The Edukators

The Edukators is a sociological thriller about three young anti-capitalists who get in way over their heads after a botched break-in. Peter (Stipe Erceg) and Jan (Daniel Brühl) are a pair of idealistic young wannabe revolutionaries, living in near squalor in the centre of Berlin. In the evenings they scope out large houses in the suburbs which they break into. Rather than stealing what they find inside, the pair instead moves the furniture and expensive consumer items around, messing with the minds of the rich inhabitants and leaving a note saying something along the lines of “Your days of plenty are coming to an end”. They call themselves ‘The Edukators’. With Peter in Barcelona, Jan becomes friendlier with Peter’s girlfriend Jule (Julia Jentsch) after the pair had previously been rather standoffish with each other. Jule explains how her life is being ruined by a debt owed to a rich man following a car crash and Jan decides to do something about it, bringing Jule into ‘The Edukators’ without Peter’s knowledge.

The Edukators is a fascinating thriller which bought out the old Commie in me. I was on the group’s side, finding myself nodding along to their rants about consumerism and third world debt while I sat on my leather sofa, watching my flat screen TV. The film bought out something in me which I’ve lost in recent years, my youthful anger at the world. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still angry but these days my anger is focussed at religion and stupidity rather than poverty and injustice. This movie bought that back.

Before Sunset

I can’t imagine having to wait nine years for Before Sunset to come around. Released nearly a decade after Before Sunrise, a film with a remarkable and original will they/won’t they conclusion, the film picks up the lives of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) after their one night romance in Vienna in 1995. It should be noted before I go on that this review may well contain spoilers for Before Sunrise so if you haven’t seen that movie yet, beware. I saw Before Sunrise earlier today and the hour long wait between films felt like a lifetime to me, so engrossed in the character’s stories was I. I can’t believe that there are people who had to endure nine years of not knowing what happened after Céline and Jesse went their separate ways.

The film opens in a Parisian book shop where Jesse, now an author is answering questions about his latest book. Towards the end of the interview he notices Céline standing in the corner and instantly loses his train of thought. He manages to sneak away for a coffee with his former fling before a 7:30 pm deadline to catch a flight. It’s on the way to the café that we the audience have our hearts broken. The pair didn’t meet in Vienna six months after the end of the first film. They in fact haven’t seen each other since that magical night nine years ago.

Before Sunrise

A chance meeting aboard a train from Budapest to Paris results in a wonderfully constructed whirlwind romance for two strangers. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is travelling alone through Europe when he begins talking to the pretty French lady across the isle from him. That woman is Céline (Julie Delpy) who is on her way back to Paris after visiting her grandmother in the Hungarian capital. They strike up a friendly conversation which continues in the dining car before Jesse’s stop in Vienna approaches. Sensing a connection he suggests that Céline disembarks with him to continue their discussion. She impulsively agrees and the duo spends the night wandering Vienna together.

Before Sunrise lacks any sort of plot but is nevertheless beautifully written and structured. I never once wished for something to happen besides the continuing conversation and discovery. The dialogue is deeply woven and superbly delivered by two actors on top form. Their connection seems so real that it’s hard to believe that the actors themselves didn’t end up together. Nothing is forced and the conversations meander naturally while at all times remaining high brow and intellectually stimulating. Occasionally there is a lull in the engagement I had with the dialogue but this still works as it’s how one would react when listening to any long conversation.

The Bling Ring

Between 2008 and 2009 a group of mostly privileged, celebrity obsessed teenagers burgled the homes of several celebrities, making off with over $3 million in jewellery, clothes, bags and other designer accessories. The group coined ‘The Bling Ring’ were the subject of a Vanity Fair article which forms the basis of this film from director Sofia Coppola. The film focuses on the acts of burglary, what the teens wanted, what they got and some of the consequences they faced when eventually discovered.

To me the premise sounded interesting. I had no prior knowledge of the robberies and hadn’t heard of the group until I began seeing trailers for the film. It looked to be a satire on obsession with fame and greed and reminded me a little of the similar but deeply flawed Spring Breakers. This film annoyed me even more than that. I should state right here that I abhor the fame hungry, greed inspired culture that some teenagers aspire to be a part of. My girlfriend occasionally (often) puts on programmes like The Hills or E! News and they make me so angry that I have to leave the room. There are few people on the planet I despise more than those who seek fame and fortune without the talent to deserve it. This film focuses on exactly those kinds of people and appears to glorify their actions.

Monsters University

Seeing Monsters University puts me in the strange situation of seeing a sequel (or prequel in this case) before the original movie. Like a lot of people I’m a huge Pixar fan but 2001’s Monsters. Inc is one of two Pixar features which I haven’t got around to seeing yet. The central characters Mike and Sully are so well known though that I didn’t think my ignorance of the first movie would hamper my enjoyment of this one. Thankfully it didn’t. Pixar managed to hamper it all by themselves.

Monsters University takes us back to our central character’s college days where they first meet on the campus of the University of the movie’s title. The ambitious and book smart Mike (Billy Crystal) initially doesn’t get along with the confident and naturally scary Sully (John Goodman) and their falling out leads to their expulsion from Scare 101. The pair discovers that their only way back onto the course is to enter and win the University’s Scare Games. To do this they must join a fraternity but the only one that will accept them is a group of no-hopers. Will they be able to shape themselves and their team into first class scarers or will their dream of turning professional be lost?

Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim states early that we always expected extra-terrestrial life to come from above, in reality it came from beneath our feet. Following the opening of a giant crevasse, deep under the Pacific Ocean, a series of monsters christened Kaiju began attacking costal cities, flattening them and killing tens of thousands. To halt the unexpected onslaught the world put aside its differences and initiated the Jaeger programme which constructed giant robots used as weapons to defend humanity from the alien invasion. The Jaegars are piloted by two individuals who have their minds interlocked, each controlling one hemisphere of the Jaegar’s brain. Slowly, we turned the tide of the battle.

When I first heard about Pacific Rim and more importantly who was directing it, I was filled with excitement. Vague but tantalising descriptions of giant monsters battling human built robots across the planet sounded like an epic idea for a blockbuster but it also sounded dangerously familiar. When I think of giant robots I think of Michael Bay and those two words aren’t the sort to get me excited about a film. Thankfully the director’s evident love of the monsters and genre and attention to detail in the huge fight scenes raise this movie above the normal smashy, smashy, what’s going on type of summer Blockbuster.

Black Sabbath

Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath (titled I tre volti della paura in his native Italian) is a trilogy of short horror films, presented as a single feature. There is nothing to tie the three films together aside from being bookended by a rather funny and tongue in cheek Boris Karloff who also appears in the middle film. Like much of Bava’s work the film’s original Italian version differs greatly from the more widely seen American release and there’s a fantastic comparison feature on DVD releases which highlights the differences in score, props, dialogue and even ordering of the film. Personally I chose the Italian version to watch.

The Italian version is a little gorier and features a lesbian subplot which is absent from the American release. Bava’s choice to package the films in one feature at first feels strange but to be honest, I don’t think any of the stories could have been successfully stretched to make a feature in their own right and it gives a chance for some terrific tales to get a release.  

The Night of the Hunter

1955’s The Night of the Hunter was the first and sadly last film to be directed by famed theatre and screen actor Charles Laughton. Though panned by audiences and critics on its theatrical release, the film has grown in statue over the years and is now widely regarded as a great work. Featuring expressionistic touches and unsettling themes, the film stands apart from the safer, noir tinted thrillers of its day. The plot features a villain so wicked that he scared me, an adult used to modern horror, nearly sixty years after he first appeared.

Robert Mitchum plays Reverend Harry Powell; a preacher turned serial killer who learns of a hidden fortune. While in prison on a minor charge, Powell shares a cell with Ben Harper (Peter Graves), a man serving a long sentence for robbery and murder. Before his arrest, Harper was able to hide his loot of $10,000, telling his children but no one else where the money was. Powell is able to track down the fatherless family and attempts to get the secret from the children while hiding his intent behind his squeaky clean, ministerial front.

Persona

Persona is the sort of film that I struggle to review. When thinking about the movie today, all I could really say was that it was a bit odd but I really liked it. I could probably end my review there. Persona is an example of a film that tests my limited film knowledge and both my powers to describe, compare and contrast. I might as well start somewhere. I’ve been reviewing films as an amateur and very occasionally professional for a little over eighteen months. I’ve been a real life human person for over twenty-seven years. Despite all those months and years, Persona is the first Ingmar Bergman film I’ve seen. There are a couple of his films which I’ve been waiting for my online DVD subscription service to send me but Persona was lent to me by a friend and broke by Bergman cherry.

The film begins with a wondrous and surrealist section of flashing images which are spliced into footage of a boy, stood alone in a room. The boy eventually turns to a book which is pretty much the only item in the brightly lit, sparsely decorated room. The boy, the book as well as the images appear at first to be a random assortment of things but eventually at least some of the images can be viewed as pointers for the story that is to follow. Others, like the often cut image of an erect penis are harder (ahem) to explain.

Deliverance

Nominated for three Academy Awards, 1972’s Deliverance is an influential thriller set along the Chattooga River in Georgia. For men from Atlanta set off into the wilderness to take a canoe trip down a portion of river which is soon to be hundreds of feet below a newly dammed lake. Their trip takes a decidedly and unexpectedly dangerous turn when some of the locals take a disliking to the party. Famous for a distressing scene of rape, the movie is much harder than I expected and must have rattled censors forty years ago. As well as the distress caused by these and other scenes, there is also great beauty to be found in the landscape and it’s captured wonderfully by Director John Boorman.

The movie features what we’d consider today to be an all-star cast with Hollywood heavyweights Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds leading the cast. Ned Beatty makes his screen debut alongside Ronny Cox, also a first time screen actor here. The acting is great throughout and the characters are well defined from the start. From the very first scene the audience is made aware of exactly who is who and what their main traits are. This helps to get the film off to a good start as well as easing the audience in.