Reviews

To many, Mathieu Amalric was the bad guy in Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster, 2008), but most familiar with his name will recall his outstanding portrayal of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, 2007). Small parts in Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005) and Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006) support the idea that Amalric's bound to have made it – to some extent – in Hollywood by now. This may be the source of the trashy and (at times) visceral swipes at the American culture, that fuel much of his first internationally distributed feature On Tour.

Joachim (Amalric) invites a group of burlesque dancers are over from the States to tour with him around his homeland, whereby they are promised an almighty, star-spangled crescendo in Paris. These women are all shapes and sizes: 'real women' we're often told to imagine in the media backlash against stick-thin-supermodels. The performances within certainly feel real. Amalric's camera seems to be a claustrophobic one, that never shys away from the lines and creases of these performers (perhaps an idea carried over from his Diving Bell... role). And yet he knows when to back off and let the audience take their place amongst the paying spectators in his fictional theatre. At best, the viewer is awestruck at the harmonisation of vulgarity of spectacle and beauty (epitomised in Julie Atlas Muz's 'moonhead' dance).

Fellini comparisons are understandable: the film is rife with references to La Strada (1954), La Dolce Vita (1960), and most notably 8 ½ (1963). We meander from one place to another, meeting past and future conquests, and picking up plot lines along the way. They're never just dropped though, and the intensity and style Amalric offers strikingly well in acting is carried through into his filmmaking. What at first seem like transparent, garish, has-been beauties, do in fact transform into characters worthy of understanding, to the extent that Mimi le Meaux (Miranda Colclasure) becomes as much the protagonist as Amalric by half-way. This owes much to the documentary style of the film, whereby the viewer is omniscient throughout. We're there for the warm-up, the laziness, the meals, the performance, the disappointing cubicle sex. The omniscient spectator is granted access to everything. Make of it what we will. Amalric directs and stars, and his acting is thoroughly melodramatic too, as he battles to be part of the limelight we find out he's recently lost due to his tearaway instincts – in this way he very much resembles the Mastroianni of Fellini. But these women who want the limelight ("this is our show" he's constantly reminded) disrupt the chances of him ever running the show. Amalric, in a very roundabout way – like Boyle in 127 Hours (2010) - seems to be highlighting the impossibility of going it alone.

The film is a mess. But an entertaining mess. In context, it wouldn't make sense any other way.

When Sofia Coppola was growing up, life must have been tough. Thrust into the limelight since her uncredited appearance as baby Michael in her father's The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), fame has weighed heavy on her back, like a jewel-encrusted load, and it's a subject that's been evident in her work since her first short, Bed Bath and Beyond (1996). Since then there's been the much acclaimed Lost in Translation (2003), whereby the meeting place between older male (a figure unavoidably connected to that of her father, Francis) and neglected younger female (herself) is beginning to be explored. In Japan, an international superstar is feeling lonely and alienated, and finds solace in the beautiful Scarlet Johansson. In L.A., an international superstar is left lonely and alienated, and finds solace in his neglected daughter, the young Elle Fanning. This is Somewhere: it might be clear why some have derided the generic nature of the film, and its sulky, brat-like tone, and the potential divisiveness Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) is the movie star who has what he wants in abundance - but like the opening scene implies, even the luxury of a Ferrari becomes dull when you're just driving round in circles. This guy is on self-destruct – on more than one occasion we're shown that he'll only sleep when passed out between the legs of some faceless blonde (who always resemble his yet to be introduced daughter), due to too much whisky. He receives anonymous texts asking "why do you have to be such an asshole" – these are never explained, and nor do they need to be. The film is highly elliptical and contemplative in its exploration of the spiralling waster. It must be said that this is due in part to one of cinema's most wanted cinematographers, Harris Savides (having previously carried out the role for Gus Van Sant, Noah Baumbach and David Fincher). Slow zoom outs, lingering stationary shots, and eerie use of symmetry all work to build on a sense of lunacy that must underlie all the sunshine, lollipops and rainbows of Tinseltown.

We've been here before with Danny Huston's superb Tolystoyan 'Ivan' in Ivansxtc (Bernard Rose, 2000), and while Dorff never reaches the intensity of pill-fuelled Huston, his performance as the always nonchalant actor, who, despite having to stand on a platform to reach a co-star for publicity (no other reference to Tom Cruise exists), is irresistible to women. Fanning is the natural choice for the role of Cleo - a sibling herself to more widely recognised sister Dakota, she's supposedly familiar with her surroundings here. She recalls Jodie Foster's Iris, the teenage prostitute in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976), minus the angsty dominance. What does relate the two is the same theme of corrupted innocence. After her dad is lulled to sleep by twin pole-dancers in his hotel room, he's woken up by Cleo – a drastic choice of cut, and one that confirms the idea that this little girl is bound to this way of life, when viewed in light of what follows. Perhaps the key scene in the film, whereby Cleo manages to combine the elegance of a refined ballet dancer with the awkwardness of a pre-pubescent, she ice-skates to Gwen Stefani's Cool. Dad watches with more intent than he'd have possibly given to those twin strippers.

It's a film which would understandably frustrate many, alienating the art-film crowd with the frequency of trendy music (Phoenix score; Julian Casablancas; Foo Fighters; Sebastian Tellier), while boring the mainstream with the seemingly absent plot. While several elements are pure replication of previous projects, I'd argue that Coppola has found progress in the daring she attributes to young Fanning, the direct stabs at Hollywood (if only on account of her father's legacy), and in a continued project which strives to make the mainstream think. Not about the potential for space and time manipulation (which is what many attributed to Chris Nolan last year), but through the contemplation she affords the audience. To say any real ground is broken though would be a major overstatement.

Chris Morris's debut Four Lions (2010) found fame in it's irreverent portrayal of Islamic fundamentalism in Yorkshire: the headlines that accompanied Brass Eye (1997-2001) successfully carried on into a low-key marketing campaign in that debut feature. Beauvois' film isn't so much a farcical account of the spiralling contradictions of religious extremism. But it does share its preoccupation with exactly how far one, or rather a small community, can go to devote themselves to their beliefs.

The film is located in the 1996 Algerian Civil War, and tells the true story of a monastery under threat from the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA). Dom. Christian (Lambert Wilson) takes it upon himself to express their intentions to ignore the threats, and continue their mission of goodwill. This is disputed by the group throughout, whose dilemma forces some of them to question their allegiance to God, and jeopardise their own health (as with the outstanding Michael Lonsdale's, Luc). Coping with the sacrifices involved in such an all-consuming faith is key to the themes here ("We're not here for martyrdom" reminds Christian), and it's difficult to recall a more delicate, understated study. An excellent example of Beauvois' achievement, both visually and performance-wise, is the kiss Luc places on the mural of Christ. Moments like this underline the dependency they all share on one thing alone: their religion. It looms over them, both haunting and cradling them throughout, like the vast, unspoiled skylines which constantly diminish them beneath - Caroline Champetier's cinematography is key to the affect created.

Tranquil moments like Luc's, where the viewer is allowed in such close, personal space, are almost unsettling in the access that's granted. The beauty achieved in these meditative scenes is all the more striking as we're reminded that these men are nearing the end of their lives. Death is always present – from direct representation (as with the brutal throat-slitting of the Croat workers) to the indirect (the technique of cutting from the most tranquil scene to the loudest, most destructive scene).

The film is an anti-thriller in its treatment of fear and terror - the key moment occurs before the half-way point, and the viewer is left fearing for a reprisal for the duration. Beauvois' alternative narrative, featuring a fairly clear split down the middle, also featured in his previous Don't Forget You're Going to Die (1995) and To Mathieu (2000). Similarly, more recently, Mia Hansen-Love's Father of My Children (2010) involved a number of characters picking up the pieces in the wake of death. French colonialism in Algeria is only once directly attacked, when the police chief demands they leave. However, when viewed in a similar light to, say, Hidden (Cache, Michael Haneke, 2005), the occupation these men choose, the service they provided, the sacrifice they made, could too, easily be forgotten. So while the terrorism fears, today shared globally, are a focal point, a narrative of this kind reminds one not to forget the horrors of the past.

Of Gods and Men is testament to a thriving New French Cinema. Thought-provoking, rich in content both (formally and thematically), it's difficult to find fault with a film that so meticulously justifies its choices: the landscape is artwork, the tone is perfect, and the performances are achingly affective throughout.

Claustrophobic film is on the rise. Rodrigo Cortes's Iraq film Buried (2010) was released to surprising acclaim last year. A trailer for Sanctum (2010), the forthcoming James Cameron-produced underwater cave-exploration adventure, precedes 127 Hours: Danny Boyle's first feature since Slumdog Millionaire (2008). The same motif of entrapment stemming from lone attempts at glory fills much of Boyle's work. The results are shown in Shallow Grave (1994), Salim's demise in Slumdog, and Richard's attempts to outfox Sal in The Beach (2000). In some ways, the surreal realities of Trainspotting (1996) and 28 Days Later... (2002) turn this on its head, with the character needing to escape, towards a civilised community.

However, it isn't the setting so much that's the appeal with this theme of being trapped in small spaces, but more the character's coping with the event. Aron Ralston (James Franco) is an adventurer. Fearless, enthusiastic and resourceful, it seems that he doesn't need anyone – it's this that becomes the premise for what's to come. How far does being a loner, in spite of your own resourcefulness, really get you? It's difficult not to draw reference to the political climate. A glimpse of Ralston's boss's t-shirt tells us "They can't lay us off if they can't find us". Boyle himself has maintained lifelong Labour sympathies, which can account for the focus on community (or the lack of it) that drives the film. In a life or death situation, Ralston comes to realise that resourcefulness and will might prevail, but that individualism landed him there. 'Checking in' now and then might have avoided the whole fiasco.

This is typical Boyle fare from the outset, exhibiting an MTV-style montage of soda, beer, and fast-food. It works as a kind of visual "Choose life..." The gore (for which a fair amount of the audience are here primarily to see) is near-meticulous in it's attempts to qualify this as surgery: the camera constantly returning the severing of the nerve. These fast paced cuts of close-up, which include a number of unnecessary microscopic scenes of water, perspiration, urine leaving their points of origin, recall to some extent moments of terror in 28 Days Later. It's visceral soundtrack (scored by A.R. Rahman of Slumdog) and (akin to Cillian Murphy's desperate hero) Franco's intensity supports this. Not short of new, more technically demanding ways to visually show the vastness of middle-American desert, Boyle's never been one for allowing his audience time to contemplate - this is what distinguishes Sean Penn's understandably compared, but superior, Into the Wild (2007).

What Slumdog offered the viewer in terms of a rarely transmitted, transcultural showpiece, was marred slightly with cliché. High-octane throughout, 127 Hours amalgamation of contemporary media phenomenons, while subtle in its assessment of the Western socio-political landscape, doesn't feel quite so important. Franco will quite rightly earn praise to add to his growing repertoire for his portrayal of the all-American wanderer. Boyle on the other hand - following a church floor covered with the walking-dead, the brutal blinding of a slum child, and now a severed limb left somewhere in the Utah desert – continues to struggle to reach the affect of Trainspotting.