Reviews

From the brilliantly talented writer-director Eva Riley, another intimate and vividly sketched portrait of a woman in crisis, with a knockout performance by Charlotte Spencer (who looked familiar from Sanditon - this is a seriously gifted actor).

19 minutes of focused brilliance.

Eva made this before her feature debut 'Perfect 10', which is of course definitely worth checking out.

I think Eva's in the Andrea Arnold school, and I hope she takes that as a massive compliment.

But if you want to see how beautiful she is, and how - with an infinitely better director - she displays a wonderful comic side, please, please watch They All Laughed.

There seems to be many doubts expressed here about the verisimilitude of this film. To me, it is a powerful evocation of what it must have been like - to have genuinely been like - waiting in that trench for the awful battle ahead to come - a battle in which 60,000 UK troops were killed or injured - the biggest day of casualties ever.

I thought it would be helpful to post come of the writer's own thoughts as a useful corrective to some of the comments.

"I wanted to make a film about the First World War, which obsesses me, and I wanted to make it super-accurate. We took enormous pains to get everything right, from the badges on the caps to the state of the trenches in July 1916. Everything was scrupulously accurate. And one of the things I wanted to do was have no stars. And I achieved that. The only thing that's happened is they've since become enormous stars. But actually at the time, when I cast Daniel Craig, he wasn't well known at all, Ben Whishaw - it was his very first film, he was doing his A levels - Cillian Murphy, I think had made one little film in Ireland, Danny Dyer had yet to take over the pub in Eastenders, Julian Rhind-Tutt, James D'Arcy all these guys have gone on to have fantastic careers, and they owe it all to me, or course! But they were unknowns at the time. The most famous actor in it was Paul Nicholls, who had just come out of Eastenders.. It cost a million pounds, it was an arthouse war movie, it was fascinating to do.. As a portrait of the reality of trench life in World War One - which was in a way my main ambition - I don't think it can be faulted."

(Interviewed in 2018.)

"Soldiers swear, vilely, all the time - swear like troopers, in fact. Anyone who wants to know how soldiers swore in 1916 should read 'Her Privates We' (published in 1930), a magnificent novel by Frederic Manning, a writer who served at the Somme as a private soldier. Manning's fellow soldiers swear vigorously and colourfully.

"The war had been going on for two years and everyone -from the generals to the private officers - thought the battle would be a walkover. They thought the week-long barrage before it started would kill every German soldier opposite. They didn't know the German soldiers could descend to deep concrete dugouts and sit the barrage out. If you had said to a British Tommy, on the eve of the battle, that the Germans were just sitting there, waiting, he'd have thought you were joking.

The trenches at the Somme were solidly constructed, deep, well revetted and duckboarded. The Somme valley had been a quiet sector until the decision to have a battle there in 1916. People tend to forget that it took place in the middle of summer. Wildlife abounded, No Man's Land was unmown, uncropped pasture. Summer was everywhere except in the earthy confines of the trench, its only evidence in the strip of blue sky above your head."

(Excerpts from 'Bamboo', published 2005.)

If you liked Being John Malkovich or Adaptation (both thoroughly recommended) then you'll like this, another brain-flip movie by screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. In this, Jim Carrey realises his girlfriend has had her memory of him and their relationship erased by a sinister corporation, so he does the same. Whilst they're at work on his brain, killing off the memories of her, he realises he doesn't want them to. We see all his memories being destroyed as though in a dream, which is very trippy. The director, Michael Gondry, made some very interesting pop videos including the amazing Chemical Brothers 'Star Guitar' which is shot through the window of a train, and in which passing objects like telegraph poles are incredibly timed to beats of the music. When I first saw the video I was so impressed that my jaw unhinged and crashed to the ground as in an old Tex Avery cartoon, and some of Eternal Sunshine has this same quality to it. Anyway, a very different film, one of those that as soon as it's over you want to watch it again; Carrey and Winslet are good. Also check out the other Kaufman titles if you like films that require some activity of the grey matter.

Dirty Filthy Love is one of the best films produced for British TV in 2004. Michael Sheen is a simply wonderful actor who will be BIG if he gets the breaks. As a man suffering from a marriage bust up compounded by Compulsive Obsessive Disorder and Tourette's, he injects a huge amount of pathos and humour into the role. Long after the film is over you will still be seeing Michael barking like a dog and swearing uncontrollably at complete strangers. It's a brave, touching and very funny film about a difficult subject told without artificial sentimentality, thoroughly recommended. When you've seen this, rush off to get Sheen in another little British gem 'Heartlands'.

Loser is quite enjoyable - not I thought up to the standard of 'Fast Times..' or 'Clueless'. However, what really struck me is that the plot is almost identical to 'The Apartment'. The only major story difference also gives the film its contemporary spin - whilst the Shirley Maclaine character tries to kill herself, the Mena Suvari version is given a drink spiked with Rohipnol - the 'date rape' drug. It was really creepy to see college kids doing this. No doubt Billy Wilder would have thought of a suitably ironic way for the date-rapers to get their comeuppance!

What a wonderful film Mrs Miniver still is 58 years later. Like Coppola's 'Gardens of Stone', it deals with war by following the lives of those affected by it, and without showing any combat. It's moving, but unlike many other films of the period, totally unsentimental, though has many warm and winning moments (Pidgeon spanking Garson as the maid walks in, following an eventful morning, to say the least!)

Two sequences particularly clicked on this viewing. The first involves the son/pilot who is recalled to service abruptly when his leave has only just begun. He goes upstairs to get his belongings, the mother and fiancée are left in the room, with the backs of their heads to camera - a most unusual shot 'against the rules' of filming. Then you realise the centre of attention is the space left on the stair by the son - they and we are missing him, awaiting his return, but only for a moment as he must leave again. It's as poignant as the doorway framing scenes in 'The Searchers', and rather subtle.

Another scene is the family in the air raid shelter undergoing a bombing attack. The claustrophobia of the situation, and the bravery and dignity of the powerless family caught there, is focused by a single point of view. The unspoken fear is on the face of Garson, vocalised by the kids who finally awake as the bombardment increases. Long, simple takes perfectly capture the intense atmosphere (and exceptional acting.

When I was young I never appreciated this art of 'invisible' film-making, and just why such directors as William Wyler or Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder do such a good job without you even noticing. The fact their films stand the test of time so well is testament to their wonderful abilities as film-makers.

Tenebrae has just been released on UK video after being "banned" since 1983. In fact the film had a UK cinema release back then, after 4 seconds of cuts. The video now has 5 seconds of cuts! (Information from bbfc.co.uk, the official classifiers in this country.) So over the last 17 years, one second of this film has become more offensive!

I guess it was withheld from video as the film can be seen as promoting violence against women, which was a big issue here in the early 'eighties (even de Palma's 'Dressed to Kill' received a lot of adverse media publicity).

Unfortunately, Tenebrae is a boring load of rubbish, totally lacking in scares, pretty tame, laughable, and remarkably devoid of the Argento 'style' that other reviewers indicate makes the film watchable, and that definitely was present in the director's earlier 'Suspiria'. Sorry guys, a lot of slow tracking around the outside of a house does not make a piece of stylish horror..or am I just getting old? This is just like any other old slasher movie.

If you want a stylish and scary horror film, check out Shindo's 'Onibaba' instead!