FILM ... with TIM MILFULL
Sleeping Beauty (MA15+)
Director: Julia Leigh
Stars: Emily Browning, Rachael Blake
Rating: 3.5/5 120-minutes, screening from 23 June
I haven’t met a woman yet who found Julia Leigh’s film Sleeping Beauty rewarding, and some have actually been quite vitriolic about the experience of watching Emily Browning’s Lucy subjecting herself to a succession of degrading sexual experiences.
But there’s something significant in the fact that more than a week later people are still arguing about this Aussie indie. Browning’s twentysomething Lucy is a university student struggling with all of the issues and more that confront her peers: a demanding, problematic mother, sympathetic and antagonistic flatmates, ever-present assessment, a dying best friend, and a series of mundane and sometimes challenging jobs.
When an opportunity to take on a high-end erotic waitressing job presents itself, Lucy jumps at the chance, and despite warnings from her employer, Clara (Rachael Blake), the young woman looks for more opportunities to exploit a career that undeniably exploits her.
Sleeping Beauty has all the elements of the fairytales on which it is based; but we’re not talking about the sometimes scary Disney version, or even the disturbing stories from the Brothers Grimm. Leigh also has drawn inspiration from a wide range of sources in writing her screenplay, from the mythology of a pervy King Solomon and a voyeuristic novella by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, to Japanese Nobel Prize winner, Yasunari Kawabata’s novella, House of Sleeping Beauties.
The resulting film is an unrelentingly cold examination of the amoral tendencies that some men have toward objectifying women, and questions the motives behind these woman in allowing themselves to be exploited. Yes, this kind of thing has been done before, and by much higher profile directors – think the glorious Catherine Deneuve as an amateur prostitute in Luis Buñuel’s 1967 film, Belle de Jour – but Sleeping Beauty is Julia Leigh’s debut feature, and as such represents a pretty impressive beginning that promises much for the future.
Odd couple makes for one enjoyable road trip
The Trip (MA15+)
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Stars; Steve Goohan, Rob Brydon
Rating: 3.5/5 107-minutes, screening from 30 June
British comedian Steve Coogan has worked with writer-director, Michael Winterbottom in the past on films like 24 Hour Party People, and the adaptation of Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, and few would argue that the world isn’t the better off for the work of this collaborative pair.
In 2010, Winterbottom invited Coogan to reprise the dysfunctional self-portrayal from A Cock and Bull Story, and reunited the comedian with the much-underappreciated impressionist Rob Brydon, pitting them against each other in a fictional television series about regional restaurants in the United Kingdom.
The premise of the documentary saw Coogan invited by The Observer to drive around England reviewing the best food on offer, and in the absence of Coogan’s latest girlfriend – and unable to convince anyone else to accompany him – the idiosyncratic Coogan convinces Brydon to come along for the ride.
The television version of The Trip has yet to hit our shores; in the meantime, those up for some very dry humour can watch Winterbottom’s feature-length version, which has firmly whetted my appetite for the television series.
Some of the funniest moments in A Cock and Bull Story saw Coogan and Brydon playing a relentless game of one-upmanship, as they fought to dominate each other in the company of others, from who knew the most arcane information about the monument they had just passed, to who could do the best impression of whichever famous actor.
There is all this and more in The Trip, as the pair bicker over impressions of Michael Caine or the origins of the most recent geological site they encountered, all to the bemusement of passers-by. Winterbottom and his talented cast undoubtedly possess that certain skill necessary to fashion complex human drama and entertainment out of what seems like nothing.
THE BINGE
The Tunnel (M) now available through Paramount and BitTorrents
D13: The Ultimatum (M) now available through Icon
The Forgotten Ones (M) now available through Icon
Le Quattro Volte (M) now screening at Tribal Theatres
The Savage Eye: Surrealism & Cinema screening at GoMA from 11 June to 2 October
There are a number of unusual aspects about Aussie indie horror film, The Tunnel apart from the fact that this often quite frightening thriller is set beneath the streets of Sydney in a catacomb of abandoned tunnels, director Carlo Ledesma’s film was released simultaneously on three platforms: in the cinema, on DVD, and online through peer-to-peer sources like BitTorrents. On any level, The Tunnel is worth checking out.
I missed the first District 13 film from writer-producer Luc Besson, but if the sequel D13: The Ultimatum is anything to go by, I’ll be tracking it down. This action-packed film set in Paris in the near future pits super-cop, Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli) and career crim, Leïto (David Belle) together in a non-stop, awesomely choreographed battle against an unscrupulous secret police force.
By all means, check out everything else on this page, but stay away from The Forgotten Ones, a derivative mess that throws a pack of unsympathetic young people onto an uncharted island inhabited by bloodthirsty cannibal-monsters. Gilligan and his mates had more sense than this lot.
Writer-director Michelangelo Frammartino’s Le Quattro Volte may not have any dialogue in its 88-minutes, but this extraordinary film set in the hills of Calabria tells a beautiful series of stories set over the space of four seasons. With a small cast of humans, and a larger cast of animals, this is an impressive narrative about nature and where we sit within it.
Finally, if you’re looking to mess with your head a little, the cinematic component of Surrealism: The Poetry of Dreams at GoMA will offer an excellent start. Curated in conjunction with the Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Savage Eye: Surrealism in Cinema examines the concept from its origins in the early twentieth-century with directors like Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, right through to its influences on contemporary filmmakers like David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky.
