MAX
Tuesday 24 June 2003
UGC West India Quay, London E14 VISIT

‘Max’ is a somewhat surreal film about the fictional meeting in Munich of wealthy Jewish art dealer Max Rothman, played by the wonderful John Cusack, and a young Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor), then a Corporal in the German Army, who helps deliver champagne to one of Max's gallery parties.

It is the end of the First World War, Germany is about to sign the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles and both men have served in the bloody Third Battle of Ypres, where Rothman has recently returned after losing an arm. Both men are also painters, but Max’s ambitions have been destroyed by his disability, which may explain why he decides to encourage the self-righteous, pompous and anti-Semitic Hitler to find his artistic voice. Hitler, lacking the talent and the patience to be the great artist he believes he is, discovers a greater talent for demagogic speech-making, but is continually drawn back to art.

Max is portrayed as a man whose energy and optimism enable him to remain obstinately oblivious to the anti-Semitism growing around him, dismissing it as arguments he has heard all his life and misunderstanding the threat behind Hitler's pencil drawings of jack-booted soldiers and eagle encrested skyscrapers. He views them as little more than "future kitsch" and anticipates the coming reluctance of many German Jews to see the danger that lies around them. Both Cusack and Taylor give brilliant performances, with Taylor’s portrayal of Hitler as a antisocial loner, his anti-Semitism reflecting his need to blame someone else for his own failures, capturing expertly the sense of ‘the banality of evil.’ Cusack is also excellent as the opposite of Hitler, a man who is charming and gregarious in a way that gives Cusack the chance to light up the screen with his charisma. The interaction between the two is intense and often very funny as a result.

Historically dubious perhaps, and with other characters barely drawn at all, but still an intriguing film with two excellent leads. Cusack’s performance is more of a reminder of his charismatic gunman Martin Blank in Grosse Point Blank than his more subdued role in Identity and I think is the better for it.

By the way, this really was the only film I wanted or could possibly bring myself to see this week. What ever happened to the hype about the summer being the peak period for great films?

IGBY GOES DOWN
Sunday 15 June 2003
UGC West India Quay, London E14 VISIT

The second film of the weekend was the terrific ‘Igby Goes Down,’ starring Macaulay Culkin’s little brother Kieran as seventeen year old Igby, a troubled rich kid expelled from almost every school on the East Coast. His father is in an mental institution and his pill popping mother, played wonderfully by Susan Sarandon, hates him with a vicious relish, telling Igby's reptilian brother Oliver that "his creation was an act of animosity, why shouldn't his life be?" Shipped off to military academy, Igby manages to escape and ends up working for his wealthy godfather DH Baines (Jeff Goldblum). At a party at the Baines home, he first flirts with DH’s mistress Rachel and then meets a student working for the caterers, Sookie (Claire Danes), whom he will eventually end up falling for. Both women lead him into a hilarious New York Bohemian lifestyle that includes dealing drugs to his former teachers.

What I find astonishing is that ‘Igby Goes Down’ has been compared to the mind-numbingly terrible Royal Tenenbaums. Although both are about wealthy, eccentric and dysfunctional families and both have characters with flawed and hypocritical personalities, ‘Igby Goes Down’ is brilliantly scripted and genuinely funny. What helps is Culkin’s performance, which is hugely sympathetic and demonstrates where the real acting talent lies in the Culkin household. Although Igby is witty and seemingly full of confidence, he is also very vulnerable and sensitive, especially about his relationships with his mother and father, which makes him completely riveting to watch. Sadly I couldn’t have cared one way or the other about any other characters in the Royal Tenenbaums and never made it to the end of that particular film.

One of the most interesting and enjoyable films I’ve seen all year. Highly recommended.

IDENTITY
Saturday 14 June 2003
UGC West India Quay, London E14 VISIT

My film-viewing has recently got a little behind (not unlike of Kylie Minogue, ho, ho!), so I managed to catch two films over the weekend.

On the face of it, the first of these seemed to be based on the most clichéd of script ideas. A collection of characters are brought together by rising floodwater one dark and stormy night in a motel straight out of Alfred Hitchcock’s imagination. One is the very essence of a difficult and fading Hollywood movie star, whose car knocks down the wife of a man repairing a blown tire at thr roadside, forcing the chauffeur to seek help at the motel. But then the film star’s head turns up in the laundry room dryer and the motel guests begin to die one by one. At first it seems obvious that the convict who has slipped his shackles is responsible, but when he dies too, everyone becomes a suspect.

What rescues ‘Identity’ from B-movie status is actors of the calibre of Ray Liotta as Rhodes, the US Marshall transporting the convict across the state, and the great John Cusack (of Grosse Point Blank fame) as Ed, the chauffeur. The cinematography is also excellent, helping to create a genuinely oppressive atmosphere, and there are some impressive special effects, not least a scene where one character is knocked down by a car that made everyone in the audience jump.

What is more disconcerting is the frankly bizarre twist, which helps explain the film’s title but is so far removed from the rest of the script that it just doesn’t work. Worse still, it comes twenty minutes before the end, meaning that a further attempt at a twist before the credits roll isn’t shocking in the slightest.

Not the worst film I have seen this year – indeed, as a horror film, the first two thirds are genuinely tense. But the attempted switch to psychological drama fails to deliver.

THE MATRIX RELOADED
Thursday 29 May 2003
Stratford Picture House, London E15 VISIT

There was no way of course that the next instalment of The Matrix, the film that blew away the tepid Star Wars prequel Phantom Menace back in 1999, could match the burden of expectation heaped upon it. The towering tsunami of hype in recent months has, after all, been overwhelming. Ominously, in the first week of its release, more than one person I had spoken to said they had been disappointed. But then on Thursday, I finally found the time to see ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ and thoroughly enjoyed it, although I accept it is not as good as the first film. So what exactly has upset so many people?

The story picks up some months after Neo (Keanu Reeves) has become ‘The One’. The last free human settlement, Zion, faces destruction by the machines that created the Matrix to imprison the majority of humanity. Neo continues to struggle to understand his powers and his role as Zion’s potential saviour and to reconcile the nightmares foretelling the death of Trinity (Carrie Anne Moss) with his mission to find the Key Maker, enter the machine’s mainframe and fulfil the Prophecy.

Confused? To be honest, the criticism over the cod philosophy in ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ is understandable but there were some that thought the plot of the first film was overly convoluted. The problem is that in The Matrix, the underlying theme – that everything you know is a lie – was not difficult for most people to instinctively sympathise with (listen to Tony Blair talk about Iraq and you’ll know what I mean). The message in ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ is, however, far less focused and therefore seems more complicated.

Still, the cloak of obscure undergraduate Goth intellectualism (one character, Persephone, named after the wife of Hades, the keeper of hell, and another, Merovingian, named after a French dynasty associated with the Holy Grail) is not especially irritating. What is more of a problem is some of the dialogue, the major failing of the revived Star Wars franchise. In the first film, speeches by Laurence Fishburne’s character, Morpheus, were positively enigmatic – “take the red pill, enter Wonderland, and I’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes”. They were also strictly rationed, proving that sometimes, less really is more. Unfortunately, ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ reminded me at times of a curry for English people, a cinematic vindaloo – and we all know chucking in more spices never makes a better dish. One example of 'extra chillies' was a cringe making speech by Morpheus to the people of Zion prior to what seemed like the mother of all raves, one where everyone was most definitely sorted for E’s and whizz. Frankly, it was lucky they were so wasted or they would have bottled him off stage.

The film really gets into another gear in the second hour and this is where I fail to understand why some people have such a gripe about this film. The encounter with multiple copies of Agent Smith, the fight scene with the Merovingian’s henchmen, the chase on the freeway – the special effects are nothing short of stunning. Absolutely 100% amazing. Were it not for the level of hype, NO-ONE would question how hugely entertaining the second part of the film is. Coupled with the early ‘revelation’ that Neo is not the first to be The One, the destruction of Zion and the apparent failure of the Prophecy, the final ending – telling the audience that the story is ‘To Be Concluded’ – let me eager for the final instalment in November.

So whilst ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ may not be as well rounded as The Matrix, in terms of pure exhilarating entertainment, it is still streets ahead of other blockbusters and definitely worth seeing. Whether it ultimately succeeds very much depends on The Matrix Revolutions and the ability of the directors, Andy and Larry Wachowski, to pull together the loose ends. If they pull it off, the trilogy will be a sci-fi classic.

I can’t wait to find out.