‘Uncle Boonmee’ is a completely impenetrable, utterly infuriating bitch of a film. I have seen many weird pieces of cinema in my time, from ‘Last Year In Marienbad’ to ‘Synecdoche, New York’, but nothing has alienated me quite like this managed to. It has to be asked, in all sincerity, who exactly sits on the Jury at Cannes that awarded this nonsense the Palme d’Or? It is films like ‘Uncle Boonmee’ that give arthouse cinema a bad name. Absolutely no amount of appreciation of Buddhist thought, Thai custom or understanding of avant-garde philosophy could prepare you for this ‘film’. The script can’t be much longer than ten pages, and the soundtrack and story are practically non-existent. It’s just absolutely insane, and for all the wrong reasons.

Other than this, there is little left to say. What can possibly be said about a film that gives you a family dinner turning into an encounter with a monkey spirit, who turns up casually claiming to be Boonmee’s son reincarnated – something he accepts with relative ease. How are you supposed to react to a scene showing a woman having underwater sex with a catfish in the middle of Thailand’s wilderness? (Yes, you read right). The film is just a series of balmy accounts of past lives, and not a single one of them comes anywhere close to being comprehensible or signalling any type of meaning.

Parisian critics were appalled despite the Cannes endorsement, and rightly so. Despite seeing ‘Uncle Boonmee’ at the London Film Festival, and thus watching the film at its British premiere, I wasn’t surprised in the slightest when the couple sitting in front of me walked out after an hour. Consider just for a second what this means, because it takes a particular kind of audience to pay £17.50 per ticket to see something this obscure at Leicester Square. And yet even then, there were people that couldn’t hack sitting through the whole thing.

Director Apichatpong, or Joe as he likes to be called over here, said before the film started that he had just flown over from Spain, and there they had considered his film to be a ‘rock and roll’ movie. I’m not quite sure what that means, but intuitively the description is pretty damn absurd. He’s got to be having a laugh here. I decided early on that if the audience clapped at the end – as it is apparently common to do at premiers – then I had been sitting amongst a bunch of phonies. Fortunately, they declined that expected nicety. The joke was on Cannes, but it looks like very few others are falling for it.

You would be forgiven for thinking that Anton Corbijn is comfortable in the world of Hollywood – before he came into Room 114 of the Soho hotel a sweet intern has poured him a cup of tea – but you would be wrong. Starting as a photographer and then going into music videos before he directed his critically acclaimed first film, ‘Contol’, Corbijn is not fully accustomed to the way the film industry works. So when we sit down to talk about his new film, ‘The American’, interviewing him does not feel like being in the presence of a legend, but more a man who is still trying to make a name for himself, though he’s still not quite sure what the name should be.

What are feature films and music videos like compared to photography, which is where you started?

‘Basically the big problem for both is as a photographer it is a single vision, just you and your camera, which is much easier to stay in control of. With anything that involves other people it is much harder not to lose your direction and the more people that get involved the harder it is. It is difficult because I can’t explain my ideas very well. I have them in my head, but the trick of course is to make them understood by others. I’ve learnt that bit now.’

As your background is not strictly feature films, did it seem easier this time, now that you had one film under your belt?

‘My first film [‘Control’] was an independent film that I basically financed myself outside of the film industry. This one was very much in the film industry, in Hollywood, so the way we made it was very different in terms of the way we had to discuss things, which was quite new to me. I made this film differently to ‘Control’ because I wanted to have new experiences that you learn from.’

You had quite a large break between ‘Control’ and ‘The American’ – what attracted you to this one over any others that you might have come across?

‘I had to think what my future would be after ‘Control’. I started to do photography again; I did something for U2, a little film, and then I started reading scripts. It took a year longer than I had wanted to, but saying that, when I made ‘Control’ I always thought it would be the one film I make in my life, because of what it did to me in terms of experience and also in recognition. I felt I should see if I could become a proper director and do another film, in fact another 2 films; this is what I have set myself now, as I want to find out if I can make films or if I want this kind of life. These are all questions you need to ask yourself before starting a project.’

What sort of project were you looking for?

‘I read many scripts that had to do with dark comedies, Westerns, thrillers, because these were the kind of films I wanted to see for myself and I think you should make a film you want to see yourself. I came across this story and I realized I could combine a Western with a suspense thriller, so I could put two genres together into one.’

Is it nerve wracking going into the second film after the massive critical success of ‘Control’, and are you worried about what people think of it or do you just make the film you want to make?

‘Well, if people hate the film I am sure for anyone that is hard to take because you work so long on the project, but I personally don’t think about it so much because ‘Control’ was such a one off, it came so out of the blue. But I have always tried things I don’t know a lot about and try to find my own voice in it. I know that I can’t top ‘Control’ in the critical sense, the recognition was so immense it is just something you can’t aim for. So you make a movie that you want to make and you have to let it go and see how people react.’

Which do you prefer to make, music videos or films?

‘Oh, films, definitely.’

Why is that?

‘I started music videos in ’83 so I have done a lot of them and I think that I have done what I like to do with music videos. Plus I don’t watch these channels anymore and I think it is very hard to make something for a medium that you are not involved or interested in anymore.’

In a way George Clooney is the face of modern American cinema. What made you decide to cast him as the American?

‘Well for starters ‘The American’ comes from an English book called ‘A Very Private Gentleman’, and I wanted the experience I had with this film to be very different from ‘Control’. ‘Control’ had all English actors apart from one who was German, so I decided to change the characters from English to European and American. I thought George would be the best for this role because he can say a lot with very little script. That was very important since there was no dialogue to speak of. Not many people can carry that and keep you interested, but his body language was really good.’

I was quite interested by the love scenes. They were very intense and down to earth which you don’t get much in modern cinema anymore, so what made you decide to show it in an unpretentious way?

‘Well, for start it is a very European film and goes right back to very traditional filmmaking. I felt it was important for the characters to have a sex scene because I wanted to show the aggression and then the change to love during the scene. So I filmed it in a way that you feel sexuality rather than seeing it, which I thought, was important because I know a lot of sex scenes usually don’t feel sexual. You see everything, but it is not sexual. By not showing that much, it will be more sexual; you will feel more what he did to her, which was the idea behind the scene. I am glad it worked well and that Violante is such an amazing actress that she can play that so naturally because it is not an easy role to play. I don’t think it was easy for George either because he never does that in films; you don’t see many love scenes of George Clooney and definitely not a scene like this.’

How does it feel to have one of your films being shown at the London Film Festival?

‘I don’t think I grew up with many expectations and I had no idea what Cannes really meant until I showed my films. I mean the biggest thing I took from Cannes was the realization that film is an industry. The money that goes in there and the people that push your film make it so different to photography. Photography feels like a hobby now, it is very individual, you make a picture and hope that someone will at some point see it. There is no industry there. This is my first experience with the London Film Festival, I have been to Toronto, but I have not London. Toronto I really liked because it had a lot of normal audiences and I think London is really similar to that. It has industry people and the normal audience, which I think is much nicer. Apparently there is a lot of attention to all the films being played which is great.’

You mentioned at the beginning of the interview that you wanted to do three films, and you have just finished your second one. Do you have any idea what you want your third one to be?

‘I am developing that at the moment, but it is too early to give anything away just yet.’

Violante Placido comes into the room looking as stylish, confident and beautiful as you would expect as any Hollywood A-lister. The style and beauty come from her Italian heritage, but the confidence is rather more surprising given she has so few films to her name. Then again, she has acting pedigree, for she is the daughter of actor-director Michele Placido and actress Simonetta Stefanelli, and as such she has been around the film world all her life.

She is here to discuss her new film, ‘The American’, directed by Anton Corbijn, in which she plays the prostitute love interest of George Clooney. Speaking to her now, she does not seem too bothered about acting with, and being naked in front of, one of the world’s sexiest men or that this will be her biggest film to date. Does she not feel a certain pressure?

‘Yes, it is a big film, but I wouldn’t really say this is Hollywood, as the only real major Hollywood aspect of the film is George Clooney. Really this is an independent movie. And also working with this kind of set was much more of a cosy atmosphere, so I didn’t get this feeling of a bit Hollywood production. Anton [Corbijn] is not one for big projects.’

Were you a fan of Anton’s work before you did the film?

‘Yes, I loved the movie ‘Control’, and music is another great passion I have, so I share that with him. All his background with film, music and photography added a lot of interest for me in his work and in meeting him.’

How was it to work with him as a director?

‘He is very subtle and very visual. In this movie he worked with the same team as ‘Control’ so I felt he was very confident in every visual aspect of the movie, and acting-wise we worked in a very profound way, getting into the deep aspect of the soul of the character. Rather than just simply having the stereotype of a prostitute, it was more what this girl is really feeling and how she is relating to her life and to the possibility of a change.’

Clooney is a director as well; did he help out during the takes?

‘Well I did feel very protected, honestly. They already created a wonderful, trustful atmosphere and George is a very nice person. He is very warm and puts everyone at ease. I felt safe and was able to relax and do my best.’

Why did you think your character decided to trust the American?

‘I think that initially what drives these two characters close is the fact that they are so isolated and neither of them can trust anybody. In this way they are similar and their solitudes meet and something happens in that intimate scene and Clara feels something different going through her. Normally when she works [as a prostitute] she will put herself completely aside, but instead this time the alchemy is so strong that she realizes she is feeling something, so she eventually decides to explore that relationship with this man who just appears all of a sudden in this small town.’

Did you feel any pressure on yourself because of all the expectation that has come from taking this role?

‘At the beginning, yes. When I am casting I always look for something that challenges me as an actress. If it actually happens I do get a lot of pressure, which eventually I try to transform and use in my acting.

How did you feel about doing the nude scenes? Many American actresses feel very uncomfortable about doing it, but was it different coming from Europe?

‘It was not my first experience. When I had my first experience it was a little bit tough for me. It really all depends on who you work with and what the character means to you. Although… in a way, you are always naked while acting, using your emotions and parts of yourself to transmit something to the audience. The character sort of helps you go through that and detach yourself as a person from the role. Once you accept to play a prostitute you must also accept that the body will be involved and you can’t judge if you accept it.’

The film feels incredibly tense, what it the same atmosphere whilst filming or was it lighter hearted?

‘Well George made jokes here and there, he was the light part of the movie in between takes.’

What were the most enjoyable moments during filming?

‘We listened to music from George’s iPod or we made stones jump in the river when we were shooting there. It was all very playful and childish which was fun to be a part of.

The film was both set and shot in Italy; were they places you had been to before?

‘It all happened in a region I am very connected to and am very familiar with it since I have friend who lives out there. But I did discover new places that I didn’t know about, so now I really know Abruzzo and I could probably be a tour guide at this point. I do really love the area as it has nature all over it and this makes it very mystical, but is still sort of harsh and isolated. Up in those mountains you can get some beautiful sunrises and the light changes continually, but you can still feel very small and alone with nothing around you.’

Would you think of retiring there?

‘I don’t know how it will feel when I am old. It might be that when I am old I will want to be in a lively place or possibly I will be so elevated that I want to be close to something bigger, God possibly, that I do live in Abruzzo. I can tell you that places like that certainly make you feel closer to something special and give you a lot of good energy.’

How did the locals find it having the crew around all the time?

‘They enjoyed it a lot, and it probably brought a smile to them. That region was the one that had the earthquake that happened just 6 months before we shot; that was another aspect of working there. When we went onto set we would often pass by lots of tents where people were living without homes – it certainly brought you back to reality. But at the same time at least there was something alive going on, something that was putting the story and image of that region into a movie that will stay and people will watch.’

Were many locals used in the film as extras?

‘Yeah, in the procession there was about half of the town. It was really crazy since they were so excited and George was playing jokes on them and they were laughing about everything. They would ask you for pictures and autographs in between takes. So in a really tense scene, when we stopped to change camera, all of a sudden all they wanted was autographs and pictures and then after a while they went back into the role.’

Would you consider this to be your best role so far or is that another one you were more proud of?

‘I am very happy to have been in this movie and I think I have discovered more subtleness in trying to conceive something, so this has been very interesting. But I try to explore myself and give more with each new experience I have. Also this was not such a big role, so I am happy with the work I did in those few scenes.’

Are there any plans for films coming up soon?

‘I am about to start a new project, which I am not allowed to talk about too much, but it is another American movie, so it is very exciting. It is going to be completely different again so I am very happy.’ [The film being referred to is ‘Ghost Rider 2’]

Do you think a lot of opportunities will have arisen out of this film?

‘I knew that ‘The American’ could offer me the possibility and [‘Ghost Rider 2’] came soon after the movie was released. The directors told me they wanted to see me because of ‘The American’; they saw the movie and really enjoyed it. I am quite excited right now.’

Do you think you will be moving over to LA like a lot of stars seem to?

‘I don’t know, now it is possible and so easy to get into movies from other countries. I have an agency in America now, but you can cast from Italy to them, I did it that way for both movies. Eventually I might if I really want to push it and be there during certain periods, but then I could also have an international career by staying in Europe.’

Are you attached to Italy then?

‘Yes, I am quite attached, but I am still a very curious person and I like to travel. I am very happy to have had this opportunity to confront myself and also experience different cultures with different directors because I am, when possible, very open to new experiences. Still I would like to keep working in my country.’

How do your family feel about your success? Have they been very supportive?

‘Yes, they have been very supportive.’

Did you imagine yourself doing anything other than acting or singing? Your father is a director and your mother is an actress so I’m sure that might have persuaded a little?

‘Actually, when I was very young I wanted to sing and act, but when I grew up a little bit more I suddenly had a real refusal; I didn’t want to be an actress and I was going horse riding all the time and wanted to go all the way to the Olympics. I just wanted to do something else. It took me sometime to actually understand and decide to try this career; it didn’t come so easily because I was coming from an acting family.’

When you did decide that you wanted to act did those family connections help?

‘My parents never pushed me to become an actress and I always tried to go on my own. I think in a job like this it is such a personal choice since you are exposing and challenging yourself. People can help you to a point, but you really need to find your own determination. Often though the connections you have if you come from an acting family are just natural. At the beginning when I started my parents helped look for parts for me, which was a great advantage, but after that I took a year out and went to Los Angeles. I needed to know if it was me deciding to do this so I learnt to play the guitar and took some small acting jobs and stuff like that.’

So is playing the guitar a hobby?

‘It is a hobby, but I love it. When I am shooting in hotels I always bring the guitar with me. I use it to write songs for the band and I also sometimes record with it.’

What is the culture in Italy like for celebrities? Over here it is very much that paparazzi are at your door and in your face all the time, is it the same for you?

‘You do get a lot of that in Italy, but in the end it is hardly ever the great actors and actresses who are in the newspapers. It is always TV people and footballer players. It can be in between, sometimes actors can be in a period of their life when all of a sudden they get a lot of attention, but usually you can avoid it. If you want to, then in some way you can avoid it and if you look for it then you are going to have it.’

I venture to ask about how she feels with the media hounding celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, but clearly this subject is a little too sensitive. Violante’s PA sweeps in, states that the question is not exactly appropriate, and with that, the interview is over. Nonetheless, it seems that on the basis of her performance in ‘The American’, Violante Placido is going to have to cope with a lot more attention than she might be used to.

Anya Reiss, shuffling papers and fiddling with her hair onstage, doesn’t seem to match up with herself on paper. At 17, she became the youngest playwright to have her play accepted at the Royal Court Theatre, where it was staged this summer to great critical acclaim. Spur of the Moment focuses on 12-year-old Delilah whose parents are too busy screaming at each other to notice their daughter kissing the 21-year-old lodger. The play received nearly unconditional praise from some of the country’s top papers for its candid look at family life and social taboos.

As soon as Reiss starts to deliver the Corpus Christi College Drama Society lecture, all her awkwardness disappears. She’s very comfortable talking about the play, lucidly describing the experience of letting go of the script, realising the auditioning process wouldn’t be like X-Factor. She draws us her listeners with behind-the-scenes anecdotes that have everyone chuckling.

The play began on one of the Royal Court’s young writers’ programmes, and Reiss wrote it while studying for her A-levels. She thinks this helped, as she didn’t feel any pressure to ‘get it right’ or hampered by any solid conception of ‘what a playwright was’. Now the first play is over, and critics are waiting to see what the ‘new voice of a generation’ will do next; is she feeling the pressure of being a one-hit wonder?

‘I do, but I don’t and I can’t let it affect what I do’. Throughout, Reiss places emphasis on the importance of freedom to what she does; ‘there’s a big danger to overcomplicate writing too much; it is just basically knowing what people say next’. Later, when I ask if seeing her first play go through the rehearsal process informed the way she wrote her second, she says: ‘I try not to imagine it onstage so much because I think you start limiting yourself.’ In Spur of the Moment the action moves between rooms all over the house, perhaps contributing to the criticism that the play is too much like TV.

One audience member has already confronted Reiss with a jibe about television, saying ‘it’s just a story – it could’ve been a soap opera…where is the real insight?’, to which she responds with unruffled calmness, getting the audience to laugh with her: ‘I do genuinely go to the theatre for a story… I think it’s just different ways of writing…there are TV programmes, plays that really say something and try to change the world and there’re others that just observe it… I think it’s not wrong to just observe it.’

Later I give her another opportunity to respond to critics: ‘the most frustrating part of the whole process was critics putting negative things down to my age,’ she says, ‘when they said it was TV writing or it became farcical at the end or other things they decided that it was a mistake I had made from being young and inexperienced, when actually rightly or wrongly they were choices I had made.’ With characteristic self-assurance, she states: ‘I’d rather be credited with making bad choices than seem like I didn’t know what I had done.’
Reiss is currently on her gap year, although with TV programmes like Skins and Hollyoaks already under her belt and her second script currently in the hands of the Royal Court, it looks like the gap could be a long one. Though I’m not sure Reiss’ voice is the one of our generation, it is distinctive and self-assured, capable of drama, comedy and biting observation; it will be interesting to see what comes next.

A week and a half before showtime, and The Shape of Things is already as slick as a high-class made-for-TV drama. It’s going to be fantastic. That’s all there is to it, really.

The play opens with the art student Evelyn, husky, self-possessed, delicately ironic Evelyn, stepping over a line with a can of spraypaint. Adam, the nervous young security guard, asks her to step back on the right side of the line. She doesn’t. He’s stymied. The conversation has the awkward weirdness of symbolism at this point, and you worry for a moment that you’ve been plunged in medias res into one of Caryl Churchill’s nightmares, but things soon settle into the easy-flowing, dynamic, soap-opera tone that comes to characterise this production.

Evelyn soon twists Adam round her little finger. Before he knows quite what’s happening, she’s sprayed an enormous penis on the priceless statue he was guarding, her phone number on his jacket, and her face all over his dreams. She takes him over, moulding his body, burning his clothes, reshaping his nose, warping his friendship with Phil and Jenny, the play’s only other characters. Twist. Yank. Snip. Then comes the brutal denouement, which transforms all this gentle romantic comedy into stark philosophy.

Sophie King’ Evelyn is the lynchpin of this play, and she pulls off the part with unforgiving intensity. It would have been very easy to play Evelyn with the kind of indie insecurity peddled by Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but King keeps up a nasty, domineering edge throughout an excellent performance. Meanwhile Joe Murphy brings the same gawky charisma to The Shape of Things that he brought to Equus, reminding you forcibly of Scott Pilgrim landed with Ramona Flowers. Their relationship is credible and compelling, helped along by painstaking attention to little details – the motions of their hands, and the minutiae of their expressions.

Cassie Barraclough, making her directorial debut at Oxford, has stripped this drama down to the point where it is hard to fault. Such flaws as it has – the lack of depth in Rob Jones’ Phil, for example, or the slightly forced rhetoric of the debates about the nature and morality of art – lie more with Neil LaBute’s script than with the cast. This is compelling drama, short on sticky rom-com sentimentality and long on menace and realism.

Lift your battered eighth-week body out of its habitual slump in the library and drag it over to the Burton Taylor for a little over an hour – you won’t regret it. The Shape of Things is straight-up, refreshing and powerful liquor.