FILM ... with Tim Milfull
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (MA15+)
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Stars: Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch.
Rating: 5/5
127-minutes, screening from 19 January
I’m not ashamed to admit that until a screening at last year’s Brisbane International Film Festival, I was a Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy virgin. While I read the Cold War fiction of John le Carré as a spotty-faced teenager, that particular novel slipped under my radar, and the 1979 television series starring Alec Guinness as the resolute George Smiley was a little beyond my limited faculties at the time.
It’s probably for the best then that I had three decades or so to prepare for Tomas Alfredson’s cinematic adaptation of this now classic spy story, because the complex act of compressing such a convoluted tale into just over two hours of film will invariably ask a lot from its audience.
Diehard fans of the book and series might blanch at any casting of George Smiley other than Guinness, but there is a calculated inspiration in Alfredson’s choice of Gary Oldman to play the former second-in-charge to John Hurt’s Control. When the latter is forced into retirement after a botched operation in Eastern Europe, his last request to Smiley before shuffling off is to uncover the mole in the UK’s elite espionage service.
As he gradually unravels the tangled skein of Control’s paranoia, however, Smiley realises that four of his high ranking colleagues are the chief suspects, and only the most subtle and covert investigation will identify the mole without tearing the allied intelligence community apart.
Drawing on a similar palette to the one he used in the chilling vampire coming-of-age film, Let the Right One In, and coupled with the dry and often droll performances of the likes of Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Hardy, and the very impressive Benedict Cumberbatch alongside the impassive Oldman, Alfredson renders a pitch perfect impression of seventies espionage intrigue.
An erotic if unusual weekend
Weekend (MA15+)
Director: Andrew Haig, Chris New.
Stars: Tom Cullen,
Rating: 4/5
97-minutes, screening from 26 January
At the essence of writer-director, Andrew Haigh’s film Weekend is a very conventional modern romance: two young people hook up for a one-night stand before spending nearly all of the ensuing weekend together, and in the process learn about surprising and distressing new facets of themselves and each other.
The mildly unconventional aspect to this very mainstream story is that the two twentysomethings are both young men, and it’s not often that we see this kind of story unfolding in a relatively mainstream context. It’s a credit to Haigh’s skilfully wrought screenplay and direction that Weekend avoids glamorising or exoticising the sexuality of its two leads, eschewing the complexities of gender in favour of the purity of emotional and intellectual connection that sometimes grows between new lovers.
In a very impressive film debut, Tom Cullen plays lifeguard, Russell, who seems vaguely comfortable with his sexuality, but is obviously rudderless in terms of emotional fulfilment. After bailing on a party with his straight mates to head off cruising gay bars, Russell wakes the next morning in the arms of the very straight-talking Glen (Chris New in another striking debut performance), an aspiring artist who relishes recording post-coital conversations for an unrealised creative project.
As their paths cross and intertwine over the next 48 hours, the two men come to realise that their own aims and desires weren’t as clear-cut as they had originally thought.
Increasingly talky and unashamedly erotic, Haigh’s script celebrates the possibilities of relationships, especially when complicated by the inflexibility that emotion and upbringing bring to our personalities.
The Binge
Terri (M) available through Madman Entertainment
Submarine (M) available through Madman Entertainment
Let the Bullets Fly (MA15+) available through Pinnacle Films
13 Assassins available through Icon Movies
Director Azazel Jacobs’s charming coming-of-age film, Terri has been out on DVD for almost a month now, but I was so impressed after recently sitting down to watch it that I decided it had to be shared.
In an astonishing debut performance, the imposing Jacob Wysocki plays the troubled titled role, while the much-underrated John C. Reilly plays Deputy Principal Fitzgerald, who uses some less-than-formal techniques to deal with the kids he has to straighten out. This is a beautifully nuanced film about kids coming to terms with their place in the world.
Another coming-of-age film, Submarine, is the first feature from quirky It Crowd regular, Richard Ayoade, who manages to instil a more understated version of wonderful weirdness he exhibited while writing for television series like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and The Mighty Boosh.
Restraining himself here -but only just -Ayoade tells the story of adolescent Oliver (Craig Roberts), who grapples with his burgeoning sexuality and the troubling sexual diversions of his mother.
Let the Bullets Fly is one of the more spectacular, and often hilarious Chinese films of late—writer-director Wen Jiang, who also tackles the lead role of oriental Robin Hood, Pocky Zhang, who reluctantly accepts the challenge of liberating a provincial town from the clutches of the ruthless despot, Master Huang (Chow Yun-Fat). Wen’s film features some simply awesome colour and choreography, and a script that bristles with wit.
Finally, the prolific Japanese director, Takashi Miike extends himself into new territory yet again with 13 Assassins, (below) a fresh, and very violent take on the samurai genre. Climaxing with a glorious battle scene more than an hour long, this film may suffer on a small screen, but it does whet our appetite for Miike’s other soon-to-be-released epic, Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai, which remakes Masaki Kobayashi’s 1962 classic of the same name.
