Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012)(TVM)

There’s war and there’s war. 1990s: Renowned war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (Nicole Kidman) is recalling her youthful relationship with novelist Ernest Hemingway (Clive Owen). 1936, Key West, Florida. She meets him by chance in a bar and back at his house run by his wife Pauline Pfeiffer (Molly Parker) the two’s undeniable attraction is noted. My husband always says kill enough animals and you won’t kill yourself. The two writers encounter each other a year later in Spain where both are covering the Civil War, staying in the same hotel on the same floor. Initially, Gellhorn resists romantic advances made by Hemingway but during a bombing raid the two find themselves trapped alone in the same room and are overcome by lust as dust from the conflagration covers their bodies. They become lovers and stay in Spain until 1939. Hemingway collaborates with Joris Ivens (Lars Ulrich) to make the film The Spanish Earth. In 1940 Hemingway divorces Pauline so that he and Gellhorn can be married. He credits her with having inspired him to write the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) and dedicates it to her. Over time however Gellhorn becomes more prominent in her own right, leading to some career jealousies between them. Gellhorn leaves Hemingway to go to Finland to cover the Winter War by herself. When she returns to the Lookout Farm in Havana the maid has quit and she tells him the place looks like a Tijuana whorehouse. Hemingway tells her that he has divorced Pauline. The two marry and travel together to China to cover the bombings by Japan. In China, they interview Chiang Kai Shek (Larry Tse) and his wife (Joan Chen) who Gelhorn can’t best when she expresses her horror after visiting an opium den where she has spotted a little girl. Chiang Kai shek is fighting the Chinese Communists and Japanese invaders. Hemingway and Gellhorn secretly visit Zhou Enlai (Anthony Brandon Wong) the revolutionary content to play both ends against the middle until his time comes. Gellhorn covers D-Day in Normandy. She reports on the Dachau and Auschwitz concentration camps and his so horrified she runs out of them … There’s nothing to writing. Sit at your typewriter and bleed. Bluster and confidence, the devastation of war, lust and fine writing, a universe of division and conflict and conscience, all are called upon as the affair and marriage of two of the twentieth century’s best writers bear witness to unfolding history. Beautifully shot by Rogier Stoffers using different camera effects and archive montages to insert the characters into both colorised and monochrome footage, there is an uneven tone to this biopic as well as shifts in performance particularly by Owen who doesn’t quite capture the self-aggrandising charisma of Hemingway but certainly asserts his sexist boorish aspect. There is a certain comedy to the introduction of the famous characters, who take time to establish themselves in the narrative and sometimes play minor roles, there to augment and embellish the self-mythologising author who is hard to pin down here (Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris does this with caustic aplomb). Surrounded by an entourage of sycophants and hangers on, only John Dos Passos (David Strathairn) appears to question Hemingway’s macho posturing. When Hemingway admits he’s taken her Collier’s contract, Martha repeats what the man he calls the second best American writer has said of Hemingway and he hits her across the face: we know the marriage must be over. But not quite. There’s still a final act of war and humiliation. They have persuasively created a sexual and co-habiting relationship that is sometimes hard to watch when they exchange harsh words – but then wind up laughing at the good of it all. Until they fight again and it becomes ever more vicious. They’ll still be reading me long after you’ve been eaten by worms. Hemingway’s demise following his marriage to Mary Welsh (Parker Posey), who’s written as a celeb-hunting nicompoop, which may not be quite fair, is dramatic and swift in storytelling time (those presumably causative head injuries in the later aeroplane crashes are not covered albeit the car crash here with Welsh probably contributed to it). It’s a rich tapestry and while not successful overall, with an occasional (if forgivable) lurch into domestic melodrama, there are moments of genuine humour, black comedy and horror. For instance when Kai Shek dumps his dentures into a teacup and his verbose spider spouse does the talking and makes an unwilling Gellhorn take a gift. That’s history. The only thing that really interests me is people. Their lives. Their daily lives. And there are instances in war zones when Gellhorn scoops up children as their parents bleed to death and Hemingway, the father of sons by his previous wives, scoffs yet paradoxically admires her humanity. When Gellhorn walks into Dachau but then says Auschwitz was unbelievably worse and just takes off running we sense her disbelief. Kidman is quite splendid for much of the film. This is an amazingly comprehensive and visually immersive portrait of a man and a woman who were at the heart of a decade of world-changing events whose impact we still live with today. However their characters are almost too big to contain (and the gargantuan 2021 Ken Burns and Lynn Novick docu-series Hemingway has far more biographical information), literally covering too much ground with the prism of a domestic battle perhaps too slight for such an enormous focus. Necessarily episodic, the protagonists’ differences are sketched out schematically so this goes just a little way toward explaining why both are legends and Gellhorn fought so hard for her individuation. As she says here, she’s more than just a footnote to Hemingway. Consider this film restitution. At 155 minutes, this was premiered at Cannes but broadcast as a mini-series by HBO. Written by Jerry Stahl & Barbara Turner and directed by Philip Kaufman. We were good in war. And where there was no war we made our own. The battlefield we couldn’t survive was domestic life

One Life (2023)

Lots of them grew up thinking the worst thing that was ever going to happen to them was piano practice. 1987, Maidenhead, England. Retired 79-year old Nicholas Winton (Anthony Hopkins) cleans up some of the clutter in his office, which his wife (Lena Olin) Grete asked him to do. He finds old documents in which he recorded his pre-war work for the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia and a scrapbook with photos and lists of the children they wanted to bring to safety. Winton still blames himself for not being able to save more. In 1938 just weeks after the signing of the Munich Agreement 29-year-old London stockbroker Nicholas (Johnny Flynn) encounters families in Prague who had fled the rise of the Nazis in Germany and Austria. They are living in bad conditions with little or no shelter or food and in fear of the invasion of the Nazis. Winton is introduced to Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai) (BCRC). Horrified by the situation in the refugee camps, Winton decides to save Jewish children himself. Actively supported by his mother Babette (Helena Bonham Carter) herself a German-Jewish migrant who has since converted to the Church of England he overcomes bureaucratic hurdles, collects donations and looks for foster families for the children brought to England. Many of them are Jews who are at imminent risk of deportation. When the Nazis invade, Doreen and Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp) face unimaginable danger themselves. 1987: at lunch with his old friend Martin (Jonathan Pryce) Nicholas thinks about what he should do with all the documents. He is considering donating them to a Holocaust museum but at the same time he wants to draw some attention to the current plight of refugees, so he does not do it. I started the whole thing so I have to finish it. 1938: A race against time begins as it is unclear how long the borders will remain open before the inevitable Nazi invasion. The ninth train has yet to leave the platform when the Nazis invade Poland … You have to let go for your own sake. Based upon Winton’s life story which culminated in an absurdly moving reunion on a 1988 edition of TV’s That’s Life show hosted by Esther Rantzen (played here by Samantha Spiro), this true story from a screenplay by Lucinda Coxon & Nick Drake is a timely reminder of the ongoing plight of Jewish children in an anti-semitic world and the bravery of the pre-war humanitarians who sought to save them from certain and brutal death at the hands of the Germans. Part of the drama is the underplayed revelation that Winton himself has been assimilated in the UK, pivoting his role into one of recognition of the There but for the grace of God variety. Fifty years later Winton is still raising funds for refugees, still plagued by a sense of guilt that he could have done so much more for his own Kindertransports. I’ve learned to keep my imagination in check so I can still be of use and not go raving mad. Perhaps the feel-good factor predominates as opposed to the reality of what the children experienced but this is intended as an uplifting tale, hooking into the curated balm of a startling and beloved TV event. Based on the memoir If It’s Not Impossible …The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, written by his daughter, the late Barbara Winton, who personally requested Hopkins play her father, he offers a performance of pitch perfect emotion, decent and unfussy – a thoroughly upstanding Englishman who wanted to do the right thing and now reflects on what he perceives as his tragic failure. He said: I was only interested in getting the children to England and I didn’t mind a damn what happened to them afterwards, because the worst that would happen to them in England was better than being in the fire. Praise too for Bonham Carter who is wonderful as his super efficient no-nonsense mother Babi, rattling the doors of Whitehall. (Shall we gloss over the fact that Marthe Keller is cast as Elisabeth Maxwell?) It’s not about me. In an era of shocking narcissism this is a wonderfully sobering story of selflessness and the consequences of bearing witness when the German tanks are rolling in. Absurdly moving, in its own very quiet way. Directed by James Hawes making his feature film debut. Save one life, save the world

Golda (2023)

I’m a politician not a soldier. October 1973. The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad receives intelligence suggesting that Egypt and Syria are preparing to commence a military campaign against Israel, which it promptly relays to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Helen Mirren). Meir is dismissive of the intelligence, noting her inability to initiate a counter-plan without the support of her defence minister Moshe Dayan (Rami Heuberger) who is as sceptical as she is. 6th October: the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Meir’s inner circle informs her that Egypt has amassed a large force opposite the Suez Canal, concluding that hostilities would begin by sundown. Even though she knows her tardiness in preparing adequately has put them on the back foot, Meir refuses to make a pre-emptive move, instead ordering a partial mobilisation to face the threat. Nonetheless she is surprised when the attack begins early. Dayan, who is sent to inspect the Golan Heights on the Syrian border, is horrified to discover that Syria has launched a thorough attack against the ill-prepared Israeli troops. Shocked, he attempts to resign and Meir talks him out of it but loses confidence in him. Between 7-8 October, with Egypt and Syria making gains into Israel, Israeli Defence Force chief of staff Lieutenant General David ‘Dado’ Elazar (Lior Ashkenazi) proposes to relieve Israeli fortifications in the Sinai Peninsula using the 162nd Division. Despite opposition from Mossad chief Zvi Zamir (Rotam Keinan) the plan proceeds but the IDF is defeated by the Egyptians. The following day, with the Syrian offensive having slowed, Dayan proposes an air strike on Syrian capital Damascus to put pressure on Egypt. However, with a shortage of planes, the Israeli Air Force is unable to proceed. In response, Meir asks United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber) to provide surplus jets, to which he reluctantly agrees but he expresses the view that it is problematic for the United States to increase its support for Israel in light of the 1973 oil crisis. On the fifth day, amidst increasing tensions, Major General Ariel ‘Arik’ Sharon (Ohad Knoller) proposes an operation to cross the Suez Canal using the 143rd Division to challenge the Egyptian 2nd and 3rd Armies. Zvi informs Meir that the Egyptian 4th and 21st Divisions would cross the canal in two days, leaving the capital Cairo undefended in the event of an attack. According to the intelligence, the Egyptians cross the canal, are met with resistance from Israeli tank forces led by Lieutenant General Haim Bar-Lev (Dominic Mafham) and are defeated. On 15 October, Sharon’s forces cross the canal at an undefended point called the Chinese Farm. They are ambushed by Egyptian units … This is 1948 again. We are fighting for our lives. Biographical films usually make the mistake of trying to fill in all the gaps of a Great Man’s life: here we have a crucial period in the career of Israel’s first (and to date, last and only) female Prime Minister. Non-Jewish Mirren was horribly criticised for donning a prosthetic nose to play the Jewish woman who held her own in a roomful of male experts which is just silly particularly since it was Meir’s grandson Gideon who wanted her cast. In any case this is not the reason this film doesn’t entirely work. For the most part it’s a low-budget talking shop, a war room convened at a distance while bad news is conveyed in the usual fashion. They say history doesn’t repeat itself in exactly the same way but in 2024 there’s something very familiar about the fifty-year old scenario in which Israel suffers a horrible surprise attack and is forced to respond in self-defence: We are facing an unholy alliance between the Soviets and the Arabs that must be defeated. In the midst of what looks like imminent disaster Golda is dealing with medical issues but drags herself (and is dragged by her secretary Lou Kaddar, played by Camille Cottin) to face down the enemy on a daily basis – sometimes in her own team. She has to rally Dayan when he loses faith in himself and finally agrees to visit the front line – and some archive footage verifies the event. If we have to we will fight alone. There’s some fun (kinda) banter when Kissinger arrives and Schreiber enjoys the cut and thrust of conversation with the woman occasionally known as the Iron Lady of Israel: Madam Prime Minister, in terms of our work together, I think it’s important for you to remember that I am first an American, second I’m Secretary of State, and third, I am a Jew/You forget that in Israel we read from right to left. Nothing if not pragmatic, we are firmly in the world of realpolitik. Mirren does well but is not particularly well supported by the setup or the direction by Guy Nattiv. Otherwise this is filled with tension but the suspense per se is thin on the ground despite this hastily constructed plan falling apart time and again in a race against imminent destruction and the world’s oil supply lines are up in the air. At a time when Jews are in more danger than at any time since the Shoah this portrait in miniature is flawed but essential viewing, a reminder that the state of Israel is permanently at risk while geopolitics continue to slash and burn. Written by Nicholas Martin. Knowing when you’ve lost is easy. It’s knowing when you’ve won that’s hard

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)

Won’t some of you people get him up off the ground and into it? 1909. Las Cruces, New Mexico. Pat Garrett (James Coburn) is riding with men working for the Santa Fe Ring, when he is ambushed and coldly killed by his associates, including one John W. Poe (John Beck). In 1881 in Old Fort Sumner, New Mexico, William H. Bonne aka Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) is passing the time with friends shooting chickens for fun. Garrett, an old friend of Billy’s, rides into town with Deputy Sheriff J. W. Bell (Matt Clark) and joins the diversion. Later, over drinks, Garrett informs Billy that the electorate want him out of the country and in five days when he becomes Sheriff of Lincoln County he will make Billy leave. Six days later, Garrett and his deputies surround the small farmhouse where Billy and his gang are holed up. In the ensuing gun battle, Charlie Bowdre (Charles Martin Smith) and several other men on both sides are killed and Billy surrenders and is taken prisoner. While Billy awaits his execution in the Lincoln County Jail for the killing of Buckshot Roberts a year earlier, he is taunted and beaten by self-righteous Deputy Sheriff Bob Olinger (R.G. Armstrong) while the hangman’s gallows are being built nearby. Garrett warns Olinger not to taunt Billy again or he will be fired and sent back to Texas; then, Garrett leaves town to collect taxes leaving his two deputies to guard Billy. Olinger again argues with Billy but after J. W. Bell intervenes, Olinger leaves to get a drink. Billy finds a gun hidden for him in the outhouse and shoots Bell in the back. He then retrieves Olinger’s shotgun loaded with sixteen thin dimes and shoots Olinger dead in the street, saying, Keep the change, Bob. Billy leaves town. After Garrett returns to Lincoln and recruits a new deputy sheriff Alamosa Bill Kermit (Jack Elam), he rides to Santa Fe to meet with Governor Lew Wallace (Jason Robards), who introduces him to a pair of powerful men from the Santa Fe Ring. They offer him $1,000 for the capture of Billy the Kid, with five hundred dollars upfront. Garrett rejects the money and says they can pay him in full when Billy is brought in. He warns them that he will be successful as long as another cattle war is not started. Meanwhile, Billy returns to his gang at Old Fort Sumner, where he decides to hide back for a few days. He is confronted by three strangers looking to kill him; all three are killed in the subsequent shootout, helped by another stranger called Alias (Bob Dylan), who kills one of the men with a knife through the neck. Alias had witnessed Billy’s escape from the Lincoln County Jail. Garrett meets up with Sheriff Colin Baker (Slim Pickens), hoping he can provide information on Billy’s whereabouts. Baker and his wife go with Garrett to arrest some of Billy’s old gang. In a gunfight, the gang members including Black Harris (L.Q. Jones) are killed and Baker is mortally wounded. Baker’s wife (Katy Jurado) comforts the dying lawman as he waits to die by a river. Later that evening, Garrett watches a barge floating down a river with a man shooting bottles in the water. The two face off briefly from a distance before lowering their rifles. Garrett is joined by a glory-seeking John W. Poe, who works for the Santa Fe Ring. The two ride southwest to meet John Chisum (Barry Sullivan) a powerful cattle baron, who informs them that Billy has been rustling his cattle again and killed some of his men; Billy once worked for him and claimed that Chisum owes him $500 of back salary … I sure wish you’d try, son. I got my shotgun full of 16 thin dimes. Enough to spread you out like a crazy woman’s quilt. With its sweeping photography by John Coquillon, a lineup of genre performers that calls up legions of older films and a legendary soundtrack by Bob Dylan with the song Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door seared into cultural memory, this would appear to have been an instant classic. The reality was quite different. Rudy Wurlitzer’s screenplay was rewritten in collaboration with director Sam Peckinpah, who took over from Monte Hellman when Coburn indicated he wanted to play Garrett. Peckinpah had already made two films that significantly revised perceptions of the western genre with Ride the High Country and The Wild Bunch and this was going to conclude his thoughts on the subject. Wurlitzer’s feelings about the changes were revealed in a book about the making of the film and they were not kind to the director. Surrounding Kristofferson with western acting legends bolstered the cast which now boasted Dylan, included at Kristofferson’s request. Peckinpah had apparently never heard of him. You’re in poor company, Pat. Following a very troubled shoot in Mexico where MGM insisted local equipment and crew be used led to expensive reshoots with decent cameras and the soaring production costs and issues arising caused a serious blip in Peckinpah’s career and reputation. A chaotic edit using six different editors with Peckinpah’s 165 minute cut deemed unreleasable led to a second cut that was forty minutes shorter but wasn’t approved by the studio whose eventual 106 minute release version pleased nobody including most of the critics. Ten years or so later Peckinpah’s preview edition got a release on Laserdisc and eventually DVD which includes bits of every cut in yet another iteration and happily along with Peckinpah’s version is what we’ve watched again. I can assure you, Mr. Garrett, that Chisum and the others have been advised to recognize their position. And in this particular game, there are only a few plays left. I’d advise you to grab on to a winning hand while you have a chance. The texture of the film improves in the longer cut if only to enhance the leads’ characterisation – we literally see more of them as they develop through the framing story. It also lends a kind of poignancy that is otherwise elided in a more violent sequences of shoot-em-ups in the shorter version. I used to know when to leave. The question remains about the use of the Dylan song whether for aesthetic or narrative significance but its inclusion makes this stand out from the crowd. Kristofferson told Spencer Leigh in a 2004 interview, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door was in that scene where Slim Pickens was dying and it was the strongest use of music that I had ever seen in a film. Unfortunately Sam didn’t include it in his Director’s Cut. Sam had a blind spot there. He thought that the producer had forced Bob on him to make the film commercial and I don’t think he appreciated who Bob was. I thought Dylan was great in the film, he looked great and you couldn’t take your eyes off him, and his music was fantastic. There are showstopping images – to name but two, the opening shooting of the chicken which of course brings to mind Cockfighter (the next film that Hellman would make after he was supposed to make this) and when the kids play with the hangman’s noose which is shocking yet oddly pleasing only because it seems like something kids would do when they’ve nothing else to hand. The beating administered to Billy by religion-crazed Deputy Sheriff Olinger is properly shocking with the screams of Repent lingering in the air. This stops just short of great art but it is still a truly iconic western with moments of almost bucolic expressivity. When are you going to learn that you can’t trust anybody, not even yourself?

Richard III (1955)

Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York. King Edward IV (Cedric Hardwicke) has been placed on the throne with the help of his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Laurence Olivier) having wrested power militarily from Henry VI of the House of Lancaster. After Edward’s coronation in the Great Hall, with his brothers George, Duke of Clarence (John Gielgud) and Richard watching, he leaves with his wife Queen Elizabeth (Mary Kerridge) and sons. Richard contemplates the throne, before advancing towards the audience and then addressing them, delivering a monologue outlining his physical deformities which include a hunched back and withered arm. He describes his jealousy over his brother’s rise to power in contrast to his own more lowly position. He dedicates himself to task and plans to frame his brother, George for conspiring to kill the King, and to have George sent to the Tower of London, by claiming George will murder Edward’s heirs. He then tells his brother he will help him get out. Having confused and deceived the King, Richard proceeds with his plans after getting a warrant and enlists two ruffians Dighton (Michael Gough) and Forest (Michael Ripper) to do the dreadful deed. George is murdered, drowned in a butt of wine. Though Edward had sent a pardon to Richard, Richard stopped it passing. Richard goes on to woo and seduce The Lady Anne (Claire Bloom). While she hates him for killing her husband and father she cannot resist and marries him. Richard then orchestrates disorder in the court, fuelling rivalries and setting the court against the Queen consort, Elizabeth (Mary Kerridge). The King, weakened and exhausted, appoints Richard as Lord Protector and dies after hearing of the death of George. Edward’s son the Prince of Wales (Paul Huson), soon to become Edward V, is met by Richard while en route to London. Richard has the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hastings (Alec Clunes) arrested and executed and forces the young King, along with his younger brother the Duke of York (Andy Shine), to have an extended stay at the Tower of London. All obstacles now removed from his path to the throne, Richard enlists the help of his cousin the corrupt Duke of Buckingham (Ralph Richardson) to change his public image in order to become popular with the people. Richard then becomes the people’s first choice to become the new King. Buckingham helps Richard on terms of being given the title of Earl of Hereford with its income, but baulks at the prospect of murdering the two princes. Richard asks a minor knight Sir James Tyrrel (Patrick Troughton), whom he knows to be ambitious, to have young Edward and the Duke of York killed in the Tower of London. Buckingham, having requested his earldom at Richard’s coronation, fears for his life when Richard (angry at Buckingham for not killing the princes) shouts I am not in the giving vein today! Buckingham joins up with the opposition against Richard’s rule. Now fearful of dwindling popularity, Richard raises an army to defend his throne and the House of York against the House of Lancaster led by Henry Tudor (Stanley Baker), the Earl of Richmond and later Henry VII of England at Bosworth Field. However before the battle Buckingham is captured and executed. On the eve of the battle, Richard is haunted by the ghosts of all those he has killed in his bloody ascent to the throne. He wakes up screaming … You should bear me on your shoulder! On 11th March 1956 this became the most watched film broadcast on TV in the US (simultaneously released in cinemas) and 11 years later when it was re-released in theatres it made records again – it’s probably the most popular historical Shakespeare screen adaptation and contributes to the (mis)understandings about its caricatured protagonist which have lately been corrected by the quietly powerful recent English film The Lost King. It was Laurence Olivier’s third time to direct and star in a Shakespeare production and if not as initially outwardly acclaimed as its predecessors latterly it is viewed as his best film, a stark and lucid narrative whose Technicolor visual influence could even be seen in Disney’s feature animation Sleeping Beauty, among others. Olivier of course makes for a classic, charismatic even campy villain and the contours of his rise and fall make for an utterly compelling watch. Sometimes criticised for a staid staging, this is a vividly played drama led by an incredible ensemble of British acting talent provided by producer Alexander Korda’s London Films contracted players, with its occasional flourishes all the more surprising when Otto Heller’s camera (shooting in VistaVision) underscores an incident, moving or tracking to heighten the impact. Murder her brothers, and then marry her. This study of power and undiluted, wicked ambition is quite thrilling with the occasional emotional note struck by Bloom as the seduced widow Lady Anne or those unfortunate children, guilt tripping the audience who cannot wait to see what Richard will do next. Conscience is a word that cowards use. Those soliloquies delivered to camera insinuate themselves into the viewer’s brain and sympathies. A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! Olivier had been working on this since he first portrayed Richard at the Old Vic in 1944 and after the successes of Henry V and Hamlet on the big screen this commemorated what might be his greatest performance as actor and director. Why, thus it is when men are ruled by women. Ably assisted by Gerry O’Hara, who took charge when Olivier was in front of the camera, this is literally masterpiece theatre, skillfully adapted (and heavily cut) by an uncredited Olivier from the 18th century stage presentations by Colley Gibber and David Garrick with a thrilling score from William Walton. I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks nor made to court an amorous looking glass, I that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty to strut before a wanton ambling nymph, I that am curtailed of fair proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into breathing world scarce half made up and so lamely and unfashionable that dogs do bark at me as I halt by them

#650straightdaysofmondomovies

The 1966 re-release poster

The Zone of Interest (2023)

I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy thinking how I would gas everyone in the room. Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland, 1943. Camp commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his wife Hedwig (Sandra Fuller) live in an idyllic home next to the camp with their five children: Klaus (Johann Karthaus), Hans-Jurgen (Luis Noah Witte), Inge-Brigitt (Nele Ahrensmeier), Heidetraut (Lilli Falk) and Baby Annegret (played variously by Anastazja Drobniak, Cecylia Pekala and Kalman Wilson). Höss takes the children out to swim and fish while Hedwig spends her time tending the garden. He receives colleagues who explain to him how the new crematorium can be run continuously. Servants take care of the household chores and the prisoners’ belongings are given to the family: Hedwig tries a lipstick left in the pocket of a full-length fur coat. Beyond the garden wall gunshots, shouting, trains and furnaces are audible. Höss approves the design of a new crematorium, which soon becomes operational. Höss notices human remains in the river when he’s fishing and gets his children out of the water. He sends a note to camp personnel, chastising them for their carelessness. He perhaps has sexual relations with prisoners in his office. Meanwhile, a Polish servant girl at the Höss villa sneaks out every night, hiding food at the prisoners’ work sites for them to find and eat. Höss receives word that he is being promoted to deputy inspector of all concentration camps and has to relocate to Oranienburg near Berlin. His objections are futile and he withholds the news from Hedwig for several days. Hedwig, now deeply attached to their home, begs him to convince his superiors to let her and the children remain. The request is approved and Höss moves. Hedwig’s mother (Imogen Kogge) comes to stay and wonders if the Jewish woman she used to clean for is in the death camp. Eventually she is horrified by the sight and smell of the crematorium flames at night and leaves, leaving behind a note that an irate Hedwig burns after reading. Months after arriving in Berlin, in recognition of his work, Höss is charged with heading an operation named after him that will transport 700,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz to be killed, permitting him to return to Auschwitz where he will be reunited with his family … I could have my husband spread your ashes across the fields of Babice. Loosely adapted by British writer/director Jonathan Glazer from the 2014 realist novel by the late Martin Amis, it’s incumbent upon everyone reporting on this to reference Hannah Arendt’s hoary old phrase, the banality of evil, if only to restate the obvious and the accurate for the hard of listening. And the senses are pricked as much as the conscience in this film which is replete with an array of auditory assaults. The original novel didn’t use the names of the real-life people but Glazer decided to use the historical figures on which Amis based his narrative and conducted in-depth research in conjunction with the Auschwitz Museum as well as using Timothy Snyder’s 2015 book Black Earth as a source. The leads had already acted together in Amour Fou and Huller’s own dog Slava was used for filming. The family’s villa is a derelict building adjoining the camp based on the original (which has been a private home since 1945) and 10 cameras were set up so that the effect as the director says is Big Brother in the Nazi house. Only natural lighting is used, embellishing the concept of cool observation. No atrocity is seen, just heard, with an astonishingly immersive soundtrack of effects created by Johnnie Burn based on testimony and maps of the site, while Mica Levi’s score is restricted in use to further the documentary feel of a story about a German family absorbed in its own pathetic validation against the background of the mass killing and burning of Jews next door which is organised as calmly and efficiently as the preparing of meals. A devastating film that is truly better seen (and heard) than described, this is an overwhelming achievement, filled with a ghastly dread both insinuated and expressed. Immaculate if truly grim filmmaking. Sadly, Amis died on the day this UK-Poland coproduction received its world premiere at Cannes 2023. The life we enjoy is very much worth the sacrifice

The Lost King (2022)

Five hundred years of lies. Edinburgh, 2012. Separated mother of two boys, 45-year old Philippa Langley (Sally Hawkins) is passed over for a promotion at work in favour of a less experienced better-looking younger woman. She unsuccessfully confronts her male boss that her chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) has never affected her work. Distraught at her distractedness and work absences, her estranged husband John (Steve Coogan), who lives in his own flat and helps out with their two teenage boys Max (Adam Robb) and Raife (Benjamin Scanlan), tells her to keep her job as they need the money. Philippa attends Shakespeare’s play Richard III which Max is studying at school and she identifies with Richard (Harry Lloyd) whom she feels was unfairly maligned as a hunchback, child killer and usurper. She begins to have visions of Richard who appears to her when she reads a biography that persuades her he has been unjustly treated by history. She joins the local Richard III Society who believe he was unfairly vilified by Tudor propagandists. Philippa stops going to work, manages her illness with medication and begins talking to her Richard III apparition (Harry Lloyd again). Her research shows some sources say he was buried in 1485 in the Leicester Greyfriars priory quire, while others say his body was thrown into the River Soar. After Greyfriars was demolished in the 1530s Reformation, Leicester mayor Robert Herrick around 1600 had a shrine built in his garden saying Here lies the body of Richard III, sometime king of England. Philippa attends a lecture in Leicester on Richard, lying to her ex-husband about it being a work trip and returning late forcing him to miss a date with his girlfriend. He knows she’s been skipping work and makes fun of her interest in Richard III. She meets Dr Richard Ashdown-Hill (James Fleet) who is publishing a genetic genealogy study on a Canadian direct descendant of Richard III’s sister, traced through maternal mitochondrial DNA. He tells her to look for Richard in open spaces in Leicester because people for centuries have avoided building over old abbeys. While walking around Leicester looking for the ancient site of Greyfriars, and seeing apparitions of Richard, she gets a strong feeling that an R painted on a car park is the site of Richard’s grave. Returning home, she confesses her activities to John. Philippa contacts University of Leicester archaeologist Richard Buckley (Mark Addy) who quietly dismisses her ideas but when the university cuts his funding, he gets back to her. Buckley finds a mediaeval map of Leicester marking Robert Herrick’s property, showing a possible public shrine in his garden. They overlay a modern map of Leicester and decide that the shrine may be in the middle of the car park that Philippa had felt strongly about. Philippa and Buckley team up. She pitches the project for funding to Leicester City Council. Richard Taylor (Lee Ingleby) of the University of Leicester advises that her amateur ‘feeling’ is too risky. The Council still approves her plan for the publicity it could generate but when ground-radar finds nothing, funding drops out. She turns to the Richard III Society to crowd-fund her Looking For Richard project and the money comes in from around the world to fund three trenches … I just don’t like it when people put others down for no reason. That’s Philippa’s take on Richard III’s bad rep but we know it’s a parallel with her own experience as an ME sufferer (the initials are unfortunate for an illness long rumoured to be imaginary). Plenty have tried to find him and failed. Not only does Philippa act on her feelings, she tells people about them – it takes Council funding committee chairman Sarah Locke (Amanda Abbington) to advise her not to mention them, they’re too female – but it’s her feeling when she stands above the letter R (for reserved) in the car park that she gets the greatest sensation of all. And she acts on it. Rewriting people into history isn’t just the story of Richard it’s the story of Philippa too – the amateur historian marginalised by the archaeological team at the University of Leicester whom she hired to do the dig and then finds them taking credit for her discovery in front of the world’s press. The same people who mock: It’s like someone with a home-made rocket saying they’re going to the moon. That Ealing feeling isn’t a coincidence in a tale of rehabilitation. The film reunites the Philomena team of star/co-writer Coogan with screenwriter Jeff Pope and Stephen Frears, making another mostly true seriocomic story about a seemingly eccentric contemporary woman trying to right the wrongs of history. Of course it has a preposterous provenance – imagine finding Richard III in a car park in Leicester (and this has four characters called Richard so it must be true). Yet they did and it actually took a decade but for dramatic reasons this is telescoped into a matter of months and Richard was indeed found on the first day, in Summer 2012. Look for an open space, advises Ashdown-Hill like some kind of academic Yoda to the expressive Philippa who follows her passion with determination and empathy. Eventually she even gets her ex to move back in with the family and he comes around to her feeling about Richard, making an anonymous donation to the cause which necessitates a small sacrifice on his part. So twisted spine equals twisted personality, does it? Philippa takes everything so personally. If I can find him I can give him a voice, she says but when she finally asks the dead king’s apparition why he never speaks to her, he tells her it’s because she’s never asked him a question – content to run off at the mouth with those monologues, probably an in-joke about Shakespeare in the narrative’s constantly self-reinforcing metaverse precipitated by a hunch(back). John initially sees Richard as almost a romantic rival yet he knows why Philippa is talking to herself – he’s seeing Seafood Sarah whom he calls normal but the difference is we never encounter this real-life woman whereas a long-dead king shows up all the time, often on his horse, quietly imploring Philippa to continue on her quest. This is perhaps taking the romantic notion of history a little far yet its role in the text is what a certain playwright got away with doing, on more than one occasion. When John takes the boys to the cinema it’s to see Skyfall – a monster movie production about as far from the world of this film as it is to imagine. And yet this sidebar is about an epic episode in history and what remains. Raife asks Philippa about getting a licence to kill – and this is a narrative all about (dramatic) licence, licence to read, remember, restore, exhume and, yes, to kill and to sideline. And as it’s a story about archaeology it has its procedural structure of excavation which in this interpretation involves the straightforward light-enhanced overlaying of maps (Buckley never thought of it, it’s too simple an idea, being a woman’s), radar views and a mechanical digger. When the skull with fatal wound and curved spine are uncovered it’s strangely moving. And our reactions are written in Hawkins’ extraordinarily mobile face. Naturally everyone must acknowledge the Tudor apologists: they’re going to have a field day. That phrase of course prompts a visit to Bosworth Field, where Philippa has her final encounter with Richard III, again on his fine white steed, accompanied by his men, about to meet his maker. The film concludes with real footage of the funeral of Richard III. And so it is that the rightful king of England, the last Plantagenet ruler 1483-1485, got his long-earned decent burial and Royal honours. Underdog Langley got an MBE but Buckley got the OBE, a higher honour, consistent with the doctorate he was awarded and again metaphorically expressing the idea here – that men write history and take the credit. This has led us back to crime writer Josephine Tey’s 1951 novel The Daughter of Time, a book that served to re-ignite interest in Richard for a twentieth century readership and also questioned whether he could have killed the Princes in the Tower (who were apparently still there after the Battle of Bosworth Field by order of Henry VII). The cover features the portrait that Philippa explains here to John was doctored by the Tudors to retro-fit his image to their scurrilous version of events in which he was cast aside to make way for a new dynasty: his descendants include a cabinet-maker currently living in Clapham – no wonder QEII preferred to give a higher honour to an alleged establishment liar. This is about the real person who lies beneath the reputation and the effort it takes to read between the lines and understand the role of bias. It is about the very construction of history and how Shakespeare’s mythical play came to determine our perception of this misunderstood if controversial man whose dignity had been lost. Adapted from The King’s Grave: The Search for Richard III by Philippa Langley and Michael Jones, this is a small film about a mighty achievement. And, as the Titles inform us, it is Based on a true story. Her story

Waiting for the Barbarians (2020)

One grows to be a part of the place. A fair-minded magistrate (Mark Rylance) at an isolated desert outpost of an unnamed empire reevaluates his loyalty to his nation when police Colonel Joll (Johnny Depp) uses cruel tactics to interrogate the locals about a possible uprising. The Magistrate is horrified by his interrogation methods and finds an elderly man bringing his nephew for medicine with his eye gouged out. A beautiful girl (Gana Bayarsaikhan) who has similiarly been tortured – her ankle has been broken, her eyes singed and her back burned – catches the Magistrate’s fancy and he nurses her back to health and is saddened by her desire to return home to her nomadic people. After his journey to the desert with her, where the nomads take his silver as payment for not killing him and his men, he returns to his post to find Joll has gone through his records and lovingly curated library and he is now a suspect in some kind of non-existent insurrection while Joll’s second in command Officer Mandel (Robert Pattinson) dreams up outrageous ways to torture the locals and then the Magistrate himself for consorting with them … This is the border. This is nowhere. There is no history here. Adapted by J.M. Coetzee from his novel, this is a scathing – not to say shocking – takedown of imperialism. Rylance is superlative in his best feature role to date – the aggravating vocal mannerisms and tics are a thing of the past (literally) as one senses a real, moving being; while Depp is scarifying as the Colonel in sunglasses, a steampunk monster whose horrifying actions in just one week will take years to fix, if at all. Pattinson is in a race to catch up and does it rather well, revelling in blood lust. The mechanisms of torture are so ingenious as to elicit a kind of horrified wonder. And the Magistrate is silenced into moral awakening by a beautiful blind woman yet he is blind to her real desire – for her home: white saviour complex undone. This narrative about colonialism, conscience and control is non-specific yet universal. Shot lovingly in sequences of astonishing beauty by legendary cinematographer Chris Menges, this is as close to art as cinema can get. And yet it’s a political film and a film about love – of people, romance, culture. And it’s about the horror of what humans do to one another. Happily, the colony strikes back. Directed by Ciro Guerra in his English-language debut. We have no enemy that I know of – unless we ourselves are the enemy

Hollywoodland (2006)

I can see the pieces. How they should fit. How I want them to fit. When Hollywood superstar, TV’s Superman George Reeves (Ben Affleck) dies in the bedroom of his home by a single gunshot to his head during a party in June 1959, private detective Louis Simo (Adrien Brody) is hired by Reeves’ mother Helen Bessolo (Lois Smith) to investigate his death. He gets caught in a web of lies involving MGM general manager Eddie Mannix’s (Bob Hoskins) and his wife Toni (Diane Lane) with whom Reeves was having an open if adulterous relationship until he took up with younger woman Leonore Lemmon (Robin Tunney) as he is trying to make his own films as a director …. An actor can’t always act – sometimes he has to work. Easily one of the most pleasurable throwback movies made in (relatively) recent times, this is based on one of Tinseltown’s more notorious unsolved crimes. It’s told in classical Hollywood fashion, a romance revealed in parallel with an investigation, the latter of necessity post mortem, the former in flashback, the biography of a rather disappointed self-loathing actor who despises the role responsible for his fame at a time when the film business was in flux. Affleck is superb as the small screen incarnation of the archetypal super hero in what is still his best performance. Lane matches him every step of the way as the ageing starlet cheating on the studio’s most dangerous fixer. Beautifully put together, gorgeously shot by Jonathan Freeman and nicely resolved even if the private eye’s own travails rather detract from the movement of the narrative which posits an alternative ending to that proposed by Kashner and Schoenberger’s book Hollywood Kryptonite. Murderous Mannix is portrayed here by Hoskins whose screen wife Lane was married in real life to Josh Brolin, who played him for the Coen Brothers in Hail, Caesar! and was up for the role of Batman that went to … Affleck! Written by Paul Bernbaum and directed by Allen Coulter. I hope you’ve discovered the meaning of justice

The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1960)

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This hulk is commissioned?  As what?! In 1943 at the height of World War 2 Lieutenant Rip Crandall (Jack Lemmon) is conned into taking charge of a broken-down ship with a clueless crew whom he has to train up to learn the most basic elements of seagoing. The only member who knows how to work a ship with sails is eager young Ensign Tommy Hanson (Ricky Nelson) who cost Crandall a yacht race with a mistake before the war. Hanson and Crandall’s former sailing buddy Lieutenant Commander Vandewater (John Lund) wear down his resistance. Then he finds out they have a top secret mission and he has to sneak an Australian spy/coast watcher Patterson (Chips Rafferty) into enemy waters of the Pacific patrolled by the Japanese … This was a period of far-reaching decisions, desperate strategies, and incredibly daring counter-strokes – not the least of which involved two bright young naval officers. A colourful widescreen action adventure that achieves the transition from docks-bound comedy to island warfare so smoothly you won’t even notice. Lemmon is superb as the supposed schmuck who rises to the challenge of educating a bunch of crafty oddballs. Lund more or less reprises his role from A Foreign Affair 15 years earlier as the slick willy officer conniving with Nelson, who has one of his best roles here and even gets to sing while Lemmon jams on a piano. Rafferty adds serious flavour in the final scene sequence when they have to deal with some pesky Japanese soldiers, one of whom speaks English and finds common ground (then water) with Lemmon. Herb Margolis & William Raynor’s screen story was based on a story by Herbert Carlson about the real USS Echo which was requisitioned from New Zealand and the screenplay was by director Richard Murphy. A terrific comedy drama. What, aren’t you going to stay here and die for the ‘Rising Sun’?