★★★★☆

Four Stars 

Last week’s exclusive iPlayer release of the bold new documentary by Adam Curtis, Bitter Lake, makes it nearly a four year gap since we were last gifted a full-length film by Curtis. During that period, following the debut of the three-part All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace in 2011, Curtis fans have had to make do with scraps: small five-minute features on Rupert Murdoch and ‘non-linear war’ for Charlie Brooker’s yearly Screenwipes, as well as characteristically rambling posts on his eclectic BBC blog (the more devoted might also have made the trip to Manchester to witness his collaboration with Massive Attack live in 2013).

Curtis is the great chronicler of postmodern chaos and he returns – if not on our televisions, at least our computer screens – in triumphant fashion, with a sprawling, beautiful treatise on the collapse of what he calls the ‘ordered world’, told chiefly through the prism of Afghanistan. It’s a frightening vision, but Bitter Lake is both visually arresting and deeply human.

“We live in a world where nothing makes any sense,” Curtis begins the film by declaring. “Those in power tell us stories to help us make sense of the complexity of reality. But those stories are increasingly unconvincing and hollow. This is a film about why those stories have stopped making sense, and how that led us in the West to become a dangerous and destructive force in the world.”

It says much about Curtis’ filmmaking, and the strength of his aesthetic identity, that his documentaries lend themselves so easily to parody. There is certainly a house style. In Bitter Lake, Curtis doesn’t depart from the trademarks that make his films so instantly recognisable. Like his other recent works, it comprises his narration over footage excavated from deep within the BBC archives and elsewhere. It is, however, far longer, running slightly over two hours.

There is, as in his other films, the same predilection for the Arial typeface, all in capital letters, the characteristic fondness for juxtaposition and, of course, the very Curtis-like taste for both the surreal and the sentimental: truly bizarre looking footage of the Afghan version of The Thick of It is cut alongside poignant scenes of a father and his war-injured daughter. The effect is jarring.

Curtis briefly tutored Politics at Oxford before foregoing its cloistral hush for a weird kind of in-house position at the BBC and his films, appropriately enough, resemble intricately crafted essays. They generally begin the same way: Curtis disclosing his central argument, expounded over beautifully cut footage, before noting some crucial qualification (“But this was a fantasy…’”) He delights in contradiction and in the marriage of incongruent sound and image: in one scene Curtis tells us of a coup in Afghanistan, accompanying that with footage of play-fighting Afghan hounds. It doesn’t feel forced.

Bitter Lake covers much of the same ground as Curtis’ earlier works. Though mainly about Afghanistan, the film also detours into a story about the rise of neoliberalism and how oil money allowed banks to escape from the clutches of political regulation, echoing parts of The Trap and All Watched Over. This wouldn’t be a documentary by Curtis if Blair, Reagan or Thatcher didn’t feature and rather predictably they do, as Curtis rails against the ruthlessly simplified moral fables of good-versus-evil told to us by those in power in one of the documentary’s many interesting subplots.

Given that Curtis is so emphatic on the need for us to avoid simplifying reality, it is kind of odd of him to attribute the source of our modern disorder to one sketchy meeting between FDR and the King of Saudi Arabia (above a lake from which the film derives its name). Ultimately, however, Bitter Lake’s excellence comes not from the coherence of its narrative, but from the sheer aesthetic spectacle it provides. Curtis really is a collage artist of the highest order. And, besides: so what if his own story doesn’t make sense? It’s the kind of paradox one feels that Curtis would be proud of.

★☆☆☆☆

One Star

“Johnny Depp is Mortdecai!” proclaimed the posters promoting this latest star vehicle for the prolific actor. That much is certainly true – Depp is the film, or at least, the only reason for this bizarre, misjudged and pointless romp to exist. A vanity piece from top to bottom, the film struggles to find a purpose as it trudges from set piece to set piece. These occasionally well constructed scenes serve to provide more opportunities for Depp to wear out his trademark tics and oblivious bemusement which have blighted cinema screens for the best part of a decade.

Mortdecai’s plot centres around our titular hero and his hangers-on, who are attempting to recover a stolen painting in an adventure that takes them around the world from London to Moscow and even to Oxford. Yet this plot is really just the means to contrive scenes for the talented cast to raise their eyebrows sarcastically and wink at the audience. It’s thoroughly unsatisfying.

The film has absolutely no sense of danger – Mortdecai is the film, so his success is unquestionable. A particularly ridiculous scene sees our hero jump through a window several stories up, only to bounce up off the street below completely unharmed. This cartoon-like quality attempts to heighten the film’s comedy, but merely acts to rob the thin narrative of any excitement. Worse still, a late third act reveal negates the purpose of almost the entire preceding hour. Not only does the film insult the audience’s intelligence, it undermines their good-will too.

Ostensibly a comedy, though you’d be forgiven for not knowing it, Mortdecai’s ill-founded faith in the lovability of both its protagonist and its lead actor is almost tragic. No one has wanted to see Depp in these films since Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, as attested to by the abysmal reception the film received at the box office. It’s almost heartbreaking to see such a great film actor drowning under a lazy performance that’s more irritating than engaging. Furthermore, the film never seems to give us a reason to like Mortdecai – he’s a bumbling incompetent aristocrat clinging to notions of his masculinity as much as he is his inherited title and squandered wealth. It’s very hard to care.

The out-of-place aristocrat trope gives the film a farcical sensibility, particularly in one of the film’s more amusing sojourns to Los Angeles, whilst whizzy CGI scene transitions illustrate the globe trotting exploits of our protagonist. Presumably an attempt to liven up the film’s theatricality, their distracting cheapness ends up detracting from the film’s other limited stylistic aspirations. Amongst the starry supporting cast, Gwyneth Paltrow is perfectly cast as Mortdecai’s haughty high society wife. She plays perhaps the film’s most engaging character, with her defining motivation being to rid her husband’s visage of his ludicrous moustache – understandable if trivial. Her incredible line reading of “darling they are in cahoots” was one of the two laughs the film got from this reviewer.

Poorly conceived and ultimately exhausting, Mortdecai is a waste of talent, money and most importantly your time. Hopefully the film’s failure will encourage Depp to return to the arthouse, so we’ll be saved from watching as he, just like the character of Mortdecai, degrades himself for big cheque after big cheque.

Any seasoned student who enjoys a cheeky beverage from time to time will know that there are few things more annoying in life than last orders. Even more annoying is when the impending last call is drawn that slight bit closer by an aggressive global pandemic.

The George and Dragon is a piece of new writing that doesn’t mind laughing at universal sickness and doesn’t make you feel too bad if you do too. Set in a local pub, the piece takes a look at the lives of The George’s regulars as they drink and dance off death by global virus. Mixing together various different archetypes, writers Michael Comba and Sami Ibrahim have produced a real dirty-pint of a performance. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. Fusing crude farce, tragedy and comedy, the piece journeys through vignettes of the musical, stand-up, silent-movie and Talking Head documentary variety – enough, surely, to go straight to anyone’s head.

But it’s bleak, really. The George and Dragon pub, once a thriving social hub, now faces closure because all of its customers are dead. Or dying. Or off somewhere talking about how they’re all going to die. Forced to re-open as a local community centre, the rowdy watering hole ironically takes on a new lease of life. Opening with a classroom scene performed with all the painful dumbing-down of fairy-tale didacticism, it’s from the edge of our stool that we learn to stay away from the “big, nasty, evil germ Jemima”, who kills with a single cough. This is, of course, delivered alongside the slightly less sensitive guideline that any diseased “smug cunt that thinks he can go on living” should be shot point-blank. It’s a promising start to what is likely to shape up to be a real ‘corker’ of a performance (pun fully intended).

The real warmth and camaraderie of the cast will no doubt contribute to the sense of false comfort achieved amidst an inviting pub atmosphere, perfectly suited to the intimate space that is the BT studio. Swept away by outbursts of My Fair Lady, Grease and ‘Purple Rain’, as the musical vignette ensues like a really perky round of karaoke, it’s easy to forget that there’s a rather bloody pandemic going on outside and that what you’re watching is actually quite dystopian.

And this was kind of the intention, according to Ibrahim, who inspired by a love of crappy 1950s sci-fi films – “You know the type with too tight a budget to shoot an actual alien invasion so people just run into the room and tell you about it instead” – wanted to play with this kind of comic, narrative frame. The use of other genres as well has “a vaguely pretentious explanation”, he says, but it’s “mainly just that every good play needs a gimmick.”

Starting out as a pub sketch-show, the writers have instead concocted something with a little more kick. Yet, despite the hilarity of cast performances, particularly from Daisy Buzzoni’s hearty landlady turned stand-up comedienne, the play is not without it’s depth and darkness, and looks to draw upon the absurdity of human experience when faced with the threat of real civil strife. It’s just that the hysteria is often pretty hysterical, too.

The George and Dragon promises “pints and pandemics” at the Burton Taylor Studio during 4th Week.

Yes, I know, another article about celeb­rity and modern culture. Zeitgeist in my sights; hit, sunk. And what’s this? A secondary narrative about celebrities being hypocritical? My god, I have my hand so firmly on the public’s pulse. But trust me, I’ve got something really interesting to say. Look, I’ve even made up a word: ‘anti-celebrity’.

Mystery has always captivated our imagi­nations, and there’s nothing so seemingly enigmatic as a celebrity who rejects their own fame. Marlon Brando epitomised this for the previous generation, what with his antics at the 1973 Oscars and his widespread reputation as an impossible person to interview. Taking an altogether more bellicose approach, Oliver Reed didn’t so much reject his fame, as maul it, chew it up and spit it back out, into the faces of interviewers and women’s liberation campaigners alike.

But at least Brando and Reed did that ‘Being famous is ridiculous’ shtick with an undeni­able sense of cool and panache. Others have not fared nearly as well. Alec Baldwin’s rela­tionship with celebrity can only be described as a car crash in very slow motion. Baldwin has repeatedly railed against being placed, he claims unwittingly, into the glaring public spotlight; that he never wanted his every move and word to be written down and reported on.

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I completely sympathise with that, because it’s not like he’s a world-famous actor, news­paper columnist, talk-show host, or author of his own upcoming memoirs and other books. How could he possibly have known that very restrained level of exposure would have meant he was recognised in the street? Although, he could probably have thought ahead about the impact of being arrested for riding his bike against the traffic on Fifth Avenue. Because that’s just silly.

I can’t sympathise with Shia LaBoeuf. His meltdown was as public as it comes, even including turning up to a film brief modelling a paper bag over his head, which had written on it, “I’m not famous anymore.” Which is oh so very meta. Am I meant to feel sympa­thetic that he became famous? What exactly did he think was going to happen by starring (I’m purposefully avoiding describing his role as acting) in the Transform­ers franchise? And for the record, Shia, trying to atone for your sins by doing a string of niche, hipster art projects doesn’t erase the fact you were in a film series that had to have a trademark symbol in the title.

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This outspoken dismissal of celebrity can be seen as a way of solving the paradox of being, simultaneously, an artist and a businessper­son. Prior to the commercialised Disneyland that we now inhabit, it was far easier to maintain artistic endeavours for their own cul­tural ends. But now, artistic intent has to be balanced with economics. There’s no such thing as creating an album, or a film, for its own sake. There is always a financial corollary. Hence, ‘artists’ are now trapped in the purgatorial no man’s land of trying to appear genuine whilst also flogging their wares.

That paradox wouldn’t be so problematic if it weren’t carried out in such a disin­genuous way. Kanye West has had innumerable fracas with paparazzi and journalists for invading his personal life to an excessive degree. Fair enough. But he doesn’t complain when that ‘unwanted’ exposure leads to mas­sive boosts to his music and clothing-line sales. Banksy maintains his persona of a true ‘artiste’, by not gaining financially from the sale of his street art, and yet made a feature-length film in 2010. Are we meant to believe that wasn’t motivated by the brand value of labelling it a Banksy film?

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And let’s not forget the eminent hypocrisy of decrying fame and yet maintaining galling levels of exposure online. How can you com­plain about being too much in the public eye, and yet have your own website, Facebook page, Twitter, and Instagram? That may be what’s needed to remain in the public consciousness, but it entirely blurs the line between neces­sary and excessive levels of celebrity.

Sia has trod the knife-edge routine of rejecting fame better than most. Despite writing a staggering number of the pop hits of the last five years and her most recent album debuting at No. 1 on the US charts, she has explicitly rejected her fame. She rarely performs live, hence why she doesn’t tour, and when she does, she does so with her back to the audience. She has spoken, in terms eerily reminiscent of dialogue from The Dark Knight, about creating a symbol in the blonde bob wig she, and the performers in her videos, don that means she doesn’t need to be recognised in person. As she said in an interview, all she wants to do is “get fat and pee on the side of the road”. Which is fine. But you really didn’t need to write six best-selling albums to do that, did you Sia?

The USA is a country riddled with prob­lems. At the risk of echoing the hyperbole of that Fox News segment, it is a country of over 300 million people where inequality, unfairness, and corruption are rife. The little people are constantly being fucked over by big, faceless corporations and, of course, by the government.

Guns, inaccessible healthcare, racism, sexism, wealth inequality – all are prevalent problems facing modern-day America. And one man has arguably done more than anyone else to draw attention to them.

Michael Moore began making documenta­ries in 1989 with Roger & Me, which examined the emotional and economic repercussions of General Motors transferring its factories from Flint, Michigan, to Mexico in search of cheaper labour.

Already, the characteristics of Moore’s idio­syncratic film-making are visible. He works from a populist perspective, revealing the dev­astating effect of moral bankruptcy on the lives of everyday people through harrowing interviews, and adopt­ing a faux-naivety when narrating and interviewing that empha­sises the lack of humanity of the individuals and organisations he attacks. It is evocative stuff.

Over the subsequent decade, Moore produced films, TV pro­grammes and books satirising and criticising various aspects of ‘the man’. It was in 2002, however, with the award-winning Bowling For Columbine, that he first approached the issue of gun violence.

Focussing his argument on the Columbine massacre of April 1999, in which two seniors shot dead 12 other students and a teacher before committing suicide, Moore examines with arresting clarity the problematic nature of America’s relationship with guns.

With Bowling For Columbine, Moore is at his righteous, yet eternally placid, best. He never betrays his anger, but simply maintains his recognisable brand of false ignorance, either when childishly asking a suit from an arms manufacturer about weapons of mass destruc­tion, or when questioning Marilyn Manson on why people found it easier to blame him for the Columbine massacre instead of America’s culture of “fear and consumption”.

There are some truly sickening moments, particularly for us liberal Brits. One scene, in which Moore receives a free rifle simply for opening a bank account is particularly memo­rable, as is a moment when Moore resorts to flatly stating worldwide gun crime statistics.

“How many people are killed by guns each year? In Germany, 381. In France, 255. In Canada, 165. In the UK, 68. In Austra­lia, 65. In Japan, 39. In the US, 11,127.”

Moore asks the question with his characteristically innocent style, then answers it in the most devastatingly effective way possible. Bowling For Columbine is a compelling, thought-provoking, and arguably world-chang­ing documentary, and its success reflected this. It became the highest-grossing mainstream documentary of all time, only to be relieved of that accolade by Moore’s 2004 film, Fahrenheit 911, which exam­ined the 2003 invasion of Iraq.