THE BABADOOK

Stars: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall, Hayley McElhinney, Barbara West, Tiffany Lyndall-Knight and Ben Winspear.
Writer/Director: Jennifer Kent.

Rating: 4/5

The fractured, fragile mental states of a struggling widow and her clingy 6 year-old son manifest as a startling poltergeist-like possession in the nerve(and tongue)-twisting horror thriller, The Babadook.

Representing a stunning debut for writer/director Jennifer Kent, this truly chilling vision is steeped in the nightmarish lore of fairy-tale storytelling while at the same time reconstructing familiar haunted-house tropes within a modern suburban setting. Exhibiting the same love of and fresh vision for the genre as fellow Australian James Wan did recently with The Conjuring, Kent pushes beyond the trappings usually associated with its kind and plunges thematically into the corrosiveness of grief, guilt and loneliness as they exist within the already difficult role of single parent.

Central to the film’s profound impact is Essie Davis as Amelia, the actress taking her character and the audience to the abyss of fragile despair before being reborn with a supernatural ferocity. The on-screen chemistry she shares with Noah Wiseman, the child actor playing her trouble son Samuel, is utterly convincing; when the horrors take shape and the shadowy pall of physical violence hangs heavily over their shared suburban terrace, the acting from the pair captures the threat with a razor-edge intensity.

Where Kent excels is in her handling of Amelia’s descent into mental instability. With her terrific editor Simon Njoo, she adopts the technique of clipping early scenes by a just a few frames, resulting in a disconcerting narrative trajectory that effectively leaves her main character behind at times. As Amelia is loosing grip on her mind, so is the character struggling to keep up with her own story (it helps that the naturally beautiful Davis foregoes all vanity in the role, often appearing to be barely holding it together physically and emotionally). The film works as great horror fiction thanks entirely to the believability afforded the protagonist’s psychological state.

Equally impressive is the titular spook, brought to life from the pages of an ominous bedtime book and given resonance by a child’s imagination before dining off the inky, colourless misery of the home environment. Kent knows exactly the power of the ace she has up her sleeve; she confidently inches forward for almost the entire film before a final reveal that delivers a visceral jolt of terror.

Despite a relatively meagre budget (reportedly little more than Aus$2million), The Babadook is an expertly crafted film, with all tech contributions (notably Alex Holmes’ production design and Radoslaw Ladczuk’s cinematography) of the highest standard. The darkened home is often cast in shades of grey, echoing the black-and-white origins of Kent’s vision; The Babadook is a feature-length adaptation of Kent’s 2005 short, Monster, an equally effective frightener with the terrific Susan Prior screaming up a storm in the role of ‘Mother’.

3D NAKED AMBITION

Stars: Chapman To, Josie Ho, Candy Yuen, Yui Tatsumi, Aoi Tsukasa, Louis Koo, Nozomi Aso, Anri Okita, Maiko Yuki, Derek Tsang and Tyson Chak.
Writers: Chan Hing-ka, Ho Miu-ki and Chou Man-you.
Director: Lee Kung-lok.

Rating: 3/5

There is certainly enough curvy, nubile flesh to have mainland Chinese censors reeling but in every other regard, director Lee Kung-lok’s enjoyably silly Naked Ambition offers only minor titillation. It’s strengths, however minor, are in maintaining a giddy comedic air despite a plot as flimsy as lingerie; any controversy conjured by the puritanical brigade should prove a storm in a D-cup.

A sequel-of-sorts to Dante Lam’s more seriously-minded 2003 hit, Lee’s high-energy romp is ostensibly a vehicle for ageless comic Chapman To, cutting a dashing figure as Wyman Chan, the Hong Kong everyman who inadvertently becomes an AV (adult video) superstar in the lucrative Japanese market.

Part of a friendship clique who bemoan the dwindling quality and profitability of DVD porn, the group head for Tokyo to hook-up with their adult industry connection, go-between Shidaiko Hatoyama (a foul-mouthed and funny Josie Ho, returning to the franchise in which she made her screen debut over a decade ago). Here, they set about making their own skinflick, only to offend the leading man with their demands on the first day of shooting and leaving the production with no good wood to film their opus.

Stepping up when no one else has the…well, you know, Chan allows his female lead (real-life AV goddess, Yui Tatsumi) to dominate – an unwillingness that pays off when Japanese women warm to his ‘shy guy’, submissive man persona and turn him into a top-selling AV industry superstar (after a very funny 'training' montage with Tako Kato, an AV legend with over 5000 credits). To's ‘reluctant Romeo’ archetype has always been popular with audiences – Australian readers will recall the bawdy Alvin Purple misadventures of the 70’s; British audiences had Confessions of a Window Cleaner (1974) and its sequels.

Lee’s film settles into a series of set-ups capturing on-set wackiness and featuring topless girls giggling a lot and bouncing up and down on top of the increasingly smug and smarmy Chan (a persona that will be pleasingly familiar to longtime fans of To, who played a similar character most recently in Ho-cheung Pang’s Vulgaria). Fans of Eastern erotica will find an extra giggle or two in the soft-core depiction of cultural references such as the mega-monster genre, pink-haired Harajuku nymphettes and crowded train-carriage fantasy. 

That is about it plotwise, until studly upstart Naoki Nagasaki (Louis Koo, another 2003 alumni) challenges him to a nationally broadcast ‘sex-athon’ to see who is indeed the AV alpha male. It is all preposterous, of course, as befits a film set in the ludicrous world of garish pop-porn, but it is played with a spritely energy by a cast that seems to be having a good time (in one scene, a stand-by woodsman accidentally ‘sprays’ To’s character, a splash to the temple for which the actor was clearly not prepared and which sends him out of frame, giggling).

If anything leaves a bad taste in the mouth, it might be the thinly veiled line in racial humour that creeps through the script by co-writers Chan Hing-ka, Ho Miu-ki and Chou Man-you. The Hong Kong ensemble utter several observations at the expense of their Japanese hosts, at one juncture ranting about their superiority over the local population. It reveals a mean-spirited streak that is out of place in such lightweight fare.

As expected, the third-dimension is predominantly used to assault the audience with close-ups of large breasts and provide extra-sensory immersion within the bedroom scenes. The Lumiere Brothers must be rolling in their graves, although Russ Meyer would love the new technology.

ICEMAN 3D

Stars: Donnie Yen, Baoqiang Wang, Shengyi Huang, Yu Kang, Simon Yam and Hoi-Pang Lo.
Writer: Fung Lam.
Director: Wing-cheong Law.

Rating: 1.5/5

Despite the one-two warning klaxon that director Wing-cheong Law’s Iceman is both a remake and a first instalment, there must have been, at some point in the film’s long and troubled production history, the glint of a vast and involving action epic.

But the spark of inspiration that ignited this messy update of Clarence Fok Yiu-leung’s 1989 cult hit is extinguished with barely a frame unspooled. Law’s lame-brained concoction aims to be, in equal parts, a martial-arts opus, low-brow crowd-pleaser and mystical history lesson; what emerges is an often incomprehensible mash-up that plays murky, amateurish and puerile.

The silliness kicks in from the opening scene, in which three cryogenically frozen warriors from the Ming dynasty – surely the greatest scientific find of the century – are being transported in what looks like a rental truck, driven by a sandwich-eating slob, with a single cop-car escort. When the truck hits a rock and a random plastic shopping bag becomes entangled in the undercarriage, the resulting crash frees the frozen soldiers.

Senior amongst the escapees is He-Ying (stunt superstar Donnie Yen, on double-duty as action director), who sets out amongst the modern nightlife of Hong Kong with an ancient artefact (more specifically, the petrified penis of the deity Shiva) that will kickstart an ancient time-travel device called the Golden Wheel of Life. He befriends drunken party girl Xiao Mei (a likable Huang Shengyi) and spends most of the film dodging idiot police officials and his thawed Ming warrior enemies, Sao (Baoqiang Wang) and Niehu (Yu Kang), who are out for revenge fuelled by what they believe was an act of betrayal 400-odd years ago (the flashback scenes, set amongst some stunning scenery and featuring a terrifically realised avalanche, are the film’s saving grace).

The misguided creativity of all involved hits rock-bottom with a SWAT team siege that finds He-Ying trapped in a lavatory; his method of escape, which begins with Yen smugly grinning straight to camera before faecal matter is sprayed over those gathered (in 3D, no less), proves an apt metaphor for the film as a whole. Ill-considered scatological humour proves a fallback option on several occasions, not least of which being the warrior’s odd skill of being able to pee like a water-cannon.

Worthless subplots abound (He-Ying’s saccharine-sweet connection with Xiao Mei’s ailing mother; some North Korean gangster violence that takes the film beyond the realm of family entertainment), none of which warrant what seems to be an interminable 105 minute running time. A largely CGI-rendered final reel confrontation atop the Tsing Ma bridge offers too much too late; a hurriedly-staged coda, designed to set-up Part 2 of the narrative (due in theatres Christmas 2014), merely serves to remind audiences of how anaemically unsatisfying Part 1 has been. 

SUNSHINE ON LEITH

Stars: Peter Mullan, Antonia Thomas, Freya Mavor, Jane Horrocks, George MacKay, Kevin Guthrie, Jason Flemyng and Emily-Jane Boyle.
Writer: Stephen Greenhorn.
Director: Dexter Fletcher.

Reviewed at the Gold Coast Film Festival, Sunday April 5.

Rating: 3.5/5

Given his first two featuress deal with the emotional intricacies of working class family life, one might assume that director Dexter Fletcher feels bound by particular themes. Surely the veteran character actor accumulated a vast storytelling toolbox after four decades of guidance under the likes of David Lynch (The Elephant Man, 1980), Derek Jarman (Caravaggio, 1986), Ken Russell (Gothic, 1986) and Guy Ritchie (Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998)?

And, of course, he did. His debut effort, the tough-minded father/son crime drama Wild Bill is the polar opposite of this follow-up, the sweet-natured musical drama, Sunshine on Leith. Having made his first on-screen appearance in Alan Parker’s 1976 musical, Bugsy Malone, Fletcher exhibits an affinity for the genre; his adaptation of the hit stage play is to Scottish audiences as Mamma Mia! is to The Me Generation and  and Rock of Ages is to Gen X-ers – a bigscreen jukebox jam very loosely held together by a hoary plotline as old as cinema itself.

Essentially the story of three romances that all take place within a single family in Edinburgh (or Leith, to the locals), we meet the two key protagonists Davy (George Mackay) and Ally (Kevin Guthrie) as soldiers, deeply embedded in Afghanistan. Fletcher dazzles with the opening sequence, in which the lads platoon chants a traditional chorus of courage as they surge further in to enemy territory, with tragic results.

Two months later, the best mates have returned to their hometown having been honourably discharged, determined to rebuild their lives. Davy’s mother Jean (a terrific Jane Horrocks, employing all the musical brio that brought her international fame in 1998’s Little Voice) and father Rab (an against-type Peter Mullan) are raising their college-graduate daughter, Liz (Freya Mavor); Liz has a history with Ally, who hopes to consolidate his future with her. Davy needs a lovelife and is soon wooing Liz’s friend, Brit beauty Yvonne (Antonia Thomas).

As is the way with all feel-good films, the key characters must hit rock-bottom before scaling the musical mountaintop, and so it goes. The secret daughter Rab never knew he had resurfaces (in the form of the lovely Sarah Vickers), threatening his otherwise stable marriage; Ally and Liz stumble when her ambition overrides his romantic dreams; and, in the least convincing love hiccup, Davy and Yvonne hit a rough patch when he can’t put aside his hatred of her homeland to make it work with her.

Perhaps the biggest surprise the film offers to audiences outside of Scotland is that the brotherly pop duo The Proclaimers, who disappeared into trivia contest oblivion after their late 80’s hits ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ and ‘I’m On My Way’ faded, are national treasures in their homeland and had enough songs to fill out a stage-to-screen musical (the pair, Craig and Charlie Reid, make a fleeting cameo). The arrangements are ideally suited to the cast and expertly worked into the narrative, even when it creaks with sentimentality and stretches credibility.

Angry-man icon Mullan warbles through his tunes with a gravelly intensity, ala Tom Waits, all the while totally convincing as the troubled patriarch; character actor Jason Flemyng enlivens with a rockin’ rendition just when the film needs it. The thick brogue and local dialect (what is havering?) is occasionally distracting, but the inherent pleasure derived from a good movie musical is always present. Fletcher doesn’t offer up a genre-bending Luhrmann-esque redefinition of the genre, but nor does this sweet, simple material require it.

NURSE 3D

Stars: Paz de la Huerta, Katrina Bowden, Judd Nelson, Corbin Bleu, Martin Donovan, Boris Kodjoe, Niecy Nash, Adam Herschman, Melanie Scrofano and Kathleen Turner.
Writers: Doug Aarniokoski and David Loughery.
Director: Doug Aarniokoski

Reviewed at the 2014 Gold Coast Film Festival, Friday April 4.

Rating: 4/5

A splattery, sleazy blast from that opening moment when our pulse-quickening anti-hero slices the femoral artery of an unfaithful husband she is manually pleasuring, Douglas Aarniokoski’s mondo retro Nurse 3D is just what the doctor ordered.

Shamelessly oozing the spirit of grindhouse era no-brainers in which nickel’n’dime showmen took advantage of lowest common denominator audience tastes, this gruesomely giddy midnight-movie homage is also a technically dazzling achievement. The twin lens of DOP Boris Mojsovski captures the third dimension with a precision and artistry that puts to shame the big-budget conversion process that is cheapening the add-on; Nurse 3D creates a garish nightmare-scape of deep primary colours and dripping atmosphere that evocatively convinces.

The she-devil who rules this sordid domain is Abby Russell, by day an ER nurse of considerable standing but at night, an inventive angel of vengeance who takes down philandering males with scalpels, needles, bone saws, etc. Abby Russell is played by the statuesque and sexually fearless Paz de la Huerta in a manner that brings to life the darkest fantasies of your average hormone-ravaged teenage loner; her line delivery suggests Abby may not be very bright, yet it is revealed her identity is a carefully constructed series of backstory lies that only a brilliant, if psychopathic mind could manifest.

Huerta towers over the film, an Olivia De Berardinis creation brought to life in a world that might have been conjured by the combined psyches of Brian de Palma and Bob Guccione. The insanely fetishistic hospital uniforms created by costumer Zaldy (previously responsible for not-so-subtle stage adornments worn by Lady Gaga and Britney Spears) wrap around the actress and her equally beguiling co-star Katrina Bowden with a lascivious adherence; healthcare facilities in this alternate universe (clearly intended to reflect the messed-up mindset of Nurse Abby) are seemingly populated by extras from ‘that’ Robert Palmer video. All of which may be overstating the presence of clothes of any kind in the film; most often, scenes will ebb and flow between shots of bottoms, breasts or, on more than one occasion, full frontal nudity.

For all its gleefully puerile reliance on the gratuitous, there is an undercurrent of puritanical moralising that is inherent to the horror genre’s traditional views on sex. In Nurse 3D, that carries the extra baggage of Sapphic sinning, as Abby and Bowden’s Danni become entangled in a possessive affair that slyly serves both the titillation factor and the B-movie contortions of the plot.

Male co-stars are generally asked to be sleazy slaves to their appendages (Martin Donovan’s predatory stepdad; Judd Nelson’s hospital chief; Boris Kodjoe’s investigating detective), drawn to the pleasures promised by Huerta’s sex-bomb siren only to be taught that such indulgences come with a bloody price. Only Corbin Bleu, indicating beyond doubt that he is ready to leave his High School Musical days behind, exhibits anything close to human decency as Danni’s boyfriend, EMT newbie Steve.

There is a second-act slackening that could have been avoided with a stronger grasp of the narrative’s black comedy potential; audiences may find themselves reaching for that extra bit of dark wit that would have tipped the film over into true off-the-wall cult insanity. But by the time Nurse Abby’s homicidal proclivities are given full flight in a final reel rampage (recalling the medical horrors and energetic excesses of Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator), minor shortcomings are forgotten. Both sicker and smarter than expected, Nurse 3D is a surgically-precise cut above.  

HIGHWAY

Stars: Alia Bhatt, Randeep Hooda, Durgesh Kumar, Pradeep Nagar, Sarharsh Kumar Shukla and Hemanth Mahaur.
Writer/Director: Imtiaz Ali 

Rating 4/5

A star-making turn from relative newcomer Alia Bhatt provides the vibrant essence of Imtiaz Ali’s bracingly atypical Bollywood road-movie, Highway.

A director with a growing reputation for combining pop-cinema tropes with deeper issue-based characterisations, Ali here skilfully works such real-world elements as arranged marriage, child abuse and class division in Indian society with identifiable genre trappings (unlikely romance; gorgeous locales; rich orchestral scoring).

The result is a thoughtful, moving, entirely accessible drama that will resonate with domestic audiences (especially the young female demographic, who will warm to a rare and truthful representation in the lead character) and play to upscale international filmgoers beyond the usual Bollywood-friendly niche markets.

Bhatt, who comes from a film industry family (her father is director Mahesh Bhatt), had only two minor roles to her name when cast as Veera, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist who is opportunistically snatched by thieves when a robbery goes bad. When her standing becomes apparent, the crime syndicate decide they don’t want that much heat and order her removed. So begins a cross-country journey in which Veera is partnered with the surly, sporadically violent Mahabir (Randeep Hooda) and petty crim sidekick Aadoo (Durgesh Kumar).

The shifting tones of the relationships are handled wonderfully by the director and his key cast. Bhatt takes the initial abuse with the wide-eyed terror of a sheltered princess but her acceptance and understanding of the men and the bond she develops with the countryside’s natural wonders and the rural population transforms her. A key scene just prior to the intermission, in which Veera exposes the shameful abuse she endured as a child at the hands of a lecherous relative, is superbly performed by the actress; additionally, it strengthens the connection with Mahabir, himself struggling with memories of boyhood hardships.

The strongest dramatic elements are played out in the film’s first half. Post interval, Highway is stretched thin by some excessive travelogue-type photography (admittedly beautiful, but often inserted at the expense of story momentum) and stylised flourishes (slow-motion; montages) that aren’t always warranted. The locations, primarily in central and northern India, include the villages of Mangar, Bikaner and Mahal; the snowy mountainous terrain of Tabo; and, the wooded hills of Aru.

So captivating is Alia Bhatt as Veera, the film’s minor shortcomings are negligible. She is not above the occasional foray into doe-eyed cuteness when it is asked of her; DOP Anil Mehta’s camera loves her face, ensuring matinee crowds will swoon as the producer’s no doubt hoped. Yet it are the darker moments in her character’s trajectory for which Bhatt will be remembered. A third act scene in which she defies her family and its chequered history on her own terms is great screen acting. It is a breakout role, the kind of which every actor hopes for, and Bhatt shows a maturity and confidence beyond her years in making Veera such a fully realised character.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

Stars: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Samuel L Jackson, Robert Redford, Frank Grillo, Cobie Smulders, Sebastian Stan, Emily Van Camp, Georges St-Pierre, Hayley Atwell, Jenny Agutter, Alan Dale and Toby Jones.
Writers: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely; based upon a concept and story by Ed Brubaker.
Directors: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo.

Rating: 3/5

The retro-themed warmth of the first instalment is nowhere to be found in the steely follow-up, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a carefully constructed slice of conspiratorial intrigue pumped up by the now familiar photo-realistic effects team. A template-specific movie experience that impresses without engaging, The Russo Brother’s tentpole debut serves its master – the ‘Marvel Movie Empire’ – as diligently as the titular hero serves his homeland.

Hitting its stride with earthbound first- and second-act shoot ‘em up action before devolving into an over-extended airborne finale that confuses grand scale destruction for involving spectacle, Russo’s Joe and Anthony (hot off…um…2006’s You Me and Dupree) offers some smart plotting and a finely etched heroic central figure.

But it also is the first of the Marvel films that suffers from feeling cobbled together from the canon’s visual elements; for all their faults, Shane Black's Iron Man 3 and Alan Taylor’s Thor: The Dark World, cast aside the appealing aesthetic of Joss Whedon’s blockbuster and found their own palettes. Unlike the beautifully distinctive period elements of director Joe Johnston’s The First Avenger, The Winter Soldier too often resembles a generic modern studio pic (notably The Avengers, of course, but also Star Trek Into Darkness and Man of Steel).

The Russo’s do imprint some individuality with a narrative that evokes 1970’s-style paranoid cinema. The ultra-patriotism of Capt Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is tested when he discovers a rescue mission he heads up also carries with it a covert information retrieval element. When he challenges his boss, Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), the need-to-know nature of his role in the modern military apparatus leaves him seriously doubting his government motivations.

Evans continues to impress in a role that provides him with the most complex and challenging of all the Marvel players. The Winter Soldier allows the actor to explore the dichotomy of his character’s existence; a sequence set against the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian institute allows Rogers to literally revisit his past and the heroic leading man figure is fleetingly replaced by a confused, displaced refugee from another time.

Alternately, the chilly face of new millennium bureaucratic coldness is Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford), a powerbroker in S.H.I.E.L.D. and head of the World Security Council. The casting of American cinema’s ‘Golden Boy’ is an unmistakable callback to the post-Watergate conspiracy thriller era; the most relevant examples are Redford’s own Three Days of the Condor and All the President’s Men. In Hollywood speak, The Sundance Kid has ‘still got it’; with his masterful turn in JC Chandor’s All is Lost acting as the serious counterpoint to his screen-consuming ‘movie-star’ charisma here, 2013/14 reaffirms Redford as one of the industry’s all-time greats.

With S.H.I.E.L.D. imploding, the Captain and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansen, playing up her sexiness opposite Evan’s buffed but straitlaced he-man) find themselves on the run from both the organisation’s foot soldiers and an assassin known as The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), a Keyser Soze-like killer who provides a link (albeit a tenuous one) to Rogers’ past. Anthony Mackie adds weight as newbie Sam Wilson, aka Falcon, and fans will appreciate small roles for series support players Cobie Smulders, Toby Jones and Hayley Atwell.

The time is right for a resurgence in smart mainstream films that question the actions of our leaders; post 9/11, the primary movie-going demographic is also the most distrustful of government overreach. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have delivered a script that melds action movie tropes with serious-minded themes, though not always with the precision required to allow Captain America: The Winter Soldier to fully transcend its genre origins. Ultimately, it is just another comic book movie, and a fine one at that, but it came frustratingly close to being so much more.

VERONICA MARS

Stars: Kristen Bell, Jason Dohring, Chris Lowell, Percy Daggs III, Tina Majorino, Krysten Ritter, Martin Starr, Enrico Colantoni, Francis Capra, Ryan Hansen, Gaby Hoffman, Ken Marino and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Writer: Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero.
Director: Rob Thomas.

Rating: 3.5/5

Having crowdfunded the project to the tune of US$5million, series creator Rob Thomas honours the ‘money where their hearts are’ wishes of the hardcore fans, delivering what amounts to a really, really good bigscreen TV episode of his cult show, Veronica Mars.

Some snazzy pre-credit imagery recaps the key details of the series for non-fans before we meet the adult incarnation of our heroine. Mars has left her So-Cal enclave of Neptune and is on the verge of making it big as a Manhattan lawyer, having secured a job with Jamie Lee Curtis’ firm.

But the murder of her highschool friend implicates her bad boy teen sweetheart Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) and, despite her better judgement, Mars returns to her hometown to solve the mystery. She puts at risk her blossoming career and sweet home life she shares with nice guy bf, Piz (Chris Lowell) to revisit the place and people she left behind

If the plotting sounds a little too ‘reunion episode’ familiar (which it is), Thomas makes the most of every character interaction and emotional beat. Most of the returning cast are given ample room to deliver a crowdpleasing moment or two; best amongst them Ryan Hansen lovable doofus Dick, Waterworld moppet Tina Majorino now all grown up as Mac and Enrico Colantoni as Mr Mars. Less convincing is Dohring, who fails to translate whatever small-screen appeal he had to the broader canvas.

Of course, it is Kristen Bell who has exhibited the strongest career trajectory since the series folded and she brings all her leading lady experience; her skill as an actress allows her to fill the screen while never foregoing the sweet but tough essence of the teen Veronica which made her semi-famous.

Unlike the usual TV-to-film adaptions that have been de rigeur in Hollywood for the last couple of decades, Veronica Mars is not a flagrant exercise in ‘bigger is better’ expansion, the likes of which traditionally provide very mixed results (recent notables include The X-Files, The Last Airbender, Get Smart and Miami Vice). Thomas’ effort remains determinedly loyal to its source with only the occasional and therefore highly effective indulgence in cinematic licence. Perhaps most remarkable for being diligently unremarkable, Veronica Mars is exactly the film that fans were pining for and offers the kind of confident, small-scale storytelling that is eminently watchable to those new to the ‘marshmallow’* army.

* A term used to describe fans of the show, it is derived from the first episode, in which friend Wallace (Percy Daggs III) says to the tough but soft-hearted heroine, "You're a marshmallow, Veronica Mars."  

NYMPHOMANIAC VOLUME 1 and VOLUME 2

Stars: Stacy Martin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Uma Thurman, Willem Dafoe, Mia Goth, Connie Nielsen and Udo Kier.
Writer/Director: Lars von Trier.

Rating: 3.5/5

The most shocking revelation that Danish cinematic agitator Lars von Trier offers up in his provocatively titled Nymphomaniac is that, for much of its exorbitant running time, it is a lot of fun.

Not the fun that mainstream audiences know as ‘fun’; from the extreme close-ups of genitalia to its sado-masochistic beatings, it is unlikely that the recollections of von Trier’s sex addict heroine will be confused with Hollywood’s latest rom-com romp. But there is a playfulness that will surprise the art house crowds that are used to Trier’s darker indulgences of the flesh; those still recovering from ‘the scissor scene’ in Antichrist can rest assured no such horrors manifest here.

Von Trier’s use of a flashback structure results in his most linear narrative in recent memory. After a long opening shot of a dark screen accompanied by the faint trickling of water (evocative enough to audience members primed for hardcore fetishism), the prone body of a bloody woman in a dark alleyway is revealed. Passerby Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) takes her to his small apartment where he tends her wounds and settles in for the long, Scheherazade-like story of how far the wounded Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) has fallen.

The two actors make for compelling intellectual counterparts and allow von Trier to indulge in some of his most buoyant dialogue. Gainsbourg creates a sympathetic if occasionally chilly and detached protagonist. Her Joe archetypically resembles the sexually liberated lead characters in Catherine Breillat’s film Romance (1999) and Charlotte Roche’s book Wetlands (recently adapted into a film by David Wnendt), for whom existence is defined by a compulsive and profound relationship with their own sexual essence (“I discovered my c**t at age 2,” is how Joe begins the story of her life’s trajectory).

As Joe recounts a life ruled by desire, Seligman draws comparisons to his own compulsions, such as fly-fishing, Bach’s grand works and his study of literary and artistic influences. The director takes full advantage of Seligman’s digressions, unloading an arsenal of visual tricks (chapter headings, split-screens, super-imposed graphics; monochrome) that mostly enhance the storytelling.

In Volume 1, it is newcomer Stacy Martin as Joe aged 15-30ish who is most often called upon to get down and dirty. Martin is suitably nymph-like, a compelling if occasionally blank-faced presence that personifies the ‘girlish seductress’ who can convince a committed husband dashing home because his wife is ovulating to submit to a public fellating. The plotting that binds the two 2 hour episodes involves the fate-filled coupling of Joe and Jerome (Shia Labeouf); for a film whose central character refuses to believe in the false reality of romance, their journey is one filled with cute coincidences and chance meetings.

By Volume 2, Joe and Jerome have sucked and f***ed themselves into a sex addict’s version of domestic bliss; they have had a child whose needs come second to Joe’s. Her life devolves into niche sexual experimentation rather than any derivation of pleasure; brutal bondage sessions (at the hands of Jamie Bell’s S&M master in the film’s most confronting scenes), an ill-judged threesome with two BBDs and a life of crime where her sexual knowledge proves a valuable weapon are all stages of her personal descent.

Christian Slater as Joe’s father and a fierce cameo from Uma Thurman as the spurned wife of one of Joe’s conquests highlight the director’s skill with actors. One senses more may be made of Connie Nielsen as Joe’s ice-cold mother and Willem Dafoe’s baddie in the 5½ hour directors cut (due for release in some territories, including Australia, in late 2014), as their roles here amount to very little.

Despite tackling some of cinema’s most taboo topics, Lars von Trier is working well within traditional film comfort zones. His script reveals Seligman to be an asexual virgin, a reality destined to be confronted within the context of a film called ‘Nymphomaniac’; a gun is randomly introduced, so savvy audiences will know that Chekhov’s narrative observation will be invoked. His script is smart and the images confronting, but it is a far less ambitious or important work than Antichrist or his last love/hate vision, Melancholia.

It is, however, impossible to look away. The great Dane’s study of corrosive sexuality (most importantly, from a female perspective) is bold, engaging and thought provoking. Nymphomaniac is too sex as Leaving Las Vegas was to booze or Requiem For a Dream was to drugs; an insight into addiction that paints a life of false highs and dire lows for sufferers caught in the torment of their disease.

WHEN MY SORROW DIED: THE LEGEND OF ARMEN RA & THE THEREMIN

Stars: Armen Ra, Pat Field, Amanda Lepore and Justin Tranter.
Director: Robert Nazar Arjoyan

Reviewed at the Opening Night of the 2014 Byron Bay International Film Festival.

Screening at the 2015 Revelation Perth International Film Festival. Visit the official website for venue and ticket information.

Rating: 4/5

Creativity as a life-defining, soul-saving virtue is central to the story of Theremin maestro Armen Ra, as captured in Robert Nazar Arjoyan’s elegant, moving concert/biopic When My Sorrow Died. 

Candidly recounting key moments in his personal growth, Ra oozes an enigmatic appeal in conversation with an off-camera interviewer (with some nicely timed glances towards his audience). What emerges are recollections of life lived as an outsider, initially by society’s design then ultimately on his own terms.

Born into a minority in Iran, the threat of persecution was ever present; violent bullying at his new American high school was painful but helped define his self-worth. His acceptance amongst the LGBT community of NYC was reaffirming but substance abuse stifled growth; having achieved a degree of sobriety, he became one of the greatest living proponents of the ethereal electronic instrument.

Ra’s fine features and feminine curves made him a drag superstar and Arjoyan’s camera captures all his charms, both physical and intellectual. Often appearing to be at one with the lushly glamourous set design against which he is framed (and which he personally compiled for the film), the enigmatic musician lays bare periods of drug and alcohol consumption. His fateful take on how the theremin came into his life and set about redefining his very existence is deeply affecting.

Interspersed with Ra’s recollections is intimately staged concert footage that captures the prowess and precision required to be a master of the seven octave theremin, the only instrument played by not touching it and the first electronic musical device invented.

When My Sorrow Died charts the emergence of a man in the guise of an artist, of a life made richer by reconciliation with one’s demons. Robert Nazar Arjoyan’s detailed, heartfelt ode to a musical genius also soars as study of unique individual searching for and ultimately finding a path to acceptance and understanding. Armen Ra’s journey and talent deserves a film that transcends the concert film genre and Arjoyan delivers on that with graceful style.