packed chase for Dawn against the Government and their role as God through the show.
It is a really interesting idea for a film but the fact that its 90 minute length felt considerably longer must say something (its boring?). However, it is only lapses - look out for a Baywatch style instrumental between Dawn and some seagulls - rather than fundamental flaws that stop it from being a very good film. Interesting, funny, moving - its all there, but slightly muddled.
Adam O'Riordan, Alex Mavor
Time voted Proof of Life one of this year's top ten films, so maybe I missed something. Fresh from the Oscar glory of the machismo filled Gladiator, Hollywood's latest heartthrob Russell Crowe comes crashing back to Earth with this lame action thriller. Crowe plays Terry Thorne, an improbably brilliant hostage negotiator who comes to the rescue of damsel-in-distress Alice Bowman (Ryan) after her husband Peter (an understated performance from David Morse) is kidnapped by a nasty South American anti-government faction. The situation is complicated when Terry and Alice fall for one another, resulting in a rather boring will-they, won't they?
Hey, we saw all this with Drew and Libby in Neighbours. The scene is then set for some nonsensical subplots involving miscarriages, insurance claims, estranged sons and the most annoying cinematic turn ever by Pamela Reed as Peter's sister, gibbering like a PPE finalist overdosing on ProPlus. The action scenes are fairly exciting, the Ecuador locations are dazzling and cinematographer Slawomir Idziak captures the beauty of the South American landscape. However, whilst the fringes are fine, the centre is void. The acting is average, but the characters lack any real depth. The sexual chemistry between Terry and Alice is believable, but you'd expect that given that Crowe and Ryan were having proof of sex between takes. Yet director Taylor Hackford seems unsure as to whether the film's main selling point should be the barely flickering tension between and Thorne and Alice, or the infrequent action sequences. As a result, both elements are flat, and the film suffers. And just one final point. Why bother to moralise about violence and the need for peaceful negotiations if the final rescue scenes are filled with mindless and merciless killings? Much like everything else in this movie, we are presented with a number of promising issues that the film can't be bothered to resolve, which was deeply unsatisfying. Crowe's star will undoubtedly continue to shine despite Proof of Life, whereas Meg Ryan would be well advised to seek a guest role in Doctors.
Thus, despite its premise and cast, Proof of Life is just a routine thriller that offers little. If you want a love story, I suggest Romeo and Juliet. If you want an action film, stick with The Mummy Returns.
Stefan Jarmolowicz
What's so unbelievable about The unbelievable truth? A sombre lone man walks down the highway. His upright posture and dark attire give him a priest-like appearance. It turns out, however, that he has been in prison for a number of years and is on his way back to his home town. Nobody is exactly sure of Josh Hutton (Robert Burke)'s crimes although it does become clear that he has served time for murder. Even Pearl whose sister Hutton allegedly killed is vague about what happened.
The mystique and danger surrounding his character make Josh a prime target for Aubrey (Adrienne Shelly) who fed up with her yuppie boyfriend Emmet (Gary Sauer) and his dodgy suits is looking for more excitement in her dull Long Island life. Spoilt rotten by her parents despite her father's attempts to maintain some form of control over her Aubrey turns down her place at an Ivy league university in order to pursue her obsession with nuclear fall-out.
Although willing to employ Josh as a mechanic Aubrey's father (Christopher Cooke) is particularly anxious that his wayward daughter keep away from the ex-convict. Yet when Aubrey moves to New York to further her career in modelling and ends up posing for nude photos, he realises that it is perhaps only Josh who can talk sense into her.
Not a laugh-a-minute, The Unbelievable Truth is still a funny film mostly as a result of Aubrey's ability to run rings around everybody especially her father and the pathetic Emmet. There is plenty of clever dialogue particularly the fast-pace bartering between Aubrey and her father which always results in Aubrey getting what she wanted in the first place while letting her father believe they have reached a compromise. Although Aubrey's wild, outspoken personality contrasts neatly with Josh's quiet, sensible nature, Aubrey does become annoying as she considers herself above everybody else and harps on endlessly about French playwrights and nuclear holocausts.
As the film hastens towards what we assume will be a dramatic climax where the unbelievable truth will be revealed, we are cheated by a lacklustre ending and a truth that is not so very unbelievable. I am still wondering whether this is a sign of Hartley's genius as he refuses to give us the TV movie finale we expect or merely attests to his inability to make the most of the tension built up during the course of the film.
Sophie Fuggle
The film represents the first entirely original work from Cronenberg since Videodrome, over a decade and a half ago, and those familiar with his usual concerns of biology reborn awry and science misapplied will relish his revisiting them in a fresh and exciting context. Detailing the repercussions of a Fatwa on Allegra Geller (Jason Leigh), the world's greatest virtual reality artist, this innovatively staged thriller traces intricately interlinked circles of plot-within-plot, rippling with uncertainty of identity and reality.
Del Rigeur
1st Jun 2001