Film Reviews by CV

There is no commentary at all while Sibelius's music accompanies landscape images of Finland. There are two or three short string pieces followed by a complete recording of Sibelius's 2nd Symphony. The images reveal a sunny, clean and vibrant landscape which seem to have been photographed in the summer. My first LP of Sibelius was a 60's recording of the First Symphony and the cover was a chilly landscape of frozen pools and tufts of vegetation which was an appropriate illustration to reflect the music inside. Pleasant though the images on the DVD were, I wished we had seen dark winter scenes as well.

This film emphasises the importance of international reporting particularly when its content is adverse to the reputation of the reporter's own country. I remember the reporting of the Vietnam War on television as it happened but was confused about the involvement of Cambodia. The Americans helped themselves to chasing the Khmer Rouge into Cambodia which involved clumsy indiscriminate bombing of innocent civilians. The second half of the film reveals just what the Killing Fields were.

The filming, often on the run, like reporting footage gives, a strong immanence and brutal reality to the subject. Like other reviewers' experience it leaves a lasting impression and strong cathartic response. The music by Gary Oldfield is often haunting and disturbing and accompanying the helicopter sequences especially creates a strangely alien-like apparition. The choice of John Lennon's Imagine towards the end is quite gauche and frustrating however!

Other reviewers have asked: Did she or didn't she? Did Daphne du Maurier herself know? I have not read the novel but the answer to the last question seems to be No. It seems that any decision to the first question cannot be reconciled with the total behaviour of Rachel one way or another when you look back on the film. Muddle is a cheap and easy way of creating mystery which looks all too apparent here. Also an outburst from Rachel on one occasion looked quite forced and unnatural as though the actress herself couldn't decide the motivation. However, there are some attractive settings and the character of Philip is more naturally portrayed.

I have seen the first film 'Daybreak' many years ago which left a long-lasting impression on me so much so that I made time to visit the church when I was in Prague last year. This newer film is very grey and grim and leaves one feeling that the mission was ultimately purposeless as retribution taken by the Germans was ruthlessly manic and insane. We are excluded from what is going on on the other side whereas in the older film Heydrich was introduced as a character and all German speech is unsubtitled. I also remember in the older film one or two aborted attempts at assassination before the actual. It's a tense build-up to the ultimate bloodbath and perhaps there could have been more information on what ensued to add to a more cathartic experience.

The church involved, Greek Orthodox, has information displays as to the final fatal events and the crypt is now a shrine displaying busts and attributions to the Czech partisans involved. Bullet ho;es and bloodstains remain. The opening to the crypt is a section of Spitfire wing and glides open at the gentlest touch. The anteroom has a very comprehensive display of information and in the silence one's blood boils reading that this evil man was given a martyr's funeral that Czech citizens were impelled to observe. "You are the two most bravest men I have ever known", says one of the resistance organisers to the two assassins but the film does not report that the Greek Orthodox priest offered himself to the German SS as sole responsibility for the affair. He endured months of torture before execution and was later canonised as a local saint.

Which film to watch? Watch both and visit Prague.

Charles Dickens in his final and incomplete novel attempts the genre of mystery excelled in by his rival, Wilkie Collins. The story has the expected twist (completed by a contemporary author) and makes for a satisfactory ending. The film itself creates the eeriness of the cathedral at night which, if I remember correctly, looks like Rochester Cathedral itself which is where Dickens imagined the drama to take place. Dark, shadowy and lofty interiors are contrasted with the wilderness of the heath by the Medway estuary. It is well cast and that of Jasper was spot from what I remember of the novel.

However, Collins still remains supreme in this genre: there is so much more ingenious plotting and his characters are so much more interesting - you never know who you can trust and they are less polarised than Dickens's. You still get the usual Dickens stereotypes in this film, including comedic characters and only that of Jasper seems to carry the main force and weight. Watch 'The Woman in White' and I hope one day they will make a film of 'No Name', also by Collins which was banned for its subject matter at the time!

I wonder if characters or incidents have been conflated to make such an action-packed war drama if this is to be a real-life episode. It shows the treachery of people of several nations. Would the victorious occupying Allied forces have allowed the Germans arms to enact a firing squad? Seems doubtful. Well, lots of action, but some sequences seemed contrived.

Gary Oldman brilliantly demonstrates how a real character can be convincingly played despite not being an exact likeness in appearance. The characterisation is compelling in both his idiosyncrasies and his relationship with other characters. However one or two scenes bordered on sentimentality, particularly the underground scene where the train seems to take a very long time to travel one stop in the centre of London! I suspected this scene was taken from Shakespeare's Henry V where the king visits his his troops (incognito) to gauge public opinion on his strategy before battle with the French, especially as the Laurence Olivier film was also made as a parallel to the contemporary war situation of the same time.

I liked the lighting effects, brilliant shafts of white light spilling into subdued darkened areas, and one is not aware of the sequence of almost exclusively interior scenes.

The inventor of a sterilising substance to purify water for German troops during WW II is compromised when his chemical expertise is employed to produce Zyclon B for the mass extermination of Jews. He is both a member of The Confessing Church and the notorious SS which is an insuperable challenge to his conscience. The film shows Lt Kurt Gersten desperate to broadcast his horrific discovery of the Death Camps to the outside world, at first through a Dutch reporter and later through the Catholic Church who persistently wish not to be involved. Try as he does to forestall and obstruct the programme of extermination, he is still an active agent of what he most deplores. One can imagine that however concerned and distraught Gersten is at the heart of this genocidal machine, the Allies will eventually merely view his defence of his involvement with understandable suspicion.

So my reservation of the film is that in the effort of exonerating Lt Gersten, the dialogue is quite tendentious and the portrayal of other characters are a little unnatural and overly characatured, and on the way to being parodied. Otherwise it is well set with no scenes at all of horror, the long shots of rows of huts and smoking chimneys being enough. The scenes set at the Vatican are quite splendid.

Many reviewers have complained that that the film lacks spark: what it may lack in wall-to-wall Hollywood violence it gains in drawn-out and sustained tension. Certainly the opening scene is a good example of this where the King's authorities are searching for the hidden recusants. The violence of the age, the methods of torture, are barely suggested and largely left to the imagination though historical accounts are graphically hideous in reality. There is a sympathy for the persecuted Catholics, presented as sincere believers where the king's Protestant court are generally portrayed as pragmatic and hypocritical so-called God-fearers. I particularly liked the set of dark, claustrophobic back streets of London. The dialogue was a fair attempt at contemporary language, rich in metaphor and laconic statement.

Considering the title of the film I was expecting and hoping that the trial of Charles I would be the climactic scene but no such thing. It was over in an instant with all the court leaping up crying Guilty straight after the announcement of charges. The film is really about the relationship between Cromwell and Fairfax who is influenced by the compromising opinions of his wife. The result is rather a polar opposition between Cromwell, the next ruling despot, and Fairfax the might-have-been just and virtuous leader. Watch the film with Richard Harris as Oliver Cromwell for a classic history film with a more contextual account of the Civil War.

This film is principally the music of Hindemith's opera Mathis der Maler with visual tableaux depicting the scenes of Grunewald's paintings alternating with very interesting film footage, some of it in colour, of Adolf Hitler and the ascendancy of the Nazi regime. Hindemith had many Jewish connections and felt morally bound that his music should assert messages of good and vilify evil. There are excerpts of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress read by John Gielgud where the scenes of the ensuing holocaust of the Nazi reign are representations of the great evil. A very interesting piece of composite art direct by Tony Palmer but we don't get a comprehensive biography of Hindemith though there are some film sequences early on.

This is self-consciously a popular documentary where presentation is on an equal par with content. Fire is the theme and this motif is omnipresent visually to the point of ridiculous obsession: in interview scenes the camera will suddenly alight on a candle flame or a fire that happens to be burning in a grate. We are constantly being told that it was the greatest fire in London - why would this programme be made if it wasn't? Also there is much gasping, hyperventilation and wild-eyed stares over statistics and measurements that do not mean very much on their own. There was one moment of unintended black humour that I noticed: we were told that the fire reached 1000 C and a moment later that it was recorded that a man had lost his life returning to his house for a blanket! Finally the whole series is marred by a advert break every few minutes - with more burning flames each time.

Three presenters follow the fortunes of three trades people from different classes and so a personal angle is introduced. Although Pepys is referred to it was a pity we didn't hear his firsthand descriptions of the fire which were more terrifying in words than in the mock-up experiments shown in the programme.

As Laurence Olivier observes, it is extraordinary that such music of power and romantic intensity should have emerged from the head of this unlikely genius. Born in relative poverty, went to a rough school, admitted as a chorister by grace, youngest undergraduate of Oxford University since Henry VIII, dropped out and "scrounged" off richer friends, clumsy at playing musical instruments and turned to composition to justify his existence! Hear the music and you will agree with his wife, Susana, that his life and career had a kind of divine inevitability about it. The opening scene shows him at his piano, complaining about the variety of spectacles he has and pointing out where his most important composing device - the eraser - is situated for use! So much said by so little.

This is a very successful project and wonderful testament to the life of the genius Van Gogh. The narrative is the mystery concerning the death of this great artist and aptly told through the visual medium of his artistic style. The portraits come to life and become acting characters inhabiting the other paintings in continuous animation. A very special experience indeed.

This film is a true labour of love where funds were put up by the director and producer themselves, relying on a cast of amateurs bar one professional, where the inspirational content of the film was enough to forget any thought of commercial viability. And there was no compromise on authenticity of period detail either, even down to the employment of contemporary now-rare breeds of pig and chickens!

It is shot in black-and-white enhancing a historical quality and the somewhat deliberate delivery of dialogue and stiffness of manners of the amateur acting is so appropriate for the sobriety and severity of that post-Civil War age.

The bonus material is fascinating, an interview discussing how the film was made and it was quite heartening to see a powerful message, great cinematic and art override any desire for ready-profit.