Would you?

Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
When: May 2014
Where: Coronet Notting Hill Gate

You'd think nothing of a white transit van driving round the streets at night, on it's way home after a day out delivering goods, transporting furniture, machinery, basically making the world go round.  Perhaps if it were driving erratically you'd be more suspicious, is it full of stolen goods, a drunk driver?  What if it was a young woman asking for directions, slightly flirtatious, would you get in?  If you were married with children you'd probably already be home eating dinner, watching TV, getting ready for bed.  If you had a significant other you'd certainly not want to risk her wrath if she saw you getting dropped off by a young lady driving a van, it really wouldn't look good at all.  How about if you were single, living alone with nothing to do?  Would you accept then?  After all it seems pretty harmless, young girl delivering antiques from a transit van, you couldn't get much safer than that?


She looks a little lost and she's quite attractive, why not?  With an accent like that she must be quite well to do, what should I say?  Not to worry she does most of the talking, where are we headed again?  Would you like to come over to my friend's place?  Ermm...  Sure why not, beats being home alone, freedom or otherwise.  Maybe I'm a good catch after all, perhaps she's after something a little different, maybe she's just saying thanks?  Okay, this is more than thanks, she's a little flirty, I like it but it can't be true, that's for sure.

We're here now, nothing to lose by going inside, it's a pretty dark in here but she's taking her clothes off and beckoning me over.  I know what I need to do now.  Oh no, she's out of reach, I feel like I'm in quick sand.  There she is, so near yet out of reach.  What?  There's someone else down here.  Too late now.  I'm confined to this place.  Nobody will come and find me, nobody knows I'm gone.

If Under the Skin ended with that it would be too simplistic, if you are a young, single and slightly lonely man not used to female attention the odds of you jumping into a transit van with a beautiful woman followed by the promise of sex you'd do exactly what the men in this film did.  You'd not worry about the aftermath, about the man on the motorbike removing all traces of your existence from the planet.

But the film asks us more, what lies under the skin?  When our alien hiding in human skin needs help a lonely man takes her in, reversing the roles, she wants to leave without a trace for fear of him discovering the truth about her, after a night of passion (well not exactly!).  Walking in the woods emotionally unsure after the kindness shown to her in an hour of need our alien is stalked and set upon by a man who tries to rape her.  There is a child like innocence to adulthood from our alien, much like the men she trapped.  There are mixed emotions as whilst nobody truly wishes rape on another, we are not talking about an innocent victim, though our rapist perhaps thinks otherwise until her human skin is damaged and left behind.

The isolated people in an isolated atmosphere become easier to empathise with, the novelty of the nudity has worn off.  The sense of feeling trapped increases and I feel worse inside, I don't know if I feel proud to be a man or even human but then is that really our fault?  Ignore the scenery, the beauty, if she drove past right now would you get in, knowing what you know?  If you were vulnerable would you help someone else or hope they went away?  Could you just wipe their memory away, make them no longer exist and move on?  Do you understand why they don't say no?  Do you understand why you don't say no?  This is no Tarantino death/rebirth of the modern man under threat by a smarter stronger woman, more a simple desire to get under our skin and see what is really underneath.

An Evening With Thomas

The Hunt (2012, Thomas Vinterberg)
When: 14th October 2012

Where: Vue West End

Wow, what a start to this years LFF for us!  We had the good fortune to see Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt introduced by the man himself with and a short Q & A afterwards.  Anyway, on to the film.  The Hunt is set in a rural community in Denmark kitted out with fashionable beards and woolly jumpers, armed with hunting rifles and are a close knit bunch.  Our protagonist, Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) is a little down on his luck, he has divorced from his wife Kirsten and hardly sees his son Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrøm), living alone in his big house with just his dog Fanny for company.  He also recently had to change jobs, now minding children at the local nursery instead of teaching at the secondary school which recently closed.  However, Lucas has good friends that help keep him looking to a more positive future.  He takes pleasure in looking out for Klara (Annika Wedderkopp), his best friend Theo's (Thomas Bo Larsen) often neglected daughter who regularly wonders off unseen and is continually scared of stepping on the cracks in the pavement.  He even has a new love interest, Nadja (Alexandra Rapaport), one of the workers at the nursery, who is an immigrant and speaks an interesting blend of English and Danish.  Lucas finds his son, Marcus will be living with him once school breaks for Christmas, his luck his changing.  Then, with one sentence spoken by one person his whole world comes crashing down.

We are shown the set up for the incident, one evening Klara is sat at home and her older brother comes back with his friend showing off the pornography he has captured on his iPad and is intent on showing it to and crudely describing it to his sister.  The next day at nursery Klara makes a small heart and a note and leaves it for Lucas.  She also comes up to him and kisses him on the lips.  Lucas is quick to tell her she should only kiss Mummy and Daddy on the lips and that she should give the heart she has made to one of the boys her own age.  Klara denies having made the heart, despite us seeing her making it and signing the card with it "Klara".  

Yet again, Klara is the last one to be collected from nursery that evening and whilst Lucas and Nadja are flirting in the kitchen (well she is doing most of the flirting), the head mistress starts talking to Klara and she says that Lucas showed her "his willie" and it was pointing out (much like the pornography her brother showed her the night before).  The Head teacher is in a state of shock and over the course of the following day she begins to unravel, offering us the perfect guide in how not to handle a sensitive situation.  We also see a "professional" person interview Klara which is tragically shocking to watch and was apparently a slightly amended transcript from a real police investigation.

After the head teacher tells everyone that Lucas is guilty of molesting Klara and possibly other children at the nursery the town turns against him.  Her simple reasoning is that children don't lie, why would they?  Lucas is shacked up with Nadja in his house, she asks him if he really did it and she jokes about how ridiculous the whole situation is.  However, the situation takes a turn for the worse as Lucas begins to realise what it's like to be presumed guilty of paedophilia, one of the crimes with about has high a social stigma you can get.  The head teacher called his ex-wife to tell her what "happened", his son finds out and comes to visit him. The emotional situation between Lucas and his ex-wife causes him to get upset and kick Nadja out of the house.  His son Marcus goes out to buy him some food but gets kicked out of the super market much to the annoyance of the checkout girl who is more interested in asking him out.  As Marcus arrives back at his Dad's house he sees him being arrested by the police but cannot get back in to the house as the spare key under the mat is with someone else (we think Nadja).  Left with no option he takes the long walk to his Godfather Brunn's (Lars Ranthe)house.  Brunn is somewhat the unifying force of the town.  He has the large house and organises the hunts and drinking events for the men. Brunn promises to fulfil his duty as godfather and see what he can do to make sure Lucas is treated fairly (he is the only one who falls down the middle, actually keen to wait to see if there is sustainable evidence against Lucas before making his mind up).

Lucas is released by the police due to lack of evidence in the case (the children described him taking them to his basement, Lucas does not have a basement in his house).  Whilst Lucas has been cleared in the eyes of the law, he has not been cleared in the eyes of the townsfolk.  Whilst staying with Brunn, the kitchen window is smashed with a rock and his dog Fanny is killed and left out for him to find in a refuse sack.  Trying to do something as simple as buying groceries from the supermarket, or attending church on Christmas Eve become like running the gauntlet, especially as Lucas is keen to confront those who stop him going about his business.  The situation comes to a head when Lucas confronts Theo at church on Christmas Eve and again later that night at Theo's home.  Theo is torn, as he cannot believe both his daughter and his best friend.  That Christmas night he goes up to check on Klara and finds her talking in her sleep.  She thinks he is Lucas and she apologies for saying what she did and not realising what would happen for making up what she said.  Theo's opinion of the situation changes because of what his daughter said without being prompted by anyone and he decides to pay Lucas a visit with food and drink.  The two men talk about happier times in their past.

A year passes and there is a large event at Brunn's house.  It is time for Marcus to become a man as he is now legally allowed to hunt.  Lucas has been accepted back into the community again along with his son.  He is back with Nadja as well.  Marcus is presented with the family hunting rifle by Brunn to rapturous applause.  Lucas is still getting what looks like an odd look from Theo's older son.  The next day they are out hunting and Lucas is about to shoot a deer only to find there is someone else there.  A shot is fired narrowly missing Lucas who is in line with the deer.  Lucas looks back, a real look of dread on his face to see a figure looking back at him.  A figure that is masked by the sunlight streaming through the trees.  Is he ever truly forgiven?

For me when a film comes out that could have been set any time in the last 50 years I ask one simple question, why now?  For me there are a number of easy answers.  The central premise of the film is a false accusation made by a trusted person.  That accusation is quickly repeated and becomes the truth.  Not once are the real facts checked before it's too late.  The result is a witch hunt against the falsely accused that almost leads to his demise.  For me the film seems to parallel with the way in which social networks are used today, cyber bullying, mischief making and media manipulation. We've seen everything from fake airport bombers on Twitter to fake screws for the iPhone 5 on web forums to the trashed houses of kids who thought they'd invite the entire world to their birthday party via Facebook.  You take something small, a comment that is copied and copied and then spirals out of the control of the person who made it.  People still trust things seen on the internet, it can often be hard to tell the truth from fiction, just like with children and the consequences for getting this wrong can be tragic.   For me this makes The Hunt interesting as the more recent trend in cinema is to deal with the criminals that got away with it, rather than the falsely accused. The best example of this is to compare Vinterberg's earlier film Festen, with The Hunt to see how the director and the world have moved on.

For me the best thing about the drama is how the film manipulates your feelings for Lucas.  The film sets us up to feel sorry for him due to his work and family situation.  As you watch his reaction to the accusation against him your feelings for him change from sympathy.  You wonder if Vinterbeg will flash back to a scene confirming the accusations against him to show you up for rooting for Lucas.  You wonder if he will pack up and leave, or perhaps just put a bullet in his head.  Instead he fights as best he can and slowly you root for him but always worry that he wont make it to the end of the film. 

Just a little end note on the Q & A after the film.  Despite the best efforts of the presenter at miss-interpreting the audience's questions and managing to ask some pretty uninteresting ones of her own, Thomas Vinterberg  held is own and delivered his answers masterfully.  It was shame the Q & A didn't go on for longer as he gave good answers to good questions and I would have been happy to pay extra for my ticket if I knew he was turning up for a proper Q & A.

The Hunt goes on general release in the UK on 30th November 2012

 

Escape From the Carnival Part 2: Undersea Chaos at SEA LIFE London

The BP Portrait Award 2012

For day two of the Carnival we had planned an alternative escape route.  Rather than hiding out at Stonehenge, we would take part in some urban camouflage in the heart of the Southbank.  Before the main action we made a small detour to the National Portrait Gallery to check out the BP Portrait Award 2012.  This was a great warm up for the day ahead, below were a few of my favourites from the exhibition in no particular order:

Mr Kitazawa's Noodle Bar, Tokyo - Carl Randall
Still Waiting - Antonio Barahona
Rasputin always wins - Paul Moyse
Wes's Dream - Erin Wozniak

You can view the above pictures and info from the exhibition here: BP Portrait Award 2012


Las Iguanas
After a little taste of art it was time to fill our stomachs.  We settled on Las Iguanas, a Central and South American themed restaurant on the Southbank.  Las Iguanas appealed due to the cheapish looking lunch menu, the lack of a wait for a table and a feeling that if it were half as good as Wahaca we'd have a decent lunch.  We were quickly shown to a nice corner table in the downstairs part of the restaurant.  Sadly a common trick was in use today, advertise a cheap deal outside on the menu board, but once you get the customer sat down the deal is nowhere to be seen.  Instead we were offered a two for one on cocktails which we gladly accepted.  The cocktails weren't amazing but they did make for a very pretty picture.  The food was decent and came quickly, nicely presented and full of flavour.  Service was fine.  It was time for the bill and the chance to join the crowds for the privilege of queuing for the London Aquarium, or Sealife London as it calls itself these days.

SEA LIFE London Aquarium

Thankfully we had booked our tickets for the aquarium online that morning.  We took advantage of an after 3 PM special offer with reduced price entry and access to the priority queue.  If we hadn't have booked this offer we would have certainly walked away as the main queue was chaotic and slow moving and the admission charge is high.  Thankfully we waited barely ten minutes in the priority queue.  We hadn't been to the aquarium in some time and I remember it was busy in places on that occasion too.  Today however, it was crazy with people pushing each other in the dark on the way down to see the fishes.  The aquarium was worth about three hours plus of our time and we enjoyed watching the small children point out the "Happy Feet" and the "Finding Nemos"!  After a while of getting accustomed to the crowds and staying clear of the pushers it became an increasingly enjoyable visit thanks to the huge range of sea creatures on show and the chance to get up really close to them.  We also got to take some great pictures as well.

I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock, 1953)
I was looking forward to the next part of the day as we approached early evening on the Southbank, Alfred Hitchcock's, I Confess at the BFI.  I am a big Hitchcock fan with Vertigo and North by Northwest being two of my favourites but I was looking forward to I Confess as it looked like a simple tale of guilt and suspense.  The film is about a priest (Montgomery Clift) who is framed for killing a man thanks to a less than plausible alibi.  He is unable to clear his name, as the perpetrator of the crime Otto Keller, (O.E. Hasse) is someone close to him who has admitted to the crime whilst in confession knowing that the priest cannot say a word to anyone as it is against his faith to do so.  As the film progresses, the priest becomes more and more involved in the murder case.  However, he stays true to his beliefs by not giving up the suspect.  Eventually cracks appear, but it is not the priest that caves in.  After being found not guilty in a court of law to the disgust of all in the court room our priest walks free to cries of abuse from the crowd who all expected him to be found guilty.  Our murderer still can’t help himself and as his wife tries to give him up he shoots at her and the priest, fatally wounding his wife and giving the game away.   As the police and the priest chase him down he is still unaware and has deluded himself into thinking the priest finally talked as he is shot down by the police.   I Confess is a really well put together film in that all the characters have something to hide, have all trusted the wrong people or have betrayed the ones they love.  There is also an interesting political element/allegory with the criminal being German.  I was now looking forward to a tasty dinner to discuss the film over.


The Riverside
After years and years of walking past and saying no, we decided to try the Riverside at the BFI for dinner and it was a great choice, albeit the menu is a touch limited for regular visits.  The food is decent value for money and best of all there was no need to queue to get a table which on the Southbank is a big bonus when you are often quoted an hours wait for restaurants you'd not normally give the time of day to.  I went with the pulled pork burger with chips washed down with a pint of Heineken and finished up with a cup of coffee that smelt better than it tasted.  We then enjoyed the scenic walk back across the bridge to Embankment tube and off home, hoping we'd dodged the carnival for another year.

National Portrait Gallery - 2 St.Martin's Place London WC2H 0HE
SEALIFE London - County Hall, Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7PB
BFI - Belvedere Road, South Bank SE1 8XT