A Film Affair

If Slumdog Millionaire were art, then the medium would be language, painted with emotion and culture. Any scene from this Academy Award winning film could be used as a still, and be hung in a museum. This colourful, fast paced and often gritting film juxtaposes the decay of culture in the beautiful nation of India with the rise of wealth, greed and corruption.

Jamal Malik (Dev Patal) looks out over where his slum used to be.

Set in the slums of Mumbai, Slumdog Millionaire is a rag to riches story of the uneducated Jamal Malik (Dev Patal) who goes on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and is able to answer every question correctly.

Jamal becomes an overnight sensation in India from success on the first night of the show. The cocky host Prem Kumar, played brilliantly by Anil Kapur, suspects the chai-wallah (as he has labelled Jamal) is a cheat and contacts police. After the filming, he is whisked away by the overly brutal police for interrogation and torture.

During very violent torture scenes, Jamal reveals how he knew the Millionaire answers through a biographic retelling of his life and love. The flashbacks and their relevance to the questions is a huge coincidence but necessary for the movement of the plot. Also, viewers may question the realism behind the Indian police would using electro torture on a game show contestant.

Through flashback, the audience will see a young Jamal grows up amongst incredible poverty, pollution and religious racism; his mother is killed in an anti-Muslim riot in his slum. This begins his journey alongside his troubled and often psychotic brother Salim and his lifelong love, Latika.

Slumdog Millionaire has been heavily criticised in the American media for its portrayal of and its alleged ‘glorification’ of Indian poverty, pollution and the slums. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle uses the camera to highlight the mountains of plastic and dirty river water against the childish playfulness of a young Jamal. The slums are filmed with the same fast paced editing that the Indian skyscrapers are, showing no difference between the two.

There is no stand out performance in this film they are all amazing for their age. Freida Pinto as an older Latika is revered and mature, whilst Salim (Madhur Mittal) plays his gun wielding, gangsta character to a tee. Director Danny Boyle has created Jamal’s two closest loves to represent the different sides of a modern India.

Unlike many other films to appear on our screens in 2008/2009, Slumdog Millionaire has a different cultural effect. The films heroes are Muslim and are not American. This sparks a beautiful change in dynamics in the film and its genre.

For a film that requires little dialogue and covers a topic that should scare mankind, Pixar has created another lovable, funny and thoughtful animation, Wall-e.

Wall-e and Eve watch the sunset.

Director Andrew Stanton has created a fluid animation to suit all age groups, which has an eye opening message about friendship, love and our fragile Earth.

Wall-e is set over 700 years into the future, when the world is void of human, plant or animal life, overrun by garbage and waste. It tells a bleak tale of the hundreds of years of environmental damage done by humans, their greed and consumerism.

Surviving humans have driven themselves off their native planet and are living on a holiday ship, the Axiom. Now obese and confined to hover chairs permanently, these super-sized humans lives are now controlled by computers. The ships useless caption (Jeff Garlin) even knows nothing about his home planet, in a scene where he uses the principles of Google to look up ‘Farm.’

Back on Earth, a small dented robot named Wall-e (Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class), voice by Ben Burtt, zips about compacting the waste that has been left. Wall-e and his best friend, a cockroach that he has trained, roam the desolate city collecting Zippo lighters, spare parts and even a green plant that he places in a shoe.

Wall-e spends his nights alone, protected from the dust storms in his home, the back of a truck with his possessions watching “Hello Dolly.” This isn’t the only not-so-sneaky movie reference during Wall-e. Throughout the 95 minute feature film, Sigourney Weaver makes a voice cameo and hilariously there are several references to “2001 – A Space Odyssey” and “Wallace and Gromit.”

The little robots life changes when Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), voice by Elissa Knight, lands on Earth sent from the Axiom. Eve is brand new, sleek and silent robot with a capacity to kill. Her directive is to seek out plant life on Earth. Wall-e finds her beautiful and they soon meet in a oddly cute display of beeps and broken English.

Wall-e unwittingly shows the now playful Eve the plant he had found earlier, she grabs it and falls silent. Her directive is now complete. Wall-e follows Eve back to the Axiom and directly to possibly danger, hundreds of light years away in a display of love and loyalty.

Through animation, Wall-e takes the doom and gloom out of real world topics that the audience is faced with daily. Wall-e doesn’t need death, violence or other Hollywood devices to shine the light on obesity, climate change and gross over-consumerism. It simply uses a friendship to intelligently and humorously prove its point.

Burn After Reading is the latest film from the notoriously brilliant Cohen brothers, who have brought together an all star cast for this witty comic thriller.

The Cohen brothers have utilised the best of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand to create a film that pulls in four different directions at once.

Opening with a Google style map of the US, the camera moves in on the CIA HQ where we quickly meet our angry, isolated and grimacing Osbourne Cox (played by the hilarious John Malkovich). Oz is being demoted from his analyst job with the CIA for his apparent drinking problem. After a Malkovich style rant, where every syllable is properly enunciated (“you-re fuck-ing fir-er-ing me!!”), he quits.

Upon arrival home he declares to his ice queen of a wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton) that he will write his memoirs. Her dry, lack lustre reply of, “Who’d read that?” clinches the scene.

Katie is having a one sided love affair with the sex toy loving, Internetdating and married Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) and has started divorced proceedings. The federal agent, who consistently quips throughout the film, “I could get a run in,” is a pet peeve of Osbourne Cox and just another thing on his hit list.

When a CD of Cox’s seemingly explosive memoirs are found on the floor of HardBodies gym, we are introduced to the films greatest comic reliefs; Chad FeldHeimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand).

The super wannabe cool Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading

Linda is a self-obsessed wannabe, pining for a man and plastic surgery that isn’t covered by her HMO. Chad is a Lycra wearing, pepped, exercise freak, constantly bobbing about to a silent iPod beat. The two best friends believe the memoirs to be “top secret sensitive shit” as Chad so often and eloquently puts it, and try to sell it back to Oz AND the Russians.

The plot throws another spanner in the works when Linda, another serial on line dater, finds herself on a date with Harry. Both are pleasantly ignorant about the paranoia and death that they will soon cause.

The Burn plot is continually checked by scoreless scenes with CIA directives (where the film began). The boss, played by JK Simmons, is amusingly carefree about the shootings, beating and sex that plagues this small group of fools. When it is declared as “no biggie”, the audience begins to notice the Cohen brothers underlying tones. 

Notable performances come from Brad Pitt, who creates a dimwitted character, blissfully ignorant of the web that his equally inept BFF Linda is weaving and from the slightly deranged George Clooney who creates a sleazy, needy and  paranoid out of his dildo wielding character.

This stellar cast produces some food for thought in this typical Cohen brothers film that has a storyline lurches, quick fire editing, relatable characters and dry black humour. The attention to detail is incredible in the film, down to Brad Pitt’s red lyrca skins and the American flag bed sheets and pillow cases that Harry and Katie have sex on.

The film essentially revolves around a small group of needy and deceitful people, that all compensate by sleeping with each other (in a sense). 

The Cohen brothers obvious stab at main stream America, paranoia and national knowledge is funny, dramatic and always just that little bit weird.

Will Smith’s latest Hollywood film, Seven Pounds, is his second collaboration with director Gabriele Muccino to create a powerful human drama. This two-hour film has more than a linear plot, creating a complexity of stories and characters that immerses the audience.

The presumptuousness of the director in this film has turned away many viewers, but for others has created a beautiful insight into the lost art of kindness. 

Seven Pounds weaves external stories into its plot with ease. The plight of protagonist Ben Thomas (played by Smith) and the confusion surrounding his character is evident from the opening scene when he croaks, “In seven days God created the world and in seven seconds, I shattered mine.”

The audience is able to engross themselves in the growing love that forms between Emily Posa (played by Rosario Dawson) and Ben. Short scenes, edited with cuts to candles, rain and the anguish on their faces create an atmosphere of fragility around this secondary storyline.

During Seven Pounds, Will Smith again proves himself as one of Hollywood’s best actors. The 40 year-old has grown immensely since his trademark role as the elastic, fluoro and slapstick Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Smith creates layers to his audacious; charming; kind yet deeply troubled character, Ben. As widely hateable as Ben can be at times, Smith gives him true unforced emotion across his unshaven, lined face.

The relationship that slowly forms between the chronically ill Emily and Ben is nothing short of unrestricted and unquestioning. Their eventual love embraces the audience and leaves them wanting more. Their love is pure escapism for watchers. The stilted piano score that follows their love scenes is perfect in its uncomfortableness. The pianist trips over the keys to reach the next note and eclipses the fragility of their relationship. 

Sometimes a dark and sombre film, Seven Pounds uses flash backs, light and shadow and its title to create a subtle reference to Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. As Ben tries to regain his sanity after killing seven people in a car accident, he sets out to dramatically transform seven individuals lives. The film is a beautiful reference to the complexity of human emotion and drama.

How do films vary so much through the ages of Hollywood? Or through the genres they are set in? Classic films, such as the ones I have reviewed below, will live on in movie buffs hearts for their cinematic brilliance. Here, I will indulge you in a snippet of some of Hollywood’s masterpieces. So when you are standing at the video store on the next rainy night, you will now know what may tickle your movie fancy.

Mildred Pierce – Film Noir (1945):

Mildred Pierce is a poignant film in cinematic history; a dedicated piece to the film noir genre. A soap opera feel is given to this melodramatic picture that says more through black and white lighting, sensual fur coats and booming sound than through dialogue.

Joan Crawford plays the perfect femme fatale, Mildred Pierce, a naïve woman who trapped by her loved ones greed. Her immaturity is eclipsed in the flashback that opens the film, when Mildred shoots her former business partner, the oily Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott). This scene needs little dialogue, with harsh lighting shot across Monte’s face telling the woeful tale.

The black and white film uses dramatic lighting to eclipse a poignant scene where Mildred traps Wally (played by Jack Carson) with Monte’s body and escapes from the home.

Dark harsh shadow cast across Wally’s body gives the audience a sense of his wayward ways. By contrast, Mildred is innocently placed under soft, supple light that bounces in a close up shot of her concerned face. The focus on Wally’s silhouette as he stomps up the stairs allows audiences to feel his alienation as Mildred dashes away.

Mildred Pierce is essential viewing for a novice trying to understand the film noir genre.

Chicago – Musical/Crime/Drama (2002):

The film adaptation of the Kander and Ebb Broadway musical, Chicago is a feverish look into the celebrities, scandal and sinister world that was Chicago’s jazz scene in the 1920’s. This wonderfully adapted musical and Academy Award winner is full of unique insight into greed, class and the complex human strive for fame.

Chicago’s opens with the energetic, dramatic and face paced number, All That Jazz. This powerful song and dance, belted out by the curvaceous Catherine Zeta Jones shines in unquestionable brilliance.

The audience is immediately thrust into the world of glitz, glamour and seedy crime with an intentional close up of Roxie Hart’s (played by Renee Zellweger) eye. The following frenetic shots focus from the gravely ground up, watching a women dash from a crime scene. We watch her black stilettos stop through her reflection in a puddle; singer Velma Kelly’s posters are torn down from the ally way wall and the faceless women quickly conceals her pistol in her lingerie draw.

Clever use of props, camera angles and lighting keeps this criminal anonymous until she rises up onto the stage amongst a myriad of dancers as the famed, Velma Kelly.

Soon (and look away if you hate spoilerism) we discover the complex world of our two protagonists, Velma and Roxie. As the camera cuts to a level shot of her face, Roxie is pining for the spotlight. She dreams of taking Velma’s place on the stage – a hint into what is to come in the film. Back in the thrust of reality, Roxie embarks on a lewd affair with a man with promises to “Make her a star.” They passionately kiss as she slams down the photograph of her husband Amos on her bed head and we notice this tiny ditzy blonde isn’t as innocent as she seems.

The Godfather – Crime/Drama/Thriller (1972):

“I believe in America” – the intrepid statement that opens this crime filled mob film.

The opening of The Godfather film is a powerful and compelling insight into what is to come for not only the films protagonists, the Corleone family, but for the audience.

We are thrust into the underbelly of Mafiosi as we are introduced to a looming, pensive figure that initially appears only in shadow. As a man pleads his case, for justice for his abused daughter, we discover the siluette to be Don Vito Corleone or Godfather, played by the amazing Marlon Brando.

Marlon Brando plays Don Vito Corleone

Brando sets the scene with his critical portrayal as the patriarchal head of an Italian American family that has becoming controlling through crime. Godfather is respectful and quiet but sits in his leather bound chair stroking a playful kitten – throwing his character even more dynamics.

Dark shadows contrasted with the bright lights of the outside wedding are a far cry from Godfather’s gloomy office. The happiness that appears outside is continually cut off with harsh scenes of photographers being attacked and Michael Corleone introducing his girlfriend into the underworld that is his family.

This introduction builds a sense of tension and respect in the darkened room, with surrogate son Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) always standing with Godfather and watching over his business.

Our soon to be Godfather, Michael (Al Pacino), is introduced to the film as a decorated soldier unimpressed by the workings of his family. We immediately sense Michael’s distaste for the family business, when arrives late at to the wedding with Godfather questioning his whereabouts.