The Last Mistress

All my reviews will contain spoilers. Just so you know.

Art film, Asia Argento nude – worth a rent, I suspected (for the art film thing, obviously).

Initial Thoughts:

• Bitching and lies behind closed doors – could be another Dangerous Liaisons, could be Merchant Ivory slop. Hard to tell.
• This isn’t Merchant Ivory dross. And I finally knew this whilst realising Asia Argento cannot fake an orgasm to save her life.
• “The feelings you stirred in my heart at 20, she has revived in a heart of 30...” Hmmm – not the greatest way to end a quick afternoon bonk.
• Got to love period lipstick lesbianism, right?
• Time for a flashback, to where it all began.

Moving On:

• A terrible first date...a filthy laugh...a ludicrous duel...and we got love. Pity the old fellow – he deserved better.
• The Algerian years – had a daughter, she died, we bonked next to the funeral pyre, came home...the usual...Did they film this lot in one day?

Final Moments:

• Marriage, and settling down for a depressing life of sobbing on a windy coastline.
• “That way, at least someone will remember.”

Aftermath:

A wispy young man (looking like every male brit-fop guitarist of the nineties), known as something of a cad, is due to marry a pretty and naive young heiress with the blessing of several nosy, gossipy elderly associates of both youths. Alas, the man has a beautiful mistress whom he has known and loved or argued with for so long that he is ultimately unable to resist treating her better than his wife, a matter not made easier on the wife when the mistress so actively pursues the husband.

A piece of French Costume Drama meets seventies drama-porn piece of fluff, this is far less bitchy and snooty and ...well, French than I had expected: rather, it is about doomed marriage gliding through lost innocence, broken hearts and rediscovered love against the warnings of jaded, aging superiors. The liberal determination of sexuality and dominance in relationships is rather more daring than the film perhaps intended to present, but I am unfamiliar with the novel it is apparently based on and have no familiarity with the previous films of the director (Catherine Breillat), so I could be misjudging this. The flirting and voyeurism are indisputably familiar from the likes of Dangerous Liaisons, but the tone is rather different – the curious elders criticising or observing the experiences of youth and middle age in the same manner Maggie Smith manages so frustratingly, so often (not knocking her as an actress, but there does come a point her name puts me off seeing a film because I can predict the character will have me seething with frustration).

Fu'ad Ait Aattou, as the male lead, is a fairly classic case of dude looks like a lady – his feminine face barely masking masculine aggression. Clearly not an experienced actor, he nevertheless brings a wavering determination to the role that is in keeping with the requirements of portraying the character.

I struggle to understand the loathing some people show towards Asia Argento. She has, quite often, issues with talking in a foreign language and still portraying the words according to the needs of the character performance (hardly unusual), but she always uses those expressive eyes and mouth to fine effect. It’s not my being lusty here – she just knows how to convey inner turmoil better than most modern film actresses. Here, as the titular character, she captured the delicate treachery and denial, sardonic or frustrated and depressed moods of the character exquisitely. Only her nineties style porn actress attempts at faking climax fall short (hilariously so).

Together, the leads are superb, their need for each other and feeling of emptiness when apart shown with a finely disguised despair. Their relationship seems slightly less shocking in their behaviour in public (despite the reactions of others) than in private – these two seem to have a craving for each other’s blood that would not be out of place in a vampire film!). The performances of the older members of the cast are all superb – watching one of them become exhausted as the story of the previous decade is told was charming, and raised recognised love and heartache in a far lighter manner than I was expecting, without pushing the whole episode into comedy.

This is a very attractive, colourful (not over stylised) and watchable - if rarely all that enjoyable – film featuring many interesting conversations without the need for too many specifically important lines. It really would have benefitted had the details after the wedding been told in five or six minutes rather than around half an hour. Also, the film suffers from some budgetary constraints in the settings and shots (really, the scenes in Algeria could have been filmed over a few hours in any one of dozens of countries) and the climax, sad to say, is a pretty throwaway “have you heard..?” moment - rather than showing the audience what happened - which is pretty weak and lets the many positives about the film slightly harder to reflect upon immediately afterwards. But overall, this is pleasing eye candy and a familiar enough story told in a surprisingly interesting and engaging manner.

Grade C+ (Take The Time)

P2 (Parking Level 2)

All my reviews will contain spoilers. Just so you know.

This one was a DVD rental. I had heard mixed reviews of the film, with the majority of positive feedback coming from people who would not usually watch a thriller or slasher film. Still, Alexander Aja (director and writer for Switchblade Romance and The Hills Have Eyes remake, both impressive in their own ways) produced P2 and developed the story and script, so I had something approaching high hopes for it.

Initial Thoughts:

· How to ruin a Christmas classic: the track Santa Baby plays over shots of a grimy parking lot until an effective jump shock.
· Office politics, people going home for Christmas – why no office parties and half days?
· Nice doggy want a hug?
· Wes Bently has a really, really nice butt. I had not noticed this before.
· Door buzzer at hand, yet the dunce cannot figure out she can let the taxi driver in, hold the door and then leave. Am I missing something here or is the audience going to be expected to cheer on the thickest female lead in recent memory?

Moving On:

· For a romantic first date, don’t just say it with flowers – say it with shackles.
· If someone keeps you in bondage, do not swear at them or I lose all hope that I will grow to like and support your character.
· “Tom, this is really sweet of you...” Come again?
· She just swore at her captor again. Dumbarse.
· “Why are we going down, Tom?” Ah, the innuendo.
· The moral of the story is to be careful who you feel up – you never know who you might meet on the way down.
· Tom, Tom, Tom-Tom-Tom – enough with repeating the name! Wow. He thought so too. Call him shitface and see if that helps.
· When missing your internal organs, take a quick snooze. This sort of thing alone won’t kill you (apparently – Dario Argento thinks this too, the loon bucket).
· How do you hide from someone with access to cameras around the confined space you are trapped in? This is getting creepier again.
· Fact - Bag ladies live on the street because they such thoroughly hideous human beings. Honest.
· “I can stay here! In this parking lot! All by myself! 'Cause that's obviously what everybody wants!” Meh. Personally, I don’t think Angela cares either way.
· Fact - A single shock from a taser will knock you out for a few minutes. Honest.
· If I were the police, I would question the carols blaring out around an empty car park – it isn’t exactly normal behaviour.
· Worst. Search. Ever.

Final Moments:

· Wes Bentley is really rather something of a cheeky, hairy hunk. I would start riding it right about now, despite the mental illness, murders and injuries.
· Female drivers, tut-tut, etc.
· Yay – a vehicular face off!
· Yay – Fulci style eyeball violence!
· Never call a moody moo-cow a cunt.
· The Death Wish films have a better grip on real justice than this.

Basically, this is every sociopath of the week movie ever made – just set in a car park. A bit of Sliver here, a nod to Fatal Attraction there, but the setting and one of the lead performances do just about make this one that I should remember in a hazy way, many years from now. Underground car parks are always a little unsettling for their appearance and the sounds, and one of my favourite giallo scenes is set in one (a few fine minutes during What Have They Done to Your Daughters?).

Wes Bently is a revelation here, bar a screechingly hideous woe-is-me shouting fit at one point halfway through (one which I doubt anyone could have pulled off well). His performance is believable and complex, drawing out the well-defined anxiety and isolation of his character to suit the atmosphere of the location. Slowly realising how closely he has studied his captive is remarkably unsettling. The earliest, usually throwaway lines carry a certain hint of menace. The pleasure he takes from control – from isolating someone else – is terrifying to watch. In fact, a major flaw with the development of this inventive villain is that Thomas would feel totally wrong outside of the setting and the unlikely set of circumstances presented to him. I have no idea how he was not spotted as a less than suitable employee. Basically, the performance rings true whilst elements of the character and the narrative do not. Something more specific about his history or some identification of how he copes outside of work would have offered some more genuine depth, and then I think this would be the sort of fondly remembered character piece as Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction or Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. Regardless, I have seen Bently in other films and cannot remember much about his performances in them (well, he wasn’t much cop in Soul Survivors). Here, he lifts the daft material into something worthwhile.

I used to work as a security guard in a office block, and whilst the vast majority of office workers were (sad to say) rude and ignorant towards myself and my co-workers, there were enough polite human beings to suggest the lonely head-case in this film could have picked a more obvious, interesting victim. Poor Rachel Nichols puts in a good effort as Angela, but why did some creepy guy single out and pursue such a seemingly cold, bland lady? Thomas was supposed to be desperate and lonely, yet I still have no idea why he singled out such an outwardly unlikable character to abduct. Angela has moments where she displays compassionate behaviour, but before Thomas goes crazy at her, these appear to be for the sake of business rather than genuine concern for others or herself. The audience knows she survives moments of abuse by just carrying on, but these are rarely shown as someone fighting back, just letting people take advantage. Her psycho stalker evens her warns her about it repeatedly!

I wanted someone else to finally help out since she spent so much time screwing up on helping herself. When Angela wins through as we all knew she would, she takes things a step too far in a manner which simply does not ring true, and that is a big problem for the movie. I barely cared what happened to her and disliked what the movie thought was worth celebrating about the transformation to her character. Killing a dog is usually employed to get an audience hate a character – even the similar Mark Wahlberg staring movie Fear got this right – but the filmmakers get it wrong here as, regardless of circumstance, the purpose of Angela killing one is set-up to show she is supposed to have started winning the fight she is stuck in. The attempts by the soundtrack at making her final revenge pleasurable are cringe worthy.

The two main characters have a dynamic that is, whilst flawed, interesting, but once the heroine starts to genuinely fight back (having taken her sweet time to do so – sorry to harp on but it really is annoying) the focus is back to her as an individual, and she becomes about 50% less interesting and he becomes 250% more entertaining. Thomas was the more interesting, and occasionally the more sympathetic, character.

The most obvious issue with the film is that, when a movie puts a character in so many tense situations, it’s difficult to get excited by the suspense if the end result of each step of her escape attempt means nothing more than someone else getting bumped off or passing by. One minor character seemingly gets it before Thomas even knows he can keep her captive. Literally every other character outside of the lead two is clearly going to be utterly disposable and clueless.

This movie takes no time to get going, yet then stumbles along, only keeping the momentum up with some unlikely twists and behaviour although, curiously, it was fairly simple to predict where things were going just because the farfetched moments ultimately occur to help reach an obvious point in the plot. Much daftness with a flooding lift totally lost my interest. Happily, most of the other consequences of actions here are finely delivered punchlines of bloodier than expected murder or injury, with unusually sadistic humour (including a mime to Blue Christmas) for a wide-audience thriller. There are several grisly scenes here, and the relish the leads (particularly Bently) bring to these is effective.

Ultimately, this unambitious but fun little movie ends up working as a result of the charismatic villain of the piece and the location, along with a couple of effective jump shocks and a malicious streak far wider than most recent big budget thrillers. It’s a shame that a few little flaws were not polished over properly. I doubt this would have scored the theatrical release it got without the atmosphere captured by such a spacious central environment becoming ever more claustrophobic and bleak. Frankly, it might have benefitted having Aja direct it too.

Grade C+ (Take The Time)

Africa Addio

All my reviews will contain spoilers. Just so you know.

I knew practically nothing about mondo movies and had never seen one all the way through before this one – there, I’ve said it. Huge exploitation fan, with a huge gap in his knowledge. Shame on me. To spend a morning attending a lecture about them, and then see this one in full, at the BFI recently sounded like a great way to start things off. Then I realised the film was not just likely to result in debate, but certain too. And that the film was showing to a film club for ethnic minorities, and Italian documentary filmmakers Jacopetti and Prosperi are generally considered to have been racist in their approach to showing African peoples, having tried to apologise for Africa Addio by following it up with Goodbye Uncle To; a movie which caused political unrest in some countries and pretty much finished off the careers of the filmmakers. And it suddenly all felt like a really, really bad way to start things off...

Long story short – audience didn’t like it, no-one could defend why it had been shown to that group, people don’t like crazy men who use a Q&A to invite people to cry for poor old misunderstood Mugabi, and I suspect Africa Addio will not be getting a release in this country again any time soon.

Initial Thoughts:

• If you have to justify yourself at the very start, you probably expect an argument.
• The Age of Compromise has begun.” With the worst garden party ever.
• “...just at the moment when it needs Europe the most.” Ready to justify those words? Er, apparently not.

Moving On:

• Riots, homelessness, hunting season for black people, slaughtered families, mutilated animals...
• “For sale...for sale...sold...”don’t forget to dig up the flowerbeds!
• Riots, homelessness, mutilated animals...
• Come to South Africa – home of religious conflict, religious hatred and – apparently – toothpaste commercials.
• Riots, abducted / murdered Germans, slaughtered towns of people...
• Siding with murderous mercenaries.

Final Moments:

• Shootings, gold, penguins.
• “This film, born without prejudices...”

Aftermath:

Maybe I’m not cynical enough, but I honestly thought this would be a less emotively charged, depressingly disingenuous and gruelling experience. The opening claim in the film - that the camera is completely objective and only reports what it sees - rather loses value with all the sneering, mocking moments within the first ten minutes, and is proven an outright lie by the end of this epic. The camera can report what has been staged, and if that includes the actual murder of people and animals, the camera belongs right up the filmmakers’ arses. For all the (admirable) artistic talent, here is no depth or intelligence at work in the film – just ignorance and a stunning lack of respect (one which, since I have now sat through the whole thing twice, I have to question myself as a viewer).

What was originally intended to be a documentary about the wondrous wildlife of Africa turned into a series of short pieces of footage of animal cruelty, human executions, gunfights and chuckling at the posh whitey / goofy darky style of comedy. It’s not outright deliberate, more unintentionally offensive / painful, so much so that it will likely not mean that much to me after a couple of months recovery time, but the pain I felt at watching this for the first time a couple of weeks back has been increased by trying to sit through it all again on the internet. I know the filmmakers were not deliberately making a racist documentary – they appear to hate everyone they show on screen, regardless of colour. I know they dedicated years of their lives travelling a continent and putting themselves in the middle of political conflicts spilling out into bloodshed, keen to capture the events and help show the world these problems were of our making and that we should help end them. But the animal killings (horrific, shown in close up, from multiple angles, seemingly endlessly at some points) end up being tastelessly interlinked with a throwaway commentary on the “new” Africa (one that was not best pleased at having spent so many years with those daft European racists introducing slavery and taking over the land, thanks-ever-so) in such a way that it is bizarre nobody involved in the release of this didn’t just turn around and give Jacopetti and Prosperi a bloody great slap each. A section dedicated to white people losing their homes is shown with such misplaced, yet also suspect, sympathy – denied anyone losing their lives in the film – that it makes me want to scream.

What also makes me depressed about the film is that current TV news doesn’t show much has changed – but when the camera cuts away from slaughtered white people (out of respect) yet zooms right in there for genocide footage in African countries, at least it is for a few seconds at a time. Watching extreme such work over the course of two hours, in one go, just makes me feel like taking a long hot bath, downing a bottle of JD and going to bed for a cry.

The worst thing about this is, oddly and confusingly, the incredibly good soundtrack by Riz Ortolani. The timing of just about every track manages to be outrageously offensive. I don’t know – and have not found anyone who can tell me – if the soundtrack was a beautiful work that then had the film edited to fit with it, or if Mr Ortolani created a soundtrack that frequently might as well have also had a laugh track (with added whoopee cushions for the more violent scenes). I hope it is the former; otherwise, he has gone from being one of my most admired composers to being someone I believe should never have worked again after this film.

The content is all over the place, slapping this particular viewer into wondering, on first viewing, if I had dozed off or if it was edited in such a way that subjects change in the blink of an eye (seeing it again, I can say that the latter is true). The filmmakers clearly could not decide what they wanted this all to be about, the personal values they show are infuriating, and the treatment of natives is beyond contempt. Everything drags on and on and on. The dubbing is sometimes amusing, mostly just clumsy – it’s hard to think of a film where dialogue has been so obviously, carelessly dubbed. But a more beautifully shot film I doubt I will ever see. That soundtrack is wonderful, if listened to away from the movie. And the impact of watching this trash has clearly left me thinking the content through harder than I have after most films. So chalk me up as a regretful, cautious probable mondo movie fan in the making. Just don’t go near this if animal cruelty is not your thing, if you have clinical depression or if showing respect towards you fellow man turns your stomach (the PC brigade would not do well watching this one on a gentle, quiet Sunday afternoon, trust me on this one). Hmph.

Grade C- (Don’t Bother)