Category Archives: film

“Civil War” – should stories make sense?

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I’ll admit I was attracted to this film because Nick Offerman plays the President. As someone else said to me, if Nick Offerman is in it, it’s gotta be worth a watch! I write as an admirer, with tongue only partly in cheek, of Nick Offerman’s deadpan public servant Ron Swanson, in the old TV sitcom “Parks and Rec.”

Nick Offerman’s POTUS appears on screen only in the very first and very last scenes of this film. SPOILER ALERT!! The film is set at the climax of a second American Civil War, a 14-month long insurgency by the so-called “Western Forces of California and Texas”. The film opens in New York City with a number of journalists seeking the ultimate interview, the ultimate photo. They decide to drive to Washington DC in search of this prize. This quest by a journalist for that last great photo, leading to a catastrophic road journey, reminded me of an old James Woods film, “Salvador”. In “Salvador” James Woods’ photographer travels to El Salvador and witnesses the murder of Archbishop Oscar Remero in 1980. A better film, if I may say so, then this one.

The first half of “Civil War” takes the form of a typical road movie – disparate and initially hostile characters bond together in fellowship during a long and arduous car journey. We see the war itself mainly in the dystopian landscape crossed by the journalists. A military chopper, crashed and burnt in the car park of a suburban mall, a “JC Penney” store prominent in the background. Freeways full of abandoned cars. Silent and eerie landscapes. The story-telling principle “Show not Tell” is taken to breaking point here with not even a glimmer of an explanation of what has happened. We see the flicker of munitions from the distant frontline. Madmen with guns – some in uniform, some not – commit atrocities. Although to be fair, that last sentence could quite easily describe the United States of America at any time.

Something I found jarring was the willingness of the photographers to document and witness, but not to intervene. It’s one thing to photograph a predator and its prey for a wildlife show, and not intervene, watching dispassionately as some poor furry creature is consumed. It is quite another to photograph the killing and death (or worse, in a nightmare sequence near the beginning clearly drawing on the photographers’ memory) of fellow human beings, and not intervene. What right do we have – though it may cost us our life – to not intervene? Of all the excuses there are in the world to walk by on the other side, I find the photo-journalists’ excuse – document but don’t intervene – one of the weakest.

The turning point of the film is a scene where one of the journalists saves the lives of the rest of them by mowing down armed men with a big SUV. My suspension of disbelief left the theatre at that point. For this scene to be even remotely convincing, the hero of the piece (who dies as a result of wounds sustained in the rescue) would have had to start and then drive the SUV a few hundred metres at high speed, without two armed soldiers hearing it – and this on a quiet summer’s day in an eerie, silent, war-torn landscape. Lazy writing is what it is. No matter: the scene is there only to facilitate a paradigm shift to the second phase of the film, where we do see actual war.

The journalists accompany the “Western Forces” into Washington DC; we find that the United States Army has without any explanation at all, mysteriously, suddenly and very conveniently given up. Unlikely as it may seem. The entire film (even if in principle a second American Civil War is possible) can be described with the words “unlikely as it may seem”. We see the taking of the White House, and the shooting dead of the President by common private soldiers of the “Western Forces”. These soldiers seem unconvincingly open, friendly and willing to engage with journalists, rather than just ignore them or shoot them on sight – as would be more likely in reality after 14 months of brutal civil war.

There are so many unanswered questions in this film. Why is Nick Offerman’s sitting President seen as the villain by the journalists? That makes no sense, even though he is transparently played as some form of Trump-like character. It’s almost as if the journalists – who would be liberal and almost certainly tribal Democrats, are sympathetic to the invasion of the USA by Texas, a secessionist state that would surely be Republican. The invasion makes no sense either. The entire war makes no sense. States (Texas and California) have seceded. If that actually happened, the reality is that (as with the original Civil War) the USA would have little choice but to invade those states to restore the status quo, not vice-versa.

Fortunately the film is not really about the geopolitical or military details of a second American Civil War, but about its effects on people, which of course, is much more important. If I am honest with myself, story has always inhabited a “post-truth world” and ignored inconvenient things like facts. It just annoys the inner geek within me. Overall, I found the first half watchable but jarring in places, I found the second half typical Hollywood flash-bang tosh – the battle, the chase, the adrenaline, taking priority over all. And I thought the music was great, particularly in the ending credits.

Some notes on the new “Dune” films

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When the first new Dune film came out I never went to see it. I just wasn’t interested, even though I’m very familiar with the story. I’ve read the book often enough, and I was a fan of David Lynch’s 1984 film from before it was even released. I remember watching the trailers in the cinema with great anticipation. What is the story? At one level it is two great houses battling for supremacy in an empire in some star-flung future. It is literally space-opera. It would make a very good opera. At another level, it is an exploration of the relationship between science, technology, religion and politics. The original book, I very briefly review here: https://plateroom28.blog/2018/06/09/dune-by-frank-herbert/.

But in the end I was drawn to these two new Denis Villeneuve films. When the second one came out I came to the realisation that I would have to watch the first one before I watched the second. (Villeneuve has divided Frank Herbert’s original book, which David Lynch made into one very long film in 1984, into two films). I rather suspect Villeneuve has a series of more than two films in mind, for the second film ended almost literally on a cliff-hanger, or at least on the edge of a sand dune.

Speaking of both films now as one: I found both very atmospheric, with cinematography and special effects obviously forty years in advance of the state of the art in 1984. One of the problems I have with modern sci-fi films is that they are so very often a triumph of special effects over plot and story. Others must be the judge of that in the case of Dune: I am too intimately familiar with the original story-as-written, to be an objective judge. But the effects and the atmosphere were stunning.

The plot and screenplay of the first film is almost but not quite the same as David Lynch’s film. Denis Villeneuve differs at the beginning – whereas David Lynch begins with meeting of the Guild Navigator with the Emperor, in Villeneuve’s first film the Emperor is always a sinister effect, never seen, frequently referred to. The Guild of Navigators, fundamental though they are to the original story, are as good as irrelevant, and are not mentioned at all in the second film. Many of the scenes and set pieces are the same – and comforting and familiar thereby. The Emperor, played by Christopher Walken, only appears in the second film.

The dark stars of Villeneuve’s films are the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, who emerge from the films as behind the scenes manipulators of Emperors and great houses, twisters of the truth, spreading religion and lies for their own ends. And indeed, that is more or less the case in the original story.

We see the same characters. Gurney Halleck – which is better, Patrick Stewart (long before Jean-Luc Picard) in the 1984 film, or Josh Brolin? Duke Leto is brilliant in the new film, if a little overplayed a little too conscientious and self-important. The sinister cleaning lady “the Shaddap Mapes” again, pretty much the same in 1984 as today. Duncan Idaho. Dr Yueh. A particular shout-out to Javier Bardem who plays the Fremen leader Stilgar brilliantly – although Stilgar is let down to a degree, as we shall see later. An inspiring move was to cast the Imperial ecologist Dr Liet Kynes not (as in the book) as a rather high-handed white man of a certain age, but as a female of Afro-Caribbean heritage.

Rabban, the Harkonnen enforcer, even LOOKS like he did in the 1984 film. A flaw of the 1984 film was to pitch the House Harkonnen as pantomime baddies. There is none of that here. There is the same dark, weird, Lovecraftian menace, but without the unredeeming vice of out-of-place pantomime humour. One area completely missed in the Lynch film is the gladiator scene on Geidi Prime, where Baron Harkonnen attempts to have his nephew Feyd Rautha Harkonnen assassinated. In the second film, we see that scene played straight from the book, including the mysterious and Machiavellian Lady Fenring seducing the young na-Baron. Although her husband, the equally Machiavellian Count Fenring, is written out. Feyd Rautha himself I thought was excellent, if only a little over-played by Austin Butler as a rather cliched psychopath. But the bar was very low: Sting played him in the 1984 film as a spoilt and petulant buffoon.

All the set-piece scenes are broadly the same in both films; the newer films have time to treat them in more luxurious style, using time and thundering music to create atmosphere. The first film was never boring; I found the second film overlong and it only kept my attention because of my familiarity with the story. The music, though loud, did not really get into its stride, except for moments towards the end of the first film. The music to the 1984 film remains superb to this day and in my view has not dated, which is more than you can say for the rest of it.

Paul Atriedes, the fifteen year old boy: Kyle Maclachlan in the original film, conveys Paul as a much older, more mature man. I was going to make some comments about how young the Lady Jessica (played by Rebecca Ferguson) looks in the new film (compared to Francesca Annis on the 1984 film) but then I looked it up and found that Rebecca Ferguson is quite old enough to have a 15 year old son! One thing I am liking, is the story arc in Paul’s personality, as seen in his face, his mien, his character. We see him hardening from a Duke’s son, to a bereaved youth becoming the Duke himself, and onwards toward the lonely and unwanted destiny of becoming Paul Muad’Dhib. However, towards the end of the second film, we see the mystical, the spiritual, abandoned, and Paul Muad’Dhib morphing slowly into a demagogue and dictator. It will be interesting to see how the screen-writers handle the story from here on in. I will now have to go and re-read Dune Messiah, a book I have not read since my teens. Or perhaps I needn’t bother, as they may just make up the story as they go along.

If I were to criticise the second film, it would be in the way the scriptwriter and director have made a rather coarse over-simplification of the difference between the secular and religious positions. There is even one little bit lifted straight out of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. See my comment above on the unredeeming vice of out-of-place humour. They have drawn a clear line between the ostensibly rational and secular on the one hand (represented by Paul Muad’Dhib’s lover Chani, played with a face like thunder for the latter third of the second film) and fundamentalism and religion on the other (represented by Stilgar, whose noble character in the book is badly let down and maligned in this second film). No such line between the rational and the religious exists. Not in the real world, nor in the fictional universe of the book created by Frank Herbert. It’s all a bit more complex and nuanced than that. Whilst it is understandable, given the times we live in, for people of a certain education and background to effectively dismiss religion as bad, it doesn’t mean it actually is. I found this aspect of the film rather put me off and left a bad taste in the mouth. All that said, if I’m honest, it was a worthwhile reading of the underlying philosophical tension in the story, even though it displeased me and I disagreed with it.

Another criticism I might raise, would be in the inconsistent use of weapons: Frank Herbert quite deliberately restricted the technology in his Dune universe – his soldiers fought with point and edge, not with projectile weapons, and only rarely with what we used to call “ray guns”. Yet we see the use of projectile weapons – machine guns – and laser-like “ray guns” of one kind or another, as and when it suits the film-makers’ needs for a dramatic battle scene.

As someone who is quite literally an aficionado of the original book, I have to dig deep not to find fault with this sort of film adaptation. Yet – adapt, the screenwriter and director must. We can’t slavishly copy something from the past, particularly as it was written to address ideas at a certain time and place, ideas which are only partly timeless. Overall, good entertainment, good cinema, with plenty of room for bar-room discussion and disagreement.

Mortal engines

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A review of “Mortal engines” by Philip Reeve

This is a short review of the film of Philip Reeve’s boys’ story, “Mortal Engines” which I watched on a flight, back before the lock-down, some three years ago.

I have gone full circle in terms of fiction. Eleven years ago I read my son’s copy of “Mortal Engines” whilst on a long-haul flight. I am just now sitting through the film version of the same story, also whilst on-board a long-haul flight. And to be perfectly honest the film is as weak and as thin as the original boys’ story. The original story was for children and I – as well I might as an adult – found it too thin. This film, however, is in effect not for children but for all (PG cert) and I found the same lack of conviction that I found in the original book, though perhaps for quite different reasons. The book and the series to which it belongs were successful in their time, doubly so really, in that Hollywood bought the options to make it into a film.

As a film, I found it cliched. It was a triumph of special effects over plot, as so many sci-fi films are these days. I confess I’m not a fan of Hugo Weaving’s work and he plays the baddie in this film. I did like his role as Agent Smith in The Matrix, but not his Elrond in The Lord of the Rings. As a fan of the LOTR I’m familiar with Elrond as a character and I didn’t like at all the way he played Elrond: not at all like the character in the book. Here in Mortal Engines, he plays the Bearded Sultry Older Man. There is a beautiful daughter, a geeky hero and a second male lead with a strong Irish accent. It was quite literally tiresome to watch.

It would be interesting to see who wrote the screenplay for the adaption of Philip Reeves’ original novel. I had to give up watching, about a half hour from the end. It was so predictable and conventional I literally could not be bothered to watch it. Yet, along the way, amidst all the usual adventure thriller science-fiction memes and tropes, were some very interesting nuggets. This told me something about the screenwriters, hence my earlier comments. I’ve spent some time studying the Bible, and an aspect of doing so is what is called “redaction criticism”. Today we think of “redaction” as removing text from a document for whatever reason. But “redaction criticism” is trying to understand the use by biblical authors, of earlier written material. Take an example from the “Lord of the Rings”: recall the character Aragorn. Do we know if Tolkien, in his youth, read “The last of the Mohicans”? For Tolkien’s character Aragorn so closely resembles Fennimore Cooper’s character “Hawkeye” that it seems likely that Tolkien would have, and may have been influenced thereby. There is no way of knowing, of course. This then, is redaction criticism. And my senses are alert to it here: what influences were there on the screenwriters for this picture? It matters to me.

The first was the Shrike. Where does this immortal android zombie come from? Does he appear in the original books? I cannot now recall. I ask this because “the Shrike” is a strange and shadowy character in Dan Simmons’s Endymion in his very readable Hyperion novels. A dread figure, often invoked, rarely seen, much feared. Could Simmons’s work have influenced the screenwriters here? The Shrike in this Mortal Engines film excites some sympathy; there is, deep within it, some deeply buried kernel of humanity, some taste-bomb of humaneness that emerges to save the life of the young hero.

The second was the use of the term “shield wall” – towards which the travelling city of London is making its way. The term “Shield wall” originates in Frank Herbert’s “Dune”. An interesting juxtaposition, particularly when we see that this “Shield Wall” is actually located in the heart of central Asia, in what is now the Tien Shan of China.

Then, we have the environmentalist trope. I got the distinct sense that these marauding, raiding rolling cities, using up resources, harming the environment, represent the west, whereas the fixed buildings hidden behind the shield wall, are the east – the home of the “anti-tractionists”. They are portrayed as somehow better, and somehow inherently eastern. It is all a bit naïve and simplistic, and it can be, for it can easily be passed off as being for children, or being “just” science-fiction. But actually it’s quite cleverly crafted cultural spin and I don’t care for it as such.