Do you really need three stories for the price of one? Tale of Tales thinks so. I wouldn't mind, but apart from being set in the same world, these three have nothing to do with each other. Pulp Fiction this ain't. This film is completely mad, but not in the most satisfying of ways. Here's the synopsis bit of my review:
Based on a 17th century collection of tales by Italian author
Giambattista Basile, the film features three different storylines, not
all as engaging as each other and never tied together in any
satisfactory way. First up, Salma Hayek and John C. Reilly take centre
stage as the king and queen of a dusty kingdom where all the
entertainers in the land can’t keep the queen from desiring a baby.
After a visit from a mysterious hooded figure who offers them the chance
of creating offspring, Reilly’s devoted king steps up to the plate and
boldly goes to kill off a sea monster in order for his wife to be able
to eat the heart and thus, magically conceive. Needless to say, things
are never this simple and things soon turn awry.
Meanwhile,
Vincent Cassel is a lecherous king who has seemingly used up all the
women in his nearby kingdom and is looking for more playmates to be
debauched with. After hearing a lone beauty singing beneath his castle
walls, he ventures out to find the owner of such a sweet voice. Little
does he know, the voice belongs to one of a pair of ugly old crone
sisters who may or may not have found their way here after auditioning
for Cinderella. Not wanting the king to see them in their decrepit
state, they hide behind the door of their home but the king is nothing
if not persistent. Then things get really weird.
Finally, Toby
Jones is yet another king, whose only daughter he dotes on until the day
he discovers he has a talented flea who has taken a shine to him. While
the flea grows into his beloved pet, his teen daughter wants to find a
prince, but gets more than she bargained for when her father makes a
dubious choice by giving her to an ogre.
The film that won Vincent Lindon the Best Actor award at Cannes in 2015 is finally released in UK cinemas this weekend. The Measure of a Man is a challenging watch, but worth the effort. Here's a snippet of my review:
Last year in Cannes, it was Marion Cotillard and the Dardennes
brothers examining contemporary workplace relations in Two Days, One
Night. That razor sharp, but repetitive critique of the ills of modern
corporate practices is bested this year by The Measure of a Man which
finds its unemployed protagonist facing a moral dilemma when he finds a
new job working in shop security.
We meet 51 year old Thierry mid
conversation at the job centre, frustrated by the pointless course he
has recently wasted his time completing in order to find that there are
no jobs waiting for him at the end of it. Along with his wife, Thierry
has a disabled son who he wants to put through further education. Money
is tight, and after meeting with his bank manager, Thierry grows
increasingly desperate to find employment. After rejections, humiliation
and disappointment, he finds work in surveillance and security at a
supermarket. But when required to spy on his fellow workers, Thierry may
be pushed to act in opposition to his morals.
There is a creeping
sense of familiarity when watching Mon Roi, a drama that examines the complexity
of the relationship between a husband and wife over ten years. Luckily though, Mon Roi
never feels like ten years to watch, and in detailing the ups and downs
of a modern marriage, it demands attention throughout. You can always depend on
Vincent Cassel for a terrific performance and Mon Roi may just be one of his
best yet, even to those with extraordinarily high expectations of the actor.
Mon Roi
tells the story of the turbulent relationship of Tony (Emmanuelle Bercot) and
Georgio (Vincent Cassel), as Tony reminisces on the high and lows of her
marriage while recuperating at a physiotherapy facility with a broken leg. The pair
meet (in flashbacks) after Tony has already freed herself from one previous marriage, and
Georgio’s charm and charisma win her over easily. Much to her brother’s vocal
disapproval, Tony and Georgio fall madly in love, marry and have a child
together. While in the present, Tony makes slow progress in getting her leg
working again, she looks back at what went wrong in her marriage and reflects
on the love she may still feel for Georgio.
Mon Roi
means My King and it is an apt title for this story of one woman’s inability to
move on from the problematic love of her life. Tony can be a frustrating character for not
being able to see Georgio for what he truly is, and for constantly ending up
back in his bed, even after it is clear he is an arch manipulator. The strength
of Mon Roi lies in making Tony sympathetic throughout, even if she does make
some poor decisions. Her love for Georgio is unquestionable and to writer and
director Maiwenn’s credit, it is almost completely convincing that Tony would
keep coming back for more from Georgio.
Vincent
Cassel’s perfect performance is fearless in its deconstruction of this character.
Cassel excels at the beginning of the film, showing exactly why Tony would
fall in love with Georgio. He is funny, successful and devoted to Tony; that is
until one of his exes slits her wrists and cracks start to develop in their
relationship. Cracks become fissures and soon, with a baby on the way, the
compatibility of these once joyful lovers is called seriously into question.
Cutting
back and forth between the past and present makes Mon Roi a well-paced and
involving drama at just over two hours in length. The scenes of Tony having physical
therapy are quick and concise, until later in the film when she develops some
friendships with the other patients with leg injuries. Director Maiwenn flits
through the relationship; it’s like having a peek inside Tony’s memories as
she attempts to heal her leg and her heart. Watching these characters grow, and
more worryingly, repeat their same previous mistakes again and again is never a
chore. The concern for the child growing up between them is felt more keenly as
the film progresses, especially as it becomes clearer just how calculating and
cold Georgio can be. It’s impressive that Cassel manages to keep his character
from being utterly and irreparably infuriating.
The flawed
characters make Mon Roi very convincing. This is a relationship plucked
straight from the real world and by the conclusion, Maiwenn's story has a brief but
potent tug at the heart strings. In a final scene of the film, her direction,
the cinematography and Emmanuelle Bercot’s terrific performance culminate in a
heart wrenching moment of clarity. The message is clear; you cannot choose who
you fall in love with, though life could be so much simpler if only there was an
off-switch for these feelings. It’s not an outstanding film but it packs an
emotional punch without resorting to tragedy.
Son of Saul, the best film I saw at Cannes 2015, is out in UK cinemas today. It's relentlessly grim, but an unforgettable watch. If you can find a cinema near you playing it over the next few months, I highly recommend it. It's not going to be as big as Captain America: Civil War, but it deserves your attention!
Here's a snippet from my review:
The gas chambers, the incinerators and the sickening machinery of
genocide are all vividly dissected in Son of Saul as viewers are plunged
into the midst of Hitler’s Final Solution at work. Audiences are
dragged along on the gut wrenching journey of one man, a tiny cog in
this machine of mass slaughter. For those who think they’ve seen all the
horror that holocaust films can muster, Son of Saul scrapes new depths
of despair in its harrowing depiction of the inner workings of Auschwitz
in 1944.
We follow title character Saul, a Hungarian prisoner
working as a member of the Sonderkommando at an Auschwitz crematorium.
His job is to herd his fellow Jews to the gas chambers, where he then
scrubs away the evidence of their deaths, before removing the bodies and
plundering their belongings for the Nazis. But when the seemingly
desensitised Saul finds the body of a boy he takes to be his son, he
suddenly finds a way to grasp at some small sense of redemption in
amongst all the senseless killing. He makes it his mission to save the
boy’s corpse from cremation, and to find a rabbi who can recite the
Kaddish prayer as he buries his child. Even as those around him plan
rebellion in order to stand a chance at survival, Saul sticks rigidly to
his plan to find a way to give the boy a proper burial.
Despite
being set up in the opening scene as the main character, Jesse Eisenberg takes
a back seat, allowing relatively unknown talent Devin Druid to shine in Joachim
Trier's bittersweet drama Louder Than Bombs. Eisenberg is on solid, if not
exceptional form as a son who returns to the family home to find his father and
younger brother still in a complete mess after the death of his mother. He
injects moments of welcome humour into what could have been a stifling
exploration of grief in the modern world.
College
lecturer Jonah (Eisenberg) has recently become a father himself and is feeling
the weight of responsibility when he is called home to sort through some of his
mother's belongings. His father Gene (Gabriel Byrne) hasn't managed to sort
through the undeveloped photos that his late conflict photographer wife took
before she passed, and now a gallery is hoping to put together an exhibition of
her final work. Jonah's younger brother Conrad is unaware of the exact
circumstances surrounding his mother's untimely death in a car crash. With a
revealing article about to expose the truth about her 'accident', Jonah and
Gene must decide whether they should tell the disturbed boy about his mother’s
depression before it becomes public knowledge.
Conrad sits
in his darkened room, immersed in violent and fantastical videogames where he
can become any character he likes, or kill people at will. He is withdrawn and
surly, and his father has no idea how to communicate with him. The sadness of
this relationship and the catastrophic ways that Gene tries to learn more about
his son are tempered by some extremely comical moments. With Jonah helping him
to come out of his shell, Conrad blossoms into the film’s raw exposed heart.
Despite
bursts of voiceover from a number of different characters, as well as a complex
chronology that contains flashbacks within flashbacks, it is really Conrad’s
point of view in which we see the world through. His heart on sleeve writings
and curious dancing behind not-so-closed doors make him utterly endearing, even
if he does spit in a teacher’s face in one scene. Memories and dreams of his
mother have a powerful hold on his mind, but it is his fragmented view of the
world that resonates most. Like the flashes of his mother’s photos that we
occasionally see on screen, or the YouTube videos he consumes daily, Conrad is
lost in a disjointed reality, a reality reflected in the inventive structure of
the film.
Getting
under the skin of a few of its characters is daring, but could easily be
accused of a lack of focus. However, Louder Than Bombs has a decent stab at
examining not only three generations of men, but also the woman who affected
their lives in profound ways. All of the film’s flawed characters deliver
moments of heart and humour, but as distressed teen Conrad, it is Devin Druid
who deserves the most praise for his exceptional performance.
To critics at Cannes that were growing weary of long-winded art
films that move at a snail’s pace, Disorder may have felt like a bit of a breath
of fresh air. Throbbing with an electronic beat from the start, and not getting
too bogged down by exploring it’s hero’s post-traumatic stress disorder, Alice
Winocour’s film is a simple thriller that mounts the tension from its opening
scenes and keeps audiences gripped throughout. It’s unlikely to win any awards,
but it’s a welcome chance to get comfortable on the edge of your seat for just
over an hour and a half.
Matthias Schoenaerts plays Vincent, a soldier who returns
from Afghanistan to be medically assessed due to his nosebleeds, hallucinations
and other symptoms of acute anxiety. Taking a security job at wealthy Lebanese businessman
Whalid’s mansion, Vincent soon finds himself becoming embroiled in the lives of
his client’s family. Knowing Vincent won’t be going back to fight again, his
friend Denis offers him the seemingly simple task of looking after Whalid’s
wife Jessie (Diane Kruger) and son Ali, while the businessman takes a
potentially dangerous trip. Becoming alerted to some dodgy dealings before
Whalid leaves, Vincent’s already burgeoning anxiety turns to full blown
paranoia as he strives to protect the family from a potentially dangerous
threat.
It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you and so it goes
for Vincent as he finds himself putting his temper and flair for violence to
good use during Disorder. It’s a slow build up, and Winocour is keen to make
viewer’s doubt Vincent’s mind state in the first half of the film. Is he
imagining threats around every corner, or is he just highly attuned to sense
danger after his time serving in Afghanistan. While this is all explored rather
pointedly in the early scenes with Vincent necking an assortment of pills and
suffering from a range of noticeable tics, it takes a back seat as the action
amps up for a home invasion set piece at the film’s climax. Once it becomes
clear that Vincent has every right to be on edge, Disorder strays into formulaic
thriller territory but still throbs with energy.
Before this, we have to make do with Vincent and Jessie
playing family as Vincent discovers his heart is intact, even if his mind is a
little fractured. While taking care of Jessie and Ali, Vincent starts to take
the absent father’s role and the hint of a romance starts to develop between
the couple. Schoenaerts is cementing his reputation as another heartthrob with
real talent behind his chiselled features and impressive physical presence. While
the chaste romance is kept just barely simmering, it is the earlier moments
where Vincent shows signs of trauma that allow Schoenaerts to really impress.
He’s a credible romantic lead, but when he springs into action, he is
impossible to take your eyes off.
Meanwhile Kruger gets the most minimal role imaginable,
trapped in an extremely tired and typical worrying wife role and given little
to do except look pretty. It’s a shame as Vincent comes across as a fairly
complex character but Kruger is under served here by the writers. That said,
she is certainly eye catching and while strutting around the beautiful mansion
she lives in, she does a convincing job of fitting into her lush surroundings
as the gorgeous trophy wife.
While the screenplay is nothing too original, the film looks
and sounds excellent. The production design manages to make the mansion where
most of the film is set both claustrophobic and wonderfully lavish. More
importantly the score from French techno artist Gesaffelstein is inventive,
energetic and perfectly captures the overactive and disturbed mind of Vincent.
Aided immeasurably by its sound design, Disorder pulsates in order to get the
blood pumping.
Those wishing to see Schoenaerts juggle machismo and sensitivity
will enjoy the star’s performance here. As far as story, Hollywood has done
this kind of thing a thousand times before and often better. However, while the
writing may be nothing hugely special, as a director, Alice Winocour will
probably be heading to Hollywood soon with a calling card as effectively
entertaining as this.
