Reviews

Starting with absurdity, continuing as a Bildungsroman, developing into a vigilante film, wrapping up with a stereotypical immigrant success story negated by cinematic language that leaves it ambiguous whether this happy ending is dream or reality. Audiard has done the best synthesis of immigrant stories and the refugee experience.

The tension between a killer-machine-turned soft-spoken janitor and relentless urban gangsters brings back the old wisdom on violence: those who fought in real wars never want violence back. On the other hand, those who are left on the margins of our society might develop an almost anachronistic volatility and a combative instinct. The latter might seem child-play as evidenced by the final elimination of thugs by the Tamil warrior, but the intricate relationship between the two forms of violence goes beyond the dramatic tensions and sticks in audience's head long after the film theatre lights up.

The narrative and the language have few traces of insincerity or patronization, which is extremely surprising for its subject matter. Family as another subject matter softens the images full of blood and firearms.

Tomm Moore's second feature has a lot in common with his 2009 debut "The Secret of Kells": both are hand-drawn, both are rooted in Celtic mythologies and Irish folklore tradition, both are (at least) nominated for an Oscar.

The animation is unbelievably beautiful. The rediscovery of Celtic mythologies is certainly a smart gesture of identity. But the way in which these indigenous stories are woven into a modern story of family value is purely boring and the image of women is absolutely appalling. The moral of the story is mediocre at the best, but for a good reason: to write a subversive version, the original story has to be very well known among the public. So I guess the great innovation of this movie (and of "The Secret of Kells") lies in its unapologetic embrace of the local cultural heritage and the audacious move to bring it on the world stage via cinema, arguably the most international and most accessible art.

The adult-child dichotomy is utilized to sew together the universes of artistic creation and storytelling. It serves as the metaphor for a few other dualities such as reason-emotion, reality-imagination, and most importantly the modern industrial and colonial world versus the indigenous Irish/Scottish culture marked by lovely folklores yet unknown to the world. The characters' refusal of urban life and attachment to the sea and the family forms a certain type of postcolonial nostalgia that permeates the movie.

The directorial debut of Robert Stromberg is not only a visually delightful reconstruction of the 1959 Disney fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty", but also a deconstruction of its simplistic black-and-white universe, its feel-good storyline and the values it championed. I particularly enjoyed the presence of powerful female characters: the eponymous fairy queen, antagonist in the Disney version, is here the protagonist around whom the whole plot evolves; the story is narrated by the Sleeping Beauty herself, which gives the auctorial authority to a woman.

Stromberg was the production designer of "Avatar", "Alice in Wonderland", which won him two Oscars, and "Oz the Great and Powerful" (James Franco!), a wonderful retelling of the cult classic "The Wizard of Oz". He also worked with the special effect team of the "Game of Thrones". Maleficent's loss of wings could well echo with Angelina Jolie's painful double mastectomy in real life and thus create some interesting paratexts for the film. Sam Riley has a few major roles under his name including a rather convincing portrayal of Kerouac's protagonist in "On the Road" (2012). And of course the prince charming has to be an Australian! The sexy and delicious Brenton Thwaites plays a prince who won't be killing any dragon nor is he able to perform the magic of liberating his sleeping girl, a supporting role in its absolute sense, but nicely done. You can see why Jolie, a fervent feminist, was interested by the script and eventually accepted the role.

Some parts of the story might seem underdeveloped, but it's essentially an anti-myth, anti-fairy tale and a postmodern re-creation requires our knowledge of its intertextual conversations. Luckily, nothing is better known than cheap Disney fairy tales.