The Road to Guantanamo.
A brief look at some of the more recent films of Michael Winterbottom
seems to suggest a preference for making ‘sensationalist’
movies simply for the notoriety these films will probably
produce. ‘24 Hour Party People’ implied that the
British 1980’s Punk music scene was fueled by an excess
of drugs (which it probably was), ‘9 Songs’ was
a vapid exploration of the relationship between sex and rock
‘n’ roll music, while ‘Tristram Shandy’
was a pointless exercise in the myth of movie-making. All
of these films, however, had considerable commercial success
as they were ‘controversial’. With his latest
movie, ‘The Road to Guantanamo’, co-directed with
Mat Whitecross, Winterbottom dips into his impressive bag
of cinematic tricks to create a movie that is guaranteed to
be ‘controversial’, no matter what your personal
political slant may be. The movie tells the true story of
three British citizens who go to Pakistan to attend a wedding,
cross the Afghanistan border on a sight-seeing trip just as
the Americans commence their bombing campaign, and are subsequently
captured by the Northern Alliance. Liberated by the Americans,
they mistake them for terrorists, and imprison them in the
notorious Camp Delta in Guantanamo, Cuba, where they were
brutally tortured. The Americans held impressive evidence
of the trio’s supposed exploits, but this was never
proven to be correct or fabricated. The trio emerges as victims
of fate and politics. Shot on video to enhance it verisimilitude,
and by mixing archival footage with re-enactments of actual
events, Winterbottom creates a manipulative ‘pseudo-documentary’
that is relentless in its damnation of America and its foreign
policy. Whether or not you agree with the thrust of the movie,
and whether you approve of Winterbottom’s subversive
direction, all-the-same, the movie won the Silver Bear at
the Berlin Film Festival 2006. Even if the movie is ‘controversial’,
‘manipulative’ and ‘sensationalist’,
it is compelling and essential viewing.
Mini’s First Time.
Reminiscent of Drew Barrymore’s 1992 ‘Poison Ivy’,
there is, however, enough substance to writer and director
Nick Guthe’s sordid tale, ‘Mini’s First
Time’, to make comparisons unfair. Desperate to be rid
of her unloving and drunken mother, the scheming and beautiful
young Mini seduces her step-father, and sets about convincing
him to take part in a plot to have her mother declared insane.
Their conspiracy quickly escalates to murder, and when blackmail
seems apparent suspicion falls on the next-door aging lothario.
Set in an up-market Los Angeles suburb, populated with movie
producers, TV executives, failed actresses and trophy brides,
director Guthe depicts a sleazy side of Hollywood that is
captured in bright glaring colors, stylish editing, and a
considerable amount of pace and tension. As an American morality
play, this is a ‘black-comedy’ that really works.
Much of the appalling motivations of the principal characters
are softened by an ironical sense of humor, evident in both
the script and the performances. Mini is a real ‘bitch’,
but you can’t help loving the girl! New-comer Nikki
Reed sizzles as the wanton seductress. There is something
about her that reminds you of a young Madonna, but she displays
far more talent than that songstress ever did in any of her
movies. Alec Baldwin hasn’t had a decent role for years,
and as the smitten step-father he makes the most of this God-given
opportunity for a comeback. He handles himself extremely well.
Jeff Goldblum, who seems to be in every new American movie
lately, also enjoys himself thoroughly as the lecherous neighbor.
All-in-all, with its twists and turns, it is a rather zappy
piece of film-making, and its startling garish presentation
gives new meaning to the term ‘color-film-noir’.
Palais Royal!
I wonder if the world is ready yet to laugh at the life of
Princess Diana. French film-maker Valerie Lemercier seems
prepared to test the waters with her low-key comedy ‘Palais
Royal!’, but, being French, she probably thinks she
can get away with it. Surprisingly enough, she does! When
the King of a fictitious European nation suddenly dies, through
a constitutional crisis the second son Prince Arnaud becomes
heir apparent. Arnaud is married to the gauche Princess Armelle,
who the glacial Queen Mother Eugenia considers not appropriate
for the position. Plans are underway to downplay her role,
but, Armelle is actually made of sterner stuff, and is not
prepared to fade quietly into the background. Armelle plots
her own revenge. Much of Diana’s story is appropriated
by writer and director Valerie Lemercier, and she re-presents
it in a humorous but softly affectionate manner. Lemercier
also plays the naïve Princess Armelle with quite a lot
of effective charm. She uses a physical style of humor that
is not slap-stick, but, instead, relies on small but expressive
gestures and telling nuances of delivery. Her Armelle is just
as endearing as its inspiration. Still radiant at 63 years
of age, Catherine Deneuve, as the icy Queen Mother, gives
a fantastic impersonation of Princess Grace of Monaco. Another
Royal Family the movie occasionally sends-up. In one superb
scene the Queen Mother and her advisor discuss the burgeoning
sales of tea-towels and coffee-mug memorabilia, in total earnest,
while the humor of the scene is left to float to the surface.
This is a movie full of sophisticated French wit, and, just
below the comedy, is a message about the unnecessary constitutional
monarchies in present day republican Europe. Princess Diana
was a realist. She would have probably approved.
The Lake House.
I am going to be bitchy about this movie, ‘The Lake
House’, but, what the hell? It is a load of codswallop
anyway! Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves play a pair of star-crossed
lovers caught in different time zones. Sandra is in 2006 while
Keanu is trapped in 2004. Don’t ask me how. It is never
really explained. Both lived, and live, in a glass-house built
on an isolated lake. They communicate, and fall in love, by
placing letters in the house’s mail-box, and desperately
try to make plans to meet in the future, to no avail. Ok,
enough already about the plot. It is ridiculous. Sandra and
Keanu first lit up the screen in 1994’s ‘Speed’,
and here they desperately try to ignite their old spark, also
to no avail. Sandra doesn’t look like Sandra any more.
Perhaps one too many botox injections. Meanwhile, Keanu is
not aging gracefully. He is no longer cute, and all the way
through the movie he reminded me of an aging Rock Hudson.
The movie is very old-fashioned. It tries to be a tear-jerking,
three Kleenex tissue box ‘date-movie’, but it
will have little appeal.
Cow Belles.
Starring a pair of truly nauseous sisters, Alyson and Amanda
Michalka, this movie is so bad that I will say what I have
to say very quickly, before I am violently ill and have to
throw up! “Cow-Belles-must-be-the-worst-DVD-to-ever-come-out-of-the-Disney-Studio-and-it-is-not-worth-the-plastic-it-is-printed-on”!
There, I feel so much better having got that off my chest.
