The Diamond Queen (2012)
Andrew Marr's 3 part series about Queen Elizabeth II, made as part of the Diamond Jubilee year, was a fascinating insight into the monarch and her life. Marr had fantastic access to a multitude of royal engagments over the past year, from state visits to Australia and Ireland, to the Royal Wedding and on to smaller occasions like the Garden Party and the Queen's Speech. Far from being the royal propoganda that Republicans have claimed, I found The Diamond Queen to be a measured approach to a woman who has a unique position in the UK, the Commonwealth and the world and who is not always understood or fully appreciated. Through his investigations Marr explored the Queen's past, her family life, her devotion to her job and came to the conclusion that she works hard, moves with the times and is still, in her eighties, eager to be a force for good where she can. I already admired the Queen and I'm looking forward to the updated version of Ben Pimlott's peerless biography, so this programme provided an excellent introduction to the Jubilee year. Long live the Queen!
The Story of Musicals (2012)
Another 3 parter, this one had a wider focus than the last. It should have been called The Story of British Musicals but that's no matter, it did a solid job covering many shows I've seen - Cats, Billy Elliott, Blood Brothers - many I haven't - Les Mis, Starlight Express, Phantom of the Opera - as well as plenty I'd never even heard of. Spanning several decades, the series interviewed many of the big players in the genre, from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh to Elaine Paige and, erm, John Barrowman, and it felt pretty comprehensive and packed full of interesting back stories and anecdotes. Most of the interviewees seemed to have a good sense of humour and a perspective on the musical's place in the world while having massive respect for the producers and stars - and after seeing this documentary I can certainly see why. If nothing else, The Story of Musicals made me want to get out and see even more of them!
Little Matador (2011)
Another movie in the True Stories strand, Little Matador is oddly an Irish movie about child bull fighters in Mexico. It follows 3 bull-bothering hopefuls, each of whom has their own reasons for pursuing a life as a matador, from pushy parents, absent parents and a young girl's desire to be a famous female matador... if only she didn't run crying when the bulls run at her. I didn't really have an opinion on bull fighting before watching this documentary - most of the images of stereotypical matadors I have come from Looney Tunes cartoons. I quickly realised how distasteful and barbaric the 'sport' is - it's basically aggrivating and then torturing a riled up creature, before savagely thrusting a blade into it's brain. The successful matador then receives the bull's shorn off ears as a grisly trophy to display triumphantly to the baying crowds. You'd have thought that this sort of practice would have died out with the gladiators of Rome, but apparently not - there are even matador schools in Mexico, training children to do this stuff. It's horrible. I had to look away when the bulls were murdered. I'm no animal rights activist but I can see no up-side of this practice in the 21st Century, no matter how much it's part of the Mexican/Latin culture. The documentary itself left me feeling sad for the 3 delusional children, who deserve to be loved by their parents and allowed to be young, to play and to enjoy life, not taught to face down angry bulls before slaughtering them.
The Cricklewood Greats (2012)
Ok, I'm cheating now, this wasn't an actual documentary but rather a mockumentary of those rather earnest types of show on BBC4 that celebrate a particular era/icon of film. I'm including it here as it was a fun one-off, and to take the edge off Little Matador. As co-writer, director and 'presenter', Peter Capaldi has created a very funny, almost touching piece about a fictional British film studio that would be believable were it not for the presence of Kelly 'Emma from Hustle' Adams and Tim 'Yates from The Royal Bodyguard' Downie as a number of different actors from Cricklewood's roster of stars. Gently mocked are silent comedies, Hammer-type horror schlock, monster B-movies and Carry On camp. Everything is played straight with a firm tongue in cheek - my favourite scene has Capaldi ('playing' himself) visit the site of the Cricklewood Studios with a 'historian' (Alex MacQueen) and strolling through the Wickes DIY store that has been built in its place, pointing out where the toilets used to be and sensing the aura of the old Studios. Ludicrous and oh so very based in fact - the fact of these types of documentaries.
The second animated movie co-produced in Belgium I've seen in the past few weeks, The Secret of Kells couldn't be less like A Town Called Panic. The latter was a madcap, stop-motion animated laugh-fest, whereas Kells features gorgeous 2D animation, only a few laughs, and a story about a load of monks and a book. Where the two movies compare is in how original and enjoyable they both are.
Kells looked amazing on Blu-ray, and the animation is reminiscent of book illustrations and paintings from bygone ages. I had heard of the Book of Kells, but I didn't really know what it was, and the movie doesn't do much to enlighten you, for this is a tale of the book's creation as seen through the eyes of young Brendan. According to Wikipedia, the Book is 'an illuminated manuscript and known today as one of Ireland's greatest national treasures', so there you go.
The movie opens with Brendan and an assortment of monks of different shapes, sizes and colours giving chase to a goose in order to pluck feathers for use as quill pens. So far so Disney, it particularly put me in mind of Mulan for some reason, and then Brendan later gets a feline sidekick (non-speaking though) who tags along on his adventures. Here's where the Disney comparisons end, although you could say the animation is similar to the stylised work in the opening credits of classics such as Sleeping Beauty. Kells' plot about Brendan, trapped in the Abbey of Kells by his uncle Abbot Cellach who is building high walls all around to protect the abbey from marauding Vikings (rendered as demonic, square-bodied demons, and really quite scary), and Brendan's relationship with master book artist Aidan of Iona is not exactly what dreams are made of.
Brendan does escape the walls into the forest where he meets a sprite named Aisling, who helps him to find berries to make a particular ink for the Book of Kells. Further into the movie, Brendan must find a special crystal and enters an angular world where a snake begins eating itself... It's very strange. Then the Vikings attack, killing many, and despite shooting an arrow into him and slicing him through with a sword, Abbot Cellach lives to see another day while Brendan and Aidan escape. Thinking back, there's actually not a lot of plot, and what there is centres around drawing illustrations in a book of gospel. Now, if Pixar had told the same tale in the same style, I'm sure it would have drawn crowds in millions, for Up had an unconventional old man and child pairing, with a grown up storyline, but sadly The Secret of Kells didn't have the same studios behind it.
Off sick this week I've been catching up on a couple of recorded movies. Yesterday morning I gave Steve McQueen's Hunger a go. It's quite a powerful film to watch after breakfast, with some disturbing imagery, but it was well worth it. Michael Fassbender stars as Bobby Sands, an IRA 'terrorist' who staged a 66 day long hunger strike in 1981 to protest the way that Thatcher's government wouldn't treat those arrested in Northern Ireland as political prisoners.
Before the movie gets to Sands and his hunger strike, the scene is set through minimal dialogue and beautifully shot imagery of some pretty nasty prison conditions and behaviour. Initially the movie follows the character of Davey (Brian Milligan) who is new to prison. He refuses to wear the prison uniform and so is stripped and issued with just a blanket before being led to his cell, which his long-haired, scraggy cellmate has been smearing with excrement as a dirty protest. McQueen then shows the prisoners rebelling, by simultaneously pouring pottyfuls of piss under their doors, and the guards reacting through beatings. It is after one such beating that we are introduced to Sands, who is forciblably held down as his hair is roughly chopped off.
McQueen doesn't shy away from showing the horrors the prisoners had to endure, nor does he excuse the behaviour that put them in prison in the first place. This is clearly depicted in the first 5 minutes as a prison guard gets ready to leave home for work, before first checking beneath his car for bombs. He is later summarily executed as he visits his elderly mother. Sands' reasoning for his hunger strike is memorably discussed in a static, 16 minute long single take, featuring him and his priest. The only movement as they sit at a prison visiting table is the patterns made by their cigarette smoke, focussing all your attention on the dialogue. The scene works wonderfully, and wordy scene presages a near-wordless final half hour as Sands endures his hunger strike.
Michael Fassbender is harrowing in the role, and he quite clearly takes a method approach to the hunger strike as he lets himself become skin and bones. It's difficult to watch some of the scenes as Sands has his bed sores moisturised for example. The conclusion of the film is expected, but the final title cards explaining the effect of the strike are hard hitting. Hunger is a very good piece of cinema, very well shot, and it's a thought-provoking piece. I know very little about the Irish troubles, except what I've seen through films such as this really, so to me this was powerful. I don't think the movie picks sides, and I think it does a good job of showing what happened and letting the audience decided who the heroes and villains of the events were, or even if there were any.
Little Matador (2011)
