the hunt for red october (1990)

not my usual sort of film, but interesting none the less. alec baldwin is great in the part that harrison ford and ben affleck (and perhaps ryan gosling?) would later go onto portray, but sean connery plays the same role he plays in everything and just comes across as lazy. the technique used to control the use of language and accent is very interesting though. i had to watch this for my studies, so will be checking out the follow-up jack ryan films over the next few weeks.

letters from iwo jima (2006)

"letters from iwo jima" marks a distinct departure from the type of work one would expect from clint eastwood. for a start, the films dialogue is pretty much all in japanese, a bold undertaking for an american filmmaker. im going to use ''letters from iwo jima'' as a point with which to examine the myth that east wood is racist. people get mixed up with the character of dirty harrys right wing stance and him. eastwood cleared a lot of paths for the preconceptions of black people in his films (see the drug dealer in ''dirty harry'' and the morgan freeman character in ''unforgiven'', one that shatters the legacy of one of americas only true artforms - the western). funnily enough it was spike lee, hollywoods resident loudmouth race card playing has-been that accused eastwood of maintaining such a stance, based solely on the untrue premise that there are no black soldiers in ''flags of our fathers" (the companion piece to "letters from iwo jima"). frankly this claim is riduculous, especially when you consider the place of "letters from iwo jima" in this equation. personally i find lee's recent picture "miracle at saint anna" to be a much more thinly veiled racist attack upon american and white culture. seriously, were living in 2009, there is a black president in the white house and still spike lee manages to have a chip on his shoulder. maybe the guy should concentrate on making a decent film instead of constantly being pseudo-offended by the white man.

its interesting to compare the way in which the japanese are portrayed on screeen in "letters from iwo jima" to the way in which the japanese are portrayed in michael bay's work. they are no longer the one sided pastiches that they appear to be in "armageddon" and are instead fully fledged human beings! its refreshing to see an american filmmaker take such a stance. maybe spike lee should aim his hate in the general direction of michael bay... for once we get to see the different side of the story. we see how afraid and doubtful of their cause the men that would generally be categorised as "evil" really were, and we get to see the nobility of the men too. the scene in which a large number of the soldiers commit suicide is incredibly moving, but at the same time incredibly tense. having not seen "flags of our fathers" recently enough to compare fairly i cant say definitively, but im sure that i didnt feel as moved during that film as i did here.

stylistically the film marks a bit of a departure from the usual war effort. we get to see the action from the point of view of the attacked, which while as a notion is hardly unique, the manner within which it is cut is. we never see the faces of the attacking fighter pilots, or the ensuing soldiers (except for pivotal moments), and as such we never have an opportunity to engage with them as characters, pushing our emotional attachment towards the japanese. the initial bombing campaign on the island is shot from the level of the soldiers themselves. we see bombs hit at head height, we see men fall around us, men whom we had only moments earlier engaged with as viewers, and we feel baron nishi's pain wholeheartedly as he tends to his dying horse. there is a wonderful moment, that lasts literally just that, of a japanese flag flying atop a mound. this draws obvious parallels with the famous image of the american flag atop iwo jima, and reminds the viewer of what is still to come. its a magnificent subtle moment, and a testament to the subtlety of eastwood's work.

rome, open city (1946)

my first foray into ''proper'' neo-realism (outside of education at least) comes in the shape of roberto rossellini's "rome, open city". the film is a true example of guerilla cinema, with rosselini shooting on location in the genuine aftermath of nazi occupied rome using scraps of found camera film. the film predates such fare as pontecorvo's "the battle of algiers", a film that looks at similiar fare with a similiar attitude.

"rome, open city" has a real charm. the flow of the narrative impresses this point, the way in which an incident is introduced and then revealed later works well (ie the girl moaning about her home, ten minutes before we see just why she hates it so much), and carries a humour that i didnt expect to find. the character of the elderly grandfather, a man paralyzed in some unknown incident projects this humour solidly.

the film struck me as a fairly basic parable on the battle between good versus evil. there is a fairly strong analogy between the tortured "hero" of the film and the suffering of jesus, enforced heavily by the presence of the priest.

unfortunately my copy of "rome, open city" was marred by poor subtitles. its hardly the most complicated film, but this still distracted rather heavily. regardless of this niggle, the film was an incredible portrait of an area that i had previously little familiarity with.

valkyrie (2009)

a lot of criticism has been levelled at the use of the respective actors own accent in bryan singer's "valkyrie", yet i feel this is a fairly trivial criticism. if anything the dropping of german accents actively helps the performances, pushing the accessibility whilst dropping any form of distraction. i think a lot of people are forgetting that, at heart at least, this is a popcorn adventure film, and nothing more (despite the best intensions of the filmmakers.

the film tells the story of colonel claus von stauffenberg, a key player in a plot to assassinate adolf hitler. obviously hisory dictates that he wasnt successful in his endevear, yet the suspense of the film still flows.

this is tom cruise's film, something that will be blazingly obvious to anyone who has seen the films marketing campaign or indeed any tom cruise film this decade. i once wrote an essay on how cruise is perhaps unique in the sense that he is the only actor who could be considered an auteur, in the respect that he makes the majority of the creative decisions on a film project, akin to how a director would usually. thats not to say that the rest of the performances in''valkyrie'' are invisible. kenneth branagh, terrence stamp and thomas kretschmann (the actor originally set to play von stauffenberg, prior to cruise's involvement) are all great, although bill nighy annoys (as usual).

stylistically the film isnt the usual thing that one would expect from bryan singer, its far too pedestrian. alas it does what it intends to do, and for a couple of hours at least, is an entertaining saturday night film.