Thanks to Ruth over at Flixchatter for kindly inviting Filmplicity to take part in a mini blogothon she has come up with in honour of the impending Oscars. Only a few short days away now. The idea is that you pick a decade from the 50s to the 90s and then any film from that [...]
‘A victory for no nonsense performances in a situation comedy for people who don’t like situation comedies’.
Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s Toni award-winning play ‘The god of carnage’ tells the story of two middle class couples meeting in an apartment in an affluent New York suburb after their sons get into a fight. Things begin pleasantly enough: coffee, cake, pretentious art, more cake. But when carefully maintained personas are allowed to slip, civilised sensibilities give way to brute instinct. Let the mind games begin!
A scuffle in the park and a stick in the face means broken teeth and a comedy of domestic terrors that makes the Cuban missile crisis look like a civilised sit down over a nice cup of tea. The afternoon begins with well intentioned politeness and ends with alcohol fuelled verbal pyrotechnics as both couples criticise each other’s parenting prowess while refusing to admit any fault or accept any blame themselves. What happens in between is the result of a volatile combination of unrealistic expectations, false smiles and uncomfortable home-truths.
As the characters rub up against each other’s prejudices, sparks fly as they recognise in one another the disappointments and failings in their own lives. Beneath the sniping and thinly veiled insults are revealed the hopes and fears of a generation of baby boomers struggling to grow up. Polanski directs a powerhouse cast and produces a victory for no nonsense performances in a situation comedy for people who don’t like situation comedies.
Jodie Foster is Penelope Longstreet. Conscientious and terminally high strung, an art lover who feels responsible for the situation in Darfur while oblivious to the civil war brewing under her own roof. ‘It’s a comedy of people’s manners’, says Foster, ‘and how they lose those manners.’ Kate Winslet plays Nancy Cowan, a working mother whose sophisticated veneer of cold professionalism is eventually abandoned as she struggles with her perpetually pre-occupied husband, played with impish irreverence by Christophe Waltz, concerned more about a relationship with his Blackberry than with his family.
‘You can take the man out of the cave but you can’t take the cave out of the man’
John C. Reilly plays Penelope’s husband Michael who seems desperate to keep the peace and to whistle to his tightly wound wife’s tune. The couple’s united fronts are clearly forced and help to create an amusingly uncomfortable atmosphere which is strongly felt and becomes more pronounced as the situation develops. Polanski cranks up the tension with tight close ups and unflattering camera angles, unwilling to let even a single back-handed syllable drop to the floor unnoticed. Each awkwardly restrained action has its own equal and opposite reaction, at first repressed but eventually indulged with appropriately satisfying theatricality.
It may be disappointing that the Academy sees fit to decorate films that the critics aren’t quite sold on. But it’s hardly surprising. Hugo for example, was a commercial smash and as an ode to the Silent era of Hollywood cinema it makes sense for the Academy to fawn over it.
OSCAR showed similar appreciation for The Artist. Another homage to a bygone era. So they got that right at least. The Artist has been widely acknowledged as the outstanding film of the year by critics and industry insiders alike.
This might seem a rather morbid consideration for a Friday but bear with me.
le0pard13 is the internet moniker of a father of two, spouse to one, who blogs on family and the popular arts out of The City of the Angels. If you ask him, he’d say this about himself: ‘Born in the 50s, grew up during the 60s, and survived the 70s.’ The late baby-boomer (or maybe [...]
At about 10:00am GMT this morning, BBCWorld had this to say on Twitter.
In deference to mounting excitement – shot through with nervous apprehension – for Alien and indeed sci-fi fans en masse, in hopeful anticipation of Ridley Scott’s upcoming (oh please, for once, let it surpass all expectations!) Alien prequel Prometheus. I thought this may be of interest to some, if not all of our readers.