blinkbox blog: Movie blog & reviews

Lenin famously once said “a lie told often enough becomes the truth”. And to prove he was right, the phrase was repeated years later by Michael Jackson (“Be careful what you do, because a lie becomes the truth, yeah hey hey… Billy Jean is not my lover!…”). So think long and hard before deciding what to believe, because there’s every chance it could all be a load of bull.

This idea of a fabricated history based on an altered collective memory is the main theme of John Madden’s remake of the 2007 Israeli movie The Debt.

In 1965, three Mossad agents are sent on an undercover mission into Soviet-controlled East Berlin to kidnap Dieter Vogel – otherwise known as the Surgeon of Birkenau – and bring him to Israel to be tried as a Nazi war criminal. Vogel, played by the sinister Jesper Christensen, stands accused of performing twisted experiments on thousands of Jews who passed through the Nazi concentration camps during WWII. When the operation goes awry, the three agents are forced to hold the doctor hostage in their dank apartment while they try and figure out a new plan to smuggle him through Checkpoint Charlie and into the west.

For the next thirty years the trio are celebrated as national heroes, having apparently completed their mission. However, while their country glorifies their efforts in bringing justice to the world, the three former agents remain slightly uneasy about taking the plaudits, knowing that the real version of events might not have been exactly as it appears in the history books. The truth about what happened on that mission has remained a secret for decades, and a convenient lie spun in order to save face and national pride, as well as bringing a sense of closure to those who wanted to see the evil surgeon pay for his atrocities. As revelations begin to emerge, the agents must decide if revealing the truth could ultimately do more harm to the Israeli people than allowing them to continue believing a comforting lie.

A stellar international cast including Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Jessica Chastain and Sam Worthington do their best Israeli accents (we’ll have to assume they all come from different parts of Israel, because none of them sound alike!).

Or maybe I’m lying about the whole thing, and that’s not what the film is about at all.

The London Spanish Film Festival opened last Friday, rather appropriately, with a film about football. En Fuera De Juego is a joint Spanish-Argentinean production, in the form of a screwball comedy which highlights the crazy comings-and-goings of the beautiful game, and ultimately of life itself.

Most people will no doubt be more familiar with Spanish and Argentinean football than they will with the respective cinema of those two countries, so here’s a quick crash course. Over the last ten years or so, Argentina’s movie industry has been challenging Mexico for the position of top-dog in the Spanish-speaking world. Much of its success has been centred around one man, Ricardo Darín – the Maradona of Argentinean cinema. In 2000 he starred in Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens), a sharp-witted comedy in which he plays a con-artist trying to pull off the scam of his life. For about a decade that film was considered the jewel in the crown of Argentina’s movie scene, until the 2009 thriller El Secreto De Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) won the Oscar for best foreign language film, with Darín of course playing the leading role. Now Argentina’s top-scoring actor is back, albeit with no more than a cameo role in Spanish director David Marques’s En fuera de juego.

Darín plays Coco, a football agent who holds the rights to a young player named Gustavo César (played by his real-life son, Chino Darín), whose talent attracts the attention of Real Madrid. With César due to travel to Spain to finalise the deal and sign for Los blancos, Coco finds himself in hospital after suffering a heart attack, and is unable to make the trip. In his place he sends his nephew Diego, a gynaecologist who knows nothing whatsoever about ‘el futbol’, to chaperone the young player and oversee the negotiations. However, a ‘diamond-geezer’ style Spanish agent named Javier claims to also hold the rights to Gustavo César, leading to a tug of war for the player’s signature. With the two frauds trying to scam each other out of the deal and blag their way to securing that elusive signing, it all escalates into a topsy-turvy ride very much in the style of Nueve Reinas, which ultimately leads the self-absorbed protagonists to a deeper realisation about what is really important in life.

The film is a little predictable at times, although it does have a lot of very funny moments and some cool footballing cameos including Spain’s world cup winning captain Iker Casillas, and Boca Juniors’ all-time leading goalscorer Martin Palermo.

Working here at blinkbox towers I watch an awful lot of movies, but it is infrequent I am genuinely overwhelmed by a film. However, every once in a while a movie comes along that has the power to move me in a way that a seasoned movie addict, such as myself, becomes impervious to. Warrior is one such rare film.

Tom Hardy stars as Tommy Riordan, an ex-marine, visibly haunted by a troubled past, on his return to his childhood home in blue-collar Pittsburgh to visit his father Paddy (Nick Nolte), now a recovering alcoholic. During Paddy’s drunken years Tommy and his mother left to escape his abuse leaving older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) behind with his high school sweetheart Tess (Jennifer Morrison). While the wreckage of their broken home and a troubled life is writ large on Tommy’s face and has led to his solitary existence, Brendan appears to have fared a little better in the years since they last spoke. He is now married to Tess and has two young kids, but he is not without his own share of troubles. Struggling to keep his family afloat with crushing mortgage payments on a public school teacher’s salary, he resorts to revisiting his younger days as a brawler to earn the money he needs. Tommy is not too shabby in the ring either, having been an Olympic wrestling hopeful during his teenage years before his family imploded.

With both brothers down on their luck, the temptation to enter a national MMA competition – with the highest prize fund ever – is obvious, and with their desperate situations seeming inescapable both will set on a collision course that will force them to confront their pasts, each other, and life’s hard knocks in an epic winner-takes-all MMA showdown.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the premise of the movie is a little trite or for expecting your standard fight fare. On the contrary – although it sounds cliché – Warrior is a genuine tour-de-force and – if you’ll excuse the pun – packs an emotional punch that will leave your head ringing long after viewing. The violence is primitive, brutal, relentless and necessary, skilfully sating the hordes of MMA fans that will undoubtedly flock to see it, while avoiding gratuitousness – the brothers’ catharsis is executed with gut wrenching blows in the ring as they battle to protect what little control they possess of their lives.

Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton are mesmerising as the tormented estranged brothers. Both give performances which shame the usual Hollywood go-to action guys, so much so that the second half of the film will leave you torn in two. Hardy’s dedication to his physical transformations is well publicised but it’s the subtle nuances in his portrayal of Tommy exorcising his past that really hit the mark. Edgerton, hot from the acclaim for Animal Kingdom, gives such an accomplished performance that he should be assured his pick of future roles. Add to that a heart-wrenching turn from Nick Nolte as a father trying to confront a past that continues to eat away at his sons while trying to build a relationship with a family who are long passed needing him and entirely indifferent towards his efforts, and we have a masterful acting triumvirate.

I’ve heard this movie described as ‘all the Rocky movies rolled into one’, what should be added is that Warrior knocks the crap out of them all. One of the best films I have seen in a long time, and my favourite of the year so far.

Ay caramba! With the BFI London Film Festival just around the corner, what better way to get you in the mood for an international movie marathon than the London Spanish Film Festival, which will take place from the 23rd of September to the 6th of October at Cine Lumiere in South Kensington. Here are the films to look out for.

Blackthorn
Set in the stunning landscape of Bolivia’s ‘Dali Desert’, Spanish superstar Eduardo Noriega, (who starred in the 1997 movie ‘Abre los ojos’, which was later remade by Hollywood as ‘Vanilla Sky’ starring Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz), stars alongside Sam Shepherd in this drama about legendary bandit Butch Cassidy. Yee-haw!

Carne de Neon (Neon Flesh)
A comedy gangster flick about a young man who opens a brothel just to impress his prostitute mother. Only in España, eh?

El Gran Vazquez (The Great Vazquez)
Based on the life of Manuel Vazquez, a famous but highly eccentric comic strip artist living in Barcelona in the 60’s. Quirky, lively comedy with some really cool animation.

Les Femmes Du 6eme Etage (The Women on the 6th Floor)
OK, so this one’s French, but it looks bloody brilliant. Comedy about a Parisian aristocrat who finds himself stifled by his conservative family and lifestyle, until he discovers the servants’ digs on the sixth floor of his luxury residence. As he befriends the group of fun-loving Spanish maids, he manages to break free from the shackles of upper-class conventionalism.

Pa Negre (Black Bread)
This powerful drama focuses on a young boy growing up in a rural Catalan town following the fascist victory in the civil war. When his Father is unjustly set upon by the state because of his anti-fascist connections, young Andreu has to try and search for the truth and clear his father’s name, in a world rotten by lies. Won best film at the Goya Awards this year.

Balada Triste de Trompeta (The Last Circus)
Forget ‘Water For Elephants’, this is what really goes on behind the curtain at the circus. Dark, psychotic, romantic and spectacular all at once, Balada triste de trompeta is quite possibly the most ambitious and outrageous film of the lot. It’s definitely not for the faint hearted.

Ana y los lobos (Ana and the Wolves)
The 7th edition of the London Spanish Film Festival includes a special feature on the works of Geraldine Chaplin – daughter of Charlie Chaplin – who starred in a host of French and Spanish movies. Amongst the films being shown is the 1973 drama ‘Ana and the Wolves’, in which Chaplin plays an au pair living with a disturbingly dysfunctional family in rural Spain.