Film review: The Devil’s Rock

On paper The Devil’s Rock has a refreshing and promising setting. I had high hopes of a different and thrilling horror. It is set in the Channel Islands, which is unusual in itself. Its story plays out on the eve of the D-Day landings, giving the film a period background and all the possibilities of Nazis, gloomy bunkers and heroic Commandos. Throw in generous portions of gore and the temptations of mysterious occult witchcraft, and there are enough ingredients in this film to satisfy your average viewer as well as fans of fright fests.

Unfortunately having the beginnings of a good beginning is not enough. The opening twenty minutes of this film are dull and frankly boring. Two Commandos land on a mined beach aiming to carry out a sabotage mission to distract the Germans from the Allied invasion of Normandy the following morning. One almost blows them both to smithereens by stepping on a mine and this moment could have been far more dramatic.

There are also plenty of attempts to establish characters the audience can care about through the dialogue; the lead figure is missing the love of his life and the reluctant/bumbling one just wants to hurry home for medals and the inevitable hordes of adoring women. He’s got a date with a nurse the next day. Yup that’s right, on D-Day. The characterisation is clumsy and tries too hard, feeling far too out of place to be believable. Yes soldiers like anything feminine with a pulse, no elite Commandos probably didn’t discuss tits when negotiating a beach stuffed with explosives.

I’m still not quite finished with the weaknesses of the beginning. It all gets very predictable very quickly. The pair hear noises and they split up, as is the tendency of daft victims in horror films. They stalk around the echoing corridors of a defensive bunker, presumably while the tension builds to gripping levels for the audience. Well what should be an incredibly suspenseful sequence in an atmospheric environment is actually plodding and uninteresting. Essentially you are watching two men with guns walk very slowly down identical, bare hallways, waving their weapons about needlessly. The score doesn’t affect your mood because the ominous music started ages ago, when they had just landed and there was no immediate supernatural danger.

Eventually, after what feels like an age but what was actually only about half an hour, The Devil’s Rock gets to the meat of its story, which turns out to be some disappointing and mass produced packet ham available from any cut price supermarket. There is nothing fresh or creative about the taste of this film once it shows its hand.

Captain Ben Grogan (Craig Hall) has to deal with a Nazi Colonel who claims to need help to contain a dangerous creature he has summoned on Hitler’s orders. The Devil’s Rock is a production from New Zealand, so one of the key limits on your immersion in the story is Matthew Sunderland’s terrible German accent. Blood, intestines and guts are splattered around the walls. The fate of the world and the war is at stake, etc, etc. When the monster is shown in full view it looks ridiculous and laughable and any final hopes for the film fade away.

Having said all that The Devil’s Rock is still a film capable of satisfying some horror fans with some distinctive features. Its finale is intense and reasonably well executed, even if I was no longer invested in the story and everything seemed a bit silly by then. If the words “sexy devil with an appetite for human flesh” appeal to you, then this might be worth a watch.

Donor Unknown: Adventures in the Sperm Trade

Sperm donation is an ethical and emotional minefield. It’s one of those sensitive issues with equally passionate and valid views on both sides of the debate. Even bystanders not directly involved or affected will have a strong opinion on its morality. The consequences and motivations of such anonymous, industrial giving of life can be dissected and analysed again and again, for positives and negatives. Endless reams could be written on the subject without resolving the issue one way or another.

It’s also one of those topics that often only interests people when looked at from monstrous and extreme angles. For example a few years ago a documentary called “The Sperminator” about a man running a clinic who provided all the samples himself, when he told prospective parents that there was an extensive bank to meet their specific requests and requirements, caused a lot of controversy and generated a lot of interest. People enjoy being shocked by grotesque scandals such as this, simultaneously intrigued and repulsed by the potential for ignorant incest. The human side of this relatively new phenomenon is usually overlooked.

Donor Unknown is almost exclusively about the very human effects of sperm donation. It’s an extremely admirable and accomplished piece of filmmaking. Over the course of its engaging and economical 78 minute runtime, this film gradually and thoroughly explores the sperm trade by maintaining a tight human focus. Hollywood blockbusters lack both the heart and surprising plot twists of Donor Unknown and it deserves a grander home than TV screens. With its editing and pacing and diverse locations across America, this is a film that shows off the art of documentary storytelling at its best.

Much of the film is seen through the lens of JoEllen, a girl on the cusp of pretty womanhood, who has come to terms with her lack of a father throughout childhood. Her mother has always been honest about the way in which she was conceived, with a little help from “donor 150”. But although she’s grown up with the affection of a loving family and lived a privileged, seemingly happy existence, there is always something missing. A great big “what if” is constantly nagging at JoEllen’s wellbeing and sense of identity. 

Meanwhile on Venice Beach in LA, Jeffrey lives with his four dogs and the occasional pigeon. He’s quite clearly a hippy, living a simple life in a RV, loving his dogs and being kind to those he meets. With his long hair and tanned, excess wearied face, it’s difficult to imagine he was once a muscular model in Playgirl who once made a living from stripping. He explains that he was asked by a woman he met at the hairdresser’s during those years of his prime, whether or not he’d like to donate sperm so she could have a baby. Obviously he was taken aback but after speaking to a close friend who was a loving mother, he decided to give this relative stranger the opportunity of motherhood and hope that fate rewarded him for his good deed.

Donor Unknown also talks to the staff at the Californian Cryogenic Centre, that aims to have the largest collection of sperm donors in the world. We see the specimens stored in huge vats and we have numbers like 200 billion fired at us. We’re assured that this centre alone could repopulate the world in the event of some disaster making such measures necessary. We’re shown the “masturbatory emporiums” with walls colourfully adorned to aid the donation process, with the more sample provided the better. The chambers increase in eroticism along the corridor, we’re told.

And so we are eased gently into sperm donation, with a balance of real human effects and the technology involved. JoEllen’s hole in her existence is contrasted with the motivation of mothers to turn to donors like Jeffrey, along with his reasons for helping out.

Then we’re hit with the bombshell of JoEllen finding a sibling. Her half sister lives in New York and they meet after discovering each other via an online register, where you simply register your donor number. Her identity issues are even deeper than JoEllen’s because she has been lied to until the age of about 14. She resents her parents for the deception and feels immensely confused and hurt. As a teenager it’s a lot to take onboard and extremely destabilising. Desperate for a link to a missing 50% of her, she finds JoEllen and then gets a story onto the front of the New York Times, without her parents’ knowledge.

At this point Donor Unknown becomes extremely uplifting, as more and more siblings come forward who were fathered by “donor 150”. Via the internet an unconventional patchwork family forms across America’s very different states, bringing absent intimacy, connection and love into the lives of more than a dozen children. JoEllen methodically keeps track of all her lost brothers and sisters, meeting most of them and forming attachments, filling in the missing side of her family tree slightly. The genetic quirks and likenesses are touching and fascinating to behold, as the screen flits rapidly through the faces and mannerisms of all the “150” siblings.

But then Donor Unknown changes gear to look at yet another aspect of the trade. After gently gaining your attention and emotional investment, we finally come to the really dark side of sperm donation. One of the siblings, Rachelle, expresses her constant doubts and worries about dating. She has specifically stuck to foreign guys or people that for other reasons definitely could not be related. An interview with the founder of the online register, a mother of a donor child herself, reveals that there are no limits on the number of children a donor can father, despite the claims of clinics.

The Californian Cryogenic Centre is also at pains to point out their range of choice and the extensive information they offer. But the answers of donor questions can be as misleading as they are informative. Jeffrey for example, said he was a dancer when he was a stripper and said he studied philosophy when he spent little time in college. His spiritual waffle won over scores of prospective parents but he is in reality something of a waster, an idealistic hippy and eccentric weirdo. He believes in worrying conspiracy theories and has an unnatural attachment to animals after a troubled childhood.

Beneath it all though he is a kind man and the ending to Donor Unknown is unquestionably back in the uplifting zone. Whatever the dangers and wrongs of the sperm industry, it has the power to create the amazing gift of life. Without the fakery of actors to bring it down, Donor Unknown soars to interesting and touching heights, telling the modern, interconnecting tales of real people.

Blu-Ray Review: Buried

Being buried alive is up there with drowning and burning to death on the commonly accepted list of the worst ways to snuff it. Cinema has a long history of exploring and exploiting these fears for our viewing pleasure and pain. Certainly there are countless films about infernos or choking on salt water. There are classic scenes in tunnels with dust and dirt threatening to submerge our heroes. But never before has a film been quite so confined beneath the earth as Buried is.

Buried opens, after a slick titles sequence that gives the impression of descending through the soil, with a completely pitch black screen, affording me an opportunity to discover and enjoy high definition darkness. Paul Conroy, a civilian truck driver in Iraq, wakes up in a box below ground before our eyes in this nothingness. This is Buried’s only location, a wooden coffin. It therefore might not seem the best film to enjoy on Blu-Ray, as there are no luscious visuals and locales to gasp in wonder at. The ever so slightly sharper picture and sound quality does truly allow you to appreciate the astounding technical achievement of Buried though.

The textures of the sand and the splintered wood feel real enough to touch at such intimate proximity. Conroy’s face, along with all the varied expressions it shifts through, looks incredibly lifelike. The excellent soundtrack, along with Conroy’s rasping breathing, is crisp and clear. The flame from a lighter looks vivid and dazzling in the sparseness of the coffin.

And the additional special features that come with a Blu-Ray disc are worth a look for once. As Ryan Reynolds, who plays Conroy, says in an interview, realising such a concept from a good script was a feat of engineering as well as filmmaking. Director Rodrigo Cortes explains that seven different coffins, each used for different types of shots, were used to make the 90 minutes or so of film. The variety of camera angles and techniques is incredibly impressive, with Reynolds highlighting that unlike a lot of films the same shot was scarcely used twice here. Most of the shots are entirely realistic, placing you firmly in Conroy’s shoes, with just a couple of exceptions, zooming out and away from him to really emphasise his isolation and loneliness.

One of the crew members interviewed says that if Hitchcock were alive today this is the sort of thing he’d be doing. There is undoubtedly the sense that new ground is being broken, in terms of storytelling and filmmaking. The majority of mainstream releases these days are miles away from the level of audience immersion on show in Buried. Even on an ordinary TV screen in a comfortable living room you feel Conroy’s claustrophobia and live his rollercoaster of emotions. This is as much down to Reynolds’ captivating performance as the fine detail and execution of the production team.

Reynolds copes with everything the script asks of him with very little to work with. He takes us from panic to paranoia, from despair to determination and back again. He deals equally well with anger and heartbreak, often conveying an emotion simply through breathing or a look in his eye. He is helped by some good voice performances by those he interacts with on the phone, his one real lifeline, its battery constantly withering away. Particularly good is Brit hostage negotiator Dan Brenner, played by Robert Paterson, who is convincingly professional and genuinely sympathetic. He managed to calm me down as well as Conroy.

Somehow Buried contains what I can only describe as an action scene, in which both the acting of Reynolds and the inventive wizardry of the director, combine with unbelievable effect. Without giving too much away, there is a snake involved. I was literally on the edge of my seat. And the reason this scene was so scary, gripping and exciting, was how well established the character and situation is beforehand.

As well as inexplicably pulling off a believable and enthralling thriller in a box, Cortes’ directing and Chris Sparling’s script also manages some thought provoking dialogue on major issues of our time. The way these topics are explored is seamlessly part of the action and not forced. During the course of Conroy’s phone conversations we explore not just the depths of his character, but the limits and immorality of bureaucracy and the subjective nature of the word “terrorist”. Buried therefore also has political credentials, without ever leaning too far to one side of the debate.

 With similar limitations to Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, Buried is a film reliant on its lead actor. Whilst James Franco was good, Reynolds is even better. In fact Buried is better full stop. For the moving climax alone, that will have you unable to look away through confused tears, it is worth watching. Buried delivers a master class in acting, cinematography, dialogue and political comment. It is a unique and bruising ride of a story. And a must see film experience.

Tangled

Fairytales: they’re all sickly sweetness and light right? You know beautiful princesses, magical kingdoms, swashbuckling heroes, kindly companions etc. Well no. Think of any classic fairytale and chances are there’ll be generous portions of nasty evil deeds hand in hand with the overwhelming prettiness and niceness. This is certainly the case with Tangled, a Disney anniversary special retelling of the story of Rapunzel.

As a baby, Rapunzel is the girl with the golden touch, or to be precise, hair. After her mother, the queen of a kingdom that rather fittingly resembles the Disney logo with its picturesque towers and steeples, falls ill during childbirth, it turns out the only way to cure her is with a magical golden flower (formed from a drop that fell from the sun – bear with me). The royal guard promptly retrieves said flower just in time and mother and baby make it through fine, with the unexpected complication that baby Rapunzel adopts the plant’s amazing abilities. Prior to the soldiers snatching the flower for the good of the kingdom however, a miserly old crone had been using it to stay forever young. Bitter and after revenge, she steals the wondrous baby with the golden, glowing locks in the dead of night. Then, tucked away in a lush green wilderness, she raises the child in a tower as her own, and sings to it instead of the flower she replaced for eternal youth. Meanwhile a kingdom mourns and the endlessly saddened royal couple release thousands of lanterns each year on their child’s birthday, in the hope that she will return home to them one day.

So far, so Disney. This is the back story to Tangled. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll have been concerned about accidentally vomiting in such a family orientated environment. Much like Marmite, you either love this sort of sentimental tale, or you hate it (although I mildly like Marmite, so does this ruin the rule?). However this background to the story is dealt with swiftly in Tangled’s opening. And it gets away with its sickly sweet, emotional mush, to such an extent that it wins you over.

If you’re a Disney sceptic, you’ll be dubiously asking how. The key to Tangled’s immense appeal is that it recognises fairytales are too sweet and sugary for some, so it gently sends up the whole tradition at times. That’s not to say you can’t enjoy the fundamental fairytale aspects, as I say the relief is only gentle, but it’s crucial and enough to make Tangled an extremely accessible movie. It’s refreshing because it doesn’t take itself too seriously, despite being a significant anniversary picture. It can entertain kids and adults alike with its broad range of humour and sentimental punches.

The key to the appeal for adults lies with the self-depreciating performance of male lead, Zachary Levi. His loveable rouge character, Flynn Rider, crashes into Rapunzel’s life after stealing the kingdom’s crown. Incidentally he grabs the crown in an amusing homage to Mission Impossible, lowered from the palace ceiling and later on he snatches a frying pan (used throughout as an effective weapon, with decent comic effect) as Indiana Jones would snatch his hat from beneath a closing booby trapped door. Touches of adult humour like this, alongside Levi’s well judged, constantly witty tone, provide more than enough sly, self-mocking moments to stop normal human being’s brains turning into vegetables.

This is no mean feat, given that Tangled is not just a typical Disney tale but one with random bursts of song. This sort of spontaneous, inexplicable, irrational singing is usually enough to tip most men over the edge. Whilst none of the songs from Tangled are particularly memorable, they are poignant at the right moments (and had kids dancing in the aisles occasionally). Donna Murphy, as evil Mother Gothel, delivers a charming diva like performance whenever she gets the chance to belt out a musical number. “I’ve got a dream” an ensemble piece in a seedy tavern, is heart warming and funny and stands out from the crowd, along with “I see the light”, a romantic duet between leads Levi and Mandy Moore at the emotional peak of the story, as Rapunzel’s dream of watching the floating lanterns seems to be realised. This scene is one of the best examples of the film’s startlingly vivid animation, with glowing candles fantastically rendered in the early night sky. With my secret soft spot for sentimental songs, I nearly shed a tear at the beautifully animated visuals coupled with the emotional duet.

Indeed Tangled as a whole is touching and visually captivating. There are lovely strokes of animation on the expressions of the characters, amusingly so on horse Maximus, but what strikes you most of all is the colour of the scenery. Vibrant and vivid greens and blues contrast with bright pastel colours in the city, set against a varied, but always stunning sky. The animation also allows for some distinctive action set pieces, most notably when a chase climaxes at a dam. There are gobsmacking leaps, acrobatics with endless reams of magic hair and exciting sword fights, with a frying pan, guards and a horse. But most impressive for me was the glistening water, which eventually erupts outwards in a great, mesmerising wave, chasing our hero and princess into claustrophobic confinement.

I saw Tangled in 2D and there is really no need to seek out the 3D version. It’s refreshing to see an animation go back to basics at a time of endless technological advance and reinvention. Here we just get funny, moving storytelling, that’s generally inclusive and pretty for all. From a hilarious opening montage of Rapunzel simultaneously rejoicing and hating herself for escaping her “mother’s” prison, to a heart wrenching emotional finale, Tangled has ingredients to delight everyone. It’s a pretty near perfect family movie, with bags of not only laughs but tender moments for adults too, which rest on the scripting and performance of Levi’s character Flynn Rider. My friend and I really enjoyed it, despite a disappointingly small portion of popcorn and initial doubts. Tangled will reel you in and surprise you, too, whatever your preconceptions.

Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich

Are monsters born or made? Is true evil ingrained within a person from the beginning or does it seep into the pores of the vulnerable and impressionable through bitter experience? These are both big questions that Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich asks. However ultimately this is a film asking one incomprehensible and fascinating question; what transformed aspiring artist Adolf Hitler into a hatred fuelled dictator and perhaps the most infamous figure in not just the 20^th century, but all of history?

To answer this question the film takes us back to Hitler’s formative years in Vienna, where he travelled as a young artist to seek a place at the city’s respected Academy of Fine Art. Historians largely agree that during the future Fuhrer’s time in the city he developed a fierce resentment for the Jews, which built upon prejudices he already carried from his childhood community and his parents. Needless to say Hitler failed with his application to the Academy, after presenting a weak and mediocre portfolio. He projected his disappointment and anger onto the Jews, blaming those that were wealthy and in positions of influence for holding him back. He scraped a living selling post cards of churches. He stole food and tasted life in the gutter. He absorbed nationalist and anti-Semitic literature. Like many he drifted without a purpose. 

Generally details of his life in Vienna beyond this are vague. The precise intricacies of the monster’s birth cannot truly be known. Studies of Hitler tend to skip rapidly through his grim years in Vienna, to the First World War which invigorated him, and then onto the 1920s and the formation of the fledgling Nazi party. Consequently this film must conjure some fictions and twist what is known to achieve some form of artistic truth relating to such a notorious man.

At first the film succeeds. Hitler is bumbling and naive as he arrives at a home for Homeless Artists, with a degree of innocence. To feel this about a character instantly recognisable as Adolf Hitler is no small feat for the filmmakers and indeed to even attempt this story is bold and admirable for a piece of German cinema. Understandably anything connected to the shame of Nazi Germany is still raw and heavy with guilt for many in Germany, so to see Hitler so sympathetically humanised in the film’s opening stages is remarkably brave.

To see Hitler rendered as such a believable, flawed and scrawny young man actually makes his descent into total delusion and lust for power all the more chilling. He’s almost immediately spouting anti-Semitic vitriol and nationalist jargon to the old Jews already living at the homeless hostel. But he’s reciting it at this stage; it’s just something he’s learnt by rote. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe what he’s saying; he has been taught to mean it and feels he must. It is however, a hatred and anger not yet his own, which will become more venomous as he acquires his personal vendetta through life’s sour events. Disappointment and what he sees as injustice will ignite the prejudices he already holds and bring them to life as his guiding purpose.

Perhaps a partial and inadequate answer the film offers to one of its key questions, whether Hitler’s evil was born or made, is that it was both already present and considerably added to. There’s no doubting he already arrived with a narrow and twisted mindset but it’s also clear his hate deepens as the film progresses. One of the measures of this is the way in which his language grows increasingly elaborate to resemble the theatrical speeches of his later political career. At times the rhetoric is intoxicatingly colourful and persuasive, filled with symbolism and heroic, inspirational imagery. Mostly however the film exploits Hitler’s misplaced sense of grandeur and importance for laughs. Indeed Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich, is a disturbingly funny film. From the very first scene and Hitler’s arrival, the elderly Jews tease him to teach him some politeness and manners. There’s something irresistibly hilarious about Hitler being asked to leave and come back again, but this time to knock and wait for an answer. It’s a scene that’s well acted enough to be funny in itself, but knowing that it’s a man as dangerous and feared as Hitler being humiliated adds a level of uneasy, dark humour to things.

In fact the film makes a big deal about the lingering torment of being laughed at. A Jewish roommate of Hitler’s, Schlomo Herzl, is forever teasing the young artist. However he also takes him under his wing and treats him like a son, and it’s clear the humour is affectionate and for Hitler’s own good. Hitler simply cannot take being laughed at or looked down to by a Jew though and he finds Schlomo’s care for him repugnant. Nevertheless he exploits it. He accepts Schlomo’s help to prepare him for his interview and entry exam. He lets Schlomo sell his post cards for him so that he can pay rent. He treats him like a slave and then sets about robbing him of his young love. Evidence of a later political pragmatism perhaps?

There are some good scenes between Schlomo and Hitler, particularly in the first half of the film. There’s an interesting contrast between Hitler’s brainwashed nationalism and the haggard man’s devout faith. In their very first exchange Hitler declares to Schlomo that God is dead, following Nietzsche’s famous idea. Schlomo is constantly the wise counterpoint to Hitler’s wild unfocused enthusiasm. But in the end, especially for those who know their history, the relationship strains the bounds of believability to breaking point.

The interesting points about Hitler’s philosophical and political development, and the alternative path through life he might have taken had he gained entry to the Academy, are lost beneath a sensational conflict and love triangle. Initially Schlomo was a clever lens that helped us learn more about Hitler. His character helped us see both Hitler the human and Hitler the animal as he used him and treated him like dirt. You really come to hate the young artist, and not just for being Hitler, as he cruelly rebuffs every kindness extended to him by the old man. Eventually though the plot surrounding Schlomo’s book, which Hitler helps him title “Mein Kampf”, becomes ridiculous.

Tom Schilling gives a great performance as the young Hitler and it’s one that evolves throughout the narrative. His gestures and mannerisms are perfect and his appearance in general. His delivery of the trademark passionate rallying cries, in stirring German, becomes more assured as the character grows in confidence. For me though it’s a real shame that Dawn of Evil: Rise of the Reich seems to lose its way. It begins as a compelling and absorbing study of a neglected period of history. It asks intriguing questions about how far individuals shape history or the social forces around them. But in its efforts to spin a story within those grander themes it loses sight of its strengths, becoming simply a mediocre tale which concludes with a baffling attempt at a poetic ending.

A History of Violence

(some spoilers)

I was keen to see A History of Violence, but I also sat down to watch it with trepidation. The title of this film had me envisaging a brutal compilation of some of history’s goriest moments or something similarly horrific like a serial killer’s holiday snaps. Director David Cronenberg had a reputation from what I’d heard, as he followed up the success of this film with hard-hitting gangster story Eastern Promises, containing its own controversial fight scenes. I haven’t much stomach for excessive blood and guts.

 The opening scene was indeed chilling; brilliantly so. From the very start A History of Violence declares itself to be a film that will give its actors room to act, its story room to grow and unsettle, and yet with a runtime of 96 minutes it’s no tedious slow-burner.  The action kicks-off at detailed walking pace, with two shady but calm types loitering outside a motel. They exchange perfectly ordinary, mundane words. One of them disappears inside whilst the other moves the car a little further along. Then we see which man wears the trousers as the driver’s ordered to go and get water from the cooler in reception.

Inside he dawdles, the camera slowly following his casual, deliberate movements. Then he nonchalantly passes the bloody scene of carnage behind the counter to fill up his container with water. By this point the tension’s been skilfully raised to breaking point. A crying girl appears, clutching a soft toy. The man freezes. The gentle manner he adopts to reassure her, to stop her running or screaming, makes you wonder if he’s a reluctant pawn in a criminal world. Or at least he has enough heart to keep children out of his messy business. But then he gradually reaches for his gun.

The next scene starts with a girl waking from a bad dream, worrying about monsters. Viggo Mortensen appears to comfort his child, instantly establishing himself in the caring everyman role he played so well in The Road. He tells her: “There’s no such thing as monsters”. And yet the inhuman calculating coolness we saw in the preceding scene lingers hauntingly, encouraging the audience to feel differently.

The first twenty minutes of A History of Violence following its disturbing opening scene, caught me off guard for their ordinariness. Mortensen’s character Tom Stall is a simple country soul, running his store and looking out for his family. Far from being dull these establishing scenes are touching and add to the meaning of later events. Stall’s relationship with his wife, played by Maria Bello, is tenderly romantic and loving despite the length of the marriage. His daughter is cute, his friends and colleagues kind and his teenage son remarkably perceptive and intelligent for his age.

But then a handful of fleeting moments change everything. The thugs we saw at the start of the film turn up at Stall’s diner and proceed to terrorise his staff and customers. Reacting instinctively Stall intervenes to save everyone and inadvertently catapults himself to fame. His picture covers the town’s paper alongside the headline, “Local Hero”.

At this point A History of Violence’s title starts to make sense, as the film becomes a meditation on the consequences and ethics of violence. We’ve already seen some High School moments in which Stall’s son, played by Ashton Holmes, rose above the aggressive taunts of the sports hot-shot. Now Stall tries to deal with the accompanying trauma of killing a man, two men, in unforgettable close-up fashion. His family and the community rally round to comfort him. We never see the reasons behind the thugs’ killings. Cronenberg is careful to make most of the violence purely about how it makes a deep, repressed part of some people feel; how it satisfies them.

With the unwelcome arrival of more mobsters to Stall’s quiet town, the plot takes another unexpected twist. The story shifts from a thoughtful exploration of the nature of violence, to tense suffocation as the gangsters stalk Stall’s family, to suspicion and confusion as ghosts surface from Stall’s past. It’s all marvellously subtle, but hints from earlier in the film begin to make sense. Those establishing scenes really were good as you hope with Stall’s family that the demons go away. But of course they don’t.

The acting is superb. Mortensen and Bello are not just excellent as a couple early on in the idyllic stages, but wonderfully convincing and captivating later as destructive events unravel. There are memorable cameos from William Hurt and Ed Harris. The way the performers completely inhabit their characters ensures A History of Violence works masterfully as a gripping, suspenseful and action packed thriller, as well as an insightful film questioning ideas like the American Dream, identity, relationships, humanity and the past.

And the cherry on top of a filling, tasty and sumptuous slice of movie cake is a final scene as stylish, patient, subtle and moving as the opening one. If you haven’t seen A History of Violence, do so soon. It was not at all what I expected it to be and well worth a watch. Don’t be put off by the title or the 18 certificate because ultimately it’s a first-rate and surprising story. It won’t mentally scar you, merely make you think.

No Facebook Vow

Prompted by seeing The Social Network I have decided to prove to myself that I can live without Facebook, if only for a week. Who knows if I last that long maybe I can go completely Facebook celibate! I have certainly concluded that it is merely a toxic presence in my life, a painful reminder of things I am missing out on. Last night I even did something I have often despised in other people, by placing an attention seeking “:(” as a status. I was disgusted with myself when I found the sympathetic messages in reply. Who am I to broadcast my misery, depression and sadness? I deserve no special treatment and if I need the comfort of friends I should seek it from then individually, rather than publicly declaring that I am so worthy to have people to symapathise when I am sad. It isn’t as if it even makes me feel much better. I shall therefore merely stick to email for the next week, which hopefully I shall only use for productive purposes. I feel a period of isolation would benefit me anyway and I have many books to read. I have however just downloaded Skype, but the idea of people seeing my face on a screen or hearing my voice disgusts me and fills me with awkwardness. Nevertheless should let me stay in touch with some valued university friends, but sure they might want to see my face at some point, which will be horrific. Ah well let the challenge begin! Or should I say experiment? Is Facebook like a drug? Will I feel initially worse but better in the long run? Let’s find out.