They’ll Always Have Paris - Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War

“If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.”

Poland. 1949. Lugubrious pianist Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) has been hired to help sand the rough edges off the Mazurek folk ensemble and turn it into a class act. One of the singers vying for a spot in the fledgling troupe is the mercurial Zula (Joanna Kulig), on probation for stabbing her father. During the audition process, she catches Wiktor’s eye (and ear) with a rendition of the song “Two Hearts” (“Dwa serduszka”) that she’d heard in a movie once.

"Two hearts, four eyes
Crying all of the day and all of the night..." 

It’s love at first note.

From there, Cold War tracks the two star-crossed lovers all over post-war Europe for the next fifteen years. From Warsaw to East Berlin; Paris to Yugoslavia and back again, moving towards its diminuendo back in Poland in 1964. At a Parisian soirée one evening, Zula is told that “time doesn’t matter when you are in love”, but how many compromises and sacrifices can love withstand before time runs out and the music stops?

Inspired by and dedicated to his parents, Pawlikowski begins Cold War with music and lingering close-ups on the faces of rural folk musicians as they perform straight to camera. The tempo of Cold War is driven by music. From the humble simplicity of folk music to the grandiose vulgarity of communist propaganda - that same folk music perverted to lionise Lenin and Stalin; from bebop and torch songs to Bill Haley and his Comets having a “Rock Around The Clock”.

But music isn’t the only thing driving the story. Early on, we see a workman attempting to hang a banner that reads “WE WELCOME TOMORROW". As he’s hammering in the final nail, he falls off his ladder, pulling the banner down with him. Perhaps the reason that they welcome tomorrow is because they don’t have a clue what tomorrow will bring. Not a bad metaphor for the struggles yet to come.

Cold War is masterfully constructed by the trinity of cinematographer Lukasz Zal (his crisp, clean monochrome photography commanding in the Academy ratio frame); the elliptical rhythmic editing of Jaroslaw Kaminski and, leading from the front, the conductor of the piece, Paweł Pawlikowski. With subtle grace notes of Fassbinder and Casablanca, Cold War is pitch perfect.

Cold War is in cinemas and on demand in the UK from Friday 31st August 2018.

All Along The Watchtower - Daniel Kokotajlo’s Apostasy

“There must be some kind of way outta here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief”

apostasy (əˈpɒstəsi) = "the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief or principle."

Writer-director Daniel Kokotajlo draws on his personal experiences of life inside (and outside) the Jehovah’s Witnesses for his even-handed, extremely assured and deeply compassionate debut feature Apostasy.

“I’m sorry, Jehovah.” On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, the first words we hear come from Alex (Molly Wright)’s inner monologue – an apology for politely indulging her doctor’s vain plea for her to seriously consider ongoing medical treatment for her life-threatening anaemia. It won’t be the last time blood is rejected in Apostasy…

Alex’s blood kin are her older sister Luisa (Sacha Parkinson) and mother Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran). Set in Kokotajlo’s native Oldham, Apostasy follows the three women as they wrestle with the tensions and fundamental dichotomy that exist between their daily life and relationships, and “The Truth” as espoused by the Witnesses.

Aided by cinematographer Adam Scarth’s detached, visually austere images, Kokotajlo’s film is a sensitive, nuanced and restrained portrayal of what it means to unquestioningly pledge fealty to the beliefs of the Jehovah’s Witnesses as they await the arrival of “The New System” (the creation of God’s Kingdom on Earth following Armageddon).

Significantly, the faith’s Elders are all men – interpreting and applying the scripture, providing “divine guidance”, and thus exerting pressure (and maybe a little bit of fear?) - affecting the decisions and travails faced by the three women as the story progresses. The inert stillness of the Witnesses “Kingdom Hall” is at odds with the world that rushes past on the busy dual carriageway in the background. It’s a resolutely patriarchal belief system and there’s the conspicuous absence of a father / husband in the home of our three protagonists – he’s mentioned long enough for us to notice that he’s not there, and no-one wants to talk about why…

All three lead actresses are uniformly superb – in particular Siobhan Finneran as Ivanna, giving a subtle, quietly conflicted, expressive and controlled performance. With the tiniest physical gestures, we see the cognitive dissonance and uncertainty crackle across her face and flash in her eyes.

At times unsettling and occasionally harrowing (there’s some archive video footage on “How to Cope with Grief” that I found chilling), yet moving and fair, Apostasy provides an exceptionally rare insight into the power and persuasive groupthink of the faith over its adherents. Crucially, this is not an exposé, a hatchet job or a tell-all. Kokotajlo is far more sympathetic, open-minded and open-hearted than that. Unsurprisingly, the closing credits contain the disclaimer “Not endorsed by the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses”.

Apostasy is in cinemas and on demand in the UK from Friday 27th July 2018.

Mic Check

"Y'all know me, still the same O.G. but I been low-key…"

Well, that was a longer break between posts than I intended. Happy New Year!

This is your Proof of Life blogpost to say “Hi!” and “How are you? You look fabulous today!” and “I’m back!”. Loads of Brand New Shit will be coming your way soon, in the spirit of the Same Old Shit you used to enjoy so much back in the day.

Pulling off the dust sheets and kicking the tyres. Misplacing modifiers and splitting infinitives. In this age of newsletters and Twitter threads, I’m resolutely kicking it old school by retreating back to the ramshackle comfort of this blog. Strap in. It Is Happening Again.

Listomania! My Favourite Films of 2017

Time, once again, for my entirely arbitrary and idiosyncratic Films of the Year list. Because I love you, here are a bunch of links to sate your overwhelming desire to catch up with my lists from years past:

2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / 2016

All caught up? Excellent!

I was going to write an elaborate, scene-setting preamble about My Year in Film, but I feel like I’ve been unwillingly subjected to the detailed opinions and tepid “hot takes” of Everyone On The Internet all year long, so I’m doing us all a huge favour by saying as little as possible about my choices this time round. As Dirty Harry Callahan said in his belated not-very-good sequel The Dead Pool: “Well, opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.”

In that spirit, in no particular order, and for our collective amusement, it’s time to moon you with My Top Ten. Here we go:

Colossal (Nacho Vigalondo)

John Wick: Chapter 2 (Chad Stahelski)

Get Out (Jordan Peele)

Hacksaw Ridge (Mel Gibson)

The Handmaiden (Ah-ga-ssi) (Chan-wook Park)

My Life as a Courgette (Ma vie de Courgette) (Claude Barras)

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (S. Craig Zahler)

Blade of the Immortal (Mugen no jûnin) (Takashi Miike)

The Disaster Artist (James Franco)

The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

It’s a small world after all.

Just under that formidable Top Ten is another honestly-just-as-good Ten - any one of which could have made it onto the main list on another day depending on my mood.

Close But No Cigar:

The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)
Kong: Skull Island (Jordan Vogt-Roberts)
Logan (James Mangold)
The Love Witch (Anna Biller)
Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)
A Fantastic Woman (Una mujer fantástica) (Sebastián Lelio)
The Merciless (Sung-hyun Byun)
On Body and Soul (Teströl és lélekröl) (Ildikó Enyedi)
Silence (Martin Scorsese)
Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi)

UPDATED 20/12/17: The final results of the HeyUGuys Online Critics Best Films of 2017 Poll are now out, voted for by the great and the good (and me). Enjoy!

Listomania! It Is Happening Again

What year is this?

This may be a little premature, but there's a very real possibility that my favourite film of the year will be all 18 hours of TWIN PEAKS.

— AKA (@_AKA_) June 15, 2017

Before we get to my now-traditional and oh-so-eagerly-awaited Films of the Year list, let’s get this out of the way first:

Twin Peaks was the best thing I saw all year. I don’t know if it’s one eighteen-hour movie or eighteen one-hour movies or just the third season of a beloved television series, and I really don’t care.

I do know what it is for me, though. It’s dissonant industrial noise and mist-wreathed mountains and kabuki and “Squeeze his hand off!” and Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” and slippery in here. It’s blood and static and slapstick, candyfloss clouds and “Fuck Gene Kelly, you motherfucker!” and yrev very good indeed. Jerry Horne screamed “I don’t know where I am!”. I knew exactly how he felt, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. It was a helluva ride, and it was undoubtedly my favourite slab of storytelling of any length this year.

I don’t watch much television at all any more, but I do want to give an additional shout-out to both Samurai Jack and Vice Principals for deeply satisfying conclusions to their respective sagas too.

Next stop: My Actual Films of the Year List! I can taste your anticipation from here.

George A. Romero 1940 - 2017

"I really just wanna do my own stuff, and writing is the first line of defence. You can’t defend something forcibly if you didn’t write it."

So long, and thanks for all the flesh.

Sunrise

Been up most of the night.
May is finished.
UKIP dead.
Brexit hobbled.
Labour ascendant.
Murdoch furious.
Totally worth it. The sun is up.

— AKA (@_AKA_) June 9, 2017

Stuck

I’m stuck. I’ve got a grab bag of tricks for getting unstuck. They don’t always work. Here’s one that helps sometimes, and I’m putting it here because I have a tendency to lose this whenever I need it most. It’s the script for “Arctic Radar” the tenth episode of the fourth season of The West Wing, written by Aaron Sorkin. One scene in particular. Here’s the set-up: Communications Director Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) is stuck. In the sort of peppy, verbose meet-cute that Sorkin excels at, Toby swaps speech drafts with prospective speechwriter Will Bailey (Joshua Malina). There’s a lot more going on than that (and you can read the whole thing here), but here’s the bit that I’m particularly interested in:

TOBY

This is incredibly good, Will. "Never shrinking from the world's..." "...a fierce belief in what we can achieve together." I used to write like this. It was ten months ago. I don't understand what's going on. I really don't. I've had slumps before. Everybody does, but this is different. I'm sorry, we don't know each other, but there aren't that many people I can talk to about it. I don't understand what's happening. There's no blood going to it. I never had to locate it before. I don't even know where to look. I'm the President's voice and I don't want it to sound like this. And there's an incredible history to second inaugurals. "Fear itself," Lincoln... I really thought I was on my way to being one of those guys. I thought I was close. Now I'm just writing for my life and you can't serve the President that way. But if I didn't write... I can't serve him at all.

WILL

Yeah. Can I tell you three things? You are more in need of a night in Atlantic City, than any man I've ever met. Number two is, the last thing you need to worry about is no blood going there. You've got blood going there, about thirteen ways. And some of it isn't good. Once again, I say, "Atlantic City." I'd say sit down at a table, go for dinner, see a show, take a walk on the boardwalk and smell the salt air... but if you're anything like me, nothing after "sit down at a table" is going to happen.

TOBY

What's the third thing?

WILL

You are one of those guys. This is an inning of good relief pitching from a fresh arm.

Starting to realise that I really need a night in Atlantic City...

The Full Clip #6

“A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms. Enthusiasms... Enthusiasms... What are mine? What draws my admiration? What is that which gives me joy?” -- Robert De Niro as Al Capone in The Untouchables

Haven’t done one of these for years, but I feel like now is the ideal time to unapologetically geek out about the stuff I’m digging at the moment, to turn away from the overcast Perpetual Rage Engine of Twitter and towards the light of Fun and Art and Excitement and Sheer Unalloyed Joy.

Brothers, sisters, we don't need this fascist groove thang! Here we go...

Jackie Chan Hasn't Seen His Original Stunt Team In Decades. Then Realizes They're All Standing Behind Him. A band of professional bone-breakers have never been more heart-warming. I’ve got something in my eye...

There are people in this world who think that Nic Cage is a joke or a meme. And I get it. Really. But to those people I say: what the hell do you want from a movie star? Personally, I want someone unpredictable and inconsistent and Not Like Other People. Fortunately, I am not alone in this. Nicolas Cage Attended This Year’s C4GED Marathon At The Alamo Drafthouse In which minds were blown in Austin.

When it comes to the whole chin-stroking “Should we punch Nazis?” argument, I fall firmly on the side of the argument that says: Yes. When individuals aggressively advocate or encourage the genocide of entire races, I don’t think a roundhouse to the jaw is unreasonable. What’s a couple of loose teeth in the fight against murder on an industrial scale? Sooner or later, talk of Nazi-punching inevitably circles around to Captain America. Which leads me to this…”Released in the summer of 1982, “Captain America” #275 was by J.M. DeMatteis, Mike Zeck and John Beatty, and it sees Steve Rogers attend a protest of a Neo-Nazi group along with his girlfriend, Bernie Rosenthal (the protest was organized by Bernie’s ex-husband). It was supposed to be a peaceful protest, but then someone just couldn’t put up with the hate speech that the Neo-Nazis were spouting…”

Mark Kermode remembers William Peter Blatty “the writer of both the funniest Inspector Clouseau film and ‘the greatest film ever made’, a mesmerising novelist turned filmmaker whose investigations of faith and evil across The Exorcist, The Ninth Configuration and The Exorcist III (aka Legion) were testament to his belief in an afterlife.”

Coming Attractions Part 1: It’s been thirteen years since the last episode but now, at last, Samurai Jack is Back. Watch out!

Coming Attractions Part  2: I don’t think I can adequately convey in words just how insanely excited I am about the impending return of the unkillable John Wick. Bring da motherfuckin' ruckus!

Currently Reading: Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon

And remember: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” (tl;dr: Evil only triumphs if you do nothing. Thanks, Edmund Burke!)

Listomania! My Favourite Films of 2016

So if 2014 was all about the eyes and 2015 was all about the ears, then 2016 was The Year of The Divertissement.

Escapism: the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy.

It’s been a trying twelve months. And not because of our shared shit spectacle of the BowiePrinceBrexitTrump variety. It’s been a trying twelve months for other, more personal reasons. It hasn’t been terrible, but it has been tough and I’m bone-tired - and so my cinema-going needs were different this year. I didn’t particularly desire cinema that made me think - I craved cinema that made me feel something (and let's just take it as read that the two aren't mutually exclusive). I wanted the prima materia of the movies - that ineffable Good Stuff that provokes an emotional response -  and the darkened auditoria didn’t let me down...

..."I like the beats and the shouting". The USS Franklin takes out a swarm of attack ships by harnessing the devastating destructive power of “classical music” - the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage - in Star Trek Beyond. "Good choice"...

...Overweight high-school outcast Robbie “The Rock” Wierdicht busts some serious moves in the shower to En Vogue’s My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It) in Central Intelligence - a cuddly warm grin of a movie that provides refreshing evidence that mainstream, big-budget Hollywood comedies can still be kind-hearted, body-positive and genuinely funny without coating themselves in a filthy patina of casual racism, sexism, homophobia or hackneyed "bro" antics…

...Chris Hemsworth. Melissa McCarthy. Kevin’s job interview in Ghostbusters. Michael Hat...

...I had something in my eye watching Creed, I thrilled at The Purge Election Year and Don’t Breathe, I took inordinate pleasure at Abbott & Costello references in three of the year’s finest movies (Arrival, Paterson and The Nice Guys), I sought out and embraced the joy of the movies…

So. Here we go. In no particular order, my twelve favourite films of 2016:

Creed (Ryan Coogler)

Some Creed stats:
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes dance numbers: 1
Times I almost burst into tears: 2
Uncontrollable excitement: 2
Uncontrollable grinning: lost count
Some of these estimates might be a bit low (apart from that Harold Melvin one - that's pretty accurate)

Elle (Paul Verhoeven)

Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier)

High-Rise (Ben Wheatley)

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi)

Paterson (Jim Jarmusch)

Only Luddites Left Alive. “There’s always another day, right?”

Room (Lenny Abrahamson)

Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)

The Big Short (Adam McKay)

The Nice Guys (Shane Black)

A film so simpatico with my predilections and obsessions that it felt like Shane Black made it just for me. Ryan Gosling absolutely nails his Lou Costello riff, and I'm a sucker for a Jim Rockford Easter egg. Outstanding - My favourite film of the year. (Later on in the year, John Michael McDonagh’s disappointing War On Everyone landed. Whilst The Nice Guys is a rye-soaked Rockford Files riff, War On Everyone is an over-stylised, faux-nihilistic, not-as-funny-or-clever-as-it-thinks-it-is Streets Of San Francisco.)

The Wailing (Goksung) (Hong-jin Na)

Train to Busan (Busanhaeng) (Sang-ho Yeon)

Bubbling under my Top Twelve, the now-customary Close But No Cigar:

10 Cloverfield Lane (Dan Trachtenberg)
Arrival (Denis Villeneuve)
Central Intelligence (Rawson Marshall Thurber)
Chicken (Joe A. Stephenson)
Hail, Caesar! (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Kubo and the Two Strings (Travis Knight)
Mustang (Deniz Gamze Ergüven)
The Club (El Club) (Pablo Larraín)
The Shallows (Jaume Collet-Serra)
Tickled (David Farrier and Dylan Reeve)
Your Name (Kimi no na wa.) (Makoto Shinkai)
Zootopia (Zootropolis) (Byron Howard and Rich Moore)