diskant rewind: Mild Head Injury #4
Posted: September 5th, 2008, by Simon Minter(Originally posted February 2002)
Well, I started 2001 with the high-hoped New Years Resolution of going to the cinema at least once a week. Needless to say that plan fell by the wayside pretty quick. So, 2002 started with the same resolution but with my fingers secretly crossed behind my back. When I say ‘going to the cinema’, you must understand that this can be extended to mean ‘getting a video out’ due to the exceptionally fuckwitted policy of my local Warner Village cinema (the only cinema I can get to easily) of only showing the most mainstream and popular films. So last year and this year so far has meant no ‘Ghost World’, no ‘Mulholland Drive’ and no ‘My Neighbour the Totoro’ but all the romantic comedies and action shitebusters I can stomach.
But it’s not all bad, you understand. I do get out into more than a five-mile radius from time to time, and am blessed with an ACTUALLY GOOD QUALITY Blockbuster nearby, so no need to start killing and burning stuff just yet.
This is supposed to be some kind of roundup of things that rocked my tiny, insignificant world last year (in a cinematic sense), so I’ll start incorrectly by frothing over LORD OF THE RINGS, even though I didn’t actually see it until this year. I expect most people have seen this by now? If not, you gotta. Yeah man you gotta. I know it’s more than three hours long; I know the books are hard going, but it’s a great great film. It follows the book (book one of the trilogy – the second two books will follow as two further films) pretty closely, and keeps just the right side of cutesy goblins’n’hobbits fun by never failing to take its subject matter seriously or pay it the respect due. The plot could seem scant (where’s that magic ring gone? let’s go find it) but there’s depth and philosophy there if you want it, and if you’re not consistently blown away by the beautiful magical settings and exquisitely executed set pieces then your seat’s facing the wrong way. There’s special effects aplenty, but this is no special effects movie, it’s one of the few to use effects to complete the vision of the director (Peter Jackson – he of ‘Bad Taste’, ‘Braindead’ and ‘Meet the Feebles’, bizarrely, and later the somewhat sinister ‘Heavenly Creatures’, which is worth checking out) rather than to round out the trailer with arbitrary explosions and monsters. I can’t really write about Lord of the Rings without slipping into ‘it’s ace! you have to see this!’ over and over again so I’ll leave it there.
Another ‘ace! see! etc.’ movie of 2001 was AMELIE; one for all your romantic fools out there. ‘Charming’ is the key word here in this French-made-and-set story of a naive young woman arriving in Paris and deciding to help out strangers in random ways, along the way finding friends, delight in her own actions and, of course, love. Aw. Does it sound like a load of old sentimental toss? I imagine so. Somehow it manages to skirt around sickbag territory though, partly because of the nice playing of the lead character (by Audrey Tautou) as a scatty, cheeky joker with a ‘naughty’ sense of humour, partly because of the bizarre situations set up along the way (which come together by the end of the movie in a surprisingly unexpected way) and partly because of the beautiful filming of the story – all rich warm colours and subtly off-the-wall angles and styles. Maybe it’s because I saw Amelie on my own at the cinema, keeping out of the cold, but it’s what the oft-used phrase ‘heart-warming and compelling’ was written for.