Drifting Clouds Cinema Blog: "Nuts4R2 Reviews Riccardo Freda's The Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire"

The Iguana With The Tongue of Fire

Fiery Tongue In Cheek

 The Iguana With The Tongue of Fire 
aka Lizard With A Tongue Of Fire 
aka L'iguana Dalla Lingua Di Fuoco 
Italy/France/West Germany 1971
Directed by Riccardo Freda
New Entertainment World Region 0

Wow. The Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire, eh?

People who know me or know my reviews should know by now that I adore the form of, predominantly Italian, cinema known as the ‘giallo’. I’ve mentioned my passion for the beautiful camerawork, overwrought shot design and fantastic music at the expense of bad acting and scripting on numerous occasions but, if you want to familiarise yourself with my summation of the giallo as a worthwhile, collective cinematic achievement, then please see my article on just that subject here. So what I want you to realise is that it’s quite a rare thing for me to say, or type, the statement that follows...

The Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire has got to be the most unintentionally, hilariously bad giallo movies I have ever seen. 

Like most gialli, I wanted to see this one because of the gorgeous score to the movie, courtesy here of the wonderful, popular Italian composer Stelvio Cipriani. However, it has to be said that this is pretty much the only really decent thing going for it.

The film stars Anton Diffring (everybody and their pet iguana's first choice of multi-national, intimidating German), giallo favourite Dagmar Lassander and, as the main protagonist (although he doesn’t turn up for about 20 minutes or so into the flick), the one and only Luigi Pistilli. Pistilli is seen here in a rare portrayal of a hero figure, rather than a villain of some description. I’d have to say that, although he turns up in tonnes of stuff before his tragic real life suicide, this film really shows that he had what it takes to be a major star of a movie, rather than just the lead villain or a supporting role.

Now then, it has to be said that the version of this movie I was watching wasn’t, from the outset, being screened in the bestconditions. Although not a bootleg copy, the official German release of this movie I was watching had one of the worst and faded prints I’d seen of an official release. Honestly, some of the establishing location shots at the start of the movie, and near the end, looked almost as yellow as the word this genre takes it’s terminology from... literally a yellow giallo! I can’t really comment on the transfer of the print because I just can’t tell how much of the picture is the transfer and how much is the print.  After having seen the film though... I would have to say I can understand why nobody has bothered to pay out for a new print from the negative as yet.

Dealing with a set of murders in, of all places, Dublin... the story involves a German diplomat (yeah, that’d be Diffring then) who gets involved in some acid in the face/throat slash murders while staying in Dublin with his family in the German embassy.

Did I just say acid in the face and throat slash murders?

Yes I did. Starting off with a sequence where a woman has her throat cut after acid has been splashed on her, making her face all red... just to make doubly sure. One has to assume that the motives of the murderer on this one are “better dead than red.” Now this all sounds quite ghastly, I’m sure, but I have to tell you that the special effects on this, and other sequences like it, are absolutely awful. Remember that taylors dummy which scrapes down the side of the cliff edge taking off its face at the start of Lucio Fulci’s Seven Notes In Black? Well this same kind of terrible dummy is used for close ups of the acid in the face in this one. Fortunate for me because, lets face it, I really don’t want to be subjected to a woman getting acid thrown in her face but, simultaneously, unfortunate for the film because the lameness of the technical effects makes you laugh out loud at the silliness of the problem solving going on here.

So there’s that.

Then there’s some other crazy and mostly laughable stuff going on. Like the killer wearing sunglasses at the start of the movie means that every time during the movie that any of the characters decide to pull out a pair of sunglasses, and they do, frequently, whether you are expecting them to or not, there is this highly charged and ever so over dramatic musical sting to accompany a close-up shot of said sunglasses. Honestly, this is so funny you’ll be wishing every character in the movie has a pair of sunglasses to pull out so the sound guys can whack you over the ears with another musical sting.

And there’s the accents. Most gialli are shot in several languages with the predominate language usually being English to help lip synch any of the UK or US actors in the film. The sound, is then, very badly dubbed with no regard to lip synch in any language you happen to watch it in. You will never, I would guess, see an Italian giallo where the spoken word matches up to what you are seeing. This particular film is dubbed into English for the print I was watching, which would be the correct way to view it but... it’s a terrible and highly comical Irish accent that everyone in the movie, apart from Anton Diffring, has been dubbed with. Seriously. Even Luigi Pistilli is talking in this highly fruity Irish accent all the way through and I’m sorry but I was not always able to contain my mirth at this viewing.

And little details that the production design slipped in didn’t help matters either. When questioned if the chauffer of the German family was going to get some laundry done, he is asked to confirm the receipts when shown them by the investigating police. Noticing, in the top right hand corner that the washing was done by a company called “Swastika Laundry Ltd” did nothing to relinquish the sense of accidental comedy on display in this one.

To be fair to it, the story was actually quite a good one for a giallo and it even had Luigi Pistilli living with his mother and his daughter, with the mother referencing both Agatha Christie and Miss Marple as she gives her son pointers as to who the killer is. It also takes a quite nasty turn near the end when the killer is revealed, with Pistilli’s mother being severely battered (possibly to death) and his young daughter having acid thrown in her face. This is quite sobering in the face of the unintentional comedy on display throughout the movie, but utterly wasted as, days or a week after this scene in terms of movie time passing, Pistilli doesn’t see fit to reference or comment on this turn of events, not rushing back to hospital by his daughters bed but instead going off with his boss for a cheery pint down the pub... presumably a nice, clichéd pint of Guinness.

If the film had been in the hands of a better director, is my guess, then this would have seriously been a giallo to contend with. But it’s just limply and half heartedly put together... although the acting in this one is mostly pretty good. Pistilli really was a great actor and this should be better recognised, I feel.

I looked at the director’s biography on the IMDB and it was very revealing. I noticed two of his films were I Vampiri and Caltiki - Il Mostro Immortale... two films I know Mario Bava had to unofficially finish off directing due to problems with the director on the set. Similarly, his last entry on the IMDB is for La Fille De D'Artagnan, a film I really love, from which it says he was “fired” and “uncredited”. I’m guessing this particular director may have been a little highly strung to say the least. I notice that one of the gialli I have in my “to watch” pile, Murder Obsession, is also directed by this guy... so I’m not really looking forward to watching that one so much now.

The Iguana With The Tongue Of Fire is a well plotted and well acted (for once) giallo that is in every way terrible to watch... in all but the musical score, which is excellent, as you’d expect from composer Cipriani. The score is free on a separate feature on the German DVD release although I’d personally recommend getting the limited edition Digitmovies CD release if you like the music as it has more of the score on there (plus, you know, it’s a CD).

Cipriani and Pistilli fans will definitely get something out of this movie and some people will also, like myself, get a good laugh. But to most people I would say... “stay away from this one”. There are much better gialli out there and very few that are as badly put together as this one.

 

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Drifting Clouds Cinema Blog: "Nuts4R2 Reviews Damien Cullen's Clowning Around"

Clowning Around

Happy Ever BAFTA

 82 Directed by Calum McDiarmid
Clowning Around Directed by Damien Cullen
The Tide Directed by Luke Rodgers
Out Of Order Directed by Mike Hill & Louis Fonseca

 Playing at a special “invitation only” 
screening at BAFTA.

Okay... you’re probably going to ask what the heck someone like me is doing hob-knobbing with the hob-knobs at The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Well, truth be told... I’m not quite sure why. Maybe to make up the numbers or something I expect? Anyway, I’m glad I went and now have the opportunity to write about the films on show.

The producer of a new short film, Leilani Holmes, who is also a great writer/director in her own right (see my reviews of a couple of her shorts here and here) asked me along to this “by invitation only” screening at BAFTA of four new short films which included one I’d been following the progress of avidly in my Twittter feed, the one produced by Leilani, called Clowning Around. The invite was a little short notice but, thankfully, I managed to move people out of the way and take an afternoon off work to ensure I was properly fed, bathed and “smartied up a bit” for the screenings.

BAFTA wasn’t what I was expecting, to be honest. Even though I was armed with both the address and a handy google map of the location in Piccadilly, I managed to walk past it about 6 times before I was able to find the place... since no passers by seemed to know it was there, even with the aid of street numbers, either. So unassuming was the headquarters for this legendary bastion of the arts. Luckily, I did find a massive Waterstones bookshop to explore while on my explorations, so wasn’t too worried about things at the time.

And then there was the lift.

I followed a girl with brilliant hair into the lift to go up to where I thought the screening was, according to the label at the bottom of the stairs, which was the Princess Anne Theatre on the 3rd floor. The young lady I shared this modern marvel of vertical conveyance with worried me when she swiped the lift with a card to go up. She left me at floor two (which was where I would eventually end up anyway) and assured me I wouldn’t get stuck in the lift without said card. Which was kinda false, actually, but when I got out on floor three it seemed to be what resembled the lobby of a caretakers office... perhaps a projection room unrelated to where I was supposed to be. So I got back in the lift and the doors shut and... it wouldn’t do anything when I wanted to go back down to floor two. Listening out for any feint Jerry Goldsmith cues in the unlikely instance I was actually trapped in one of The Omen movies, I eventually got it to respond by going all the way back to the ground floor without the aid of pressing the alarm button... which, of course, is exactly where I’d started out from.

So okay... this time I took the stairs and as I was looking for thenext flight on the first floor, another young lady at a reception desk asked me if I was there for the shorts and told me I was already on the right floor and to make my way to the bar. So there I was, two floors down fro where I thought I was heading, and in a bar with a sea of strangers who were all talking to their friends... apart from one geezah who turned up a minute later and looked just as ill at ease as I felt and who was also alone. I also recognised him as one of the actors from the original, pre-movie, Clowning Around photoshoot and, sure enough, when the film aired later, he was playing the pub landlord in the film. Seeing that he looked just as “fish out of water” as I felt made me feel much better... so that was alright then.

After 10 minutes or so we were sent up a floor to the screening room (still not the third floor, so I don’t know what was going on with my sign and map reading skills that evening) and I sat and waited for the four films to start. After a little while I spotted Leilani Holmes, who seemed to be taking pictures of the audience and I also had a chance to look at the backs of the chairs in the little cinema. Each one was, and I quote from the little inscriptions, “endowed” by either a famous personage of stage, screen and music or, in one case that I saw, a money grabbing company who wanted to be seen doing the same. I was seated behind two chairs which were endowed by Blake Edwards and Mick Jagger and, I have to admit, that being in the vicinity of all this endowing going on around me made me cross my legs in a self-conscious gesture of possible lack of contributory endowment... I was, after all, sitting behind the huge endowment of one of The Rolling Stones.

After a short while, Damien Cullen (pictured above), the director of Clowning Around, which will be the main focus of thisreview, introduced the films and the people in the audience who were responsible for kick starting their existence. Then the lights dimmed and we were off...

82 
Directed by Calum McDiarmid
One of the things I’ve come to realise about short films is that they can really only capture ideas and moments in their brief running times, but in doing so, the encapsulation of the basic story idea can actually become the story itself. An audience doesn’t need to see the whole thing to know the full tale and 82, like all of the films on show that night, demonstrated this more than aptly.

82 is about a not very nice, downright criminal in fact, postman who takes you on a mental journey, via the magic of voice over to substantiate his thoughts for the audience, down a street on his postal route... but he has a very specific agenda to his upcoming arrival at Number 82, and you won’t necessarily see it coming. Made with obvious skill and a certain sense of unobtrusive mise-en-scene, the film may at first make you give a little chuckle at the postman’s antics but, after a while, you get to realise the postman’s true colours and, when he gets to his final destination, the little twist which you may well not expect is something which a lot of people will applaud to a certain extent, is my guess. Without giving too much away, the final shot through a letter slot where the impact of a quite brutal and violent act is implied and rendered far worse in the imagination due to the swinging shut of the slot cover on the door, is a great way to end a movie.

Then came the short film I as waiting for...

Clowning Around 
Directed by Damien Cullen
Damien Cullen’s film tells the story of a down-on-his-luck clown, Bozo (played by David Schaal), who has been forced out of his business by a rival children’s party entertainer, Mr Fernelli (played by Matthew Jure) and who has hit the booze hard (and, yes, I do appreciate that the main protagonist’s name is a phonetic anagram of the main cause of his addictive malady). It’s not a plot or subject matter that instantly grabs me, to be honest, but I’d have to say that the movie was actually really great.

Using slightly dulled down colours, I suspect, to mute the obvious opulence of Bozo’s very colourful attire, and thus enhance the clown’s fall from grace, the film takes a little while to show you, in broad gestures, the state of affairs that Bozo has gotten himself into and it does this while simultaneously challenging itself by having Bozo as an entirely mute part. This, of course, practically forces the filmmaker (and the audience) into the realm of slapstick and “silent movie” style narrative in terms of the way Bozo gets himself through life... and the thin line this film walks between that kind of subtlety and the garish contrast of the lead character’s profession is deftly tackled like a tightrope walker at a circus... this film doesn’t stumble or fall.

Not enough praise can be heaped on David Schaal who really does give a great and, I hesitate to use the word subtle given the character he’s playing but that’s what it is, a subtle performance that really gifts the film. Also a big hooray to the supporting actors. There’s a sequence set in a supermarket, for example, when Bozo is trying to rustle up some change, which turns into a variation of the old “bottomless pockets of unusual stuff” routine, made famous to various generations of movie and television watchers by the likes of Harpo Marx, Tom Baker and Kevin Smith, over the decades. It’s just a joy to watch and the young lady (the talented Meddy Ford) playing the McJob cashier at the supermarket till while Bozo goes through this routine, is just so mind numbingly deadpan (in the face of “frantic comedy distraction”) that you really do have to applaud her performance here too. The editing involving the eventual “pop up” of a Jack-In-The-Box is also perfectly timed and her reaction, or lack of one, absolutely sells the ludicrous nature of the situation (Oh bugger me. What, am I analysing jokes now? Gotta stop that!).

The other, some would say “hidden”, contribution to this particular short is the really great score by Alexis Bennett, who uses a leitmotif approach to the scoring by composing friendly and chirpy, Nina Rotaesque “circus music” whenever the temptation of booze is at the forefront of Bozo’s mind. This is particularly well handled in a scene near the end of the movie when this “theme” is developed into something a little more sinister with a creeping, atonal layer which has been mixed in with the familiar circus orchestrations, giving them a little more edge and sense of doom.

One sequence I particularly liked was the “Clown Off” sequence where Bozo and Fernelli fight a duel, armed with custard pies. The movie takes a serious turn into a series of movie tributes, if I was picking up on the writer/director’s references correctly. First up, we have the set up to this sequence, the calm before the storm, so to speak, which is shot like a spaghetti western... and when I say spaghetti western I really mean, in this case, the broad stroke homage to the early Sergio Leone classics, which is the quickest way to do this I guess (not much time to get this stuff done in a short) and since the majority of these specific westerns were all copying Leone to a certain extent anyway, that really is a fairly all encompassing take on the original material I feel (and, if truth be told, if the director had gone for Sergio Corbucci or Sergio Sollima or some such, half the people in the audience wouldn’t pick up on the reference). Alexis Bennett’s score, again, perfectly matches this lead in, which impressed me by the use of percussion which dead-on nailed the “walking down a street into danger” kind of feel of a young Ennio Morricone scoring something like A Fistful Of Dollars. I guess the temptation here might have been to go all out and score something like The Ecstasy Of Gold, which might also have been right but may have changed the timing and impact of the scene too much, and so I was dead impressed with the scoring choices made here.

The “Clown Off” then goes into what modern audiences would call “bullet time” under the mistaken impression that The Matrixwas the first movie to do this kind of scene (it wasn’t) but, which inClowning Around, of course, becomes “pie time”. And I can’t tell you in words how brilliant the shot of a slow motion custard pie aimed directly at Bozo’s face works so well... but it does the job brilliantly. I won’t spoil the pay off in terms of physical prowess displayed by the main protagonist in this scene but I will say that this is followed by something which is almost (and probably is, I reckon) an homage to the cinematic legacy of Sam Peckinpah... so it’s all good as far as I’m concerned.

The ending, which plays out during the end credits, may be somewhat bitter-sweet to audiences but there’s nothing ordinary about this short film anyway... so this one gets a full-on recommendation from me... as does the next movie in the four films that were screened...

The Tide 
Directed by Luke Rodgers
If Damien Cullen’s Clowning Around was the wittiest and shiniest of the four shorts on show (and, for me, it was), then The Tide, directed by Luke Rodgers, was definitely the most moving. Focussing on an old man whose life consists of combing a beach with his metal detector, day in and day out, the film begins with a series of shots that focus on the beauty of nature, as the shoreline this man spends his time on is slowly captured by the camera, making me think of the films of Andrei Tarkovsky just a little. Don’t know if the director was influenced by him or not though.

The story which develops when the man is asked by someone he perceives as “a thug” for the loan of his precious metal detector, is deeply emotional and the two actors playing the main leads make you believe in this series of bonding moments so well that you can’t help but be swept along by them. The score is also very haunting and helps lend the film the poignant tinge it has going for it. Although it sounds nothing like his music, I’m willing to bet the composer for this one holds Bernard Herrmann close to the heart as one of his/her heroes, as this score also tends to use sweeping, repetitive, although a little more subtle, gestures that parralell Herrmann’s work.

Was very impressed with this film also. This was then followed by the last film of the screening...

Out Of Order 
Directed by Mike Hill & Louis Fonseca
This last film was less to my taste, if I’m quite honest with you, but that probably says more about me than it does anyone else because it got some great audience reaction. This one is an out and out comedy based on the unfortunate phenomenon of not being able to find a working loo. The main protagonist spends the entire film getting into trouble in the pursuit of her much needed relief, and it would be fair to say, I think, that this movie is one long demonstration of eccentrically British toilet humour (although I have no idea as to the nationality of the writers and directors).

But it’s not made without skill and, to quote the invitation to BAFTA (pictured above), it is very much a “high quality” short film. The absurdity of the young lady’s antics keeps getting less and less subtle and more into Hollywood “action comedy” territory as the running time progresses... even the scoring seems to take a distinctly "Johnny Williams does 1960s comedies" approach as part of it’s genetic make-up. There’s nothing exactly subtle about what is captured on screen on this one, but the skill and visual dexterity demonstrated by the film-makers in the accomplishment of their aims can only be applauded... which it was, loudly, by the watching audience.

And there you have it. A rare treat to see four films in pretty much the most ideal conditions I would ever have to watch them in... which is good because, if the sound hadn’t had been so good or if I was watching this over the internet, I might not have picked up on the more subtle elements of the scoring on Clowning Aroundmethinks.

After this I tried to sneak off very swiftly (I’m the least sociable creature you are ever likely to meet) but this tricky manoeuvre was scuppered somewhat by finally meeting the whirlwind of bubbly energy that is the lovely “goddess/writer/director/producer” hybrid creature known as Leilani Holmes but who is, perhaps, whisperingly referred to respectfully in polite circles as “That Holmes Woman”. She seemed as nice as she was on Twitter and, frankly, I’ll not easily forget the sight of a woman dragging a cameraman through an extremely crowded bar space in the blink of an eye to head me off before I could get out of there and get a quick picture with me. This was really nice of her and I look forward to seeing the photo some day.

After that, when eyes were off me again, I managed to use my dextrous ninja-sneaking skills to secure my exit into the waiting night and begin my long trek home, back to the “slightly less right” side of the tracks. I do thank Leilani Holmes, Damien Cullen and Summit From Nuthin Productions for doing me the great honour of inviting me to this event. Please don’t cross me off any future guest lists if I said anything too cheeky in this review of the evening.

And that’s about it. I really enjoyed the screening, especially since I’ve never been to BAFTA before now, and I would say to any readers still with me at this point that any and all of the shorts on display here are well worth taking the short amount of time out of your day to see, if you ever get the opportunity. A really good evening out for me, too, it has to be said.

More info: 
Damien Cullen http://damiencullen.co.uk/
Leilani Holmes http://www.leilaniholmes.co.uk/

 

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Drifting Clouds Cinema Blog: "Nuts4R2 Reviews Damien Cullen's Clowning Around"

Clowning Around

Happy Ever BAFTA

82 Directed by Calum McDiarmid
Clowning Around Directed by Damien Cullen
The Tide Directed by Luke Rodgers
Out Of Order Directed by Mike Hill & Louis Fonseca

Playing at a special “invitation only” 
screening at BAFTA.

Okay... you’re probably going to ask what the heck someone like me is doing hob-knobbing with the hob-knobs at The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). Well, truth be told... I’m not quite sure why. Maybe to make up the numbers or something I expect? Anyway, I’m glad I went and now have the opportunity to write about the films on show.

The producer of a new short film, Leilani Holmes, who is also a great writer/director in her own right (see my reviews of a couple of her shorts here and here) asked me along to this “by invitation only” screening at BAFTA of four new short films which included one I’d been following the progress of avidly in my Twittter feed, the one produced by Leilani, called Clowning Around. The invite was a little short notice but, thankfully, I managed to move people out of the way and take an afternoon off work to ensure I was properly fed, bathed and “smartied up a bit” for the screenings.

BAFTA wasn’t what I was expecting, to be honest. Even though I was armed with both the address and a handy google map of the location in Piccadilly, I managed to walk past it about 6 times before I was able to find the place... since no passers by seemed to know it was there, even with the aid of street numbers, either. So unassuming was the headquarters for this legendary bastion of the arts. Luckily, I did find a massive Waterstones bookshop to explore while on my explorations, so wasn’t too worried about things at the time.

And then there was the lift.

I followed a girl with brilliant hair into the lift to go up to where I thought the screening was, according to the label at the bottom of the stairs, which was the Princess Anne Theatre on the 3rd floor. The young lady I shared this modern marvel of vertical conveyance with worried me when she swiped the lift with a card to go up. She left me at floor two (which was where I would eventually end up anyway) and assured me I wouldn’t get stuck in the lift without said card. Which was kinda false, actually, but when I got out on floor three it seemed to be what resembled the lobby of a caretakers office... perhaps a projection room unrelated to where I was supposed to be. So I got back in the lift and the doors shut and... it wouldn’t do anything when I wanted to go back down to floor two. Listening out for any feint Jerry Goldsmith cues in the unlikely instance I was actually trapped in one of The Omen movies, I eventually got it to respond by going all the way back to the ground floor without the aid of pressing the alarm button... which, of course, is exactly where I’d started out from.

So okay... this time I took the stairs and as I was looking for thenext flight on the first floor, another young lady at a reception desk asked me if I was there for the shorts and told me I was already on the right floor and to make my way to the bar. So there I was, two floors down fro where I thought I was heading, and in a bar with a sea of strangers who were all talking to their friends... apart from one geezah who turned up a minute later and looked just as ill at ease as I felt and who was also alone. I also recognised him as one of the actors from the original, pre-movie, Clowning Around photoshoot and, sure enough, when the film aired later, he was playing the pub landlord in the film. Seeing that he looked just as “fish out of water” as I felt made me feel much better... so that was alright then.

After 10 minutes or so we were sent up a floor to the screening room (still not the third floor, so I don’t know what was going on with my sign and map reading skills that evening) and I sat and waited for the four films to start. After a little while I spotted Leilani Holmes, who seemed to be taking pictures of the audience and I also had a chance to look at the backs of the chairs in the little cinema. Each one was, and I quote from the little inscriptions, “endowed” by either a famous personage of stage, screen and music or, in one case that I saw, a money grabbing company who wanted to be seen doing the same. I was seated behind two chairs which were endowed by Blake Edwards and Mick Jagger and, I have to admit, that being in the vicinity of all this endowing going on around me made me cross my legs in a self-conscious gesture of possible lack of contributory endowment... I was, after all, sitting behind the huge endowment of one of The Rolling Stones.

After a short while, Damien Cullen (pictured above), the director of Clowning Around, which will be the main focus of thisreview, introduced the films and the people in the audience who were responsible for kick starting their existence. Then the lights dimmed and we were off...

82 
Directed by Calum McDiarmid
One of the things I’ve come to realise about short films is that they can really only capture ideas and moments in their brief running times, but in doing so, the encapsulation of the basic story idea can actually become the story itself. An audience doesn’t need to see the whole thing to know the full tale and 82, like all of the films on show that night, demonstrated this more than aptly.

82 is about a not very nice, downright criminal in fact, postman who takes you on a mental journey, via the magic of voice over to substantiate his thoughts for the audience, down a street on his postal route... but he has a very specific agenda to his upcoming arrival at Number 82, and you won’t necessarily see it coming. Made with obvious skill and a certain sense of unobtrusive mise-en-scene, the film may at first make you give a little chuckle at the postman’s antics but, after a while, you get to realise the postman’s true colours and, when he gets to his final destination, the little twist which you may well not expect is something which a lot of people will applaud to a certain extent, is my guess. Without giving too much away, the final shot through a letter slot where the impact of a quite brutal and violent act is implied and rendered far worse in the imagination due to the swinging shut of the slot cover on the door, is a great way to end a movie.

Then came the short film I as waiting for...

Clowning Around 
Directed by Damien Cullen
Damien Cullen’s film tells the story of a down-on-his-luck clown, Bozo (played by David Schaal), who has been forced out of his business by a rival children’s party entertainer, Mr Fernelli (played by Matthew Jure) and who has hit the booze hard (and, yes, I do appreciate that the main protagonist’s name is a phonetic anagram of the main cause of his addictive malady). It’s not a plot or subject matter that instantly grabs me, to be honest, but I’d have to say that the movie was actually really great.

Using slightly dulled down colours, I suspect, to mute the obvious opulence of Bozo’s very colourful attire, and thus enhance the clown’s fall from grace, the film takes a little while to show you, in broad gestures, the state of affairs that Bozo has gotten himself into and it does this while simultaneously challenging itself by having Bozo as an entirely mute part. This, of course, practically forces the filmmaker (and the audience) into the realm of slapstick and “silent movie” style narrative in terms of the way Bozo gets himself through life... and the thin line this film walks between that kind of subtlety and the garish contrast of the lead character’s profession is deftly tackled like a tightrope walker at a circus... this film doesn’t stumble or fall.

Not enough praise can be heaped on David Schaal who really does give a great and, I hesitate to use the word subtle given the character he’s playing but that’s what it is, a subtle performance that really gifts the film. Also a big hooray to the supporting actors. There’s a sequence set in a supermarket, for example, when Bozo is trying to rustle up some change, which turns into a variation of the old “bottomless pockets of unusual stuff” routine, made famous to various generations of movie and television watchers by the likes of Harpo Marx, Tom Baker and Kevin Smith, over the decades. It’s just a joy to watch and the young lady (the talented Meddy Ford) playing the McJob cashier at the supermarket till while Bozo goes through this routine, is just so mind numbingly deadpan (in the face of “frantic comedy distraction”) that you really do have to applaud her performance here too. The editing involving the eventual “pop up” of a Jack-In-The-Box is also perfectly timed and her reaction, or lack of one, absolutely sells the ludicrous nature of the situation (Oh bugger me. What, am I analysing jokes now? Gotta stop that!).

The other, some would say “hidden”, contribution to this particular short is the really great score by Alexis Bennett, who uses a leitmotif approach to the scoring by composing friendly and chirpy, Nina Rotaesque “circus music” whenever the temptation of booze is at the forefront of Bozo’s mind. This is particularly well handled in a scene near the end of the movie when this “theme” is developed into something a little more sinister with a creeping, atonal layer which has been mixed in with the familiar circus orchestrations, giving them a little more edge and sense of doom.

One sequence I particularly liked was the “Clown Off” sequence where Bozo and Fernelli fight a duel, armed with custard pies. The movie takes a serious turn into a series of movie tributes, if I was picking up on the writer/director’s references correctly. First up, we have the set up to this sequence, the calm before the storm, so to speak, which is shot like a spaghetti western... and when I say spaghetti western I really mean, in this case, the broad stroke homage to the early Sergio Leone classics, which is the quickest way to do this I guess (not much time to get this stuff done in a short) and since the majority of these specific westerns were all copying Leone to a certain extent anyway, that really is a fairly all encompassing take on the original material I feel (and, if truth be told, if the director had gone for Sergio Corbucci or Sergio Sollima or some such, half the people in the audience wouldn’t pick up on the reference). Alexis Bennett’s score, again, perfectly matches this lead in, which impressed me by the use of percussion which dead-on nailed the “walking down a street into danger” kind of feel of a young Ennio Morricone scoring something like A Fistful Of Dollars. I guess the temptation here might have been to go all out and score something like The Ecstasy Of Gold, which might also have been right but may have changed the timing and impact of the scene too much, and so I was dead impressed with the scoring choices made here.

The “Clown Off” then goes into what modern audiences would call “bullet time” under the mistaken impression that The Matrixwas the first movie to do this kind of scene (it wasn’t) but, which inClowning Around, of course, becomes “pie time”. And I can’t tell you in words how brilliant the shot of a slow motion custard pie aimed directly at Bozo’s face works so well... but it does the job brilliantly. I won’t spoil the pay off in terms of physical prowess displayed by the main protagonist in this scene but I will say that this is followed by something which is almost (and probably is, I reckon) an homage to the cinematic legacy of Sam Peckinpah... so it’s all good as far as I’m concerned.

The ending, which plays out during the end credits, may be somewhat bitter-sweet to audiences but there’s nothing ordinary about this short film anyway... so this one gets a full-on recommendation from me... as does the next movie in the four films that were screened...

The Tide 
Directed by Luke Rodgers
If Damien Cullen’s Clowning Around was the wittiest and shiniest of the four shorts on show (and, for me, it was), then The Tide, directed by Luke Rodgers, was definitely the most moving. Focussing on an old man whose life consists of combing a beach with his metal detector, day in and day out, the film begins with a series of shots that focus on the beauty of nature, as the shoreline this man spends his time on is slowly captured by the camera, making me think of the films of Andrei Tarkovsky just a little. Don’t know if the director was influenced by him or not though.

The story which develops when the man is asked by someone he perceives as “a thug” for the loan of his precious metal detector, is deeply emotional and the two actors playing the main leads make you believe in this series of bonding moments so well that you can’t help but be swept along by them. The score is also very haunting and helps lend the film the poignant tinge it has going for it. Although it sounds nothing like his music, I’m willing to bet the composer for this one holds Bernard Herrmann close to the heart as one of his/her heroes, as this score also tends to use sweeping, repetitive, although a little more subtle, gestures that parralell Herrmann’s work.

Was very impressed with this film also. This was then followed by the last film of the screening...

Out Of Order 
Directed by Mike Hill & Louis Fonseca
This last film was less to my taste, if I’m quite honest with you, but that probably says more about me than it does anyone else because it got some great audience reaction. This one is an out and out comedy based on the unfortunate phenomenon of not being able to find a working loo. The main protagonist spends the entire film getting into trouble in the pursuit of her much needed relief, and it would be fair to say, I think, that this movie is one long demonstration of eccentrically British toilet humour (although I have no idea as to the nationality of the writers and directors).

But it’s not made without skill and, to quote the invitation to BAFTA (pictured above), it is very much a “high quality” short film. The absurdity of the young lady’s antics keeps getting less and less subtle and more into Hollywood “action comedy” territory as the running time progresses... even the scoring seems to take a distinctly "Johnny Williams does 1960s comedies" approach as part of it’s genetic make-up. There’s nothing exactly subtle about what is captured on screen on this one, but the skill and visual dexterity demonstrated by the film-makers in the accomplishment of their aims can only be applauded... which it was, loudly, by the watching audience.

And there you have it. A rare treat to see four films in pretty much the most ideal conditions I would ever have to watch them in... which is good because, if the sound hadn’t had been so good or if I was watching this over the internet, I might not have picked up on the more subtle elements of the scoring on Clowning Aroundmethinks.

After this I tried to sneak off very swiftly (I’m the least sociable creature you are ever likely to meet) but this tricky manoeuvre was scuppered somewhat by finally meeting the whirlwind of bubbly energy that is the lovely “goddess/writer/director/producer” hybrid creature known as Leilani Holmes but who is, perhaps, whisperingly referred to respectfully in polite circles as “That Holmes Woman”. She seemed as nice as she was on Twitter and, frankly, I’ll not easily forget the sight of a woman dragging a cameraman through an extremely crowded bar space in the blink of an eye to head me off before I could get out of there and get a quick picture with me. This was really nice of her and I look forward to seeing the photo some day.

After that, when eyes were off me again, I managed to use my dextrous ninja-sneaking skills to secure my exit into the waiting night and begin my long trek home, back to the “slightly less right” side of the tracks. I do thank Leilani Holmes, Damien Cullen and Summit From Nuthin Productions for doing me the great honour of inviting me to this event. Please don’t cross me off any future guest lists if I said anything too cheeky in this review of the evening.

And that’s about it. I really enjoyed the screening, especially since I’ve never been to BAFTA before now, and I would say to any readers still with me at this point that any and all of the shorts on display here are well worth taking the short amount of time out of your day to see, if you ever get the opportunity. A really good evening out for me, too, it has to be said.

More info: 
Damien Cullen http://damiencullen.co.uk/
Leilani Holmes http://www.leilaniholmes.co.uk/

Drifting Clouds Cinema Blog: "Nuts4R2 on Jean Rollin's The Iron Rose"

The Iron Rose (La Rose De Fer)

Thorn Of The Dead

 The Iron Rose (La Rose De Fer)
France 1973
Directed by Jean Rollin
Redemption Region 1

Well this is going to be a pretty short review.

I’ve noted on more than one occasion my respect for the writer/director Jean Rollin, who is perhaps best remembered for the spate of surrealist French lesbian vampire movies he gave the world. A true under-appreciated poet of cinema. I recently reviewed his film The Nude Vampire here and discovered it to be another little gem. I’d never seen that or The Iron Rosebefore and I expressed how much I was looking forward to seeing it.

Well, now that I have, it has to be said that I thought it was the least interesting of the works I’ve seen by him and, frankly, I found it a hard movie to watch. Starting off with a strong scene which made me groan because, once again, it uses a quite strikingly beautiful actress, Françoise Pascal, on Rollin’s favourite beach (yeah, you know the one), and a credit sequence set to a beautiful shot of a young couple kissing on the front of a train, the film then takes us to a crowded wedding reception where a thin, young man recites poetry to catch the eye of the aforementioned, beauty.

After this, the two go on a date and it pretty much, apart from the occasional passer by (such as a clown) becomes a two hander as the protagonists go into a cemetery to eat their picnic, which mostly seems to consist of chocolate, and then descend into a tomb to make love. When they come up for air, night has fallen and it’s here that the film takes on a certain Bunuelian flavour... and when I say that I’m thinking specifically about the impossibility of trying to find a way out of an artificially induced situation like the guests not being able to leave the house in The Exterminating Angel (reviewed here). For, once our sexed up couple leave the tomb, they find it impossible to find their way back out of the cemetery. They are not just locked in, they are caught up in a recurring loop of M. C. Esher-like proportions, coming across the same terrain again and again, even when they go over the wall.

Okay, I admit the movie sounds really interesting, but for some reason this one just didn’t appeal to me. Perhaps it’s because, unlike most of Rollin’s films, it has a storyline (no matter how simple and one note) that you can follow... whereas I’m more used to seeing a Jean Rollin that is mostly impenetrable and which has great and beautiful surrealistic shots which you will remember forever. Here though, I think the shots are merely both really colourful and competent... but with very few standout sequences, apart from the girl naked on a “beach representation” of the cemetery near the end. That’s quite striking but a minor oasis in a desert of dullness as far as I’m concerned... and I really don’t like to say this about Rollin’s work.

There’s an interesting vocal, experimental piece on the soundtrack reminiscent of something György Ligeti or Edgard Varese might have done at some stage in their careers but this really doesn’t give the visuals the lift they need and, in the end, I have to admit I was just waiting for it to finish (I may have started to nod off at some point).

At the end of the day, it’s a well shot but not great Jean Rollin movie. If you’re a fan of this director’s work, and I really am, then you’re going to want to watch this one anyway. This is the first time I had a truly, less than stunned reaction to his work, althoughTwo Orphan Vampires came close. I’m not going to let this put me off tracking down some of the movies I still haven’t seen by him though... but I would warn you to not expect too much from this one and approach cautiously. It’s been called, by one reviewer I respect a lot, Rollin’s first true masterpiece. I disagree with that one, I’m afraid, but that doesn’t mean that you would. Rollin is always worth a look even when he’s churning out stuff like this, is my view. But if you’ve never seen any of his movies before... I really wouldn’t start off with this one.

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Drifting Clouds Cinema Blog: "Nuts4R2 Reviews Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris"

Midnight In Paris

We’ll Always Have Paris!

Midnight In Paris 2011 Spain/USA

Directed by Woody Allen

Screening at UK cinemas.

Warning: Spoilers abound in this review.

I don’t often get to see Woody Allen films these days but, when I was a kid and then a teen, he was one of my heroes.Stardust Memories was one of my favourite of his movies, although I loved the majority of his work (including his “early funny ones”) and I also liked to listen to his stand up material.

These days I don’t get to see his work much because, frankly, it usually only appears on local cinema screens for one week over here in the UK if you’re lucky, if at all. ForMidnight In Paris, I’d missed the week it did at my local cinema but travelled into the heart of London to catch it down there while it was still around.

Midnight In Paris belongs in Woody’s slightly more outrageous “fantasy” work if I had to try to place it or position it with any of his other movies. It’s like the plays he was writing in the 60s and 70s which had a certain fantasy element which the audience really needs to buy into and suspend disbelief with. These movies are now more prominent within his body of work but I guess he started this kind of fantasy cinema with his movie The Purple Rose Of Cairoand it’s very much a signature of his more wilder flights of fancy that he tends not to be at all interested in the mechanics which make his fantasies work on screen (or whatever venue they are in - stage play at the theatre, script in a book) and some younger audiences these days, who seem to be obsessed with the intricate plot devices to make their fantasy worlds more “believable”, may have trouble with this fact.

For me though, it’s always a breath of fresh air that Allen doesn’t bother to explain his worlds... you just have to accept them or not and move on. Midnight In Paris is a case in point.

The film stars Owen Wilson as Gil, a struggling writer who is about to marry his sweetheart but, as you will probably guess from the earliest stages of this film, he’s going to be left seriously questioning that relationship before long. While on holiday in Paris he finds a portal to the past, whereby if he waits at midnight in a certain spot, a car will arrive for him and whisk him away for a few hours back in time to 1920s Paris where he falls in with the likes of Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cole Porter etc. Hanging out with the literary set gives him the confidence he needs as a writer and, when he falls in love with Pablo Picasso’s latest lover, played by Marion Cotillard, he realises that he can’t continue on with his headlong rush into marriage (especially after Hemingway clues him up that his fiance is having an affair). After he and his new 1920’s sweetheart travel back in time to meet Toulouse-Lautrec, and he sees the effect this has on her, he also finally sees that he can’t live his life in the past and that the present is always somebody else’s golden age and that he needs to live in it while it’s here.

As usual with a Woody Allen film, the direction, cinematography, script, performances and general execution of this production are all top notch and I wouldn’t expect anything less from this genius of contemporary American cinema. Woody Allen is one of the true artists of film and, while it’s easy to forget his genius due to the lack of exposure his films tend to get these days, it’s still a basic truth that the brush strokes he paints his celluloid canvass with are as relevant today as they always have been. And the strength and truth of his work is not something which can be brushed off lightly, even though his films usually have an intrinsic lightness or fluffiness in their demeanour (if not their subtext).

And frankly, you’ve got to love any film where the main protagonist hangs out in a bar with young Man Ray, Bunuel and a rhinoceros obsessed Salvador Dali (in a great little cameo by Adrien Brody) and then, when he later meets up with Bunuel again, gives him the idea for The Exterminating Angel. What a great little film this latest slice of Woody Allen’s brain turned out to be. I’m so glad I made the trip into London to see it... and I’ll definitely be picking this one up on DVD and giving it another watch next year. Great movie. Nice idea. Treat yourself to an hour or two in the company of the smart set of 1920’s Paris. A definite recommendation from this reviewer on this one!

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