Prisoners – film review

Where: Clapham Picture House 
What: Thriller
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Terrence Howard, Maria Bello

Film-makers tackling the harrowing topic of child abduction face a series of tough decisions from script to edit suite. A heavy reliance on weeping parents and empty swings can result in sentimental TV movie cliché, while a dependence on violent revenge and bloody action can render the results silly and unbelievable. With Prisoners, director Denis Villeneuve avoids many of the subject matter’s pitfalls to deliver a gripping, intelligent thriller replete with generally solid performances and exceptional, if appropriately bleak cinematography from Roger Deakins.

After his six-year-old daughter disappears with her friend on Thanksgiving Day, Pennsylvania carpenter Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) throws himself into helping a huge police hunt led by Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal). Police arrest Alex Jones (Paul Dano in excellent, understated form), but have to release him when no evidence of abduction is found in his mobile home, a vehicle the girls had climbed on before they went missing. An outraged Dover confronts the learning-impaired Jones and assaults him outside the smalltown police station where he had been held and in the fracas, Jones whispers what could be a clue to the girls’ location. Distraught and consumed by anger, Dover soon kidnaps Jones and tortures him in his father’s old home, still in need of a promised renovation years after his father’s death. The film, murky and unrelenting throughout, seems to become a grim race. Will the obsessively dedicated Loki find the girls? Or will Jones reveal where they are hidden?

Prisoners grapples extensively with guilt, loss and rage, with Dover shouldering the heaviest burden: a toxic combination of all three. His wife Grace (a torn, depressed Maria Bello) can barely leave her bed, dulled by pills and grief. Meanwhile, his friend Franklin (a measured, calm Terrence Howard) – the father of other abductee child, Joy – becomes complicit in Jones’s torture. Dover doesn’t see himself as a hero, but staunchly believes he must take control of the case himself if the authorities can’t save his daughter.

French-Canadian Villeneuve’s first English film is compellingly complex, punctuated by occasional moments of brutal violence and built on a tense Aaron Guzikowski script. Guzikowski has spoken about his love of The Silence of The Lambs and Se7en and the macabre tone of both seem to influence proceedings. However, it’s a shame that the occasional unlikely twist and gaping plot hole in Prisoners make the film less credible than either those two or Gone Baby Gone, perhaps the best contemporary movie concerning a child abduction story.

In arguably his career-best performance, Jackman provides the acting fireworks in several scenes of (sometimes overcooked) explosive rage and utter despondency, but Gyllenhaal is the film’s stand-out. The archetypal loner-with-a-badge detective who won’t rest until the case is solved is not the most original of roles, but his portrayal is true and resolute.

It’s not based on a startlingly fresh premise but Prisoners proves that careful, smart directing, combined with tough, wily writing and decent performances can comprise an entertaining thriller.

Donnie Darko: a true contemporary classic

Donnie Darko crept into cinemas six weeks after 9/11. Out in the real world a decade of confusion, paranoia and fear had began, so it was no surprise audiences stayed away. Richard Kelly's movie is a strange, dark work full of unusual and occasionally unpleasant characters behaving in disturbing and destructive ways. It could have even been the film’s bittersweet streak, as punishing and beautiful as a night spent with the object of your unrequited love, which kept the box office receipts low. Whatever the reason, the film didn’t break even on its theatrical release and grossed little more than $4.1 million across the globe, $400,000 less than it cost to make.

Ten years on, the film has become a success for a host of reasons. Like many of the best movies, it snags one’s mind first time around but rewards on each repeated watch, offering up unmissed subtleties each time.

The eponymous troubled teen is sensitively played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who owns the screen each time he appears, even when a man in an unspeakably scary rabbit suit shares it with him. When we first see Darko he is lying asleep in the middle of the road on a hill above his hometown at dawn. This is a brilliant, beguiling and unorthodox way to begin the film, abetted by Stephen Poster’s stunning cinematography. Poster knows a thing or 50 about the creation of visually arresting images: he was second unit director of photography on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Blade Runner.

With the film having opened with such a lucid statement of intent, Darko cycles down the hill towards home, perhaps mirroring the mental and emotional descent he is about to embark on. As he rides, the first song of an inspired soundtrack plays. It is Echo & the Bunnymen’s The Killing Moon, a midnight tale of beauty and darkness.. Richard Kelly initially wanted INXS’s Never Tear Us Apart for the opening. Although the Australian band’s song is worthy of inclusion and was released in 1988, when Darko is set, it can be no match for the incredible blend of bombast and yearning provided by Ian McCulloch's group.

When we meet Darko’s family, there' a conversation about the merits of then-presidential candidate George H.W Bush and Michael Dukakis. This is quickly forgotten as rivalry between Donnie and older sibling Elizabeth (played, in a stroke of clever/obvious casting, by Jake Gyllenhaal's sister Maggie) quickly escalates into unnecessary but hilarious profanity around the dinner table. The squabble also contains Darko’s first mention of his mental illness and hints at the psychological unravelling to come.

What follows is  confusing, fantastical, and tense, but always compelling. We’re inducted into Darko’s school life with Tears For Fears’ mellifluous Head Over Heels and are introduced to coke-sniffing school bully Seth Devlin, inspiring teacher Karen Pomeroy (played to frustrated perfection by co-producer Drew Barrymore) and a host of others.

Most scenes are either captivating from start to finish or contain a memorable incident, from Dr Monnitoff (Noah Wyle) and Darko’s conversation about time travel, to the movie’s greatest line. Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone), Darko’s nascent love interest, askes where she should sit in her new class. Pomeroy replies, “Sit next to the boy you think is the cutest.” Elsewhere, Patrick Swayze is a revelation as self-help guru with a secret Jim Cunningham, while Beth Grant’s Kitty Farmer is monstrous as that most dangerous of authority figures: a pushy mum and an ignorant teacher.

Categories have their uses, but maybe one of the reasons Donnie Darko failed commercially is its refusal to sit comfortable within one. It is a comedy, drama, high school movie, fantasy and love story with moments of terror. It’s also an intelligent, discursive film. Amid the chats about Smurfs’ reproductive organs, there is a constant moral probing at work, with Darko, Pomeroy and Monnitoff loosely on the side of good and Cunningham, Farmer and Devlin more firmly in the camp of evil. What makes Farmer perhaps the most interesting of these is that she would never consider herself a bad person.

There is an argument that Donnie Darko is rather pretentious. By writing and directing a film so clever, beautiful and complex, Richard Kelly is perhaps showing off his intelligence and storytelling skill a bit too much. Fair comment, but so what? Usain Bolt is a show-off and he’s the fastest man in the world. It’s only when the work you produce lacks merit that your methods or temperament matter to anybody except your colleagues or loved ones. Lemmy from Motorhead collects Nazi memorabilia, but that doesn’t make Ace of Spades any less amazing. As for Kelly, he leapt up his own bottom when he went on to make Southland Tales, a mess worse than a post-party kitchen.

Donnie Darko is a film with murder, arson, flooding, teen sex, time travel, disturbing apocalyptic dreams, unconscious masturbation, school talent contests and references to Graham Greene. A decade on, it is still haunting and hilarious and should be revered like the modern classic it so clearly is.

Bloomsbury Bowled over

Bowling is a relatively marginalised recreational activity in the UK. One hesitates to call it a sport because it’s possible to get drunk while doing it.

Admittedly, if practised at a hopeless, novice amateur level it would just about be possible to get laggin’ while playing football, rugby, cricket, tennis, curling, jujitsu and many others. Competing in the 110-metre hurdles or hurling a javelin while supping from a toxic tin of Super T would surely take more impressive dexterity, but you get the gist.

In the US bowling tournaments are big events, where participating Septics can win enough to keep themselves in cheeseburgers and Oreos for at least half an hour.

Not all of our transatlantic cousins take the game of frantic frames and fancy jackets seriously. The Farrelly Brothers’ ‘Kingpin’ is perhaps the most underrated of the aforementioned sibling’s films but is a minor comedy classic and arguably responsible for the artistic rehabilitation of curmudgeonly comedy icon Bill Murray. Highly arguable, given that ‘Groundhog Day' came out the year before, but I digress.

‘Kingpin’, the occasional episode of The Simpsons and the odd scene in Peep Show notwithstanding, 'The Big Lebowski' provides the most hilarious and best fictional portrayal of bowling in the States.

This latter Coen Brothers’ cult fave screens on a loop above the pins at the end of five lanes at Bloomsbury Lanes.

A knowing and playful touch of irony which helps the WC1 joint stay a step ahead of competition such as the reliable Rowan’s Bowl in Finsbury Park and the down-at-heel Lewisham AFL in the league of London’s top alleys.

Bloomsbury has long been beloved of the now-not-quite-as-cool-as-they-used-to-be Shoreditch hordes because of its karaoke lounge (replete with thousands of retro and indie tunes) and occasional new band performances and this too is a boon.

It was somewhat unsettling to bowl two yards behind an avant-rock skinsman/guitarist cranked out Battles-esque experimental sounds at John Peel Day last night (Saturday 10 October).

The alley’s website lacks full information about our unknown man’s stage name, but this will be appearing here soon. I never met Peel but listened to his consistently interesting shows occasionally and got the impression he would have enjoyed and been invigorated by the music played in his name.

Many other patrons did and were, not least the staggering casualty who could barely speak coherently or walk two steps without spilling his recklessly-nursed bottles of Asahi…

Unexpected lunchtime penis

The unclothed body is nothing to be ashamed of or squeamish and should be celebrated.

But it was somewhat shocking to see a whacking great cock projected on a wall in the name of art today in Tate Modern.

A recent BBC London TV news report claimed the venerable South Bank institution was the world's most popular art musuem* and the former power station is certainly a great destination for weary screen addicts on a balmy September afternoon.

But US artist Paul McCarthy's Projection Room (1971 – 2006) is disconcerting if you weren't expecting it. Perhaps even accutely disturbing to the prudish.

The Tate themselves say the piece is:

An installation combining seventeen of McCarthy’s early videos produced between 1972 and 1978, as well as 170 slides documenting performances from the same period.

The selection is highly personal: most of the videos were made in the intimate settings of McCarthy’s homes and studios in Pasadena and Los Angeles. The participants are generally close friends, including Karen McCarthy, his wife of 40 years, and the artist Allan Kaprow.

And:

Paul McCarthy’s intense video, performance and installation works are rooted in taboo subjects such as sexuality, violence and repression. Since the late 1960s, McCarthy has explored Abstract Expressionism, Pop and Conceptual art, Minimalism, Body Art, and experimental film.

He combines these diverse approaches with references to television, pornography, horror films, amusement parks and fairy tales to provoke reflection on the social and psychological impact of the media. Using bodily fluids, paint, and food, McCarthy creates elaborate and grotesque explorations of family, childhood and dysfunction. His body becomes a canvas and a stage to lay bare the dark, disquieting corners of society’s subconscious and the pervasive infantilism of American mass culture.

To relate this back via my own limited appreciation and knowledge of art, I can only justifiably compare the sinister nudity, entrails and viscous fluids of McCarthy's home movies to a brilliant, if twisted satirical horror movie.

Much time has passed since I saw Society but it's one of those films which never quite leaves you. There aren't any scenes as brazenly full frontal as what can currently be seen in Level 3, Room 9 but fans of body horror should make their own minds up and check out both.

*no link to reinforce this yet. The heads over at White City may or may not be willing to back up their reporter's claim with hard facts such as footfall etc but I will find out the truth and post it here.


BFI uncover London street history

It's not just British Pathe who have an extensive vault of ace old London footage online.

True to their impressive physical resource down on the South Bank the BFI have a wealth of material on the net worth a glance and more.

Three examples are below, but for the full range the institute's YouTube channel is a good jumping off point.

What you sayin'?

Today licked tramp scrotum so enthusiastically it's better to think about the weekend's entertainment.

On Friday saw Junior Boys perform live @ The Arches.

They didn't really bang it out the way you want at 2am on a Saturday. In that respect they're similar to Hot Chip in a live setting (too much boo-hoo, not enough largin' it).

Both bands do that sorrowful, soulful, deep electro thing with consummate skill, just don't make enough big tunes.

The venue was fat, though. Aside from being on the correct side of the river as so few top class London clubs are, it was your typical open-brickwork, strobe and smoke-machine cavern: A cross between Fabric and Heaven, albeit on a smaller scale.

A decent night, particularly in Room 2 where the Greco-Roman soundsystem had a few interesting heads (including Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet) laying down dark breakbeat, twisted two-step and some brilliant music that defied categorisation but had psychedelia and afrobeat influences. Sweaty, vital fun.

Saturday was all about Stella during the England game before experiencing my first ever bike race in the flesh.

Hit Smithfield to see the whooshing majesty of lycra-clad bods travelling at unnerving speed with the trusty best mate. These days he prefers cycling to football. But then he does support Millwall.

He was also the first person to tell me about Critical Mass and ghost bikes. Both are important for cycling in the capital, the former a bold celebration, the latter a sober warning.

The day didn't finish at Smithfield but kebab minutiae, furtive phone calls and a tube conversation with a drunken Irishman aren't exciting to anyone but late-night novices.