There are few things more quintessentially “Oxford” than watching a group of students perform a garden play on one of Christ Church’s sumptuous lawns. So if you’re in search of this kind of evening’s entertainment – and it’s worth having at least once during your time at Oxford – I highly recommend this year’s Christ Church Cathedral Garden Comedy: Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops To Conquer.

She Stoops To Conquer has all the makings of a classic restoration comedy: deception, class politics, mistaken identity and jewel theft, all neatly ending with multiples marriages. Young man-about-town Marlow (Markian Mysko von Schultze is tricked into thinking that the home of his potential betrothed, Kate Hardcastle (Morag Davies) is actually an innkeepers. Meanwhile Mrs Hardcastle (Zoë Hare) wants Tony (Jamie Heredge) to marry Constance (Fatime Al-Kassab) who wants to marry Hastings (Tom Waterhouse).

The cast seem very strong. Hare is very comical as the meddling Mrs Hardcastle. Von Schultze, too, acts with humorous derision towards Mr Hardcastle (Titus Crook), when he believes him to be a lowly innkeeper. Testament to Crook’s acting skill is the fact that during the rehearsal when he forgot the occasional line and had to consult his script, he did so in character.

Director, Lily Slater, has made the decision to update Goldsmith’s Georgian drama to the 1930s, in order to make the play more accessible, without ridding it of its “fabulous costumes”. And indeed, the costumes are wonderful. Excited by arrival of their costumes earlier that day, the male members of the cast donned their velvet jackets, coordinated cravats and paisley waistcoats for their rehearsal.

The costumes are integral to the plot of the play. Marlow and Hastings, as London dandies, take a great deal of pride in their flamboyant attire, with good reason. On the other hand, Mrs Hardcastle, though she endlessly gushes about her love of metropolitan fashion, herself is decked out in a garish and unfashionable frock. Kate’s plain dress becomes the source of a great deal of misunderstanding when Marlow mistakes her for a barmaid.

All of the colours of the costumes, along with the peach-coloured fabric hanging at the back of the set are supposed to bring out the hues of Christ Church gardens, and in particular the large crimson tree, which overshadows the stage. And to complete the Oxford-garden-play experience, during the interval Christ Church bar will be serving drinks– Pimm’s and bellinis – which replicate those in the bar scene of the play.

★★★☆☆

Three Stars

As an exploration of humanity’s creative capacities, Lenny Abrahamson’s Frank, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is a brilliantly thought-provoking triumph. As a film, however, it is disappointingly lacking, wavering between compelling profundity and inescapably dull self-indulgence throughout, saved by Michael Fassbender’s uniquely laudable performance.

Domhnall Gleeson stars as Jon, a floppy-haired loner living with his parents in some hellishly suburban coastal town in the north, whose desire to achieve musical enlightenment , despite his seemingly boundless enthusiasm, always boils down to re-hashed Madness songs with laughably banal lyrics (‘Woman in the blue dress, what are you doing with that bag?’ and the like).

When a dysfunctional indie band with an unpronounceable name (‘Soronprfbs’) arrive in town in need of a keyboard player, Jon jumps at the chance and finds himself locked away with them in a commune-type camp in Ireland, where they attempt to broaden their creative limits and finally record that life-changing album. Michael Fassbender plays Frank, the band’s leader and the film’s eponymous enigma, who wears a large papier-mâché head at all times. As band manager Don (Scoot McNairy) portentously advises both Jon and the audience, ‘just go with it’.

Gleeson is adept as the loveable fish-out-of-water Jon, but his meekness and compliance are at odds with his strident aim of making the band more ‘likeable’, rendering his character slightly unbelievable. Maggie Gyllenhaal is equally proficient, if unpersuasive, as the irritatingly unwelcoming Clara. The intended chemistry between these two polar opposites is apparently demonstrated sufficiently by annoyingly meaningless terse remarks.

It is Fassbender though, who provides the film’s most memorable performance, despite having his face hidden for the vast majority. His body language and intonation are somehow enough to express a great depth of character. With a hunching of the shoulders, or a tilt of the giant head, Fassbender implies convincing emotion, so much so that the static features of the head’s painted face seemingly come alive on occasion. This is a lesson in subtlety; Frank is paradoxically the most believable and engaging character and his presence provides a much-needed centrality to the film. His habit of speaking his facial expressions (‘flattered grin followed by bashful half-smile’) is a rich seam of humour.

For all Fassbender’s commendable skill, however, the film suffers from a lack of coherence and vagueness brought on by self-indulgence. Too much feeling is left unsaid, too much resentment left implicit. One is never sure whether Jon is liked or not, whether Frank is entirely deranged or not, and what exactly the Abrahamson is trying to do. At first, any disinterest as a result of this flaw is staved off by the film’s inherent quirkiness, but as it progresses, disinterest sporadically materialises as boredom and the captivating novelty wanes away.

That said, several thought-provoking motifs continue to be explored with estimable elegance. The well-known fine line between genius and insanity is prominent, along with the need for anonymity for true creative freedom. The audience’s slow realisation that Gleeson’s patently mediocre yet eternally enthusiastic Jon is the unwitting villain of the piece is delightfully drawn out. It raises questions as to the morality of forcing oneself on more-talented others and neatly crystallises the ‘integrity versus likeability’ debate (whether to ‘sell out’ or not) that underlies the whole film.

Ultimately, Frank suffers from a crisis of identity. It is at times hysterically bizarre, at times remarkably profound and at times regrettably tedious. The originality of the film fades fast, and it is left without much to hold it together, besides Fassbender’s exceptional performance and some compelling, at times emotive central themes. 

Animation and international films are perhaps the two hardest genres to try and get out to a wide audience. Animation has always been perceived as too childish for big success, and foreign films are seen as solely the interest of cinephiles and critics. It’s for those reasons that the international success, acclaim and adoration for the films of Hayao Miyazaki is all the more remarkable. This extraordinary Japanese filmmaker, who works entirely in animation, has carved a reputation worldwide for crafting films with such beauty and such gifted story-telling that foreign cinema and animation are finally losing their reputation of being juvenile or exclusive genres of film.

Miyazaki’s most famous work is probably Spirited Away, an extraordinarily original and visually mesmerising tale of a young girl trapped in a fantasy world, trying to save her parents. Although a stunning work in itself, it was when Disney bought the film and marketed it as a real Oscar contender that it got the international audience it so deserved. It went on not only to be the first anime film to ever win an Oscar, for best animation, but was also hailed as one of the greatest animations of all time, up there with even the most canonical Disney works. It remains the most successful Japanese film of all time, and introduced the wider world to the mastery of Miyazaki’s writing and aesthetic vision.

Miyazaki’s previous work was the equally inspired Princess Mononoke, a period drama about a battle between supernatural guardians of the forest fighting the humans seizing and exploiting its resources. As outstandingly beautiful as all of Miyazaki’s films are, the artistry of the hand-drawn animation shone through in the lush, edge-to-edge natural vistas and the elegance of the wolf protagonists. Once bought and marketed by Miramax, this was the first Japanese animation to be widely realised abroad, and was the best advertisement for the quality of Japan’s film industry.

Purely in terms of imagination, his 2005 feature Howl’s Moving Castle is enthralling in its creation of an engrossing fantasty world. The eponymous castle is a masterclass in design and creativity; a hybrid of steampunk fortress, cartoon pirate ship and anthropomorphic detailing. This castle also changes over the course of the film to mimic the changes of the protagonist Howl himself, all eighty plus parts, including a wagging tongue and bird feet, morphing as the film progresses. 

Thanks to Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and his numerous other films, the work of Miyazaki and his company, Studio Ghibli, has become synonymous with storytelling and imagination of an almost unparalleled quality and consistency. But his films are not simply a beautiful visage with little depth. Miyazaki’s work has always confronted poignant and often difficult themes, like man’s relationship with nature, the difficulties of pacifism and feminist issues. Indeed, that his films often star strong, independent female characters shows the pre-eminence of the thematic concerns he raises.

Unfortunately for film fans everywhere, Miyazaki announced he was retiring last year, and his last film, The Wind Rises, was released last week. Very much a farewell masterpiece, The Wind Rises has been labelled by critics as one of the most beautiful films ever made, whilst simultaneously tackling perhaps the most controversial of any themes in Miyazaki’s films. Centred around flight, and the possibilities of aviation, the film shines the spotlight directly on one of the most difficult and challenging periods of Japan’s history; its role in World War II. A perfect example of the intelligent and gorgeous work that Miyazaki has always produced, if you’re going to see just one film this month, make it this – you won’t be disappointed.

Though his retirement is a loss to the worldwide cinematic community, Miyazaki leaves behind a legacy as important for the history of animation as Walt Disney himself or John Lasseter’s work at Pixar. A true director-artist, Miyazaki proved that animation and foreign cinema could not only be as good as other genres, but, as the quality of his films demonstrates, they could, in many ways, be so much better.