★★★☆☆
Three Stars

After eighteen years, actor/producer Jeff Bridges has finally accomplished what he set out to do to do: transform Lois Lowry’s beloved novel, The Giver, into a feature film.

To this day I recall sitting at my sixth grade desk, discovering aloud the significance of dystopian collectives, authoritarianism and euthanasia, since elders in the English department wisely championed Lois Lowry’s 1994 Newbery-winner as required reading. Predominantly faithful to its source, the film follows a teenage Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) tasked with the burden of becoming the Receiver of Memory under the tutelage of the shadowy Giver (Jeff Bridges) in a contained, superficially utopian community. Though held together by a talented ensemble cast, tenuously arranged emotional beats and overtly constructed scenes result in an adaptation that meanders in the elsewhere between mediocrity and evocative drama. 

In his commune devoid of hatred, villainy and Tinder, Jonas must acquire and retain banished memories in the event the elders (led by Meryl Streep) might one day require his counsel. His training exposes him to unbeknownst qualities like color, and concepts like eros and family (fortunately, not at the same time). His ignorance compromised and his heart aching with passion, he concludes that this is no utopia; rather, it’s a calculated sociological experiment suppressing humanity’s most visceral elements—the good with the bad. Jonas alone begins to understand that he was assigned parents who enjoy him yet do not love him, for they know not how; since love, in any manifestation, holds no existence due to its inextricable association with pain. And there will be none of that.

The novel’s introspective prose makes for a daunting theatrical adaptation, as evidenced by the films desperate reliance on voiceover in hopes that Lowry’s literary touch might permeate the new medium. And though the filmmakers certainly capture the essence of the story, much of the dialogue seems constricted. Director Phillip Noyce extracts many of the novels intricacies in favor of preserving a Hunger Gamesian rhythm, which, in print is appropriately reserved only for the novels climactic ascension. Often we are whisked out of emotional investment in a beautifully performed and visually spectacular scene in a roaring wave of superfluous tempo, subjected to the irregular cadence of an impatient directorial ebb and flow. It is this, more so than its negotiated dialogue, which inhibits The Giver.

My own memory failing me, I cannot recall with any measure of certainty whether the novel featured aerial drones so ubiquitously. The movie’s visual design in such respect is surprisingly topical and still hauntingly dystopian, showcasing all the traditional conventions of the genre: a drained color scheme capturing soulless monoliths encircled by dismal atmospheric considerations. Performances by Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep—not so surprisingly—command attention and exude the rare, unannounced confidence of master artisans. Brendon Thwaites plays a convincing Jonas (although he is considerably older than his literary counterpart) and a brunette Taylor Swift appears out of thin air just in time to say hello, though she does so with aplomb.        

The ingredients are undeniably there. In rare instances I found myself absorbed. Lost in something resembling foregone childhood awe for lessons unfolding before me. The Giver reminds us, in the face of incalculable societal problems, that good exists in this world. This was the film talking.

Or maybe it was only an echo.

Following two highly successful exhibitions on Lichtenstein and Matisse, the Tate Modern is currently home to a retrospective on the work of Kazimir Malevich. The Russian artist may not be as much of a household name as some of the other artists whose work has graced the factory-chic environs of the gallery, but he is equally, if not more, important than them in the history of 20^th century art.  The exhibition, spanning 12 rooms, is extensive enough to show the different phases in the artist’s development, which had plenty of different ‘isms’: Modernism, Cubism, Futurism and Suprematism.

Malevich was first exposed to European art in his mid-twenties when he attended a series of exhibitions in Moscow, displaying the works of French artists, such as Matisse, Manet and Cézanne. The influence of these artists on his early work, shown in the first room of the exhibition, is keenly felt. For example, Self Portrait (1908-10) possesses the bold tones and supple shapes characteristic of Gaugin. At this time, his paintings were also steeped in religious imagery, such as in his iconographic Assumption of a Saint (1907-8) and Shroud of Christ (1908). 

In reaction to Russian artists’ reliance on the Western avant-garde, Malevich and his contemporaries started to forge a specifically Russian form of modernism. He particularly focused on the image of the peasant, often seen as the embodiment of the Russian soul. Starting to form his own painterly style, Malevich made his figures simple and cumbersome, a type of painting with almost child-like naivety. Rather than breaking away from Western influences, Malevich manipulated them, merging the dynamism of Italian Futurism with the fractured perspectives of French Cubism and relating them to Russian themes – pastoral scenes and peasants. The outcome is peculiar.

The fourth room shows Malevich’s gradual path toward abstraction. In the early 1910s he collaborated on a Futurist opera, “Victory over the Sun”, which explored the breakdown of language and reason. The extract from the opera’s revival production in 1981 in New York is highly amusing – figures clad in Malevich’s geometric costumes prance around the stage singing a libretto of nonsensical sounds, like “ka…kakakaka”. This dissolution of reason led him to his phase of alogical paintings, the most famous example of which, An Englishman in Moscow (1914), features a big white fish, a tiny monastery, a red wooden spoon and some mysterious fragments of text. If there is meaning in it, it is hard to find.

The canvas of another alogical painting entitled War, conceived in response to the outbreak of WWI, was reused to create Malevich’s most radical and most famous work, the Black Quadrilateral. It is exactly what its title suggests: a square painted in black. Interestingly, Malevich dated the painting at 1913, even though it was actually painted in 1915, showing his belief in the birth of art at conception, rather than execution. This philosophy of art was formally defined as the ‘idealist theory’ by R.G. Collingwood in his book, The Principles of Art, in 1938 – one of the many ways in which Malevich was ahead of his time. Though simple in form, the painting is complex in meaning. With its simultaneous absence and presence, expressiveness and concealment, it questions the meaning of art itself. 

This painting is not only iconic, but iconographic: it was placed in the upper corner of the room, the place traditionally occupied by Orthodox icons when it was first exhibited in The Last Exhibition of Futurist Painting 0.10, the curation of which is recreated in the Tate exhibition. The other twelve paintings in this 1915 display, nine of which are on show at the Tate, are eclectically strewn across the wall, mirroring the disjointed nature of the ‘Suprematist’ works themselves, which contain basic geometric shapes – squares, crosses, lines – in prime colours. Here, curation becomes as important as the art itself. Some people interpreted the placement of Black Quadrilateral as a blasphemous provocation, however this is unlikely, as it was around this time that icons began to be regarded as works of art, rather than simply sacred objects.

Towards the end of the 1910s Malevich’s Suprematism reached its natural extreme. White Suprematist Cross (1920-1) saw an end to depictions of visible forms, an end to painting, coinciding with the dissolution of the autocratic rule which Russia had known for centuries. Malevich famously declared: “painting died, like the old regime, because it was an organic part of it.” The changing political environment compelled Malevich to become a teacher in Vitebsk, in modern-day Belarus. Along with his group of faithful disciples, he took Suprematism to an architectural level, adorning buildings and streets with its characteristic geometric shapes, like a proto-Banksy.

Where could Malevich’s art go next after it had been reduced to its barest form? The final two rooms of the exhibition show the last stage of Malevich’s career – a surprising return to figuration. His depiction of rural scenes took on a particular poignance under Stalin’s punitive regime with the brutal ‘collectivisation’ process and massacre of rich farmers, the ‘kulaks’. His images of the peasant, formerly so evocative, became faceless and dislocated. It seemed like a complete return to his early style: the portrait of his mother is highly reminiscent of that of his father, painted 30 years before. However, he had not forgotten everything that Surpematism had taught him. Malevich’s portraits may have evoked Renaissance Florence, but he tellingly signed them off with a little black square, quite literally his signature move.

Though the black square was banned by the Stalinist regime and not re-exhibited until the 1980s, it lived on in the popular imagination, understated yet immensely symbolic. Though I went to the exhibition on the day it opened, it was fairly empty. On a selfish level I was happy – there are few things more frustrating than an over-crowded exhibition. But I was also surprised. This retrospective is beautifully curated, down to the mustard-yellow colour of the walls, which complements the hues of the paintings. More importantly, it commemorates one of the most talented, diverse and important artists of the 20^th century. If there is anything on your cultural to-do list this summer, it should be this. 

★★★★☆
Four Stars

As a go-abroad sequel to a go-abroad spin-off, The Inbetweeners 2 looked doomed to failure. Its tackily self-referential teaser trailer (“Fire wankers!”) prepared us for a catchphrasey, regressive trudge over the same old ground. The result is cringeworthy. But not in the way you might expect.

Watching the first film was an oddly comfortable experience. The situations may have been extreme and the swearing inventive, but they felt plagiarised from the TV series, awkwardly bloated when stretched onto the big screen. The writers seemed to assume that fans would laugh at the word ‘clunge’ because saying ‘clunge’ was funny in season two.

The second feels like more of a risk. It’s less quotable, for one thing, and there are moments of genuine tenderness and feeling – the show’s “Morning, benders” machismo has always been transparently hollow, but the sequel allows us to see through this self-conscious swagger to the insecurities and sadness of the adolescent.

This is balanced, naturally and rightly, with moments of excruciating crudity. In one scene set in a water park, Will (Simon Bird) is chased down a water slide by a shit. He gets caught. His bespattered face and spectacles, crestfallen and vomiting, fill one half of the screen, while a terrified stampede of fleeing tourists occupies the other.

This is a powerful scene. No, really. It’s a defining moment for the unspontaneous, pseudo-intellectual Will of this film, a lonely university fresher who seems lost without the reassuring superiority he has always felt over his friends. In desperation, he has accompanied them to Australia, and receives unlikely attention from his prep-school sweetheart, Katie (Emily Berrington). In his search for self-assurance, he neglects his friends, pretends to like his enemies, starts using ‘man’ as a greeting. His principles are suspended and his manners contrived; her affection is all he has left. The shit in the water park is therefore a strangely uplifting counterpoint to this pretension, casting him ingloriously back to earth. And that’s how a poo-covered, vomiting fresher, played by a 30-year old actor, in a sequel to a film that should probably never have been made in the first place, can be the hilarious and tragic, unwatchable and irresistible hero of a compelling moment of cinema.

This combination of vulgarity and feeling is effective, but it isn’t sustained. If Will is well-observed and likeable, the supporting characters are largely one-dimensional: lazy, gap-yah stereotypes; beer-swilling, misogynistic Australians; backgroundless, unlikeable women. The absence of interesting female characters is particularly disappointing in a film that’s otherwise surprisingly culturally literate (no, really).

But then again, The Inbetweeners 2 was never trying to be a perfect or a polished film, and nor should it. Its low-budget, sixth-form common room roughness has always been at the centre of its charm. And there are lots of jokes. And most of them are really funny. 

You’re a first time independent filmmaker with a great story but no money. Up until recently, this all too familiar scenario would have seen you approach any number of investors, businesses, studios or grant schemes in order to acquire a budget to turn your film into a reality. But just as your vision was being funded, it was also being diluted, by the investors and producers with one eye on an artistic vision but with another on the demands of the market, and ultimately their bank accounts.

The last few years, however, have seen a seismic shift in how independent and first time film makers get bankrolled as a result of the emergence of crowd funding websites such as Kickstarter, which allow anybody from across the world to finance your film in incremental amounts based only on a pitch. This is usually done in return for just a T-shirt and possibly a digital copy of the film once it’s completed. These sites have empowered aspiring film makers, but also upset the investor-filmmaker-audience paradigm in a way that has attracted the attention of the profit hungry studios and their subsidiaries.

The growth of Kickstarter has been incredible. Founded in 2009, the site has to date funded independent film projects to a tune of over $190 million. The site’s alumni have comprised over 10% of the films exhibited at The Sundance Film Festival for the last three years in a row, and the site has had its hand in some of the biggest independent hits of the last five years. From recent dark comedy and critical darling Obvious Child to the genre success of last year’s Blue Ruin, the site has launched numerous success stories and provided a great way for first time directors to tell their stories.

Kickstarter has also become a haven for documentary filmmakers, with the $190 million split almost equally between fiction and non fiction projects. However, last year’s well regarded Room 237, which explored elaborate explanations of Kubrick’s The Shining, illustrates the general trend of many of the non-fiction projects to tend towards geek culture, as with the recent release of Video Game: The Movie, a documentary exploring the gaming industry from a variety of angles. Apart from these successful features, directors of short films, a format notable for its almost guaranteed unprofitably, have found the site incredibly receptive. This has made Kickstarter a go-to resource for first time productions or student filmmakers who are eager to establish their filmographies with financial resources but limited pressure.

Predictably, the site’s success at engaging an audience of amateur financiers has attracted the attention of big business, and with it, questions have arisen about the equity of the Kickstarter model. Established names have always dabbled with the site – Paul Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis funded the Lindsay Lohan vehicle The Canyons through the site in 2012 – but it wasn’t until the $6 million success of the Veronica Mars film project, which revived the long dead TV series starring Kristen Bell, that Hollywood really began to take notice. Fans were told that the Veronica Mars campaign was the last shot at making the film, that Warner Bros. had definitively passed on financing it. That the fan funded film was then distributed by Warner Bros. left a sour taste in many people’s mouths. Whilst Warmer Bros. counted their profits thanks to their extremely limited investment, fans were left with a copy of the film they’d invested in and perhaps a limited edition hoody.

This discontent reared its head a few months later, when Zach Braff’s kickstarter for a “spiritual sequel” to his 1999 cult smash Garden State seemed opportunist to many. That a well liked and by all accounts extremely wealthy sitcom actor and proven director couldn’t find funding for a sophomore feature seemed unlikely to many, and accusations of profiteering were levelled at Braff. When the film was later acquired for distribution in a multi-million dollar deal by the speciality division of Universal it seemed to many that Kickstarter had become just another cog in the corporate side of speciality film distribution.

The problems inherent in the increased presence of celebrity and Hollywood on Kickstarter are two fold. Firstly, the high profile projects which attract significant media attention threaten to drown out the visibility of filmmakers for whom the site represents a real last resort. The site is a lifeline for groups traditionally marginalised by Hollywood, such as female, queer and ethnic minority voices who genuinely face incredible obstacles in acquiring funding and attracting an audience to their work, and to whom establishing an audience though a Kickstarter campaign is vital.

Secondly, Kickstarted films are funded by people who have no stake in the film’s success. When financing microbudget films with little commercial appeal, the lack of equity stake seems relatively unimportant, particularly when the upside is an independent filmmaker’s dream – a pre-established audience, money and artistic freedom. However, when this model is applied to films from directors with enough connection to cast Hollywood A-listers and who later sell their films for millions in upfront payments from distributors, the inequity of the site’s reward structure appears more problematic. Even whilst their high profile project may attract a few more eyeballs to the pages of more transgressive projects, it is hard not to feel that these celebrities are perverting the site’s goals for their own gain and to attach a little more indie credibility to their projects.

The challenge facing the site and those hoping to use it is now to maintain both viability and credibility. The site’s touted 40% funding success rate obviously remains attractive to student and first time filmmakers, but it remains to be seen what the celebrity dalliances of 2013 will do to this statistic. Will it be that the pot of money people use to fund Kickstarter projects with will now gravitate towards the more high profile projects, or will there be a reactive backlash from the independent community? The early signs indicate the latter. Since Victoria Mars grabbed headlines with its record setting success, high profile projects such as Braff’s Wish I Was Here and Spike Lee’s The Sweet Blood of Jesus have drawn increasingly muted responses from the site’s funders, each project surpassing their goals with slimmer and slimmer margins. Furthermore, Lee felt compelled to emphasise his own underground roots in his campaign, hoping to avoid the seismic Twitter storm previously weathered by Braff.

Ultimately, Kickstarter remains an important and effective tool for the creation of low budget original features from emerging and student filmmakers, where artists are able to sell their vision rather than their profitability. Hopefully celebrity’s dalliance with the site will have only brought greater visibility to these emerging talents, and the people who fund them.