FILM REVIEW: BRAVE

Pixar/Walt Disney Studios Films
Now Showing




It's taken 13 films, beginning with Toy Story in 1995, but Pixar have finally fashioned a film around a female protagonist: Princess Merida in Brave. But given that it took Disney -- a champion of female heroines in animation -- until 2009 to have a black leading lady (The Princess and the Frog), one can forgive Pixar's delayed embrace of sexual equality.

Merida (voiced by Kelly Macdondald) is the flame-haired first born and only daughter of King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), the former as permissive a parent as the latter is a disciplinarian. Duty dictates that Merida must one day marry the son of one of the neighbouring Scottish clans, and her mother is determined that Merida will be a true princess -- accomplished, well mannered, lady like -- when that day arrives.

And when it does, it is all too soon for Merida. With a nature as wild as her hair, the horse riding, arrow-shooting princess wishes to be the mistress of her own fate, a wish which is granted when she happens upon a witch's cottage in the woods; the old lady in-residence (wittler, not witch!) conjuring a potion to change Merida's mother's mind.

But the princess should have asked to see the fine print, for once administered the potion doesn't so much alter Elinor's mind as her body: the Queen is transformed into a bear, and if Merida doesn't reverse the spell within two days' time, Elinor will remain as such.

That is if her husband, a man who lost his leg to a grizzly (seen in the film's opening sequence; one of many in Brave which are quite dark in tone), and continues to bear a grudge, doesn't discover the interloper and put her to the sword.

Brave is essentially a film about mother-daughter relationships, as strained as they are loving. But in the princess-bear dynamic it plays somewhat like How To Train Your Dragon, with both beast and disapproving parent rolled into the one, and the Queen-as-bear providing most of the film's humour.

Merida's younger brothers, three pint-sized, red-haired mischief makers, also add laughs but which seem more in keeping with a DreamWorks film, while the Scottish-English voice cast, which includes Craig Ferguson and Julie Walters, though impressive is without distinction; even the usually raucous Connolly is kept in-check.

That the animation in Brave is beautiful is a given: the hills, forests and lochs both realistically rendered and storybook rich. The 3D, of course, is completely unnecessary.

And even if Pixar's foray into fairy tales and female empowerment isn't all that we hoped it would be, Brave still manages to be far, far and away superior to last year's soulless cash cow, Cars 2.

FILM REVIEW: MARLEY

Roadshow Films
Now Showing




Sometimes you don't know what you don't know until you do. Case in point: Bob Marley. Of course I had heard of the musician and pride of Jamaica who, in the late 1960s through to the early '80s, brought reggae music to the world. But I didn't know all that much about him; the man beneath the dreadlocks, as it were.

It shames me to say that I only recognised a handful of Bob Marley songs -- Get Up, Stand Up, I Shot The Sheriff, No Woman, No Cry, and Is This Love? -- featured in the comprehensive and extensive (145 minutes!) documentary, Marley. Directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, 2006), the film covers the life of the musician from his poor, mixed-race beginnings (born in 1945) in a Jamaican village through to his international success on the world music stage, and his untimely death in 1981.

So much so was my ignorance of this man's life, I had assumed that Bob Marley, like so many musicians, actors, and artists who die young, did so tragically as a result of either drugs or a mad man's bullet (Marley was indeed shot in 1976 but that didn't kill him).

Bob Marley actually died of cancer, which is no less tragic (and least of all for befalling a 36-year-old) but for me, it was a revelation, as is most information in the doco divulged through interviews with Marley's family (wife, partners, children), former members of his band, The Wailers, and music industry types; all interspersed with interviews with the man himself, home movie footage, and his live performances.

A pot smoker (der!), a Rastafarian, politically neutral in Jamaica's heated political scene (though that didn't prevent him being shot in 1976, ironically just days before a concert for peace) and, despite being relatively shy, a womaniser who ultimately fathered 11 children, Marley lead a colourful though, by rock and roll standards, a rather controversy-free life.

That may leave Macdonald's doco open to accusations of hagiography, and admittedly Marley is an unabashed love letter to the man and musician. But what little grey there was in the man's life -- his infidelities, his almost competitive nature with his children -- is covered (though perhaps not salaciously enough for some tastes).

As both an introduction to, and celebration of the artist and the man, Marley is informative and engaging, and at the very least could introduce a new generation (young and old) to the music of Bob Marley.

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL 2012 REVIEW: WUTHERING HEIGHTS

If Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was the so-called "muddy hem" version of Jane Austen, then Andrea Arnold's take on Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights could very well be called "down and dirty".

Not in a sexual sense -- there's very little in the way of eroticism -- but in the film's setting and exposure to the elements. Fully immersed in the cold, wind and rain of the Yorkshire moors, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that members of cast and crew came down with pneumonia (perhaps making it a perfect fit for this year's SFF weather).

Sadly, Arnold's strong evocation of place and the elements doesn't extend to the love story between Heathcliff and Cathy. First depicted as youths (by newcomers Soloman Glave and Shannon Beer, respectively), then as adults (James Howson and Kaya Scodelario), the relationship between the (white) farmer's daughter and the (black) boy adopted by Cathy's Christian father, never really ignites; Arnold preferring to focus on the tragic aspects of Bronte's novel (which I confess I've never read) rather than the romantic.

This may have been more effective (and affecting) had the director spent less time on the youthful leads and more time with the adults, when Heathcliff returns to Wuthering Heights to find Cathy unhappily married and with child.

Indeed, at 128 minutes Wuthering Heights is far too long: an epic novel it may well be, but like so many filmmakers today, Arnold confuses running time for importance and "epic-ness".

Still, one can admire Arnold's bravery in taking a much-loved literary classic and eschewing all of the expected staples of the period (bonnet) drama. The absence of a score is also a bold move, and the film is beautifully, though darkly shot by Robbie Ryan, and in 1.33:1 (perhaps to resemble a book?).

Wuthering Heights (Paramount-Transmission Films) will be released in Australia October 11.

FILM REVIEW: LE CHEF

Icon Film Distribution
Now Showing





Jacky Bonnot (Michael Youn) loves to cook. Unfortunately for Jacky, the kitchens where he works aren't as passionate about the menu as he is, resulting in his regularly being fired from restaurants, cafes and the French equivalent of roadside truck stops.

Holding out for the right cooking job wouldn't be so bad if his partner, Beatrice (Raphaelle Agogue), wasn't expecting their first child, the birth of which will reduce them to a no-income household. So Jacky 'man's up', puts his culinary dreams on hold, and takes a job as a window painter at a nursing home.

Naturally, Jacky gravitates to the nursing home's kitchen where he attempts to enliven the menu for the residents, who are resistant at first to anything new but are slowly won over by the taste sensations being dished up.

As luck would have it, Alexandre Lagarde (Jean Reno), a Parisian celebrity chef with his own TV show and a three-hat restaurant, just happens to be a regular visitor to the nursing home, and upon tasting Jacky's food (a spin on one of Lagarde's own recipes; Jacky idolising the master chef), hires him on a trial basis.

Lagarde's restaurant is up for review from Paris's harshest food critics, and the chef needs something new to impress, both the critics and Stanislas Matter (Julien Boisselier), who owns the restaurant and can't wait for a loss of one of those hats: a demotion will enable Matter to fire Lagarde and hire the 'so hot right now' Brit chef, Cyril Boss (James Gerard), the kind of 'molecular gastronomer' who cooks with beakers and test tubes.

So ensues a mild comedy of misunderstandings and personality clashes, as Jacky attempts to hide his new, unpaid position from Beatrice, whilst simultaneously learning from and educating his idol in a bid to secure both their futures, with Reno and Youn making for an amiable odd couple.

The film's highlight is a comic set piece which sees Lagarde and Jacky go undercover, in Japanese drag, as diners in Cyril's restaurant. Culturally insensitive perhaps, but the sight of Reno and, particularly, Youn (in geisha guise), looking as though they've just come from the dress rehearsal of a community theatre's production of The Mikado, is hilarious.

More a dessert than a main course, Le Chef, directed by Daniel Cohen, is a puff pastry of a film that will neither sate nor spoil your appetite for French fare. It might not pass mustard in the MasterChef kitchen but for those in the mood for a ham and cheese croissant, Le Chef may just hit the spot.