Swiss Army Man

Manny Decay

Swiss Army Man
2016 USA Directed by Daniels
UK cinema release print.

I got hooked into the idea of seeing Swiss Army Man right from the first time I saw the trailer a fair number of months ago on the internet. Unfortunately, not that many cinemas in London were showing it other than at silly times I couldn’t make it so, in the end, I took a shorter trek out to London Fields station and saw it at the Hackney Picture House which, I have to say, is a pretty nice cinema, despite the ticket prices. They also seem to be showing a load of movies my local Cineworld wouldn’t normally show so... think I’ll be going there a few more times a year now I know about it and how easy it is to get to.

I saw this film on a late Saturday morning performance and, even for a morning slot, this movie wasn’t exactly packed. In fact, there was only one other person in the screening I saw so I’m not sure what the box office returns on this one are going to look like.

Although the film at first appeared to be absolutely up my street, I did find the uncompromising vision of the two writer/directors,  Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert to be taking me just a little outside of my comfort zone at times... which is something I never thought I would ever hear myself saying about any movie which got a commercial release at the cinema. That being said, uncompromising vision is exactly what we need more of in today's bland and blasé cinematic world and so I can only applaud the cast and crew who worked on this.

The film centres on two main protagonists. One is Hank, played by Paul Dano, who starts the film stranded on a desert island and about to take his own life. However, just before he does the deed, he sees the corpse of Manny, the title character played by Daniel Radcliffe, washed up on the shore and, after a second false start at suicide, begins to bond with Manny when he uses the "is he really dead?" corpses prolifically natural gases to propel his body through water as he rides him like a speed boat. This gets him to land but still far away from civilisation and, after a while, Manny starts to manifest other super powers such as being a water dispenser for Hank and then, not so long after that, starts talking and recovering certain senses.

The film, then, becomes a road movie as the two try to find their way to civilisation. Of course, as Hank teaches the amnesiac, living dead corpse of Manny (who demonstrates many different uses and skills, just like a Swiss army knife, throughout the course of the picture) about the nature of life, the film becomes more about the examination of the road that brought Hank to the point where he was about to kill himself and looks at the way life in general impacts on people and leaves damage which not everyone sees is there.

It’s an inventive little story and filled with a lot of charm, that’s for sure. It gets very moving at times as the two discuss love and rejection and, ultimately, you wonder if the desert island at the start of the picture is not just a metaphor all along for Hank’s outlook on life and the place his mind has taken him to.

It’s also brilliantly shot with the directors finding some interesting framing and movement as the picture progresses... they’re also not afraid to focus your attention on something small and sometimes, that acts almost as a magnifying glass for the dialogue exchanges between Hank and Manny if you’re eyes are focused fixedly on one tiny part of the screen. One shot where a lot of forest is in close up, for example, blew me away as the two main protagonists are framed in the background through some trees and take up maybe just 5% of the screen. I don’t know how that shot will look to anyone watching on home video but at the cinema it was fantastic.

It goes without saying that a film which focuses primarily, for 99% of its running time, on just these two characters, needs actors who are really at the top of their craft and both Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe are more than up for the task... especially Radcliffe who has to be giving what is probably going to be the most unusual performance of his life... and any other actor’s, for that matter. I was already impressed by his performance in Victor Frankenstein (reviewed here) but what he does here is really amazing and, frankly, a brave move for any actor, not just somebody who is perhaps known to billions as the face of Harry Potter. There’s also a nice bit of supporting work from "my favourite actress who takes on cool horror and sci fi genre roles"... Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who plays the light at the end of the tunnel that keeps both characters going on their mission to return to civilisation as she becomes the not so healthy object of their collected desire. The last ten minutes or so also has cameos from composer Andy Hull, who provided the film's wonderful acappella score, and director Shane Carruth, who made two wonderful films called Primer and Upstream Colour (reviewed here).

It has to be said that, Swiss Army Man isn’t quite my cup of tea for personal reasons I won’t go into here but, having said that, you do have to admire the lack of explanation given about the title character and the single mindedness of the writers to craft their story their own way with what looks like little or no interference taken from the studios to be a more commercial product. I’m pretty sure a lot of audience members might be turned off by this movie in certain moments as it plays out and if I’d had seen this in a bigger collective audience than two people, I wouldn’t have been surprised if there would have been a number of walkouts like their were when it had its Sundance premier, from what I understand. But you know what? That’s okay. That’s what art is all about. This isn’t about number crunching pounds and dollars... this is about what all films should be about (and are in some ways but they are almost always severely compromised in this)... making something personal and creative which will make people think. As far as that’s concerned, this is a very successful film.

So... did I like Swiss Army Man. Well, yes and no. I think it’s a great film which I just didn’t happen to fully lock minds with but, obviously, I don’t see that as a failing of the film. I do know that it’s a film which does a very rare thing... shows you some stuff you are probably unlikely to have seen done on celluloid before (or even the horrible, modern day digital equivalent)... give you something new. As such, I think cinephiles around the world will probably dig this one a lot and, despite my own ambivalent reaction to it, I’d give it a hard recommend if you want to see something new which has been put together, no matter how vulgar in its wallowing in biological function, in as skillful a manner as you're likely to see. This is the kind of movie that cinema is all about... go see it.

Victor Frankenstein

De Igor’n Ally

Victor Frankenstein
2015 USA
Directed by Paulc McGuigan
UK cinema release print.

You know, I really wouldn’t blame any originally interested parties in seeing this movie if they passed it by after hearing the director’s promotional comments on this. I know I nearly didn’t. He seemed to somehow think he was doing himself a favour with his target audience by proclaiming Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s original novel Frankenstein, and I quote from many news articles reporting this... “dull as dishwater”.

This jangles the nerves and makes my blood boil for two different reasons.

Firstly, let us tackle the director’s apparent lack of being able to speak the King’s English. The phrase is not ‘dishwater’ it’s “dull as ditchwater”. I work in an Educational establishment at present and I am sick to death of people who can’t use English blaming their own lack of grammar, spelling and punctuation on the commonly held belief that language is a fluid concept and it changes over time. Well, yeah, it changes over time because dullards and half-wits can’t speak or write it properly and then other people who don’t know better also copy them. Think about it. Water found in a ditch is dull as a naturally occurring phenomena due to a series of geographical and scientific factors. It is endemic to the situation... whereas dishwater is something with which you’ve filled a dish. There could be anything in there and it certainly doesn’t have to taste dull or have a dull colour or texture. Honestly, people should stop using their ignorance as an excuse for what comes out of their mouths and own up to it when someone calls them on it... or when someone most likely doesn’t understand them because they’re not speaking the language correctly.

Secondly, I remember ordering a complete and unabridged copy of Shelley’s Frankenstein from the school book club when i was about seven years old (I still have it to this day). When I got around to reading it I certainly didn’t find it dull and I’m pretty sure a lot of people who revere this classic colossus of gothic fiction don’t find it so either. So putting down the wonderful source material in the hopes that it will make your product sound like a film which will appeal to the younger market (let’s face it, Hollywood wants youngsters to watch their films and raise the box office) is just insane and it will just alienate you from your potential audience, as it seems it has done on twitter (if my timeline of followers is anything to judge by).

So, okay, having said all that, it almost comes as a disappointment, in some ways, that Victor Frankenstein is a way more entertaining movie than it probably has any right to be. The thing is, yeah, it really doesn’t follow anything at all, almost, from the original novel... but if you’re going to let that kind of thing put you off seeing this movie then you’re probably not a fan of Frankenstein in movie history. Ever since Edison’s first Frankenstein movie in 1910 and onwards throughout the versions (and their sequels) put out by likes of Universal, Hammer and many more studios over the years, people have been doing their own thing with the Shelley source material, latching onto any number of elements and fusing it with their own take on the questions raised by the concept of going against nature and creating life from death.

So I’ve really got no problem with a story which takes the premise that Frankenstein (played by James McAvoy) allies himself with the aid of a circus freak, Igor (played by Daniel Radcliffe) who has as much, if not more medical knowledge than him. Actually, it is a stretch that Igor would be able to educate himself in the circumstances he finds himself in before the start of the movie but it seems credible within the context of the film which is all told through the eyes of Igor. Of course, Igor wasn’t even in the original novel but I’m guessing the director probably didn’t get that far into the story to find that out, being as it’s apparently as dull as something you might find in a dish, according to him.

When you’ve got performers such as McAvoy and Radcliffe, who have become masters of their craft (Radcliffe is surprisingly brilliant in this, even overshadowing McAvoy to an extent) then you shouldn’t have too much to worry about. Both sell this completely unrelated take on the story pretty well although, it has to be said, McAvoy does storm through the role like he’s high on speed for a lot of the time. Frankenstein is portrayed as deranged and McAvoy plays to that, sailing through the wordage at a rate of knotts, with Radcliffe not too far behind him. The Frankenstein character does seem a little over-adrenalised a lot of the time, though. It’s presumably a creative choice for the actor and it seems to have worked out for him here.

We also have Sherlock’s Moriarty, Andrew Scott (last seen by me in SPECTRE, reviewed here), as the Inspector who is hunting down both Frankenstein and Igor for reasons which make more sense once his religious agenda is brought into play after a while into the movie. He’s another, like McAvoy and Radcliffe who is very easy to watch and we also have the lovely Jessica Brown Findlay playing the romantic interest to Radcliffe’s Igor and, also, as the catalyst that brings Igor and Frankenstein together, in an impressive scene where Igor initiates a quick ‘dry surgery’, as the two work together to save her character’s life. It’s probably the cleverness behind the writing and execution of this scene, above any other, that won me over fairly early on in the movie.

I say that McAvoy plays the character in an ‘over-adrenalised’ way and I don’t think he could have got away with this kind of performance in some other films but, as it is, this film is so fast paced that the actors really almost have to run at speed with their performances here just to try and match the tempo throughout the piece. I may be wrong here but, because the movie staggers along at such a fast rate, I’m guessing that a heck of a lot of unnecessary dialogue may have been cut out of the movie as dead weight and we’re left with an edit that, while avoiding certain excesses that a lack of master shot use might bring, very much encapsulates a kind of pop video attitude and because of this, the film certainly doesn’t get boring. I'm guessing that this is very much a film which found its shape in the editing more than most.

Fans of Frankenstein's rich cinematic history may be delighted to discover that there are a fair few ‘fan references’ in the film (apparently the films can’t have been dull as either ditch or dishwater, then) and even the creature at the end owes a debt to the classic Boris Karloff portrayal of the monster in Universal’s 1931 Frankenstein and its first two direct sequels The Bride Of Frankenstein and Son Of Frankenstein (this also includes many mentions of 'Henry' Frankenstein, who was the main character name in the first two Universal pictures). There’s even a sense that it’s slightly filtered through Dave Prowse’s ‘look’ in Hammer’s Horror Of Frankenstein so that will probably please a lot of Hammer fans I would think, especially someone like Mark Gatiss who, I noticed, was playing an extra in the creation scenes towards the end of the picture.

So not much else to say really... Victor Frankenstein is a thoroughly, if surprisingly, entertaining movie. Fast paced with plenty of action... including a great ‘half chimpanzee homunculus’ rampage scene to get the blood pumping. There’s not too much in the way of anything other than standard camerawork throughout the movie, it seemed to me, but there were a few very expressive moments, like the first mesmerising scene right at the start of the film where we first see Daniel Radcliffe’s character almost forming out of the ether as some kind of German Expressionist legacy. All in all, though , there’s not too much to get upset about in this one... if you are a Frankenstein purist to the point where it puts you off seeing any deviation from the original work then, to be fair, not many of the movies made over the years would be for you. If you’re up for a punchy, ‘weird science’ adventure supported by a not too terrible Craig Armstrong score and some interesting performances, however, you might want to give this one a try before it leaves the cinemas. One thing I’ll say for it... it’s a lot less duller than ditchwater.

The Woman In Black

The Shadows Know...

The Woman In Black 2012

UK/Canada/Sweden

Directed by James Watkins

Screening at UK cinemas.

Warning: There are some spoilers hidden in

the muddy text of this review, just waiting to be

unearthed from their brown, sludgy resting place...

Okay... there are some pretty heavy caveats before I start on this review properly... and I might as well get the rant over with from the start. I primarily was treating this screening of The Woman In Black as kind of a “window shopping” expedition to see if it’s worth picking up the US Region 1 edition when it comes out. Why? Because Hammer, a company who I have an interest in, have totally copped out and gone for the money on this one in the UK. The BBFC were willing to allow the release of The Woman In Black completely uncut with a 15 rating on it... instead, Hammer have chosen to shear the film of some 6 seconds worth of shots (a huge amount considering I find the slashing of even a single frame an abomination to any piece of finished art) so that they could gain a 12A rating on it and catch the children’s market who are going to go out and see this film for the central star, Daniel Radcliffe (he’s the guy who plays Harry Potter in the movie adaptations of those books).

Now there’s been some criticism of this decision around the net, as the film is quite (well kinda) scary in places and there is a fear that children seeing this kind of old-school ghost story will be traumatised by viewing this. Good for them, I say. This is not the reason why I personally think Hammer’s decision is an appalling move. On the contrary, I remember the Hammer films which used to scare me as a 6 or 7 year old and kept me up all night before school with cold sweats and I see grown men and women now who are just not able to watch a simple horror film out of fear and I realise that seeing really scary movies at a young age very much arms a person to cope with real life horrors should they occur in later life... and also allows them another artistic channel from which to receive art (i.e. the horror movie). So hoorah for a culture that allows kids to be frightened and learn how to face up to their fears... I’m all for that.

However... you should never cut a movie and you should certainly never cut a movie on the flimsy attraction of financial gain. Now I know Hammer have had a long history of cutting their films pre-release due to damnable interference from the censors but in those days it was make the cuts or don’t release the movie... simple as that. Here, though, it’s a different kettle of piranha fish we're dealing with. Hammer stand to make much more money from the childrens market on this one than if they’d have released the film with a 15 rating... it’s that simple and that reprehensible in practice. Since I know I wouldn’t blind buy an uncut Region 1 US edition of the film from overseas given Hammer’s recent track record, this was the only way I could find out if the film was worth picking up on its DVD release overseas (in its hopefully unmolested and unraped original cut)... by going to the shop window/highlights screenings in cinemas over here. Because this really isn’t the film you’re watching in cinemas in the UK, so you know, just a highlights compilation version of it missing 6 whole seconds. That’s 144 frames missing people!

Ok... secondly, I should probably tell you that I am not familiar with Susan Hill’s 1983 novel on which this film is based and nor am I familiar with the various radio, TV and stage adaptations which have done the rounds since then... if I was then I’d probably be much more critical of this new Hammer version because, from what I’ve heard, it messes with the original quite a lot, taking liberties with the material left, right and centre and ultimately completely changing the end to something that, in some people’s interpretation, could be seen as a rainbow sky, happy ending to the story. It’s an ending which solves a couple of plot details and ties them up in a nice bow to make them more palatable for an audience as opposed to leaving things worse and much darker for the main protagonist at the end. I’d particularly like to have seen the TV version though, because it was adapted by Nigel Kneale, creator of one of my fictional heroes Professor Quatermass.

But I digress here... I’m getting ahead of myself and making The Woman In Black sound like it’s a bad movie... it’s really not and I think a lot of the credit for this can be laid at the door of Jane Goldman, the crimson haired, chesty wife of Jonathan Ross who wrote the screenplay to this and a few other films in recent years which have proved to be well written. She’s really on top of things again with the writing of this one and, aided by some not half bad performances, the film shines... in its own way.

Now there’s no getting away from the fact that The Woman In Black is very much an old school ghost story and, as such, it relies on every tired shock and horror trick in the book to frighten you... shadows in corridors, screams and nursery time twinkle tunes, large shifts in sound volumes as innocent creatures or objects become wrought embodiments of living peril for a few seconds before... you know... you get your breath back. However, although this movie does, as I said, make use of every horror movie trick in the book, it does so with impeccable timing and a true sense of how to edit this kind of film exactly right to milk the scares and build tension in the audience. It’s very, very well done and, as such, the director should be applauded for his efforts here. Especially when one of those fright sequences is extended out for what must be twenty minutes... just before you start getting bored of seeing suspenseful supernatural shock after shock as Radcliffe’s character wanders the house and grounds a second night... he finally gives you a breather to start setting up the slow burn tension again for a later, similar sequence.

The performances are all fine too, even from the former Harry Potter star, who I’m sure will develop into a fine and much loved character actor by the time he reaches his twilight years. And there’s some beautiful camerawork throughout with a particularly good series of sequential establishing shots in the early stages of the film involving a car journey which makes strong use on cutting on motion and dovetailing these shots in a way which is risky but is edited skillfully enough to pull off the intent beautifully... as the shots work together to pull the audience into the mindset and proximity of the characters in the car as placed in their surrounding environment.

The end, as I’ve said earlier, is much different from the source material and is largely open to audience interpretation... not for the finality or closure of the main protagonists, you are left in absolutely no doubt as to their final fate, but in terms of whether you would interpret this movie as a happy or sad ending to events. The choice is yours and it’s very much an ending that tries to have its cake and eat it at the same time. If I was being unkind I might call it almost a cop out... but it’s not such a blunt instrument of an ending to a movie and it could have been worse. Fortunately, the movie ends with a small shot which is very much an iconic, classic hammer moment... and I think it’s a moment that’s going to haunt some of the younger audience members for a while.

So should you see it? Well yeah, why not? As long as you realise that this is not the final cut as originally delivered by the director... although I’m sure the subsequent tampering probably has his blessing and he may have even made the cuts himself for all I know. If you like ghost stories then you’ll probably like this one... there’s been a lot of variants of this around at the movie houses over the past few years but this is a more than competent effort in the genre and deserves to be seen by people, like myself, who enjoy a good ghost yarn... or, you know, wait for an uncut version from foreign shores with the DVD release... it’s all good.