Punch & Judy

Rated: MA 15+Punch and Judy

Directed by: Mirrah Foulkes

Written by: Mirrah Foulkes

Produced by: Michele Bennett, Nash Edgerton, Danny Gabai

Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Damon Herriman, Tom Budge, Benedict Hardie, Lucy Velik, Gillian Jones, Terry Norris, Brenda Palmer.

This strangely beautiful fairytale, horror story, social commentary is not an easy film to classify.

Behind the scenes, the director has breathed life into the puppets, allowing the drama of the Punch and Judy Show to play out beyond its predetermined conclusion.

Traditionally Punch batters a whole cast of characters. Often starting by mistreating his own baby, Punch’s other victims include Judy, a police constable, a skeleton, the devil and even a crocodile—with many of those hapless characters now populating the village of Seaside.

In the version of the show that has survived in England from the 17th century until the present day, Punch and Judy are glove puppets voiced by a single storyteller.

Dubbed the Professor, the puppeteer uses a device called a swazzle for the voice of Punch. Since the swazzle renders Punch almost unintelligible, he mutters away, his frustration and fury building, until he finally vents, paying out on anything in reach with his slapstick.

Even so, the film harks back to the earlier marionette theatre that made its way to England from Italy’s commedia dell’arte. The word slapstick in our modern language actually has its origins in the literal slap stick that Punchinello carried across from Europe, while the expression pleased as punch macabrely  derives from Punch’s glee when he beats another character senseless and then proudly proclaims, ‘That’s the way to do it’.

As, Punch & Judy opens, it’s a moment where life imitates art imitating life. Professor Punch (Damon Herriman) and Judy (Mia Wasikowska) are taking a bow for their newly revived more punchy and more smashy show when the Professor apropos of nothing, casually flings Judy across the stage and into a wall.

In keeping with the English tradition where the crowd sides with Punch, shouting out warnings to him and revealing the hiding places of the other characters, the living puppets of Seaside have descended into a state of mob rule, with those who are weaker or different are scapegoated as witches.

In this world the voice of the accuser holds sway, while the rabble seizes upon the flimsiest of pretexts to displace their own depravity onto the those unable to defend themselves: ‘This one’s chickens all died on the one night, this one has a rash and that one was out staring at the moon for too long.’

As three women, ‘Fresh filthy examples of the evil sweeping our land,’ cower on the gallows for Stoning Day (a cunning inversion of Mother’s Day), I was struck by a frisson of recognition. The setting was one I’d roamed around in. I’d had picnics there. It wasn’t the English forest that I was seeing, but native Australian bushland.

It was a conundrum. Why set a quintessentially English story on the other side of the world? The film was so beautifully composed, so it didn’t seem accidental. Many of the scenes had been shot with specially-selected lenses from the 1960s and 70s, and some scenes had even been shot by candlelight as way to evoke the rich, dreamlike feel. When I thought about it, I wondered if, maybe, the film had been designed so we could see ourselves more clearly, while we believe that we were looking at them over there.

Official Secrets

Rated: MA15+Official Secrets

Directed by: Gavin Hood

Script Written by: Gregory Bernstein, Sara Bernstein and Gavin Hood

Based on the Book Written by, Marcia Mitchell and Thomas Mitchell: ‘The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion’

Produced by: Ged Doherty, Sarada McDermott

Starring: Keira Knightley, Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Rhys Ifans, Adam Bakri, Ralph Fiennes, Conleth Hill.

Described as the untold true story of Katharine Gun, this is a film of a GCHQ translator and spy who took a stand against a war that, in the end, was never backed by any hard evidence.

I remember that first Iraqi war in 1991 – the green lights of warfare on the news like a computer game.  And I remember watching the Twin Towers burn and the silence while watching with work colleagues. Jets flew over the city on that first day of the second invasion (2003).  In Australia the war was felt.  And fought.  And protested against.

Yet, I can’t recall hearing about the leaked documents of Gun.

So the story here is gripping.

Weapons of Mass Destruction.

That was the line.

We went to war because of imminent threat.

Without hard evidence of this imminent threat, the declaration of war was needed to be pushed through the UN.

The Americans desperate to push the vote through send an email to the British GCHQ requesting agents to dig into the UN delegates to find information to turn votes in favour of going to war.

Concern about the legalities of the request, Katharine Gun investigates:

Who sent this email?

Who is Frank Koza?

And because MI6 don’t like the idea of this war;

And when journalist from The Observer, Martin Bright (Matt Smith) is told there won’t be a D-1 sanction against leaking the email;

Suddenly, who is Frank Koza?  Becomes a someone.

Instead of the propaganda feed to the media, here, the film shows the other side, the attempt to stop the machine.

From the viewpoint of Gun (Keira Knightley), this is more a drama than spy thriller.  This is the story about a relatable woman with no political ambitions or motivations, just an impulse to do the right thing, ‘Just because you’re the Prime Minister doesn’t mean you get to make up your own facts.’

I’m not always a fan of Knightley, but the weight of the film rests heavily on her ability to hold a relatable view of the injustice of what Gun sees is an illegal war pushed through by any means; to show and understand the impulse to do the right thing, to be a whistle blower, without coming across as being over-zealous.

And she’s great in this role: To make a stand, then realise what’s she done, to standing by her stance, Gun risks everything: her relationship with Kurdish husband, Yasar (Matthew Goode) seeking asylum, her job and her freedom.

It’s a cloak and dagger with a wry British humour.  There’s the underground carpark scene, but really this is an exchange of information while playing tennis.  This is a story from the newsroom and from the viewpoint of a woman trying to live an everyday life.

Who would have thought spell-check took part in allowing a war?!

But in the end, Gun’s continued freedom after admitting the leak speaks to the lengths of coverup and denial about the significance of unfounded evidence of imminent threat.

Doctor Sleep

Rated: MA15+Doctor Sleep

Directed by: Mike Flanagan

Based on the Novel Written by: Stephen King

Screenplay Written by: Mike Flanagan

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Cliff Curtis, Zahn McClarnon, Emily Alyn Lind, Selena Anduze, Robert Longstreet, Carel Struycken, Catherine Parker, James Flanagan, Met Clark, Zackary Momoh, Jocelin Donahue, Dakota Hickman.

Doctor Sleep is the sequel to Stephen King’s famous novel, The Shining (1977).

The film here, follows on from director Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 classic, never-to-be-forgotten interpretation featuring the axe-wielding Jack Torrance (Jack Nicolson) – ‘Here’s Johnny!’, opening in Florida, 1980, where Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) lives with his mother far away from any snow, far away from the Overlook Hotel.

But the Overlook Hotel hasn’t forgotten him or his Shining.

Using his magic tricks Danny manages to keep the monsters locked away.  But he can’t escape his own demons or the rage he inherited from his father.

Like the novel, addiction continues to plague Dan.  Except this time, we see his addiction and his journey to recovery.

Running away Dan can’t escape from himself but he finds compassion and through compassion he finds himself.

Looking for another bright light, Abra (Kyliegh Curran) finds a shining kindred spirit in Dan.   She introduces herself, writing, Hell😊

Following the detail of the novel we find Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) and her crew of empty devils who are the, True Knot who are also looking the next bright shining light.

This band of monsters are hunting those most pure.  Children.

‘Live long, stay young. Eat well,’ says Rose The Hat.

And Abra might be the most pure and brightest of all.

So there’s addiction, then redemption, compassion and all the grime of child-killing-devils contrasting to give the horror more kick.

But it’s not all black and white.

Screenwriter and director Mike Flanagan has captured the different layers of character that Stephen King writes so well (and why I’m such a fan), so Dan has his dirty deeds and the evil Rose The Hat is somehow likable in her loyalty to those in her inner circle.

And it’s a good story.  Shown well.

The soundtrack is restrained yet powerful as a heart beats steady, creating a suspense in the waiting that hangs when the beat stops so I could feel and hear my own heart, waiting for the next door to open, the next magic trick.

The stars wheel, gravity shifts, turning a room to slide into another place.

Yet the trickery isn’t over-done.

Flanagan has managed to get the detail of the novel without losing sight of the story.

I really enjoyed the book and have read it twice so I was hoping for a worthy adaptation.

And I got it.

Camille Claudel

Rated: PGCamille Claudel

Directed by: Bruno Nuytten

Produced by: Isabelle Adjani, Bernard Artigues

Starring: Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu, Alain Cuny, Laurent Grévill, Madeleine Robinson.

Restored version

In French with English subtitles 

It is definitely worth a trip to Winsor for a coffee, a croissant and Camille Claudel.

As a part of their Isabelle Adjani retrospective, the 2019 Alliance Française Classic Film Festival is screening  the 1988 classic, which tells the story of Camille Claudel’s tragic romance with the sculptor Auguste Rodin (Gérard Depardieu).

As the film opens, Camille Claudel is out late at night and all alone. The wind howls, snow is falling, and, despite her full-length skirt and bonnet, Claudel is burrowing into a muddy pit, pawing handfuls of wet clay into a suitcase.

What could possibly inspire such single-minded determination? An audition to work as an assistant to Rodin. Yes. Absolutely. But beyond that, Claudel’s aspirations were so improbable that a film about her life had to be based on a true story. Even at the dawn of modernism, Claudel’s chosen art form was unlikely.

Sculpture has always been hideously expensive and working at scale meant long hours of backbreaking toil in freezing barns and stables. Much to her mother’s (Madeleine Robinson) displeasure, Monsieur Claudel (Alain Cuny) shared his daughter’s ambition and was happy to indulge her. Although, in the end, her father’s indulgence may have turned out to be a poison chalice.

Taken on as one assistant among many, Claudel is working high on a scaffold when her attention is drawn toward a nook on the other side of the studio. From her unseen vantage point she can see Rodin running his lips over his model’s naked flesh. His reputation as a seducer of young women would appear to be well-deserved, until the sculptor later uses the same gesture on a marble torso as he tries to feel the life within.

While kissing the sculptures is generally discouraged in galleries and museums, hewing form from rock is intense and physical, and the film beautifully alludes to the sculptor’s desire to caress the rock, to sensuously experience that moment when the curve of ankle or the bow of a lip first emerges from its casing.

In the role of Claudel’s mentor, Rodin offers keen insights into the nature of sculpture and subtly evokes its poetry, ‘The accident of what is left is a complete emotion,’ but Rodin was years behind in fulfilling his commissions and struggling for inspiration when the affair began. As his muse, his model, his lover and his artistic collaborator, Claudel was the focus of Rodin’s admiration and her name was becoming established at the epicentre of Parisian art, so it must have seemed inconceivable that it would all come apart.

When the unthinkable did happen, Claudel denounced Rodin as the arch-villain who destroyed her. She blamed him for everything from stealing her commissions to undermining her reputation and blighting her exhibitions. She even claimed that Rodin was somehow responsible for the river Seine when her studio flooded.

But there was another less obvious figure involved in Claudel’s downfall. While Claudel was conducting her affairs in the limelight, her younger brother (Laurent Grévill) had been pursuing a successful diplomatic career and quietly gaining recognition as a poet. Ever available and obliging, Paul Claudel was Camille’s closest ally; that is, until he came into his inheritance.

A singular woman in a world conducted by men with agendas, the story of Camille Claudel might not be quite as it appears.

Pain and Glory (Dolor Y Gloria)

Rated: MA15+Pain and Glory

Written and Directed by: Pedro Almodóvar

Produced by: Agustín Almodóvar

Executive Producer: Esther García

Original score: Alberto Iglesias

Director of photography: José Luis Alcaine

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Nora Navas, Julieta Serrano, César Vicente, Asier Flores, Penélope Cruz.

Spanish with English subtitles.

‘If you don’t write or film, what do you do?’

‘Live, I guess.’

Pain and Glory is a drama, a life story shown in monologue and intimate conversation.

Salvador Mallo’s (Antonio Banderas) life is filled with patterns and colours, water and tiles, suspension and scars.

The story of the film circles his life as he remembers teaching a young builder to read and write when he was growing up in the catacombs with his mother, as he remembers his career writing and making films and the past disagreements with friend and actor, Alberto (Asier Etxeandia) whom he hasn’t seen since the premiere of his most successful film thirty-two years ago.

He remembers as the pain of his ailments take pieces from him, his back pain, his migraines, his choking – he can’t create anymore, but he can remember.

This is a film that bleeds the present and the past so the trigger of smoking heroin with the man described, ‘You’re the opposite side of that text,’ Salvador falls, taking him back to the time when he experienced his first desire, his first love, the escape from the ‘bad ring’ of Madrid, to get away from the temptations of addiction to Havana and the Ivory Coast.

But sometimes, love isn’t enough.

He has no regrets.  To recover from his past, he writes the story.

So the past and present are intertwined like his writing translated into this film.

Director and writer, Pedro Almodóvar has taken pieces from his own life, translating them into the film like the character Salvador makes films about his past.

The hair, the setting of the apartment the same as the man himself, Pedro.

Antonio Banderas has just won the Cannes 2019 Best Actor Award (the film selected to compete for the Palme d’Or) for his performance here.  And I can see why.  He just seems to get better with age.  His humble sincerity a warmth felt through the screen.  He’s endearing.

And there’s more to the film than a character study as the scenes cut from the bright sun shining through the exposed roof of the catacomb house, to the animation of red broken lines like the branches of a tree exploding in the drawn lines of a brain, a contrast to the quiet suffering of a man embarrassed of his pain, refusing to allow his housekeeper to tie his laces, wearing loafers, catching taxis, lying in the dark.

But there are no complaints as he loses himself in memory.

This isn’t a sad film, more a poignant tale of all the darkness and light in life – sad and happy and true.

The overriding feeling I got from this film was grateful: life can be cruel, but it can also be kind.

The Boonies

The BooniesDirected by: Brad T Gottfred

Written by: Brad T Gottfred

Produced by: Corey Moss, Brad T Gottfred

Starring: Calum Worthy, Cody Ho, Andi Matichak, Kyle Jones, AmyMarie Gaertner, Lauren Elizabeth.

Promoted as a mystery-comedy, The Boonies follows five seniors at Boone High School somewhere in America, unwillingly reunited seven years after they were once on the same soccer team. The reason? A dead classmate’s video promises a treasure hunt with a million dollars as the prize, taking place inside the college where they will be graduating the next day.

The limited expertise of the film’s technical crew is obvious, as though someone with little film experience thought it would be fun to gather together some friends with only passable technical skills and see how things go. The result is a repetitive, awkward and unentertaining mess, probably aimed at an 18-25 year old demographic but not likely to appeal to anyone over 14.

The group is called “The Boonies” by their dead classmate Doug (Calum Worthy) because he thought the gang was similar to the Goonies (but without their humour, charm or sleuthing skills). Doug, sporting a daggy fringe and an irritating smirk, was a techno whiz kid and inventor before being killed in a car explosion in the college car park, witnessed by all his former friends. He also had access to various sections of the college that were mysteriously closed down, which he repurposed with lots of secret doors and a room devoted to electronic surveillance equipment, ideal for hosting a treasure hunt.

The others in the gang are Teddy (Cody Ko), seemingly the most normal of the group but hiding a Guilty Secret; Chuck (Kyle Jones), a drunken, moronic cowboy with sex on the brain; Holly (Andi Matichak), with a photographic memory, rampant hysteria/tantrums, and a bosom so noticeable that practically everyone calls her derogatory names based on her breasts; Stephanie (Lauren Elizabeth), the bitchy, sexually promiscuous, spoilt girl who constantly yells at and abuses everyone else (so much so it is a mystery why anyone tolerates her); and Elektra (AmyMarie Gaertner), who is now a soulful Goth trying to evade her psycho ex-boyfriend who keeps threatening to kill her (which is apparently meant to be funny).

The dead Doug communicates with his five former friends by text, challenging them to complete the treasure hunt because, as he tells us in one of his many straight-to-camera monologues, he wants them to atone for how they treated him after their group fell apart. He has three conditions they must follow: 1. Keep together; 2. Stay alive; and 3. Confess one horrible thing they each did to someone else in their group, all before the night ends.

This premise, such as it is, had the potential to show the remaining five former friends gradually working together, overcoming their problems and reigniting their friendship in adulthood – in a believable way.

The problem is that each of them, aside from Teddy and Elektra, are thoroughly unlikeable stereotypes, and their success or otherwise isn’t something I could get invested in.

Chuck talks a lot about vaginas, sex and being easily aroused, while the object of his lust, the screaming and abusive Stephanie, is so vile it made her character totally unsympathetic. Her bullying treatment of the gormless Holly, she of the noticeable breasts (since we as the audience are never allowed to forget these exist) is horrible, and I wondered why no one was prepared to call her out on her appalling treatment.

Much of their abusive dialogue was, I assume, supposed to sound snappily sarcastic or humorous, but instead it fell thoroughly flat, was often cringe-worthy and just inappropriate in this age of the #MeToo movement and online bullying.

The Boonies face external threats as well, from three groups also intent on finding the million dollars. This is meant to add to the tension, but the jerky editing and woeful soundtrack detract from this.

One group is the Ex-Cheerleaders, who like wearing their cheerleader outfits and arming themselves with golf clubs; their motivation for being so keen to inflict harm on the Boonies is never properly explained.

Another group, the Outcasts, is led by Elektra’s homicidal ex-boyfriend, and has the uncanny knack of being able to find the Boonies no matter how often they manage to escape.

The third group is the Silver Skulls, bikers with their own reason for wanting the million dollars.

Whenever one of these groups confronts the Boonies, threatening bodily harm, the disjointed editing, intrusive soundtrack and shouted dialogue all work against any potential to build tension or suspense.

I scare easily but there wasn’t one genuine moment of danger that increased my pulse rate. The plot was often confusing, the direction awkwardly paced and most of the action or motivation was illogically played out.

I enjoy witty, well written and acted mysteries and/or comedies, and when I read this was a mystery-comedy, I was intrigued. But there are so many things that don’t work in this film, including the unlikeable characters, the abusive, lame dialogue, the lack of strong or believable motives for most of the cast, the amateur acting (except for Elektra) and the absence of any real sense of danger, mystery or suspense, that I was totally disappointed.

Apparently this film was made in 2017, and I wonder not why it took two years to release it, but why it ever saw daylight at all.

Fisherman’s Friends

Rated: MFisherman's Friends

Directed by: Chris Foggin

Written by: Piers Ashworth, Meg Leonard, Nick Moorcroft

Produced by: Meg Leonard, Nick Moorcroft, James Spring

Music by: Rupert Christie

Cinematography by: Simon Tindall

Starring: Daniel Mays, James Purefoy, David Hayman, Dave Johns, Sam Swainsbury, Tuppence Middleton and Joel Clarke.

‘Never under any circumstances say, “Rabbit”.’

Revelling in Port Isaac for Henry’s (Christian Brassington) stag weekend, the London boys, Danny (Daniel Mays), Driss (Vahid Gold) and music exec and boss, Troy (Noel Clarke) are ready for some larger and yachting.  Until they end up stranded at sea and getting ‘quite burnt’.

It’s up to the local Search And Rescue to fish to them to safety.  Ironic being the crew are the local fishermen.

It’s like two different worlds collide: the city boys who own country estates and work for a record label and fishermen who risk their lives every day and sing sea shanties.

When the London boys come across their rescuers singing in the town square, boss Troy thinks it’ll be hilarious tasking Danny with signing the group to their label.  Only for Danny to see more than just crusty fishermen signing, he hears history in their voices.

‘What’s that song?’ Danny asks Alwyn (Tuppence Middleton), the daughter of man-of-few-words, the words never wrong, Jim (James Purefoy) – ‘That’s the rock’n’roll of 1752.’

Based on a true story, Fisherman’s Friends is about the discovery of these ten men, and the journey from singing to raise money for the village Lifeboat Association to a million pound record deal with Universal Music, a top-ten album and playing the Pyramid stage at the world famous Glastonbury Festival.

But there’s more to these crusty sailors than a fine set of pipes.  There’s the history, the proud Cornwell folk defining those on this side of the river Tamar, and them on the other side – like the emmets (the Cornish word for ants): those who come across and are a pain to get rid of.

There’s some PG humour that doesn’t get too carried away, to keep the boat floating along the storyline – see what I did there?  Yep, that’s me getting carried away with the nautical theme because I enjoyed the ride, damn it.

The film reminded me of the songs we’d sing in primary school (What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor included) and dancing to folk music with kids from other local schools.  And the gymkhana with the bag pipes and dog jumping competition.

It reminded me about community and generations of families buried in the same cemetery and knowing a place.  Really knowing a place and people knowing you.

So rather than the underdogs winning and signing to that record label, there’s thought to place and where we stand in it and being able to take a man by his own merit.  Including Jago (David Hayman), Port Isaac’s number one bingo caller.  Bless him.

So yeah, I got a little swept away in the story.

And the guys did a good with the singing, no ‘taking the piss’ required.

Ready Or Not

Rated: MA15+Ready Or Not

Directed by: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Written by: Guy Busick & R. Christopher Murphy

Produced by: Tripp Vinson, James Vanderbilt, William Sherak and Bradley J. Fischer

Executive Producers: Chad Villella, Tara Farney, Tracey Nyberg and Daniel Bekerman

Starring: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, with Henry Czerny and Andie MacDowell.

The family known as Le Domas has been playing Le Bail’s Gambit since Great Grandfather Le Domas made a pact with Le Bail himself.

Marrying Alex (Mark O’Brien) and into the ‘dominion’ that is the Le Domas family (that fittingly made their fortune out of board games), the pact demands that initiate Grace (Samara Weaving) (and any new addition to the family) must play a game at midnight on the night of her wedding.

She loves Alex despite his weirdo, super-rich family.

So playing along with strange traditions to get along?  Pft!  Sure, why not?!

But when she draws that, ‘Hide and Seek’, card; and that playful, ‘Hide and Seek’ record starts spinning, the weirdo family hunting the new bride through the gothic rooms and corridors of the house, to capture her as a sacrifice, takes issues with the in-laws to a whole new level with each armed and at the, well, ready:

Mother to Alex and kinda sweet, Becky (Andie MacDowell): Bow & Arrow

Rich and crazy dad, Tony (Henry Czerny): Winchester Rifle

Tormented and alcoholic brother, Daniel (Adam Brody): Rifle

Ops, I did it again, sister-in-law, Emilie (Melanie Scrofano): Pistol

How does this work again? Fitch (Kristian Bruun): Crossbow

I was born evil, Charity – there’s the irony (Elyse Levesque): Spear Gun

The adage that people look like their pets but here I look like my weapon, Aunt Helene (Nicky Guadagni): Battle Axe.

If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know I like a good bloody horror with a dry sense of humour.

I can say there’s certainly some bloody moments here, tending to the visceral.

And the humour, although slightly over-done, had me smirking with a few snorts (not unlike Grace herself who isn’t against a snorting laugh when called for): brother in-law, Fitch Googling, ‘getting to know your crossbow’ before his attempt to murder his new sister in-law.  And then there’s death-stare Aunt Helene giving the salutation to niece, Emilie (Melanie Scrofano), ‘You continue to exist’.

Perhaps not a laugh-out-loud tickle (more WTF is going on but I guess I’ll just have to roll with it), there’s a lot of fun here, played with wide-eyed and cool appreciation from Samara Weaving as the fighting-for-her-life and screaming-when-necessary, Grace.

And there’s a decent storyline that edges towards some twists but really more about the beautiful and self-deprecating, Grace.  You want her to get out alive, which is the kinda the point of the movie.

Pavarotti

Rated: MPavarotti

Directed by: Ron Howard

Produced by: Ron Howard

Written by: Marc Monroe

Featuring: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, José Carreras, Bono.

Before even the first images appear, the cinema is filled with the chittering and warbling of birdsong, and I can only suppose that some kind parallel with Pavarotti’s voice is being drawn. In fact, when the vision comes up, I find myself swooping over the Amazon jungle looking down at the serpentine loops of the river.

As Pavarotti’s story unfolds, director and producer, Ron Howard, not only ushers us behind the scenes, but invites us onstage and even takes us on the road with the maestro. While Luciano Pavarotti may have been born with, ‘One of the most clearest and passionate voices, heaven on earth,’ it took a very earthly degree of physical exertion to fill an entire concert hall with a single voice. Without a microphone. Without an amplifier. And certainly, without speakers.

Despite a long induction emulating his father’s singing, Pavarotti initially qualified as an elementary school teacher. The decision to take on the long training to become a tenor was an enormous leap of faith, ‘You don’t become well-known in a day. You don’t know your destiny’.

According to his wife Adua Veroni, Pavarotti was not a person who ever planned things and that was certainly the case for his international debut. He took the stage as a stand-in playing opposite Joan Sutherland, but was more than a lucky break. Pavarotti was in awe and he believed that Sutherland’s breathing technique allowed him to become a serious professional. During a rehearsal, Sutherland invited him to feel the muscles in her diaphragm. Much to Pavarotti’s amazement, they were responding, even before Sutherland had sung a single note.

For the operatic tenor, the high C is the epitome, but it is not a natural range in the way a bass or baritone is and to achieve the fluency that makes it seem effortless requires more than talent. So, when Pavarotti performed nine high Cs, he created opera history. Likening it to horse jumping, when the Maestro of the High C was asked whether he knew he would be able to reach the note, he replied with a contrary smile: ‘No. That is the beauty of my profession’.

According to Placido Domingo, the art of the opera singer is to share the emotion of each particular word: ‘If you pronounce it well you get the rhythm immediately.’  For Pavarotti, it was a matter of technique: ‘You measure your breath’. The public will not know what you are doing, but they will feel it. But, for all of the art and the artifice, Pavarotti’s wife felt that he was so suited to his operatic repertoire because he was a ‘bumpkin’ at heart.

Then again, his eight-year-old daughter described her father as a thief, because he went to work each night with a suitcase full of fake moustaches and beards. For Pavarotti, ‘the opera is something fake that little by little becomes true’.

On camera Pavarotti seemed so confident and cavalier, but behind the scenes, before every performance, Pavarotti would lament, ‘I go to die.’ According to José Carreras, ‘The voice is a demanding mistress, anything will affect it’.

In his later years, Pavarotti performed with many contemporary musicians. While the focus is on his unlikely friendship with Princess Diana and Bono, he also performed with Elton John and Lou Reed among many others.

Little by little, Howard builds a lifelike portrait of an extraordinary life, but his documentary, overflowing with texture and detail, still cannot cram it all in.

Violence Voyager

Rated: Unclassified (18+)Violence Voyager

Written and Directed by: Ujicha

Produced by: Yoshimoto Kogyo, Reo Anzai / Kimitsugu Ueno

Executive Producer: Hidesuke Kataoka

Music by: Jean-Paul Takahashi

Theme Song “Violence Voyager” by Boby (Aoi Yuki)

English Voice Director: Strathford Hamilton

Production: Hiroshi Fujiwara

Key Cast: Aoi Yûki, Naoki Tanaka, Saki Fujita, Shigeo Takahashi.

‘That one extra bit of summer fun was going to take Bobby through hell.’

Violence Voyager had its Australian Premiere at the recent MIFF – I thought it would be a good idea to review something different for upcoming Halloween.  And yes, Violence Voyager is certainly something a bit different.

Set-up like a childhood adventure story, Bobby (the foreign American kid) tells his sick mother he’s going out to find flowers for her empty valse sitting on the windowsill.  But really, he’s going to the mountain with his best buddy, his blood brother (sporting stitched cuts on their hands to prove it) Akkun – who also, strangely has what looks like scars on his forehead.

Added to the childlike voice-overs and the adventure aspect that includes Bobby’s cat, Derrick who tags along, the whole film is painted cardboard cut-outs with static facial expressions, the movement made by hand like kids playing with a shadowbox filled with toys.

But when the trio, Bobby, Akkun and Derrick-the-cat find a run-down Fun Park, the film becomes a nightmarish hell where kids never escape: they either become modified with all their nerve endings on the outside and their eyes pulled out of their sockets and placed on horizontal sides of their now square face, or they get dissolved to become food for half-robot hybrid human monsters under the command of park-owner but really scientist, Dr Binobo and daughter and navigator, Siori.

There’s a deceiving simplistic feel about this film, the voice-over slow and deliberate, the timing of the dialogue giving the most affect.

But there’s plenty of splattered blood and vomit and naked kids hung like hocks – the theme horrific and the images of those cardboard cut-outs bizarre.

Definitely not one for the kids to watch this Halloween.  I wouldn’t classify Violence Voyager as ‘Family’.

Yet, for all its horror, the film was palatable because I was always delighted to see another clever technique giving texture to this bizarre tale like blue vapour rising around the cardboard Dr. Binobo making him look evil, a rising shadow over the cardboard Bobby to depict a pending doom and the kids armed with a super-soaker and dolphin water pistol squirting real water onto those monster robots giving the scene another dimension like those pop-up books I read in primary school.

And that juxtaposition lent another layer to the bizarreness of this simply, horrifically clever film.

With a bat, monkey and cat on your team, you can’t lose – well you can still become a deformed robot, humanoid monster, but in the world of Violence Voyager, that’s a win.

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