The Greatest Trick

Although fantasy movie fatigue might be setting in among audiences, The Spiderwick Chronicles isn’t a Narnia or Harry Potter rip-off, but something quite different in its own right. Viewers disappointed by the anaemic Golden Compass and downright awful Eragon will find their faith in the genre revitalised by this cracking and hugely underrated little adventure.

Recalling the heyday of dark, edgy kids films (ie the 1980s), The Spiderwick Chronicles owes as much to movies like Gremlins as it does to its source material. I haven’t read the books on which this was based, but apparently the screenplay condenses all the stories into one film. What is left works really well, and it’s also refreshing to see a Hollywood blockbuster that isn’t trying to self-consciously position itself as a potential franchise.

After their parents separate, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace and their sister Mallory, move into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother Helen. The sinister house was formerly owned by their great aunt Lucinda, who ended up in an insane asylum because she said her father, their great-great uncle Arthur Spiderwick was spirited away by faeries. Spiderwick had disappeared decades previously in mysterious circumstances.

In the old house, Jared discovers an old book written by Spiderwick which has a warning on the cover never to open it. Of course, he does, and discovers the book contains knowledge of many invisible creatures from an alternate world in the forest around the house. Unfortunately, the opening of the book is sensed by the evil shape-shifting ogre Mulgarath, who wants Spiderwick’s acquired knowledge for his own sinister ends.

This is terrific, scary stuff, and in many ways plays out like a horror film for children. But it’s also an empowering fable designed to help children to deal with the traumatic loss of a father (whether through death or divorce). It does not talk down to its young audience, nor does it smooth over the rough edges by forcing a happy ending where the parents are reunited. Steven Spielberg’s films still have the edge on depicting disintegrated families, but this does an admirable job of tackling the topic in a believable, unpatronising fashion.

On a more subtle level, The Spiderwick Chronicles also has a few messages for adults, mainly concerning the dangers of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Arthur Spiderwick did not mean for his research to be a danger to all the supernatural creatures he discovered, but by documenting their secrets, this knowledge became a weapon in the hands of Mulgarath. One is vaguely reminded of how Einstein’s atomic theory gave birth to the Manhatten Project and ultimately nuclear weapons. Or it could allegorise the dangers of whatever current scientific research worries the viewer most – genetically modified biological weapons for instance (friendly hobgoblin Hogsqueal had all his kind wiped out by Mulgarath as a result of Spiderwick’s research).

The acting is good, especially from Freddie Highmore, currently the best child actor in the business. His performances as both Simon and Jared are excellent. Simon is the slightly square, sensitive, too-good-to-be-true twin, whilst Jared is the angry, sullen and frankly much more interesting one. Sarah Bolger is very good as Mallory, whose fencing skills come in handy for fighting goblins. Mary Louise Parker and Joan Plowright are both good as Helen and Lucinda respectively, and the excellent David Strathairn is memorably enigmatic as the mysterious Spiderwick. There are also good bit parts for Nick Nolte, Martin Short and Seth Rogan (who was obviously taking a break from the smutty comedies he is usually seen in).

Director Mark Waters does a great job of staging the action with atmosphere, tension and well-judged scares. The special effects are superb, and as I’ve already mentioned the screenplay is very good (not surprising when John Sayles is among those credited). If I had to pick nits, I’d point out that James Horner’s admittedly effective music score sounds very similar to his work for Casper.

In short, The Spiderwick Chronicles is a thrillingly exciting, properly frightening and massively entertaining experience for all the family; packed with thrills, chills, sinister houses, secret tunnels, magical devices, tomato ketchup bombs (lethal to goblins apparently), and monsters of all kinds. If your children are around 8 or over, do them a favour and take them to see this on the big screen.

Simon Dillon, March 2008.

Every so often, concerned parents argue that children watch too many scary films. I am going to fly in the face of conventional wisdom and suggest, these days at least, children generally don’t watch enough scary films.

Before everyone shouts me down, please don’t misunderstand. Obvious adult material should be restricted to adult viewing, and I am not suggesting that children should watch loads of television and play endless violent computer games. What I am saying is that these days, there is a real tendency to wrap children in cotton wool, patronise them and pass our fears on to them. This is obviously a wider social issue, and covers many factors from paranoid parents who no longer allow their kids out to play for fear of them being abducted by paedophiles, to the health and safety legislation that has put many children’s activities out of bounds.

To the point at hand however – has anyone else who grew up in the 1980’s noticed how PG rated films have lost their edge? For example, how can Jaws possibly have the same certificate as Cars? The PG certificate, meaning parental guidance, was originally a rating which wisely understood that whilst Jaws might not be suitable for some eight year olds, it would be suitable for other eight year olds. Parents knew their children best, hence Parental Guidance. Sensible, simple and effective.

Then somewhere in the late 1990’s, it all seemed to go pear-shaped. For some reason, parents started thinking PG ought to mean the same as U. This resulted in gradual tightening of BBFC classification guidelines at the lower levels, whilst the upper categories have been increasingly relaxed. To quote the good book, the BBFC have “strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel”.

I will not discuss the camels in this article, but the gnats are of interest to me. A recent gnat that I thought particularly petty took the form of a one second barely noticeable head-butt in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Said head-butt was delivered during a fight scene by Jango Fett to Obi-Wan Kenobi. This one second was sanctimoniously trimmed from the UK release, because the BBFC were apparently worried about copycat incidents. OK, so children copy what they see. So why not cut all lightsabre fights too, because impressionable youngsters will probably grab sticks and start fighting (growing up with Star Wars, I know I did). Conversely, in an apparent case of double standards, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring contained not one but two head-butts, and both were passed at PG. When questioned, the BBFC said the reason the head-butts were allowed in that case were because of the clear fantasy context. What context was Star Wars? Gritty realism?

Another absolutely insane example of this kind of nanny censorship came a couple of years ago when an episode of Doctor Who was rated 12 instead of the usual PG, which was doubly pointless as many children would have seen the episode when it was originally broadcast. The story in question featured a brief scene where a man has a Dalek captured and begins to drill into the casing. Apparently, the BBFC were concerned that this kind of torture could be copied in the playground (it would appear they believe children have power tools to play with and several Daleks to bully).

In fairness, it’s not so much the BBFC who are to blame for this, as they are not really a censorship board. They simply respond to what they perceive to be the will of the public, who for some reason want to keep their kids indoors playing computer games and watching CBeebies. Well, if they must be kept indoors, I suggest showing them some edgier stories with good and evil clearly defined. As a father of a not-quite four year old whose favourite films include King Kong (the 1933 original) and several Ray Harryhausen pictures, I can see how these movies are proving a vital part of his imaginative development. Obviously all children are different, but if we didn’t try to protect them quite so much I think we would end up with less neurotic adults.

People consistently underestimate children. In the same way the Grimm fairytales make perfect sense to children but horrify parents, many of the films and TV programmes I loved in my childhood earned the ire of concerned adults as I was growing up in the 1980’s. Examples include the afore-mentioned Jaws (too scary), The A-Team (too violent), Gremlins (too gory) and the first two Indiana Jones films (too scary, too violent and too gory). Actually, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which had already been cut by over a minute by the BBFC, was further cut for an afternoon showing on Christmas Day by the BBC in 1987, and still managed to draw loads of complaints. Amusingly, a cartoon appeared in the Radio Times shortly afterwards showing two children sitting on a sofa and smiling as they watched Indiana Jones, whilst two adults cowered behind the sofa. The caption read: “It’s terrifying for the children!”

That cartoon pretty much sums up this article. Viewed as a child, Jaws, Indiana Jones and Gremlins didn’t bother me in the slightest. As an adult I now think Jaws is terrifying, Indiana Jones is unbelievably violent and gruesome, and Gremlins is at least two-thirds of the way to a full-on horror film. I didn’t notice the dark sexual undertones in Flash Gordon, but I do now. I didn’t realise quite how violent the James Bond films were (all rated PG up to The Living Daylights in 1987), but I do now. I also grasp how dark and cruel the ending of Time Bandits is, but as a child it made perfect sense. And was there really that much swearing in The Goonies? Was that someone’s hand the crocodile just bit off in Romancing the Stone? How many Nazis did Clint Eastwood gun down in Where Eagles Dare? Did Ghostbusters really have that many rude jokes? Wait a minute, these films are all PG!

The BBFC’s way to deal with this problem has been to make the 12 certificate advisory, largely due to the outcry that occurred when Spider-man was crazily rated 12 instead of PG. The side effect of this is that many films legitimately rated 12 can be seen by under-12s, and parent’s simply think of 12A the way they used to view PG. How long before they begin to complain that 12A should be like a U?

Therefore, in the interests of confused and traumatised adults, I propose the reintroduction of the original mandatory 12 certificate plus a new certificate to act as a reverse of 12A specifically for films like Jaws or Indiana Jones: suitable only for persons under 12. Over 12’s require the presence of a responsible child guardian.

Simon Dillon, March 2008.

If your idea of a good scary movie is something along the lines of Saw or Hostel, don’t bother seeing El Orfanato (The Orphanage). It’s an all too rare intelligent horror film that eschews copious bloodletting and relies on imagination and suspense, not violence and gore, for its many scares. True, it’s not in the same league as the classics from which it draws obvious inspiration (including Don’t Look Now, The Innocents, Ringu, The Changeling, The Sixth Sense and, bizarrely, Peter Pan), but its still a stylish and chilling tale that provides a handful of genuine jump-out-of-your-skin moments and manages to be something unique in its own right.

To say too much about the plot would spoil it, suffice to say it involves an orphan called Laura (Belen Rueda) who brings her family back to the orphanage she grew up in which has since closed. She and her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) have bought the orphanage and want to reopen it to house handicapped children. Unfortunately, her adopted seven year old son Simon (Roger Princep) starts speaking to a new invisible friend, and as anyone who has seen The Exorcist will know, invisible friends always mean trouble in a horror film.

Performances are all very good, not just from the leads but also the bit parts, including Montserrat Carulla’s creepy social worker Benigna and Geraldine Chaplin’s frankly terrifying medium Aurora. Incidentally, Chaplin provides the film with one of its most unsettling sequences: the obligatory séance which rises above the level of cliché because it’s viewed through spooky green night vision cam, (all the better for spotting menacing spooks apparently).

Of course its director Juan Antonia Bayona who should get the credit for such innovation, as should producer Guillermo Del Toro (director of Pan’s Labyrinth) who apparently had a great deal of creative input. Oscar Faura’s cinematography is also first rate, really capturing the darkness and shadow of both night and daytime scenes. Rarely have doorknobs and dolls looked so menacing, not to mention freaky sack masks. Elena Ruiz’s editing is spot on, as is the use of sound (Jordi Bosch) and music (Fernando Velasquez), two of the most vital weapons in a horror filmmaker’s arsenal.

But this isn’t just a scary story. Sergio G Sanchez’s screenplay also finds time to meditate on grief, loss, obsession and parental guilt. The nail-biting finale, which I won’t spoil, is simultaneously moving and pleasingly bleak, but to my mind not altogether unexpected, which is why I don’t think it will ever be regarded quite as highly as its contemporaries.

On a more serious note, from a Christian perspective the usual concerns apply, since the ghostly worldview presented by this film is obviously unscriptural. In case any readers are unaware of the Christian position on contacting the dead, the Bible is quite clear that we can’t because people either go to heaven or hell depending on whether they’ve accepted Jesus as saviour or not. Despite the charlatans, there are genuine mediums who are contacted by demons posing as dead relatives of those desperate for a message from the other side. What people who consult mediums fail to realise is that these demons go around collecting all kinds of information, then using that piece of truth, mix it with lies and deception. Therefore a belief in ghosts haunting the abode of the living is completely at odds with the Christian message.

In fairness, The Orphanage is doesn’t come off quite so badly in this respect since it doesn’t discuss Christianity, unlike some other films in the genre which actively set out to disprove it – The Others for instance. I’m not saying it’s wrong to enjoy a good ghost story, I’m simply pointing out that there is still potential for deception in presenting such a false worldview. With that note of caution, this is a must-see for those who love to be scared silly.

Simon Dillon, March 2008.

I MUST write something on my own blog! Terrible, I know, but I don’t think I’ve reviewed a movie since about September last year (hmm, just when I started Bible College, funny that). So I think I’ll make it fairly succinct, so I don’t stress over the whole affair.

Ken Branagh and Shakespeare - they’re a bit like bangers and mash. Rum and Coke. Fish and chips. I could go on, but you get the idea. His Hamlet is superb, his Much Ado very good, his Henry V, er, haven’t seen it. Probably very worthy. Anyway, this one is a bit odd. A 1930s version of the story (which I don’t know outside of this film, I must confess), interspersed with songs from the likes of Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin, some of which work brilliantly and some feel like entering a whole other film. Anyway, to the story.

The King of Navarre (Alessandro Nivola) and his three best friends swear off women for three years to devote themselves to study, but the unexpected visit of the Princess of France (Alicia Silverstone, who really doesn’t seem to understand what she’s saying half the time) and her three handmaidens (oh, look at that, just the right numbers, how lucky Mr Shakespeare) forces them to break their vows. There are tricks with masks, there are mis-managed messages, there is a very silly character in the style of Malvolio from Twelfth Night, there is a court jester, etc etc. As far as I know it’s one of Bill’s weakest and least-known comedies, and our Ken kind of lives up to that. There are some fun musical numbers, and Ken himself totally convinces in terms of his delivery as Berowne, the last of the friends to admit he’s in love. But overall it’s very throwaway, and feels a bit of a mess at the beginning and the end.

Also, for a U, there is one dance number that is just a bit too suggestive for my liking.

Abortion is a hot topic in the cinema at present, perhaps on account of the 35th anniversary of the Roe/Wade landmark case that made abortion legal in the US. At any rate a number of recent releases, including the Oscar winning Juno, have all tackled the issue, putting it centre stage in the public consciousness.

The critically praised 4 months 3 weeks 2 days is in many respects the anti-Juno; a harsh, uncompromising picture set in Romania under Ceausescu during the late 1980’s, where abortion is illegal and a student and her friend have to go to extreme measures to procure a backstreet termination. Their plan is complicated by an increasingly horrific turn of events (including rape), and the ever present threat of discovery by the authorities.

This is gripping, grisly and utterly depressing stuff. Yet from a cinematic perspective, there is much to praise. It’s well acted by the leads. Laura Vasiliu is convincingly timid and terrified as Gabita, the pregnant girl. Anamaria Marinca plays her friend Otilia, a much stronger character who is prepared to go to surprising and disturbing lengths to help Gabita. Alexandru Potocean is excellent as Otilia’s bewildered boyfriend Adi, a character I sympathised with at first, but who ultimately emerges as a symbol of the irresponsible and immoral men that cause these girls to go to such extremes. Finally, Vlad Ivanov is chilling as Bebe, the abortionist who demands a far greater price than money for his services.

Cristian Mungiu’s shakycam documentary style direction and Oleg Mutu’s drab, muted cinematography convey the depressingly squalor of Ceausescu Romania in appropriately grim fashion. Mungiu’s screenplay is well judged and gripping, but as a Christian I obviously disagree with his strongly argued case for abortion within a legal framework.

Yet ironically, although his argument is highly persuasive to some, there is one shot that provoked ire among those critics that praised its pro-abortion message. The shot they took exception to, claiming it was gratuitous, was that of the aborted baby with all its recognisable human features. To my mind, this single shot produces a powerful counter argument that undermines the message of the entire film: Whether through grim and nasty backstreet abortion or through clean legal termination, the result of abortion is always the same: a dead child. Therefore abortion, whatever the circumstances, is murder. Perhaps it was this argument the critics took exception to, and why they would prefer the audience not to see the dead baby. After reading interviews with Cristian Mungiu, it is clear he didn’t intend to make a pro-life statement in that shot, yet the anguish and emotion it evokes in the audience destroys the credibility of his pro-abortion argument.

At any rate, given its unremitting bleakness nothing will ever induce me to watch 4 months 3 weeks 2 days again, regardless of its undoubted cinematic merits. That it’s pro-abortion, spares you nothing, and contains swearing and nudity will no doubt be enough to put most of you off, but if you are curious, don’t eat anything beforehand. Actually, you probably won’t want to eat anything afterwards either.

All in all, a monumentally miserable experience.

Simon Dillon, March 2008.

I went into The Diving Bell and the Butterfly expecting one of those based on a true story/triumph of the human spirit/worthy but dull pictures that frequently court Oscars (although bizarrely this film wasn’t nominated in the foreign film category at this years Academy Awards).

What I didn’t expect was the innovative direction of Julian Schnabel, whose previous efforts had left me singularly unimpressed. By shooting much of the film from its protagonist’s perspective, the viewer really does start to get a feel for the frustration and horror experienced by someone with “locked-in” syndrome; paralysis as a result of a severe stroke.

Former Elle editor Jean Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Almaric) suffered just such a stroke, and was only able to move his left eye. Extraordinarily, he dictated a memoir to hospital speech therapist Henriette (Marie-Josee Croze), which described the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body. The eponymous diving bell is a symbol of his condition, and the butterfly a symbol of his imagination that provided an escape to stories and lands visited in his mind.

Mathieu Almaric conveys a great deal of emotion with just one eye, though it is his interior monologues that impress most. In particular, his caustic sense of humour – from making politically incorrect jokes about his own condition to lecherous thoughts about his therapists – tempers the self-conscious worthiness that usually swamps such performances. Although Bauby runs the expected gamut of emotions, from self-loathing and self-pity to reassessing his former selfish lifestyle and ultimately emerging a “better person”, sentimentality never swamps the piece, and although the audience is no doubt manipulated, one never feels directly conscious of this. One particularly touching scene, where Bauby “converses” over the telephone with his housebound father (an excellent Max von Sydow) is a guaranteed tearjerker. Speaking of tears, whenever Bauby cries, Schnabel chooses to show this from his point of view, and whoever he is looking at goes out of focus.

The rest of the cast are also excellent. In addition to Max von Sydow, Almaric is ably supported by Emmanuelle Seigner as his estranged partner Celine, who in one agonising scene has to translate Bauby’s blinking responses over the telephone to his lover Ines (Agathe de La Fontaine). Marie-Josee Croze is also excellent (am I the only person who thinks she looks like Naomi Watts?), bringing warmth and humanity to a potentially thankless role. Finally, Marina Hands is very good as Josephine, a representative from Bauby’s publisher who also writes down his memoir and with whom he forms an almost romantic bond.

Spielberg’s usual cinematographer Janusz Kaminski provides a unique look; frequently blurring, overexposing and using colourful filters for the flashback or imagined sequences. Editor Juliette Welfing has skilfully assembled the film in an unusual, non-linear way which is initially disconcerting yet ultimately doesn’t detract from the story. The choice of music is also excellent, from the use of pop songs to Paul Cantelon’s original score.

Yet, for all its undoubted merits, one thing annoyed me about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. (POTENTIAL SPOILER AHEAD) In spite of Bauby’s undoubted achievement in writing his book via his left eye, he still died, as far as one can tell, un-reconciled to God. One key flashback in the film recalling a trip to Lourdes shows his (somewhat understandable) disdain for Catholic superstitions, and this is used to underscore his disbelief in God. Although he is told people are praying for him, including his own children, his response is simply to accept it because “he’ll try anything”. One of his fantasies show people in Nepal and the Middle East praying for him with their respective Buddhist and Islamic traditions, implying that Bauby thought all religions were crazy, but that they were all worth a go if it meant he could be healed.

As editor of Elle, Bauby was clearly living an immoral lifestyle. His father berates him for this, albeit in moral relativist terminology, saying that having a mistress is no excuse for abandoning the mother of his children. It is therefore a shame that in the final moments of his life there was no apparent repentance for these choices. In final analysis, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a well acted and innovative piece of cinema, but it is a slightly depressing film from a Christian perspective.

Simon Dillon, March 2008.

Writer/director Paul Haggis’ latest, In the Valley of Elah, is a slow but gripping fact based thriller about a father, Hank Deerford (Tommy Lee Jones), investigating his son’s murder following his return from the war in Iraq. Soon it becomes apparent the military are hindering the police investigation and have something to cover up. Hank collaborates with Detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), and as they investigate they discover disturbing facts about military operating procedure in Iraq, including the torture of Iraqi prisoners.

Tommy Lee Jones gives an excellent, Oscar nominated performance as a man who is proud to have himself served his country in the past (in Vietnam), and encouraged his son to do the same. The tiny details of his daily routine – shining shoes and leaving them neatly by his bed, pressing his trousers, and so on – show habits that have been drummed into him by the military that cannot be changed. This is important, since later in the film it becomes clear that other, deadlier aspects of military training also create habits that are impossible to undo, which are a serious impediment to soldiers as they return to civilian life. Hank’s journey from stoic patriotism to disillusionment, not just with military corruption but also with United States foreign policy in general, is compelling and believable, if depressing.

Elsewhere Charlize Theron does a reasonable job downplaying her usual glamour in the role of Detective Sanders. She suffers tediously predictable (but admittedly believable) sexism from her male colleagues, as she strives to get them to take the case seriously. Jason Patric, James Franco and Josh Brolin all provide good support in minor roles, and Susan Sarandon is excellent if underused as Hank’s wife Joan.

The valley of Elah refers to where David fought Goliath, and at one point in the film, Hank tells this story to Sanders’ son as a bedtime story. I wasn’t entirely sure what parallels Haggis was attempting to draw from this Biblical tale. Was the Goliath of the film the military corruption Hank encounters as he attempts to get to the truth? Or was it the US military in general, with the David of the story symbolising Iraqi insurgents? Alternatively, the David and Goliath story could simply be there to indicate that whereas wars in the Middle East were once a clear case of good and evil, this is no longer true. Hank uncovers all manner of unpleasant truths about his son in the course of his investigation, and the morality of US military policy is called into serious question.

Politically, this becomes pretty heavy handed, especially in its somewhat crass symbolism involving an inverted US flag. Additionally, it’s worth pointing out to those who care about these things that the film does contain some swearing, nudity, and gruesome images. Most of this is contextually justified, though at the risk of sounding prudish, perhaps it wasn’t necessary to see quite as many topless women in the various strip bars frequented by Hank in the course of his investigation.

In short, this is a good, slow burning political thriller, with lots of serious things to say about the war in Iraq and American foreign policy. But it’s a bit too heavy and earnest to get my full endorsement.

Simon Dillon, March 2008.