Spike Jonze’s upcoming film about a man who falls in love with a robot has, quite rightly, become a bit of a joke. Saturday Night Live were quick to parody the new release with their skit ‘Me’, as well as the many Youtubers whose mock trailers could almost be confused with the actual movie. Her avoids rom-com convention and earnestly portrays romance between man and machine as unsettlingly possible. The ‘operating system’ who wins Theodore's (Joaquin Phoenix) affections is designed to look close enough to the kind of technology we use today that the audience may wonder if their own 'OS girlfriend' is a few updates away.
Shot in Los Angeles and Shanghai, the minimalistic sets injected with bursting reds and oranges create some beautiful scenes, even if Jonze’s widely shot interiors and drawn-out montages seem overindulgent at times. The characters are all drenched in pastels and fans of the fastened top button, subtly equipped with minuscule ear pieces and portable computers that look like compact mirrors. Accompanied with some profound conversations between Theodore and his computer girlfriend (Samantha - voiced by Scarlett Johansson), there are a lot of moments in Her worthy of a captioned screenshot for your Tumblr page.
The screenwriting is at its best, interestingly, outside of the main romantic plot. Theodore writes letters for a living - customers request heartfelt messages sent on their behalf to their mothers, siblings and partners. Striking a chord beyond robot-romance, the artificial letters Theodore writes have so much depth and sincerity that the idea of another human or machine mimicking emotion suddenly doesn’t seem so laughable. Even if Samantha and Theodore’s romance lacks believability for some, not many can deny that if they received one of Theodore’s letters this Valentine’s day, they wouldn’t believe it came from the heart.
You may have noticed that Helicon's line up has recently added film - alongside prose, poetry, art and photography! In light of this, and with our next printed issue to be released this month, here are a selection of 'Lost and Found' films for you to nestle down in front of this evening. Gravity (2013)
If you haven't been to to see Gravity already, now is the time to go before it disappears from screens - it is definitely the kind of film best suited to the cinema. And if you're not the kind who normally goes for sci-fi films - ignore your instincts and see this. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are flung into the dark depths of space after a disastrous collision and with all contact with Earth lost they must navigate their way back through the dark, terrifying darkness alone. With a handful of characters, and periods of little dialogue - this film will have you on the edge of your seat, covering your eyes as you realise how terrifying space really is (I found myself on a massive google hunt for answers after seeing this film - and came across this). Gravity is a visual spectacle, which sustains suspense until the very last minute.
Yossi (2012)
As far in genre from the above as possible, Yossi is a drama/comedy that is actually the sequel to a film called Yossi & Jagger. I hadn't seen the original film - and it didn't seem to matter at all, as Yossi is definitely a film complete in itself. The film follows Yossi, a lonely and closeted gay doctor working in Jerusalem who is struggling to come to terms with the death of his partner - whom he had served with in the Israeli army. After breaking the news of his relationship to his deceased partner's parents, Yossi embarks on a holiday to the resort Eilat - where he meets a group of young soldiers who help him move forwards from his grief. Yossi has a very modern feel to it and is an honest, funny and moving film that looks candidly at loss and the rediscovery of happiness. The trailer on YouTube is horribly cheesy and doesn't do the film justice so it's not included here!
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
The visuals of The Virgin Suicides will stick with you long after you've seen it. Directed by Sophia Coppola, it is visually beautiful despite its dark subject matter and has an eclectic, fitting soundtrack to match. We are given a glimpse into the lives of the Lisbon family, whose four beautiful teenage daughters are intent on rebelling against their strict, religious parents following the death of their sister.
Seen through the eyes of the boys who are charmed, confused and fascinated by the sisters, The Virgin Suicides plays on themes of the American Dream and the teen-highschool genre in a unique and disturbing way. Furthermore, it features a young' Josh Hartnett with the best 1970s haircut you could possibly imagine - a reason to see this film in itself.
Finding The Cube is no easy task. Barely
advertised and nestled in a mainly residential section of Stokes Croft, the
entrance to this tiny cinema is not obvious for the first-time visitor. But don’t turn back until
you come across the red and blue neon sign, glowing above the surrounding
buildings. The venue, sunken down and its
interiors completely plastered with old movie posters, is small, unlikely and
charming - a real hidden gem.
The film on show, Cutie and the Boxer, was nothing short of perfection. Cutie and the Boxer is a documentary
following Ushio Shinohara and his wife of 40 years, Noriko Shinohara.
Originally from Japan, the Brooklyn-based couple live and work together as
artists. Noriko gained fame in 1970s New York, creating his own ‘Action Paintings’:
using paint-drenched boxing gloves, he slams his fists repeatedly onto the
surface of the canvas from right to left - the impact leaving monumental,
dripping bullet-holes behind in a couple of minutes. This is how the film opens,
with Ushio – on his 80th birthday - thumping the canvas with all his
strength; his wife Noriko dutifully following his movements with her camera.
The couple could not be more different –
in personality and artistic style. Once an alcoholic, Ushio is bossy,
heavy-handed and exuberant. His large-scale paintings scream in explosions of neon and
slicks of jet black; his sculptures appear as writhing contortions of cardboard
and metal, lathered in thick swabs of paint. Ushio’s pig-tail adorned wife,
Noriko, is far more collected, sweet and sensible – but no less gutsy and witty. Her
smaller-scale, considered ink and pen drawings take the form of a narrative, following the turbulent relationship of 'Cutie and Bullie' – a self-conscious analogy of her own marriage. Her imaginative drawings float off the page, and cleverly this film quite literally brings
them to life; their imaginative intervention provides much of the back story to Ushio and
Noriko’s story.
Noriko, as Ushio somewhat coldly asserts at
the beginning of the film, is just ‘an assistant’ to him in the studio. However
as the film develops, we grow to see that his wife is far, far more to him than
this: she is the one who helps him project him work to galleries; she is the
one who organizes their accounts so their electricity will not be cut off in
their tiny and chaotic New York apartment; she is the one who guides him in his
artistic practice.
The art of these two people does play a
big part in this film – but that is definitely not to stay that a viewer with
no interest in art will not gain anything from it. Cutie and the Boxer is just as much
about art as it is people; difference as it is about unity. Director Zachary Heinzerling does a very good job of presenting to us these people and their lives - without ever being intrusive, but in a way that guides the film along gently and allows it to unfurl itself. He beautifully captures the moments of solitude when the couple are alone in their studio, in contrast to the hectic, noisy New York art scene they find themselves in. Above all, Cutie and the Boxer explores the
complete perfection that can result when two very different people collide;
about the ways in which the truly flawed aspects of a relationship can be the very thing that
makes it perfect. As Noriko aptly describes her marriage:“We are like two flowers in one pot.
Sometimes we don’t get enough nutrients for both of us. But when everything
goes well… We become two beautiful flowers.”
The Cube is currently trying to raise funds to buy out their premises for themselves - and continue improving and running their cinema. It's becoming ever-important that we support independent establishments such as The Cube - and if you pay a visit to see Cutie and the Boxer, you will appreciate how much of an asset it is to Bristol. Read more here on their project, and please donate if you can!
Cutie
and the Boxer is showing tomorrow (Tuesday 19th November) at 8pm at The Cube. Tickets are £5, or £4 with your student card. You need to pay £1
membership on top of the ticket price for your first visit – but once you visit
six times, you can see a film for free. They don’t accept cards, so make sure
you bring cash.
Zoë
John Kahrs' 'Paperman' won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film at last night's Academy Awards. It tells the story of an endearing office workers plight trying to seek the attention of an enigmatic woman he met on the train platform on his morning commute to work. Poignant and nostalgic in it's black and white colouring, the film reinstates the belief that sometimes life is best just left to a series of coincidences. A.P
They say that noone in Britain is ever further than 100 miles from the sea. Most people tend to have some sort of affinity with the sea, whether it is nostalgia of ice-creams in Brighton or riding the donkeys in Weston-Super-Mare. With this is mind, it is hard to imagine a person who could not be entranced by Penny Woolcock's film 'From The Sea To The Land Beyond'.
The film consists of precisely 73 minutes of footage unearthed from the depths of the BFI National Archive, starting from the 1900s up to the 2000s, illustrating the story of our coastline and her people. The sequence of images are not distorted by a pestering narrative telling us exactly what it is we should be seeing, instead the profound British band, British Sea Power were chosen to soundtrack the film. The end result is a beautifully honest and pure depiction of not only the history of the the British coast but the history of film too.
Every year the Christmas film list is added to. Some don't last long enough to see the turkey out of the oven, whilst others tend to stick and return year on year, and never do they grow old...
This Christmas, the cinema packs a punch. With large-scale, expensive productions of literary and musical classics such as Great Expectations and Les Miserables, film has never been more about self-conscious spectacle and performance. In light of this, I began to consider the power of film, and more specifically, iconography. Film stills are, arguably, works of art in their own right. As the classic saying goes, 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. Film stills have this overwhelming, all-encompassing effect, conveying an entire plot, characters, numerous cultural and metaphysical connotations in a single, yet profound image. Stills have the additional impact of being immediately, instantaneously, recognisable - offering more in a split second than a book could in a hundred pages.
Not just the signifier of monetary or popular success, famous film stills herald the cinematic success of a film - the beauty of its images, the finesse of its camerawork, and the impact of intricacies of plot. Concurrently, stills such as those below signify much more that simply the film they are from, but the art of cinema, their cultural location and the history of the era in which they were created.
I wonder if any films released in 2012 will achieve the 'iconic' status of stalwarts such as Titanic and The Godfather. If they do, they will be one of a special, transcendent breed.
Lately I've been thinking- can we view all art forms on a kind of "spectrum"? A range of different expressions of creativity (whether that be visual art, music, poetry, film, or photography), which at certain points, collide. Just as colours progress and evolve from indigo to iris, from auburn to carmine, so too might art forms grow and develop out of, and in to, one another. Poetry was once accompanied by music, and classical art often depicts scenes from literature. However today, with the aid of television, we experience an even more undeniable intertwining: music and film.
Now, we all know music videos can be shit. But they can also be captivating. The story of the song is told in the most imaginative of means, shedding light on a fresh and unexpected interpretation of the song. Paradoxically, the link between sight and sound then holds the possibility of being strengthened, or weakened. We are given not one, but two sensual ingredients to consider, with often a great song being teamed with a terrible video, or vice versa. However, here is one that I personally think works wonderfully-
The first is up there amongst the strangest things I've ever seen. But very cool, I think you'll agree.
The second, Flying Lotus aptly soundtracked once more. Enjoy.
- F.D.
With the sky soon to fall under the weight of Bond, it seems strangely perfect that a film narrated from the perspective of a feisty six-year-old from 'The Bathtub' should pull us with a mighty, unrelenting, "thump" back to earth. With a Pan's Labyrinth-esque air of fantasy which entangles the imagination of a child with the dark depths of the reality in which they live, the film gains it's momentous strength from the way in which it's young protagonist, 'Hushpuppy', handles with great ferocity the collapsing world around her.
The carnal world of 'The Bathtub'- a patch in the marshy Louisiana Lowland- which is under the ominous possibility of flooding, becomes the startling, unnerving, yet heart-warmingly endearing, soil from which the film burgeons with monstrous power. It is a film in which the characters and the world around them are inextricably linked- survival of one depends on survival of the other. The story line tumbles out of the screen in the most unpredictable of fashions, continuously drenching the stunned audience with loose music and stark images until we are left at the closing credits finally seeing through hindsight the film's puzzle-like cohesiveness.
This is a brilliant journey of survival, made all the more adventurous by the raw innocence of the perspective from which it is told. Go sea it.
In Vittorio De Sica's film Bicycle Thieves (1948) our beloved and most humble form or trasportation is for the central character Antonio Ricci, his means of survival. The only way in which this depraved husband and father of young son Bruno can fulfill his job as a poster-sticker, is if he owns his own bicycle. A greatest and most tragic dilemma occurs when on his first day of his newly acquired job, his bicycle, his life line, is stolen. Desperate and helpless, Antonio and his devoted son pace the streets of Rome in an attempt to recover this item that is most precious to the both of them. The Bicycle.
A Scene from Bicycle Thieves
The journey to find the bicycle becomes more than a rescue operation to discover the wherabouts of their captured item; the father and son relationship is tested and ultimately rocked. Antonio, in his angst steals a bike, resorting to the very act that deprived him of a livelihood. As a consequence, this bit of metal with two rickety wheels, handle bars and an un-comfortable seat; this 'thing' to get from place to place challenges the trust and faith between the two sorrowful characters. Antonio is humiliated and scorned by the un-sympathetic public and Bruno is left completely devastated and inconsolable; the great man he believed in is no longer. And what for? A Bicycle.
It is easy to forget the meaning of 'things.' Their place in our lives looses it's significance. We become accustomed to them, they are always reassuringly there, waiting for us at the end of the day, just as we left them. In an age when we have so much and are able to add to this 'muchness' at the swipe of a plastic card, or even a simple click of a button, we should take a thought for the 'things,' because one day we might actaully need them, and they may just not be there.
This month sees the film release of Walter Salles' On the Road, an adaption of the classic Jack Kerouac novel written in 1955.
Sal Paradise (Sam Riley) ups sticks and ventures out on the journey towards that ever elusive American dream. Along the way he encounters friendship, heartbreak and hardship and falls into the rhythm of the Beat that has come to signify that gritty jazz age. Chuck in a blitz of torn denim and roughed-up motors, lost in a haze of drugs and sex and you have one of the smoothest and enigmatic films of the year.
For all those who are feeling a little bit lost in the chaos of the new university year, escape into the stunning cinematography depicting the wide, open American landscape and be reassured that really noone knows where they are going, or where they will end up.
The Watershed (located in the heart of the city on the harbourside) is showing On the Road from this friday for the next two weeks.
And if you are still not feeling the urge to don your cooolest shades and head off into the sunset here is some Billlie Holiday to get you going...
