Frost/Nixon

Yesterday I saw my first movie of 2009 - Frost/Nixon - the stylised account of the lead-up to and the actual interviews between the British interviewer David Frost and disgraced US President Richard Milhous Nixon. There were a few much-criticised historical inaccuracies in the film (many relating to the claimed priority Frost enjoyed in getting admissions from Nixon) but it is a dramatic and suspenseful movie. There is also much grim humour. Frank Langella is superb as Nixon and must be a contender for an Oscar – the film has been nominated for Golden Globes awards for best dramatic picture, best actor in a drama (Langella), best director (Ron Howard), best screenplay (Peter Morgan) and best original score (Hans Zimmer).

I also thought Michael Sheen was a more than capable David Frost - some critics found his smile wooden but his frivolous easy-going character was the exact counterweight to the neurotic intelligence of Nixon. Both lead actors previously participated in performances of a play with the same title.

By the way my sympathies during the film were almost entirely with Nixon – an imperfect, difficult although obviously highly intelligent man. In the film he runs rings around Frost until the final 2 hours of 30 hours of interviewing when finally and climactically Frost induces Nixon to spill the beans on his complicity in the Watergate scandal. The final admission almost seems cathartic for Nixon who finally realises it is over for him.

An enjoyable dramatic film.

The Kiterunner

I watched The Kiterunner movie last night with mixed emotions. It was a film that provided an intriguing account of children caught up in Afghanistan’s conflicts. But it is essentially American sentimentality and an overdone account of good-versus-evil.

Spoiler: The next para outlines the plot.

The Kiterunner is the story of a sooky, intellectual Afghan boy, with a brave and wealthy father. The boy is nasty and dishonest to his loyal, though poor, friend who is a member of an Afghan racial minority. The boys fly fighting kites together but this fun ends when the Russians arrive and the sooky boy and his dad skedaddle to the US. The friend grows up but is eventually killed by the Taliban but his son survives. The grown-up sook of course discovers courage in America and returns to Pakistan where he finds out about his friend's son and heads off to Kabul to rescue him from a bunch of sadistic, homosexual Taliban members. The boy gets rescued, heads off to America with the ex-sook and lives happily ever after with the ex-sook in middle class bliss (‘do you like your room’).

Americans are very much concerned with the issue of perfectibility and redemption. It is certainly here. They are also concerned with evil and that is here also – racism and some truly hideous Taliban creeps. The homosexual rape issue occurs twice in the film and it is confronting. Young boys carry out one of the rapes and religious hypocrites carry out the other. Creepy homosexuals add an element of disgust to the tale but are essentially irrelevant - they are an overdone attempt to add drama to a story which generally lacks it.

The film has had some glowing reviews but in my view it is overdone melodrama.

Nostalgia: The Forsyte Saga

I have been occupied for the past few days watching the complete original version of The Forsyte Saga based on the novels by John Galsworthy. A couple of years ago I tried to watch a more recent 2002 TV adaptation of the same tale but lost interest – the characters lacked conviction compared to the earlier version in my memory.

The original adaptation was first screened on TV in Australia in the late 1960s. It is one of the most memorable and engaging TV dramas I can recall. In Britain, 18 million people watched the final episode of this 26 part series and, as a measure of its near universal appeal, it was the first British drama sold to the former Soviet Union. It was the last major TV drama shot in black and white.

The version I purchased from Amazon.com was a replication of the original version transferred to a set of 7 DVDs from BBC video. Its 26 episodes run for nearly 22 hours with nearly 2 hours of trailers. Once I stated watching I found it as difficult to stop as it is to put down an engaging novel.

What a totally absorbing drama The Forsyte Saga is. Succinct dialogue, superb acting and an engrossing nostalgic look at Victorian and post-Victorian society.

The distinguished Shakespearian actor Eric Porter played the part of the unforgettable, dour Soames Forsyte. Soames was a ‘man of property’ who did have a soft affectionate side but had a very limited capacity to communicate that. In a remarkable trailer on the final DVD Porter reveals that he coped well with the Soames part because it reflected his own character – his own communication problems turned him into an actor.

The other character who was a clear image in my head after nearly 30 years was Soames’ daughter by his second wife, Fleur, played by Susan Hampshire. I still find her performance totally captivating. A flighty, charming yet very determined young post-Victorian woman who was used to getting what she wanted.

Less interesting to me was the beautiful Irene, played by Nyree Porter. She was Soames’ first wife in a tragic, loveless marriage that never worked. Irene did have beauty on her side - she was almost statuesque - but seemed about as cold as Soames without his depth or good qualities.

One of the memories that re-watching the series stirred was the community debate that occurred during the first series over who was the culpable party in the Soames –Irene conflict. Was it the dour Soames or a cold, unyielding Irene? I remember it split viewers strongly. I always had some affection and sympathy for Soames. I thought this might be an unpopular choice but I was interested to learn recently that surveys in Britain at the time suggested most people backed Soames too.

Good story-telling is often about nostalgia. It can be about shifting us to another place or time where we can fantasise. Victorian and post-Victorian England is a convenient source of bourgeois fantasy. Indeed leftwing critics of the series criticised it as such. But The Forsyte Saga is more than nostalgia – it is great drama – indeed I have seen nothing comparable to it for years.

Oldie movies by Fritz Lang & some modern movies

I’ve watched a couple of Fritz Lang movie masterpieces over the last days and several modern films. Its been a long, lazy Easter break.

Metropolis is a silent Lang classic from 1926, perhaps the first science fiction epic, with a wild plot involving downtrodden workers, mad engineers and feminoid robots. This astounding film is highly moralistic with a message about the balance between heart and mind in an industrial society that has, I think, contemporary relevance. I couldn’t get the original version of this flick but was left with one having a new (1998) music soundtrack by Peter Osborne. What a surreal and stylistically exaggerated movie this is. With the silent movies the emphasis fell on acting skill and this is one of the greatest of its genre from the viewpoint of displaying precisely that skill – the acting is dramatic, exaggerated and gripping. Rank 10/10 'fantastic' is the accurate adjective.

The Lang movie M (1931) features Peter Lorre in one of his first starring roles as a serial child killer who whistles Grieg. Lorre is put on trial by a criminal gang who are annoyed that the crime crackdown following the murders isa cutting into their ability to act – Lorre pleads that while they choose to commit crime, he is compelled to commit it. This is early film noir. This is a spooky, thriller (in German with subtitles) with good mob scenes and cop-versus-robber adventures. The German city is fearful of the murderer and these fears provide an interesting picture of pre-War Germany with criminal gangs and authoritarian coppers. I originally had problems getting a copy – I normally search for these older movies on EBay – but I bought a splendid DVD of this in a remainder bin outside a Tandy’s store for exactly $2. Grade 7/10.

I watched Marie Antoinette which I enjoyed. It stars the blood-warming Kirsten Dunst - you will fall in love with her after viewing this delightful tale. It is almost a historical movie but poetic licence intrudes more than a little. It is presented in a modern idiom but with historical costumes and exquisite presentations of the extravagant, luxurious lifestyles of Versailles that lead to the collapse of Louis V1. Sad moments of sexual- and life-starved frustration for Marie though she sticks with dense Louis through thick-and-thin. Both are on a gravy train that they do not entirely welcome and from which they cannot get off. The images that stick in my mind are of the sumptuous strawberry deserts, Marie’s shoes and clothes and the general sumpyuous glory of Versailles! Rank 8/10.

I watched The Painted Veil which gets 7/10. Based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, this is a love story set in the 1920s telling the tale of a young English couple, Walter (Edward Norton), a bacteriologist, and Kitty (Naomi Watts), an upper-class woman. They get married for the wrong reasons and relocate to Shanghai, where Kitty falls in love with a sleazy cad. Walter uncovers the infidelity and, in an act of spite, accepts a job in a remote village in China ravaged by cholera and KMT anger, and takes Kitty with him. Watching her husband working with KMT nationalists and cholera sufferers gives Kitty a new respect for him and they re-engage. It is a 'solidity versus fickleness' story with impressive photography of Chinese countryside.

Finally, I watched and enjoyed The Illusionist – the story of a man from the ‘lower classes’ (Edward Norton again) who secures the love of a woman of far higher social rank and retains this love using his skills as a magician, illusionist and strategist. This is a delightful fairytale that I strongly recommend - a 9/10. The magic is awesome and the intriguing punch line (which I won’t preannounce) is compelling. It’s a pleasant, well-acted fantasy. Norton is excellent as is Jessica Biel, the target of his affections.