El laberinto del Fauno Pan's Labyrinth Guillermo del Toro 2006 Mexico / USA / Spain1st time; big screen Spain, 1944: a young girl arrives at a mountainside camp with her pregnant mother, newly married to a captain in Franco's regime, and finds both comfort and anxiety in her fantastical imaginations. Del Toro is doing all kinds of interesting things here: his shots are crafted with transitions already in mind - he'll often zoom in to black and then re-emerge in a different world, or show different angles within the same scene via effortless pans, so that cuts are often sweeping and invisible, and keep the momentum going between the different narrative threads. Speaking of which, the narrative is much more dependent on the 'real' world than the trailers made out, and all the better for it. Visually excessive, it is highly original, very inventive and altogether weird.
London to Brighton Paul Andrew Williams 2006 UK1st time; big screen A prostitute and a young homeless girl flee from a gangster whose pimp father they killed. The kind of gritty 'realist' thriller that knocks a few critics to the floor and is hailed - for not very long - as the best British film in years. It is shot not only in Scope but almost entirely in close-up, so there is an in-your-face brutality to it throughout. The acting is effective and real at times, particularly in newcomer Lorraine Stanley, who begins and ends the film with a ferocious black eye, and in between shows various faces as a well-worn girl who accepts the dangers of prostitution.
Last Days Gus Van Sant 2005 USA3rd time; DVD The final hours of a rock musician who is surrounded by hangers-on. A film which ranges from intense (Michael Pitt making his way through a succession of instruments) to flat (Van Sant's non-linear editing by now seems to have lost novelty and purpose). It gains much from Pitt's mumbling performance, and a lot of images, most of them of the actor in white T-shirt and red pants, surrounded by greenery, are likely to leave a haunting impression, of loneliness more than anything. The 4:3 ratio isn't quite as powerful here when seen on the small screen, and it isn't as visually innovative as Gerry or narratively ambitious as Elephant.
Last edited by Capo de La Cosa Nostra; 12/20/0606:47 PM.
...dot com bold typeface rhetoric. You go clickety click and get your head split. 'The hell you look like on a message board Discussing whether or not the Brother is hardcore?
