★☆☆☆☆
One Star

‘Paul W. S. Anderson’s ‘historical’ epic lacks the character development, the plot imagination and the emotional depth to adequately convey any sense of meaningful tragedy’

The most emotionally moving facet of The British Museum’s 2013 Pompeii Exhibition was its final rooms, where the famous plaster casts of victims were displayed. Human forms writhed in agony, their tendons excruciatingly contracting in the unbearable heat. One woman lay face down, surrounded by her jewellery; a family sat together where they died, mother and father flung backwards, child curled up on the floor; a soldier lay stricken next to his sword. This is heartbreakingly poignant stuff.

How is it then, that with Pompeii, Paul W. S. Anderson has managed to create a ‘historical’ disaster movie that actively degrades this material? Emotion is severely lacking in this ‘swords and sandals’ Titanic-remake. One of the most arrestingly tragic events of all time has been reduced to well-worn cliché, to a derivative monstrosity of commercial enterprise that is mildly offensive and only sporadically entertaining.

Game of Throne’s Kit Harington stars as Milo, a rugged Celt who finds himself thrust into Pompeii’s violent gladiator school after his horseman tribe is slaughtered by Senator Corvus’s army. Predictably, Milo befriends hulking fellow prisoner Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and falls in love with the comely Cassia (Emily Browning), an upper-class beauty fed up with the barbarism of Rome and (surprise, surprise) also pursued by the malevolent Senator Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland). Vesuvius’ rumbles ominously throughout, until it erupts spectacularly, throwing Pompeii into chaos and our star cross’d lovers to flee for their lives.

The lack of chemistry between all involved is laughable at times. Harington’s attempt at implying a brooding depth of character extends to speaking in a husky voice and balefully staring at everyone/everything. Browning is only marginally more engaging; she does a good job of being smitten by Milo’s horse-whispering compassion but is wholly unconvincing as a woman trapped between love and propriety. Sutherland is mildly entertaining but his strange quasi-British accent is extremely off-putting.

A similar lack of depth is found throughout. Any vestige of profundity the plot contains is lost by the sheer lack of emotion conveyed as hundreds of town-folk are burnt alive. The poignancy of Pompeii lies in the personal nature of the tragedy, the realism of the petrified plaster casts, the apparent familiarity of their day to day life. As hosts of supporting characters meet their fiery deaths, their lack of development, far from leaving one gaping at this heart-rending calamity, leaves one mildly disinterested.

Desperately emotionless it may be, Pompeii retains some cinematographic merit for its well-choreographed fight sequences as fantastically impressive CGI eruption. Although its amphitheatre scenes are virtually copied from Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning Gladiator, they are still entertaining for the childishly-enthusiastic 6-year-old inside, as is the gloriously eye-catching Vesuvius.

Relating the events at Pompeii to Tacitus, Pliny the Younger wrote:

‘You could hear women lamenting, children crying, men shouting. Some were calling for parents, others for children or spouses; they could only recognize them by their voices. Some bemoaned their own lot, other that of their near and dear. There were some so afraid of death that they prayed for death. Many raised their hands to the gods, and even more believed that there were no gods any longer and that this was one last unending night for the world.’

With Pompeii, director Anderson has taken this description as the unelaborated basis of his film. Presumably he thought that if enough people ran around screaming with their arms aloft, the harrowing personal stories of Vesuvius’ eruption would be done justice. Pompeii lacks the character development, the plot imagination and the emotional depth to adequately convey any sense of meaningful tragedy.

★★★★☆

Four Stars

Jeremy Saulnier, director of Blue Ruin, is primarily a cinematographer. He is credited with performing that role, the direction, and the writing of the film, and it is not difficult to see how the three intertwine as visual and spoken cues are often complemented by aesthetic choices and colour palette. The first feature film Saulnier has had such control over, Blue Ruin is accomplished and compact, and refuses to compromise on his array of skills.

Ostensibly, the film is a revenge thriller in which initially bearded Dwight (Macon Blair) parts the hair from his eyes and sets out to murder the man who has just finished serving a prison sentence for murdering his parents. His ritualistic shaving is the first moment of clarity in the film, occurring after about ten minutes of intoxicating blue washes, where the audience’s experience mirrors Dwight’s perspective. We watch him drift aimlessly through menial tasks, rummage through bins for food, and eventually settle down to sleep at night in his battered Pontiac, the “blue ruin” of the title. Once the news of the release of Wade Cleland, Jr. filters through, however, his existence is given purpose, and the film too gains direction.

And yet, despite the obvious generic reference point, it would not be a spoiler to note that Dwight gains at least a part of the revenge he sets out for. The purpose of Blue Ruin is to dissect the aftermath of his revenge; examining whether any action that he manages to undertake actually furthers his cause in any productive way. On the level of its plot, Blue Ruin tests the validity of the adage that ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’ by forcing the audience to chew over every mouthful.

Dwight might shave his mass of tangled facial hair in order to create a disguise — he is startlingly transformed — but the lesson of the film seems to be that nothing can alter his pathetic core. One poignant moment of many in this darkly comic film is a scene that begins with Dwight attempting to reason with his sister through the translucent back door, while she potters around her kitchen. Even after discovering that he is a killer, Dwight gains no status in her eyes, and indeed gradually wilts as the film wears on; Blair is impeccably convincing in the role of a man caught up in something he has long since lost any control over. The film strips back many of the masculine, dominant characteristics we might typically associate with a revenge thriller hero, and challenges the clean conclusions of many similar genre flicks.

Blue Ruin’s willingness to wallow in the failures of its protagonist simultaneously excites sympathy and pity, and Saulnier’s handling of Dwight’s narrative arc is sensitive. Ultimately, it is the distance he creates between himself as auteur artist and his project’s character that is most striking; his direction revels in the act of portrayal, rather than the subject it is portraying. Dwight’s flawed revenge is not smooth or clear-cut, and the humour Saulnier displays in enacting it — complete with a farcically messy headshot scene — is what steers Blue Ruin away from self-absorption. Like his symbolic, ruined Pontiac, Dwight’s failures are not romanticised, and neither are they indulged. They are spattered with the blood of revenge, and it gets everywhere.

Films are often considered to be definitive pieces of work. While the restaging of plays is passionately celebrated, peculiarly the industry of movie reboots has been vehemently decried by critics, supposedly symptomatic of a modern-day artistic slump. Despite the general disdain for the enterprise of re-interpreting narratives, the invisible culture guardians seem to grant exceptional ‘reboot privilege’ to one particular figure — William Shakespeare.

This year, there are two major Shakespeare films in production. First is Cymbeline, a contemporary reimagining which moves this lesser known play from Ancient Britain to modern day New York. Starring Ethan Hawke and Ed Harris, Cymbeline is here cast as a grudge war between corrupt cops and a drug-dealing biker gang. Though it sounds ludicrous, one has to admit it’s intriguing. Second in line is the hotly anticipated Macbeth, led by a stellar double act in Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, this is an adaptation that promises to be electric.

With such a plethora of Shakespeare retellings gracing our screens, one witnesses the potential for the reboot as an artistically satisfying endeavour. Admittedly, the ‘Shakespeare license’ has spawned some absolute shockers, and last year’s Romeo and Juliet was head-thumpingly awful. However, 2013 also saw the bitingly funny and genuinely uplifting Much Ado About Nothing. Shooting the film at his home, in 12 days, with actors who are close friends, Joss Whedon’s monochrome vision of the woozy American elite is engineered with a profoundly personal touch.

It’s entirely unlike the formality of Kenneth Branagh’s (equally brilliant) 1993 adaptation, but the world is certainly a better place for having both.

By resisting the idea that any adaptation could be perfect, the history of Shakespeare on film is a singular testament to the medium’s natural capacity for reinterpretation. For example, Lawrence Olivier’s 1944.version of Henry V is unashamedly patriotic, designed to resonate with Second World War Britain. Olivier famously compounded his nationalistic, glorious vision by only shooting the Agincourt battle when the sun was out.

This stands in contrast with Branagh’s 1989 adaptation of the same play, which places Agincourt in a post-Vietnam world. Patrick Doyle’s heart-breaking score, the close-up shots of bodily wounds and the mud-strewn plain all underpin the film’s anti-war sentiment. The scene’s final shot is a stunning tracking shot as Henry carries one of these dead luggage boys across the array of bodies and away from the battlefield. The films are compelling in entirely different ways.

However, it was Baz Luhrmann’s production of Romeo + Juliet in 1996, with its MTV sensibility and filmic thriftiness that set the precedent for cinema as a bold means of reinventing Shakespeare. Consider how the film contains the story within a TV report – just another tragic news-item. It’s a bold opening, only possible in film, in which a seven second montage of 26 rapidly deployed images actually shows us the fated narrative of these ‘star cross’d lovers’, while a CGI statue of Christ is suggestively dwarfed by the buildings of Montague/Capulet business corporations. Cinema provides the opportunity for sensory assaults in a way which corresponds with Luhrmann’s violent, godless Verona.

If reboots have worked so well for Shakespeare, why hasn’t it worked for Hollywood movies? Unfortunately, the process has commonly been a mindless case of profit seeking – which is a shame with a medium that is so ripe for revisiting and rewriting established narratives. Editing, special effects, colour blocking, cinematography, sound design – these are all dynamics used particularly effectively.in film. They are devices that can be used to influence the way that we respond to a text.

In production currently are remakes of 1994’s The Crow, 1990’s Jacob’s Ladder and 1986’s Short Circuit. If these projects were handled with the same care and adventurousness as Shakespeare’s texts have been, Hollywood remakes would be a cause for celebration rather than a sigh.

★★★☆☆

Three Stars

The first things we see of Robyn Davidson are, perhaps unsurprisingly, her sandal-clad feet. But as the opening shot spans upward, we realise that Tracks does not begin at the physical start of the young woman’s journey through the Australian bush and desert. Rather, John Curran’s last film unfolds with an initial, dream-like flashback of Davidson as a young girl, during the personal cataclysm which haunts her throughout the narrative, and is a profound part of her motivation for the extraordinary undertaking. Her drawn-out steps hit the rural dust of her parents’ farmyard, which she is leaving behind after her mother has hung herself, and she prepares to live alone with her aunt, away from her father, her sister, even her beloved dog.

Still, one should not think deduce from this that Tracks is a film solely centred on the psychological origins of Davidson’s record-breaking, and, let’s face it, near-suicidal plan of walking 1700 miles on foot through some of the harshest climactic conditions and least populated expanses of the world. Granted, Mia Wasikowska’s terse voice-over gives fleeting insights into the mental processes which impel her, like the generational “malaise” of her sex and class – the social privilege of a white woman in still segregated, 1970s Australia, which Robinson struggles under like a burden of guilt.

But the bulk of the film consists of an incredibly pared-down, unutterably beautiful recreation of the journey itself. There is no romanticising or elaboration necessary when the camera’s raw material is already so insanely self-sufficient. What is impressive in terms of cinematography is how well they have imbedded the human presence of Davidson into these landscapes, at times swallowing her up like a tiny dot on the brink of disappearing, at times letting her rise from the boiling mirages, a shivering slip of persistent willpower.

Meanwhile, if there is a social or political consciousness in the film, it irrupts abruptly, like an intrusion into the single-mindedness of Davidson’s endeavour – which is odd, given her involvement with the Aboriginal Land Rights movement. Still, questions like racism towards the aborigines are treated with a rawness which mirrors Davidson’s indignation. The violent slap which the white owner of the first hotel bar where Davidson works inflicts on an elderly aborigine who has strayed in may happen just beyond the door frame, but the sound echoes and the camera’s angle gives us the raised arm as it plummets down to contact. Likewise, the first look we get at the 27-year-old Robinson who will trek the astonishing distance is at her sleeping face, as the train which brings her to Alice Springs – her home during the two years of preparation for the journey – pulls into the station. When she hits the dusty high street, a decrepit truck roars past, with four men in the back who hoot and aim physical guns at her with leery laughter.

Nevertheless, the details of Davidson’s biography, and the brief glimpses into the conditions of 1970s rural Australia, remain but the parts of a whole. Tracks is a film which also charts Davidson’s personal evolution during her voyage, and the realisations she comes to through her various attachments, which are all the more significant given her avowed “aloneness”, the overwhelming solitude which her isolating enterprise is a paradoxical attempt to detach herself from. She develops strong, often largely silent ties: with the naturalised Afghan camel farmer Sallay Mohamet, the couple of aged settlers who offer her the rest of their home in the dead of the outback, the chatty, seemingly unbreakable Aborigine elder Mr Eddy who guides her through sacred lands from water point to water point – and, not least, National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan. Their complex relationship is also a significant feature of the film, but I’ll avoid spoilers and keep mum as to its nature.

Tracks is no flawless masterpiece. Some have perhaps rightly argued that it fails to kindle entirely, losing itself at times in an intermittence of aesthetic windings and psychologising scenes. But it is also an undeniably compelling film, full of strength, fear, and blisters. And the humanity at its core, sparingly conveyed by a fantastic cast, along with its lush cinematography, and the fact it is a true story, make it an impossibly stand-out film.

Rory Loveless is on the autobahn to Berlin. For someone who used to be weighed down with the frustration of not being able to play in Sheffield, the success of his band, Drenge, comprising himself and his brother Eoin has taken them places they wouldn’t have imagined. When I ask him to describe the sound of Drenge, he candidly replies that “some people describe it as grimey and garagey — I’m not saying it’s unique — I’m happy to let other people categorise it in whatever way they want.We focus on the songs rather than align them to anything.”

He also isn’t concerned at all about their relatively small following in the rest of Europe “We’re sort of working on the crowds in Europe — the more you play somewhere they bigger they’ll get. It’s pretty good to be frustrated when you’re playing, especially this kind of music, makes you work a lot harder, and do things differently.”

Frustration is a buzz-word when it comes to Drenge. Fed up with not finding work or inspiration in their gap years, they decided to start playing music. “Our parents pushed us to do something — and we started jamming, keeping it up in between school work. People started picking up on the tracks in university, which was really cool.”

But up until they received national attention after being mentioned by MP Tom Watson in his resignation letter from the Shadow Cabinet, they were faced with diffi culties. “As we ventured out into the world, we realised how isolated we were. We found it really hard to play gigs in Sheffield to begin with, and that was a way we expressed ourselves. I guess it was just teen angst, not directed at anyone specifically. But it was as if we didn’t exist. We wanted to exist.”

And nobody could have anticipated their success. He admits that things are still slightly haphazard. “Everything has just been thrown together up to this point, so we’d quite like to plan ahead now a bit better.” Certainly their distinctively gritty brand of rock has developed as they have moved to playing music full-time: “The track listing on the album was chronological to how we recorded the songs. The last few were written about a year and a half after those at the start of the album. “The last few songs are more like the stuff we hope to do in the future, the ones I’m most proud of on there.”

He states that, while it is difficult to speculate what kind of music they see themselves playing in the future, he sees subjects moving away from angst and more towards personal issues. “It will have strong imagery in lyrics andemotion, but maybe less angry, harsh rock, and more thoughtful stuff .”

Loveless also admits that there is still work to be done, “I’d say more and more the stuff we played early on has had an influence on us. It’s all about drawing on our experiences, such as playing in my dad’s jazz band at one point and doing gigs in village halls organised by one our teachers. I feel as though we’ve learnt how to play instruments a bit better,” he chuckles, “we’re still figuring out how to play together as a band.”