Filmography

[the_lady_lily]

Tinker, Sailor, Soldier, Spy (2011)

I haven't seen the original film, and wasn't quite sure how I was going to get on with this, but it's actually pretty darn good. It's very spare, letting the camera work do all of the action, and keeping the dialogue to an absolute minimum. In fact, Smiley's one extended speech at the centre of the film stands out as a really important episode precisely because it's the most he speaks in the whole film. The director, Tomas Alfredson, is a master at communicating subtext through filming seemingly irrelevant scenes; for instance, the film constantly flashbacks to one particular office Christmas party, where each time we see another snippet, we understand something more about the characters who we see before us. There are also some very good roles for usually comic characters - Kathy Burke has an excellent cameo, and Roger Lloyd-Pack features as an ex-something-or-other man who provides Smiley with back-up as he tries to work out the identity of the Russian mole at the top of British intelligence.

The whole film is sparse but perfectly poised, spare if you will. It was gripping to watch, with some simply superb cinematography. I can see why it did so well at the BAFTAs and, indeed, in critical reception more generally. Marvellous stuff, although (obviously) do be in the mood for a thriller before sitting down to it.

Strictly Ballroom

Brilliantly, unashamedly daft good fun. Will Scott Hastings, star of his dance studio, win the Pan Pacific Grand Prix, despite his heretical belief that he can make up his own steps? Will Fran, only a beginner, have the courage to ask him to be her partner? Will Fran's immigrant family ever take Scott to their busom? Will the Hastings family secrets ever be revealed??

It's dreadfully camp, it's terribly contrived, the actors ham it up with completely straight faces, and it's brilliant feel-good entertainment. With dance routines and shiny costumes and Performance Smiles on. I had no idea this was a Baz Luhrmann, but it explains a lot about Moulin Rouge, is all I'm saying.

Ella Enchanted

A bit of fluff. Fairly unremarkable - a young girl is given the gift of obedience by a fairy godmother and then finds herself in the position where obedience may lead to her killing the young man she loves, who also happens to be the heir apparent to Fairyland. There are some extremely problematic issues about coercion, domestic violence and all sorts of other things in here. The film sort of touches on them, but it smoothes over other places where, actually, there is real nasty unpleasant squick value. The point, incidentally, turns out to be that she has the ability to not obey inside her, and thus not kill said prince, but it's still all just a bit EEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW. I can see a good moral hidden under there, and there are some fun vignettes, but the whole underlying concept is just so icky and incompletely presented that I can't really recommend it in good conscience. And that's despite Joanna Lumley on mildly amusing form. Yeah, could have been a lot better if it had actually been a bit more self-aware and focused less on the whole 'yes, we are going to have a baddie who cackles, because that's enough tounge-in-cheek awareness for us!' side of things. Sigh.

46 - Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - to be reviewed Elsewhere.

47 - Derek Jarman's Sebastiane - to be reviewed Elsewhere.

Comments

[metonymy.livejournal.com]

I remember the book Ella Enchanted as being really good and straightforwardly dealing with the issues you describe, but I heard the movie was a travesty of an adaptation and never bothered with it. Sigh.

Tinker Tailor was so good. Very edge-of-the-seat stuff. I need to see the miniseries version. And also read the book.

And Strictly Ballroom is one of my favorites - the scene to "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" is perfect.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

I am getting the sense that I need to chase down the Ella Enchanted book...

I'd like to see the original Tinker, Tailor - apparently they form a very well-functioning complementary pair, each taking the material somewhere different but where it works.

I cannot believe nobody had told me Strictly Ballroom was that good. It may have entered my feelgood film canon now.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

My parents gave me their copy of the miniseries. We agreed that it's more involved than most things you see on TV: you have to really pay attention to follow it. And it's a pretty good adaption, although the film was too.

Ella Enchanted

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, there's a book? I need to stop treating Hollywood as a form of entertainment and start treating it as a "to read" list. It seems whenever I see a dodgy-looking film with a good premise, there was an excellent book I'd not heard of.

(Or to be fair, it may only be the bad films I notice: it may just be that the goodness of adaptions is basically unrealted, so sometimes you get a good film based on a bad book and sometimes you get a good but completely different film based on a book with good and bad parts...)

I thought the premise of Ella was excellent, a good interpretation of the fairy-godmother trope. And I saw it after several people praised it for a very accurate portrayal of abusive family relationships.

But on the other hand, it seemed to be set in a tedious Hollywood fairyland, where everything was a shallow (and often rather offensive) stereotype about this world, rather than showing any sort of worldbuilding. The leprechaun rather annoyed me, although I don't know for sure what people in Ireland would think.

Re: Ella Enchanted

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

The twist on the godmother idea was a good spin, and it could have worked very well - but, as I say, it just went too shallow. There was a sort of hint about 'forcing people into stereotypical roles they shouldn't be in' as a political policy move, but again, it was an idea that just didn't quite come off in the film version. I shall be following the advice to read the book as well.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Please, please, forget the hideous horrible movie that is Ella Enchanted and go read the book instead. Please. Gail Carson Levine is a delightful writer.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Duly noted and added to the list!

[mejoff.livejournal.com]

The original (well, first screen adaptation of) Tinker, Tailor wasn't a film, it was a BBC series. Not a s slick as the movie, but better suited to the material, as there's barely an episode of Spooks' worth of plot, but far too much character-work to fit into a feature. As it was, though I thoroughly enjoyed all the performances in the film, it was simultaneously rushed and far too long.