[212] Film and Festivals, Issue 14

I should have posted this over a week ago, but here it is. The new issue of Film and Festivals Magazine.

This month's focus is the blooming Latin American cinema scene. There's a fantastic line up of articles, including interviews with filmmaker Carlos Cuaron, and actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, ahead of the release of Cuaron's directorial feature debut, Rudo y Cursi. There are also great interviews with Alfonso Cuaron, who talks about the Mexican film industry, and composer Gustavo Santaolalla, who talks about his currently-ubiquitous film music.

Also, make sure to check out the brace of features on Latin American film, including Sandy Mandelberger's piece on Gay Latin American cinema, and Christiaan Harden's look at the current state of the documentary in the region.

This month, I contributed the UK festival previews column. Three of the festivals covered have already passed, and the fourth, the Workhouse Festival in Powys, is finishing today. But you can still read it here.


Read the full issue at the Film and Festivals website.

[211] Lovely By Surprise (2007)

Out today in the USA is Lovely By Surprise, an intelligent, imaginative indie flick. Bypassing a traditional theatrical release, the film has been released on DVD (and through on-demand services like Netflix), after a few isolated screenings and festival appearances over the last 2 years (including an award-winning turn at Seattle, where it won a Special Jury Prize).

Lovely By Surprise is a modestly-budgeted (reportedly around $1 million), charming and ambitious cousin to mainstream-indie films like Stranger Than Fiction, or the collected works of Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation, especially). The narrative intertwines three strands, bending the viewer's conceptions of time, reality and causation. Marian (Carrie Preston) is an author, struggling with her first novel, The Neverything - whose characters, Humkin (Michael Chernus) and Mopekey (Dallas Roberts), live an innocent, isolated life on a land-stranded boat. Parallel, and initially unrelated, is the story of recently-widowed car salesman Bob (Reg Rogers) - who struggles to keep his job, and engage with his traumatised, withdrawn daughter.

Marian takes the advice of an old tutor (Austin Pendleton), who suggests that, as her story lacks tension and direction, she kill one of the two characters. Unfortunately, Humkin - portrayed by Marian as a self-aware character - doesn't take too kindly to this development, and breaks free of the novel, and the author's control. He strays into the real world, and runs straight into Bob's life.

Lovely By Surprise zips along in an appealingly light manner. First time feature writer-director Kirt Gunn is astonishingly assured, and successful, in the film's plotting and structure, with the flights of fancy and warping of narrative logic coming across as natural, entertaining developments. For the most part, it avoids the needlessly obscure, quirky, or indulgent excesses of consciously post-modern cinema (it runs a refreshingly, compellingly brief 98 minutes).

Key to this is the strong central cast. Preston, Chernus and Rogers deliver charismatic, memorable performances, without relying on mawkish sentimentalism, or over-worked schticks. Rogers, in particular, imbues his initially comic role - where he spends more time talking potential customers out of buying a car, than giving them the hard-sell - with a vein of tender pathos and uncertainty. Humkin, in nature a more abstract role - a man-child, often simply dressed in Y-fronts, who talks in a manner that is halfway between childlike murmuring and highly poetic non-sequiturs - but Chernus brings a lot of warmth and depth to such an on-paper caricature.

Lovely By Surprise is a solid, impressive first film. It works with themes of fiction, imagination and memory - with a focus on relationships, and personal experience. These aspects are drawn out gently, without bludgeoning the viewer with epiphanies, conclusions or answers -- provoking thought and discussion as the Tom Waits-soundtracked credits roll. It is well worth seeking out. Read more about the film here, or read about the film's innovative, unconventional mode of distribution here.

[210] Public Enemies: Michael Mann Conference

I was quite astonished by Michael Mann. Even though I have seen a few of his movies, I realised as he stepped into the room at the Berkley Hotel in Knightsbridge that I'd never seen the man himself. Never seen him interviewed, or even seen a picture of him. I was surprised to see the grey-haired, 60-something gent - fast-talking and loquacious. His press conference was more like a presentation - his answers twisted, developed, jumped from topic to topic. It was quite an overwhelming experience - and educational, which is something I wouldn't say about Public Enemies itself. He was a far more thought-provoking, and compulsive ambassador for the period.

Transcribing was hard, he dropped references quickly and often without real emphasis, meaning I had to dig things out. Certain aspects were incredibly perplexing - like his assertion that 'on the lam' comes from a fellow called Herbert K. Lam, for which I can't find any etymological source. Dizzying though. Sadly, some of the journalists made no attempt to hide their apathy - they turned off their recorders, saving space and battery life for Johnny Depp. Depp was awesome, yes, but Mann was quite something else. Check out the article below.




Public Enemies, Michael Mann's new crime thriller about 1930s American bank robber John Dillinger, is out this week. As part of the promotional routine, Mann and stars Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard were in London, and took part in a press conference for a motley crew of journalists.

They were interviewed separately, for 20 minutes each. Michael Mann was sandwiched in between the two actors, and delivered an engrossing semi-lecture on 1930s America, bouncing off and ignoring questions as he deemed fit. Like his films, he came across as bold, charismatic and confident - but he has a fast-talking manner, a depth of reference and a heavily intellectual streak that would give migraines even to the seasoned culture vulture.

He packed in discussion of literature, human geography, history and media - tying it all to the importance of Dillinger and the social changes of the early 1930s; he communicated his passion for the project, and his acute attention to detail. Indeed, he probably imparted more information about the real history of the period than he gave away in his relatively minimalist, evocative film. An utterly heady, barmy press conference.


Read the full article here.

[209] Public Enemies: Marion Cotillard Conference

I knew little about Marion Cotillard before attending the Public Enemies press conference this week. She was charming, and quite open about her approach to acting. See my report below.




At the recent press conference for Michael Mann's summer crime blockbuster Public Enemies, the throng of scribblers and hacks were given the chance to chat with lead actress Marion Cotillard. Gracious and winsome, the French Academy Award winner was only fazed by a particularly energetic audio-sensing microphone hooked up to one of the many digital recorders placed in front of the stage.

The quick chat covered many bases, from how she decided to portray John Dillinger's lover Billie Frechette, her in-depth research and preparation for the role, and her relationship with co-star Johnny Depp, and director Michael Mann.


Read the full article here.

[208] Public Enemies: Johnny Depp Conference

Johnny Depp is one of my favourite actors, and has been in certain roles in certain films that have really influenced and affected me over the years - from Edward Scissorhands, Finding Neverland and Ed Wood, to Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas, Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Dead Man. So, it was particularly awesome to attend a press conference for Public Enemies in London this week - which essentially played out as three 20 minute interviews, en masse, with Depp, Michael Mann and Marion Cotillard individually. I was entirely struck by him - his elegant manner, and slightly poetic turn of phrase. Check out the article below.




Public Enemies, the new film from Michael Mann, tells the story of Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger. Starring as Dillinger is Johnny Depp, who is already courting a small amount of Oscar buzz if any of the pre-release reviews are to be believed. At the film's press conference, Depp sat down and answered questions from the assembled journos.

Suave and dapper in a waistcoast and open-cuffed shirt, he cuts a sensual, catlike figure - as iconic and enthralling as his screen roles. From his entrance, he had the crowd in the palm of his hand, pausing to regard an oversized film poster draped behind the stage. In a moment of awkward, bashful humility, he laughed, and said "Well, that's entirely too large, is it not?", before easing into his designated leather armchair.

In the conference, he touched on his reaction to his popular image, his long career, as well as his approach to playing notorious Public Enemy Dillinger.


Read the full article here.

[207] Public Enemies (2009) Review

Public Enemies is shaping up to be one the summer's biggest films. If last night's premiere was anything to go by, it seems that the pairing of Depp and Bale is going to attract plenty of punters outside of Michael Mann's target audience. Reviews are still popping up, with early aggregators showing opinion to be slightly divided (at least beyond one or two overly hyperbolic write-ups) - but it will do well nevertheless, and maybe garner Depp another Academy Award nomination. I didn't take to it too well. You can read my review below.




Public Enemies is the story of John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), one of the top crooks that terrorised police forces and thrilled the American public during the Great Depression era.

Dillinger, and contemporaries such as Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum) and Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham), were mythologised by the media and became folk heroes due to their anti-authoritarian escapades.

These interstate bandits transcended the jurisdictions of local police, in turn seeing the rise of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with director J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) at the helm.

This 1920s-1930s era of crime, termed by the film as a 'Golden Age', has been mined solidly by American cinema over the years, in both fictionalised and historically-accurate accounts. Gangster and crime films are also some of the most successful, critically lauded and zeitgeist-grabbing, such as the pre-Hays Code grit of James Cagney in The Public Enemy, Arthur Penn's landmark New Hollywood meditation, Bonnie And Clyde, and Brian De Palma's zinging 1980s romp, The Untouchables.

Mann's approach to Public Enemies is unique and admirable, but almost damned from the outset. The narrative is classic crime drama: Dillinger robs banks with a theatrical flair, and easily outwits any cops that are lucky enough to apprehend him. While pilfering the vaults, he refuses to take the money of everyday citizens, cooking up a reputation of an early 20th Century Robin Hood; this softer interior is mirrored in his relationship with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), a coat checker in a Chicago hotel. Their romance flourishes as Dillinger's luck starts to run out, and as he is pursued to the death by FBI Agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale).


Read the full article here.

[206] Lillian Wilkie, Dresden I-IX

Lillian Wilkie, an old friend of mine, has just finished her degree in Photographic Arts at the University of Westminster. Her final project, a series of nine books titled Dresden I-IX, is quite an astounding piece of work.

Simply on a design level, it looks lovely, but her actual images are wonderful. Taking the German city as her inspiration and primary model, the photographs in the series rarely feature people, and Wilkie instead uses some innovative framing, and extraordinary scouting, to render Dresden's urban landscape as equally vivid, unreal and poetic.

Here's a quote from her project outline:

My current area of interest is the peripatetic mapping of the modern city and my major project focuses these ideas on the German city of Dresden, exploring the multiple layers of history and experience that can be found. The form of Dresden I - IX, a series of nine books, is based on Heinrich Schliemann’s quest to discover the mythical city of Troy. His amateur excavations at Hissarlik in the mid 19th century revealed nine layers of a mysterious city, exposing traces of destruction by fire and warfare.

I project this discovery on to the equally mysterious and historical city of Dresden, a city itself comprised of multiple layers, not least since it’s rebuilding in the wake of the 1945 Allied bombing which resulted in some of the most severe firestorms recorded in the history of warfare. Using perambulation as an investigative and artistic tool, each of the nine books is based on a walk across Dresden. In contrast to the Situationist tradition of dérive, these walks have fixed start and finish points; the primary element of the work is the journey, the process, and the ideas and stories collected in the hinterland between ‘here’ and ‘there’.

Dresden I-IX is a fascinating collection of photographs, excursions and musings, I strongly recommend you take a look. Check out Lillian's work at her personal website here, or read a recent interview with her at ilovethatphoto.net here.