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.

Ironclad – A Soho screening

My review of Ironclad can be found here – http://flickeringmyth.blogspot.com/2011/03/movie-review-ironclad-2011.html – over at the always fabulous Flickering Myth. I’ll also post it here for my archives. Along with some photos I took in Soho, where I went to De Lane Lea studios, for the screening. It was incredibly exciting and inspiring to be sitting in their waiting room, with signed photographs from most famous actors you can think to name. That’s cliche, and I’m not bitten by the fame bug like some. But you just felt like you were somewhere talented people gathered to make things happen, for the world to see. As a Bond fan, it was exciting to see Quantum of Solace posters and know the sound for the film was mixed there. Waiting for the time of the screening allowed me to discover that Soho itself was fascinating. It’s the hub of London’s film industry, with studio HQs everywhere. Also a wide range of Bloomsbury publishers inhabited the smarter buildings, near various TV production companies, such as Tiger Aspect, which I found in a corner of Soho Square, opposite a house the black, celebrated nurse of the Crimea, Mary Seacole, used to live in. All of this upmarket, swanky, creative establishment stuff, nestled side by side with posh restaurants and seedier strip joints. A diverse place for sure.  A mini London – a place I could easily love to see everyday.

A party raged at The Soho Theatre (see above) to Rihanna music on a trendy London balcony. My camera struggled with the light to capture a shot down Dean Street of Post Office Tower.

Anyway here’s my review of Ironclad in full, it’s worth seeing:

The King’s Speech ruled at the Oscars and did so because of and despite of, three core ingredients. It’s a film that’s independently financed, based closely on historical events and proudly British. It proved that independent films could be both critically acclaimed and box office smashes. It brought to life even stuffy costumed history in a dramatic and engaging way. And it highlighted the world’s appetite for thoroughly English storytelling.

Director Jonathan English is aptly named then in the film industry at this precise moment. His latest project, Ironclad, is out on the 4^th March. It shares many of The King’s Speech’s potential handicaps. It took eighteen hard months to raise the money for its ambitious scale and according to the earnest production notes, is a tale “torn from the pages” of English Medieval history. All those involved with the Ironclad team will be hoping that their film also shares some of the success enjoyed by this year’s big Academy Award winner. Producer Andrew Curtis certainly believes that like Tom Hooper’s Royal epic, English’s gritty medieval battle drama will prove that Britain is more than “this little village of filmmakers”.

It’s very hard to find anymore comparisons between Ironclad and The King’s Speech. Yes there’s a Royal involved, but Paul Giamatti’s megalomaniac King John in 1215 is poles apart from Colin Firth’s stuttering Bertie. He’s just been forced to sign the Magna Carta, a vital document that would go on to form the foundations of common law in England. This much is well known history, but the film claims the untold story is what John did next; hire an army of Scandinavian mercenaries to kill those behind the drafting of Magna Carta. It’s a piece of paper that concedes too many of John’s powers over his citizens, a humiliation, that he’s pretty damn pissed about. In a rage John sets out to retake his kingdom, only to be blocked by a handful of opponents at strategically important Rochester castle. From the very start Giamatti plays John, a historical villain we’re all very familiar with, as a man having an endless strop with catastrophic consequences. Revealingly Giamatti comments in the production notes that “I play Hitler, basically”. 

Ironclad’s impressive cast is undoubtedly an asset for the film and most of the actors are likeably convincing in their roles. But just as there is a vast gulf between the characters of King John and King George, there is a chasm separating the performances of Firth and Giamatti. In the trailer my expectations for the film were drastically lowered by the sight of Giamatti’s unavoidably ridiculous face barking angry orders; adorned with a silly beard clogged by drool and drizzle. To my pleasant surprise he was better as John than the trailer makes him appear. This however does not change the fact that the American’s accent regularly has the odd wobble and that his scenes are generally the least enjoyable in Ironclad. There’s something about his portrayal of the King that just failed to convince me. Admittedly I do think a lot of this doubt was down to my unease at his weak, unintentionally comedic appearance, obvious from the very beginning and before he had opened his mouth.

I was astonished to read a quote from Rick Benattar, one of the film’s producers who had worked with Giamatti before on Shoot ‘Em Up, that said: “We got him (Giamatti) signed up to play King John and cast the movie around him. That’s how it really started.” Now as I’ve said, Ironclad’s cast is genuinely impressive. British heavyweights like Brian Cox, Derek Jacobi and Charles Dance, star alongside established actors Mackenzie Crook, Jason Flemyng and Jamie Foreman. One of Giamatti’s better scenes in the film is so good because he’s trading insults and witty jibes with the formidable Brian Cox, manning the ramparts of Rochester Castle with his soldiers. There’s also impressive young talent on show in the form of Kate Mara as the central love interest and Aneurin Barnard as a youthful, idealistic and inexperienced squire. I found the concept of a Medieval Magnificent Seven intriguing and those actors within the castle walls pull it off. But Giamatti’s John is Ironclad’s single biggest flaw and I find it incomprehensible that he was the starting point for such a diverse, quality cast of Brits. More than anything else, he just doesn’t look right as King John.

Enough negatives then, let’s start talking about the good Ironclad has to offer. Perhaps the main reason I was so surprised by how integral Giamatti was to the creation of the project, was that James Purefoy seemed to have the far more pivotal (and praiseworthy) role. He plays an initially mute Templar knight called Marshall, which is an interesting background for the hero of any movie to have. Marshall’s characterisation in the script may not all be remarkably subtle but it is for the most part original and Purefoy’s performance captivating. He more than capably handles the physical side to Ironclad’s action and apparently enjoyed wielding an authentic 5ft sword.

As producer Benattar says, Purefoy made his name as a “spectacular leader and lover” in HBO TV series Rome. Whilst he again plays the man that rallies those around him and falls for a woman in Ironclad, his restrained Templar knight battling a crisis of faith, is very different to arrogant, swaggering Mark Anthony and demonstrates Purefoy’s range of ability. Looking back at his career it’s a real shame that Purefoy hasn’t had more opportunities to completely inhabit a central figure in the narrative as he does here. Before Daniel Craig’s casting as Bond, Purefoy was talked of as 007, and he certainly would have looked the part and had the acting chops coupled with a distinctive style. He is the heart of Ironclad and that’s saying something given the rest of the cast.

Aside from assembling such a well known, talented cast, director English was keen to make Ironclad stand out with visceral, realistic and gritty action. From the point of view of historical accuracy, Ironclad feels authentic, whatever liberties it probably took with actual events. The variety of weapons and the set all tend to convince, with the exception to the realistic feel being some dodgy CGI of the castle and surrounding area during otherwise good action set pieces. At times the desire to be hard hitting and true to the reality of Middle Ages gore also went too far, with some blatant green screen shots of limbs being cleaved off or bodies hacked in two. But again generally the filmmakers’ attempts to show “what it’s really like to kill someone with an axe” translate into gripping action.

What picking such fine actors allowed English to do was really ramp up the violence, action and drama and then count on his performers to lighten the sombre mood now and again. An interesting side plot of love between Derek Jacobi’s character’s young wife, played by Kate Mara, and Templar Marshall, is slightly different and a touch more interesting than your conventional diversionary romance, due to the knight’s vow of celibacy. There are also flashes of genuinely amusing, and very British humour, I wasn’t expecting from such a dreary looking film shot in rain battered Wales.

Vibrantly realised characters deliver one liners, which could be terribly bad, with attractive style. Asked whether the French will really come to the rescue, Charles Dance’s kindly Bishop of Canterbury, wryly quips “God knows”, glancing to the heavens. And Cox’s Baron D’Albany warns his companion as he makes him hold his sword, that “We may need protection” as they enter a brothel. Only such screen legends could deliver these lines in a way that doesn’t deflate the drama but enriches it with humanity and sprigs of light.

I cannot help but applaud Ironclad for what it proves; that British cinema can compete with the world and produce well acted, exciting action movies. It feels real and very English and director Jonathan can be proud; he deserves his film to succeed. But I can’t help but have reservations. Apart from the occasionally disappointing visual effect, Ironclad’s Achilles heel is Paul Giamatti. He is not terrible but feels out of place with the tone of the rest of the story. It’s a shame the producers felt the need to recruit an American star as an integral part of a very British project. For me his casting undermines the aim of a successful, British and independent film somewhat. That uneasy feeling I regularly got during his moments in the limelight was the only real disappointment of Ironclad; otherwise I found it a good and engaging film.

Fish Tank

Fish Tank is a gritty and real film, driven by its rough setting and well realised characters. It’s a critically acclaimed piece crafted by writer/director Andrea Arnold and centred on a knock-out debut performance from Katie Jarvis as foul mouthed fifteen year old Mia. She lives with her fierce and distant mother and her prematurely aged younger sister on a downtrodden, ragged estate. She drinks and wanders her days away, stomping with rage around the local area whilst she waits for others in an unknown system to decide her fate. She loiters near those her own age, only to end up violently and angrily confronting them most of the time. Spewing obscenities, wearing a permanent scowl and seeking vulgar distraction, Jarvis’ magnificent debut achievement is to subtly showcase Mia’s softer side.

Until the arrival of Hunger and Inglorious Basterd’s Michael Fassbender, Mia’s life consists purely of booze, slagging matches and dance. Dance appears to be her one true interest and she tentatively practices in a nearby abandoned flat, reluctant to display her slowly and shyly honed skills to others. The only other distraction from the confines of her miserable life is an almost mythical looking white horse, tethered by the dangerous boys at the local gypsy camp, with a revolving wind turbine dominating the roadside background. Mia tries, without success, to free the creature on several occasions. One time she lingers with the animal long enough to comfort it gently, patting its rising and falling frame, quietly seeking the warmth so lacking in her own life. It’s this scene that convinces you to root for Mia; she’s not really the mindless swearing teen on show most of the time. Beneath the beast conditioned by her environment lurks something better. Perhaps the essence of a childhood never lived.

So when Fassbender’s character Connor crashes onto the scene as her mum’s new man Mia understandably, after initial feisty reluctance, latches onto his fatherly encouragement. During a beautifully shot, moving trip to the countryside, she helps him catch a fish with his bare hands in the river. He compliments her dancing ability, urges her to go for a local audition. Despite his rough and readiness, his working man confidence, Connor appears to belong to a different, more caring world than Mia’s. A world where fifteen year old daughters have loving, concerned fathers. And yet a father figure is not all Mia wants. Connor excites her and their chemistry goes beyond caring. She pretends to be asleep one night so he carries her to her room. Does she want a lover or the dad she never had?

The film’s title, Fish Tank, is a symbol for Mia’s life. Watching this on DVD the picture was narrowed throughout, presumably a technique again designed to highlight the confinement of Mia’s existence. She is as helpless and ignorant as a fish in many ways, but through no fault of her own. Even her preferred route out, that of dancing, she has simply snatched at because she spends her time watching the same music videos and programmes on TV, selling a certain vision of womanhood and success. A lot of the film’s component parts appear to be cliché at first glance, but the quality of composition and relevance of the themes lifts the story above anything attempted before. Fassbender and Jarvis give mesmerising performances, sparking wonderfully off each other and being at once realistic and impossible to truly fathom. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan must be praised for making the bleak backdrop of the estate look simultaneously grim and stimulating and contrasting this with vivid countryside vistas, splendid British suburbia and striking establishers of trees sensually swaying in gusty winds.

The film builds to a dramatic and gripping climax, with Mia confronting her demons and her future. Whilst British cinema may be ridiculed now and then for being too dependent on this sort of film, if they are continually churned out they should all be as fresh and well made as Fish Tank, and the film is deserving of its Bafta for Outstanding British Film. As shoppers flock to HMV for Christmas DVD bargains, Fish Tank may be a little heavy for a festive present, but it is ultimately life affirming and should satisfy those who like their cinema edgy and critically adored. But it’s not for the faint hearted.