Flicks and the City review: The Dark Angel

With the BFI's excellent Gothic season in full flow, I take a look at Peter Hammond's 1989 adaptation of J. Sheridan le Fanu's novel Uncle Silas. Renamed The Dark Angel, and starring the late, great Peter O'Toole, this three part BBC series is well worth seeking out for both its performances and Hammond's wild take on le Fanu's Gothic thriller. Read my review for Flicks and the City by clicking on the link below.

Flicks and the City: The Dark Angel

Letterboxd - all the films I watch in 2014

So, I've returned to using Letterboxd, mainly to keep a track of all the films I watch in 2014. If you want to see what I've been watching, then follow me here - 

Letterboxd: My profile

Flicks and the City review: You're Next

My first review of the new year is of Adam Wingard's terrific home invasion horror movie, You're Next. Starring former home and away regular Sharni Vinson, and featuring Ti West, Larry Fessenden and Joe Swanberg, Wingard's latest shocker is well worth seeking out.

Click on the link below to read my thoughts on it for Flicks and the City.

Flicks and the City: You're Next

Explore: Five more home invasion movies worth your time:

Funny Games

The Strangers

Ils (Them)

Mother's Day

A L'interieur (Inside)

My favourite films of 2013.

OK, 2013 has been and gone and it was a pretty good year for film-goers of all persuasions. Here's my favourite ten movies, in no particular order.

You're Next - Adam Wingard, USA, 95 minutes, horror

Bullhead - Michael R. Roskam, BEL, 128 minutes, drama  

After Lucia - Michel Franco, MEX, 103 minutes, drama

Sleep Tight - Juame Balaguero, SPA, 108 minutes, horror

The Selfish Giant - Clio Barnard, UK, 91 minutes, social realism

The Great Beauty - Paolo Sorrentino, ITA, 150 minutes, drama

Gravity - Alfonso Cuaron, USA, 91 minutes, science fiction

Simon Killer - Antonio Campos, USA/FRA, 101 minutes, drama

Beyond the Hills - Cristian Mungiu, ROM/FRA/BEL, 150 minutes, drama

Neighbouring Sounds -  Kleber Mendonca Filho, BRA, 131 minutes, thriller

Also worthy of mention are - 

Jiro Dreams of Sushi, Post Tenebras Lux, The Act of Killing, The Conjuring, Robot & Frank, Gimme the Loot, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire  and What Richard Did.

Last but not least, Gareth Evans' 'Safe Haven' section of V/H/S 2 is an absolutely astonishing slice of film-making.

Oh yes, the films that underwhelmed or annoyed - 

The Spirit of '45

After Earth

Only God Forgives

Olympus Has Fallen

Brighton Cine-City 2013: Jan Svankmajer: The Inner Life of Objects

To enter into the worlds of Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer - onscreen or off - is to immerse oneself inside a singularly imaginative mind. Whatever the medium involved – film, puppetry, sculpture, collage, poetry or animation – Svankmajer has amassed a body of work as deeply engaging as it is wildly eclectic. As noted in this month's print issue of Sight & Sound, the 2013 edition of Brighton Cine-City Film Festival will be screening a complete retrospective of Svankmajer's short films and six features, many of which will subsequently tour the country. Alongside other special celebratory events, The University of Brighton Gallery is hosting the month long exhibition Jan Svankmajer: The Inner Life of Objects. Split into two sections – Natural History and Film – the exhibition encompasses three dimensional creations, posters, illustrations, puppets, film clips, sets and props that either act as a nostalgic treasure trove for those familiar with Svankmajer's work or as an enlightening entry point for those new to it. 

The Natural History (Historia Naturae) half of this compact but diverse exhibition captures the essence of the artist's work - alternately playful and disturbing, realistic yet fantastical, on the one hand evoking fairy-tales and on the other nightmares. Animal skulls and bones, feathers, watches, twigs, glass eyeballs, minerals and shells are just some of the materials Svankmajer has employed in the creation of a menagerie of fantasy creatures. Mostly skeletal in appearance, these fictitious beings feel familiar despite their obvious unreality, containing enough of a likeness to real species' to warrant their recognition as such. Wandering from cabinets of curiosity to the accompanying, richly detailed anatomical illustrations that line the gallery wall is to be educated in the ways of Svankmajer – his humour and childlike inquisitiveness, innate artistic talent and deep connection to worlds both real and imagined. There is a primitive, naïve quality to the assemblages that belies the skill of their creation, their lifelike quality forging a strong dialogue between Svankmajer's work in other mediums. He once said that 'I don't actually animate objects, I coerce their inner life out of them', and encountering these strange creatures goes a long way to affirming the statement.

Viewing the collection of film related pieces that make up the second part of The Inner Life of Objects is a no less tangible experience, for while numerous monitor screens show selected clips from Svankmajer's shorts and features, the space is dominated by many of the creations seen in those films. If the Natural History pieces are the, literal, bare bones of Svankmajer's imagination, the Film pieces are the meat on them. Little Otik is present, complete with the assortment of extra pieces used to animate the tree stump-baby, the mouse from Alice (1988) is to be found sat atop a wig, and a quite beautiful set from the same film – featuring a combination of puppets and cardboard cut outs – draws the eyes into its magical tableaux. 

Dominating the space, however, is a frankly terrifying crucified figure, hung high on one wall. A prop seen in Svankmajer's Lunacy (2005), the form is, justifiably, horrific. Nails protrude from almost every part of this tragic, sacrificial victim – the humour seen in much of the rest of the collection is decidedly absent in this depiction of an already brutal form of execution. The crucified figure is an unmissable reminder that while Svankmajer's work is often playful it is also as embracing of the repulsive. That the repulsion comes from the depiction, however exaggerated, of human cruelty and the playfulness comes in the shape of the bizarre creatures drawn from Svankmajer's own imagination says much about the man, his work and his worldview.

         http://www.cine-city.co.uk/cinecity-11th-brighton-film-festival/

Carrie screening at Dukes at Komedia

With remarkably fortuitous timing, on Friday 1st November the Dukes at Komedia in Brighton is screening Brian De Palma's classic 1976 adaptation of Stephen King's debut novel Carrie to be followed by a prom themed after-party. I'll be there in the bar area before the screening selling copies of my monograph about the film which has recently been published by Auteur Publishing. 

To Die For...A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)

Many films spring to mind. I have nostalgic choices and ones based on favourite performances (Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl, Cotillard in Rust and Bone, Shoenaerts in Bullhead), but the film that sucker-punched me on its first viewing is Jacques Audiard's A Prophet. It's a frontrunner in contemporary cinema and ruins me every time I watch it. I went to see it with a couple of friends who wrote it off as being "violent' and "too long". I got that it was brutal and relentless but at the heart of the film is triumph and defiance. Malik El Djebena's (Tahar Rahim) departure from timid to invulnerable is effortless; Rahim is staggeringly good in the role. His character would never have behaved the way he does were he not in prison, and because of that he emerges a hero despite the heinous things he's forced to do. And I love a broken hero. 

As an audience member the relationship between Malik and Cesar Luciana (Niels Arestrup) is terrifying but engrossing. From an actor's perspective the central performances are flawless. From a girl who grew up watching gangster movies it ticks that box too. I'd seen Audiard's work before and been wowed, but, for me, A Prophet is his masterpiece. Audiard does't even use an overbearing score to manipulate us. Though I do always relish the burst of Nas in the kitchen/montage scene, reflecting Malik's change. The hero succeeds and the baddie crumples, which, after over two hours of anguish is just what the audience/me needs. The story, Audiard's understanding of what makes the perfect performance (I truly believe they are perfect) and the acute intimacy of the handheld shooting firmly cements A Prophet as my film to die for. 

Rebecca Callard

Rebecca Callard is an English actress based in London. Her credits include The Borrowers, Robin Hood, The Grand and Blackout with Christopher Eccleston.  Rebecca can be seen next year with Michael Smiley and Steven Graham in the film Orthodox (@Orthodox_film) and in Simon Stephen's (@StephenSimon) play Blindsided. 
You can follow Rebecca on Twitter here.