Guillermo del Toro is one of the most distinctive artists working in cinema, so any appearance of his name on a movie's credits should be a thrill, but that's unfortunately not the case. Be warned, there is a clear difference between a Guillermo del Toro production and a Guillermo del Toro film – for starters, the former is much more prevalent than the latter, and it rarely displays the same level of craft and imagination. The latest film to bear del Toro's name as a producer is Julia's Eyes, a Spanish horror based around a common and age-old fear: the loss of sight. The film opens in a promising fashion, with a scene set in the dark basement of a house, as a woman is menaced by a silent and invisible presence in the room. As the song The Look of Love plays, this lonely, terrified woman is prompted to take her own life, without her assailant needing to say a word.
This unfortunate soul is Sara and she is played by Belén Rueda, who also takes the role of Sara's twin sister, the titular Julia. Both women share the same degenerative eye defect, but Julia refuses to let that handicap deter her from investigating her sister's death, which she views as suspicious even as everyone else is prepared to write it off as a suicide. Accompanied by her sceptical husband (Lluís Homar, who played a blind man in Almodóvar's Broken Embraces), Julia drives out to Sara's house and begins digging for clues. What's the real story behind this mysterious boyfriend people remember her being with? How much does the blind old lady next door know? What of the other creepy-looking supporting characters; are they as malevolent as they appear, or simply red herrings?
The answers to those questions don't make a great deal of sense, and as Julia's Eyes progresses I got the feeling that all of its tricks, twists, shocks and double-bluffs were covering up for a story that isn't really there. In many ways, Julia's Eyes is very reminiscent of The Orphanage, Juan Antonio Bayona's successful 2007 film, which similarly cast Rueda as a woman coping with loss who finds herself trapped in a nightmare, and is forced to solve a puzzle in order to find a sense of peace. But that film had a consistent emotional through line and a more solidly assembled screenplay, elements that Julia's Eyes lacks. Director Guillem Morales tries to detract from his film's deficiencies by placing the emphasis on directorial technique, and he throws in a couple of effectively stylised sequences, such as the shadowy shots of Julia's murky point-of-view, when a stressful situation has caused her eyesight to fade. Such trickery only makes the film feel like an empty exercise in style, however, and when Morales apes The Silence of the Lambs in his climactic sequence, it suggests he has run out of ideas.
By that point in the film, I'd had more than had enough of Julia's Eyes, with the final avalanche of ludicrous twists stretching my patience beyond breaking point. Rarely has the unmasking of a killer or the revelation of his motives seemed more irrelevant and nonsensical. Julia's Eyes is a two-hour film that is totally bereft of imagination, emotion or genuine scares. You'll have to keep your eyes peeled to spot any of del Toro's influence on this project. I could see nothing to indicate his presence beyond his name on the closing credits, and if you're expecting anything close to the vision, imagination or style of his work, you're bound to be sorely disappointed. I know I have never walked out of a Guillermo del Toro filming feeling so angry at having my time wasted in such a manner.
In the annals of cinematic depictions of war, Apocalypse Now stands alone. Francis Ford Coppola's singular, hallucinatory trip into the madness of Vietnam has become a legendary endeavour for both its visionary brilliance as a piece of filmmaking and the notoriously troubled nature of its production. Now, 32 years after its initial release, Apocalypse Now is back on the big screen, with Optimum Films re-releasing the movie on May 27th, before it finally makes its debut on Blu-ray on June 6th. I've had the new 3-disc Blu-ray here for a couple of weeks and it is a spectacular set, offering both the original and Redux cuts of the film as well as Eleanor Coppola's essential making-of documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse. The range of extra features is staggering too, with Coppola delivering an enlightening commentary track and every aspect of the movie being covered in some way by the excellent interviews and documentaries. You can read my review of the Blu-ray here.
Phil on Film has got two of these sets to give away, and to be in with a chance of winning one all you have to do is answer the following question.
Martin Sheen plays Captain Willard in Apocalypse Now, but which actor was originally cast in the role, even shooting a number of scenes before being replaced by Sheen?
This competition is now closed
Much of the discussion around Heartbeats has centred on its director Xavier Dolan, which is perfectly understandable. After all, the precocious writer/director/actor already has two feature films to his name by the tender age of 21, displaying an unerring confidence and ability both in front of and behind the camera, but the talent that stood out when I watched the film at the London Film Festival was that of his leading lady. Monia Chokri plays Marie, a seemingly confident but secretly insecure young woman who finds herself falling for the same man as her gay best friend. Chokri's skilful and witty performance expresses her character's complicated desires through subtle gestures and glances, and she's certainly an actress I'm hoping to see more from in the future. I met Monia Chokri in London this week to discuss her breakthrough role.
Have you been doing interviews all day?
Yeah. I mean, it's normal and it's part of my job, but it's a movie that I like and I'm happy to talk about it. It's a movie I haven't talked about in a while, actually. It was released in June in Montreal and September in France, so it has been a few months and now I need to dive in again.
When you made this movie did you imagine you'd still be talking about it more than a year later?
No! [laughs] It's funny because I was speaking with the distributor in France, you know another one is taking care of international distribution, and I told him I was going to London to promote the movie, and he was like, "What?" It's the longest promotion for a movie ever! But it's cool, I like to travel and see what reception the movie is getting.
Do you find it's the kind of film that speaks to people from different countries and cultures?
Yeah, there's something universal, at least in the western world. Younger generations have really been able to relate to it.
It's the first time I've seen you in a film and I know you were a stage actress before you started working in cinema. How have you found that transition from stage to screen acting?
Well, I was always a cinema fan and I did a few shorts and smaller roles, but this was my first lead role. The difference is minor, it's really about technique, but the way I create my role is the same. It's the same process.
So what was your process for creating the character of Marie?
It was really an instinct thing. There wasn't that much about her in the script but Xavier wanted Marie to be dressed in a certain way, and from these clothes, these dresses, I found that there's a natural way to stand and a way to relate to people. I decided that this character is someone who plays a role in life, so what was interesting as an actress is that I had to create the personality of Marie, and then she is not really herself in front of people so I had to capture the person she's playing in life as well. It's like playing two characters. There's a fragility also that I wanted to show in her eyes at certain points, like she's a kind of a sad clown, you know? I think I always put something comical in my characters too. I always like to do that. It wouldn't be interesting for me to play someone really confident or either too fragile. It's interesting to hide it, and I hope when people get to see the movie they see the subtlety of that character. That's what I'm trying to do.
You mentioned the costumes and Marie has a deliberately old-fashioned style that makes her stand out from the people around her, and even the people Marie and Francis reference are classic stars like Audrey Hepburn or James Dean. Where did the idea of those anachronistic attitudes for the characters come from?
Xavier wanted to have this mix-up of generations in the movie. Even in the music you have Dalida, which is from the 60's, and you have The Knife who are a Swedish band from 2010. I think Xavier wanted to show that this kind of love story could happen in any time. Actually, people who were 25 in the 60's were really touched by the movie because they felt they were young again and they recognised themselves in the movie, and the same goes for people who are 18 or in their early 20's. They recognise themselves in this postmodern life because our generation is like that. We are not really in our time; we are always looking back with nostalgia.
Can you tell me how you first met Xavier?
We met because we had a friend in common. He was 17 and I was 23 or 24, I can't remember. He was brilliant, I mean, he was exactly who he still is, but all of his energy was less focused and I think he has grown a lot with what has happened in his career. This guy came to me when he was 17 with a screenplay called I killed My Mother. He asked me to read it because he knew we had the same taste in cinema and art in general, and when he showed me this screenplay I was just amazed by his writing. He knew what he was doing already. He's a really inspiring guy because he knows exactly what he wants and he's just doing it, and each moment I spend with Xavier I feel that life is short and I really need to be doing stuff, you know?
How does he compare to other directors you've worked with? I'm guessing he's the youngest person who has ever directed you.
Yes, but I never felt his age because he's really mature. He knows exactly what he wants on a set, how he's going to film it, artistic direction. He's probably the most precise director I've ever worked with. Each night after the day of shooting we had the rushes of the day before so we were constructing the movie while we were doing it and that was exciting. It's rare to be involved that much in the movie.
Now that this film has been such a success, have you noticed a big impact on your career? Are you being sent a lot of scripts right now?
Yeah, of course. I mean, I was a happy stage actress before but when you do cinema I guess more people get to see you. I have an agent in France now, and of course it's easier to meet people when you want to meet them, but the important thing in our job is doing it for the right reason and not being absorbed by the vanity of this industry. I was in France last month and my friends were saying, "You should come to Cannes," but I didn't have the instinct to go. I could have gone but for what? I don't have a movie there. There's a funny thing on TV in France where this guy films the people in Cannes who do the red carpet and don't go to see the movie. They just go out a little door at the back and he's filming them asking, "Was the movie good?" It's ridiculous and I hate that. I hate all of those magazines that are all about who wears the best dress, it's just vanity and there are so many parasites in this industry. What I like is art. The moment I was most happy was when I was on set, it wasn't the premiere or the Cannes Film Festival, even though I was very proud to be there. I want to die and say that I did something for people, because some movies changed my life, and art can change values, open minds and just help people live. So I decided to stay in Paris and write rather than go to Cannes to drink champagne and try to be loved by people who don't really care about me [laughs].
I understand you're working with Xavier again. How far along is that process?
We shot in March and April and right now he's editing the first half of the movie. We're going to shoot the rest of the movie in September and October because of the seasons, he wanted the winter and fall and a little bit of spring. That's why it's taking so long, five months between shooting.
I guess we'll have to wait a while to see that one then?
No, he's fast. I think he edited an hour and a half of it in two weeks. He's crazy [laughs]. It will be released in 2012.
So you might end up going back to Cannes after all.
Maybe, who knows? I think there is something between Cannes and Xavier, they love him and they love the way he sees cinema, but as I was saying the important thing is the movie and just sharing the movie with people.
Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is finally here, but I can hardly believe it exists. I can't believe that a major American film starring two of Hollywood's biggest names can look and feel like this, that it can reject the conventions of cinematic storytelling so comprehensively, and that it can be so intimate on such an immense scale. It is the fifth film Malick has directed in 38 years, and it is simultaneously his most nakedly personal and his most audaciously ambitious piece of work. Throughout The Tree of Life, this extraordinary director is as fascinated and awestruck by the contours of a newborn baby's foot as he is by the creation of the universe itself. All life to Malick is a miracle and a precious gift to be cherished, which is why the sense of loss that exists at the heart of this film resonates in such a devastating manner.
The Tree of Life is a film driven by memories. Sean Penn's Jack O'Brien is a modern-day architect and perhaps the most startling aspect of the film (although there are many) is the sight of sleek, gleaming skyscrapers in a Malick film. It's startling because all of Malick's previous features have taken place in an earlier era, and while he shoots those skyscrapers in the same way he shoots so many trees – always gazing upwards, reaching for what lies beyond our reach – he seems suspicious of these unfamiliar surroundings. We see workmen planting a tree in the middle of this concrete jungle, and Jack reaches out to touch a blade of grass as his thoughts drift back into the past. Jack is a man unable to escape his memories. In particular, he keeps remembering the days of his childhood in 1950's Texas. These memories are occasionally idyllic, sometimes unsettling and often confusing – in short, they reflect the way so many of us recall our childhood.
It's hard to describe the structure of The Tree of Life. At times I did think of other filmmakers, like Andrei Tarkovsky or Terence Davies, but I think a more appropriate reference point would be the writing of Marcel Proust, whose desire to show us how memories are sparked and fold into one another finds a cinematic equivalent here. We experience much of The Tree of Life through the eyes of young Jack (Hunter McCracken) who lives in Waco, Texas with his tough father (Brad Pitt, giving an alternately tyrannical and tender performance), loving mother (the ethereal Jessica Chastain) and two younger brothers (Laramie Eppler and Tye Sheridan). The Tree of Life is many things, but above all else I think it is one of the greatest evocations of childhood ever depicted on screen. Malick captures these boys at play in an environment meticulously recreated by Jack Fisk, and he watches as they revel in their freedom to explore their surroundings, with Emmanuel Lubezki's camerawork constantly alive to almost imperceptible changes in tone and mood (this film proves, if proof were needed, that Lubezki is some kind of genius). There is a story to The Tree of Life, but it doesn't play out in the manner we have been conditioned to anticipate. Instead it unfolds as a series of individual moments – often wonderfully serendipitous – that gradually develops an accumulative force through Malick's elliptical editing and imaginative musical choices, and the heartbreaking authenticity of the performances (watch the look on Eppler's face as he tells his older brother "I trust you" during a game of dare). It's hard to discern exactly how autobiographical The Tree of Life is, but many of these scenes feel specific and true in a way that can only be drawn from personal experience.
This aspect of The Tree of Life is so good it would be enough to declare the film as a great work on its own, but Malick is after something bigger here. He has chosen to set his family drama against the backdrop of nothing less than the birth of the universe – which he depicts through images and music in an incredible 15-minute sequence – and the presence, or absence, of God in the lives of the people who pray to him. Like his previous films, The Tree of Life is partly about a loss of innocence, with young Jack's existential anxiety growing as he witnesses death for the first time and becomes increasingly dismayed at the cruelty he sees around him every day. "Who are we to you?" Jack asks of his creator, "Why should I be good if you aren't?" The characters in The Tree of Life are yearning for a connection with God but Malick places them within the context of the universe, reminding us that while our own personal triumphs and tragedies may seem like everything to us, they are simply part of a great continuum that moves inexorably forward with or without us. People come and people go, but life goes on regardless.
The remarkable thing about this blending of the cosmic and the seemingly mundane is how Malick approaches them both in exactly the same manner. He has created a work of art that is truly unlike anything I have ever seen; a film that encompasses the familiar and the unknowable into one singular experience, in which every sequence is infused with the director's benevolent spirit and insatiable curiosity. He is constantly striving to show us something new and to present the world in a way that we haven't seen before, and The Tree of Life feels like a kind of apotheosis for Malick, whose increasingly idiosyncratic approach to storytelling and steadily expanding vision has seen him reinvent cinematic grammar with each new film.
Does that make The Tree of Life sound like hard work? That's not my intention. It may be challenging in its construction but it's universal in its emotional reach and in the truths it tries to express. It's the kind of film that gets inside your heart and mind and stays there, with its bottomless mysteries and ambiguities continually provoking further thought. How you react to The Tree of Life will depend on your upbringing, your faith and your ideas about cinematic art; each person will find something in the film that speaks to them alone and it's the type of film that will change as you change, and as you bring your own life experiences to subsequent viewings. A week after seeing Malick's latest masterpiece I'm finding it hard to shake it from my thoughts and I feel I've barely scratched the surface of the movie. It is the stuff of life itself, and I desperately need to see it again.
Win Win is a character-driven film blessed with real characters. The people in this film are people we can believe in and care about as they face obstacles and deal with relationships in the best way they can. The film's writer/director is Tom McCarthy, who showed in his previous two films The Station Agent and The Visitor that he has a knack for blending humour and pathos in a low-key manner. His third film is cut from the same cloth and displays the same virtues that distinguished its predecessors. Chief among these is a tangible sense that McCarthy really loves his characters, and that sense of warmth permeates every corner of the picture. Even when his lead character Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) does something unethical, his actions are rooted in good intentions.
Mike is a suburban lawyer struggling to make ends meet who suddenly has a potential solution to his financial woes fall into his lap. One of his clients (Burt Young) has encroaching dementia and Mike, under the guise of rescuing Leo from life in a care home, offers to become the old man's legal guardian with his eyes on the $1,500 per month benefit payment that comes with the position. Once that bit of business has been settled, Mike moves Leo into a care home anyway while still pocketing the additional income and, for a while, that seems to solve his problems. Despite this deceitful behaviour, it's almost impossible to dislike Mike, which might have something to do with the fact he is being played by Paul Giamatti, one of the most endearing leading actors in the business. It's hard to imagine anyone else being so perfectly suited to the part; Giamatti is heartfelt and genial, and when he lies we see a look in his eyes that tells us how much he hates himself for it.
McCarthy is not a visual director, and Win Win is a very average piece of work in that regard, but he really knows how to work with actors. Win Win's talented cast is moulded effortlessly into an exceptional ensemble, with Amy Ryan subtly turning Mike's wife into an emotional ballast for the film while Bobby Cannavale and Jeffrey Tambor develop an extremely funny double-act as Mike's pals, who assist with his coaching of an entirely useless teenage wrestling team. McCarthy's writing for all of his characters is generally sharp and believable, but his plotting can sometimes be too neat, and when Leo's grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer) turns up having run away from his junkie mum (an excellent Melanie Lynskey), it feels like a clichéd setup. When Kyle turns out to be a wrestling prodigy whose ability might transform Mike's team, it feels like a strained contrivance. But such worries are quickly allayed by the manner in which McCarthy handles these aspects of his film, and by the fact that first-time actor Shaffer invests Kyle with an odd, unpredictable attitude that makes him hard to read but fascinating to watch.
The other part of the film that feels a little too neat in its construction comes right at the end of the film. McCarthy is guilty of giving his characters a happy ending that feels incongruous following the messy emotional entanglements he has laid out. However, that desire to see the characters are OK comes directly from McCarthy's genuine empathy with and affection for them. Win Win is such a warmhearted picture, which makes the BBFC's decision to give it a 15 rating an extremely baffling one. During the course of the film, the phrase "Whatever the fuck it takes" becomes a key phrase for one of the characters, but the repetition of the word "fuck" has seen it earn a higher certification for "strong language." In the past year, I've watched as numerous mainstream Hollywood action films featuring gruesome acts of inconsequential violence arrive in UK cinemas with a 12A rating, while some contextual and entirely justified swearing apparently merits a 15. We live in troubling times.
Guillermo del Toro is one of the most distinctive artists working in cinema, so any appearance of his name on a movie's credits should be a thrill, but that's unfortunately not the case. Be warned, there is a clear difference between a Guillermo del Toro production and a Guillermo del Toro film – for starters, the former is much more prevalent than the latter, and it rarely displays the same level of craft and imagination. The latest film to bear del Toro's name as a producer is Julia's Eyes, a Spanish horror based around a common and age-old fear: the loss of sight. The film opens in a promising fashion, with a scene set in the dark basement of a house, as a woman is menaced by a silent and invisible presence in the room. As the song The Look of Love plays, this lonely, terrified woman is prompted to take her own life, without her assailant needing to say a word.
