RocknRolla

RocknRolla is a rollicking good gangster flick.

 

Lenny (Tom Wilkinson), the arrogant blagueur whose patch of London the film centres on, doesn’t consider himself a gangster and perhaps real gangsters wouldn’t either.  But for those of us that are voyeurs of organised crime from the comfortable safety of the cinema, a gangster is absolutely what Lenny is.

 

Lenny and his right-hand man Archie (played by the ever dependable Mark Strong) control the shady business dealings of organised criminals like Uri (Karel Roden) and the would be bit players like One Two (Gerard Butler). The various threads of the narrative follow Lenny’s management of crooked councillors (Jimi Mistry), his interaction with the infiltration of a new breed of criminal (Uri and his fellow Russians), the alleged death of his step son – the junkie rocker Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell), a detour into the seedier side of music mismanagement, a missing painting, someone snitching on the small timers, and declarations of love and lust.

 

Not so much a twist as back-story of questionable value is the inclusion of flashbacks to Johnny Quid’s childhood where we see Lenny is as domineeringly abusive to his unwanted step son as is he to the petty crims that cross his path regardless of whether or not they cross him.  However, if this initial foray into using the device is what’s necessary to ensure in a later flashback - to Johnny’s stereotypical public school experience – we see Mark Strong in a clinging cardigan, a delightful powder blue rather than the dreary tones he wears the rest of the film, then it’s a very small price I’m prepared to pay.

 

The supporting characters are fabulous, each having small scenes in which to shine – especially Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy) slow dancing with One-Two, and Tank’s (Nonso Anozie) appreciation of English costume drama (Remains of the Day and Pride and Prejudice).

 

Less than fabulous is Thandie Newtown who plays Uri’s accountant, Stella, with such apathy that even dabbling in the interesting art of the double-cross doesn’t add any interest to the character or her performance.  It beggars belief that One Two or Uri would have even the remotest interest in her when there are much more appealing options from within their respective crews. The less said about this sad reduction of a female presence in the film, the better.

 

The set-up is protracted, but like the best rides that deliberately slow initial ascent delivers a damned enjoyable time as you plummet along and around and through the twists that deliver you safely to the end. There are more twists and tangents than a twisty thing that thought about getting a higher education in tangents but settled for a technical qualification in twisting. You’ll either love or loathe the twistiness of RocknRolla, or perhaps you’ll be indifferent and that would ruin the dichotomy I claim exists, but I digress.

 

Guy Ritchie is back on track post-Madge with a script that is entertaining and surprisingly amusing in its homosocial reading of the rocknrolla culture.  

 

PM: 7.5/10

 

RocknRolla (2008 d. Guy Ritchie)

Funny Games

Funny Games is fucked up.

 

I could be polite and proper in carefully articulating the manipulation and condescension of Haneke’s latest cinematic enterprise, but I expect that would merely be retrospective fuel for his auteur-ial fire.

 

The plot-by-numbers is this: a beautiful and affluent family, spoiled for riches and love, is terrorised by two ne’er-do-well villains. But the bad guys wear white, not black, how contrary to expectations! More shocking still, they are white! Haneke would have us agree that the only way such scoundrels could infiltrate the hermetically middle class compound is to be like us – two idle men of colour would surely have raised suspicions much sooner.

 

But if everyone is blond/e and beautiful and polite (oh so cloyingly correct in address but not in action – get it? Haneke really hopes you get it) how can we, simple sods that we are, tell good from bad? We, the uncultured viewer, desperate for the learned guidance of the all-knowing writer/director wait for answers, wait for a discernable narrative or character development or plot furtherance (once again assuming there is a plot), only to wait in vain. Haneke will have you wait a lot longer than the end of the credits for anything of the kind, for Haneke’s film is an exercise of his own devising to broadcast his cleverness.

 

Let me assure you there is nothing dignified or gracious in the territory explored by this film or the way in which it is explored. Haneke, for all his self-aggrandising, has produced an agenda serving plot, which frankly displays no more artistry or ingenuity than Mamma Mia! which pulled together as many ABBA songs as possible under the pretence of its facile narrative. There the similarities end. Funny Games has none of the joy of Mamma Mia!, and to be fair, it is as devoid of joy as any film can be that isn’t documenting despair.

 

What then is the incentive to be part of this production? There was no swanning about Skiathos and Skopelos to be had, no money in return for singing and dancing as poorly as you please and certainly no getting a tan for your troubles.

 

I can appreciate how it would be rewarding as an actor to be allowed to explore the depths of your craft within the intense confines created by Haneke and the five principal actors of Funny Games are very good indeed.  Tim Roth as the husband/father, Naomi Watts as the wife/mother and Devon Gearheart as their child each provide portraits of blameless sympathy as they are broken before us. Their breaking is exacted, presumably for our pleasure, by the joylessly malicious Brady Corbet and Michael Pitt. Pitt is no stranger to the Leopold and Loeb pastiche, having worn that skin in Murder by Numbers. Corbet has experience with working on difficult sets, most notably as Brian in Mysterious Skin. Each of the five actors mentioned could use just about any of their scenes from Funny Games as a worthy addition to their show reel. This does not however make for a great film, film scholarship maybe, but not for the viewing, consuming, or entertaining of the populace.

 

For Haneke, it would seem the only thing we have to fear is not fear itself but bourgeois complacency or perhaps privileged apathy. I fear, in this respect, Haneke has missed the mark as I’d much rather keep company with the likes of Roosevelt, Kennedy or Lupin.  Ultimately, Haneke’s dispassionate discourse on cinematic depravity does not offer triumph for the viewer or the characters, nor, I suspect, for the director himself.

 

As a promotable product (preferably for profit), which, let’s not kid ourselves, is essentially what contemporary film is all about, Funny Games is a hard sell. For a less frequent movie goer than myself, say, someone who sees the occasional film when the mood or the marketing strikes, Funny Games is not something I would recommend. This is not because I claim to “get” Haneke, he fairly beats you with his unsubtle didacticism, but because there is no enjoyment to be derived from the film. Appreciation, yes. Enjoyment? No.

 

PM: 7/10

Funny Games (U.S. 2007 d. Michael Haneke)

My Fair Lady (09-11-2008)

I tried quite hard to temper my expectations of the Sydney run of Opera Australia‘s My Fair Lady for two reasons. First, My Fair Lady is my favourite musical; it has an impeccable book (Lerner pays homage to G.B. Shaw’s Pygmalion), it provides for bravura performances from its two leads (Professor Henry Higgins as the phonetician who bets he can turn Eliza Doolittle from gutter snipe to flower lady), and it has some shoulder-shimmying, interval-humming showtunes (penned by Loewe). Secondly, and not insignificantly, I adore Richard E. Grant who has taken on the role of Higgins in Sydney.

Given these factors, my greatest fear was that I would be disappointed. After all, the very capable Reg Livermore throughout the year has scuffed the comfortable moccasins Rex Harrison donned from West End stage to 1964 film, upon the stages of one Australian city to another. Other notable performers to play Higgins include Anthony Warlow (the greatest gift to musical theatre since some wondrous soul thought to set story to song) in the late nineties and Jeremy Irons in a 1987 LSO recording opposite Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

If Grant was concerned about following such comparable acts, he (and I) needn’t have been, for his first musical outing was an assured debut.

It helps of course that the production is largely the same since it began touring in early 2008. The ensemble is resoundingly good; their collective accomplishments could cushion a lesser performance, as is the case with John Wood in the role of Eliza’s father, Alfred P. Doolittle. Grant, ever so slightly unsteady in his first number “Why Can’t the English?” is buffeted by the chorus, but finds his strength, and his voice, in each subsequent scene.

There is a visceral vitality to Grant’s Higgins that I could scarcely imagine contributing to Livermore. Grant paces across the stage, bounds up the stairs, leaps upon the furniture, and leans (and I really cannot stress just how mesmerising it is to watch Grant lean without vanity, without any undertone of indolence) into the set pieces with unbridled energy. How extraordinary it then is, in the final scene, when Henry is lost without Eliza that Grant’s movements slow, the character is broken and Grant folds in upon himself – all that remains is stillness and silence. Just heart breaking.

Enough gushing about Grant, he is but one half of the story. Taryn Fiebig as Eliza Doolittle is simply remarkable. A scant number of years ago she was part of Opera Australia’s Young Artist Program and she has proven herself with this production to be worthy of every piece of praise that is attributed to her. Fiebig has a host of formidable predecessors in the role of Eliza: Julie Andrews, Audrey Hepburn, and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, to name but three. Like Grant, Fiebig need not avoid comparison, for she was an ideal Eliza – strong of spirit and song, she was joyous to watch.

There are (arguably) two distinct schools of My Fair Lady audience: you either view Henry and Eliza as an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force, whose momentum stalls at platonic, pedagogical symbiosis, or, you view the friction between the two as necessary foreplay that facilitates their union. As an incurable romantic I am firmly in the latter camp reading every veiled glance, barest inflection and merest of movement as evidence of growing affection between Eliza and Henry. To this end, this production delivers many such moments making the show all the more engaging.

The set and costumes skilfully reference the well-loved 1964 film while creating a look all of its own. The supporting actors, particularly Nancy Hayes as Henry’s mother, Mrs Higgins, and Matthew Robinson as Eliza’s thwarted suitor, Freddy Eynsford-Hill, are delightful to behold.

My Fair Lady is a charming addition to the Opera Australia season. I expect detractors will bemoan musical theatre impinging upon purists’ opportunity to see “real” opera. To them I say this popular production has not compromised the quality of the company and will easily finance whatever obscure operas may take the artistic director’s fancy in years to come. The producers may not only have a success on their hands, they may well have introduced a new and receptive audience to the beauty of stage musicals and not before time.

PM: 8.5/10
My Fair Lady, book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe, d. Stuart Maunder (Opera Australia 2008 Season)

Post-show with Richard E Grant (and Michael Caton