Films CXXXIII and CXXXIV
In retrospect, not a recommended double bill, although both good films in their own way.
I note in passing that I've met Mark Herman, and didn't hold Blame it on the Bell Boy against him - and he reminded me of Brian Stableford.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (Mark Herman, 2008)
There's a point toward the end of this film were you guess where it's headed; for ten minutes you hope and know it won't go there. Then it does, and rips your heart out - actually leaving more problems than it solves. Six million Jews ought to be enough - but one death stands in for all the others. there a problem there, just as Life is Beautiful was a problem for its comedy and Schindler's List was a problem for focusing on the exceptions. Edit: This film is based on the book by John Boyne - a cross-over title with adult and YA editions I gather, which I have not read. End of edit
But that is to get ahead of ourselves - which is the case in any film we're the audience know more about what's going on than all but a handful on the characters.
Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is happy, even in war time Berlin, but less happy to move with his family to the country: his sister is growing up, they are to have a tutor, and he's not allowed to visit the farm next door. Interdictions are made to be broken, and so it is he makes his way through a back gate, through window and across a magical land to an electrified fence to where a boy Schmuel (Jack Scanlon) is waiting in his pyjamas.
We know, of course; we know what the farmers are doing, and we can guess at their fate - and that Bruno's father (David Thewlis) is now is charge of all this. We know how disagreement is viewed as disloyalty, and how even patrents need to be informed upon. We know how this will play out. If I invoke The Night of the Hunter it is perhaps too far; rarely is childhood innocence and real evil so closely depicted. Empire of the Sun is another ancestor, but there we are hardly made to feel Jim is in damger.
Bruno betrays his friend - not three times, but once, and make atonement - and more profoundly than the film of the same name. But it is Schmuel we should care for, and the six million others, not just Bruno.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Guillermo Del Toro, 2008)
Here we don't need to worry as much about the politics as a pro-republican pseudo-historical drama which ended up endorsing royalty (Pan's Labyrinth). We get fed a back story of the manufactured army, possibly lifted direct from John Hurt's performance in The Storyteller (so where's the muppet dog?). Forty years later Elric Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) comes to retrieve part of the crown that will help him raise an army of golden warriors, unless his power is challenged by, oh don't know, maybe Hellboy (Ron Perlman).
Much as you'd expect with the law of diminishing returns - bigger assed villain faces meaner tougher hero. There's niceness around the edges - demons in the background, a troll afraid of a canary, a cahracter who is ectoplasm, and digital blends to with puppetry all but seemlessly. And it's ironic enough that you never really have to care.
Totals: 134 (Cinema: 61; DVD: 68; TV: 5
I note in passing that I've met Mark Herman, and didn't hold Blame it on the Bell Boy against him - and he reminded me of Brian Stableford.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (Mark Herman, 2008)
There's a point toward the end of this film were you guess where it's headed; for ten minutes you hope and know it won't go there. Then it does, and rips your heart out - actually leaving more problems than it solves. Six million Jews ought to be enough - but one death stands in for all the others. there a problem there, just as Life is Beautiful was a problem for its comedy and Schindler's List was a problem for focusing on the exceptions. Edit: This film is based on the book by John Boyne - a cross-over title with adult and YA editions I gather, which I have not read. End of edit
But that is to get ahead of ourselves - which is the case in any film we're the audience know more about what's going on than all but a handful on the characters.
Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is happy, even in war time Berlin, but less happy to move with his family to the country: his sister is growing up, they are to have a tutor, and he's not allowed to visit the farm next door. Interdictions are made to be broken, and so it is he makes his way through a back gate, through window and across a magical land to an electrified fence to where a boy Schmuel (Jack Scanlon) is waiting in his pyjamas.
We know, of course; we know what the farmers are doing, and we can guess at their fate - and that Bruno's father (David Thewlis) is now is charge of all this. We know how disagreement is viewed as disloyalty, and how even patrents need to be informed upon. We know how this will play out. If I invoke The Night of the Hunter it is perhaps too far; rarely is childhood innocence and real evil so closely depicted. Empire of the Sun is another ancestor, but there we are hardly made to feel Jim is in damger.
Bruno betrays his friend - not three times, but once, and make atonement - and more profoundly than the film of the same name. But it is Schmuel we should care for, and the six million others, not just Bruno.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Guillermo Del Toro, 2008)
Here we don't need to worry as much about the politics as a pro-republican pseudo-historical drama which ended up endorsing royalty (Pan's Labyrinth). We get fed a back story of the manufactured army, possibly lifted direct from John Hurt's performance in The Storyteller (so where's the muppet dog?). Forty years later Elric Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) comes to retrieve part of the crown that will help him raise an army of golden warriors, unless his power is challenged by, oh don't know, maybe Hellboy (Ron Perlman).
Much as you'd expect with the law of diminishing returns - bigger assed villain faces meaner tougher hero. There's niceness around the edges - demons in the background, a troll afraid of a canary, a cahracter who is ectoplasm, and digital blends to with puppetry all but seemlessly. And it's ironic enough that you never really have to care.
Totals: 134 (Cinema: 61; DVD: 68; TV: 5