A Haunting in Venice

A Haunting We Will Go/A Haunting We Will Go/Hi-Ho-Confuse Poirot/A-Haunting We Will Go

or

"Lighten Up, Pal! You Might Have Fun!"
 

It is 1947. "World's greatest detective" Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh), he of fusty ways (oh god, they haul out the "egg joke" again!) and the elaborate mustache—that looks like superimposed Aston Martin/Bentley logos—is in retirement. In Venice. "A gorgeous relic sinking into the sea" compares mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), who has skipped the long line of desperate potential clients waiting outside his door to tempt Poirot with a case which just might revivify her career after three critically-panned books. 

 

Poirot will have none of it. A veteran of the first World War (as was shown in the previous film, Death on the Nile), he has lived long enough to see that its reputation as "the war to end all wars" has proved false and, having seen too much of death, has foregone his profession to ease the strain on his little grey cells. But, Oliver is persistent, and so he joins her on Hallowe'en night to the palazzo of opera star Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) to witness a festive party for local Venician children, and, for an adult after-party, a seance performed by the medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) to try to quell the spirits haunting the Drake place, one of whom might be Rowena's daughter Alicia, who died "under mysterious circumstances" years before.

"Under mysterious circumstances" may be overstating, as the girl drowned in a city that is nothing but waterfront property—sort of like being surprised when there's an explosion at a munitions factory ("Non-smoking? Who knew?"). I'm just saying that the Venice polizia usually don't ask "cause of death?" as they fish another tourist out of the canal. That aside, there is some question as to whether Alicia's death was a suicide or an accident or...was it murder?

Poirot, he does not care. He's there to expose the medium using his powers of observation and his absolute disbelief in the supernatural ("scary stories make life less scary"), suspecting that some grift will ensue from the proceedings. His convictions are only solidified when Alicia's former fiancee Maxime Gerard (
Kyle Allen) arrives after a mysterious invitation is sent his way so many months after the tragedy. Also in attendance is the family's doctor Leslie Ferrier and his son Leopold (Jamie Dornan and Jude Hilll, who played father and son in Branagh's Belfast) and the housekeeper Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), all of whom figured in the care-taking of the daughter before her death. It all seems very neat and tidy.

The seance is anything but. It's a convincing show, with Reynolds going into a trance, speaking in the dead girl's voice, spinning in place and with messages appearing on a typewriter ("I think of myself more of a secretary than anything" says Reynolds), seemingly written by "the lost girl from beyond." Nature conspires with the supernatural as a violent thunderstorm permeates the whole procedure. But, the mysteries linger on with Poirot nearly killed bobbing for apples (true!), strange voices permeating the house, flashes of the dead girl from beyond, and...a couple of grisly murders most foul.

A Haunting in Venice is based on Dame Agatha Christie's 1969 novel "Hallowe'en Party" and in much the same way that later James Bond movies are based on Ian Fleming novels—that is, not very. Scenarist Michael Green (he's done the scripts for all of Branagh's Poirot films as well as Logan and Blade Runner 2049) has retained some of the names, but murdered Christie's plot and hatched one of his own (mind you, all with the tacit approval of the Christie Estate). Although it ties up all physical loose ends, it ends up with an implicit endorsement of the supernatural (if only in sub-text, but is rather jarring when its chief detective is committed to exposing the charlatan exploiters of the belief, and a couple of glaring motivations amidst a couple of suspects.

Perhaps because he knew the weakness of the script, Branagh the director works overtime establishing an atmosphere that disorients and distracts. His compositions are full of dutch angles and high and low shots, fish-eye lenses, and full of conversations with askance sight-lines. That's not "normal" film-making (and by that I mean "professional" film-making that obeys "all the rules" and creates a comfortable-to-the-eye-and-mind viewing experience). Branagh's choices are Wellesian in their disregard for viewer comfort; discomfiture is actually key to making the film work. By setting audiences "on edge" and making things look "off" you can get away with a lot of chicanery in a burst of style over substance.

That may sound dismissive, but Branagh has typically been a director of verisimilitude—making things look real. Here, he deliberately makes things surreal, claustrophobic and, often, acrophobic (which is a lot of work!), but it breaks a cardinal rule—never call attention to your directing (a rule too often ignored by beginning film-makers.) The result is so showy and over-the-top that one just might forget the story-line for all the sights to see.

In this case, it's a good strategy. The script is a let-down, full of incident and the occasional zinger of a line, but too convenient and incredulous simultaneously to make a well-conceived plot both among the movie's conspirators and behind-the-scenes in the writer's room. Branagh's work and collaboration with cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos (he's done Branagh's last few films...AND Meg 2: The Trench), however, overcompensates to a degree that one feels that one has seen a real show, full of acrobatics and elephants in the room (and one abrasive cockatoo!) to marvel at, even if the little grey cells are not entirely engaged and unconvinced.

It sure looks good, even if it's as insubstantial as a ghost. 

Belfast

In Memory Yet Green (with Flecks of Orange)

or

"I'm Going Nowhere You Can't Find Me" ("All We Need to Survive is a Phone, a Pint, and the Sheet-Music to 'Danny Boy'")

 

Stevedores glow orange in an overcast dawn, looming over the port that shows no signs of life. They hover and oversee everything, reflected in warehouse windows and altering the horizon. They watch over the streets and houses—obvious signs of life as God never plans in straight lines. Then, we start to see walls with scrawls, graffiti decorating the barriers, making them their own or just making them a little less obtrusive, obstructive. 

 

Then the camera settles on a barricade with a collection of faces—dirty, bandaged, hatted—men-folk gathered, but whether they're coming home exhausted, or gathering with malice is a little hard to say. We move up the faces and over the wall, and it's like it's been protecting something. We see an alleyway filled with kids playing, kicking balls, playing knights, but they're in black-and-white. It's like the wall we flew over has scraped away the color, leaving the scene beyond in the bleached shades of a dream...or a memory.

Movies can have thesis statements embedded in them. The first image can be a summing up in some abstract way of what will come after. But, that opening sequence of Kenneth Branagh's Belfast (and, really, that's how it should be called) is as good a thesis as any I've seen. The city may be titular, but it's just bricks and mortar, water and fire, dirt and smoke, the frame. It's the people who make the memory—the city will always appear smaller than it did. But, the people will forever loom large.

August, 1969. Man has landed on the Moon. But, Earth is "the same old place." Buddy (Jude Hill) is a happy nine year old doing battle with a stick-sword and a garbage-lid shield, fighting dragons when he's called in for tea by his mother (Caitriona Balfe). He's having a good time, the street's busy with residents with their "halloo's" and banter so it's only natural that Buddy has a longer travel-time than what a bee-line home would normally take a human being. Just enough delay to get him in a fix. A gang of Protestants enter at the end of the mixed Protestant-Catholic street and start yelling for the Catholics to get out. First, they throw threats, then rocks, then molotov cocktails, then they roll a car with a burning rag in the gas intake.

And Buddy's in the midst of it. And like any nine year old not in charge he freezes, gaping at something new. What are they yelling at HIM for? He's Protestant! But, Ma sees him and, like a banshee, she grabs him, and the garbage can lid becomes a shield for reals as the rocks come flying and she takes her burden and herself back to the door they live behind and slam it and lock it and dive for the floor to avoid any flying glass. Play-time is over. A battle has come to Belfast and it's not an easy game of heroes and bad guys. It's too complicated for a child to understand. To say nothing of the adults.

Where's Da (Jamie Dornan)? He works in England during the week and comes home most often on weekends. So, the day-to-day is left to Ma—the bill-paying, the wondering where the money comes from, the avoiding the rent-man, the raising of Buddy and his older brother Will (Lewis McAskie)—and the making the peace when they've been "up to something" in the neighborhood, and when Da comes home there is the "adult talk" about things the kids don't understand or don't care about because they're so wrapped up in the "now."

Things like the newly-installed barbed wire (which becomes a foreground object through which Branagh shows life), the night patrols, the buzzing of helicopters, the increasing frailties of his parents (Ciaràn Hinds and Judi Dench, both photographed so you see ever seam earned in their faces) and that Da might have possibilities for a better paying, more steady job in England—but it would keep him away longer and he wants his family with him, if only the wife and kids didn't want to stay right where they are.

In the "now." Family is around them, there's a community—sure it's a "mixed" community, but the only ones making anything of it are the thugs and enforcers—there's school—with the cute girl in the class—and TV and movies...and home. The only home the kids have known and they're too young to know that "home" is as transmutable as the future. Or that "home" is changing right before their eyes. It's hard to see when one hasn't had much of a past.

Branagh's film is obviously made of love, living between nostalgia and fear, adult and child, and never completely resigning them into a fixed whole. One can forgive him for keening over into the precious—the "too-perfect" occasional shot, breaking the the use of color at movie images and stage productions (Branagh's dream-homes), and a confrontation scene that could have gone without its musical accompaniment (but we are talking about a child's eye view of it, so....myth?). But, forgive it, because despite its crisp photography, this is a film of filters and scrims of the mind, ultimately, not the HD precision of documentary. It's built of memory and bricks and stones and heart. And it relates to anybody oppressed, anybody in fear, and anybody who's been a child...or a parent. It's certainly the best film Branagh has made in years, and it's certainly among his personal best.

 

Fair play to him.

 

Anthropoid

War is Not Romantic
or
"No, Assassinate. Murder Implies He Has a Life Worth Living."

When I first saw the trailer for Anthropoid (and it was on TV), I got excited. I knew the story from a fascinating book on the history of spies during World War II, "A Man Called Intrepid" by William Stevenson. One of its amazing stories is about the assassination (by Czech resistance fighters) of Reinhard Heydrich, a name (fortunately) lost to history, but at the time he was considered Hitler's right-hand man and eventual successor. Affectionately known as "the Hangman" and "the Butcher of Prague," he was Evil's "company man"—head of the Gestapo and the architect of The Final Solution, the eradication of Jews from the European continent.

If the Nazi's are the epitome of evil in the 20th Century, Heydrich was the worst of the worst, and the story of the conspiracy to kill him had all the hallmarks of a "Mission: Impossible" story, exciting, tense, in constant danger of being revealed and at great risk to those involved. The aftermath of the attempt was particularly grisly and Heydrich died a very slow, painful death (thankfully), but the assassination so enraged Hitler, he started a systematic, almost biblical, purge to punish the Czech populace, first ordering that 10,000 random citizens be rounded up for execution, and, when told this might be economically impractical, started the systematic execution of any Prague "suspects" and, acting on false intelligence, burned the nearby town of Lidice to the ground, killing all the males over 16 and sending the women and children to concentration camps. Similarly, in the town of Ležáky, every single adult was murdered.

Heydrich's car after the assassination attempt.

To commemorate these events, Hitler had mementos struck for those soldiers who took part, whether in the executions, the bulldozing, or in the recording of the events—a medallion that had Heydrich's profile on one face and on the other the single word "Rache," which means "revenge."

The Lidice Children's memorial

This story fascinated me and I always thought it would make an incredible movie.* A "downer" (to use a critical term) to be sure, but an abject lesson in bravery and the consequences of "revenge-seeking." With seemingly every movie showing up in the cineplex being a "revenge" piece, this little dose of history, documenting real carnage from and the horrors that come with it, would be a dash of cold water to hot tempers.

Sean Ellis is a London-based writer-director (and also cinematographer), mostly known for his short Cashback and its feature-length expansion. His co-author, Anthony Frewin, served as assistant to Stanley Kubrick for every film from 2001: a Space Odyssey to Eyes Wide Shut (with the sole exception of Barry Lyndon). With such a pedigree, it's not a surprise then, that Anthropoid is a solid film that manages to tell the story effectively while keeping the budget from going into the stratosphere (it was financed by British, French, and, of course, Czech production houses).

The film wastes no time, starting (after some archival footage and some back-story) with boots hitting the ground. Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan) and Josef Gabčík (Cillian Murphy), two Czechoslovakian fighters-in-exile, have just parachuted into Czechoslovakia, part of a nine man team trained in London to assassinate Heydrich as part of what has been termed "Operation: Anthropoid." Already things are not going well; Gabčík has landed in a tree, creating a deep laceration in his foot that will hobble him and keep him from moving far—they're a couple dozen kilometers from their destination of Prague. They're found by a local partisan who drives them to a nearby cabin. The two men are helpful and discuss what can be done with Gabčík's foot without attracting attention. It's a wonder, then, that when one of them goes into another room, they find him getting ready to use the phone. Maybe he's phoning a contact or maybe he's phoning for aid, but unannounced behavior is suspicious, and Gabčík wastes no time determining that the man was going to turn them in and shoots him. The other escapes leaving Kubiš to give chase. But, when it comes time to deliver the killing shot, his hand begins to shake in anxiety and the man gets away.

With an absconded truck, the two drive into Prague, seeking their contact. When they arrive at the appointed address, a nervous woman tells them he is no longer there, only giving them the address to a local veterinarian for Gabčík's foot, saying that he is "a good man."

Gabčík gets his foot sewn up and the vet offers them his office to stay the night. In the morning, they're visited by some of the Czech resistance, Vanek (Marcin Dorocinski) and "Uncle Hanjsky" (Toby Jones), who treat the two soldiers with a great deal of suspicion—their contact has been missing for weeks, abducted by the Gestapo, so seeing these two newcomers only heightens their worry; perhaps they're plants for the Nazi's. And when the two tell them their plan is to assassinate Heydrich, they immediately protest that the Czech government-in-exile has no idea the stranglehold the Nazi's have on the country and reprisals will certainly come of Heydrich's killing.

Despite resistance protests, Henjsky sets up Gabčík and Kubiš with a sympathetic family in Prague, so they can track Heydrich's movements and, being that he's a Nazi, that's easily done and they soon have alternate plans in place. Of the assassins, Kubiš is the cooler of the two, thinking on his feet, and able to improvise quickly. For instance, when Jan shows an interest in the family's maid (Charlotte Le Bon), Josef uses it, asking if she has a friend for him, so they can walk around the Prague streets without attracting the attention two lone males would attract in a country at work and at war. And when Anna shows up at a restaurant meeting with her friend Lenka (Anna Geislerová) dressed to the nines, Josef stages an embarrassing incident for the benefit of the Nazi officers whose attention has been attracted. It's a lesson she learns that pays off later in the movie.

It's a handy talent to have, as with any plan, things can go wrong, plans change, signals mix and tensions increase. Ellis stays focused on the assassins in their preparations and hesitations; little time is spent on Heydrich—he is merely a target, a monster in human form and thus vulnerable. But, if Heydrich is vulnerable, they know that they are even more so, with the growing realization the longer they're in Prague, that they're on a suicide mission.

I want to address the dismissal of this film by members of the critical press, some of whom I respect, most I don't. There has been a lot of criticism of Ellis' hand-held cinematography during the early part of the film. That hand-held camera covers a lot of ground. The movement keeps things tense and changing in a beginning of the movie that is heavy on exposition and needs to set up a certain level of paranoia that will be the undercurrent for the entire film. In sequences where Josef is walking the street, suspecting every stationary male of being an informant, that hand-held is essential. The tightness of the shots helps to keep things focused and helps to focus on details appropriate to the period of the film, limiting the chances of showing something contemporary and taking you "out" of the film. It works well and lends the "discovery" portion of the film a certain energy. Perhaps the criticism is because it's actually NOTICED by these critics as opposed to the latest "Bourne" film (Greengrass' entire shooting style is to do this type of shot) or the "Star Trek" films where J.J. Abrams lends the film energy by basically hammering on the camera...and it never produces a mention.

I've also seen an awful lot of critics say the film is "dull." Really?  It is, of course, a matter of opinion, but sometimes—as we've seen plenty this election year—an opinion can merely be just plain wrong. Maybe they've been de-sensitized to film rhythms that don't have a "tent-pole" action sequence every ten minutes. Maybe the constant "super-hero" crush has made these writers numb to indecision and human weakness. Maybe there aren't enough explosions. Maybe Michael Bay should have directed (why, Heydrich's car didn't even flip over—it didn't in reality, but when have films followed reality?). Much praise has been put on the film's last half-hour which provides plenty of action and quite a couple of explosions, and Ellis treats it with an ever more claustrophobic sense of dread. That stuff is hard to do. At least without being pretentious and arty about it. Or cavalier. Or worse, taking gratuitous glee in it.

It is nice to sit back and watch something where stuff matters, but doesn't serve as a prelude to a quip, a sneer, or a cheap laugh. There's been quite enough of that this Summer of Dogs in a seemingly endless spiral downward. I will heartily recommend a fine, professional film like Anthropoid, while the rest of the critics give better ratings to the likes of Sausage Party. Talk about the madness of the Mob.

The wanted poster for Heydrich's assassins.

* It has. It will. The year after Heydrich's assassination, expatriated German director Fritz Lang joined forces with Bertolt Brecht to make a movie based on the incident called Hangmen Also Die! In 1975, Lewis Gilbert made Operation Daybreak, and a second film about it is coming out this year, entitled HHhH (for "Himmlers Hirn heißt Heydrich"-"Himmler's brain is called Heydrich"), which will star Jason Clarke and Rosamund Pike as Mr. and Mrs. Heydrich. Sounds cozy ("I'm being sarcastic!"). 

Fifty Shades of Grey

Grey's Anatomy
or
"OK, Where the Hell Did You Put the Key to the Handcuffs?"

So, okay, how is it?  

Short answer: surprisingly not bad. Certainly not as bad as I thought it would be. With this sort of material, the result can either be ludicrous or hilarious, evoking contempt or snickers. Fifty Shades of Grey did neither. Nor (boys), did it turn me on, in any way, shape or form.

But, also, it was not what I expected. Fifty Shades of Grey is a variation of the Harlequin Romance (of which I've never been a fan), a soft-core modern version of the Princess fairy tales, albeit with whips and bondage (didn't all those handsome princes live in castles and all of them had dungeons?). The Harlequins have a standard road map that is well-trod: capable but insecure woman finds herself in new surroundings, encounters a male of the species, capable but secure—that is, until he encounters this woman of said species. The two then cross paths in which they meet, engage, disengage, trade doubts, insecurities, and misunderstandings of each other and themselves until circumstances are made understandable and the road to romance is removed of barriers, mental and physical. FSoG follows this pattern, but (evidently) does so over three books, with ever-increasing complications that seem to have come from American soap operas. No doubt, the film-makers will split the third into two movies, padding it out with dwarves and protracted battles involving giant beasts.  
Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), virginal student at Wazzu (Vancouver Branch—you know it's some kind of fairy tale, as there aren't any virgins at Wazzu) does her journalism student room-mate (going to the Edward R. Murrow School of Communications?) a favor by driving to Seattle* to interview young business tycoon Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). It's never made clear what he is a tycoon of, but his office artwork suggests it has something to do with pandas or inkblots. All of his office workers appear to be Hitchcock blondes, right down to the gray suits.

Steele and Grey (notice the names—they're meant to be together) meet cute—she trips and face plants upon first entering his clean minimalist office (we're spared his quipping "Thanks for dropping in...") and the interview begins. She, of course, doesn't have a pen (or a laptop?—she's an English major, for godssake!) He gives her one with no snarky or suggestive comments. 

Grey is intense (you can tell because Dornan keeps his eyes creepily wide and locked like they were super-glued in his skull) and he often derails the interview with persistent questions (he is the one being interviewed) like about Anastasia's major: "What made you an English major—Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy or Charlotte Bronte?" If she were a real English major, she would have replied "What's the difference?" But give Grey points for being comfortable in his own fictional milieu.

He's sensitive (he really, really is) and he'd like to make you MORE sensitive

This is why I liked FSoG (of all the movies I saw this week, despite their pedigree)—it's smart enough to know it's dumb, it knows the genre, knows the tropes, and tosses in some nice visual sub-text to enhance it (that pen, the overabundance of flying scenes, the use of elevators, especially doors, for sexual metaphor). For the visual touches, credit Sam Taylor-Johnson (she made the quite good "Young John Lennon" bio-pic Nowhere Boy) for having fun with the material and lightening up her actors; Johnson is your typical awkward Cinderella, but not enough to evoke derision from the audience, and her character has a significant spine, and Dornan does eventually warm up and finds some casual humor in his scenes with her, but still suffers from disconnect when he has to express any ardor. His is the part of the "unknowable" man of mystery (which is romance-speak for your typically inconsistent male), although what's really unknowable is how he came to be more neurotic than Steele.** That is a bit refreshing, as it upends the traditional fairy tale so that the maiden saves the prince (or I'm giving the writer too much credit), rather than him trapping her in his castle...and, you know, dungeons?

Give the movie points, though, for having some fun with this stuff. For instance, Grey, once he targets Steele as a potential "partner" draws up a non-disclosure agreement ("no talking" and presumably—like most NDA's—she can't get in a relationship with anyone for a year after they break up) and a Terms and Conditions contract in which limits are set before entering into any sort of agreement. This sets up a mock-serious "Business Meeting" that is hilarious in its dialogue, before getting down to brass tacks (no, those aren't used) and the movie turns serious-serious with misunderstandings and mixed signals.

But, one wonders how all of this started.*** Is bondage "play" that popular, or is it just a thrill to read about it, like vampire novels and zombie shows. Does anyone buy into the pain-for-pleasure garbage (which is a given in "The Story of O" and "Emmanuelle" movies) which sounds like just a defense tactic for NFL abuse charges. Violence against women turns my stomach, especially if it's done "for love." This causes the movie to fall apart in the last twenty minutes or so, over a misunderstanding over the T's and C's, and the reality of just what they entail.

I can't be too delicate about the details: Steele and Grey agree to a spanking session with a belt. She says "yes." He re-iterates the "safe" words when she wants to stop—"yellow" for when things get too rough and "red" when she wants to stop. They begin, her counting off the blows (there are 13). It is, of course, traumatic and they stop. Grey tries to comfort her and she turns on him: "Don't you touch me!" The "relationship" breaks up over this.  

For him, it's a case of confusion—she had the "safe" words and didn't use them. For her, it's not confusing at all—yes, she had the "safe" words and (yes) she agreed to it, acquiesced to it (for whatever reason) but expected him to stop of his own volition, empathy, or conscience. He would have stopped (presumably) if she used the "safe" word, but she expects him to read her mind, her mood, her tears, and "be the man," and do the right thing. At least, the thing that would require him to man up and think beyond himself. Perhaps too much for her to expect given his proclivities, but you see where this is going. She's trying to "save" him from his indulgences, maiden to prince, and bring him to a normalcy. But, the first round is a big "fail," and she exits through those shuttering elevator doors, a clear visual "no" as the movies can present. The situation is unseemly, but I like that the character makes that choice, however too-optimistic her expectations may be. You find positive messages in all sorts of weird places.

And (if I may be indulged) can I venture to critique Grey's technique (beyond the kinky stuff)? There's no finesse, no foreplay, no interaction, it's just too direct and ham-fisted. His spanking (with hands) has no snap to it. Nothing has any "snap" to it. Verdict: the movie Christian Grey is no fun in bed. If I were her, I'd throw his own (borrowed) line back at him.

"Laters, baby."

* Well, it's Seattle in the aerial shots—you can tell because it's gray and traffic-jammed—the rest of it was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Seattle's cheaper stand-in, as downtown Seattle doesn't have any curved streets, but is on a strict, though slightly cattywampus grid, and because Anastasia is able to find actual parking on the street.

** Apparently, given the next two books in the series, it's because he is less than neurotic or vengefully insane than everybody else in the world.

*** It started as "Twilight" fan-fiction, evidently, that was posted to a site for such things (until author Stephanie Meyer asked for it to be removed), then, after characters and situations altered in a comprehensive re-write, made it's way to e-books and self-publishing before become a phenom'.