127 Hours Review

Oh no. Oh no. No no no no no. Please no. HOLY MOSES, NO!

If you cannot guess which scene in 127 Hours this transcription of my train of thought refers to and you don’t want the film spoiling, I suggest you stop reading after this paragraph. Suffice to say, Danny Boyle’s new film is a stunning, visceral and cathartic tour de force which you should see at your nearest opportunity. Got that? Okay.

For those who either aren’t bothered about the film’s major plot point being spoiled or are already aware of the circumstances of this actually rather well-known true story, read on. 127 Hours sees Boyle directing James Franco as Aron Ralston, a reckless mountaineer who finds himself in something of a pickle when, after a freak rockslide, his right becomes arm pinned between a narrow canyon wall and a rather large boulder. In utter isolation and with dwindling water supplies, Ralston (whose account of the tale is told in the predictably titled book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place) is forced to consider extreme measures in order to survive. His inventory consists of little more than a video camera, some climbing rope and, crucially, a blunt pocket knife. You do the math…

127 Hours takes a familiar trope of thriller cinema (perhaps most infamously employed at the climax of the first Mad Max film) and stretches it to a feature length study of the cost of living, human connection and survival. Instead of mere minutes in which to make his decision, Ralston is tormented for five days in situ before he finally takes up his blade and grits his teeth. It is a tribute to Franco’s considerable charisma that we sympathise with Ralston as much as we do; like The Social Network before it, 127 Hours takes an annoying, unlikable, real-life person and transforms them into a compelling cinematic character.

Boyle’s direction is, as always, excellent. Shrugging off the accusations of mawkishness that the few detractors of Slumdog Millionaire levelled at that film, Boyle proves once more to be one of the most exciting prospects in British filmmaking. The opening sequences are a visual fiesta of kinetic energy, which contrasts nicely with Ralston’s immobility for the rest of the film. Indeed, where many directors would run out of ideas after having the sole lead character confined to one place for so long, Boyle always has another visual trick up his sleeve.

Boyle’s implementation of music is second to none, with Indian über-producer AR Rahman returning to provide another original score for his second consecutive Boyle film and choice cuts of contemporary music and song (including a rather glorious use of Godlike Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Rós’s wonderful ‘Festival’ at the film’s crescendo). An obvious influence is the exceptional mountaineering disaster documentary, Touching the Void, in which the injured party in that film is tormented by Boney M’s ‘Brown Girl in the Ring’; in 127 Hours, Ralston is similarly haunted by the theme from Scooby Doo.

Of course, it would be amiss not to mention the arm-cutting scene. It is unwatchable in all the right ways; I found myself unable to look at the screen for several seconds, but was unable to block out the horrific use of sound as tendons snap and blood oozes. My own blood literally left my hands and I was left with an awful sensation of pins and needles for several minutes (though I love it when films provoke actually physical reactions). The scene has already caused fainting and vomiting at previous screenings and viewers of a nervous disposition are advised to cover both ears and eyes. However, this scene is followed by a stirring sequence of utter catharsis and joie de vivre and I left the screening room feeling totally uplifted and as if I too had shared Ralston’s torture (again, in the best possible way), survived and now had a new, exciting outlook on life. Boyle’s sense of pacing, adventure, emotion and creativity is unparalleled and 127 Hours is easily one of the best films of the year.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Review

The Harry Potter juggernaut begins to roll to the end of its journey. After six previous films that increased in both quality and darkness of tone in what is approaching ten years, Harry’s final adventure has been split into two parts in order to wrap up all the loose ends without omitting any key plot details. A cast which comprises of a veritable who’s who of British acting talent (and Helena Bonham Carter) bring JK Rowling’s final instalment to the screen.

Whilst clearly a decision that allows the franchise to maximise its profits, splitting the final book in two also gives the film some much needed breathing space. For those who don’t know, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 sees Harry’s arch nemesis Voldemort on the cusp of assuming power over the wizarding world. Harry, Ron and Hermione’s mentor, Professor Dumbledore is dead, they can trust no one and they have embarked on the mother of all skives off school. The only way to stop Voldemort’s ascension to power is to locate and destroy the seven ‘Horcruxes’ – objects that contain a fragment of the antagonist’s soul. Two have been previously located and dealt with, but the location of the remaining five is a mystery.

The film opens strongly, with Hermione and Harry parting ways with their respective families for what looks certain to be the last time. An aerial escape and dogfight follows, as Harry and his allies flee his childhood home with Vodemort’s Death Eaters in hot pursuit. An infiltration of the compromised Ministry of Magic – complete with 1984-esque anti-muggle propaganda – occurs soon after and proves to be a highlight of the film; a mixture of comedy, suspense, danger, intrigue and, as always, sumptuous production design.

The film’s momentum slows down for a while after this, as the trio winds up in a forest and spend a good chunk of the film simply pondering what to do next. Younger fans may get restless during this lengthy section, but I enjoyed the interactions between the heroes as their relationships become ever more fraught and tense. The three actors, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have all impressed and convinced in their roles, which they have all played with increased depth and subtlety over time. There are also some gorgeously filmed locations during this extended sequence and the trio’s feelings of aimlessness and isolation is well captured.

The film demands quite a lot of its viewers: old characters return frequently and you will be expected to remember who did what and why it was significant on several occasions; those not wholly versed in Potter lore may find themselves out of their depth at times. Ultimately the film is a victim of its structure – despite the added room to manoeuvre and its already bloated two and a half hour plus run time, like many penultimate chapters in film franchises, it cannot help but feel incomplete. However, it is a testament to the appeal of the story, characters and world that director David Yates has brought to screen that we are left wanting more by the final reel. Part 2 cannot arrive soon enough.

Connected Review

Engineer Grace Wong is kidnapped by thugs looking for her brother. Though her captors have destroyed the telephone in the room she is being held captive in, Grace is able to use her technical skills to repair the phone enough to call a random number. She gets through to slightly hapless debt collector Bob and implores him for help, setting Bob off on a mission to save a complete stranger from a mysterious group of conspirators, putting his life and relationship with his estranged son in danger.

This Chinese-Hong Kong remake of Cellular (and based on the same script by Larry Cohen) hits a lot of the right notes to make a satisfactory, dynamic thriller. Benny Chan proves to be a first rate director of action and tension. The film starts quickly and the pace only drags somewhat towards the finale. Particularly brilliant is the car chase sequence early on, which manages to not only hit all the expected tropes of the well used set piece (shortcuts via storm drains, driving through lorries carrying cans of pop) but also seems genuinely exciting, vaguely realistic and also rather funny. This could also describe the film as a whole. The soundtrack is also very good and adds to the inconsiderable tension.

There are flaws, however, most notably in the basic premise: it is a very big ask to suspend our disbelief that Grace gets through to a mobile phone that just so happens to be in the same city as she is. There are also some dodgy subtitles (‘they were been nosey!’ claims the villain at one point) which is a little disappointing – one imagines that several instances of cheesy dialogue come across much better in the original language. There is also the aforementioned drag towards the end of the third act.

This is not, however, enough to derail what is actually a very well put together film that amuses, entertains and thrills in good measure. The DVD also comes with a second disc of bonus content, making for a generous package. A very solid and satisfying thriller.

Connected is out now on DVD from Cine Asia.

London Flm Festival: Carancho Review

After a grand performance in the Oscar winning The Secrets in Their Eyes, Ricardo Darín impresses once again in Carancho, which is also being submitted by Argentina for the next Academy Awards.

Can Darín go two for two?

Beginning with some stunning statistics regarding the number of road deaths in Buenos Aires (which number in the thousands every year), we meet Sosa (Darín) and Luján (Martina Gusman). Sosa is essentially an injury lawyer 4 U specialising in road accidents and Luján is a paramedic, again specialising in saving victims of road accidents. The pair meet and begin a tenuous friendship which eventually blossoms into romance, in spite of the conflict that arises from the shady nature of Sosa’s business and their age difference.

The corruption in Sosa’s compensation company eventually forces him to turn against his sinister employers, but not before he has helped/taken advantage of (depending on your point of view, which is difficult to ascertain in the hazy moral murk of the film) one client in a brutal and truly shocking manner. The film is at times stunningly violent but never less than enthralling. The two leads give great performances, Darín displaying his thoroughly natural charm and Gusman heartbreakingly honest.

Pablo Trapero’s direction is strong, the near perpetual darkness and glowing lights of Buenos Aires reminding of the Urban beauty of Michael Mann’s Heat. Carancho is a remarkably good film, from its slow burn start to its all too inevitable final frames. A true festival highlight.

London Flm Festival: Copcabana Review

This would be the second Isabelle Huppert film I have seen at the London Film Festival thus far and Copacabana is a far superior film to the disappointing Special Treatment . Babou (Huppert) is an initially very annoying Frenchwoman who has flitted from place to place in her life, enjoyed her travels and perceived rebellion against bourgeois society, yet failed to put down roots and now finds herself unemployed. She has a daughter, Esme (played by Huppert’s real life daughter Lolita Chammah), who is much more strait-laced than her mother and is marrying a boring executive. The final straw comes when Esme tells her mother not to attend her wedding, partly to save her from paying for any of it but mostly because Esme is embarrassed by her. Distraught, Babou finds work as selling time share apartments on the Belgian coast, where she starts to rebuild her life.

Babou soon begins to compel rather than irritate and Huppert’s performance is laudable. Though the film is a little on the long side as the plot meanders its way towards conclusion, it was genuinely heart warming and even cathartic to see Babou find limited success in her new role, in spite of competition and jealousy from her unfriendly colleagues. Babou finds the time to adopt a homeless couple, which provides an interesting parallel to her daughter and her partner – would Babou really prefer her own child to be destitute rather than bourgeois?

The film is not flawless and two instances are somewhat unbelievable – firstly her driving three hundred kilometres in a single evening to France and back to repair her daughter and son in law’s relationship behind the scenes and the clumsy deus ex machina that ends Babou’s problems. However, the film is an unpretentious and enjoyable light comedy that will provide relief from some of the festival’s more heavy-going films – and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

London Flm Festival: Home for Christmas Review

Bent Hamer demonstrates restraint and poise in this collection of interlinked Christmas tales, set on Christmas Eve in a small Norwegian town. An estranged father must find a way to get his presents to his children, a doctor is called away from his home to assist a desperate couple, a Muslim girl forges a friendship with a fellow non-celebrator, a woman hopes to finally lure her lover away from his wife, an old man prepares for a guest and a homeless man struggles to get back to his hometown.

On the face of it, little seems to appeal: interlinked vignettes are somewhat old hat and it seems a little unseasonal for Christmas movies just yet. And besides, everybody knows that the only Christmas movies worth watching are Muppets’ Christmas Carol and Die Hard. But somehow, Home for Christmas works and works well. The script is tight and nothing on screen goes to waste. The cast are good and give understated, believable performances.

When several storylines are presented in this way, it’s unavoidable not to pick a favourite, and for me, the tale of the estranged father was the highlight of the film, the high water mark being a scene that is simultaneously frightening violent, poignant, surreal and blackly humorous. Another of the film’s strengths is in its appeal both to the traditional and secular aspects of Christmas in the twenty-first century and Christians and non-believers alike should enjoy the film. The only flaws are a rather mawkish song played over the Northern Lights as the credits begin, which seemed like a rather obvious cliché that the film could easily have avoided. There’s also a rather incongruous and explicit sex scene that seemed wholly out of place in what would otherwise been a family-friendly affair. Despite this, I left the screening room feeling warm and Christmassy. Job done.

London Flm Festival: Truce Review

Truce was the winner of the best film award at Russian film festival Sochi, which should draw attention to this odd and perplexing feature. Egor (Dobranravov) is a truck driver in a rural backwater in Russia and the film follows a series of increasingly unusual events over what appears to be one very long and trying day. His friend Quasimodo blows his finger off, his uncle requires him to stand guard with a rifle whilst he withdraws money from a bank and various friends, all of who appear to criminals, attempt to rope him into various schemes. Then he sets off to find himself a wife. As you do.

I’d be lying if I said I fully understood exactly what I was supposed to take away from Truce. As far as I could tell, it seemed to be an exercise in Kafka-esque alienation and mundane frustration. Dobranravov gives a good and enigmatic central performance and the supporting cast are fine, if sometimes annoying. The film is occasionally humorous and dallies slightly with magical realism in the third act. I had been expecting some sort of final reel revelation in which I would cry out, ‘of course! It all makes sense now!’ but alas, the film just sort of ends, albeit with some impressively bleak photography of the cold Russian countryside.

It is by no means a specifically bad film – I’m wary to criticise it as clearly everything put on the screen has be done so with deliberate intent – but Truce is definitely the kind of film you appreciate rather than enjoy. Svetlana Proskurina is clearly an intelligent and interesting director and the film invites a kind of post match analysis that others do not. Go see it and make yourself feel clever.

London Flm Festival: Special Treatment and Hands Up Reviews

Special Treatment (Sans Queue Ni Tête)
In this French ‘comedy’, Jeanne Labrune directs Isabelle Huppert as a high class prostitute who crosses paths with psychoanalyst Bouli Lanners. Both are seeking redemption and attempt to help each other out in their professional capacities.

The film provided no laughs whatsoever – what it tried to pass off as funny was generally grotesque and what it tried to pass off as wit was slight. The characters were unlikable and unsympathetic. Beyond its initial hypothesis – that prostitution and psychiatry share more than a little common ground, which is made clear within ten minutes then repeated for the film’s duration – the film has little more to say, other than ‘prostitution isn’t fun’, a conclusion I had already reached on my own.

The film struggled to maintain my attention and went down several unnecessary tangents. I was bored rigid. Nil points.

Hands Up (Les Mains en L’air)
In present day France, undocumented immigrant children and their families live with the fear of deportation at any minute and without warning. Eleven year old Chechen Milana is one such alien and, after the abduction of one of her classmates, is taken in by her best friend’s family for her protection.

The film is narrated by an adult Milana many years in the future, but aside from the elegant opening soliloquy, this interesting device is not implemented effectively. No matter; the film is nevertheless an excellent and enthralling political drama that also proves to be a poignant paean to childhood, growing up and lost innocence.

The child cast are truly brilliant and Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi excels as the valiant, progressive mother who takes in Milana. Highly recommended.

London Flm Festival: Robinson in Ruins Review

‘Cinema essayist’ Patrick Keiller (pictured above) returns with Robinson in Ruins, which claims to be a found-footage film made by the titular scholar Robinson and narrated by Vanessa Redgraves in which our hero, to quote the LFF programme, ‘…believing he can communicate with a network of non-human intelligence, and wanting to investigate the possibility of ‘life’s survival on the planet’, … travels to sites of scientific and historical interest, exploring the development of capitalism since the 16th century, and moments and movements of resistance’. Keiller looks to such topics as literature, politics, the financial crisis, mass extinction and philosophy in his essay, which is narrated over images of the English countryside.

Frankly, it’s a total mess. For an essay, there is no distinct hypothesis (what does he mean exactly by ‘life’s survival on the planet’?), no development of an argument and no true conclusion. Keiller flits from subject to subject almost at random. There is little in the way of wit, no characters appear on screen and the narration pauses for endless minutes at a time while we are left to appreciate a foxglove swaying in the wind. Several journalists around me slept through chunks of the film and even Redgraves’ narration sounds tired.

I’m all for artistic creativity and the application of thought and intelligence in cinema, but under one condition – that it remains cinematic, which Robinson in Ruins is patently not. A book, radio play or even the theatre would be a better medium for Keiller to discuss his not uninteresting ideas, which are reduced to utter tedium through film.

London Flm Festival: Leap Year (Ano Bisiesto) Review

Laura (Del Carmen) is a young woman living by herself in an apartment in Mexico City, who is counting down the days until the 29th of February. She is clearly bored, lonely and in mourning. Through the day, she works a little, spies on her neighbours and exaggerates the extent of her social life to her family. By night, she heads out into the city and returns with strangers to sleep with in what appears to be an effort to quell her grief.

Set entirely, except for an introductory scene in a supermarket, in Laura’s flat, Aussie director Michael Rowe expertly conjures a pervading air of desperation, sadness and bittersweet humour. Del Carmen is amazing and gives a truly standout performance as a woman turning to increasingly dangerous sex as a release. Gustavo Sanchez Parra is also good as the lover Laura turns to in her darkest moments.

Leap Year keeps you guessing as to the true nature of Laura’s grief almost until the final scene and is a master class in subtly. Having won the Camera d’Or at Cannes (the award for an outstanding debut feature), Rowe and Del Carmen are sure to pick up much more well-deserved praise at the LFF. Whilst some may question the sexual politics of the film and the misogynistic sexual acts that Laura seems to desire, they would be overlooking the wonderful performances, minimalist script and taut direction. Make every effort to catch this.

London Flm Festival: Patagonia Review

Did you know that back in the 1800s, a community of Welsh folk set sail for a new life in South America and settled, after many years of toil, in Patagonia? Did you also know that there are still vestiges of this Welsh-speaking colony in Patagonia today? I didn’t and therefore found Marc Evan’s film (also called Patagonia) utterly fascinating.

Patagonia follows two pairs of travellers – a Welsh couple whose relationship is in the balance, Rhys and Gwen who are in Patagonia due to the former’s photography assignment and old Argentine lady Cerys and her teenage neighbour Alejandro, whom she has tricked into accompanying her to Wales to seek out her descendants’ farm, from which they immigrated to South America.

With its twin tales of travel told in parallel and only tenuously connected, the film boasts one of the more original set ups I’ve had the good fortune to see play out, bearing only a superficial semblance to Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel in its variety of languages (including Welsh, Spanish and English), international connection theme and beautiful cinematography. The cast are excellent and Evan’s proves to have a capable directorial hand. The third act does wear out its welcome somewhat though, and the film perhaps lacks profundity. However, I was enthralled and touched by the film, even if the filmmakers may have overestimated how many Welsh people actually speak Welsh. Also, surprisingly, popular songstress Duffy is in it. And she’s actually quite good too.

London Flm Festival: Sensation Review

Following the death of his father, young Donal (Gleeson) inherits the family farm. Unfortunately Donal has no interest in agriculture; moreover he is almost wholly preoccupied with the five-knuckle shuffle. With his father no longer around, Donal is driven by his loneliness, grief and near total lack of social skills to arrange a meeting with call girl Kim (Gordon). Circumstances conspire to bring the two together and they begin both a relationship and a business partnership when Kim reveals her ambition to start her own brothel.

Sensation is a very black comedy that surprises and provokes in equal doses. The central conundrum of the film that both the audience and Donal are forced to question is the true nature of the relationship between the two leads. Is Kim exploiting Donal or vice versa? Are they actually in a romantic relationship or is it merely a business partnership? While the viewer is trying to figure out the enigmatic puzzle, Sensation also provides a fairly even-handed assessment of the sex industry. At first seeming murkily glamorous, the true, grim nature is slowly revealed through terrified young prostitutes, filthy old men and the moral degradation of the characters.

Though far from a masterpiece, Sensation is an entertaining film with an excellent tonal arc that spans from slyly smirk inducing to something altogether nastier. The actors are naturalistic and believable and writer-director Tom Hall proves more than capable at the helm. The film’s only real flaw is its slight predictability and that it doesn’t go quite far enough in its indictment of the sex industry.

Possession Review

Upon rejoining his wife (Adjani) and child (Hogben) after a period of absence, Mark (Neill) discovers his spouse is leaving him. Initially, he believes she is leaving him for her lover, the portentous Heinrich (Bennent) but Anna (Adjani) has an even more sinister lover. One with more tentacles.

A bright eyed and bushy tailed Sam Neill stars in this wacky psychological horror, directed by Andrzej Zulawski, in which a couple’s marriage breaks down in cataclysmic mental and personal destruction. Although Possession was one of the original banned video-nasties, it also won an award for best actress in Cannes and nominated for a BAFTA.

More than one critic has compared Possession to Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist and not without reason. Both films study the simultaneous romantic, mental and sexual destruction of warring couples and physical manifestations of their psyches punctuate each film. Both films also boast some particularly ‘interesting’ dialogue – characters in Possession shout things at each other like, ‘I can’t exist by myself because I’m afraid of myself, because I’m the maker of my own evil!’ and ‘What I miscarried there was sister Faith, and what was left is sister Chance. So I had to take care of my faith to protect it!’And believe me, there is an awful lot of shouting in it, as well as sickening self mutilation and disturbing sexual congresses. It is not for the faint of heart.

Despite its wilfully alienating sequences (including a scene where Anna screams in a subway for a few minutes before oozing a bucketful of unmentionable goo from her orifices), Possession is oddly compelling and artfully straddles the borderline between unwatchable and unmissable. In spite of my reservations in regard to taste and decency, I was surprised and impressed by the film. However, Possession is far from a mainstream crowd pleaser and I’m sure many will be less forgiving of its fault than I. If you’re into European, plot-less psychological horror films involving tentacled beasts humping mentally unstable women in a metaphor for the pain of divorce, though, Possession is the film for you.

Star Wars The Clone Wars Series 3

Despite fan’s displeasure with the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the critical mauling The Clone Wars introductory film received on its release in 2008, the animated TV series has remained popular enough to be given a third series. I was lucky enough to be shown the opening double bill of episodes from the new series – subtitled ‘Secrets Revealed’ – before their broadcast on Sky Movies Premiere on 23rd October.

The first episode introduces us to five new clone troopers who are being put through their final stages of training in what seems like a tween friendly homage to films such as Full Metal Jacket or Starship Troopers. This may not be an ideal start to the series as it is totally devoid of any familiar faces – there’s no Obi Wan, Anakin, Yoda or R2-D2 so new watchers may find themselves somewhat alienated by lack of common reference points and established fans will be disappointed by a lack of continuation from the previous series. Still, where The Clone Wars has stood out is in its exploration of aspects of the Star Wars universe that have been looked over in the films – the opportunity to see the training of the clone troops and their living quarters will satisfy the curiosity of many fans. There’s also a fairly trite message about teamwork for us to savour by the episode’s end.

The second episode is an improvement and sees the Separatists launch an assault on Kamino, the planet on which the clones are made and trained, last seen in Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Obi Wan and Anakin are thankfully present in this episode which also delivers what Star Wars fans really want from this series: dogfights, shootouts and lightsabre duels, which, after the slightly dull opening salvo, this episode delivers in spades. Despite some quibbles – the consistently naff dialogue which is somewhat of a hallmark of the series (if not the films…), the fact that one new character that the first episode spent a great deal of time introducing has been killed off off-screen between episodes and that the question of exactly how General Grievous got from his spaceship to the submarine remains unaddressed – I enjoyed this episode.

The CGI animation, already impressive in previous series, is really great this third time around. Though squarely and unashamedly aimed at the kids, Star Wars fans of all ages should find something to like in most of these episodes. And while it’s lovely to see a film series I grew up with and loved continuing to entertain and amuse a new generation of fans, personally I can’t quite get on board with The Clone Wars and I think it comes down to two basic problems. The first is my discomfort with being expected to sympathise with the Stormtroopers, who are of course, the stock villains in the original trilogy. Secondly, whenever the Jedi encounter General Grievous, why don’t they simply levitate him upside down and dump him flat onto his ugly face?

Tamara Drewe Premiere Report

The last time I was at the Odeon in Leicester Square, it was with my dad to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age. He won’t thank me for telling you this, but at the time he had drunk somewhat more than a bottle of plonk and was, shall we say, ‘getting into’ the movie. By the time the Spanish Armada had set sail, Mr Kirby was behaving like a spectator at a particularly rowdy football match, whooping and cheering as Spanish galleons sank and rather passionately imploring Clive Owen to kick some paella-eating arse.

Tonight’s premiere of Tamara Drewe was a rather more sedate affair (in fact, other than location, that tale has nothing to do with the premiere; it’s just an anecdote I like to tell whenever the slightest opportunity arises). Cast, crew and various ‘slebs’ turned up, despite iffy weather and tube strikes, to walk themselves down the red carpet, which on this occasion, was bordered by green turf, a stile, square bales, fake sheep and an enormous pink cow (also fake).

In the press pen (again fitting with the farmyard theme), competition for soundbites was fierce. As such, the snatches of conversation presented below are a composite of both my own and other reporter’s questions. The first person to brave the gaggle in the ‘print/radio/online’ pen was none other than the succinct if nothing else director, Stephen Frears…

Some people were surprised to learn that Tamara Drewe was based on a comic, is that a reaction that in turn surprises you?

Well most films based on comics are about superheroes, aren’t they? This one isn’t. It’s been drawn by a brilliant woman. In other words there are intelligent comics and stupid comics and would hope that you read the intelligent ones and not the stupid ones.

So if you think superhero comics are stupid, is it unlikely that you’ll be directing a Marvel adaptation any time soon?

I don’t know, I’ve read one comic in my life and I’ve made a film of it!

Did you go back to Thomas Hardy [whose Far From the Madding Crowd the graphic novel was loosely based and is referenced frequently in the film] when you were preparing the film?

Not at all.

How familiar were you with the comic when you got the script?

I’ve known Posy [Simmonds, author of the strip] for about thirty years and I read it in The Guardian.

(I chip in at this point) What can we expect from the film?

(Frears gives me a look somewhere between disgust and contempt) Good jokes and sex.

Then he plods off.

If I thought the impression I made was bad, I was glad not to be in the shoes of the journo standing next to me, who paid the embarrassing price for not quite doing quite as much research as was required when quizzing Roger Allam…

Tamara Drewe’s not the typical comic book movie, would you ever consider or be interested in doing the traditional comic movie?

I’ve done some. I’ve done two actually. I did two for the Wachowski Brothers, V for Vendetta, which was quite serious and Speed Racer.

Would you ever do any more?

Well yes, I probably would!

Allam laughs jovially, somewhat sparing the guy of any further embarrassment.

Next, the lovely Tamsin Greig rolls up…

How does it feel to be a member of a cast that features some great comedic roles for women? Are women sidelined somewhat in comedies?

Well, I’m a woman who has been privileged enough to work and I’ve always had really lovely and interesting roles, so I’m probably the last person to ask. I think Posy Simmonds is a woman who knows what women are like, so you can do her drawings and writing from her own perspective. I think the fact that Love Soup [the light-hearted comedy that Grieg starred in] was written by a man was a wonderful miracle. David Renwick really got under the skin of the female characters. The three characters were equally hilarious in their own way, which is a testament to his genius.

The ending of Love Soup was perfect, but I can’t help but want more. Is there any chance you’ll be working with David on it again?

Well I’d love to, he’s a wonderful writer, but like you said, there was a perfect conclusion to the story.

Finally, Posy Simmonds comes over to our little corner for a chat.

A lot of people seem surprised that Tamara Drewe was based on a comic, what’s your reaction to their reaction?

It’s a story. There are lots of films based on comics, like Ghost World and Watchmen, things like that. So it doesn’t seem so extraordinary. I don’t think so.

Were you involved with the adaptation process or did you take a backseat on that?

I took a backseat, but I advised on things that I knew about. The scriptwriter would ring up and ask me questions. And also I know things about goats mating and cows, because I’m really a country girl. But the goats mating got cut, which was a real shame.

Structurally, you had to make the comic work as a serial. Obviously that doesn’t stand anymore. How does that change things in the adaptation?

Well I had to change the structure of the serial when it became a book because the serial was a week apart so you had to keep nudging the readers along with the plot. When it became a book it became a continuous narrative so there was some very boring and fiddly tweaking and I had just enough time to change pictures that I really hated that I’d drawn in a tremendous hurry.

Obviously the film is going to introduce the strip to a much wider audience. Any chance you’ll pick it up again?

Tamara Drewe? I don’t know, what would she do?

What are you working on next?

I’m writing a serial. It could even have Tamara in it as a cameo appearance. Perhaps she’ll become a man or something!

The nose job was one thing; I think that would be a bit far! They’ve made the nose job much more obvious in the film, what are your thoughts on that?

I think they had to spell it out. I think I drew one picture with her old hooter. But I think they had a nose motif in the film, there are several punches to the nose.

After blagging some unwanted tickets from The Mirror’s 3AM reporter, I entered the premiere proper…

Tamara Drewe Review

Tamara Drewe concerns the titular Tamara (Arterton), who returns to the sleepy country village of her youth to sell her recently deceased mother’s home. She encounters a number of old acquaintances, such as best-selling author and serial love rat Nicholas Hardiment (Allam), his beleaguered wife Beth (Greig), local hunk Andy (Evans) and troublemaking teens Jody and Casey (Barden and Christie). Tamara also embarks on a romantic relationship with petulant rock star Ben (Cooper), much to Jody and Casey’s jealousy. Romantic entanglements and plenty of fornication ensue and the tangled lives of the villagers take turns for the humorous and, latterly, into darkness.

Despite her character’s monopoly on the film’s title, Arterton stars in what is very much an ensemble piece, In fact, Drewe herself is perhaps the most forgettable character in the film, outshone thoroughly by Greig, Evans, Barden and Christie – the latter two often threaten to steal the film entirely and are the source of much of the much of the film’s humour. That’s not to say Arterton does a bad job – far from it. Building on her impressive performance in The Disappearance of Alice Creed (one of the year’s most underrated films), Arterton is charming as the lead character, but is unfortunately underused.

Tamara Drewe is a very likable and very funny romp that rises above the average British rom-com due to its clever literary and self-referential allusions on authorship and writing and its third act plunge into dark territory. A highly recommended roll in the hay.

Eli Roth Interview

In the second part of the two interviews I was invited to take part in for the promotion of The Last Exorcism, I met the film’s producer, Eli Roth. Writer, director and sometime actor, Roth is laid back (both figuratively and quite literally), sharply dressed and surprisingly handsome in person. As opposed to director Daniel Stamm’s enthusiastic joy for talking about his movie, Roth is more reserved, although clearly in his element – the filmmaker evidently knows not only how to direct a scene but also an interview. He feeds us information at his own pace, casually displays his encyclopaedic knowledge of horror and sets himself up nicely for some witty jokes. Roth was a compelling orator, as is hopefully evident below.

I was watching your Carson Daly interview this morning and in that you were saying that the reason you produced as well as directed your first couple of films was because you wanted total creative control. This is the second film you’ve produced that was directed by someone else…

(Interrupting) I would say it’s the first, 2001 Maniacs was just me stepping in at the last minute. I have a producer title on it but that was just a mess where I wound up with a producer credit on it because we had to take it over half way through. This is my first true production.

In that sense, what is your creative input as a producer so that it’s not your identity, it’s not the director’s identity, it’s some sort of fusion of the two?

First and foremost, it’s definitely Daniel Stamm’s film, his voice and his identity. Part of the fun of producing is you embrace that and you back it one hundred per cent. On Hostel I had three directors as executive producers, Boaz Yakin, Scott Spiegel and Quentin Tarantino and all of them had an incredible creative input, as did my other producing partners, Mike Fleiss and Chris Briggs. Your producers should be your sounding board. They’re not just there to say, ‘you have five minutes to get the shot’, when you have a producer who’s a director, the director – Daniel Stamm – knows where I’m coming from because I’ve been there before. I certainly had a creative input in the script and in the story. I’m brought on board because people want to hear my ideas to make it as scary as possible, or as smart as possible. My opinion is wanted when I come on as a producer. But I also wanted Daniel to know that this is his film and I’m not here to tell him [how to do it], I’m here to support him. During the shoot, I was at the Cannes Film Festival preselling the territories for the movie and we had Inglourious Basterds and Daniel was doing such a great job, I didn’t want to show up on set and interrupt the intimacy and the vibe he was getting on set. It was so good, I knew I’d change all that if I showed up. I really stayed out of his way. But then there was a point in the editing room and there were certain scenes he’d shot that weren’t one hundred per cent there and I could go and be really helpful and effective, in the same way Quentin was with me, just to help build tension, maximise the scares, maximise the humour.

What are your biggest horror influences as a director?

There are many. It changes; as a kid, Sam Raimi and The Exorcist were huge influences. The Exorcist traumatised me as a kid; I thought how could you ever make a movie scarier than The Exorcist? I always wanted to be involved in a possession film and then I read the script and I thought ‘my God, it’s brilliant, you don’t make something scarier than The Exorcist, don’t even try’, but do something that’s great in its own right. I began thinking about vampires and what started with Dracula and now today is Twilight and True Blood and The Vampire Diaries and just how rich the subject matter is and how possession is such a modern subject. It’s something that’s truly, really fascinating to me and the whole approach of doing it in the documentary style worked for this subject. Obviously I’m a big fan of Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity, but going back even further, before Blair Witch, you’ve got Cannibal Holocaust and probably the best film of them all, which is Peter Watkins’ Punishment Park which is just gripping and riveting, it’s a drama, it’s not even a horror film but it’s terrifying. You’d swear it was real if you didn’t know there were actors in it. So I thought the [Last Exorcism’s] script was so good and Daniel did such a great job. The subject matter is so rich and I thought it was due for an update.

You mentioned The Exorcist then; when that film came out it was met with a lot of controversy from the moral majority, are you expecting The Last Exorcism to be received similarly?

No. In fact, The Exorcist was embraced by the Catholic Church. The Pope came out very publically supporting The Exorcist. People had never seen anything like it so they were traumatised when they were watching it but that was the best sales boost the church ever had because the people came out believing in the devil and therefore being more religious. What I felt was smart about the script was that it comes at a point where Cotton [Marcus, the protagonist and non-believing, phony exorcism performing priest] is confessing. He’s come to this on his own. Seeing what happened with the other boy that suffered in an exorcism, he feels terrible about what he’s done and he’s going to atone for his sins by making this confessional. Confession for your sins is very much part of Christianity and the film starts as very much a confessional session. But he very quickly wins you over and is very human and ultimately the film has a very deep, underlying message of faith. Don’t mess with forces that are bigger than you. That whole ending ceremony, not to give it away too much, has nothing to do with Nell and everything to do with Cotton. Cotton is doing this kind of Elmer Gantry routine, shaking the bed; he’s taking clichés from The Exorcist and using it to take people’s money. Well in the same way the townspeople are taking clichés from all these different cults to draw him into the fire, because at no point does Cotton ever believe she’s possessed. He can’t, because he doesn’t believe in God and therefore he doesn’t believe in the devil – of course until it’s too late. The whole film is his faith being continually tested and him failing. We’ve shown it to very deeply religious groups in Texas and people loved it. They were very surprised by how fairly their point of view is represented. If people who are deeply religious think they’re going to be made fun of, they’re not. The film does not take a position, it shows both sides fairly, so if you are coming from it from the scientific point of view, you agree with Cotton, you go, ‘yeah, that girl’s crazy’. If you’re deeply religious you’re watching Louis, the father, saying, ‘yes, that’s right, the Bible does say that. I agree with him, she is possessed, don’t be fooled by this.’ Of course in the end, the story unfolds, but it’s really about letting those sides clash and not taking one position or the other.

So why do you think exorcism scares the crap out of people?

People are terrified of ‘is the devil real? Is God real?’ Everyone has their own personal relationship with religion, even if it’s complete atheism. Even if you don’t believe in anything, everyone’s grown up with a certain type of religion so you think about this stuff. And the fact is, exorcism is done in every religion and is very real. There was an exorcist on set; he was the brother of one of the drivers. He was technically advising, but it was such a normal occurrence. It was so every day. He talked about it like he went to the bank. He was always doing exorcisms. You go on YouTube and you can see mass exorcisms in the mega churches, this is a very real thing. I think that people are terrified by the idea of possession and that the devil is real. Seventy-five years ago, evil had a very real face. You could say, ‘this is evil, this is evil, if we kill these three people…’ It’s like cutting the head off the hydra. Well today there is no face like that. It’s different things, it’s terrorism, it’s Wall Street. Even people in churches and schools, murderers, there’s just a feeling of evil and that’s why the devil becomes a focal point for all that evil.

As a Jewish filmmaker, presumably you’ve come to The Exorcist from a different perspective from people with a Christian faith. Is there a different kind of fascination for you with Christian mythology?

It’s interesting. It wasn’t to do with being Jewish – I don’t think of myself as a Jewish filmmaker, I just think of myself as a filmmaker – my father was a psychiatrist, a psychoanalyst, a professor at Harvard, the medical school. So I approached it from a psychiatric point of view, The Exorcist, and it traumatised me. I said, ‘can this really happen? This possession? Can it really happen?’ I was six and my dad said, ‘no don’t worry about it, we’re Jewish. We can’t get possessed. We don’t believe in that’. I was like ‘I do! I believe this is real.’ I thought I’d be the first test case, that I’d be the first Jewish kid to be possessed by the devil, and believe me there are many that would argue that I was. But it always fascinated me because it was something that wasn’t taught to me and I thought, ‘well if they’re not teaching this then maybe this is real’. Maybe it was something they didn’t want me to know about. As a kid I had real fantasies about that.

Not to belittle any of your previous work, but it’s refreshing to see that The Last Exorcism is a relatively gore-free, PG-13 movie. Was it interesting working on a film that is suitable for all ages but still scares the crap out of you?

It’s very satisfying. It was really cool to have done it by pushing the envelope of violence, to be involved in a film that scares people in their forties and thirteen year olds. It was fun to take that challenge; we did not make it to be PG-13, we set out with no rating, we just happened to get back to it. We gave Daniel the freedom to do whatever he wanted. Lionsgate, when they bought the movie, said if the rating’s board want us to cut the best parts, we’ll go R with it, that’s no problem. What was great was that they saw this was a religious family, so there wouldn’t be swearing, there’s no sex and there’s really not a call for gore, it’s not about that. It’s really, truly a psychological thriller. It’s been couched and sold as a horror film, but it’s really about this girl who might be crazy or might be possessed, so it’s fun watching people go in thinking they’re not going to get scared then coming out freaked out. People forget that Jaws was rated PG.

So do you have a particular movie that’ scary to you?

It changes from time to time. You know how it is, you get your favourite movie, it’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen, but the haunted house is never as scary the second time around. The stuff that terrified you will never be as terrifying. Horror movies lose their potency, which is why you’ve got to have layers in them so in repeat viewings you can find new things. So what scared you is never going to scare you when you watch it again. When you get those best of the decade lists, they’re always of films that came out in the last year, because the film that came out ten year ago, you’ve seen it thirty times by now, so how could it be scary? The one you saw recently really freaked you out because you haven’t seen it enough times. But Jesus, I saw this one horror movie and it disturbed me so much. I couldn’t sleep, I was getting nauseous. It was this film called Valentine’s Day with Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, oh god, I can’t even… It was terrifying, it was really traumatic!

You mentioned Lionsgate were happy to go with an R rating, was there any footage you ended up cutting out that might be on the DVD?

No, all the stuff that was cut was the right stuff to cut. It wasn’t that any of it was bad, it just didn’t progress the story. Once you get to the point, it felt like, the stuff that we cut – we can lose that, we get it by now, let’s just lose it and get onto the next bit. So I know Daniel’s looking for those moments because he knows where they are, he did thirty, forty takes of the footage, but there is no one magic scene, no, ‘oh, if only we hadn’t cut that scene’.

It’s interesting seeing an exorcism taking place in a rural community, it feels very much like the flipside to the original Exorcist, which is set in a highbrow city where everyone believes in science. Here, you’re taking a huckster into a religious community – it’s almost asking for trouble, was that an aspect of the film you found fascinating?

What was fascinating to me was that the reverend is the one that doesn’t believe in any of this. He just can’t see the other side at all. He’s so convinced he’s smarter than these people and he’s got it all figured out, he just can’t believe any of the stuff he’s doing. And Louis, the father, he’s so faithful that he could never believe that the reverend would lie to him and that’s what gets him into trouble. And it’s not just Cotton, it’s Pastor Manley that he lets into his house, which also leads to problems. What was fascinating to me was to watch a story about a reverend who maybe doesn’t believe in God, he tiptoes around the subject when anyone mentions it and you realise that he doesn’t. The fun of the movie is watching him have his faith tested and watching fail at every single test, because he never, ever believes.

Daniel talked about going on location in New Orleans, a part of the world that may have felt like it was abandoned by God. Was that an addition frisson while making the movie?

Yeah, it feels like it’s stopped in time. You could see the water line from Katrina in the plantation house we were in when the place was flooded. It was really interesting, them driving to the set everyday – you feel it, there’s a different air there. Voodoo is part of the culture there so everyone was thinking there was something strange and spiritual going on in New Orleans. There’s something specific to that place. I loved going into that world. It’s such a great, smart setting for the story. I’ve been in the deep South, when we were shooting Cabin Fever and the people would look at me like, ‘oh, there’s the Jew’. They’re very nice people, they’re good, God-fearing, Christian, churchgoing type folk, but they would not let their kids read Harry Potter; because that’s not the Bible. And they also have guns. It’s a really weird thing: they have guns and they have the Bible. And some of them are in the KKK. It’s really weird. They have all these they set for themselves to be good people and good Christians and then all these things they do which are completely insane. So I love the rural American setting of Cabin Fever and The Last Exorcism, but I also love that Cotton thinks he can just charm all of them with his charisma while he’s laughing at people involved in the cults. He’ making fun of them, they’re a joke and he basically doesn’t realise he’s become the subject of this documentary in a way that he never intended.

There seems to be cultural influences from all over the place in this film, what with Daniel’s Germanic background and the final sequences which seem to be influenced by 1970s British horror films, things like To the Devil a Daughter and all those Hammer adaptations. Was that something you guys were thinking of?

I love Daniel for his European perspective because having a European go into that culture; I mean Daniel’s so smart and observant anyway, and he’s hitchhiked across America so he knew the country intimately. And he was a peace worker in Ireland so he’s seen two sides of a culture totally unwilling to see the other’s point of view. He’s very observant and I loved his outsider opinion. There were things that he would notice that I would just take for granted, that he was able to capture. He has such an observant eye. I loved having his point of view. But Daniel’s favourite director is Lars Von Trier and he approached this like he was making The Idiots. That’s what I loved about it, it’s like we’re not making a horror film, we’re telling a story that’s horrific. And even though it isn’t a European art film, he really approached it as a character piece. And at the end when things go completely haywire, he’s still kind of maintaining, even despite what happens, the authenticity of the documentary style. I believe that the cult, if Cotton and the cameras weren’t there, wouldn’t be doing any of that, everything with the baby, it’s all just show, to keep the cameras rolling and he doesn’t believe until the fire comes up and then he finds God, but of course it’s easy to find God when the devil’s right in front of you; that’s not true faith. If none of them were wearing robes Cotton would be calling the police, but because it’s so outlandish, he’s hypnotised like a moth drawn to the flame, he can’t help himself, all because he still thinks he’s smarter than them. And he still doesn’t believe in God, therefore he doesn’t believe in the devil, he thinks they’re all a bunch of fucking crazy townspeople, just like in the beginning and that’s when he realises, ‘oh fuck’. The whole crew realises it, they thought they were smarter than everyone. They realise it’s their destiny, those drawings, and the whole film becomes about literally outrunning your destiny.

Even though it’s a much a spectacle as his exorcisms?

That’s exactly what it is, he uses the clichés of 70s exorcism movies, to take people’s money and the townspeople are also using the clichés from all those movies. They’re like, ‘all right, he wants to see a cult? We’ll show him a cult. You want to see the devil? I’ll do that. We’ll fucking paint symbols all over your house, wear a red robe, have a pentagram and we know that you’re stupid enough to keep filming us and you won’t call the police or get help because you think we’re a bunch of crazy people and you think you’re better than us. Watch what happens.’ He’s like, ‘oh fuck. Maybe I should have believed’. He finds God, but God’s like, ‘yeah, where were you five minutes ago? You had all the clues and you failed every time.’

Can you talk about your upcoming projects, anything about Thanksgiving?

Sure, my friend Jeff Rendell has been working on the script whilst I’ve been doing the press and as soon as I’m done with this, I can go sit down and write. I really need to finish my scripts; I’ve just been so busy in The Last Exorcism land, which believe me is a good place to be, but I’m ready to go back to writing.

I hear you’re working with Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland on…

Funhouse, we’re doing the Funhouse remake, they’re writing that right now. They’re great. They’re such funny guys I’m really excited.

Will we be seeing more of you acting after your cameo in Piranha 3D?

(With irony) Really, I didn’t think I could top my SAG Award winning performance in Inglourious Basterds, but then Alex Aja [director] invited me to come on set and hose down tits on Piranha 3D and I said what time do you need me? And having seen my performance in that film, I think there’s certain things you do that really are just sacrifices for art and for the betterment of cinema. And unless it’s a film I think is that much of a charitable contribution to the world, where you feel like you’re just contributing to the betterment of mankind, I probably wouldn’t do it… Unless it involves hosing down tits. Then I would do it.

Jackboots on Whitehall Review

The simplest way to describe Jackboots on Whitehall is as a World War 2 Team America. Set in an alternate history where the English soldiers have not been rescued at Dunkirk and taking its cues from the comic book heroes of the era, Jackboots is an anarchic comedy that proves very hard to dislike.

After losing their land and air forces, England is invaded by the Nazis, led by the high camp trio of Goebbels, Himmler and Goering, when they tunnel under the channel and emerge in Trafalgar Square, with an aim to capture Winston Churchill and put him in a cage. Clearly realism, sensitivity and political correctness were far from the top of the priority list. It’s left to simple farm boy Christopher, rejected by the army because his hands are too big (ahem), to save the Prime Minister and fight off the invasion. He rallies the inhabitants of his sleepy Kentish town, including the charming Daisy, her psychotic father and local reverend, a swarthy French resistance fighter and a misguided American fighter pilot, who is convinced that they’re fighting commie Ruskies. Together, they join the fight to save England.

The cast list is impressive. Lending their voices are none other than Ewan McGregor, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Timothy Spall, Alan Cumming, Stephen Merchant and Sanjeev Bhaskar, to name a few. The film is also shot surprisingly well, with some very nice aerial photography over the carefully constructed sets. The puppets are well done, though those based on actual historical figures (Churchill, Goebbels, et al) are somewhat superior to the fictional characters. The caricatures owe a lot to the likes of Spitting Image and really are very good, even if Goebbels is almost nauseatingly disturbing to look at.

It is of course the film’s humour that it hopes to trade on. Much of it is very funny, if rather juvenile. There are several instances of razor sharp satire, interspersed with very broad and blunt comic assaults. The laugh rate, however, isn’t quite as high as it needs to be, though, to come off favourably in the inevitable comparisons to Team America the film will receive. Edward and Rory McHenry (who also wrote the film and were heavily involved with the production design) direct the film pretty well, especially for such an unorthodox feature debut. I would suggest that the pace of the editing could have been picked up in places and some scenes felt a little like filler, however.

Despite its numerous flaws, though, I loved Jackboots. I found myself grinning all the way through and was even a little stirred at times (but then, who isn’t by a rousing chorus of Jerusalem, even when sung by puppets?). Jackboots on Whitehall may not quite make it onto any best films of the year lists, but it should at least go down as one of the most memorable.

Interview with Daniel Stamm, Director of The Last Exorcism

Daniel Stamm is in London to talk about his second feature film, The Last Exorcism, a documentary-style horror and FrightFest highlight, in which a charlatan preacher, Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) invites a film crew to film his last exorcism. Marcus is a nonbeliever and has lived his life as little more than a con artist. He encounters more than he bargains for when he is asked to exorcise Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell) – is the girl simply crazy or are real supernatural forces at work? And will Marcus find his faith in time to help her? Luckily for me and a handful of other journalists, Stamm is on hand to answer all these questions and more.

Tall and gregarious, Stamm shakes us each by hand and seems genuinely delighted to talk about his film. He breaks the ice by pouring us a drink personally and jokingly admiring our various recording devices. Stamm is originally from Germany, but has spent a lot of time in Ireland as a peace worker. As such, his Bavarian accent is softened with a pleasant Irish brogue. Drinks served, we get into the interview.

**Be warned – this interview contains SPOILERS**

One thing I wasn’t expecting was the film to be so funny, how important was humour – like in the banana bread scene? Patrick is one of the most charismatic actors I’ve seen in a long time.

Yeah, well, he’s a character with a very questionable past, he’s been exploiting people’s beliefs, and people are very touchy about that. If you want the audience to be on board with that and accept him as the protagonist as quickly as possible, then humour is a great weapon. And the banana bread recipe actually came out of him in the auditioning process. When he came in, I asked him to improvise a sermon. He had this eight minute long immaculate sermon, it was perfect, but too long, so I asked him if he could do the same thing in half the time. What I meant was to leave some of it out; instead he just he just sped up and talked twice as fast! And I couldn’t process what he was saying, it was so fast, but he had this energy which was contagious – I wanted to just stand up and cheer and say, ‘whatever you just said, let’s do it, I’m on board!’ And that’s exactly what I wanted from the character. So then we edited the scene with the banana bread, which was so important to the movie as it’s the first time you get that he’s the kind of trickster that he is, but likable and you go on the journey with him. We fade humour out completely towards the second half. I didn’t want to weave humour with the dark stuff, I just wanted to use it in the first half to make people like the characters and then go on this journey with them.

As you say, it gets darker towards the end and obviously the subject matter is pretty heavy and scary, but was that reflected behind the camera? What was the atmosphere like on set?

We were a very small team and I wanted to keep it as intimate as possible and not have people staring at the actors when they’re doing what they do. I wanted to create things on set rather than have them come onto the set with a preconceived notion; I wanted to create moments that you can feel on screen for the first time that will never happen again – a fresh, authentic thing. We would do twenty, thirty takes of just trying stuff, completely different approaches and all that. So on one hand the atmosphere was very playful, everyone really liked each other, but at the same time we were working on this plantation that had thirty-five degree heat, insects, no air conditioning, the smell… all of this intensity worked with it, doing thirty takes a day. People were so exhausted that you could do a lot – once actors get tense, it’s a great thing because they get rid of everything they thought they knew about the scene and they just want to be done with it, and that’s a tension that translates well to screen.

You talk about environment being central to such strong performances – was it an actual house you were filming in?

Yes

So how was the scouting process for locations?

We went down to New Orleans three times to look at plantations and this one had been deserted and flooded by Katrina – you could see the water mark on the wall, six feet high. Everything you see in the film, we hardly put any props in there; everything is part of the original house. It really does something to the actors when they can hear the creaking of the house. Everything you hear in the movie is all from the actual house. The creaking of the doors, it’s all real. So they actually reacted, they didn’t have to fabricate it in their heads, they didn’t have to pretend it was a spooky atmosphere – it is a spooky atmosphere. So it’s one less thing in their heads. They’re thinking less and reacting more.

This is your second film after A Necessary Death, where you’ve mixed the idea of doing a documentary and doing something that’s fictional. What led you to work in that style?

Originally, it was money issues. When we came out of film school, my thesis team and I said let’s not fall into this trap that a lot of film school students fall into where they wait for someone to give them a green light and millions to make their first movie and it never happens and a lot of people never shoot anything. So we said let’s borrow a camera somewhere, let’s tape on tapes that have been previously recorded on – we taped over the dailies of The Day After Tomorrow! – And let’s just shoot. And we didn’t even have a script, which then led to us shooting for three years, because anytime anything didn’t work in the editing room, because it didn’t cost us anything, we said let’s not waste time trying to sort this in the edit, let’s just grab the camera and go shoot. So we had all these sub plots that were going on and it took three years to make. But the style allows you to completely focus on the actors because you don’t wait for the lighting to do its thing or a close up to be lit or the actors to hit that mark, so all that is not in their heads. They can purely, really concentrate on reacting and creating moments and for a horror movie what it allows you to do is it takes away the fourth wall – you have people look directly into camera; there is no protection for the audience because they can’t say, oh this is just a movie because they are in it. They have a representative in it. And I think that they are very aware that what they see is only a frame, a snippet of the 360 degrees around them and they can’t count on me cutting to a different angle if they want to see something else because there’s no second camera. And that’s a really good style for a horror movie.

Did that lead to some improvisation?

Absolutely. We would always go back to the script, but to find the emotional core in a scene, we would always improvise. There’s a lot of stuff that changed, like with her boots, which I think is such an important scene for the girl, but that originally came from her being barefoot in the script. When we came to the location we were like, ‘we can’t have her running around barefoot, no insurance company in the world would cover it, she’s going to injure herself on the first day’. So we needed to put shoes on her somehow. So we just motivated this scene and suddenly it’s like this pivotal character moment for the girl. Stuff like that always happens. Talking about improv – the back-bend stuff which is on the poster; I didn’t know that she could do that, I cast such a great actress and then one night before we were shooting the scene, we were in the hotel lobby and I said to her, ‘is there anything you want to try tomorrow?’ She got up and said, ‘what about if I do this?’ She bent over backwards in the hotel lobby and her head almost touched the floor. I said, ‘stay where you are, I’m going to re-write the scene!’ So we just put her in a room with the camera and she did her thing and that’s almost the core of the movie now.

So there’s no effects in the whole exorcism scene?

Except for the finger breaking. She didn’t really break her fingers. Not that she wouldn’t have, committed actress that she is! We had a great make-up effect artist, Greg Nicotero who’s done all Tarantino’s movies, the Hostel movies and all that, and it’s so seductive because there’s this multi-Oscar-winning guy there who does anything you want, and you’re making horror movies, so you’re always tempted to go crazy, and you have to remind yourself not to and to contain it. I think it kind of works like when you see the cut on the face. In horror movie gore terms, that’s not a lot of blood, but everything else is so realistic and bloodless, suddenly a gash like that has a real impact with the audience.

Did you research any real exorcisms in preparation for the film?

We did, yeah. We actually had a real exorcist on set, which again, I didn’t plan for, but he was the brother of one of our drivers and the amazing thing with him was, to me, exorcisms are this amazing spectacle, but for him it was day to day work, he couldn’t be less impressed by the whole thing, he talked like he was working in a bank, he like, ‘yeah, I go to work. There’s the devil, there’s the demon, we have a conversation!’ I thought it was great. I made the actors do a lot of research, go to sermons, things like that because I wanted them to bring something to the set that they had experienced, rather than me telling them about it and them trying to recreate my vision. I found that the less of a vision I had coming to set, the more they will fill in the pieces. That’s what you really want because then you don’t get a movie that’s kind of filtered through one mind, but it’s all these different pieces that come together. It’s like real life. The pieces contradict each other, it’s not one genre, you have funny stuff in real life, and that really works well, that style.

You’ve shown the film to part of the religious community where you were filming, what was their reaction?

They loved it. I was worried about that, but then again, The Exorcist is one of the most beloved films by Catholics. The Vatican loves The Exorcist because it shows you the devil and what they’re up against. I thought it wouldn’t really make sense for them to hate it, because we respect their faith. If Cotton Marcus had found his faith earlier, he might have been able to rescue the girl. It’s left open ended – maybe God comes to his aid, maybe He doesn’t, it’s not for me to say, I can’t really make a statement in ninety minutes and say, ‘here’s what you’re supposed to think about faith.’ So it wouldn’t have made sense to me if they had hated it, but it was a surprise that they loved it as much as they did. It spurred a real discussion in the South about the themes, In New York and Chicago; it was all about ‘was I scared? Was I entertained?’ But in the South, it was a completely different discussion. ‘Did this feel real to my emotional religious experience?’ It was fascinating.

You show one of the aspects of Patrick’s character that as well as being a priest he’s a magician. He does card tricks, he has this fake cross that billows smoke. Because you cover that aspect of magic, was it important that you follow that through in the special effects – that they should all be practical? Something that someone could create rather than CGI?

The girl was important because the spine of the movie is whether she’s possessed or whether she’s crazy, so the easiest way to make sure that we kept that line was to make sure she didn’t do anything that she couldn’t actually do. It turns out that she could do a lot more than I thought she could, with the whole double-jointed thing, but that’s why I didn’t want any special effects or anything. The same with Cotton Marcus. To me, a priest or a preacher is a magician, a great storyteller. So it should all be doable. When you’re casting, you find the people who can really pull it off and then you don’t need CGI.

Was it hard to strike a balance between human evil and supernatural evil in the film in order to keep the audience guessing as to whether or not what’s happening to the characters is real?

The audience knows they’re watching a possession movie, so it’s likely that she is really possessed. But on the other hand you know that people are going into the movie with very different belief systems. So it’s important you give one side a protagonist – and it’s the irony that it’s the priest character who doesn’t believe. And then you give the other a protagonist, Lewis, and then you just have them clash. So I think as long as you don’t pre-judge, you give characters a chance to make their argument, you will automatically get that discourse.

One interpretation that I came up with is that everything you see on screen is a hoax perpetrated by the on screen filmmakers, even the killings and the satanic ritual at the end.

I love that. That would be my favourite interpretation. But it’s very far from people’s minds because I think it’s hard for them to believe that Cotton would have found that great of an actor in Nell, for example. She’s so realistic. When I read the script that was my interpretation and I loved that it because it allows people to go if they are believers and say, ‘this was all real and they were confronted by a demon’ and if they’re cynics then they can say religion is there to make money and they really like that interpretation. But I think then it turns out that the acting is so realistic, it’s hard for people to accept that possibility. I wish there was more of that.

One scene that does support that though is when Nell shows up in Cotton’s hotel room. That scene is quite supernatural – how does she get there? Surely they must have had some kind of relationship for her to have been there?

There was a lot of the first act establishing that he is a trickster, that he’s shooting videos now, providing his own story. We did layer a lot in there to support that, but it kind of gets lost, so it’s great that people have picked up on it.

It’s almost a little too good to be true, that the first letter he picks up, opens in front of the filmmakers and goes to investigate is the one… but then that could be the forces of evil!

Exactly, the devil’s after him – if he had gone somewhere else, the devil would have followed him there.

Do you see it as evil wanting to get back at Cotton or Cotton taking this journey willingly?

Well he takes the journey willingly, but he doesn’t know what journey he’s setting out on. It is his last exorcism, so if evil wants to get him, it better do it now.

Do you have another movie lined up?

I have, but I can’t say anything! I hate it! It’s working with one of my favourite filmmakers in the world, a director who now produces. It’s a supernatural thriller, I can’t talk about it yet because the deal is still being made.

Can you tell us if it will be in the same faux-documentary style?

No, it’s a conventional narrative film. It’s funny because in meetings with producers, everybody’s always asking me if I can shoot a conventional narrative movie, and it’s all I’ve been trained to do for years! At film school it’s all we did! I have to convince everyone I can also put the camera on a tripod if necessary.

I’ve read that you’re a certified hypnotist – does that help with securing funding for your films?

Yeah! (Stamm gives me a hypnotist’s gaze and utters in a low montone) You want to give me your money… It’s actually something we did just out of fun, my editor, my writer and I, it’s something that we wanted to try that wasn’t film related. The Institute of Hypnosis in Los Angeles offered free courses, so we went, we did the course and it was fascinating, it’s completely different from what you think. You think it’s all about relaxation, but it’s really the opposite. You’re giving the person that’s being hypnotised so many little commands: could you put the chair closer, put your head here, and so on, that your filter, that monitors what goes into your subconscious, gives up because it can’t keep up – almost like Cotton Marcus giving a sermon – you just give up and let everything in and that’s when hypnosis works. But I think you’d have to be much better than I to properly hypnotise people.

To elaborate on that, you’ve been involved with music, documentary making, the hypnotism – does all this feed into your feature film work?

I think so, because you draw from a lot of different sources. Music is all about rhythm, which I think acting and editing is all about, documentary making is all about observing, which this style is very much about, initiating something and getting the best moments out of it. And hypnosis… I would love to hypnotise actors and see what happens!

Can you tell us how you got involved with The Last Exorcism?

I had made a movie called A Necessary Death, right out of film school. It was in exactly the same style as The Last Exorcism, which was originally going to be directed by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland, who wrote it, but they had to do another movie called The Virginity Hit, which is coming out in a month and they were contractually obligated to that, so the producers were looking for a new director, saw my film and said they wanted exactly that style in a horror movie. I came aboard, read the script, loved the script. I was a fan of Eli [Roth – producer]’s, I couldn’t believe I was going to work with him.

It seems like you’ve captured the zeitgeist – there have been other horror films to use the documentary style, going back to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but in the way this film has used viral marketing on the internet.

Well the Chatroulette thing – I didn’t even know what Chatroulette was! They pitched it and everyone was like, ‘ooh, that’s so clever!’ And I said ‘what the hell is Chatroulette?!’ When I saw it, I couldn’t believe it, it’s the smartest thing, it lends itself to the film so well. We had two million hits in two days. Our trailer didn’t have that many in a month. That thing just took off. It really helped the movie.

All of the things you see in the movie are the kinds of thing that might be put up on the internet as a hoax.

We said from the very beginning that we don’t want to pretend that this is real, ever. We’re not going to try to capture the Blair Witch phenomenon again. It’s a rich style in itself, where you don’t need that excuse; you don’t need that conceit for it to work. That’s why we scored it. A lot of people argued that we shouldn’t have, but documentaries are scored, why wouldn’t you score it? It’s edited, if you had the unedited version, you’d have 120 hours to watch. Sometimes there’s the discussion that it feels like there’s more than one camera angle – and it probably does. In the beginning, I was fanatically about it: if there’s a demon shooting out, the cameraman is going to shoot the demon, he’s not going to go, ‘there’s a demon, let’s see what Cotton Marcus thinks about this’. But then when we cut it, it was just missing. We lost our protagonist so we reshot reaction shots to keep the audience emotionally involved in the picture. There’s always a balance. Some people bitched about it, rightfully so, because they approached it more intellectually, but it’s more important that the main part of the audience goes on the journey with you.

Do you have a favourite scary movie yourself?

Psycho. Which I watched when I was eight. What that movie does – killing your protagonist after twenty minutes and then forcing you, because there was no other character to identify with, to side with the psycho killer without you knowing it’s the psycho killer and once you know it’s late – that’s genius.

Going the Distance Review

Half-decent romantic comedies seem few and far between these days. Recent pictures such as The Proposal, The Ugly Truth, Leap Year, Valentine’s Day, The Bounty Hunter and The Back-Up Plan have all been criticised with such derision as to beggar belief. Which is unfortunate, as there have been more than a few thoroughly enjoyable rom-coms over the years; take Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pretty Woman, Bridget Jones’ Diary and There’s Something about Mary for instance. The genre, like so many of its protagonists in their second acts, is going through a rough patch. Is Going the Distance the film to change this?

Erin (Drew Barrymore) and Garret (Justin Long) meet in New York and get together after a night of booze, marijuana and chicken wings and despite both having really awful names. Erin is in the city as a summer intern with a newspaper she desperately wants to write for and will be leaving for San Francisco in six weeks. As such, they decide to keep their fling casual but, of course, they fall in love and decide to maintain a long distance relationship.

Anyone who has been in a long distance relationship themselves will sympathise with the couple’s trials and tribulations as Barrymore and Long try to work around the singular difficulty of being in a close relationship with someone you are by no means physically close to. Apparently an on/off couple in real life, the leading actors are convincing in their roles both individually and together. Barrymore exudes charisma as always and Long is surprisingly watchable even when he’s not having wrenches hurled at his body. The supporting cast are also decent; Christina Applegate amuses as Barrymore’s intimidating older sister, as do funnymen Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day as Long’s best friends.

Nanette Burstein brings her previous work experience as a documentary film-maker into her first feature film, although the visual style is ultimately a little inconsistent. Apparently improvisation was also encouraged on set, but again, the results are hit and miss. There’s a lot of amusing dialogue, but few if any belly laughs. The film lacks punch lines – like Barrymore and Long’s ill-fated attempt at phone sex, there’s a lot of funny foreplay but no comedic climaxes. The dialogue is also occasionally somewhat stilted; as if the actors are not quite sure what to do with the freedom they’ve been given.

That said, I just about enjoyed the film despite its flaws. I imagine that the original script was initially written with slightly younger actors in the lead roles (Erin and Garret are in their early/mid—thirties) but the film works in spite of this – I could just about accept that Barrymore is still at university. In fact, that the characters are in their thirties adds to the weight of their decisions and how they affect each others’ lives, which was welcome.

The film felt like a reasonably refreshing change from what has become the rom-com norm – characters and situations are dealt with more seriously and intelligently than in recent fare and situations never become ludicrous or unbelievable. It only really lacks for a few more laughs. Going the Distance gets the rom just right, but really needs a lot more com.