Let Me Be Fictional HD Trailer

The LET ME BE FICTIONAL trailer is now online in HD thanks to the people at Vimeo.

Check it here

The Edge of Heaven

Mona and I attended a sold out screening of this Turkish-German production the other night. Having seen Fatih Akin's last narrative feature, Head-on, we were very pleased to have acquired tickets for this new offering.

The film follows the lives of three parents and their complicated relationships with their children. All the characters manage to interact in some way or another. The interweaving of these three stories never feels forced or written.

Head-On was a hard act to follow but I believe Fatih has topped himself with this one. This movie has a lot of the elements I am drawn to. There is never any heavy handed exposition or characters directly addressing there problems to those around them. Most importantly this movie never telegraphs the plot or the ending, something Hollywood eschewed years ago. This is drama of the highest order and the world of international cinema has a new master to add to the likes of Lukas Moodysson, Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Michael Winterbottom.

Beyond Control at the film fest

So we've gone to see a couple of films so far at VIFF. They were both pretty average, not bad by any means just average.

The first was Control which I was really excited about seeing. It started off great and then petered out around the half-way mark. All parties involved were great except the director and screenwriter.
So what happened? After the band received some critical and financial success this is when Ian starts to get depressed, cheats on his wife, becomes epileptic and starts drinking more. Don't get me wrong I love depressing movies but this one wasn't one of those so-dreary-it-makes-me-happy ones.

At the start of the picture there is a lot of great humour and amazingly real moments...plus the music was fantastic (apparently the actors all sang and played their instruments). The live performance of Transmission really fucking hit me hard.

Writing a movie based on a memoir can't be easy and trying to explain why someone kills themselves is even harder. I don't think they truly cracked the problem and should have gone at it with more intensity. Until this writer-director team (if they ever work together again) figures out how to get past problems like this they will never be in the class of the great interior realists like Lars Von Trier and Bergman.

I just kept thinking about the movie C.R.A.Z.Y. and how similar it's opening was to Control's. The lead characters are lying on their beds smoking and lip syncing to a Bowie tune. In the later I just felt claustrophobic and lost watching Ian ape one of his heros but with the former I felt Zack (CRAZY's lead) had successfully transcended his dull life and landed firmly in the otherworldly reaches of glam rock. Nothing to do with the actors (who both did great jobs) but just different approaches in capturing the sequence to film. The transition to moving images is more difficult than you think Anton, Jean Marc Vallee for my money, beats you on this one.

My favourite character was the band manager. Funny how in most rock movies the manager is the one we remember most. There were two great ones in Almost Famous, played by Noah Taylor and Jimmy Fallon.

I can't talk about this movie without mentioning 24 hour party people which treads a lot of the same ground as this but does it with more diversity and lust for life than this study of angsty Mancunians. Factory Records head Tony Wilson was portrayed with equal skill by both actors and Sam Riley, doesn't play Ian Curtis but The Fall's Mark E Smith. 24HPP was shot with sickly looking minidv cams and Control was brought to the screen with magnificent B&W. It didn't matter much and the black and white kinda got on Mona and my nerves after a while. I think Ian's story just fit better in a movie about a "scene" rather than one just about him.

For someone who has shown us so much in a still image, you'd think Anton Corbin would have been able to pull off the shift in tone with ease. Unfortunately he probably needs another film or two get it right. So, if you're a huge fan of Joy Division go see it but if you are a cinephile wait for it on video.