FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

Stars: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle, Eloise Mumford, Luke Grimes, Victor Rasuk, Max Martini, Rita Ora and Marcia Gay Harden.
Writer: Kelly Marcel; based upon the novel by E.L. James.
Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson.

Rating: 3/5

There is hardcore porn to be had in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s much-hyped adaptation of the E.L. James publishing behemoth, just not the kind that went down in the saucy pages of the authoress’ lit-phenomenon. What the bigscreen visualisation lacks in graphic sexual detail, it more than makes up for in lavishly shiny materialism; Fifty Shades of Grey is wealth-porn, of the most base and immoral kind.

We meet our heroine, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) as she nears the end of her English Literature course. The buttoned-up, tightly-wound wall flower has paid her own way through college, her middle-class upbringing a normal one steeped in a solid work ethic and positive maternal figure (Jennifer Ehle). Stepping up to help her sick roomie BFF Kate (Eloise Mumford), Anastasia agrees to interview the enigmatic socialite Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), a chiselled-jaw millionaire telcom exec, and an oddly defined attraction forms between them.

‘Ana’ learns very early on that Christian is a psychologically damaged individual who will offer no long-term, emotionally stable co-existence. Yet she indulges herself in her own fantasy life, embracing the opulence of his 1% lifestyle. That comes at a price – she must adhere to his demands of male-dominant sexual submissiveness. Whether in his lean, muscly embrace or, as the ‘relationship’ progresses, chained to his dungeon wall taking a gentle flogging, she smiles and gasps and moans, like a soft-core B-movie queen. Yet her most heartfelt sensations stem from those breathless, pulse-quickening first glimpses of his helicopter, collection of cars or shimmering steel-and-glass apartment.

The actors have an ambiguous, edgy chemistry that serves the film well. Johnson grows into her character convincingly as the narrative progresses, bravely baring all when required to do so; Dornan plays Christian with an icy stare and rigid formality, reflecting the character’s need to be in total control. British director Taylor-Johnson’s last foray into cinematic sexuality was a short segment in 2006’s very ‘European’ anthology, Destricted, in which a young hunk pleasures himself to climax in the desert. Her latest take on the ‘alpha-male’ archetype is not too dissimilar; Christian is also a bit of a wanker, surrounded by a barren, lifeless landscape, in this case the shiny boardrooms and penthouses of an appropriately grey Seattle.

Over an hour in, we get the first glimpse of how close the film will align itself to the books stark intimacy. But, barring one spontaneous bedroom bout of highly-energised action, the overly-choreographed raunch is mildly titillating at best; the baring of bottoms and boobs with the occasional glimpse of down-there hair is played with an earnestness that gets a bit giggly at times. The decision to launch the film internationally at the Berlinale may backfire, with continental audiences bound to roll their eyes at the exaggerated sexual melodrama played out in Christian’s ‘playroom’. Thankfully, scripter Kelly Marcel mostly reins in the florid ridiculousness of the novel’s ripe dialogue, yet somehow let Christian’s plaintive cry, “I’m fifty shades of f**ked-up” slip through.

The most lasting impression is the nonchalance with which the production refuses to acknowledge the arrogance of the rich in this post-GFC world; when Anastasia asks Christian about his conglomerate’s philanthropic endeavours, he states without irony, “It’s good for business”. Seamus McGarvey’s glistening cinematography and David Wasco’s extravagant production design celebrates the excesses of the rich like few films have dared to in recent years. This is a world that recalls the ‘Greed is Good’ mantra of 80’s yuppiedom; an America that has cast aside the ‘all for one’ goodwill of post 9-11 western society and rediscovered the tenets of the ‘Me Generation’. There are thematic echoes of American Psycho and Bonfire of The Vanities, but not a drop of those much finer works’ knowing, satirical skewering of gaudy wealth.

It may be perfectly sufficient that, above all else, Fifty Shades of Grey captures the shallow essence of its source material. It is an indulgent guilty-pleasure of no consequence whatsoever, preferring to forego the deeper ramifications of a dark sexual lifestyle in favour of a franchise-starting origin story.

WYRMWOOD

Stars: Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradley, Leon Burchill, Luke McKenzie, Yure Covich, Keith Agius, Catherine Terracini and Meganne West.
Writers: Kiah Roache-Turner and Tristan Roache-Turner
Director: Kiah Roache-Turner.

Rating: 4/5

Feverish fan-boy fanaticism meets film-making fearlessness in the undead ocker shocker, Wyrmwood. Brothers Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner channel their clearly compulsive love for B-movie bloodletting into a debut work that honours the ‘Gore Gods’ of yore as efficiently as it announces the arrival of their own brand of genre genius.

Like death-metal music for the eyes, The Roache-Turner’s bludgeon their audience with a visual and aural onslaught that leaves no skull unexploded in their depiction of a hell-on-earth that is the new Australia. Bold enough to draw upon that hoary old horror trope ‘the meteor shower’ as the narrative kicker, the debutant filmmakers (Kiah gets sole directing honours; both take a writing credit) embark upon a slight but superbly entertaining survival story that pits everyman hero Barry (Jay Gallagher), his sister Brooke (Bianca Bradley, in a ballsy, up-for-anything performance) and new mate Benny (scene-stealer Leon Burchill) against a sunburnt nation of flesh cravers.

Horror-hounds will find the Roache-Turner’s gleeful cinematic nightmare pleasingly familiar. The most influential works are certainly Peter Jackson’s Braindead (aka Dead Alive, 1992), which featured the steely blue and rich crimson colour palette embraced by DOP Tim Nagle; Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness (1992), with its ultra-quick zooms, rapid-fire editing; and, Dr George Miller’s Mad Max (1979), with its ‘vengeful, grieving father’ anti-hero and mastery of open-road car-on-car action. Nods to Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake (2004) and fellow Aussie sibling-auteurs Michael and Peter Spierig’s Undead (2003) are also present.

But instead of a repackaged homage to their teen year favourites, The Roache-Turners afford Wyrmwood its own strong sense of self-worth. One character’s telepathic connection to the zombie hordes proves crucial to the narrative’s effectiveness; the implication that zombie by-products may be the newest renewable energy is a sly masterstroke; and, a revelation (however tenuously defined) that a universal blood type unites the survivors hints at a hopeful outcome for humanity.

Less assured is the establishment of the film’s real-world villains. The zombies terrify on a visceral level, but the vile antics of a disco-dancing, psychopathic scientist (Berryn Schwerdt) charged with assimilating zombie spinal fluid and Brooke’s human blood don’t sufficiently set up the level of conflict required to ensure a convincing third act face-off with a monologue-ing military jerk (Luke McKenzie). Some perfunctory fisticuffs rob the zombies and the audience of the apocalyptic-size melee expected (such as that delivered by Raimi in his third and epic Evil Dead film); it is the only instance where the meagre budget (an astonishing A$150,000) may have handicapped the auteur’s ambition.

Irrespective of its shortcomings, Wyrmwood will prove a horror festival staple for the rest of 2015 and a boys-own party favourite well into its home entertainment afterlife. As spelt out by blokish bushman Frank (a terrific Keith Agius) in one of the film’s rare quiet moments, the Book of Revelations told of the fallen star ‘Wormwood,’ sent plummeting to Earth by the trumpet cry of an angel, decimating all but those God left to determine their own destinies. For all its grotesque hellishness, Wyrmwood is similarly heaven-sent.

Wyrmwood will open the Perth Underground Film Festival on February 12; tickets available here.

ROCKS IN MY POCKETS

Voice Cast: Signe Baumane.
Writer/Director: Signe Baumane.

Rating: 4/5

Latvian-born, US-based filmmaker Signe Baumane draws upon a rich history of European animation to propel Rocks in My Pockets, her charming, incisive and very contemporary study of generational depression and suicidal tendencies.

The dreamlike work recounts the struggle with mental illness experienced by the women of Baumane’s family. Raising questions of how much family genetics determine who we are and if it is possible to outsmart one’s own DNA, this landmark film engages with wit and empathy via visual metaphors, surreal images and a twisted sense of humour; it is an animated odyssey encompassing art, matriarchal angst, strange folkloric stories, Latvian nature, history, the natural world and the artist’s own sense of longing.

Utilising the structural and symbolic framework of a century of conflict in the Baltic region, Baumane undertakes the daunting artistic and intellectual task of presenting the crippling impact that the darkest of mindsets had upon her grandmother Anna, her cousins and ultimately, herself. Stop-motion techniques, papier mache landscapes, simple colour-pencil flourishes and traditional 2D cell animation combine to profound and blackly comic affect to convey themes which explore rarely spoken-of elements such as infanticide, the mechanics of hanging oneself and patriarchal tyranny.

Baumane served as assistant to the great animator Bill Plympton, the Oscar-nominated creator of such memorable works as Guard Dog (2004), Your Face (1987) and Idiots and Angels (2008). His influence is clear, predominantly in surreal sequences that defy real world physical properties. Other inspirations include the metaphorical embracing of the animal kingdom as used by Russian visionary Yuriy Norshteyn (The Fox and The Hare, 1973; Hedgehog in the Fog, 1975); the surreal oeuvre of Czech auteur Jan Svankmajer (Alice, 1988; Faust, 1994; Little Otik, 2000); and, Persepolis (2007), the Oscar-nominated adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s female-centric graphic novel by director Vincent Paronnaud.

Yet Baumane has also crafted a unique and vivid animation landscape of her own. From her grandmother’s attempts at suicide on riverbank in a 1920’s Latvian forest to the claustrophobic shadows of modern New York City where the director mulls over self-harm, Rocks in My Pocket proves an insightful, cathartic experience in bonding for Baumane and her audience. Like all great art, her animation is borne of a need for truth and demands, and rewards, one’s intellectual and emotional engagement.

TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (Deux jours, une nuit)

Stars: Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione and Catherine Salee.
Writers/Directors: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne.

Rating: 4.5/5

Deceptively minimalist in its realism as only the cherished Dardennes Brothers can be, Two Days, One Night is, in fact, a soaring study in the fragility and fierceness of the human spirit.

As Sandra, the struggling young mum whose home and livelihood is threatened by heartless corporate cost cutting, Marion Cotillard further strengthens her status as arguably the finest actress working in film today; the Oscar and Cesar overseers agree, nominating her for Lead Actress at this year's ceremonies. Soliciting the pity of all her workmates, several of whom have already voted to have her sacked in favour of a Euro1000 bonus, Cotillard conveys a wave of desperate emotions that have her (and the audience) on the brink of tears from the first frame.

The Dardennes have always brought tremendous insight into the plight of their heroines. From their 1999 breakout hit, Rosetta, to 2011’s festival favourite, The Kid with a Bike, the Belgian brothers have constructed determined and damaged leading lady roles that (they produced Cotillard’s triumphant tearjerker, Rust and Bone, in 2012). They are also filmmakers who stridently refuse to indulge in sentimentality, a narrative avenue that presents itself as an option at several key moments in their latest work but which remains at a directorial arm’s length.

Capturing easily identifiable authenticity in its smallest moments (a shattering stillness at the family dinner table; Sandra’s nonchalant downing of anti-depressants), Two Days, One Night may be the film that most sublimely melds the barebones emotional reality in which their protagonists eek out survival with themes that are both deeply personal yet define our societal existence. It presents the consummate movie actress of her generation stripping bare the vanities of her profession to portray an everywoman hero, gently coaxed to life by filmmakers with a profound grasp of true emotion.

THE QUARANTINE HAUNTINGS

Stars: Lauren Clark, Elizabeth Wiltshire, Darren Moss, Jack Marshall, Jenna Edwards, Bailey Skelton, Peter Sumner and Troy Harrison.
Writers: Bianca Biasi, Rebekah Biasi, Arnold Perez, Josh Sambono and Stephanie Talevski.
Director: Bianca Biasi and Arnold Perez.

Rating: 3/5

Co-directors Bianca Biasi and Arnold Perez deliver a skilfully crafted calling card pic with their psychological thriller/ghost story mash-up, The Quarantine Hauntings. Exhibiting a solid understanding of genre machinations, the pair make up for a lack of narrative inspiration with sufficiently solid scares. Cable TV and digi-download viewership amongst those who appreciate high ambition on a low budget is assured.

A hectic 24-hour handheld shoot at the infamous Quarantine Station on Sydney’s most northern headland is central to both the plot and the pic’s marketing. (Urban legends have proven popular of late with Oz filmmakers; Carlo Ledesma’s The Tunnel [2011] explored the abandoned subterranean network under Sydney, while Dane Millerd took on the legend of the Yowie in There’s Something in The Pillaga [2014]). Although fully restored for the tourist trade, the old hospital site once housed the seriously ill in archaic conditions during the nation’s early colonial period. The high mortality rate led to its reputation as one of the east coast’s most haunted sites, home to several spectres that have allegedly appeared to the unsuspecting for many years.

One such apparition is Jolene (Dalisha Cristina), aka ‘The Girl in The Pink Dress’, a 9 year-old who passed away as medicos bickered over her treatment. Seen in flashback (with veteran character actor Peter Sumner supplying some old-school villainy), Biasi and Perez employ slick post-production trickery to create a nightmarishly immersive vision of poor Jolene’s final moments.

Thematically, the film adheres (at times, tenuously) to such horror genre staples as grief, memory and regret. Key protagonist Jasmine (a particularly fine Lauren Clark) continues to struggle with the death of her father; bff Skye (Elizabeth Wiltshire) offers positivity, guiding her through boyfriend dramas (Daren Moss’ douche-y Cameron) and parental discord. Always nearby is Skye’s younger brother Blake and his offsider Zac (respectively, Bailey Skelton and Jack Marshall) in the smart-mouth comic relief roles that would have been played by Corey’s Haim and Feldman thirty years ago, and little sister Eva (an underused Jenna Edwards).  

The reckless recital of an ancient incantation summons Jolene from beyond and the angry spirit seeks out kindred dark soul Jasmine, who has holed up with the group of friends to sleep off antidepressant medication. One moment of true terror, a darkly lit scene during which the extent of Jolene and Jasmine supernatural bond is revealed, is the stuff of nightmares. The unfolding of broader plot points becomes both overly familiar and unnecessarily convoluted, but the performances overall are natural and engaging and few of the clichés will register with the film’s target teenage demographic.

The second and third acts combine lots of references to classics of the genre – a character notes that the diary that contains the spell “looks like the Necronomicon”; Cameron’s late night snacking turns into a homage to a similar scene in Poltergeist; and, Jolene’s muted colour and long black hair unavoidably recall the Yurei spirit seen in J-horror classics Ringu and Ju-On: The Grudge.

Also embraced are the ‘shaky-cam’ techniques and ‘real-world’ lensing (security cameras, mobile phones, etc) that have been refined in standard bearers The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. Most of the late night panic at the quarantine station is deliberately hard to decipher; the result is more disorienting than terrifying, but achieves enough chills to satisfy.

SCREEN-SPACE was a grateful guest of the production at The Quarantine Hauntings premiere, held at the Quarantine Station site ahead of a limited local theatrical season.

PAPER PLANES

Stars: Ed Oxenbould, Sam Worthington, Deborah Mailman, Nicholas Bakopoulos-Cooke, Ena Imai, Terry Norris, Peter Rowsthorn, Julian Dennison and David Wenham.
Writer: Steve Worland and Robert Connolly.
Director: Robert Connolly.

Rating: 2/5

Although it is tempting to be swayed by the ‘…but the kids’ll love it’ point of view, highly respected director Robert Connolly’s change-of-pace family pic Paper Planes is folksy, heavy-handed whimsy that barely finds its wings before crashlanding.

Writing with Steve Worland, whose last feature screenplay was the stomping dance pic Bootmen in 2000, Connolly foregoes the smarts of his more mature work (The Bank, 2001; Three Dollars, 2005; Balibo, 2009) to win over his target demographic with trite dialogue and plotting that grinds through the feel-good tropes. There is exuberance in the staging but not an ounce of real-world emotion in the narrative, which manufactures cute contrivances in place of genuine heart and accomplished storytelling (such as that found in the Oscar-winning animated short Paperman, also featuring the folded flying phenomenon).

The key protagonist is poor country kid, Dylan (Ed Oxenbould), a self-sufficient tween-ager who lives with his emotionally distant father Jack (Sam Worthington) on the dusty outskirts of Walerup in the Western Australian hinterland. The setting represents a return to the troubled dad/spirited son outback milieu that Connolly handled with far greater skill as producer on the Eric Bana 2007 vehicle, Romulus My Father (Bana returns the favour with an executive producer’s credit here).

The pair are doing it tough, with Jack struggling to deal with the grief of having lost his wife, Cindy (supermodel Nicole Trunfio, in flashback) only five months before. That said, Dylan seems to have bounced back pretty well from the loss; Oxenbould’s one-note performance conveys none of the shattering sense of loss a boy his age must be experiencing. The actor’s greatest struggle is more often with breathing any life into his strained, cumbersome lines.

Bouncing between Dylan’s home life and time spent in the company of cool maths teacher Mr Hickenlooper (a fun Peter Rowsthorne), these early scenes rarely ring true, mired in a struggle to establish a believable tonality. Dylan suffers at the hands of funny fat-kid bully Kevin (Julian Dennison), whose actions seem particularly callous given the recent tragic past; Grandpa (Terry Norris) is a randy old codger (wink-wink scenes with Dylan as he skips between bedrooms at the local nursing home are off-putting), who encourages his grandkid’s imagination but seems ignorant of the financial strife his grief-stricken family is in.

A chance school visit by a paper plane whiz kid leads Dylan to discover that he may have otherworldly skill in the art of A4 aeronautics, when his first attempt soars through doorways, down corridors and, ultimately, beyond the horizon. This early scene establishes that the ‘paper planes’ of the title won’t be paper at all but CGI renditions, capable of extraordinarily dexterous mid-air manoeuvrability. It’s a ‘go with it or be left behind’ challenge by Connolly, whose film soars or sinks on how willing its audience is to suspend disbelief in several key moments while also demanding a very real emotional involvement it never earns.

Dylan’s new skill takes him to Sydney, where he meets ambitious competitor Jason (Nicholas Bakopoulos-Cooke, playing villainy so broadly he might twist his moustache if he were old enough to have one), lovely Japanese entrant Kimi (Ena Imai) and ex-champ-turned-administrator, Maureen (Deborah Mailman, laying on the ‘comedic support’ schtick). Also on hand is David Wenham as Jason’s dad Patrick, a wizened ex-pro golfer who flits in and out of a handful of scenes as if he was above the whole endeavour.

The plot beats a very familiar path from here on in, with competition heats determining who goes to Tokyo for the Paper Plane World Championships conjuring some undeserved moments of faux excitement. The only left-field surprise in the third act is one character’s skill at securing cash for a plane ticket and getting from rural WA to the Japanese capital in less than a day.

Full disclosure: your reviewer’s 9 year-old daughter had a remarkably better time watching Paper Planes than her dad did. Granted, given all the shortcomings with which reviewers are likely to take issue, there is something to be said for the film’s efforts at a certain joie de vivre, especially at a time when children’s films exist mostly to spruik a toy tie-in.

BEYOND CLUELESS

Narrator: Fairuza Balk.
Writer/director: Charlie Lyne.

Rating: 4.5/5

Detractors will claim Charlie Lyne’s clip-umentary Beyond Clueless, a vivid, captivating study of 90’s teen cinema, over-intellectualizes a period in the history of the genre that does not warrant such profundity. I mean, how deep can a Freddie Prinze Jr movie really be?

Yet Lyne, a UK-based cultural commentator and loud-&-proud teen movie advocate, affords the period that began with Amy Heckerling’s masterpiece Clueless and closed out with the Tina Fey-scripted Mean Girls a deeper sociological insight than it has ever undergone before. Beyond Clueless is an artfully rendered, thesis-like appraisal of the resonating relevance of such undervalued films as Idle Hands, Disturbing Behaviour, Can’t Hardly Wait (pictured, top), Bubble Boy, The Girl Next Door, Jeepers Creepers and Eurotrip, works derided by most film scholars (if they ever considered them at all).

Guided by the tonally rich narration of 90’s bad girl Fairuza Balk (her most famous film, Andrew Fleming’s witchcraft-clique thriller The Craft, is deconstructed in Lyne’s first volley of insight), Beyond Clueless utilises footage from approximately 200 films to paint a vast, incisive portrait of the teen experience as captured on film. Broken into chapters, Lyne and his sublimely talented team of editors tackle the very issues that teenagers and teenage films confront daily – the multi-tiered social structure of high-school; the us-vs-them sense of rebellion; discovering one’s sexuality, whatever form it takes; the existential struggle to find your own place on your own terms.

Each chapter rounds out with a montage of images that drive home Lyne’s conjecture to the beat of UK band Summer Camp, who provided an original soundtrack to the film. It is entirely fitting – most great teen films were driven by carefully chosen music that, until recently, would also top the album charts, and the music is eminently collectible. It adds immeasurably to the film’s high point, a spellbinding sequence of bloody, brutal images set to a driving metal riff that conveys the compulsion some teens develop for violence as an outlet.    

If the revered works of 80s auteur John Hughes define the moment when contemporary cinema gave teenagers a fresh, honest voice, Beyond Clueless teaches us that the life, loves and psychology of the turn-of-the-century teen were a harder-to-define mix of individualism, alienation and rebellion. Granted, these are all traits that have helped explain away the angst of teenagers since the dawn of man, but the eve of the new millennium brought its own unique period of ink-black uncertainty and rose-coloured hindsight. Teenagers felt the brunt of this tide of change; filmmakers tackled their concerns as best they could. Beyond Clueless captures the complexity of that brief but essential moment in a generation’s formation with great insight and deep humanity.

Director Charlie Lyne will preview Beyond Clueless and front a Q&A series across the U.K. from January 13. The film will screen in Australia at the Perth Underground Film Festival in February.

IN DARKNESS WE LIVE

Stars: Mon Confiado, Alex Vincent Medina, Gerald Napoles, Imelda Schweighart, Gloria Sevilla and Katy Fernandez.
Writer/Director: Christopher Ad Castillo

Rating: 3.5/5

The intriguing output of Christopher Ad Castillo takes a decidedly twisted and shadowy turn in his latest, the bloody and often bewildering In Darkness We Live. The deliberately obfuscated narrative and grimy aesthetic won’t win over those who came down hard on his last film, the under-appreciated thriller The Diplomat Hotel, but there is no denying he is a keen craftsman with vivid, idiosyncratic storytelling instincts.

From an opening sequence that ‘rat-a-tats’ with Tarantino references, the Filipino auteur pummels into a second and third act homage-of-sorts to the bloody crime thrillers of Takashi Miike, the splattery body-horror of the French extremist movement and the flash-forward/back machinations of David Lynch’s dreamlike oeuvre. Castillo wears his filmic inspirations on his sleeve, that much is certain, but he displays the confidence and skill to make the references his own.

Audiences get a glimpse of what’s in-store from a credit sequence in which a terrified man, sodden with blood, lurches through thick undergrowth before being met by an ominous hooded figure. Soon, two black-suited tough guys (a stoic Mon Confiado; a fiery Alex Medina), with an offsider (Jerald Napoles) bleeding to death in their car, face-off in the aftermath of what we learn is a botched high-stakes robbery (ala, Reservoir Dogs). Watching on with a chilly indifference is Imelda Schweighart as the cold-hearted femme fatale, recalling both Pulp Fiction’s Honey Bunny and Natural Born Killer’s Mallory Knox as the film’s quietly unhinged, super sexed-up grindhouse x-factor.

Lost and without gas, they stumble into the jungle night and upon a vine-enshrouded mansion, home to a quivering young woman (Katy Fernandez) and her all-seeing grandmother (Gloria Sevilla). It is once inside the shadowy halls of the house that Castillo revs it up a notch, upping the mystery and the terror with a supernatural element in the form of little-known Filipino ‘Angel of Death’ myth, Ang Kumakatok (That Who Knocks). The filmmaker’s twisting of the psychological knife into his protagonists leads to the same ruthless vigour when they ultimately unleash upon each other. Suffice to say, the denouement is not for the faint-hearted.

Shot on a shoestring and reliant upon an occasionally intrusive soundtrack of thumping metal riffs to cover sequences that would have called for expensive foley work, there is no denying the rough-hewn edges of In Darkness We Live. Yet the handheld camerawork is employed with tremendous skill, only called upon to enhance proceedings, never cradle them. The twist ending (mostly) makes sense if you allow the film a few liberties, which is no problem given the adrenalized momentum that Castillo conjures.

54 DAYS

Stars: Michela Carattini, Glenn Millanta, Greg Wilken, Michael Drysdale, John Michael Burdon, Matt James, Byron Sakha and Dianna La Grassa.
Writer/director: Tim Lea.

54 Days will have its Australian Premiere at the SciFi Film Festival on November 16. 

Rating: 3.5/5

Thoroughly deserving of a place in the canon of Australia’s ‘nuclear threat’ cinematic sub-genre, survivalist drama 54 Days spins its Twilight Zone-type scenario into an all-too-real study of desperation and despair. A slick exercise in close-quarters tension, it represents a solid calling-card effort for debutant helmer, Tim Lea, who exhibits an assured directorial hand.

The Oz sector has offered some idiosyncratic visions of a nuclear world order; notably, of course, the Hollywood-funded adaptation of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach and George Millers’s post-apocalyptic Mad Max trilogy, but also such fine works as Ian Barry’s The Chain Reaction (1980), Dennis O’Rourke’s 1985 documentary Half Life: A Parable for the Nuclear Age and Michael Pattinson’s thriller, Ground Zero (1987). With its enclosed dynamics and young person’s perspective, 54 Days most closely resembles John Duigan’s 1984 drama One Night Stand, which focussed on four teens locked inside the Sydney Opera House and contemplating their mortality as an inevitable atomic blast inches closer.

For Lea’s protagonists (first introduced in his short-film precursor to this feature), war descends upon them as a rooftop party is in full swing. The late 20-somethings, typically consumed with such minor woes as boyfriend troubles and getting richer, flee as a mushroom cloud (convincingly rendered by the effects team) envelops the horizon. Five make it to the building’s fully-outfitted bunker – Michelle (Michela Carattini), a party-girl in the thrall of a secret affair with strapping hero-type, Nick (Michael Drysdale); Michelle’s on-the-outer bf, Anthony (John Michael Burdon), already history in the eyes of Michelle’s bff, Liz (the striking Dianna La Grassa); and jittery Yank, Dirk (Greg Wilken).

As the realisation dawns that their resources will soon expire and that survival means the sacrifice of one of the group, tensions understandably run high. Each reacts in a way that reveals their true selves; some with grace and gravitas, others with a ruthless need to survive that proves shocking. A little harder to comprehend is one character’s descent into a madness that results in a friendship with a cockroach; the bug’s skilful conveying of emotion should surely earn a support billing mention. Casting aside certain elements that come with low-budget, first-time efforts and forgiving occasional asides that derail the tension, the narrative that emerges is a compelling one, the denouement particularly disturbing.

Special mention should be made of production designer Skye McLennan for the detail-rich bunker interior and DOP Nathaniel Jackson for superb use of shadow and spot lighting. One point sure to raise eyebrows is the production’s decision to identify the aggressors as ‘The Chinese’, a risky proposition given that very little back-story is provided into the international state-of-affairs that would prompt such an attack; detractors may point to this as an anachronistic nod to racial stereotyping in much the same way as the threat of a nuclear strike between advanced countries seems far less likely in 2014 than it did in 1985. 

STALINGRAD 3D

Stars: Mariya Smolnikova, Yanina Studilina, Thomas Kretschmann, Pyotr Fyodorov, Sergey Bondarchuk, Dmitriy Lysenkov, Andrey Smolyakov, Aleksey Barabash, Heiner Lauterbach and Oleg Volku.
Writers: Sergey Snezhkin, Ilya Tilkin.
Director: Fedor Bondarchuk.

Screening courtesy of the 2014 Russian Revolution Film Festival.

Rating: 2.5/5

As David Ayer’s Fury, featuring Brad Pitt and a tank full of combat movie stereotypes rolls through Australian cinemas, so to does Russian cinema’s own equally grand and cornball World War II melodrama, Stalingrad. Despite some stunningly realised technical work, Fedor Bondarchuk’s action-packed opus creaks under a rigidly antiquated narrative that bears a far closer pedigree to Michael Bay’s fanciful Pearl Harbour than Steven Spielberg’s gritty standard-bearer, Saving Private Ryan.

At US$30million (and with Columbia Pictures international distribution arm attached), it is one of largest production’s ever undertaken by the Russian film sector. Yet scripters Sergey Snezhkin’s and Ilya Tilkin’s dialogue and drama never come close to matching the visuals crafted by Bondarchuk’s production design team. Topped-and-tailed by an expensive Japanese earthquake sequence so as to create an unnecessary flashback device, audiences are then plunged into Stalingrad 1942, specifically a section of the city that has been cut-off after the German troops ignite vast fuel supplies (the sight of Russian troops bursting through walls of flame, fully ablaze and impervious to pain, gives an early indication as to the purely cinematic degree of heroism to be expected over the next 2 hours.)

Holed up in the crumbling remnants of a once opulent tenancy are five rugged, chummy Russian soldiers, led by the scowling, war-weary Gromov (Pyotr Fyodorov). Much like the societal cross-section represented by Pitt’s tank-crew, Gromov’s men are all types yet act as one; they find one more thing to bond over in the form of 18 year-old Katya (Mariya Smolnikova), a doe-eyed and determined lass who also happens to be a crack-shot with a telescopic sniper’s rifle.

The German forces are represented by Kapitan Kahn (Thomas Kretschmann, Europe’s hammiest leading man; see Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D), who keeps the pretty blonde peasant Masha (Yanina Studilina) hidden away to rape at his whim while also falling in love with her, and Khenze (Heiner Lauterbach), the bald tyrant of a head officer, who spits out some of the film’s unintentionally funniest lines (“These damn lice can’t even let a man die without making him itch.”)

Battles scenes are suitably brutal, as befitting one of the most bloody conflicts in modern military history, but are shot in such purely cinematic terms they barely suggest the real-world horrors soldiers from either side would have faced. Slow-motion hand-to-hand combat, complete with CGI blood-splatter (ala, 300) and ‘bullet-cam’ (ala, The Matrix) are used and re-used; one sequence, in which the Russian’s bounce a shell off a tank hull with pinpoint accuracy, is just plain stupid.

The director lathers his brave infantrymen in a warm, nationalistic glow, which is admirable but also detrimental; so one-dimensionally heroic are his band of brothers, audience connect as they would with a ‘James Bond’ or ‘Indiana Jones’ type. One should walk away exhausted and deeply moved by the courage these men displayed in the face of a tyrannical force. Instead, Fedor Bondarchuk's bloody battle epic celebrates the excesses of war cinema far more effectively than it does the heroism of his countrymen.